Spiritual/Political/Philosophical Blog on the Nature of Truth and Falsehood and Heaven
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| Sunny Days in Heaven Spiritual/Political/Philosophical Blog on the Nature of Truth and Falsehood and Heaven |
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Monday, August 08, 2005 John Pod -- unlikable I was tempted to write about my personal distaste for John Podhoretz a few weeks ago since his appearance in The Corner. My single encounter through email with him a few years ago left me wondering about his prickly sensitivity and protectiveness of his ego. His recent exchange with Ramesh Ponnuru illustrates a pathetic and whining defensiveness. Today he writes some of the more shameful words imaginable about human life:
This is one of the most inept and stupidest group of statements anyone could make regarding life. Where to begin? "I am not a sciemtist . . ." This is pure weasel wording. "Not fit to examine. . ." This is simply insane to any person who claims to be capable of reason. You don't have to be a scientist to understand science, to understand the reproductive process. There isn't a scientist with any integrity who would not admit that human life begins at conception. To pretend that there is some doubt or question about the matter is one of the most egregious intellectual errors a man could commit. What's with the "Ontology recapitulated phylogeny". This is nonsense. The idea that the embryo goes through some sort of "evolutionary" tableau of fish to frog to ape to man has long been discredited. Should he be mourning a miscarriage? What kind of a man asks himself that? When a child is wanted and a miscarriage occurs, I would expect a decent human being to experience something of sadness, disappointment, and yes, grief for the offspring he will never see or get to raise. It was a unique child that was lost, and not an amorphous blob of protoplasm. If a man can't feel something about the death of his unborn child, well, he's not much of a man. "the mystery of the progress beyond the moment of conception"? There is no mystery here. We understand exactly what occurs after conception. Human life develops until expelled from the womb and then continues to develop into adulthood and then declines to death (if accident does not befall it). Earlier he says this:
The logical problem is that Podhoretz doesn't understand logic. How many different kinds of things is he mixing up here? How does a miscarriage emply "social Darwinism" as a natural reaction or event as a result of it? Through Hobbes? Absurd. Nor is the 25% statistic ever demonstrated. I have yet to see an actual study which proves this number, yet, it is widely accepted and asserted. Nor does it necessarily follow that simply because embryos are miscarried that life is viciously brutal although it is clearly accidental. What's distressing is that the whole tone of Podhoretz's idiotic statements is that of Pontius Pilate. He doesn't want to know the facts, he wants to wash his hands of the matter, he wants to allow the unborn offspring of humans to be killed by pretending it's not a real event involving real life. Add to the fact that when challenged the guy becomes a complete jerk, and you have someone I dislike a great deal. Update And he keeps digging that hole named Stupid with this:
See what I mean? One non sequitor after another of nonsense. An embryo has a determined sex longer before expression. What's his point? That it is BELIEF about when human life begins that we're debating? We know beyond a shadow of a doubt when human life begins. When it becomes considered a being worthy of respect and concern is another matter. This guy is a complete, arrogant jerk. And this:
This is so jejune and puerile as to be nearly unbearble. A variation of "a good God could never allow so much suffering, misery and death". The "moral force" does indeed create all living things which are accordingly snuffed out. And your problem with that is what exactly? It's not nice? Unfair? God couldn't be so cruel? How incredibly shallow is the JPod. Update After being intellectually eviscerated by Robert George, Podhoretz does the classic evasion and escape manuever: if you can't prevent embarrasment entirely, deny the argument ever mattered.
Yes, it is all just so much medaeval theology and nonsense I was musing upon. It's all a non-starter, a non-argument when all is said it done, academic wool gathering. Podhoretz is a classic example of the male who can't stop himself from saying stupid things, but whose fragile ego can't admit to ever being wrong and thus plays all the silly face saving games. Pathetic. posted by Mark Butterworth | 11:19 AM | |
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