Christine Ford’s ex-boyfriend told the Senate Judiciary Committee under oath that he witnessed her coaching a friend on how to take a polygraph. So what? Well, Ford told the Senate Judiciary Committee that she “NEVER” (her words) coached anyone else about polygraphs. Looks like someone is going to be facing perjury charges all right, and not about farting or drinking beer!
First, The Federalist recalls how Ford answered questions about her polygraph at her Senate Judiciary Committee hearing:
At last week’s hearing, Ford was specifically asked by Rachel Mitchell, an experienced sex crimes prosecutor who was hired by the committee to question Ford and Kavanaugh, whether she had advised anyone on how to take a polygraph.
“Have you ever had discussions with anyone, beside your attorneys, on how to take a polygraph?” Mitchell asked.
“Never,” Ford responded.
“And I don’t just mean countermeasures,” Mitchell said, “but I mean just any sort of tips, or anything like that.”
“No,” Ford said.
“[H]ave you ever given tips or advice to somebody who was looking to take a polygraph test?” Mitchell continued.
The statement was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Dr. Ford’s lawyers didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The writer’s name was redacted. In the letter to the committee, the writer said that he dated Dr. Ford from 1992 to 1998, found her to be “truthful” and said he had no ill will toward her.
He wrote that she never told him she was a victim of sexual assault or mentioned Judge Kavanaugh’s name.
He said that while they were dating, Dr. Ford lived with a female friend. That person was interviewing for a federal job. The writer said he witnessed Dr. Ford help her friend prepare to take a lie-detector test.
Because of her background in psychology, the writer said, Dr. Ford was able to help her friend understand “what to expect, and how polygraphs worked,” putting her mind at ease about the forthcoming test.
In his letter, Sen. Grassley wrote that Dr. Ford’s testimony at the hearing “raises specific concerns about the reliability of her polygraph examination results. The Senate therefore needs this information.”
The two dated for six years and Ford never expressed a fear of flying or closed spaces, traits she told the committee she struggles with, he said.
The man also claims Ford lied about and then admitted to charging a credit card they used to share for about $600 of merchandise.
Personally, I don’t believe her story, and now that we have evidence that she perjured herself, I’d like to see her face criminal charges and spend some time in prison.
And I’d like to see her lawyers investigated and disbarred, if they are found guilty. And I want them to explain who is paying their lawyer fees and for Ford’s polygraph. If Ford or Ford’s lawyers are linked to George Soros, then we can certainly do something about George Soros’ influence in America.
And we can have an FBI investigation of Diane Feinstein’s on-staff Chinese spy – and find out what he was doing working for her for 20 years. I’d like that investigation to last as long as the media took smearing Trump with Russia collusion nonsense.
But first, let’s confirm Kavanaugh. This week. I want all the Democrat senators in red states to go on the record on where they stand on Kavanaugh. I want it done before the mid-terms, so everyone in Indiana, Montana, West Virginia, North Dakota, and Missouri are very clear about who they should vote for in the mid-terms.
Note: at the time of writing (Tuesday night) this story had only been reported on National Review, The Federalist, the Washington Examiner, Fox News, the Daily Caller, and other right of center outlets. Not one far-left news media source, e.g. – CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, NYT, WaPo, etc. had a thing to say about it. This failure to report happens ALL THE TIME (remember the Gosnell trial?) Remember that next time you are consuming fake news from the progressive mainstream news media. They lie.
The video of the debate was posted by ReasonableFaith.org – Dr. Craig’s organization. This debate occurred in March 2017 at the University of Dublin, in Ireland.
The video: (91 minutes)
My non-snarky summary is below.
Dr. Craig’s opening speech
Two claims:
1. There are good reasons to think that theism is true.
2. There are not comparably good reasons to think that atheism is true.
Five reasons for God’s existence:
1. The beginning of the universe
– actual infinite past is mathematically impossible
– BGV theorem: any universe that is on balance expanding in its history (like ours) cannot be past eternal
2. Fine-tuning of cosmic quantities and constants
– slight changes to quantities and constants prevent a universe from supporting complex embodied life
– the multiverse response of atheists conflicts with observations, e.g. the Boltzmann Brains problem
3. Objective moral values
– God’s existence is required to ground objective moral values and duties
4. Minimal facts case for the resurrection of Jesus
– there are good reasons to accept the most widely accepted facts about the historical Jesus (empty tomb, appearances, early widespread belief in the resurrection)
– the best explanation of these minimal facts is that God raised Jesus from the dead
5. Experience God directly
– in the absence of any defeaters to belief in God, a person can experience God directly
Dr. Daniel Came’s opening speech
1. The hiddenness of God
– if God wants a personal relationship with us, and a relationship with God would be the greatest good for us
– God ought to reveal himself to us, but he does not reveal himself to many people, the “non-resistant non-believers”
2. The inductive problem of evil
– many evil events occur that are pointless – there is no morally sufficient reason why God would allow them to occur
– examples: animal suffering, children born with disease, tsunamis
– the theistic response to this is that humans are not in a position to know whether there are morally sufficient reasons, due to our limitations of knowing the consequences
– but this ripple effect defense has 4 possible outcomes, 3 of which don’t do the job of justifying
Dr. Craig’s first rebuttal
1. The hiddenness of God
– God’s goal is not to make his existence known, but to draw them into a love relationship
– it’s speculative that overt displays of God’s existence would draw people to him in a love relationship, they might resent his bullying
– atheist would have to prove that God could draw more people into a love relationship with him by revealing himself more overtly
2. The inductive problem of evil
– as humans, we are not in a position to know for certain that any apparently pointless evil really is pointless
– William Alston article: 6 limitations of human knowing make it impossible to judge that an evil is actually “pointless”
– Dr. Came says that there are 4 possibilities for the ripple effects, and since 3 are bad, it’s likely that there are not morally sufficient reasons for a apparently pointless evil
– it is logically fallacious to assert probability conclusions without knowing the probabilities of those 4 options
– there is actually an argument from evil: since the problem of evil requires an objective standard of good and evil by which to measure, and God is the only possible ground of objective morality, then pressing the problem of evil actually requires the atheist to assume God, in order to ground this objective moral standard
Dr. Came’s first rebuttal
3. Objective moral values
– there are naturalistic theories of moral realism where objective moral duties and objective moral values exist in a naturalistic universe
– I’m not saying that any of them are correct, but there are many theories about object morality in a naturalistic universe
There are naturalistic theories for all of the 5 arguments that Dr. Craig presented. It is Dr. Craig’s responsibility to present those naturalistic theories and prove that they are not as good as his explanations. I’m not going to defend (or even name!) a single naturalistic theory for any of these 5 arguments by Dr. Craig.
Dr. Craig’s explanations for the 5 evidences he gave can’t be admitted, because we have to know how God did something in naturalistic terms before we can know that God did it supernaturally. Explanations are only valid if they are naturalistic.
1. The beginning of the universe
– naturalism explains how the universe expands after it came into being, so that explains how it came into being
– the God explanation, that God created the universe out of nothing, is not admissible, because it is not naturalistic
– how does God, as an unembodied mind interact with the physical world?
– the only agency that we know about is human agents, and we have bodies, so how could God perform actions without having a body?
The theistic hypothesis does not make any predictions, but naturalism makes lots of testable predictions. God could do anything, so he is not constrained and is therefore untestable. We can’t infer God as an explanation in principle because we can’t predict what is more probable if God exists than if he does not.
2. Fine-tuning of cosmic quantities and constants
– the university was not set up to make embodied intelligence plausible, because the vast majority of the universe is hostile to life
– there are models of the multiverse that escape the Boltzmann Brains problem that Dr. Craig raised
Dr. Craig’s second rebuttal
Some of Dr. Craig’s arguments are deductive (e.g. – the beginning of the universe, objective moral values), so that the conclusion follows from the premises if the premises are true. The resurrection passes the standard tests for historical explanations.
1. The beginning of the universe
– the whole point of the argument is that there is no naturalistic explanation for an ultimate beginning of the universe
2. Fine-tuning of cosmic quantities and constants
– the whole point of the argument is that there is no naturalistic explanation for a design of the universe to support life
– he has to prove that intelligences has to be attached to bodies
– human beings are non-physical minds united to physical bodies
– naturalistic attempts to explain mental operations fail
– the arguments prove that unembodied minds exist
– the vast expanse of the universe is required in order to form the galaxies, stars and heavy elements needed for complex life
– why expect that the entire universe should be small, or that life would be everywhere?
– a non-fine-tuned world is more likely in the multiverse, and in a multiverse, we are more likely to have a Boltzmann brain world than a world with complex, embodied life
– Dr. Came has not advanced any naturalistic explanation for the fine-tuning
3. Objective moral values
– non-theistic ethical theories cannot account for the ontological foundations of objective moral values and duties
– atheistic theories of moral realism simply assume objective moral values out of thin air
– it is especially hard to find any basis for objective moral duties in the absence of God
Dr. Came’s second rebuttal
5. Religious experience
– Dr. Craig should not bring up religious experience in a debate where arguments and evidence are central
– people who have dreams, hallucinations and psychotic delusions could appeal to religious experience
– religious experience is by no means universal, and it is possible to doubt it
3. Objective moral values
– there are lots of atheists who hold to objective moral values
– Dr. Craig has to explain how God grounds objective moral values and duties
– Dr. Craig has to explain why atheist moral realist theories don’t work to ground objective moral values and duties
1. The beginning of the universe
– Dr. Craig claims that something can’t come from nothing, that’s not an argument
– there are numerous models that don’t require an absolute beginning of the universe
– Dr. Craig cites the BGV theorem, but Guth (one of the authors) says that only the inflation has a beginning, not the whole universe
Dr. Craig’s conclusion
1. The beginning of the universe
– on theism, there is an efficient cause, but no material cause, for the origin of the universe
– on atheism, there is neither an efficient cause nor a material cause, for the origin of the universe: that’s worse!
– if he thinks that there are models of the universe that don’t require a beginning, then let him name a viable eternal model of the universe
– he never refuted the mathematical argues against an infinite past
2. Fine-tuning of cosmic quantities and constants
– nothing to refute
3. Objective moral values
– God is a better ground for morality than humans, because he is ultimate, and not contingent and arbitrary
– God is a being who is worthy of worship, and therefore command his creatures with moral duties
4. Minimal facts case for the resurrection of Jesus
– nothing to refute
5. Religious experience
– only justified because there are no defeaters to it
1. The hiddenness of God
– atheist has to show that if God’s existence were more obvious, that it would result in more people being drawn to him
2. The inductive problem of evil
– Dr. Came’s argument was logically fallacious, and makes errors in probability theory
Dr. Came’s conclusion
Sometimes, people can’t prove something, but lack of evidence is a justification for doubting it, e.g. – werewolves.
If none of Craig’s arguments work, then it follows that it is not rational to believe that God exists, and it is rational to believe that God does not exist.
Atheists shouldn’t have a burden of proof for what they know, only theists have a burden of proof for what they know.
My thoughts
One quick point. If life were common everywhere then atheists would infer that God wasn’t involved in it. Period. “Life is everywhere, so it’s common, why do we need a designer?” they’d say. I agree with Dr. Came about denouncing religious experience in a formal debate. I don’t like when Dr. Craig brings this up, but I see why he does it – he’s an evangelist, and that’s a good thing, too. I just worry about how it looks to atheists, although it’s good for sincere seekers. I’m not the one on the stage, though, Dr. Craig is.
I think the point about more overt revealing by God would annoy people and make them turn away. Think of how gay people respond to the suggestion that there is anything wrong with them, with rage, vandalism, threats, coercion, attempts to get you to lose your job and business, and using government as a weapon to fine and imprison you. It’s really obvious to me that more God does not mean more love of God. For those who don’t want God, the hiddenness is respect for their choice to put pleasure above the search for truth. (I mean the gay activists – I have great sympathy for people who struggle with same-sex unwanted attractions because they were impacted by a failed bond with their parent of the same sex as they are).
Whenever I meet people like Dr. Came, I always urge them to keep investigating and pursuing truth, because they will find it if they are sincerely seeking after God. Some atheists do sincerely seek God, but I don’t know any who haven’t found him. I’m not sure if that’s because those atheists who claim to be non-resistant and rational are in fact resistant and non-rational, or what the real reason is. If you believe the Bible, all unbelief is non-rational and resistant (see Romans 1). Regarding the werewolves, we don’t have any good arguments for werewolves, we do have good arguments for God. Dr. Came didn’t refute the arguments that Craig raised, nor did his own arguments for atheism work. And there are many, many more arguments (origin of life, Cambrian explosion, habitability-discoverability, molecular machines) that Craig did not raise, too.
I’ve been reading about Christine Ford’s accusation against Brett Kavanaugh a lot. Ford hasn’t been able to provide any specific details about when and where this assault happened, or who was present, or how she got to and from the place where it happened. I listened to a few debates on the facts of the case, and no one on Ford’s side could produce any evidence to back up her story.
Rob Tracinski posted an interesting article at The Federalist. He had been engaging with many people who “believed” in Ford’s story on Twitter.
He writes:
There is only one fundamental dividing line in the reaction to the televised hearings about accusations against Brett Kavanaugh, and it’s not solely a partisan one. It’s the line between those who judged the hearing based on emotions and those who judged it based on reason.
The testimony of Kavanaugh’s accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, added nothing of substance to the claims already reported. She was still unable to place her accusation at a specific time and place, to fill in many of the gaps in her recollections, or to find a single other person supposedly present who could confirm any aspect of her story. It remains a vague claim with no corroborating evidence.
Based on reason and evidence alone, you would have to conclude that we have gotten no farther in the case and are not likely to get any farther.
[…]But evidence and logic are not what we heard about in most of the reactions to the hearings. What we heard about is how the testimony made people feel.
The attack on logic began before the hearings, with commenters pointing to quotes saying the case against Kavanaugh is “plausible” and “believable”—but providing no actual evidence that it actually did happen—then describing this as “compelling.” But “plausible” is the opposite of compelling. Direct evidence compels belief, logically speaking. Someone’s speculations about what might have happened have no logical standing and compel nothing.
Or consider the phrase you probably heard a thousand times today: that Kavanaugh should not be confirmed because he is “credibly accused.” What does that mean? What makes the accusation “credible,” and what evidentiary status does that give it? A vague accusation with no independent corroboration from the very people the accuser herself described as witnesses doesn’t sound all that credible to me.
But you will look in vain for any clear standard of what is “credible.” It is not an evidentiary term but an emotional one. All it means is “this is something I feel like believing.”
People are not judging credibility based on evidence. They are judging based on how the two witnesses made them feel, which is to say that they base it on a purely emotional reaction—a reaction heavily influenced by partisan loyalties that prejudice you for or against the two witnesses.
So we get pure appeals to emotion like this one: “I can’t imagine how many thousands of women, around the world, are in tears as they listen to Christine Blasey Ford’s voice cracking.” Kavanaugh’s voice cracked, too. Does that mean we should also embrace his side of the story?
The ability to jerk tears in the audience does not constitute evidence, and if all important issues are to be resolved by the test of who is a more charismatic speaker, then impartial justice becomes impossible. On this issue, Conor Friedersdorf makes a highly relevant point: “I’ve studied too many criminal trials that sent innocents to jail or that acquitted the guilty to trust that a mass audience can distill whether anyone is telling the truth or not by consulting their gut while watching testimony.”
This was the problem from the very beginning. Everyone was talking about how each of the witnesses “looks” and about what’s “sympathetic”—as if it’s all about the feels, rather than evidence or logic.
One far-left feminist named Ana Marie Cox tweeted that she didn’t believe Kavanaugh’s tears because “the boyfriend that abused me cried a lot”:
When it’s all about feelings, the logic must be bent and twisted to fit. So when Kavanaugh became emotional while describing his young daughter’s reaction to this case, it wasn’t proof of a man who loves his daughter. No, it was proof that he was abuser. Why? Because “The boyfriend that abused me cried a lot.” Get the logic here? Because one man was abusive and cried in an attempt to get sympathy from his victim, then any man who cries is therefore an abuser. This line was repeated a lot, mostly by women citing an abusive man in their own lives, sometimes a father but usually an ex-boyfriend or ex-husband.
Note that whenever a woman has a defective father, that man was chosen by her mother. Her mother is responsible for the choice of this man and the choice to make babies with this man. Similarly, a woman who has a defective ex-boyfriend or ex-husband is responsible for her choice of this boyfriend or this husband. Although women often blame men for treating them badly, in almost every case, the harm results from a woman’s own choices. The choice to drink too much, the choice to go to parties, the choice to pursue an attractive irresponsible bad boy, etc.
NPR posted a poll on the trial, and the poll found that:
32% of men believe Kavanaugh’s account, 28% believe Ford.
35% of women believe Ford’s account, 20% believe Kavanaugh.
Why are so many women opposed to Kavanaugh?
Well, thanks to feminism, many women find it very hard to choose men who are good at commitment, self-sacrifice and marriage roles. Feminists consider the traditional male roles to be “sexist”, so they don’t choose men who can perform the traditional male roles. In pre-feminist times, women looked for men who were chaste, sober, good providers, good with children (e.g. pro-life), serious about religion, serious about moral character, and who put the needs of others first. They chose men who would be good at marriage. But because of feminism, choosing men based on “rigid gender identities” for a “sexist” institution like marriage is simply not done. Men who are good at marriage are “boring”, and the best men are the men who let women be as selfiish as they want to be. So, feminists marry men like Ted Kennedy, Anthony Weiner and Bill Clinton because those men are “feminists” who believe that recreational sex, abortion and no-fault divorce are good things.
I had a female friend who I used to work with in my last job who once showed me a web site filled with pictures of men’s faces. Some of them were normal people, and some of them were crazy. And she proudly told me that she was able to pick which ones were crazy with 100% accuracy. She was so proud of her ability to judge men based on appearances. She had complete confidence in her feelings and intuitions. In fact, she got some kind of crazy thrill out of making decisions based on her feelings. The freedom to choose without having any evidence was intoxicating to her. Logic? Evidence? Those things were restrictive and would take away her freedom to make herself happy. She married an atheist devotee of Ayn Rand, despite being Catholic herself. And naturally, they divorced. Trying to think through whether a person who extols the virtue of selfishness can enter an institution like marriage is hard work. She decided to just make the decision based on appearances, feelings and intuitions. I’m sure that today she would tell me how untrustworthy, scary and evil all men are, too.
Feminists want to choose men based on how the man makes them feel, rather than by evaluating his suitability for commitment. This plan never works, and it makes these women very, very bitter. In fact, the same women who are believing Ford based on their feelings, without any evidence, are the ones choosing bad men based on their feelings, without any evidence that he is able to do the job of a husband and father. The problem is the same – making decisions with feelings instead of being bound by the evidence.
