So, now what?
In the days since Charlie Kirk was assassinated, flags have been lowered, a suspect apprehended, and a grieving widow has bravely addressed the nation.
But again I ask, now what?
We have proven that as a people, we can kill one another. But how long must we wait until it’s proven we can heal each other&#8217;s hearts?
As enticing as it may be to fight fire with fire, taking up arms in rage would prove just as meaningless and ineffective as sitting back and doing nothing. Neither action matches the high moral standards of the man who was murdered.
I did not know Charlie personally, nor are my beliefs necessarily influenced by his own. Nevertheless, this week, I wept. Wept in a way I likely would not have had his death been the result of an illness or accident, because these tears were more than the reaction to a loss of life — they were the recognition that, for a moment, evil had triumphed over good.
Though malevolence is the price we pay for free will, fortunately, evil of this nature never wins. The gunman’s rifle did not backfire, but his nefarious plan, whatever it was, certainly will. The number of Charlie Kirks this action created is beyond measure.
Words seem so hollow now, but we must not underestimate their effect when compounded. The desired change begins in the heart, expands to the family, and then spreads to the community. Only after these three pillars are fortified will our nation persevere.
While we continue to grieve, and ask more questions than we have answers to, one thought draws comfort: knowing that God’s wisdom and His ways are infinitely higher than our own.
As painful as it is to think of a widowed wife and two fatherless children, as revolting as it is to see so many celebrate this heinous act of wickedness, we must remember, death for a Christian simply means a change of address, and Charlie’s new address is a permanent home the likes of which we can barely comprehend.
May God bless Charlie Kirk, his legacy, and the family he leaves with us here on Earth.

US-POLITICS-TRUMP-INAUGURATION

Charlie Kirk Is Gone. Where Do We Go From Here?

America

Charlie Kirk

Murder

Five days after I left my short stint heading news partnerships at X, a friend texted me with the details of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Assuming I was cooling off after a long period of eating, breathing and sleeping Elon Musk&#8217;s social platform, this note was intended as a simple ICYMI to someone who didn’t miss much – one that I am grateful to have received.
I didn’t know Charlie Kirk, but every aspect of my recent job was influenced by his work. X is the home of countless communicators aiming to follow Kirk&#8217;s pattern of boldness, eloquence, and clarity. I haven’t done the math, but my guess is for every 100 aspiring Charlies, none manage to fill the mold.
Opening X on my phone Wednesday afternoon ushered me into a world I feared was becoming extinct. Post upon post was an appeal to pray. Pray for Charlie. Pray for Erika. Pray for the children. Pray for the hearts, the minds of young people. Pray for a nation divided. Yes, there was a lot of other noise on X – there always is – but the call for prayers was overwhelming.
This was a different call to action than the one I remember witnessing when my Twitter use was beginning to take flight. In 2012, with a 6-year-old, 2-year-old, and 2-day-old at home, I scrolled through post after post after the December 14 shooting at Sandy Hook, encouraging us to shelve the thoughts and prayers and focus on solutions instead of platitudes. As an editor in the Wall Street Journal’s newsroom at the time, I tended to agree the thoughts and prayers line was getting a little old.
I relived that nine years later when a 15-year-old shot up Oxford High School, a short drive from my house. Ethan Crumbley&#8217;s bullets killed and injured classmates, including one who had sat in the backseat of my car on road trips to gymnastics meets. Prayers seemed like a slice of the equation, but damn we needed to do something about guns.
In our world, there is an urgent need for prayerful petitions and also a need for action. But, there is a pecking order.
Utah County Sheriff Mike Smith explained that pecking order Friday during a press conference. After running through the predictable lists of shoutouts to law enforcement and public officials, he paused before saying, “Most of all, I would like to thank the public and specifically I would like to thank the public who turned to prayers and who turned to positiveness for us … we needed those prayers. That’s what we needed to get through this.”
If social media is, as Utah Governor Spencer Cox deemed it during the same event, “a cancer,” its rot lies in its stubborn insistence on trying to replace real life. These platforms can be a tool for good, enabling free speech and breaking down geographic, generational and socioeconomic barriers that limit or prevent physical relationships. However, these platforms – like most media – have little appetite for nuance and too often trick us into thinking that words only have meaning if they are shouted in a digital town hall.
This is delusional. And it is in delusion where evil most comfortably resides, camouflaging itself as anything it can to make its work feel less evil. Anyone who has been introduced to the advice C.S. Lewis’s senior devil Screwtape passes along to his nephew Wormwood, knows that evil is most content when it is considered banal and impotent.
Charlie Kirk’s assassination, specifically its aftermath, reminds us of two important things. One, even the best of us can’t always stand in the way of evil. And, the most effective way to confront evil is by doing the thing that feels most powerless in the fog of war: prayer.
While evil doesn’t walk around wearing a nametag saying “Hello, My Name is ____,” its influence and presence leaves an unmistakable mark in its wake. Cunning and relentless, evil tends to be as persistent as it is crafty. Evil will strike again and that strike will catch us by surprise like it did on 9/11 and nearly 24 years later on 9/10.
In this instance, we are wise to take advice ladled out on X in the wake of a martyr’s death. “Pray, fool, pray.” For our fight is not against flesh and blood but powers and principalities working to tear our union apart.
Imagine a world where social media, for all its ills, drives us to the increasingly unfamiliar spot of being on our knees in a relatively powerless position. That world gives us hope when we realize that being on our knees is actually the most powerful posture there is.
* * *
John D. Stoll is a writer based in Rochester, Mich. He worked for 13 years at Wall Street Journal as a reporter, editor and columnist, leaving in 2020. He most recently ran news partnerships at X.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

US-POLITICS-SHOOTING-KIRK

X’s Algorithm At Its Best: A Push For Thoughts And Prayers

assassination

Prayer

Social Media

Twitter

Jesus Christ always spoke and acted out of love, but He never sugar-coated the truth. His words, beliefs, and actions offended so many people that His enemies ultimately executed Him because of them. And He warned his followers, “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first” (John 15:18).
That warning must have been tough for His disciples to hear. It’s tough for us to hear now.
Yet, we’ve seen that special hatred reserved for people of faith at work in the recent attack on Catholic children and teachers in Minnesota and the assassination of Charlie Kirk in Utah.
This brand of hatred is oddly impersonal. It’s aimed at truth itself — maybe, at Truth Himself — and all who dare to speak the truth to people who “preferred darkness to light” (John 3:19).
How did our culture get to this place?
Not so long ago, men and women of courage, integrity, and firmly held religious convictions drew praise and admiration. Today, they are labeled “haters” who must be silenced, stopped, even killed — just for believing truth exists outside of what you and I think. For believing truth is rooted in God, objective, and binding for all peoples for all time. For daring to defend religious views on human gender and sexuality or the dignity of unborn children.
To those who have bought into the lie that we can and should “live our own truth,” we who hold these religious convictions are the problem. But it is not religious conviction that is harming society; it is the lack of it. Our culture has never been more secular, and it has never faced so many problems. Why can’t we be honest and admit that pushing God to the margins has been an absolute disaster?
We see this in the collapse of family life, the breakdown of marriage, children being raised without fathers and mothers, and the epidemic of loneliness that leaves so many people isolated and despairing.
At the same time, there has never been a greater acceptance and celebration of lifestyles that run contrary to faith. Yet, instead of producing the promised peace or joy, they make the problems facing young people — anxiety, depression, and despair — far worse. And remarkably, the faithless double down and blame these issues on religion.
Our darkness will never turn to light until we accept the fact that these struggles are fundamentally and profoundly spiritual rather than political. The more we reject God, the more our culture’s anger, confusion, and despair will deepen. We don’t need less of God — we need more.
If the world were not so gripped by darkness, we might see more clearly that what we are doing is not working. Humanity has lost its way, but Christ came to rescue us because of His deep love. Still, many prefer darkness. The Gospel unmasks us and calls us to change. In the end, we must choose: to step into the light or to cling to the shadows.
Immaculée Ilibagiza, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide, chose the light.
I met with Immaculée the day after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, and though neither of us knew him personally, we spoke sadly of his loss as a defender of the truth.
We also spoke at length about her life’s tragedy: in 1994, after 91 harrowing days in hiding, Immaculée emerged to learn her entire family, except for one brother, had been brutally murdered along with nearly one million of her friends, neighbors, and countrymen. But, by God’s grace, she chose forgiveness and love as her path forward through the sorrow, anger, and unspeakable loss.
Today, Immaculée shares her story as a means of helping others overcome hatred with love through conversion of heart. She radiates the light of Christ, and her life’s story is a witness to the beauty of the truth.
May we, like her, take hope in the promise of the Gospel: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). May this same light shine once again, breaking through our shadows and darkness, bringing God’s peace, presence, and love to our country and our world.
Father Dave Pivonka, TOR, is President of Franciscan University of Steubenville.
<div>
<div id="post-body-text">
<div class="ep1tdco0 css-fgibv1">
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
</div>
</div>
</div>

Crucifix on the wall

The Light Shines In The Darkness

Bible

Catholic Church

Priest

Like many of you, I’m exhausted by the endless cycle of outrage.
Every viral clip is designed to shock us, every headline crafted to rile us up. We spend our days reacting to the brokenness of the world instead of daring to imagine something better. Caught in this endless cycle of reaction, we think we’re fighting the good fight. But we’re not. Reaction is not a strategy, it’s a stall.
Giving in to the rage is not enough to save Western civilization. If we really care about preserving what’s good and true and beautiful in the West, then the work can’t stop at identifying what’s wrong. We have to start creating what’s right. And that responsibility doesn’t only belong to content creators online. It belongs to every single one of us, wherever we are, with whatever influence God has entrusted to us.
We don’t need more rage. We need builders.
The Left understands this. Some six decades ago, the American Communist Party wrote a terrifying long-term playbook for cultural change, and Leftists have worked tirelessly to implement it ever since. That’s why we find ourselves here today, in a society that calls good evil and evil good.
The other side may have gotten a head start. But we still have time to write a different story. Doing so will require ordinary people like you and me to courageously decide to live differently from those who came before us.
That begins with what I like to call quiet acts of courage. These aren’t the kind of moments that will make headlines or go viral on TikTok, but the kind of decisions that ripple outward and change the world.
It’s raising your hand in class when your professor spreads propaganda and calmly offering the truth. It’s choosing to go to church on Sunday morning when the culture tells you faith is outdated and pointless. It’s daring to actually fall in love, commit to marriage, and start a family in an age that glorifies hookup culture and selfishness. It’s choosing to seek out real sources of truth online instead of letting yourself be spoon-fed the easy and ever-present propaganda of mainstream media.
Each of these decisions may seem small, but together, they can be revolutionary. They chip away at the lies holding our society hostage. They model for the next generation what it looks like to live with integrity and courage. And collectively, they create a culture worth defending.
That’s where I hope the Isabel Brown Show comes in.
I will always call out evil for what it is. But this show, and this community we’re building together, is about something more than rage or reaction. It’s about sketching a blueprint for a new American Dream — one rooted in faith, family, and truth — that we can pass on with pride.
So, here’s my challenge to you: stop letting the worst people set the agenda. Start living as though your choices matter — because they do.
Let’s go on offense, with quiet acts of courage that will echo for generations. Together, we’ll create a new American Dream.

IB Flag Image

Is The American Dream Dead?

Communism

Isabel Brown

Marriage

In a recent Daily Wire piece, we argued that discoveries in <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/why-modern-physics-points-to-god" target="_blank" rel="noopener">modern physics point directly to God</a>. In a follow-up, we exposed how some scientists are trying to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-multiverse-scandal-how-academia-is-redefining-science-to-avoid-god" target="_blank" rel="noopener">redefine science</a> — not to advance knowledge, but to sidestep the inconvenient possibility of a Creator.
Believe it or not, there’s another tactic in the academic playbook that’s even more brazen. When there is crystal clear evidence for God or some other thing scientists don’t want to acknowledge, they don’t confront the facts, but spin them. Instead of admitting that design implies intelligence, they claim that the incredible design in our universe is evidence for an infinite chaotic multiverse.
We’ve seen this kind of reasoning before. When facts contradict the narrative, the narrative doesn’t change. Instead, the clear implication of the facts gets twisted.
Defund the police, and then crime explodes? Just say that the real problem is a lack of community programs. Teen mental health collapses after a wave of gender surgeries? The experts insist we need to start even younger.
The pattern is the same: take evidence that clearly undermines your position and spin it as if it supports your position.
Surprisingly, this tactic isn’t limited to politics or culture. It’s happening in the heart of elite physics departments.
You’d think that physicists would stick to hard evidence and cold logic. But when modern science starts pointing toward a designer, objectivity disappears. What follows is a breathtaking exercise in mental gymnastics, and a revealing glimpse at how far some atheist scientists are willing to go to protect their belief that God doesn’t exist.
Let’s take a closer look.
Modern academic culture begins with a core assumption: God does not exist. The universe is purely material, blind, and meaningless. Nature has no goals, no plans, no mind. Against this backdrop, it becomes inconvenient when modern physics uncovers something that looks suspiciously like evidence for a Creator.
In the 1970s, physicists made a startling discovery: the basic structure of our universe depends on a set of precise numbers, known as the constants of nature, built into the laws of physics. These include values like the strength of gravity and the charge of the electron. If some of these were even slightly different, the universe wouldn’t work. No atoms. No stars. No galaxies. No life. Just chaos.
This phenomenon is known as “fine-tuning,” and it’s not about minor coincidences. The numbers are astonishingly precise. In some cases, the odds of getting the right value by chance are worse than one in a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion.
So, what’s the simplest, most reasonable explanation? These numbers were set deliberately. That an intelligent cause fine-tuned the universe to produce complexity, order, and structure. In other words, fine-tuning is exactly what you’d expect to see if the universe were intelligently designed.
This was a problem for atheist scientists committed to a godless universe. They couldn’t deny the fact of fine-tuning — the evidence was too overwhelming. So instead, they did what academics often do when facts threaten cherished dogma: they twisted the interpretation.
Their explanation for fine-tuning? The multiverse.
Here’s the basic idea. Some theories in physics, like eternal inflation, suggest the possibility of an infinite number of universes. Now imagine, they say, that each of those universes has different laws and constants. If that’s true, then it’s no surprise that we find ourselves in one that works. After all, we couldn’t exist in any of the countless dud universes without atoms, stars, or life.
Sounds clever. But even if you accept the assumption that an infinite number of unobservable universes exist, there’s still a bigger problem: what’s the actual scientific evidence that the universal laws of nature vary from one universe to another? After all, they’re called “constants” for a reason. Every measurement and observation we have tells us that these numbers don’t change.
Here’s where it gets wild.
One of their main arguments for why the constants must vary is the fact that our universe is fine-tuned. That’s right. The very evidence that screams design is now used to argue for infinite cosmic randomness.
MIT physicist Max Tegmark, writing in <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0302131" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Scientific American</a>, makes this move explicitly. He uses fine-tuning itself as evidence for a multiverse with varying constants:
“Cosmologists infer the presence of Level II parallel universes by scrutinizing the properties of our universe. These properties…have exactly the values that sustain life. That suggests the existence of other universes with other values.”
Let that sink in. The very fact that our universe is perfectly calibrated for life is now used as evidence that other, totally different universes must exist. First, the multiverse was a way to explain away fine-tuning. Now, fine-tuning is offered as proof of the multiverse.
What’s the logic? Since they’ve already ruled out an intelligent cause, the constants must vary — because there’s simply no other way to explain why these numbers are so perfectly set. That’s what passes for logic in elite academia.
How did this inversion become acceptable in a field that prides itself on rationality? Because the foundational assumption is never questioned: God cannot exist. And sometimes, physicists say this outright.
In response to the <a href="https://www.physicstogod.com/fine-tuning-argument-for-god" target="_blank" rel="noopener">fine-tuning argument</a> for God, Perimeter Institute physicist Lee Smolin writes the following:
“This argument is valid only if there is no way to explain how the laws of nature might have been chosen except by invoking the action of some entity outside our universe. You may recall the principle with which I started this book: there is nothing outside the universe. As long as there is a way of answering all our questions without violating this principle, we are doing science and we have no need of any other mode of explanation.”
Smolin isn’t making a scientific argument. He’s laying out a philosophical bias. And he’s clear about it. On the very first page of the book, he boldly writes: “It cannot have been made by anything that exists outside of it, for by definition the universe is all there is, and there cannot be anything outside it.”
In other words, the existence of God isn’t ruled out by evidence. It’s ruled out by definition.
If you start your investigation by excluding the possibility of God, then yes, an infinite number of other universes with different constants becomes necessary. Not because the evidence points there, but because no other option is allowed. But ask yourself: is there any more absurd conclusion to draw from one perfectly ordered universe than the claim it suggests an infinite number of chaotic ones?
Science is supposed to follow the evidence, not twist it to fit a predetermined worldview. And if your worldview forces you to reinterpret what the evidence plainly shows, maybe it’s time to question the worldview.
Start with an open and honest question: Does the universe show signs of an intelligent cause? Once you do, the answer becomes clear. Fine-tuning is not evidence for a multiverse. It is powerful <a href="https://www.physicstogod.com/does-god-exist" target="_blank" rel="noopener">evidence for God</a>.
Rabbi Elie Feder, PhD, and Rabbi Aaron Zimmer, host the “Physics to God” podcast.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Artificial intelligence science fiction

How Scientists Are Working Overtime To Deny God

Crime

Physics

Science

Transgender

The intelligentsia is always telling us to “follow the science.” But what happens when “the science” starts undermining academia’s deeply-held beliefs? Suddenly, the definition of science changes — or we’re told we misunderstood it all along.
If you’ve followed the debates over climate change or gender ideology, this story might sound familiar. But what may surprise you is that the same tactics are now at work in elite physics departments around the world. Even the most brilliant minds aren’t immune to bias — or to pushing a philosophical agenda under the guise of objectivity.
So, how is this playing out in the world of advanced physics?
Atheist scientists hold one belief above all: God is fiction. Why? Because God isn’t science. And only scientific claims can be true. Science, they say, explains the universe through natural, blind forces. This picture of reality is supposed to be testable and falsifiable.
But are they still living up to that standard?
In recent decades, physicists uncovered something remarkable. Nature’s laws contain fundamental constants, specific numbers that determine how particles like electrons behave. For years, no one knew where these mysterious numbers came from. Then came the scientific discovery that many of them are finely tuned. Change them even slightly, and the universe as we know it wouldn’t exist. No atoms. No stars. No life.
<a class="c-link c-link--focus-visible" href="https://get.dailywire.com/freedom/?utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial&amp;utm_campaign=freedom&amp;utm_content=freedomeditorial&amp;_gl=1*r8odly*_gcl_au*MTQ5MDUzNjQ0NC4xNzQ1ODQ0MzMyLjEwNDAyMzM0NDQuMTc0NzY1MzIxNy4xNzQ3NjUzMjE3*_ga*MTM1OTk4Njg2NS4xNzA2NzE2NTAy*_ga_CZKR9ZYKJP*czE3NTEyOTIzMDQkbzMyJGcxJHQxNzUxMjkyOTI5JGo1NyRsMCRoMA.." target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-stringify-link="https://get.dailywire.com/freedom/?utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial&amp;utm_campaign=freedom&amp;utm_content=freedomeditorial" data-sk="tooltip_parent" aria-describedby="sk-tooltip-75638">JULY 4 SALE: Get Six Months Of DW+ Free</a>
The implication was hard to miss. An intelligent cause had <a href="https://www.physicstogod.com/fine-tuning-argument-for-god" target="_blank" rel="noopener">fine-tuned</a> the constants to produce a complex, structured universe. That conclusion sounded uncomfortably like God. And many atheist physicists wanted nothing to do with that.
Stanford physicist Leonard Susskind, himself an atheist, explained the fear:
Physicists dislike mixing religion into physics. I think they were somewhat afraid that if it was admitted that the reason the world is the way it is has to do with our own existence, that that could be hijacked by the creationists, by the intelligent designers. And of course, what they would say is, “Yes, we always told you so. There is a benevolent somebody way up high in the universe who created the universe exactly so that we could live.” I think physicists shrank at the idea of getting involved in such things.
But if the evidence pointed to God, scientists had a choice: follow it, or explain it away.
Enter the multiverse: an infinite set of unobservable universes, each with different laws. If the multiverse exists, then finding ourselves in a fine-tuned universe isn’t all that surprising. With infinite tries, some universes are bound to support life. And naturally, we’d only ever find ourselves in one of those.
Sounds clever, but here’s the problem: science requires observation and testability. One of the most renowned physicists of the prior generation, Richard Feynman, stated clearly: “All scientists will agree that a question — any question, philosophical or other — which cannot be put into the form that can be tested by experiment…is not a scientific question.”
By definition, an infinite number of unobservable universes can’t be tested by experiment. By Feynman’s standard, and that of virtually all scientists for the past 300 years, the multiverse is not science.
So, what does academia do when faced with this problem? It tries to change the rules.
Physicist Bernard Carr openly argues for redefining science: “It is surely dangerous to impose a philosophical prescription that prevents scientists from changing the border of their field. As Susskind cautions, it would be a pity to miss out on some fundamental truth because of an over-restrictive definition of science.”
In other words: if the multiverse doesn’t fit the definition of science that’s guided discovery since the Enlightenment, no problem — just redefine science.
As if redefining science weren’t bad enough, some scientists go further. Johns Hopkins physicist Sean Carroll boldly claims that falsifiability was never a requirement of science:
The ways in which we evaluate the multiverse as a scientific hypothesis are precisely the ways in which hypotheses have always been judged. The point is not that we are changing the nature of science by allowing unfalsifiable hypotheses into our purview. The point is that “falsifiability” was never the primary criterion by which scientific theories were judged (although scientists have often presented it as such).
So, Feynman got it wrong. Einstein too. Generations of scientists? All mistaken. Or so we’re now told.
How long before textbooks are rewritten to teach students that science doesn’t require testing, observation, or falsifiability? We’ve seen this play before, and it doesn’t end well.
This isn’t just semantics. Redefining science erodes public trust in real, tested science. If untestable multiverse theory now falls under the esteemed banner of science, how is anyone supposed to tell the difference between the real thing and its impostor version?
Fortunately, some scientists have sounded the alarm about these shifts. George Ellis, a leading physicist, has warned bluntly:
The foundations must be respected if one is to preserve the core features of science that have led to its phenomenal success: that is, the feedback from reality to theory provided by experiment and observational testing. One abandons that at one’s peril&#8230;it is dangerous to weaken the grounds of scientific proof in order to include multiverses under the mantle of “tested science”.
Ellis is right. If science is to remain credible, scientists need to stop playing word games. Fine-tuning in our one, ordered universe is a real scientific discovery. But it most certainly doesn’t point to an infinite, chaotic multiverse.
The bottom line? The <a href="https://www.physicstogod.com/is-the-multiverse-real" target="_blank" rel="noopener">multiverse isn’t science</a>. It’s a speculative philosophical idea — and not even a good one. Passing it off as science is dishonest. These scientists are hijacking the credibility of science to promote a weak philosophical theory that can’t stand on its own.
We’re not saying God is a scientific theory. That would be dishonest. What we are saying is that science<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/why-modern-physics-points-to-god" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> points to God</a>. Because when you follow the evidence, the most straightforward explanation for fine-tuning is an intelligent designer.
And if academics really believe in “following the science,” then maybe it’s time they followed it themselves — all the way to God.
Rabbi Elie Feder, PhD, and Rabbi Aaron Zimmer, host the “Physics to God” podcast.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Space warp travel trough universe

The Multiverse Scandal: How Academia Is Redefining Science To Avoid God

Academia

universe

For years, we’ve been told that science made God unnecessary.
Atheism had won. God was for the weak-minded. Rational people read Richard Dawkins and watched Neil deGrasse Tyson and Alex O’Connor. Religion, they said, was just a fairy tale.
But as science progresses, that story is beginning to unravel.
Far from removing the need for a Creator, modern physics increasingly points toward one.
Why? Because the deeper scientists dig into the universe’s fundamental laws, the more they encounter a startling truth: the universe appears to be fine-tuned. Not vaguely-tuned, but astonishingly, exquisitely, fine-tuned.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. To understand what fine-tuning actually means, let’s first look at how this discovery came about.
At the foundations of our universe, physicists discovered about 25 physical constants — unchanging numbers that define the structure of reality. You might not have heard of numbers like the fine-structure constant or the cosmological constant, but they are crucial. They determine how atoms hold together, how stars form, and how fast the universe expands.
The big question was, how can physicists explain these strange numbers? Before the discovery of fine-tuning, physicists had two unsatisfying possibilities: either the constants are just brute facts with no explanation, or some deeper law might eventually explain all their seemingly random values.
Since these solutions were neither satisfying nor plausible, Richard Feynman — one of the most celebrated physicists of his time — called explaining the constants “one of the greatest damn mysteries of physics.”
Then came fine-tuning.
Scientists slowly realized that if some of these constants were even slightly different, the universe would be completely chaotic, lacking all complexity and structure. No galaxies, no chemistry, no life. It’s almost like the values of the constants have a purpose in producing our complex universe.
Take the cosmological constant. Its value is about 10 to the power of negative 122. That’s a decimal point followed by 121 zeros and then a 1. If it were even a bit lower or higher, the universe would either collapse back on itself or expand so rapidly that no structures would ever form.
Does that seem like a cosmic accident? No one — not even atheist physicists — thinks that. It’s a bit like finding a safe with a trillion-digit combination already set perfectly. That’s not something anyone can reasonably attribute to blind chance.
Once fine-tuning was discovered, the two earlier explanations — that the constants are brute, necessary facts or the result of an unknown deeper law — became nearly impossible to defend. These ideas were only somewhat plausible back when the constants seemed arbitrary, and the challenge was simply to explain their mysterious values. But neither pure necessity nor blind mathematical inevitability accounts for why the constants fall exactly where they do. To continue placing faith in those explanations, despite what fine-tuning reveals, is to ignore the weight of the new evidence.
So, what’s the alternative?
One explanation is <a href="https://www.physicstogod.com/fine-tuning-argument-for-god" target="_blank" rel="noopener">straightforward</a>: the universe is fine-tuned because it has a fine-tuner. An intelligent Creator set the parameters needed for generating a complex and ordered universe that’s full of atoms, molecules, planets, stars, galaxies, and life.
At this point, critics often respond: “You’re just using God to fill in the gaps! That’s the old ‘God of the gaps’ fallacy.”
But that misses the point. This isn’t about ignorance. It isn’t a case of “We don’t know, so it must be God.” This is all about what we do know. We know the values of the constants. We know they are fine-tuned. And we know that when a system is exquisitely calibrated, it suggests an intelligent calibrator. That’s not filling a gap in our knowledge — it’s drawing a clear inference from established scientific evidence.
Yet, for many in the scientific community, the idea of God isn’t seen as a legitimate option — not because science rules it out, but because of prior philosophical prejudices. So, instead, they turn to an alternative: the multiverse.
The multiverse hypothesis posits an infinite number of unobservable universes, each with different physical laws and constants. In such a scenario, anything that can happen does happen — somewhere. Of course, in an infinite multiverse, there would be at least one universe with just the right conditions for life — and that’s the one we happen to observe. After all, we couldn’t exist in any of the countless, lifeless universes where complexity never forms.
This is sometimes presented as a clever way to explain fine-tuning without God. But that impression fades once you consider what an infinite multiverse actually implies.
Physicist Alan Guth said it best: “Anything that can happen will happen; in fact, it will happen an infinite number of times.” So, in an infinite multiverse, there are universes where George Washington is still alive. Where you’re president. Where unicorns are real. Where Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs exist.
We’re not joking. That’s what the theory implies.
After all, in an infinite collection of universes, every possible arrangement of atoms must exist somewhere. With infinite universes, science begins to blur into science fiction.
The trouble is, no one has ever observed another universe. By definition, an infinite multiverse is untestable, unfalsifiable, and unobservable. It’s not a scientific theory in the usual sense — it’s philosophical speculation dressed up as science, aimed at avoiding the clear implications of fine-tuning. And that’s just the beginning. From here, the <a href="https://www.physicstogod.com/is-the-multiverse-real" target="_blank" rel="noopener">problems with the multiverse</a> only get worse.
So, let’s consider where this leaves us.
On one side, theists point to the measurable, precise fine-tuning of nature’s constants. We observe one universe — ours — and it appears finely set up for atoms, planets, stars, and life. On the other side, atheists propose an infinite number of unobservable universes to avoid the possibility that ours was fine-tuned.
Now, ask yourself: which seems more rational?
Science has brought us to a turning point. The fine-tuning argument is no relic of ancient theology. It’s a modern, scientifically-grounded case for an intelligent cause of the universe. The resistance it provokes stems not from a lack of evidence, but from discomfort with what the evidence implies.
In the end, modern physics offers us a glimpse into the deep structure of reality. And what we find is not chaos, but extraordinary order and purpose. The universe is fine-tuned. Fine-tuning points to a Fine-Tuner. If we’re serious about science, we must be equally serious about following the evidence wherever it leads — even if it <a href="https://www.physicstogod.com/3-proofs-of-god-from-science" target="_blank" rel="noopener">leads us directly to God</a>.
Rabbi Elie Feder, PhD, and Rabbi Aaron Zimmer, host the “Physics to God” podcast.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Low Angle View Of Silhouette Man Against Star Field

Why Modern Physics Points To God

Outer Space

The following excerpt is from Andrew Klavan’s Amazon best-selling book, The Kingdom of Cain: Finding God in the Literature of Darkness, (Zondervan/HarperCollins, May 6, 2025) which you can <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Kingdom-Cain-Finding-Literature-Darkness/dp/0310368340/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1ODLLWRUYFQLX&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.-asrk-u7s-sDyhCZt2HswSh97P9UrU8fIOFQ6ixtmpKTB1DBbhizDhTlIu-UqaLkK7N0nbUSyzC-7AF7vHD1eKuT-zxV0AKvUdyGQtz3PVdxbQPtExJGPweEKI5A7u8oRKT8qGQ_emtFCVDLrzEIdR6Q4n645BIOoF3oQHLkrRF52UD0dBOnHAasIM3LWhrGXj8CZhnLqvGlRuqStS9pQrKn7rhqrcGVNFJZaH1Spuw.fvQZ5IniKW9xjinwdGzONrUwsBlcMLwjXhbqgG1ldB4&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=kingdom+of+cain&amp;qid=1746467024&amp;sprefix=kingdom+of+cain%2Caps%2C174&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">order now</a>.
REJOICE EVERMORE!
So Scripture commands us. But how can you rejoice in a world of so much darkness? At a time like twilight when darkness gathers, ready to fall? The comforting bromides of belief can seem pat and complacent in the shadow of very present wickedness. Everything happens for a reason. There must be evil so there can be free will. God is in charge and will make things right in the end. No doubt. And it is some comfort too. But here we are today, and faith in the things unseen, and hope in the far-off country of our salvation don’t have the tangible immediacy of our suffering and distress.
More than this, and deeper. From our first cry to our last one, life is little more than letting go, a long goodbye. The pain, the grief, the traumas physical and emotional that scar our minds: sorrow is so woven into the very fabric of material existence that to turn our faces from it is to turn away from life itself. In the face of our mourning mortality, even Jesus wept.
In part 1, I write about the three murders and the works of art that reveal the nature of their evil. In part 2, I reflect on creative practices of truth and beauty that allow one to confront this evil with love and, through love, with joy. By joy, of course, I don’t mean smiley-faced complacency or quietism. I’m talking about preserving the gusto of living, even when you are living honestly, which means acknowledging grief and pain.
The first murder is the 1834 killing of the French con man Jean-François Chardon and his mother by the violent but elegant and eloquent thief Pierre François Lacenaire. This murder was the beginning of a startling century-long dance between art and reality. Lacenaire’s philosophical musings inspired the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky to create the classic novel Crime and Punishment. Dostoevsky’s work predicted and inspired the atheistic philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche, in turn, inspired the famous American murderers of the 1920s, Leopold and Loeb. They then became the subjects of any number of books and movies, including Alfred Hitchcock’s innovative film, Rope. Throughout this bizarre and deadly story cycle, the theme in play is the death of Christian faith and the attempt to rewrite and rise above the Christian moral order—an attempt still being made today.
Next, I deal—as delicately as I can—with the monstrous crimes committed in the American Midwest of the 1950s by the psychopath Ed Gein. Gein murdered women and wore their bodies as costumes. These grotesque horrors inspired the novel Psycho by Robert Bloch, which was the basis of the Alfred Hitchcock movie of the same name, now regarded as one of the greatest works of American cinema. Psycho gave birth to an entire genre, the slasher film, which includes everything from disastrous trash and reprehensible torture porn to serious-minded horror like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and ultimately the insightful novel and Oscar-winning film The Silence of the Lambs, also based on the Gein murders. The theme of this cycle is, of course, the confusion of sexual identity, but it is also the role of psychiatric theory in creating and confronting that confusion.
The last murder I write about is the first: the killing of Abel by Cain. The theme here is the failure of theodicy, the inability to accept the goodness of a God who presides over a world full of so much cruelty and injustice. I can’t write about the works of art inspired by Cain’s actions, because in some sense all art is inspired by his actions. He is the first man born after the fall, and all history flows out of him. This is Cain’s kingdom; we’re just living in it. Instead, I trace Cain’s continued presence throughout the Old and New Testaments because I believe the Bible contains, in microcosm, all history and all art.
The second part of the book is more personal. I don’t hold myself up as a role model of anything. I am not a pastor or a theologian. You should get your religious rule book from a better source. But because each inner life is different, each act of spiritual creation is unique. Whether a rainbow looks the same to me as it does to you, it is always only our own.
In light of this, I’ve chosen to write three brief reflections on practices that have deepened my relationship with Jesus Christ. My reason for this is that in Christ, I find I experience both the cross and the resurrection—that is, a heightened awareness of evil, injustice, and suffering accompanied by a seemingly absurd increase in serenity and joy.
The first of these reflections is on the ritual of communion—my answer to Lacenaire and to the intellectual collapse of the Christian moral order.
The second is a reflection on the atheistic psychotherapy that miraculously restored me to sanity in my youth and freed me to accept the grace of God. This is my answer to Ed Gein and, through him, the misbegotten nature of today’s therapeutic culture and the gender confusion that has arisen along with it.
The closing chapter is on art and beauty, and how it suggests to me a theodicy no mere philosophy can provide, a faithful response to suffering. This is my answer to Cain.
INTRODUCTION
To sum it up then:
My subject is murder and the imagination. My premise is that murder is evil. My belief is that God is love, and love is the source of joy.
If, then, I enter the literature of darkness, I do it with a sure and certain faith in the reality of light, not light in a future heaven but light in this world of sin and suffering, not light in the world to come but light in this world of present darkness, including the darkness of murder.
Light. Love. Joy. Beauty. 
 Here. Now. In the kingdom of Cain.
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Kingdom-Cain-Finding-Literature-Darkness/dp/0310368340/ref=sr_1_1?crid=22ZEPHR0XQANA&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.-asrk-u7s-sDyhCZt2HswSh97P9UrU8fIOFQ6ixtmpKTB1DBbhizDhTlIu-UqaLkK7N0nbUSyzC-7AF7vHD1eKuT-zxV0AKvUdyGQtz3PVdxbQPtExJGPweEKI5A7u8oRKT8qGQ_emtFCVDLrzEIdR6Q4n645BIOoF3oQHLkrRF52UD0dBOnHAasIM3LWhrGXj8CZhnLqvGlRuqStS9pQrKn7rhqrcGVNFJZaH1Spuw.fvQZ5IniKW9xjinwdGzONrUwsBlcMLwjXhbqgG1ldB4&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=Kingdom+of+Cain&amp;qid=1746466335&amp;sprefix=kingdom+of+cain%2Caps%2C139&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ORDER ON AMAZON TODAY</a>
<a href="https://store.dailywire.com/products/the-kingdom-of-cain?_pos=1&amp;_sid=016ece02b&amp;_ss=r" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-916081 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-05-May-2025-01-45-PM-1591-576x576.jpg" alt="" width="576" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-05-May-2025-01-45-PM-1591-576x576.jpg 576w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-05-May-2025-01-45-PM-1591-300x300.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-05-May-2025-01-45-PM-1591-150x150.jpg 150w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-05-May-2025-01-45-PM-1591-768x768.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/MixCollage-05-May-2025-01-45-PM-1591.jpg 1200w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 576px) 100vw, 576px" /></a>
<a href="https://store.dailywire.com/products/the-kingdom-of-cain?_pos=1&amp;_sid=016ece02b&amp;_ss=r" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ORDER SIGNED COPIES TODAY</a>

Murder, Madness, Meaning: How Can We ‘Rejoice Always’ When The World Often Seems So Broken?

Andrew Klavan

Books

Jesus Christ

Each Passover, Jews across the world recount the miraculous exodus of their ancestors from servitude under the Egyptian pharaoh, in pursuit of a life of ordered liberty in the Land promised to Abraham. This pharaoh enslaved the Jewish people, forcing them into hard labor doubly tortuous, as their taskmasters imposed assignments with labor itself as the ultimate end. The pharaoh even ordered the infanticide of Hebrew male infants in an attempt to cement his power over the Hebrews. The Passover dinner retells the story of our enslavement, the Ten Plagues inflicted upon the Egyptians, and Hebrews’ miraculous deliverance. The ancient Hebrews left a tyranny that subjugated their spiritual and physical freedom to the dictates of a human regime at odds with the Divine.
Importantly, escape from tyranny wasn’t their ultimate aim. The ancient Hebrews embarked at this moment on a journey to their Promised Land. These tribes became the People of the Book — striving to form a civil society under the rule of law, complete with education of the young, the establishment of courts, protection of property, and concern for innocent life.
The American Founders certainly recognized that this “Season of Our Freedom” is relevant for the United States of America. The national motto proposed by Benjamin Franklin of “Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God” accompanied an image of Moses leading the Children of Israel across the miraculously parted Red Sea as they escaped the tyrant of their times. The Israelites desired to worship God freely, raise families, and enjoy the fruits of their own labor. The protections of our Bill of Rights guarantee us similar rights.
The Israelites and the Pilgrims both journeyed to a new land not just in pursuit of generic freedom — but freedom of a far deeper type. The foremost concern of the Pilgrims arriving on the shores of Cape Cod in 1620 indeed was freedom of religion and conscience. Like the Israelites, these early settlers forfeited many of the comforts of their prior home as they endured a harsh climate in unfamiliar territory surrounded by hazards. Those Pilgrims entered a covenant to “combine ourselves together into a civil body politick” — one with the family as society’s foundation, with national traditions and core values transmitted in the home.
<div id="attachment_906725" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-906725" class="size-large wp-image-906725" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1217401397-864x576.jpg" alt="Passover matzoh jewish holiday bread with kipah table background. " width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1217401397-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1217401397-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1217401397-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1217401397-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1217401397-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1217401397-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1217401397-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Cavan images. Getty Images.</div>
The Passover seder recognizes that the story of the Jewish people neither began nor ended with the Exodus story. In its recount, we recognize also that we must be active participants in maintaining our freedom. We recognize also that, in a sense, this deliverance happened to us personally. Through the long dinner, children at the table play a large role in reading the story, asking questions, and contributing to the conversation.
As the quarter-millennial celebration of our independence from King George III approaches, let’s take some lessons from the Passover celebration. Instilling an understanding of and respect for our founding in the next generation ensures they too will seek to protect our nation from corrosive influence. Yet, far too many children are apathetic or ignorant of the fundamental rights enshrined in our Constitution or even the basic functioning of our republic. Too few are taught of the sacrifices made by the Founders and the freedoms they sought to protect. Even worse, some educators attempt to poison young minds against the nation’s foundation. Parents possess the responsibility and an opportunity to instill this love of country. Honoring the flag, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, respecting the national anthem, commemorating Independence Day all instill pride in country—in addition to academic studies.
Let’s remember too that our freedom is not secure forever simply by virtue of our winning our own War for Independence. As we stray from the guarantors of our freedom — rule of law, the Bill of Rights, the separation of powers, strong families — the great promise of this nation “conceived in liberty” becomes threatened. At the Passover seder, we recall audibly and collectively that, “We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt.” Remembering life prior to liberty, celebrating our victory over tyranny, savoring our freedom, reflecting on what a life of liberty should mean, and involving the next generation in all of this will protect our freedom — both as Jews and as Americans.
* * *
Joel Griffith and Paul Teller, both Jewish Americans, are Senior Fellow and Executive Vice President, respectively, of Advancing American Freedom, the issue advocacy organization founded by former Vice President Mike Pence.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Metal plate with matzah or matza and Passover Haggadah on a vintage wood background presented as a Passover seder feast or meal with copy space. Translation: Passover Haggadah

The Season Of Our Freedom: Lessons From Passover For Americans

Egypt

Founding Fathers

Israel

Jewish

Jews

Opinion

Red Sea

A transgender-identifying punk rocker performing at a recent Bernie Sanders rally in Wisconsin brought cheers from the crowd while jeering at God with obscene lyrics.
Laura Jane Grace, Thomas James Gabel, of the punk band Against Me! sang a song titled “Your God (God&#8217;s D***).” In it, Grace chortled the following lyrics: “Does your God have a big fat d***? Cause it feels like he&#8217;s f***ing me. Are his b***s filled with lightning do they dangle like heaven’s keys?”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Bernie Sanders had transgender singer Laura Jane Grace perform at his rally singing “Does your God have a big fat d***” <a href="https://t.co/Lc0jEIVBFK">pic.twitter.com/Lc0jEIVBFK</a>
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) <a href="https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1898895797837549607?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 10, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The Daily Mail <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14480485/Trans-punk-rocker-Laure-Jane-Grace-ungodly-lyrics-Bernie-Sanders-rally.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> the singer followed with these anti-God lyrics: “Does he shoot wads of honey and c** twice on Easter Sunday? Can he c** a shotgun blast and shoot salvation up your a**? Does he chew c*** like bubblegum and give b******* like a vacuum?”
Sanders, who is a non-religious Jew, has been a foe of the Jewish state of Israel as well as a foe of religious Christianity.
In October 2019, speaking at the national conference of the notoriously anti-Israel J Street organization and interviewed by former Obama officials Ben Rhodes and Tommy Vietor, both of whom supported the Iran nuclear deal that represented an existential threat to Israel, Sanders curried favor by suggesting that Israel did not respect human rights, snapping, “I would use the leverage of $3.8 billion. It is a lot of money, and we cannot give it carte blanche to the Israeli government, or for that matter to any government at all. We have a right to demand respect for human rights and democracy.” He threatened, “My solution is, to Israel, if you want military aid you’re going to have to fundamentally change your relationship to the people of Gaza. I would say that some of the $3.8 billion should go right now to humanitarian aid in Gaza.”
<a href="https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/israel-zionism/2019/04/catering-to-the-democratic-fringe-bernie-sanders-defames-israel-again/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mosaic Magazine</a> noted:
<blockquote>
When Sanders wanted to win the Democratic nomination in 2016, he claimed that Israel had killed over 10,000 innocent Palestinians, launched indiscriminate attacks in the Gaza Strip, and shelled hospitals in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge in 2014. The senator not only inflated the numbers by several orders of magnitude, he even outdid the Hamas spokespersons in creating a false narrative that the IDF was intentionally attacking the civilian population.
</blockquote>
In 2017, Sanders <a href="https://erlc.com/press/russell-moore-criticizes-senator-bernie-sanders-comments-calling-them-a-religious-test-for-office/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">badgered</a> Russell Vought, President Donald Trump’s nominee for deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, about his evangelical Christian beliefs at a Senate confirmation hearing.  Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention stated, “Even if one were to excuse Senator Sanders for not realizing that all Christians of every age have insisted that faith in Jesus Christ is the only pathway to salvation, it is inconceivable that Senator Sanders would cite religious beliefs as disqualifying an individual for public office.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders Speaks In Wisconsin On His “Fighting Oligarchy Tour”

Trans-Identifying Singer Jeers At God With Obscene Lyrics, Brings Cheers At Bernie Sanders Rally

Bernie Sanders

Christianity

Congress

Obscenity

Politics

Wisconsin

This is the second part of an edited <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/michael-knowles-live-at-yaf-ordo-amoris-the-hierarchy-of-political-love" target="_blank" rel="noopener">speech</a>, titled “‘Ordo Amoris’: The Hierarchy of Political Love,” delivered by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-michael-knowles-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Michael Knowles</a> at the YAF Freedom Conference in San Diego, California.
* * *
Saint Thomas’ reasoning is, as always, clear and persuasive in his discussions of the order of charity. In the “Summa Theologiae,” Secunda Secundae, Question 26, he writes, “There must needs be some order in things loved out of charity, which order is in reference to the first principle of that love, which is God.” This expression alone proves editor of The Yale Review James Surowiecki had no idea what he was talking about when he <a href="https://x.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/1885302779058557080" target="_blank" rel="noopener">claimed</a> that the ordo amoris is not in the Gospels.
Not only is the ordo amoris in the Gospels, but it is also the principle articulated in the most famous line of the Gospels, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2022%3A37-39&amp;version=ESV" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Matthew 22:37-39</a>: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
There is, in other words, an order of charity — a hierarchy of love — and this order is the very foundation of Christian morality. We must love God first, and only then and upon that basis do we love everything else. And this order does not just comprise two categories. It isn’t just “God” and “everyone else.”
We find further scriptural evidence of the order of charity in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Timothy%205%3A8&amp;version=RSV" target="_blank" rel="noopener">1 Timothy 5:8</a>: “If any one does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his own family, he has disowned the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” A man does not necessarily disown the faith — he is not necessarily worse than an unbeliever — if he does not care for some random guy on the other side of the world. We have greater obligations to those who are closest to us.
This moral insight is attested to both by philosophy and religion — reason and revelation — and yet many liberals deny it. And we know they deny, not just because of their snarky tweets about JD Vance, but also from social science. Shortly after the ordo amoris debate kicked off, a graph went viral on social media.
<div id="attachment_886629" style="width: 678px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-886629" class="wp-image-886629 size-full" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/41467_2019_12227_Fig5_HTML.jpg" alt="Heatmaps indicating highest moral allocation by ideology, Study 3a. Source data are provided as a Source Data file. Note. The highest value on the heatmap scale is 20 units for liberals, and 12 units for conservatives. Moral circle rings, from inner to outer, are described as follows: (1) all of your immediate family, (2) all of your extended family, (3) all of your closest friends, (4) all of your friends (including distant ones), (5) all of your acquaintances, (6) all people you have ever met, (7) all people in your country, (8) all people on your continent, (9) all people on all continents, (10) all mammals, (11) all amphibians, reptiles, mammals, fish, and birds, (12) all animals on earth including paramecia and amoebae, (13) all animals in the universe, including alien lifeforms, (14) all living things in the universe including plants and trees, (15) all natural things in the universe including inert entities such as rocks, (16) all things in existence. SOURCE: “Ideological differences in the expanse of the moral circle.” Adam Waytz, Ravi Iyer, Liane Young, Jonathan Haidt, Jesse Graham. National Center for Biotechnology Information. National Library of Medicine. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31558713/" width="668" height="281" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/41467_2019_12227_Fig5_HTML.jpg 668w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/41467_2019_12227_Fig5_HTML-300x126.jpg 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 668px) 100vw, 668px" />SOURCE: “Ideological differences in the expanse of the moral circle.” Adam Waytz, Ravi Iyer, Liane Young, Jonathan Haidt, Jesse Graham. National Center for Biotechnology Information. National Library of Medicine.</div>
It’s from a 2019 <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31558713/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">study</a> titled, “Ideological Differences in the Expanse of the Moral Circle.” The graph depicts heat maps “indicating highest moral allocation by ideology.” The “moral circle rings” extend from the center outward. Care for “your immediate family” is in the center, followed by “all of your extended family,” then “all of your closest friends,” then “all of your friends (including distant ones),” then your acquaintances, people you’ve ever met, your countrymen, people on your continent, all people, all mammals, all other animals, all living creatures (including amoebae), all potential life in the universe (including aliens), all living things (including plants and trees), all non-living things (including rocks), and finally all things in existence.
The study found that conservatives, being normal, tend to care more about the things closest to them; they tend to care more about their immediate families than they care about rocks. Liberals, being the sort of people who hug trees and hate their dads, tend not to care more about things closer to them. The study found that “the more liberal people were, the more they allocated equally to humans and non-humans.” A distinguishing feature of Right-wingers is that they are more likely “to morally prioritize humans over nonhumans.”
Some libs have attempted to argue that conservatives simply misunderstand the study. They argue the study shows that conservatives don’t care more about their families than liberals do; it’s just that liberals care more generally. Now, even if that were true — and it’s a perfectly plausible hypothesis given liberals’ frequent inability to control their emotions — it would still be extremely disordered to care more about strangers than about one’s own parents. Even if they cared more overall — which, it turns out, they don’t.
Liberals really do care more about rocks and trees than they do about their own families. We don’t need a chart or study to show us that. Just ask a liberal about climate change and abortion. Liberals will rend their garments over environmental threats to the coral reef, but they’ll dance in the streets to celebrate the murder of their own children through abortion.
And, it turns out, the study shows as much. Because the study “constrained the number of units that participants could assign to each group, forcing participants to distribute moral concern in a zero-sum fashion” (i.e., the more concern they allocate to one circle, the less they can allocate to another circle). And the researchers did this because research suggests that’s how people really do distribute “empathy and moral concern.” Of course: It’s a finite world. We only have so many hours to worry. We only have so many tears to shed.
But just to prove how deep this moral perversion runs on the political Left, the researchers conducted another study to test what would happen if they did not constrain people to zero-sum moral thinking. And what they discovered was that “even when participants’ allocations were not constrained, the same pattern replicated.” Conservatives, the researchers showed, exhibit “greater concern and preference for family relative to friends, the nation relative to the world … and humans relative to non-humans.”
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-michael-knowles-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Michael Knowles Show</a></h3>
So what conclusion are we to draw from this? Is it just a matter of preference? “Conservatives love their family and friends; liberals love trees and rocks” — de gustibus non disputandum est! No accounting for taste! I don’t think so. Any reasonable person knows that one should care more for his children than for rocks and trees. If liberals do not, it is because they have made a moral error.
And the liberals didn’t even necessarily fall into this moral error because they’re wicked. More likely, I think, they fall into it because they’re trying (and failing) to be good. I suspect most of the time it actually comes from a place of love. But that love is misplaced. It’s out of order. And disordered love tends to evil, just as the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
G.K. Chesterton explains the phenomenon with regard to his friend, the socialist atheist George Bernard Shaw.
“Bernard Shaw,” Chesterton <a href="https://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/courses/439/orthodoxy2-3.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">writes</a>, “has a heroically large and generous heart; but not a heart in the right place. And this is so of the typical society of our time. The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues.”
“When a religious scheme is shattered,” he concludes, “it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad.”
Our nation’s — our whole civilization’s — religious scheme has obviously been shattered. The vice president invoked Thomas Aquinas, and our political elites were left drooling and scratching their heads.
The scheme has been shattered, the virtues have wandered, and these wandering virtues — these errant loves — have caused our present political ills. The only remedy is to restore order — not just to our streets and our communities but to our loves — if for no other reason than that without order, without caring for ourselves and our own, we can’t properly care for anyone else either.

MixCollage-04-Mar-2025-09-54-AM-7123

Restoring The Order Of Love: The Remedy To Political Ills

Catholics

Conservatives

Environmentalism

JD Vance

Liberals

Michael Knowles

U.S. Politics

Young America's Foundation

Sometimes history turns on a phrase. Patrick Henry had, “Give me liberty or give me death.” Ronald Reagan gave us, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” And now Vice President JD Vance has given us “I don’t really care, Margaret.”
If you missed it, this new rallying cry emerged <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/jd-vance-blasts-margaret-brennan-over-claim-afghan-refugees-let-into-u-s-are-vetted" target="_blank" rel="noopener">during an interview</a> between CBS’s Margaret Brennan and Vance about illegal immigrants who weren’t vetted for terrorist connections. 
When Brennan insisted, “Yes, they were,” Vance cited an illegal immigrant who had planned a terrorist attack in Oklahoma on Election Day last November. 
Brennan, perhaps believing this was a gotcha moment, asked, “Was he radicalized here or before he came here?” 
To which Vance delivered the line of the year: “I don’t really care, Margaret.”
At last, a spine. At last, an end to the abusive empathy that has held our country hostage for far too long.
<h3>The Tyranny Of The Appeal To Pity</h3>
For decades, the Left has operated on two primary emotional threats that happen to also be logical fallacies:
<ol>
<li>The appeal to pity — the idea that any demand for order, justice, or security must be discarded if someone, somewhere, might feel bad about it.</li>
<li>The appeal to fear, fear of being called racist — a charge wielded so indiscriminately that it has lost all meaning, save as a tool of manipulation.</li>
</ol>
Both of these threats are failing. And Vance’s blunt response encapsulates why.
Brennan’s question was an exercise in obfuscation. Well, sure, he was planning a terrorist attack, but was he radicalized before he came here, or was America to blame? The correct response to such nonsense isn’t a 15-minute forensic analysis of his ideological formation — it’s “I don’t really care, Margaret.” Because the problem isn’t when he was radicalized. The problem is that he was here in the first place, and he shouldn’t have been.
Moving to the United States is not a universal human right. Universal human rights are things that all humans always have. Most humans lived before the United States came into existence and yet they had human rights, meaning it&#8217;s not possible for them to have had that right — therefore it is not universal. Those who live today have the right to improve their own living conditions but there is no obligation on the part of the United States to move the population of the world here because they haven’t straightened out their own countries.
The usual leftist retort is, “their countries are in ruins because of us!” There comes a time to grow up and face your own problems. “Take responsibility for yourself” is a kindergarten lesson. Many of these places have been this way for centuries and some even before there was a United States. Passing the blame won’t make your life better. 
The Left has long weaponized compassion against the very people tasked with upholding the rule of law. The formula is simple: Ignore or downplay the crime, then shift attention to how the criminal (and family) feels about facing consequences, and then insist that enforcing the law is cruelty.
Brennan’s entire exchange with Vance was built on this faulty foundation. In the modern leftist mind, it’s not enough to ask, Did this man illegally enter the country and plan an act of mass murder? One must also consider, How would he feel if we deported him? Or What would I feel like if I lived in that country instead of the United States? 
Sorry, Margaret, we don’t really care. Write about it in your diary. 
<h3>Selective Mercy</h3>
Of course, the “be merciful” crowd has its limits. Mercy, as it turns out, only flows in one direction.
Consider Bishop Budde, who recently took it upon herself to lecture President Trump on being merciful. According to the good bishop, mercy demands that we not consider how or why someone broke the law to enter this country, not consider who they harmed, but only how they might feel when they are held accountable.
Funny — where was this mercy when the unborn needed it? Bishop Buddy has encouraged the murder of untold thousands of unborn babies, their silent cries drowned out by the very same “compassion” industry that tells us terrorists deserve our understanding. The “bishop” is not alone. The “Christian” philosophy professors are coming out in droves to post on social media that one cannot be a Christian and support Trump. These same professors smile approvingly as abortions occur and God is mocked at their universities. The same voices that insist we extend boundless mercy to criminals and lawbreakers have no interest in mercy when it comes to the most vulnerable.
It’s almost as if this isn’t about mercy at all. Newsflash: it isn’t. It’s about manipulation.
<h3>The Way Forward</h3>
Thankfully, conservatives are finally refusing to play this game. The age of emotional manipulation is coming to an end. Vance’s “I don’t really care, Margaret” is more than a quip — it’s a declaration that we will no longer be ruled by guilt trips and crocodile tears.
Let’s put that together with what I consider to be the classic Trump quote about reforming higher education: Let’s get the Marxists, maniacs, and lunatics out of our universities by no longer offering free government money for God-haters. “But how will that make them feel?” Do we care? They have opposed the truth and will face worse consequences if they don’t repent than losing a federal grant.
Too much is at stake. We have a country to defend and rebuild. We have a Christian faith to proclaim and protect. We have families to raise who will love God and love the truth. And we will not be bullied into submission by those who would trade the hard work of justice for the cheap grace of emotional blackmail.
The Left wanted a national conversation. They got one. And now, every time an activist reporter or radical professor tries to steer the discussion away from reality and into an emotional cul-de-sac by using their standard appeal to fear or appeal to pity, Americans have a ready response: “I don’t really care, Margaret.”
* * *
Dr. Owen Anderson is a professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Arizona State University. He is an internationally known scholar, theologian, and a Gracie Jiu-Jitsu instructor. With a Ph.D. in Philosophy, he has authored numerous books, including “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Twelve-Arguments-Showing-eternal-revelation/dp/057826384X/?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_w=E8EGL&amp;content-id=amzn1.sym.bc3ba8d1-5076-4ab7-9ba8-a5c6211e002d&amp;pf_rd_p=bc3ba8d1-5076-4ab7-9ba8-a5c6211e002d&amp;pf_rd_r=133-8344803-2786917&amp;pd_rd_wg=jqvhK&amp;pd_rd_r=a47f545b-2e79-448f-9f6d-366fdd467528&amp;ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Twelve Arguments</a>” and “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Declaration-Independence-God-Self-Evident-American/dp/1107088186" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Declaration of Independence and God</a>.”
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

MixCollage-30-Jan-2025-02-34-PM-7556

‘I Don’t Really Care, Margaret’: The End Of Abusive Empathy

'I Don’t Really Care, Margaret': The End of Abusive Empathy

CBS News

illegal immigrants

Leftists

Legacy Media

Terrorists

Menu

God