http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2012/04/30/open-the-line Comments On: Open the line by Max Brantley en-us Copyright 2013 Arkansas Times. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, Arkansas Times readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact Arkansas Times. robert@arktimes.com (Arkansas Times Webmaster) Thu, 20 Jun 2013 00:00:01 -0500 Thu, 20 Jun 2013 01:30:00 -0500 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Couldn't be better, thank you for rightly pointing the work of Francis Schaeffer. If you google "Francis Schaeffer Arkansas" the results will surprise!!!
http://thedailyhatch.org/?s=Francis+schaef…


He was a great man who spoke at many Ivy League schools and other great universities throughout the world
Posted by SalineRepublican]]> Sun, 10 Feb 2013 00:23:41 -0600 Arkansas Times
"You are correct that Woody Allen has pointed up a feature of the world as it exists, a feature that I don't happen to like: People sometimes get away with murder.
What you don't get, though, is what I just said: It is a feature of the world as it exists that justice is not inherent. Whether you or I like that or not, it's how it is. In a world without any god, justice and meaning and all good and moral things have to be determined and imposed by people."

AS AN ATHEIST HOW DO YOU DETERMINE MORALITY? HOW CAN YOU EVEN SAY THAT HITLER WAS WRONG? http://thedailyhatch.org/2012/05/08/atheis…

Greg Koukl has rightly said:

The fact is that most people are drowning in a sea of moral relativism. If everything is allowed then nothing is disallowed. Then nothing is wrong. Then nothing is ultimately evil. What I'm saying is that if moral relativism is true, which it seems like most people seem to believe--even those that object against evil in the world, then the talk of objective evil as a philosophical problem is nonsense. To put it another way, if there is no God, then morals are all relative. And if moral relativism is true, then something like true moral evil can't exist because evil becomes a relative thing.

An excellent illustration of this point comes from the movie The Quarrel . In this movie, a rabbi and a Jewish secularist meet again after the Second World War after they had been separated. They had gotten into a quarrel as young men, separated on bad terms, and then had their village and their family and everything destroyed through the Second World War, both thinking the other was dead. They meet serendipitously in Toronto, Canada in a park and renew their friendship and renew their old quarrel.

Rabbi Hersch says to the secularist Jew Chiam, "If a person does not have the Almighty to turn to, if there's nothing in the universe that's higher than human beings, then what's morality? Well, it's a matter of opinion. I like milk; you like meat. Hitler likes to kill people; I like to save them. Who's to say which is better? Do you begin to see the horror of this? If there is no Master of the universe then who's to say that Hitler did anything wrong? If there is no God then the people that murdered your wife and kids did nothing wrong."

That is a very, very compelling point coming from the rabbi. In other words, to argue against the existence of God based on the existence of evil forces us into saying something like this: Evil exists, therefore there is no God. If there is no God then good and evil are relative and not absolute, so true evil doesn't exist, contradicting the first point. Simply put, there cannot be a world in which it makes any sense to say that evil is real and at the same time say that God doesn't exist. If there is no God then nothing is ultimately bad, deplorable, tragic or worthy of blame. The converse, by the way, is also true. This is the other hard part about this, it cuts both ways. Nothing is ultimately good, honorable, noble or worthy of praise. Everything is ultimately lost in a twilight zone of moral nothingness. To paraphrase the late Dr. Francis Schaeffer, the person who argues against the existence of God based on the existence of evil in the world has both feet firmly planted in mid-air.




Posted by SalineRepublican]]> Tue, 08 May 2012 08:43:27 -0500 Arkansas Times
You are correct that Woody Allen has pointed up a feature of the world as it exists, a feature that I don't happen to like: People sometimes get away with murder.

What you don't get, though, is what I just said: It is a feature of the world as it exists that justice is not inherent. Whether you or I like that or not, it's how it is. In a world without any god, justice and meaning and all good and moral things have to be determined and imposed by people.

With god, one could, in theory, just shrug one's shoulders at Hitler and say, "You'll get yours, someday." With the Christian god as accepted by many fundamentalists, Hitler could make a deathbed conversion and go straight to heaven, do not pass hell, do not collect eternal damnation.

Another great artist, Randy Newman, speaking as the Devil makes this point to an angel, "a good girl, cut down in your prime", recently arrived in heaven:

"The man who shot you in the head
In that ‘Burger King in Tucson
Well, he never will be punished you know
He will move to Big Pine, California
Become the richest man in Inyo County
While that may not be much, it’s enough
When he dies
Sixty-five years from today
With his loved ones all around him
He’ll be whisked right up to heaven
He won’t pass go or have to wait
He’ll just march right through the Goddamned gate
And why, you may ask yourself why
For thousands and thousands of years
I have asked myself why"

To which James Taylor, playing God, answers:

"Faith.
Contrition.
Sincere contrition.
Confession.
Sincere confession
Redemption.
Absolution
Those who seek Me shall find Me
In the case of this man,
Predestination

My ways are mysterious
Sometimes even to myself
My ways are mysterious"

Now, that's not terribly satisfying from a moral point of view either. The "death and glory" version of Universalism, where all souls go to heaven as soon as they leave the body makes much more sense from an ethical point of view, especially if you accept the late Bill Hicks' description of life:

"It’s just a ride and we can change it any time we want. It’s only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings and money, a choice right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your door, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one."

Of course, Hicks, like myself, was somewhere between an agnostic and an atheist. Like Hicks, I don't expect any life after death or eternal reward. Justice has to be provided here on earth.

So when a Hitler or a Nixon dies, not unpunished--both those men suffered, though not in proportion to their evil--or scot free, but still without having truly experienced justice for their sins, it's the fault of those women and men who didn't work hard enough to impose justice upon them.

That's the ethical duty we face in the absence of god: Justice here and now, determined by human reason and imposed by human action.

Martin King's riff on Theodore Parker's claim, that the arc of the universe is long but that it bends toward justice, is true in a world populated by humans, who aren't bad and who take that arc in their hands and bend it for all they're worth. Atheists and thoughtful theists alike don't depend on god to git-r-done (for values of 'r' which include 'justice').
Posted by John A Arkansawyer]]> Thu, 03 May 2012 21:53:55 -0500 Arkansas Times
I am focused on serving this district and state and not the next election cycle. I believe discrimination or denying access to rights and privileges by the state is wrong and will work to try and fix these inequities.

I apologize for the delay in responding to this but your post was just brought to my attention.
Posted by marobertson]]> Thu, 03 May 2012 15:37:00 -0500 Arkansas Times
When it comes to morals you like to make big statements but you can not back it up by answering this simple question. I would love to hear from other atheists on this too. Maybe they will run and hide.
Posted by SalineRepublican]]> Tue, 01 May 2012 15:25:14 -0500 Arkansas Times http://thedailyhatch.org/2012/05/01/did-hi…

Chris Martin of the rock group Coldplay wrote the song Viva La Vida, and in this song, Martin is discussing an evil king that has been disposed. “I used to rule the world…Feel the fear in my enemy’s eyes…there was never an honest word and that was when I ruled the world, It was the wicked and wild wind, Blew down the doors to let me in, Shattered windows and the sound of drums, People couldn’t believe what I’d become…For some reason I can’t explain, I know Saint Peter won’t call my name, Never an honest word, But that was when I ruled the world.”

Q Magazine asked Chris Martin about the lyric in this song “I know Saint Peter won’t call my name.” Martin replied, “It’s about…You’re not on the list. I was a naughty boy. Its always fascinated me that idea of finishing your life and then being analyzed on it…That is the most frightening thing you could possibly say to somebody. Eternal damnation. I know about this stuff because I studied it. I was into it all. I know it. It’s mildly terrifying to me. And this is serious.”

I have been following the career of Chris Martin for the last decade. He grew up in a Christian home that believed in Heaven and Hell, but made it clear several years ago that he actually resents those who hold to those same religious dogmatic views he did as a youth. Yet it seems his view on the possibility of an afterlife has changed again.

The secular humanist worldview that modern man has adopted does not work in the real world that God has created. God “has planted eternity in the human heart…” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). This is a direct result of our God-given conscience. The apostle Paul said it best in Romans 1:19, “For that which is known about God is evident to them and made plain in their inner consciousness, because God has shown it to them” (Amplified Version).

Evidently Chris Martin who said he resented dogmatic religious views a few years ago, has now written a grammy winning song that pictures an evil king being punished in an afterlife. Could it be that his God-given conscience prompted him to put that line in? Or do men like Hitler get off home free as Woody Allen suggested in Crimes and Misdemeanors?


Posted by SalineRepublican]]> Tue, 01 May 2012 07:46:57 -0500 Arkansas Times
Woody Allen's 1989 movie, CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS , is concerning the need of God while making decisions in the area of personal morality. In this film, Allen attacks his own atheistic view of morality. Martin Landau plays a Jewish eye doctor named Judah Rosenthal raised by a religious father who always told him, "The eyes of God are always upon you." However, Judah later concludes that God doesn't exist. He has his mistress (played in the film by Anjelica Huston) murdered because she continually threatened to blow the whistle on his past questionable, probably illegal, business activities. She also attempted to break up Judah 's respectable marriage by going public with their two-year affair. Judah struggles with his conscience throughout the remainder of the movie. He continues to be haunted by his father's words: "The eyes of God are always upon you." This is a very scary phrase to a young boy, Judah observes. He often wondered how penetrating God's eyes are.

Later in the film, Judah reflects on the conversation his religious father had with Judah 's unbelieving Aunt May at the dinner table many years ago:

"Come on Sol, open your eyes. Six million Jews burned to death by the Nazis, and they got away with it because might makes right,” says aunt May

Sol replies, "May, how did they get away with it?"

Judah asks, "If a man kills, then what?"

Sol responds to his son, "Then in one way or another he will be punished."

Aunt May comments, "I say if he can do it and get away with it and he chooses not to be bothered by the ethics, then he is home free."

Judah 's final conclusion was that might did make right. He observed that one day, because of this conclusion, he woke up and the cloud of guilt was gone. He was, as his aunt said, “home free.”

Woody Allen has exposed a weakness in his own humanistic view that God is not necessary as a basis for good ethics. There must be an enforcement factor in order to convince Judah not to resort to murder. Otherwise, it is fully to Judah 's advantage to remove this troublesome woman from his life.


Posted by SalineRepublican]]> Tue, 01 May 2012 06:58:43 -0500 Arkansas Times Posted by John A Arkansawyer]]> Tue, 01 May 2012 06:05:21 -0500 Arkansas Times It could cost you a job, family and friends. So, since security is our most important possession hang on to Hell.

Pastor's loss of faith started with loss of hell
By Kimberly Winston, Religion News Service
Updated 3h 17m ago
....
STORY: For clergy, lost faith can lead to lost family, jobs

Speaking in March before a cheering crowd of several hundred unbelievers at the American Atheists conference here, he described posting the picture as "committing identity suicide."
....
The response was swift. His congregation put him out, friends cut him off and some family members will not speak to him, he said.

"From there he read about universalism — the idea, scorned by most fundamentalist Christians, that salvation is universal, and all people will be restored in their relationship with God without any action on their own part. After universalism, he discovered the idea, supported by some neuroscientists, that God is actually our inner dialogue.
....."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/stor…
Posted by eLwood]]> Tue, 01 May 2012 01:13:40 -0500 Arkansas Times Posted by eLwood]]> Mon, 30 Apr 2012 23:00:45 -0500 Arkansas Times Posted by HardHeadedWoman]]> Mon, 30 Apr 2012 22:55:33 -0500 Arkansas Times
Thanks for the Taylor Mali video! I'm seeing a ground swell of teachers who are fed up. Listen carefully to the middle--when he talks about the nobility of a child standing up for another. That's what I see, everyday. Incredible children being judged to an arbitrary, developmentally-inappropriate standard on a poorly written expensive test that will then be used to try to judge how well teachers do their job. We're flushing our children down the drain, throwing away the gift that they are in an attempt to force them into what we think they should be. Is ANYONE ELSE paying attention???
Posted by inthetrenches]]> Mon, 30 Apr 2012 22:46:56 -0500 Arkansas Times
Texas judge foils Perry’s plot to kill Planned Parenthood

"Texas Governor Rick Perry (R) was rebuked by a federal court on Monday for his decision to withdraw all Medicare funds from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), in a move that triggered a showdown with the federal government amid an election season already fraught with gender politics.

The ruling, issued by Judge Lee Yeakel in Austin, will preserve Medicaid Women’s Health Program funding for PPFA clinics across the state, ensuring over 130,000 lower income women will continue to receive reproductive health care services. While Yeakel’s ruling is only a temporary injunction, it prevents Texas from shutting off the funds in the near term until the full trial can get underway later this summer.'

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/30/texa…

Posted by NeverVoteRepublican]]> Mon, 30 Apr 2012 22:44:49 -0500 Arkansas Times >Without god in the picture e everything is permitted.<<

No Everette, god does not establish moral codes. We do. We can attribute them to any deity of your choosing but make no mistake we, society, set moral codes. I suppose you were at prayer meeting on the occasions we discussed civil and moral codes and origins. They existed long before the Hebrewic god came along.

However, you insistence reminds me of a tale my old friend's dad told us back in the 1960s. My friend's dad was special ambassador to Africa, in charge of numerous U.S. agricultural aid programs to various nations on the continent.

They wanted to clean up the shops in a few particular towns but had to devise a way to get shopkeepers motivated. Most Africans were religious, just like U.S. Southerners.

So, the agri aid folks began instructing locals that evil demons lived in the dirt and dust in their shops and if all that dirt and dust were cleaned out then off went the demons. It worked fabulously and business did improve. Markets for farm produce became cleaner.

Try it over in Bryant. Message that only the devil prefers cluttered yards and unsanitary conditions around public and private places. Have a popular preacher or two minister about it. Have them stress that it's god's will to have a beautiful town with flowers and abundant trees and well groomed city parks. Maintain that it keeps the Devil away and welcomes God.

"Cleanliness is next to godliness"
Shaxspur.

Posted by eLwood]]> Mon, 30 Apr 2012 22:33:28 -0500 Arkansas Times
I, with a hint of irritation at the interruption and perhaps a smidgen of PMS, picked up and it was a call from the Warwick Sabin campaign.

(We've received quite a few mailers from his campaign. I've also received a mailer from his opponent, Mark Robertson, and got an at-the-house visitation from his daughter. Nice, polite young lady who is very devoted to her dad).

I was pretty convinced I was going to vote for Sabin until the call tonight.

The young lady launched into a rote, monotone spiel about Sabin's background before I interrupted her.

ME: I'm well-versed about his credentials. He seems qualified. Uh, what are his views on gay marriage?

STAFFER: (pregnant pause) Ma'am, I can't answer that question. I can give you his website.

ME: Hold on there...he's running for office in very liberal Hillcrest and you can't answer that? It's a very timely topic and he's replacing a two-term, open lesbian.

STAFFER: (3 seconds of silence) I can give you a number to call to ask that question.

ME: I'm not going to do your homework if you want me to vote for him.

STAFFER: Thank you for your time tonight. (click).

I thought it was a slam-dunk I was going to vote for Sabin but I don't know now. I did go to his website and there's no mention of his stand on any social issues.

This is the People's Republic of Hillcrest and he's seeking to follow Arkansas's first openly-gay, elected official. By god, take a stand! There are tons of LGBT folks who live in this district.

I respect and understand this is a stepping-stone for what could be a rising star in Arkansas politics. I get that. But I won't provide cover for a coward who won't make a clear stand about gay marriage or gay equality, even in the backward state of Arkansas.

I'll put Mark Robertson to the same scrutiny, now that he's back in the picture for my vote.

I already miss Kathy.



Posted by Mrs. Sistertoldja]]> Mon, 30 Apr 2012 22:24:56 -0500 Arkansas Times
Romney's words have now come back to haunt him, and his Rethuglicon allies are punching wildly in an attempt to get the media to talk about something, anything, else.

Why, it makes Romney look soft on terrorism! But at least Romney is tough on his family dogs.
Posted by Sound Policy]]> Mon, 30 Apr 2012 21:52:59 -0500 Arkansas Times
Smith's Alternative Arkansas History on this date:

30-Apr 1997 Arkansas Right to Life Political Action Committee files suit saying that statute prohibiting giving money to legislators during the legislative session violates their rights.

30-Apr 1952 Resolution by Congressman Ezekiel C. Gathings authorizing investigation of the moral content of radio and television programming is approved by the House Rules Committee.

30-Apr 1888 Union Labor Party held state convention at Little Rock, nominated Charles Norwood for Governor and adopted a platform combining Knights of Labor, Agricultural Wheel, and Farmers Alliance planks. Its broad popular support and near victory led the legislature to pursue election “reforms” such as the poll tax to disenfranchise poor white and black citizens.

30-Apr 1918 Opening of the Fourteenth Biennial National Convention of the General Federation of Women's Clubs at Hot Springs.

30-Apr 1962 Arkansas Supreme Court upholds disqualification of James Bradley and Mrs. Alvin Tanner, Republican election officials, as ineligible yet voting in 1960 Faulkner County Democratic Primary.

30-Apr 1987 Bob Bland, Joann Stewart, Mary Hussmann, Christopher Kupper, and Regina Groshong arrested for disorderly conduct during a Puente de Paz sit-in at the Little Rock federal building.

30-Apr 1949 UA scholarships were awarded to the UA Debate Tournament champions Bill Downs and Dabbs Franks and to outstanding debater Fairbanks Cooper, all of the Batesville High School debate team.

30-Apr 1952 Oil Workers International Union (C. I. O) strike and picket for higher wages at Lion Oil Company in El Dorado.

30-Apr 1986 Southland Corporation of Dallas announced that it would cave to local religionist protestors and stop selling Playboy, Penthouse and Forum magazines at its nineteen 7-11 convenience stores in Arkansas. Literacy rate braced for decline.

30-Apr 1987 Rev. Jesse Turner called end to 10-week boycott of the Pine Bluff Commercial by Interested Citizens for Voter Registration.

30-Apr 1991 Attorney General Winston Bryant said "clear-cutting represents a clear and present danger to one of Arkansas's greatest national resources" and that the state is asking to join in federal lawsuit filed by Sierra Club.

--by Stephen Smith, PhD
Posted by eLwood]]> Mon, 30 Apr 2012 21:45:09 -0500 Arkansas Times Posted by SalineRepublican]]> Mon, 30 Apr 2012 21:44:26 -0500 Arkansas Times Teacher Taylor Mali nails it!

http://front.moveon.org/the-most-aggressiv…
Posted by HardHeadedWoman]]> Mon, 30 Apr 2012 21:24:53 -0500 Arkansas Times
Ken Aden, Congressional candidate for 3RD District, stops to help an overturned motorist while on his Four Day Run to help end hunger. You'll NEVER see these photos of him trying to help the motorist out of overturned car in Stephens or Hussman's newspapers but Blue Ark has them:

http://bluearkansasblog.com/?p=9039

Posted by eLwood]]> Mon, 30 Apr 2012 21:20:44 -0500 Arkansas Times Posted by SkyPilot]]> Mon, 30 Apr 2012 21:16:44 -0500 Arkansas Times Posted by plainjim]]> Mon, 30 Apr 2012 21:04:21 -0500 Arkansas Times http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lUs17azUFs
Posted by Sunshine]]> Mon, 30 Apr 2012 20:51:48 -0500 Arkansas Times Posted by Cato]]> Mon, 30 Apr 2012 20:46:12 -0500 Arkansas Times
As we came out, we were glad for our decision. The restaurant was packed with lines on both sides of the room extending back to the door.

I tried to locate Chutney's on West Walnut in Rogers, but wasn't able. Maybe I did something wrong. I just found it on Google. Or maybe my brain is twisted from my whirlwind week in NWA and it was one of the other recommended places I was unable to locate. Whatever.

At least I've found it now and will put the address on my list to have available on our next trip.

Except for our trip to the Bridges and the philharmonic concert Saturday evening, Rogers was a bit north of our primary territory. Would not have driven up to Rogers JUST to eat.

We didn't find James At the Mill quite as expensive as Ella's--and this is just for food, as wine was not involved in our meals.

It was kind of y'all to give me so many good recommendations. Frequently we eat most of our meals in our facility, or catch one of the fast-food places, "eating out" perhaps only once or twice during a week's trip. We're both at the stage of life when a big plate of expensive food is largely wasted (waisted) on us; even though we can now better afford the dollars we cannot afford the calories. But we wanted to splurge a bit on this trip to celebrate; so we did. It IS nice that even the higher-class establishments will provide carry-out trays for us common-folk.

Pleasant week in NWA; but glad to be back home.
Posted by SkyPilot]]> Mon, 30 Apr 2012 20:40:27 -0500 Arkansas Times