Author Archives: rg

The Metaphysical Presumptions of Science

Are derived from Christianity, says Jordan Peterson

Jordan Peterson, while interviewing British theologian, academic and author Dr. Nigel Biggar (under the title “Separating Good from Evil in the British Empire“), gives a brief lecture on the five metaphysical presumptions of science. He says (link prompted):

They are metaphysical presumptions which you have to accept before you can operate as a scientist.

You have to believe there is a logos or logic in the objective world. Youi have to believe there is an objective world. You have to believe that that logic is apprehensible. You have to believe that apprehending that logic is a moral good. Because otherwise why would you bother? And then you have to believe that truth in relation to that apprehension is the most important orienting principle.

Those are all metaphysical presumptions. I actually think they are metaphysical presumptions that are derived from Christianity itself, which is why science emerged in Europe and not elsewhere.

“Can you name >5 unvaxxed Amish who died from COVID?” 

Why not? They are "supposed to be" dying in droves!

Writes Steve Kirsch:

The Amish didn’t lockdown, social distance, mask, or take a vaccine. It was business as usual. Few died. I offered $2,500 for anyone who could name >5 Amish who died. No takers. Just excuses.

Update (video, see also text here): The Amish followed none of the guidelines, didn’t vaccinate etc. And had, according to Steve Kirsch, an at least 90% lower death rate from Covid.

The real “misinformation” peddlers

Here’s someone the BBC in its zeal to root out “mis- and disinformation” surprisingly missed.

From Tom Woods‘ newsletter from today:

If the world would stop being insane for five minutes, I could get things done around here.

Howard Forman, a prime spreader of Covid misinformation at Yale, just posted this:
Apoorva Mandavilli, the woman in the picture, spread nonstop misinformation about Covid via her New York Times columns, exaggerating the numbers and death rate to the point that even the Times itself had to correct her. She claimed without evidence that schools were especially dangerous sources of illness. She also said it was “racist” to consider the origins of Covid.

It was nonstop lies and lunacy from her pen — and now a Yale professor endorses her as someone qualified to fight against medical misinformation.

Sometimes I wonder if the absurdity of it all is deliberate, and intended to demoralize us.

At any rate, the comments slightly restored my faith in mankind. There were many, many of them, and as far as I can see they were all from people aghast at this. Examples:
The great Harvey Risch is at Yale, so I hate to say that everyone from Yale obviously needs to be ignored at this point, but let’s say everyone except Harvey Risch.

“Misinformation,” whether medical or otherwise, has obviously come to mean: information we don’t want you to have.

Another thing a lot of these people didn’t want you to have was, you know, a job — unless they decided you were “essential.” So maybe it’s not such a bad idea to have something in your back pocket for in case they come after us again.

The truth about the BBC’s war on ‘disinformation’

The new BBC Verify project reflects the cultural elites’ paranoid fear of free speech.

Article by Fraser Myers

The BBC not only inflates the dangers of social-media falsehoods, it has also applied the disinformation label to stories that are actually true. So if you cause a fuss about anti-car traffic restrictions coming to your local area, if you protest against eco-plans for a ‘15-minute city’, you could find yourself branded a ‘conspiracy theorist’ on the BBC – even though these illiberal traffic schemes really are happening across the UK. All too often, the charge of ‘disinformation’ is used as another way of demonising those with dissent opinions.

Meanwhile, the BBC has been known to spread untruths of its own. Take its coverage of the trans issue. The BBC website regularly describes predatory men, including rapists, paedophiles and murderers, as ‘women’ – purely because they ‘identify’ as such. It has produced news reports and whole documentaries about ‘men’ getting pregnant. When licence-fee payers are told to ignore the evidence of their own eyes in this way, we shouldn’t be surprised that the BBC is losing trust.

Climate change is another major blindspot for the Beeb. Despite their apparent concern about climate misinformation, BBC journalists and presenters frequently make alarmist and false claims about the environment. A recent Panorama documentary, fronted by the BBC’s climate editor, said in its opening sequence that extreme weather events are killing more people. The truth is the precise opposite: the death toll from weather events has actually fallen considerably in recent decades. But this does not fit the established, fear-driven narrative.

[Links to various other websites in the original text.]

C. S. Lewis on “tyranny sincerely exercised”

Found here.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”

― C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology (Making of Modern Theology)

Jordan Peterson’s ‘anti-WEF’ upstart is inundated with WEF-associated individuals

Writes Jordan Schachtel:

Celebrity Canadian author Jordan Peterson has launched The Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC), a new conference that he has branded as a counterweight to the World Economic Forum’s annual Davos conference.

However, there’s one small problem with Dr Peterson’s initiative.

Many of the individuals he’s recruited to join the effort are currently or formerly associated with the WEF itself! And others who are not directly associated with Davos have a record of promoting the very same disastrous ideological dictates advanced by the WEF network.

Just as Dr Peterson was slow to the draw on Covid hysteria, he doesn’t seem to understand why advocates for human freedom dislike the World Economic Forum. Sure, Klaus Schwab and the gang are freakishly unlikeable statist sociopaths, but it is their top-down model of “governance,” coupled with their dictates upon society, that makes the WEF model so nefarious.

By seemingly copying the Davos model and rebranding it as a counter WEF initiative, the counter WEF has become just another invite-only conference of hand picked “experts,” vetted by like-minded individuals, who retain elite status within their exclusive, closed off networks.

This isn’t the path forward.

Humanity certainly doesn’t need an alternative group of mutually credentialing “experts” to dictate to humanity how they should be living their lives.

Poll: What parishioners want from their churches

In Germany

They don’t want their churches supporting “Extinction Rebellion” or similar groups. Only 17 percent supported that policy, 50 percent were against. The rest either said they don’t care (18 percent) or didn’t know (12 percent) or declined to answer (3 percent).

56 percent said the churches should concentrate more on their spiritual and pastoral tasks.

51 percent supported the fact that the churches appealed to everyone to get vaccinated against covid.

However, only 43 percent (a relative majority) thought closing churches during lockdown was a good idea (30 percent disagreed)

15 percent say they are definitely going to leave the church, a further 21 percent say they are considering leaving.

The relevant article is here.

The new brand of totalitarianism

Similar to fascism of old

Justo González in his book “The Story of Christianity” (Volume 2, p. 309), writes about the different “flavours” of fascism in the first half of the 20th century. There were many differences, but what united them was this:

“The glorification of war, dread of the free exchange of ideas, a totalitarian nationalism, and opposition to all forms of egalitarianism”

Today, we have the glorification of war (against Serbia, then Irak, then Syria, then Ukraine – and a denial that there is any glorification involved), dread of the free exchange of ideas (“cancel culture” – and a denial of its existence), a totalitarian globalisation, and a new form of racism (“whiteness is bad”), which is part of a “hierarchy of (alleged) victimhood”.