Reflections From a Murky Pond

Is a man and man, possessed of and by a similar nature and drives to his fellows, irrespective of his race, ethnicity, or creed? Are all peoples essential equal at a fundamental level in that they all have similar aspirations and have both base and sublime desires that resemble those of all other peoples?

Many Americans claim to believe that the answer to all these questions is yes, all men are equal.

Indeed, answer is contained within the single most quoted line from our Declaration of Independence and has been used many times as a rationale for changing our nation’s laws.

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

The very wording of this declaration, combined with what we know of the Founding Fathers’ theologies and philosophies, sets forth the inherent equality of all of Man as a matter of Natural Law.

But, if this is case, one would be forced to accept the bad along with good. Whether it is merely people’s belief that all men are inherently equal or a fact of Natural Law that they are, in fact, equal in both propensity for nobility and for ignominy then one should expect roughly similar results and responses any stimulus that is applied to a group people, irrespective of their race, ethnicity, or creed.

That being the case, why do so many people in America believe that “domestic aid” programs will achieve any better results than the bulk of both private (NGO) and governmental foreign aid programs have achieved in the many decades of their existence?

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Al Gore and his cult of Warmists may be in denial, but that doesn’t change the fact their day has largely ended and they are well on the way along the downward spiral of relevancy that will either leave them as footnotes in history, like the 1970s Global Cooling believers, or as something akin to PETA, a mockery and an embarrassment.

Of course, as the above image displays, Al Gore hopefully wouldn’t be the first choice by the Warmists for a PETA style AGW poster or billboard. 😉

Back on Friday, April 24th, 2009, I made a post, A Moral Atheist, which detailed my view that an atheist, while perfectly capable of being ethical, cannot be moral since an atheist inherently lacks an absolute sense of- or source for morality. The post generated – and continues to generate – some discussion and debate.

One of the prevailing arguments that atheists could, in fact, be moral was that morality can stem from a culture and/or society instead of from a Divine source. This is certainly a seductive argument; who, after all, doesn’t think their society is source of what is Right and Good?

There is a serious problem with that belief though as the philosopher and theologian, Francis A. Schaeffer so very eloquently pointed out:

Here is one simple but profound rule: If there is no absolute by which to judge society, society is absolute.

— Francis A. Schaeffer
How Should We Then Live? p. 224

Think on that for a moment for it is certainly true. In the absence of an absolute – inherently external – source for- and code of morality, a society is absolute in and of itself and the morality of its doctrines, policies, and actions could not be judged.

Of course, the truth of the matter is that this argument of morality stemming from society is a fantasy with no grounding in reality and it never could have any grounding in reality as long as mankind is made up of separate and heterogeneous cultures and societies.

What is sad and more than a little dangerous is that there are apparently a sizable number who either believe this or, at least, are willing to use the idea to rationalize their positions on morality.

In 1995 NASA published it’s findings on the effects of common recreational drugs and toxins on the behavior and web building characteristics of spiders. It was only a preliminary report though and didn’t provide any insight into the long-term effects of various drugs upon the spiders’ behavior and web weaving.

Fortunately others have continued where NASA left off:

Spiders On Drugs – A Tangled Web Indeed

H/T to SwittersB & Fly Fishing for finding this great piece on YouTube.

The Urban Thug (Homo Urbanensis Thugii) is a largely unstudied creature. Though having a large and growing population base and an expanding habitat, the dangers involved in studying them combined with the utter lack of empathy they inspire in researchers have kept study of them to a minimum.

Below is one of the few anatomical sketches of a representative member of the species:

Anatomical Sketch of Homo Urbanensis Thugii

NOTE: There is some debate among biologists and zoologists over the proper taxonomic classification of Urbanensis Thuggii; one school of thought places them as a subspecies of Man, hence Homo, while the other places them as a related species of hominid and classifies them as Hominidae Urbanensis Thugii.