Editorial Opinion by Dr. J. P. Hubert
If anyone requires further evidence that rank Utilitarianism has become the prevailing ethic in the developed West--look no further. In a paper prepared for the Nato summit in April by five top military leaders the following recommendation is made: “The first use of nuclear weapons must remain in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction.” see HERE...
Talk about moral relativism. Where is the evidence that these men understand the principle of universality which is part and parcel of every legitimate moral philosophy? What about the categorical imperative of Kant--only do those acts which you would be willing to see universalized? Where is the assurance that these military experts understand the first and second principles of the Natural Law; do good/avoid evil and treat your neighbor fairly? What possible moral philosophy could these individuals have employed other than the principle of utility as applied under a Utilitarian construct? Apparently for them virtually any "means" whether inherently immoral or not can be applied in the pursuit of an identified "end."
The first use of nuclear weapons is an immoral means for the accomplishment of any conceivable end since it involves purposely targeting innocent human beings--non-combatants. This makes it immoral under Just War Doctrinal principles period as well as under international Law (waging "Total War" is a war crime). Under traditional (golden-rule ethic) Aristotelian/Thomistic moral philosophical precepts, one must never intentionally kill the innocent. Offensively detonating a nuclear bomb under any and all circumstances, tactical or strategic involves choosing to intentionally kill the innocent (the object rationally chosen or "means") and it is gravely immoral.
In fact it is highly dubious whether one could ever detonate a nuclear bomb in a defensive capacity either, due to the predictable (and thus intentional) nature involved in the killing of innocents. Such an eventuality could not be termed unintended in the sense of "collateral" damage which refers only to those inadvertent and unintended deaths of non-combatant civilians in time of war which are unforseeable. If large loss of civilian life is virtually certain (that is, one possesses moral certitude), the planned military maneuver is clearly immmoral.
I include the following additional analysis which was posted previously as a NOTE on this topic see THIS...
Having personally lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis it is inconceivable to me that supposedly intelligent military leaders could recommend the use of offensive nuclear weapons in an attempt to prevent further nuclear proliferation and other weapons of mass destruction. There are several insurmountable problems with their analysis.
First, it is not true that "there is simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world" as the 5 author's have maintained. The original nuclear weapons state (NWS's) nations (China, USSR [now Russia], France, United States and Great Britain) which signed the NPT have through lack of leadership and good will failed to meet their treaty obligations to progressively disarm their nuclear arsenals. Yet, they continue to insist that non-nuclear weapon state (NNWS's) countries must not attempt to develop them. NNWS nations legitimately wonder why they should be held to their NPT obligation not to develop nuclear weapons when the original 5 NWS's refuse to abide by theirs.
The NWS's by some unknown "right" (perhaps might makes right) also insist that those NNWS countries which did not sign the NPT must also refrain from doing so. This is rank hypocrisy of the worst sort. Moreover it is clear that some NWS's have further violated their NPT related obligations by assisting other nations who were not part of the original NWS's to obtain them including Israel, Pakistan, India and North Korea. Obviously, the original NWS's have made no realistic attempt to either progressively disarm (certainly not in the past 20 years) or to otherwise abide by their NPT stipulated agreement not to provide nuclear weapons technology to NNWS nations.
Second the 5 military authors who produced the latest radical manifesto have also committed a grievous error in logic. It is contradictory (violates the law of non-contradiction) in the extreme to purport that the best way to prevent an actual phenomenon from occurring is to in fact make it occur. Nuclear weapons proliferation is held to be disadvantageous because it is thought to increase the risk (likelihood) that nuclear weapons will be utilized; particularly offensively--a universally recognized and abhorrent historical reality based upon their first use by the United States against the Japanese. If that were not the case there would be no morally legitimate reason to limit proliferation.
Third, many nations already have nuclear weapons which are associated with some finite risk of use albeit perhaps incalculable quantitatively. Should nuclear weapons be used to stop a nation state from developing them, what does this say? It indicates that the use of nuclear weapons in an offensive manner is justifiable under some circumstances. Not only does it violate Just War Doctrinal principles it makes legitimate that which it is attempting to make illegitimate--the use of offensive nuclear weapons--whether by a nation state or a terrorist organization. Put another way, it says "do what we say not what we do simply because we say so." Those NNWS can legitimately reply, "you are hypocritical in the extreme. Why should you be the only ones to have nuclear weapons--you aren't even willing to disarm the huge arsenals you already have and agreed to reduce and yet you insist that we cannot even have one? How unjust of you."
Perhaps even more troubling to me is the idea that so many human beings including the top tier candidates for President in both US political parties are willing to consider the use of nuclear weapons offensively. This is a most disturbing development. It demonstrates that the so-called Bush doctrine of preventive war has become normalized despite its being completely incompatible with international law, Just War Doctrinal principles and traditional moral precepts.
Too many people seem to have lost sight of just how truly awful it is to detonate even one nuclear weapon. I suggest that everyone read or re-read the accounts of those who documented the carnage and human suffering after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings. The genetic and medical complications alone are still being felt to this day. The deleterious effects of radioactive fallout and possible complete fouling of the earth's atmosphere/environment were these hideous weapons to be utilized demands that they never be used again. There is no guarantee that--should even one tactical nuclear warhead be detonated--it would not result in WWIII. The resulting nuclear Armageddon and nuclear Winter would be capable of destroying all life on earth.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Israel Causes Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza: International Outrage Builds
Palestinian water authority: 40% of Gazans lack running water
Haaretz.com, original HERE...
By Amira Hass
Gaza Strip residents Monday moved from worrying about the electricity cuts of the previous 40 hours to worrying about a water shortage. The municipality needs electricity to bring water to homes and the houses need it to pump water to the roof tanks. Hence 40 percent of Gaza Strip homes - 600,000 people - had no running water Monday, the Palestinian water authority said.
Oxfam International said Monday that unless diesel and fuel supplies were resumed immediately, all the Strip's water pumps could stop working Tuesday. The non-governmental organization also warned of the sewage system's collapse in the absence of diesel.
"Without electric power we can manage somehow, without bread too," says a resident of the Nasser neighborhood in northern Gaza. "It's cold enough to prevent the food from going bad and we try to open the refrigerator as little as possible. The kids grumble but they can learn to live without the computer. But without water?"
"We calculate each step," he says. "We don't put on the gas heaters, because tomorrow might be colder. We don't cook for long. But to consider whether to go to the toilet? Whether to wash our face? That is insufferable."
The Israeli human rights organizations Adalah and Gisha Monday petitioned the High Court of Justice for an urgent interim injunction to prevent Israel from continuing to restrict the industrial diesel oil supply to the Gaza Strip. They said the shortage deriving from Israel's deliberate cuts in recent weeks culminated in the dramatic closure of the border crossings on Friday. The power cuts caused a shortage of drinking water and damage to the hospitals' function already on January 5, when Gaza's electric power's production was cut by 30 percent. But the High Court of Justice dismissed their request.
From small transistor radios, people listened to Al-Jazeera news broadcasts on local radio stations throughout the day. This was their only link to the world, as no newspapers are reaching the Strip either. The report of the defense minister's order to resume the diesel supply reached one Gaza City resident while he was sitting on the sofa at home, wrapped in a blanket. The gas in the heater ran out on Sunday. His daughters and wife were also covered with blankets, as were most city residents. It was the only thing they could do, to ward off the cold.
He asked himself if the resumption of diesel supply - if indeed the promise was kept - would change the picture he saw from his window: a grid of dark streets. The weak light, coming from the windows of a few apartments that had private generators, only enhanced the darkness all around.
See also: The poor and the sick suffer as Israel cuts power to Gaza
The Independent
Dr al-Arani also claimed that five patients brought to the hospital in the past 24 hours, including three babies, had died either from hypothermia or from power cuts interrupting their vital oxygen supplies at home. MORE...
and This: Egptian border guards open fire to drive off Gaza protestors
International Herald Tribune/ AP January 22, 2008
Egyptian border guards fired in the air and used clubs and water cannon to drive back hundreds of Palestinian women and children who surged across the border from Gaza Tuesday in a protest to back their demands for the frontier to be opened for shipments of food and essential provisions. MORE...
Haaretz.com, original HERE...
By Amira Hass
Gaza Strip residents Monday moved from worrying about the electricity cuts of the previous 40 hours to worrying about a water shortage. The municipality needs electricity to bring water to homes and the houses need it to pump water to the roof tanks. Hence 40 percent of Gaza Strip homes - 600,000 people - had no running water Monday, the Palestinian water authority said.
Oxfam International said Monday that unless diesel and fuel supplies were resumed immediately, all the Strip's water pumps could stop working Tuesday. The non-governmental organization also warned of the sewage system's collapse in the absence of diesel.
"Without electric power we can manage somehow, without bread too," says a resident of the Nasser neighborhood in northern Gaza. "It's cold enough to prevent the food from going bad and we try to open the refrigerator as little as possible. The kids grumble but they can learn to live without the computer. But without water?"
"We calculate each step," he says. "We don't put on the gas heaters, because tomorrow might be colder. We don't cook for long. But to consider whether to go to the toilet? Whether to wash our face? That is insufferable."
The Israeli human rights organizations Adalah and Gisha Monday petitioned the High Court of Justice for an urgent interim injunction to prevent Israel from continuing to restrict the industrial diesel oil supply to the Gaza Strip. They said the shortage deriving from Israel's deliberate cuts in recent weeks culminated in the dramatic closure of the border crossings on Friday. The power cuts caused a shortage of drinking water and damage to the hospitals' function already on January 5, when Gaza's electric power's production was cut by 30 percent. But the High Court of Justice dismissed their request.
From small transistor radios, people listened to Al-Jazeera news broadcasts on local radio stations throughout the day. This was their only link to the world, as no newspapers are reaching the Strip either. The report of the defense minister's order to resume the diesel supply reached one Gaza City resident while he was sitting on the sofa at home, wrapped in a blanket. The gas in the heater ran out on Sunday. His daughters and wife were also covered with blankets, as were most city residents. It was the only thing they could do, to ward off the cold.
He asked himself if the resumption of diesel supply - if indeed the promise was kept - would change the picture he saw from his window: a grid of dark streets. The weak light, coming from the windows of a few apartments that had private generators, only enhanced the darkness all around.
See also: The poor and the sick suffer as Israel cuts power to Gaza
The Independent
Dr al-Arani also claimed that five patients brought to the hospital in the past 24 hours, including three babies, had died either from hypothermia or from power cuts interrupting their vital oxygen supplies at home. MORE...
and This: Egptian border guards open fire to drive off Gaza protestors
International Herald Tribune/ AP January 22, 2008
Egyptian border guards fired in the air and used clubs and water cannon to drive back hundreds of Palestinian women and children who surged across the border from Gaza Tuesday in a protest to back their demands for the frontier to be opened for shipments of food and essential provisions. MORE...
Pre-emptive nuclear strike a key option, Nato told
Ian Traynor in Brussels
Tuesday January 22, 2008
The Guardian original HERE...
The west must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the "imminent" spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, according to a radical manifesto for a new Nato by five of the west's most senior military officers and strategists.
Calling for root-and-branch reform of Nato and a new pact drawing the US, Nato and the European Union together in a "grand strategy" to tackle the challenges of an increasingly brutal world, the former armed forces chiefs from the US, Britain, Germany, France and the Netherlands insist that a "first strike" nuclear option remains an "indispensable instrument" since there is "simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world".
The manifesto has been written following discussions with active commanders and policymakers, many of whom are unable or unwilling to publicly air their views. It has been presented to the Pentagon in Washington and to Nato's secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, over the past 10 days. The proposals are likely to be discussed at a Nato summit in Bucharest in April.
The risk of further [nuclear] proliferation is imminent and, with it, the danger that nuclear war fighting, albeit limited in scope, might become possible," the authors argued in the 150-page blueprint for urgent reform of western military strategy and structures. "The first use of nuclear weapons must remain in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction."
The authors - General John Shalikashvili, the former chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff and Nato's ex-supreme commander in Europe, General Klaus Naumann, Germany's former top soldier and ex-chairman of Nato's military committee, General Henk van den Breemen, a former Dutch chief of staff, Admiral Jacques Lanxade, a former French chief of staff, and Lord Inge, field marshal and ex-chief of the general staff and the defence staff in the UK - paint an alarming picture of the threats and challenges confronting the west in the post-9/11 world and deliver a withering verdict on the ability to cope.
The five commanders argue that the west's values and way of life are under threat, but the west is struggling to summon the will to defend them. The key threats are:
· Political fanaticism and religious fundamentalism.
· The "dark side" of globalisation, meaning international terrorism, organised crime and the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
· Climate change and energy security, entailing a contest for resources and potential "environmental" migration on a mass scale.
· The weakening of the nation state as well as of organisations such as the UN, Nato and the EU.
To prevail, the generals call for an overhaul of Nato decision-taking methods, a new "directorate" of US, European and Nato leaders to respond rapidly to crises, and an end to EU "obstruction" of and rivalry with Nato. Among the most radical changes demanded are:
· A shift from consensus decision-taking in Nato bodies to majority voting, meaning faster action through an end to national vetoes.
· The abolition of national caveats in Nato operations of the kind that plague the Afghan campaign.
· No role in decision-taking on Nato operations for alliance members who are not taking part in the operations.
· The use of force without UN security council authorisation when "immediate action is needed to protect large numbers of human beings".
In the wake of the latest row over military performance in Afghanistan, touched off when the US defence secretary, Robert Gates, said some allies could not conduct counter-insurgency, the five senior figures at the heart of the western military establishment also declare that Nato's future is on the line in Helmand province.
"Nato's credibility is at stake in Afghanistan," said Van den Breemen.
"Nato is at a juncture and runs the risk of failure," according to the blueprint.
Naumann delivered a blistering attack on his own country's performance in Afghanistan. "The time has come for Germany to decide if it wants to be a reliable partner." By insisting on "special rules" for its forces in Afghanistan, the Merkel government in Berlin was contributing to "the dissolution of Nato".
Ron Asmus, head of the German Marshall Fund thinktank in Brussels and a former senior US state department official, described the manifesto as "a wake-up call". "This report means that the core of the Nato establishment is saying we're in trouble, that the west is adrift and not facing up to the challenges."
Naumann conceded that the plan's retention of the nuclear first strike option was "controversial" even among the five authors. Inge argued that "to tie our hands on first use or no first use removes a huge plank of deterrence".
Reserving the right to initiate nuclear attack was a central element of the west's cold war strategy in defeating the Soviet Union. Critics argue that what was a productive instrument to face down a nuclear superpower is no longer appropriate.
Robert Cooper, an influential shaper of European foreign and security policy in Brussels, said he was "puzzled".
"Maybe we are going to use nuclear weapons before anyone else, but I'd be wary of saying it out loud."
Another senior EU official said Nato needed to "rethink its nuclear posture because the nuclear non-proliferation regime is under enormous pressure".
Naumann suggested the threat of nuclear attack was a counsel of desperation. "Proliferation is spreading and we have not too many options to stop it. We don't know how to deal with this."
Nato needed to show "there is a big stick that we might have to use if there is no other option", he said.
NOTE:
Having personally lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis it is inconceivable to me that supposedly intelligent military leaders could recommend the use of offensive nuclear weapons in an attempt to prevent further nuclear proliferation and other weapons of mass destruction. There are several insurmountable problems with their analysis.
First, it is not true that "there is simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world." The original nuclear weapons state (NWS's) nations (China, USSR [now Russia], France, United States and Great Britain) which signed the NPT have through lack of leadership and good will failed to meet their treaty obligations to progressively disarm their nuclear arsenals. Yet, they continue to insist that non-nuclear weapon state (NNWS's) countries must not attempt to develop them. NNWS nations legitimately wonder why they should be held to their NPT obligation not to develop nuclear weapons when the original 5 NWS's refuse to abide by theirs.
The NWS's by some unknown "right" (perhaps might makes right) also insist that those NNWS countries which did not sign the NPT must also refrain from doing so. This is rank hypocrisy of the worst sort. Moreover it is clear that some NWS's have further violated their NPT related obligations by assisting other nations who were not part of the original NWS's to obtain them including Israel, Pakistan, India and North Korea. See the evidence of same which has been unearthed by Sybil Edmonds HERE.... Also see the piece by Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Paper's fame HERE... and The Sunday (UK) Times piece HERE... Obviously, the original NWS's have made no realistic attempt to either progressively disarm (certainly not in the past 20 years) or to otherwise abide by their NPT stipulated agreement not to provide nuclear weapons technology to NNWS nations.
Second the 5 military authors who produced the latest radical manifesto have also committed a grievous error in logic. It is contradictory (violates the law of non-contradiction) in the extreme to purport that the best way to prevent an actual phenomenon from occurring is to in fact make it occur. Nuclear weapons proliferation is held to be disadvantageous because it is thought to increase the risk (likelihood) that nuclear weapons will be utilized; particularly offensively--a universally recognized and abhorrent historical reality based upon their first use by the United States against the Japanese. If that were not the case there would be no morally legitimate reason to limit proliferation.
Third, many nations already have nuclear weapons which are associated with some finite risk of use albeit perhaps incalculable quantitatively. Should nuclear weapons be used to stop a nation state from developing them, what does this say? It indicates that the use of nuclear weapons in an offensive manner is justifiable under some circumstances. Not only does it violate Just War Doctrinal principles it makes legitimate that which it is attempting to make illegitimate--the use of offensive nuclear weapons--whether by a nation state or a terrorist organization. Put another way, it says "do what we say not what we do simply because we say so." Those NNWS can legitimately reply, "you are hypocritical in the extreme. Why should you be the only ones to have nuclear weapons--you aren't even willing to disarm the huge arsenals you already have and agreed to reduce and yet you insist that we cannot even have one? How unjust of you."
Perhaps even more troubling to me is the idea that so many human beings including the top tier candidates for President in both US political parties are willing to consider the use of nuclear weapons offensively. This is a most disturbing development. It demonstrates that the so-called Bush doctrine of preventive war has become normalized despite its being completely incompatible with international law, Just War Doctrinal principles and traditional moral precepts.
Too many people seem to have lost sight of just how truly awful it is to detonate even one nuclear weapon. I suggest that everyone read or re-read the accounts of those who documented the carnage and human suffering after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings. The genetic and medical complications alone are still being felt to this day. The deleterious effects of radioactive fallout and possible complete fouling of the earth's atmosphere/environment were these hideous weapons to be utilized demands that they never be used again. There is no guarantee that--should even one tactical nuclear warhead be detonated--it would not result in WWIII. The resulting nuclear Armageddon and nuclear Winter would be capable of destroying all life on earth.
--Dr. J. P. Hubert
Tuesday January 22, 2008
The Guardian original HERE...
The west must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the "imminent" spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, according to a radical manifesto for a new Nato by five of the west's most senior military officers and strategists.
Calling for root-and-branch reform of Nato and a new pact drawing the US, Nato and the European Union together in a "grand strategy" to tackle the challenges of an increasingly brutal world, the former armed forces chiefs from the US, Britain, Germany, France and the Netherlands insist that a "first strike" nuclear option remains an "indispensable instrument" since there is "simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world".
The manifesto has been written following discussions with active commanders and policymakers, many of whom are unable or unwilling to publicly air their views. It has been presented to the Pentagon in Washington and to Nato's secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, over the past 10 days. The proposals are likely to be discussed at a Nato summit in Bucharest in April.
The risk of further [nuclear] proliferation is imminent and, with it, the danger that nuclear war fighting, albeit limited in scope, might become possible," the authors argued in the 150-page blueprint for urgent reform of western military strategy and structures. "The first use of nuclear weapons must remain in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction."
The authors - General John Shalikashvili, the former chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff and Nato's ex-supreme commander in Europe, General Klaus Naumann, Germany's former top soldier and ex-chairman of Nato's military committee, General Henk van den Breemen, a former Dutch chief of staff, Admiral Jacques Lanxade, a former French chief of staff, and Lord Inge, field marshal and ex-chief of the general staff and the defence staff in the UK - paint an alarming picture of the threats and challenges confronting the west in the post-9/11 world and deliver a withering verdict on the ability to cope.
The five commanders argue that the west's values and way of life are under threat, but the west is struggling to summon the will to defend them. The key threats are:
· Political fanaticism and religious fundamentalism.
· The "dark side" of globalisation, meaning international terrorism, organised crime and the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
· Climate change and energy security, entailing a contest for resources and potential "environmental" migration on a mass scale.
· The weakening of the nation state as well as of organisations such as the UN, Nato and the EU.
To prevail, the generals call for an overhaul of Nato decision-taking methods, a new "directorate" of US, European and Nato leaders to respond rapidly to crises, and an end to EU "obstruction" of and rivalry with Nato. Among the most radical changes demanded are:
· A shift from consensus decision-taking in Nato bodies to majority voting, meaning faster action through an end to national vetoes.
· The abolition of national caveats in Nato operations of the kind that plague the Afghan campaign.
· No role in decision-taking on Nato operations for alliance members who are not taking part in the operations.
· The use of force without UN security council authorisation when "immediate action is needed to protect large numbers of human beings".
In the wake of the latest row over military performance in Afghanistan, touched off when the US defence secretary, Robert Gates, said some allies could not conduct counter-insurgency, the five senior figures at the heart of the western military establishment also declare that Nato's future is on the line in Helmand province.
"Nato's credibility is at stake in Afghanistan," said Van den Breemen.
"Nato is at a juncture and runs the risk of failure," according to the blueprint.
Naumann delivered a blistering attack on his own country's performance in Afghanistan. "The time has come for Germany to decide if it wants to be a reliable partner." By insisting on "special rules" for its forces in Afghanistan, the Merkel government in Berlin was contributing to "the dissolution of Nato".
Ron Asmus, head of the German Marshall Fund thinktank in Brussels and a former senior US state department official, described the manifesto as "a wake-up call". "This report means that the core of the Nato establishment is saying we're in trouble, that the west is adrift and not facing up to the challenges."
Naumann conceded that the plan's retention of the nuclear first strike option was "controversial" even among the five authors. Inge argued that "to tie our hands on first use or no first use removes a huge plank of deterrence".
Reserving the right to initiate nuclear attack was a central element of the west's cold war strategy in defeating the Soviet Union. Critics argue that what was a productive instrument to face down a nuclear superpower is no longer appropriate.
Robert Cooper, an influential shaper of European foreign and security policy in Brussels, said he was "puzzled".
"Maybe we are going to use nuclear weapons before anyone else, but I'd be wary of saying it out loud."
Another senior EU official said Nato needed to "rethink its nuclear posture because the nuclear non-proliferation regime is under enormous pressure".
Naumann suggested the threat of nuclear attack was a counsel of desperation. "Proliferation is spreading and we have not too many options to stop it. We don't know how to deal with this."
Nato needed to show "there is a big stick that we might have to use if there is no other option", he said.
NOTE:
Having personally lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis it is inconceivable to me that supposedly intelligent military leaders could recommend the use of offensive nuclear weapons in an attempt to prevent further nuclear proliferation and other weapons of mass destruction. There are several insurmountable problems with their analysis.
First, it is not true that "there is simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world." The original nuclear weapons state (NWS's) nations (China, USSR [now Russia], France, United States and Great Britain) which signed the NPT have through lack of leadership and good will failed to meet their treaty obligations to progressively disarm their nuclear arsenals. Yet, they continue to insist that non-nuclear weapon state (NNWS's) countries must not attempt to develop them. NNWS nations legitimately wonder why they should be held to their NPT obligation not to develop nuclear weapons when the original 5 NWS's refuse to abide by theirs.
The NWS's by some unknown "right" (perhaps might makes right) also insist that those NNWS countries which did not sign the NPT must also refrain from doing so. This is rank hypocrisy of the worst sort. Moreover it is clear that some NWS's have further violated their NPT related obligations by assisting other nations who were not part of the original NWS's to obtain them including Israel, Pakistan, India and North Korea. See the evidence of same which has been unearthed by Sybil Edmonds HERE.... Also see the piece by Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Paper's fame HERE... and The Sunday (UK) Times piece HERE... Obviously, the original NWS's have made no realistic attempt to either progressively disarm (certainly not in the past 20 years) or to otherwise abide by their NPT stipulated agreement not to provide nuclear weapons technology to NNWS nations.
Second the 5 military authors who produced the latest radical manifesto have also committed a grievous error in logic. It is contradictory (violates the law of non-contradiction) in the extreme to purport that the best way to prevent an actual phenomenon from occurring is to in fact make it occur. Nuclear weapons proliferation is held to be disadvantageous because it is thought to increase the risk (likelihood) that nuclear weapons will be utilized; particularly offensively--a universally recognized and abhorrent historical reality based upon their first use by the United States against the Japanese. If that were not the case there would be no morally legitimate reason to limit proliferation.
Third, many nations already have nuclear weapons which are associated with some finite risk of use albeit perhaps incalculable quantitatively. Should nuclear weapons be used to stop a nation state from developing them, what does this say? It indicates that the use of nuclear weapons in an offensive manner is justifiable under some circumstances. Not only does it violate Just War Doctrinal principles it makes legitimate that which it is attempting to make illegitimate--the use of offensive nuclear weapons--whether by a nation state or a terrorist organization. Put another way, it says "do what we say not what we do simply because we say so." Those NNWS can legitimately reply, "you are hypocritical in the extreme. Why should you be the only ones to have nuclear weapons--you aren't even willing to disarm the huge arsenals you already have and agreed to reduce and yet you insist that we cannot even have one? How unjust of you."
Perhaps even more troubling to me is the idea that so many human beings including the top tier candidates for President in both US political parties are willing to consider the use of nuclear weapons offensively. This is a most disturbing development. It demonstrates that the so-called Bush doctrine of preventive war has become normalized despite its being completely incompatible with international law, Just War Doctrinal principles and traditional moral precepts.
Too many people seem to have lost sight of just how truly awful it is to detonate even one nuclear weapon. I suggest that everyone read or re-read the accounts of those who documented the carnage and human suffering after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings. The genetic and medical complications alone are still being felt to this day. The deleterious effects of radioactive fallout and possible complete fouling of the earth's atmosphere/environment were these hideous weapons to be utilized demands that they never be used again. There is no guarantee that--should even one tactical nuclear warhead be detonated--it would not result in WWIII. The resulting nuclear Armageddon and nuclear Winter would be capable of destroying all life on earth.
--Dr. J. P. Hubert
Friday, January 18, 2008
Teilhard de Chardin: Trojan Horse of Vatican II/Heretic Extraordinaire
By: Dr. J. P. Hubert
Moral Relativism and Utilitarianism are the reigning (immoral) philosophies in the developed West. Most of our public policy dilemmas are either directly or indirectly related to the widespread acceptance of these post-Enlightenment constructs. Some of the blame for our current predicament can be laid at the feet of Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit Priest who attempted to institute a “New Religion” by combining Darwinian evolution with his unorthodox view of Theism.
As Wolfgang Smith has written, Teilhard de Chardin intended to start a New Religion.[1] He made it quite clear on several occasions. In a letter to Leontine Zanta he wrote:
“As you already know, what dominates my interest and my preoccupations is the effort to establish in myself and to spread around a new religion (you may call it a better Christianity) in which the personal God ceases to be the great Neolithic proprietor of former times, in order to become the soul of the world; our religious and cultural stage calls for this.”[2]
Dietrich von Hildebrand and Wolfgang Smith trace much of the heterodoxy of the second Vatican Conciliar process to the circulation of Teilhardian conceptions of science[3] (especially with respect to biological evolution) and derivatively, Teilhard’s view of religion. Teilhard seems to have made the transformism[4] of biological evolution palatable to certain Catholic Theologians who wished to embrace what they perceived as modern evolutionary science. Traditionally, the entire notion had been thought heretical particularly as concerned the biological evolution of human beings.
Through his New Religion, Teilhard gave a patina of legitimacy to the entire concept of evolution by theorizing the existence of “point Omega” which ultimately he identified with Jesus Christ. It appears that many Catholic Theologians were duped by failing to differentiate the actual facts of biological science from the prevailing naturalistic philosophy (metaphysical naturalism) which as a result of the assertions of leading biologists, was virtually inseparable from it.[5] This made them “ripe” for Teilhard’s proposed incorporation of Evolution into “Christianity.” Teilhard’s New Religion was therefore very much on the minds of some of the participants of the Council, some explicitly and some only implicitly. One might say that the “flavor” was in the air.
Unfortunately, no systematic refutation of Teilhard’s theory was available in 1962 prior to the commencing of Vatican II. Wolfgang Smith’s work which accomplished same became available only in 1988. In a sense then, when Pope John XXIII called for “aggiornamento”, (whether recognized at the time or not), not only was he opening the windows of the Traditional Catholic Church to the world but to what Teilhard had been promulgating as the New Religion as well. It is the latter effect that has produced the post-Conciliar disaster’s with which most Catholics are all too familiar.
Unfortunately, Teilhard’s heretical New Religion has been embraced either in part or in whole by several generations of post-conciliar Catholics given that Teilhard’s spurious notions have never been formally repudiated.[6] Teilhardism effectively destroyed the Creation tenet of orthodox Catholicism, the Fall from Grace and with it the concept of Original Sin, the atoning death of Christ on the Cross and thereby the entire Salvation/Redemption tenet based as it is on Christ’s crucifixion and literal bodily resurrection. One can see the effect of Teilhardism on the Creation tenet displayed in the 1993 Catechism of the Catholic Church for example, an extremely meager treatment that. What is left after Teilhard is through bears virtually no resemblance to orthodox Christianity—at best he created a kind of pantheistic finite godism interspersed with elements of Hinduism.[7]
Moreover, it is remarkable that Teilhard was never de-frocked given his obvious heretical assertions. The notion that he could persist in calling himself a Catholic priest of the Jesuit Order in good standing is particularly disconcerting. The rank and file Catholic faithful are easily led astray when members of their clergy remain in service despite evincing either heresy or apostasy. While Teilhard was barred by the Vatican from teaching theology and from disseminating his views formally, he was never forced to repudiate them as heretical. Clearly his writings establish that at the very least Teilhard was a notorious material heretic—arguably the most infamous of the 20th century.[8] Given that he essentially instituted a New Religion, he was an apostate from the faith as well. One logically expects that Teilhard would have been excommunicated and defrocked for his writings alone since he never appeared willing to publicly recant them. It would not seem illegitimate to wonder whether based upon Teilhard’s own admission, his views were satanically inspired:
“The man was walking in the desert, followed by his companion, when the Thing swooped down on him. Then, suddenly, a breath of scorching air passed across his forehead, broke through the barrier of his closed eyelids, and penetrated his soul. The man felt he was ceasing to be merely himself; an irresistible rapture took possession of him as though all the sap of all living things, flowing at one and the same moment into the too narrow confines of his heart, was mightily refashioning the enfeebled fibres of his being. And at the same time the anguish of some superhuman peril oppressed him, a confused feeling that the force which had swept down upon him was equivocal, turbid, the combined essence of all evil and all goodness. You called me: here I am grown weary of abstractions, of attenuations, of the wordiness of social life, you wanted to pit yourself against Reality entire and untamed. I was waiting for you in order to be made holy. And now I am established on you for life, or for death…He who has once seen me can never forget me: he must either damn himself with me or save me with himself. O you who are divine and mighty, what is your name? Speak.”[9]
This writer’s opinion is that Teilhardism is no doubt of Satanic origin—a true “religion of man”, if ever there was one. It is clear from Wolfgang Smith’s writing in 1988 that he had a similar view but took great pains to state the case as respectfully and obliquely as possible. These however are exceedingly confusing and difficult times in which a certain almost crass directness is apparently necessary.
A significant amount of the theological confusion today in Catholic circles including the widespread adoption of moral relativism and Utilitarianism in the developed West is no doubt due to the teaching of Teilhard de Chardin.[10] In that regard we are indeed fortunate that Wolfgang Smith produced a systematic refutation of Teilhardism on scientific as well as Theological grounds.[11] He has demonstrated that Teilhard’s theory is based upon science fantasy/fiction not reality and does not at all reflect 20th and 21st century scientific understanding.[12] Any theological developments issuing forth from those erroneous assertions are of logical necessity also illegitimate. The biblical adage that “you shall know them by their fruits” (Mt. 7:16) is also applicable here as well. Nothing but “bad fruit” has come from the acceptance of Teilhard’s ideas whether from a religious or strictly secular perspective. Thus Teilhardism stands repudiated on the bar of history and Traditional (orthodox) Christianity remains intact despite man’s attempts to destroy it. Christians who are committed to orthodoxy should purge the teachings of Teilhard de Chardin from their lexicon of religious belief. This is especially true for Roman Catholics. Teilhard was for them, a wolf in the night, a Trojan horse bent on stealing their salvation.
ENDNOTES:
[1] Wolfgang Smith. Teilhardism and the New Religion: A Thorough Analysis of the Teachings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. (Rockford, Ill., Tan Books and Publisher’s Inc., 1988), pp. 209-210.
[2] Lettres a Leontine Zanta (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1965), p. 127; quoted by von Hildebrand in Trojan Horse in the City of God (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1967), p. 239.
[3] Which was steeped in Baconian conceptions of science and which fully accepted the Bifurcationism of Descartes.
[4] Also referred to as “Macroevolution” in which major animal body plans are alleged to have developed slowly and incrementally over eons of time from entirely different ones, e.g. amphibians from fish, birds from reptiles etc. In evolutionary biology this is referred to as “common descent” with modification. There is no persuasive evidence that this has occurred above the level of genus or species if dispassionately considered. Recall also that Fr. Stanley Jaki has argued that “Origins” questions by their very nature are not scientific but philosophical meaning that the question of so-called Macro-evolution is non-scientific from the start since the origin and development of terrestrial life is scientifically unrepeatable. The most one could do is make inferences from established facts.
[5] They also failed to follow the theological implications of Teilhardism to their logical conclusion(s).
[6] In addition, many Conciliar and Post-Conciliar documents are extremely difficult to understand in that they seem to represent an amalgamation of disparate views—compromises it appears. The verbal clarity which had traditionally been associated with Dogmatic Conciliar Documents is clearly missing.
[7] As Wolfgang Smith has demonstrated, there is no evidence from modern physical science that "Point Omega" exists in reality. It is a complete fabrication. Teilhard has no use for God the Father or the Holy Ghost for that matter.
[8] All of the following are technically accurate: Roman Catholic Imposter, Heretic Extraordinaire, Subverter of the Faith.
[9] Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. The Heart of Matter. (English translation by William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd., and Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1978), pp. 61 & 68, describing a personal “mystical experience” in 1918 through which he had recently passed. The “Thing” which Teilhard placed in capital letters bears a striking resemblance to something of demonic origin yet he calls it divine and mighty!
[10] Obviously many others contributed especially Jeremy Bentham, J. S. Mill and their followers.
[11] Teilhard repeatedly and consistently presented his theory as scientifically verifiable which is patently absurd as Wolfgang Smith has well outlined in his book.
[12] Teilhard assumes that Macroevolution (transformism) is an established fact based on the paucity of evidence in existence at the time. While Microevolution is a fact (at the level of species and possibly genus), "macroevolution" even in 2008 is not. It is an inductive (a-posteriori) inference and a not very well grounded one at that based on all the evidence both pro and con which now exists (including the so-called Cambrian “explosion” or Biological “Big Bang.”) Recall also that the discovery of DNA was made after Teilhard developed his theory.
Moral Relativism and Utilitarianism are the reigning (immoral) philosophies in the developed West. Most of our public policy dilemmas are either directly or indirectly related to the widespread acceptance of these post-Enlightenment constructs. Some of the blame for our current predicament can be laid at the feet of Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit Priest who attempted to institute a “New Religion” by combining Darwinian evolution with his unorthodox view of Theism.
As Wolfgang Smith has written, Teilhard de Chardin intended to start a New Religion.[1] He made it quite clear on several occasions. In a letter to Leontine Zanta he wrote:
“As you already know, what dominates my interest and my preoccupations is the effort to establish in myself and to spread around a new religion (you may call it a better Christianity) in which the personal God ceases to be the great Neolithic proprietor of former times, in order to become the soul of the world; our religious and cultural stage calls for this.”[2]
Dietrich von Hildebrand and Wolfgang Smith trace much of the heterodoxy of the second Vatican Conciliar process to the circulation of Teilhardian conceptions of science[3] (especially with respect to biological evolution) and derivatively, Teilhard’s view of religion. Teilhard seems to have made the transformism[4] of biological evolution palatable to certain Catholic Theologians who wished to embrace what they perceived as modern evolutionary science. Traditionally, the entire notion had been thought heretical particularly as concerned the biological evolution of human beings.
Through his New Religion, Teilhard gave a patina of legitimacy to the entire concept of evolution by theorizing the existence of “point Omega” which ultimately he identified with Jesus Christ. It appears that many Catholic Theologians were duped by failing to differentiate the actual facts of biological science from the prevailing naturalistic philosophy (metaphysical naturalism) which as a result of the assertions of leading biologists, was virtually inseparable from it.[5] This made them “ripe” for Teilhard’s proposed incorporation of Evolution into “Christianity.” Teilhard’s New Religion was therefore very much on the minds of some of the participants of the Council, some explicitly and some only implicitly. One might say that the “flavor” was in the air.
Unfortunately, no systematic refutation of Teilhard’s theory was available in 1962 prior to the commencing of Vatican II. Wolfgang Smith’s work which accomplished same became available only in 1988. In a sense then, when Pope John XXIII called for “aggiornamento”, (whether recognized at the time or not), not only was he opening the windows of the Traditional Catholic Church to the world but to what Teilhard had been promulgating as the New Religion as well. It is the latter effect that has produced the post-Conciliar disaster’s with which most Catholics are all too familiar.
Unfortunately, Teilhard’s heretical New Religion has been embraced either in part or in whole by several generations of post-conciliar Catholics given that Teilhard’s spurious notions have never been formally repudiated.[6] Teilhardism effectively destroyed the Creation tenet of orthodox Catholicism, the Fall from Grace and with it the concept of Original Sin, the atoning death of Christ on the Cross and thereby the entire Salvation/Redemption tenet based as it is on Christ’s crucifixion and literal bodily resurrection. One can see the effect of Teilhardism on the Creation tenet displayed in the 1993 Catechism of the Catholic Church for example, an extremely meager treatment that. What is left after Teilhard is through bears virtually no resemblance to orthodox Christianity—at best he created a kind of pantheistic finite godism interspersed with elements of Hinduism.[7]
Moreover, it is remarkable that Teilhard was never de-frocked given his obvious heretical assertions. The notion that he could persist in calling himself a Catholic priest of the Jesuit Order in good standing is particularly disconcerting. The rank and file Catholic faithful are easily led astray when members of their clergy remain in service despite evincing either heresy or apostasy. While Teilhard was barred by the Vatican from teaching theology and from disseminating his views formally, he was never forced to repudiate them as heretical. Clearly his writings establish that at the very least Teilhard was a notorious material heretic—arguably the most infamous of the 20th century.[8] Given that he essentially instituted a New Religion, he was an apostate from the faith as well. One logically expects that Teilhard would have been excommunicated and defrocked for his writings alone since he never appeared willing to publicly recant them. It would not seem illegitimate to wonder whether based upon Teilhard’s own admission, his views were satanically inspired:
“The man was walking in the desert, followed by his companion, when the Thing swooped down on him. Then, suddenly, a breath of scorching air passed across his forehead, broke through the barrier of his closed eyelids, and penetrated his soul. The man felt he was ceasing to be merely himself; an irresistible rapture took possession of him as though all the sap of all living things, flowing at one and the same moment into the too narrow confines of his heart, was mightily refashioning the enfeebled fibres of his being. And at the same time the anguish of some superhuman peril oppressed him, a confused feeling that the force which had swept down upon him was equivocal, turbid, the combined essence of all evil and all goodness. You called me: here I am grown weary of abstractions, of attenuations, of the wordiness of social life, you wanted to pit yourself against Reality entire and untamed. I was waiting for you in order to be made holy. And now I am established on you for life, or for death…He who has once seen me can never forget me: he must either damn himself with me or save me with himself. O you who are divine and mighty, what is your name? Speak.”[9]
This writer’s opinion is that Teilhardism is no doubt of Satanic origin—a true “religion of man”, if ever there was one. It is clear from Wolfgang Smith’s writing in 1988 that he had a similar view but took great pains to state the case as respectfully and obliquely as possible. These however are exceedingly confusing and difficult times in which a certain almost crass directness is apparently necessary.
A significant amount of the theological confusion today in Catholic circles including the widespread adoption of moral relativism and Utilitarianism in the developed West is no doubt due to the teaching of Teilhard de Chardin.[10] In that regard we are indeed fortunate that Wolfgang Smith produced a systematic refutation of Teilhardism on scientific as well as Theological grounds.[11] He has demonstrated that Teilhard’s theory is based upon science fantasy/fiction not reality and does not at all reflect 20th and 21st century scientific understanding.[12] Any theological developments issuing forth from those erroneous assertions are of logical necessity also illegitimate. The biblical adage that “you shall know them by their fruits” (Mt. 7:16) is also applicable here as well. Nothing but “bad fruit” has come from the acceptance of Teilhard’s ideas whether from a religious or strictly secular perspective. Thus Teilhardism stands repudiated on the bar of history and Traditional (orthodox) Christianity remains intact despite man’s attempts to destroy it. Christians who are committed to orthodoxy should purge the teachings of Teilhard de Chardin from their lexicon of religious belief. This is especially true for Roman Catholics. Teilhard was for them, a wolf in the night, a Trojan horse bent on stealing their salvation.
ENDNOTES:
[1] Wolfgang Smith. Teilhardism and the New Religion: A Thorough Analysis of the Teachings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. (Rockford, Ill., Tan Books and Publisher’s Inc., 1988), pp. 209-210.
[2] Lettres a Leontine Zanta (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1965), p. 127; quoted by von Hildebrand in Trojan Horse in the City of God (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1967), p. 239.
[3] Which was steeped in Baconian conceptions of science and which fully accepted the Bifurcationism of Descartes.
[4] Also referred to as “Macroevolution” in which major animal body plans are alleged to have developed slowly and incrementally over eons of time from entirely different ones, e.g. amphibians from fish, birds from reptiles etc. In evolutionary biology this is referred to as “common descent” with modification. There is no persuasive evidence that this has occurred above the level of genus or species if dispassionately considered. Recall also that Fr. Stanley Jaki has argued that “Origins” questions by their very nature are not scientific but philosophical meaning that the question of so-called Macro-evolution is non-scientific from the start since the origin and development of terrestrial life is scientifically unrepeatable. The most one could do is make inferences from established facts.
[5] They also failed to follow the theological implications of Teilhardism to their logical conclusion(s).
[6] In addition, many Conciliar and Post-Conciliar documents are extremely difficult to understand in that they seem to represent an amalgamation of disparate views—compromises it appears. The verbal clarity which had traditionally been associated with Dogmatic Conciliar Documents is clearly missing.
[7] As Wolfgang Smith has demonstrated, there is no evidence from modern physical science that "Point Omega" exists in reality. It is a complete fabrication. Teilhard has no use for God the Father or the Holy Ghost for that matter.
[8] All of the following are technically accurate: Roman Catholic Imposter, Heretic Extraordinaire, Subverter of the Faith.
[9] Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. The Heart of Matter. (English translation by William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd., and Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1978), pp. 61 & 68, describing a personal “mystical experience” in 1918 through which he had recently passed. The “Thing” which Teilhard placed in capital letters bears a striking resemblance to something of demonic origin yet he calls it divine and mighty!
[10] Obviously many others contributed especially Jeremy Bentham, J. S. Mill and their followers.
[11] Teilhard repeatedly and consistently presented his theory as scientifically verifiable which is patently absurd as Wolfgang Smith has well outlined in his book.
[12] Teilhard assumes that Macroevolution (transformism) is an established fact based on the paucity of evidence in existence at the time. While Microevolution is a fact (at the level of species and possibly genus), "macroevolution" even in 2008 is not. It is an inductive (a-posteriori) inference and a not very well grounded one at that based on all the evidence both pro and con which now exists (including the so-called Cambrian “explosion” or Biological “Big Bang.”) Recall also that the discovery of DNA was made after Teilhard developed his theory.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
The Plague of Scientistic Belief
By Wolfgang Smith, HPR, April, 2000,
We must remember, however, that facts and their interpretation are not the same thing...
...It is safe to say that the men and women who engage in the day-to-day business of scientific research tend not to be overly interested in philosophical subtleties; and so they incline to retain the philosophical axioms to which they have become accustomed over the years, and which could only be recognized as such, and dislodged, through serious and concentrated inquiry. It thus comes about that in the minds of scientists today, good science and inferior philosophy coexist and are in fact inextricably intertwined; as John Haught of Georgetown University has recently pointed out, “Some of the most prominent scientists are literally unable to separate science from their materialist metaphysics.”
This said, I can proceed to state my primary thesis: I contend that by virtue of the aforesaid confusion scientists have promulgated philosophic opinions of the most dubious kind as established scientific truths, (emphasis mine) and in the name of science have thrust upon an awed and credulous public a shallow world-view for which in reality there is not a shred of scientific support. Having gained the trust and admiration of society through the technological wonders which they have engineered, I maintain that scientists as a class have usurped their authority by predisposing the public against the high truths of religion. I am not suggesting, to be sure, that they have consciously deceived others, but rather contend that they have themselves been misled as a rule in matters pertaining to philosophy, metaphysics, and religion. Meanwhile the fact remains that these “blind guides” are exerting an inestimable influence upon education and public belief, with disastrous consequences to human welfare, both here and hereafter...
I will apply the term “scientistic belief” to designate philosophical opinions that masquerade as scientific truths. Let me give two examples. As my first I will take the tenet of universal mechanism (physical determinism), or what could equally well be termed the axiom of physical determinism. The idea is simple: The tenet affirms that the external universe consists of matter whose motion is determined by the interaction of its parts...despite the fact of quantum indeterminism, not a few eminent scientists continue to champion the mechanistic tenet...the postulate of universal mechanism has retained to this day its status as a major article of scientistic belief.
My second example pertains to a more fundamental stratum of philosophical thought, and is consequently still more far-reaching in its implications: “physical reductionism,” (bifurcationism) let us call it (for reasons which will presently become clear). The thesis hinges upon an epistemological assumption, an idealist postulate, one could say, which affirms that the act of sense perception terminates, not in an external object as we commonly believe, but in a subjective representation of some kind. According to this view, the red apple which we perceive exists somehow in our mind or consciousness; it is a subjective image, a fantasy which mankind has all along mistaken for an external object...bifurcation contradicts the most basic human intuitions as well as the most venerable philosophical traditions, there is also not a shred of empirical evidence in support of this heterodox position. Nor can there be, as follows from the fact that physics can be perfectly well interpreted on a non-bifurcationist basis...It turns out, moreover, that the moment one does interpret physics in non-bifurcationist terms, the so-called quantum paradoxes—which have prompted physicists to invent the most bizarre ontologies—vanish of their own accord. It seems that quantum physics has thus implicitly sided with the pre-Cartesian world-view...
The two examples may suffice to introduce the general phenomenon which I have termed scientistic belief. It hardly needs pointing out, moreover, that if physics, the most exact of the natural sciences, is thus associated with scientistic—and indeed, from a traditional point of view, illusory!—notions, what can one expect in the case of less rigorous disciplines, such as evolutionary biology, physical anthropology, and psychology, not to speak of the so-called social sciences.4 The unappreciated fact is that science in its actuality bestows both truth and error: not only enlightenment, but benightedness as well. One could even argue that so far as the general public is concerned, it is the second of these effects that predominates; the truths of hard science, after all, are mainly accessible to the expert, the scientifically proficient. This holds especially in the case of fundamental physics; by the time a fact of quantum theory, for instance, has been popularized, what remains is mainly a scientistic notion. One could put it this way: As science evolves, its actual insights become more and more abstract, more and more mathematical, and thus denuded of sensible imagery; these insights thus become a kind of esoteric knowledge, to which only the “initiated” have access. Moreover, what is validated by empirical findings, and also, in a way, by the miracles of technology, is precisely that kernel of esoteric insight, and not the outer shell of scientistic beliefs, which the public at large mistakes for enlightenment...
I perceive the impact of scientistic belief upon the religious domain as adverse in the extreme. I should add that the problem has been greatly exacerbated by the fact that theologians and pastors as a rule are ill-equipped to deal with questions of this kind, and all too often have themselves been swayed by scientistic claims...
MORE...
NOTE:
Dr. Wolfgang Smith represents the unique individual who is thoroughly at home in the modern science of Quantum Mechanics (Physics of the very small) as well as advanced Mathematics, Scholastic philosophy and Traditional (Catholic) Theology.
His insights are extremely important for helping foster the harmonization of faith and reason; particuarly in light of the insights of actual modern science (as opposed to materialist philosophy--scientism--also called metaphysical naturalism).
I strongly recommend all of his books. For those interested in a magnificent refutation of the theology of Teilhard de Chardin see his Teilhard and the New Religion HERE...
--Dr. J. P. Hubert
We must remember, however, that facts and their interpretation are not the same thing...
...It is safe to say that the men and women who engage in the day-to-day business of scientific research tend not to be overly interested in philosophical subtleties; and so they incline to retain the philosophical axioms to which they have become accustomed over the years, and which could only be recognized as such, and dislodged, through serious and concentrated inquiry. It thus comes about that in the minds of scientists today, good science and inferior philosophy coexist and are in fact inextricably intertwined; as John Haught of Georgetown University has recently pointed out, “Some of the most prominent scientists are literally unable to separate science from their materialist metaphysics.”
This said, I can proceed to state my primary thesis: I contend that by virtue of the aforesaid confusion scientists have promulgated philosophic opinions of the most dubious kind as established scientific truths, (emphasis mine) and in the name of science have thrust upon an awed and credulous public a shallow world-view for which in reality there is not a shred of scientific support. Having gained the trust and admiration of society through the technological wonders which they have engineered, I maintain that scientists as a class have usurped their authority by predisposing the public against the high truths of religion. I am not suggesting, to be sure, that they have consciously deceived others, but rather contend that they have themselves been misled as a rule in matters pertaining to philosophy, metaphysics, and religion. Meanwhile the fact remains that these “blind guides” are exerting an inestimable influence upon education and public belief, with disastrous consequences to human welfare, both here and hereafter...
I will apply the term “scientistic belief” to designate philosophical opinions that masquerade as scientific truths. Let me give two examples. As my first I will take the tenet of universal mechanism (physical determinism), or what could equally well be termed the axiom of physical determinism. The idea is simple: The tenet affirms that the external universe consists of matter whose motion is determined by the interaction of its parts...despite the fact of quantum indeterminism, not a few eminent scientists continue to champion the mechanistic tenet...the postulate of universal mechanism has retained to this day its status as a major article of scientistic belief.
My second example pertains to a more fundamental stratum of philosophical thought, and is consequently still more far-reaching in its implications: “physical reductionism,” (bifurcationism) let us call it (for reasons which will presently become clear). The thesis hinges upon an epistemological assumption, an idealist postulate, one could say, which affirms that the act of sense perception terminates, not in an external object as we commonly believe, but in a subjective representation of some kind. According to this view, the red apple which we perceive exists somehow in our mind or consciousness; it is a subjective image, a fantasy which mankind has all along mistaken for an external object...bifurcation contradicts the most basic human intuitions as well as the most venerable philosophical traditions, there is also not a shred of empirical evidence in support of this heterodox position. Nor can there be, as follows from the fact that physics can be perfectly well interpreted on a non-bifurcationist basis...It turns out, moreover, that the moment one does interpret physics in non-bifurcationist terms, the so-called quantum paradoxes—which have prompted physicists to invent the most bizarre ontologies—vanish of their own accord. It seems that quantum physics has thus implicitly sided with the pre-Cartesian world-view...
The two examples may suffice to introduce the general phenomenon which I have termed scientistic belief. It hardly needs pointing out, moreover, that if physics, the most exact of the natural sciences, is thus associated with scientistic—and indeed, from a traditional point of view, illusory!—notions, what can one expect in the case of less rigorous disciplines, such as evolutionary biology, physical anthropology, and psychology, not to speak of the so-called social sciences.4 The unappreciated fact is that science in its actuality bestows both truth and error: not only enlightenment, but benightedness as well. One could even argue that so far as the general public is concerned, it is the second of these effects that predominates; the truths of hard science, after all, are mainly accessible to the expert, the scientifically proficient. This holds especially in the case of fundamental physics; by the time a fact of quantum theory, for instance, has been popularized, what remains is mainly a scientistic notion. One could put it this way: As science evolves, its actual insights become more and more abstract, more and more mathematical, and thus denuded of sensible imagery; these insights thus become a kind of esoteric knowledge, to which only the “initiated” have access. Moreover, what is validated by empirical findings, and also, in a way, by the miracles of technology, is precisely that kernel of esoteric insight, and not the outer shell of scientistic beliefs, which the public at large mistakes for enlightenment...
I perceive the impact of scientistic belief upon the religious domain as adverse in the extreme. I should add that the problem has been greatly exacerbated by the fact that theologians and pastors as a rule are ill-equipped to deal with questions of this kind, and all too often have themselves been swayed by scientistic claims...
MORE...
NOTE:
Dr. Wolfgang Smith represents the unique individual who is thoroughly at home in the modern science of Quantum Mechanics (Physics of the very small) as well as advanced Mathematics, Scholastic philosophy and Traditional (Catholic) Theology.
His insights are extremely important for helping foster the harmonization of faith and reason; particuarly in light of the insights of actual modern science (as opposed to materialist philosophy--scientism--also called metaphysical naturalism).
I strongly recommend all of his books. For those interested in a magnificent refutation of the theology of Teilhard de Chardin see his Teilhard and the New Religion HERE...
--Dr. J. P. Hubert
Monday, January 14, 2008
Escalating Ice Loss Found in Antarctica
Sheets Melting in an Area Once Thought to Be Unaffected by Global Warming
By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 14, 2008
Climatic changes appear to be destabilizing vast ice sheets of western Antarctica that had previously seemed relatively protected from global warming, researchers reported yesterday, raising the prospect of faster sea-level rise than current estimates.
While the overall loss is a tiny fraction of the miles-deep ice that covers much of Antarctica, scientists said the new finding is important because the continent holds about 90 percent of Earth's ice, and until now, large-scale ice loss there had been limited to the peninsula that juts out toward the tip of South America. In addition, researchers found that the rate of ice loss in the affected areas has accelerated over the past 10 years -- as it has on most glaciers and ice sheets around the world. MORE...
By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 14, 2008
Climatic changes appear to be destabilizing vast ice sheets of western Antarctica that had previously seemed relatively protected from global warming, researchers reported yesterday, raising the prospect of faster sea-level rise than current estimates.
While the overall loss is a tiny fraction of the miles-deep ice that covers much of Antarctica, scientists said the new finding is important because the continent holds about 90 percent of Earth's ice, and until now, large-scale ice loss there had been limited to the peninsula that juts out toward the tip of South America. In addition, researchers found that the rate of ice loss in the affected areas has accelerated over the past 10 years -- as it has on most glaciers and ice sheets around the world. MORE...
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Important Principles in Scholastic Moral Philosophy
By: Dr. J. P. Hubert
•The “ought” is grounded in the “is” i.e. the nature or essence of human being, (the ought must be perfective of human essence or nature).
•A morally illicit means (object rationally chosen) may never be utilized in the pursuit of a desired end (intent) codified in scripture (Rom. 3: 8) as “never do evil that good may come of it.”
•The means, end and circumstances must all be morally licit for the proposed moral action to be justified.
•Both the first and second principles of the Natural (moral) Law are presupposed; “do good and avoid evil” “treat your neighbor fairly.” The first categorical imperative of Emmanuel Kant’s ethic which addresses universality of applicability (only do those moral acts which you would wish to see universalized) is similar to and in a sense derivative of the first principle of the Natural Law and “right reason.” The second categorical imperative of Kant’s ethic (never treat another person as a “means” but only as an “end”) is roughly equivalent to the second principle of the Natural Law (treat your neighbor fairly).
•It is impossible for something to be morally right for one person and wrong for another. Such a relativistic formulation denies the existence of moral absolutes which flow from the Natural (moral) Law. It might be advantageous to act in a given way in a set of circumstances in order to achieve a goal which is non-moral in nature, e.g. heading east in traveling from Los Angeles to New York given the physical/spatial realities of each location. This is a non-moral calculation. Few circumstances in human life are completely non-moral in this sense. Most have some bearing on morality that is a moral component which must be duly considered.
US foreign policy is a good example; what might seem advantageous from a purely utilitarian (practical) perspective might upon careful analysis actually be immoral. For example, one might prefer that a given foreign government did not exist or could be replaced but to actually force such a thing to occur would violate well-accepted moral norms which should never be transgressed such as “it is never morally licit to intentionally kill the innocent” or “offensive wars of aggression are immoral in principle as they exceed the so-called right of self-defense” (to do so is to violate the first and second principles of the Natural Law or right reason) in this case an example of doing evil (an intrinsically evil act) that good might come of it.
•It is extremely enlightening to consider what would happen if everyone were to act as one proposes, while evaluating a moral question. This is to make use of the principle of universality one which flows from a fixed human nature or anthropology that is to say, we assume that all human beings (in the metaphysical not monetary sense) are inherently of equal value and worth.
In scholastic moral philosophy one must assume that all human beings are equal in this sense and that human nature (essence) is fixed not changing, evolving or alterable by external circumstances. This is the case first because it is true and demonstrably so but also to be certain in practice, that some human beings are not inadvertently or purposefully rendered "inhuman", sub-human or otherwise in some sense less than human for utilitarian purposes.
For example, under Nazism, the Jews were rendered inhuman or sub-human in order to make killing them palatable to the masses. In America, African slaves were considered property rather than human beings with an intrinsic human worth and dignity equal to any other; in order to justify their continued enslavement. Finally, many Zionist's in Israel consider Palestinian Arabs to be the equivalent of wild beasts--essentially sub-human nuisances (leading Israeli Zionists have said, "the only good Arab is a dead Arab") not deserving of equal treatment. Tragically, Israeli civil rights laws tend to reflect this immoral bias. All "3" examples illustrate the need to apply moral norms universally while assuming a fixed human nature.
•It is morally legitimate to be tolerant (respectful) of other persons as human beings but not tolerant (in the sense of accepting) of their immoral acts if on careful analysis those acts are clearly immoral. One must never be tolerant of immorality (actions of an immoral nature) since morally illicit actions are self-reinforcing--these behaviors eventually become normalized. It is unfair to all of our neighbors that is, the "common good” not to identify immoral behavior as such since it leads to a lack of human flourishing rather than the authentic good which should be each human being’s birthright.
One does not have the right in exercising one's personal freedom to behave immorally and to negatively impact the common good. To do so is to violate both the first and second principles of the Natural Law. There is much confusion today about this concept largely due to mistaken post-Enlightenment notions of moral relativism which are intellectually bankrupt; fundamentally because they are contradictory (self-referentially absurd). This is part of a much larger epistemological problem having to do with post-modern errors related to the nature of truth.
•A person’s humanity from the moral perspective cannot be altered including by the performance of immoral acts. It exists as part of that person’s being until death. As such, it is never morally licit to treat human persons as if they were not human because of circumstances or external conditions etc. For this reason, prisoner’s of war and other convicted felons (for example), must be treated humanely. Hence we have prohibitions against torture while cruel and unusual punishment are proscribed. Human Rights flow from basic human dignity and are derived from a fixed human nature or anthropology; otherwise they do not exist at all. As such, they cannot be legislated away without said laws being groundless.
Human rights are also universal to time and place and are applicable to all of humanity. The only moral philosophy which is capable of entirely grounding human rights is the so-called Aristotelian/Thomistic synthesis.
•The “ought” is grounded in the “is” i.e. the nature or essence of human being, (the ought must be perfective of human essence or nature).
•A morally illicit means (object rationally chosen) may never be utilized in the pursuit of a desired end (intent) codified in scripture (Rom. 3: 8) as “never do evil that good may come of it.”
•The means, end and circumstances must all be morally licit for the proposed moral action to be justified.
•Both the first and second principles of the Natural (moral) Law are presupposed; “do good and avoid evil” “treat your neighbor fairly.” The first categorical imperative of Emmanuel Kant’s ethic which addresses universality of applicability (only do those moral acts which you would wish to see universalized) is similar to and in a sense derivative of the first principle of the Natural Law and “right reason.” The second categorical imperative of Kant’s ethic (never treat another person as a “means” but only as an “end”) is roughly equivalent to the second principle of the Natural Law (treat your neighbor fairly).
•It is impossible for something to be morally right for one person and wrong for another. Such a relativistic formulation denies the existence of moral absolutes which flow from the Natural (moral) Law. It might be advantageous to act in a given way in a set of circumstances in order to achieve a goal which is non-moral in nature, e.g. heading east in traveling from Los Angeles to New York given the physical/spatial realities of each location. This is a non-moral calculation. Few circumstances in human life are completely non-moral in this sense. Most have some bearing on morality that is a moral component which must be duly considered.
US foreign policy is a good example; what might seem advantageous from a purely utilitarian (practical) perspective might upon careful analysis actually be immoral. For example, one might prefer that a given foreign government did not exist or could be replaced but to actually force such a thing to occur would violate well-accepted moral norms which should never be transgressed such as “it is never morally licit to intentionally kill the innocent” or “offensive wars of aggression are immoral in principle as they exceed the so-called right of self-defense” (to do so is to violate the first and second principles of the Natural Law or right reason) in this case an example of doing evil (an intrinsically evil act) that good might come of it.
•It is extremely enlightening to consider what would happen if everyone were to act as one proposes, while evaluating a moral question. This is to make use of the principle of universality one which flows from a fixed human nature or anthropology that is to say, we assume that all human beings (in the metaphysical not monetary sense) are inherently of equal value and worth.
In scholastic moral philosophy one must assume that all human beings are equal in this sense and that human nature (essence) is fixed not changing, evolving or alterable by external circumstances. This is the case first because it is true and demonstrably so but also to be certain in practice, that some human beings are not inadvertently or purposefully rendered "inhuman", sub-human or otherwise in some sense less than human for utilitarian purposes.
For example, under Nazism, the Jews were rendered inhuman or sub-human in order to make killing them palatable to the masses. In America, African slaves were considered property rather than human beings with an intrinsic human worth and dignity equal to any other; in order to justify their continued enslavement. Finally, many Zionist's in Israel consider Palestinian Arabs to be the equivalent of wild beasts--essentially sub-human nuisances (leading Israeli Zionists have said, "the only good Arab is a dead Arab") not deserving of equal treatment. Tragically, Israeli civil rights laws tend to reflect this immoral bias. All "3" examples illustrate the need to apply moral norms universally while assuming a fixed human nature.
•It is morally legitimate to be tolerant (respectful) of other persons as human beings but not tolerant (in the sense of accepting) of their immoral acts if on careful analysis those acts are clearly immoral. One must never be tolerant of immorality (actions of an immoral nature) since morally illicit actions are self-reinforcing--these behaviors eventually become normalized. It is unfair to all of our neighbors that is, the "common good” not to identify immoral behavior as such since it leads to a lack of human flourishing rather than the authentic good which should be each human being’s birthright.
One does not have the right in exercising one's personal freedom to behave immorally and to negatively impact the common good. To do so is to violate both the first and second principles of the Natural Law. There is much confusion today about this concept largely due to mistaken post-Enlightenment notions of moral relativism which are intellectually bankrupt; fundamentally because they are contradictory (self-referentially absurd). This is part of a much larger epistemological problem having to do with post-modern errors related to the nature of truth.
•A person’s humanity from the moral perspective cannot be altered including by the performance of immoral acts. It exists as part of that person’s being until death. As such, it is never morally licit to treat human persons as if they were not human because of circumstances or external conditions etc. For this reason, prisoner’s of war and other convicted felons (for example), must be treated humanely. Hence we have prohibitions against torture while cruel and unusual punishment are proscribed. Human Rights flow from basic human dignity and are derived from a fixed human nature or anthropology; otherwise they do not exist at all. As such, they cannot be legislated away without said laws being groundless.
Human rights are also universal to time and place and are applicable to all of humanity. The only moral philosophy which is capable of entirely grounding human rights is the so-called Aristotelian/Thomistic synthesis.
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