My Beauty Best Teacher

Today Mr. Liberal Teacher came into my classroom again. He looked around and then said to me, "Something bothered me from talking to you yesterday, and I didn't want to go another day without talking about it."

My eyes brightened. Perhaps he had come in to apologize for his 'there is no debate and no games to play- it is my way or you shall be destroyed' position he took yesterday. But I was not that lucky.

"I noticed that you have a poster up at the back of your room," he said and waved to a poster that I had recently put up. I've taught World History for several years, but this year I decided to put up more material related to this class, and had hung up a long poster in the back of the room. It was about eye-height, 10 ft long, 2 feet high, and had on it a tree with various branches on it that represented the history of time from the beginning to today and was filled in with various details from the history of the world.

"You need to take that poster down," he said. "It has religious themes on it, and religion is not allowed in schools. Being a government teacher, you should know that the first amendment forbids anything religious from being in schools."

I was shocked, and looked at the poster in question. Along with branches and strands describing the history of technology, the rise and fall of empires, and the lives of important people, there was a small section at the top of the poster that traced the lives of early biblical persons. Many students were fascinated by looking at where in the history of the world the early biblical persons may have fallen. This portion of the poster was short- a foot or so in length- and small- 4 inches at the top- and was separated from the history portion by a thick line. I didn't understand how this could be offensive.

"It has Biblical history on it," Mr. Liberal Teacher he explained, "And the courts have been clear that the Bible has no place in the education of our youth today, and that Christianity and its ideas should not be found in schools."

Stunned, I thought about arguing with him- but in a way, he is correct- our government and courts are increasingly openly hostile to Christianity, preferring to favor the religion of the Green God or the worship of celebrities. Probably I could keep the poster up and win a lawsuit, but I'd have to pay for that lawsuit from my own pocket, deal with it, have to fend off the publicity, and may not be employed any more with the various government agencies I deal with. He might have been wrong, but he was right about Christianity being driven from our schools.

In the end, I took the poster down- in a society increasingly based on connections and vicious attacks, for now it was easier for me to back down and take the poster down rather than fight to keep it up. I'm going to make biblical history a handout instead, and put it in terms of exploring history, and instead of just seeing the poster, I will now teach what was on it directly to the students. I guess Mr. Liberal Teacher won this round, but I hope to still win the war.

Yemisi Ogbe writes in Farafina:

At the risk of losing my faith in the Nigerian church, I began to ask what the real relevance of Christianity is in Nigeria, especially the unglamorous Christianity of carrying crosses, following paths of repentance, seeking a God of love, and endlessly turning the other cheek. Would Nigerian men of God and congregations cease deceiving themselves, and would over 30 million Nigerians who profess Christianity make a difference to a precarious economy? Would the biblically proscribed need for integrity in our relationship with God and other human beings gain its rightful place in the church? Is there a danger in giving more and more power to men who believe it is their God given right to determine the course of other people's lives? What would happen if it becomes difficult to continue to control people with the threat of a God who avenges insubordination to his representatives? Would men of God then find ‘more effective’ means of keeping people under control, keeping themselves relevant?

G. Pascal Zachary on the 'The Oracle of Africa'

While Achebe criticizes Western thinkers on Africa, he also sets himself apart from other African intellectuals by his complex stance toward the Christianization of his people. The Igbo are among the most fervent Catholics in Africa, and evangelical Christianity is also strong among them. Achebe’s own father was enlisted by Anglican missionaries to convert other “natives,” and Achebe himself benefited from the schools established by foreigners. Yet he remains alive to the damage done by Christianity and relishes how traditional spiritual beliefs persist among Igbo and other Africans.

The critiques of the colonial and the Christian legacies in Africa come together in Achebe’s powerful indictment against Western do-gooders who, he asserts, demean and diminish Africans in their pursuit of helping them. “Lurid and degrading stereotypes,” he writes, are invoked by aid workers, humanitarians and missionaries in order to drum sympathy for African causes. Yet by “dehumanizing the sufferer,” advocates of assistance for Africa, abetted by international media and Hollywood, promote corrosive stereotypes that drown out authentic African voices.

More here

My brother passed me this article "Look Who's Irrational Now," that talks about a comprehensive new study released by Baylor University yesterday that shows that traditional Christian religion greatly decreases belief in superstitious and pseudoscience. Belief in God decreased the belief in everything from the efficacy of palm readers to the usefulness of astrology. The study also shows that the irreligious and the members of more liberal Protestant denominations, far from being resistant to superstition, tend to be much more likely to believe in the paranormal and in pseudoscience than evangelical Christians.

In my own personal experience, I also find this true. The students in my class that are the most grounded, the most likely to use rational thought and chuckle at irrational claims, are those who are also the most traditionally Christian. And those students in my class who are openly anti-religious tend to believe in magic- they have charms and rings, they are superstitious about rituals, and I even had one anti-religious student put a curse on me. From the article:

Anti-religionists such as Mr. Maher bring to mind the assertion of G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown character that all atheists, secularists, humanists and rationalists are susceptible to superstition: "It's the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense, and can't see things as they are."

Maybe this is why Americans are becoming gullible fools? Maybe the fall of Christianity is the reason that they're more likely to buy into charlatans who promise to sell them the world? Maybe this is why they actually get excited and faint over the One when he gives a speech, and they mock those who 'cling to their guns and religion' while clinging to One who promises to walk on water and control the weather? Maybe the fall of traditional Christianity is the reason why people believe that Bush personally knocked down the towers on 9/11, or personally destroyed the levies in New Orleans- or any of the other host of irrational concerns that are now commonly accepted. Who knows? Guess I'll just have to ask for guidance and faith from my 2,000-year-old space god.

Yesterday I attended a conference at a university in another state for the purposes of looking over a test that this university gives all future teacher candidates, and it was indeed an upsetting experience for me once again because of my conservative beliefs. The conference had about a dozen teachers and professors at it, all drawn from the social studies profession, and we spent the day looking over all of the items on a test that is given each year to graduating teacher candidates, making sure that the test items were valid questions to ask future teachers. The teachers on the committee ranged from communists to fascists to socialists to liberals, with one or two moderates thrown in for balance, and me. The day was a constant battle for me, but there was one question in particular that I believe was very revealing.

Our committee looked over a question that (roughly) said "Which of the following is the correct reason why there is global climate change?" The supposed correct answer was "the build-up of carbon dioxide gasses caused by man-caused deforestation."

Of course I questioned the validity of the item, and in doing so, I set off an amazing firestorm of criticism and personal attacks that shocked me in its savagery and offensiveness by simply questioning of whether a test question should be asked to all students who want to be teachers in the future should establish as a fact that there is in fact global climate change occurring and that the reason for it occurring is because of the build up of carbon dioxide gasses and that the reason why there is more CO2 is because of deforestation and that this deforestation is caused by man.

You see, by questioning this test item, I questioned the entire Faith of the liberals and leftists on the committee, and questioning people's Faith really pisses people off. It is a matter of Faith that is not to be questioned and that evidence is not needed that global warming was happening, that it is caused by humanity, that it is a bad thing, that even if other nations do nothing we can still do something, that it isn’t too late to act, that we can afford to do something, and that the something is more government control over our society. I questioned whether it should be a fact that all students learn the Faith of the left.

The committee reacted with shock that I was allowed to be on the committee and was allowed to be a teacher. I was called stupid, dumb, uneducated, and an unbeliever. They wanted to know how many years I had been teaching, how many students I may have possibly talked to about my unbelief, and above all, how I had ever been allowed to become a teacher with such ideas as questioning the Faith of the left.

In spite of the vicious and personal nature of the attacks me, I maintained my cool and simply kept repeating that some question aspects of the question and that it would be unfair and invalid to have that sort of question on a test that all students must take. I maintained that my personal views were irrelevant and that I was simply doing my job. But this wasn't good enough- the mere whiff that there was a heretic in the room had got the committee's blood boiling, and instead of discussing whether the item was valid or not, they jumped to the attack of me, demanding to know my personal views on every aspect of global climate change. I kept my cool until one of the more moderate committee members made a comment that sent me over the edge by questioning my Faith.

"Teach brings up a good point," he said, "There are people out there who may doubt what we all know are accepted facts, and we should be careful with our language. When we ask questions about other discredited ideas and theories, like creationism, we are careful to not purposefully offend those who believe in those things, so we should really try to rework this question."

The committee though disagreed- one after another they said "This test is to test whether graduating students have the knowledge to be teachers, and I don't want anyone becoming a teacher who has illogical and wrong views, whether it is believing in a flat earth or creationism or or magic or doubting that man-made global warming is happening now due to deforestation."

Now I was boiling. This committee thought that I was illogical and wrong because I believed in science and God!  They compared creationism (a variation of which that focuses on the evolution of early man that I have become increasingly fascinated with) and the science of global warming with flat earth and magic and saw nothing wrong with that comparison! My Faith and beliefs were now under attack.

Sadly though, I recognized that the committee was correct- I was a Christian man in a sea of heretics, and my options were at that point to continue my objections to the test question and continue to be attacked by the group, or to just shut up and continue to chip away at the edges of the the liberal agenda of the test. Since this was only a volunteer effort on my part, I stopped talking, eventually their personal attacks and questioning of my education and beliefs were stopped since they no longer were hurting me, and the committee moved on to other questions of various degrees of invalidity.

This is not the first time that I have run into this sort of reaction, and it will not be the last. In Stonehenge and the Descent into Barbarianism I wrote:

Pagan religion is becoming increasingly popular and accepted in our society. I see it most in the numbers of people who openly and proudly proclaim that they are not Christian, and also are the most fervent and devout believers in man-made-caused-one-way-global-warming-solved-by-government-power. They now worship the Green God. Other people, in an effort to be fair and politically correct to everyone, have decided to worship every god, embracing a polytheistic view of the world, whereby they pray to whatever god they think will help them the most. Animal rights activists worship animals and many people worship men (like Obama)- paganism is on the rise, not decline, in our society.

In My Personal Experience Fighting the Worship of Earth Hour I wrote:

...It all started last week with an innocent email that was sent out by an administrator, telling our entire staff all about Earth Hour and encouraging people to "support the fight against global warming by turning off your lights for one hour tomorrow night- together , we can create change in our world and bring peace to all."...

...In a fit of frustration, I replied to this email- pecking out a reply between hours- and sent it to the whole staff. I felt that if it was okay to get emails about Earth Hour, it was okay to respond to these emails- and I did. I sent the following message "As you can see from the attached graphs, there is no correlation between keeping your lights on and the Earth warming. But, because you asked, I'll turn off some lights to lower my energy bill."...

....But question the religion of global warming, question the beliefs of liberals, and be prepared for a firestorm- now I know. My inbox was instantly filled with emails blasting me, stunning me with their viciousness and vileness.

Other teachers and administrators sent me emails that said that my arguments were "sad defeatist" arguments, that I was giving up on the world and was unwilling to fight to make the world a better place. I was called "unintelligent," "uneducated," "immature," "backward," and "crazy." Like most liberals do, rather than debate my ideas and thoughts and data, they went straight for name-calling.

Even worse, many began to question my teaching ability. For the record, my students have the highest scores in the district on our common assessments and high-stakes tests, and I have frequently been recognized by students, other teachers, and administrators for being an outstanding teacher. But question the global warming religion once, and I get emails saying such things as "I am concerned that you could be convincing our students of the same fallacies" and "I seriously question what you are teaching our students."...

...Logic, reasoning, and calm calculations, supported by data and clear thinking, had run up against religion. Global Warming (or climate change) is a religion, not a policy position. It's too bad that this religion is allowed to flourish in schools, that education can have study classes on the tenets of global warming, that we erect alters to worship global warming (a 'green garden' was built at our school last year), and that there are places to sacrifice to the green gods all over schools (the recycling symbol is omnipresent, as our recycling boxes and bins). It's too bad that schools are against religions such as Christianity and Judaism, as public schools continue their war on "he who can not be named in schools" (God).

Perhaps what was most upsetting to me about this incident was the reaction I got from my wife when I told her all this stuff. Excited about fighting the good battle, energized from my attempts to reason, I told my wife what I had done. Her face got pale, and she became fearful and scared- she was frightened that in this world, this new country of change, that I would be fired for believing the wrong things, for having the wrong views on global warming. My wife was scared that schools have become so much like a 3rd world dictatorship that saying the wrong view could mean the loss of my job. And the scary thing, she is right.

By taking this stand, by sending out one little email questioning global warming, by defending myself from insults and questions as to my ability, I have put myself personally in danger of being fired. I may now be let go from my job for questioning global warming. That is scary. Things are changing in this world, hope is dimming, and life is not fair anymore- and my small attempt to fight back at this, to push the darkness back by lighting the light of logic and reasoning on Earth Hour, may very well be the end of me as a teacher.

As you can see, the Green God has a lot of followers in the education world, and expressing faith in him and his beliefs and rituals is more accepted in our society and in our schools that expressing faith in God and the Bible and the rituals of Christianity. My experience serving on this committee once more reinforced this belief and provided even more evidence to me of that Liberalism is now a Religion.

Tesfaye Habisso writes in Friends of Ethiopia:

It must also be understood by all that elections alone will not produce democracy and do not necessarily bring about democratic culture. Authoritarian traditions take a long time to wash away. Creating a democracy in poverty -stricken and illiterate societies such as ours itself takes a long time and exacts huge costs, and is often accompanied by violence, disorder, and a period of uncertainty, even chaos. After all, democracies do not at a stroke make societies more civil and stable; they require strong civil institutions and a long period of time. It is only those who are committed to the values of democracy, rule of law, civil liberties and are prepared for the long-haul, and support less than perfect results as long as the efforts are sincere, who will succeed in realizing democracy and development, peace and stability

.More here

Patrick K. Johnsson writes in Afrik:

If only Africans would recognize organized religion’s incessant battle to crush their beliefs to the benefit of a religious culture that was carefully put together in Rome, the same culture that politically promoted sexual and racial intolerance while making Africans believe that the homosexuality was imported whilst Christianity is African. If only we had the slightest clue of the ongoing process of the redefinition of our hard earned civilization and freedom. Al-quaeda is not the only threat to our future freedom.

More here

Kingsley Ewetuya writes in Politics Africa

In perhaps his most iconic work, Fela Anikulapo Kuti in the song “Coffin for Head of State” irreverently bemoaned the unseemly encroachment of Christianity and Islam in our politics, commerce and national affairs...He satirically lambasted the influence of the clergy and Imams–particularly their unbarred access to those who line the corridors of power. In doing so, he was labeled a heretic and an anti-establishment radical who opposed the social order that these religions create for the betterment of mankind.

More here

Ebenezer Obadare writing in the New Humanist:

The situation in both Zimbabwe and Nigeria seems to validate the link between material privation and political suggestibility. Where people are poor and poorly educated (or not at all), they are more susceptible to political manipulation by demagogues who parrot easy explanations for complex and fundamentally rational economic problems. In most of Africa today, the insidious fiction that the “gay next door” bars the way to economic progress has been the cue for a massive pink-hunt.

On the influence of Pentecostals:

As a social phenomenon, one with key transnational connections, Pentecostal Christianity in Africa has carried a moralist and doggedly anti-intellectual banner. On the one hand, Pentecostalism manifests as a moralising force that narrates Africa’s economic and political crises as an inevitable outcome of public immorality (and what can be more immoral than two men or two women going at it in their bedroom?), a situation, it would seem, that can only be rectified by a collective return to the straight and narrow. As an anti-intellectual force, Pentecostalism in Africa is profoundly ahistorical in that it eschews human, especially political, agency in favor of pseudo-spiritual “explanations”.

More here

Christopher Frey writes about the commercialization of global Christianity in Africa Files:

“Are you writing your prayer request?” I looked up from my scribbling to take in the pretty, grinning young woman in camouflage trucker hat, reflective sunglasses, rolled-up jeans, and canvas trainers. Most everyone around her was either writing on scraps of paper, or, having already done so, was now standing in place, arms pitched heavenward, hips swaying, shuddering to a junior pastor who stamped the concrete and shouted, “Die! Die! Die, demons!” Some of the congregants jitterbugged vigorously, as though trying to shake off a shroud of dust. A few stood solemn, waiting for a breeze to lift them. “No, I’m just taking some notes,” I told the woman. “Well, please enjoy the service. May I have a piece of paper?”...[continue reading]

Pankaj Mishra reviews Ayaan Hirsi Ali's latest book:

“Nomad” reveals that her life experiences have yet to ripen into a sense of history.
The sad truth is that the problems she blames on Islam—fear of sexuality, oppression of women, militant millenarianism—are to be found wherever traditionalist peoples confront the transition to an individualistic urban culture of modernity. Many more young women are killed in India for failing to bring sufficient dowry than perish in “honor killings” across the Muslim world.
Such social pathologies no more reveal the barbaric core of Hinduism or Islam than domestic violence in Europe and America defines the moral essence of Christianity or the Enlightenment.

via Chris Blattman

Happy Lenin’s Birthday
Is it a coincidence that I'm wishing you this today? I don’t think so. Earth Day arrives on the exact same day as Lenin’s Birthday. One of the very first Earth day celebrations took place exactly on the 100 year anniversary of Comrade Lenin’s birthday. Many former communists saw Earth Day, with its goals and interests, as being very similar to the goals and interests of the great communist Lenin. Does this coincidence convince you that Earth Day is a big communist plot? Need more evidence?

Friends of the Earth
The group that founded “Earth Day” was a group called Friends of the Earth. This group also promotes socialism- just as strongly as it does environmentalism. It advocates economic redistribution, government regulation of nearly all aspects of people’s lives, communal land ownership, control of production in the hands of the masses, etc. Its main bogeymen are: “evil” corporations (especially the Fortune 500 companies,) Big Oil, Wall Street, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization and (naturally) George Bush. Oh yeah- it also founded Earth Day too. It is not far-fetched to think that by promoting and celebrating Earth Day, perhaps some of the other aims of Friends of the Earth will be advanced. Still not convinced that Earth Day is a big communist plot? Need more evidence?

Symbol of Earth Day
The symbol of the first Earth Day is a circle with a broken cross, with the bars pointing downward. It is a New Age symbol meaning the rejection of Christianity. The goal was to replace the worship of the Christian religion with the worship of Mother Earth. Communist ideology demand you worship the state and not a Christian god, and so communists frequently also attack the church. Earth Day then fits very nicely with the goals of communists. Still not convinced that Earth Day is a big communist plot? Need more evidence?

Motives of Earth Day activists
According to wikipedia, the goal of Earth Day is to push for: Total state control of society, especially businesses and industry (to help the environment, I guess). Recognition of the sacred nature of Mother Earth, including an almost reverent worship of anything ‘green’ (to help the environment, I guess). Using force to change people’s behavior (to help the environment, I guess). Stopping or slowing ‘development’ or ‘progress’, to return to a Utopian world of equality (to help the environment, I guess). These goals are the goals of communists, are they not? Still not convinced that Earth Day is a big communist plot? Need more evidence?

More Evidence: Earthday.net
Here are some of the goals, issues, and beliefs on www.earthday.net, one of the official websites promoting Earth Day: “Join the Revolution”! Pass laws that give more power to the government, in order to ‘stop global warming’. Stop building any new energy producing plants. “Protect the poor and middle class from unfairly bearing the cost of climate crisis” by increasing taxes on the rich and redistributing that money to the poor and middle class. Unite all religions in the name of global warming. Teach children in schools less about rights and more about the environment, and their responsibility to fight poverty. Still not convinced that Earth Day is a big communist plot? Need more evidence?

More Evidence: The Wilderness Society
For teachers, The Wilderness Society (an environmental group) has resources on how to teach about Earth Day. Here are some of them: A coloring book for 3rd graders with the theme of “Stop drilling in ANWR”. A timeline that 7th graders can construct of all the laws that government passed, to see the “progress” of government. Stories to read about ‘environmental heroes’- also (coincidentally) all good revolutionary communists

Bush’s Version of Earth Day
Under Republican President George Bush, the official government version of Earth Day was a bit different. According to the EPA website then, as declared by President Bush, Earth Day was more about: Celebrating the gains we have made in protecting the environment. Achieving meaningful results in protecting the environment. Encouraging volunteer efforts to save energy, reduce or recycle, and educate yourself to be more friendly to the environment. Taking pride in America by maintaining our public lands

Obama’s Version of Earth Day
Under Democrat President Barack Obama, the official government version of Earth Day though looks very much like Lenin’s birthday. According to the EPA website now, according to President Obama, Earth Day is about: Learning about environmental justice, which is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people in the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. Earth Day is about lobbying your local school to spend less time teaching reading and math and more time teaching environmental protection. Most importantly, Earth Day is about engaging in celebrations and festivals of worship on this most holy of days.

Earth Day: A Communist Plot
So, today when the news runs story after story about Earth Day, when teachers encourage you to ‘celebrate’ Earth Day, when google and yahoo ‘go green’, you can now respond back by saying-

“Happy Earth Day too, comrade”.

"We had reversed the recession, avoided a depression, gotten the economy moving again," Obama told a crowd in Decorah, Iowa. "But over the last six months we've had a run of bad luck."

If bad luck is the reason that our nation has struggled lately, I wondered to myself just what exactly our President and Commander-in-Chief was doing to combat this recent run of bad luck.

Never in my knowledge has any other President had to battle 'bad luck' before- a google search of past Presidents' speeches did not turn up any results of past Presidents, whether they were Republican like George W Bush or Ronald Reagan or Democrats like Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter, ever blaming 'bad luck' for the problems that the United States faced. Perhaps it was because these past Presidents were religious people, who did not believe in paganism and 'luck' so much as the divine will of God and his plan.

To combat a run of 'bad luck', past Presidents like George W Bush turned to prayer and Bill Clinton took to reading Scripture, but it appears from President Obama's speeches and comments that he has decided not to talk to God or read God's word to turn around the run of bad luck, but rather bemoan the run of 'bad luck' and sing 'woe to me'.

Although in our nation we do have a separation of church and state, that does not mean that there is a separation in our nation between those who believe in a higher power and those who serve in our political institutions. For most of our nation's history, our leaders on both side of the political spectrum have been religious and have prayed and read the word of God and saw in the actions of the world God.

President Bush often said that "these are trying times" when our nation faced tough circumstances like terrorist attacks, hurricanes, the total collapse of our banking system, a recession in 2001, or the difficult times of fighting two major wars against dedicated and evil groups. He did not say that our nation suffered through 'bad luck'- he recognized that God's plan and the free will of men sometimes tried our faith and offered a trial to our nation and its people, whether to fight harder for what is good and right or to not.

Bill Clinton, for all of his faults and failures, was well versed in the Bible and believed that he was doing his best to advance the values that he saw in it- love, hope, forgiveness, etc- and that when he faced trials, that those trials were presented to him by God or by those who freely choose to deny God, and that our nation would overcome those trials by sticking to our values and believing in God.

And yet, President Obama, who resigned from Trinity United Church of Christ after he judged that his affiliation with Jeremiah Wright would reflect badly on him politically, does not quote Scripture or talk about his time in prayer. So how exactly should Obama cope with this run of bad luck- an unaffiliated Christian who does not go to Church or regularly read the Bible or study theology of any sort of any religion?

At some point questions need to be asked about President Obama and his views on God and religion, and I don't just mean the sort of 'is he a Muslim' kind of questions that will lead us nowhere. He does not appear to be a Muslim, and his connection to Christianity is either very very private and unmentioned or thin at best, and since he isn't Buddhist or Jewish, one has to begin to wonder just what exactly does Obama see as the divine plan for our nation. I would suggest that Obama is atheist, but his reference to supernatural 'luck' does not fit with that theory either.

What are President Obama's religious beliefs and what role does 'luck' play in his view of the universe?

UPDATE: Get out of my head Charles Krauthammer! For the record, I posted my post before he came out with his editorial today, but it is amazing that both of us arrived at the same thought days after the event and then posted about it. In his article called Bad luck? Bad faith? he goes a slightly different direction, but struggles like me with Obama's comment about 'luck'.

Via memeorandum.

Those who are interested in learning more about Obama's religion should try The Faith of Barack Obama.

Last year I wrote the following in a post called "Bombshell" Experiment: Global Climate Change Caused by Cloud Cover:

Times have to be getting rough on those who worship the Green God; science and reasoning are killing their religion in a way that it never could do with Christianity. For years people have been preaching that humans are the cause of global warming, that global warming is bad, and that the only way to reverse this climate change is to repent and tithe. Symbols of the evil of humans abound to these true believers- SUV's, air conditioning, electric power, comfort, happiness, etc- and these modern-day followers of Mandaeanism inevitably preach that humanity is responsible and needs to turn towards communism in order to stop the rise of the seas and the heating of the earth.

But it turns out this entire religion is built on a false premise- humans are largely not responsible for the changing of the climate and thus bear no obligation to give up any sort of symbols of progress to fix a problem that isn't theirs to fix. That doesn't mean that humans can pollute as much they want- there is still the tragedy of the commons, which can be solved by stronger rule of law and more property rights, which is the exact opposite of what environmentalists preach. But it does mean that government policies discouraging certain things and encouraging other things are built on a faulty foundation of unreality that will do more harm to society than good if continued.

Humans are not responsible for any sort of change in climate, and thus we should dash the dreams of Democrats and liberals and environmentalists and wake them out of their paradise world of railroads, bike paths, windmills, and other relics of the 1800's. CAFE standards, denying permits to mining and drilling companies, using the laws of the national government to stop developments everywhere, and cap-and-trade schemes are unreal, in the sense that they do not reflect the reality of the world. The only thing that these policies do in reality are empower elites in society to take and keep control of the means of production in order to put in place a more unjust world where life, liberty, and personal property is attacked- they do not do anything to the temperature of the globe or the environment or the climate.

The reason that these policies do not work is because humans are not responsible for any sort of changes in climate- the sun is. Shout it from the rooftops and yell it with passion at any environmentalist or liberal or Democrat whose party has been captured by these believers in the false Green God-

THE SUN IS RESPONSIBLE FOR TEMPERATURE OF THE EARTH!

Today on RealClearPolitics, I read a good article that touches on this subject again. Here is part of the article called The Galileo of Global Warming:

...Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark, who seems to have discovered the most important factor that actually regulates Earth's climate, and who is quietly in the process of proving it.

I linked last year to Svensmark's latest big breakthrough, but I didn't get a chance to discuss it much, so I want to give a little more detail now, then show one of the recent consequences of Svensmark's achievement.

Let me briefly sum up Svensmark's theory. The temperature of the Earth, he argues, is regulated by the intensity of solar radiation, but not in the obvious way. It is not that the increase is solar radiation heats the Earth directly. (It does, of course, but not to a sufficient degree to explain climate variations.) Rather, an increase in solar radiation extends the Sun's magnetic field, which shields Earth from cosmic rays (highly energetic, fast-moving charged particles that come from deep space). How does this affect the climate? Here is the crux of Svensmark's argument. When cosmic rays hit the atmosphere, he argues, their impact on air molecules creates nucleation sites for the condensation of water vapor, leading to an increase in cloud-formation. Since clouds tend to bounce solar radiation back into space, increased cloud cover cools the Earth, while decreased cloud cover makes the Earth warmer.

So if Svensmark is right, lower solar radiation means more cosmic rays, more clouds, and a cooler Earth, while higher solar radiation means fewer cosmic rays, fewer clouds, and a warmer Earth.

Those who have followed the global warming controversy over the years may recall that cloud-formation is one of the major gaps in the computerized climate "models" used by the consensus scientists to predict global warming. They have never had a theory to explain how and why clouds form or to account accurately for their effect on the climate. Svensmark has smashed through this glaring gap in their theory.

Like I said, Svensmark hasn't just put this theory out there. He has been working to prove it. He has done some studies that attempted to track measurements of cosmic ray flux against surface temperature and cloud cover, with some success. But his big breakthrough last year was a long-awaited experiment at Switzerland's CERN particle accelerator that demonstrated the most controversial part of Svensmark's theory.

It is widely accepted that the Sun's magnetic field helps shield Earth from cosmic rays, and it is also widely accepted that increased cloud cover cools the Earth (though expect this to suddenly come into question as Svensmarks' theory gains ground). What Svensmark needed to demonstrate was that cosmic rays form nucleation sites that seed clouds.

Hence the aptly named CLOUD experiment performed at CERN last year, with the results published last August. The experiment was actually more than a decade in the making, but as Lawrence Solomon explains, it was help back for years by the scientific bureaucracy because of its potentially unwelcome results.

The results are indeed unwelcome, at least for the advocates of the global warming consensus. Anthony Watts explained the experiment at his blog, Watts Up With That? The CLOUD experiment used CERN's particle accelerator to send a beam of artificially generated charged particles—simulated cosmic rays—into a gas-filled chamber and then measured the formation of aerosols, the kind of compounds that can serve as cloud nucleation sites. It found a direct and very significant relationship.

This is not a total demonstration of Svensmark's theory. The Nature paper on the CLOUD experiment notes that "the fraction of these freshly nucleated particles that grow to sufficient sizes to seed cloud droplets, as well as the role of organic vapors in the nucleation and growth processes, remain open questions experimentally." But last year's result is a clear demonstration of a crucial step in Svensmark's theory...

Full disclosure- I don't worship the Green God and don't hold true to the tenants of True Science, so emailing me to extol the virtues of your religion and way of life won't have any effect.

To loosely quote Mr. Universe, there is no official government news- the kind of puppet theatre that the government jesters push through their various institutions to the sleepwalking masses of morons- there is only the truth of the signal- what we see, what we know, and what is reality. And you can't stop the signal.

Henrik Svensmark is also the author of The Chilling Stars: A Cosmic View of Climate Change.

Times have to be getting rough on those who worship the Green God; science and reasoning are killing their religion in a way that it never could do with Christianity. For years people have been preaching that humans are the cause of global warming, that global warming is bad, and that the only way to reverse this climate change is to repent and tithe. Symbols of the evil of humans abound to these true believers- SUV's, air conditioning, electric power, comfort, happiness, etc- and these modern-day followers of Mandaeanism inevitably preach that humanity is responsible and needs to turn towards communism in order to stop the rise of the seas and the heating of the earth.

But it turns out this entire religion is built on a false premise- humans are largely not responsible for the changing of the climate and thus bear no obligation to give up any sort of symbols of progress to fix a problem that isn't theirs to fix. That doesn't mean that humans can pollute as much they want- there is still the tragedy of the commons, which can be solved by stronger rule of law and more property rights, which is the exact opposite of what environmentalists preach. But it does mean that government policies discouraging certain things and encouraging other things are built on a faulty foundation of unreality that will do more harm to society than good if continued.

Humans are not responsible for any sort of change in climate, and thus we should dash the dreams of Democrats and liberals and environmentalists and wake them out of their paradise world of railroads, bike paths, windmills, and other relics of the 1800's. CAFE standards, denying permits to mining and drilling companies, using the laws of the national government to stop developments everywhere, and cap-and-trade schemes are unreal, in the sense that they do not reflect the reality of the world. The only thing that these policies do in reality are empower elites in society to take and keep control of the means of production in order to put in place a more unjust world where life, liberty, and personal property is attacked- they do not do anything to the temperature of the globe or the environment or the climate.

The reason that these policies do not work is because humans are not responsible for any sort of changes in climate- the sun is. Shout it from the rooftops and yell it with passion at any environmentalist or liberal or Democrat whose party has been captured by these believers in the false Green God-

THE SUN IS RESPONSIBLE FOR TEMPERATURE OF THE EARTH!

This is a central fact about global warming that I learned several years ago that blew my mind and illuminated a truth that was previously hidden- that it is changes in the sun that cause the temperature of the Earth the change.

Oh, it is not fully understood yet how changes in the sun affect the temperature of the Earth, but it has been quite clear for some time that changes in sunspot activity correspond to changes in the temperature of the Earth. In times of active sunspot activity, the Earth gets warmer, such as in the 1980' and 1990's when there was considerable sunspot activity observed, or during the Medieval Warm Period (800-1300). And in times of passive sunspot activity, the Earth doesn't get warmer, such as the 2000's when sunspot activity slowed and so did the increase in global temperatures (if any of the data can be believed, seeing as so much of it has been purposefully falsified by worshipers of the Green God) or during the Little Ice Age (1400-1900), which only ended when sunspot activity began to increase again and was not related in any way to the start of the second Industrial Revolution.

But it was not clear how or why sunspot activity affected temperatures on Earth, so those who believe in the Green God rejected this science in favor of believing that they held the power to control the whole globe in their own hands and that they are the source of evil in the world and that they can transcend this evil by denying themselves pleasures and modern comforts and making the world in general better by telling other people that they are evil and working to deny them pleasures and comforts as well.

BUT THE SUN IS RESPONSIBLE FOR TEMPERATURE OF THE EARTH!

Henrik Svensmark, a Danish physicist, has for many years studied the effects of cosmic rays on cloud formation. His research and data forced him to present a new hypothesis: that solar activity is an indirect cause of global warming, and that the how and why sunspot activity was responsible for temperature changes on earth was a link through the interaction of the solar wind and cosmic rays and cloud cover.

The basic theory is that clouds are formed when cosmic rays hit the atmosphere. The more clouds in the atmosphere, the more sunlight that is reflected off our globe, and our globe cools. When the sun is very active, it's magnetism draws cosmic rays to it rather than earth, resulting in less cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere, less clouds, less cooling effect of these clouds, and temperatures go up. When sun is inactive, it has fewer sunspots, fewer magnetic activity, more cosmic rays hit the earth, resulting in more clouds, resulting in more cooling, and the temperature of the Earth goes down.

And when our solar system, Earth included in it, go through one of the denser star areas of the Milky Way, it doesn't matter what our own sun is doing, because the surrounding stars make lots of cosmic rays and overcome the sun's activity, resulting in many cosmic rays hitting our planet, leading to increased cloud cover, leading to a cooling effect, and temperatures go down.

It is a nice theory, and advances us just a little bit closer to understanding climate change. We now know that major perturbations in climate relate to the position and orientation of the Earth in its orbit around the Sun. For example, as Serbian mathematician Milutin Milankovic pointed out in 1941, as have many others since, initiation of the major ice ages on Earth correlate with a 23,000-year precession cycle, a 41,000-year obliquity cycle, and a 100,000-year eccentricity cycle in the position of the Earth relative to the Sun. Cyclic variations measured in oxygen isotope ratios that correlate with the growth of ice sheets and biogeochemical responses closely reflect the 23,000-year precession cycle. Also, a half-precession cycle appears to be related to the dynamics of the East African Equatorial monsoon. In addition, the 41,000-year obliquity cycle shows strongly in North American marine depositional records (source: The Science and Environmental Policy Project weekly newsletter).

And now we also suspect that suns, both our own and other suns who we may near by, also affect our climate by bombarding us with cosmic rays that escape from suns when they have periods of lower magnetic activity and less sunspot activity and more cosmic rays and more clouds and lower temperatures, or periods of higher magnetic activity and more sunspot activity and less cosmic rays and less clouds and higher temperatures.

To advance our knowledge a little bit more on this, we have to figure out what function high energy particles might have on cloud formation- in other words, what effect does cosmic rays have on cloud formation- do more of them create more clouds? This is exactly the sort of science that can be tested and verified. And that's what CERN recently did.

Via Ace of Spades I read that the CLOUD (“Cosmics Leaving Outdoor Droplets”) experiment, which examines the role that energetic particles from deep space play in cloud formation, has been successful in producing some sort of results, although those results are currently being actively suppressed by CERN Director General Rolf-Dieter Heuer because the results of these experiments "would go immediately into the highly political arena of the climate change debate," one imagines that if they prove that cosmic rays indeed do cause increased or decreased cloud cover, it would be yet another nail in the already buried coffin to the theory that global warming is caused by man. These findings are called "bombshell" by the Linking Canada Free Press.

For those of you who are interested in fully understanding how cosmic rays may affect cloud formation which many affect the temperature of our planet, there is a documentary film on Svensmark's theory, The Cloud Mystery, that came out in 2008 and is on youtube. It is broken up into 6 parts- check out part 1 by following this link.

Henrik Svensmark is also the author of The Chilling Stars: A Cosmic View of Climate Change.

Damola Awoyokun's article The Next Einstein and the Expressway Churches highlights the battles that need to be fought against unreason and religious induced irrationality:

The problem of the expressway churches in every nook and cranny of the country(Nigeria) is not essentially in their mushrooming, it is in the way they barge into our minds and corrode the roots of our thinking with what they preach. They start with fear. And fear like HIV is very polite and diplomatic, its effectiveness is in being unassuming, going on easy till it shatters your immune system and leaves you gullible to all sorts of senseless teachings and practices... Weirdly, Christianity no longer calls itself a religion, it is a way of life. So every time on any day you turn on your TV or radio, in the buses, in the offices, markets, on the Internet, a preacher is there retailing some messages or emails of mental bacteria. Little wonder there is an outbreak of mediocrity all over the country...

Referring to the Neil Turok's TED prize wish he states:

Young African minds eager to be the next Einstein or Hawking must start by rejecting their being made sheep that the religions constantly find fulfillment in doing...Through the Enlightenment, Europe began to see progress when they squashed the prevailing grip of religion over their minds.

Echoing these points Dipo Bandele calls for Industries, Not Churches:

The problem with Nigerians is that reason has taken the back seat while gullibility takes the driver's seat. It is in this country that warehouses are being turned into churches while the opposite happens in Europe and America... For Nigeria to be a leading economy by the year 2020, we should be building industries and not churches. We have had enough of these churches, they teach us things that can not be proven or substantiated. No miracles have ever happened and no one would happen.

Happy Lenin’s Birthday! Oh, is it just a coincidence that Earth Day is the same day as former Soviet dictator Vladimir Lenin's birthday? I don’t think so. Earth Day arrives on the exact same day as Lenin’s Birthday. In fact, the very first Earth day celebrations took place exactly on the 100 year anniversary of Comrade Lenin’s birthday. Many former communists saw Earth Day, with its goals and interests, as being very similar to the goals and interests of the great communist Lenin. So, are you convinced that Earth Day is a big communist plot, or do you need more evidence?

The group that founded Earth Day was a group called Friends of the Earth. This group also promotes socialism- just as strongly as it does environmentalism. Some of its stated goals are economic redistribution of wealth, government regulation of nearly all aspects of peoples' lives, communal land ownership, and control of production in the hands of the masses. According to its website, its main bogeymen are: “evil” corporations (especially the Fortune 500 companies,) Big Oil, Wall Street, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization and (naturally) George Bush. It is not far-fetched to think that by promoting and celebrating Earth Day, perhaps some of the other aims of Friends of the Earth will be advanced. Still not convinced that Earth Day is a big communist plot? Need more evidence?

The symbol of the first Earth Day is a circle with a broken cross, with the bars pointing downward. It is a New Age symbol meaning the rejection of Christianity. The goal was to replace the worship of the Christian religion with the worship of Mother Earth. Communist ideology demand you worship the state and not a Christian god, and so communists frequently also attack the church. Still not convinced that Earth Day is a big communist plot? Need more evidence?

According to some, the goal of Earth Day is to push for: Total state control of society, especially businesses and industry (to help the environment, I guess), recognition of the sacred nature of Mother Earth, including an almost reverent worship of anything ‘green’ (to help the environment, I guess), the use of force to change people’s behavior (to help the environment, I guess), and stopping or slowing ‘development’ or ‘progress’, to return to a utopian world of equality (to help the environment, I guess). Sounds pretty communist to me- and not the version of communism that naive college students practice- no, this stuff is right out of the Soviet Union. But you say you are still not convinced that Earth Day is a big communist plot? Need more evidence?

Here are some of the goals, issues, and beliefs on http://www.earthday.net/- the official Earth Day website. Those who most support Earth Day want you to “Join the Revolution” and pass laws that give more power to the government in order to ‘stop global warming’, stop building any new energy producing plants of any kind, and “Protect the poor and middle class from unfairly bearing the cost of climate crisis” by increasing taxes on the rich and redistributing that money to the poor and middle class. Also you are encouraged to unite all religions in the name of global warming and teach children in schools less about rights and more about the environment. Somehow fighting poverty is also central to Earth Day. You're still not convinced that Earth Day is a big communist plot? You're kidding me! You need more evidence?

As a teacher, I looked for resources out there for teachers to teach about Earth Day. One of the first searches turned up a group called The Wilderness Society. Here are some of the resources that they provide to teachers and that teachers use in the classroom to teach about Earth Day- they provide a coloring book for 3rd graders with the theme of “Stop drilling in ANWR”, a timeline that 7th graders can construct of all the laws controlling society and business that government passed to see the “progress” of government in 'fighting' global warming, and they publish stories to read about ‘environmental heroes’- also (coincidentally) all good revolutionary communists- that 10th grade English classes can read. Sounds pretty communist to me!

Of course, the official government version of Earth Day is a bit different. According to the EPA website (under President Bush), Earth Day was more about celebrating the gains we have made in protecting the environment, achieving meaningful results in protecting the environment, encouraging volunteer efforts to save energy, reduce or recycle, and educate yourself to be more friendly to the environment, and taking pride in America by maintaining our public lands. This is the official version, and what most people think they are observing. But that's like saying that Christmas has nothing to do with Jesus and is all about Santa- you can't separate Earth Day from its founding and biggest promoters, and all of those clearly are communicating that Earth Day is a big communist plot, and don't kid yourself otherwise.

Oh, I just took a peak over at the new EPA website, where there is a video from a speech by Obama's choice for EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, in which she promises to have the government seize control over production and private business in our nation in order to build a more fair and equal centrally planned green economy. Apparently she wants to make Earth Day into Earth Month, and then Earth Year, and then you can spend every waking moment worshipping the state and giving all of the political and economic power to the state in order to 'protect the Earth.' What a watermelon- green on the outside, but red in the middle! Looks like Obama is unaware that Earth Day is a communist plot- or is he?

Happy Lenin's Birthday everyone!

Unlike liberals, whose main motivation seems to be to control other people, my main motivation is to understand other people, and thereby understand the world better. Several times in my blog I have wrote about my attempts to understand how liberals think, and my attempts are starting to converge.

In The Religion of the Democrats I wrote:

The modern Democrat party feels that people are trapped in an unfair and unjust material world. In churches they blame a lot of people for this, and their anger and bitterness is felt quite clearly. They frequently point fingers at God himself, who unjustly and unfairly did this to certain groups and races... They frequently reject the traditional Christian teachings of God, and try to go over his head to find some greater power than him. To Democrats, there is some higher power yet than even God- The People, The World, The Globe- they call it by many names, but the idea is the same, that there is some remote and powerful being out there who is higher than God... Democrats today believe that man is good and that the world is evil- that man was a good and decent person but was ambushed and put in a nation or world where bad things occur. It isn’t man’s fault, it isn’t any groups fault- no one is at fault, since man is good. The fault lies with the world, which must be changed from its fallen state..."

In Book Review: The Man Who Was Thursday I wrote:

...their ideas about economic suicide for no reason, their dislike of labeling things right and wrong, and their views on life and mark them as the modern Democratic Party. And at the center of the inner circle there is a man who speaks to applauding crowds and says pleasing phrases, but he is under no illusions, and his actions have terrible consequences for our great nation...

In Stonehenge and the Descent into Barbarianism I noted that:

...As government becomes increasingly powerful in Europe and America and we move father away from our Founder's conservative views, more and more often we are seeing evidence of Western societies slide back to barbarianism, and this celebration by hippies, leftists, liberals, and pagans at Stonehenge is yet another example. Pagan religion is becoming increasingly popular and accepted in our society. I see it most in the numbers of people who openly and proudly proclaim that they are not Christian, and also are the most fervent and devout believers in man-made-caused-one-way-global-warming-solved-by-government-power. They now worship the Green God. Other people, in an effort to be fair and politically correct to everyone, have decided to worship every god, embracing a polytheistic view of the world, whereby they pray to whatever god they think will help them the most. Animal rights activists worship animals and many people worship men (like Obama)- paganism is on the rise, not decline, in our society...

In The First Commandment I really noticed liberals religion:

...In my view, this commandment is fairly easy to understand- believe in God, believe in his power, and worship him and no other gods. Not only that, one should also refuse to 'worship' other things- money, sex, success, beauty, status, etc. Also, this commandment further prohibits one from holding false beliefs about God- in other words, don't believe in a false or incorrect God... society increasingly promotes worship of a new God- Mother Earth. The increasingly worship of this God, increasingly at odds with the God of the Bible and Christians, is a shocking breach of the 1st Commandment... A moral society is a just one, and we are losing our morality- we are attacking our morality, and it all begins with worshipping of other gods...

Today my brother emailed me another piece of the puzzle. Albert Mohler, in this article, starts putting the pieces to the puzzle together after reading a piece by Howard P. Kainz, which reminds him of something that he had read earlier by J. Gresham Machen.

The radical idea (for 1920) is that evangelical Christianity and its liberal rival are, in reality, two very different religions. Oh, I realize that you might not believe that liberalism is a religion, but does it have dogmas? A group of writings that you have to read? People who 'know' the ideas better than others and are accepted speakers on any liberal subject? Observances or holidays that we have to celebrate? Parades or rallies? Do liberals get all frothy and upset when someone utters a heresy like "affirmative action is racist" or "global warming isn't real"? What does 'future man' look like to a liberal- going to heaven, or a heaven on Earth? Liberalism is a religion.

I want to caution you that I agree with the author- "not all liberals are committed to this religious vision of liberalism... conservatives may find common cause and common ground with these non-religiously committed liberals."

In order to make this world a better place, you should be aware that there are people out there that BELIEVE on faith alone that mankind must overcome 'religious superstition' by means of Reason, that empirical science can and will answer all the questions about the world, and that the human race, by invalidating and disregarding Christian traditions, can and will achieve perfectibility.