Tag Archives: Moral Relativism

Satellite missile launch proves that North Korea can hit United States with ICBM

This story is from the Daily Signal.

It says:

North Korea has again successfully put a satellite into orbit, demonstrating the same technology needed to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and showing that its long-range missile program is becoming increasingly reliable.

In 2015, the U.S. commanders of U.S. Forces Korea, Pacific Command, and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) publicly assessed that North Korea has the ability to hit the United States with a nuclear weapon.

Preliminary assessments indicate that the satellite was approximately 450 pounds, twice as heavy a payload as the previous successful satellite launch in Dec. 2012, and that the missile may have a range of 13,000 km, an increase from the previous estimated 10,000 km range.

The longer range would put virtually the entire continental United States within range. Even at 10,000 km, approximately 38 percent of the United States, comprising 120 million people, was already within range.

It is clear that North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests are serious, irreparable violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions. This while the North Korean regime remains openly defiant of the international community despite countless attempts to reach a diplomatic resolution.

How did North Korea get nuclear weapons?

Hot Air explains how the North Korea deal was presented to the American people by Bill Clinton and his allies in the left-wing news media (note how similar it is to the way that Obama raved about his deal with Iran):

“This is a good deal for the United States,” said President Clinton. “North Korea will freeze and then dismantle its nuclear program. South Korea and our other allies will be better protected. The entire world will be safer as we slow the spread of nuclear weapons.”

This whole agreement collapsed in 2002, when the CIA discovered that North Korea was secretly enriching uranium for further weapons production. The country, which also carried the title of virtually being the world’s largest prison, not only kept the nuclear weapons it already had at the time–which estimates said was to be just one–but they built more (shocker) and the geopolitical situation in Asia hasn’t changed.

You can read about the full chronology for Clinton’s North Korea deal, the subsequent CIA discoveries, and the missile launches that violated the United Nations resolutions. It’s important for young people to know the history of the efforts by Democrats to give goodies to bad actors in the world. It never works, but young people are often not taught about these things in liberal schools. And they don’t do much on their own to find the truth about these issues.

Where do Republicans stand on the threat from North Korea?

Texas Senator Ted Cruz
Texas Senator Ted Cruz

Texas senator Ted Cruz reacted to the North Korea missile launch in the ABC News debate last Saturday night, connecting it to the Democrat Party’s previous deal with North Korea.

CNS News explains what Ted Cruz said about the missile launch:

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), asked to respond toNorth Korea’s test of an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States, called for an expanded missile defense capacity and a “hardened” electrical grid.

But first, he noted that President Bill Clinton relaxed sanctions against North Korea, just as President Obama has relaxed sanctions against Iran: “So, what we are seeing with North Korea is foreshadowing of where we will be with Iran.”

At Saturday’s Republican debate in New Hampshire, moderator Martha Raddatz asked Cruz how he would respond as commander in chief to the North Korean missile launch:

“Well, I would note initially, the fact that we’re seeing the launch, and we’re seeing the launch from a nuclear North Korea, is the direct result of the failures of the first Clinton administration. The Clinton administration led the world in relaxing sanctions against North Korea. Billions of dollars flowed into North Korea in exchange for promises not to build nuclear weapons. They took those billions and built nuclear weapons.

“And, I would note also the lead negotiator in that failed North Korea sanctions deal was a woman named Wendy Sherman who Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton promptly recruited to come back to be the lead negotiator with Iran. So, what we are seeing with North Korea is foreshadowing of where we will be with Iran.”

Cruz said one of the first things the U.S. should do is expand its missile defense capacity: “We ought to put missile defense interceptors in South Korea. South Korea wants them.

“One of the real risks of this launch, North Korea wants to launch a satellite, and one of the greatest risks of the satellite is they would place a nuclear device in the satellite. As it would orbit around the Earth, and as it got over the United States, they would detonate that nuclear weapon and set of what’s called an EMP, and electromagnetic pulse, which could take down the entire electrical grid on the Eastern seaboard, potentially killing millions.

“We need to harden the grid to defend ourselves, and we need missile defense to protect ourselves against North Korea.”

One of the first things that Barack Obama did when he became president was kill a deal to deploy missile defense interceptors to Poland and other European countries. He wouldn’t protect America from missile launches from nations that hate us, but he did release $100-150 billion dollars to Iran to continue their arms development. We can see where that leads by looking at where the Bill Clinton deal lead North Korea. We need to learn from history. Democrats don’t do foreign policy to protect America. Democrats do foreign policy so they can congratulate themselves on achieving “world peace” by giving away everything to aggressive regimes who want to destroy us.

Gay marriage collides with freedom of conscience and religious liberty in the UK

Gay activist vandalizes pro-marriage sign
Gay activist vandalizes pro-marriage sign

It’s not just happening in Canada and the United States.

Here’s the UK Telegraph article.

It says:

The Christian bakers taken to court for refusing to make a cake promoting gay marriage say their experience is like living in a dystopian “science fiction” world where the state orders people to say things they do not believe.

[…]The family firm, based on Newtonabbey, near Belfast, found itself at the centre of an international storm in summer 2014 after cancelling an order for a cake featuring the Sesame Street characters Bert and Ernie with the slogan “support gay marriage”.

[…]The McArthurs, who are evangelical Christians, said they could not in conscience make the cake because they believe same-sex marriage is against the teaching of the Bible.

[…]But Mr Lee, backed by the Equality Commission, a state-funded body which operates in Northern Ireland, said it amounted to discrimination under laws which ban refusing to provide services on grounds of religion, race or sexual orientation.

[…]Judge Isobel Brownlie ruled that refusing to produce a cake calling for the change did amount to discrimination against Mr Lee.

She said the McArthurs did not have the right to ‘manifest’ their belief in a commercial setting.

You don’t have a right to act like a Christian outside your church. When you are outside your church, you have to act like a progressive atheist. That’s “neutrality”. Progressive atheists have to act like progressive atheists in public, and  Bible-believing Christians have to act like progressive atheists in public. That’s “equality”, according to the taxpayer-funded “Equality Commission”. That’s their job, actually – converting the taxes collected by Christian taxpayers into witch-hunts against those same Christian taxpayers.

But look, there is more hope in the UK than there is here:

Speaking to The Telegraph, the couple said they had received hate mail and online abuse but had no regrets.

It came as Peter Tatchell, the veteran gay rights campaigner, emerged as a surprise supporter for the McArthurs’ appeal.

He said that, while he totally disagreed with their views on gay marriage, it is a basic “infringement of freedom” to force people to promote ideas to which they conscientiously object.

See? Now look here. I have no problem with gay people living how they want, signing contracts about wills and hospital visitation, and so on. But what I do object to is their desire to redefine marriage for all of us, so that people like me who have a different view of what marriage is have to be fired, pay fines and go to jail – all for disagreeing with their view. Well, excuse me, but I am allowed to have a different view.

At least one gay activist (Tatchell) has sense enough to be tolerant of those who disagree with him. That’s real tolerance, not like these secular leftist fascists in the UK government. I hope there are more like him.

Last point. How did the Christians feel about it?

Excerpt:

Speaking to The Telegraph, the couple said they had received hate mail and online abuse but had no regrets.

[…]Mr McArthur said he had been bewildered to find himself up against the courts and a state equality body for supporting what is currently the law.

[…]He insisted that, rather than discriminating against a gay customer, the family were themselves effectively suffering discrimination by being denied the right to refuse to endorse gay marriage.

“For us, I think it means you have to leave your Christianity at your house and in your church, once you go out the door in the morning you can forget about your Christian beliefs,” he said.

[…]but [our faith affects] every part of our lives.

“It is impossible for us not to bring it with us during the day.”

He added: “It is our human right to live according to those beliefs and we can’t do something that goes against those beliefs, we can’t be forced to do it.

“That is basically what the Equality Commission expect us to do, they expect us to go against our Christian beliefs despite how we feel.”

“It is like something out of a science fiction book: ‘you have to do this, there is no choice … you must do this, no matter what your conscience tells you, no matter how hard, never mind that you couldn’t do that, you have to do it we demand it of you’.”

So, UK taxpayers must pay taxes to the government that wants to silence and coerce them. I wonder that anyone who claims to be a Bible-believing Christian could support overreach by a bloated secular government. We need small, limited government where government is focused on its Constitutional responsibilities – not on using force to make us all think alike.

I don’t think that most people of other religions, except perhaps Orthodox Jews, really understand what is required of Bible-believing Christians. We are expected to honor God in everything we do, and acknowledge him in all of our thinking and decision-making, including decision-making about morality. Although most secular people think morality is illusory and that truth takes a backseat to hedonism, that is not the Christian view.

Jesus says this:

Matthew 10:32-33:

32 “Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven.

33 But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.

You may not believe that, but don’t push your views on us, using the power of government. Christians are not like you. We are not here to have a good time on Earth. Our religion is not a community activity that is engaged in for social cohesion of feelings of comfort. Bible-believing Christians think that Christianity is true – objectively true. You’re not just trying to get us to try a different flavor of ice cream when you push your different morality on us – you’re trying to get us to live a lie. And your “feeling offended” by our disagreement is not justification for using the government to coerce us (which is fascism, by the way). If we Christians are right, the worst thing that a non-Christian person can do is to discourage us from pursuing God in Christ. You do not want to face God if you are the person who causes a Christian to turn away from God. That is the worst thing you can do. And yet so many people on the secular left do exactly that… in the public schools, in the university, in the court rooms, in the media, in Hollywood, etc. Stop it.

Atheist Michael Shermer tries to rationally ground morality in debate with Frank Turek

Michael Shermer debates Frank Turek: atheism and morality
Michael Shermer debates Frank Turek: atheism and morality

The topic of the debate was on the grounding of morality – which worldview (theism or atheism) is better at grounding morality?

And here is the MP3 for the cross-examination only, which is what I will be summarizing. (12.5 Mb)

The full debate can be seen here and can be heard here.

Turek’s cross-examination period starts at 74m22s and ends at 89m20s.

Shermer’s cross-examination period starts at 89m50s and ends at 105m0s.

Topics of Turek’s cross-examination:

  • evolution produces Shermer’s moral sense and Hitler’s moral sense
  • why does Shermer think his is better than Hitler’s, since both were produced by the same evolution?
  • what makes right or wrong if evolution is the source of morality?
  • why is Stalin’s opinion of right and wrong less valuable than the herd’s opinion of right and wrong?
  • do the Founding Fathers ground inalienable rights in a Creator, or in evolution?
  • can atheism ground the existence of inalienable rights?
  • can you ground objective moral values and objective moral duties by asking people how they feel?
  • can you ground objective human rights on atheism by shouting like a madman and interrupting?
  • how can you trust your thinking if they are the result of an unguided, random process of evolution?
  • how can you have rational thoughts if materialism is true, and you are a machine made out of meat?
  • can you ground objective moral values and objective moral duties on personal preferences?
  • how do the personal preferences of some individuals create an objective moral duty for other individuals?
  • does naturalistic evolution orient human beings toward survival or truth?
  • on materialism, what is the chemical composition of justice?

Topics of Shermer’s cross-examination:

  • Radical muslims are exactly the same as evangelical Christians, and have the same God (Allah is the same as the Triune Christian God)
  • Radical muslims would assert that their God is the same as the Triune Christian God, with Jesus and the Holy Spirit also being God
  • Therefore, we can lay the blame for what radical muslims do on the backs of evangelical Christians
  • Radical muslims and evangelical Christians are the same, because “you’re enthusiastic, they’re enthusiastic”
  • The Bible’s notion of indentured servitude to pay off debt is the identical to the idea of slavery based on race
  • The Bible’s notion that masters and slaves are equal in the sight of God forms a basis for thinking they are unequal
  • The Bible teaches things that I disagree with, like the idea that marriage should provide children with a mother and a father
  • Gay marriage is solidly grounded in evolution, even though the morality that evolution produces varies by time and place
  • Atheists can ground objective moral values and objective moral duties by asking people how they feel
  • Can atheists who want to legalize gay marriage because “they’re in love” prohibit polygamy or incest as marriage?
  • Is shouting “you’re on the wrong side of history” a way to rationally ground morality in an accidental atheistic universe?
  • Is it loving for atheists to celebrate a lifestyle that exposes gay men to sickness and premature death?
  • Is it “bigotry” for the Center for Disease Control to warn men who have sex with men about higher health risks?
  • How do Christians decide what is right and wrong when they are confronted with a moral dilemma?
  • How do humans sense the objective moral standard that is required for them to make moral judgments
  • Can enlightenment philosophers who merely imagine human rights actually create those human rights?
  • If revelations change over time for Mormons, does that undermine the need for God to ground objective morality?

I apologize for the poor quality of the video and audio. The moderator was extremely ineffective, letting Shermer go on and on making speeches instead of asking questions during his questioning time. Also, Shermer apparently thought that shouting at Turek and waving his finger at Turek was a good strategy to defend against Turek’s use of logic and evidence.

My thoughts on Michael Shermer

I do want to make some general comments about what Shermer said. Shermer’s view of morality is “what is best for the greatest number of people”. There are no inalienable rights that act as a break on the will of the majority. Shermer has no objection to anything that the majority has decided in any time or in any place. If he were there, he would agree that whatever they decided was morally right.

Two hundred years ago, Shermer would have endorsed slavery. And if he were in Germany 50 years ago, he would have endorsed the Holocaust. If he lived in a Pakistan today, he would endorse stoning women for wearing the wrong clothes. Atheists always think that whatever the majority is doing in a particular time and place is right for them. There are no inalienable human rights that exist apart from human opinions, on atheism.

Another problem is that Shermer is constantly making moral judgments when his own view is that morality is constantly changing in different times and places. He condemns the moral values of other times and places without having any standard in his worldview that can decide between different moral values and duties. It is like saying that lunch is better than breakfast because lunch is here and now, and breakfast was then and there. That is literally what atheists do when they make moral judgments. They have no standard that applies to different times and places, just the ever evolving opinions of the majority of people in different times and places.

Is Michael Shermer concerned about morality?

Finally, I want people to understand what kind of person Michael Shermer is. You can read a post by PZ Myers on his blog Pharyngula to get the picture. I think it’s useful to know about Shermer’s own morality since he seems to like to make moral judgments so much during debates. In my own experience in dealing with atheists, although they will talk about slavery and the Crusades, there is nothing in an atheist’s moral system that makes things wrong for all times and all places. They bring it up to stop you from judging them about the things that they care about. When an atheist says “the Crusades! Slavery!” what they really mean is “I need to shame you for having a basis for moral judgments against me, so that you won’t say anything about me getting married women drunk then raping them”. That’s what atheistic use of moral language is really about.

What atheists really think about morality

Atheist Richard Dawkins says atheists have no objective moral standards:

In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, or any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference… DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music. (Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life (1995))

So, when Shermer tries to shame Christians for behaviors in other times and places which our society here and now disagrees with, what he really means is “morality, objectively speaking, is nonsense, but I will use your moral sense that comes from your non-atheistic worldview to shame you, so that you won’t have the confidence to judge me for my immoral behavior”. And we need to get used to understanding this about atheists. Morality is nonsense to them, and their real goal is to get you off their back for their hedonism. For atheists, morality is just complying with arbitrary social customs which vary by time and place. There is nothing more to it than aping their neighbors (at least when their neighbors are watching). And they would have aped slave-owners, widow-burners and Nazi prison guards too, if they lived in that time and place. And shouted at Christians for disagreeing with them, just like Shermer did about gay marriage.

If you like the way that Frank Turek debates, then be sure and check out his new book “Stealing From God“. I highly recommend it.