There is not an infinite amount of anything.

That simple truth seems to be too complicated for some to understand. Look around: shoes, hamburgers, cars, electricity, Internet access, TV shows, medical care, money, oxygen, planetary nebulea. If you can think of it -- consumer good, raw material, labor, whatever -- then you should be able to see the truth in the fact that there is only so much of it to go around. It may be in abundance or it may be rare but there is no way of getting around the fact that, if we consume it, we have to ration it.

So if someone makes the statement, "There will be no rationing," he is lying. Everything must be rationed.

The question is not if something will be rationed, but how it will be rationed and who will be controlling the process. In a free market, most rationing is done in a sensible manner. Most people can readily understand that the parts of the cow that are turned into steak is a lot less than the parts that are turned into ground beef. When the butcher charges more for steak than hamburger, he is giving us, the meat-buying consumers, information we need to properly ration the amount of steak we eat. We will still eat steak occasionally -- we make purchasing decisions based on more than just price -- but we limit ourselves because price is an important consideration. But while the cost of hamburger is less than the cost of steak, it still has a cost so we also ration the amount of hamburger we eat, opting to substitute pork, chicken, fish, ham, or enjoying an occasional "veggie nite."

Imagine what would happen if a government program declared that chicken would be free or sold for a rediculously low , at most, 10 cents a pound. For a while, we would be living in Kentucky Fried Paradise. When we passed the chicken counter at the supermarket, we could pick out our the chicken we used to buy every week and be comfortable in the knowledge that it would cost little or nothing. But would we only get as much chicken as we used to? Well, let's see. Steak, hamburger, ham, pork and fish all cost the same as they did before, so I think it is pretty safe to say that a good many of us would start eating more chicken than any of those other substitutes. In fact, a good many of us would decide that we should really be eating chicken exclusively. In more fact, many of us would fill our cart with chicken. Why not? We could freeze some, refrigerate some more and if some of it went bad, so what? We could just run down and pick up another shopping cart full.

How long do you think it would take before we go to the supermarket and find the chicken counter completely empty? If a good many shoppers walk out of the supermarket with as much chicken as they can carry, the store is going to run out. Shoppers will quickly learn what day the chicken truck makes its delivery and will be at the store early. Many of those first shoppers will now leave with two carts of chicken. Never mind that they cannot possibly eat that much in a week. So what if they have to throw most of it away? It's free -- so grab as much as you can whenever you can. We would be foolish not to.

Needless to say, this would not be allowed to continue for very long. The government would be forced to institute some method of rationing. This would upset a good many people who would claim that chicken should not be rationed -- chicken is too important, it is a staple of the American diet, poor people will starve! Some small-government groups will claim that this is all the government's fault, that chicken wasn't rationed before the new program was started.

They will be partly correct. The necessity for the new rationing method would be the fault of the government, but chicken was always rationed. It's just that before the Chicken Reform Act was passed into law, rationing took place according to effective, rational market forces. We rationed ourselves and we did so by deciding how much chicken at the prevailing price we could afford. Reducing the price to zero did not create a need for rationing -- it created a need for a different method of rationing because it short circuited the existing one.

Let's say that there were a lot of people who complained about the market method of rationing. Their complaint was that, although chicken was readily available, there were many people too poor to afford it. Thus the market method of rationing by price meant that some people ended up with very little chicken or no chicken at all. That, the argument went, is just Not Fair.

Now chicken is free but explicitly rationed. No matter what form of chicken rationing the government implements, there are only two possible outcomes: it will be arbitrary or it will be corrupt -- meaning that people will be able to pay to bypass the system. If it is corrupt, then nothing has changed -- the poor cannot afford to bribe the Chicken Distribution Counsel so will again end up with little or no chicken. If the system is honest but arbitrary, then the situation will be about the same, surprisingly enough.

Let's say that chicken is distributed strictly by lottery, so a poor man has just as much chance of getting an allotment of chicken as a rich man. And a rich man may loose the lottery just as often as a rich man. But if the rich man can't get his chicken through the normal rationing process, he will offer to buy chicken from someone who did win the lottery that week. Another rich man would not be interested -- he wants his chicken more than he wants a little more money. A poor man, however, has an incentive to sell his chicken -- he's poor, so he needs the money more than the chicken. So the poor, again, end up with little or no chicken. Don't even try to argue there would not be a black market in chicken. When studying history, there are very few times where we can use such words as "never" or "always." When governments institute rationing, there is always a black market for the rationed good. No exceptions.

No matter how much compassionate, well-intentioned people try to help the poor, the poor always end up with less. That is pretty much the definition of poor. Government instituted programs intended to help the poor fail to get more stuff into the hands of the poor and end up hurting everyone else.

Always.

I was listening to bits and pieces of the Laura Ingraham show earlier this week as I was getting ready to go to work. At one point she was talking to a man who seemed to be involved with religion (I mean as a preacher or priest) and the subject was abortion. I just happened to be passing through the bedroom (the radio is my alarm) when I heard him say something to the effect that a fetus, if it was aware, should know to stay in the womb. As long as it remained a fetus, the Republicans cared for it. As soon as it is born, the Republicans no longer care for it.

That statement stuck with me and I mulled it over on my drive to work. What could he have possibly meant? Did he mean that Republicans think that fetuses should not be killed indescriminately but as soon as it is born then it is open season? As intertaining a thought it is that some stupid Liberal would think that, I don't think that is what he meant.

No, he probably meant that the Republicans care about unborn fetuses but not for children -- only Democrats care for children. And the more I thought that over, the more convinced I became that this was indeed what he meant and the more disturbed I became at what he was admitting.

Republicans, or maybe I should just say Conservatives or Right-Wingers, are just as concerned with babies in the womb as out and they are concerned with both in exactly the same way: they are against anyone killing them. Democrats (Liberals/Left-Wingers) have quite different feelings depending on which side of the birth canal the child happens to be on.

In the womb, Liberals aren't just indifferent to the fetus/unborn child. They fight tooth and nail to prevent any pregnant woman from coming into contact with any alternatives to abortion. They have specifically stated that an abortion is no more of a moral issue than trimming a hangnail. They don't just support abortion, they advocate abortion! There is such an elevation in the importance of abortion that they oppose any limitations to its practice. Of all the rights we have -- religion, speech, assembly, press, whatever -- name just one that has no limitations on its practice. Only abortion is so critically important that it should be the one completely unrestricted right we have.

Say the fetus somehow manages to get through the gauntlet and, plop, it is born and promoted to "child." In a matter of minutes, this...thing...has gone from something to be destroyed whenever possible to something that is so important it becomes the keynote for much of the Liberal dialog: "Do it for the Children!"

OK, so now they care. But just what do they mean by the word "care"? One clue is to consider why they think the Republicans don't care. The Republicans are willing to let the parents take full responsibility for the raising and education of the child. Republicans even advocate lowering taxes so the parents are in a better financial position to provide for the child. They support institutions, such as marriage, which provide a better environment for the raising of a child. They oppose practices they feel have negative influences on little children, such as nudity, profanity and excessive violence in TV programs, movies, video games, radio or just on the sidewalks.

Liberal Democrats are, at best, indifferent to all of those issues and actively oppose most of them. The care that Democrats feel for children extend no further than their favorite social program. When they speak of "caring for children," they only mean spending other people's money (Liberals donate far less of their own money and time to charity than Conservatives) on programs that, at best, have no real impact on improving the lives of children and, at worst, place substantial barriers in front of parents trying to raise their children.

Liberals, please give our children, and the families into which they are born, a much needed break and quit caring for them so much.

One of the reasons I like Dennis Prager (His radio show and columns, that is. I don't know the man personally, though I'm sure the two of us could be good friends as the only personality quirk that I am aware of is his tendency to patronize – as quirks go, more amusing than irritating.) is that, though not a Christian himself, he has a solid understanding of Christian thought and belief. He also produces the most level-headed and thoughtful discourses on Christianity and religions in general. It is easy to rip apart the rantings of a religious nut case. It is more challenging to find fault with what Dennis Prager says and writes.

Dennis, however, has a huge blind spot in his otherwise rational view of existence when it comes to God and religion. When he sticks to current events or the human condition, his insights can be quite brilliant. He has so managed to compartmentalize his religious views, however, that his maxim of “State the truth first and then give your opinion” can't seem to find a foothold.

Here is his latest example with my comments interspersed. It is his latest article (at the time of this post) entitled "If the Almighty Doesn't Exist" on some sites or "If There Is No God" on others. The article itself is short, but this post is quite long – 9 pages in my word processor – but I wanted to be sure that all of Dennis' words were kept in context, so I present the article in its entirety. Find the original here to verify I have not changed it.

We are constantly reminded about the destructive consequences of religion — intolerance, hatred, division, inquisitions, persecutions of “heretics,” holy wars. Though far from the whole story, they are, nevertheless, true. There have been many awful consequences of religion.

What one almost never hears described are the deleterious consequences of secularism — the terrible developments that have accompanied the breakdown of traditional religion and belief in God. For every thousand students who learn about the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem Witch Trials, maybe two learn to associate Gulag, Auschwitz, The Cultural Revolution and the Cambodian genocide with secular regimes and ideologies.

It is fairly easy to apply the term secular to any belief or even policy that is not explicitly tied to a religion. But is it accurate to do so? This could be the subject of an extensive paper so I won't go into an exhaustive examination of the subject. I would only point out that attempting to tie Nazism to secularism has been a controversial, and not particularly successful, tactic for many years. The Nazis, though not expressly identifying their movement with a particular religion or even religion in general, did not make any effort to distance themselves from religion or from religious thought in general. Apart from their fanatical hatred of Jews (which probably played more of a role of the scapegoat every dictatorship finds necessary to rationalize its excessive behavior), Nazis gave religion neither an ancillary nor subversive role to play in “the effort.”

The Communists, on the other hand, did. Karl Marx had labeled religion as “the opiate of the people,” a powerful sedative to make the people submissive to the rule of the Capitalist masters or any political masters for that matter. There is some truth to this claim, but at best religion is a double-edged sword that can just as readily be used against the ruling power. In fact, he needed to look no further than the American and French revolutions to find imperfect but still quite significant examples of just that. So it could be argued that Marx really saw religion as too corrosive to co-exist with Communism and that was why it had to go. Communism and religion were not so much antithetical as they were competitors.

Either way, Communism was from conception onward explicitly anti-religious. Which is not to say that the Communists simply refrained from using religion to keep their population in check (instead it used fear to do that). The American Founding Fathers also saw the ability of the State to use the power of religion to lock in its power. The solution, however, was not to attempt to destroy religion but to build a wall between State and religion to prevent misuse of religion.

The Communists never made an effort to prevent themselves from using religion to gain and/or retain power. They attempted to wipe it out altogether and the fervor this effort has always been pursued points out that Communists see religion as much more than simply a tool they must prevent themselves from misusing. They saw (and still see) religion as anathema to their goals. They set them as anti-religious (not secular) because they perceived (rightly or wrongly) that religion was competition for the hearts and minds of the populace.

The American Constitutional Republic, on the other hand, is quite deliberately a secular form of government. It does not attempt to forbid religion in all other walks of life, it simple bans its use as a justification for political action. And, outside of present-day American academia, it is generally recognized that the largest source of Good in the world for the last 2 centuries, if not in all of human history, has been the United States of America – history's first true secular State.

For all the problems associated with belief in God, the death of God leads to far more of them.

A fact so far unsupported by the evidence. Let's see if any evidence is forthcoming.

So, while it is not possible to prove (or disprove) God’s existence, what is provable is what happens when people stop believing in God.

Half right. It is not possible to disprove God's existence. It is not possible to disprove the existence of Big Foot, the Loch Ness monster or even the Easter Bunny as anyone with a passing knowledge of Critical Thinking 101 can tell you. Logically speaking, it is perfectly possible to provethe existence of God, Nessy, UFO aliens or any number of seemingly wild claims. Simply provide enough evidence.

1. Without God there is no good and evil; there are only subjective opinions that we then label “good” and “evil.” This does not mean that an atheist cannot be a good person. Nor does it mean that all those who believe in God are good; there are good atheists and there are bad believers in God. It simply means that unless there is a moral authority that transcends humans from which emanates an objective right and wrong, “right” and “wrong” no more objectively exist than do “beautiful” and “ugly.”

An little example of Dennis' patronizing attitude here, acknowledging the fact that there may be “good” atheists. Thank you, Dennis, I sleep better knowing this.

But the claim that Good and Evil are mere points of view without “a moral authority that transcends humans which emanates an objective right and wrong...” is meaningless at all levels of examination. What is so special about morality that we need such a transcendent reference for it when we need no such thing for any other field of study. We require no such thing for mathematics, physics, chemistry or even psychology. We are quite capable of determining objective truths in all other such studies without a supernatural – excuse me, transcendent – standard or authority.

But morality is different, you may say. Well, no, it's not. I am a programmer and I remember a few years ago, reading an article on Artificial Intelligence. The author stated flatly that we would probably never be able to develop an AI that could understand morality or make moral judgments. It just goes to show that many people hold morality as some sort of mystical force that is projected onto us rather than something we learn and develop and come to know from study and evaluation.

A simple question: does morality have a real-world function? That is, does morality have a purpose other than to worship and praise God? Of course it does. That purpose, then, is the objective, non-transcendental basis for moral judgments. In as much as a certain rule or action promotes that purpose, it is a moral good. If it detracts or goes against that purpose, it is a moral evil.

Another simple question: assuming for a moment that there is no God, does Dennis mean to say he could not provide any objective, secular reasons why murder is bad? – or Rape? – or theft? I can. I have no doubt Dennis also could.

The truth is we have an objective standard by which we evaluate the current state of our moral codes, just as we constantly evaluate the current state of all schools of knowledge. Just look at the Bible. The Judeo-Christian morality of today is much different from the morality God taught His people in the Old Testament. Human civilization has advanced since those days. We know more about everything – science, art, literature, life, morality. Some would agree and point to the New Testament, claiming it is an update of the old moral code to bring it up to the then current level of intellectual attainment. When we were ready for a change, God provide us the change. Fine, but that was two thousand years ago and not only have we continued to advance in that time, we now advance at a faster pace. Even the Judeo-Christian moral codes have advanced – without benefit of another upgrade from God. Every moral advancement in the last two thousand years we have done on our own.

“Like what?” some may ask. Take slavery, as one historically recent example. Slavery is now recognized as a preeminent evil even in – or especially in – the Judeo-Christian morality. But can we give God credit for this moral advancement? No. His last pronouncement to the Human Race was two thousand years ago. A quick look at any Biblical concordance will show many entries for “slave” and “slavery.” None condemn the practice. The Old Testament gives rules for the proper practice of slavery just as it gives rules for the proper practice of marriage, eating, worshiping and the million-and-one other aspects of what is to be considered a “good” life. An Israelite cannot own another Israelite as a slave, but having a non-Israelite as a slave is fine and, as could be expected, a non-Israelite may own an Israelite as a slave and there is also a time limit to the period if enslavement. There is nothing about non-Israelite slaves and non-Israelite slave owners. In fact, it is clear that morality as defined in the Bible are intended only for the Israelites. The tone of the Bible gives tacit acknowledgment and endorsement of moral relativism. God apparently was not the least bit concerned with the moral health of anyone outside the Jewish community. In fact, the first big controversy in the budding Christian faith, as recorded by Paul, was whether or not it was allowed to take Christianity into the non-Jewish world.

What happened? Consider the fact that there was very little difference in human society and state of knowledge from the time of Abraham to Moses to David. By the time of Jesus, advancements in knowledge, particularly by the Greeks and Romans, led to a reexamination of Gods laws and there was found...deficiencies. Jesus provided us with the means to update the laws, to move from the letter of the law more to the spirit of the law, from technicalities to outcomes.

Civilization has advanced far more in the two thousand years after Jesus than in the two thousand years before Jesus. The need for moral revisions have come more and more often. But there can be no more Jesuses to provide an excuse for these revisions – for if God gave us the laws, only God can change them. But what to do about such things as slavery? We now know it is intensely evil, but we wait in vain for condemnation from God. Sure, some scriptures were interpreted to provide at least a hint of support. But more was needed.

Ironically, the same advancements in knowledge make another Jesus necessary made another Jesus impossible. It's not just that we are less gullible than the residents of Judea circa year 0. We have much more extensive and accurate means of investigation for claims that anyone may make, including claims of Divinity. There actually have been other Messiahs since Jesus. None have passed our more modern tests.

So we update God's law surreptitiously. We have come up with the idea of “personal revelation” in which God writes (or re-writes, as it were) His laws directly upon our hearts. It is sound logic, as far as religionists are concerned. Only God can determine Right from Wrong. If we know that slavery is wrong (not to mention newer concepts such as War Crimes which would have been totally alien to those living during Biblical times) then that knowledge must have come from God. Since God has not made any public pronouncements recently, He must be telling us individually.

They know this can't be proven, of course. But that is no concern – it also can't be disproven and as far as religionists are concerned, lack of proof is all the proof they need.

2. Without God, there is no objective meaning to life. We are all merely random creations of natural selection whose existence has no more intrinsic purpose or meaning than that of a pebble equally randomly produced.

I am going to cheat a little and bring up a point that Dennis makes at the end of this article, “[This] makes the case for the necessity, not the existence, of God.” In logic, this fallacy is known as “argument from necessity.” In fact, most of this article consists of nothing more than various examples of this fallacy. The basic argument goes like this, “Only God gives life meaning so if there is no God, life has no meaning.” In the more general case, it is circular reasoning.

Dennis did an entire hour of his radio show recently using just this fallacy when he argued for the existence of Hell. “If you don't believe in Hell, then you believe that Hitler, Pol Pot and Mother Theresa all end up in the same place.” If we are speaking objectively here, the existence of Hell or evolution or dark matter is effected not one little bit by what we may believe or not believe or of anything we may desire. Existence is what existence is. Beliefs bend to what is real, not the other way round.

Returning to the specific point, is there objective meaning to life? Not really. In general, the only intrinsic meaning for life is to provide nourishment for other life. God or no God, we humans must give our own lives meaning. God does give Dennis' life meaning. Actually, it is the belief in God that gives Dennis' life meaning, but I'm not going to be the one to break the news to him. His radio show, his writings and his lectures also give his life meaning, as does his family and any hobbies or avocations that he may have.

We must each ultimately decide what gives our life meaning and what meaning that will be. For most people, including myself, it is our work. This is so common that we all seem to realize it of each other. When we meet a stranger, at a party or just in line in a grocery store, and we fall into conversation and start to learn what kind of person he or she is, there is one question that we always ask and we ask it early as it provides the most amount of information about the other person: “What do you do for a living?” If it is a youth, the question may be, “What is your major?” or “What do you want to be when you grow up?” depending on just how young the person is. We may as well be asking, “What meaning have you selected for your life?”

3. Life is ultimately a tragic fare if there is no God. We live, we suffer, we die — some horrifically, many prematurely — and there is only oblivion afterward.

Another textbook example of Argument from Necessity. If there is only oblivion afterward, then our belief (or unbelief) in God will not effect that. Desiring it does not make it true.

4. Human beings need instruction manuals. This is as true for acting morally and wisely as it is for properly flying an airplane. One’s heart is often no better a guide to what is right and wrong than it is to the right and wrong way to fly an airplane. The post-religious secular world claims to need no manual; the heart and reason are sufficient guides to leading a good life and to making a good world.

Correct in the first point, wrong in the second. Yes, we humans need guidance. We are a rational creature and not instinctual. We need food and shelter to survive, as does any creature. But we have no built-in guide to help us as we go about providing for ourselves. That, in fact, is the objective basis for morality. Morality provides the rules we must follow to provide the maximum survivability to the maximum number of people. The heart (and I sincerely hope that everyone realizes this is just a metaphor for emotions) cannot provide accurate guidance for moral behavior. In fact, the emotions respond to what we have already learned and internalized. We have so learned since earliest childhood that cutting in line is “wrong” that we react emotionally when we see it, and even more so when we are a victim of it.

If I were to invite someone into my living room and he were to sit across from me and stretch out his legs with his toes pointing in the air, I wouldn't even notice that the bottoms of his shoes were pointing in my direction. It would be a matter of total indifference to me even if it were pointed out to me. To someone from the Middle East, however, the emotional response, anger at such an insult, would be swift and strong.

The emotions can give us an immediate guide to how to react to rules we have already accepted. They provide no advance guidance to which rules we must accept.

The second point, that the “post-religious secular world claims to need no manual...” is wrong, or, at best, not entirely correct. I do not argue that there is no one who claims that we should be guided by our emotions – a “listen to your heart” kind of romantic nonsense – 'Use the Force, Luke!” Sure these people exist, but they are fools who have little influence on anyone else who are not already fools. But being a card-carrying member of the “secular world” myself, I can assure Dennis that there is no such claim about the heart.

Ah, but Dennis performs a little trick call a “package deal.” He says something that is reasonable and correct but then, when he sums it all up to hand over to us, he sneaks in another concept that would have been objectionable had he mentioned it earlier. Notice, after having rightly stated that the heart cannot be a moral guide, goes on to claim that the “post-religious secular world claims to need no manual; the heart and reason are sufficient guides to leading a good life and to making a good world.”

Well, yes, we do claim reason is sufficient. In fact, reason is the only tool we have in providing “guides for leading a good life and to making a good world.” It was reason that led us to believe that slavery was wrong and that we shouldn't kill non-combatants even in the heat of war. The reasoning was so sound and the arguments so compelling, that even the religionists couldn't argue. They had to make a modification to their doctrine to invent a concept that would allow us to change what God was telling us when we found instances where God was wrong or just silent on the subject.

5. If there is no God, the kindest and most innocent victims of torture and murder have no better a fate after death than do the most cruel torturers and mass murderers. Only if there is a good God do Mother Teresa and Adolf Hitler have different fates.

I already discussed this.

6. With the death of Judeo-Christian values in the West, many Westerners believe in little. That is why secular Western Europe has been unwilling and therefore unable to confront evil, whether it was Communism during the Cold War or Islamic totalitarians in its midst today.

I find it amusing when people such as Dennis refer to Europe as part of the “secular West” when most of Europe still has no concept of the separation of church and state that makes the US such a model of secularism. Dennis' point here makes sense only if you accept the, largely self-identifying, labeling of the Conservative Right as religious and the Liberal Left as secular. But if you concentrate just on Conservative and Liberal, you will find just as much mainstream religion on one side as the other. In fact, I think you will find Mother Theresa more of a idol of the Left than the Right as she personifies the more Liberal ideals of self-sacrifice, service to others, helping the poor is the greatest good, etc.

The Liberal Left are unwilling to identity and confront evil because they are afraid (rightly so, in my opinion) that an accurate moral assessment will not be complementary to their beliefs. So they have adopted what is very much a modern day religious principle. “Who am I to judge, only God can judge other people, etc.” When your arguments lack moral support, attack morality. When your arguments lack rational support, attack reason.

There are religious people on the Right and there are secular people (like me) on the Right. There are religious people on the Left and there are secular people on the Left. There is nothing particularly religious or secular about being too cowardly to face up to evil. The characteristics that Dennis attempts to apply to the “Secular Left” are actually only characteristics of the Left (Liberal) crowd, whether they be identifiably secular or religious.

7. Without God, people in the West often become less, not more, rational. It was largely the secular, not the religious, who believed in the utterly irrational doctrine of Marxism. It was largely the secular, not the religious, who believed that men’s and women’s natures are basically the same, that perceived differences between the sexes are all socially induced. Religious people in Judeo-Christian countries largely confine their irrational beliefs to religious beliefs (theology), while the secular, without religion to enable the non-rational to express itself, end up applying their irrational beliefs to society, where such irrationalities do immense harm.

I think this is the most profoundly silly excuse to put up with religion that I have yet heard. Religion provides an outlet, a “safety valve”, if you will, for any irrational tendencies we may want to express. I really don't think Dennis realizes just how insignificant a role in human affairs this assigns to religion. In order for the statement to be true, religion itself must be no more important than stamp collecting or a preference of Coke over Pepsi. Religion is useful because it channels irrational beliefs out to where it can do us no harm? What an admission!

8. If there is no God, the human being has no free will. He is a robot, whose every action is dictated by genes and environment. Only if one posits human creation by a Creator that transcends genes and environment who implanted the ability to transcend genes and environment can humans have free will.

This is more “facts that are true because we have defined them that way.” Do we have free will? If your answer is “yes” then if I should somehow provide you with absolute proof that God did not exist, would we still have free will or would it suddenly disappear with your realization that there was indeed not a God?

Free will, human dignity, purpose – these all exist completely independent of God.

9. If there is no God, humans and “other” animals are of equal value. Only if one posits that humans, not animals, are created in the image of God do humans have any greater intrinsic sanctity than baboons. This explains the movement among the secularized elite to equate humans and animals.

Humans are special only because they were created in the image of God? Yet another truth by definition. Humans are special because of all the characteristics of humans that make us special. Chimpanzees and jellyfish are special because of all the characteristics of chimpanzees and jellyfish that make them special. However, part of what makes humans special is exactly the characteristics that require us to adopt a moral code to govern our behavior to each other. Chimpanzees and jellyfish have no need of such a moral code and couldn't live by one even if one were provided to them.

Even in a totally secular world, humans and animals are of different value – with humans at the top. One could say we are at the top of the food chain or at the pinnacle of evolution. Or we could just say we are the most valuable because we are the only creatures that even have a concept of value. That being the case, everything has precisely the value we give it. And this is true. Everything in the universe has value only in regard to the value it supplies to humanity (or to any unknown alien on another planet that also has a concept of value).

10. Without God, there is little to inspire people to create inspiring art. That is why contemporary art galleries and museums are filled with “art” that celebrates the scatological, the ugly and the shocking. Compare this art to Michelangelo’s art in the Sistine chapel. The latter elevates the viewer — because Michelangelo believed in something higher than himself and higher than all men.

I'm afraid Dennis is showing us some pretty big blinders here. Some of the most ugly and shocking art in the world is religious in nature. Scenes of Hell, Satan, Demons running wild devouring the souls (and bodies) of The Damned. Such art was meant to be shocking and frightening. That was its purpose.

Yes, an awful lot of contemporary art is just ugly – even worse, it seems to just be ugly for ugliness' sake. Part of it is that it has been chic for some years now to refuse to make judgments concerning art, much the same as refusing to make judgments concerning people's actions. “What is art?” is the question – usually rhetorical, as if there was not an answer – and if we cannot decide what is and is not art, how can we decide what is “good” art and what is “bad” art? Again, this is just a cowardly refusal to render a judgment and that is more a political rather than a religious view.

How about the fact that there is a lot of religious art from the Middle Ages because in the Middle Ages only religion bought art? Don't you think that might have had just a little bit of an effect? Today even the poorest among us are consumers of art of one form or another. So there is a larger market and there are those who attempt to appeal to the “lowest common denominator” or the basest among us. That is the disadvantage of having art so cheap (and the poor so rich) that anyone and everyone influences the market.

But there is also an awful lot of secular art that is uplifting, inspirational (if I may be allowed to use that word) and just downright beautiful. I submit to you The Truman Show, Orinoco Flow, or just about anything by Phillip Glass. I rest my case.

11. Without God nothing is holy. This is definitional. Holiness emanates from a belief in the holy. This explains, for example, the far more widespread acceptance of public cursing in secular society than in religious society. To the religious, there is holy speech and profane speech. In much of secular society the very notion of profane speech is mocked.

Damned right it's definitional. I am secular to the core. I am not an agnostic, I am a devout, born-again atheist. Yet the most “profane” word you will likely ever hear me use is the first word of this paragraph, and even then so sparingly that when I do use it, it accomplishes what such words are meant to accomplish: strong emphasis. The descent of modern speech is also the result of the Liberal rejection of all rules – moral, civil, artistic, what have you – than any requirement or goal of secular society.

In fact, as I hope anyone reading this should realize, there is no requirement or tendency of secularism to reject the civil, the beautiful, or the Good in human society. In fact, the only valid complaint that I can see that the religionists have about secularism is that we study the civil, the beautiful and the Good because we don't believe that such things are simply handed to us. We discuss them and test them and argue about them and finally decide which really fits, which doesn't, and which is superfluous.

This is a continuous process because so much of what is correct is determined by context, which is subject to change. Thus we may realize that there was once a perfectly sound health benefit to refraining from eating pork. Now, with better technology both in the raising and processing of meat, such restrictions are no longer necessary. We can realize that slavery is evil and start acting on that realization without having to wait for confirmation from some “transcendent” authority. And it is certainly nice to be able to call foolish people “fools” without fear of damnation and hellfire!

12. Without God, humanist hubris is almost inevitable. If there is nothing higher than man, no Supreme Being, man becomes the supreme being.

I, on the other hand, could well argue that, assuming we are the most supreme being so far in existence, and all indications seem to support this, then we should acknowledge that fact so we can start taking the responsibility that comes with such a position. If we realize we are the sole definers of morality, then we will realize that we have to work hard at getting it right, correct any mistakes as soon as we can (slavery) and adjust it when conditions warrant it (pork).

When all of us realize that it is we and we alone who are responsible for the “human condition,” it is we and we alone who are to blame for travesties, then we will work all the harder to get it right. Human history is full of tragedy but it is also a record of gradual improvement of everything we control. When we fully take control of ourselves, we ourselves will join that relentless march to betterment.

13. Without God, there are no inalienable human rights. Evolution confers no rights. Molecules confer no rights. Energy has no moral concerns. That is why America’s Founders wrote in the Declaration of Independence that we are endowed “by our Creator” with certain inalienable rights. Rights depend upon a moral source, a rights giver.

This is the most specious argument among all the arguments of religionists. Religion has been around since...well, since day one as far as we know. But the first real achievement of “human rights” was achieved precisely when we removed God from the political arena. I am well aware of all the references to God that can be found in the writings of the Founding Fathers. I am also well aware, based on their actions which, after all, speak much louder, that when it came to running a country, they had absolutely no trust in God whatsoever. The slogan “In God We Trust” was a much later addition to the national narrative. It would be more historically accurate to print “In God We Have Never Trusted” on all our money.

14. ”Without God,” Dostoevsky famously wrote, “all is permitted.” There has been plenty of evil committed by believers in God, but the widespread cruelties and the sheer number of innocents murdered by secular regimes — specifically Nazi, Fascist and Communist regimes — dwarfs the evil done in the name of religion.

Even assuming that the Nazi, Fascist and Communists were indeed secular, I think the Islamists have shown us that the disparity in body count was simply a matter of technology. We can do anything more efficiently today than was possible hundreds of years ago – including killing.

Another lesson from the Islamists that should be learned: neither religious societies nor secular societies have a monopoly on good or evil. Both societies will produce good people who will do good things and evil people who will do evil things. However, it is only religion that can get good people to willingly do evil things.

As noted at the beginning, none of this proves, or even necessarily argues for, God’s existence. It makes the case for the necessity, not the existence, of God.

A bit of “argument from necessity” as well as circular reasoning. If every Good Thing is defined in relation to God, then God becomes necessary for any Good Thing. But God is not necessary.

It has often been quoted that 90-95% of Americans believe in God. I live and work here. I know lots of people and can watch many more as they go about their public lives. I see very few people who allow God to play a role in their lives of any significance at all. So it must be that when they are asked, “Do you believe in God?” they answer, “Yeah, sure.” Why not? It costs nothing to answer in the affirmative. And who knows, maybe Pascal was onto something with his famous wager. So go ahead and give the right answer in case there turns out to be a God after all.

But actions not only speak louder than words, they speak truer than words. When you look at the actions of Americans, you realize that America is really and truly a secular society. This is praise, not criticism. We make the occasional polite nod in God's direction, but we go about our lives as if we alone are responsible. We question everything and go where the evidence leads us. If that evidence leads us to decide that slavery is evil, then by golly slavery is evil and God had best fall in line. At some level, I think a good many Americans have decided that if God can't be trusted to run the Peoples lives, He can't be trusted to run a person's life.

Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition. God helps those who help themselves. Two expressions that are not to be found in any scriptural writings, but which express the view that God may be nice to have around but for anything really important we're on our own.

Some people would argue with me, pointing out that there are an ever increasing number of Americans that expressly do not take responsibility for their own lives. They live quiet, purposeless lives on welfare, assuming that any needs they may have will be met – by someone, eventually. Yes, sadly that is true. But it is still a small minority of Americans, and we seem to have reached the peak in this trend – at least for the moment. We just have to keep overpowering the siren song of the Liberal culture, seducing our people for the sake of their own power.

“Which God?” the secularist will ask. The God of Israel, the God of America’s founders, “the Holy God who is made holy by justice” (Isaiah), the God of the Ten Commandments, the God who demands love of neighbor, the God who endows all human beings with certain inalienable rights, the God who is cited on the Liberty Bell because he is the author of liberty. That is the God being referred to here, without whom we will be vanquished by those who believe in less noble gods, both secular and divine.

Nonsense. Unless the religionists are willing to concede that the Declaration of Independence was divinely inspired, we have no reference of God granting any rights to Man, inalienable or otherwise or of showing any concern for the rights of anyone. Certainly, judging by His actions as “documented” in the OT, God seems to have no concept of human rights whatsoever. There is also no scriptural reference showing that God is the “author of liberty.” These are empty accolades. No religionist argues with them because all religionists readily accept any good thing said about God, whether there is any scriptural evidence or not – whether there is scriptural evidence to the contrary or not.

A few years ago, I was listening to a local conservative radio program when the host was talking about the plight of some poor people. He said, "I'm just Liberal enough to be concerned about them."

That was when it struck me, the Liberal-Left owns the word "compassion." And apparently, they own it just by the simple act of claiming it. I look around for actual acts of compassion from the LL and I am hard pressed to point any out. I ask LL people to show me examples of LL "compassion" and I get a list of causes, benefits and events that have been held to "raise awareness." Government programs -- even working to raise taxes, or preventing them from being lowered, is given as examples of LL compassion for the poor.

But who did any of these actually help and how did it help them? This question receives murkier answers when it gets answered at all. Many times the only answer is, "So all you want is for the rich to keep getting richer and to hell with the poor!"

The Liberal-Left are more compassionate to the poor, the downtrodden and the oppressed minorities (there are no other kind) then the rest of us. How do we know? Because they say so. They own the word.

I can't really blame the LL. So they try to be like Humpty-Dumpty and exercise strict control over the definition of the words they use. What is frustrating is when people on the Right accept their definition. That leads to such travesties of language as the phrase, "Compassionate Conservative." What does "Compassionate Conservative" mean? It means, "You're right. We are cold, heartless, ruthless cads and we should work to win your approval. After all, you own the word."

Another word the Liberal-Left seem to own is "fair." Consider:

Situation 1: The top 1% of wage earners earn something in the neighborhood of 19% of all wages earned.

Is that fair?

Situation 2: The top 1% of wage earners pay something in the neighborhood of 35% of income taxes collected by the government.

Is that fair?

Situation 3: The rich man and the poor man walk into a corner donut shop and each buy a cup of coffee and a donut. They are both charged the same price.

Is that fair?

Using the first definition from Dictionary.com ("free from bias, dishonesty, or injustice") I would have to say that Situation 3 is fair and Situation 2 is unfair. What about Situation 1? I'm sorry if I hurt anyone's feelings but... fair just doesn't apply to Situation 1. We go out and earn what we do based on any number of factors: talent, skill, education, drive and ambition, personal preferences. You may be currently earning less than you really want. There is nothing intrinsically unfair about that. You, me, almost everyone knows what we have to do to earn a higher income: work harder, take some night classes, advance our skill level and/or learn new skills. All this, of course, takes time and effort. Most of us just aren't willing to trade the time away from our friends and family, or the TV and the suds, to make ourselves more marketable.

There is nothing wrong with that. Everything involves a trade-off and we each draw the line somewhere between earning more money and enjoying the life we have at our current income level.

But it's just not, um, fair to complain about those who make other decisions.

Another unfairness is to try to punish those who make other decisions (less free time, more time earning money). It has risen to a kind of national pastime. The LL defines unfair as someone having more than someone else and fair as being allowed to take from someone who earns more to give to someone who earns less. It's interesting that they define greed as wanting to  keep what is yours. They don't see wanting to take what is not yours as greed. How could anyone, in the light of Situation 2 described above, go around claiming that "the rich" don't pay their fair share? I want to ask those people to define "fair." I now look askance at any use of the word in a political context.

Now enter the "Fair Tax." The fact that it is coming from the right rather than the left doesn't keep me from getting my guard up. Sure enough, this is a "fair" tax only when you accept the LL definition of the word. That is, fair means higher taxes for the "rich" and little or no taxes for the "poor". (The words "rich" and "poor" are quoted because they are also terms that have been taken over by the LL and so mean just what they want them to mean when they want them to mean it.)

One of the first absurdities about the law is the fact that each American family would receive monthly checks from the federal government. This, the claim goes, is to balance out the "regressive" nature of the tax. The poor, you see, spend a larger percentage of their income on basic necessities and -- according to the LL definition of the word -- it's just not fair that the poor should pay taxes on basic necessities.

Why not? Sure, if we only taxed basic necessities, the poor would be paying a larger percentage of their income in taxes because most of their spending is in that category. But this isn't just a tax on basic necessities. It is a tax on everything. Using a tax rate of 10% as an example (to stay out of the "embedded" argument  -- I get it, I don't like the fact that you're playing with words just like the Left does, but I get it.) then if a poor family uses 90% of its income for basic necessities and 10% on luxuries while a rich family uses only 25% of its income for basic necessities and 75% on luxuries, then they both are taxed at the 10% rate. That is because the tax is not collected just for basic necessities. Even the luxuries are taxed so the rich pay there also.

This will be called "unfair." How so? Well, the rich can afford to pay higher taxes. Yeah, but what does that have to do with being fair or unfair?

Well, the rich don't spend all their income. They save some and that won't be taxed. Yeah, but the poor can also save. Believe me, I've been poor. Actually, I'm just months into the "no longer poor" category. The poor can save also. Actually, the poor should save as much as they can. It is one of the surest ways of getting un-poor.

But even accepting for a moment that the poor shouldn't be taxed as much as the rich, that still doesn't explain the monthly checks. Why not just tax basic necessities at a lower rate? Many states already exempt food, rent, medical care and medicines (prescription and OTC) from sales taxes. If the "fair" tax exempted spending in those categories from its tax, the effect would be the same. The regressive effect of the tax would be eliminated. No monthly checks, no huge bureaucracy in charge of sending out the checks -- and in charge of determining by some arbitrary set of rules, the size of each check. Talk about power!

No, that would be unacceptable. Why? Because it would give a simple but precise definition to the concept of "fair" and nail down that definition making it impossible to change at a whim. It would seem that even the Right wants to reserve to itself the ability to define "fair" and amend the definition (and the size of the checks) whenever it feels the need. Of course, this would only be done in the name of "compassion!"

I'm an atheist -- once a born-again Christian -- and Dennis Prager is my favorite radio talk-show host. Though, of course, I disagree with much of what he believes, he still maintains the highest intellectual level of any other show and has brilliant insights on moral and social issues. (I can't listen to, for example, people like Michael Savage. That's when I turn to the music channels.)

In this article, Dennis poses his question about 10 men approaching you in a dark alley. I've heard Dennis pose this question several times on his show. My response is that, yes, I would feel relieved. Why? Because Bible-believers are less likely to turn violent than non-believers? Absolutely not. History argues against that. But they do put on a public appearance of morality. For each of the believers in the group, the other nine constitute an audience. Believers are much less likely to misbehave in front of an audience. If I saw one lone man coming toward me in the dark, knowing he had just come from a Bible study would not allay my fears in the least.

In thinking more about it, I also thought that I would be relieved to know the ten men were coming from a Chess club meeting, a bowling tournament, a library book reading, or just about any organized activity. Just knowing they were not roaming the streets looking for some "action" would be a relief. I was thoroughly disappointed to read Dennis' response to a similar answer. The odds of meeting these other people in the real world has what to do with this particular hypothetical scenario? Dennis' response was more of an evasion than that answer.

Actually, Dennis should probably table that particular question. He himself emphasizes that he is talking about an American city and that by saying a Bible study (rather than a "prayer meeting") he means that the men are either Jews or Christians. His point is that the Judeo-Christian religion(s) as practiced in the US of today has a recognizably high moral standard.

OK, let's concede that point for a moment. But these religions, as practiced today in the US, are far more secular in nature than practiced in just about any other part of the world or in just about any point in history. Just how does this support Dennis' premise?

I'm an Objectivist (a philosophy advanced by Ayn Rand -- Atheistic in nature with a highly defined morality). If I could, I would ask Dennis to consider the same scenario but with ten Objectivists walking toward him. I would be hard pressed to imagine him (or any gay/black/whatever) in a safer situation. I just wonder if he recognizes that.