Blogging is about connection to your readers. In my heyday, this blog had 15000 views per day. This was due in large part to climategate emails being discovered right here, despite some revisionist history still in process. This blog was in the middle of some fairly controversial climate blog issues at the time and became a second (and more open) choice for those people who risked so much to release the emails. My willingness to take risks and say truth attracted the link. It also attracted TWO psychology studies on different continents alleging that someone called ‘Condon’ (some guy with a lot of patents, numerous technical achievements and a fair sized company) couldn’t be scientifically objective. I may not be Einstein but it is hard to dismiss success.
Keep in mind that Climategate exposed scientists lying to make a case. It isn’t our fault that climate scientists lie – they are being very well paid to do so and the stars of the field really believe that shutting down industry is for your own good.
Prior to climategate, this blog had 5000 views per day and was growing fast. That readership level exceeded my hometown newspaper at the time. So what causes that sort of readership. Certainly informational posting activity on the blog is #1, but equally a mutual understanding is a second factor. People need information, a different viewpoint, and this did NOT come from me. It came from commenters, blog readers, seeking a more intellectual outlet for their thoughts. I learned more than I wrote because that is what smart people do. Many attached themselves to this blog because of my willingness to admit error- something I’ve seen far too little of on other blogs. To those unwilling bloggers — It really doesn’t hurt as bad as it sounds. Some attached here for the purpose of critiquing skeptics, climate scientists came here because of the open atmosphere.
I miss those days because of the fun. Unfortunately, I have far less time for such nonsense these days. Far less being greater than zero, I’ve decided to post today.
I left a comment a Lucias blog about Muslims. I’m not a fan of Muslim culture and I knew it would be controversial. I despise beyond reason the oppression of women. I literally hate it. I despise the vocal intolerance of Muslim countries toward other religions. There is simply no soft way to put it. I am intolerant of intolerance. The fact that women can’t drive in Saudi Arabia, that they need 4 male witnesses to prove rape, they need men to accompany them in public. The boys love their culture and it is easy to see why but it is quite archaic and notwithstanding its existence, unacceptable in modern life.
The problem with Muslims is that far too many of them wish to use the Koran to justify taking away the rights of other people. To force them into believing in an illogical and impossible god and then to murder them if they don’t agree. This isn’t a fringe opinion of their culture, as much as we would like to imagine otherwise. Pew research has a poll which found that 1 percent of American Muslims believe that suicide bombing and other extreme violence is often necessary – to protect Islam. Worse, 7 percent believe it is sometimes necessary. Here is the quote:
In the United States, a 2011 survey found that 86% of Muslims say that such tactics are rarely or never justified. An additional 7% say suicide bombings are sometimes justified and 1% say they are often justified in these circumstances.
The article seemed to focus more on the moderate statements of most Muslims in the survey but that 7 and 1 percent are horribly alarming. There are different stats on the population of Muslims in the United states, but a census in 2010 showed 2.6 million. If these numbers are accurate that means we have at least 26,000 muslims in the US who believe that suicide bombing is often necessary to protect Islam. Worse yet, 182,000 believe that these tactics should be used sometimes.
These are not small numbers and the poll showed that they were far greater overseas.
Unfortunately for us all, this is not a healthy culture. When such huge fractions of American Muslims see murder of children as excusable for their invisible man in the sky, I am simply not ok with it. I don’t know about you, but my little boys deserve a full and free life devoid of senseless murder. The problem runs very deep in their culture when you can produce such high rates of evil beliefs.
This whole thing started when I read an entire thread of commentary at The Blackboard climate blog. I saw several people comparing Christian evils with Muslim ones, an opinion which is so inaccurate it had to be replied to.
Some quotes from the thread:
“How about militant Christian violence? How many mass shootings and individual assassinations do we have to cite before we agree that this religion, with such a bloody and violent history, is a threat to our society”
“Calling people hypocrites because they apply different standards to Muslims than other groups such as Christians is not resorting to a tu quoque fallacy. It’s not saying their logic is wrong because of the double standards; it’s saying they’re hypocrites because of the double standards.And in my case, it’s saying those double standards make them look like bigots, because there is no logical or moral reason for using double standards. The only reason to apply different logical arguments based solely upon which group is being considered is bias. Biased treatment of people based upon their ethnicity or religion is bigotry.”
And this quote which really set the wheel in motion:
DeWitt, hopefully you aren’t totally oblivious to reality.
For example, we have a supposedly Christian man attack and kill 9 people in a black Church.
Response from the right: “He’s crazy obviously.”
Another supposedly Christian man attacks and kills 6 people at a Sikh temple.
Response from the right “The guy’s obviously insane”.
We have two supposedly Muslim people attack and kill 14.
Response from the right: “Obviously this is Islamic terrorism. ”
In alternative universe where a Muslim walked into a church and killed 9 people, a Muslim goes in and kills 6 more at another church and a Christian couple killed 14 co-workers, I don’t have any doubt which ones of these you guys would be discussing.
I’ve read this entire thread today and am surprised by many of the opinions here. A bit of common sense seems in order.
One problem Americans and modern westerners have is the fact that we have all been taught to accept all religion as though all religion is equal. The comments by several comparing Christian evils to those of Islam are so fantastically deluded I can’t even begin. Yes there are bad people of all relgions, but the reality of Islam as it is practiced can be seen across the cultures of the middle east. The repression of women legally and physically is rather hard to miss, as is what happens to those who wish to leave Islam. Then there is the blatantly obvious cries of god is great while committing mass murder as is vociferously advocated by their religious leaders. Which modern Christian religious leaders are calling for mass murder in exchange for going to heaven?
Almost to damned ignorant to discuss.
These are distinctly anti-western values. These values are things I want no part of in my country. Despite the demands of the intolerant left, I see no reason why I should accept these ignorant views as equal to my own. Like religion, or ridiculous political opinion, or Sharia law, all views are not created equal. There are many here who have already called this intolerance, I call it common sense.
There are plenty of muslims who act moderate and therefore see islam as good, but there are plenty of liberals who think what Obama has done to America is good too. I watched a video of a few guys with Jesus loves shirts be attacked physically and verbally by a crowd of hundreds of muslims in Dearborn Michigan. I was born in that area and much of my family grew up there. The influx of Muslims to that region has now almost fully displaced Christians and despite there being plenty of opportunities for the ‘peaceful’ muslims to speak out against intolerance, there was nothing but middle east style culture in evidence. Like the European no-go zones, the police refused to intervene.
No common sense moderate Muslims in sight. None of the outrage at how these Christians were being treated that you would expect from modern moderate muslims. I’m sure there was some outrage actually, but the religion as practiced doesn’t allow dissent and those who would speak out in that crowd would likely be punished.
Note that these United States muslims aren’t the ones being bombed. They aren’t the ones being persecuted. The only thing they have in common with the middle east muslims is their religion – and apparently their intolerance of any other religion.
We certainly don’t need more of that in the US or anywhere else in the world. I’m no fan of Trump either because it doesn’t make sense to me to trade one narcissist for another, but I certainly wouldn’t mind stopping all muslim immigration for a period of time. I’ve seen enough of it and want no part of their archaic lifestyle, belief system, repression of women, nor do we need to add another layer of nonsensical Sharia law. It certainly wouldn’t harm the US to say no to Syrian immigrants either. The very slight additional risk of bringing any of these people over is not worth it in my opinion, but compared to the rest of the nightmare this nonsensical world is, the issue barely makes the radar.
I don’t have any real answers to any of this but when faced with a group which behaves in a manner incompatible with freedom, we must see it with clear eyes. We cannot pretend that evils by individual Christians are equal to Imams demanding self-sacrifice against innocent people so their followers can go to heaven. It’s simply not a reasonable opinion to hold.
Definitely a strong comment, which I do believe is accurate. The evidence of the video however, caused Brandon Shollenberger to go off the deep end and post a blog using the video part of my comment only and left the rest of the context out. I’m rather pissed at him for his mischaracterizations and hadn’t realized just how far some people would go to defend evil behaviors but the internet never seems to have a lower bound.
I know there are moderate Muslims who are also offended by the behaviors of some in their religion, but I do not believe they see the impact of Islam with clear eyes. There is beauty in religion, however, the dark side of Islam is far stronger than Christianity has ever been. That is not to say that the old testament is not full of evils as well, but the evils are not preached to the masses as the way to heaven, nor are they practiced by Christians anywhere in the world. It is not written or taught in that manner currently. In Islam, the threats to destroy all of Israel, America, Christians come right from their leaders. Right from those in charge, to the masses of believers, and that is a major difference. If you can’t see it, I cannot help you.
In the interest of full disclosure, as a decent undergraduate engineering student, I was tasked with guiding two masters electrical engineers through their final theses, as they had failed at getting their projects done. I was near graduation and was about to start my own masters ME degree but the level of trust from my professors was quite high at that time looking back. One student was Palestinian and the other a Muslim Pakistani. The Muslim would stop and pray during his intervals right in the middle of experiments and seemed very devout. One day he told me that he wanted to kill a Christian for Allah. It was right out of the blue, an engineering student being helped through his degree by a young man raised Catholic. I told him I was Christian and asked if he would kill me. He replied that he would. This was back in about 1992 and well before the extremism became big news. The conversation ended when I told him good luck with that and we never spoke of it again. They both graduated with my help.
My uncle was a lawyer who worked in the world trade center. He was out of the office when the first bombings took place and he was at a dentists appointment when the planes hit. Two attacks on a member of my family whom these people had never met also color my views, I think in a reasonable and cautious way, but you may not.
So I will leave it here with a couple of questions:
Considering the level of extremism in Islam as it is currently practiced, what is wrong with a temporary ban on immigration of Muslims? There are no constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion for non-citizens. No guarantee of immigration rights. Even if we don’t hit one of the 8% who believe suicide bombing is a good thing for Islam, there is definitely an increased risk that the person we are accepting into America will want to replace our laws with archaic and evil Sharia law. The individuals are more likely to have a distaste for our freedoms and want to return half our population to servitude. Sure we most often will find a moderate with respect to terrorism, but not always, and that is no guarantee on their political views.
The second question I ask is whether it is bigotry or intolerant to have my opinions as expressed above when it is my personal and family safety as well as our way of life I am protecting? It seems reasonable that when people are being killed in the name of a belief system where leaders demand that their followers murder for god, a certain pragmatism should take effect. At what point is common sense outweighed by the need to be fair to other beliefs?
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Warning to commenters. This is an inflammatory topic by its nature so the thread will be moderated. Lets avoid name calling and stick to the topic.
the Air Vent 
Jeff: A well written piece of information for the left to learn from.I doubt they care.Love:Dad
Christendom was very intolerant and uncivilized in his days. It was civilized, not by understanding, but by a very strong critic. It lasted until not so long — remember Bertrand Russell, etc.
This post by a female US Muslim pediatrician may be of your interest. Humanist And Former “Moderate Muslim” On How To Tell A Moderate Muslim From A Radical Muslim (You can’t)
“How to tell a moderate Muslim from a radical Muslim”
It’s actually quite easy.
A “radical Muslim” wants to kill you.
A “moderate Muslim” wants a radical Muslim to kill you.
I know you phrased this in a humorous manner, but it’s generally correct. “Radical” Mohammedans want to commence jihad (converting or killing infidels) immediately, while “moderate” Mohammedans lend more credence to their so-called prophet’s instructions to pretend friendship with infidels until they’re powerful enough to ensure a successful jihad.
‘Like the European no-go zones…’ Where are they?
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5128/france-no-go-zones
Here.
Coldish, apparently you do not have the skill to use your browser and a search engine?? There are British, French, German Swedish, Belgium… no go zones. Now, if you are going to define a no go zone as an area where every one but Muslims are killed as soon as they enter then I would agree with you. If you define it as an area where the locals often attack the police and other emergency personnel when they are trying to do their jobs and random people are attacked not for robbery or rape but to beat them for entering an area they are not wanted then there are no go zones in the US also.
Are there really German “no-go zones”? Marxloh in Duisburg is often mentioned, but the main problem there has little to do with Moslems, the local Roma cause more problems.
This is a pretty good piece, Jeff. Thanks. I am a bit surprised that the percentage of adherents who agree with the efficacy of suicide bombing under some provocation is as small as 7%. I would have thought that the percent of crazies in any population would be more the 20% we see in the larger population. I don’t buy the theory that all religions are the same in the dark, an idea which must be what supports a lot of the kick-back you got at Blackboard.
FWIW, I think the existence of no-go zones in Europe has been shown to be a bit of an exaggeration, at least in Paris.
I read this: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/01/paris-mayor-to-sue-fox-over-no-go-zone-comments/384656/ and concluded that the “no go zone” story was overdrawn.
I had certainly believed it before reading the above and had argued the existence of no go zones with several people who thought I was nuts including a Parisian while we were in Paris last summer and who defied me to find one. His point was that the story suggested that the French government had lost effective sovereignty in some neighborhoods which it clearly had not.
This is not to suggest that the locals in those areas aren’t hostile to authority. If that were all that was required to earn the title, I can suggest a couple of gated communities down my way which are also a bit hostile to authority, or at least to manifestations of government.
The mayor might have a vested interest in the perception of his city. Are they no go zones? Not if you have enough back up
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5128/france-no-go-zones
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/01/say-it-aint-no-go-bobby.php
Chuck, you could well be right in your view of these things. I balked at the idea that any government would surrender control over a neighborhood in their state. Think Waco, TX as an instructive example. With that experience in mind, I couldn’t see any police department admitting that some community was beyond their control.
on the other hand, i worked for the City of Chicago in 1969 and found that I had business in the Oakenwald neighborhood on the south side. It was pretty rough then, might be worse now. The word from my boss was to get in and out before 11:00AM. I asked, why 11? “Because that’s when the IP (Indigenous Population) wakes up after gang-banging until 3 in the morning.
I ran a little late and was shot at. The round hit a phone pole I was standing near. Amazingly, I heard it hit the pole and then heard the gun, which was likely a rifle given what it did to the phone pole and the crack it made. The city’s car was right there and I left.
i suppose you could say with some accuracy that it was a no go neighborhood between 11 and 3 in the morning. I had the impression at the time that the effort required to make the place safe at all hours was likely available but the will to do it wasn’t.
Maybe that’s what the problem is overseas. They just can’t bring themselves to do what needs to be done to settle things down – maybe politically incorrect over there like it would be here.
Even so, I still feel that a lot of nonsense and shaky studies are published on this subject.
Hell of a complex problem. But you can see it happening here. It’s not necessarily fear of physical violence. It’s fear of causing a political backlash. Look whats happened in Baltimore. The police are so fearful of repercussions and crime rates have soared. There’s a reason all of Europe is now reexamining there immigration policies. Jeff is right that there is a large percentage of these refugees whose world view is incompatible with ours . In Norway there trying to teaching the immigrants that rape is not acceptable Waco is a good example. Governments…city,state and federal, are surrendering legal control of areas because it’s politically easier. It’s fine until the the truth of what’s going on is inadvertently revealed and it becomes necessary to correct the problem Then the backlash is extreme and often violent. It’s complex because most of us believe in the same values…individual freedom and a diversity of cultures which make us unique. But to call someone like Jeff racist or xenophobic because he’s concerned is either delusional or political exploitation. And I’m not referring to you J. You seem to to be trying to sort out the relevant issues…and I don’t claim that that is simple
good note chuckrr.
I think a lot of us recognize that for democracy to work it will tend to be inefficient – trying not to profile sort of thing … which led to my Mom who had legs full of metal getting private searchs at the airport at age of 86. At some point, inefficiency cascades to ineffective and the government has to raise the ante. it does make a lot of difference who is running the place, and i feel in this country, the amazingly poor choices Obama has made for heads of the various agencies has done little to improve our security. Homeland is a prime example. Jeh Johnson appears to me to be a career bureaucrat who may never have accomplished anything tangible, or managed its accomplishment. And don’t get me started on Janet Napolitano.
Obama’s inexperience managing anything before ascending to the presidency seems unimproved despite a lot of bad choices. You’d think that bad experience would hone your ability. I can certainly say that once i could see mistakes I’d made in hiring, I didn’t tend to repeat them, but maybe made new ones instead. But he repeats his. I hope to hell, we get a choice next fall which includes someone who’s run something, and not screwed it up. Or maybe we’ll be like France in the 19th century and have to look forward to 70 or 80 years of incompetent politicians.
I don’t know about you or the others who read here, but i pretty much depend on statistical chance of exposure for my confidence that I won’t be involved in an incident. Certainly not the efficacy of methods of those who claim to keep us safe. we’re kept equally safe perhaps by the inability of the islamic extremists to develop other assault ideas as clever as the 9/11 attack.
I suppose it’s obvious, but my sympathies are liberal. At the same time I have a lot respect for Jeff’s views. In the late ’70s and early ’80s I was devoutly Libertarian, but as time has gone on, I guess I gave up. I worked in a heavily regulated industry and I think had to deal daily with things that i really hated and bureaucrats who would never have found employment with me – NEVER.
I used to say that I needed first guessers. second guessers are a dime a dozen, but it’s the first guessers that make everything go. Jeff is conspicuously a First Guesser – ought to have a plate that says it on his office – assuming he has one, I didn’t. i used a secretary’s work station in the middle of the office. except for occasional phone calls which had to be private. I don;t know if the troops hated it, no-one ever said.
I work for a company that is based in Grenoble, France, and has a very large presence all over France. I can only tell you what I know from coworkers who live and work there. They certainly feel that there are definitely “no-go” zones all around France. We have now had several coworkers from France immigrate here to the United States to flee these problems. I would contend that the “Islamic problem” in France is most certainly a problem, and one that is escalating. As is most of Europe right now, France is in a very precarious situation and gettings worse.
In full disclosure. I did not personally see or enter into any “no-go” zones the last time I was in Grenoble (earlier this past spring). However, I did witness much tension. Through discussions with coworkers and friends there, this tension is a product of both their social problems (Islam) and economic problems.
I personally try to avoid fear-driven actions. I read once and do not know the author but endorse the idea in: “I will allow no man to do belittle my soul as to make me hate him.”
All human inhabitants of planet Earth have a common enemy: Incompetent world leaders that stay in power by the divide and conquer technique.
As far as possible, we need to work together to replace incompetent world leaders with leaders that serve the public instead of themselves.
“I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him.”
~ Booker T. Washington
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/b/bookertwa105621.html#l0DdxTQ7TRSXci5p.99
Couple of observations for the equatists: 1. The tenet of the Christian religion preaches turn the other cheek. It is not always followed, but that is the teaching.
2. The Tenet of Islam is to lie, deceive and conquer and kill the non-believers.
One preaches peace, the other preaches violence. Period.
Other observations:. Religious tests have always been used for screening immigrants. If you are claiming religious persecution and you are the same faith as the ruling party, that does indicate you are not truthful.
No one has a “right” to migrate to a foreign country. Period.
That being said, the issue is not really a ban on Muslim immigration. The issue is with a president that refuses to name the evil, refuses to acknowledge the evil, refuses to stop the evil, and refuses to allow others to do any of the above.
I will leave with this thought (I have stated it before): Not all Germans were Nazis 70 years ago. But all Germans were targets. Not all Japanese were Warmongering imperialists, but all Japanese were targets. War is not fought half-assed if you want to win. And make no mistake, this is a war. This president will not say it, but the enemies have already declared it.
Phil, you are absolutely correct. Nearly every sitting American president in the history of this country has had to filter immigration and refugees and one time or another, for a large variety of reasons, not the least of which has been upon religious grounds. I have gotten very sick and tired of hearing the idiots out there that claim “you can’t deny someone entry to this country based upon religion” .. this is a bunch of BS! … The law SPECIFICALLY grants FULL and unrestricted jurisdiction to the executive branch to determine any type of entry into this country, FOR ANY REASON. What these morons usually fail to understand is that, our Constitutional protections are ONLY applicable to “citizens” of the United States of America. Our Constitutional protections do NOT apply to ANY non-citizen, period. Whether they are physically within this country or not. Do non-citizens have protections? .. yes they do, under statutory law, but not by Constitution. A foreigner (any non-citizen) does not enjoy the protections of the 2nd Amendment for example. There are so many incredibly stupid people out there that think otherwise, it is astounding.
As for me personally, I believe we should shut down ALL entry into this country until such time that this government can get its collective poop in a group and figure out what the hell it is doing. Our current government is so completely incompetent that it puts every one of us at risk. Aside from the normal business type comings and goings, there should be NO immigration granted to anyone, there should be NO refugee status given to anyone, there should be NO visas granted to anyone, period. The whole system should be completely shut down until such time that it can be fixed, and demonstrated to be fixed, and demonstrated to be properly managed. Until such time, there should be absolutely no entry into this country by ANYONE!
You are wrong that the constitution does not apply to non-citizens in the USA. It does indeed and the 14th amendment specifically states that. However the constitution does not apply to anyone who is not in the USA. Citizens of the USA are subject to the laws of the country in which they physically are – whether they think so or not.
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.
Citizen is thus identified
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;
States cannot abridge (deny, limit) privileges due citizens.
nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
This seems to include non-citizens; they get at least minimal protections.
Sorry for the duplication. Yours is more explicit – and correct.
Actually the 14th does no such thing. The 14th defines citizens and then spells out THEIR rights and privileges.
Islam (Submission) is a rabies virus, it causes madness, violence and ultimately death. The historical answer was to quarantine it, to confine it to the already infected.
It was easy to isolate Islam because it offers nothing of value or benefit to anyone. The problem though is that the Western world ‘forgot’ when it became profitable to trade for oil.
The solution to the whole Muslim problem is to quit feeding it and confine it once again.
Unfortunately Europe may be unable to to cure the disease, the infection may be too deep.
The good news is that Islam will never be a real problem in the US. If there are very many more attacks there won’t be any Muslims left in the US.
If I was a Muslim in the US and thought that there might be a rash of Muslim Terrorist attacks or even demands, I would consider it prudent to take my family and leave now.
This is very much Ostupid’s second attempt at an American Ebola epidemic…..
Jeff,
Thank you for your timely and gutsy post. I agree with you completely. This theory of false moral equivalence that westerners throw out, oh, Christians shoot up Planned Parenthood centers, go on gun rampages. Yes, now and then they do. Often these are mentally unbalanced people. They are rarely if ever rational killers like the two in California. What they are always, though, is they are NEVER doing what they do in the name of religion, Christian or otherwise. They are acting against their religion. People who say Christians killed Moslems during the Crusades–so what? That was centuries ago, and from what I understand, they were responding to Moslem expansion and predation.
Islam endorses the murder of infidels (and, in case anyone is unclear about this, that’s you and me). It’s in the Koran. Pointing out that there are passages in the OT that suggest or recommend harsh treatment for non-Jews is idiotic. Moslems are doing this NOW. Any attempt to explain or otherwise justify what they are doing today by comparing their behavior to that of the Israelites or early Christians is beyond stupid: it’s a coward’s dodge. And I do mean coward. Christianity and Judaism, as well as every other religion I can think of (save one), have long since made peace with modernity.
Islamic immigration. Why does America need Moslems? That’s the question we need to ask. How do they make life better for those of us here today? Islamic newcomers have astonishingly high rates of welfare use and government support (unlike earlier, pre 9-11 Moslem immigrants who assimilated and are doing very well). The entire family of the Boston Bomber brothers is on welfare (remember the days when an immigrant needed a sponsor and a job?). What supporters of unbridled immigration forget is that people who want to come here don’t get to make that decision. Americans do! If you want to become a citizen of New Zealand or France you don’t just show up at their door. They’ll send you packing (unless you are part of the Islamic invasion, in which case EU and UN refugee edicts have you by the throat).
Other item, and as you point out: Islam is not commensurate with modern life. Islam is a medieval religion that unlike Christianity, hasn’t been declawed. In Islam as well, and this is major cause for concern, there is no separation of church and state. The religion is the state. The idea that Americans today glide over this issue so blithely, and I’m talking about Americans who will sue a town if a mayor foolishly sticks up a creche somewhere, or you if you say, “Merry Christmas,” is step one on the road to suicide. Why in the world should we be endorsing a massive immigration of people who despise our way of life, have nothing but contempt for what we have accomplished, and ultimately do not want to assimilate to our ways, but rather to replace them with their own tried and true medieval ways. Like the aliens in Independence Day, they want us to die.
Why are supporters of Islam, who themselves are not Moslem, ignore the chants of “martyr” that go up around the Islamic world when yet another infidel is murdered, or stabbed? Why so little public condemnation of hideous acts? I saw a pithy remark the other day: A radical Moslem wants to cut your head off. A moderate Moslem wants a radical Moslem to cut your head off. So, while no one is saying that every Moslem on earth is a terrorist–precious few are–too many Moslems despise Jews, and too few Moslems have the guts to speak out against the monsters in their midst.
As Samuel Huntingdon said, we are in a clash of civilizations. Make no mistake about it. I have nothing bad to say about Syrians, or Egyptians or Iraqis. They are human beings. But I have staggering problems with their religion. Put another way, I have nothing in common with the suicide is painless brigade.
Never forget: these people are running from themselves. When they show up here, they bring along with them the noxious baggage their defenders in politics and Hollywood refuse to see. A question for commenters on Lucia’s Blackboard: have you noticed how the people who are wild, inveterate supporters of all things catastrophic climate change invariably love open borders? If they are wrong about CAGW, might they not also be wrong about opening our doors to what is essentially an army of Trojan horses?
Stick to your guns, Jeff.
I made one of the statements Jeff used in his post, about Christianity being militant, etc. (Hiya Jeff! How’s it going? Man, 15,000 hits a day? I never got that many on my best day. Good for you–you deserve it.)
When Christians had enough worldly power to enable them, they were every bit as cruel as Muslims are today. The Jews remember. Women should–how many were burned as witches? Hell, so do the Huguenots. It’s not the religion–it’s the power we give it.
Most Christians are much more civilized now. I’m very pleased about that. Most Muslims are too. Just visit Indonesia if you want to see. Both religions (as well as all others) have a few idiots, a few maniacs and a few shysters revving up the idiots and maniacs.
John F. Kennnedy had to swear in front of a television camera that he wouldn’t take orders from the Pope. That’s how recent religious intolerance is in the U.S. Perhaps some can think of even more recent examples….
TF2
How many non Muslim countries would stone a woman to death for adultery?
How many religions would insist on the death penalty for apostates?
Christianity was ‘modernised’ around 1500AD by the Reformation
The Muslim faith has never had a Reformation.
Many Muslims and some Muslim countries act and think the everything is the Koran is divine truth and must be strictly followed.
Saudi Arabia behaves as if it was 500AD
I think a valid comparison can be made with Pakistan and its two large neighbours, India and China.
Does the Muslim faith and Sharia Law hold back progress and development of Pakistan?
Kemal Ataturk of Turkey certainly though so but Erdogan the current Turkish President is trying to turn the clock back .
Deuteronomy 22:22 “If a man is found sleeping with another man’s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die.”
Leviticus 20:10 “If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife–with the wife of his neighbor–both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.”
These interesting comments are from the old testament.
I don’t think Israel implements these edicts!
Who was that man that said “he who is without sin let him cast the first stone” oh yes Jesus.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2640632/Stoned-death-marrying-man-loved-Woman-attacked-sticks-bricks-20-members-OWN-family-broad-daylight-Pakistan.html
Barbarians !! … and they should NOT be allowed entry into this country for ANY reason whatsoever!
So it’s all about the power. If the Christians ever regained their power they’d make them Muslims look like a bunch of girl scouts. Yeah we know…The Crusades…The Spanish Inquisition….so shut up about the Muslims. After all you Christians (Republicans) are waging a war on women and want to go back to Jim Crow. It’s all equivalent.
Ask the Swedes, the French and Belgium how that mass importation is working out. But were just a bunch of Xenophobes. I know…. no different than if they had imported a bunch of Lutherans.
As to JFK….he wasn’t forced to say he wouldn’t take orders from the Pope. He chose to make that point. Much like politicians to this day clarify how their religious beliefs influence their decision making. That’s not religious intolerance. Unless your at university without your safe space.
Yes we all know that every group has a few idiots that cause mayhem. Even your group of progressives has a few…Stalin, Mao,Pol Pot. Kim Jong Un…Obama. You know shysters revving up the idiots
Ok Chuck. Which is it? All Christians are Republicans?… except for the ones who are Democrats? Or, does being a Democrat Christian make you better and not retroactively guilty of thousand year old crimes like the Republican Christians? Or, maybe, Democrat Christians are the equivalent of the Moderate Muslims who want the Radical Muslims (Republican Christians) to kill EVERYONE? Or, MAYBE, you can only resort to using the ancient actions of those groups of people who used the name of God to justify their crimes while they did not actually follow the Word of God because you are unable to justify the actions of the Muslims because they ARE actually following the word of their god. Hmmmm…..
What is it with lefties and false equivalence? Seems to be some kind of mental tic.
Jeff Id, you say:
Accusing me of mischaracterizing things, but you fail to list a single statement I’ve made which is inaccurate or misleading. As it stands, your accusations in this post are nothing more than baseless smears nobody could possibly the judge the veracity of based off anything you’ve said here.
More interesting, however, is you continue to defend your use of “evidence” proffered by the Bible Believers group, a well-established hate group who publishes antisemitic literature, going so far as to deny the Holocaust. The truth is your depiction of events as seen in that video was completely misleading, caused by you believing what was an obvious propaganda piece designed to foster Anti-Muslim attitudes via highly selective editing.
And finally, you continue to claim my response to you was inappropriate due to me not quoting your entire comment, but as the dozen spammy comments you’ve posted at my site show, you’ve never done anything to show anything I failed to quote was remotely relevant to anything I actually said. Put simply, your entire argument against me rests upon you baselessly accusing me of things that aren’t true while mindlessly embracing obvious propaganda by a group that falls just short of Neo-Nazis.
You can feel whatever you want about Muslims, but so long as you post obvious untruths and defend vile hate groups like you’ve done here, your writings are going to amount to nothing more than the paranoid rantings of a deranged individual, Any fairminded individual who read our exchanges would never think your comments were appropriate, sensible or remotely true.
I’m sure the skeptics everywhere will acknowledge that. That is, if they’re willing to be even the slightest bit skeptical about videos posted by vile antisemitic hate groups.
Brandon,
I have repeatedly pointed out that the whole beginning of the quote sets context. I have given a link to the video which shows hundreds of people and no megaphones. I’m still pissed at your crazy characterizations and having seen your work for some time now, am a little concerned about your mental health.
You need to relax and you need to be honest.
Jeff Id:
Actually, you never said that before now, and the link you showed proves you were wrong to claim the Bible Believers group didn’t use a megaphone. I don’t know why you would focus on such a silly point, but it is indisputable they used a megaphone. That you continue to try to claim I was wrong to say they used a megaphone, even while providing evidence which clearly shows they used one, is absurd.
So while you can be concerned about my mental health and feel I “need to be honest,” you are the one who has refused to admit obvious mistakes and is actively promoting propaganda from an antisemitic hate group that denies the Holocaust. I would think that would speak more poorly of your mental health and honesty than anything I have done.
You know Brandon, I don’t know what the crazy bible group believes. I don’t really care. They walked, insanely, into a crowd of Muslims with Jesus saves shirts on. They did not fight back with anything other than words and were attacked physically by the crowds. You took that part of a significant and well considered comment and turned it into a moron rave. I know you feel that you have achieved something or that you have something to add but you should recognize that the things you wrote have nothing to do with what I believe.
Jeff Id, that you claim these people walked “into a crowd of Muslims with Jesus saves shirts on” is disgusting. You show your ignorance here by somehow being unaware this was an Arab International Festival, attended by people of many different faiths. But that’s not the real issue. The real issue is how you show your extreme bias by portraying these men as merely walking into a crowd with Jesus saves shirts on.
These men carried signs insulting the Islamic faith. They carried a pigs head on a pole because they knew Muslims consider pigs to be unclean. Hell, these men shouted at a crowd their prophet wants to molest children! But you portray them as merely wearing Jesus saves shirts and walking around.
You are actively promoting and defending a vile hate group, basing beliefs on an obvious propanganda film that was selectively edited to exaggerate what happened and paint Muslims as bad people. That is what you offered as evidence to prove your claims – obvious propaganda created by bigots.
You can claim what I wrote has nothing to do with what you believe, but that you won’t acknowledge how disgusting this group is, or what they actually did (or where they were when they did it) says far more about your beliefs than I ever could. That you support, promote and rely upon obvious propaganda from known hate groups as unbiased evidence shows I don’t even need to say a word about what you actually believe.
And therein lies the problem. We are subjected to piss Christ and poop Mary, and while Christians express outrage, no one rampages. It is called freedom of speech. A concept rapidly being lost in the only country it is truly practiced in. Yet it is at the very foundation of America. If any one right symbolizes the differences between this country and every other one on the planet, it is the Freedom of Speech. No other country has it (although many do pay lip service, they all restrict it in the name of political correctness).
You are merely quibbling about semantics while you prove Jeff’s point. Your defense may be defensible in Great Britain or even Canada. it is not in America. We may not LIKE the speech of others, but that does not give us the RIGHT to assault the speakers. Period.
You lose.
My point was far more nuanced than you have characterized Brandon. You need to put my quote in context, otherwise you are simply dishonest. I am tired of repeating that to you.
I have repeatedly characterized the group as crazy bible thumpers you claim that I’m defending them. This is a lie Brandon, a falsehood created by an apparent lack of objectivity on your part. I don’t know anything else about them but they did not do anything physical to those people and that is the difference.
I didn’t see the part where they said the prophet wanted to molest their children. Are you on the right video? It doesn’t matter if they yelled that their prophet is a pedophile though because it is just words, not stones. Muhammad had sex with a very young girl, it is well documented and even practiced in the middle east to emulate him, is it not? http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Islam_and_Pedophilia Are you able to be objective about even this point?
—
There are literally hundreds of video examples of Muslim extremists right here in America, I could give a half dozen others that would make the same point as I did in my IN CONTEXT comment. You know, the entire comment that you fear revealing in your dishonest article. They are doing what they are being told to do by their book and their leaders.
It is not my fault that it is true Brandon. You need to open your mind to the reality that like governments and cultures, not all religions are created equally. Leftists generally don’t like that sort of objectivity though do they. They scream and call people bigots and buffoons. They demand politically correct speech and thought in the face of obvious logical fallacies. You are wrong on this Brandon, and loud and wrong are a bad combo.
Jeff Id, it appears you are going to repeat the same claims over and over, offering no response to the points made which rebut them. I’m not going to waste either of our times encouraging that. If you want to continue to make baseless accusations while refusing to respond to anything I say, to the point you won’t even state what things I’ve supposedly misrepresented, that’s your choice.
You can keep calling me a liar and a coward all you want, but the truth is the only person defending falsehoods here is you. The only person refusing to admit mistakes here is you. The only thing you have ever had to say against my post other than trivially untrue factual claims is that I didn’t quote your entire comment, yet when I asked you, multiple times, to explain how anything I didn’t quote was relevant to anything I said, you refused. That’s cowardly.
I openly offered to add any text to the quote if you could explain how that text was relevant to anything I said in my post. You ignored me. That’s cowardly. You then claimed I am afraid to show things, even though the only reason I haven’t shown them is you’ve refused to explain why I should. That’s dishonest.
But this is just stupid:
You’ve posted times to say you didn’t see things in the video, and you’ve said I’ve (apparently) looked at a video for a different incident. The reality is anyone remotely interested in the facts of the matter would know everything I’ve said about this incident is true. The things you’ve not seen in the video were simply not included in the edited propaganda piece you’ve unquestionably accepted.
Had you spent even five minutes investigating what actually happened, or had you even just followed any of the links I gave you multiple times, you would know you have been completely wrong. But instead, you just keep repeating you didn’t see these things in the propaganda video you watched, as though that means anything.
Side note, yes, you are defending these men. Intentionally downplaying the vile nature and actions perpetrated by a group is defending that group. It doesn’t matter if you happen to make some passing criticisms of them. You’ve still intentionally portrayed them as innocent victims who did nothing to provoke the reactions they got, which is completely and utterly false.
I told you I was willing to discuss it after you put the whole quote in your post. You have refused to acknowledge any of that. It simply isn’t worth my time to have the quote out of context and then respond to ridiculous accusation. The problem was so bad that I had to write my own post here.
You are still wrong on this Brandon but you had made your mind up before taking a moment to understand my position. I’ve explained the whole thing above, your accusations that I’m defending a crazy bible group are false here is a quote which might (I doubt you will admit error) help you:
I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it — Evelyn Beatrice Hall
We have the right to free speech, we do not have the right to free stoning. Muslim culture does have that right and you should be able to recognize the difference.
Jeff Id:
No, I haven’t. Anyone can look for themselves and see I was never asked to acknowledge anything of the sort. You never said that here, and you never said it on my site despite making over a dozen comments to complain. If you had asked me to acknowledge that, I most likely would have (though I’m not sure just what “it” in your sentence referred to).
Please quit making things up. It’s absurd how many times you’ve said things across these threads which the slightest examination would show is false.
While you may not feel it is worth your time, you’ve still not said how anything I didn’t quote affects anything I said in my post. As far as I can see, adding the portion of the comment I didn’t quote wouldn’t affect anything said in my post. If that’s true, you’re complaining about nothing. If it’s not true, you should explain how it isn’t… for once. You’ve written over a dozen comments and a blog post supposedly because of this, yet not once have you explained how it could possibly matter.
I didn’t say a word about your position as a whole so you have no basis to say anything about whether or not I took any time to understand it. The idea my post is, in any way, a response to your position as a whole is ludicrous as in the 1,500+ words I wrote, I didn’t say a word about your position as a whole.
As for your claim you’re not defending this group, I believe in free speech. I have said the Bible Believers group had the right to do what they did. I have said the crowd was wrong to get violent. I have said the police were wrong to not intercede to stop the violence.
What I haven’t done is pretend, like you have, that all these guys did was walk around with “Jesus saves” shirts. They didn’t. They shouted derogotary and bigoted remarks while carrying the severed head of an animal in order to provoke a reaction.
While they did have the right to do that, it shows the reaction of the crowd was not due to them wearing “Jesus saves” shirts as you have portrayed. These people were not innocent victims like you’ve constantly pretended. They were a hate group who used bigoted words and actions in order to provoke an unlawful reaction they could use as propaganda. This shows the crowd’s reaction has little to nothing to do with Muslim culture, but rather, shows people don’t like being the victims of bigotry.
If you gave a fair and accurate depiction of what happened here, you would never be able to use this example to condemn Muslim culture. Instead, you have constantly downplayed and minimized the actions of these bigots to further the message found in their propaganda in order to paint Muslims in a negative light.
So yes, you have defended this group. You have constantly tried to depict it as not doing despicable things, and in doing so, you have defended it an innocent victim who did nothing wrong. That’s false. The group did disgusting, but legal, things in order to provoke an unlawful reaction. As long as you pretend otherwise, you’re defending them.
BS – “You’ve still intentionally portrayed them as innocent victims who did nothing to provoke the reactions they got, which is completely and utterly false.”
You sound like people who say that the comic publisher in Paris got what he deserved because he provoked the response. You never seem to be critical of the reaction….as long as its against people you appear to have a problem with. You draw no distinction between words and actions; you appear to be more sympathetic to the side of the people who committed a violent act because they were provoked. There will always be a reason to be outraged at something, the difference is it is not acceptable to attack people because you don’t like what they say.
Glacierman:
I have to say, you sound delusional. I’ve never said a word in defense of the violence exhibited in this incident. In fact, I’ve said it was wrong. Multiple times. I’ve even said it was wrong for the police to allow this violence to happen, something Jeff Id hasn’t commented on.
I have no idea why you would think calling for an accurate depiction of events amounts to defending violence. Saying we should acknowledge the violence was provoked, and tacitly sanctioned by the police, does not say the violence was good or even acceptable. It merely highlights that the violence was not an indication of some cultural phenomenon like Jeff Id portrays, but rather, was a natural, but unlawful, reaction to intense provocation.
This is completely and utterly untrue. I most certainly do draw distinction between words and actions, having done so multiple times. Now it is true I am naturally sympathetic to any group which is has bigotry thrown at them. I would be similarly sympathetic to a crowd of black people which threw rocks at members of the KKK. That doesn’t mean I would say throwing rocks at the KKK is acceptable or lawful. I wouldn’t. I’d say it was illegal and wrong. But I would hold sympathy for the group as I would understand why they would want to throw rocks at the KKK.
I will, without hesitation, defend the rights of any group to speak their mind and express their views. But at the same time, I will not feel sympathy for bigots who come under attack for expressing disgusting and offensive views. My sympathy is reserved for victims. Put simply, if you provoke a person into attacking you by saying bigoted things, I will defend you insofar as you had the right to say them without being assaulted, but I won’t feel sympathy for you if you got hurt.
Anyone who would interpret that as some sort of defense of or allegiance to extremists is delusional.
Brandon, I am not delusional, I simply interpreted what you wrote, possibly without context. You disagree with my interpretation. Sounds familiar.
You throw barbs at me because you don’t like what I wrote. Seek professional help.
Brandon,
This is the part of blogging I don’t enjoy. I’m running a company now and don’t have time to look up quotes because you didn’t read them.
You wrote above:
———–
I told you I was willing to discuss it after you put the whole quote in your post. You have refused to acknowledge any of that.
No, I haven’t. Anyone can look for themselves and see I was never asked to acknowledge anything of the sort. You never said that here, and you never said it on my site despite making over a dozen comments to complain.
—————
My FIRST comment:
See section bolded here in particular.
So lets keep this simple HAVE I or HAVE I NOT stated that I would discuss this if you expand the quote context. Were you accurate in your comment here or are you making things up or are you NOT READING carefully.
Oh, and the extra comments came after this — when you refused to be honest.
Jeff Id, are you just bad at reading? You say:
But what I said is clearly not rebutted by the text you quote. You said you would discuss things further if I added the rest of your comment to the quote. Nobody disputes that. I certainly never disputed that. I said:
What I said is you never asked me to acknowledge that you said you would discuss things further if I expanded the quote. Because I was never asked to acknowledge it, I couldn’t possibly have refused to acknowledge it as you claimed.
You said it. I read it. That was all. There was never any issue about whether or not you had said it. Then suddenly, over a day and two dozen comments later, you randomly accused me of having refused to acknowledge you had said it. That’s ridiculous.
If this is the part of blogging you don’t enjoy, I suggest you quit making ridiculous accusations like this. If there had ever been any doubt that I was aware of what you had said, you could have asked me to acknowledge you had said it. I would have confirmed you did. But the fact I don’t explicitly acknowledge every sentence a person writes in no way suggests I refuse to acknowledge things they say.
I believe that is called a non sequitur. You did not address what Jeff said.
Ahhh, I see. Your lack of acknowledgement is not sufficient for me to observe that you refuse to acknowledge it. In reality you were secretly acknowleging it but weren’t going to admit it until I asked you. Got it.
So basically you were too emotional about the issue to put my quote in context and have a discussion. Got that too — so I put it here, where more people can read it anyway.
Jeff Id, what are you smoking? The fact I didn’t explicitly acknowledge every sentence in every comment you wrote in no way makes this a sane or rational response:
Rational people understand people don’t specifically acknowledge every thing other people say. They don’t wait 24+ hours and 20+ comments without saying a word on the issue then suddenly make accusations the reason someone didn’t specifically acknowledge one thing they said was they refuse to acknowledge it.
There is nothing remotely surprising or nefarious about someone reading a comment you write and responding without specifically acknowledging every sentence you write in it. If you think otherwise, you are insane.
Brandon, again a non sequitur. He asked one thing:
He did not ask for everything. Just the one thing. You have yet to even acknowledge his request. You are getting tedious and tiresome in bobbing and weaving in trying to avoid that one single request.
So ok reasonable one, why were you unable to put the quote in context and have a discussion? Why did you force me to write my own?
Brandon, would you like to try and justify the current knifings of Israelis as an Intifada supported by about 80% of the fakestinians that has killed a number of Israelis???
You may want to back up your comments here by justifying the physical attacks on the people you seem to think are loons in the video. I thought modern civilization was not supposed to attack nut cases just because of mental derangement?? Islam is still a 7th century cult acting in the modern world with modern propaganda tools.
Kuhnkat, I didn’t defend the violent acts of the crowds. I didn’t say they were good or justified. I didn’t support them or endorse them in any way, shape or form. All I’ve done is show the claims by Jeff Id on this subject are incredibly misleading.
Please try to read what you criticize so as not to come off as a knee-jerk reactionary who thinks anyone who disagrees with him must endorse violent acts.
So nitpicking is the name of the game. OK, in your own comments you have mentioned megaphone singular and megaphones plural. Which is it?? Was it an amplified with speakers or self contained? You are being ridiculous because you are trying to be an apologist for a violent, medieval cult. Get over it and drop it.
Kuhnkat,
Brandon’s entire schtick is to nitpick and mischaracterize what others say and then make ridiculous assertions from his side and claim they are unassailable.
He comes across as seriously AS, but instead of practicing medicine, it is clear he is just a persistent troll.
What hunter said.
It is relevant to mention salafism and the key salafist states: Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
These states actively fund the propagation of salafist mosques throughout the world.
Until Western governments recognise the danger they create by giving the salafist states freedom in the west we are likely to remain at risk. One possible solution would be to apply reciprocity. We should give the Qataris or Saudis the same freedom that a westerner enjoys in Qatar or Saudi Arabia.
Islam includes quite a wide range of beliefs (like Chistianity) For example Sufi mystiscism.
The west actively promotes the current regimes in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. While this continues no blind measures against muslims in general will have and real effect.
“To me it seems certain that the fatalistic teachings of Muhammad and the utter degradation of women is the outstanding cause for the arrested development of the Arab. He is exactly as he was around the year 700, while we have kept on developing” — General George S. Patton: The War as I Knew it
CNN is succeeding in electing Hillary tonight by making Republicans look like war mongers. Fantastic strategy on their part.
CNN– they candidates fed that fear. Trump fed that fear. on and on with the fear.
CNN won the debate hands down. Why no republican caught on is beyond me.
America is feeling the fear. The democrats are not as they tap dance around the problem, but as more incidents like Paris and San Bernadino occur, people are demanding real action. Polls already show a majority now support boots on the ground to take out ISIS. There are still 11 months to the election, and ISIS is bound and determined to make the most of it. And that means more killings. And not in some far away land where the names of the places are unknown or unpronounceable by the average American. It means in places that are close and readily known.
You are right about the intent of CNN. But not about who it is helping.
Jeff – All CNN is accomplishing is promoting more guns sales. Every time Obama or Hillary speak on the issue, more people head to the gun smith.
My Uncle (81 years old) bought a gun for the first time in his life last year.
Like Jeff I was born and raised a Catholic. I abandoned any belief in any deity the moment I had a choice.
No matter whether you believe the Bible or the Koran have more or less violent passages there is a fundamental difference between the two religions and that is the central character.
In Christianity it is Jesus and those raised as Christians are supposed to emulate his (and his apostles) behaviour and follow their teaching – love your enemy, turn the other cheek, be a good Samaritan etc. His one and only violent act that I can remember was throwing the traders out of the temple.
In Islam they are supposed to consider Mohammed as the perfect man and emulate him. The problem with this is that he was a warrior, had apostates and critics killed, beheaded and enslaved captives, waged war against non-believers and forcibly converted others. Examples of his violent acts are numerous.
Any religion having a warlord as its central figure is going to have problems living peacefully with others.
Jeff, I agree with everything you said. People like Brandon S and the rest of the commenters at Lucia’s blog are simply uninformed. A good reference for understanding Islam is the Islam 101 article at http://www.jihadwatch.org/islam-101. It’s quite long, but fairly comprehensive in describing the early history of Islam and consequently, why Islam “has bloody borders” wherever it gains traction.
One thing I’d like to know more about is something that was discussed in an article somewhere a while back (I don’t have a URL for it, but this article is a good summary: http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Cousin_Marriage_in_Islam — or this: https://www.pinterest.com/madeleinerue/islamic-inbreeding/). In Qur’an 4:23, Muhammed listed all the categories of relatives that are prohibited from marrying. It was a long list, but left out an important one: first cousins. As a consequence, for fourteen centuries in the Islamic world there has been an incredibly high occurrence of first cousins marrying. The article made the point that this much inter-marrying of first cousins over that long a time period would inevitably lead to unhealthy levels of genetic disoders, which might explain the seemingly large number of Muslims in the modern world who favor and/or engage in violence against infidels as a way of advancing Islam. I’m neither a Doctor nor a geneticist, so I can’t say whether the article’s conclusion is plausible or not, but am swayed by the fact that first-cousin marriage is generally frowned on or outright illegal in modern societies (apparently excluding Arabic and Islam societies).
When I was in graduate school, one of my fellow students was a Muslim from the middle east.
After the death of Anwar Sadat, he mentioned in a conversation that he considered Sadat’s assassin “a great man” and “a hero”.
I continued to work with him on occasion, and I got along with him almost as well as I did before that admission.
But I never trusted him after that.
” That is not to say that the old testament is not full of evils as well, but the evils are not preached to the masses as the way to heaven, nor are they practiced by Christians anywhere in the world.”
This is a common belief by even many devout Christians. If anyone would like to discuss this I would be happy to try and refute it. Please quote actual passages with chapter and verse though if you do wish to engage in a discussion of the teachings in the Old Testament.
I am no expert on the old testament – or any testament. There are a lot of stories of mass death, killing of ones children, god raging against whole populations. Perhaps you could give one of your preferred examples.
Exactly Jeff, there are a lot of stories, and just as Brandon has taken your comments out of context so have the Christian and Jew haters taken those stories and HISTORIES out of context to bash them.
Let me point out a fundamental flaw in the reasoning that those who bash the Bible miss. Even IF the stories weren’t out of context, GOD is omnipotent and all knowing. Why would he take actions he would KNOW would be used against his people and that he would KNOW would be a bad example?? He would not. He had excellent reasons whether we understand them or not.
Again I extend the offer to help understand the passages you THINK are God acting badly.
My favorite actually covers a lot of incidents and I only recently read the better explanation for it. Most know that God sent the flood to wipe out all land animals and people except Noah and immediate family. What is forgotten is that not only were the people he wiped out continuously violent but they were performing apparently genetic mixing. That is they themselves were descended from the angels and human women giving them size, strength, and intelligence far above normal humans. This mixing of the races was apparently extended by them to the animal world also. In the explanation of why GOD was sending the flood was the assertion that they had corrupted ALL the earth except Noah and his sons. This meant his sons wives were also hybrids and passed it down to some of their children. These were the races that God had the Israelites wipe out later as they again strayed and involved themselves in violence and criminality.
This is covered better in this video starting about 2:39:00-4:05:00 if you can stand it… It develops slowly due to the attempt to be thorough…
This is a joke, right?
You might want to discuss whether this is a joke with the fellow who made it
No need exists to discuss the Old Testament in a Christian context. It is historically interesting but its rules are non-binding on Christians whose rules are few and defined in the New Testament.
Obviously you have not been taught Christianity. Both Jesus and his apostles quoted the Old Testament. Here is a good short explanation of why the OT is important to Christians. A full explanation would be much longer.
http://christianity.net.au/questions/old-testament-
kuhnkat wrote (in response to Michael 2)
“Obviously you have not been taught Christianity. Both Jesus and his apostles quoted the Old Testament.”
Thus bringing those parts of the OT into the NT that Christians ought to find important. Anyway, your comment is misleading; there is no single Christianity to teach, thousands of variations exist or seem to exist. Which one did you have in mind?
I would think the film indicates the reason that unreasonable behavior and beliefs is plague on good society; and why polite regard is a needed social lubricant. It unconditionally shows that disruptive disrespect combined with zealotry can lead to violence. Yet, there is a difference between using a symbol, such as a pig’s head or piss Mary, and engaging in beatings or murder. Too many have fallen for looking at broad generalities rather that the actions themselves. The quotes by Hub are about activities or their consequences. Apologists use generalities often misstated or mis-constructed, such as comparing someone shouting a profanity with someone who performs a profane act on or to a person. Further, some of these actions are protected, such as free speech; some are illegal such as assault and battery.
Today in the local paper there is a test with questions about what is in certain holy writs by Kristof. He use this apologia. The article is about what is written, not what is practiced. The written accounts of actions of the ancient Jews will not kill you. The same cannot be said of those who follow murderous Imans. Which brings me to the final point. Our culture has well defined definitions of murder, killing, war, and terrorism. Upthread, there is a discussion where these definitions are blurred. This is also part of the apologia about Muslim terrorism. It was asked why didn’t certain Christians terrorism count. It has and it does: the war in Ireland. The use of the incident is Charleston SC shows what generalizing and inaccurate presentation leads to. The person who murdered the church goers did it as an act of racism. It was a terrorist act as a hate crime. It was not about the Christian religion. The murderer confessed that he committed the crimes hoping to start a race war.
It is the activities one engages in or not, that defines how one should be viewed. I oppose bringing in the Muslim refugees because when asked by the governors for the investigation briefs on the proposed immigrants, they could not or were not provided. Otherwise, I am ambivalent. We have survived worse.
I think everyone should read this piece…http://www.steynonline.com/7366/welfare-for-the-world.
Of course it will be dismissed because it’s Steyn but David Frum is not exactly a “right wing shock jock”
Or there’s this….http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/12/16/rotherham-witness-says-police-covered-abuse-muslim-men/….But Jeff you just a right wing xenophobe . There’s nothing to be concerned about
My final link proving what bigot Jeff is and how he has overreacted…http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/belgian-government-admits-it-has-lost-control-no-go-zone
==> “The problem with Muslims is that far too many of them wish to use the Koran to justify taking away the rights of other people. “
What an interesting sentence. The problem with an entire group of people is that too many of them do X.
The problem with right wing climate bloggers is that too many of them employ logic such as Jeff’s logic behind that sentence.
Happen to be running a raytrace so I was online. Care to explain what is wrong with that sentence?
Jeff –
I think it’s probably a classic situation where if I have to “explain” it, then there’s likely no point in my doing so. IMO, the logical problem is quite obvious. It isn’t a matter of “explaining,” but a matter of different perspective.
I’m quite willing to accept that the surface logic of that sentence is not really instructive, per se, as to getting down to any substantive differences in our views regarding Islam, Muslims, religious fanaticism, intolerance, etc. But I’d guess that if you don’t see an ill-logic in the sentence I highlighted, we won’t be able to get there.
I would think that someone who claims to see something illogical would be able to explain the illogic. The problem with Muslims is that a high percentage believe murder of people is justifiable, a higher percentage believe women are second to men – which shouldn’t be surprising because that is exactly the the Koran says they should do. It is clearly ‘logical’ to recognize this characteristic of a group of people yet you claim it is not. Doesn’t seem like logic is the word you were looking for.
Now I get that leftists don’t like that it is not politically correct, but facts are facts and I don’t believe political correctness is something we should encourage. I rather like the idea of free speech and rational examination of the world around me.
The problem with white men is that too many of them are mass murderers.
==> “I would think that someone who claims to see something illogical would be able to explain the illogic.”
Another logic problem. I didn’t say that I ‘couldn’t” explain it.
==> “The problem with Muslims is that a high percentage believe murder of people is justifiable,…”
Why did you change the wording if you didn’t see a logic problem? Of course, that doesn’t correct for all of the logic problems.
==> “Now I get that leftists don’t like that it is not politically correct, …”
another logic problem. It has nothing to do with “political correctness.” I agree that too many Muslims are intolerant, misogynistic, etc. There is no question that too many women are suffering horrible injustices in the name of misogynistic men who commit atrocities in the name of Islam.
==> “and I don’t believe political correctness is something we should encourage.”
How about when “skeptics” complain about being called “deniers?”
One of the more amusing things about reading the “skept-o-sphere” is seeing the starkly contradictory attitudes towards political correctness.
==> ,” I rather like the idea of free speech and rational examination of the world around me.”
That’s another great example of what I was referring to. The logic behind your implication that, as a leftist, I somehow like the idea of free speech any less than you, or a rational examination of the world around me.
I don’t believe that those attributes are any more characteristic of the right than the left, broadly speaking. That you do believe that pretty much eliminates any option for good faith exchange. Undoubtedly, the belief on your part of some disproportion on those characteristics in association with (and probably as a function of?) our differing political orientation makes it rather obvious that your goal would be to confirm that bias as opposed to sharing perspectives for the purpose of mutual benefit.
Did you read the pew research poll I linked above? A very high percentage of Muslims believe in the things I have outlined. There is no evidence that white men are more apt to commit mass murders than anyone else. I have supported my statement with evidence, you have not and that is a significant difference between the statements. Mine is based on observation, yours is based on a belief (a feeling) that being PC should outweigh observed documented behaviors.
“How about when “skeptics” complain about being called “deniers?””
I guess you may not recognize that I have never once complained about that characterization. I have not. Denier is a characterization which is linked again to Muslims denial of the mass murder of jews. It is a rather ugly term don’t you think? It also implies that the fact that scientific skeptics such as myself are as irrational as religious zealots, when the reality is I have always recognized the warming properties of CO2 gas. At the same time I recognize the models are oversensitive too warming from that gas. — The ‘skeptics’ are right on this point. Climate is not acting as predicted by the bulk of the models and as a scientific skeptic, I can tell you those models are useless until corrected. They may not be correctable in their current form either.
With respect to leftists and free speech, all you need to do is look at any college campus these days to see the rampant intolerance. I guess we can’t even have Halloween costumes at Yale anymore. This is a left-wing condition, not that some who claim to be conservative also fail on occasion. Objectively, the left (such as yourself) is highly intolerant of people who observe differences in culture. I am not allowed to voice that opinion because they call it bigotry or racism or intolerance or illogical or I’m a buffoon on and on. All of these are “feeling” based arguments and they are made while explaining that I’m the irrational one.
Liberals in the US need a hard dose of pragmatism because common sense has left them far behind.
How perfect is the timing of this story:http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/12/16/yale-fail-ivy-leaguers-caught-on-video-clamoring-to-kill-first-amendment/?intcmp=hpbt4
Lefties (at Yale) signing away the first amendment. Observation over feelings Joshua.
That is actually not surprising given the recent ruckus about “safe spaces”. The leaders of those idiots have already stated they wanted to limit free speech (which destroys it). And Yale was one of the campuses that went along (having its own version where the students demanded limits on free speech).
Brandon won’t include the context…Joshua won’t explain his point. There’s something really creepy about this. Are these two the same person
Brandon is a well known, and mostly respected Scientist. Joshua is an ignorant troll that has problems with the written word and as we see, intelligent discourse.
==> ” You replied that I couldn’t possibly understand and gave us nothing to even figure out what you are talking about.”
I said, and repeated, that it’s a matter of perspective. I din’t say that you couldn’t possibly understand.
==> “Then you accuse us of being biased with no foundation for any of it.”
I said it was a matter of perspective. That’s similar to, but not the same, as bias. IMO, the illogic of your statement is obvious. If someone of your intelligence doesn’t see it, it’s because your perspective is so different than mine. If you interpret that as me attributing it to bias, then my “bias” is explanatory as well.
==> “I am not going to acknowledge Brandon’s false arguments until he puts my comment in correct context.”
To be clear, I think that Brandon’s accusations in this whole dust-up with you are not well-founded. It is rather typical in this discussions for people to go from a differing perspective to accusations of racism and the like – in a way that isn’t logically supported. FWIW, I think that Brandon is guilty of that in this case, and that his engagement in this kerffulle suffers from similar logical problems as yours. IMO, Brandon often has serious logical problems with the arguments that he makes.
So let me illustrate that problem again by quoting Kuhncat. Maybe if isn’t you that I’m quoting, you’ll be able to see the illogic:
If you can see the illogic in that statement, then maybe there’s something to talk about. If you don’t, then there really is no way for me to “explain” it to you.
As for your question:
False.
Please note that I wrote what I wrote above in this comment before I read that scenario you offered. I think that your scenario does a good job of pointing out the logical flaw in Brandon’s argument. It also contains a very similar form of logical problem as that which is embedded in your sentence that I excerpted, and Kuhncat’s.
That kind of gratuitous shit, also, suggests that there’s no way to have a good faith discussion here. Once again, I referenced perspective, not superiority/inferiority. Along with your notion about (1) lefties not valuing free speech, rational analysis over feelings, being more focused on political correctness (consider widespread outrage among righties about someone wishing them happy holidays), blah, blah and, (2) because I’m a lefty and hold different perspectives on how free speech plays out than you, I don’t value free speech as much as you, blah, blah and all the other typical ideologically partisan tripe that you polluted this discussion with in lame attempt to make it a “debate” that you have won.
Perspective – Another word for opinion. Yes, Joshua, no one can understand your opinion, For 2 reasons. One is you cannot explain it and the other is you do not understand it enough to explain it.
You just destroyed your basis for trolling.
Philjourda…I wasn’t serious..only pointing out the behavior was similar, I know there’s a enormous difference. Brandon has great insight and analysis many times…I can’t remember Joshua ever having an insightful moment
Sorry Chuckrr – I have to re-enable my sarcasm mode. 😉
“I think it’s probably a classic situation where if I have to “explain” it, then there’s likely no point in my doing so.”
Shorter summary: I can’t explain it.
If you don’t see the obvious problems with Jeff’s logic, then there’s no point in my “explaining” it to you. It has nothing to do with not being able to explain it – and your reasoning in jumping to that conclusion is another example of the same kind of problems with logic that Jeff displayed.
Translation – I have no clue what I am talking about, but will BS everyone so I am not forced to display my ignorance.
Here’s a free clue Joshua, as Kan said, you have no idea what you are talking about. Otherwise the explanation would be easy. The truth is you CANNOT explain it.
Ah. The logic of “skeptics.”
Arguing by assertion.
The argument that without having evidence (evidence that I can’t provide an explanation as opposed to choose not to because I think it would be pointless) a conclusion is justified.
The argument that I’m lying when I say that I see no point in providing an “explanation” because I see differences as one of perspective that won’t be resolved.
The argument that I have “no idea what I’m talking about” when you don’t haven’t defined what I’m talking about, let alone that I “don’t know” what I’m talking about.
An argument based on confusing fact with opinion.
The argument of personal attack as a counterpoint.
The argument of understanding “truth.”
The list goes on.
==> ” Otherwise the explanation would be easy. ”
Indeed, the explanation is easy. Which is exactly, as I said, why there’s no point in spelling it out. It is easy. I assume that you’re all reasonably intelligent people, If you can’t see the illogic of Jeff’s sentence, which is very obvious, then there’s no point in offering an “explanation” as you won’t agree.
I love your kind of logic. Really, I do. Please keep on with it.
No Joshua, you made a claim. Before anyone can rebut it, you have to support it. You declined to even attempt to do so, which means it is YOUR assertion. Since there is no support, it is only an opinion. So there is nothing to rebut.
Do you even understand science? This last post shows you have no clue what you are talking about.
Joshua,
You stated that I was illogical and refused to say in what manner. Debate lost.
Rather a boring debate too.
==> “You stated that I was illogical and refused to say in what manner.
I haven’t “refused.” I have declined as if you don’t see the illogic in your statement, there’s no point in me providing an “explanation.
Meanwhile, in defense of the follow-in illogial argument you just made, other self-described “skeptics” have added a long list of additional fallacious arguments – which only reinforces my original assertion.
==> “Debate lost.”
I always love it when people involved in a discussion, {1) envision it as a “debate” to be lost or won and, (2) on the basis of an arbitrary (meaning subjective) metric, declare themselves to have “won” the debate.
I’m not “debating’ with you. I attempted to have a discussion, with a discussion of the illogic in your argument as a starting point. The fact that you consider it a “debate” to be won or lost only underlines the futility of trying to “explain” your illogic.
But if it makes you feel better about yourself to have turned a discussion into a “debate” and declared yourself the winner, knock yourself out. I’m sure that you will have a number of brilliant ;logicians (who just coincidentally align with you ideologically) who will agree. Y’all can all feel good about yourselves. It’s probably very emotionally satisfying for you.
@Joshua – you declined because you cannot. It is a common cop out especially for those who have no clue, but strong opinions. Your problem Joshua is you are not dealing with a fool. So you have to act like one to get your point across.
You lost. You have convinced all readers of both your dishonesty and lack of intellectual ability.
Here, let’s try this one out:
Can you see the illogic in Kuhncat’s characterization of what Brandon has been arguing? It too, is abundantly obvious. It’s just a matter of exercising basic, simple principles of logic. It’s something that someone of your intelligence can surely do if you can get beyond your own biases.
If you can “explain” the illogic of Kuhnkat’s comment, then maybe I’ve underestimated your ability to analyze logic in this context, and maybe I’ll reconsider and throw you a bone and “explain” the illogic of the sentence I excerpted.
I asked for an explanation. You replied that I couldn’t possibly understand and gave us nothing to even figure out what you are talking about. Then you accuse us of being biased with no foundation for any of it.
This is all feelings on your part Joshua. No logic in sight as far as the eye can see. Nobody has a clue what you THINK you are talking about.
Feelings are not logic Joshua, they are just feelings.
I am not going to acknowledge Brandon’s false arguments until he puts my comment in correct context. That includes any replies to his argument. The man borders on Libel in my opinion.
Here is a logical question for your clearly superior mind,
Jeff Id watched a group of extremists use non-violent methods to cause a different group of extremists to react violently, and didn’t say the first group was bad people, therefore Jeff Id supports the first group of extremists and all of their views.
True or False
Joshua, so you can understand the problem with my statement but can’t understand the problems with Brandon’s??
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
Let me just say that Brandon, and you, have not been sterling about separating yourselves from Islam and the argument.
I have made an assertion and, at best, Brandon’s ego is making it impossible for him to admit some fault making my statement seem plausible. You appear to be falling on his sword.
Sorry, belongs here:
https://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2015/12/15/yet-another-blog-kerfuffle/#comment-223212
Kuhncat –
Another logic problem. Just because I see an obvious logical problem with your comment doesn’t mean that I don’t find a logical problem with Brandon’s argument.
That’s exactly the kind of logical problem that I’ve been pointing to throughout this thread. You are reasoning about this context by means of adding and concluding things that are not logically connected to this discussion. There is nothing that I’ve said here that can logically support your conclusion that I don’t think that there are problems with Brandon’s argument.
No, you just admitted you are pointing to NOTHING logical. You are espousing a “perspective” you yourself admitted you do not understand and cannot explain.
I’m pleased to see you can be honest with your reply on my question. Brandon has come to an opposite conclusion and put my quote completely out of context so that others would also come to that conclusion. As to Kuhnkats reply which you asked if I could see the logic problem with. A cold review of the reply taken in that single instance alone would indicate that Brandon offered no apology for the Muslim community. I have to admit, that I stopped reading his thread after the first day. I did pick out a few comments but I’m sure you can imagine how it seems to me when there are a bunch of emotional people piling on to Brandons comment, even though there is plenty of defense of what I wrote.
So without rereading over there, if Brandon wrote anything at all in that thread which Kuhnkat picked up on that supports that the poor innocent muslims are persecuted or have been removed from their homelands by evil US policy, even without saying directly that their actions are acceptable, I would have to side with Kuhnkat that he WAS in fact, acting as an apologist. If he did not then without some other evidence, the comment here went too far. I still don’t feel sorry for Brandon because the whole post is a bunch of exaggerated falsehoods that he refuses to correct.
Jeff –
IMO, this repeats the logic problem when you say:
Whereas kuhncat says:
I mean really, if you don’t see the logic problem there then there really is no point of trying to explore our differing views further. I mean we could discuss whether or not we could agree on a definition of “the Muslim community” as to fit with what is in fact, a “violent, medieval cult,” and perhaps we would disagree, but equating the two without having done that first is just a basic problem of logic. It is referencing to unlike terms as if they are like terms. And what is “the Muslim community” anyway? The use of the definite article there makes the expression so devoid of context as to be meaningless (is there only one “Muslim community” that can be uniformly characterized in all respects?) in the least, if not actually just incoherent.
But w/o even getting into that, here’s my basic view. It is extremely unlikely that Brandon would be an “apologist” for a “violent, medieval cult,” just as it is extremely unlikely that you would support all the views of racist extremists. Even in the extremely unlikely situation where either of you held such views (which as I said is extremely unlikely), the likelihood of you actually expressing such views openly in this forum is so minimal that I’d say that it’s damn near impossible. So if Brandon interprets what you’ve written that way or you’ve interpreted Brandon’s views that way, I would say it is far, far, far more likely that something that you and he said, respectively, was misunderstood. That kind of misunderstanding can happen for any variety of reasons, but IMO, if one of you draws such a conclusion, particularly if such a conclusion is drawn with a high degree of certainty, particularly if that certainty wasn’t tested through a systematic process of checking for assumptions and clarifying meaning, then there is a clear breakdown in the logic of the reasoning of the person doing the interpreting.
Now I have seen this kind of problem with Brandon’s reasoning many times in the past. For example, his whole, often repeated, argument form of “If you think X then you are insane” is similar. It should present to him an obvious logical problem – not the least because he uses that line of reasoning (or other similar reasoning) so often. I’ve seen enough of what you have to say to conclude that there is no convincing evidence to support a contention that you are “insane” or “delusional” (or someone who would, openly or not, support all the beliefs of racist bigots). So if Brandon says something like: “If that is your belief than you are delusional,” (not a direct quote) it should logically occur to him that there’s something that he misunderstood. You aren’t insane, you’re not delusional, so that would mean that X is not what you believe. There must be a problem that lies in the connection between what you said and how he interpreted what you said. An issue I’ve seen often with Brandon, and one that I’ve pointed out to him many times, is that he tends to confuse his opinions with facts. It first started with me teasing him for his conclusion that if he doesn’t agree with something that someone said, that therefore means that what they said “doesn’t make sense.” It may not make sense to him, or he may disagree, or he may think that what the person said isn’t logically coherent, but for him to conclude with certainty, as he so often does, that what someone says “doesn’t make sense,” because he thinks it doesn’t make sense or because he doesn’t agree with it is a logical problem in that it confuses his opinion with fact.
Of course, all that said, I’m much closer to Brandon’s views on the topic of discussion related to issues of Islam and Muslims than I am with yours.
” It is extremely unlikely that Brandon would be an “apologist” for a “violent, medieval cult,””
That is a fair and reasonable view – as long as he didn’t actually do so in even the context I expressed above, and I’m not interested in parsing HIS comments. Objectivity is hard to come by.
I’m not sure what to say for the rest. Brandon mis-characterized nearly everything I said (with intent) so I’m not sure what view of his you are closer on. My comment was my comment and he was unwilling to post it in full. If you are closer to his view, I would be happy to learn in which way because all I see from him is emotionally based attack.
If there is some aspect of this you would not mind opining on in direct form, rather than implied, I would be interested.
Jeff
Your ‘tolerate everything but intolerance’ is unanswerable. The US now has a president whose motto seems to be ‘encourage everything intolerant’ for example, in Cuba and Iran. Too much of the debate is caught up in meanderings about medieval Christianity and its faults (never its successes); and how Islam is thus ‘behind the times’.
Most people seem never to have read the Koran, nor to have understood the importance of debates around multiple editions and its textual contradictions. They thus burble about ‘right wingery’, failing to grasp the implications of their own dedication to communitarian ‘right wing’ ideas which first appeared in Germany.
Does the Koran incite murder? Yes. Do most Muslims ignore this? Yes. So why do Islamist radicals throw themselves on the flames, taking as many others with them as they can? The answer lies in the Koran itself, from its very inception faced with the problem of multiple, different editions, all containing many contradictions.
Western commentators make a habit of talking about ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ (ie, ‘good’ and ‘bad’) interpretations of the Koran, but this is not true. ‘The Recital’ (Arabic: ‘Koran’) is held to be the absolute word of the absolute God. And the answer to the contradictions, multiple editions etc. is the rule of ‘abrogation’ – whenever Allah contradicts himself (!) the later assertion is His actual meaning. Thus, though the earlier verses speak of peace and brotherhood, these are contradicted by the later verses which talk continually of punishment and beheading unbelievers etc. These verses are the word of God. Allah knows all, sees all, so He can contradict himself at will (though sometimes a demon is brought in (as in the Satanic Verses); or the problems are the work of Jews and Christians).
Islamic radicals take all this very seriously indeed, as well they might, for the punishments for unbelief are….well.. unbelievable and horrible; and that is why they wish to kill us. For,as they realise, we inheritors of the dogma of a creator God who gave us free will, to discover truth by our own efforts, have done better thereby.
There is no logic in either form. Both are assertions: The problem with X is Y. That is an assertion. It contains no logic. That you can replace any X and any Y is trivial.
A more complete sentence is The problem with X is Y because of Z, which is a property of X.
The problem with Islam is that it mandates itself to be the only law and the only religion and offers several paths to achieve it: Conversion, taxation of Christians, or death of infidels. Whether Christians are infidels is somewhat variable. As we witnessed in Oregon in particular, some Muslims consider Christians to be especially worthy of death.
The problem with Christianity is that it is weak. The religion itself mandates no penalty for anything in this life save only to be disfellowshipped from the community. That’s okay; if you don’t want to play by the community rules it would seem strange for them to continue to invite you to the block parties but some are good neighbors even if you don’t go to their church.
Another problem with Christianity is nobody can say authoritatively what it is. It is easier to say what it is not; one need only inspect its source — Jesus! What it is not is throwing stones and killing enemies. It does, however, allow for self and even group defense. Jesus advised his disciples to buy a sword even if they had to sell a garment to do it. He didn’t say arsenal, but some sort of defense was not only permitted but appears to have been required.
Islam also comes in a few flavors but since it denies all prophecy after Mohammad, it cannot be modernized.
This was also amusing:
==> “CNN is succeeding in electing Hillary tonight by making Republicans look like war mongers. Fantastic strategy on their part.”
Right. CNN is “making” Republicans look like warmongers. Obviously, none of them have any agency over whether they look like war mongers. For example, Cruz has no option but to call for carpet bombing (including of civilian areas) and turning sand into glass. None, whatsoever. I mean it’s not like the Republican candidates see any political advantage in fear-mongering about the threat of terrorism, and design their rhetoric accordingly.
Playing the victim card never gets old, I guess.
So you don’t think CNN was smart enough to implement this strategy? I was disappointed that the panel didn’t figure it out.
==> ” I was disappointed that the panel didn’t figure it out.”
IMO, they are more than content to exploit fear about terrorism for political purpose. It isn’t that they “didn’t figure it out,” but that fear-mongering is a deliberate political strategy on their part. Of course, that isn’t a characteristic that’s true of Republicans any more than Democrats, in general. It’s been clear all along that Trump has refined that strategy with a clear intent to utilize it, what has been left to question is how many of the other candidates would move in that direction in response, with the knowledge that there is a political downside (not so much in the primaries, but in the general election). It has been interesting to watch the calculus employed by the other candidates in that regard. Bush’s calculation, clearly, is to go in a different direction…it will be interesting to see if it give him a bump. I doubt it.
This is the basic conundrum that the Republican candidates face…a conundrum that has existed for a while but they haven’t yet gotten a handle on. Of course, moving to the extremes in the primaries and then moving to the center in the general is a more long-standing pattern that has existed with both parties for a long time. But it seems to me that the problem has become a more fundamental one for the Republican party more recently, as a more extreme ideology has gained a stronger purchase.
To bring it back to the discussion of climate change…it is interesting that mainstream Republlicans are closer in view to independents than they are to tea partiers.
Joshua, the relentless promoter of climate fear and his anthropomorphic climate obsession, says that Republicans are using fear for political purposes.
Thanks for the irony, Joshua.
Hi Hunter – what happened to the “just passing through” moniker?
When have I promoted “climate fear.” Please be specific.
And Hunter –
Even if it were true (which it isn’t) that I’m guilty of fear-mongering, it would not have any relevance to the current massive fear-mongering among Republican candidates for president.
Perhaps it’s better if you leave “Mommy, they did it firrrrrrst” to middle-schoolers?
Yes, there are muslim dominated no-go zones (The Word is slightly inaccurate but alright) in the cities of Europe. When I was a child the police could go anywhere. Nowhere, and I mean nowhere, would they risk being attacked by a mob solely because they were the police. Oh and firemen and ambulances could go anywhere in Denmark of course. Immigration (tecnically refugees), predominantly muslim, in the last couple of decades has changed things dramatically. With now 5% of the population suddenly muslim we see behaviour we have never observed before.this country. A muslim mob of hundreds attacking the admittance section in a hospital for instance. Now they have installed guards at the hospital. That was completely unnecessary before.
In my hometown of Odense (Denmark) a group of 10 policeofficers on patrol to make people in the muslim dominated area feel safe was suddenly attacked by a large group of young males and boys throwing stones., glass bottles and Molotov coctails at the officers.
The case has now reached the court.
.
“A tall well-built cop, who in the past has been posted as a soldier in Afghanistan, described the experience as being in a war zone.
The policeman found himself behind the wheel of one of the patrol cars, which the 9. June of this year, was hit on the bumper of a so-called molotov cocktail, when a large group of youths attack police during a routine effort that would increase security for the residents in the area.
The approximately 10 officers were instead greeted by stone’s throw and fire bombs from up to 50 young people.
‘ There was so much fire that I could not see out of the windshield. And then I could just hear the sound of stones that hit the frame, ‘ explained a cop in court.”
http://jyllands-posten.dk/indland/politiretsvaesen/ECE8309640/Betjent-efter-angreb-i-Vollsmose-Det-var-som-en-krigszone/?ref=lokalavisen
.
And Denmark has far less immigration than Sweden which is now number two in the world after Lesotho when countries are ranked according to rapes pr 100.000 inhabitants. Of course there are still people who fail to see where this is going but their numbers are falling fast.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/swedens-ugly-immigration-problem/article26338254/
According to Brandon, what you are saying is completed bunk:
“We’ll see if anyone pushes back against the user Chuckrr for defending the idea of no-go zones, relying on a site which uses the same propaganda Jeff Id did. I doubt it. Even though the claims he makes are easily seen to be false, it doesn’t appear any sort of skeptical mindset is at play here.” see: http://www.hi-izuru.org/wp_blog/2015/12/skeptics-arent-skeptical-a-case-study/#comment-8750
I would be curious to know if you agree with this characterization of no-go zones.
There is noone so blind as someone who does not want to see.
These zones can be found in most European cities, muslim enclaves that are dangerous to enter for anyone who is not a muslim.
A journalist tried to report from a Swedish no-go zone and was chased away with stones. “This is our land” they yelled to the female reporter.
http://www.expressen.se/nyheter/reporter-jagades-i-vag-med-stenkastning/
Sweden has some serious problems
From the New York Times..(another right wing organ)…”Belgian Minister Says Government Lacks Control Over Neighborhood Linked to Terror Plots” and several years ago during the French riots….. “Branded by France’s police intelligence agency as one of the country’s 150 “no go zones,” where police officers should enter only with major reinforcements,”
There are many more that can be resourced in seconds…admittedly most are by right wing sources like the NYT, NBC the AP and the like.
Yeah the’re not technically no go zones You just don’t go in there without plenty of back up.
This is just another case of redefining reality because it inconveniently doesn’t support somebodies cause And some people…like Brandon assume it’s true because it supports their presumptions.
And Brandon I enjoy a lot of your comments. You certainly know how to stir things up. But it seems to me that you have a hard time realizing the proportional importance of different parts of an issue. Kind of like the grammar Nazi’s ( they get after me big time} And winning the argument seems to be your overriding priority. On the other hand my take could be completely wrong
No, that is my impression too.
Hub –
Unlike you, I retained belief in a deity. That said, your pithy description of the issue under discussion here was superb.
Belief? I have experienced The Force.
Joshua –
As Bill Maher pointed out the other day, a reputable poll of Muslims in Indonesia came up with the fact that fully 18% support the idea of honor killings. Indonesia is often held up as a model of a tolerant Muslim society.This is a practice that is frankly inconceivable to adherents of any other religion in the world.
When a quantitative difference such as this becomes such a chasm it becomes a qualitative difference. There really is a difference between Islam and every other religion in the world.
This is exactly the point I was trying to make. We want to all be the same, we really do, but this culture is sub-par in the modern world. I don’t really understand why people can’t look back at their teachings over the years, their strongest beliefs, and question them. The critics of my post have this strange blind spot where they simply call me a bigot, or intolerant or whatever name they can think of without recognizing that there might be a problem. There is NO percentage of honor killings which will change their mind. No percentage of these people who commit terrorist acts will allow them to reconsider their beliefs. The idea that a high fraction of these people want to kill them means literally nothing because of the non-discriminatory training we have all received. You can say literally 90%, and it won’t mean anything because there are 10 percent more who are good guys.
Sadly, we are in an era of political correctness. While the administration refuses to call the problem by its name, for fear of stigmatizing the “non-violent” Muslims, he and the other PC crowd have no problem condemning every gun owner whenever a gun is used in a murder, even though (by FBI statistics) 99.9975% of all guns are never used to kill another person. Political correctness will be the death of us. If you cannot identify a problem (for whatever reason), you cannot fix it.
“We want to all be the same, we really do”. Yes, there’s a lot of wishful thinking around – a lot! The problems arise when you try to force all to be the same (as in the case of nazism, communism, islam, the European Union etc), and/or you just turn the blind eye when it is obvious that people are not the same culturally, religiously. Really bad choices (personally, politically) are made when we are blind (often by choice) to the fact that people, cultures, religions are different. The same can be said if we acknowledge that cultures, religions are different but claim their moral equivalence. When we let the distinctions between good and bad disappear from this world, that’s when the devil comes marching in triumphantly yelling: “that’s what I have been saying all along”.
.
We are all equal, yes – before God.
A story to ponder:
“A story for which [general] Napier is often noted involved Hindu priests complaining to him about the prohibition of Sati by British authorities. This was the custom of burning a widow alive on the funeral pyre of her husband. As first recounted by his brother William, he replied:
“Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs.””
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_James_Napier
I have asked several time for a list of countries that have been claimed as “vast Muslim populations that are peaceful.”
To date, no list is ever forthcoming.
Indonesia. Malaysia. No question. As for others, it depends on what you call ‘peaceful.’ More peaceful than America? In terms of murders, participation in wars… almost all of them. In terms of rape and domestic violence? Probably few.
Pick your poison.
I’m sure those Indonesian statistics are pretty accurate.
Thomaswfuller2,
I’m with Chuckrr on this that the stats probably don’t represent the true nature of what is happening. For instance, are honor killings included, are state sponsored murder for religious beliefs reported? How many violent acts resulting in death are reclassified for religious purposes? Probably a lot.
But that was not really the point I was making. The bulk of my comment was about repression of women, implementation of evil Sharia law, and the acceptance of violence in the name of religion as a normal aspect of Muslim lives. 95 percent of women in Saudi might be happy that they are not allowed to drive, but that means there are 5 percent who are being repressed. If they speak out, you can be sure the reaction will be violent and disproportionately aggressive. Sexual mutilation, stoning, four witnesses for rape, these are not modern values and it is dangerous in a democracy to introduce too large a population too quickly. Sharia law must never be implemented in America and should be abolished from the planet as the ignorant cult-like practice it is, but abolition is an Islamic problem, not mine. Unless of course we try to implement it here for cranial inverted politically correct reasons.
We probably won’t agree on any of this but there are no Christian leaders promoting the murder of Muslims in order to go to heaven. That is a very big difference which cannot be addressed by going back to the crusades and saying they are the same. It simply isn’t objective in our modern world.
Hiya Jeff and Chuck,
No, Indonesia is pretty peaceful.
Glad to hear it. So serious question having never been there, are women allowed to drive, vote, dress and go out in public as they wish?
So is the US if you exclude some of the democratically controlled enclaves like Chicago, Detroit and Washington…just needling you about the dem…. part I know it’s more complicated. But my point is I’ve never seen a murder or had anyone I know murdered. From my perspective the US is very peaceful if I didn’t read or see TV reports about it. Some parts of Indonesia may be very peaceful and some parts might not be. Like any country
Tom, Indonesia is huge and complex. Painting it as amazingly peaceful is simplistic. What is definitely true is that, unlike the Arab Muslim world, they do not have the same deep fatalism, as in “Insh’Allah” – “If God wills it,” as their basic trope. Nor are they “Arabic” speaking, which means syncretism – the amalgamating of different religious traditions – actually functions among SE Asian Muslims (unlike among the Arabs).
Other themes are depressingly familar, since 60 some percent of Indonesians are anti-semitic, while among the Buddhists of Thailand it’s barely above 10%. Or THIS:
“Soon after Australia’s Attorney General expressed concerns about the Islamic State forming a “distant caliphate” in Indonesia — the world’s most heavily populated Muslim-majority country — it was reported that a group of terrorism suspects arrested over the weekend may have received funding from ISIS in Syria.” http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/12/23/indonesia-terror-suspects-may-used-islamic-state-funds/
Plus ca change.
Orson – Re: Indonesia – Indeed. I guess some have never heard of East Timor.
Jeff Id:
Hi Jeff, this is an exceptionally broad statement about a multiply-schismed religion of over a billion people, with no backing evidence provided. It leaves you fairly open to accusations of exaggeration or guesswork, due to its scope and ambiguity if nothing else.
I do think ISIS and their associated groups are an evil that need to be defeated completely,I’m not sure statements like this are a help.
It should be easy to find one country that will refute his point. But I have not seen any.
Well ok, what threats have the Muslim leaders (whoever they are) in Indonesia, the nation with the highest population of Muslims, made to destroy the US, Israel and Christians? I haven’t heard of any, and I’d like to know if they have – if you know, please share.
(This partly depends on what is meant by leaders, I’m assuming it means something like those in senior public positions in the larger Muslim groups in Indonesia).
OneUniverse,
Please take some time and read the Quran and the Hadiths. Pay close attention to Quran chapter 2:106 on abrogation, check out the history of which chapters and verses were written first, and then realize that many of the violent passages were written AFTER the peaceful ones abrogating, or replacing, the peaceful ones.
Again, also realize that Christians use Jesus, who preached peace and understanding as their role model while Islam uses a violent, greedy pedophile with mental issues as their role model. Tends to help understand why after prayer on Friday Muslim mobs go out burning, raping, and killing…
The Hadiths are also called the sunna, the root for Sunni, who are the most commonly encountered Jihadis. They are stories about Mo the perverted violent pedophile. The Shia only do things like cut themselves and build nukes to instigate the end times to bring back their hidden Imam…
All the other sects are so small as to be inconsequential. The Sunnis are about 85-90% and the Shia are about 10-15%. The rest are so small as to be below 1%. Yeah, that diversity is rather over hyped by leftards who don’t want to understand…
The Sunni and the Shia see the others as not believing the true religion, including each other. The war in the Middle East is more a conflict between Sunni and Shia at the moment. ISIS is Sunni and the Syrians are aligned with the Iranian Shia. Saudi Arabia and other Sunni countries are supporting the revolution in Syria against Assad, who is aligned with Shia and supported Hizbullah, again primarily Shia. In Africa we are starting to see Shia murdered by Sunni Jihadis also as the holy war gets rolling.
OneUniverse, one other difference between Christians and Muslims. Our Bible tells us that God sacrificed his son for us. The Quran tells muslims to kill others and sacrifice themselves for Allah… I don’t believe any other religion tells people to sacrifice themselves and kill others for their god or belief either unless it is some form of Satanism…
oneuniverse writes: “Hi Jeff, this is an exceptionally broad statement about a multiply-schismed religion of over a billion people, with no backing evidence provided. It leaves you fairly open to accusations of exaggeration or guesswork, due to its scope and ambiguity if nothing else.”
Wrong. Unfortunately, I do not have the Pew, et al, polling at the ready, contradicting your claim. But just check it out sometime; it’s around and it’s depressingly in support of Jeff’s sweeping statement.
For instance, from memory: the University of California press commissioned “Understanding Jihad” by Rice University’s David Cook. He finds that ALL five dominant schools of Islamic Jurisprudence understand the duty of Jihad to mean violence against the infidel.
Whether that means 80% or 95% of all Muslims concur is a moot point. (Religious stats in poor nations are like other stats in poor nations: difficult to ascertain.) The point is that Jeff is essentially correct.
Jeff, great post. Thanks for sticking to your guns.
I have appreciated your blog from the days of its high profile and significant work with the climategate fraud, to today’s modest pace.
Thanks much.
Am on the same page, Hunter. Jeff, have always appreciated your insightful and interesting posts. I continue to frequent your site, though I understand the difficulty of posting. As this furor indicates, this is a very hard topic. I would add my my 2 cents worth. for anyone that is ‘defending’ Islam, show us a country (any country) that is dominated by Islam where you would live with your spouse and children. I’ve lived in Muslim countries, and they are in fact full of ‘peaceful’ Muslims, because they kill or drive off all non Muslims.
This appears to be a good news.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/12/17/dont-speak-for-me-new-muslim-groups-reject-cair-representation.html?intcmp=hpbt1
Agreed – this seems like good news too.
From Indonesia, a Muslim Challenge to the Ideology of the Islamic State
Religious reform in the Middle East (and Pakistan / Bangladesh) seems much more difficult though, and often dangerous for the reformers.
I wouldn’t get you hopes up Dr. Zuhdi Jasser has been out there all along. The meme is carried by what the press chooses to cover. CAIR quotes, Obama, a few other politicians and a few celebrities. You know the drill …tolerance, guns, American values..etc. Voices like Jasser are never given the podium. If he was the whole house of cards starts to tumble.
My father, who is 95, fought Fascist Germany for six years in WWII.
He has a cogent analysis of today’s “Islamic problem”
He regards extreme/fundamentalist Islam as just another form of Fascism.
Today’s politicians have forgot the lessons of history.
1) You cannot appease Fascists.
2) You cannot negotiate with Fascists
3) They must be confronted and destroyed.
End of history lesson.
Muslims understand “the strong horse” theory of rule – as Bin Laden did. People follow the strong horse – first when Saddam ruled Iraq, then when Bush did, and now that ISIS does (and Obama doesn’t). Among Arab Muslim fatalists, STRENGTH is a sign of Allah’s provenance.
My father also says that those UK citizens who go to fight for ISIS have made their choice. They are traitors to their country.
If they dare to return they should face Court Martial and if guilty taken out and shot.
Like you I was brought up a catholic then became an atheist now I suppose I’m a lapsed atheist.
In my passage through life I have met Muslims ,Sikhs,Buddhists,Hindus and various varieties of Christian.
Now it might be just a coincidence of course but to me the Muslims came across as quite arrogant and showed little interest in blending in with the rest of us.
Other folk may have a different tale to tell.
Areas occupied by adherents of the Muslim religion seems to coincide with backwardness and a culture little changed from 500AD
Because of this, Kemal Ataturk tried to reform Turkey and make it a secular state, but all his work seems to be being reversed by Erdogan the Turkish President.
https://www.rt.com/news/326372-erdogan-erdem-chp-syria-sarin/
Now Trump has a tendency to make non pc headlines to get publicity but I agreed with him this far when he said
stop Muslim immigration till “we find out what the hell is going on”!
USA is supposed to be at war with IS
Turkey is supposed to be an ally of the USA
Yet it is common knowledge that Turkey facilitates the movement of IS fighters through its borders and also facilitates the transfer of stolen oil from Syria and Iraq to fund IS operations.
Turkey also bombed the Kurds who are currently the best ground troops against IS.
“What the hell is going on”…..indeed!
The danger for the rest of the world is that Turkey will attack the Russian forces in Syria then hide behind NATO.
Third World War is at its highest alert since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
This is quite ironic. Turkey needs Israel:
http://news.yahoo.com/turkey-needs-israel-says-erdogan-133335552.html
What correct physics is telling us is explained here where you are invited to make a submission for a reward of several thousand dollars if you can prove the thermodynamics wrong and produce a study showing opposite results to mine which showed that more moist regions have both lower daily maximum and minimum temperatures than drier regions at similar latitude and altitude.
Q.1: What is the sensitivity for each 1% of water vapor in the atmosphere?
Q.2: Based on your answer to Q.1, how much warming does a mean of 1.25% of water vapor produce?
Q.3: Also based on the above, how much hotter should be a rain forest with 4% WV compared with a dry region with 1% WV?
Q.4: Taking into account the fact that solar radiation reaching Earth’s surface ranges between zero and about 1,000W/m^2 with a mean between 160 and 170W/m^2 and that radiation from the colder atmosphere is known not to penetrate water more than a few nanometers (thus unable to “warm” it) explain, using the Stefan Boltzmann equation and a typical range of flux between 0 and 1,000W/m^2 how the ocean surface reaches observed temperatures.
For answers, study the new 21st century paradigm shift in climate change science which will be widely publicized in 2017 and common knowledge by 2025 whilst the current hiatus continues until about 2028 to 2030. Long-term (500 year) natural cooling will start before 2100 and mean temperatures will not rise more than about 0.4 to 0.6 degree before the cooling starts, as shown here.
Who’s next to take me on?
Jeff, I’m a little late to this party, but thank you for your measured, informed and thoughtful post at Lucia’s (as well as the one above) in response to Brandon’s self-serving, context-free ramblings – liberally peppered with far too frequently recycled juvenile insults in lieu of rational, informed and/or responsive argument and adult discussion.
I had stumbled across an example of his completely unwarranted (and ill-informed, as increasingly seems to be too often the case, when he chooses to stray from matters about which one might respect and appreciate his knowledge) ultra nit-picky superficiality, as was evident in his whining about the content of Anthony’s post regarding his recent AGU poster presentation.
In that regard, I’ve also noticed that Brandon’s response to anyone who clearly has more experience and knowledge of the matter at hand than he does, more often than not tends to be … well, sounds of silence. Unless, of course the poster happens to make the fatal error of proffering a new bone-fragment on which Brandon can duly pick and begin to gnaw, in his all too typical context-free way.
The above led me to Brandon’s blog, just to see his “reconstruction” … where I found his post re your post. Or some path along those lines! But I digress …
I’m not entirely sure what Brandon’s problem might be – perhaps because he’s the unfortunate product of a post-modern education. But it seems to me that context doesn’t enter into any of Brandon’s ramblings (here, there and everywhere – including, in some instances, his very own blog!)
He has his pet (utterly juvenile and insulting) words and phrases, which he hurls hither and yon with great abandon. So one is left with the impression that it must be so, because … well … simply Because! Brandon! Said! So! – regardless of how obviously superficial his actual knowledge of the matter at hand might be.
Particularly when compared to the views of a professional (or, heaven forfend, even that of one whose knowledge derives from several years of following the matter under discussion). In such instances, Brandon’s opinions strongly suggest that he might have devoted mere superficial glances, at best, while he seeks for (an often irrelevant) bone on which to pick and gnaw, ad nauseam.
And once Brandon has picked on a bone, far too many observations of him in rhetorical action strongly suggest that (not unlike an untrained puppy), he simply cannot let it go. No matter how far afield he has to run to keep gnawing on his little bone – and/or his preferred (and, sadly, far too often context – and/or helpful linked reference – free) fragment(s) thereof might be.
I have to say, I find the comments here hilarious. What I also find hilarious is I’ve now reposted the original post with the context Jeff Id demanded I include, asking people to indicate what, if anything, about the post’s conclusions has changed. Jeff Id immediately showed up to say:
I met his demands to show how silly those demands were, and rather than show the changes he had demanded I make actually affected anything about the post, Jeff Id showed up to make some hand-wavey accusations and call the post “another nonsense post.”
I think that goes a long way to showing Jeff Id’s spamming and cursing at my site to complain about this supposed lack of context was really just a useless distraction.
Dude, I gave up on you a long time ago. You forced me to write my own post remember. This whole thing wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for your dishonesty.
I wrote the post already and reached a far wider audience. It is too late to have that reasonable discussion jackalope!
Jeeez
Historically, Immigrants to the West have greatly
contributed to their new countries, but I wonder how
adherents of a religion that opposes free speech
and women’s equality in law, can be supposed to
honestly uphold the oath of allegiance to the nation’s
democratic constitution?
Beth, do you know what that oath is? I don’t and can think only of pledging allegiance to the flag which is what we’ve been doing since we were kids.
From the US Citizensship and Immigration Service:
Naturalization Oath of Allegiance to the United States of America
thanks much.
Does anyone who reads here have any idea whether Islam contemplates the devout living in a secular state. I ask because Christianity suggests that things which are Caesars should be rendered unto Caesar and God’s rendered unto God. And Christianity had the further advantage if it was one of evolving in a truly hostile environment. Islam seems more to have filled a vacuum.
I would hope that most of us could respect the possibility that one could be a devout Muslim and an American patriot. If it really is impossible as many of you suggest then we are facing a problem we’ve apparently seldom met in the past.
I agree with the “apparent smoker” comment. I also agree with Mark Steyn. Where have all the liberals gone? A bridge too far. They profess to love those who by any other name they would hate. Substitute “neo-nazi” for “Muslim” and see how their acceptance changes, when the actions of the two groups are similar. To answer the objection that fascism is not a religion, note that Islam is much more than a religion, 97% more. One analysis of the Koran said all but 2.6% of the text was hatred of Jews and other religions. That may or may not be correct, but it is the inconvenient truth that the Koran is full of hate speech. Do we all worship the same God? That is pretty funny coming from a group of atheists, but it’s also sad to see so much ignorance. Say what you will of other holy books, but to anyone other than Muslims, it’s pretty clear that when the Koran says “Allah” that it really means Mohamed.
Are there any moderate Muslims? There used to be, in some countries before the fundamentalists took over and pointed out the error of their ways. Consider Western Values. They are largely based on Judaeo-Christian values, but you do not have to be religious to value them. It’s cultural, not religious. What does the typical Christian know of the Bible? Has the typical Christian read it all, does he understand it, other than a passage here and there? I think that any moderate Muslims are in the same state, believing in the Koran but not knowing so much about what it says. Then anyone who instructs them in what it says will be pushing them to what we mistakenly call “radical” Islam. Hate the sin love the sinner, someone said. I’d say, pity the Muslim but don’t idolize him.
Rushdie was on to something when he called them Satanic Verses.
My calendar says today is The Prophet’s birthday.
A moderate Muslim is one who stands and watches whilst the radical Muslim cuts off your head.
Many of my relatives have lived in Islamic countries. It was an “up and down” existence for most of us.
My uncle Clement Henson Brown lived in Alexandria, Egypt and wrote a book called “Egyptian Cotton”. My cousin David Brown is fluent in Arabic and five other languages. The Browns were thrown out of Egypt by Gamel Addel Nasser. At that time I was a member of the 3rd Royal Tank Regiment, ordered to invade Egypt. It takes time to move a tank regiment so the whole thing was called off by Anthony Eden while we were in transit. My uncle moved to Isreal where he bred long thread cotton until his retirement. Egypt lost a geneticist and Israel began to produce better cotton.
My uncle Tom Bull married a (very beautiful and vivacious) Lebanese lady. They lived in Beirut for many years when it was the Paris of the Orient. My cousin Alun is fluent in Arabic and several other languages.
My father worked for the Pakistan Army setting up a base workshop in Rawalpindi for repairing tanks (Centurion Mk3). I was 17 years old at the time and helped (on a volunteer basis) to repair HF mobile radios (#19 sets).
On arrival in Pakistan I was certified as an “Alcoholic” by a doctor and received written authorization to consume two cases of beer and one bottle of spirits per month. I detested beer and had never even tasted spirits. My Dad appreciated the bonus.
I met tribesmen armed with what appeared to be Lee Enfield Mk3 rifles that were produced in Pakistan rather than the Woolwich Arsenal. I spent weeks living with Moslems without any problems. I loved the spicy food and remain a curry fanatic to this day.
My brother-in-law was a military officer responsible for Ghurka troops during the partition of India.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/11292887/Brigadier-John-Thornton-obituary.html
Today, some of my closest friends were born in Islamic countries. For example I have a couple of Iranian friends who are awesome mechanical engineers. However, what really impresses me is the breadth of their education. Just to take one example, they know more about William Shakespeare than I do. I asked them whether the Mullahs control university education in Iran. The answer is that the Mullahs tried but eventually gave up. While the government of Iran is openly hostile to the USA, the general public does not share that hostility.
A month ago I attended the European Golf Tour Championship known as the “Race to Dubai”. The local supermarket is called “Spinneys”. While the United Arab Emirates are Islamic states they do cut us Infidels a little slack. You can buy much better bacon and pork products in Dubai than you can find at Walmart. However, you have to press a button to be admitted to the secure area where these excellent products are on display.
In my opinion, universities in Islamic countries are our friends while radical mosques with Madrassas preaching hate need to be watched closely.
“In my opinion, universities in Islamic countries are our friends while radical mosques with Madrassas preaching hate need to be watched closely.”
Well you would certainly know more than I about it. Do you find the high percentages of support for ISIS alarming?
Jeff,
The extent of support for ISIS is indeed alarming. It is amazing how many people will support regimes that carry out “Ethnic Cleansing”. Such actions are evil whether the victims are Christians, Jews, Kurds.
Appeasing evil is not a sound policy as Neville Chamberlain and Barack Obama have demonstrated.
What really alarms me is the way Europeans in the UK, France, Sweden, Germany and several other countries appease Moslems by allowing “No Go” areas:
http://downloads.cbn.com/cbnnewsplayer/cbnplayer.swf?aid=17933
Let’s make sure the USA learns from the European folly so that we do not repeat their mistakes. We should consider restricting immigration to the level that applied from 1924 to 1965. In other words close to zero. Donald Trump’s temporary restriction won’t be enough.
Because Jeff encourages free speech by example? It sure is hard sometimes, but nothing worthwhile is easy!
Jeff,
Engaging both Brandon AND Joshua in a single thread? Woa! There can exist no more pure a waste of time than that. Both are impossible PITA’s who have nothing constructive to add to a conversation, and who want only to argue…. with anyone unwise enough to engage them. Follow Judith’s lead: put both on moderation.
Steve, actually I was pretty impressed. I do think Jeff needs to consult someone about possibility of being masochistic. For myself, I feel pretty protected from getting into it with Brandon because I usually can;t figure out what he’s getting at.
I also keep thinking that I’m looking at a Turing test, sometimes with two computers instead of one.
They both fail the Turning test. Enough reason to not engage them.
That’s really good.
Yeah, I’m not the brightest LED in the room.
Actually, I thought Joshua might start to discuss reasonably but we never quite got there.
+1 for Turning test.
Jeff,
Joshua can’t ever accept that his standard-issue, mindless leftists views could be inconsistent with factual reality, though they very often are. So begins the dissembling, feigns, changes of subject, and ‘all political views and policies are arbitrary and so equally valid’. He could coach Hillary and Bill on avoiding acknowledgement of inconvenient facts. This all falls in the realm of bad faith. He is just not worth the effort.
Thank you Jeff, for your clear-headed post.
Many leftists are blind drunk on egalitarianism, such that they are in denial to the facts of reality. Why is that?
This topic is a frequent one for political, cultural, and psychiatric analysis at the blog “drsanity” – a professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of Michigan School of Medicine named Dr Patricia Santy (now retired; she also stopped updating her blog in 2012).
Just googling “drsanity” for topical blog posts is deeply enlightening. For example, over the Muslim riots over “Muhammed” cartoons in Denmark in 2006, she wrote on shame versus guilt cultures to explain the child-like explosive rage Muslim peoples were showing, internationally. SEE http://drsanity.blogspot.com/2006/02/shame-guilt-muslim-psyche-and-danish.html
Re-reading that post (above), I have to wonder if Leftists are not only aligned with Islam in practical or strategic orientation, but also internalized deceit? Let me quote a few paragraphs, and see if denial and coping with shame are not pretty much the same thing:
“A guilt culture (i.e., the West) is typically and primarily concerned with truth, justice, and the preservation of individual rights. As noted earlier, the emotion of guilt is what keeps a person from behavior that goes against his/her own code of conduct as well as the culture’s. Excessive guilt can, of course, be pathological.
“In contrast, in a typical shame culture (i.e., Arab/Islamic culture) what other people believe has a far more powerful impact on behavior than even what the individual believes. The desire to preserve honor and avoid shame to the exclusion of all else is one of the primary foundations of the culture.
“This desire has several side-effects, including granting the individual carte blanche to (1) engage in wrong-doing as long as no-one knows about it, or knows he is involved; and (2) engage in any necessary behavior, including wrong-doing (i.e., murder, beheading, etc.) in order to avoid shame and/or recover honor.
“Although it is hard for someone in a guilt culture to appreciate, it may be impossible for an individual in a shame culture to even admit to himself that he is guilty (even when he is)–particularly when everyone else considers him to be guilty–because of the shame involved. As long as others remain convinced he is innocent, the individuals does not experience either guilt or shame. A great deal of effort therefore goes into making sure that others are convinced of your innocence, even if you are guilty. Remember maintaining honor is what is important–not truth, not justice, and not tolerance or restraint.”
We see such shocking behavior in the Middle-East constantly. Sadly, Islam reinforces it.
Islam has, in fact, already had a Reformation: it is called Wahhabism (centered in Saudi Arabia). Wahhabism was a return to literalism in interpreting the religions texts. (And Wahhabism, like Salafism – ie, strict, orthodox Sunni Islam – and Khomeinism, are all forms of contemporary ‘radical Islam’ and terrorism, today.)
What Islam has not had is an Enlightenment.
We take this for granted in the West, for one of the fruits of our Protestant Reformation was religious toleration. It took about 200 years from the Wars of Religion to the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 to achieve. The treaty held that state religion would follow that of the the Prince, but dissenters in religion would be safe from persecution.
This result was explicit in the Bible at least two places because of separation of Church and State. (There is nothing like it within the Koran, and a unitary state that recognizes “the strong horse” prevails in Islamic politics. Which is why the Arab Spring was such an extraordinary development to those who cared to know.)
Islam has not arrived at toleration in religion, And we see with the mounting Middle-East genocide against Jews and Christians, it cannot accept it.
Why? Because Islamic texts and doctrines – from the Koran, the Haditha, through Sharia law – employ various methods to defeat secularizing the creed.
To us, this is their culture’s deep weakness – but to the Devout, it is an enormous strength and source of pride.
All strains of Jihadism today employ Ibn Taymiya’s 13th century call – rooted in the reaction to the Mongol invasion – to revive 7th century traditions and ordered doctrines of Muhammad’s age – that is, at the birth of Islam: hence, Jihad against the Infidel, Takiyya, and so on.
Denial of these ugly truths of difference between Islam’s primitivism and the Western quest for truth and justice is what I see people like Brandon have in common with Islam. As Dr Pat Santy wrote nine years ago:
“it may be impossible for an individual in a shame culture to even admit to himself that he is guilty (even when he is)–particularly when everyone else considers him to be guilty–because of the shame involved. As long as others remain convinced he is innocent, the individual does not experience either guilt or shame.
“A great deal of effort therefore goes into making sure that others are convinced of your innocence, even if you are guilty. Remember maintaining honor is what is important–not truth, not justice, and not tolerance or restraint.”
Is the internal world of a Leftist like the internal mind of a Muslim? Like Baghdad Bob? The spokesbot for Saddam Hussein, denying the existence of US tanks in Baghdad, despite the fact that they were evident on television? Almost in the same screen view?
And similarly, Leftists like Brandon and equally invested in denying the obvious falsifying fact of reality? And thus, both can be reduced to sputtering rage or nonsense.
Therefore, Leftists controlling the levers of power can be just as dangerous as the Muslim dictator in power, because they are similarly delusional.
“Therefore, Leftists controlling the levers of power can be just as dangerous as the Muslim dictator in power, because they are similarly delusional”
Says Michael above!
Surely it is this comment that is delusional and completely over the top.
Deal with the topic on hand.
Don’t try to fit every event into a right wing/left wing binary world
Your right wing bias fails to see that all Governments taking a soft line on ISIS are in fact right wing!
Turkey, Germany and so on.
The US was happy enough about ISIS as long as it attacked Assad.
Right wing governments created and funded ISIS.
Now that the terrorist monster they created is attacking western cities a panic has set in !
Ah. The old argument among socialists. Intermational socialism is left wing, national socialisme is right wing. To non-socialists, both are left wing and both reject personal choice in favor of centralized control for the good of the whole.
OK – yes. And those saying National Socialism is right wing are actually communists – ala Stalin as he was the one that started that myth.
“Right wing governments created and funded ISIS.” ???
Really? .. So, the Obama administration is “right wing” then? .. This administration created ISIS .. THIS ONE! .. Hellllloooo .. Benghazi .. what do you think Libya and Benghazi were all about? .. Did you just pop onto this planet this morning? .. You may say that “right wing governments” have fueled more Islamic jihad, and you would be correct, but so have “left wing governments”, equally so, if not more. ISIS was created by the United States (the Obama administration) arming Syrian “rebels” .. those “rebels” ARE ISIS!!!
And Bryan, on cue, demonstrates that lefties are shame based. ISIS did not exist prior to the Obama Administration, but time lines and facts are not really important to the Bryans of the world.
Generality:
Women’s natural internal culture is based on appearance – shame
Men (in the West) are guilt based.
Jeff,
If you would like to get a better understanding of Islam, what it is, it’s history, from a very reputable scientist, who has taken a very methodical and scientific approach to understanding Islam and its history, I highly recommend reading and listening to Bill Warner, PhD at http://www.politicalislam.com/ … For all of you here on this blog that “think” you know a little bit about Islam, unless you have been through one of his seminars, you don’t know jack. This is probably one of the best sources of information you will ever find.
wow.
Here’s a summary of Muslim violence in the US.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/12/29/geller-jihad-in-america-2015-the-danger-to-the-homeland-has-never-been-greater/
Europe is now very volatile due to Muslim immigrants. Here is what the Swiss Army chief said recently:
…
The Swiss army chief André Blattmann warned in the newspaper Switzerland on Sunday of social unrest in Europe. He sees the increasing aggression in public discourse and an explosive hazard situation.
…
Blattmann writes, the risk situation is considerably: The terrorist threat climb, hybrid wars threaten the peace in the world. In addition, there is an economic crisis. Even in the big Wandeungsbewegungen of refugees and migrants looks Blattmann a hazard.
Blattmann: “Social unrest can not be ruled out”, the vocabulary in public discourse will “dangerously aggressive”: “. The mixture is increasingly unappetizing” Blattmann sees the basis of Swiss prosperity, “has long been once again called into question.” He recalls the situation around the two world wars in the last century and advises Switzerland, to arm themselves.
…
http://deutsche-wirtschafts-nachrichten.de/2015/12/30/iwf-chefin-lagarde-gibt-sehr-pessimistische-prognose-fuer-2016-ab/
From the article:
…
The Border Patrol nabbed two Pakistani men with ties to terrorism at the U.S.-Mexico border in September in the latest instance of illegal immigrants from so-called “special interest countries” using the southern border as a point of entry to the U.S.
Muhammad Azeem and Mukhtar Ahmad, both in their 20s and from Gujrat, were caught Sept. 20 by agents south of San Diego and just over the international border from Tijuana. When agents checked their identities through databases they got hits on both of them: Mr. Ahmad popped up as an associate of a known or suspected terrorist, while Mr. Azeem’s information had been shared by a foreign government for intelligence purposes.
Both men had been processed two months earlier by immigration officials in Panama, suggesting they took advantage of smuggling networks or other routes increasingly used by Central American illegal immigrants to sneak into the U.S.
…
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/dec/30/pakistanis-terrorist-connections-nabbed-us-border/
Mr Id you said …” Like the European no-go zones, the police refused to intervene.”
Oh dear…this comment from yourself really sums up the American view of the world and why we the issue of “Islam” is so problematic. When you start from a position of not even knowing the true facts you cannot expect to reach a reasonable and logical solution to the problem. There are no european no-go zones. I’ve lived in London for 7 years and there is no yard of turf I cannot walk unmolested day or night. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of your own country which is riven by racial hatred. This is a pure American invention, I would dare say simply a projection. Each country has its own culture and is entitled to it. The real problem lies with the Americans believing their culture is that gold standard against which all others should be measured. This is unfortunate and is one of the reasons the world is in the mess it currently is. The days where we all believed America had something to offer are long gone. Hollywood of course was instrumental in making us believe this in the first place and shows you just how effective propaganda can be.
First, you are wrong about the no-go zones. http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5128/france-no-go-zones I did not say London no-go zones, I did not say you couldn’t go there. What they are is well known places that non-muslims should not go. Places where sharia law is practiced and police prefer to stay out.
“The days where we all believed America had something to offer are long gone.” — It will be interesting to see if you change your tune after America is gone. This opinion is popular in Europe and quite foolish but that is what your media has fed you so you reap what they sow.
Your comrades in North Korea, Iran and similar ideologues agree with you. You keep some interesting company Kevin. What deviant behaviors of your own do you justify because of America?
The politicians in the EU say one thing, the police say another. Given the observation that politicians all over the world have adapted lying as the preferred way of life, I believe the police.
Jeff, I don’t think I saw anyone actually try to answer your concluding questions, but there are a lot of comments which I skipped over. I’ll take a stab at the first one asking what’s wrong with a temporary ban on muslim immigration.
I see a couple reasons that this is a bad idea, at least as far as stating that flat out as a selective ban. The first is that immigration, like any other government-run institution, should not be subject to a religious test. If that’s ok, then where does it end? The second reason is that it would simply lead applicants to lie about their religion, jihadist or not. Instead, a better idea would be to suspend immigration from certain countries. Trump proposed the religious test, but having them start lying to get around a ban would be stupid. Ironic that Trump likes to beat up on our politicians for being stupid.
Chris, Nobody took a shot at the questions so thanks.
Since writing this post, I’ve spent more time reading about what is happening. There is a ton of absolute garbage on the internet from truly rampant apologists to those who make false claims against Muslim countries simply to provoke a reaction.
I have considered your idea for banning by country before and frankly I agree with you on that. However, selectivity by religion is not something we should not have a problem with. Discrimination is something everyone does every day. Reasonable discrimination should not be disavowed in favor of something so idealistic that the real world is no longer represented. The fact that voters should have to present valid ID to vote in the US is often stated by the left as discrimination when they full well know that not presenting ID allows voters to vote multiple times. The loudly scream that the conservatives are trying to limit peoples right to vote and call it discrimination against the poor when really it is discrimination against those stupid enough to try to vote twice. In other words — valid discrimination. I have solidified my opinion that we should not accept Muslim immigrants until there are strict new criteria based on detecting their specific religious dogma. Renunciation of Sharia law in favor of the United States law should be at the top of the list.
Not all religions are created equal despite what we are taught. The war on Christianity and Judaism is in force already and growing so you don’t have to worry about those being targeted as they already are. You asked where it ends, it ends with Islam being banned until they straighten their minds out or we figure out how to deal with a significantly evil medieval culture. I’ve spent quite a bit of time reading since this post and despite my generally moderate nature, and even ignoring some of the really anti-muslim crap, I’m not at all happy with what I’ve found.
I don’t want Islam of mid-East culture in my life until THEY grow up. I want a complete renunciation of Sharia law in all forms and concepts. I want a full recognition that women and men have equal rights and I want a complete elimination of Jihadist ethics -even thought there are nice moderate versions of Jihad. It doesn’t matter because the way Jihad is practiced has resulted in too many extremist examples. I want all forms of Sharia law and punishment BANNED outright for the barbarism it represents – by constitutional amendment. Also, non-citizens in the US who publicly advocate for Sharia law are not protected by our Constitution and should be deported without further review.
It is time we got back to common sense immigration. It is time we stopped being sissies about others emotions simply because they claim religious precedent and explained to them the difference between right and wrong.
When there are refugees fleeing Islamic extremism, perhaps we should consider admitting only those who are willing to cooperate with the authorities in identifying potential extremists in their communities and mosques. And expel those who stop cooperating. Would that turn our country into East Germany? About 2.5% (and possibly far more) of the citizens of East Germany were official informers of the secret police (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi). On the other hand, some refugees have family living in areas controlled by Islamic extremists and can thereby be forced to cooperate with extremists.
Jeff: You may not want certain aspects of mid-Eastern culture in your country without change. That doesn’t mean that if enough Americans agree with you, people of Middle Eastern origin can or should always be forced to change or be banned from immigration as political refugees. Your own country failed to pass an equal rights amendment making all forms of legal discrimination between men and women unconstitutional. We certainly don’t impose our views on equality on all citizens. Slavery, legal segregation, polygamy among Mormons, gender discrimination in the Jewish and Catholic religions, more than a century without woman suffrage in the US, gay rights, etc. all show that some aspects of culture and society can be extremely difficult to change. Many blacks in America (including the current President) believe that racial discrimination is a major barrier to equal opportunity. (I hope they are wrong – as demonstrated by the election of Obama, but the current popularity of Trump is creating doubt in my mind.)
On the other hand, I think you are correct in identifying Sharia law as the enemy of democracy. Democratically elected legislators should be able to pass laws inspired by Sharia law, but those legislators can be voted out of office if the people don’t approve of their choices and their laws changed. Furthermore, a constitution should limit the prerogatives of legislators in the area of human rights. The worst system of all is a constitution that enshrines Sharia law and unaccountable religious judges to enforce it. Some aspect of modern Israel allegedly illustrate the difficulties of combining religious law and constitutional democracy. For Islam, the problem is far worse: The state and religion have been linked almost continuous since the religion was founded.
http://web.international.ucla.edu/israel/article/136807
Only citizens aren’t discriminated against due to religion. We can allow or disallow anyone for any reason whatsoever from coming into the country, and we should basically profile Muslims. If we can figure out a way to determine which are fundamentalists and which aren’t, then MAYBE let them in. But that would still leave their preference for Sharia law a problem. Islam is both a religion, a basis for social structure, and a form of government. That doesn’t wash here.
Chris,
What should be and what is are not the same. The issue of a religious test is a good one that should be debated honestly, not what is happening now (which is lying and demagoguery). Religious tests have been used since immigration restrictions were implemented in this country. So debating whether it is appropriate, honestly, is a good idea. But as soon as the subject comes up, Obama lies again, the left jumps on the lie and doubles down on it, and no debate is allowed.
Like you, ideally (remember that word), a ban by country does seem to be a more reasonable alternative. But again, if an honest debate is allowed. the problems become evident quickly. We already know that the muslims are lying through their teeth about where they are coming from (indeed the Paris bombers have been reported to use the Syrian refugee issue to get into the country – what that needs to be more fully explained). So banning by country appears to be as ineffective and for the same reason, as banning by religion.
There may be a better way, but we will never be able to discern it as long as debate is not allowed. And debate will not be allowed as long as the left screams PC as soon as an opening statement is made. So you have people like Trump that do not try to debate, jumping over it, to slogans.
Free speech is not only in danger on College campuses. It is in danger throughout the nation. The left is already screaming to make their idea of bad speech illegal. And that is probably their greatest legacy and the worst attack on freedom in this country since George III.
New Zealand has the best trick. They do not recognize qualifications from Indonesian universities, which is fair enough because there is so much corruption and fake paperwork. The effect is of course that it is very hard to migrate there.
From the article:
…
An epidemic of rape cases across Europe has police in the U.K., Norway, Sweden, Germany and other nations worried. But you won’t hear much about it in the U.S. mainstream media because the epidemic is a byproduct of the influx into Europe of a million, mostly Muslim, migrants.
…
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/01/02/political-correctness-protects-muslim-rape-culture/
From the article:
…
Islamic State theologians have issued an extremely detailed ruling on when “owners” of women enslaved by the extremist group can have sex with them, in an apparent bid to curb what they called violations in the treatment of captured females.
The ruling or fatwa has the force of law and appears to go beyond the Islamic State’s previous known utterances on slavery, a leading Islamic State scholar said.
It sheds new light on how the group is trying to reinterpret centuries-old teachings to justify the rape of women in the swaths of Syria and Iraq it controls.
The fatwa was among a huge trove of documents captured by U.S. Special Operations Forces during a raid targeting a top Islamic State official in Syria in May.
Reuters has reviewed the document, which has not been previously published, but couldn’t independently confirm its authenticity.
…
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/29/islamic-state-puts-out-ruling-on-sex-with-female-slaves.html
Could some defender of Mohammad please show me the equivalent in the Koran to Mathew 5:38 to 44. these verses are in many ways absurd as are many in the Koran but in a very different way.
Jeff,
Food for thought. The USA is MY country just like my home is MY home. Tell me one good reason why I have to invite into MY home/country strangers who I do not trust?
There is nothing that says the USA can’t just close the doors to ALL immigrants. So why is this up for debate at all?
I find it completely unbelievable that on the one hand Congress passed the Patriot Act and people are subjected to Grope-N- Fly while on the other hand the US government DOUBLES the immigration quota for muslims from unfriendly countries right after 9/11.
Are they completely NUTS!?!
Or is the goal some terrible incidents they can blame on Americans (2nd generation muslims) and use as an excuse to confiscate our guns. If it is wide spread terrorism will it be used to declare martial law and suspend the Constitution. (Do not forget DHS purchase of 1.6 billion rounds of Ammo)
Those are the only rational reasons I can see for the irrational moves by the brain dead in DC.
Well, speaking of blogs, mine only gets about 200 a day, but numbers are increasing.
This is all about physics – heat transfers – thermodynamics. Most climatologists are not qualified in physics and do not understand entropy maximization, thermodynamics or heat transfer mechanisms.
There is no valid physics which can be used to show water vapor and carbon dioxide causing the Earth’s surface to be warmer. Correct, verifiable physics can be used to prove they cool. The AGW hypothesis and the “heat creep” hypothesis are mutually exclusive: only one can be right. The latter is supported by empirical evidence and experiments, as well as by the Second Law of Thermodynamics; the former is not support by anything and easily refuted with correct physics, because the solar radiation reaching the surfaces of Earth and Venus is far too short of the mark and cannot possibly explain observed temperatures. Furthermore, there is no valid physics that claims (as the IPCC et al do) that radiation can be compounded and the sum of back radiation and solar radiation used in Stefan-Boltzmann calculations to explain the 288K estimated mean surface temperature of Earth, or the 735K mean surface temperature of Venus, which would need flux of about 20,000W/m^2. That is why I can confidently offer AU $10,000 for proving me wrong, subject to the conditions on my blog.
If I might suggest Doug, understanding what you are talking about might help.
You people will never correctly understand what is happening with climate until you understand that correct physics proves beyond reasonable doubt that the reason why the surface is “33 degrees” warmer than the temperature at the “radiating altitude” is not because of back radiation, but because of what the process of maximum entropy production achieves. It is explained well in three comments starting here.
You, Jeff, or any reader is welcome to attempt to refute my “heat creep” hypothesis on my blog after you have studied and understood what is explained, noted all the empirical evidence supporting it and the experiments with centrifugal force that also support it. There’s a AU $10,000 reward to be paid via my PayPal account for the first to prove me wrong and produce a similar study showing opposite results. I suggest you first attempt to answer the three questions posed to Jan on Roy’s thread – as linked in the above comment. Once you realize that those questions stump you (whilst I have answered them correctly) you’ll perhaps begin to realize that I have been right all along. Assertive statements (as anticipated) will be ignored.
“Heat creep”, I like it!!
Some of us call it convection though.
Doug,
I could have mapped your progress to this point from 3 years ago by assuming – anything except CO2 warming. An objective review of our discussions 3 years ago showed the gradual erosion to the central point. From here though, I must admit I have no idea where you will go next. Claes Johnson’s misunderstandings have gone by the wayside, IR sensors that can’t read objects cooler than themselves are now gone, crazy timespace violations created by cold photons striking hot surfaces now a non-issue and recently you have cornered yourself into the dry adiabatic lapse rate from which you have now asserted an unusual heat transfer in lieu of actual gas flow. In your world, does gas not flow? One must wonder.
I think you believe gas flows. I’m relatively sure that you believe in convection. Why is your lapse rate superior to the rest of ours?
Links are not answers.
If you had read what I wrote you would know that “heat creep” is a subset of natural (not forced) convective heat transfer which, in physics, includes diffusion. It is the direction which is important. Heat can be transferred by molecular collision even when there is no perceptible net molecular motion (gas flow as you call it) and, in general, kinetic energy will be transferred (by collisions) faster than net molecular motion in natural convective heat transfers. These do not include wind of any form – that’s forced convection. But until you can explain how the required thermal energy moves downwards in the morning in the tropospheres of Venus and Uranus, for example, then you have no explanation for the temperatures at the base of those tropospheres, because direct radiation cannot explain such. Nor does direct radiation reaching Earth’s surface explain its temperature. To differentiate downward convective heat transfers which are transferring kinetic energy from cooler to warmer regions as they maximize entropy, I have coined the term “heat creep” for this particular subset of convective heat transfers. Because they are maximizing entropy they are of course acting in accord with the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This is continued at: https://itsnotco2.wordpress.com where any genuine questions from your readers are welcome.
“Links are not answers” Well, Jeff, I have no intention of producing a transcript of my 43 minute video presentation which was recorded without any such detailed documentation. Nor will I copy my website http://climate-change-theory.com or my paper “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures” written three years ago into a comment here, especially not without the necessary heat creep diagrams that are essential for an understanding of the process.
“Why is your lapse rate superior to the rest of ours?” Because, in that it is explained directly from Kinetic Theory and the Second Law of Thermodynamics, it enables our understanding of the “heat creep” process that is a corollary, and it does not need to postulate imaginary parcels of air that don’t exist in natural convective processes because they have nothing to hold them together. (There is no need to introduce pressure into the computations because it cancels out as here.) If wind of any form more-or-less holds a parcel together, such forced convection does not form the dry adiabatic lapse rate anyway. For example, warm wind can be re-directed up the side of a mountain slope and hardly cool at all.
“your progress to this point from 3 years ago” The above linked paper was written close on three years ago and I see no need to alter any of it.
“IR sensors that can’t read objects cooler than themselves are now gone” In the Appendix (Q4) in this paper written nearly four years ago I answered the question as to how an infrared thermometer reads colder temperatures. I also stand by what Prof Claes Johnson explained and what I wrote in that paper based on his work, and I have never budged from such. His work was brilliant and your readers can study his paper “Mathematical Physics of BlackBody Radiation” which is ground-breaking 21st century physics. You cannot compound radiation like solar radiation and back radiation. If one electric bar radiator warms an object to 350K you cannot deduce that 16 such radiators would warm it to 700K.
And, yes Jeff, it will help you if and when you take the trouble to really study and understand what I am talking about. The 43 minute video presentation is perhaps the easiest explanation for you and others to understand. You should also read this guy’s site and the pages there on the Second Law: http://entropylaw.com
Other readers may also gain some confidence in what I’m saying by reading the positive reviews of my book on Amazon.
If you don’t like links, Jeff, I’ll do a bit of copy and paste because … it is quite appropriate to ask to see an experiment (or a study) supporting the AGW hypothesis. I have produced a study (in the Appendix here*) showing water vapor cools – where is any study showing the opposite? Such experiments and studies are a normal requirement of scientific research. In contrast, there are experiments which disprove the AGW conjecture. For example, are you going to say that vortex tubes do not produce the separate streams of hot and cold air that they are designed to produce? Are you going to say that the various experiments measuring the temperatures at various points in a vortex tube are likely to be so inaccurate that there is no convincing evidence that the tubes do in fact create a temperature gradient using centrifugal force? And, given that we can quantify that radial temperature gradient using exactly the same physics (Kinetic Theory) that we can use to quantify the tropospheric temperature gradient formed by gravity, are you going to say there is no convincing evidence that either temperature gradient even exists? Because gravity does in fact produce the temperature gradient, and because correct physics (pertaining to entropy maximization) explains why, and correctly quantifies that temperature gradient, there is no need for concern that CO2 backradiation is needed to create that gradient which already exists due to gravity.
The greenhouse is smashed. QED.
With all the money spent on GH research, why hasn’t there been a one-day study like mine published anywhere, but showing the opposite?
Why hasn’t an experiment been done with three parallel black metal plates, the outside ones at -40C and 2C (representing the radiation reaching the Earth’s surface from the Sun and the atmosphere) to see if the middle plate reaches 15C?
* Results of study showing GH gas water vapor cools rather than warms ….
Means of Adjusted Daily Maximum and Daily Minimum Temperatures
Wet (01-05): 30.8°C 20.1°C
Medium (06-10): 33.0°C 21.2°C
Dry (11-15): 35.7°C 21.9°C
Screen captures of all the above comments of mine have been retained for future publishing on a page at http://climate-change-theory.com similar to the pages explaining errors on the PSI website and WUWT websites, but featuring errors on your site. My websites, videos and blogs have had over 115,000 hits with a current rate of several hundred a day in total. I usually post a few dozen copied comments each day on other climate blogs and social media climate threads. Many readers are now starting to understand the process of maximum entropy production which is at the heart of the “heat creep” hypothesis. As I said, you can read the positive reviews of my book if you care to, but it’s no concern of mine what you believe. I have not wavered in my belief and understanding of the physics in the last three or four years, my friend.
You could learn a lot, Jeff, from what I have been first in the world to explain about temperatures and energy transfers in tropospheres, surfaces, crusts, mantles and cores of planets and satellite moons throughout the Solar System and no doubt beyond. Does your limited understanding of entropy and convective heat transfer explain such? I doubt it. My cutting edge understanding does, and that’s the difference. Take it or leave it.
Doug, I’m sorry but your writings are so full of confusion and incorrect interpretations of existing science that I will make no more attempt to read or refute them. Nobody is going to refute a bunch of nonsense with the ultimate judge being the author of said nonsense and that is why you won’t get a single credible attempt at it. I would suggest AGAIN that you learn proper physics before trying to rewrite it but it seems that even that is beyond hope. You don’t know a thing about heat transfer because the things you think you know about standard physics are so mixed up that they are unrecognizable.
I guess I will choose again to leave it.
In other words you just don’t have the “feel” for the physical world that I have, now do you Jeff? In that you haven’t read the “heat creep” hypothesis you are of course not in a position to point to any error. All your assertive smears are just water off a Doug’s back. The results that I get from computations using the hypothesis are confirmation enough for me, thanks. Everything agrees with it throughout the Solar System.
The whole hypothesis is a direct corollary of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, but I can see that you don’t understand maximum entropy production. I was awarded a scholarship by Sydney University Physics Department because I think about the physical world, perhaps with divine guidance I will admit. In helping many undergraduates to understand physics over these last 50 years or so, I find I get best results when I encourage them to think by asking questions. You can’t answer the three questions I posed to Jan on Roy’s thread, so that puts you among the non-thinkers in my books.
There are always some, like yourself, where I can lead a horse to water but can’t make him think. The AU $10,000 reward still stands unclaimed in over two years because nobody in the world can prove me wrong once they understand what the hypothesis is all about and realize how closely linked it is to the Second Law, and just how much physical evidence there is throughout the Solar System. In fact every Ranque-Hilsch vortex tube in the world proves me right, but I can understand why it’s over your head to understand why, Jeff. Go bury your head in the carbon dioxide: it’s no skin off my nose. I have been first in the world to explain temperatures above and below planetary surfaces, and the necessary heat transfers.
Meanwhile you, Jeff, can’t even explain the Earth’s surface temperature, let alone that at the core of the Moon or the base of the Uranus troposphere, whereas I can. Emissivity of the atmosphere is less than 0.4. Back radiation is thus far less than the 324W/m^2 figure lied about. You need a mean of over 450W/m^2 plus non-radiative losses (102W/m^2) = over 550W/m^2 of variable flux into the surface, to get a mean temperature of 288K, but the Sun delivers only a mean of 168W/m^2. Bad luck, Jeff. You’re stumped because radiation into the surface of a planet with a significant atmosphere is not the major determinant of the surface temperature.
Over at the blackboard, I suggested the US should focus on the instigators of terrorism, the Imams. Just the militant ones.
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2015/paris-part-2/#comment-141372
Oddly enough, that’s exactly what the Saudi’s have done. And how do they describe this Imam? From the article:
********************************
…
The execution of an Islamic cleric by Saudi Arabia has sparked violent protests in Iran and halted diplomatic relations — but the Saudi foreign minister told CNBC on Tuesday that the man in question was “as much a religious scholar as Osama bin Laden.”
Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi minister of foreign affairs, added that “Iranians have got away with murder, literally, for more than 30 years,” in the exclusive interview.
…
Al-Jubeir insisted on Tuesday that al-Nimr was a terrorist that threatened his country’s safety.
“Our response is that he is a terrorist. He is as much of a religious scholar as Osama bin Laden was,” the 53-year-old foreign minister told CNBC in English.
“He was implicated in inciting people, recruiting people, providing weapons and munitions for people and he was involved in attacks against security people and police stations that led to the killing of the innocents.”
…
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/05/iran-has-got-away-with-murder-for-30-years-saudi-foreign-minister.html
************************************
Works for me.
Jim2- what planet are you on!!!
Saudi Arabia is the main source of religious terrorism.
Their lavishly funded wahhabi mosques all over the world have been pumping out hate propaganda against all unbelievers of sunni muslim ideology.
This in particular against shia muslims like al-Nimr .
All independent reports say al-Nimr was innocent and the sharia court was a blatant stitch up.
You should not need to be reminded that Saudi Arabia treats women as little better than slaves.
All acts of mass terrorism in Europe have been have been carried out by Sunni Muslims.
Yet you side with barbarous medieval Saudi Arabia and its mass execution of 47 people including the innocent al-Nimr
You’ve replied to a lot of points, but none that I made.
All I said is the approach is the correct approach. Think clearly about this. You have gotten in the weeds, and there are a lot of weeds in the Middle East mess.
So you have a problem with the study results showing that the greenhouse gas, water vapor, makes the surface cooler, do you Jeff? It’s not hard to understand and repeat the methodology yourself. Where’s your study?
You just don’t have the “feel” for the physical world that I have, now do you Jeff? In that you haven’t read the hypothesis you are of course not in a position to point to any error. All your assertive smears are just water off a duck’s back. The results that I get from computations using the hypothesis are confirmation enough for me, thanks. Everything agrees with it throughout the Solar System.
The whole hypothesis is a direct corollary of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, but I can see that you don’t understand maximum entropy production. I was awarded a scholarship by Sydney University Physics Department because I think about the physical world, perhaps with divine guidance I will admit. In helping many undergraduates to understand physics over these last 50 years or so, I find I get best results when I encourage them to think by asking questions. You can’t answer the three questions I posed to Jan on Roy’s thread, so that puts you among the non-thinkers in my books.
From the article:
…
A political scandal is developing in Germany as ordinary citizens wake up to the scale of the migrant crime cover-up, and the callous reaction of the mayor of Cologne to mass-sex crime on new year’s eve.
The Mayor of Cologne has spoken out about the attacks, but her carefully chosen words are unlikely to delight many. Rather than addressing the root causes of the violence — unlimited mass migration and a totally failed system of integration — the newly elected pro-migrant mayor instead blamed the victims of the sexual abuse for having failed to defend themselves against the immigrant attackers.
Speaking on live television this afternoon mayor Henriette Reker, who was near-fatally stabbed in the run up to October elections by an anti mass migration campaigner, said in future women would have to be better prepared in her city to deal with migrants. She remarked: “The women and young girls have to be more protected in the future so these things don’t happen again.
…
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/01/05/cologne-mayor-women-careful-migrant-mass-rapes-promises-guidance-can-prepare/
You, Jeff, need to update their “science” with more recent understandings of entropy and the Second Law dating from the late 1980’s.
Swenson, R. (1988). Emergence and the principle of maximum entropy production: Multi-level system
Swenson, R. (1989b). Emergent evolution and the global attractor: The evolutionary epistemology of entropy production maximization. Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Meeting of The International Society for the Systems Sciences, P. Leddington (ed)., 33(3), 46-53.
Swenson, R. (1989d). Emergent attractors and the law of maximum entropy production: Foundations to a theory of general evolution. Systems Research, 6,187-1987.
No attempt to refute the “heat creep” hypothesis will be entered into unless it demonstrates that the hypothesis has been read and understood, and it then proceeds to pinpoint any assumed error in the physics. So far, in the last month or so, over 1,000 have visited my new blog and no-one has submitted an attempted refutation after having read and understood the hypothesis.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The hypothesis stands up to the most rigorous testing against any empirical evidence in the Solar System. And of course it extends well beyond the mutually exclusive radiative GH conjecture because it also explains temperatures and heat flows down to the core and in the depths of the oceans where there is a heat sink leading to the poles.
To submit your claim for AU $10,000 visit https://itsnotco2.wordpress.com
Screen captures of deleted comments will appear at http://climate-change-theory.com soon and Jeff’s errors will be widely publicized on social media climate threads read by millions.
Doug,
I didn’t see your dozen comments in the spam bucket until this morning. Sorry.
Carbon dioxide radiation cannot raise the maximum temperature for the day. Warming is assumed to be caused by radiation from carbon dioxide supposedly slowing surface cooling and then, because of that supposed slowing, the minimum temperature for the day is supposedly warmer. But it’s not: it may take a few minutes (or just a few seconds) longer in the night to get down to the minimum temperature, but that’s all. The minimum temperature is determined by all the thermal energy stored in the troposphere, and over 98% of that is in nitrogen, oxygen and argon molecules.
Radiation can only slow that component of cooling which is itself by radiation, and that is only about a third of all surface cooling. Other cooling processes may well accelerate to compensate. Furthermore, the minimum temperature for the night is determined primarily by the supporting temperature in all the air molecules colliding with surface molecules, and carbon dioxide only comprises 0.04% of those. IR-active molecules lower the temperature gradient, so that the thermal plot rotates downwards at the surface end. That is why more moist regions in my study had lower mean daily minimum and maximum temperatures than drier regions at similar latitude and altitude. So-called greenhouse gases lower the mean surface temperature, and the reasons (based on the Second Law of Thermodynamics) are here.
Given the level of rape undertaken by men, what would be wrong with their temporary chemical castration?
That has to be one of the craziest comments I’ve seen at tAV. Is this supposed to parallel something?
You don’t think there’s a parallel, Jeff? Too bad. You’re the math guy, so you should be better than me at drawing parallels,
Perhaps you’d like this tremendous refugee story:
http://www.snopes.com/anne-frank-refugee/
As always, dear Jeff, please beware your wishes.
I’m not finding the parallels. Immigration is no right. It should never be a right. It should be something both parties benefit from. Yes bad calls will be made in any government decision but that doesn’t mean we should always make the same call. Unfortunately, I am a math and science guy, it sort of binds me in a world where I need to force myself to be objective.
When would you make the decision? Only accept people from specific countries, only people with means and education, only those with money, only a certain number per year, only those who speak English or would you simply take every single person who wants to live in a place with money?
But Anne Frank!
I would like to understand where others would draw the line. Clearly it is risky to discriminate, but it is equally clear that a lack of discrimination is risky. If I’m a bigot or intolerant or a buffoon, where is the line properly drawn, nobody seems to have any clear answers for me. Instead I’ve been offered warnings of unintended consequences and called names.
At this point, it is quite clear that nobody else has clear answers. None who were so critical of me have any idea where to draw the lines either. I have drawn my line with reason and intent. If it is wrong, tell me why and tell me where the line should be.
The parallels are obvious, Jeff. Both discriminate against types of individuals based on a veneer of objectivity so thin it’s really hard for me to believe you’re just not playing dumb because you have no idea how to justify Trump’s tremendous trick except by shifting the burden of proof on otters by asking a rhetorical question. It’s quite obvious that Trump’s demagoguery is pure unaldurated fascism, so I thank you to step up to try to defend it.
The shortest answer to your question is a thing called human rights. The idea that a state only has responsibilities with regard to its own citizens leads to the absurd conclusion that any act would be justified on the international scene, including violence. Besides, the division between citizens and non-citizens is far from clear, since this “objective” measure would discriminate against all those who have family abroad stuck in places set on fire by many brilliant anglo-saxon policies from the past.
Since you now drape yourself in some kind of objectivity because you’re a “math and science guy” when I thought you simply have a BS in aeronautical engineering, perhaps you should pay due diligence to the “level of extremism” numbers on which teh Donald rests his case:
http://bridge.georgetown.edu/new-poll-on-american-muslims-is-grounded-in-bias-riddled-with-flaws/
Unleash your auditing powers, Objective Math Man. Win!
What a mouthful Willard. Yes I am unfortunately a math and science guy with a BS in engineering and a small chunk of graduate education. My skills have contributed to building a fairly large company which produces products that are absolutely #1 in the world in efficiency due to math and software I helped create. I’m published in multiple fields, am named in 10 to 15 patents and happen to run a climate blog where the public can bash on me without understanding much of the world themselves. You can tell me if that is enough for you.
I’m no Trump fan as I stated above, and I don’t think this issue has much to do with Trump. What I’m writing about is something which cannot be summed up in a tiny survey you linked when there are literally dozens of other much larger surveys you can reference including the pew research survey I referenced here. The fact that a left-wing article you link from Georgetown U is attacking some random survey based on a comment that an entertainer playing candidate made is certainly not something I would get involved in.
So when I see Muslims in large percentages demanding Sharia law in the US and Europe, when I see the middle East allowing rape without 4 separate male witnesses, whole countries forcing women to cover themselves, not allowing women to leave their homes without males, and of course blowing up and beheading Christians and those who disagree in alarming numbers, and frighteningly high percentages of the group agreeing with the practices, I see a bad culture. I objectively see an evil, oppressive culture which is spreading across the world rapidly. I notice you aren’t defending these practices directly but you are pretending that rational people cannot observe them without your apparent approval. I wonder what degree or achievement I would need in your eyes in order to notice Christians being beheaded or US muslims in large percentages agreeing that such acts are often necessary for their invisible man.
You appear to suffer from the progressive mental disease that all religions, countries and cultures are created equal. That all points of view should be treated with equal respect and we must for the purposes of “human dignity” allow it an equal place at the table no matter what behaviors they exhibit. Despite your lack of clarity on such matters, there is no human right to become a US citizen or any other nationality. There is no freedom of religion for non-citizens and especially non-citizens who commit violence against others in the name of their religion AND there is no excuse for such violence despite some of the more confused leftist beliefs. Such things have been recognized for centuries prior to the loss of common sense by progressive politically correct culture – a culture also not equal to America in many deeply disturbing ways.
So by insisting that human rights should mandate immigration from a bad culture is inaccurate, wrong-headed, and frankly not well considered. Islam has a disease that is over a thousand years old, and it may not be curable as it is rooted in the direct wording of their sacred text — objectively speaking of course.
NOW as a final note here, there is a matter of disambiguation of what I have written and what less logical folks would like to read of me, I HAVE NOT stated that we should stop immigration of Muslims. I have simply made the point that I wouldn’t mind stopping Muslim immigration for a period of time. I certainly wouldn’t lose any sleep over it and it might lead to a more vocal US Muslim population AGAINST the violence being created by them. They are certainly a quiet group about such matters and many of them openly celebrated the deaths of thousands on 9/11 right here in the US and right here in Dearborn Michigan. There are many many good Muslims, of that we can be certain, but like those who believe the central government should control every aspect of our lives, they do not see the disease with clear eyes.
> You appear to suffer from the progressive mental disease that all religions, countries and cultures are created equal.
And you appear to probe my mind because you have little else than the usual claptraps on concepts you can barely articulate properly.
That one religion, one country, or one culture is better than another (assuming it’s coherent, which is a stretch) is simply irrelevant to the type of argument you want to make, which pertains to rights. You’re playing a pea and thimble game right there, but there’s another more pernicious one: you’re using a statist argument to enforce your own fascist prejudices. You do all this by fumbling a precautionary argument, a kind of reasoning I suspect you disapprove in other contexts. To top it all, you recycle the very same argument teh Donald uses, however hard you to pull the good old Peter trick on his tremendous self.
Your suggestion would justify American Muslims to use the same pretext as the Oregon militia does to take justice into their own hands. Can you afford that, Jeff?
The right to exclude can’t be backed up by burdening others to prove you wrong and by playing yet again the data thug. If you really insist, you really have no idea how much data there is about women suffering from male violence which would justify gruesomer policies than the one you’re proposing about Muslims. Perhaps you ought try reading instead for a change:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/papa.12012/abstract
Best of luck with your next crusade.
***
> You can tell me if that is enough for you.
For what it’s worth, Jeff, you’ve done enough to earn “code ninja” and “data thug,” You’re a number guy alright. Next time, please don’t confuse math and numbers.
And what it’s worth is not much for this discussion. You’re showing your biceps, while gorillas prefer to show the whiteness of their teeth.
We in the US need to ensure the safety and security of native born citizens first. And that includes making sure as many native born citizens have real jobs which hundreds of thousands go to immigrants of various sorts. But when it comes to Muslims, they should be prohibited immediately until we can figure out how to integrate them into Western values. They just are not suitable for life in a Western country. Look at Europe.
If you’re all that concerned about refugees, figure out something other than coming here to help them. Willful blinders, I’m thinking.
“And you appear to probe my mind because you have little else than the usual claptraps on concepts you can barely articulate properly.”
Whelllll that’s why I used the word “appear” because we really don’t know do we. It does appear to me from this answer that I was correct.
I’m certainly not suggesting that we rape Muslims or that their value in court is worth half of a non-muslim. I woudln’t recommend beheading Muslims. You are quite frankly way over the top calling such a simple policy suggestion “gruesome”. I absolutely have no other instances in mind where I would even consider temporarily limits on immigration for any other discernible group so you have me there. It’s ludicrous and against common sense when faced with the situation we have where a large fraction of a “religion” has declared actual war on any non-believer that we should not at least consider modifying immigration of their soldiers into our country. I understand you disagree, but you are certainly not articulating any better solution. You seem to be simply stuck on name calling and acting disgusted.
One question I asked in the post was at what point would it be reasonable to consider such a limit. At what point is one being objective instead of a facist or intolerant or whatever name you deem appropriate. It seems that since you haven’t crossed that point yourself, you might be able to answer that.
and on and on
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/01/08/suspect-in-pa-cop-ambush-said-acted-in-name-islam-police-confirm.html?intcmp=hpbt1
No response – not Willard?
Willard is a typical knee jerk liberal. If he thinks it’s a conservative cause he’s against it . He really doesn’t know why. He has unlimited straw men and ad hom’s to back up his argument if Obama had made this argument he’d be all for it.
I realized last night that Willard is actually not Willard when I clicked on his/her link. Not Willard has an eccentric blog (that is apparently not a blog) which is mostly about enjoying his/her own words. I then went to Lucia’s last night and found that Not Willard has been banned from her site in its entirety for writing mostly unparsable nonsense with no actual argument being made.
> No response – not Willard?
I’ve been busy, Jeff, and I just caught your Gish Gallop. Thanks for it. The double bind between having to respond to every galloping point while being pressured to respond fast looks like a nice ClimateBall move. Well played!
I’ll come back later. Meanwhile, if you could clarify the connection between your discriminatory immigration policy and the Fox news item, that would be great. Not that I mind whataboutism, e.g.:
The cultural superiority of Florida Man should be obvious to anyone.
(H/T Eli’s.)
PS: You did not need to go on my tumblog to search for my comments. We had a few exchanges here already. One of them involves Lew. Too bad you failed to link to it in your rant. It may have been relevant.
I have just read through Willard’s comments and find them, to be a wonderful example of psuedo-discussion. Nice wording, some good witticisms, nice innuendo, decent vocabulary and really good grammar — but no real structure or logical analysis. It reads like one of those comic essays that are filled with blank spaces where the reader will insert a noun here and a verb there. In the end, it satisfies all the rules for speech or writing, but still manages to lack any coherency.
Amazing…
Willard,
I’m familiar with your moniker and had been to your site some time ago. Can’t follow what you are saying though.
Jeff Id said “You appear to suffer from the progressive mental disease that all religions, countries and cultures are created equal.”
At some risk of being misunderstood by defending Willard, he compartmentalizes things even better than I. There’s the Willard-the-progressive, but more often I see Willard-the-pedantic language analyst that doesn’t take sides per se but loves to argue and refine an argument. I often take an opposing point of view from Willard but I recognize his skill with language and logic.
To an atheist; all religions ARE equal and its members deluded at best. That is an important consideration. My contribution here is to remind Willard and readers that Islam is not just a religion. I am not the first to identify this important factor. I have not encountered anyone opposed to Muslims praying to their God. It can be a bit annoying at times to break up the day for prayers but much worse is the smoker that must leave his cubicle every 30 minutes to go smoke a cigarette and then come back smelling like an ashtray.
In the distant past, Christianity, or at least Catholicism, was also not just a praying-to-God religion. It was the state. There are similarities but several huge vital differences.
Jeff,
I’m used to that “you make no sense” line. The problem with it is that at one point, it becomes less and less credible. I assume that you do understand what “discriminatory” and “rights” mean. Perhaps it’s “type of argument.” Let’s try to explain what I perceive as a pea and thimble game.
Your proposal could not apply to American citizens, because they would be discriminatory. You suggest that you don’t owe non-American citizens the same rights. Which means you accept that your proposal discriminates according to religion, but don’t see why it would be illegitimate to do so.
For your argument to work, you need to switch from ethical principles to legal facts. You then justify and ought by an is. This is in my opinion fallacious: the fact that the government has no obligation not to discriminate does not make discrimination ethically valid.
Your discriminatory proposal conflicts with the principles upon which your law rests. Accepting such law therefore runs the risk to lose its underpinning. The only way out could be some kind of legal positivism, i.e. the law is the law and there’s nothing else to add to it.
If you want to make sure your immigration law coheres with stronger principles than that, then you have a problem. This is an open problem, BTW. If you read the PDF I offered above, you’ll see why. Fairness issues are complex. This is one of the reason why there are libertarians who hold that everyone should be welcome in America; there are even some who would suggest a bidding system. This is one of the reasons why paleo-cons would suggest to close the country to all immigration. At least they argue on an ethical basis.
Your solution is neither complex, nor fair. Any solution I could offer is independent from the fact that yours is fair, BTW. You asked if there was a problem with your proposal, and it’s obvious that there’s one.
Even if we accept your discriminatory proposal, there are implementation problems. How can you tell if people are Muslims? People ain’t crazy: they will start to hide that fact. There are historical precedents to this kind of behavior, some of them older than the New Testament. So you’ll need to do some profiling, which leads to its own set of issues.
Besides, how does all this relate to the Fox news item you cited? The guy appears to be a Coast Guard veteran! Would you start to profile American citizens based on religion because of the Muslim treath?
***
As for the Cologne incident, it’s awful. There were worse incidents reported in Egypt, in India, in Indonesia, etc. We need to do something about male violence caused to women. This is bigger than your rant the inferioriority of the Muslim religion and/or culture.
To give you an idea of the scale:
http://www.thenation.com/article/rape-minute-thousand-corpses-year/
One rape per minute, 3 dead women bodies per day.
Considering the small percentage of Muslim in the US of A, I don’t think you can blame the bogeymen of the moment. You could try to argue that the American rape culture is more civilized than the others, but good luck with that:
http://www.more.com/news/india-rape-capital-world
Since you’re a numbers guy, you might wish to audit these numbers. Arabic numbers, it goes without saying. If we redirect your outrage regarding Muslims toward men violence in general, what immigration policies would you suggest?
If you’d rather stick to Muslim-bashing, you might need to clarify what you mean by “Muslim”:
https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/685449089530654720
The fragmentation of the Muslim world has been engineered quite a bit by the anglosphere, so its citizens should take note.
Hope this helps,
W
willard (@nevaudit) wrote “your proposal discriminates according to religion, but don’t see why it would be illegitimate to do so.”
Islam is not a religion, it is a way of life that is in some respects incompatible with the rights that exist in the United States.
“Fairness issues are complex.”
That’s putting it mildly, starting with defining “fair”. It is at the very heart of leftwing thinking but since I am not leftwing (nor, it seems, rightwing) I really don’t get it. My children weren’t much help; the teenager thought it was fair to do the exact same amount of work as the 6 year old. Equal output but not equal ability? Or is it output adjusted for ability? How shall that be measured? At least equal output can be measured.
“Even if we accept your discriminatory proposal, there are implementation problems. How can you tell if people are Muslims?”
For now it is a presumption based on a surname containing “Al”, bearded and with a tendency to kill infidels, and sometimes himself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBvfiCdk-jc (Jeff Dunham and Achmed the Dead Terrorist)
Until this latest round of terrorism, Muslims and Islam seemed to have been held in higher regard than immigrants from south of the border. Algebra, art and architecture is famous in Arab lands, especially Morocco. Once the Isis/Daesh situation is handled (if it ever is) this former regard may return.
“So you’ll need to do some profiling, which leads to its own set of issues.”
If the government can profile citizens from northern Idaho, it can surely do so from bearded men from Yemen. Until the 1960’s, voters in Idaho were required to sign an affidavit denouncing polygamy (an obsolete requirement from Mormon polygamy days). Now the profiling is based on your political party. Stephen Lewandowsky is an expert profiler, or so his writings suggest that he thinks so of himself.
“Would you start to profile American citizens based on religion because of the Muslim treath?”
That already happens. You cannot always tell a person’s religion unless of course they are Mormon missionaries. Westboro Baptists come to mind.
“If you’d rather stick to Muslim-bashing, you might need to clarify what you mean by Muslim”
He probably means the rifle toting, kill-the-Christian firebombing kind. As to Sunni, Sufi, Shiite and so on; I still haven’t figured that part out. How to tell those apart I cannot imagine.
Williard – this isn’t some sort of “fairness” issue, whatever that means, but a security issue. Life isn’t fair and the US does not have to be fair, whatever you believe that to be, when it comes to who it let’s into the country.
JIm2,
Willard hasn’t made a single coherent point and will not answer questions. He has implied it isn’t the muslims fault in his last post, which is the opinion of extremist progressives. It isn’t worth engaging him/her until they answer questions clearly or make clear points because we are all forced to assume what Willard MUST be saying rather than knowing what Willard IS saying.
Yea, I heard Anne was a part of the big one back in 41 – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/12087780/Cologne-assault-Cultural-difference-is-no-excuse-for-rape.html
Jeff: regarding Muslims, Australia and the US etc need to rubbish their Indonesian educational institutions and not accept qualifications from such, as happens in New Zealand. I am married to a Christian woman from Manado which is the Christian hub in Indonesia and, although I’m now 70, I have a 9 year old son by her. She taught in universities there before I got her into Australia by representing her in tribunal and court challenges to our Governments immigration officers who knew nothing of the fine print in the law. But, my point is, she has told me of the level of bribery and corruption that goes on there and I can see how any country should be skeptical of their qualifications. Some are just forged paperwork anyway. You can buy anything there – even have the date on a birth certificate stated incorrectly by a year, for example. Bribery gets you anything, and is necessary if you want anything like a Passport in a reasonable time.
This is a long comments section, so I may have missed someone already saying this, but the simple fact is that Islam is not a religion. Islam is a religion PLUS a form of government. Islam does not limit itself to theology, but demands that its rules be applied to every action, including secular actions. Perhaps a more accurate phrasing would be that Islam only recognizes theology and sees every action — even those which we in the west see as secular — as being subsumed into theology. Refusing entry into the US for supporters of Islam is not religious bigotry. It is a simple act of cultural self defense. No thinking person in the West dislikes Islam for its concepts of God. Islam is disliked for its antithetical stands on basic human liberties.
If the US were a monarchy, would its king encourage or allow anti-monarchists entry? Here in the US we forbid slavery; should the US allow immigrants who not only favor slavery, but who even advocate violence to promote slavery? Should a nation that believes in equality for women bring in people who would use violence to subjugate women?
Islam is not religion; Islam is religion plus government and will use violence to get it.
I completely agree, as you can tell. Freedom of religion is a difficult thing to promote without question when you have a blended religion/government/culture that in too large of percentages acts against human rights. It isn’t the god they believe in that offends, it is the use of force to subjugate people and with intent – destroy lives both of the living and the murdered. It is the demand that Israel and Jews stop existing, the demand that women are second class, the demand for ridiculous forms of punishment for crimes and the demand for fake trials held by self-appointed monarchs. I want no part of their culture or their evil anti-freedom Sharia laws. They are the ones who need to change NOT us. We have a strong culture which promotes equal opportunity for everyone and we in the West got very wealthy doing it. In my opinion, Muslims must absolutely change everything about how they see their religion in the world to be accepted in a free society. Even the “moderate” muslims need to open their eyes and recognize the true nature of the government system they are indirectly promoting. It is simply unhealthy and quite dangerous for the rest of us.
Jason, the beauty in what you suggest is that it is testable. The test would be to ask where in Islamic literature, Dogma, the Koran, Hadith is there contemplated peaceful ongoing existence of a muslim community within a non-muslim state and without implicit intention to overwhelm the state.
i think most of us have no problem with proselytyzing by most religious sects, after all, how else would we know that our doorbells work but for the Seventh Day Adventists, but.. They don’t plan to take over our culture and run the place in conformance with their own law, or at least I’m pretty sure they don’t.
But Islam may really be different in this regard.
As I think I said way up there in this thread, there is plenty of evidence in Christian scripture that the devout can live heir lives in conformance with their religion while living in a pagan or secular state. Christians certainly acquired a lot of experience with this in the first 300 years.
I suspect that nothing like this exists in Islamic dogma. It would be good to know for sure. It really is too bad that we have to fly blind on this subject; that no Muslim who reads here is prepared to show us where we’re going off the rails, or maybe we do have it right, and none of them wan’ts to admit it.
I might add that I think that Judaism also contemplates the devout living in non-Jewish states and without implicit calls to revolution.
I agree with almost completely with what you said in your comment above.
I don’t think you are right about this, though:
“No thinking person in the West dislikes Islam for its concepts of God.”
I certainly dislike the concept of God in Islam and I think it is part of the problem.
The problem is that a lot of people have a problem with freedom (maybe we all have to some extent) and are attracted to “solutions” like Islam when we have difficulties coping with the hardships and particularly the heavy responsibilities we are faced with in our lives.
Christianity accentuates our responsibilities and forgives our failures at the same time. That is the basis of the freedom we enjoy in the West in my opinion.
Islam relieves you of difficult thinking and choices and guilt – conscience in a word.
You just have to submit unconditionally to Allah and everything is taken care of for you. The word Islam means “submission”. There is an attraction in submission that we are reluctant to admit. And Islam is such an attraction.
But I agree with you that the problem with Islam is that it is also a recipe for government.
Neils,
I stand corrected. You make an excellent argument.
So do I, Jeff on climate matters.
Doug, you have lost your way with respect to science. I am truly impressed with your doggedness on the matter. You have actually twisted your own mind in ways I never imagined possible in order to perpetuate a false reality.
You did teach me Doug. You taught me the same thing that Islam taught me. Something that I naively rejected in my youth — a couple of years ago. Your own doggedness of opinion in the face of massive contrary information exceeds anyone I’ve met. — except for religion.
Evolution is used every day to create better crops, yet some still reject it. A simple gas with obvious and simplistic IR properties creates warming and people reject it. They primarily reject it because another group imagines the end of the world and gains status through a global ecological religion. Another religion gains status by reproduction, war, and by demonizing the first truly free society on the planet.
—
I know a certain perspective of politics because of how it affects me, our employees and suppliers personally. I literally can (and have) worked the numbers between various US policies and how they affect a real business. It is quite simple from that perspective. Where it ‘apparently’ becomes difficult is where it affects people en masse. Same as gas molecules. Monetary incentives for politicians are mathematically equivalent to pressures or heats in gasses. Our GLOBAL public has absolutely no concept of either the reality of business, Muslim religion, nor politics in general, yet they have massive control.
The ability for people to believe absolutely and without reservation in the illogical, is the hard lesson I have learned.
Jeff. I’m quite “dogged” regard Christianity, and am President of our local Gideons, for example, with my Christian websites visited by many thousands in total. So put me in your record books.
I’m not interested in assertive comments, though. There’s not a word of physics, and no law of physics quoted in your responses to me.
Neither you, nor anyone, can explain the Earth’s surface temperature based on radiation, because the mean solar radiation reaching the surface is about 168W/m^2 for which even the blackbody temperature is only about -40°C. You can’t compound radiation from the Sun and the atmosphere (also equivalent in intensity to radiation from a black body at sub-zero temperatures) and use the total in Stefan-Boltzmann calculations. Two colds don’t make a hot. If you could do that sort of thing then, if a single bar radiator warms an object to 350K you could “prove” with Stefan-Boltzmann calculations that 16 such radiators would raise it to 700K.
There’s a debate with David Evans (Joanne Nova’s husband) copied here if anyone is interested, giving more information and proving his “thesis” wrong.
I get my satisfaction from knowing that, using the “heat creep” hypothesis (that is developed directly from the entropy maximization process in the Second Law of Thermodynamics) I can explain tropospheric and surface temperatures and the necessary heat transfer mechanisms all over the Solar System and even to the cores of Earth and the Moon. My hypothesis explains why water vapor cools the surface, and my study confirmed these expectations. The brilliant 19th century physicist, Josef Loschmidt, (first to estimate realistically the size of air molecules) has been proven correct regarding the gravito-thermal effect with 21st century experiments with centrifugal force, so all’s neat thanks, Jeff.
Sorry – delete the second (near duplicate) comment as it seemed the first had disappeared.
Regarding the evolution conjecture (obviously non-Christian) God created fish instantly on two occasions when Jesus fed 4,000 and 5,000 men plus women and children.
The probability of the very simplest life form yet discovered developing at random in one location in the whole universe in the whole of known time has been calculated to be of the order of about one in 10 to the 150th power.
itsnotco2 “God created fish instantly on two occasions when Jesus fed 4,000 and 5,000 men plus women and children.”
No mention is made of God creating fish instantly or slowly. No mention is made of how many people packed a lunch to come to this picnic. I do not accept that 5000 men plus women and children came to a picnic to hear Jesus talk and not a one of them brought food. An omnipotent, omniscient God would provide exactly the right amount of loaves and fishes. In fact, if he was of a mind, he could do that for every human on Earth from the beginning of time to its end.
“The probability of the very simplest life form yet discovered developing at random in one location in the whole universe in the whole of known time has been calculated to be of the order of about one in 10 to the 150th power.”
It has also been calculated to be 1. Your mileage may vary.
I suggest you read Josh McDowell’s book “Evidence that Demands a Verdict” and its sequel. You have about 300 predictions in the Old Testament that came true in the New Testament – Bethlehem, “out of Egypt” as a baby “Nazareth” “bones not broken” “30 pieces of silver thrown to the potter” etc etc. Perhaps that will keep you busy. If you need a free copy of the New Testament (with Psalms and Proverbs) just email me a postal address.
No Jeff, I’ve not “lost my way” – everything is crystal clear, thanks, supported by copious evidence throughout the Solar System, as well as hundreds of experiments in the 2013 paper linked here.
I ignore comments that are not discussing the physics in the “heat creep” hypothesis. Here’s some homework for you Jeff courtesy Douglas Jeffery Cotton …
THE QUESTIONS THAT STUMP LUKES AND WARMISTS
Let them first explain how they think the “science” explains that carbon dioxide warms the Earth’s surface. Then you’ll find it appropriate to continue with these questions.
(1) You claimed an incremental rise in surface temperature can be expressed as a function of an incremental increase in carbon dioxide radiation which would normally come from a colder region of the atmosphere. Is that a reasonable summation of a key element of the greenhouse hypothesis?
(2) Assuming “yes” then I say that (to convince me of that hypothesis) I need empirical evidence that the surface temperature is a function of such radiation, because if it is not, then neither is the derivative of the temperature. Is that correct?
(3) Assuming “yes” then please explain at least one point on the graph. Doing so does not prove that the function is correct, but it at least supports it and does not disprove it. If you can’t explain even a single temperature with correct physics then I am not convinced in any way, shape or form. Is that reasonable?
(4) Assuming “yes” then please explain a typical surface temperature of, say, 15°C by demonstrating (using any relevant data about any flux) how you calculate 15°C from such typical radiative flux alone.
I would appreciate discussion of the physics only.
When they claim that a mean flux of 390W/m^2 explains 15°C (because that is the blackbody temperature) ask them if they understand that temperature is only proportional to the fourth root of the flux. Then, get them to agree that the flux varies a lot, and ask for calculations for five equal regions having 20%, 60%, 100%, 140% and 180% of the mean flux. (They will get a lower mean temperature around 2°C.) Finally, ask them why they think they can add together solar radiation and back radiation in their Stefan-Boltzmann calculations. Suggest that, if an electric bar radiator is raising the temperature of an object to 350K, then, if there were sixteen such radiators and we add all the flux, Stefan Boltzmann calculations would give a temperature of 700K. Ask if they think that would happen. Assuming “no” then ask why they think they can add solar radiation and back radiation. They cannot claim to be able to do so because they have just agreed that adding the flux from all the radiators does not give a realistic temperature. Any one such example disproves their conjecture that radiative fluxes can be compounded in that way.
1 – Additional warming occurs due to CO2. That it would “normally” come from something else is rather a strange and inaccurate claim. It is not an element of a greenhouse gas.
You should have figured this out better by now.
In one of the russian author Fjodor Dostoyevskys great novels from the 19. Century, he lets the Grand Inquisitor blame the returning Christ that he introduced freedom into this world:
.
Didst Thou forget that man prefers peace, and even death, to freedom of choice in the knowledge of good and evil? Nothing is more seductive for man than his freedom of conscience, but nothing is a greater cause of suffering. And behold, instead of giving a firm foundation for setting the conscience of man at rest for ever, Thou didst choose all that is exceptional, vague and enigmatic; Thou didst choose what was utterly beyond the strength of men, acting as though Thou didst not love them at all — Thou who didst come to give Thy life for them! Instead of taking possession of men’s freedom, Thou didst increase it, and burdened the spiritual kingdom of mankind with its sufferings for ever. Thou didst desire man’s free love, that he should follow Thee freely, enticed and taken captive by Thee. In place of the rigid ancient law, man must hereafter with free heart decide for himself what is good and what is evil, having only Thy image before him as his guide. But didst Thou not know that he would at last reject even
Thy image and Thy truth, if he is weighed down with the fearful burden of free choice? They will cry aloud at last that the truth is not in Thee, for they could not have been left in greater confusion and suffering than Thou hast caused, laying upon them so many cares and unanswerable problems.
Jason said: “No thinking person in the West dislikes Islam for its concepts of God.”
Well I do. Their “God” is not the father of Jesus Christ, so he is a different, imaginary god and their teaching misleads people who might otherwise have found the truth in the Bible.
Visit my site if you wish: http://SavedByTheLamb.com
“Islam teaches that all people are sinners (Quran 16,61) and that salvation can be attained through observing the Five Pillars of Islamic practice:
1) the belief that Allah is the only god and that Muhammad is his messenger;
2) performing the five daily prayers;
3) fasting throughout the month of Ramadan;
4) charity, giving to the poor;
5) the pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in a lifetime, if one can afford it.
“By performing these works, a Muslim hopes that at the judgment day the recorded good deeds will exceed the bad ones, and so he or she will reach the paradise of material and sensual delights (56,16-41). Faith in Allah and belief that salvation is by his grace and mercy is also encouraged. Yet, despite all one’s deeds, Allah reserves the absolute right to send the deceased to wherever he pleases, paradise or hell. Those who do not conform their lives to the demands of Islam will surely be thrown into hell, a place of extreme physical pain (56,42-45; 94-95).
“Christianity is not the only religion that claims to be the only valid way to God. Islam states the same: “Whoever seeks a religion other than Islam, it will never be accepted from him and in the hereafter he will be one of the losers” (3,85). Jews and Christians are misled by their religions (9,30-31), because they have deviated from monotheism. Therefore they should convert, believe in Allah and do good deeds.
“Jesus Christ has a different character in the Quran than in the Bible. It is said that he was a special creation of God, like Adam (3,59), and that he was born to a virgin mother, Maryam (19,19-22). Nevertheless, he was not God (5,17-72), but just an apostle of God (4,171), was not crucified (4,157-158) and that he announced the coming of Muhammad (61,6).
[source]
Why wouldn’t a Christian be opposed to the promulgation of such misinformation?
Doug
The easy answer is ‘tolerance’. A genuine Christian would, or perhaps should, be expected to reply that a Muslim is entitled to their opinion. However, your quotation raises a – possibly! – interesting question about Islamic theology. For, due to the Koran’s odd interpretation of Genesis, there is no Original Sin in Islam. Allah forgives Adam, so releasing the human race from the ‘stain’ of evil.
This sounds great – no more worries about male sex restraint! Yo! Until one realises that (in an astonishing premonition of Fasco-Communism) Allah is thus free to decide who is for paradise, who not, and punish whom he pleases, just like Hitler/Stalin/Pol pot etc.. The sole exception to this is in the cause of jihad, where a mujihadin may assure himself a place amongst the virgins by dying for Allah. (Suras 47:4-6, 3:157). Many authorities use these verses as justification for suicide bombers.
Since there are some cracking nice birds, as well as gallons of cheap wine, in the Garden, what’s not to like? If I was a testosterone enhanced 21-year-old, believing Allah’s Unquestionable Truth, I’d be up for it!
Would I ever!
Speaking of “cracking nice birds” God looks after Christians who seek His guidance in marriage. Just last Friday my 28 year old Christian son married a wonderful Christian 18 year old daughter of the Pastor of a church whom he met at his own church when she visited that church because her father (who conducted the marriage ceremony) was inspired by God to suggest that she do so early last year.
Doug Cotton “Why wouldn’t a Christian be opposed to the promulgation of such misinformation?”
I have no idea. I do not speak for Christians and neither does anyone else.
The possible reasons are many. What first comes to my mind is “freedom of speech” and “freedom of religion”. I will promulgate my misinformation and you can promulgate yours.
If you “have no idea” I guess it is because you don’t realize that we Christians know that non-believers are headed for eternal punishment in hell. We love all people (in a Christian sense, caring about their welfare, health and eternal destiny) and we have been commanded by our Creator (through the words of His Son whilst He dwelt on Earth as a man) to go unto all Nations, sharing the good news that Heaven is a free gift paid for by the blood of Christ and able to be claimed by all who believe in Him.
Now, in that the preaching of any other doctrine that is contrary to what Christ taught may well persuade some people from believing in Christ (thus choosing Hell) we are opposed to such teaching. But we don’t go out and kill the proponents, because it is God’s role to punish non-believers, not ours. In fact we are instructed to love and pray for our enemies, and you might be surprised at the numbers who are converting to Christianity from other religions. In fact, it has been calculated that there are more converting to Christianity throughout the world than there are converting to any other religion, and I guess that is because truth will prevail. No other religion has a living Saviour with whom we can have a personal relationship. See my site http://SavedByTheLamd.com
Wow! Who needs Islam, eh? ‘Non-believers are headed for eternal punishment in hell’.
Jeesus!
Listen. Why not concentrate on the here and now. Christianity has given us some great ideas which we still use. For example, the distinction between ‘natural’ and ‘moral’ evil, both of which we try to understand with science.
I’m going to Hell? OK, maybe…but in the meantime I’d prefer to get on with the task of understanding God has apparently set me.
If he exists…
And Hell on earth is here right now on this earth. For my fellow man, practically in whichever direction we turn, is suffering endlessly.
If you are going out to the Nations, your first duty is to relieve suffering, help the non-believer, protect the innocent. Hold back the arm that strikes the child and the woman! Not conversion. Nor condemnation. And certainly not more self-vaunting cruelty.
Kolnai writes “Why not concentrate on the here and now.”
Automobiles are provided a rear-view mirror which lets you see where you have been. It also lets you see what is sneaking up behind you. History could be sneaking up behind you. Errors unlearned are soon repeated. Knowledge learned yesterday is ignored by the “here and now” advocates.
Failing to prepare for the future seems unwise to me. Quite frankly the “here and now” probably gets less of my attention than is optimum because I place importance on both past and future.
“Christianity has given us some great ideas which we still use.”
There is no “us” and there is no “we”. Your mileage is not my mileage. Christianity wasn’t meant to “give ideas” although I suppose I am glad for that much. It is a law to its believers.
“For example, the distinction between ‘natural’ and ‘moral’ evil, both of which we try to understand with science.”
I do not get that from Christianity. There is only one kind of evil and that emanates from the enemy of God. Science has no concept called “evil”, nor does it possess “good”. Science is conditional: IF you want a particular outcome, THEN you must do X. Whether X or its outcome is “good” is not for science to say.
Trying to understand evil using science is assured failure.
“I’m going to Hell?”
Maybe; did you mean Chicago or Los Angeles?
“in the meantime I’d prefer to get on with the task of understanding God has apparently set me.”
There should be no apparent. If God didn’t give you a task then you don’t have one.
“If he exists…”
A supreme being cannot fail to exist, or to swap the logic, it must exist. Whether this supreme being is what you believe exists or believe does not exist might need some fine tuning.
“And Hell on earth is here right now on this earth. For my fellow man, practically in whichever direction we turn, is suffering endlessly.”
Indeed. Your choice is to join them in suffering or climb out of it. To actually do that requires to look back in history and learn something about the choices previous people have made that reduced their suffering, or increased it. No “living in the here and now” if you want to escape suffering.
“If you are going out to the Nations, your first duty is to relieve suffering, help the non-believer, protect the innocent. Hold back the arm that strikes the child and the woman!”
That is not *my* first duty. It might be yours. Strange that you have no interest in holding back the arm that strikes the father and husband. How many people are suffering? Six billion? All seven billion?
What is the best way to relieve suffering on a large scale? You already know the answer — religion. If six billion people had a culture of service to each other, and were internally motivated to do so, then suffering would mostly cease. But why will they do that when so many people want others to suffer? That is also a religion, an anti-religion.
The western religions brought relative tranquility and prosperity to the west. Religion paved the way and opened the doors to science; gave science a purpose for existing.
“Not conversion.”
Conversion means of the heart. It is a better duty than you have proposed for yourself; for the person you have converted (or converted themselves having been inspired to do so by you), can then hold back striking arms so YOU don’t have to keep doing that. You cannot prevent striking arms all by yourself. You need help. Lots of help. Who is going to help? Those you have “converted”.
“Nor condemnation.”
That would be nice.
“And certainly not more self-vaunting cruelty.”
Well yes. Sadistic cruelty is much to be preferred over the self-vaunting kind.
Rear view mirror? Of course. But Doug C was talking about the future; and so was I. So my call to action is in this world, and depends on no reward or punishment in the hereafter.
Why would anyone decent need converting? Even the charlatans and minnows who rule us have ‘good hearts’ (probably – Cameron who rules me often expresses decency); and so do millions of non-Christians. What the minnows don’t have is a clear understanding of evil, the power and determination of the strong to destroy the weak.
Christianity (which I defend as much as possible) has had its fair share of terror, precisely because it did not admit (at least until Immanuel Kant) that no less than God himself can be judged by the man-made Moral Law. It is this realisation that Islam so tragically lacks. And by the sound of the Christian apologia here, by many Christians as well.
Kolnai “Why would anyone decent need converting?”
While I might have forgotten some context, I doubt there is a need for converting. It is half of a conditional statement: IF you wish to live with God in Heaven THEN you need to do a, b and c. IF a, b and c are not natural or easy for you, THEN you must convert your mind and behavior.
In my experience, conversion is toward a persons natural self, you point that person to the light, the person recognizes the light and proceeds toward it; but some will turn away from the light and actually prefer the dark. This is a strange thing to me but it appears to be so.
As commonly used, “conversion” sometimes implies force; and while it is certainly possible to compel behavior when the penalty for undesired behavior is substantial, I do not count that as “conversion”.
An example comes from my daughter when she was a toddler. She liked cheap vanilla ice cream and refused any other kind, including premium Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia. It took a full year to get her to taste B&J’s. Now of course she loves B&J’s but did the lesson cover anything else? No. She has not learned the grander lesson of trying things to find something better.
So the best “conversion” is persuading someone to taste a thing that you think is better, and which for you probably is better. Many people will refuse the tasting. But those that taste, if they like the taste, that is the moment of “conversion”. There’s still a long road, a life-long road of learning by study and experience.
“What the minnows don’t have is a clear understanding of evil, the power and determination of the strong to destroy the weak.”
Yes. It too is not monolithic. Many forces exist on a three-dimensional fabric with evil-good alignment on X, intelligence on Y and strength on Z (you can transpose the axes if you like, I use them for illustrating purposes).
“Christianity (which I defend as much as possible) has had its fair share of terror, precisely because it did not admit (at least until Immanuel Kant) that no less than God himself can be judged by the man-made Moral Law. It is this realisation that Islam so tragically lacks. And by the sound of the Christian apologia here, by many Christians as well.”
I didn’t quite follow that. People judge each other, and their idea of God, quite regularly using a mish-mash of moral codes.
The idea that God obeys eternal moral laws is not found in Catholicism (per my understanding of William Briggs understanding of Thomas Aquinas understanding of God) but *is* found in Mormonism. Your mileage will probably vary.
These moral laws exist in a hierarchy and if you get into an ethical bind knowing the hierarchy allows you to decide a course of action when otherwise you are stuck between two bad choices. C.S. Lewis implies to this concept in “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”. The witch compels obedience of a law that the lion must obey, but what the witch does not know is a higher law, that a willing sacrifice breaks the bonds of mortality.
Michael 2
And I did not follow all of that (I’m no theologian), but what I did understand, I’m pretty sure I agree with. The ‘Lion’ story is most impressive and possibly follows Kant’s view that the Moral Law permits us to see what God’s purposes are for us.
What I cannot take seriously is the notion of cruel punishment in the beyond. Your granddaughter’s story is better, and even more moving, than you allow. A pre-occupation with ‘change’ and its relation to ‘knowledge’ is part of childhood survival and adaptation; and I’m guessing she has taken something important on board, even if it’s not immediately obvious.
At any rate, we can say that some things affect us greatly enough to change us, and these things are often called ‘evil’. (I know, it’s a bit rich to call ice cream ‘evil’, but worse things are being said about fizzy drinks). Hence evil teaches us, here, now. Cruel punishment has no role in a society of free men and women able to take their own decisions and live by the results.
Here, now we can build a better world if we could only grow up, stop excusing ourselves (which can also be the excuse that ‘God wants to kill/imprison/silence/punish etc. the unbeliever’), learn from our mistakes; and (perhaps) thereby stop the lemming rush towards totalitarianism.
Big ‘if’ I admit
Attaching my reply here to prevent excessive depth…
Kolnai wrote “What I cannot take seriously is the notion of cruel punishment in the beyond.”
I take it seriously that many people believe this and over the millenia have sometimes adjusted their behavior because of it.
Evil is simply “live” backwards and that seems more illuminating than at first glance.
There is a saying in Christianity, “sheep know their shepherd’s voice”. The idea was that sheep would be grazed in the commons and at evening shepherds would call out their sheep. The implication is obvious: In Christianity, not all persons hear the same shepherd, and many shepherds exist, that means many heavens or places of dwelling of probably different decorations and amenities, perhaps some with few and perhaps one with none.
There is no evil in heaven. “Nothing to hurt or make afraid”. But what about not-heaven? Is it binary? To most Christians, yes; the distinction between what it takes to go to heaven and hell is thinner than a razor blade. That seems unreasonable to me. Mormons envision a continuum with each person basically creating, or going to, the most perfect situation that particular person imagines and prefers.
A few wish for nothing and that’s what they will get, and it is possible even they will be as happy as it is possible for that person to be.
Hell, in this scenario, doesn’t really exist as a geographic place, it is more of a state of mind that will exist if a person having lived a rotten life suddenly desires something better but has done nothing to warrant anything better. Such person may have a very long time to think about it. But God won’t be thinking about it. He does not think dark thoughts. That is not possible. I have seen it.
These new incandescent light bulbs with photonic crystal coating will be exploited by the AGW believers as “proving” the radiative forcing greenhouse conjecture. They don’t, but we already see in the current Jo Nova climate blog post an incorrect statement claiming that the IR that is reflected back then gets partly converted to new light. Max Planck (winner of a Nobel Prize for physics) would turn in his grave, because nothing changes the spectrum of emission of the filament. Radiation that is emitted in the IR bands of that spectrum is not converted to visible light by reflection, and it is not converted back to thermal (kinetic) energy when it strikes the filament again. Its energy just becomes a part of the filament’s Planck function emission and it is pseudo-scattered (as physicists call the process) and re-emitted with identical photons still in the IR band. The rate of cooling of the filament is slowed, that’s all. It is in no way analogous to the fictitious radiative greenhouse conjecture for the simple reason that there is electricity causing the filament to reach its high temperature in the first place. In contrast, solar radiation is far to weak to raise Earth’s mean surface temperature to the existing temperature. What does I have explained in my 2013 paper linked from my website http://climate-change-theory.com .
Joanne Nova asked on her climate blog for this one-sentence summary of my book and paper on core and surface temperatures:
THE HYPOTHESIS TURNS PLANETS AND MOONS INSIDE OUT, PROVING THAT THEY ARE NOT COOLING FROM THE CORE OUTWARDS, BUT WARMING FROM THE UPPER ATMOSPHERE INWARDS, SO THAT WE FIND THAT THE SUN IS IN FACT MAINTAINING ALL TEMPERATURES FROM THE UPPER ATMOSPHERE TO THE CORE.
There is more detail in this comment and in comments starting here on the previous Weekend Unthreaded. Also see my blog: https://itsnotco2.wordpress.com
Islam – Politics masquerading as religion.
David Evans wrote a series of articles on Jo Nova’s blog (she being his wife) in which he clearly indicated his belief that increasing carbon dioxide would raise the surface temperature.
But radiation from colder carbon dioxide cannot transfer thermal energy into the surface.
I explained to David that we need to know how the surface actually gets warmed each morning to whatever temperature it reaches at some location. We note that the morning warming can even take place under widespread thick cloud cover.
David could not explain the mean surface temperature based on radiation computations, and nobody can because it’s not a black or grey body being heated only by radiation.
Unfortunately David could not understand the need to explain the mean surface temperature. It is necessary to do so in order to confirm that the process we think may warm it more is in fact the same process that got it to that temperature in the first place. In fact it’s not. So David’s posts are irrelevant and misleading.
So we “explain everything with CO2” but not with physics? We just use the new “Law of the Universe” which over-rides all physics: “Thou shalt not increase carbon dioxide, methane, water vapour or anything that is considered by thy neighbour to be an IR-active gas in the atmosphere.”
What I just wrote to David Appell (seemingly a paid troll of the AGW proponents) on Roy Spencer’s current tread applies to many I suspect, so please allow a copy here Jeff, something which I also feel you and your followers should also read …
Let’s just put it this way, David Appell:
I have read Pierrehumbert etc and found errors in their physics, a subject in which I am qualified and about which I know and understand more than they.
You have not convinced me, and will not convince me that the conjecture that IR-active gases like water vapor, CO2 and CH4 raise the surface temperatures of planets like Earth and Venus whilst I have serious objections to the hypothesis because, from my experience and understanding of radiative heat transfer, entropy and thermodynamics (which I suggest surpasses yours and Pierrehumbert’s et al) I see that the hypothesis assumes violations of the laws of physics and has incorrect application of Stefan-Boltzmann computations.
The paper you thought would answer my objections does not do so – it just reiterates the errors. In any event, how could a paper written last century answer questions I have asked only this month based on 21st century understandings of radiative heat transfer, entropy maximization and thermodynamics, about which I have published two papers and a book?
In contrast to what I see as incorrect physics in the radiative forcing “greenhouse” conjecture, I have used correct physics to explain what really does happen in all planets and satellite moons regarding the supporting of temperatures and the necessary heat transfers. If what I have explained is correct, then the greenhouse conjecture is false because the two are mutually exclusive.
So, I am not convinced (and will not be convinced) that you are basing your communication here upon correct physics, unless and until you satisfactorily respond in your own words to the questions on my blog which I shall now copy below for the convenience of new silent readers whom I am referring here from a hundred or so climate blogs and threads, so don’t let them down …
THE QUESTIONS THAT STUMP LUKES AND WARMISTS
(1) You claimed an incremental rise in surface temperature can be expressed as a function of an incremental increase in carbon dioxide radiation which would normally come from a colder region of the atmosphere. Is that a reasonable summation of a key element of the greenhouse hypothesis?
(2) Assuming “yes” then I say that (to convince me of that hypothesis) I need empirical evidence that the surface temperature is a function of such radiation, because if it is not, then neither is the derivative of the temperature. Is that correct?
(3) Assuming “yes” then please explain at least one point on the graph. Doing so does not prove that the function is correct, but it at least supports it and does not disprove it. If you can’t explain even a single temperature with correct physics then I am not convinced in any way, shape or form. Is that reasonable?
(4) Assuming “yes” then please explain a typical surface temperature of, say, 15°C by demonstrating (using any relevant data about any flux) how you calculate 15°C from such typical radiative flux alone.
I would appreciate discussion of the physics only.
When they claim that a mean flux of 390W/m^2 explains 15°C (because that is the blackbody temperature) ask them if they understand that temperature is only proportional to the fourth root of the flux. Then, get them to agree that the flux varies a lot, and ask for calculations for five equal regions having 20%, 60%, 100%, 140% and 180% of the mean flux. (They will get a lower mean temperature around 3°C.) Finally, ask them why they think they can add together solar radiation and back radiation in their Stefan-Boltzmann calculations. Suggest that, if an electric bar radiator is raising the temperature of an object to 350K, then, if there were sixteen such radiators and we add all the flux, Stefan Boltzmann calculations would give a temperature of 700K. Ask if they think that would happen. Assuming “no” then ask why they think they can add solar radiation and back radiation. They cannot claim to be able to do so because they have just agreed that adding the flux from all the radiators does not give a realistic temperature. Any one such example disproves their conjecture that radiative fluxes can be compounded in that way.
itsnotco2 writes “Suggest that, if an electric bar radiator is raising the temperature of an object to 350K, then, if there were sixteen such radiators and we add all the flux, Stefan Boltzmann calculations would give a temperature of 700K. Ask if they think that would happen. Assuming “no” then ask why they think they can add solar radiation and back radiation”
I am not nearly the expert you are, but I have spent plenty of time in cold places (Alaska, Iceland) where I would much rather have 16 radiators rather than just one. The assumption here is that a hot radiator is emitting in all directions and I intercept only a small portion. 16 small portions of each radiator provides me with much more heat than just one radiator.
What my body intercepts doesn’t have a temperature; just a flow of photons. It becomes temperature once absorbed and excites the atoms of my skin which are very happy with it. 16 such flows will make me warmer than just one where the heat sources are not in contact with the destination object. Whether it is 16 times warmer is less certain because my own body is a radiator and as I warm up, I increase my radiation dramatically (fourth power of temperature, more or less).
Since a molecule or atom has no idea from what direction a photon or phonon of energy has just arrived, downward traveling photons/phonons must be accepted the same as upward traveling photons/phonons. Heat only travels from hot to cold, photons travel from excited atoms to whatever ends up capturing them. In other words, some photons are going against the direction of heat flow, because heat is not photons; it is the net effect of those photons and phonons. Hot source emits many photons in all direction, including a few to the cold source. The cold source is also emitting some photons, but not many and on average at a longer wavelength.
Now if your hot radiator was in contact with the heated object, such that the radiator was 350 degrees and so was the object, then adding more radiators also in contact will have no effect on the object since their mutual exchange of energy via phonons will be in equilibrium. With 16 radiators in contact, everything will be at 350 degrees but at the points of contact will exist quite a lot of activity.
Doug is no expert Michael. He is peddling nonsense.
If the inert object is at absolute zero before the first radiator is introduced, and is warmed to temeprature T at equilibrium. After additional radiators are added such that the spacing and positioning allow 16 times more photonic energy of the same wavelength distribution to strike the inert object, then when the object reaches equilibrium with its new environment, we would see a doubling of temperature 2T per Stephan Boltzmann. Doug starts his question out by assuming ‘no’ which is flat nonsense.
I would have to guess that this particular nonsense comes from him thinking about electric heaters in an already hot environment (like planet earth) and making a non-physical conclusion but the reality is that he will simply change his opinion as long as it allows him to believe greenhouse gasses cannot cause warming.
Well do the experiment and create Venus-like temperatures in your lounge room with 16 bar radiators each delivering no more than 2400 watts I presume if that’s the maximum current they draw. Venus like temperatures require over 16,000W/m^2.
exactly my point
Jeff
If there are readers here with a better understanding of Kinetic Theory and processes leading to maximum entropy production (as per the Second Law) then such readers will form a different opinion than yourself Jeff, who probably has not completed three years of university education in physics, let alone been award a scholarship by Sydney University Physics Department, as I was.
Even a first year physics student would know to use Kelvin with Plancks law. An object at room temperature as in your example is 285Kish, and that means it is hotter already and you need to consider that significant amount of heat transfer in order to balance your equation.
As amazingly smart as you claim to be, you sure did botch that problem.
How is it that someone who claims to know ANYTHING about physics would blow such a rudimentary physics problem?
Doug,
I have completed Aeronautical engineering which had more than a smattering of Physics, I have also had a number of thermodynamic classes including graduate finite element thermodynamics, but it doesn’t change the fact that you are comparing a room temperature value in your incorrect thought problem. It is completely moronic and the hilarious bit is that it is exactly the error I predicted you made to Michael 2. That is how well I know you.
Helping Doug learn one blog comment at a time. I should be charging you fees after as much as I’ve changed your argument.
It’s laughable (but sad) that Jeff thinks this, and I quote “If the inert object is at absolute zero before the first radiator is introduced, and is warmed to temeprature T at equilibrium. After additional radiators are added such that the spacing and positioning allow 16 times more photonic energy of the same wavelength distribution to strike the inert object, then when the object reaches equilibrium with its new environment, we would see a doubling of temperature 2T per Stephan Boltzmann.”
Doug is correct.
Just so casual readers are aware, our Atmospheric Physicist IS Doug.
There exists some nuances to my earlier comment that others have pointed out and I will restate here.
The main point of contention seems to be that photons know not to go to a hot object. To me that is absurd. They know nothing.
What is much more likely is a cold photon goes to a hot object and won’t be absorbed because what it hits is already at a higher excitation state or energy level; the cold photon cannot “pump” an already excited atom. Since it won’t be absorbed that leaves reflection; it will likely bounce off and go somewhere else.
In that sense a cold object cannot heat an already warm object, but not for lack of trying. It’s just the photons won’t be accepted. Occasionally an atom of the warm object won’t be in its excited state and may accept a photon from the cold object. This could be easily tested in the laboratory. Since it doesn’t matter much to me and each reader has already formed his opinions on the topic I’ll let it rest here.
Michael 2,
A couple of problems with your description.
“What is much more likely is a cold photon goes to a hot object and won’t be absorbed because what it hits is already at a higher excitation state or energy level”
How likely is it that we strike an excited atom in the temperature ranges we are discussing? I can answer that question as ‘not very likely’. There is quite a bit of math that can be brought to bear regarding the decay rate of atomic bonds, however if we recognize that the optical absorptivity of a material does not significantly change in the range of a few hundred degrees of room temperature, that is a strong clue that receptor sites dominate materials in the temperature range of global warming – our question of whether sufficient de-energized atoms exist for photons is easily resolved.
” It’s just the photons won’t be accepted.”
If you are unsatisfied by my above description, remember that global warming greenhouse gasses are about high energy photons coming from sunlight having a general wavelength of solar fusion (bright and yellow) and striking materials which are at Earth temperature (not visible) and emit radiation at comparatively very long infra-red wavelengths. So quantum mechanics teaches us that in the case of global warming, the atoms of Earth’s surface and atmosphere are energized by their average temperature at levels (modes) that are not competitive in any way with the levels (modes) that higher energy photons of sunlight are absorbed at. It simply isn’t possible that sunlight would not be absorbed as efficiently due to a tiny change in Earth’s temperature. You know this generally because the ground doesn’t change color as it warms.
I work in optics and can tell you that this has been tested in laboratories extensively. There is no question in my mind whatsoever because as I said, I work in optics. I can’t even imagine the mess it would make of optical sensors were the opposite true.
Doba! Relax. I do not have a dog in this fight. I appreciate your explanations and arguments and will form my own not-terribly-important opinion of all this.
“It simply isn’t possible that sunlight would not be absorbed as efficiently due to a tiny change in Earth’s temperature.”
Well yes, at some risk of being wrong I would say this is obvious. What matters is the high energy photons can excite Earth atoms and molecules because they are at a lower energy state than the arriving photon. But the Planck curve shows that some atoms are at one state, others at a different state, a few at low states and extremely few at significantly higher states — but more than zero.
Consequently, I expect that a slight increase in Earth temperature will manifest itself, however negligibly, in the case that an arriving photon just happens to hit an atom that is already excited to that state and cannot be pumped to a higher state. But what happens then? I don’t know but I have this spare photon wandering around and it won’t be long until it is captured by something and turned into heat. So on the macro scale it works out to pretty much the same thing.
Now suppose photons did actually pump up the Earth surface to 5600 degrees Kelvin. Earth would definitely change color.
Michael 2,
I would think an 11 hour later reply was relaxed enough. You are correct in your engineer style impressions (at least good ones) of the potential linearity of absorption and re-emission such that subtle change could still cancel out subtle change. However, if you imagine even twice the inbound solar flux, you can equally imagine that the surface of Earth would still not light at visible wavelengths — or anywhere close. And a basic understanding of quantum absorption indicates that the for the absorption bands of sunlight to be saturated, we would see significant emission of visible sunlight wavelength light — a color change – red hot — white hot –etc…
Anyway, that is probably the best I have. Unfortunately, as I think you already know, people need to mostly figure things out on their own in science.
“And a basic understanding of quantum absorption indicates that the for the absorption bands of sunlight to be saturated, we would see significant emission of visible sunlight wavelength light — a color change – red hot — white hot –etc”
Agreed. Essentially all solar photons in the visible portion of the spectrum will be absorbed according to the emissivity of whatever they strike.
It depends what you mean by “absorbed” Michael. The solar energy will not be thermalized if the surface temperature is already above what Stefan-Boltzmann calculations indicate the solar radiation could achieve. For example, the radiated energy will not be thermalized in a level surface 5 minutes after sunrise because of the acute angle requiring multiplication by the sine of that angle to get the effective flux. The mean solar flux reaching the surface is about 168W/m^2 and that CANNOT achieve a mean surface temperature above the black body temperature which is 233K or about -40°C. Only in well under a quarter of the Earth’s surface can the solar radiation actually raise the surface temperature. On Venus it cannot do so anywhere.
Michael. You are not a blackbody and so you also lose thermal energy by conduction into the air molecules that strike your body. This happens simultaneously, and so you may well “feel” warmer with 16 radiators around you, because all parts of your body are receiving radiation and there is no “dark hemisphere” on the opposite side to the single radiator. My point is that you will not be heated to Venus-like temperatures around 700K. That’s a fact and the reasons are explained in my paper that was published on several websites in March 2012, and which correctly summarized 21st century understandings among physicists, citing relevant work on this issue. I am not interested in thought experiments about what people think photons do or don’t do. There are plenty of real-world empirical experiments which now confirm what I say, and likewise there are experiments confirming what I have explained using Kinetic Theory and the Second Law.
itsnotco2 “Michael. You are not a blackbody and so you also lose thermal energy by conduction into the air molecules that strike your body.”
Yes. I have not argued otherwise.
“This happens simultaneously, and so you may well “feel” warmer with 16 radiators around you, because all parts of your body are receiving radiation and there is no “dark hemisphere” on the opposite side to the single radiator.”
I have not proposed a distribution of 16 radiators. They can all be clustered together so long as there’s a visible path between each and me; or just one radiator with 16 times the surface area.
“My point is that you will not be heated to Venus-like temperatures around 700K”
Quite right. It is extremely unlikely I can be heated any hotter than the hottest of the radiators no matter how many there are. You are correct to note I am not a blackbody; but my deviation from blackbody is also a limiter on how much I absorb, so it works out the same.
My commentary speaks to objects much colder than the radiator, who or which for various reasons is losing heat to the environment (Alaska). Adding 16 times the heat flux will warm the body considerably more (nearly 16 times in my opinion, twice in someone elses) than one radiator. SB isn’t really pertinent in this experiment. The cold body (me) is at such a lower temperature that the energy flow from me is negligible. Going from 1 C to 2 C isn’t a doubling anyway.
I could probably do some calculations to refine my thought experiment but seems not necessary. It’s -16 C outside right now. I could use 16 radiators thank you very much.
And Michael, the Second Law works just as well whether bodies are in contact and transferring thermal energy by conduction, or whether they are separate by a vacuum. In the latter case, assuming different initial temperatures, there is only an effective one-way transfer of thermal energy which is represented by the area between the Planck curves. Nature has a remarkable way of ensuring this happens and the Second Law is obeyed by radiation. The radiation that is common to source and target (that under the Planck curve for the cooler body) merely resonates and its electro-magnetic energy is not converted to kinetic energy. Physicists say it is pseudo-scattered, and this can happen for any value of flux from multiple similar sources. That’s physics. That’s the real world. Jeff’s experiment, if he deigns to try it even with 4 or 5 radiators, will not have a result based on compounding the radiation and bunging the total flux into S-B calculations.
“The radiation that is common to source and target (that under the Planck curve for the cooler body) merely resonates”
Wrong. Most atomic/molecular receptor sites are available by the guarantees of quantum probability at planetary temperatures, these sites DO absorb. And then re-emit to the same net effect (area under the curve) as your own made up theory.
We can calculate the probabilty of exited atoms in a material and their expected decay rate from quantum mechanics. IF you were correct, every atom would have to know its neighbors state or all atoms would have to be simulteneously at the same state. Both concepts are luducrous on the face of them – so your theory fails.
No Jeff. They only “absorb” as electron energy up to their capacity to immediately re-emit as per the relevant Planck function. The absorption is not thermalized (for such would violate the Second Law which applies to every independent single process) but instead amounts to just raising electrons through one or more quantum energy states in preparation for emitting (usual within 10^-14 second) an identical photon as part of their Planck quota.
This is why only the radiation corresponding to the common area under the Planck curve for the cooler body resonates like this as it is within the radiation quota of the cooler body and the warmer body.
The surplus “overflows” and is “ground” into kinetic energy in a cooler target, that surplus corresponding to the area between the Planck functions – which is the calculation used by physicists and engineers for over 100 years. There is one-way heat only, despite there being two-way radiation sometimes. Every one-way pencil of radiation obeys the Second Law and heat is only from (effectively) warmer to (effectively) cooler bodies/systems.
Second law of thermodynamics: In a natural thermodynamic process, the sum of the entropies of the interacting thermodynamic systems increases.
THIS IS WHY YOU CAN’T ADD SOLAR RADIATION AND BACK RADIATION … and use the total in Stefan-Boltzmann (S-B) calculations.
S-B is based on the integral of the Planck function – that is, the area under the curve.
To get the right temperature, it must be a full-spectrum Planck function with the correct shape, so it must come spontaneously from a single blackbody.
But solar radiation and back radiation have very different Planck functions – different height and very different peak frequencies because these are proportional to temperature. Back radiation isn’t even full spectrum – it’s just several spectral lines.
So, if you added the two functions you obviously get a double-humped graph that is nothing like a true Planck function and so any S-B calculations based purely on the mathematical sum of the intensities amounts to garbage in – garbage out.
But that is definitely what is done in all those energy budget diagrams and all the expensive computer models.
Doug,
I was moving along to delete some of your nonsense as per my morning ritual, but this argument is as fantastic as the Celcius Planck curve argument so I’ll just leave it.
As usual, no specific mention of any particular point – no physics – no logic in your “last resort” type reply.
Did you ever read Dr Alex Hamilton’s review on Amazon of my book “Why It’s Not Carbon Dioxide After All” eh? You might learn something from a professor of physics one of these days, although I consider you unteachable.
—-
REPLY: Doug, I don’t read your reviews and don’t intend to read any of your piles of written words. You have been given more opportunity here than anywhere else to explain your case and you fail. Your argument has improved in complexity but it is lacking in any understanding of basic quantum mechanics or the dry adiabatic lapse rate. Once you figure these things out, it will mesh perfectly with existing science– minus the ridiculous conclusions though.
For other readers, Alex Hamilton is you as far as I know. He uses the same phraseology here as you do and the IP address makes him your local library or your moms computer or something so unless he starts writing using different wording than you, I’m just going to assume he is you posting under yet another name. You do have a strange hobby Doug.
PROOF of 19th Century Physicist Josef Loschmidt’s GRAVITO-THERMAL EFFECT using Second Law of Thermodynamics and Kinetic Theory of Gases SHOWS WHY GREENHOUSE “SCIENCE” IS FALSE.
In the state of thermodynamic equilibrium (that is, maximum entropy) in a column of the troposphere the pressure from above and below any horizontal plane is equal. Because pressure is proportional to the product of temperature and density, and because there can be no transfer of energy or matter across any internal boundary when there is thermodynamic equilibrium, we can deduce that, for any horizontal plane, there must be equal numbers of molecules crossing upwards as there are crossing downwards, and the mean kinetic energy of each group while crossing the plane must be equal.
For the numbers to be equal we note that the effect of gravity creates a greater than 50% chance that net downward motion will occur during and also between molecular collisions. This means that there must be a higher density below the plane and a lower one above.
And, for the temperatures to be equal, this means that (because molecules gain Kinetic Energy with downward motion) there must have been lower mean molecular Kinetic Energy (temperature) above the plane and warmer temperature below. Hence there is a stable equilibrium temperature gradient resulting from the entropy maximization process described in statements of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.*
Hence the radiative forcing greenhouse conjecture is false.
Hence James Hansen and others are mistaken in thinking that temperatures at the base of planetary tropospheres (and in any solid surfaces there) are primarily determined by radiation of any form reaching that region.
* “Second law of thermodynamics: In a natural thermodynamic process, the sum of the entropies of the interacting thermodynamic systems increases.”
Few people have PhD’s in climatology, so when Dr Hans Jelbring (one who has) strongly supports what I have said I would suggest you ought to heed this new 21st century breakthrough in our understanding of planetary temperatures and heat transfer mechanisms.
So please note this strong support from Dr Hans Jelbring (PhD climatology) in an email I have just received reading …
“Dear all, Including politicians, laymen and scientists.
I am strongly supporting what Doug is writing below based on the fact being one of few scientists who actually have a doctorate in climatology. All of you who believe in authority should believe what Doug is saying below which is according to my own research and what some qualified scientists have told since many years. ….
I would also like to give credit to Doug Cotton who never seems to give up in his fight against ignorance among both politicians and scientists.”
Breaking NEWS!
The greenhouse conjecture about CO2 has now been smashed by experiments. It has been discovered that the assumption that 390W/m^2 of solar radiation and radiation from the colder atmosphere is not enough to explain the mean surface temperature of 288K because we now know by experiment that the Earth’s surface is not a flat blackbody upon which the Sun shines uniformly night and day from equator to pole, as would be required to get 288K. Sadly (for those whose income depends on the old 20th century false assumption by James Hansen) we now realize that the Earth is spherical and thus receives variable flux which, even if it did have a mean of 390W/m^2, would only produce a mean temperature less than 5°C. This comes from new understanding (never apparently known in climatology circles) that the Stefan Boltzmann calculations are based on temperature being proportional only to the fourth root of flux. Hence all the high (well above average) flux in the tropics isn’t pulling its weight as it doesn’t drag the mean temperature up in proportion to its contribution to the mean flux. It’s not hard to understand – except by those with pecuniary interests in not understanding. In fact we shouldn’t add the cold atmospheric “back” radiation, but never mind. You may read about other experiments with centrifugal force and sealed cylinders of gas showing temperature gradients if you search for them.
The target only “absorbs” as electron energy up to its capacity to immediately re-emit as per the relevant Planck function. The absorption is not thermalized (for such would violate the Second Law which applies to every independent single process) but instead amounts to just raising electrons through one or more quantum energy states in preparation for emitting (usual within 10^-14 second) an identical photon as part of their Planck quota.
This is why only the radiation corresponding to the common area under the Planck curve for the cooler body resonates like this as it is within the radiation quota of the cooler body and the warmer body.
The surplus “overflows” and is “ground” into kinetic energy in a cooler target, that surplus corresponding to the area between the Planck functions – which is the calculation used by physicists and engineers for over 100 years. There is one-way heat only, despite there being two-way radiation sometimes. Every one-way pencil of radiation obeys the Second Law and heat is only from (effectively) warmer to (effectively) cooler bodies/systems.
Second law of thermodynamics: In a natural thermodynamic process, the sum of the entropies of the interacting thermodynamic systems increases.
PROOF of GRAVITO-THERMAL EFFECT using Second Law of Thermodynamics and Kinetic Theory of Gases SHOWS WHY GREENHOUSE “SCIENCE” IS FALSE.
In the state of thermodynamic equilibrium (that is, maximum entropy) in a column of the troposphere the pressure from above and below any horizontal plane is equal. Because pressure is proportional to the product of temperature and density, and because there can be no transfer of energy or matter across any internal boundary when there is thermodynamic equilibrium, we can deduce that, for any horizontal plane, there must be equal numbers of molecules crossing upwards as there are crossing downwards, and the mean kinetic energy of each group while crossing the plane must be equal.
Now, for the numbers to be equal we note that the effect of gravity creates a slightly greater than 50% chance that net downward motion will occur during and also between molecular collisions. This means that there must be a higher density below the plane and a lower one above. So this explains how the density gradient evolves as a result of maximum entropy production (that is, dissipation of unbalanced energy potentials) in accord with the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
And, for the temperatures to be equal, this means that (because molecules gain Kinetic Energy with downward motion) there must have been lower mean molecular Kinetic Energy (temperature) above the plane and warmer temperature below. Hence there is a stable equilibrium temperature gradient resulting from the entropy maximization process described in statements of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.*
Hence it is gravity that forms the temperature gradient and thus leads to the surface temperature being warmer than temperatures in the mid regions of the troposphere. Radiation from these colder regions in the troposphere cannot heat the warmer surface, and the solar radiation reaching the surface is insufficient to explain the mean surface temperature.
Hence James Hansen and others are mistaken in thinking that temperatures at the base of planetary tropospheres (and in any solid surfaces there) are primarily determined by radiation of any form reaching that region.
Hence the radiative forcing greenhouse conjecture is false.
* Second law of thermodynamics: “In a natural thermodynamic process, the sum of the entropies of the interacting thermodynamic systems increases.”
http://climate-change-theory.com
Dr Hans Jelbring (PhD in climatology) agrees with the new 21st century paradigm shift in our understanding of atmospheric physics that I have explained. Contrary to what James Hansen thought, radiation reaching a planet’s surface is not what determines the surface temperature, and, in particular, radiation from a colder troposphere cannot help the Sun raise the temperature of the warmer surface each morning. What really happens in all planets with atmospheres is totally different. Now, with hundreds of experiments this century, we can be quite sure that the brilliant 19th century physicist, Josef Loschmidt (first to estimate the size of air molecules) was right when he explained why gravity acting on molecules in flight between collisions forms a stable equilibrium temperature gradient. So we don’t need back radiation “propping up” the surface temperature, because gravity does it. That is why, at the base of the nominal troposphere of Uranus, where there is no solid surface and no solar radiation, it is hotter than Earth’s surface despite being more than 20 times further from the Sun. It is also why experiments demonstrate temperature gradients due to centrifugal force. Full details are in my peer-reviewed paper (with which Dr Jelbring is in agreement and others with a sound background in physics) linked at http://climate-change-theory.com and you may ask genuine questions on my blog https://itsnotco2.wordpress.com .