So the top defender of Christianity operating today is going to be doing a speaking/debating tour of the UK. The organizers have asked Richard Dawkins to come out and defend atheism, but Dawkins is not willing to discuss atheism with anyone who isn’t… already an atheist.
Craig has not sought to debate Dawkins. He’s responded to invitations from independent organisations who have tried to set this up – in fact he’s never set up a single debate, himself, in his life!
Best of all, Dawkins will actually be spending October… self-promoting! He’ll be charging around the country and in TV studios plugging his new book The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True! In fact, Dawkins will be promoting it in the Royal Albert Hall on October 19th, while Craig is in Cambridge delivering a lecture on Stephen Hawking’s The Grand Design.
Dawkins’ calendar, on his website, indicates that October 25th (the night of Dawkins’ challenge to fill Oxford Sheldonian Theatre’s empty debating chair) is free for him. It also, however, mentions a movie-screening in New York, so one hopes Dawkins isn’t planning on fleeing the country!
Dr. Craig normally debates two topics: 1) Does God exist? and 2) Did Jesus rise from the dead?
Does God Exist?
For the question of God’s existence, he uses 5 arguments.
You can see them being used in this debate against Christopher Hitchens:
Did Jesus Rise from the dead?
For the question of Jesus’ resurrection, he uses 1 argument based on four “minimal facts”, which are all accepted by the majority of scholars.
You can see them being used in this debate against Bart Ehrman:
If you watch both of these, that should prepare you for the news of the UK debates when it comes out. The tour starts on October 17th and will go until October 26th. You can learn more about Dr. Craig from this radio interview that he just did on the Unbelievable radio show, with Justin Brierley.
Presidential candidate Herman Cain, who’s now polling third in the latest Fox News poll, joined “Fox News Sunday” to discuss his recent success and his strategy for winning the Republican nomination.
Anchor Chris Wallace asked Cain what’s the reason behind his rise in the polls. The candidate answered, “The voice of the people is much more powerful than the voice in the media. As you know, some of the media outlets have been trying to make the Republican contest, a contest between two people, two governors. The people said something differently.”
The other big political story this week was whether or not New Jersey Governor Chris Christie will enter the presidential race. Christie, who has garnered enthusiasm over the way he has governed his state, has a few positions that some conservatives might have a problem with, which include his positions on global warming and immigration.
The candidate had this to say about the New Jersey governor’s chances, “I think that is absolutely a liability for him if he gets in the race.” He continued, “Most of the conservatives believe that we should enforce our borders. They do not believe people should be here with documentation. They do not believe global warming is a crisis or a threat.”
Cain caused a bit of controversy this week when he said that many in the African American community are “brainwashed” when it comes to the political process. He defended his comments and pointed to something that President Obama said just last week.
“That’s not as insensitive as the president of the United States standing in front of a major black audience, the Congressional Black Caucus, and scolding them because his policies have failed the country, his policies have failed black people. That’s more insensitive — that’s more insulting to me than me using a term brainwashed.”
I can tell that Chris Wallace likes him – because he gives these direct answers to all his questions. It’s so nice to see a businessman answer questions. You can really see the problem solving approach coming through from his Masters degree in computer science at Purdue University.
Though he’s got the governorship credential, Mr. Romney’s emphasis in this campaign is on his private-sector experience. It’s good, despite the knock on Bain Capital’s business model. But measured by résumés, Herman Cain’s looks deeper in terms of working on the private sector’s front lines.
[…]In the late 1970s, Mr. Cain was recruited from Coca-Cola in Atlanta, his first job in business, to work for Pillsbury in Minneapolis. His rise was rapid and well-regarded. He joined the company’s restaurant and foods group in 1978 as director of business analysis. In the early 1980s, Pillsbury sent him to learn the hamburger business at a Burger King in Hopkins, Minn. Then they assigned him, at age 36, to revive Pillsbury’s stumbling, franchise Burger King business in the Philadelphia region. He succeeded. According to a 1987 account in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Pillsbury’s then-president Win Wallin said: “He was an excellent bet. Herman always seemed to have his act together.”
[…]Put it this way: The GOP nominee is running against the incumbent president. Unlike the incumbent, Herman Cain has at least twice identified the causes of a large failing enterprise, designed goals, achieved them, and by all accounts inspired the people he was supposed to lead. Not least, Mr. Cain’s life experience suggests that, unlike the incumbent, he will adjust his ideas to reality.
Herman Cain is a credible candidate. Whether he deserves to be president is something voters will decide. But he deserves a serious look.
By the way, I love the 9% sales tax. I want everyone to pay something so everyone has skin in the game – even criminals who don’t declare incomes should have to pay sales tax, at least. By the way, Cain also backs a phased-in privatization of Social Security for younger workers, and he uses Chile as a model – because they’ve done it. You can read about how well Chile was able to do it in this previous post of mine.
A controversy over cupcakes is heating up at UC Berkeley in California, where campus Republicans are planning to hold an affirmative action bake sale on Tuesday.
At the sale, white men will be charged $2 for a baked good, Asians will pay $1.50, Latinos $1, African-Americans 75 cents and 25 cents for Native Americans, KGO-TV reported.
Women will get a 25 cent discount.
“The pricing structure is there to bring attention, to cause people to get a little upset,” Campus Republican president Shawn Lewis told the TV station. “But it’s really there to cause people to think more critically about what this kind of policy would do in university admissions.”
The Campus Democrats immediately slammed the sale, which Lewis said is meant to take a stand against an affirmative action-like bill for the University of California system that is awaiting Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature.
On Friday, the student newspaper reported that the student government could vote to defund the Republican group over the bake sale. A hearing is scheduled for Sunday on the fiery issue.
So the response of the left is to censor the people who offend their feelings. But that’s not all.
Look at the emotional language from the opposition in this CNN article.
Excerpt:
ASUC President Vishalli Loomba said many students who attended a community meeting Monday night expressed disgust that the bake sale would take place.
“As a woman of color, when I first saw the event, I was appalled someone would post something like this on the Internet — not only a different pay structure, but also to rank the races,” she said. “It trivializes the struggles that people have been through and their histories.”
Now, for anyone who wants the research on affirmative action, and why it hurts minorities, I recommend two books by my favorite economist Thomas Sowell. (I also have to mention that he’s black, because otherwise the secular leftist commenters will cry racism, which is all they learn to do in four years of college). The first book is “Inside American Education” and the second book is “Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study“, published by Yale University Press. I only recommend the best to my readers. The first book is better for beginners, the second is more academic. Sowell’s conclusion? Affirmative action certainly doesn’t help minorities, and in many cases it actually hurts minorities. You can read a summary of Sowell’s findings here.
So on the one hand, you have the whiny secular left woman expressing real racism and sexism (“woman of color”), whining, blaming, and being disgusted and appalled. And on the other hand, you have Hoover Institute economist Thomas Sowell and the Yale University Press.
How Vanderbilt persecutes Christian groups on campus
Is Vanderbilt University flirting with the suppression of religion? Yes, according to Carol Swain, a professor at Vanderbilt’s Law School.
Specifically, Swain is referring to four Christian student groups being placed on “provisional status” after a university review found them to be in non-compliance with the school’s nondiscrimination policy.
Vanderbilt says the student organizations cannot require that leaders share the group’s beliefs, goals and values. Carried to its full extent, it means an atheist could lead a Christian group, a man a woman’s group, a Jew a Muslim group or vice versa.
If they remain in non-compliance, the student organizations risk being shut down.
So what’s behind this? Flashback to last fall. An openly gay undergrad at Vanderbilt complained he was kicked out of a Christian fraternity. The university wouldn’t identify the fraternity, but campus newspaper the “Hustler” reported it was Beta Upsilon Chi. As a result, the school took a look at the constitutions of some 300 student groups and found about a dozen, including five religious groups to be in non-compliance with Vanderbilt’s nondiscrimination policy. All were placed on provisional status.
Among the groups threatened with shut down is the Christian Legal Society. It ran afoul with this language from its constitution. “Each officer is expected to lead Bible studies, prayer and worship at chapter meetings.” CLS President Justin Gunter told me, “We come together to do things that Christians do together. Pray, and have Bible studies.”
[…]Vanderbilt officials refused to be interviewed, and instead released a statement saying in part “We are committed to making our campus a welcoming environment for all of our students.” In regard to the offending student organizations, officials said they “continue to work with them to achieve compliance.”
Some people who are Christians give money to Vanderbilt, and other universities. But they shouldn’t do that. The only two colleges worth giving money to are Hillsdale College and Grove City College.
WINTERY KNIGHT 