Is Rahman Fit For Trial?

The Chicago Tribune is reporting that a mental illness determination is currently being made.

An Afghan man facing a possible death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity may be mentally unfit to stand trial, a state prosecutor said Wednesday.

Abdul Rahman, 41, has been charged with rejecting Islam, a crime under this country’s Islamic laws. His trial started last week and he confessed to becoming a Christian 16 years ago. If convicted, he could be executed.

But prosecutor Sarinwal Zamari said questions have been raised about his mental fitness.

“We think he could be mad. He is not a normal person. He doesn’t talk like a normal person,” he told The Associated Press.

Moayuddin Baluch, a religious adviser to President Hamid Karzai, said Rahman would undergo a psychological examination.

“Doctors must examine him,” he said. “If he is mentally unfit, definitely Islam has no claim to punish him. He must be forgiven. The case must be dropped.”

It was not immediately clear when he would be examined or when the trial would resume. Authorities have barred attempts by the AP to see Rahman and he is not believed to have a lawyer.

A Western diplomat in Kabul and a human rights advocate — both of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter — said the government was desperately searching for a way to drop the case because of the reaction it has caused.

The United States, Britain and other countries that have troops in Afghanistan have voiced concern about Rahman’s fate.

Charles Colson on Rahman

Charles Colson has interesting commentary on the Rahman situation in his BreakPoint commentary.

The irony is inescapable: This is the country that we rid of the Taliban because of its religious oppression. This is the country in which we have spent at least $70 billion to establish a free democratic government. This is the country whose freedom cost us three hundred American lives and eight hundred casualties. And this is the country that is preparing to execute a man for becoming a Christian after he witnessed other Christians caring for his countrymen.

Is this the fruit of democracy? Is this why we have shed American blood and invested American treasure to set a people free? What have we accomplished for overthrowing the Taliban? This is the kind of thing we would expect from the Taliban, not from President Karzai and his freely elected democratic government.

I have supported the Bush administration’s foreign policy because I came to believe that the best way to stop Islamo-fascism was by promoting democracy. But if we can’t guarantee fundamental religious freedoms in the countries where we establish democratic reforms, then the whole credibility of our foreign policy is thrown into serious question. I hope the president and the administration can recognize what a devastating setback Rahman’s execution would be to the cause of democracy and freedom.

Gay Rabbis?

The Washington Post is reporting that conservative Jews are determining whether they should ordain gay rabbis, as the gay rights movement continues to corrupt religion.

A bid to lift a ban on gay rabbis and same-sex unions is posing a challenge for Conservative rabbis whose U.S.-based world movement prides itself on balancing Jewish tradition with modernity.

Conservative rabbis meeting in Mexico City this week say it is no easy task for a group that once dominated American Judaism but in 15 years has been overtaken by the more liberal Reform movement as the biggest in the United States.

“One doesn’t easily overturn thousands of years of tradition,” Kenneth Cohen, a rabbi to students at American University in Washington, D.C., said at the meeting in Mexico.

But the rabbi said that, like most of his constituents, he favored lifting the ban. “Judaism never has existed in a vacuum,” he said. “‘Halakha’ — Jewish law — is the application of Jewish values to real life.”

The last time the movement considered the homosexuality issue, in 1992, it said gays and lesbians would be welcome in the movement but it barred gay behavior, ordination, membership in the Rabbinical Assembly and same-sex commitment ceremonies.

A growing number of Conservative rabbis have voiced support for lifting the ban. They say homosexuals want to come out of the closet, be ordained at rabbinical schools and receive religious blessings the same as heterosexual couples.

Free Abdur Rahman!

The Washington Post has a new report today on this convert to Christianity who is facing the death penalty in Afghanistan. 

KABUL — Under mounting international pressure over the case of a man facing the death penalty for converting to Christianity, Afghanistan said on Wednesday the judiciary would decide the case.

An Afghan judge said this week a man named Abdur Rahman had been jailed for converting from Islam to Christianity and could face the death penalty if he refused to become a Muslim again.

Sharia, or Islamic law, stipulates death for apostasy. Afghanistan's legal system is based on a mixture of civil and sharia law.

"We in Afghanistan have the prosecutor who observes the law and the court that executes it. Whatever the court orders will be executed as the court is independent," said Mahaiuddin Baluch, an adviser on religious affairs to President Hamid Karzai.

The case has raised alarm overseas and the United States and three other NATO allies with troops in Afghanistan on Tuesday urged respect for religious freedom.

Federal Grants

The Washington Post is reporting today that the Bush Administration has been effective at directing federal grants towards organizations that are political allies of the administration.

For years, conservatives have complained about what they saw as the liberal tilt of federal grant money. Taxpayer funds went to abortion rights groups such as Planned Parenthood to promote birth control, and groups closely aligned with the AFL-CIO got Labor Department grants to run worker-training programs.

In the Bush administration, conservatives are discovering that turnabout is fair play: Millions of dollars in taxpayer funds have flowed to groups that support President Bush’s agenda on abortion and other social issues.

Under the auspices of its religion-based initiatives and other federal programs, the administration has funneled at least $157 million in grants to organizations run by political and ideological allies, according to federal grant documents and interviews.

An example is Heritage Community Services in Charleston, S.C. A decade ago, Heritage was a tiny organization with deeply conservative social philosophy but not much muscle to promote it. An offshoot of an antiabortion pregnancy crisis center, Heritage promoted abstinence education at the county fair, local schools and the local Navy base. The budget was $51,288.

By 2004, Heritage Community Services had become a major player in the booming business of abstinence education. Its budget passed $3 million — much of it in federal grants distributed by Bush’s Department of Health and Human Services — supporting programs for students in middle school and high school in South Carolina, Georgia and Kentucky.

A Loving Designer

The Guardian, a UK newspaper, is reporting that the Bishop of Canterbury has come out in opposition to teaching creationism in schools.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has stepped into the controversy between religious fundamentalists and scientists by saying that he does not believe that creationism – the Bible-based account of the origins of the world – should be taught in schools.
Giving his first, wide-ranging, interview at Lambeth Palace, the archbishop was emphatic in his criticism of creationism being taught in the classroom, as is happening in two city academies founded by the evangelical Christian businessman Sir Peter Vardy and several other schools.
"I think creationism is … a kind of category mistake, as if the Bible were a theory like other theories … if creationism is presented as a stark alternative theory alongside other theories I think there's just been a jarring of categories … My worry is creationism can end up reducing the doctrine of creation rather than enhancing it," he said.

This argument expressed by the Archbishop is not really well explained. However, I think he believes that teaching creation science is a category error because it is somehow mixing religion with science. The category error is in reality made by the Archbishop. He artificially creates separate categories where separate categories should not exist. Both science and religion offer knowledge about reality, and they offer knowledge about only one reality, which is the reality that is. It would violate the law of non-contradiction to believe in two conflicting conceptions of reality since something cannot both be and not be at the same time.

Additionally, the theory of evolution is theologically inconsistent with the Christian view of God. One of the most important elements of the Genesis creation account is not just that it records how the world was created, it is that God created the world through very specific means that reveals to us what kind of God he is. First, the Biblical creation account is an intentional attempt to demonstrate God's power since Genesis says that He spoke the world into being. (Genesis 1) Although, God could have brought the world into being through a very slow evolutionary process, it would really have been a wimpy God’s method of accomplishing the creation of the world.

Second, the creation account intentionally conveys two aspects of God's nature, which are his transcendence and his immanence. It demonstrates his transcendence since it shows that He is separate from the creation and He spoke the universe into being. (Genesis 1) It also demonstrates his immanence because he breathed the breath of life into Adam and formed Eve with his hands. (Genesis 2) The evolutionary account is how a deistic God that is just transcendent would accomplish the creation of the world. He would just create a big bang and let everything else happen on its own since he does not intervene in the affairs of the world. Although, the Christian God is transcendent, he is also immanently involved in human affairs because he loves us. This immanent element of God’s nature is lost if Adam is not created as he created Adam by breathing the breath of life into Adam in order to demonstrate his special relationship with human beings. (Genesis 2)

Third, the whole concept of survival of the fittest that would bring about the existence of human beings is inconsistent with the Christian view of God since it would use death and destruction of the weak in order to produce the human species. This means of creating human beings is also explicitly inconsistent with the world that existed before the sin condition since animals were not predatory prior to the fall. Animals killing each other was a product of the fall since Isaiah says that animals will no longer eat each other when God establishes his Kingdom. (Isaiah 11) Therefore, the means of creating human beings in the evolutionary process is clearly contrary to the pre-fall world that Genesis describes.

1 John 4:8 tells us that "God is love." There are two competing narratives at issue here with two different mechanisms for creating the world. If there was an omnipotent loving God, which way would that God create the universe? It seems clear that the evolutionary narrative is neither a narrative of power nor a narrative of love. It is a narrative of a distant, weak, and uncaring god.

(Posted by Trask)

Love and SUV’s

The New York Times is reporting that people are dumping their SUV's because of stigma. It is good that people are choosing to buy smaller cars, but love is a better motive than stigma. Buying a smaller car conserves resources, and it is something that one can do out of love for God since it is good for the environment that He created. It is also something that you can do out of love for your neighbor since overusing resources will eventually negatively impact other people.

For Janna Jensen, it was the dirty looks and nasty gestures from other drivers that finally persuaded her to give up the family's $55,000 Hummer H2. Her husband, Michael, meanwhile, was tired of the $300 monthly gasoline cost and the quality problems that began soon after they bought it.

So the Jensens of Reno, Nev., dumped the sport utility vehicle this year for a more modest Honda Element, still an S.U.V. but one with better gasoline mileage and a lower profile than the H2. And they are not alone.

Luxury sport utilities are becoming decidedly less cool than just three years ago, when they were the hottest things on wheels and dealers had long waiting lists for the most popular models.

On top of the sales drop that has hurt all sport utilities, fewer than half the people who bought luxury S.U.V.'s are going back for another one. Incentives for the vehicles are at record levels and for the first time, luxury automakers are paying out more for rebates and lease deals to entice consumers to buy luxury S.U.V.'s than to buy cars.

The higher cost of gasoline plays a big role, as it has for the last year of high oil prices. But wealthy buyers, who used to shrug off the expense, are shifting gears, as excessive energy consumption is becoming socially embarrassing.

(Posted by Trask)

Geopolitical Love

Although love in international politics is distant from Agape love, it is still very interesting. Foreign Policy has a summary on its website of the love that various nations have for each other. It definitely shows the price that the War on Iraq has exacted on the love of other countries for the United States. Regardless of whether you believe the war on Iraq is a good war, it has unquestionably been a very costly war.

Agape Love in Psalm 103 . . .

Praise the LORD, my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.

Praise the LORD, my soul,
and forget not all his benefits—

who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,

who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,

who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

The LORD works righteousness
and justice for all the oppressed.

He made known his ways to Moses,
his deeds to the people of Israel:

The LORD is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love.

He will not always accuse,
nor will he harbor his anger forever;

he does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;

as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

As a father has compassion on his children,
so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;

for he knows how we are formed,
he remembers that we are dust.

As for mortals, their days are like grass,
they flourish like a flower of the field;

the wind blows over it and it is gone,
and its place remembers it no more.

But from everlasting to everlasting
the LORD’s love is with those who fear him,
and his righteousness with their children’s children—

with those who keep his covenant
and remember to obey his precepts.

The LORD has established his throne in heaven,
and his kingdom rules over all.

Praise the LORD, you his angels,
you mighty ones who do his bidding,
who obey his word.

Praise the LORD, all his heavenly hosts,
you his servants who do his will.

Praise the LORD, all his works
everywhere in his dominion.
Praise the LORD, my soul.

(Posted by Trask)

A Theory of the Traditional Family

An article by Phillip Longman in Foreign Policy has a very fascinating and well researched theoretical examination of the history of the traditional family. 

[F]or more than a generation now, well-fed, healthy, peaceful populations around the world have been producing too few children to avoid population decline. That is true even though dramatic improvements in infant and child mortality mean that far fewer children are needed today (only about 2.1 per woman in modern societies) to avoid population loss. Birthrates are falling far below replacement levels in one country after the next—from China, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea, to Canada, the Caribbean, all of Europe, Russia, and even parts of the Middle East.

. . .

Throughout the broad sweep of human history, there are many examples of people, or classes of people, who chose to avoid the costs of parenthood. Indeed, falling fertility is a recurring tendency of human civilization. Why then did humans not become extinct long ago? The short answer is patriarchy.

Patriarchy does not simply mean that men rule. Indeed, it is a particular value system that not only requires men to marry but to marry a woman of proper station. It competes with many other male visions of the good life, and for that reason alone is prone to come in cycles. Yet before it degenerates, it is a cultural regime that serves to keep birthrates high among the affluent, while also maximizing parents’ investments in their children. No advanced civilization has yet learned how to endure without it. Through a process of cultural evolution, societies that adopted this particular social system—which involves far more than simple male domination—maximized their population and therefore their power, whereas those that didn’t were either overrun or absorbed. This cycle in human history may be obnoxious to the enlightened, but it is set to make a comeback.

Declining birthrates also change national temperament. In the United States, for example, the percentage of women born in the late 1930s who remained childless was near 10 percent. By comparison, nearly 20 percent of women born in the late 1950s are reaching the end of their reproductive lives without having had children. The greatly expanded childless segment of contemporary society, whose members are drawn disproportionately from the feminist and countercultural movements of the 1960s and 70s, will leave no genetic legacy. Nor will their emotional or psychological influence on the next generation compare with that of their parents.

. . .

This dynamic helps explain, for example, the gradual drift of American culture away from secular individualism and toward religious fundamentalism. Among states that voted for President George W. Bush in 2004, fertility rates are 12 percent higher than in states that voted for Sen. John Kerry. It may also help to explain the increasing popular resistance among rank-and-file Europeans to such crown jewels of secular liberalism as the European Union. It turns out that Europeans who are most likely to identify themselves as “world citizens” are also those least likely to have children.

Does this mean that today’s enlightened but slow-breeding societies face extinction? Probably not, but only because they face a dramatic, demographically driven transformation of their cultures. As has happened many times before in history, it is a transformation that occurs as secular and libertarian elements in society fail to reproduce, and as people adhering to more traditional, patriarchal values inherit society by default.

At least as long ago as ancient Greek and Roman times, many sophisticated members of society concluded that investing in children brought no advantage. Rather, children came to be seen as a costly impediment to self-fulfillment and worldly achievement. But, though these attitudes led to the extinction of many individual families, they did not lead to the extinction of society as a whole. Instead, through a process of cultural evolution, a set of values and norms that can roughly be described as patriarchy reemerged.

(Posted by Trask)

China and the Geopolitical Consequences of Legalized Abortion

Foreign Policy has an article on The Politics of Sexual Frustration.

Asia has too many boys. They can’t find wives, but they just might find extreme nationalism instead. It’s a dangerous imbalance for a region already On edge.

The lost boys of Prof. Albert Macovski are upon us. Twenty years ago, the ultrasound scanning machine came into widespread use in Asia. The invention of Macovski, a Stanford University researcher, the device quickly gave pregnant women a cheap and readily available means to determine the sex of their unborn children. The results, by the million, are now coming to maturity in Bangladesh, China, India, and Taiwan. By choosing to give birth to males-and to abort females-millions of Asian parents have propelled the region into an extraordinary experiment in the social effects of gender imbalance.
. . .
Now there are too few wenches. Thanks in large part to the introduction of the ultrasound machine, Mother Nature’s usual preference for about 105 males to 100 females has grown to around 120 male births for every 100 female births in China. . . .

China, India, and other nations have outlawed the use of prenatal diagnostic techniques to select the sex of an unborn child. But bribery and human ingenuity have made it easy for prospective parents to skirt the law; a suitably compensated ultrasound technician need only smile or frown at the expectant mother.

Many of the excess boys will be poor and rootless, a lumpenproletariat without the consolations of sexual partners and family. Prostitution, sex tourism, and homosexuality may ease their immediate urges, but Asian societies are witnessing far more dramatic solutions. Women now risk being kidnapped and forced not only into prostitution but wedlock. Chinese police statistics recorded 65,236 arrests for female trafficking in 1990-91 alone. Updated numbers are hard to come by, but it’s apparent that the problem remains severe. . . .

Understanding the effect of the testosterone overload may be most important in China, the rising Asian superpower. . . . Beijing expects that it may have as many as 40 million frustrated bachelors by 2020. The regime, always nervous about social control, fears that they might generate social and political instability.

Brigham Young University political scientist Valerie Hudson-the leading scholar on the phenomenon of male overpopulation in Asia-sees historical evidence for these concerns. In 19th-century northern China, drought, famine, and locust invasions apparently provoked a rash of female infanticide. According to Hudson, the region reached a ratio of 129 men to every 100 women. Roving young men organized themselves into bandit gangs, built forts, and eventually came to rule an area of some 6 million people in what was known as the Nien Rebellion. No modern-day rebellion appears to be on the horizon, but China watchers are already seeing signs of growing criminality.

China is a nation on the brink of internal disintegration. The fears of external military aggression are not the real issue. China may suffer such extreme internal chaos from this gender imbalance that mounting a military campaign will not even be a possibility for China. According to the predictions, 40 million men in China will not have wives to meet their sexual needs. This is the type of path that China could be headed down. There will be a huge demand for women because they will be a very scarce resource. Most of the men at the bottom of the economic latter will not be able to afford to purchase women. As a result, there will be legal prostitution in China on a scale that has never existed in any other nation, and there will be widespread sexual conduct with many sexual partners of any sex or species. These two factors will produce death from sexually transmitted diseases on a scale that makes Africa’s problems seem insignificant. Since the poor in China will be the people that cannot afford the women, the combination of their sexual frustration and their economic plight could produce massive revolutions, uprisings, and civil wars within China. There will be gangs of men who travel around China kidnapping and raping any women that they can find. All of the economic progress that China has made will come to an instant standstill because of the internal chaos. That economic standstill will then produce even more internal war and chaos until it becomes unrecognizable as a nation. Hundreds of millions of people could easily die from the internal chaos in China. There is also a strong possibility that this internal chaos could spill over into surrounding nations like North Korea, India, and Pakistan creating instability in those nations. With all of the nuclear weapons that exist in these nations, it is possible that a nuclear device could be detonated, which could lead to a nuclear exchange on the Asian continent.

There is no way to know for sure what will happen because there are so many variables in play, but the idea that at least some of this type of scenario might happen does not seem at all improbable when one evaluates the norms of human behavior. Whatever consequences that result from the gender imbalance will be caused completely by China’s abortion policies. The abortion policies in China are the singular cause of the gender imbalance. Whenever a society gives people unlimited reproductive freedom, outcomes like this will be the result. Most people generally do not see much danger in unlimited reproductive autonomy because they assume that all of the decisions will be individual decisions that are made in a vacuum, but this is not the case. Cultural factors influence the individual outcomes that people reach. In China, the cultural preference for male babies over female babies combined with the unlimited right to abortion has produced a gender imbalance that could threaten the future of the Asian continent. Individual decisions can have broader consequences for society and can even have geopolitical risks as the situation in China aptly demonstrates.

(Posted by Trask)