A Tale of Two Entities*

Joe Carter at "First Thoughts" makes the case that God exists (italics in original):

Because it is possible for the entire universe to cease to exist, its existence must be radically contingent. Even if the universe has always existed and was uncaused (i.e., the view of steady-state cosmology), its existence would still require a causal agent to keep it from ceasing to exist, to prevent its exnihilation. Since no natural cause exnihilates anything, the cause must be supernatural. A supernatural being (one that is itself uncaused) is required to prevent the universe from turning into nothingness.

In other words, even though everything that we know about universe tells us that it will not simply cease to exist, nevertheless, the universe could simply cease to exist. Ergo, there must be a supernatural being who cannot cease to exist who keeps the universe from ceasing to exist.

Call me crazy, but I'm not 100% sold on this yet.

* Original title changed to something more neutral with respect to the discussion.

A political move so stupid that it could only be evidence of a brilliant strategic plan.

Mitt Romney goes to the wall for doomed GOP Senator Bob Bennett:

There he stood, a Harvard MBA man, a man of numbers, backing a collapsing equity. Mitt Romney took to the podium in Salt Lake City, the place where he rose to prominence in 2002 as Olympic chief, and urged the GOP delegates to back Sen. Bob Bennett, Utah's three-term incumbent. Despite Romney's pleas, Bennett ended the day with a worthless bronze, dumped from the primary. For Romney, however, the moment was a silver — not a victory, but an impressive showing.

The article does two really interesting things with this piece of information. First, the article adds two and two together and gets five: that Romney's support for Bennett is due to a refreshing sense of personal honor. In reality, it's more a case of the first officer of the "Titanic" bravely rearranging the deck chairs after the captain jumps overboard.

Second, it makes an excellent case that Mitt Romney is exactly the type of mainstream Republican moderate that we've always suspected. The ultimate problem with Mitt Romney -- and with Rudy Guiliani and with Fred Thompson and with Rick Lazio, etc. -- as presidential candidates is that they were all early adopters of the McCainite politics that collapsed so catastrophically in 2006 and 2008. The one thing that is guaranteed to re-elect Barack Obama as president of the United States is for the GOP nominee to run on the bold slogan of mainstream McCainite Republicanism: "I'll never be THAT stupid ever again. I promise."