According to two experiments conducted by Bergen, Lindsay, Matlock, and Naryanan (in Cognitive Science 31, 2007), sentence comprehension yields interference during object categorization when the object is presented in the same location of the subject’s visual field as the event denoted by the sentence (you can locate this article through my link on the right to Bergen’s papers).

In other words, perceiving an object as a particular sort of object is hindered (in terms of processing time) by the pre-triggering of automatic and unconscious mechanisms during normal comprehension of sentences that describe events with the same ‘location’ as the perceived object. This is a reliably produced effect and rigorous controls in the experiments confirm, at the very least, a weak form of simulation theory. So another way of saying this, albeit with a dangerous dose of imprecision and extrapolation, is that the simulated imagery utilized during sentence comprehension is realized by the same mechanisms or neural architecture responsible for visual perception. This can be seen as a linguistic extension of what we have learned about ‘mirror neurons’ found in monkeys, which are structures that activate for both the execution and the perception of a given motor activity or action (Wheeler and Bergen, 2006).

But I introduce these two experiments by way of introduction, since it was the third and the fifth experiments that motivated me to write. (For lack of time and readable space I will not discuss the background experimental details – which is my readers’ loss, since they are brilliant.) These reliably produced interference effects were not found at all during a third experiment, in which concrete actions or events were implied only metaphorically. A fifth experiment was designed to further probe this effect, only to confirm it. Therefore, as a first approximation, linguistic metaphor does not utilize embodied simulation, at least at this fine-grained level of specific location in the visual field.

A fourth experiment had already confirmed that abstract description also failed to produce this interference effect. Sentences were chosen to test specifically for the hypothesized conceptual metaphor MORE IS UP (a metaphor only metaphorically). This suggests that conceptual metaphor likewise does not utilize embodied simulation, at least at such a fine-grained level. However, according to Richardson, et al. (2003) more course-grained, axis specific simulation (e.g. vertical or horizontal planes) does produce the interference found in Bergen et al.’s first two experiments. I am comfortable with Bergen et al.’s suggested explanation that up and down locations are perhaps ‘collapsed’ along the vertical axis during comprehension of more abstract content. (Which calls to mind Fauconnier and Turner’s mechanism of ‘compression’ during conceptual integration).

What I hypothesize from here is that more course-grained simulation is to be found during linguistic metaphor comprehension, whereas the kind of mapping involved in conceptual metaphor does not produce on-line simulation in the same way, if at all. It is tempting – at least for me – to conflate metaphor with conceptual metaphor, but conceptual metaphor is not literally metaphor at all and does not, so I hypothesize, involve mechanisms that can produce the kinds of conscious effects that have motivated simulation theory. I would also think that interpretive cognitive linguistics, in addition to norming studies, might prove illuminating – a thought I had while investigating the sentences used for the fourth experiment, motivated by the conceptual metaphor MORE IS UP. I hypothesize that conceptual metaphors are complex and interpenetrating mappings, such that, ARGUMENT is either WAR, or a GAME OF CHESS (Ritchie), or perhaps both, depending on what precisely it is to be and what it is like to be S at time sequence t.

I would also be interested in integrating these findings with eye tracking experiments during fictive motion (e.g. the chalk board runs along the wall), research suggested by Bergen et al. . I currently see no reason to think that these experiments cannot dovetail with Coulson’s work on the N400 ERP component, which perhaps can be linked to the RTs responsible for the distinction between compatibility (priming) effects and the interference effects discussed in Bergen et al.; relevant RTs appear to be situated between 200 and 1000 ms. Also highly fascinating to me, in consideration of my hypothesis that the boundary between conscious and unconscious simulation and emulation might reveal the underlying structure of consciousness, are the neurological disorders that produce dissociation between axis and location (Bergen et al. 2007, p.755).

The New Enlightenment, I will so far continue to assert, is represented well by a blend of Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and George Lakoff. You know enough about Hitchens for my purposes here, but I call your attention to the book Dennett published in 2003 titled Freedom Evolves. Trying to undo his life of sins and blasphemy, Dennett is now pretending that he has all along been for moderation, morality, free-will, the arts, and consciousness. Or maybe not. Dennett evidently has been for all these things, as suppored by citations from Dennett’s work over the last 30 years.

George Lakoff is in a similar but worse predicament. During my interdisciplinary research in 2005 and 2006, the literature I was exposed to took a largely disparaging view of conceptual metaphor, and so I did not read the original work by Lakoff & Johnson, which was regularly, albeit insufficiently, summarized by others. I have learned that this shortcut was a mistake. It is a shame I did not read Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things (1987) many years ago, a thought that recently motivated me to pick up my still unread copy of Lakoff’s and Johnson’s three decade old Metaphors We Live By (1980, 2003). I went right for the material at the back of the book (‘Afterward, 2003′) hoping for some attempted explanation for academia’s commitment to old and empirically unhelpful ideas. Here is the result of this 40 second research project, the conclusion of the 2003 new edition:

The Present Situation

In spite of the massive and growing evidence for them, our basic claims have nonetheless met resistance for an obvious reason: they are inconsistent with assumptions that many people in the academic world and elsewhere first learned and that shaped the research agenda they still pursue. Many mainstream philosophers, linguists, and psychologists either have vehemently denied these claims or have preferred to ignore them and to go about their ordinary business as if the claims were false. The reason is clear – our claims strike at the heart of centuries-old assumptions about the nature of meaning, thought, and language. If the new empirical results are taken seriously, then people throughout our culture have to rethink some of their most cherished beliefs about what science and philosophy are and reconsider their values from a new perspective.

Above all, the key sticking point is the existence of conceptual metaphor. If conceptual metaphors are real, then all literalists and objectivist views of meaning and knowledge are false. We can no longer pretend to build an account of concepts and knowledge on objective, literal foundations. This constitutes a profound challenge to many of the traditional ways of thinking about what it means to be human, and about how the mind works, and about our nature as social and cultural creatures.

At the same time, what we have discovered is fundamentally at odds with certain key tenets of postmodernist thought, especially those that claim that meaning is ungrounded and simply an arbitrary cultural construction. What has been discovered about primary metaphor, for example, simply does not bear this out. There appear to be both universal metaphors and cultural variation.

For these reasons, this book remains just as controversial and radical today as when it first appeared. It calls into question business as usual and requires new collaborative cross-disciplinary methods of inquiry.

If you are interested in engaging in such an inquiry, the following references provide a place to start. . . .

UCSD’s Seana Coulson (find link to the right) and Rafael Nunez  are not necessarily “a place to start”, I suppose, so it is perhaps not a surprise that they are not listed in the short reference list that follows this new afterward – although the inclusion of Coulson’s Semantic Leaps (Cambridge 2001) might have been fitting. However, UCSD’s Gilles Fauconnier  and Ronald Langacker  are listed.

Also listed:
Lera Boroditsky  (Stanford), see Newsweek on Boroditsky
Fernandez-Duque  (Villanova University)
Charles Fillmore  (UC Berkley)
Raymond Gibbs   (UC Santa Cruz, PhD UCSD)
Adele Eva Goldberg   (Princeton, previously UCSD)
Grady, C (?)
Mark Johnson  (U of Oregon)
Zoltan Kovecses (?)
David McNeill (U of Chicago)
Srini Narayanan  (UC Berkley)
Terry Regier   (U of Chicago)
Eve Sweetser (UC Berkley)
Leonard Talmy  (U at Buffalo, NY; PhD UC Berkeley)
S. Taub (?)
Mark Turner   (Case Western Reserve University, Ohio; lived in San Diego)
Stephen Winter (Wayne State University Law School, Detroit).

Thus, the intractability of the situational enviroment 30 years ago looks much the same in “the present situation”. This is a situationist insight illustrated, however ironically, by the most recent entry  at Harvard Law’s The Situationist. Marc Hauser  proposes a Chomsky-ish universal grammar-like mechanism of computation that precedes emotion, and presumably, embodied semantics, during the formulation of a moral judgment. And yet the simple experiments Hauser provided seem to be better predicted by embodied prototype effects, a basic thesis of Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things (1987). So I offered the following comment:

I do not think Chomsky has proven to be a serviceable heuristic, particularly here. Development within the mind sciences also has little use for static propositional content held within the unconscious mind and so I am likewise not hopeful that talk of a non-semantic calculus and unconscious principles that drive conscious judgment is going to be of much help in interpreting basic experimental data. Rather, I think Hauser’s experiments on double effect, in keeping with Lakoff (1987), reveal asymmetric prototype effects, where causing harm through direct physical causality is the central case.

Michael Metzler
www.poohsthink.com

The sociology contained in my book ( The Kirk: Mother of War ) is thus far of folk origin. I began writing to chronicle my personal experience within the Kirk and to continue the social analysis I had already began promulgating for Pooh’s Think, Part 1. But I originally had little to guide me as I sought to understand my eventual expurgation. Fairly cloistered from the news media, I was influenced largely by bits and pieces of my philosophy education over the years – notably from graduate education at the University of Idaho, which began soon after the launch of Pooh’s Think, Part 1. I received highly concentrated help towards the end of my expurgation from the new start up of Harvard Law’s The Situationist, which remains an important resource for me.

More recently, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, and George Lakoff have been highly influential – although Dennett’s intentional stance has been a thorn in my side since 1997. I am shy to begin enumerating the others, fearing I will mistakenly leave someone out, but I will here venture what comes immediately to mind: H.L. Menken, George Orwell, Barbara Ehrenreich, Michael O’Rourke, John Bargh, Onora O’Neill, Phillip Zimbardo, Patrick Hogan, and my were-local discussion partners at Moscow’s Vision 2020  list.

Likely, my folksy sociology will remain largely in tact, as it so far seems consistent with my new explorations. Yet, more research is in order. In many ways, the first inchoate version of my book was the completion of a vigorous, painful research experiment that lasted 15 years. But now I find myself at the beginning of an exciting new project that was given birth through the death of that first book. As time allows, I hope to investigate the new academic and journalistic work on religion, power, violence, communitarianism, and war. This is what I hope to accomplish on the side of still other work that is likewise already on the side: work in consciousness, the sophistication of the unconscious mind, cognitive science, metaphor, narrative, and neurobiology.

I am inclined to begin with some books on the ‘new book’ shelves at the University of California down the road (San Diego). The following is a short introduction to 7 of these books. Perhaps I can at some point actually read them cover to cover!

1) Timothy Longman’s Christianity and Genocide in Rwanda (Cambridge, 2010).

Longman lived in Rwanda from 1991 to 1993 while working on his dissertation regarding church-state relations in Africa. He returned in 1995 to work in the field office of Human Rights Watch, the year after the infamous three month genocide infiltrated Rwanda. He has finally published his findings after comparing two local Presbyterian parishes in Kibuye. On page 312, Longman writes:

Ultimately, church leaders embraced ethnic chauvinism not only because they supported political authorities who adopted an anti-Tutsi ideology but because it was a means of co-opting people back into the patrimonial network. By defining Tutsi as a threat, church leaders were able to appeal to their members along lines of ethnic solidarity and shatter the emerging class solidarity that was challenging their control.

The introduction page explains that “Although Rwanda is among the most Christian countries in Africa, in the 1994 genocide, church buildings became the primary killing ground.” My Kirk brethren might be inclined to see my interest in this book as just more whining. I am after all the ’sucking chest wound’ version of the bleeding heart and the reports about what happened in Rwanda sound very much like the glorious routs of the Old Testament. Take for example Philip Zimbardo’s report in The Lucifer Effect (2007): “One of the young men told a translator that they couldn’t rape them because ‘we had been killing all day and we were tired. We just put the gasoline in bottles and scattered it among the women, then started burning’”.

Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, a Tutsi and “former social worker who lectured on women’s empowerment” could have helped her people, but she instead led the village of Butare into a trap, promising help from the Red Cross. “They were machine-gunned, grenades were thrown into the unsuspecting throngs, and survivors were sliced apart with machetes. Pauline gave the order that ‘Before you kill the women, you need to rape them’.” According to Zimbardo, the U.N. reported that at least 200,000 women were raped during the three month massacre.

2) William Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence (Oxford, 2009).

Cavanaugh challenges the social-political research of the majority, arguing that “there is no transhistorical and transcultural essence of religion and that essentialist attempts to separate religious violence from secular violence are incoherent.” The prevailing concept of religion “that is essentially prone to violence is one of the foundational legitimating myths of the liberal nation-state.” Cavanaugh challenges as incoherent “the argument that there is something called religion . . . which is necessarily more inclined toward violence than are ideologies and institutions that are identified as secular” (4-5). While I will likely take issue with the more provocative features of this thesis, I would be surprised if I do not find a wealth of wisdom to be gained in taking issue with essentialist and timeless concepts contracted for ideological and political purposes (such as the timeless notion of ‘covenant’ in reformed theology, a thesis still unique to me as far as I know). Canvanaugh notes that the religious-secular distinction was not established through argument, but “through violence” (7).

3) Marc Hetherington & Jonathon Weiler, Authoritarianism & Polarization in American Politics (Cambridge, 2009).

Front, introductory material reads:

Although politics at the elite level has been polarized for some time, a scholarly controversy has raged over whether ordinary Americans are polarized. This book argues that they are and that the reason is growing polarization of worldviews – what guides people’s view of right and wrong and good and evil. These differences in worldview are rooted in . . . authoritarianism. . . . [D]ifferences of opinion concerning the most provocative issues. . . reflect differences in individuals’ level of authoritarianism.

After reading the first few pages, I suspected that Lakoff (2008) influenced this thesis. While not acknowledging influence, Hetherington and Weiler note on page 192 the correspondence:

George Lakoff’s (1996) treatment of morality in contemporary American politics tracks helpfully with our analysis in this regard . . . His conception of conservatism, which is premised on a ’strict father morality,’ is closely related to our conception of authoritarianism.

 

4) Brett Whalen, Dominion of God (Harvard, 2009).

On page 6:

Ambivalence characterized the idea of Christendom, which formed a limitless community of the faithful, a cosmic congregation, but also an earthly society of believers in the here-and-now. Christendom had borders and was universal. It could be spread by the righteous power of the sword or by the spiritual grace of God . . . Within this apocalyptic ethnography, both Christian and non-Christian peoples had roles to play in the realization of history. The expectation of Christian world order relied – somewhat paradoxically – on mutually reinforcing languages of exclusion and inclusion, on the identification of God’s enemies and the promise of their ultimate redemption, or at least their opportunity to be redeemed . . . The pursuit of Christendom . . . engaged . . . the sensibilities of medieval Europe’s ecclesiastical elite, sometimes including popes themselves, who anticipated the ultimate triumph of their sacerdotal authority on the grandest of scales.

5) Michael Ryan & Les Switzer, God in the Corridors of Power (ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, 2009).

My introduction: This book’s 500 pages appear to be a thorough analysis of the role that conservative religion has played in the religious and non-religious political Right. Ryan and Switzer, together representing American Protestantism and Catholicism, offer an abundant set of tools, from demographics to American history. Topics include media, conservative conceptual worlds, the constitution, abortion, sex, gender, science, Darwinianism, terrorism, militarism, and the contemporary Christian life.

6) Bayne, Cleeremans, & Wilken, The Oxford Companion to Consciousness (Oxford, 2009).

My introduction: This 700 page tome looks to be an excellent long-term resource. I see a good deal of mind science, and the selection of entries reveals an unusual interdisciplinary flavor. Bayne, Cleeremans, and Wilken have included an entry on ‘wine,’ and I found the latest answer we have to the question my son posed the other day: “why can I not tickle myself?” Recent experiments are detailed in an entry titled ‘tickling’.

7) David Thompson, Daniel Dennett (Continuum Publishing Group, 2009).

My introduction: Although not important research material for my book, I recommend this to the average visitor of the Wood. This appears to be an excellent introduction to the work of Daniel Dennett, written by a retired Canadian philosophy professor. I even noted a subtle play between the epistemic and phenomenal use of the word ’seems’  in the section on Heterophenomenology.

 A motion-picture is worth a thousand words:

That is just so like Palin.  You know?  But I refuse to resign my dignitity as an alumnus of the Universtiy of Idaho. Palin, as you can certainly see, is an alumna (We were both taught by the distinguished Dr. Roy Atwood too).

Newsweek has responded to the poltical noise generated from this cover.  But you can hear a pin drop as you turn the page to this edition’s article  by Christopher Hitchens. Please read. It is ambrosial – and true.  Hitchens somehow punches numerous 10d nails all the way in with one swing of the hammer.  Palin best not comment on the actual written content of this week’s issue.

I worked with a couple guys last year who said they voted for Palin. She was “hot”, they explained.  They invisioned a movie called “Nailin’ Pailin”.  Not that’s sexist, if you ask me.

Update: For what appears to be an excellent, scientifically informed response to these illegally obtained emails, see Real Climate’s original entry and their subsequent entry  intended to provide proper context to key issues and players. Will Powerline and other head-in-sand political hacks apologize? Doubt it.  Will the spin-scum cleric quoted below retract his statement about “fraud”? Of course not. They will all, as Hitchens once said, “just keep talking”.

_______

Powerline’s analysis of the emails illegally obtained from a leading climatic research center appears to be somewhat meretricious (if you search my blog, you will not find anything on global warming). You can see the primary, leaked documents here.

Powerline’s first post  explains:

Someone hacked into a computer at the University of East Anglia’s Hadley Climatic Research Centre, one of the main centers of anthropogenic global warming research. The hacker downloaded 62 megabytes of data from the server, consisting of around 1,000 emails and a variety of other documents.

I was eager to observe groupthink and system justification tendencies within a small scientific community, and although I do find some interesting data, I was disappointed in the largely innocuous material that was “cherry picked” by Powerline from 1000 emails. With such robust resources at hand, I would have hoped for more intriguing results, considering that scientists are only human mammals. Yet, Powerline seems to admit more than intended by the comment: “They are remarkably candid; these individuals talk to each other with the knowledge that they are among friends.” Powerline proceeds to build a vague case for the mass readership, equivocating between natural mechanisms of bias and intentional fabrication of facts. Compare the two statements:

1) The emails I’ve reviewed so far do not suggest that these scientists are perpetrating a knowing and deliberate hoax.

2) . . . this story was told about accountants: A CEO is going to hire a new accountant and summons a series of candidates. He asks each applicant, “What is two plus two?” The first two candidates answer, “Four.” They don’t get the job. The third responds, “What do you want it to be?” He gets hired. The climate alarmists’ attitude toward data appears to me much the same . . .

But Powerline concludes with the hedging disclaimer:

The language is certainly suggestive. . . but it’s possible the words used could have a relatively benign explanation. The surrounding emails do not provide context that sheds any light on what those words mean.

Determined to take a “political” stance on this issue, instead of providing an impartial analysis of these emails and what they broadly suggest in their entirety, a second post  was made, revealing very little not already made public through corporate scientific investigation and journalism.

This is perhaps one reason why it is illegal to procure information in this fashion: it leaves sensitive, private correspondence open to irresponsible hacks. Yes, I know these hacks at Powerline are practicing attorneys. (Perhaps I could just say that I rest my case – although they are well published, and one was trained at Harvard Law).  In turn, these hacks then provide further meat that anti-science, anti-civilization spin-scum clerics can throw out to their philistine admirers, as can be seen here :

And what we now know is that global warming is not just an egregious scientific mistake (which it always was). It is a mistake that certain dedicated true believers are prepared to persist in, by means of scientific fraud as necessary. . . . the thing will be completely over. Stick a fork in it; it’s done.

All the while, ultra-conservative leaders continue to warn their followers of the liberal bias and lies of big media. Hopefully, a more responsible story comes out of all this. I bet it does.

Update: An attorney from the Alliance Defense Fund sent a letter  to the CEO of the rocket center on the behalf of their “client” Vision Forum. The CEO of the rocket center in turn welcomed  the use of the facilities.

_____________

Doug Philips’ new movie  The Mysterious Island was banned after initial go-ahead from the theater of the Davidson Center Auditorium at the United States Space and Rocket Center:

a government-run agency and taxpayer-subsidized venue which is open to the general public for private rentals and screenings. According to federal law, it is not supposed to discriminate on the basis of religion.

Phillips claims that officials “have rejected the film which is critical of Charles Darwin, as being too controversial.”  While not doubting the unscientific propaganda in the movie, my past experience with Phillips would suggest that this report is accurate.

I do not have time to investigate. Any comments or information welcomed.

 ”Speaking for the motion, Archbishop John Onaiyekan and Ann Widdecombe MP. Speaking against the motion, Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry.” To watch all five segments of the debate, go here.  I have embedded the second segment below (press ‘HQ’ if you find pausing):

The audience was polled before the event: 678 people thought the Catholic Church is a force for good in the world. 1102 poeple thought that it was not. 346 people were undecided.

After presentations were made by all four speakers, another poll was conducted: 268 people thought that the Catholitic Church was a force for good, and 1876 thought that the Catholic Church was not a force for good in the world. Only 34 remained undecided.

It has not been my habit to post pictures of my family, a consequence, in part, of a veiled threat from a racist kinist (see Mathew Chancey’s work  for a sampling of the journalistic exposure that generated this kinist backlash). But all that seems well settled, and although Douglas Wilson is much more plodding and patient, he gives me little worry now that I am far removed from north Idaho’s Geneva. Wilson has been of the opinion that John Calvin was wrong in casting the vote for the torturing to death of Servetus, which he likens to the attempt at “killing ants with a baseball bat” (talk at U of I campus, November, 2005). Wilson has bigger plans for Enlightenment and Cosmopolitan Civilization and just recently has been beside himself in smiles and polite giggles while dining with the arch-blasphemer Christopher Hitchens, the thongs of whose sandals Servetus is not worthy to untie. Wilson, in fact, refuses to state that Hitchens’ belief and life is at all immoral. The censure – or more accurately, the rape and maiming – is reserved for the weak and powerless directly under Wilson’s pastoral care. So here’s a picture – a couple years old.

This is a wonderful and insightful note from one of my original opponents during the days of Pooh’s Think, Part 1. (For contrast, also note the recent comments  from a current Kirker.)

Michael,

I’m not sure if you remember who I am, but I left several comments on Doug Wilson’s blog when the whole Saint Peter thing was going down, defending Saint Peter’s session and (often personally) attacking you. As an ex-member of Saint Peter (you know the drill: started reading Eastern Orthodox writers, started discussing the possible validity of Orthodoxy with friends of mine in the church including Laurence Windham, eventually left, was shunned and “excommunicated” by those whom I considered dear friends), I wanted to apologize for my ignorance and insensitivity towards you and your views. It’s easy to attack someone when you’ve never been in their position. Frank Schaeffer was right when he said, “The only answer to who you are is, ‘When?’” Now that I have gone through an experience comparable to yours, I wish I had listened to some of your comments and insights. The pain my wife and I went through was considerable (it nearly destroyed our marriage) and it was astonishing to see people that we thought we would be friends with forever abandon us overnight. The most painful for me was Laurence’s public denouncements (both of me and of Orthodoxy), which were so ill-informed as to be regarded stupid. He and I were astonishingly close for many years. Being, as a Saint Peter member once described it, “viewed as two faces of one body,” and having him lash out the way he did was a blindside to say the least. A big one.

So, you were right and I was wrong. But you knew that already. And, to be honest, that isn’t what this email is about. I ought to have empathized with your position rather than springing to the blind defense of those who, in the scheme of things, didn’t need defending. Regardless of what I thought, I should have regarded you as a fellow human being rather than disregarding you as the abstract proposition of, “These guys who I love are douche-bags.” But, hindsight, 20/20, clarity, and all that. My comments toward you were belittling. For that I ask your forgiveness.

Ultimately, I don’t blame these guys. I believe that they think what they did (and are doing) is right, and they did it because of that conviction. I don’t believe there was any intentional malice (though what was done was malicious). There’s no bitterness here. However, there is a deep hurt which I don’t anticipate will be resolved any time soon. Thanks for your work.

On a radically different note I was wondering about the Bayly post you made a couple days ago. You had mentioned that you tried to Google some of the quotes that Bayly used from the article concerning Calvin College and homosexuality and were unable to find results. I’m not sure if Bayly updated his post due to your comments, but I was able to find the article quickly using Google. I’m not defending him in any respect (one of them wears a bow-tie, for heaven’s sake — the very definition of douche-bag), but was just asking for the sake of clarification. In case you haven’t found the link to the article it’s from Christianity Today and can be found here.

Thanks again for your work. Knock out that book. Looking forward to reading it.

Cheers and all the best,
Matt Clement

This evening (Friday) I was working toward finishing an entry titled ‘The Southern Poverty Law Center, Harpers, & The Nation: Corruption at the Top Does Not Entail Corruption at the Bottom’. However, this will have to wait for Part 11 now that I have received an email from the notorious patriarchist Tim Bayly. This email provides some late and conclusive evidence for Bayly’s exceptional delusion or brazen deceit or, perhaps, a combination of both.

My goal here is not to inform the general public of Tim and David Bayly’s authoritarian, arrogant, censorious, and misogynist patriarchicalism. The general public – those who have had the least bit of exposure – already know this. Tim and David Bayly are also known as meek and mild ministers in the Presbyterian Church in America, but as I have discovered with Patriarch Wilson, this is often just the other side of the same spin-scum coin.

In what follows, I aim to offer updated evidence for the blatant deceit (or delusion) of Tim Bayly by way of introduction, since he appears well associated with the historic reconstructionist movement – including a somewhat recent, mutually-benefiting political association with Douglas Wilson. This entry is intended as background context for Part 11, which addresses the Southern Poverty Law Center’s new commitment to expose the reconstructionist movement and its children.  A bit laborious, but here it is for the record.

This is what happened: Today (Friday), I was led to Bayly’s popular blog for the first time in a few years. Once there, I found an unnamed magazine quoted and ridiculed on the issue of Calvin College, academic freedom, and homosexuality. The entry began, “A prominent evangelical magazine just did a piece on the complaint by Calvin College faculty reps that Calvin’s board has issued policy barring members of their faculty from promoting sodomy.” I was generally curious about this article, but I also wondered if the quotations were given in proper context. Read the rest of this entry »

 I did make it to the Landmark in L.A. for the premier of Collision.  A good deal into the movie, Hitchens was asked the leading question:

 ”What are you willing to die for?”

 Hitchens needed no pause for the riposte:

“Enlightenment.”

As you watch Hitchens put upside down on a cross, you might want to play this music (update: the Kirker who authored this video, Daniel Foucachon, permits downloads for embedding from his site, but soon after signing up as a registered user of Pooh’s Think, he removed your ability to watch it here. But just click below and you can listen to the nice music on Daniel’s page):

New Saint Andrews Choir from Daniel Foucachon on Vimeo.

(Picture is of Hitchens discovering what it is like to be him while water boarded; although the aftermath was an important element as well.)

 ___________

The conclusion of Collision is a tired Hitchens in the back seat of a not so large car casually recounting a personal conversation with the atheist pontifex Richard Dawkins. The context was this question: would Hitchens, if he could “convert”, or, ahem, “convince” every last theist of atheism, would he decide to do it? Hitchens would not.

Would Hitchens “drive religion out of the world”?

Hitchens soberly recounts his words to Dawkins: “I would not drive it out.”

Hitchens continues, “The incredulity with which he [Dawkins] looked at me [pause] stays with me to this day.”

Music hits and the screen goes black.  Not a bad ending.

___________

Since I have made myself clear about Amy Miller’s recent hate-the-white-man silliness, I will let you know that while waiting for Collision to begin, I bought Miller’s suggested alternative: Doubt by Jennifer Michael Hecht.  You should see the picture on the back of the book guys; Hecht is hot! What an Object to write about such a fascinating, linear, logical Subject.