hell’s handmaiden

Stephen F. Hayes has written a piece for The Weekly standard purporting in no uncertain terms a link between Iraq and al Qaeda. Mr. Hayes writes:

And on it goes. This conventional wisdom–that our two most determined enemies were not in league, now or ever–is comforting. It is also wrong.

This got my attention, as I am one of those people who has yet seen good evidence for the connection.

One very basic argument against creationism– and there are many– is that no one has yet to find a creator. The implication is obvious and brutal, though the point seems frequently to be missed. No creator, no creation, no creationism. And with no creationism, those tomes which espouse it are wrong, with devastating consequences for the minds which read them. Yes, I know. It seems a bit backward to disable creationism by denying the creator.

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People think too much. People also think too little.

Human emotion isn’t pure. It is corrupt. We’ve corrupted it with thought.

It is a consequence of our unusually creative minds, certainly. And I’m not criticising that mind. I live a very large part of my life inside my head. I like it that way.

But we’ve suffered as a people, as individuals, because of this fusion of our thoughts and our emotions. Most of this suffering, I’ll wager, is due the fact that most don’t realize how entwined are our feelings and our minds.

It is sad that this needs to be written, but there seems to be much confusion on the issue.

Science is an attempt to describe observable phenomena. That is pretty much the end of it. The scientific method is an agreement between researchers concerning that description of data. The agreement is this, that the simplest description wins.

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People in my life have asked me why the related ideas of God and religion appear so often in my work. Apparently, I give the impression that I am a religious sort. Yet, at the same time, I am vehemently anti-christian.

I am religious in a sense. I’d like to believe in magic, in immortality, and in justice. I think I’d be quite happy dining with Ewoks, working magic or drinking blood with Akasha. But so far, I’ve not found the part where I get to choose. To my great irritation, fact seems to be fact. And I am stuck with it.