The Potter Prophecy

An idea recently occurred to me about the prophecy in Harry Potter. We know that the cause of Voldemort coming after the Potters, when Harry was a baby, was that Snape overheard part of the prophecy and told Voldemort. Could it be that Snape, at this point, was already working for Dumbledore and that Dumbledore told Snape to tell Voldemort about it. Dumbledore's purpose would have been to bait Voldemort into coming after Harry, thus causing the prophecy to come true and bringing about the initial downfall of Voldemort. This would mean that Dumbledore had lied to Harry in order to cover up the fact that he bore a responsibility for the death of Harry's parents. We know that Dumbledore wanted to be the Potters' secret keeper. Could it be that Dumbledore intended to somehow give Voldemort the secret himself in order that Voldemort would be able to go after the Potters. We already know that Dumbledore had refrained from telling Harry the full truth about things in the past in order to protect him. Could it also be that Dumbledore did not told Harry the full prophecy, particularly the part that was fulfilled by Snape killing Dumbledore?
This may or may not be what will happen. It would make for a really cool plot twist. It would not make Dumbledore a bad person. It would just make him someone who made some impossible moral choices.

Happy Birthday to Me

Today I have reached level 24 of glorious singlehood. I am still trying to figure out what special codes and powers I now get. I am already licensed to drive and drink, just not at the same time.
I would like to thank my best friend Ariel for the book he gave me. And for calling me a "terrorist." (When my great-aunt misread the note, which said Averroeist, she did not realize that an Averroeist is a terrorist who sneaks into innocent frum populations and spreads esoteric heresy. This is of course why you need gedolim. Only gedolim can be smart enough to understand the complex natures of our heresies.)
What did I do today? Mainly I fasted. I met with a professor who seemed to like my proposed thesis for a seminar paper. After breakfast, I celebrated over beer and Haagen-Dazs.
To an exciting action-packed year of wine, women, and papers.

Of King Solomon and Rabbinic Child Molesters

“And it was in Shlomo’s old age and his wives turned his heart after foreign gods and his heart was not completely with the Lord his God like the heart of David his father.” (Kings I 11:4)

What does it mean when the T’nach talks about Shlomo worshipping idols? In the rabbinic tradition, it is taken to mean that he allowed his wives to worship idols and he did nothing to stop it so it is therefore considered, in some sense, as if he himself worshipped idols. Shlomo was not just a wise but fallible old man, he was a monarch with absolute authority. With absolute authority comes absolute responsibility. Because Shlomo was in such a position of power it was perfectly justifiable for T’nach to place absolute blame upon him and view him as an idolater.

As any thinking person should have realized by now, the real issue at stake in the Yehuda Kolko case is not Yehuda Kolko. Kolko by himself is simply a child molester no more no less. This case is really about the Haredi rabbinate, otherwise known as the gedolim, who allowed Kolko to teach at Torah Temimah and work at summer camps for thirty years. This case raises some interesting questions about the concept of daat Torah. The Haredim of course view their gedolim as absolute infallible authorities and as such not subject to challenge by mere mortals such as you or me. This being the case then how does one understand the fact that these gedolim failed to catch Kolko? If one believes that the Haredi gedolim are simply wise but fallible old men then, in theory at least, it is possible to simply say they failed in this instance and that in the future better safeguards are needed. This sort of position is perfectly viable for someone in my situation. Just as I could care less what these people think about science and evolution so to I could care less what these people think are the best ways to protect children from child molesters. But for anyone who believes that the gedolim must be viewed as having absolute authority then the Kolko case raises some serious problems. If the gedolim have absolute authority then, as Shlomo was viewed as an idolater by T’nach, the gedolim themselves must be viewed as being child molesters. They allowed it to happen so therefore they must bear absolute blame for it. So when Kolko pulled down the pants of children and touched them it was not he who did it; it was every single one of the gedolim.

The Multiculturalist Argument For God

“If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake. If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all these religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth. When I was an atheist I had to try to persuade myself that most of the human race have always been wrong about the question that mattered to them most; when I became a Christian I was able to take a more liberal view.” (C.S Lewis Mere Christianity pg. 43.)

This is one of the most devastating arguments I know of against either atheism or religious fundamentalism. Every single human society, up until modern times, has not only believed in the existence of some sort of supernatural being (or beings), that takes an interest in human affairs and has definite ideas about what humans should or should not do, but has built their civilization around this premise. It was not just that these societies had large amounts of religious people, religion was the society. If you are an atheist then you have to believe therefore that human civilization has been built around one giant lie. I do not see how you can accept such a view of humanity and still have the faith in human reason and human ability that modernity requires in order to justify itself. Similarly if you are a religious fundamentalist, someone who believes that his religious texts and doctrines are by definition the Truth and the standard by which everything else must be judged, then you must admit that the vast majority of humanity, those who do not share your beliefs, has walked completely in darkness. How can anyone trust such a God, who has lead humanity into darkness, to reveal any Truths?
One of the problems with how history gets taught, and I see this with the students I teach, is that, because we are not a civilization built around religion, we have rewritten the past in our own image and have downplayed the central role played by religion in past civilizations. All of my students, to one degree or another, believe that religion should be separated from government to such an extent that they do not understand how any reasonable person could have thought differently. Aided by the textbooks they have read, which have no desire to challenge their assumptions, unless they are religious ones, my students have not truly been forced to face the fact that every civilization they have studied has been built around religion and in most cases religions vastly different then theirs. This is true of my secular students and of my religious ones, who simply are unable to internalize the idea that there were Greek and Roman pagans, who honestly believed in the gods and who had the morals and piety to match that of any Christian.
It is not for nothing that recent trends in education have strengthened the hands of both atheists and fundamentalist.

My Government is Licensed to Kill

A lot has been made about Israel’s inability to make its case in liberal circles. Israel gets caught up in the cycle of violence argument and cannot escape the moral equivalency that goes with it. One may wish to simply pass this off as anti-Semitism and anti-Semitism may play a role, but I think that there is more to it than that. As I see it, one of the major issues here is that the modern left does not see an inherent difference between the actions of governments and the actions of individual human beings.

While I believe in having a limited government, this government has an important role to play in society and in carrying out its mission it has the moral license to take actions beyond the normal scope of human beings. If someone were to shoot my friend or relative and I was to hunt that person down and kill him in cold blood then I would be engaging in vengeance and would be nothing more than a common murderer. If the government were to track down this same person and execute him they would be performing justice. Governments have the right to wage wars against other countries even though such actions are bound to cost innocent lives. The reason for this is that governments exist in order to protect the Lives, Liberties, and Properties of those who live under it and in order to protect these things governments have to have the ability to violate the rights of specific individuals. The government can force me to pay taxes I do not support and make me obey laws I do not support. The government can even draft me into the army, hand me a gun and send me up a hill into certain death. The justification for this is that it is only by having such a government that the rights of the populace as a whole can be maintained. Make no mistake about it, government is a Faustian bargain in which one barters away a large portion of one's freedoms.

Because of this, I have no moral objection to Israel bombing targets in civilian areas even though such actions cost innocent Palestinian lives. A Palestinian suicide bomber, on the other hand, is not acting on behalf of a government and for this reason, is simply a murderer. Most of those on the Left today do not see any moral difference. When an Israeli soldier kills a Palestinian he is a murderer and when a Palestinian kills an Israeli he is a murderer. This turns into a cycle of violence; Israel kills in order to avenge the murders of Israelis and Palestinians kill in order to avenge themselves upon Israel.

Full Frontal Potter

The media have been all over it, squeezing the story for every bit of shock value it is worth. Oh my God, Daniel Radcliffe, the boy who plays Harry Potter, goes completely naked in a theater production of Equus. Parents are horrified. What should they do with their children.
My thoughts on the matter.
What is Danial Radcliffe doing that is harmful to children? I say this is a wonderful opportunity for parents to talk to their children about making moral choices and how moral choices can be complicated. Here are some starter questions to get the ball rolling. Is Dan doing anything wrong by running around on stage naked, if so what? Does it change things considering the fact that he is doing art and not simply porn? Considering the nature of the acting profession, should actors be expected to live by the same sexual code as other people? I say we all owe Daniel a debt of gratitude. If his actions spark these kinds of conversations then it is worth every stitch of clothing not on his naked body.

Izgad and the Deathly Hollows

Its Official, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows is coming out July 21, 2007. I have already ordered myself a copy so to all the 3.14159... admirers of mine, if you wish to give me something for my birthday, you will have to think of something else. I don't think Harry is going to die. If I were going to kill him here is how I would do it. (I thought of this idea back in 2000, when I was reading Goblet of Fire.) What Avada Kedavra does is suck the lifeforce out of the person, causing them to drop dead, and into the one who says the curse. When Voldemort used the spell on Harry, all those years ago, he killed Harry. Except that, because Harry was protected by his mother's sacrifice, the spell rebounded back on Voldemort, taking his lifeforce and placing it within Harry. Harry had died. The reason why he is still alive is that he possesses Voldemort's lifeforce, which is why he has Voldemort's abilities. Because Harry lives on Voldemort's lifeforce, his life depends on Voldemort's continued existence. By destroying Voldemort, Harry will, in essence be sacrificing himself to save his friends.

Deadly, Right-Wing, Living Constitution

The Rabbis asked why the Torah forbade adding to the Torah and taking away from it. It makes sense that it would have forbidden removing things, but what is so bad about adding? The answer is that once you have the power to add things there will be nothing stopping you from taking things away.

In tonight’s episode of 24, Thomas Lennox, President Wayne Palmer’s conservative advisor justifies the flagrant violation of the civil liberties of American citizens by arguing that the Constitution cannot be viewed as applicable in a situation in which Islamic terrorists have set off a nuclear bomb on American soil. As Lennox sees it, the Constitution is all well and good at a time when you needed thirty seconds to load a single shot musket in order to kill one person. Now terrorists have killed thousands of Americans by the push of a button in less time than what it used to take a man in order to load a gun. Clearly then you cannot assume that the rights given by the Constitution are still the same rights.

This is a wonderful example of why you cannot follow a “living” constitution and why you cannot have activist judges. Once you allow activist judges to start rewriting the Constitution they can go in any direction, left or right. If they can invent rights they can also start taking rights away.

Sure the founding fathers may have lacked our appreciation of the need to protect the rights of women and blacks. They might not have known that women needed to have a right to an abortion in order to take their rightful place in society. They also did not know about the internet and how easy it would make spreading “false” and “dangerous” information. So should we even recognize the existence of a right to free speech?

The choice is clear. We must hold that that the Constitution that we have is the same one made by the founding fathers, plus the added amendments created through the legal processes of that same Constitution and it means the same thing as it did when it was created. If we need to make some changes from time to time we can make the needed amendments. Our founding fathers did not claim to be God Almighty. The alternative is no Constitution and the rule of nine unelected judges or even a rogue advisor to the President.

The Case Against Women

Here is an argument that can be made in order to justify a patriarchal system of rule.

1) Women are more likely to think in terms of a relationship ethic (that ethical decisions should be made based on the desire to help people get along with eachother.) while men are more likely to follow a rule based ethic (that ethical decisions should be made so that ones actions confirm to a formal code of behavior.)
2) A rule based ethic is superior to a relationship based ethic.
Alternative: It is better to have a government, legal system and a society that is run according to a rule based ethic then a relationship based ethic.
3) Those who are superior in their ethical reasoning should be rule over those who are inferior in their ethical reasoning.
Alternative: One should go about forming a government, a legal system and a society so that these things will be in the hands of those best capable of handling them.
Conclusion: Men, as they tend to lean more toward a rule based ethic, are superor to women, who lean toward a relationship based ethic.
Alternative: Men should control the government, legal system and society, as this will lead to these things being run based on a rule based ethic.
Assumption one is made by Carol Gilligan, a feminist, in her book In a Different Voice. She does not accept assumption two, which saves her. The problem though is that just about every thinker who has ever lived did accept assumption two.
The fact is, is that just about every thinker in history has accepted the three assumptions in question. Taken together they undermine all 150 years of the women's movement. As such we cannot blame those thinkers who put women at a lower level then men. There was nothing wrong with their reasoning.
I, for my own, have doubts about all three assumptions.

Remember, Remember the Fifth of November: Why Television is Evil

I was just watching the film V for Vendetta. In the futuristic universe of V, Britain is under the control of a Fascist, Fundamentalist Christian regime that rules through a mixture of brutal police tactics and their control of network television. I found the film's jabs at television to be amusing. So let me get this straight, watching television is supposed to leave the individual open to propaganda from organized religion. Those who watch television are mindless drowns imbibing whatever they are told.… Wait I have heard this story before. Except that in the version of the story that I am familiar with, television is part of a conspiracy hatched by those atheistic materialists to spread their heresies. Those who watch are mindless drowns whose sole purpose in life is now to buy the products and nihilism being sold on screen. One could go for the cheap shot of hypocrisy by pointing out that we are dealing with an action film, as smart and as witty as it may be, that bashes its own medium and questions the intelligence and worth of the film's audience for having watched it. I think though that there is a more important point to be made here; the weakness that lies at the heart of the entire humanities project and what makes those of us who deal in the humanities vulnerable to attack. The humanities have no utilitarian value nor do they deal with any universal Truths. We, who deal in the humanities, cannot offer a cure for cancer, we cannot reveal the nature of the universe, we cannot make people moral, good, or just. We cannot show people what is the best possible life to lead; we cannot show the way into heaven. All we do is examine the arbitrary and subjective world of human beings. I do not have any bulletproof defense for the value of bad films nor do I have any way to give any intrinsic worth to good films, like this one. For that matter, I have no way of defending the great classics of art such as Homer or Shakespeare. Is television simply a matter of a human being sitting dumbly before a screen? For that matter is reading the mere glancing at a page? Are we listening to the voice of the revolution, the government’s loudspeaker, a siren’s song to materialism, or the drumbeat toward fanaticism? As with all the humanities, there is no true or false answer. All answers are subjective and arbitrary.

Gator Trap

Last night I went over to Value City Arena in Columbus to watch the BCS championship game on a giant screen. Along with several thousand other Buckeye fans in attendance, I looked on in horror at what can only be viewed as one of the greatest embarrassments in the history of Buckeye sports. To those of you who may not have heard. The undefeated and heavily favored Ohio State Buckeye football team lost to the Florida Gators 41-14. The game was worse then even the score indicates. One of the OSU touchdowns was scored on the opening kickoff return by Ted Ginn Jr. The only sustained drive managed by the OSU offense was that second touchdown; other then that the OSU offense did nothing. Troy Smith spent the game running away from the Florida defenders, who managed to penetrate the pocket on almost every single play. Contrast that with Florida’s Chris Leak, who marched his team up and down the field at will.
I felt embarrassed watching this game and I was sitting in the company of fellow Buckeye fans. I cannot even begin to fathom the embarrassment felt by those Buckeye fans who traveled to Arizona, spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars, and had to watch this game in the company of Gator fans.
It is one thing to lose a game. I would have nothing to say against the OSU football team if they had lost like Oklahoma did to Boise State. But to go and not show up to a game that is beyond disgraceful. The players owe the fans an apology if not a refund.

Gay Chess II: Tax Breaks for Church Goers

Someone raised an argument against my Gay Chess post with the following example. “The government then makes a law stating that they believe, that church going is advantageous for society and gives tax breaks and the ilk for church goers. They go on to further state that those who do not attend church, or attend any other type of religious centers, are disadvantageous for society and place higher taxes on them.” Church going is an action so therefore it should not fall under the category of being and the government should be allowed to promote or prohibit it as it will.
My response to this would be that it would perfectly fine for the government to do this as long as it can convince five Supreme Court justices that they are not conspiring to create an established religion. The only way that I can see this happening is if the government would give the same privileges to people attending synagogues, mosques and even to secular humanists who gather together to contemplate the wonders of nature. This would not apply to issues of marriage because here the government can offer plausible explanations for why they wish to give special privileges to men and women who marry each other and not to men who marry men or women who marry women which do not involve government conspiracies to create an established religion. The government could argue that they wish to promote male/female relationships because such relationships bring about children. The fact that there are many male/female couples who cannot or will not produce children is not real issue because the government could say that they are promoting male/female relationships in general and since they are doing that they are willing to include those male/female relationships which will not produce the results that the government desires. The government could also argue that they are interested in promoting male/female relationships because there is a long history of those relationships being useful for the promotion of societal stability.
It should also be stated here that religion and even religious actions are in their own category, which gives them special protections and imposes special restrictions. The government offers me special protections when I wish to not work on Saturday and go to synagogue. Those special protections do not apply when I wish to not work on BCS championship day and go to Arizona to watch the Buckeyes. On the other hand there are fewer legal issues at hand if the Ohio State legislature wished to have a special session to watch BCS championship game on the floor of the house then if they wished to host a special session so that the bible could be read on the floor.

Mr. Enlightenment Meet Meom Loez

I was walking around the gallery in downtown Columbus last night when I got handed a pamphlet titled: "What is Secular Humanism?" written by Paul Kurtz. These secular humanists have to be careful; someone might confuse them with the Jesus freaks handing out pamphlets. According to the pamphlet, "secular humanism rejects supernatural accounts of reality; but it seeks to optimize the fullness of human life in a naturalistic universe." (pg. 9) To be a secular humanist you cannot resort to anything beyond material nature in order to explain the nature of reality so anyone who talks about gods or metaphysics should not count as a secular humanist. 

The pamphlet gives a history of secular humanism. Its heritage goes all the way back to Confucian China. From China, we move to the Carvaka materialist movement in ancient India and finally to ancient Greece, which produced such great secular humanists as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. The glorious tradition of secular humanism now moves to the Romans who in addition to Lucretius produced the stoic philosophers Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. Then came those Dark Ages “during which faith dominated Western culture and humans looked vainly outside of themselves to a deity for salvation.” (pg. 11) Things turned around though once we got into the Renaissance and people started to turn away from the bible. The great scholars of the humanist movement were Marsilio Ficino, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, and Erasmus. I do not know much about Confucian philosophy, but last I checked it involved metaphysics, various sorts of gods, ancestor worship, and the belief that the emperor was the Son of Heaven. One wonders if Kurtz has ever bothered to actually read Greek philosophy, particularly things like the Platonic dialogue, Timaeus. If Timaeus is secular humanism then so is the book of Genesis. The Epicureans may have been legitimate materialists, but the stoics were not. As for the Renaissance, one of the main things it was a renaissance of was biblical scholarship. How much did Erasmus need to write about the bible in order for him not to count as not being interested in it? Obviously a lot. I wonder do Martin Luther or John Calvin count as being interested in the bible? As for Ficino and Pico della Mirandola being secular humanists, I never knew that spreading Kabbalistic teachings was a hallmark of a secular humanistic mind-frame. 

According to the commentary Meom Loez, Aristotle, right before he died, wrote a letter to Alexander the Great in which he expressed his regret for his “erroneous” teaching and that he wished that he could suppress and destroy his own books. For you see Aristotle recognized that the God of Israel was the true God and Judaism the true religion. We need to make a rule that if you wish to distort the views of past thinkers you should have to at least make up a decent deathbed conversion story. You should not be able to just have them believe the exact opposite of what they actually wrote.