“God made man in his own image.  We are going to become one with God.  We are going to have almost as much knowledge and almost as much power as God.  Cloning and the reprogramming of DNA is the first serious step in becoming one with God.”

This remark was made by physicist and biotech entrepreneur Richard Seed, quoted on NPR Morning Edition on January 7, 1998.  See, transhumanism has been around longer than you thought.

In one sense, the atheist might believe in natural moral law; in another sense, he already believes in it; in yet a third sense, he cannot believe in it.

He might believe in it in the sense that nothing prevents him from responding “Yes, that’s true” when presented with the proposition “There is a natural moral law.”

He already believes in it in the sense that he possesses the "natural habit" of the knowledge of the first principles of practical reason.  It isn’t because of our theories that we know the moral basics; they come with being human.  Our theories come afterward and try to explain them.

But he cannot believe in it in the sense of holding premises consistent with it.  True law presupposes a lawgiver superior to the one to whom the law is given, and the atheist denies that there is such a being.  If he supposes that morality is something else, such as instinct, he misunderstands what law is.

One party, with a few exceptions, really doesn’t care much about the poor.  The other party wants to convert the poor into a permanent constituency of hopelessly dependent and utterly demoralized nonproductive consumers who vote for the hand that feeds them.  Both parties want to feel good about it.

The former party, with a few exceptions, touts an ideology which holds, in effect, that not caring much about the poor is the meaning of encouraging their moral character.  The latter party touts an equally damnable ideology which holds, in effect, that destroying their moral character is the meaning of compassion.  The latter party wins.

Many statists do not know that they are statists.  A good many people who call themselves libertarians, for example, voted for Mr. Obama.

The most common reason for this is that when they say they are libertarians, they mean that they are libertarian in sexual morality.  But they have to be statists, so that when the dreadful social consequences of libertarian sexual morality come rolling around, someone else is forced to pick up the tab.

Consider for example the popularity of the HHS mandate among certain groups.

“I believe in liberty.  How dare you tell me how to run my personal life!  What do you mean, you aren’t telling me how to run my personal life?  You refuse to pay for my abortions and contraceptives, don’t you?  In the name of being able to do as I please, I demand that you do as I please.”

Some errors are terribly hard to discover and correct during one’s own lifetime, just because one is so invested in them.  Change cannot come until the next generation.  The natural consequences of these errors are the feedback loop.

However, correction of errors doesn’t always happen even in the next generation, because if their natural consequences are delayed – and delaying them is what modern culture is about – then the next generation may be even more deeply dug into them than the last.  Until, like a shattering hammer, the return sweep of the pendulum finally hits.