THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

DISSECTING HUMANS USED TO BE BANNED IN THE NAME OF THE BIBLE | 2002-01-05

The creed I was raised on declared my belief in "the resurrection of the body." The Bible refers to the body as the temple of the soul. So for centuries, no matter how desperately medical science might have needed to dissect actual bodies, no one in a Christian country was allowed to do it.

If you look at the depiction of Death in many medieval manuscripts, you will see the results of this ban on dissection. Death was represented as a skeleton, and the skeletons were totally wrong when it came to the hipbones. Neither artists nor doctors had seen real human hipbones, so the picture they had of them were the ones doctors went by.

Can you imagine what effect this crazy idea of the hipbones had on the delivery of babies?

Dissecting human bodies was outlawed throughout most of Christendom until the late nineteenth century. But in the last half of the nineteenth century, all the screaming Bible-thumpers suddenly forgot they had ever opposed human dissection.

The timing was no accident. Medicine made giant leaps forward in the late nineteenth century, and people began to hope that their diseases would be cured by the new science.

Christians began to use the cross as their symbol, but only after they no longer saw that horrible instrument in use. Christians stopped using the Bible to ban dissection when the benefits of medical science became obvious.

In 1800, almost every preacher demanded the outlawing of human dissection. By 1900, almost every preacher advocated human dissection. But the Bible had not changed.

WE DON'T OWE THE IRAQIS OR THE ISRAELIS A DAMNED THING | 2002-09-21

First we hear the Administration arguing that we need to go into Iraq because Saddam Hussein is developing weapons of mass destruction.

But, after an impassioned talk about the immediate danger of the mass murder of Americans by Saddam, we then get a lecture about what we owe Iraq. After invading Iraq to remove the clear and present danger Saddam Hussein poses, our troops have to stay there until we give Iraq a stable democracy.

Nobody asks what one has to do with the other. Why do we owe Iraq a democracy in return for their threatening to murder us? As always, you will only see that question asked here.

"The road to peace in the Middle East peace lies through Baghdad." When I heard that said, my ears pricked up. "Middle East peace," when the media or respectable conservatives use the term, always means peace for Israel.

I do not want American troops dying for Israel. I do not want American troops staying in Iraq to make the world safe for Israel.

I brought up the danger of mass terrorism long before anybody else was concerned about it. See November 21, 1998 - SUPERTERRORISM, repeated September 11, 2001. But I am also very, very watchful about anybody using terrorism as an excuse to get Israeli lobby support.

If the objective is to destroy the Iraqi threat of weapons of mass destruction, that is one argument for invasion that has a clear objective. But the second they start talking about "our responsibility in Iraq," I say forget it. The only reason Bush says we have for a military interest in Iraq is because they are a threat to our lives.

Everybody but me seems to agree that, because they threatened our lives, we owe the Iraqis a stable government and a democracy.

It should be a warning to you that this is the only place you will find any objection to that nonsense.

WORDISM: THIS "BOTH SIDES" CRAP IS A MAJOR INDUSTRY | nationalsalvation.net

Tongue firmly in cheeck, Joe wrote the following:

Could it be that there is a conspiracy to not look at a Whitakerism? If a Whitakerism is so overwhelmingly frightening to those who dare not look at it or those who would hide it from others, could there be an ongoing conspiracy to suppress all the Whitakerisms that could possibly come to light? Why would anyone want to bury any Whitakerism? More especially, if Whitakerisms are potentially helpful to mankind in a world-shattering sort of way, what sort of diabolical entity would organize to bury the entire bag of Whitakerisms? Whitakerisms are either good or not good. If they are good, only badness could oppose them. That's the way it is. That's the law of the West. There is no neutral ground. Whitakerisms are either good or not good. What do you think, world? Anybody got any questions? Make them to the point.

Comment by joe rorke

MY REPLY:

I am going to do a program on this point.

As usual, the answer to this question is a Whitakerism:

The reason no one looks at Whitakerisms is because those who control opinion make a LIVING at it. How long do you think the liberal or respectable conservative commentator would last if he had to face a few Whitakerisms?

Look at O'Reilly's constant revelations about left-wing academia. He keeps saying he can't understand it. What if he simply faced the fact that social science IS leftism, that what we call "nurture" is exactly what social scientists SELL for a living?

O'Reilly seldom says anything a Whitakerism wouldn't explain. It would be a little hard on him if he announced the Whitakerism and said, "Well, that kills my hour program this time."

As I have said so often, how long would the average liberal-respectable conservative "both sides" dialogue last if conservatives laughed at liberal inanities?

What if in the midst of an earnest talk show, someone said to a Liberal Intellectual, "Look, the last fourteen proposals you made were disasters. Why should we listen to THIS one?

Remember, this "both sides" crap is a major INDUSTRY.

WE CAN LEARN FROM EUROPEAN HATRED OR WE CAN DO WHAT WE ALWAYS DO | 2003-06-14

So how will Fashionable Opinion keep Americans from learning anything?

All Fashionable Opinion has to say is that you're not a real grownup if you resent European insults. That always works.

Let bygones be bygones, the commentators will tell us.

Soon we'll be back to normal. Everybody will be spitting in our faces and we'll be to cheering wildly.

Again.

For a moment Americans almost caught on to the fact that the Left hates everything about us.

But when the day comes that Americans realize that leftist hate is just hate, the left will be doomed. It won't happen this time.

When Europe got Americans killed because they would not let us use their air space to attack Libya for terrorism, some people woke up.

After Libya we were told that that it was just holding grudges, so we stopped.

So once again the hatred we usually approve of was a little too bare-toothed and some people almost woke up.

Briefly.

Respectable conservatism will help put us back to sleep.

But don't worry. Tell Americans about how they're just being childish again and they'll forget it quick. Things will get a lot worse before we have to face the fact that Europeans and our own young people and everybody else hates our guts.

Why do they hate our guts?

Because we pay people to tell them to.