What business is it of mine anyway?
I’m a British subject, and I’m obviously proud of my country, of all it has achieved (and God Save the Queen).  And I’m not here to dismiss an ancient form of government (the character of the UK’s constitutional monarchy is a discussion for another day).

Nevertheless, it’s time I nailed my colours to the mast.  I’m an American Exceptionalist – that is, I believe that there is something truly special about the US.  I’m no historian, so bear with me because this comes from the heart:

For me, the magic is best encapsulated in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ...”

Self-evident truths:
This isn’t an exercise in creating utopia.  This is an attempt to get at the fundamental truths of existence.

All men are created equal:
All human beings are created with equal worth.  This is not utopian.  It doesn’t say that everyone is going to have the same deal in life.  It doesn’t even promise that America will be perfect (but it did provide a philosophy to inspire Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King ... the crack in Liberty Bell?)

Endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights:

Life:
I have a right to be here.  These words are life affirming.

Liberty:
Not only do I have a right to be here, but my natural state is freedom.

Pursuit of Happiness:
Not pursuit of advancement of the fatherland.  Not pursuit of a brotherhood of man.  Not a struggle against the bourgeoisie, or a social contract that you can’t even remember signing. 

But a unique affirmation of individual dignity.

I could never express this sentiment within the UK, I would be laughed at by elites who would rather spend their time sneering at the US, and rattling off their long list of talking points and the US is to blame for everything.  I bet such sophisticates exist in the US as well.

Let them laugh.

On BBC3 the other evening I stumbled across a TV programme called “Outrageous Wasters”.  The basic premise is that a bunch of do-good-know-it-all-pinko-Commie-libs take the average wasteful but successful capitalist family, and preach their enviro-wacko views at them in an re-education camp until they are converted to the noble cause of saving the planet from the wickedness of mankind.  The family collect water from a stream, grow their own vegetables, and generally engage in a series of pointless Third World acts, turning their backs on the glories of the Industrial Revolution.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/programmes/outrageous_wasters/index.shtml

Meanwhile, as the family have their brains turned into mush, the BBC sets about destroying their home, fitting solar panels, wind turbines, compost toilets and timers on their showers so that when the Manchurian candidates finally return to their home they will be able to indulge their new found liberal guilt.

 “But if you don’t like what’s on TV, you know where the off button is!”
Yeah, that’s easy for you to say.  But who do you think paid for this show?  I did!

In the United Kingdom, we are compelled by LAW to purchase a television licence every year, if we want watch television.  This year the licence fee is £135.50 ... which is equivalent to $274.42 at the time of writing this blog.  This is regardless of whether or not we even want to watch the BBC.  And anyway, the last time I tried living without a television was during 2001, which was not a good year to be without a TV.

Now consider this cost comparison folks ...
In July 2006, the Iranian backed Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) was gleefully complaining about the Iraq war costing the UK a TOTAL of £4 billion.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2006/07/iraq-060711-irna01.htm

In life, we appeal to a number of sources to support our decisions:

·         Instinct
·         Tradition
·         Values
·         Emotions
·         Prejudice
·         Personal experience
·         Collective experience

I believe that rationality doesn’t belong on this list.  I believe that rationality is a TOOL not an information source.  To take a coding analogy, rationality is a METHOD not an ATTRIBUTE.

I believe that the hyper-rational movement is making a metaphysical mistake.

I have heard highly intelligent, rational people come out with utterly absurd comments ... but they have lacked the wisdom to understand just how absurd their pronouncements are.  Ironically, I believe that it is very difficult to explain this to someone who doesn’t want to understand. 

I have tied myself in knots trying to reason about this, because the very thing I am trying to reason about is reason itself.  I have ended up contradicting myself, and possibly confusing more than I have wished.

I am calling for a return to common sense.  I don’t necessarily mean that we all share the same values or opinions – that would mean that we were clones of each other.

I am just asking for a little sober reflection, and humility, in the face of an increasingly complex world.

You see, some atheists don’t believe that they have a worldview. As far as they are they are concerned, religion is a virally transmitted mental disease, and they see it as their God given duty (wait, that can’t be right ...) to cure us of belief.

But Mr. Greg England, the theory of evolution is scientifically proven. You religious people, with your magic man in the sky, and tyrannical God ... blah, blah, blah. You believe that the world was created in six days, and Adam and Eve and the snake ...

Look it’s really simple. You need to face facts. None of us really knows anything. When we first appear in this world, we can’t find our a$$ with our hands. The scientific method allows us to create a cogent model of the physical processes that govern this universe, and hand this knowledge down to future generations. But that’s all it does.

In 1,000 years that’s still all it will be doing. Atheist philosophers like Sartre at least had the decency to admit that life was absurd. But you are in denial. You genuinely believe that the only reason why you don’t understand everything is because a few pieces of the jigsaw are missing, and once you find those pieces ... then what?  What exactly will you understand?

I’ll tell you what you WON’T understand. You will still believe that you have a blank cheque to go around bullying decent, hardworking, ordinary people just because they share a different worldview than you! You will still believe that you are somehow superior to the rest of the human race. If only everyone gave up religion, then everything would be okay. How naive are you?

Do you honestly think that we are that simple that we don’t appreciate how absurd the Bible appears to be?

Of course it’s absurd. It’s not meant to be a scientific text; it’s not even a work of metaphysics. It’s full of contradictions, and clauses that leave us all scratching our heads. The New Testament is the story of some Jewish bloke who claims he’s God, gets nailed to a tree, and God can’t even organise a single documentary account of the whole affair (instead we have to pick our way through Matthew, Mark, Luke and John).

What about Cain’s fears of being beaten up when he walks the earth: “Behold, thou has driven me out this day from the face of the earth: and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me.” Who will slay you? Abel ... he’s dead. There’s always Mum and Dad, but unless they are living separate lives ... there isn’t anyone else.

The reason why I put my faith in Christ has nothing to do with reason.

But you could never, ever understand that, you don't even want to.

Last night I watched Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” as I thought that it was about time I saw what all the fuss was about. To give Al Gore credit, he communicated his message clearly and in an engaging manner. Some of his points were quite valid as well (e.g. the need to improve fuel economy in our cars).

I’m not a climate scientist (although I am familiar with the scientific method) and so I will not question the science here. However, there are a few points that jar with me that need pointing out:

Scary Movie
The tagline for the film poster is “by far the most terrifying film you will ever see”. Now I don’t know about you, but I think that tagline could only have been written by someone who has never encountered true evil. Not a good start.

Consensus
At one point in the film, Al Gore claims to have surveyed more than 928 scientific papers and not one of them disagreed with the scientific consensus about global warming being man made. Well this is obviously wrong, just search the internet and voila, a paper disagreeing with the consensus.

In any case, it is pretty meaningless to talk about “scientific consensus”. There used to be a scientific consensus about Newtonian physics, and then along came quantum physics and the theory of relativity. Scientific knowledge advances through debate. You only get consensus in a communist regime.

Nuclear Power
If global warming is man-made, and it’s caused by CO₂ emissions, then okay let’s build lots of nuclear power stations. End of debate. You don’t need a documentary to convey that message; you could put it on posters and in 30 second adverts on TV: “Vote for me, and save the planet through nuclear power!”

But the movie is strangely silent on the one technology that could actually make a big difference, both to CO₂ emissions and our future energy security.

And that is scary!

I have recently posted this, but it is worthy of it's own blog: