Stones Cry Out

The Israel Project is a great source for keeping up with information about Israel and the Middle East.  Clearly it has Israel primarily in mind, but its information is generally not of the opinion variety.  Most often, it is an aggregation of information from many sources to make a point.

Like this article noting Iran’s duplicity just during Obama’s 1st year.  Below are some excerpts, with the original footnote links.  Does this sound like a county willing to deal fairly with the world?

January 2010

Jan. 2: Iran issues an ultimatum to the United States warning that if the United States doesn’t accept Tehran’s counterproposal by the end of January it will commence reactor fuel production at increased levels of enrichment.[5]

December 2009
Dec. 29: News emerges that Iran is close to clinching a $450 million deal to import 1,350 tons of purified ore uranium, or “yellowcake,” from one of the world’s biggest uranium miners, Kazakhstan.[6] The deal would be a direct violation of UN sanctions placed on Iran for refusing to halt its nuclear program and raises concerns in Washington. Iran and Kazakhstan deny that there’s any such deal.[7]

Dec. 22: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad publicly dismisses a year-end deadline stipulating that Iran must send out of the country more than 70 percent of its low-enriched uranium “in one batch” to avoid additional UN sanctions.[8] The deadline, set by the world’s major powers – the P5+1 (the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany) – stipulates that in accordance with the Oct. 1 proposal, Iran must send out more than 70 percent of its low-enriched uranium “in one batch” to avoid additional UN sanctions. [9]

Dec. 18: The Times of London exposes secret Iranian intelligence documents that outline a four-year trial project that includes the neutron initiator, a final element for creating a nuclear bomb that triggers an explosion, as well as uranium deuteride, which experts say can only be used in for nuclear weapons.[12] Intelligence sources say the documents date back to 2007, raising doubt over Iran’s claim that it stopped its weapons program four years prior.[13]

Nov. 3: A cargo ship filled with tons of Iranian weaponry en route to Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon is intercepted 100 miles (161 km) from Israel’s coast. It was carrying more than 500 tons of advanced weaponry and missiles, including Katyusha rockets, assault rifles, mortar shells, grenades, and anti-aircraft platforms.[19] The containers aboard were imprinted with the acronym IRISL (Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines) and cargo slips proved the weapon containers were from Iran.[20]

Oct. 17: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced that Iran is helping Venezuela explore and eventually mine its uranium deposits. Venezuela reportedly has 50,000 tons of uranium reserves.[26]

Oct. 1: Iran conditionally accepts the P5+1 proposal negotiated in Geneva, which would require Iran to deliver more than 70 percent of its low-enrichment uranium to Russia and France for refinement into fuel for a medical research plant, as well as permit IAEA inspectors to inspect the Qom facility within two weeks of the agreement.[28] The P5+1 includes the five permanent members of the UN Security Council — the United States, France, Britain, Russia and China plus Germany.

And that’s just excerpts, and just going back as far as October.  Read the whole thing(tm).

This is what a rogue state looks like.  This is what a country that doesn’t live up to its agreements, and continually demonstrates that it can’t be trusted, looks like.  Comparisons to other countries’ behavior, when using the word “rogue”, need to take this into consideration.

1. Cycling and specialization.
2. Some old Hebrew text.
3. Bad ideas, I’d argue however that dignity not rights are the location of the flaw.
4. Ahead of the curve?
5. Standing against the nanny state.
6. Congress and healthcare and the question of Constitutionality. Of course it’s not Constitutional … but do you think they care?
7. When cyclists run.
8. Blogging and the truth to power theme.
9. Climate, and a measurement making the rounds (another here). Say this is right, and the next 30 years are part of a global cooling trend … why or why not does that not affect AGW/GW’s plausibility?
10. It remains hard for politicians (and bloggers apparently) to admit that entitlements are the problem.
11. A question, if you don’t believe race is a proper characterization of man … are you and can you be a racist? (Assuming that your beliefs translate properly to normative practice)

1. A link for my youngest.
2. I can’t speak for economists, but I think it’s a big part of why it is so easy for government agents to accept, i.e., it empowers them and excuses reaching for more power.
3. Co-existence.
4. Avatar as Eden.
5. Belief and practice discussed. It seems to me that the idea that they are not connected is also wrong.
6. When Dems say “smarter” …
7. Quake.
8. Same sex marriage.
9. Marital advice.

The noble savage as characterised by Jean Jacques Rousseau has been repeated in a variety of venues. The 19th century Slavophile movement in Russia idolized the “simple” peasant. Thomas Jefferson repeated that notion with his political writings emphasizing the single family farm as a bedrock of American democracy. Karl Marx distinguished the “proletariat” and their virtues over the decadence of the bourgeoisie. James Cameron’s Avatar is just the last in a long line of works of art to capitalize on this theme. I should say “apparently” when speak of Avatar as I’m basing this on numerous reviews and essays and not a personal viewing of the film, which I yet still intend to accomplish but I think I’m on safe ground making those comparisons. If the sentiments in this film, idolizing the noble savage, being at “one” with nature, and the inherent evils of corporate ethics are shared by much of the left, then there are two problems with this notion.

The first problem is location. Mr Cameron as part of the artistic elite is a card carrying member of the ‘decadent’ (recall that groups reaction to Mr Polanski in the news of late, defending the indefensible) and not a member of the savage simple. In the US in fact, the closest thing that would come to Mr Jefferson’s single family farm as an American representative of the noble savage would be the same rural flyover country which he despises and opposes is in fact where those representative might be found. To put it plainly, the elements he would idolize comprise the political faction he at the same time opposes. Oops.

At the same time, this idolization which is fictional in Avatar, requires fiction for fact is alas not so plain. Mr Checkhov (as quoted in Natasha’s Dance: A Cultural History of Russia on page 255) unlike so many of the peasant lauding 19th century Russian intellectuals, went out and spent time with those same said peasants. He was not impressed. Quoting from Checkhov’s Peasants:

During the summer and winter months there were hours and days when these people appeared to live worse than cattle, and life with them was really terrible. The were coarse, dishonest, filthy, drunk, always quarreling and arguing amongst themselves, with no respect for one another and living in mutual fear and suspiscion. Who maintains and make the peasants drunk? The peasant. Who embezzles the village, school, and parish funds and spends it all on drink. The peasant. ….

Therein lies the problem, idolization of the savage waxes a little pale and loses its lustre when it comes in final contact with the actual subject. Those savages are just as fallen and prone to the same flaws as those groups which would idolize them.

Information gleaned from Wikipedia should always be taken with a grain of salt.  As much as open-sourcing a knowledge base has certainly given the site a well-deserved reputation for being a first-stop in doing research, this situation points out (again) that bias can creep in, even with multiple hands contributing.

Lawrence Solomon at the National Post writes about a topic that WUWT readers have known about for a long time: How Wikipedia’s green doctor rewrote 5,428 climate articles.

We’ve known for some time that Wikipedia can’t be trusted to provide unbiased climate information. Solomon starts off by talking about Climategate emails.

The emails also describe how the band plotted to rewrite history as well as science, particularly by eliminating the Medieval Warm Period, a 400 year period that began around 1000 AD.

The Climategate Emails reveal something else, too: the enlistment of the most widely read source of information in the world — Wikipedia — in the wholesale rewriting of this history.

He then focuses on RealClimate.org co-founder William Connolley, who has “touched” 5,428 Wikipedia articles with his unique brand of RC centric editing….

It just seems that almost all the time, especially for highly-political issues, the censorship winds up leaning to the left.  This goes against what the Left says they stand up for; truth, free-speech, the marketplace of ideas, blah blah blah.  It’s just that when many of them are given power over ideas they do precisely what they accuse of Right of doing; censoring, silencing dissent, and all that.  Textbook projection.

But at least the "many eyes" principle, of having many editors attempt to ensure fairness and full disclosure, is working.  Now, at least.  It’s too bad that it took a major Canadian newspaper to finally get some traction in this particular case, and that the editors at Wikipedia were blind to it, but at least we might get some pullback from the bias.  Now, at least.

1. Malaysia and being Christian.
2. Religious pluralism redefined.
3. On East and West.
4. Oafisms.
5. Anger and communication.
6. Rules to live by.
7. Speaking of vice presidential choices and consequences.
8. U-234, U-235 … and intelligence.
9. Hmmm.
10. Demographics and Netflix.
11. Starfish and climate.
12. Considering probability.
13. Philosophical links.

The topic of torture and Christian ethics is now a heated discussion topic at Evangel over at the First Things blog cluster. I’d like to ask a (perhaps naive) question about torture. Where is the harm located? What ethical principles are being violated by torture?

Sixteen years ago, I contracted appendicitis and was in the hospital three days recovering from surgery. During that recovery, I was receiving intravenous pain medication (Demerol I believe) to ameliorate discomfort after the procedure. One one occasion my wife returned to the room after being out for some hours running errands. She asked me if I had any telephone calls in her absence. I replied in the affirmative. She asked who and inquired about details about what had been discussed. I had no clue. The pain medication had severely impacted my ability to retain memory of events. It is likely that if not present in the modern pharmacological arsenal there are drugs which completely block short/long term memory formation these drugs could quickly be developed given modern technology and reasonable expectations of the abilities of modern medical technology.

So my question is the following: How does memory relate to harm? Does memory have anything to do with the harm or wrong which we associate with what is wrong with torture?

An interrogator uses “waterboarding” or similar techniques which do no lasting physical damage. The subject breaks under the stress and confesses and talks freely for hours for questioning afterwards. Is the harm or evil we associate with that occurrence changed if the subject is incapable of recalling that it occurred? What if both the subject and the interrogator have no memory of the event … that only in some small corner of intelligence archives exist transcripts of the event afterwards. Does that change the moral calculus or not? Why?

What does continuing to say that this act is wrong imply about your meta-ethics? Are there non-deontological arguments that still hold this to be wrong? For it seems to be that consequential arguments against using this sort of drug and method is likely very weak, i.e., the consequences afterwards are negligible and are likely outweighed if there are any appreciable benefits.

If you’ve ever limited your diet to only fruit, vegetables, whole grains, and nuts, then you’ve probably gone through the experience of your body reacting to the change in diet. I won’t bother you with the details, but let’s just say that your body lets you know, as if you didn’t already know, that something has changed in its normal diet sequence.

One side effect I will speak about is a bit of heartburn that woke me up last night, somewhere around 3:30 a.m. Now, normally I’d just try and deal with it – maybe some antacid or the standard baking soda routine. However, the main purpose for participating in a group fast is to draw closer to God, through Bible reading and prayer. Could it be that I was wide awake in the middle of the night for a reason? Well, regardless of whether or not the heartburn was providentially motivated, I took the time to enter into prayer.

Thank you, Lord, for the opportunity to pray!

Psalm 29 was particularly striking, this week:

1 Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings,
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
2 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;
worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness.

3 The voice of the Lord is over the waters;
the God of glory thunders,
the Lord, over many waters.
4 The voice of the Lord is powerful;
the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.

5 The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars;
the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon.
6 He makes Lebanon to skip like a calf,
and Sirion like a young wild ox.

7 The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire.
8 The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness;
the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.

9 The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth
and strips the forests bare,
and in his temple all cry, “Glory!”

10 The Lord sits enthroned over the flood;
the Lord sits enthroned as king forever.
11 May the Lord give strength to his people!
May the Lord bless his people with peace!

Yes, the voice of the Lord is powerful, and His blessing is the only peace we should seek.

Apples, fresh or dried, are a wonderful treat during our fast!

Image – © 2008 A.R. Lopez

An interesting conversation took place, recently, at First Thoughts. Joe Carter wrote A Walk to the Moon, and Stephen Barr responded. And then, there were the 150+ comments.

The topic is Intelligent Design.

Now, rather than attempt to re-hash the arguments and discussions at these posts, I’d rather comment on what I consider to be the limited field all those involved seem to playing in. I’ve watched,  and participated, in this debate for several years now, and one thing I’ve noticed is how predictable the paths of argumentation are. E.g., Intelligent Design (ID) is simply the concept of irreducible complexity (IC), ID is God of the gaps, Methodological Naturalism (MN) is science of the gaps, MN cannot produce increasing information, the fossil record provides evidence for MN, the fossil record provides evidence for ID, implied design is just that – implied. The debate can, believe me, go on and on.

Yet I can’t help but wonder if most of those involved in such debates are somehow missing the bigger picture. Consider that many of those involved are engaged in work in the sciences, or perhaps scholars, etc. Since the topic is, essentially, design, how many of those involved are intimately familiar with the design process? And, by “design”, I’m not necessarily referring to artistic design, although that too can be discussed in this context. What I’m referring to, by use of the word “design”, is more akin to engineering design – that which occurs when one is designing and building a mechanical component of some sort.

In the world outside of science and academia, the act of engineering design is readily seen in many areas. One example is the design of an oil refinery. The basic process involved in an oil refinery is that a product comes in (crude oil) and a product, or several products, goes out (refined fuels).  However, to get from the “in” to the “out” requires a multitude of apparatus such as pumps, air coolers, specialized refining vessels, rotating equipment, pipeways, steel structures, electrical transformers, control instruments, electrical wiring, foundations, etc. Each of these individual units are either custom designed, or are selected based on design parameters.

The term I just used, “design parameters”, doesn’t seem to come up much in ID / MN debates, yet no design project in the world would go forward were it not for design parameters. Design parameters are specifications which engineers and designers use to guide the type of design they come up with. These parameters essentially dictate the end result. An oil refinery project may have unique design parameters based on a variety of factors. For example, design and construction projects must be funded and, if cash flows are limited, the design and execution of the project may also be limited (a parameter)). The upstream product, what goes “in” to the refinery, may be of a certain quality or type that then dictates the type of refining equipment to be designed. The desired output product will dictate the type of process to be designed. The geographical location of a project will dictate the physical layout of the design. At the micro level, specific pieces of equipment may be designed based on availability, or even client preference. And, it should be noted, these design factors follow through into the actual construction of the equipment and refinery.

So, how does this apply to the ID / MN debate?

As we discover more about the biological realm, we find more complexity, both integrated and, as some would argue, irreducible. Regardless of whether or not the complexity is irreducible, though, the point is that we find structures and systems that exhibit the characteristics of design. As Joe Carter pointed out, this characteristic is essentially accepted by both camps (Intelligent Design vs. Bind Watchmaker Design). That fact alone, in my opinion, mandates that design principles and methodologies, in the world outside of academia, be addressed as to how they relate, or don’t relate, to biological systems.

Despite the overwhelming prevalence of evolutionary teaching, in the U.S., over the past 50 years, the general population still has a difficult time accepting it as fact. Academia claims that such results simply justify the need for more education. Yet could it be that the general population simply sees something that the academics don’t? Could it be that the general population has the common sense ability to correlate complex biological (and natural) systems with human designed systems?

Could it be academia that is missing the bigger picture?

When I began work, out of university, a joke was told to me about a Ph.D. graduate who had landed his first job at an engineering firm. After orientation, he was taken to his work station, introduced to his fellow co-workers, and then given a broom. “What’s this for?”, he asks. “We need the storeroom swept up,” responds his boss. “But,” the Ph.D. employee replies, “I’ve got a Ph.D.!” His boss thinks for a moment, and then says, “Oh, yes. I forgot.” His boss then takes the broom from him and, as he sweeps back and forth, says, “This is how you sweep.”

It seems to me that too many individuals in the ID / MN debate brush off references to human design as being non-applicable. Yet if design is what is being discussed, whether it is Intelligent Design or Blind Watchmaker Design, then we had better be about educating ourselves in how design occurs.

[In my opinion, Fuz Rana and Hugh Ross, at Reasons to Believe, are pioneering an approach to ID that attempts to incorporate human design processes.]

Over my Christmas vacation, while I wasn’t blogging much, I was still watching the news and bookmarking articles to cover later on.  Today I’m using one of those bookmarks.  While the original story itself is a bit stale, the concept is what I want to focus on.

From “Investor’s Business Daily” on December 4th:

Chile is expected to win entry to OECD’s club of developed countries by Dec. 15 — a great affirmation for a once-poor nation that pulled itself up by trusting markets. One thing that stands out here is free trade.

(And they did, as this the OECD website notes.)  So how did they do it?

Chile is the first country in South America to win the honor, and in a symbolic way its OECD membership card seals its exit from the ranks of the Third World to the First.

For the rest of us, it’s a stunning example of how embracing free markets and free trade brings prosperity.

It’s not like Chile was born lucky. Only 30 years ago, it was an impoverished country with per capita GDP of $1,300. Its distant geography, irresponsible neighbors and tiny population were significant obstacles to investment and growth. And its economy, dominated by labor unions, wasn’t just closed, but sealed tight.

In the Cato Institute’s 1975 Economic Freedom of the World Report it ranked a wretched 71 out of 72 countries evaluated.

Today it’s a different country altogether. Embracing markets has made it one of the most open economies in the world, ranking third on Cato’s index, just behind Hong Kong and Singapore. Per capita GDP has soared to $15,000.

Besides its embrace of free trade, other reforms — including pension privatization, tax cuts, respect for property rights and cutting of red tape helped the country grow not only richer but more democratic, says Cato Institute trade expert Daniel Griswold.

But the main thing, Griswold says, is that the country didn’t shift course. “Chile’s economy is set apart from its neighbors, because they have pursued market policies consistently over a long period,” he said. “Free trade has been a central part of Chile’s success.”

Free trade and free markets.  Chile is on the economic rise, while Venezuela, deep into Hugo Chavez’s socialist experiment, has been left to rationing, lately of water and electricity.  It’s quite clear that capitalism is beating out socialism handily, and yet we in the US keep trying to move closer to the losing side of the ledger.

I think one of the reasons we’re doing this is because of the concept that the perfect is the enemy of the good.  Because things are not perfect, we try to make them that way, via government, rather than let the market (i.e. the people) work things out themselves.  In the US, those on the Left saw that people were not getting health care in some cases, so they decided that government must step in to do it.  Never mind that charitable organizations exist to handle much of this, and never mind existing laws that guarantee health care even to those who can’t pay; it wasn’t up to the par they expected, so, by their lights, government must step in.

When government keeps stepping in like this, you get Venezuela.  My concern, borne out by so many reports of sub-par health care in Canada and the UK, and evidenced by Canadians who come here for care when theirs fails them, is that our overall level of care in our country will fall while we give government more and more power over our lives.  While the poor in Venezuela may have marginally more social care given to them by the government, overall, the socialist approach to anything leads to what Churchill described as “shared misery”.

The result is further from perfect than the previous good was for the people as a whole.

Chile, however, has lifted itself up with free markets and free trade.  Congratulations to them.  I hope the world is watching.

1. Heh.
2. Hmm.
3. I read it and enjoyed it … it is not the first book in the series.
4. The work of Israel in economics.
5. Conrad.
6. Rwanda.
7. Lies.
8. Universality of humor.
9. A lesson for the TSA?
10. Zeitgeist.

I’m not a poet. Actually, a more candid statement more accurately state that I’m just about as far removed from being a poet and possessing poetic sensibilities as one might get. When I read prose fiction, I don’t see words … images and a sense of what transpires moves through my consciousness as my eyes and the reading process occurs at an unconscious level. When the story gets slow or I’m hurried by external circumstances, I turn the pages faster and the story picks up. Writing as a result comes very hard for me, as normally I don’t interact with sentence, phrase, and the art of the written word. Thus most of my reading misses and fails to perceive the quality and beauty of the prose. Narrative, yes, that I get, wordcraft not so much.

Similarly modern evangelical movements, especially in the US, are for the most part barking up the wrong tree. All to often they fall back on Pharisaic proclamations declaiming legalist standards regarding behavioural norms. There are indeed scriptural precedents for this. Scripture, for example Jeremiah and the minor prophets, abound in strong declarations of consequences of forgetting and falling away from God. But, for the most part, these same minor prophets are inspired by the Spirit of God and also promise reconciliation and a restoration of the covenant after a period of exile. I might suggest that few of those making those proclamations are in a position to offer the same promises, for they are not speaking as God’s prophets.

It is a Christian dogma that we come to Christ through the action of the Spirit of God working within us, drawing us to Him and to seek his Grace. So, how does that work? What does that action look like? Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn famously remarked that the line between good and evil passes through every human heart, so too one might paraphrase this to offer that another line (perhaps with hook attached) can be found in every human heart, that being the one of the Spirit pointing out God to man. But unlike the more obvious maxim of Mr Solzhenitsyn it might be instructive to spend a moment considering what sort of features God’s hook in my heart looks like and what part in me it might be. Read the rest of this entry

1. Downhill from here.
2. A discussion of banks and credit.
3. Factoring economic growth with AGW.
4. Putting the finger firmly on what is not the problem, that is state entitlement obligations typically far outweigh their salary budget. A friend over break noted that NJ has a 10+ billion dollar budget deficit right now … total NJ state worker salaries are in the 3-4 billion range … so cutting them out completely will still leave a not inconsiderable deficit.
5. Oops.
6. Ugly practices.
7. A Saint I regard very highly noted.
8. On cognitive bias.
9. Hope and change denied.
10. Torture and Christian ethics symposium/roundup.

While day 2 opened with a red sunrise, today closed with a red sunset. The heavens declare your glory, Lord! The vividness of the sunset was made even more astounding due to my vantage point, where I was able to look over the southern coast of California and see the crisp image of Catalina, one of its Channel Islands.

During our fast in 2009, I encountered more hunger pains by this point. However, we didn’t include nuts in our menu until about the third week. I believe a protein supplement is needed, while on a Daniel Fast. This year, we’ve made sure to include nuts and whole grains. Still, it was a bit disconcerting when a co-worker brought in some freshly baked chocolate chip cookies! And while we essentially have no limit on the amount of fruits and vegetables we can eat, I made sure to pick up, and eat, one almond that happened to fall on the floor during lunch.

In Luke, I was impressed with the following line,

And he went out and wept bitterly.

Of course, it is what Peter did, after denying his Lord – and then gazing upon his eyes.

I’ve wondered what Peter must have felt, after having cursed at the notion that he even knew Jesus, to then look into his eyes. Although we are separated by 2,000 years of time, and the physicality of Jesus’ presence, are there times in our own existence when we deny Jesus? Even though I’m not a proponent of personalizing scripture in an attempt to make it “speak to us”, I do think we can take away application and personal significance from the Word.

And what are we to make of this denial? Bitter remorse… precisely because of the love Peter had for Jesus.

The good news is that Peter’s bitter weeping was not the end of the story.

Any religious expression, it seems.  A commentator can’t say anything remotely religious without getting lambasted by the Left.  (And, no doubt, with exclamations like "Jesus Christ!" thrown in for good measure.)  While commenting on the Tiger Woods situation, former Fox News anchor Brit Hume dared dig deeper into the story and commented on one of the underlying issues.

Tiger Woods will recover as a golfer. Whether he can recover as a person, I think, is a very open question… the extent to which he can recover, it seems to me, depends on his faith. He’s said to be a Buddhist, I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So, my message to Tiger would be: ‘Tiger, turn to the Christian faith, and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.’

This has led folks like Keith Olbermann to compare Hume to a "jihadist" and his guest Dan Savage to consider him a "lunatic".  Later, Olbermann said that Hume was attempting to "force" or "threaten" Woods into conversion.  From my local paper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Jay Bookman called Hume arrogant and pompous.  Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly trashes Hume and seems to think that if adherents of a particular religion aren’t perfect then it’s perhaps hypocritical to suggest turning to that religion.  His multitude of commenters seem to agree. 

But as LaShawn Barber notes, this was all inevitable.  The Secularists, those trying to essentially make religion a taboo in the public square and who overwhelmingly live on the Left, simply will not tolerate any mention of religion.  (How tolerant.)  And certainly not comparatively.  If you dare insist that belief in Jesus is any better than venerating a toaster, you’ll get shouted down. 

On top of that, LaShawn links to Christian apologist and author James White who points out that, indeed, Brit Hume is right.

The secularists are, of course, howling in protest, but if you read what they are saying, one obvious underlying theme comes to the fore. No one is offering reasoned, objective criticism of the substance of Hume’s comments, because, quite simply, he is right. Buddhism does not, in fact, provide for redemption and forgiveness, but instead directs one to look inward for enlightenment and eventual freedom from suffering (via freedom from desire). But redemption? Not in this life, for in its classical expression, this would involve a long process of moving toward enlightenment through many lifetimes. In any case, secularists do not care about the objective truth contained in Hume’s words, but instead they are enraged that he would actually dare to express his thoughts in public—the realm over which they now claim absolute authority and control.

(Emphasis his.) 

If we are not allowed to speak of religion in public, it may be time to hold a wake for the First Amendment, something the Left claims to uphold.