Gay Marriage: Even Liberals Know It’s Bad
This is my column that is running today at TownHall.com. I’ll post more on this later because 800 words is not enough to cover this very controversial topic.
Why not legalize same-sex marriage? Who could it possibly hurt? Children and the rest of society. That’s the conclusion of David Blankenhorn, who is anything but an anti-gay “bigot.” He is a life-long, pro-gay, liberal democrat who disagrees with the Bible’s prohibitions against homosexual behavior. Despite this, Blankenhorn makes a powerful case against Same-Sex marriage in his book, The Future of Marriage.
He writes, “Across history and cultures . . . marriage’s single most fundamental idea is that every child needs a mother and a father. Changing marriage to accommodate same-sex couples would nullify this principle in culture and in law.”
How so? The law is a great teacher, and same sex marriage will teach future generations that marriage is not about children but about coupling. When marriage becomes nothing more than coupling, fewer people will get married to have children.
So what? People will still have children, of course, but many more of them out-of wedlock. That’s a disaster for everyone. Children will be hurt because illegitimate parents (there are no illegitimate children) often never form a family, and those that “shack up” break up at a rate two to three times that of married parents. Society will be hurt because illegitimacy starts a chain of negative effects that fall like dominoes—illegitimacy leads to poverty, crime, and higher welfare costs which lead to bigger government, higher taxes, and a slower economy.
Are these just the hysterical cries of an alarmist? No. We can see the connection between same-sex marriage and illegitimacy in Scandinavian countries. Norway, for example, has had de-facto same-sex marriage since the early nineties. In Nordland, the most liberal county of Norway, where they fly “gay” rainbow flags over their churches, out-of-wedlock births have soared—more than 80 percent of women giving birth for the first time, and nearly 70 percent of all children, are born out of wedlock! Across all of Norway, illegitimacy rose from 39 percent to 50 percent in the first decade of same-sex marriage.
Anthropologist Stanley Kurtz writes, “When we look at Nordland and Nord-Troendelag — the Vermont and Massachusetts of Norway — we are peering as far as we can into the future of marriage in a world where gay marriage is almost totally accepted. What we see is a place where marriage itself has almost totally disappeared.” He asserts that “Scandinavian gay marriage has driven home the message that marriage itself is outdated, and that virtually any family form, including out-of-wedlock parenthood, is acceptable.” But it’s not just Norway. Blankenhorn reports this same trend in other countries. International surveys show that same-sex marriage and the erosion of traditional marriage tend to go together. Traditional marriage is weakest and illegitimacy strongest wherever same-sex marriage is legal.
You might say, “Correlation doesn’t always indicate causation!” Yes, but often it does. Is there any doubt that liberalizing marriage laws impacts society for the worse? You need look no further than the last 40 years of no-fault divorce laws in the United States (family disintegration destroys lives and now costs tax payers $112 billion per year!).
No-fault divorce laws began in one state, California, and then spread to rest of the country. Those liberalized divorce laws helped change our attitudes and behaviors about the permanence of marriage. There’s no question that liberalized marriage laws will help change our attitudes and behaviors about the purpose of marriage. The law is a great teacher, and if same-sex marriage advocates have their way, children will be expelled from the lesson on marriage.
This leads Blankenhorn to assert, “One can believe in same-sex marriage. One can believe that every child deserves a mother and a father. One cannot believe both.”
Blankenhorn is amazed how indifferent homosexual activists are about the negative effects of same-sex marriage on children. Many of them, he documents, say that marriage isn’t about children.
Well, if marriage isn’t about children, what institution is about children? And if we’re going to redefine marriage into mere coupling, then why should the state endorse same-sex marriage at all?
Contrary to what homosexual activists assume, the state doesn’t endorse marriage because people have feelings for one another. The state endorses marriage primarily because of what marriage does for children and in turn society. Society gets no benefit by redefining marriage to include homosexual relationships, only harm as the connection to illegitimacy shows. But the very future of children and a civilized society depends on stable marriages between men and women. That’s why, regardless of what you think about homosexuality, the two types of relationships should never be legally equated.
That conclusion has nothing to do with bigotry and everything to do with what’s best for children and society. Just ask pro-gay, liberal democrat David Blankenhorn.
May 27th, 2008 at 11:03 am
This is a very well written post. Thank you for your rational, sequential, objection-answering series over the past days.
May 27th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Frank,
This is a terrible article. I’m sorry, but I say so because you state what the clear problem is with your and Blakenhorn’s reasoning in the article. Corrolation doesn’t indicate causation. That in itself is enough for me to pan this article, but, furthurmore, the statistics that I’ve found don’t even show a corrolation between same-sex marriage and out-of-wedlock births. This is a table showing the births in Norway by year. In it, they have a column for births outside marriage.
http://www.ssb.no/english/year.....b-070.html
Births outside of marriage have clearly risen in Norway, but the largest jump,both by percentage and raw number, happened between 1986 and 1990. Norway didn’t have civil unions until 1993. And since 2000, out-of wedlocks births have leveled off.
So corrolation doesn’t indicate causation, and lack of corrolation should definitely not be used to show causation.
May 27th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
“However, there is no evidence that allowing same-sex couples to marry weakens the institution. If anything, the numbers indicate the opposite. A decade after Denmark, Norway and Sweden passed their respective partnership laws, heterosexual marriage rates had risen 10.7% in Denmark; 12.7% in Norway; and a whopping 28.8% in Sweden. In Denmark over the last few years, marriage rates are the highest they’ve been since the early 1970s. Divorce rates among heterosexual couples, on the other hand, have fallen. A decade after each country passed its partnership law, divorce rates had dropped 13.9% in Denmark; 6% in Norway; and 13.7% in Sweden. On average, divorce rates among heterosexuals remain lower now than in the years before same-sex partnerships were legalized.”
This comes from the Wall Street Journal.
http://online.wsj.com/article_.....05594.html
The authors conclude that “the facts demonstrate that there is no proof that same-sex marriage will harm the institution of marriage, or children.”
May 28th, 2008 at 11:09 am
MikeH,
Thanks for replying with data. I’ll have to get back to you tomorrow in more detail because I’m getting on a plane. But I think if you look at the data you provided from Norway it is consistent with my point. Illegitimate births have risen from about a third since same-sex marriage was instituted (not 45% as the WSJ article you cited erroneously claimed) to more than half (55%) now.
Moreover, I said nothing about rates of marriage. My point was about rates of illegitimacy.
Blessings,
Frank Turek
May 28th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Frank,
I agree that illegitimate births have risen since 1993 when civil unions were legalized (same-sex marriage is still not legal in Norway), but the rise in rates began before then. There were 6,399 illigitimate births from 1976-1980. That rose to 10,143 from 1981-1985, an increase of 59%. It again increased from 1986-1990 to 19,175. A staggaring jump of 89%. Notice that this is all before the Registered Partnership Act of 1993 came about. Therefore I find it incredibly difficult to show even corrolation with civil unions, much less causation.
I realize you didn’t say anything specifically about marriage rates. I wanted to bring your attention to the WSJ article and the authors’ findings.
Have a safe trip,
Mike
May 28th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
MikeH,
There had to be a shift/change in attitude leading up to the Registered Partnership Act of 1993. Wouldn’t that account for the initial increases you cite?
V/r
Pop
May 28th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
I still not sure that there is any relation between civil unions in Norway and illegitimate births there, but I think there certainly was shift in attitudes that began at least in the 1980s. If they are related, then it would appear that civil unions are a consequence of this shift and not a cause. It should be noted that illegitimate births continue to rise after 1993, but at a much slower rate.
I’ll try to find out if there has been any commentary on this from Norwegians themselves.
Cheers,
Mike
May 28th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Here is another interesting set of data found here:
http://www.ssb.no/ola_kari_en/barn_en/
“The great majority of children born outside marriage have parents who live together. Only 10 per cent are born to lone mothers. However, in the case of the first child, 49 per cent are born to parents who live together and 15 per cent to lone mothers. When the second child comes along, the parents are more likely to be married.”
Doesn’t seem as bad when you look at it that way.
May 29th, 2008 at 10:42 am
The below is an excellent article on this subject.
http://www.battlefortruth.org/.....asp?id=165
Here is an excerpt “there is some empirical evidence demonstrating that the allowance of same-sex marriage within a given culture will harm the institution of marriage. As Dr. Stanley Kurtz, senior fellow at ’s Hoover Institute reported before the House Judiciary Committee in April of 2004, there is ample evidence in the experience of Scandinavia. Dr. Kurtz holds a Ph.D. in social anthropology from Harvard University and is regarded as both an excellent scholar and expert in this area. In the Scandinavian countries, he reports:
“They have simply drawn the final conclusion. In other words, ‘if we come this far without marriage, why marry at all? Our love is what matters, not a piece of paper. Why should children change that?’”
Indeed, in Sweden the out of wedlock birthrate is 55%, Norway is 50%, and Iceland is approaching 70% and in Denmark 60% of firstborn, children are born out-of-wedlock. And, again according to Dr. Kurtz, studies in these countries demonstrate that unmarried families break up at a rate two to three times that of married couples. This has only exacerbated the welfare state that is unparalleled in Scandinavia. No western nation has a higher percentage of public employees, public expenditures or higher tax rates than Sweden for example.
Dr. Kurtz reports that all of the Scandinavian countries mentioned have “embraced de-facto same-sex marriage beginning with Denmark in 1989. The out-of-wedlock birth rates given earlier experienced their most dramatic increases in the decade following the acceptance of same-sex marriage in these countries. The separation of marriage from parenting was already increasing, as it is here, gay marriage only widened the separation. In Scandinavia, gay marriage has driven home the message that marriage itself is outdated, and that virtually any family form, including out-of-wedlock parenthood is acceptable.”
British demographer Kathleen Kiernan, the acknowledged authority on the spread of cohabitation and out-of-wedlock births across cohabitation and out-of-wedlock births across Europe, divides the continent into three zones. The Nordic countries are the leaders in cohabitation and out-of-wedlock births. They are followed by a middle group that includes the Netherlands, Belgium, Great Britain and Germany. France’s rising out-of-wedlock birthrate has moved it into the Nordic category. North American rates of cohabitation and out-of-wedlock birth put the United States and Canada into this middle group.
Most resistant to cohabitation, family dissolution, and out-of-wedlock births are the southern European countries of Portugal, Italy and Greece and until recently Spain, Switzerland and Ireland.
These three groupings closely track the movement for gay marriage. In the late eighties and early nineties, gay marriage came to the Nordic countries, where the out-of-wedlock birthrate was already high. Ten years later, out-of-wedlock birth rates have risen significantly in the middle group of nations. Not coincidentally, nearly every country in that middle group has recently either legalized some form of gay marriage, or is seriously considering doing so. Only in the group with low out-of-wedlock birthrates has the gay marriage movement achieved relatively little success.”
Kurtz concludes by saying that “This suggests that gay marriage is both an effect and a cause of the increasing separation between marriage and parenthood. As rising out-of-wedlock birthrates disassociate heterosexual marriage from parenting, gay marriage becomes conceivable.”
May 29th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
Here is Kurtz’ entire article:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/.....0zypwj.asp
I’ve pasted it as well:
The End of Marriage in Scandinavia
The “conservative case” for same-sex marriage collapses[? I’m not sure why this was the tag line]
by Stanley Kurtz
02/02/2004, Volume 009, Issue 20
MARRIAGE IS SLOWLY DYING IN SCANDINAVIA. A majority of children in Sweden and Norway are born out of wedlock. Sixty percent of first-born children in Denmark have unmarried parents. Not coincidentally, these countries have had something close to full gay marriage for a decade or more. Same-sex marriage has locked in and reinforced an existing Scandinavian trend toward the separation of marriage and parenthood. The Nordic family pattern–including gay marriage–is spreading across Europe. And by looking closely at it we can answer the key empirical question underlying the gay marriage debate. Will same-sex marriage undermine the institution of marriage? It already has.
More precisely, it has further undermined the institution. The separation of marriage from parenthood was increasing; gay marriage has widened the separation. Out-of-wedlock birthrates were rising; gay marriage has added to the factors pushing those rates higher. Instead of encouraging a society-wide return to marriage, Scandinavian gay marriage has driven home the message that marriage itself is outdated, and that virtually any family form, including out-of-wedlock parenthood, is acceptable.
This is not how the situation has been portrayed by prominent gay marriage advocates journalist Andrew Sullivan and Yale law professor William Eskridge Jr. Sullivan and Eskridge have made much of an unpublished study of Danish same-sex registered partnerships by Darren Spedale, an independent researcher with an undergraduate degree who visited Denmark in 1996 on a Fulbright scholarship. In 1989, Denmark had legalized de facto gay marriage (Norway followed in 1993 and Sweden in 1994). Drawing on Spedale, Sullivan and Eskridge cite
evidence that since then, marriage has strengthened. Spedale reported that in the six years following the establishment of registered partnerships in Denmark (1990-1996), heterosexual marriage rates climbed by 10 percent, while heterosexual divorce rates declined by 12 percent. Writing in the McGeorge Law Review, Eskridge claimed that Spedale’s study had exposed the “hysteria and irresponsibility” of those who predicted gay marriage would undermine marriage. Andrew Sullivan’s Spedale-inspired piece was subtitled, “The case against same-sex marriage crumbles.”
Yet the half-page statistical analysis of heterosexual marriage in Darren Spedale’s unpublished paper doesn’t begin to get at the truth about the decline of marriage in Scandinavia during the nineties. Scandinavian marriage is now so weak that statistics on marriage and divorce no longer mean what they used to.
Take divorce. It’s true that in Denmark, as elsewhere in Scandinavia, divorce numbers looked better in the nineties. But that’s because the pool of married people has been shrinking for some time. You can’t divorce without first getting married. Moreover, a closer look at Danish divorce in the post-gay marriage decade reveals disturbing trends. Many Danes have stopped holding off divorce until their kids are grown. And Denmark in the nineties saw a 25 percent increase in cohabiting couples with children. With fewer parents marrying, what used to show up in statistical tables as early divorce is now the unrecorded breakup of a cohabiting couple with children.
What about Spedale’s report that the Danish marriage rate increased 10 percent from 1990 to 1996? Again, the news only appears to be good. First, there is no trend. Eurostat’s just-released marriage rates for 2001 show declines in Sweden and Denmark (Norway hasn’t reported). Second, marriage statistics in societies with very low rates (Sweden registered the lowest marriage rate in recorded history in 1997) must be carefully parsed. In his study of the Norwegian family in the nineties, for example, Christer Hyggen shows that a small increase in Norway’s marriage rate over the past decade has more to do with the institution’s decline than with any renaissance. Much of the increase in Norway’s marriage rate is driven by older couples “catching up.” These couples belong to the first generation that accepts rearing the first born child out of wedlock. As they bear second children, some finally get married. (And even this tendency to marry at the birth of a second child is weakening.) As for the rest of the increase in the Norwegian marriage rate, it is largely attributable to remarriage among the large number of divorced.
The End of Marriage in Scandinavia
The “conservative case” for same-sex marriage collapses.
by Stanley Kurtz
02/02/2004, Volume 009, Issue 20
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May 29th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
Section 2 of the above article:
The End of Marriage in Scandinavia
The “conservative case” for same-sex marriage collapses.
by Stanley Kurtz
02/02/2004, Volume 009, Issue 20
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May 29th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
Let’s try that again: Section 2
Spedale’s report of lower divorce rates and higher marriage rates in post-gay marriage Denmark is thus misleading. Marriage is now so weak in Scandinavia that shifts in these rates no longer mean what they would in America. In Scandinavian demography, what counts is the out-of-wedlock birthrate, and the family dissolution rate.
The family dissolution rate is different from the divorce rate. Because so many Scandinavians now rear children outside of marriage, divorce rates are unreliable measures of family weakness. Instead, we need to know the rate at which parents (married or not) split up. Precise statistics on family dissolution are unfortunately rare. Yet the studies that have been done show that throughout Scandinavia (and the West) cohabiting couples with children break up at two to three times the rate of married parents. So rising rates of cohabitation and out-of-wedlock birth stand as proxy for rising rates of family dissolution.
By that measure, Scandinavian family dissolution has only been worsening. Between 1990 and 2000, Norway’s out-of-wedlock birthrate rose from 39 to 50 percent, while Sweden’s rose from 47 to 55 percent. In Denmark out-of-wedlock births stayed level during the nineties (beginning at 46 percent and ending at 45 percent). But the leveling off seems to be a function of a slight increase in fertility among older couples, who marry only after multiple births (if they don’t break up first). That shift masks the 25 percent increase during the nineties in cohabitation and unmarried parenthood among Danish couples (many of them young). About 60 percent of
first born children in Denmark now have unmarried parents. The rise of fragile families based on cohabitation and out-of-wedlock childbearing means that during the nineties, the total rate of family dissolution in Scandinavia significantly increased.
Scandinavia’s out-of-wedlock birthrates may have risen more rapidly in the seventies, when marriage began its slide. But the push of that rate past the 50 percent mark during the nineties was in many ways more disturbing. Growth in the out-of-wedlock birthrate is limited by the tendency of parents to marry after a couple of births, and also by the persistence of relatively conservative and religious districts. So as out-of-wedlock childbearing pushes beyond 50 percent, it is reaching the toughest areas of cultural resistance. The most important trend of the post-gay marriage decade may be the erosion of the tendency to marry at the birth of a second child. Once even that marker disappears, the path to the complete disappearance of marriage is open.
And now that married parenthood has become a minority phenomenon, it has lost the critical mass required to have socially normative force. As Danish sociologists Wehner, Kambskard, and Abrahamson describe it, in the wake of the changes of the nineties, “Marriage is no longer a precondition for settling a family–neither legally nor normatively. . . . What defines and makes the foundation of the Danish family can be said to have moved from marriage to parenthood.”
So the highly touted half-page of analysis from an unpublished paper that supposedly helps validate the “conservative case” for gay marriage–i.e., that it will encourage stable marriage for heterosexuals and homosexuals alike–does no such thing. Marriage in Scandinavia is in deep decline, with children shouldering the burden of rising rates of family dissolution. And the mainspring of the decline–an increasingly sharp separation between marriage and parenthood–can be linked to gay marriage. To see this, we need to understand why marriage is in trouble in Scandinavia to begin with.
SCANDINAVIA has long been a bellwether of family change. Scholars take the Swedish experience as a prototype for family developments that will, or could, spread throughout the world. So let’s have a look at the decline of Swedish marriage.
In Sweden, as elsewhere, the sixties brought contraception, abortion, and growing individualism. Sex was separated from procreation, reducing the need for “shotgun weddings.” These changes, along with the movement of women into the workforce, enabled and encouraged people to marry at later ages. With married couples putting off parenthood, early divorce had fewer consequences for children. That weakened the taboo against divorce. Since young couples were putting off children, the next step was to dispense with marriage and cohabit until children were desired. Americans have lived through this transformation. The Swedes have simply drawn the final conclusion: If we’ve come so far without marriage, why marry at all? Our love is what matters, not a piece of paper. Why should children change that?
Two things prompted the Swedes to take this extra step–the welfare state and cultural attitudes. No Western economy has a higher percentage of public employees, public expenditures–or higher tax rates–than Sweden. The massive Swedish welfare state has largely displaced the family as provider. By guaranteeing jobs and income to every citizen (even children), the welfare state renders each individual independent. It’s easier to divorce your spouse when the state will support you instead.
The taxes necessary to support the welfare state have had an enormous impact on the family. With taxes so high, women must work. This reduces the time available for child rearing, thus encouraging the expansion of a day-care system that takes a large part in raising nearly all Swedish children over age one. Here is at least a partial realization of Simone de Beauvoir’s dream of an enforced androgyny that pushes women from the home by turning children over to the state.
Yet the Swedish welfare state may encourage traditionalism in one respect. The lone teen pregnancies common in the British and American underclass are rare in Sweden, which has no underclass to speak of. Even when Swedish couples bear a child out of wedlock, they tend to reside together when the child is born. Strong state enforcement of child support is another factor discouraging single motherhood by teens. Whatever the causes, the discouragement of lone motherhood is a short-term effect. Ultimately, mothers and fathers can get along financially alone. So children born out of wedlock are raised, initially, by two cohabiting parents, many of whom later break up.
There are also cultural-ideological causes of Swedish family decline. Even more than in the United States, radical feminist and socialist ideas pervade the universities and the media. Many Scandinavian social scientists see marriage as a barrier to full equality between the sexes, and would not be sorry to see marriage replaced by unmarried cohabitation. A related cultural-ideological agent of marital decline is secularism. Sweden is probably the most secular country in the world. Secular social scientists (most of them quite radical) have largely replaced clerics as arbiters of public morality. Swedes themselves link the decline of marriage to secularism. And many studies confirm that, throughout the West, religiosity is associated with institutionally strong marriage, while heightened secularism is correlated with a weakening of marriage. Scholars have long suggested that the relatively thin Christianization of the Nordic countries explains a lot about why the decline of marriage in Scandinavia is a decade ahead of the rest of the West.
Are Scandinavians concerned about rising out-of-wedlock births, the decline of marriage, and ever-rising rates of family dissolution? No, and yes. For over 15 years, an American outsider, Rutgers University sociologist David Popenoe, has played Cassandra on these issues. Popenoe’s 1988 book, “Disturbing the Nest,” is still the definitive treatment of Scandinavian family change and its meaning for the Western world. Popenoe is no toe-the-line conservative. He has praise for the Swedish welfare state, and criticizes American opposition to some child welfare programs. Yet Popenoe has documented the slow motion collapse of the Swedish family, and emphasized the link between Swedish family decline and welfare policy.
For years, Popenoe’s was a lone voice. Yet by the end of the nineties, the problem was too obvious to ignore. In 2000, Danish sociologist Mai Heide Ottosen published a study, “Samboskab, Aegteskab og Foraeldrebrud” (”Cohabitation, Marriage and Parental Breakup”), which confirmed the increased risk of family dissolution to children of unmarried parents, and gently chided Scandinavian social scientists for ignoring the “quiet revolution” of out-of-wedlock parenting.
Despite the reluctance of Scandinavian social scientists to study the consequences of family dissolution for children, we do have an excellent study that followed the life experiences of all children born in Stockholm in 1953. (Not coincidentally, the research was conducted by a British scholar, Duncan W.G. Timms.) That study found that regardless of income or social status, parental breakup had negative effects on children’s mental health. Boys living with single, separated, or divorced mothers had particularly high rates of impairment in adolescence. An important 2003 study by Gunilla Ringbäck Weitoft, et al. found that children of single parents in Sweden have more than double the rates of mortality, severe morbidity, and injury of children in two parent households. This held true after controlling for a wide range of demographic and socioeconomic circumstances.
THE DECLINE OF MARRIAGE and the rise of unstable cohabitation and out-of-wedlock childbirth are not confined to Scandinavia. The Scandinavian welfare state aggravates these problems. Yet none of the forces weakening marriage there are unique to the region. Contraception, abortion, women in the workforce, spreading secularism, ascendant individualism, and a substantial welfare state are found in every Western country. That is why the Nordic pattern is spreading.
Yet the pattern is spreading unevenly. And scholars agree that cultural tradition plays a central role in determining whether a given country moves toward the Nordic family system. Religion is a key variable. A 2002 study by the Max Planck Institute, for example, concluded that countries with the lowest rates of family dissolution and out-of-wedlock births are “strongly dominated by the Catholic confession.” The same study found that in countries with high levels of family dissolution, religion in general, and Catholicism in particular, had little influence.
British demographer Kathleen Kiernan, the acknowledged authority on the spread of cohabitation and out-of-wedlock births across Europe, divides the continent into three zones. The Nordic countries are the leaders in cohabitation and out-of-wedlock births. They are followed by a middle group that includes the Netherlands, Belgium, Great Britain, and Germany. Until recently, France was a member of this middle group, but France’s rising out-of-wedlock birthrate has moved it into the Nordic category. North American rates of cohabitation and out-of-wedlock birth put the United States and Canada into this middle group. Most resistant to cohabitation, family dissolution, and out-of-wedlock births are the southern European countries of Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Greece, and, until recently, Switzerland and Ireland. (Ireland’s rising out-of-wedlock birthrate has just pushed it into the middle group.)
These three groupings closely track the movement for gay marriage. In the early nineties, gay marriage came to the Nordic countries, where the out-of-wedlock birthrate was already high. Ten years later, out-of-wedlock birth rates have risen significantly in the middle group of nations. Not coincidentally, nearly every country in that middle group has recently either legalized some form of gay marriage, or is seriously considering doing so. Only in the group with low out-of-wedlock birthrates has the gay marriage movement achieved relatively little success.
This suggests that gay marriage is both an effect and a cause of the increasing separation between marriage and parenthood. As rising out-of-wedlock birthrates disassociate heterosexual marriage from parenting, gay marriage becomes conceivable. If marriage is only about a relationship between two people, and is not intrinsically connected to parenthood, why shouldn’t same-sex couples be allowed to marry? It follows that once marriage is redefined to accommodate same-sex couples, that change cannot help but lock in and reinforce the very cultural separation between marriage and parenthood that makes gay marriage conceivable to begin with.
We see this process at work in the radical separation of marriage and parenthood that swept across Scandinavia in the nineties. If Scandinavian out-of-wedlock birthrates had not already been high in the late eighties, gay marriage would have been far more difficult to imagine. More than a decade into post-gay marriage Scandinavia, out-of-wedlock birthrates have passed 50 percent, and the effective end of marriage as a protective shield for children has become thinkable. Gay marriage hasn’t blocked the separation of marriage and parenthood; it has advanced it.
WE SEE THIS most clearly in Norway. In 1989, a couple of years after Sweden broke ground by offering gay couples the first domestic partnership package in Europe, Denmark legalized de facto gay marriage. This kicked off a debate in Norway (traditionally more conservative than either Sweden or Denmark), which legalized de facto gay marriage in 1993. (Sweden expanded its benefits packages into de facto gay marriage in 1994.) In liberal Denmark, where out-of-wedlock birthrates were already very high, the public favored same-sex marriage. But in Norway, where the out-of-wedlock birthrate was lower–and religion traditionally stronger–gay marriage was imposed, against the public will, by the political elite.
Norway’s gay marriage debate, which ran most intensely from 1991 through 1993, was a culture-shifting event. And once enacted, gay marriage had a decidedly unconservative impact on Norway’s cultural contests, weakening marriage’s defenders, and placing a weapon in the hands of those who sought to replace marriage with cohabitation. Since its adoption, gay marriage has brought division and decline to Norway’s Lutheran Church. Meanwhile, Norway’s fast-rising out-of-wedlock birthrate has shot past Denmark’s. Particularly in Norway–once relatively conservative–gay marriage has undermined marriage’s institutional standing for everyone.
Norway’s Lutheran state church has been riven by conflict in the decade since the approval of de facto gay marriage, with the ordination of registered partners the most divisive issue. The church’s agonies have been intensively covered in the Norwegian media, which have taken every opportunity to paint the church as hidebound and divided. The nineties began with conservative churchmen control. By the end of the decade, liberals had seized the reins.
While the most public disputes of the nineties were over homosexuality, Norway’s Lutheran church was also divided over the question of heterosexual cohabitation. Asked directly, liberal and conservative clerics alike voice a preference for marriage over cohabitation–especially for couples with children. In practice, however, conservative churchmen speak out against the trend toward unmarried cohabitation and childbirth, while liberals acquiesce.
This division over heterosexual cohabitation broke into the open in 2000, at the height of the church’s split over gay partnerships, when Prince Haakon, heir to Norway’s throne, began to live with his lover, a single mother. From the start of the prince’s controversial relationship to its eventual culmination in marriage, the future head of the Norwegian state church received tokens of public support or understanding from the very same bishops who were leading the fight to permit the ordination of homosexual partners.
So rather than strengthening Norwegian marriage against the rise of cohabitation and out-of-wedlock birth, same-sex marriage had the opposite effect. Gay marriage lessened the church’s authority by splitting it into warring factions and providing the secular media with occasions to mock and expose divisions. Gay marriage also elevated the church’s openly rebellious minority liberal faction to national visibility, allowing Norwegians to feel that their proclivity for unmarried parenthood, if not fully approved by the church, was at least not strongly condemned. If the “conservative case” for gay marriage had been valid, clergy who were supportive of gay marriage would Spedale’s have taken a strong public stand against unmarried heterosexual parenthood. This didn’t happen. It was the conservative clergy who criticized the prince, while the liberal supporters of gay marriage tolerated his decisions. The message was not lost on ordinary Norwegians, who continued their flight to unmarried parenthood.
Gay marriage is both an effect and a reinforcing cause of the separation of marriage and parenthood. In states like Sweden and Denmark, where out-of-wedlock birthrates were already very high, and the public favored gay marriage, gay unions were an effect of earlier changes. Once in place, gay marriage symbolically ratified the separation of marriage and parenthood. And once established, gay marriage became one of several factors contributing to further increases in cohabitation and out-of-wedlock birthrates, as well as to early divorce. But in Norway, where out-of-wedlock birthrates were lower, religion stronger, and the public opposed same-sex unions, gay marriage had an even greater role in precipitating marital decline.
SWEDEN’S POSITION as the world leader in family decline is associated with a weak clergy, and the prominence of secular and left-leaning social scientists. In the post-gay marriage nineties, as Norway’s once relatively low out-of-wedlock birthrate was climbing to unprecedented heights, and as the gay marriage controversy weakened and split the once respected Lutheran state church, secular social scientists took center stage.
Kari Moxnes, a feminist sociologist specializing in divorce, is one of the most prominent of Norway’s newly emerging group of public social scientists. As a scholar who sees both marriage and at-home motherhood as inherently oppressive to women, Moxnes is a proponent of nonmarital cohabitation and parenthood. In 1993, as the Norwegian legislature was debating gay marriage, Moxnes published an article, “Det tomme ekteskap” (”Empty Marriage”), in the influential liberal paper Dagbladet. She argued that Norwegian gay marriage was a sign of marriage’s growing emptiness, not its strength. Although Moxnes spoke in favor of gay marriage, she treated its creation as a (welcome) death knell for marriage itself. Moxnes identified homosexuals–with their experience in forging relationships unencumbered by children–as social pioneers in the separation of marriage from parenthood. In recognizing homosexual relationships, Moxnes said, society was ratifying the division of marriage from parenthood that had spurred the rise of out-of-wedlock births to begin with.
A frequent public presence, Moxnes enjoyed her big moment in 1999, when she was embroiled in a dispute with Valgerd Svarstad Haugland, minister of children and family affairs in Norway’s Christian Democrat government. Moxnes had criticized Christian marriage classes for teaching children the importance of wedding vows. This brought a sharp public rebuke from Haugland. Responding to Haugland’s criticisms, Moxnes invoked homosexual families as proof that “relationships” were now more important than institutional marriage.
This is not what proponents of the conservative case for gay marriage had in mind. In Norway, gay marriage has given ammunition to those who wish to put an end to marriage. And the steady rise of Norway’s out-of-wedlock birthrate during the nineties proves that the opponents of marriage are succeeding. Nor is Kari Moxnes an isolated case.
Months before Moxnes clashed with Haugland, social historian Kari Melby had a very public quarrel with a leader of the Christian Democratic party over the conduct of Norway’s energy minister, Marit Arnstad. Arnstad had gotten pregnant in office and had declined to name the father. Melby defended Arnstad, and publicly challenged the claim that children do best with both a mother and a father. In making her case, Melby praised gay parenting, along with voluntary single motherhood, as equally worthy alternatives to the traditional family. So instead of noting that an expectant mother might want to follow the example of marriage that even gays were now setting, Melby invoked homosexual families as proof that a child can do as well with one parent as two.
Finally, consider a case that made even more news in Norway, that of handball star Mia Hundvin (yes, handball prowess makes for celebrity in Norway). Hundvin had been in a registered gay partnership with fellow handballer Camilla Andersen. These days, however, having publicly announced her bisexuality, Hundvin is linked with Norwegian snowboarder Terje Haakonsen. Inspired by her time with Haakonsen’s son, Hundvin decided to have a child. The father of Hundvin’s child may well be Haakonsen, but neither Hundvin nor Haakonsen is saying.
Did Hundvin divorce her registered partner before deciding to become a single mother by (probably) her new boyfriend? The story in Norway’s premiere paper, Aftenposten, doesn’t bother to mention. After noting that Hundvin and Andersen were registered partners, the paper simply says that the two women are no longer “romantically involved.” Hundvin has only been with Haakonsen about a year. She obviously decided to become a single mother without bothering to see whether she and Haakonsen might someday marry. Nor has Hundvin appeared to consider that her affection for Haakonsen’s child (also apparently born out of wedlock) might better be expressed by marrying Haakonsen and becoming his son’s new mother.
Certainly, you can chalk up more than a little of this saga to celebrity culture. But celebrity culture is both a product and influencer of the larger culture that gives rise to it. Clearly, the idea of parenthood here has been radically individualized, and utterly detached from marriage. Registered partnerships have reinforced existing trends. The press treats gay partnerships more as relationships than as marriages. The symbolic message of registered partnerships–for social scientists, handball players, and bishops alike–has been that most any nontraditional family is just fine. Gay marriage has served to validate the belief that individual choice trumps family form.
The Scandinavian experience rebuts the so-called conservative case for gay marriage in more than one way. Noteworthy, too, is the lack of a movement toward marriage and monogamy among gays. Take-up rates on gay marriage are exceedingly small. Yale’s William Eskridge acknowledged this when he reported in 2000 that 2,372 couples had registered after nine years of the Danish law, 674 after four years of the Norwegian law, and 749 after four years of the Swedish law.
Danish social theorist Henning Bech and Norwegian sociologist Rune Halvorsen offer excellent accounts of the gay marriage debates in Denmark and Norway. Despite the regnant social liberalism in these countries, proposals to recognize gay unions generated tremendous controversy, and have reshaped the meaning of marriage in the years since. Both Bech and Halvorsen stress that the conservative case for gay marriage, while put forward by a few, was rejected by many in the gay community. Bech, perhaps Scandinavia’s most prominent gay thinker, dismisses as an “implausible” claim the idea that gay marriage promotes monogamy. He treats the “conservative case” as something that served chiefly tactical purposes during a difficult political debate. According to Halvorsen, many of Norway’s gays imposed self-censorship during the marriage debate, so as to hide their opposition to marriage itself. The goal of the gay marriage movements in both Norway and Denmark, say Halvorsen and Bech, was not marriage but social approval for homosexuality. Halvorsen suggests that the low numbers of registered gay couples may be understood as a collective protest against the expectations (presumably, monogamy) embodied in marriage.
SINCE LIBERALIZING DIVORCE in the first decades of the twentieth century, the Nordic countries have been the leading edge of marital change. Drawing on the Swedish experience, Kathleen Kiernan, the British demographer, uses a four-stage model by which to gauge a country’s movement toward Swedish levels of out-of-wedlock births.
In stage one, cohabitation is seen as a deviant or avant-garde practice, and the vast majority of the population produces children within marriage. Italy is at this first stage. In the second stage, cohabitation serves as a testing period before marriage, and is generally a childless phase. Bracketing the problem of underclass single parenthood, America is largely at this second stage. In stage three, cohabitation becomes increasingly acceptable, and parenting is no longer automatically associated with marriage. Norway was at this third stage, but with recent demographic and legal changes has entered stage four. In the fourth stage (Sweden and Denmark), marriage and cohabitation become practically indistinguishable, with many, perhaps even most, children born and raised outside of marriage. According to Kiernan, these stages may vary in duration, yet once a country has reached a stage, return to an earlier phase is unlikely. (She offers no examples of stage reversal.) Yet once a stage has been reached, earlier phases coexist.
The forces pushing nations toward the Nordic model are almost universal. True, by preserving legal distinctions between marriage and cohabitation, reining in the welfare state, and preserving at least some traditional values, a given country might forestall or prevent the normalization of nonmarital parenthood. Yet every Western country is susceptible to the pull of the Nordic model. Nor does Catholicism guarantee immunity. Ireland, perhaps because of its geographic, linguistic, and cultural proximity to England, is now suffering from out-of-wedlock birthrates far in excess of the rest of Catholic Europe. Without deeming a shift inevitable, Kiernan openly wonders how long America can resist the pull of stages three and four.
Although Sweden leads the world in family decline, the United States is runner-up. Swedes marry less, and bear more children out of wedlock, than any other industrialized nation. But Americans lead the world in single parenthood and divorce. If we bracket the crisis of single parenthood among African-Americans, the picture is somewhat different. Yet even among non-Hispanic whites, the American divorce rate is extremely high by world standards.
The American mix of family traditionalism and family instability is unusual. In comparison to Europe, Americans are more religious and more likely to turn to the family than the state for a wide array of needs–from child care, to financial support, to care for the elderly. Yet America’s individualism cuts two ways. Our cultural libertarianism protects the family as a bulwark against the state, yet it also breaks individuals loose from the family. The danger we face is a combination of America’s divorce rate with unstable, Scandinavian-style out-of-wedlock parenthood. With a growing tendency for cohabiting couples to have children outside of marriage, America is headed in that direction.
Young Americans are more likely to favor gay marriage than their elders. That oft-noted fact is directly related to another. Less than half of America’s twentysomethings consider it wrong to bear children outside marriage. There is a growing tendency for even middle class cohabiting couples to have children without marrying.
Nonetheless, although cohabiting parenthood is growing in America, levels here are still far short of those in Europe. America’s situation is not unlike Norway’s in the early nineties, with religiosity relatively strong, the out-of-wedlock birthrate still relatively low (yet rising), and the public opposed to gay marriage. If, as in Norway, gay marriage were imposed here by a socially liberal cultural elite, it would likely speed us on the way toward the classic Nordic pattern of less frequent marriage, more frequent out-of-wedlock birth, and skyrocketing family dissolution.
In the American context, this would be a disaster. Beyond raising rates of middle class family dissolution, a further separation of marriage from parenthood would reverse the healthy turn away from single-parenting that we have begun to see since welfare reform. And cross-class family decline would bring intense pressure for a new expansion of the American welfare state.
All this is happening in Britain. With the Nordic pattern’s spread across Europe, Britain’s out-of-wedlock birthrate has risen to 40 percent. Most of that increase is among cohabiting couples. Yet a significant number of out-of-wedlock births in Britain are to lone teenage mothers. This a function of Britain’s class divisions. Remember that although the Scandinavian welfare state encourages family dissolution in the long term, in the short term, Scandinavian parents giving birth out of wedlock tend to stay together. But given the presence of a substantial underclass in Britain, the spread of Nordic cohabitation there has sent lone teen parenting rates way up. As Britain’s rates of single parenting and family dissolution have grown, so has pressure to expand the welfare state to compensate for economic help that families can no longer provide. But of course, an expansion of the welfare state would only lock the weakening of Britain’s family system into place.
If America is to avoid being forced into a similar choice, we’ll have to resist the separation of marriage from parenthood. Yet even now we are being pushed in the Scandinavian direction. Stimulated by rising rates of unmarried parenthood, the influential American Law Institute (ALI) has proposed a series of legal reforms (”Principles of Family Dissolution”) designed to equalize marriage and cohabitation. Adoption of the ALI principles would be a giant step toward the Scandinavian system.
AMERICANS take it for granted that, despite its recent troubles, marriage will always exist. This is a mistake. Marriage is disappearing in Scandinavia, and the forces undermining it there are active throughout the West. Perhaps the most disturbing sign for the future is the collapse of the Scandinavian tendency to marry after the second child. At the start of the nineties, 60 percent of unmarried Norwegian parents who lived together had only one child. By 2001, 56 percent of unmarried, cohabiting parents in Norway had two or more children. This suggests that someday, Scandinavian parents might simply stop getting married altogether, no matter how many children they have.
The death of marriage is not inevitable. In a given country, public policy decisions and cultural values could slow, and perhaps halt, the process of marital decline. Nor are we faced with an all-or-nothing choice between the marital system of, say, the 1950s and marriage’s disappearance. Kiernan’s model posits stopping points. So repealing no-fault divorce, or even eliminating premarital cohabitation, are not what’s at issue. With no-fault divorce, Americans traded away some of the marital stability that protects children to gain more freedom for adults. Yet we can accept that trade-off, while still drawing a line against descent into a Nordic-style system. And cohabitation as a premarital testing phase is not the same as unmarried parenting. Potentially, a line between the two can hold.
Developments in the last half-century have surely weakened the links between American marriage and parenthood. Yet to a remarkable degree, Americans still take it for granted that parents should marry. Scandinavia shocks us. Still, who can deny that gay marriage will accustom us to a more Scandinavian-style separation of marriage and parenthood? And with our underclass, the social pathologies this produces in America are bound to be more severe than they already are in wealthy and socially homogeneous Scandinavia.
All of these considerations suggest that the gay marriage debate in America is too important to duck. Kiernan maintains that as societies progressively detach marriage from parenthood, stage reversal is impossible. That makes sense. The association between marriage and parenthood is partly a mystique. Disenchanted mystiques cannot be restored on demand.
What about a patchwork in which some American states have gay marriage while others do not? A state-by-state patchwork would practically guarantee a shift toward the Nordic family system. Movies and television, which do not respect state borders, would embrace gay marriage. The cultural effects would be national.
What about Vermont-style civil unions? Would that be a workable compromise? Clearly not. Scandinavian registered partnerships are Vermont-style civil unions. They are not called marriage, yet resemble marriage in almost every other respect. The key differences are that registered partnerships do not permit adoption or artificial insemination, and cannot be celebrated in state-affiliated churches. These limitations are gradually being repealed. The lesson of the Scandinavian experience is that even de facto same-sex marriage undermines marriage.
The Scandinavian example also proves that gay marriage is not interracial marriage in a new guise. The miscegenation analogy was never convincing. There are plenty of reasons to think that, in contrast to race, sexual orientation will have profound effects on marriage. But with Scandinavia, we are well beyond the realm of even educated speculation. The post-gay marriage changes in the Scandinavian family are significant. This is not like the fantasy about interracial birth defects. There is a serious scholarly debate about the spread of the Nordic family pattern. Since gay marriage is a part of that pattern, it needs to be part of that debate.
Conservative advocates of gay marriage want to test it in a few states. The implication is that, should the experiment go bad, we can call it off. Yet the effects, even in a few American states, will be neither containable nor revocable. It took about 15 years after the change hit Sweden and Denmark for Norway’s out-of-wedlock birthrate to begin to move from “European” to “Nordic” levels. It took another 15 years (and the advent of gay marriage) for Norway’s out-of-wedlock birthrate to shoot past even Denmark’s. By the time we see the effects of gay marriage in America, it will be too late to do anything about it. Yet we needn’t wait that long. In effect, Scandinavia has run our experiment for us. The results are in.
Stanley Kurtz is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. His “Beyond Gay Marriage” appeared in our August 4, 2003, issue.
June 1st, 2008 at 8:54 am
MikeH,
David Blankenhorn responds to the article you cited in the WSJ here.
Blessings,
Frank Turek
June 2nd, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Frank,
I read the article and I’m glad to see that Blankenhorn explictly states that “[n]either Kurtz nor anyone else can scientifically prove that allowing gay marriage causes the institution of marriage to get weaker. Correlation does not imply causation.”
I disagree to some extent that no one can scientifically prove gay marriage weakens traditional marriage. I’m sure that someone could (and possibly already has) come up with ways to test that hypothesis.
But on to more of the article. Blankenhorn cites a 2002 study that presented “six statements that directly relate to marriage as an institution.” I decided to check out that study and found that, for whatever reason, Blakenhorn left out two questions and possible added one that was not in there. There were seven statement regarding marriage as an institution. Here they are:
a. Married people are generally happier than unmarried people.
b.
June 2nd, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Sorry accidently hit the “submit comment” button.
The six statements are:
a. Married people are generally happier than unmarried people.
b. It is better to have a bad marriage than no marriage at all.
c. People who want children ought to get married.
d. One parent can bring up a child as well as two parents together.
e. It is all right for a couple to live together without intending to get married.
f. It’s a good idea for a couple who intend to get married to live together first.
g. Divorce is usually the best solution when a couple can’t seem to work out their marriage problems.
Blankenhorn omitted b and f from that list, and then he added:
“6. The main purpose of marriage these days is to have children. ”
which I cannot find anywhere in the survey.
I couldn’t find the actual numbers from the survey (I think I have to register or something), but, until I find out why the ommissions and additions where made, it makes me circumspect about the whole thing.
Cheers,
Mike
June 2nd, 2008 at 10:16 pm
I didn’t read the article but I’ll chime in anyway with my opinions.
quote:
a. Married people are generally happier than unmarried people.
Agree as long as we emphasize the word “generally”.
b. It is better to have a bad marriage than no marriage at all.
Strongly disagree.
c. People who want children ought to get married.
Strongly agree.
d. One parent can bring up a child as well as two parents together.
Generally disagree. Two parents working together can do a better job than one alone. However two parents working in opposition to each other do a worse job than either one alone would do.
e. It is all right for a couple to live together without intending to get married.
Agree with a reservation. As long as they do not intend to have children. If they intend to have children it is better for them to be married.
f. It’s a good idea for a couple who intend to get married to live together first.
Agree but I don’t see it as a prerequisite.
g. Divorce is usually the best solution when a couple can’t seem to work out their marriage problems.
Agree but if there are children, it requires them to make extra efforts to work out their marriage problems.
Blankenhorn omitted b and f from that list, and then he added:
“6. The main purpose of marriage these days is to have children. ”
which I cannot find anywhere in the survey.
I disagree. While I think that marriage should be a requirement before having children, there are many reasons for getting married that don’t involve having children.
June 3rd, 2008 at 11:16 pm
It is clear homosexual “marriage” is evil just as homosexuality is evil. The problem is to what degreee do we punish or deter such behavior. I propose we resist homosexual marriage on the basis that it ain’t marriage and continue to deligitmize homosexual behavior. Homosexuals want to legitimize their behavior as do fornicators, yet they fraudulently claim victim status. And why should they not? What fun it would be to engage in sex with multiple partners. The why is in the Bible and in the belief in Jesus. We are here not to have fun soley but to love and serve our creator. As even Stephen King once said about free will, you can take what you want, but you must pay.
July 3rd, 2008 at 6:46 pm
I’m a young Norwegian woman (loud n’ proud), a child of the end of the 80thies and early 90thies.
My mom and dad wasn’t married when I was born (or when my younger siblings were born), but they lived happily together for over 20 years. I don’t understand what marriage (which after all, is nothing more than two rings and a contract) and childres has to do with each other.
Where I’m from, marriage is a choosen declaration of two peoples love (however, many people, like my parents, don’t feel they need to prove their love by getting married). Gay and lesbian love is worth the same at hetrosexual love, so why shouldn’t they be able to show it the same way?
I guess most of the people on this site are Americans
July 13th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
^Don’t judge us (Americans) too harshly. Sure, the brunt of our upper class supports narrow-minded ideologies like this, but that’s just because the far left of our nation (which, in every other nation, keeps the right in check) is made up of a bunch of lazy, talentless good-for-nothing kids who’d rather sit and bitch about world issues than actually do anything.
Believe it or not, there actually are Americans who aren’t douche bags. They just don’t get out much 0_0 says the man who’s sitting in fronf of his computer….
July 13th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
It is clear homosexual “marriage” is evil just as homosexuality is evil.
It is not clear. That is just the problem; there is a debate about this issue. Each time you (or I, or anyone else) states his/her opinion or cites evidence (facts, in the liberal case, and religious assertions/convictions, in the conservative case), we’re not resolving the issue. You don’t get to just point to a study and consider the article closed from public examination, and you’d be silly to criticize someone else for wanting to continue the discussion. Evidence is a back-and-forth process, not, “look, I pointed to a study, I win!”
In my internet ventures, I’ve found many studies that point to both sides of the issue. So no, it’s not certain, not to me—I have to decide which ones to trust and which ones to disregard, based on some common ground more solid than, “because the scientists who conducted the survey didn’t have a stated agenda to prove God’s existence/”right”ness.”
July 13th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
P.S. for the record, I’m not inclined to trust a website that has the word “truth” in its title. The way the Christians have hijacked that word (so that it means “what the Bible says that God said”), it makes it seem more likely to be a propaganda site than one that actually takes an objective look at the issues.
Truth be told, I don’t think political activist groups should be regarded at all with respect to political issues. Too much bias.
August 4th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Of course not all Americans are like your upper class supports narrow-minded ideologies like this (to quote you).
But it’s a fact that the thypical American is more conservative than the thypical Skandinavian (or European, truth to be told).
I’m sorry to tell you, but that’s how it is.
August 4th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
And no, I don’t dislike USA or americans. I’ve met many nice Americans (and Americans who’ve been idiots, but the idiots are everywhere).
I’m not saying I disagree in what you’re writing, I’m just telleing you how it is, Tim D.
Give it about 20 years, and your contry will be where my contry is today.
August 18th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
Of course not all Americans are like your upper class supports narrow-minded ideologies like this (to quote you).
But it’s a fact that the thypical American is more conservative than the thypical Skandinavian (or European, truth to be told).
I’m sorry to tell you, but that’s how it is
Oh, I know
I don’t really disagree with you or anything, I was just letting you know that the idiots don’t speak for all of us.
November 24th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
The homosexual movement wants us to believe they want to be married like heterosexuals. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact all the research of the homosexual sub-culture indicates a mere miniscule commitment by their population to “monogamous” relationships over any significant period of time. Very few in their movement will honestly say privately that they personally want life-long monogamous family commitments recognized by the world in the same way that heterosexual marriage is now in the larger society.
So what is it that they want? Why their outrage over the failures of their massive and expensive efforts to convince the public to allow them to “marry?” Put simply: their goal is a new level of acceptance that ameliorates their own deep-seated shame at their difference from the norm. Put another way, they want to be normal. They want the government, the IRS, and the rest of the world to say what they know is not really true. They want society to say to them: “You are normal and we accept you as such.”
However, homosexuality and heterosexuality are not morally, physically, sexually, socially, relationally or any other way equivalent. Simple science demonstrates that there cannot be two norms for human sexuality, because only one relationship can result in reproduction. This reality renders any other version of human sexuality abnormal, sub-normal, or at the least, deviations from the norm. That is simple science and unchangeable fact.
No amount of legislative change, judicial fiat, licensing or religious ceremony will assuage or change the underlying discontent and angst that comes from knowing that one differs from the norm. Most of us differ from the norm in some area of our physical, psychological, emotional, financial, social or spiritual makeup. Does that mean we all get to create and enforce laws to make us feel normal? Shall we seek new laws or change the Bible texts to make fat or skinny people feel better about themselves? How about sado-masochists or necrophiliacs? What about sex or drug addicts or alcoholics? There is an indisputable norm for nearly every behavior, and those who deviate always struggle with it.
If the difference from the norm is a lifestyle decision one makes, which all the evidence so far supports with respect to homosexuality and other sexual deviations from the norm, then there is only one escape from the angst. Abnormal sexual lifestyle choices apparently occur most frequently when certain socio-environmental exist in a person’s life. So in spite of what the movement says, one can change their lifestyle by making different choices. Will it be a painful struggle? Of course it will, but no one should ever expect that making new laws or shifting a society will make folks feel whole, healthy and normal. It never has worked for anyone with any of their deviation struggles, nor will it work for homosexuals with theirs.
Please note that I did not quote the Bible once.
November 24th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
The homosexual movement wants us to believe
I read this and I knew this was going to be a load….and yet, for some reason I kept reading….
Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact all the research of the homosexual sub-culture indicates a mere miniscule commitment by their population to “monogamous” relationships over any significant period of time. Very few in their movement will honestly say privately that they personally want life-long monogamous family commitments recognized by the world in the same way that heterosexual marriage is now in the larger society.
This, for example, is one giant unsubstantiated assertion/assumption….
So what is it that they want? Why their outrage over the failures of their massive and expensive efforts to convince the public to allow them to “marry?” Put simply: their goal is a new level of acceptance that ameliorates their own deep-seated shame at their difference from the norm. Put another way, they want to be normal. They want the government, the IRS, and the rest of the world to say what they know is not really true. They want society to say to them: “You are normal and we accept you as such.”
Not at all; it has nothing to do with being “normal,” it has to do with wanting to live your life the way you want to live it, regardless of what someone else’s religion says.
However, homosexuality and heterosexuality are not morally, physically, sexually, socially, relationally or any other way equivalent. Simple science demonstrates that there cannot be two norms for human sexuality,
Nobody’s making the case that it’s “the norm,” or anything to that effect; just that it is not something that is “evil” or “objectionable” in the sense that the government should tell people they aren’t allowed to do it. And if it is, it’s solely on religious grounds, not based in fact or reality.
This reality renders any other version of human sexuality abnormal, sub-normal, or at the least, deviations from the norm. That is simple science and unchangeable fact.
I don’t think anyone is engaging in gay sex for reproductive purposes. What you say here makes no sense.
No amount of legislative change, judicial fiat, licensing or religious ceremony will assuage or change the underlying discontent and angst that comes from knowing that one differs from the norm. Most of us differ from the norm in some area of our physical, psychological, emotional, financial, social or spiritual makeup. Does that mean we all get to create and enforce laws to make us feel normal? Shall we seek new laws or change the Bible texts to make fat or skinny people feel better about themselves? How about sado-masochists or necrophiliacs? What about sex or drug addicts or alcoholics? There is an indisputable norm for nearly every behavior, and those who deviate always struggle with it.
And yet again you display your inherent ignorance of the subject by equating homosexuals with necropheliacs and alcoholics when the difference is so mind-bogglingly clear….
If the difference from the norm is a lifestyle decision one makes
Can you choose to be gay right now? Can you choose to do it and really feel it and believe it? Can you choose to be attracted to someone of the same gender? On the flipside, can you choose to not be attracted to someone of the opposite gender?
Please note that I did not quote the Bible once.
And yet you still managed to make a completely irrational, incompetent argument….amazing.
November 25th, 2008 at 3:04 am
Tim says:
Not at all; it has nothing to do with being “normal,” it has to do with wanting to live your life the way you want to live it, regardless of what someone else’s religion says.
This is clearly false, or the government would not have anything to do with the debate. If all they wanted was freedom, to be left to do as they please, there would be no demand for favorable legislation. But there is. So what you say here Tim is false.
November 25th, 2008 at 8:08 am
This is clearly false, or the government would not have anything to do with the debate. If all they wanted was freedom, to be left to do as they please, there would be no demand for favorable legislation.
The government shouldn’t have to do with marriage at all, if you ask me; if they didn’t, we wouldn’t have such idiotic squabbles as this. However, it’s very easy for someone whose government acknowledges his/her marriage to make such claims of someone whose marriage is not recognized by the government. Thus, they are forced to turn to legislation to seek equal treatment. The Christian definition of marriage is actually quite descriminating, you see.
But there is. So what you say here Tim is false.
You know, a lot of what you say here was said about blacks during the civil rights movement. “If they just wanted to be left alone, they wouldn’t seek laws giving them the same protection as us.” Saying “gays don’t want equality, or else they wouldn’t seek legal equality” is kind of an oxymoron, is it not?
November 25th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Tim, the quote I was responding to was your claim that what gays are seeking is to be left alone to do their own thing.
Do you believe that or do you not?
November 26th, 2008 at 1:45 am
Do you believe that or do you not?
I do believe that. In the sense that straight couples want to be left alone and allowed to “do their own thing,” I believe gay couples feel the same way. I don’t feel the government should be able to intervene in either case and decide which one is “more worthy” or “acceptable.” The government should not have a say in which consenting adults marry which consenting adults.
And I see your attempt to twist my words there; if you don’t understand what I mean, at least ask me to clarify before you start mischaracterizing my position; you’re overliteralizing.
November 26th, 2008 at 2:05 am
Tim, here’s the problem: I see exactly what you’re trying to say, I’m showing it to you, and you don’t like what you see. Allow me to explain. You say:
I don’t feel the government should be able to intervene in either case and decide which one is “more worthy” or “acceptable.” The government should not have a say in which consenting adults marry which consenting adults.
If you’re serious here - if you’re not just using rhetoric, but if you’re absolutely committed to the truth of this, as well as the truth of your claim that the govt. should just leave people alone to do their own thing, then you would not be advocating for the government to get involved int he relationships of same-sex couples, yet that is exactly what you are argument for. If you really meant what you said, you’d be advocating for an end to marriage law altogether, and the government would simply honour whatever private contracts people agreed to. But you are advocating something else.
Moreover, you continue to commit the fallacy of begging the question, by talking about same sex couples (misleadingly referring only to gay people, i.e. individuals) getting married. How about if I just reply by doing exactly what you are doing. I could just say this:
“Married? What are you talking about? You’re talking about same-sex couples. That’s not marriage. You must be confused.”
November 26th, 2008 at 2:24 am
If you’re serious here - if you’re not just using rhetoric, but if you’re absolutely committed to the truth of this, as well as the truth of your claim that the govt. should just leave people alone to do their own thing, then you would not be advocating for the government to get involved int he relationships of same-sex couples, yet that is exactly what you are argument for. If you really meant what you said, you’d be advocating for an end to marriage law altogether, and the government would simply honour whatever private contracts people agreed to. But you are advocating something else.
Not at all; I’d rather there be no legal marriage at all, yes, but at this point, a realization of gay marriage is simply more practically achievable than a complete overturning of all marriage.
Perhaps you should relax and stop acting like a prosecutor for a change….maybe stop living up to the stereotype of the “uptight conservative,” eh?
Moreover, you continue to commit the fallacy of begging the question, by talking about same sex couples (misleadingly referring only to gay people, i.e. individuals) getting married. How about if I just reply by doing exactly what you are doing. I could just say this:
What? What do you mean, “misleadingly referring to…” Gay couples are made up of gay people. What about that is misleading? Unless you mean that sarcastic, intellectually dishonest statement that “gays can get married, just not to other people of the same gender.” That’s about as ridiculous as saying, “if gay marriage were legal, you could marry guys, too! There’s no discrimination there.”
“Married? What are you talking about? You’re talking about same-sex couples. That’s not marriage. You must be confused.”
What? I’m talking about same-sex married couples. I suspect you’re playing semantics again….but that’s to be expected, I guess. Forgive me for having too much faith
November 26th, 2008 at 2:41 am
Tim, I am having a hard time believing that the act of ignorance is genuine. You are pretending not to see that you are playing a semantic game by begging the question, freely saying that there are genuine same-sex marriages and appealing to that fact in the debate, and yet when I appeal to the view that such is not marriage at all, you say that I am playing semantic games.
Why does your head not explode?
Moreover, you have falsely accused me of being dishonest. Gay people CAN get married. What they want however is not marriage. They want same sex unions. You say:
That’s about as ridiculous as saying, “if gay marriage were legal, you could marry guys, too! There’s no discrimination there.”
Correct, that would not be discriminatory. How is that ridiculous?
You call me uptight, yet fly into a rhetorical rage and trip over fallacies in the process. Perhaps you protest too much….
November 26th, 2008 at 10:20 am
Tim, I am having a hard time believing that the act of ignorance is genuine. You are pretending not to see that you are playing a semantic game by begging the question, freely saying that there are genuine same-sex marriages and appealing to that fact in the debate, and yet when I appeal to the view that such is not marriage at all, you say that I am playing semantic games.
It is semantics. I am debating the definition of marriage with you; you are insisting that the Biblical one is the “true” one and that I am playing semantics for not acknowledging this, when in fact I am asking you to show me any reason why I should accept the Christian definition of marriage as the “true” definition. People know what I am talking about when I say, “gay marriage.” It’s not some kind of logical paradox that makes people’s heads explode. It is very easy to define marriage without saying, “it’s between a man and a woman.” That’s just a semantic cop-out; other people understand this easily, so I know you can, you just have to open your mind a tiny crack.
Why does your head not explode?
Um….why doesn’t yours? What does this mean, exactly?
Moreover, you have falsely accused me of being dishonest. Gay people CAN get married. What they want however is not marriage. They want same sex unions. You say:
That is dishonest; when people say “gay marriage,” they are talking about marriage between two gay people of the same gender, not a sham marriage between two gay people (or even one and a straight person) of the opposite gender. This is clear; and yet you responded by acting as though the other party is referring to the right for gays to marry someone of the opposite gender.
Correct, that would not be discriminatory. How is that ridiculous?
Hmm….the reason I mention this is to show you that it is, in effect, a “useless right.” Gays can make no more use of the right to marry someone they don’t love and to whom they are not attracted (i.e. someone of the opposite gender) than you could make of the right to marry someone of the same gender (and why would you? If you’re not attracted to them, and you don’t love them, there is no point to marry them, unless you mean to imply there is some other reason people marry). That’s all there is to it; there is nothing “equal” about this, it’s just a semantic cop-out. You can’t give someone a right they have no use for and then criticize them for complaining that they don’t have the same rights as you; in a technical, semantic sense they do, but in a practical world that is not considered real solutions, they’re considered political sound-bytes. Kind of like how the Jim Crowe laws back in the day would give blacks the right to vote, but establish literacy tests or poll taxes in order to bar substantial amounts of blacks from voting. Sure, they had the right….but it wasn’t the same thing as what the whites had. Or how blacks couldn’t marry whites for the longest time; they had the right to marry black people all they wanted, but if the person they loved was white….well, they were just SOL.
November 26th, 2008 at 10:21 am
You call me uptight, yet fly into a rhetorical rage and trip over fallacies in the process. Perhaps you protest too much….
Is this supposed to imply that I’m homosexual? Or something else? Your insults are not very clear…..
January 5th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Gay Marriage is some what evil. It robs a child of a normal life, and it will cause harm to the family, and everyone around them. If you think gay marraige is okay then you need to read the Bible.
January 5th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
Gay Marriage is some what evil.
How so? I mean, beyond “because it’s not natural,” or whatever.
It robs a child of a normal life
How so?
and it will cause harm to the family, and everyone around them
How so?
If you think gay marraige is okay then you need to read the Bible.
Done and done. Still think it’s okay. Any more suggestions?
January 6th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
I have more advice for you Tim. Open your mind and your heart to the Bible to really understand it. Also listen to the words of Frank Turek, Les Feldick, Pastor Richard Dortch,and read Habakkuk, and Song Of Solomon in the old testament.
January 6th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
I have more advice for you Tim. Open your mind and your heart to the Bible to really understand it.
What this means is, “decide that you want to believe in the Bible, and you will believe it.” Which is, of course, true for anything at all. The idea is not that it’s impossible for me to just choose to believe it because I want to; the problem is that there is no compelling reason for me to do that. Why choose the Bible over, say, the Quran? Or Stephen King literature? Or any other prominent mythology?
I suppose that your response will tie in to the second part of your previous statement:
Also listen to the words of Frank Turek, Les Feldick, Pastor Richard Dortch,and read Habakkuk, and Song Of Solomon in the old testament.
To which I will say this: I have begun following Turek closely in the past few months (not enough to buy anything he’s produced, of course, but enough so to have watched several videos and read many conversations and blog entries), and I have to say that so far his arguments are not that special. In fact, seeing them all laid out like this actually makes it easier to organize them into the right categories of Classic Evangelical Arguments. I’ve got a growing blog entry somewhere made up of the types of arguments such people are likely to use, and his fit right into the mix; from Pre-Characterization to Purposeful Misinterpretation to Faith-Belief Loophole Logic to the Evangelical Theory of Assertion, they are almost unanimously present in his argumentative style. Thus, I remain unconvinced; there is just an inescapable lack of “gotcha evidence” present in these types of arguments to “prove” his case in the manner he insists is possible.
I think it makes more sense to admit that his case cannot be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt; insisting otherwise makes it completely necessary to obtain such “gotcha-evidence,” something that irrefutably destroys the “opposing” worldview; and unfortunately, there is really no such thing as “gotcha-evidence” in manners of the purportedly-immaterial….for to say that the arguments for God imply “transcendence” in turn implies that they cannot be proven, because they do not rely on the standard for “proof” that is required for an idea to be transferred socially.
On a side note….personal experience is not true evidence, because although it may convince the party involved, there is no way to communicate that evidence to others in a way that carries the same weight as the experience itself….and the whole point of evidence is communication, the transference of one point from one mind to another. In short, personal experience is not demonstrable in and of itself.
January 8th, 2009 at 12:40 am
Tim! It’s Matt - I just popped in and saw that you had commented on this thread. While I firmly disagree that you have read the Bible and see it’s non-condemning (or at least non-committal) attitude about homosexual behavior, I have some great news - My wife just gave birth to our first son! This is surely something that is as natural and sensical as anything - for males and females to procreate. This is one of the first things I thought of, after reading a bit of this post. How sad for two women to love each other but never THIS way - the way that leads to life. Two men, loving each other the best they know how, and yet those families are always distortions of the natural order, and the God-prescribed method to fulfilling the dominion mandate from the book of Genesis.
Anyway - sleep deprived and just wanting to touch base with you again, after our lengthy and (I feel) fruitful discussion on the other page…
Peace,
Matt
January 8th, 2009 at 7:49 am
My wife just gave birth to our first son! This is surely something that is as natural and sensical as anything - for males and females to procreate.
And thus, all we should ever do as humans is procreate. If anyone tries to do anything that doesn’t involve procreation, we shall use this as a meager excuse to keep people from doing things that don’t lead to procreation. Watching TV? That’s a sin, because it doesn’t lead to procreation. Working? Same deal.
Never mind the whole thing about how it’s not meant to lead to procreation….
January 8th, 2009 at 7:58 am
Congrats Matt. I had to laugh when someone offered up ‘proof’ that gay sex was sinful because of the damage it can do to the body. Have they never seen a woman give birth? That can cause MASSIVE damage to a woman’s body. Does that mean giving birth is sinful?
Yes, it’s very sad for any couple who can’t have kids. I feel for them, whether they are elderly couples who don’t meet until after one of them is past the age of fecundity, or whether one of the pair is infertile, or whether because they fell in love with someone of the same gender. Matt, I hope you wouldn’t tell my Aunt and Uncle that their relationship is a distortion of the natural order simply because my uncle is infertile.
I would hope that your faith would lead you to sympathise with my uncle instead, as every atheist I know would. It would be a shame if your faith in a loving God would lead you to take such a hateful position as condemning someone simply because they cannot share in the joy you and I received from seeing our partner bear our child.
January 8th, 2009 at 8:02 am
Seriously - materialists, believing that the law of nature is an evolved sense of what is best for the species al over the place, understand that homosexuality is a dead end for a species. Not wanting to start anything with you, man - just surprised that you can actually state some of the things you do. I’m sure you feel the same way about me, but spinning something the way you just did shows you’re less interested in what’s best for the species (something you and Andrew made clear to me before) and more in what’s anti-God. Less interested in a young kid having both mom and dad influences in their life and more in winning a contrived argument.
Peace,
Matt
January 8th, 2009 at 8:22 am
“materialists, believing that the law of nature is an evolved sense of what is best for the species al over the place, understand that homosexuality is a dead end for a species.”
Nonsense Matt. Many species are organised so that not all members reproduce. Look in a bee hive - only a few out of thousands reproduce. There are many reasons while evolution supports homosexuality. I’m not going to re-hash them here, but there’s not contradiction or inconsistency with materialism here.
“what’s best for the species”
Sorry you think I’m spinning here Matt, but you use such loaded phrases that it’s very tempting to show you the implications of what you’re saying! So apologies in advance for this: I don’t look at a Down’s Syndrome child and say ‘they’ll never reproduce, therefore they are not what is best for the species’. And I know that you don’t either. Same with gays. I try to evaluate a person on their own terms, not simply by their reproductive potential.
January 8th, 2009 at 8:52 am
“just surprised that you can actually state some of the things you do”
In turn, I’m not surprised that you can turn a person’s inability to have a child with the person they love into a stick to beat them with, or that you seem to judge people purely by their ability to have kids, or that you refer to a loving gay couple as a ‘distortion of the natural order’. I’m not surprised, just a little disappointed.
How are you defining ‘natural’ anyway? As pointed out in another thread here, homosexuality is quite ‘natural’ in nature - virtually all other mammals practice it.
January 8th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
We shouldn’ t do what most animals do. We are better than animals, We are smarter the animals, we shouldn’ t learn from animals, we should learn from the Bible, and listen to pastors.Even if something is natural in nature that doesn’t mean we should practice it. Tim you aren’ t following what I am saying, The Bible is the only book of truth you should follow, and live by, the Quaran, and Mythology as well as Steven King are lies. You don’ t want to live a lie do you? If you want to live a life of truth and have lots of friends and great joy, pray to God and be in love with Him. I care about the well being of people, and I greatly want to help you Tim. I’ m praying for you and I want to see you in Heaven.Please let me help you. God Bless you and may God come into your heart.
January 8th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Emily, people who follow the Qu’ran say the bible is lies. How do you know which book to follow and which to reject? Have you read both the bible and the Qu’ran and made an objective judgement, or are you just rejected one because it’s not the one you were brought up on?
You are right that we are smarter than animals. We have brains that enable us to make our own minds up, rather than follow the dictates of others. If I used that bible as my only aid to what is right or wrong then I would have to denounce the wearing of mixed fabrics or the consumption of shell fish. Otherwise I’d just be picking and choosing from the book to back up opinions I already hold.
Referring to homosexuality in animals merely shows that it’s false to claim that it is ‘unnatural’, unless you have some other definition of the word.
January 8th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
“International surveys show that same-sex marriage and the erosion of traditional marriage tend to go together. ”
Surveys also show that Christianity and the likelihood of divorce go together too. In other words, Christians are more likely to divorce than atheists.
Can ANY Christian reading this, especially Frank, tell me what they make of this statistic, and tell me whether it affects at all their thinking on whether same-sex marriage is a specific cause of the erosion of traditional marriage, rather than a non-causal correlation?
January 8th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Andrew - read what I said again. You’ve got it all wrong. I’m saddened that two people loving each other the best they can will never have what I just had with my wife. I’ve had enough gay friends and enough common sense to know that it is a common “bummer” for them. That’s why so many adopt. That’s not “stick” to beat them with - that’s me being sad that their choices have turned away such a beautiful experience from their life.
And choosing to be in a gay lifestyle, which precludes the possibility of bearing children together is nothing like a Down’s kid… I don’t even understand that point. For the record, I love sinners of all kinds - gays, straight philanderers, all the way to murderers and beyond… I don’t draw the line at gays because I’d be condemning myself - a very imperfect man, indeed. Just as God’s word calls the lifestyle un-natural and an abomination, so too are my various shortcomings - from anger to lying to lust and on and on - also condemned. I stand in the same need of a savior as the rest of the world.
Heck - I even love atheists, Andrew - I can see your side of things perfectly well (the core decisions… the resultant judgments may seem pretty wack to me, but I DO see your premises).
Peace,
Matt
p.s. I’m curious about how “all” mammals practice homosexuality… we’d have very few generations of them if we did… is it not a rare aberration, as in mankind?
January 8th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
“Can ANY Christian reading this, especially Frank, tell me what they make of this statistic, and tell me whether it affects at all their thinking on whether same-sex marriage is a specific cause of the erosion of traditional marriage, rather than a non-causal correlation?”
The abuses and shortcomings of a religion’s followers do not negate the truthfulness of the system itself. I wouldn’t argue against atheism based on how arrogant Chris Hitchens is in public interviews. I wouldn’t draw a conclusion that THIS representative of atheism’s attitude will NECESSARILY be reflected in Andrew Ryan, were I to meet him in public (maybe getting a pint in England one day).
Christians divorcing is absolutely condemned in the Bible, starting with Genesis - the pattern being that one man will cleave to one woman and become one flesh - and continuing on. Divorces are never the goal of a Christian marriage - because the family below represents the family above… God is not divided among the trinity, so there should be no division, rather the SAME sort of intimacy between husband and wife. Everywhere men get more than one wife (at a time or through divorce) it leads to trouble… I don’t know how Solomon convinced his wise ol’ self that it was a good idea… his wives brought him to almost complete ruin.
So - Christians in 2009 having a high rate of divorce is a completely legitimate slam on modern Christianity. I guess what I’m saying is that I would go even further, and say that MOST Christians, at least in america, don’t have a “lord” in their life. They have a nice-guy buddy… a neutered Christ-substitute… a false god of their own creation who just wants their desires met, rather than a creator God to whom all men owe allegiance and who justly damns them for their treason… A God who loves men AND justice so much that He paid their price.
But then, you know that
Peace, Andrew-
Matt
January 8th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
“The abuses and shortcomings of a religion’s followers do not negate the truthfulness of the system itself.”
That wasn’t what I was saying. Frank was saying there is a correlation between countries allowing gay marriage and the breakdown of traditional marriage in those countries. He used this as evidence that allowing gay marriage will CAUSE the breakdown of traditional marriage. This is a fallacy twice over.
1. A correlation does not equal causation. There’s an apocraphyl tale of a King noticing that the town with the most sick people also has the most doctors. So he arrests all the doctors, figuring they’re the cause.
2. The Western European countries that allow gay marriage suffer none of the detrimental effects associated with the breakdown of traditional marriage - they have lower crime rates than America and fewer teen pregnancies. So it’s false to say that allowing gay marriage will lead to these problems.
My point about the Christian divorces vs Atheist divorces is to show the problem with picking and chosing statistics. I don’t believe that being Christian makes you more likely to divorce, any more than Norway allowing gay marriage made straights more likely to divorce. There are other correlative reasons - working class people are more likely to divorce, and are also less likely to be atheist.
January 8th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
“I’m curious about how “all” mammals practice homosexuality”
Examples of gay behaviour can be found in every mammal species. This doesn’t mean that EVERY mammal in the world is queer!
“I’ve had enough gay friends and enough common sense to know that it is a common “bummer” for them. ”
Oh Jeez Matt, do you realise what a funny joke you just made for Brits? I hope that was deliberate, and kudos if it was. (a ‘bummer’ is slang for gay person).
“And choosing to be in a gay lifestyle…”
How does one choose to be in a gay lifestyle? I never ‘chose’ a hetero lifestyle. Did you make a choice between gay and straight? Are you bisexual? If you are then this explains your confusion here. For heterosexuals and for gays, it’s not a choice - I’m only attracted to women. If YOU are attracted to men and women, Matt, then you perhaps don’t realise that you are unusual in being able to make a choice. I could never ‘choose’ to be gay because I simply don’t find men attractive. And for gays, then can’t ‘choose’ to find the opposite gender attractive, no matter how much easier it might make their life.
Ask your gay friends when they ‘chose to be gay’. See what they say. Ask yourself when you ‘chose to be heterosexual’.
January 9th, 2009 at 12:10 am
LOL! No - I had NO idea that was slang… makes sense when I think about it… guess I’ll go smoke a fag and think it over a bit… OH - darn this Atlantic Ocean! It messes everything up.
On topic, however - I have many many friends from college (I was a music major and the arts schools are quite full of homosexuals) and I know for a fact that at least the ones I spoke to COULD tell you the day they made that choice. It was also interesting to me how many of them came from legalistic religious home lives, divorced parents (and men being raised by only women, etc.), or sexual abuse which led them to find the abuser’s gender repulsive. I also know many who were quite frankly recruited - befriended by those in the lifestyle. I have done no studies on the subject, and at this point I’m speaking WAY out of my comfort zone, but yes - those are my experiences.
Peace,
Matt
January 9th, 2009 at 12:11 am
BTW - I’m curious about this “all mammal species have examples of homosexuality”, and where I can read about this. Also, assuming it’s true, what that does for your position…
Peace,
Matt
January 9th, 2009 at 12:37 am
Seriously - materialists, believing that the law of nature is an evolved sense of what is best for the species al over the place, understand that homosexuality is a dead end for a species.
Yes. If the entire species was gay. Do you know what else? If the entire species were mechanics, and there were no farmers or hunters or gatherers, then we would die because we would not have any food. Does that mean anyone who is not a farmer, a hunter or a gatherer is a “detriment to society?” What about entertainers? They contribute no real resource to society. Are they a “dead end” for society, or for humanity?
How are these things any different than what you say about homosexuals here?
but spinning something the way you just did shows you’re less interested in what’s best for the species (something you and Andrew made clear to me before) and more in what’s anti-God. Less interested in a young kid having both mom and dad influences in their life and more in winning a contrived argument.
Sounds like someone’s losing their cool….
In any case, I am quite interested in this “contrived argument” to which you refer, because it is quite a serious statement that you are making — that the mere existence of “practicing homosexuals” (for lack of a better term) is somehow a “detriment to humanity,” or a “dead end for the species.” Do you know what? An infertile woman is also a dead end for the species, by that same logic. This is true, and there is no way you can discount this fact. So how is such a woman different from a homosexual, in your eyes? I want to see how you rationalize this.
We shouldn’ t do what most animals do. We are better than animals
We are smarter in many ways, yes, but I think it’s a bit dangerous to say we’re “better.” In what ways? That’s kind of subjective, don’t you think?
I won’t take you to argument on this or anything, just thought it was worth mentioning.
we should learn from the Bible, and listen to pastors.
So I should listen to priests that molest children, too? Or should I not listen to them? Why or why not?
Tim you aren’ t following what I am saying, The Bible is the only book of truth you should follow, and live by, the Quaran, and Mythology as well as Steven King are lies. You don’ t want to live a lie do you?
I’m not asking you to show me things that you think are lies. I’m asking you to show me how you know they are lies. I already know what you think are lies. I want to know why you think that.
If I used that bible as my only aid to what is right or wrong then I would have to denounce the wearing of mixed fabrics or the consumption of shell fish. Otherwise I’d just be picking and choosing from the book to back up opinions I already hold.
I’d like to add to this:
(1) The Bible says it is okay to kill disobedient children.
(2) The Bible says, “thou shalt not kill.” However, as it’s been said here, this does not account for all killing, only “unjust” killing. And since it was decreed in the Bible that disobedient children are to be killed, then such a killing is not unjust and is therefore permissible according to Biblical mandate.
Referring to homosexuality in animals merely shows that it’s false to claim that it is ‘unnatural’, unless you have some other definition of the word.
The common Xian mistake here is to assume that the person on the “naturalist side” is somehow using the idea that it’s “natural” to automatically imply that “we should do it.” It’s not the case at all; it’s not being used as an argument to prove one case, it’s being used as evidence to disprove another — the argument that being gay is “unnatural.” It clearly is quite natural. That doesn’t mean we should do it just because it is natural; it simply means that it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it because it’s “unnatural,” because it isn’t unnatural.
You’ve got it all wrong. I’m saddened that two people loving each other the best they can will never have what I just had with my wife.
I can’t really say I’m “saddened” that such a person can never have children, unless it is their desire to do so….I can’t feel sad that a person will never experience something that they might not want to, however. If a person does not want children, I won’t say that I feel sad that they will never have children. I would only “feel sad” for them if they did want children, but could not for some reason (i.e. they are infertile, or they are in a gay relationship and can’t adopt due to legal restrictions).
That’s not “stick” to beat them with - that’s me being sad that their choices have turned away such a beautiful experience from their life.
Do you mean to imply that a relationship with an adopted child is somehow inferior to one with a biological child? In a basic sense I would say, yes, it is more ideal to have a biological child, and the world would be a better place if all children lived with their natural parents and were cared for properly. But that is not the case, thus adoption is necessary. I think it’s a wonderful thing that there are people (gay or straight) who are willing to adopt the children that other straight couples have produced and left behind.
So - Christians in 2009 having a high rate of divorce is a completely legitimate slam on modern Christianity. I guess what I’m saying is that I would go even further, and say that MOST Christians, at least in america, don’t have a “lord” in their life. They have a nice-guy buddy… a neutered Christ-substitute… a false god of their own creation who just wants their desires met, rather than a creator God to whom all men owe allegiance and who justly damns them for their treason… A God who loves men AND justice so much that He paid their price.
Ah, the “poseur” argument. Unfortunately for invokers of the poseur argument, all Christians utilize this argument in some form or another. The other Christians could say the same to you. They might say, “you don’t live by all the things in the Bible, either. You don’t stone adulterers, or kill disobedient children. You’re not a true Christian, either.”
There is no such thing as a “True Christian,” even in Christian lore. According to your own doctrine, it is impossible to live up to the standards of Christ because you believe He was perfect. So to accuse someone else of imperfection on those grounds (and to hold them responsible for this “inherent” imperfection) is laughable.
On topic, however - I have many many friends from college (I was a music major and the arts schools are quite full of homosexuals) and I know for a fact that at least the ones I spoke to COULD tell you the day they made that choice.
Strange that I always hear this….and yet, the folks I’ve spoken to or otherwise heard from (and whose blogs I read) tend to report more about the day they “became aware” of their homosexuality. I’ve never spoken to a “practicing homosexual” who is okay with their lifestyle, and also admits to “choosing” that lifestyle. No, that’s usually something I hear from “deconverts” who claim they used to be gay, and that they “chose” to be that way because of some fallacious moral argument.
January 9th, 2009 at 6:21 am
“and where I can read about this.”
I’m sure a quick google would help you out Matt.
“Also, assuming it’s true, what that does for your position”
It’s nothing to do with MY position, Matt, it was you who said being gay was ‘unnatural’. I’m interested in how you’re defining the word, given that you are using it to describe something commonly observed in nature.
Can you answer a simple question for me - your son, will you value him less as a person if it turns out he is unable to give you grandchildren some day? Is some part of his value his ability to ‘continue the human race’? For me that’s a no-brainer - my daughter is intrinsically valuable to me in her own right.
January 9th, 2009 at 6:32 am
‘guess I’ll go smoke a fag and think it over a bit”
But strangely enough there’s nothing rude about saying you want to ‘bum a fag’, which means borrow a cigarette.
January 9th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Andrew - it’s been my understanding, from my talks with you and Tim, that the only “right” in the world is subjective… it amounts to what is best for the species. That’s why i am surprised that you both have no problems with homosexuality. Of course I value my child no matter what - and I know that you do yours. It just struck me as a possible contradiction that you hold to materialistic evolution, and yet draw the line where many others haven’t - eugenics, the nazis, etc. towed the evolutionary “what’s best for the species” line and, consistent with their worldview, took steps to eliminate homosexuals, sickly, handicapped, etc. I know that we are all created in the image of God, and have intrinsic “objective” worth. Just thinking out loud about how you dealt with that. If I misunderstand, okay - but to be clear: it is not I who short someone’s value based on what they can do for the physical well-being of our species. That idea, imho, is born in a materialistic worldview. Glad to hear your daughter has a loving dad, Andrew
-Matt
January 9th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
“it amounts to what is best for the species.”
Where have I ever said that the rights or happiness of an individual should be sacrificed in order to perpetuate the species? Who’s to say that ‘what is best for a species’. What have the Nazis got to do with evolution? You either know nothing about the Nazis or nothing about evolution. The Nazis practiced selective breeding, the opposite of evolution.
“it is not I who short someone’s value based on what they can do for the physical well-being of our species. ”
I’m glad you have clarified that - I was starting to worry about you Matt. So you disassociate yourself from the argument against gays that they are less in some way due them not reproducing?
How do you draw a line to connect materialism to eugenics? There’s no connection at all. I value happiness. How can viewing people in terms of their reproductive potential be seen as an extension of that? It sounds like the pathway to misery to me. I don’t think you’ve thought this through.
January 9th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
The Quaran is a lie, what the muslims beleive in is a lie. I can’ t understand why people follow it and think it’ s the truth. This makes my job harder. My job is to teach people that christainity is true. God bless to all, and peace to the world.
January 9th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Also, in reply to this ‘gays threaten the species’ argument, I’ve gone though all this before, but here it is again:
Studies show that siblings of gays have more children than average. 1. Sisters of gay men have more children, brothers of lesbians have more children. Thus, having gays in your family doesn’t on average affect the number of offspring.
2. The more sons a woman has, the more likely she is to produce a gay son. In other words, the second son is more likely to be gay than the first, the third more likely than the second, and so on. Thus gay men are more likely to be born in families that are already large. (NB this applies even when the children were put up for adoption, or when the older children died in birth. So it is NOT caused by the pressure of having lots of older brothers, or anything like that. Most likely it is from some factor that occurs in utero, perhaps due to the amount of testosterone successive baby boys receive in the womb).
The point of these two facts is that homosexuality seems to be completely accounted for and compensated for by nature/God/evolution/whatever. They don’t affect the population (which if you hadn’t noticed is not doing badly anyway).
January 9th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Andrew, with all due respect, I fear it is YOU who don’t know enough about the nazi’s connection with evolution, and the theory’s effect on their embracing of eugenic programs. In a way-too-small nutshell, the idea that we are all just evolved apes, with no intrinsic worth, strongly influenced the eugenic ideology - one strongly embraced by the nazi’s. Read Sanger, Mein Kampf, and a number of other sources which all agree that a Darwinian worldview is at the foundation of eugenics - selective breeding, sterilization, and the rest of the filth.
That’s how I “draw a line to connect materialism to eugenics”. Materialists like yourself believe in evolution - its how the sludge became fish, apes, and men with no creative guiding force (unless you’re Dawkins - ufo’s and all). You value happiness - so did Sanger. Her view was that the lowest limbs on the tree of life should be trimmed so they would no longer burden society - leading to greater happiness for the most people.
You surely may disagree, but this is not MY view - it’s quite widely held. You’ve got to take Sanger, Darwin, and Hitler himself to task to disagree that materialistic evolution does not lead to these conclusions that they held (Sanger and Hitler being the most obvious representatives… I didn’t choose their names for shock value, or to suggest any affiliation with you.)
Peace,
Matt
January 9th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Matt, with respect back, have you read Mein Kampf? It mentions God a whole lot, but you know how many times it mentions Darwin or evolution? Not once. Again, I’m afraid you do not know what you are talking about. Again, eugenics is the opposite of evolution. Therefore your connections to Sanger and Hitler are invalid.
Darwin didn’t say that society should operate along Darwinian lines, any more than Newton said we should go round dropping things all the time. I accept the evidence for evolution - that doesn’t make it a good thing, any more than accepting the evidence for the holocaust means you think THAT was a good thing.
January 9th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Andrew - I’m starting to see what you mean… it appears some of what I’ve been taught has been out of context from Mein Kampf. No - I haven’t read the WHOLE thing - just portions… What I hadn’t read (and just got done reading online) are the portions about Hitler’s belief in man’s always being a man. What I’ve read countless times are his words on evolution, and struggling… I’ll withdraw my comment for the time being.
Rock on, Andrew - I always seem to learn something from our talks! I think we will both agree (I hope) that Hitler twisted the message of Jesus and made it fit his goals, and Sanger’s vision of exterminating the weak/black/handicapped/etc. was her version of the same ideals. But you raise an excellent point - Sanger and Hitler are VERY, eerily similar, but the connection to evolution seems suspect to me right now.
Thanks,
Matt
January 9th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
OK - that got off topic for a bit! On the subject of gays harming society, Psalm 33:12 states that the nation whose god is the LORD (Yahweh) is blessed. That right there should be every Christian’s answer.
Now to come from an atheist’s perspective, I don’t know. Me personally, I’m trying really REALLY hard to see things from other perspectives when it comes to these issues. I don’t know what to offer in this case - gays in a culture definitely affect their surroundings. If you don’t view the compromise that has happened in America, with respect to accepting this as an alternate “lifestyle”, as “wrong” according to God’s word… I’m struggling to come up with a good reason.
However, I maintain that the “harm” on a society is due to God withdrawing His hand and allowing sin to breed what sin always breeds: more sin, until we are living in the reward for such compromise,
For what it’s worth…
-Matt
January 9th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Certainly I don’t blame Christianity at all for how Hitler took inspiration for his antisemitism from the words of Martin Luther.
I hadn’t heard of Sanger till you mentioned her.
For the record, Hitler’s attempts at eugenics utilised no ideas newer than animal husbandry, which pre-dates Darwin by thousands of years. Darwin, Dawkins and many other biologists have said that although evolution is what is observed in nature, they don’t believe any human society should be set up along Darwinian lines. Ironically it is those on the Right in America who DO advocate such ideas in free-market capitalism, low taxes and small government.
And hey Matt, kudos to you for being able to retract statements or be williing to change your mind on issues. This IS an argument I’ve had with others before, so I’ve got my answers ready! There are lots of good websites refuting the Darwin/Hitler connection. Such a connection is propagated by those who wish to discredit the science. It’s based on a fallacy anyway - even if I could show that Hitler got the idea to DROP bombs from the work of Newton, it wouldn’t invalidate Newton’s work.
January 9th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
“I’m struggling to come up with a good reason.”
What, a good non-God reason to oppose homosexuality? I’ve never heard a single good reason - just logical fallacies, bad reading of statistics, and bigotry. You saying it’s bad because your holy book says so is no different to me than a Hindu claiming that low-caste Indians are unclean - it’s religious dogma insupportable by anything outside of a book.
January 9th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Well, outside of an objective standard of right and wrong, it’s NOT wrong - the reason I can’t come up with a good reason from that perspective is that when I approach it from that perspective, I’ve surrendered my standard of right/wrong.
Still thinking,
Matt
January 9th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Andrew - it’s been my understanding, from my talks with you and Tim, that the only “right” in the world is subjective… it amounts to what is best for the species.
But you see, even that is subjective. There is no grounds on which “what is best for the species” is somehow solidified as “objectively good.” That’s just an example of how such grounds can be justified. My claim all along has been that there simply is no such dimension — spacial, moral, or otherwise — in which it is even possible for such “objective goodness” to exist.
That’s why i am surprised that you both have no problems with homosexuality.
As I’ve already explained, by the logic you have offered here to condemn homosexuality, I would also have to condemn other things for that same reason. Your justification makes the mistake of assuming that
(a) the intent of homosexuality is to reproduce;
(b) that every member of the species (or even a majority) is homosexual.
Neither of which are true. Simple as that. If there is anything about my position on homosexuality that you don’t understand, feel free to ask~
It just struck me as a possible contradiction that you hold to materialistic evolution, and yet draw the line where many others haven’t - eugenics, the nazis, etc. towed the evolutionary “what’s best for the species” line and, consistent with their worldview, took steps to eliminate homosexuals, sickly, handicapped, etc.
Again, you seem fixated that I have settled on “what’s best for the species” as the ultimate, final identifier for “ultimate truth and righteousness.” That’s not the case. There is no objective means by which to justify any real moral decision; there is only a paradigm on which it is possible to operate, drawing decisions from that paradigm in a ladder-fashion (each decision is based on another decision, dating all the way back to the first “Faith Decision”). It seems, then, that there is essentially no grounds on which to decide what is really true, and what is really “right or wrong,” in an objective sense. Does that mean we should withdraw all the value we attritbute to “subjective” ideas of right and wrong? The only tools we have to reach such conclusions are reason and faith, in any combination. It takes a small amount of both to form any stable worldview. Does that make such a worldview any less or more valuable, though?
If I misunderstand, okay - but to be clear: it is not I who short someone’s value based on what they can do for the physical well-being of our species. That idea, imho, is born in a materialistic worldview.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I have already explained to you (and to others) why that doesn’t fly with me; it’s not about “what’s good for the species;” rather, it’s possible to use “what is good for the species” to enforce reasonable arguments as to what is “right and wrong.” Think of it like this; if somebody says something is “right,” and just leaves it at that, what reason do you have to believe them? Likewise, if they say that something is “right” when, in fact, its effect is detriment to society as a whole (say, murder, or theft, the permission of which would cause people to withdraw value from the ideas of “honest work” and “respect of property,” on the groudns that such ideas would lead only to self-destruction given that they would be held by only a small minority, and thus disregarded by the masses), what reason do you have to believe them? This is just one method of citing examples; if you say something is “unnatural,” or that it is “detrimental to the species,” I would expect you to answer two follow-up questions before I even consider your comment:
(1) How is it detrimental, and how is that any different from other similar things to which you are not opposed?*
(2) If it is unnatural, then why is it observed in nature?
*(I assume you are not opposed to the existence of entertainers and performing artists. And yet, they contribute no resources to society — they only consume, and in fact they cause others to consume time and resources (i.e. money) that could benefit society in a much better way if spent on something more practical, such as food or shelter. The problem with this being, the shelter and food are generally already provided for, and thus the money being spent on entertainers is “extra” money; likewise, the act of reproduction is already being covered by the more numerous heterosexual members of the species, and so the homosexuals are more “extras” in this sense; they cannot be expected to contribute in such a way, because it is not their purpose.)
The Quaran is a lie, what the muslims beleive in is a lie. I can’ t understand why people follow it and think it’ s the truth.
Now we’re getting somewhere; what would you tell me if I said I thought the Bible was a lie? Not saying that’s the case, just humor me here; if I said that to you right now, if I said, “The Bible is a lie, and I don’t understand why you think it’s the truth,” then what would you say to me to try and change my mind? Don’t hold back, give me all you can
Andrew, with all due respect, I fear it is YOU who don’t know enough about the nazi’s connection with evolution, and the theory’s effect on their embracing of eugenic programs.
From Wikipedia:
Eugenics was defined by Francis Galton as “the study of all agencies under human control which can improve or impair the racial quality of future generations”.
The problem with this system is not the idea of improving or hampering the growth of the species, but rather the idea of how to define “racial quality.” I don’t think there is an effective way to “measure” racial quality, because that implies there is something about one’s race or genetic makeup that can be said to have “quality.” If that were true, then it would be possible to show that one person — solely due to race and genetic makeup — is somehow “of greater quality” than another. And I do not believe that is the case. Therefore I am not a supporter of eugenics, nor of Hitler.
However, I am a supporter of anyone who would volunteer their time, body, or effort to research methods to reduce the occurrence of debilitating genetic diseases/mutations such as Downs’ Syndrome or mental retardation. This says nothing of the value of the humans who exist (or will come to exist as time passes) who already have these illnesses; rather, it says that we could drastically improve the quality of life for people if we could find out how to prevent their most necessary sensory abilities from being inhibited due to birth defects or mutations. I see nothing wrong with this pursuit, so long as no humans are stripped of their rights, lives or well-being in the process. I do not believe that “the ends justify the means;” I believe that is merely an excuse in this case.
That’s how I “draw a line to connect materialism to eugenics”. Materialists like yourself believe in evolution - its how the sludge became fish, apes, and men with no creative guiding force (unless you’re Dawkins - ufo’s and all).
UFO’s and all? What are you talking about?
Wait, do you perhaps mean that one instance during Expelled when he was asked about the origin of life, and he said he supposed it was possible that extraterrestrial life could have come to earth? That’s not as outrageous as it was painted to seem; it’s entirely possible that the elements of life (or even some form of life, microscopic or otherwise) could have drifted here in “cosmic dust” (i.e. “on the winds of the universe,” to be poetic) and began to procreate on earth. This says nothing about the ultimate origin of life, though, nor about UFOs.
Or perhaps you were talking about something else?
Again, eugenics is the opposite of evolution.
^This. Eugenics means the intentional human tampering with the development of a species, to cause it to “optimize” in whatever manner the human defines as “optimal.” The principle of evolution says that the fittest will survive, and that there is no way to escape this; eugenics is an attempt to control what kinds of traits are passed on in a further attempt to modify the species. Basically, evolution says we can’t escape the system of progression, whereas eugenics says it’s possible to control that system.
OK - that got off topic for a bit! On the subject of gays harming society, Psalm 33:12 states that the nation whose god is the LORD (Yahweh) is blessed. That right there should be every Christian’s answer.
Maybe. I just want to make sure you understand, though, that you’re preaching to the choir, here. If your goal is to change anyone’s mind, Bible quotes will not suffice. I am not asking you to show me where the Bible says that’s the case; I’m asking you how you can prove to me that that is the case, given that I don’t trust the Bible in the way that you do.
If you don’t view the compromise that has happened in America, with respect to accepting this as an alternate “lifestyle”, as “wrong” according to God’s word… I’m struggling to come up with a good reason.
I can see how, as a believer, I would be able to view it as “wrong” very easily. But I am not a believer, thus the dillema. I didn’t say that God’s word ran counter to homophobia at all, actually.
However, I maintain that the “harm” on a society is due to God withdrawing His hand and allowing sin to breed what sin always breeds: more sin, until we are living in the reward for such compromise,
I’d like to invoke the “Innocent Sin” argument, if I may; you say it is a sin solely by virtue of being what it is, in an inherent sense. There is no reason for this; it just is. I can prove this quite simply, so long as you answer this question: Would you have any objection at all if, right now, I decided to believe that homosexuality is a sin “just because?” Let’s say that I decide to believe that, and that I tell you, “I don’t need a reason to believe that. It’s a sin.” Would you be satisfied with that?
I would say that, even if this is true — even if it can somehow be proven that it is a “sin” — that is irrelevant. What does it mean? That’s quite an innocent sin; it harms no one, except those who would choose to perceive harm as “a lack of optimal circumstances as defined by the party in question.” If we use those parameters, of course, we must also consider barren women to be a detriment to society. End of story.
Unless you have something to add?
January 9th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
“outside of an objective standard of right and wrong, it’s NOT wrong”
But you and I have shown we’re able to discuss the merits of something, whether it’s good or bad. Or at least I’d thought we’d managed to arrive at that point. A shame that you seem to be back at square one.
Is there anywhere in the bible that says torturing animals is wrong? If not, how did you arrive at the decision that it is? For me it is axiomatic that causing unnecessary pain to another creature is wrong. I don’t need a God to believe that.
January 9th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Emily Smith: “The Quaran is a lie”
Emily, please answer one question: have you read the Quran?
January 9th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
“(unless you’re Dawkins - ufo’s and all)”
Oh Jeez, I missed that first time round. Matt, you really need to read yourself some proper Dawkins, and you need to stop believing so much of the propaganda the ID apologists have been feeding you about him, Darwin, Eugenics etc. These ID proponents do NOT care about the truth as they know it hurts their cause. Please try to be more skeptical and start doing your own research.
To read about the so-called ‘Dawkins and UFOs’, google ‘lying for Jesus’ and read the first result.
January 9th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
reading it now
January 10th, 2009 at 12:09 am
Very good reading. I certainly hope that’s not true, but we only have the experience and testimony of those involved, and of course I’m sure both sides disagree. Thou shalt not lie - especially in the service of making a movie aBOUT lies and suppressive behavior in the scientific community. Insert frowny face here.
-Matt
January 10th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
Matt, the whole movie was about deception from the start:
They deceived the people taking part about the content of the movie.
They deceived the audience by falsely representing those interviewed.
They plagiarised Harvard University’s The Inner Life of the Cell animation.
The ID-sympathetic researcher whom the film paints as having lost his job at the Smithsonian Institution was never an employee there.
They avoided interviewing any of the famous Christian biologist experts in evolution such as Ken Miller, (they claim because it would have ‘confused the issue’. Meaning it would have undercut their argument).
Most egregious was the exploitation of the holocaust to draw false connections between evolution and mass-murder.*
In short, these are not honest people.
*Following the film’s release, The Anti-Defamation League issued the following statement regarding the controversial film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.
“The film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed misappropriates the Holocaust and its imagery as a part of its political effort to discredit the scientific community which rejects so-called intelligent design theory.
Hitler did not need Darwin to devise his heinous plan to exterminate the Jewish people and Darwin and evolutionary theory cannot explain Hitler’s genocidal madness.
Using the Holocaust in order to tarnish those who promote the theory of evolution is outrageous and trivializes the complex factors that led to the mass extermination of European Jewry.”
[The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world’s leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.]
January 11th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Yeah, I wonder where Ben Stein went wrong….I mean, he used to be funny because he was so boring, I figured it must be an act (and therefore funny), but now…..wow. It’s like he’s decided he wants the world to take him seriously all of a sudden. I don’t mind him being a creationist (as much as I disagree with the idea itself), but the grating illogical sarcasm and stupid jokes completely drown out any points he might have had.
Don’t get me wrong, sarcasm is fun….but you have to actually have a point. You can’t rely on sarcasm to be the point, ya know? I guess Stein didn’t get the memo….
January 13th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
Listen, the Bible is a book of truth. It has been proved by many people and through research that it is true. Andrew I know the Quaran is a lie and the muslim faith is a lie. I’ ve read some of what’ s in the Quaran and their biggest mistake is saying that God is impersonal. God is not impersonal, he’ s personal, and loving and caring toward all. Follow what I say and read the Bible. God bless to all, and peace on earth.
January 13th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Emily, so you admit that you haven’t read the Koran in anything but a sketchy way. How can you therefore denounce it? Which translation did you read?
January 13th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Listen, the Bible is a book of truth.
Fine….however, I already know that you believe that. What I asked was, how do you know that?
Follow what I say and read the Bible.
Why should I feel inclined to do either of those things? There must be some reason, or else I don’t think you would say those things. So….for what reason do you say those things?
January 14th, 2009 at 8:45 am
Andrew I’ ve read a translation of the quaran that tells what the entire book is about and it has proven the book, and what it says to be false. Tim I think I have proven my point clearly that the Bible is true, and is the only book you need to read. God Bless to all. Peace.
January 14th, 2009 at 9:08 am
You mean you’ve read a summary? That’s hardly very conclusive. For a start, you need to learn Arabic and read it untranslated to really understand it. A translated summary is hardly going to do it justice. If I told you that I dismiss the bible on the basis of a summary of it written in Chinese, I don’t think you’d be impressed.
So if I’ve got Emily Jane Smith on the one hand telling me that the KORAN is lies, and I’ve got a Muslim on the other telling me the BIBLE is lies, how do you suggest I make a judgement on which of you is more informed on the issue?
January 14th, 2009 at 11:06 am
Tim I think I have proven my point clearly that the Bible is true, and is the only book you need to read. God Bless to all. Peace.
By all means, feel free to help me understand this….what have you said that, in your mind, conclusively proves anything about the Bible?
I mean, yes, you’ve made some claims. But when did you go from claiming something is true to proving that it is true?
January 14th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
If you actually read the bible, and explore what smart people have said about it like Frank Turek, Les Feldick and pastor Richard Dortch you would learn from them and learn the truth. You should watch the show You and Me. It’ s a call in prayer show where on mon - fri 12pm to 3 am
you can ask for pastor richard dortch to pray for you and why and he will pray for you everyday. I feel this will greatly help you Tim. God Bless You. Andrew I’ ve read an english translation of the quaran it it is all lies I research things before I open my mouth, and I make sure the things I say are true.God bless you, and I reccomend you don’ t read the quaran and read the bible.
January 14th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
You already admitted that you have NOT read it all the way through. Which is it?
January 14th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
If you actually read the bible, and explore what smart people have said about it like Frank Turek, Les Feldick and pastor Richard Dortch you would learn from them and learn the truth. You should watch the show You and Me. It’ s a call in prayer show where on mon - fri 12pm to 3 am
you can ask for pastor richard dortch to pray for you and why and he will pray for you everyday. I feel this will greatly help you Tim.
All that is fine and wonderful….but it’s still beside the point. The question was, how do you know these things are “true” and that they will “help you?”
January 15th, 2009 at 8:45 am
God Bless To All and Peace on Earth. May God be with you always.
January 15th, 2009 at 9:26 am
So you’ve no answer? May Allah and Shiva and Vishnu be with you Emily.
January 15th, 2009 at 9:41 am
Andrew, obviously (from her responses) Emily has a simple faith. Disrespect or intentional antagonizing gets us nowhere. I don’t know if she can, or just doesn’t care to, elaborate on the more intellectual side of these things (where I know you and I enjoy the conversation)… Anyway - on the other side, don’t let her simple statements of her faith rattle you too hard… I’m a Christian myself, and I get a little frustrated at her short, seemingly unsupported way of answering… but still
-Matt
January 15th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Andrew I do have an answer, I just couldn’ t answer at that time. I have not read the whole quaran, but I understand the most important point it’ s trying to get across. It’ s point is God is impersonal, and also that we have to earn our own salvation. all of that is false. God loves and cares about us all sinners or saints, and Jesus is our savour, we do not have to earn our salvation. all we have to do is ask Jesus to come into your heart, ask him to forgive our sins, and accept him as our savour. I hope you listen to what I say Andrew and I will be praying for you to go to Heaven. Matt I appreciate what you say,and you seem like a logical person, I’ m glad your a christain. Are you born again? I pray for everyone I meet to have a good life, and grow in their relationship in God. I will pray for you if you’ d like me to, and I will even say a specail prayer every night if someone asks me to. Tim, and Andrew I have have already been praying for both of you to go Heaven, and all the people I have been praying for my prayers are answered, and I hope my prayers are answered. Matt, and Tim I probably won’ t read your responses today, but I will be praying for you tonight. Andrew I will be praying for you tonight as well. I will be off the computer in 10 min, so if you want a respone today I’d type fast. I hope everyone has a good rest of the day, I will be praying for you all God bless You to everyone, and peace on Earth.
January 15th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
May God be with God be with everyone always. He always will have his heart open to all of you. Embrace His love.God Bless.
January 15th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
Thanks Emily, I take your words in the spirit they are meant.
January 16th, 2009 at 12:37 am
I have no problem; take all the time you need to come up with an answer.
Seriously. I’d like to know how you know the things you say you know.
January 16th, 2009 at 8:46 am
I hope all the prayers I said last night about all three of you come true. God is able. God bless To All. Peace on Earth. Tim I will explain my answers later. I look foward to hearing from you all.May God be with you all always, and have a day full of grace.
January 16th, 2009 at 9:37 am
Emily - thank you. Rest assured, I participate on here sometimes AS a Christian, devoted to learning as much as I can about the opposing viewpoints, which these two guys are kind enough to indulge. They’ve taught me a lot, and there’s nothing to fear in testing your faith - all things work together for the good of those who are called… even dips and valleys in our walks with God can be used by Him to grow us
-Matt
January 16th, 2009 at 10:29 am
Actually, my favourite answer when someone says ‘I will pray for you’ is ‘And I’ll think for you.’
January 16th, 2009 at 11:30 am
-matt
January 16th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
I am a born christain and I enjoy talking to people of other religions, and helping them grow in their relationaship with God. If anyone has a specail prayer request you can always ask me and I will pray for you. if anyone would like is question me why every other religion is false except christainity, my ears are always open. I will be praying for you all, may God be with all of you all always, and God bless to everyone and peace on earth. Also I will be online for 20 more minutes right now, so I’ d love to hear from, any and all of you God bless.
January 16th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Matt, I’ve heard many Christians make the same point about ‘evolution argues against homosexuality’. Every time, I explain about why this idea is false. I’ve NEVER had a Christian engage with the argument, it’s like they’re deaf to it. I point out birth rates of siblings of gays, the evolutionary advantages of having some members of a community not reproducing… Never a response.
And now you yourself quietly dropped the ‘it’s anti-evolutionary’ argument as soon as I presented the rebuttal. Does this mean you see what I mean and therefore won’t present that argument again? Or did you figure “I’ll need to investigate Andrew’s claims before I argue further”?
January 16th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Yes, I try my best (fallibly) to know what I’m talking about. Obviously, we all do, and I’ve been reading and thinking about what you say. I find that I often struggle, not because I don’t have an answer, but because I’m easily persuaded to try and argue from YOUR point of view - in the process, abandoning the tools, logic, reason, faith, existential experiences, etc. that make up MY worldview. One thing I’m impressed with is that you rarely do in our conversations.
SO - I still maintain that the theory of survival of the fittest is at odds with homosexuality - those members of a species do not pass on their genetic material (and yes I know about gay couples’ options in the 21st century, I mean the theory itself), but that’s your worldview - remember, I remain currently unconvinced in evolution. There are simply too many places the theory diverges from the observable truth and the biblical record. Evolution is real on YOUR side of the fence, and if homosexuality comports with evolution TO YOU, then great. To me, it’s a non-issue. I just wondered how a homosexual contributes to the evolutionary worldview in a positive way, since they are non-breeders. As I understand it, the strongest survive to pass on their genes, and since they don’t, I asked.
Peace,
Matt
January 16th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
SO - I still maintain that the theory of survival of the fittest is at odds with homosexuality - those members of a species do not pass on their genetic material
I’ll give you the BOD on this for the most part, because I can only assume you haven’t been around evolution and biology as much as others might have been (and thus might not be quite as familiar with all the inner workings thereof….a problem I frequently run into myself with regard to a number of other scientific systems), but I will say this: the primary issue with the claim that homosexuality runs counter to evolution lies in the following assumptions:
(1) That evolution assumes a duty for every member of a species to faithfully reproduce;
(2) That anyone who does not fulfill this “duty” is in defiance of the principle of evolution;
(3) That it is seen as sensible (from such a worldview) for every member of a species to engage in homosexual activity while abstaining from reproductive activity.
The dilemma is simply this (and I have a feeling you might agree about this much): It is not truly possible to advocate the true freedom of reproductive rights all the way through, because the very foundation of the argument towards something like homosexuality is based on the idea that there are already people that reproduce. Basically, the argument for homosexuality says, “there are already an overwhelming number of people being straight, and so it’s not really possible at this time for being gay to be a detriment to society.” Because in order for homosexuality to be a true detriment to the continuation of the species, there would have to be no heterosexual reproduction whatsoever, or reproduction at such a diminished level that there would not be sufficient genetic diversity for the following generation to continue the pursuit. Neither of which is a current threat, or even close to approaching one.
In order to truly consider the merits of this argument, it is necessary for us to go back to frame one — let’s say there is a small tribe of villagers, maybe 30, 15 of which are male and 15 of which are female (although any small number is sufficient to make the point here). If each of the 15 of the female villagers reproduce with a different male member (1 man to 1 woman, not all with the same man or vice-versa) and each of those women have one child each, then there will still only be 15 children for the next generation. Even if they all have two children (which is significantly less likely), there is no increase in population — there will still be exactly 30 children in the next generation, same as this one. So, we are presented with a problem: how will the species continue? At this rate, after only 5 or 6 generations the genetic diversity (as well as the population itself) will thin out to the point that reproduction becomes difficult, if not impossible.
If one is of the belief that continuation of the species is the utmost important factor, then one might say that it should be regulated that women be required to have so many children during their lifetime, to ensure that the population will increase. Of course, there are moral problems with this, mainly that a woman should be required by force to bear children, perhaps against there will (the same could be said of the males as well, though I cite females here because they actually have to carry the child). Likewise, it could be said that any homosexuals (male or female) should be forced to contribute to the population, against their will or otherwise. It’s not reasonable to just say that they should not be allowed to have homosexual relations; that doesn’t address the problem at all, unless we also say they must be forced to have heterosexual relations and reproduce (a gay man does not contribute to the population, whether or not he has sex with other gay men). So one is forced to either allow gay relationships, or force them to marry women and conceive children. No other option makes sense, from a reproductive standpoint (or a moral one; the reasons cited thus far on this forum as to why homosexuality is negative can only “prove it to be morally wrong” in the sense that it limits or runs counter to natural reproductive efforts, which leads us back to the former case — either force them to reproduce, or don’t).
So one of a couple of things will happen: Either we will allow the species to reproduce at their own will (i.e. women who choose to bear children will bear children, and men who wish to contribute will contribute), and the population may increase or decrease…..or we strictly regulate reproductive efforts in an attempt to force the species to become more populated. It seems that, if we oppose the idea of regulating reproductive activity (which I might add that I do), then whether or not the species becomes more or less populous is ultimately left to a gamble of the collective will of the people — will their own will cause the species to increase in number? Or will it cause them to decrease, maybe even die off? And if it’s the latter, who can be held responsible, if anyone? Is it the “fault” of the people who did not reproduce that the species decreases in number? Mathematically it is, of course…..but is this a reason for hostility, or perhaps punishment, for this sort of “lack of behavior?” Should we punish people who choose not to reproduce because of this fear that such thinking will accumulate and eventually thin out or destroy the human race?
All this brings us, at last, to two questions:
(1) Are you okay, morally speaking, with the idea that woman or men — straight or gay — should be required by law (or force, or any other regulation) to reproduce?
(2) If not, then on what grounds would you mitigate the above scenario?
I leave it to you to answer this question; I’m sure you already know what I would say, so I’ll say no further unless you ask. In the meantime, I patiently await your response~
January 16th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
Don’t know what “BOD” is…
Secondly, I am not an evolutionist! I believe firmly in an overall creative plan (deism) and a living God, who intervenes in history - working all things for His glory. This is the testimony of the Bible. We are commanded to be “fruitful” and “multiply” by the biblical record of the genesis account. In other words, if at all possible, bear children and raise them in God-fearing households. Homosexuality does not comport with this aspect of Christianity. In all of your lengthy response, I am left with the distinct impression that you are relying on “wording” this issue to death to get around the your worldview’s inconsistencies … like how homosexuality can at ALL be considered beneficial to a system that is built on the cornerstone of ’survival of the fittest
If i’m not understanding, it’s either the length of your post, new-baby-brain, or some combo. Correct me if I’m not answering what you’re asking.
On a side note, it’s nice to see you admit that there is an objective wrong in the world - forcing one person’s desire for reproduction on another - you’re just a small step away from being able to admit that rape, forced sterilization, etc. - this whole vein of offenses are actually objectively wrong… for anyone. Between you and Andrew, you’ve been the most consistent in this area, stating that there is NO objective right/wrong - only preference, what’s “right” for “me”. Not trying to get off-topic, but you seem to be saying that to force someone to bear children is, in fact, “wrong”. Good to hear!
I sincerely hope this bit of rambling typing does not sound holier-than-thou or condescending. Just pointing out inconsistencies where I see em in the effort that we all grow in the the grace and knowledge of God, our source of truth.
Peace,
-Matt
January 16th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
P.S. - To be clear, I believe in theism - my first statement had (deism) to point out that I am convinced by my mind in deism… I meant to later put (theism) because experience and my religious walk points me to theism.
Not a deist - just wanted to say that I START there, and continue to fully embrace theism.
In Christ,
Matt
January 16th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Aye….many, many things to address here. I’ll start simple:
Don’t know what “BOD” is…
Benefit of the Doubt.
In all of your lengthy response, I am left with the distinct impression that you are relying on “wording” this issue to death to get around the your worldview’s inconsistencies … like how homosexuality can at ALL be considered beneficial to a system that is built on the cornerstone of ’survival of the fittest
I appreciate that you’re trying to say something, but this is all really just filler to me. You do a great job of expressing how you feel about what I said, but you’ve failed to point out any real problem or inconsistency. Unless perhaps I misunderstood you?
Secondly, I never said that homosexuality was “beneficial,” just that it doesn’t make sense to be opposed to it on the grounds that you say you are opposed to it. See, you say that you oppose it because of reasons tied to reproductive rates, and that it is immoral because of this reason(s); however, in the current state of society, your “reasons” are non-reasons. They are unrealistic. So we are forced to break down the issue; you say that if we allow gay marriage, humankind will eventually stop reproducing and the birth rates will descend until we die off. So I took an example of just that sort of situation, and made my best attempt to show you that you simply cannot consistently oppose homosexuality on those grounds as well as oppose the idea that a woman should be forced to bear children. They are two sides of the same coin; the reason for supporting/opposing each in this case is the same.
It is, however, consistent to believe that a person should not be told by anyone what to do with regard to his/her own reproductive system; that is to say, we should be allowed to choose whether or not we want to reproduce, as well as how and when (given further reasonable means, too wordy for this post….although I will explain if pressed).
You say my posts are “wordy,” well, I admit I am verbose. Perhaps that comes from my desire to be as specific and clear as possible. If there is any particular point you don’t grasp, feel free to point it out. But I can’t really respond to vague criticisms, as they leave too much to the imagination (and thus set the stage for even greater understanding and miscommunication).
On a side note, it’s nice to see you admit that there is an objective wrong in the world - forcing one person’s desire for reproduction on another - you’re just a small step away from being able to admit that rape, forced sterilization, etc. - this whole vein of offenses are actually objectively wrong… for anyone.
For the umpteenth time, I do not — and never have espoused here that I do — believe in “objective morality.” Anything you read that into is either a misunderstanding or misinterpretation of what I am saying. Take this issue, for example; here is what I actually said:
Of course, there are moral problems with this, mainly that a woman should be required by force to bear children, perhaps against there will (the same could be said of the males as well, though I cite females here because they actually have to carry the child)
I said that there was a moral problem. Which is to say, you cannot be consistent in believing that all people should reproduce if you do not belive that, in the above circumstance, a woman should be forced to bear children. It’s as simple as that.
I also later said:
It seems that, if we oppose the idea of regulating reproductive activity (which I might add that I do),
Which says nothing about objectivity, only what I believe. That’s it. It is a fact that I oppose the idea of forcing women under any circumstance — ideological or legal — to bear children if that is not what they intend to do.
I sincerely hope this bit of rambling typing does not sound holier-than-thou or condescending. Just pointing out inconsistencies where I see em in the effort that we all grow in the the grace and knowledge of God, our source of truth.
Not to sound as much myself, but condescension in this area never really bothers me (I encounter it frequently, and on occassion I’m known to put a bit of it out myself when I’m particularly flustered); in fact, it’s hard to really be bothered by anything in a debate that is, simply put, about the very differences in perception that cause such things to be said/done.
P.S. - To be clear, I believe in theism - my first statement had (deism) to point out that I am convinced by my mind in deism… I meant to later put (theism) because experience and my religious walk points me to theism.
No worries, I know what you meant. In any case, I do have a follow-up question: you believe there is a sort of “law” in place (a religious belief, or a value, or whatever precise term you prefer to use, I honestly don’t know), that says we “should” be fruitful and multiply and raise Christians; and on top of that, that this “shouldness” is objective. Is this correct? And yet, you do not believe that a woman should be required by any rule to have children? So my question is: do you then believe that a woman is doing something “wrong” by choosing not to reproduce, even if she is able? If so, do you believe such a choice, made knowingly, is worthy of punishment? Why or why not?
January 16th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
P.S.
For the record, my case has never been that homosexuality is, per se, “desirable,” or “necessary,” or “preferable.” Merely that it is “acceptable.”
January 16th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
Tim, I don not oppose homosexuality because of their inability to reproduce - there are a myriad of reasons, beginning with the Bible’s clear commands. I thought that YOU should, since they fail the survival of the fittest criteria - they have something (a preference/mental illness/whatever) that prevents them from passing on their genes.
Secondly, a creator God commanding that we make every effort to be fruitful and multiply, as this is in His plan for the created order of things to best continue, is in no way a contradiction. If there is an all-powerful God, to whom we owe our existence, sustenance, and a sin-debt, then this God is able to make such a command. And to be even clearer, God is generous and gracious in the cases where men and women cannot reproduce. But this is the exception, not the rule.
Thirdly, is being consistent “good”? Like - objectively so? Is it good for all of us to be consistent? Or is that good to you and me only?
Peace, man
-Matt
January 16th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
Tim, I don not oppose homosexuality because of their inability to reproduce - there are a myriad of reasons, beginning with the Bible’s clear commands. I thought that YOU should, since they fail the survival of the fittest criteria - they have something (a preference/mental illness/whatever) that prevents them from passing on their genes.
Ah, yes, I forgot you were playing devil’s advocate there for a moment~
So then you understand why it doesn’t make sense for someone like me to oppose homosexuality, based on what I’ve told you here?
Secondly, a creator God commanding that we make every effort to be fruitful and multiply, as this is in His plan for the created order of things to best continue, is in no way a contradiction.
I don’t see how an idea, in and of itself, can be a contradiction; it can only be a contradiction if it consists of two opposing ideas. So I’m not sure what you mean here. In any case, that is a lot to take on faith.
If there is an all-powerful God, to whom we owe our existence, sustenance, and a sin-debt, then this God is able to make such a command.
Why? Because He is all-powerful? What does that mean? In what sense does this being truly exist? I hate to bring out old arguments, but it’s a simple fact that power does not equal authority. So even if God does turn out to exist, that in and of itself does not comprise authority. It comprises power. See, you’re guilty here of deriving an
).
“ought” from an “is;” as in, “He is powerful, therefore we should do what He says.” But again, that’s another argument altogether (and I can think of two or three more that could also branch from this, just counting on one finger. Give me both, and I’ll keep you busy for a very, very long time
Thirdly, is being consistent “good”? Like - objectively so? Is it good for all of us to be consistent? Or is that good to you and me only?
I couldn’t tell you that; I don’t believe in objective goodness~
Although, I would certainly turn to a person who is consistent — as opposed to one who is not — if I were seeking information I want to be able to rely upon in the future; I can say that much.
January 16th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
just counting on one finger. Give me both, and I’ll keep you busy for a very, very long time
).
Ahem…counting on one hand~
January 16th, 2009 at 11:31 pm
Secondly, a creator God commanding that we make every effort to be fruitful and multiply, as this is in His plan for the created order of things to best continue, is in no way a contradiction. a contradiction in that I believe no MAN should have rights to compell someone to reproduce… God is well, GOD… that’s different. even if you only acknowledge the concept of god, you must see my point
January 17th, 2009 at 12:09 am
Secondly, a creator God commanding that we make every effort to be fruitful and multiply, as this is in His plan for the created order of things to best continue, is in no way a contradiction. a contradiction in that I believe no MAN should have rights to compell someone to reproduce… God is well, GOD… that’s different. even if you only acknowledge the concept of god, you must see my point
Fair enough. However, I am having some trouble, mostly relating to how you would have this idea executed….am I to understand that you believe all women should reproduce, in an objective sense of “shouldness?” Do you respect the choices of women who choose not to? If so….then doesn’t that run counter to your belief that women should reproduce?
If this “shouldness” is objective, then I don’t see how it’s any different from any other morally-objective “should” in your view. If it’s objective, then it’s objective, and so that means that’s how it “should” be, no questions. So how do you differentiate between a woman who chooses not to reproduce, and someone who decides to violate another one of these perceived rules of objective “shouldness?” Like say, stealing? Setting aside the fact that one is more extreme than the other….can one “should” be “moreso” than another “should?” Are there varying degrees of “shouldness?” If so, how do you tell the differences between those levels?
January 17th, 2009 at 12:11 am
I guess what I mean is….if you don’t think this sort of thing should be enforced, and yet you believe it is an objective “should” in the same sense that “murder is wrong” and “God is good,” then how do you reconcile the two? Have you not argued for the illegalization of homosexual unions because of just such a “should?” How is this “should” any different? How do you rationalize believing that women should reproduce….and yet at the same time acknowledge that women have the right not to?
January 17th, 2009 at 5:35 am
“I thought that YOU should, since they fail the survival of the fittest criteria ”
And I’m asking YOU whether you have now dropped this argument, given that we’ve explained at length why it is false for a variety of reasons.
The main ones being
1) There’s no reason to think gays affect the populations and
2) Survival of the fittest is something observed in nature. It is NOT a model by which humans should necessarily live their lives.
Can you now drop this from your ‘devil’s advocate’ argument, or do you STILL not understand?
January 17th, 2009 at 5:39 am
“…beginning with the Bible’s clear commands”
You’re reading a translation of a book. You use the word ‘abomination’, but I know other people who translate the word as ‘outside of the ritual’. In other words, homosexuality is outside of the ritual in the same was as consuming pork is. Perhaps because both caused diseases in those days. It doesn’t mean that God sees homosexuality as being objectively wrong nowadays, just ‘outside of the ritual’ for people way back then.
January 17th, 2009 at 9:32 am
Actually, I am able to read the NT and the Septuagint in the original language after years of Greek study - reading in the original language brings the NT to life and confirms, not denies, its message. You may take issue with Paul, but his message, John’s message on who Jesus was, Luke’s message, etc. is there. Remember - the Greek translation of the OT was done by rabbis who knew both the language and the spirit of the OT’s message as WELL as the Greek language. The septuagint gives us an amazing look into how the Jews viewed the OT, much like the rosetta stone did. We see how they viewed the passages in the greek words they chose.
Peace,
Matt
January 17th, 2009 at 9:43 am
And I’m asking YOU whether you have now dropped this argument, given that we’ve explained at length why it is false for a variety of reasons.
The main ones being
1) There’s no reason to think gays affect the populations and
2) Survival of the fittest is something observed in nature. It is NOT a model by which humans should necessarily live their lives.
No offense, Andrew, but I really don’t care if you can rationalize TWO things together - both of which I disagree with
I think deism is where scientific evidence is pointing, in all my reading, including experts on both sides of the evolutionary arguments. That said, if you don’t have a problem with individuals in society who are NOT the fittest, and don’t feel the need to peck them to death like a sickly chicken would be, ostracize them like so many members of the animal kingdom would to a mutated creature showing aberrant behavior, then… ok.
It just seems inconsistent, since runts, mutants, mentally ill, etc. members of many animal groups (I grew up on a farm and have seen this) follow this “law of nature” - survival of the fittest - and will either kill or not breed with the oddball. Since you say that it works, and I know that there’s no objective right and wrong, I have no reason to continue this with you. You’ve abandoned the ability to make an objective judgment statement on something’s “right-ness” by denying the transcendent.
You don’t want to talk about it, and think I should drop it because I still don’t understand… you are probably right… I’m reaching the end of my stretchability in seeing things from the atheist side… I probably AM unable to get into the mindset of the evolutionary, subjectivist mind.
Peace,
Matt
January 17th, 2009 at 10:02 am
That said, if you don’t have a problem with individuals in society who are NOT the fittest, and don’t feel the need to peck them to death like a sickly chicken would be, ostracize them like so many members of the animal kingdom would to a mutated creature showing aberrant behavior, then… ok.
….what?
Are you saying that anyone should feel that sort of desire? Why?
I don’t understand why you still think that people who accept evolution should somehow feel morally bound by it; as it’s been said, the concept of “survival of the fittest” is not a moral statement, it’s an “is” statement; the concept that, no matter what ideology a creature holds, if it is not physically fit to survive in this world, it will not. There is nothing stopping a person from, say, having compassion for and aiding in the survival of such a creature. How, in your understanding, does any worldview accounting for evolution contradict this?
It just seems inconsistent, since runts, mutants, mentally ill, etc. members of many animal groups (I grew up on a farm and have seen this) follow this “law of nature” - survival of the fittest - and will either kill or not breed with the oddball. Since you say that it works, and I know that there’s no objective right and wrong, I have no reason to continue this with you. You’ve abandoned the ability to make an objective judgment statement on something’s “right-ness” by denying the transcendent.
I only deny that whose existence you cannot substantiate; you keep using that word, “deny,” in reference to objective right and wrong, as though it were some obvious thing that could not be denied….when, I think if it were such an obvious thing, it would be very easy for you to explain why it is so. I’m confident that you can’t, however, as given any opportunity to do so, you’d prefer to complain that I “deny the transcendent.” I understand that your worldview assumes this sort of thing is obvious….but the problem is, your worldview comes from a book that tells you to believe all of these things. Can you honestly say that you would still feel exactly the same way that you do now, in an alternate reality where you might never have read the Bible or anything like it? I suspect that you have rationalized around this that you would; in which case, my point is made.
The bottom line being….the Bible makes several claims about morality, and preemptively defends them against criticism by saying that they are evident in nature and therefore obvious. Many seem to accept this as “evidence” to the claim, but I am not convinced for the simple reason that the claim that it is obvious, or that it is naturally occuring, is a claim in and of itself, not evidence. And since there is no way to return to the original state of human being — before the moral influence of culture and the Bible — there is no honest way to know whether humans truly have that “inner voice” (for lack of a better term) that Christians claim exists, that one that “leads them to God.” And so this line of questioning is essentially void from here on out.
January 17th, 2009 at 10:07 am
… WHY is survival of the fittest not a model by which humans should necessarily live their lives, guys? If there’s no right/wrong, no impending judgment after we die, only the here and now, why NOT (in your wourldview) take all you can from those too weak to protect it?
Curious as to how these “moral” statements you seem to keep making in our discourse play out, when taken to their conclusion.
-matt
January 17th, 2009 at 10:23 am
the lengths one goes to in order to deny the transcendent… logical and mathematical truths, metaphysical truths, ethical beliefs of value, aesthetic judgments, science itself - these are 5 examples that Dr. Craig gave as examples to Dr. Atkins in their debate, as examples of 5 things that science cannot explain, yet are accepted as true by the rational mind.
see here for a 3 minute explanation he gives:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkBD20edOco
And Dr. Craig, brilliant as he is, is having to MAKE these points!… there are truths that you and I BOTH hold to that are not scientifically testable. they are no less real because of it - so presupposing the non-existence of a god, a standard of right/wrong given by that god because it has the power and authority to make such demands on its creatures/children, etc. CANNOT be ruled out, presuppositionally… unless you are also willing to be consistent to the point that you also abandon the 5 things above (please watch the clip for a better explanation) and MUCH more.
Therefor, your arguments against God and His standards cannot stand, if their foundation begins in presuppositional fallacy - that science’s ability to prove something using scientific method is somehow a litmus test for something’s reality. I believe there are much stronger positions for atheists to take on the issues of right/wrong, god/ no god, etc. but they presume things that are not provable, and in doing so commit the same mistake they accuse Christians of. They accept as true that which is scientifically unprovable.
Peace,
Matt
January 17th, 2009 at 10:47 am
… WHY is survival of the fittest not a model by which humans should necessarily live their lives, guys? If there’s no right/wrong, no impending judgment after we die, only the here and now, why NOT (in your wourldview) take all you can from those too weak to protect it?
Why is survival of the fittest a model by which humans should necessarily live their lives?
The fact is, at the end of the day, there is more than one way to think in this worldview. Because it does not encompass all things….it simply describes one process of nature. It does not tell us what we should or shouldn’t do, it simply tells us what is. The choice of what to do is up to the individual based on his/her own leaning, morally speaking. So to put it simply, a person’s “moral standing” has little to do with whether or not he/she accepts evolution (although in some cases, based on the reasoning involved, it can be telling, as with any worldview).
The difference is, Christianity does try to explain everything. Perhaps that’s where you’re mistaken; you expect the same of evolution, given that you believe it contradicts your own worldview.
In any case….back to your original question. Why should or shouldn’t we live that way? That comes down to reasoning. Unlike the Christian perspective, there is not one universally “right” way to do everything that we should all be striving towards in some perceived moral dimension. So the issue of how to approach things from a moral standpoint comes not from evolution itself, but from a person’s own experience and judgment. The idea of evolution can be borrowed from to rationalize through some of these statements, yes, but it’s not really a good idea to say, “Evolution explains morality,” simply because it’s not supposed to.
Think of it like this; people die if they do not have enough nutrition or shelter. That is a fact; that is an “is” statement. Compare this to the statement made by evolution — that people will die if they cannot be physically fit, and so the physically fit are much more likely to survive and carry on their legacy. This, too, is an “is” statement. Now, take the following rationality…..you say that, because I believe survival of the fittest is a process that is reflected in nature, that I should feel morally obligated to support it by allowing who I perceive to be “weak” to die. Am I correct? If so….then take the other variant, the original statement that “people die if they cannot find food or shelter.” Should I then say to this person, “well, if we both die without food and shelter, then I should take all the food and shelter from you so that I can have a larger supply, and so that you will die as a result?” According to your other rationality here, I can only assume that you would argue I should do this, in accordance with my “survival” viewpoint. Am I also correct here?
The problem is simply that there is no clear “right” answer to this equation. As an individual using my own experience and judgment, I can say that I would not cause the death of another just to assure the continuation of my own existence for a short duration; for one, I cannot ascertain that extending my life by such a meager duration will lead to any sense of fulfillment, especially at the cost of another. In my view, it would be better to lay down my life if it would allow someone with a much better* cause and means to keep going; for example, if I’m a soldier in an army, and we’re fighting to defend my country from enemy forces. If I thought I were likely to die, I might give my supplies to someone who I felt might need them (i.e. someone who is likely to die without them), and I might make the best use of what I have left after the fact. After all, if I die and take a bunch of necessities with me, that actually diminishes the chances of survival for my comrades.
*=better “as I see it,” for reference’s sake~
But even so, all of those are abstract examples. When you get down to it, the point is that the fact that people die is simply not a compelling-enough statement on which to make the judgment that we should kill, or cause the death of, others. In the same vein it is not compelling enough to say that we shouldn’t, either.
Back to what I was saying before, though….it’s really much of a gamble. Even as a Christian, you make the daily gamble that the people with whom you share your ideas will either change or open their minds to such ideas. It is possible to influence them, faintly or powerfully, but it is not possible to force change. You leave the decision to them to choose to accept your view or to discard it, am I correct? My view is no different; I have social values that I support, and I use the best of means at my disposal to convince others of these same values….but ultimately, the gamble is left up to the will of the individual. Will a person choose to adopt my definition of “morality,” or will he/she continue to act in a way that makes reasonable sense but is still harmful to others?
On a side note…..although I still strongly disagree, I think I’m gradually edging closer to understanding what it is you’re saying, here….
January 17th, 2009 at 11:33 am
On a side note…..although I still strongly disagree, I think I’m gradually edging closer to understanding what it is you’re saying, here….
…and you don’t believe in miracles
I have a comment awaiting moderation above, but I want you to read it, so I’ll try again:
the lengths one goes to in order to deny the transcendent… logical and mathematical truths, metaphysical truths, ethical beliefs of value, aesthetic judgments, science itself - these are 5 examples that Dr. Craig gave as examples to Dr. Atkins in their debate, as examples of 5 things that science cannot explain, yet are accepted as true by the rational mind.
search youtube for “Dr. William Lane Craig humiliates Dr. Peter Atkins”… i posted the link to this and my comment wasn’t going through…
And Dr. Craig, brilliant as he is, is having to MAKE these points!… there are truths that you and I BOTH hold to that are not scientifically testable. they are no less real because of it - so presupposing the non-existence of a god, a standard of right/wrong given by that god because it has the power and authority to make such demands on its creatures/children, etc. CANNOT be ruled out, presuppositionally… unless you are also willing to be consistent to the point that you also abandon the 5 things above (please watch the clip for a better explanation) and MUCH more.
Therefor, your arguments against God and His standards cannot stand, if their foundation begins in presuppositional fallacy - that science’s ability to prove something using scientific method is somehow a litmus test for something’s reality. I believe there are much stronger positions for atheists to take on the issues of right/wrong, god/ no god, etc. but they presume things that are not provable, and in doing so commit the same mistake they accuse Christians of. They accept as true that which is scientifically unprovable.
Peace,
Matt
January 17th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
the lengths one goes to in order to deny the transcendent… logical and mathematical truths, metaphysical truths, ethical beliefs of value, aesthetic judgments, science itself - these are 5 examples that Dr. Craig gave as examples to Dr. Atkins in their debate, as examples of 5 things that science cannot explain, yet are accepted as true by the rational mind.
I had this very same argument with someone not too long ago, on this very site….the problem is that the argument which uses “mathematical truths” (for example) as proof of the existence of the transcendent do not use the mathematical properties themselves as evidence, but rather they cite the abstract concept or the idea of those things being true as proof. The problem being, the properties themselves are testable, whereas the abstract idea used to convey the fact that, when tested, they are proven truthful, is not testable….any more than any other abstract concept is testable.
Basically, the abstract idea is a collection of concepts that all make perfect sense with or without the assumption of transcendentalism. It is only when they are mish-mashed together and slapped with the label of “abstract” that they become difficult to convey in physical terms.
Take the rule of non-contradiction, for example. If I say to you right here, “This law is true, and you can’t prove that scientifically,” then what would you say? You would probably say, “No, I can’t.” Then how do we know it is true? Is it just true, in spite of anything we can do to show that it is true? Or is there some way to show that it is true?
The fact is that “this law is true,” in and of itself, doesn’t really make much sense scientifically. In this case, science doesn’t ask “is it?” Science asks, “is it, and if so, how or why is it, and to what extent?” Questions that cannot be answered given the simple, groundless assumption that something is “just true, because.” So if we press further….the first natural test is to provide an example of this rule, in action, so that we may observe its “truthfulness.”
Take two items — say, a pair of shirts. One is green, and one is blue. By the law of non-contradiction, we can then hypothesize that one is not green, and the other is not blue, because if one is green then the other is a different color, and if one is blue then the same can be said of the other one. As it is easier to describe an item by what properties it does hold, as opposed to those it does not hold, we simply say, “One is green and one is blue,” and it is implied that, because we distinctly labeled one as green, that the other must not be green (or else we would just say, “They are both green”).
In order to test this hypothesis, we need only look at the shirts. One is green. Can it also be blue, then? Or red? Or orange? If it is also definitively green? Of course not….but it’s foolish to stop here and say, “that’s just because our theory is correct.” No, not at all! It’s not that the same object cannot be two distinctly different solid colors at once because the law of non-contradiction is true….rather, it’s that the law of non-contradiction is true because the object cannot be two distinctly different solid colors at once!* This may sound like semantics, but there is indeed a great difference. The former would imply that there exists, in some dimension, a literal object called “the law of non-contradiction” that checks for such circumstances as this, making sure that no two opposing truths can exist in tandem…..the latter implies that such a law is an abstract, truly non-existent human-mind concept that describes a physical property of the universe.
*=Likewise, the fact that the object cannot be two opposing colors at once can easily be explained by pigmentation; that the circumstances which cause an object to be green (and therefore spark the abstract “truthfulness” of the idea that “the object is green”) cannot exist alongside the circumstances that cause an object to be blue, because the existence of one implies the non-existence of the other. In defining one as something, we are implying that the object which we do not define as that thing, is not that thing. If we say something is green, then that implies that that which we do not call “green,” is not green. Or else there would be no need for the distinction. All this is reflected in physical reality; if something is green, it is not blue. It is not a matter of whether it can be blue, or whether it is possible for it to be blue, even if there is a reason for such a claim; it simply isn’t, and this is always the case in nature without exception — hence the phenomenon, which we refer to as “the law of non-contradiction.” Something is what it is, and is therefore not what it isn’t, and we needn’t the abstract to explain this because it is an obvious, basic facet of our interaction with the world around us. Even if you cannot describe this in thoughts or words, it is easy to understand at its core — you know that food is not shelter, and that shelter is not food, and so on and so forth.
So judging from this sole example, it seems that we have confirmed the basic truthfulness of this “law of non-contradiction,” without ever citing the actual metaphorical “law” itself (”the law itself” referring to the man-made concept that describes the law, not the actual phenomenon in nature) to prove the point. Thus, it cannot be said to be trascendent.
Now, naturally, from a scientific point, we could not accept just one situation as “proof” that such a law is, indeed, a law….and so we’d be forced to participate in several other examples. I won’t go into detail as this post has dragged on long enough as is, but here are a few more cases wherein it is possible to test the validity of this law:
–If a water bottle is full of water, can it be also empty?
(a) no, because if it is full, that implies that it is not empty; we attribute a value to the “fullness” of the bottle, and the state of being “full” reflects that value as being at its maximum; therefore, it cannot also hold the value of being “empty” because that reflects the same value at its minimum. If both could exist at the same time, the definition would be meaningless.
–If I am traveling in one direction, can I not also be traveling in the opposite?
(a) no, because if you are traveling one way, you are by definition traveling away from the opposite direction. It’s a matter not of logic but of space; in order for the parameters which form the situation that can be described as “I am going this way” to exist, they must be the opposite of the parameters that form the situation that can be described as, “I am going that way.” Traveling in two directions at once is impossible, not because “the law is true and so it just is,” but because traveling in one direction implies that travel in the opposite is impossible (because it implies a distance that reflects negative progress in relation to the opposite direction).
–Can a person be both alive and dead at the same time?
(a) no, because the circumstances that cause a person to be considered “dead” are given definition by existing in absence of the circumstances that cause a person to be considered “alive.” In fact, it is the very absence of such “life conditions” that cause a person to be defined as “dead.” Therefore it is not only impossible for a person to be both alive and dead, it makes no sense to try and claim that such a thing is possible; for the entire point of the two definitions is to distinguish between the two.
All of these lead towards the same ultimate point: That the most commonly-cited example of “transcendent truth” is not transcendent in any sense except that it transcends our individual wills, in the same sense that physical reality transcends our individual wills. We cannot “will” this fact out of existence; we are bound by it unquestioningly, from a physical standpoint. This law does not, for all intents and purposes, truly exist; rather, mankind has come up with an abstract, man-made and man-sustained concept, capable of existing only within the human mind, that describes a phenomenon that is a crucial part of the structure of time and space.
January 17th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
P.S.
Also, if something is true, then it follows that there is an explanation for its “truthfulness.” If not, then there is no real significance or effect of this “truthfulness,” if in fact it exists. If something is true “just because,” then what does that mean? If it binds us in some way, then that way *is* measurable or detectable. If it does not, then it might as well not be true at all, for it has no effect, true or not. Mathematical laws are not like perceived moral laws; moral laws are not binding, have no effect, and are essentially meaningless beyond a claim (i.e. “you should do this”). They are not supportable without two things: a reason, and a given. And once we approach the realm of accepting givens in order to prove truths, we acknowledge that our “laws” are not entirely, literally true. Since human thought operates on a given in order to function (i.e. trust in the senses, trust in a deity, etc.), nothing that comes into an abstract sense of existence solely as a result of human thought can be said to be “true,” in a real sense, because it is based on a thought that we perceive as a result of trust in something. Whereas mathematical laws are the given, and cannot be challenged as such. The difference being that moral laws require that we accept the given, or else the system will not function and people are free to do as they please, moral or immoral…..whereas mathematical laws require that the system will function, and therefore the given must be accepted. With morality, there is choice. With mathematics, there is not.
January 17th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Tim, thank you for your LENGTHY responses
I am honored to discuss this with someone who has put so much thought into it. I will never be able to answer every thing you brought up, if I ever want to see the sun again, but I have a few short thoughts which you may or may not decide to answer, if you think it’ll advance the discussion:
- just because you view the difference in an ACTUAL law of logic and the concept as more than a matter of semantics, I maintain that you can call it anything you want… we both believe in the existence of something scientifically un-provable - there are things we cannot experience with our senses or test in a lab - aesthetics, logic, the metaphysical truth claim that you and I exist - that I am not just a voice in your imagination… With all due respect (and you have admirably shown it to me in our recent talks) you cannot say that my beliefs are based on faith and you don’t do that - your beliefs in numerous areas of your life ARE faith-based, as shown above.
-matt
January 17th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
“If there’s no right/wrong”
That’s YOUR argument Matt, not mine. You know what a ’strawman argument’ is?
Tim and I have countless times told you we have our own ideas of what right and wrong are. We just don’t think they transcend our being.
“but I really don’t care if you can rationalize TWO things together - both of which I disagree with ”
So you reject the rational argument I gave, but you have no rebuttal? My argument was based on facts, observable data. You reject it apparently simply because it goes against your own prejudices, because you prefer hatred to love.
You may as well claim that Asians are bad because they are more likely to rob banks, and then when presented with statistics that show this is false, simply reply: “I really don’t care for your facts!”.
January 17th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
“That said, if you don’t have a problem with individuals in society who are NOT the fittest, and don’t feel the need to peck them to death like a sickly chicken would be, ostracize them like so many members of the animal kingdom would to a mutated creature showing aberrant behavior, then… ok. ”
Right, what a shame that you don’t agree with me, and instead feel that people who YOU deem to be less fit than you, DO deserve to be ostracisized. And funnily enough it is your holy book that leads you to this conclusion. You still somehow claim that it’s a book of love. What was that you said about rationalising two things that don’t go together?
I’ll stick with the scientists who actually understand the science that you dismiss without understanding. Your argument about gays and evolution is like someone saying: “If you believe in gravity then you should be against people using parachutes, because they’re going against gravity.” All such a person shows is that they don’t understand gravity OR parachutes.
January 17th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
- just because you view the difference in an ACTUAL law of logic and the concept as more than a matter of semantics, I maintain that you can call it anything you want…
Fair enough. And I shall do just that~
FYI, I can’t recall if I relayed this to you or to someone else….but earlier on, in a different topic, I made an analogy involving the difference between the concept of the numbers “2″ and “4″ and the actual amount that they describe….this difference is much like that one.
we both believe in the existence of something scientifically un-provable - there are things we cannot experience with our senses or test in a lab - aesthetics, logic, the metaphysical truth claim that you and I exist - that I am not just a voice in your imagination…
On the one hand you would seem to be correct; on the one hand, there are things we feel that we cannot immediately ascribe to a cause or reason. However….on the other hand, if I am to be completely, unabashedly intellectually honest, I am forced to admit that, even if I cannot pinpoint the reason certain things make me feel a certain way (i.e. why I like a certain song, why a certain visual theme appeals to me, why a certain idea rubs me the wrong way), it is a little hubris to just give up at that point and assume that such a thing is transcendental. If I were to submit to that belief here and now, that would be a dishonest thing for me to do — to say that I believe such a thing was bestowed upon me by a higher power, simply because I don’t understand it (or know if I ever will understand it). Is it possible? I suppose all things are possible, given the scope of the potential of existence. But it would seem quite dishonest of me, given my experience and judgment, to make such a decision based on so little.
I can’t help but feel that there is a reason for such feelings — when I see a certain visual aspect that catches my eye, I can’t help but wonder if perhaps there is some cue my brain is programmed to recognize, by some fluke of nature or design or what-have-you, something too small for me to pinpoint without extensive study and thought….when I hear a song I like, I can’t help but wonder why certain emotional responses (positive or negative) are triggered, or why having those responses triggered too frequently causes me to tire of them and elicit a completely different emotional response.
The long and short of it being, I can all-too-easily imagine there being such a hair-trigger cause for these kinds of feelings, a reaction either too early on the chain of my biological behavior for me to comprehend (i.e. too deeply ingrained into “who I am”) or too complex for me to work out, that would justify those sorts of reactions.
Let me phrase it this way; I have begun to see things very differently with respect to human thought, ever since I heard this phrase uttered by a character in a series I was watching a few months ago; imagine this scenario, if you please~
There is a robotic character, modeled after a human girl of high-school age, who has expressed an interest in the chaotic nature of human behaviors. She asks the main character about an altercation that occurred earlier in the episode, asking why he reacted the way he did when the altercation occurred. He responds that “he really doesn’t know,” and the robot character seems intrigued; she makes the statement that “that seems odd to me, but perhaps this is because I am a robot; I am always immediately aware of the motivations for my actions.”
This made me entertain a brief scenario in the back of my mind….what if we are, essentially, monstrously-complex robots of a sort? The only difference between us and literal mechanoid robots being that we are not immediately aware of the motivations that seize us from moment to moment. We act like simple creatures in that we respond to what seem like fleeting emotional reactions….but could it be that these seemingly basic reactions actually mask a much deeper, less-apparent train of unconscious thought? That there is a sequence of instinct-level reaction going on that culminates in a burst of emotion that compels us to act in a certain way under certain circumstances? It’s an interesting possibility, even if it is only a distant theory.
Or, on another possibility….the idea that emotions are simplistic “template reactions” that we are instilled with, in place of true logical reactions, that are effectively the equivalent of mass-produced reactions; there are simply too many humans for everyone to have a unique reaction to the same biological trigger, and so it would make sense for there to be a rough template that groups people into categories of “personality types,” such as those who are more likely to respond with anger versus those who are more likely to respond with apathy, etc.
But I digress….my point being that there are simply too many questions at this time for me to succumb to belief in the transcendent and the supernatural, even if that were my desire. I think of it like the storyline to a particularly lengthy novel….if you try to picture what the ending will be like while you’re only a third of the way into the book, you will get a dishonest or random guess at best, since you simply don’t have all the facts. However, if you read the story through to the near-conclusion, you will have a better guess….and even better, if you actually finish the book, you will have most (if not all) of the facts as best as you are capable of understanding them, and you will have the most accurate picture you can paint.
Not to imply that the end of my story will result in conversion; just that I think it’s dishonest to draw a conclusion whilst the story still draws on~
January 17th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
“If there’s no right/wrong”
That’s YOUR argument Matt, not mine. You know what a ’strawman argument’ is?
Tim and I have countless times told you we have our own ideas of what right and wrong are. We just don’t think they transcend our being.
you’re proving my point. if w all can have or own right/wrong, then right/wrong don’t really exist.
You reject it apparently simply because it goes against your own prejudices, because you prefer hatred to love.
et tu, strawman?
You may as well claim that Asians are bad because they are more likely to rob banks, and then when presented with statistics that show this is false, simply reply: “I really don’t care for your facts!”.
I must say I’m missing the usual respect with which we one conversed, Andrew. I said it before - I do not think being gay is wrong because of Turek’s “facts”. But rather because it goes against the created order and explicit commands of my Bible. Agree with me or not on its inspiration, but please stop misreading what I’ve said. I’ve maintained all along that I thought YOU - YOU were the one that ought to hate them, based on my understanding of YOUR - YOUR views, not mine. THAT is what we were discussing until you started this line.
Right, what a shame that you don’t agree with me, and instead feel that people who YOU deem to be less fit than you, DO deserve to be ostracisized. And funnily enough it is your holy book that leads you to this conclusion. You still somehow claim that it’s a book of love. What was that you said about rationalising two things that don’t go together?
… still misunderstanding here - I do NOT think they deserve to be ostracized, anymore than any other sinner guilty of the same litany of sins as me. I prefer to love them in the true sense of the word - point them to truth that will lead them to the most fulfilling, God-honoring life they can lead. That life is not found in homosexuality, its multiple partners, its anonymous pick-up sex, etc anymore than a straight man will find it in the hetero- equivalents of the above.
Love IS NOT trying to make everyone feel happy and right. The thief who thinks he is right will also accuse me of not “loving” him, as I will not support or give credence to his views that he deserves my stuff. But if love is indeed self-sacrifice, peaceful, patient, kind, godly, thankful, gentle, etc. then let us love one another THIS way. Any other way is preferential, subjective, and therefor no longer a thing at all.
Does the recovering addict who denies his buddy’s request to come shoot heroin love him more or less than the one who acquiesces? I charge, based on your statements above that you are every bit as inconsistent and illogical as you maintain I am. In love, I’m telling you my heart. In love, I’m being as trasnparent as possible. In love, I urge you to abandon your futile railing against God and His order. Am I not loving you by doing everything I can to give a stranger what I believe to be the greatest gift I know of? A restored relationship with your creator? To reintroduce you to HIS laws - laws which lead to peace, prosperity, and fulfillment? I know you don’t believe in my God, but can you really say that a fallible attempt at dialogue, even proselytizing (which I’m trying to resist) is UN-loving?
My behavior, God willing, should always be loving - the first two commandments in the decalogue, and Christ’s distillment of all ten is: love. It is FROM love that I engage the world - the superstitious monks who withdraw from the world - THEY don’t love you like I do. The mormons who do their duty out of fear of not receiving their own godhood - THEY don’t love you like I do. The silent Christians reading this blog without the guts to engage you in respectful conversation - THEY don’t love you like I do. Why in the world would I handle myself the way I have for the last month with you, honestly and transparently seeking to understand your views, if I secretly wanted to ostracize those who are different from me? My life is not my own, Andrew - and like Christ I weep for the lost. Even blokes from across the pond who are SO CLOSE and don’t even know it.
Think for me, Andrew. I’ll pray for you. And despite your assumptions, I love my gay friends, my struggling hypocrite christian-friends, and my British atheist friend Andrew. This is not rhetoric - it’s the same me I’ve been all along with you. Or better, hopefully it’s Christ in me that you’re hearing, as it’s HIS heart that also longs for your return.
Peace and love,
Matt
January 17th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
you’re proving my point. if w all can have or own right/wrong, then right/wrong don’t really exist.
That’s what I’m saying, yes, but I am not entirely sure if that is what Andrew was saying. You seem to have gotten our points mixed up on a couple of occassions….
That life is not found in homosexuality, its multiple partners, its anonymous pick-up sex, etc anymore than a straight man will find it in the hetero- equivalents of the above.
Side note: Gay marriage is aimed at the exact opposite goal of this; homosexual partners who want to settle down and dedicate themselves to one other partner.
My behavior, God willing, should always be loving - the first two commandments in the decalogue, and Christ’s distillment of all ten is: love.
It is the definition of “love” presented in the Bible that I take issue with on certain occasions….I don’t think anyone will tell you that loving someone is a bad idea, but where the difference comes in is how we define it. The problem is, there is no one demonstrably “true” definition of love that draws down to specifics; as such, it’s really impossible to say that “my definition of love” (or God’s or the Bible’s definition, for that matter) is truly transcendent. Because at the end of the day, it’s just another opinion on the stack with no more weight than anyone else’s — regardless of how many people believe it.
It is FROM love that I engage the world - the superstitious monks who withdraw from the world - THEY don’t love you like I do.
Please, please don’t make this about Buddhists and Mormons. I’d rather not discuss the merits of other religions while we’re so deeply entangled in this discussion….besides, I have respect for the desire of monks to pursue their religious faith, just as I have respect for any other religion. So you’ll get nowhere with me trying to convince me that you’re any different from the rest of the world’s religious in that sense. In even trying, you’re just fitting into the stereotype of how the nonreligious world sees you.
To quote Greg Graffin:
“Don’t you see the trouble that most people are in?
That they just want you for their own advantage?
But I swear to you, we’re different from all of them!
So come and join us
I can tell you are looking for a way to live
Where truth is determined by consensus
Full of codified arbitrary directives
So come and join us
All we want to have is your small mind
Turn it into one of our own kind
You can go through life adrift and alone
Desperate, desolate, on your own
But we’re lookin’ for a few more stalwart clones…….so come and join us.”
That’s taken from a song called “Come Join Us,” that criticizes the efforts of Christians to distance themselves from the tactics of other religions who share the same ultimate goal: Conversion.
[/musing]
Think for me, Andrew. I’ll pray for you. And despite your assumptions, I love my gay friends, my struggling hypocrite christian-friends, and my British atheist friend Andrew. This is not rhetoric - it’s the same me I’ve been all along with you. Or better, hopefully it’s Christ in me that you’re hearing, as it’s HIS heart that also longs for your return.
I have to admit, that even though I sincerely doubt he was the son of God, I would like to have had just one chance to question this Jesus character. Just one hour would’ve been more than enough~
January 17th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
“if w all can have or own right/wrong, then right/wrong don’t really exist.”
Matt, remember when I asked you how your knew God was more moral than Satan? That was the nub of the whole argument, because if you couldn’t answer that then you were no different to me in simply having your own right/wrong. If you couldn’t answer then you were arbitrarily choosing God, just as you claim my own morality was a simply ‘choice’, or an opinion.
You never WERE able to answer. The best you could say was either that you made no choce, and that God chose you, not the other way round, or you made out it was something to do with God being more powerful than Satan. Neither of those answers are real answers. So when you say that my morality is ‘just my opinion’, you have no way of explaining how you are any different to me.
“I must say I’m missing the usual respect with which we one conversed, Andrew.”
Really? Shame, when you showed me such respect here:
“but I really don’t care if you can rationalize TWO things together - both of which I disagree with ”
I took a lot of time carefully, calmly, politely answering your questions, questions which at their root were accusing me of being irrational and inconsistent. I gave you reasoned argument, and without engaging with it in any way, you accuse me of ‘rationalizing’, as if I’m making post-hoc or ad-hoc arguments, that you ‘don’t care’ about. Cheers!
“I’ve maintained all along that I thought YOU - YOU were the one that ought to hate them”
And I’ve explained umpteen times why you are engaging in a strawman argument, and you seem to be doing the internet equivalent of putting your fingers in your ears and going ‘la la la la!’. Your rational for thinking I ‘ought’ to hate gays seems to be routed in a complete misunderstanding of how evolution works, how nature works, how atheists think, and also about homosexuality.
January 17th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
You never WERE able to answer. The best you could say was either that you made no choce, and that God chose you, not the other way round, or you made out it was something to do with God being more powerful than Satan. Neither of those answers are real answers. So when you say that my morality is ‘just my opinion’, you have no way of explaining how you are any different to me.
I think the catch is, he explained how he thinks his (or God’s, if you prefer) morality was supposedly higher than anyone else’s. Granted that it still doesn’t transcend to become objective.
“I’ve maintained all along that I thought YOU - YOU were the one that ought to hate them”
And I’ve explained umpteen times why you are engaging in a strawman argument, and you seem to be doing the internet equivalent of putting your fingers in your ears and going ‘la la la la!’. Your rational for thinking I ‘ought’ to hate gays seems to be routed in a complete misunderstanding of how evolution works, how nature works, how atheists think, and also about homosexuality.
I am still confused about one thing….how is it that, if a Christian looks at evolution and sees that there are no “oughts” and only “is”-es, he or she can make the accusation that someone who believes in evolution or natural selection “ought” to hate gays? If there is no ought, and if to derive an ought from such an is is indeed a fallacy, then how would it be possible for us to rationalize that gays are “bad” based on that, anyway?
January 17th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
Tim: “I would like to have had just one chance to question this Jesus character.”
He already explained in depth his thoughts on homosexuality Tim. Oh wait, he doesn’t mention it once in the bible does he? What about outside the bible? Oh right, we don’t have a single quote from Jesus that exists outside the bible. Hey Tim, have you checked out the song ‘Ted Haggard is completely heterosexual’ on YouTube? It’s a very amusing take on the hyposcrisy of homophobic Christians.
Matt, I’ll try one more time with you regarding your evolution/gay confusion.
1. You have farm experience? Great. My dad used to keep bees. Imagine my Dad had said: “Seeing as only 4 bees in the hive will actually reproduce, I might as well slaughter the other ten thousand” Would that be sensible? I’d say no - not every member of a society has to reproduce to have a purpose in that society.
2. Imagine that a couple have children, and one of the couple has a collection of genes that has the following effect: any boys will have a better chance than average of having a low sperm count, but any girls will be super fertile, such that they are much more likely to get pregnant than average. Would you agree that this collection of genes, while rendering the boys less likely to reproduce, will in fact be quite likely to get passed on to the third generation? This is really a simple maths question.
Now just substitute ’sterile’ for ‘gay’, and you’ll understand how ‘genes for gayness’ could get passed on. It would be as pointless to ‘hate the gays’ as it would be to hate the above boys for their low sperm count.
January 17th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
“I think the catch is, he explained how he thinks his (or God’s, if you prefer) morality was supposedly higher than anyone else’s. Granted that it still doesn’t transcend to become objective”
Right, but even if you knew for a fact that there were two supernatural beings - God and Satan - and that one of them had a morality higher than the other, I still don’t get how you’re supposed to know which is which. How do you decide that it’s God whose morality you accept as the grounding authority?
Sure to ME it would be obvious that God is better than Satan, but only in the same way that it’s obvious that Churchill is better than Hitler - ie I’m using my judgement to make that choice, and the Christians are telling me that such a judgement is worthless as it’s ‘just my opinion’. How is their acceptance of God any different? They don’t give an answer simply because they don’t have one. Their acceptance of God is just as axiomatic as my acceptance of good being better than bad.
January 17th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
I have PAINSTAKINGLY tried to use couched terms, Andrew - “No offense” preceded my ‘disrespectful quote’. And I meant it - as much as you don’t care if my Christian belief system is internally consistent, since it is at odds with yours on so many points you deem to be dealbreakers. If I have offended you, know that is not ever my intention.
Andrew, you said:
Matt, remember when I asked you how your knew God was more moral than Satan? That was the nub of the whole argument, because if you couldn’t answer that then you were no different to me in simply having your own right/wrong. If you couldn’t answer then you were arbitrarily choosing God, just as you claim my own morality was a simply ‘choice’, or an opinion.
You never WERE able to answer. The best you could say was either that you made no choce, and that God chose you, not the other way round, or you made out it was something to do with God being more powerful than Satan. Neither of those answers are real answers. So when you say that my morality is ‘just my opinion’, you have no way of explaining how you are any different to me.
A few things: 1) the concept of “god” entails an ultimate-ness. Ultimately powerful, ultimately good. You may argue more successfully against His existence than against His goodness. 2) according to the bible, we were chosen in him before the foundation of the world - what’d you expect me to say? 3) I don’t plan on letting my son tell me, his father, what is acceptable behavior in my house. Assuming there is a God who created everything, He has the right to set the rules, and it’d be just as presumptuous of us as my son to question the father’s right to instruct his progeny.
Again, don’t read anything distracting into what I’ve said - I mean no offense. I just want you AND I to arrive at a clearer understanding of the truth. You’ve helped me do that, and I pray I’ve done the same - to the glory of God.
Peace?
-Matt
January 17th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
“That life is not found in homosexuality, its multiple partners, its anonymous pick-up sex, etc anymore than a straight man will find it in the hetero- equivalents of the above. ”
I agree with both you and Tim. Gays are no different to heteros here. We all agree that it’s better both gays and heteros spurn the multiple partners and anonymous pickups. The difference is that heteros are allowed to marry. If you are SINCE in wanting gays to spurn the multiple partners etc, just as you wish heteros to spurn them, then the logical remedy is to allow them to marry.
Otherwise you’re like the farmer saying how dirty pigs are, given that they’re always covered in muck and manure, and THAT’s why he keeps them in that dirty sty, not realising that the reason they’re filthy is BECAUSE he’s keeping them that way.
By the way Matt, do you have any opinion on the 11,685+ US members of Christian clergy who have signed the Clergy Letter Project, accepting the evidence for evolution? What’s your opinion of the Archbishop of Canterbury saying he doesn’t think a committed gay relationship is any less in the eye of God than a heter one? He said he came to this conclusion after ‘decades of prayer and study’. Have you given the matter as much thought as he has?
January 17th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
“And I meant it - as much as you don’t care if my Christian belief system is internally consistent, since it is at odds with yours on so many points you deem to be dealbreakers.”
I’m not sure I’ve ever claimed your belief system is internally inconsistent. That’s your line, not mine!
“1) the concept of “god” entails an ultimate-ness. Ultimately powerful, ultimately good.”
Why not also ‘ultimately bad’ or ‘ultimately jealous’ also? Why does being ultimately powerful necessarily also lead to being good?
“Assuming there is a God who created everything, He has the right to set the rules, and it’d be just as presumptuous of us as my son to question the father’s right to instruct his progeny.”
Leaving aside the hints of ‘might is right’ here, this is still an unfortunate analogy. It’s possible for a child to be more moral than its father, no? We don’t tend to think a father has the right to murder his son either.
Also, I don’t see why a tyrant God is not possible. Other religions postulate a creator God who is not necessarily the arbiter of morals - Zeus for example. How do you know you’re not following a tyrant God who despite being a creator, is also evil, but lies to you about being good? You are surely deciding he isn’t not such an entity because you judge his actions to be righteous. But if YOU are able to make such a judgement, then so am I - it comes down to us both using our own internal judgement.
January 17th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
1) the concept of “god” entails an ultimate-ness. Ultimately powerful, ultimately good
Not at all; there is such a thing as an “evil God,” just check any of the various other mythologies. Christianity is just one example of a God that is defined as just. Perhaps this is true of the Christian God in and of Himself, but it is not true of the concept of “God” in general.
Secondly, the idea of a malevolent God isn’t unthinkable unless you’re Christian. It’s not like the terms “God” and “good” are inextricably linked; it’s not like your head will explode if you try to imagine the two in some other combination.
2) according to the bible, we were chosen in him before the foundation of the world - what’d you expect me to say?
This is what I call the “Christian’s Corner” defense; why did we even bother to discuss the merits of homosexuality, or the logical validity of the idea of a God, from a non-religious standpoint if this was the true underlying reason for your feelings? It seems to me that, once secular values fail, the Christian party tends to retreat into Biblical values. At which point I’m content to call it a draw and move on; I have a strict policy against following people into their corners and continuing to argue with them.
3) I don’t plan on letting my son tell me, his father, what is acceptable behavior in my house. Assuming there is a God who created everything, He has the right to set the rules, and it’d be just as presumptuous of us as my son to question the father’s right to instruct his progeny.
This is a bit misleading; the father-son relationship implies that there will be some day when the bond of authority is broken as the child leaves the home and forms his own home, and perhaps family, at which point he is no longer required to obey his father’s rule. There is no such relationship between Christian God and His followers. The relationship with a God as described here could be more accurately conveyed with the image of a father who expects his son to obey him for the entirety of his life, no matter where he goes or what he does — a father whose house is the entire universe, so to speak.
January 17th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
Tim, Andrew and Matt,
Quite a spirited debate you have going here! You are all making some good points, but the posts are so long and dealing with so many topics at once, I wonder if you would mind discussing one question at the heart of your discussion, namely:
Ontologically, what is evil?
I’m not asking you for examples, but to define it.
Blessings,
Frank
January 17th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
The logical remedy is to allow gays to marry? How does that solve anything? Once again, I fear you’ve forgotten my argument against homosexuality, and it has nothing to do with their promiscuity. I can find that in my “side” of the fence. It is against the created order and directly condemned in both old and new testaments. Men and women are to leave their parents and come together, making one flesh - meeting each other’s needs, loving each other as Christ loved the church. That is the biblical position. Therefor, I don’t know how the Archbishop of Canterbury arrived at his position without either abandoning the scriptures, or making a pragmatic call - desiring peace (a good thing) at the expense of compromising with sin (a bad thing). Evolution, MACROevolution, remains confusing for me. There don’t seem to be the expected abundance of confirmed transitional fossils, and the proponents ignore the global “noahic” flood which explains many of the strata, apparent age of fossils, etc. quite adequately. As a bonus to you, this flood is widely attested to OUTSIDE of the bible as well.
These are biblical answers, which assume the existence of a god, his ability to effectually make his will known, and the reliability of the biblical record. I am convinced of all three currently.
Peace,
Matt
January 17th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
Dr. Turek, - perhaps a new thread for this one?
-matt
January 17th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
Ontologically, what is evil?
I’m not asking you for examples, but to define it.
Ah, back to the good stuff! For starters, I’d like to say that I don’t believe such a thing as true, literal “evil” exists. That’s a faux-romantic concept best left to the realms of poetic expression and other more artistic fields.
Now, there are a couple of answers to your question. First off:
Dramatic Evil; as with “dramatic irony” and “real irony,” there is a solid difference between “dramatic evil” and “real” evil (should such a thing exist). Dramatic Evil is, simply put, a character or ideology that is expressed in a work of art (particularly a song, story, video game or movie) that we are supposed to be fatalistically anti-sympathetic towards — an “ultimate bad guy” or “ultimate evil goal” that symbolizes everything that is the antithesis of whatever belief system we seek to espouse within that same work. Since there are basic “rules” to storytelling in this sense, it’s usually very easy to tell which character or ideology is supposed to be “evil,” unless the author/composer prefers to take a more realistic “Black, white and gray” approach to storytelling — that is, obscure who is the real “enemy” and allow the reader/listener/viewer to use his/her own judgment to try and figure out who the real “bad guy” is.
Now….as for what you might call “real evil,” I don’t think it exists. Evil was born as a dramatic concept to help onlookers more clearly identify with certain characters, usually through the display of certain traits that were, for whatever reason, socially repulsive — the most common example is the “dog kicker” — a metaphor for a character who does things that will commonly be identified as “mean,” often for no reason or simply because he or she finds joy in the act (yet another opportunity to further the characterization).
If I were pressed, though….I could say that “real evil” is a concept we humans invented to help us distinguish between the extremes represented by our unique worldviews. However, in some views the concepts of “good” and “evil” are completely unnecessary; there are simply two areas: things that are, and how we react to those things.
It’s entirely possible, within the scope of a single person’s worldview, to establish an idea of “good” and “evil,” and most people do this without having the idea forced on them — “good” being “the way I honestly think things would be, if I had the power to make that decision,” and “evil” being “the opposite of the way I think things would be, if I had the power to make that decision.” However, this is not the same thing as “objective” evil or “objective” good, because it is the product of one person’s worldview — it is entirely the product of a person’s own judgment, separated from any outside source. Even if that person used the Bible or another religious (or non-religious) source to make a judgment about good and evil, he or she is still using her own judgment first to accept that source as having the authority to do so. If a person does not acknowledge the authority of an outside source to influence his or her own views, then he or she will very likely not show influence from that particular source — simply put, I have to actually make the decision to accept that as Gospel Truth before I can use that accepted “truth” to make any further decisions. Just as an atheist has to accept something like, “social values are important, and so I will center my life around forming the best social relationships that I can,” a religious person must choose to accept his or her religion as true before he or she can use it to make any further deductions.
So really, it’s completely impossible for a person to express any sort of objective morality, even if he/she believes she is doing just that; because no matter what anyone says about anything, everything that anyone says is ultimately a product of that person’s life experience and judgment. A human being simply does not have the authority — call it moral authority, call it physical authority, in any case, it does not exist in any dimension — to declare or acknowledge an “objective moral truth.” It simply cannot be done.
Likewise, a human cannot declare any other truth to be objective. We can only observe the world around us and react to it in a way that is consistent and personally reliable as possible. As with all other things that relate to human social development, it is ultimately a gamble — will humans choose to nurture social developments and learn to coexist peacefully, or will we choose to be individualists who withdraw from society, reject social norms, and refuse to bond with others and form stable governments?
As wild of a card as that seems to be, and as detrimental as history has shown the idea of “leaving the choice up to humans,” I simply don’t see a world-ending man-made catastrophe in the near future, nor do I see some magical future constructed entirely of Christians or transcendent beings. Rather, I would assume that the future will show just what the past has lead us to believe it will: silly conflicts about the nature of human progress and where our individual choices will lead us, once forced upon the masses of our respective societies.
[/philosophy rant]
Sorry for the excess, but it’s really hard to pick one little thread out of this whole mess and follow it without getting tangled up in six more….
January 17th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
“The logical remedy is to allow gays to marry? How does that solve anything?”
How does PREVENTING them marrying solve the problem you saw about the promiscuous lifestyle etc? I’m always hearing from Christians that marriage is good because it encourages fidelity to one partner.
“Therefor, I don’t know how the Archbishop of Canterbury arrived at his position without either abandoning the scriptures”
Perhaps that’s because you’re not as in touch with God as him. No offence. Have a google, I’m sure you can easily find him explaining his position. What his case demonstrates is that one doesn’t have to be a homophobe to be a good Christian. I thought you’d welcome this - just like William Wilberforce showed it was possible to reject slavery without being a bad Christian. My mother is a Christian who manages to support gay rights too. If you spoke to her she would think it’s a shame that someone like you could take her ‘religion of love’ and take your position.
“There don’t seem to be the expected abundance of confirmed transitional fossils”
Where do you get this from? They are uncountable in number there are so many of them! And they’re available to view too! Go find a natural history museum. I don’t know where you got this information from, but we’ve already dealt with the dishonesty propagated by the ID-brigade so I have a clue.
I suggest you do some proper research into this subject - you’re basically claiming that you have knowledge on the subject that is hidden from the experts who spend decades studying it. It’s like me claiming dismissing an engineer’s explanation for how my car works.
“As a bonus to you, this flood is widely attested to OUTSIDE of the bible as well.”
What, one flood that covered the entire globe? I don’t think so. Also, are you claiming that the 3-30million species on the planet all fitted on one boat? Or did some of them evolve since the flood? You’re getting into ‘wacky science’ here Matt. Like Tim, I can’t really follow you into that corner.
Frank, how do I define evil? It’s kind of like pornography - you know it when you see it! Seriously though, it’s a man-made word and will always be subjective to the individual making that call. You and I probably agree on most examples though. It’s midnight here, that’s all I can manage right now.
BTW, never got an answer from you on those stats of yours about Norway etc, and how they relate to why atheists are less likely to divorce than Christians? I’m sure you can find the post(s) where I pose these questions properly.
January 17th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
Tim, I think you could distil the second half of your post to this:
“Even if that person used the Bible or another religious (or non-religious) source to make a judgment about good and evil, he or she is still using her own judgment first to accept that source as having the authority to do so.”
That’s the nub of it. Until Frank, Matt or anyone else can explain how them choosing the bible is any less arbitrary than any other method, I suggest they accept a moritorium on claiming that atheists are significantly different to them on the question of good and evil.
January 17th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
Tim, I think you could distil the second half of your post to this:
“Even if that person used the Bible or another religious (or non-religious) source to make a judgment about good and evil, he or she is still using her own judgment first to accept that source as having the authority to do so.”
That’s the nub of it. Until Frank, Matt or anyone else can explain how them choosing the bible is any less arbitrary than any other method, I suggest they accept a moritorium on claiming that atheists are significantly different to them on the question of good and evil.
Perhaps; although I also felt it necessary to emphasize that one thing that even Christians seem to agree with me on, that we (as humans) are incapable of making any truly objective moral statements. We have only our subjective views, which are evaluated based on our own experience and judgment, compared with each other, and decided upon in groups. That’s how societies have always formed, and I don’t see it stopping any time in the near (or distant) future.
January 17th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
“Once again, I fear you’ve forgotten my argument against homosexuality, and it has nothing to do with their promiscuity.”
Then why mention promiscuity at all in posts like this: “That life is not found in homosexuality, its multiple partners, its anonymous pick-up sex”
Also, although you mention this applies equally to heteros, why the posessive ‘it’s’, as in ‘homosexuality’s multiple partners’? Would you refer to ‘Christianity’s multiple partners, Christianity’s anonymous pick-up sex’?
“It is against the created order and directly condemned in both old and new testaments.”
OK, now I AM going to accuse you of being inconsistent. I’m cut and pasting here:
“The Old Testament prescribed the death penalty for the crimes of murder, attacking or cursing a parent, kidnapping, failure to confine a dangerous animal resulting in death, witchcraft and sorcery, sex with an animal, doing work on the Sabbath, incest, adultery, homosexual acts, prostitution by a priest’s daughter, blasphemy, false prophecy, perjury in capital cases and false claim of a woman’s virginity at the time of marriage.”
Do you still accept all of those? How is you rationalising away those parts any different from what the Archbishop of Canterbury does with regards to gays?
“In Old Testament times, homosexual activity was strongly associated with idolatrous cult prostitution as in 1 Kings 14:24, 15:12. (There was also cult prostitution by females.) In fact, the word “abomination,” used in both mentions of homosexual acts in Leviticus, is a translation of the Hebrew word tow’ ebah which, according to Strong’s Greek/Hebrew Dictionary, means something morally disgusting, but it also has a strong implication of idolatry.
Thus, many Bible scholars believe the condemnations in Leviticus are more a condemnation of the idolatry than of the homosexual acts themselves. However, that interpretation is not certain.”
So it comes down again to a matter of interpretation. I don’t see how you quote the bible to justify your position on gays is different to Christian slavers a couple hundred years ago quoting the bible to justify slavery. It’s passing the buck so that you don’t have to justify your own moral positions.
January 17th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
“We have only our subjective views, which are evaluated based on our own experience and judgment”
Indeed. That’s why I said that even if we all suspected that there existed a being that transcended our fallible, subjective judgement, it wouldn’t help us out at all as:
a) Seeing as we’re fallible, our suspicions could be incorrect
b) Even if we’re right, how could we tell a good God from an Evil devil feeding us lies, and
c) How could we be sure we’re correctly interpreting this God’s instructions? Hence that there are as many different denominations of Christianity as there are Christians. A born-again Christian gets made leader of the free world and immediately starts committing horrible acts like torture and rape of the environment.
January 17th, 2009 at 9:19 pm
Wow. So much at once. In order:
- Yes, I believe it was just to prescribe the MAXIMUM POSSIBLE PUNISHMENT of death penalty (which was almost always the case - judges could, as now, prescribe UP TO the death penalty for those offenses…) as that culture was a theocracy - the governing laws were virtually identical to the Torah’s laws. Therefor a breaking of the moral law is tantamount to rebellion against the high king Yahweh’s specific commands - treason was not and is not to be tolerated. Our modern democratic and republican governments cannot function in this way without significant overhaul. Therefor until the time that our nation (USA) turns its heart back to God in repentance, I will approach the task of improving my world in a relational, one-on-one way - encouraging self-government. That original standard remains an ideal, though. Not all Christians feel this way, obviously, but that’s where I am. I remain open-minded on the issue, but currently that’s where I am. Call me a reconstructionist in that respect, with hopefully enough mercy and common sense to avoid that group’s pitfalls.
- Biblical slavery was and is acceptable. You can own a man’s LABOR - never his body or life. This is an appropriate solution when you owe something but own nothing but your labor. The year of jubilee was prescribed to ensure this never got out of hand, but typical Israel messed that part up. Man-stealing (thoroughly un-biblical) should always be condemned, be it arabs, native americans, africans, spaniards, french, or british.
I’m out for the night - enjoyed my lazy day at home with my baby boy and my laptop… MAN you guys wear me out
Enjoyed it,
Matt
January 17th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
That original standard remains an ideal, though. Not all Christians feel this way, obviously, but that’s where I am.
Wow….um, I’d like to step out of character for a brief moment and say, that’s just ****ed up….
It’s comments like these that make me glad we’re a free nation, and not a Christian nation.
So you think it should be such that, if someone doesn’t believe in God and acts accordingly, they should be put to death? I don’t know that I can acknowledge that sort of viewpoint with any degree of compassion whatsoever, because it’s the most aggressive means of forcing one’s faith on other people that I can imagine. Nightmarish.
January 17th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
Enforcing the death penalty is NOT ideal. I meant the original standard - where men follow the ten commandments, and the spirit of those laws is love. false gods, temples with prostitutes, perjury in capital cases, bestiality, etc are symptoms of the moral law being abused and God’s authority being challenged. Don’t forget that israel was a theocracy - breaking god’s laws amounted to treason against the civil authority as well.
That said, our civil authority ought not be so afraid to impose the death penalty for incorrigibles - how many times does someone need to rob or rape before we take them OUT of society? I believe that was the spirit behind the MAXIMUM death penalty… the gov’t being ABLE to actually do it in the worst cases instilled a grave seriousness into the populace concerning their social conduct.
Misunderstood,
Matt
January 17th, 2009 at 11:51 pm
Enforcing the death penalty is NOT ideal. I meant the original standard - where men follow the ten commandments, and the spirit of those laws is love.
Which you are full aware, I trust, will never happen. Humanity is far too diverse to account for a single worldview in a place of such absolute power. Even if the law became as such, the masses would never completely submit to it.
Therefore, you must know full well that carrying out the death penalty — and frequently — is the closest to such a disturbing “utopia” as any society is capable of becoming?
January 18th, 2009 at 6:13 am
This ’slavery meant something different then’ apologetics is simple nonsense. Slavery was slavery. Either you accept that the Old Testabment is a strict instruction to us on how we should live our lives, or you accept that it was ‘of the time’ and therefore no longer strictly and literally applicable to our lives.
If your only justification of branding homosexuality a sin is quoting the Old Testament, then you also have to accept the death penalty bits and the slavery bits, and you might as well go and join the Westboro Baptist Church of the Phelps family. If you don’t accept those bits, then I’m afraid you don’t get to pick and choose the ‘anti gay’ bits to back up your homophobia.
Make your choice.
January 18th, 2009 at 10:32 am
This ’slavery meant something different then’ apologetics is simple nonsense. Slavery was slavery.
… No, it wasn’t. Have you read what the Bible says on slavery? Read any books on how the ancient Israelites actually employed slavery? If not, then you may picture 1830’s southern america. That is not the case.
BTW, I just pulled up that church’s website. I see nothing Christian about it. Here I am, speaking the truth in love - do I sound like THEM to you?
Peace,
Matt
January 18th, 2009 at 10:49 am
If your only justification of branding homosexuality a sin is quoting the Old Testament
Romans ch. 1 seems to have a bit to say about it… and don’t forget, and authors of epistles written in the NT era likely didn’t feel the need to remind and re-preach that which was universally accepted. i.e. if the entire culture understood, based on the writings of the Torah, that homosexuality was against God’s law, it may be assumed in the NT writings. That is one reason it is not common in the NT, not to mention the fact that there is NO real division between the OT and NT - one unchanging God, sovereignly leading His people. Jesus said He came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. To live the sinless life needed to be a suitable vicarious substitute for fallen man.
Sins are sins because they are diametrically opposed to God’s character, which is the source of biblical law. Therefor, God would have to change His character for sin to no longer be sin. Ritual regulations, such as dietary and clothing and temple regulations may of course be changed, as they are not grounded in God’s character - they were done for a time to set apart a people on God’s desire alone. A people that would give birth to the messiah. A messiah that was pictured in those very regulations. Since the messiah has come, many of those have been repealed by both declaration and by virtue of their redundancy - we’re on the other side of the messiah’s coming
There’s more subtlety than I think many are aware of in these issues - painting it black/white I fear causes so many of the misunderstandings.
Peace,
Matt
January 18th, 2009 at 11:04 am
BTW, I just pulled up that church’s website. I see nothing Christian about it. Here I am, speaking the truth in love - do I sound like THEM to you?
Seriously? After that line about the death penalty, it seems that the only real difference between you and “THEM” is your demeanor. You both seem to think the same things, you just have different ways of expressing them. i.e. they just call it hate, and you call it love.
January 18th, 2009 at 11:43 am
Theirs was a theocratic society - the civil laws were the Torah. We have crimes that call for the death penalty - ones that egregiously flaunt their danger to society - first degree murders off for example. OT Israel was a community of people literally carried out of bondage by the hand of their god, Yahweh. They were blessed when they followed His laws, and cursed/disciplined when they didn’t. Therefor moral debauchery, lying, prostituting at the temples, etc. was sure to bring God’s wrath upon them all - hence the maximum of a death penalty. Not every case would have been death penalty - wise judges heard the cases and ruled UP TO death penalty for the offenders.
Yes, I do believe that God exists and that He disciplines His people - but “His people” are no longer a civilly governed theocratic nation. We are of all colors, races, and locales. The “Israel of God”, according to the NT, is the church. We are unable to govern in the same way as a civil government. The church has its sphere of influence, exercising church discipline when necessary, and the civil government’s role is SUPPOSED to be wielding the sword, striking fear into evil-doers. DIfferent spheres of power, but working together for the glory of God and the safety of all - especially the helpless (the victims of abortion, rape, molestation, thievery, etc.) We all too often forget about the victims’ well-being (physically and spiritually) when discussing the need for more and more leniency in the law. Soon I fear there will be a dramatic shift in the west, leading to either wholesale repentance or a paradigm shift towards injustice’s acceptance. Homosexuality is not a problem - it’s a symptom of a problem. That’s why I don’t feel the need to condemn them, rather spend my time fighting the root - an inability to call evil “evil” and good “good”. Where do we go from here?
Peace,
Matt
January 18th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
- an inability to call evil “evil” and good “good”. Where do we go from here?
Well, first off, that’s a bit misleading; if there is indeed such a thing as “objective good” and “objective evil,” but there is no way for humans to recognize it, it’s not really surprising that humans would be “unable” to call evil “evil” and good “good,” because they can’t know what it is in the first place. So what you say here sounds kind of lying accusing someone of lying even though they honestly believed that what they said was the truth.
Second, if the only way they can “know” what good and evil are is by accepting it on faith from a higher power….they still don’t really know what good and evil are, because their minds cannot perceive this extra dimension of morality — they are simply doing what they are told, and accepting it as an argument from authority. It’s a trust issue. So we still wouldn’t know if what we are calling “evil” and “good” are actually “evil” and “good,” respectively. We just believe that someone else who is capable of knowing is telling us the correct answer. Come to think of it….we aren’t even certain that this other being does know. We even accept that on faith, given the theistic worldview.
January 18th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
So what you say here sounds kind of lying
*like
January 18th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Tim, you strain my brain - thank you for that. Good points. Must chew on this a bit - what the implications of your view are… Take care,
Matt
January 18th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
“Ritual regulations, such as dietary and clothing and temple regulations may of course be changed, as they are not grounded in God’s character ”
Then you’re picking and choosing which outlawed acts are simple ‘ritual’ and which are ‘against God’s character’. “Of COURSE we’re allowed to eat shellfish now, that’s not grounded in God’s charater. Whereas I will arbitrarily pick certain things that I don’t like and say that God is STILL not OK with those things”.
Westboro Baptist Church would see themselves as being just as much about God’s character as you do. They’d say they’re in fact truer to God’s word than you, because they don’t explain away parts of it. In my opinion they are worse than you, but that’s BECAUSE of their fidelity to the Old Testament, not in spite of it.
January 16th, 2010 at 4:11 pm
That Andrew bloke seems to know what he’s talking about!
Anyway, interesting stats here:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com.....tates.html
Divorce Rates Higher in States with Gay Marriage Bans
“Over the past decade or so, divorce has gradually become more uncommon in the United States. Since 2003, however, the decline in divorce rates has been largely confined to states which have not passed a state constitutional ban on gay marriage. These states saw their divorce rates decrease by an average of 8 percent between 2003 and 2008. States which had passed a same-sex marriage ban as of January 1, 2008, however, saw their divorce rates rise by about 1 percent over the same period.”
January 17th, 2010 at 2:27 pm
While I’m waiting for the above post to clear moderation, you can easily google the below headline to get the news story:
Divorce Rates Higher in States with Gay Marriage Bans
“Over the past decade or so, divorce has gradually become more uncommon in the United States. Since 2003, however, the decline in divorce rates has been largely confined to states which have not passed a state constitutional ban on gay marriage. These states saw their divorce rates decrease by an average of 8 percent between 2003 and 2008. States which had passed a same-sex marriage ban as of January 1, 2008, however, saw their divorce rates rise by about 1 percent over the same period.”
January 28th, 2010 at 11:58 am
No Nathan, you should distance yourself from Andrew. He’s missing the point.
The issue is not divorce rates; the issue is MARRIAGE rates and illegitimacy. The mature data from other countries (still early in the US) shows that wherever SSM is in place, illegitimacy is on the rise. Fewer people get married to have kids in a cultural environment where marriage is merely about coupling. That’s the message SSM sends to a society– marriage is just about coupling, not children.
Regardless of any moral considerations, people who cannot see that sexual relationships between same sexes and opposite sexes are different on every level– physically, socially, biologically, procreatively– then those people are willfully blind. The two relationships are not the same and can never be the same, so our laws should not pretend otherwise.
Blessings,
Frank
January 28th, 2010 at 12:12 pm
Frank, can you confirm by ‘illegitimacy’ that you mean ’single parent families’, or do those figures include children brought up by two parents who aren’t married?
Surely it is the former that is significant, not the latter? The point is that you want two parents raising the kids, right?
So can you confirm that the falling rates of marriage in these SSM areas are actually matched by an equal rate of SINGLE-PARENT FAMILIES rising, and at a faster rate than in areas that don’t allow SSM?
[BTW, Can you explain how the SSM relationships are different socially, other than that in most places they cannot marry? Remember that any references to promiscuity will be low on credibility - if you claim that marriage encourages monogamy, you can hardly criticise a group that cannot marry for being promiscuous!]
January 28th, 2010 at 12:31 pm
Both 2 parent and single parent unmarried parents are a problem for kids because the unmarried 2 parent family breaks up at rates much higher than the married couple. Moreover, what questions do the parents raise in their children’s minds if they won’t wed? Just how committed are they? No as much as married parents as the stats show (This is not intended to be offensive, just something to think about).
Yes, they are different socially because SS couples are NOT PROCREATIVE. The future of society is in procreation, not just coupling.
If you want more stats on the marriage issue internationally, get Blankenhorn’s book “The Future of Marriage.” BTW, as noted in the article, Blankenhorn considers himself “pro-gay” but is against marriage for these reasons. He is one of only two witnesses testifying at the federal SSM trial based on Prop 8 in CA. The others withdrew because they feared persecution similar to that which homosexual activists dished out on supporters of Prop 8. So much for tolerance.
January 28th, 2010 at 12:35 pm
“The issue is not divorce rates”
So you don’t see your argument being in ANY way reduced by rising divorce rates being associated with not allowing SSM? It doesn’t affect it in the least? Do you consider that rising divorce rates would have no affect on the number of single-parent families? I’m baffled as to how greater number of divorces couldn’t lead to greater numbers of single-parent families.
Or you are claiming that the important thing is that these children were born to MARRIED parents, not that the child is BROUGHT UP by two parents?
January 28th, 2010 at 12:41 pm
“if you claim that marriage encourages monogamy, you can hardly criticise a group that cannot marry for being promiscuous!”
So if homosexuals “do” anything that moves, it’s the fault of those mean, hetero, haters for not letting them pervert the institution of marriage?
Great, and America wants to follow in Europe’s footsteps. This ought to work out just dandy. “great”
January 28th, 2010 at 12:41 pm
Yes, generally speaking (granted there are exceptions), kids do much better in 2 parent married homes with both biological parents. That’s one reason why marriage is essential to civilization and why it should only be between a man and a woman.
Gotta go.
Blessings,
Frank
January 28th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
“the unmarried 2 parent family breaks up at rates much higher than the married couple”
Frank, the important question is: does this statistic apply to every country, and equally in the liberal Western European countries cited where marriage rates are falling? Do you have figures to show that the numbers of single parent households are rising in those countries? If the same negative link between break-up rates and marriage doesn’t apply in those countries, then again you can’t make your claim.
“The future of society is in procreation, not just coupling.”
So you oppose marriage between couples too old to procreate? What’s your feeling about nuns, monks, priests etc who swear chastity? Gays aren’t going to have kids with their partners regardless of whether they marry them, so that argument doesn’t work.
“Moreover, what questions do the parents raise in their children’s minds if they won’t wed?”
You could equally ask what questions are raised in the children’s minds if they are told gays can’t marry. Just how important IS this institution if it is denied to such a large proportion of its citizens? It’s obviously not about love and commitment, but about procreation instead. That’s hardly the message I’d want to pass on to kids!
January 28th, 2010 at 12:51 pm
Mark, if you don’t understand what I post, (and the evidence is that you misunderstand pretty much all of it, or interpret it through your own brand of made-up facts and ‘fractal wrongness’) then don’t bother responding.
January 28th, 2010 at 1:33 pm
That’s the message SSM sends to a society– marriage is just about coupling, not children.
Dr. Turek,
There are many, many gay couples currently raising children.
Am I right to assume you support marriage rights for those couples?
Thanks,
Luke
January 28th, 2010 at 2:06 pm
Luke, I can answer that - he doesn’t, as he doesn’t think gays should be raising kids. That’s a separate issue, and one doesn’t need to go into it to debunk the stats cited above.
January 28th, 2010 at 2:42 pm
the unmarried 2 parent family breaks up at rates much higher than the married couple
Even if it’s true, I don’t see why that is relevant unless you can show how the fact that they’re unmarried affects the relationship. Correlation =/= causation.
Mark, if you don’t understand what I post, (and the evidence is that you misunderstand pretty much all of it, or interpret it through your own brand of made-up facts and ‘fractal wrongness’) then don’t bother responding.
At this point I believe Mark simply *has* to be trolling you. Nothing else explains the level of disconnect between what people have said and what he says in response.
Also, I’ve noticed that, for all the mistakes and misrepresentations he makes reading posts by atheists or non-Christian theists (and the hilariously short attention span that goes along with that), he becomes surprisingly attentive whenever talking about Christianity with other Christians. I don’t believe that’s an accident, I believe it’s intentional obfuscation.
[/two cents]
January 28th, 2010 at 2:47 pm
Nathan, but that’s a problem, logically speaking.
How can one complain on the one hand that certain marriages aren’t about kids, and on the other deny/fight against the rights of those very same couples to have children.
It’s exactly like what you said about alleged promiscuity: “if you claim that marriage encourages monogamy, you can hardly criticize a group that cannot marry for being promiscuous!”
Frank Turek said:people who cannot see that sexual relationships between same sexes and opposite sexes are different on every level– physically, socially, biologically, procreatively– then those people are willfully blind. (emphasis mine)
Then I am willfully blind — I think there are differences on some levels, but certainly not all. Do you really think that the neurons that fire off to give the emotion of love are somehow different? That the metaphorical heart that belongs to one’s partner is a different one if the couple is of the same sex?
Do you honestly believe that the feeling of longing for someone you love is different when it is felt by one woman for another?
If so, how is that not willfully blind?
Luke
January 28th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
“How can one complain on the one hand that certain marriages aren’t about kids, and on the other deny/fight against the rights of those very same couples to have children.”
I don’t think Frank is being inconsistent here, whether or not you agree with his belief that gays make worse parents than straights.
I DO think that it’s inconsistent to:
a) accept data that you think shows a correlation between accepting SSM and rising illigitimacy, but then
b) reject similar data showing a correlation between rejecting SSM and rising divorce.
I agree with Tim, that one can’t take EITHER to be a sign of causation, but if Frank does, he should at least be consistent.
“I don’t see why that is relevant unless you can show how the fact that they’re unmarried affects the relationship”
I can think of at least two reasons why they wouldn’t.
1) One-night stands (obviously between unmarried people) that lead to pregnancy would skew the data of ‘unmarried people more likely to be single parents.
2) People that intend to get married are by definition couples that are already committed to each other. The marriage is a result, not a cause of that committment. Like going to university is a result of being committed to education, not necessarily a cause of it. People who can’t afford marriage or university aren’t necessarily less committed to each other or education respectively.
January 28th, 2010 at 3:42 pm
Frank: “Blankenhorn considers himself “pro-gay” but is against marriage for these reasons. He is one of only two witnesses testifying at the federal SSM trial based on Prop 8 in CA.”
It doesn’t sound like he’s doing a particularly good job of making his case in court.
Google the following: “Prop 8 challengers focus on the writings of anti-gay-marriage activist on final day of testimony”
“On the stand was David Blankenhorn, a man who clearly has a passion for reading, talking and writing about marriage. He founded the Institute of American Values, a private think tank, to do just that — with a particular focus on how same-sex marriage has an impact on heterosexual marriages.
But although Judge Vaughn Walker allowed the defense to put Blankenhorn on the stand as an ”expert witness,” Blankenhorn exhibited neither the depth of knowledge nor the experience that an expert witness must have to withstand cross-examination.
Both Tuesday and Wednesday, attorney David Boies took apart the defense’s claims about the purported harms of same-sex marriage. And as he did, Blankenhorn struggled to keep his composure and avoid giving testimony that contradicted the Yes on 8 team’s defense.”
January 28th, 2010 at 3:45 pm
Nathan said:I don’t think Frank is being inconsistent here, whether or not you agree with his belief that gays make worse parents than straights.
If same-sex couples have children is it better or worse that they be married?
January 28th, 2010 at 7:16 pm
Nathan,
I see what you’re saying, but if what’s important is for marriage to be about kids, then it should follow that married gay couples (of which there are many now) should be encouraged to have and raise children.
I think you’re saying that it’s not inconstant because it’s moderated by a higher value, that of what kind of parents are most fit. I didn’t really see that being discussed, but it would have been a fair assumption — I just didn’t think of it. When I look at it that way, it does make more sense.
On the point of gay parents though, I’d like to point out some testimony by Mr. Blankenhorn (the main topic of this post) at the trial.
Blankenhorn admitted he knew of no study that showed children reared by gay couples fared worse than those raised by heterosexual parents.
January 29th, 2010 at 5:35 am
Blankenhorn seems a bit of a bust at the trial. Most entertaining reading about how poorly he represented his argument.
Luke, my point was that it’s a red herring to pursue Frank on this, when
a) He is inconsistent on which stats he cites as important. How can unmarried parents be a huge problem for the kids - when they might not necessarily be single parents - and divorced parents be completely dismissed as a problem - when they are certainly single parents. It shows Frank is just looking for stats to back up the opinion he already has.
b) He has yet to produce any stats that show single parents rising faster in SSM countries than non-SSM countries
c) The problem of correlation/causation we’ve already discussed.
Those are the points I’d like to see answered, and I think the ‘would gays make good parents’ issue just distracts from it. But you’re right - the very person Frank is quoting himself says that there’s no evidence to back him up on that issue.
January 29th, 2010 at 7:03 am
More on Blankenhorn in court:
“David Blankenhorn today admitted under questioning from David Boies that he does not possess a doctorate; has never taught a college or university class; has only two peer-reviewed publications, none of which are germane to this case; that his masters degree thesis, one of those two publications, focused on two Victorian cabinetmakers; and has never conducted any scientific research on same sex marriage.”
In other words, he is in no way a credible figure to be quoting on this issue.
“Along with undermining his credibility, Blankenhorn’s testimony helped make the plaintiffs’ case.
“I believe homophobia is a real presence in our society,” he testified. “We would be more American on the day we permit same-sex marriage than the day before.”
And backing up what I speculated on in my post of 12.12 yesterday, Blankenhorn also testified the following:
“Extending the right to marry to same-sex couples would probably mean that a higher proportion of gays and lesbians would choose to enter into committed relationships.”
“Same-sex marriage would likely contribute to more stability and to longer-lasting relationships for committed same-sex couples.”
“Same-sex marriage might lead to less sexual promiscuity among lesbians and (perhaps especially) gay men.”
Which is exactly what the non-liberals want, right? Less promiscuity? No? They’ve changed their mind on this issue without telling anyone?
January 29th, 2010 at 8:52 am
Nathan, you know as well as I do that attacking Blankenhorn personally does not mean that his arguments are wrong. There is nothing wrong with the data he found showing a mutually reinforcing relationship between illegitimacy and SSM. Moreover, he’s going up against the two most powerful attorneys in the world– the same guys who argued Bush vs. Gore. They certainly could fluster most people.
As I mentioned, I don’t agree with Blankenhorn that people are being discriminated against by marriage laws. Legally there are no straight or gay people as both you and he seem to think– there are just men and women. What men and women decide to do sexually is ALWAYS a choice regardless of where their desire to engage in the behavior came from. Since marriage laws apply equally to ALL people, no one is being discriminated against. Some people want the special right to marry someone of the same sex. Our marriage laws discriminate against that kind of BEHAVIOR, but that’s what all laws do, including laws against polygamous, incestuous, and underage marriage.
Marriage is not about making gays less promiscuous or making homosexuality more acceptable (that’s what homosexuals really want– 96% who have the chance to get married, don’t. So this is not really about marriage for most. It is about forcing homosexuality on the public through the force of law). In fact, the state does not even recognize marriage because two people are in “love” as many seem to think. The state recognizes marriage because marriage in general procreates and provides the most stable and nurturing environment for children.
But some hetero couples cannot reproduce you say. True. But laws can not be based on exceptions, they are based on the rule. The rule is heterosexuals reproduce and nurture children. By the facts of nature, no homosexual act can procreate—no exceptions.
Second, sterile heterosexual marriages still affirm the connection to childbearing because sterility is not generally known on the wedding day . And in those instances where sterility is known, as with older couples, the man-woman union still models what is generally a procreative relationship . There is a difference between having old plumbing and having the wrong plumbing .
Finally, it would not be possible or desirable for the state to attempt to determine which men and women are capable of procreation and which are not. However, since no homosexual relationship produces children, no homosexual relationship can fulfill this basic function of marriage.
I written about all this and more extensively here: http://www.amazon.com/Correct-....._ep_dpi_3. If you’re REALLY interested in the other side of this, you can get the book. If not fine, but I don’t have time to post every answer that is found in the book here. SSM is a complicated topic with a lot of moving parts. You raise some good questions, but most of them, if not all, are addressed in the book.
Blessings,
Frank
January 29th, 2010 at 12:21 pm
“with older couples, the man-woman union still models what is generally a procreative relationship”
Cop-out - either you are only for marriage between people who can procreate, or you’re not. No women over the age of 60 can naturally procreate, no exceptions.
“it would not be possible or desirable for the state to attempt to determine which men and women are capable of procreation and which are not.”
It would be VERY easy to put an age limit on when women marry. And if you are that concerned about children being brought up by two parents, an age limit would be what you should argue for, as even if a man manages to father a child in his sixties, he’s less likely to be around for that long to raise the child.
“attacking Blankenhorn personally does not mean that his arguments are wrong”
But we’ve established that he doesn’t really have the credentials to make his stats-based arguments.
“It is about forcing homosexuality on the public through the force of law”
That might mean something if we were discussing a law forcing people to marry someone else of the same sex. But we’re not.
“What men and women decide to do sexually is ALWAYS a choice ”
But who you fall in love with - which is a HUGE part of what marriage is all about - is NEVER a choice. Not in my experience anyway.
January 29th, 2010 at 12:57 pm
Nathan,
“But who you fall in love with - which is a HUGE part of what marriage is all about - is NEVER a choice. Not in my experience anyway.”
No, love may be a HUGE reason WHY people get married, but it is NOT a reason why the state endorses marriage. When you go for a marriage license, they don’t ask you if you “love” the other person. Marriage is endorsed by the state because the future of society, including its survival, safely and stability, is dependent on men and women procreating and committing themselves to one another.
Moreover, if two people with homosexual feelings want to commit to one another, nobody is stopping them. People in “love” can pledge themselves to one another without state sanction. SSM is again more about forcing people to accept homosexuality than it is about marriage. For example, business people will be forced to give benefits to homosexual couples even against any moral or religious objections they might have. Individuals have already been sued in states that have SSM for not doing gay weddings! Parents are unable to take their kindergarten kids out of classes on homosexuality in those states!
Finally, you say falling in love is NEVER a choice. You are again confusing feelings and behavior. Any one of us could “fall in love” with someone else at any time, but that does not mean we ought to BEHAVE by leaving our current spouses because we’ve “fallen in love” with someone else. This is the central fallacy with the entire sexual license movement— don’t blame us, we can’t help it! Well then, don’t blame me then either, I just have the anti-gay gene.
That of course is nonsense. Laws are about behavior, not feelings. So regardless of our feelings– be they for the opposite or same sex, be they for children, beasts or our relatives– we all need to stop the lame excuses and take personal responsibility for our behavior. And the behavior that’s best for society is marriage between a man and a woman. You want to commit yourself to someone else, then go right ahead, but don’t claim that YOU are being discriminated against if society doesn’t endorse it. You are not. Your behavior is, and for good reason.
More in the book. I’m done for today.
Blessings,
Frank
January 29th, 2010 at 1:15 pm
Dr. Turek said:Nathan, you know as well as I do that attacking Blankenhorn personally does not mean that his arguments are wrong.
I am not sure he’s attacking him personally at all. The articles simply point out that his own writings contradict some of his conclusions. That’s not a personal attack. Pointing out that he does not have the credentials that would normally give someone the title of expert is not a personal attack either. The only thing you might claim is the reference to his demeanor, but it is standard in jury instructions that this be considered when evaluating someone as an expert. So again, this is in following with standard legal practice, not some ad hominem screed.
Dr. Turek said:Legally there are no straight or gay people as both you and he seem to think
I believe this to be factually incorrect. 20 states have laws which ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. We have laws and policies such as Don’t Ask Don’t Tell which clearly rely on a recognition of people’s orientation.
So yes, legally, these distinctions exist.
That’s beside the point. Such distinctions would not need to exist to have same-sex marriage. No one is suggesting that only gay people could be involved in same-sex marriage. If I — a straight person — wanted to marry another man under any of these laws, I would be allowed to do so.
Dr. Turek said:What men and women decide to do sexually is ALWAYS a choice regardless of where their desire to engage in the behavior came from.
And that is not a choice you seek to limit, is it? Or do you lobby for laws outlawing homosexual acts?
What is more important here is: is it a choice to fall in love? Is it a choice with whom one falls in love?
Dr. Turek said:Since marriage laws apply equally to ALL people, no one is being discriminated against
The exact same thing could be said — and was said — about anti-miscegenation laws. Everyone had the same right — the right to marry someone of their own race.
Dr. Turek said:Our marriage laws discriminate against that kind of BEHAVIOR.
What do you mean by “that kind of BEHAVIOR;” if you mean homosexual acts, I disagree. There is nothing in marriage laws which speaks in any way about homosexual acts. People both married and unmarried are not prosecuted in any way when the engage in consensual homosexual sex. (I think some states have laws against adultery, but they are not enforced and are not based on “that” kind of behavior anyway, but based on infidelity no matter with whom. I am not sure but I think the Lawrence ruling may have made them useless anyway.)
Frank Turek said:So this is not really about marriage for most. It is about forcing homosexuality on the public through the force of law.
What do you mean by this? Who is being forced to be homosexual or anything of the sort?
Do many homosexual seek acceptance? Sure. With all that’s happened in the last hundred years, from pink triangles at Auschwitz to Matthew Shepard, can you really blame them.
I have been to tolerance marches where firecrackers, rocks and eggs were thrown at the participants. Do you really blame people for wanting to fight against hatred that’s directed at them?
Frank Turek said:The state recognizes marriage because marriage in general procreates and provides the most stable and nurturing environment for children.
The fact is many homosexual couples want, do and have children.
As I asked before: If same-sex couples have children is it better or worse that they be married?
Frank Turek said:But some hetero couples cannot reproduce you say. True. But laws can not be based on exceptions, they are based on the rule.
This is an argument based on semantics. I might as well say that most couples who are in love can reproduce but some cannot (sterile couples or homosexuals).
Now we can base our law on the rule that most couples who are in love can have children. Same logic, but now it supports SSM.
Frank Turek said:the man-woman union still models what is generally a procreative relationship
Same exact issue. The union of two people in love still models what is generally a procreative relationship.
Frank Turek said:Finally, it would not be possible or desirable for the state to attempt to determine which men and women are capable of procreation and which are not.
Why would it be undesirable, if marriage is not about love but about children? Why not rule out marriages for the elderly, for example?
January 29th, 2010 at 1:27 pm
“No, love may be a HUGE reason WHY people get married, but it is NOT a reason why the state endorses marriage. When you go for a marriage license, they don’t ask you if you “love” the other person.”
And neither do they ask you if you intend to have kids with them! Come on Frank!
Anyway, the reason I resurrected the thread was to see if you would demonstrate consistency in your argument, when given evidence of opposition to SSM correlating with rising divorce. You’ve shown me the answer on this.
And to Luke: nice post and good points.
January 30th, 2010 at 9:48 am
Nathan and Luke,
As I mentioned before, SSM is a complicated issue with many moving parts. Articles only whet the appetite for those who are honestly interested in pursuing truth. If you are honestly interested and want to investigate the other side of this big issue, then get the book. You can download the E-version of the book at www.impactapologetics.com for only $5. The print version is $8. Everything you mention is addressed in the book.
Let me just briefly deal with your false comparison to inter-racial marriage: RACE IS IRRELEVANT TO PROCREATION, GENDER IS ESSENTIAL TO IT. There is nothing wrong with interracial marriages because men and women are designed for one another and can procreate regardless of their racial background. But same-sex marriages can’t procreate or provide a mom and a dad to kids. And no law can change that or alleviate the documented health problems that result from same-sex couplings. So our marriage laws should be color blind but not gender blind.
Ironically, it’s not conservatives but homosexual activists who are acting like racists. Instead of asking the state to recognize the preexisting institution of marriage, homosexuals are asking the state to define marriage. That’s exactly what racists were trying to do to prevent interracial marriage. Racists wanted the state to define marriage as only between same-race couples, instead of having the state recognize what marriage already was—the union of a man and a woman regardless of their racial background. While racists and homosexuals may want to alter the legal definition of marriage, they can’t alter the laws of nature that helped lead to the recognition of legal marriage in the first place.
The bottom line is this: Homosexual and heterosexual relationships are not the same, can never be the same, and will never yield the same benefits to individuals or society. We hurt everyone by pretending otherwise.
Again, if you want to interact further on this issue, read the book first. It’s not a good use of my time or yours to cover material in a piecemeal fashion when it’s dealt with systematically yet compactly elsewhere.
One quick question for each of you:
I know you haven’t read my SSM book. But have either of you read– not just skimmed but actually read– “I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist?”
Blessings,
Frank
January 30th, 2010 at 11:16 pm
The problem with this issue, as w/ all issues perverted and or co-opted by the left, is that basic common sense is not included in the equation.
If the founders were pro SSM, we would know it. Just as w/ two other favorites of the Constitution haters -gun control and abortion- if the founders were leftists on those issues, why did they not confiscate all weaponry after hostilities had ceased w/ Britain? Why didn’t Peg Sangers’ grand mammy start up a chain of “Kentucky fried Fetus’”? And why didn’t Voltaire, or some other effete French dink, start up a colony of his very own little slice of “Gay Paris’” right here in the good ol’ U S of A?
I’ll tell you why: cause they weren’t a bunch of liberty hating, baby killing perverts, that’s why! Man, I tell’s ya, what the absence of God in ones life won’t do to an otherwise functioning human mind. It truly is scary.
January 31st, 2010 at 4:29 am
“Let me just briefly deal with your false comparison to inter-racial marriage: RACE IS IRRELEVANT TO PROCREATION, GENDER IS ESSENTIAL TO IT. There is nothing wrong with interracial marriages because men and women are designed for one another and can procreate regardless of their racial background.”
Frank, the reference to mixed race marriage wasn’t to say it is the same as SSM, it was pointing out that you were making an argument against SSM that didn’t stand up.
You said: “Since marriage laws apply equally to ALL people, no one is being discriminated against”
Luke replied: “The exact same thing could be said — and was said — about anti-miscegenation laws. Everyone had the same right — the right to marry someone of their own race.”
Whether you see mixed race marriages and SSM as equivalent or not is not relevant to Luke’s point, which was that your argument is disengenuous. You wouldn’t accept the same argument to support anti-miscegenation laws, not because you disagree with the laws but because it’s a bad argument.
“if you want to interact further on this issue, read the book first. It’s not a good use of my time or yours to cover material in a piecemeal fashion when it’s dealt with systematically yet compactly elsewhere. ”
Frank, like you my time is limited. I was merely dealing with the arguments that you presented on this thread. If you’re saying they can’t be represented in a short space then that’s fine. But from the way you’ve represented them, they don’t stand up, for the reasons I’ve already gone into. You’ve obviously got your own religious reasons for rejecting SSM (eg “men and women are designed for one another”), and that’s fine, I can’t argue with that. But Blankenhorn’s stats-based arguments don’t work, for reasons we’ve been over in depth above.
And last week he failed to defend his book’s ideas in court. Given all that, I don’t see the point in giving his book my time.
January 31st, 2010 at 10:01 am
Hi Nathan,
I was recommending my book http://www.impactapologetics.c.....8;P_ID=937 which is more focused and covers more ground and makes different arguments than Blankenhorn’s (despite news reports about court cases, the data in Blankenhorn’s book is true; like all data, the question is its interpretation. I think his interpretation is the right one as I explain in my book).
Maybe it’s just me, but I’m not following your last post on inter-racial marriage. The two issues are NOT analogous as so many in support of SSM think it is. Moreover, teleology is not necessarily a “religious” argument but a philosophical one made by Aristotle.
Agree with your point on limited time. But in order to write books and speak with any truth and honesty on complicated issues, I know I need to read at least some of the more prominent books on both sides of the issues. If you’re honestly looking for truth, you need to actually read someone’s case before dismissing it. You don’t appear to have done this. Instead, you’ve dismissed Dr. Meyer’s case and you seem to want to do the same with mine case and that of Blankenhorn (whom is mostly on your side with regard to homosexual issues).
It’s impossible to do justice to big issues in even a two hour debate, much less newspaper reports. That’s why right after my debate with Hitchens nine months ago, I sent you a book on each side of the issue of God’s existence– mine and Hitchens’. Have you read them– not just skimmed them– but READ them?
Blessings,
Frank
January 31st, 2010 at 3:55 pm
“Maybe it’s just me, but I’m not following your last post on inter-racial marriage. The two issues are NOT analogous as so many in support of SSM think it is. ”
I’m saying that you presented a particular argument against SSM - “Since marriage laws apply equally to ALL people, no one is being discriminated against” - and I ask you whether you would find that same argument persuasive if used as an argument against marriage between two other groups.
I would say you wouldn’t. You find it persuasive against SSM only because you ALREADY don’t agree with SSM. That’s why the argument is disengenuous, and you would see it as disengenuous if it was applied Mixed Race Marriage (MRM). Be honest, if someone supported a law against MRM by saying ‘There’s no discrimination here, everyone is equally allowed to marry their own race’, you would say that was a bad argument. And it would be a bad argument WHETHER OR NOT you personally agreed or disagreed with MRM.
I can be for an idea and still recognise bad arguments to support that idea. If the same argument could be used to support something I am dead against, it would be inconsistent for me to use that argument.
January 31st, 2010 at 4:06 pm
“Have you read them– not just skimmed them– but READ them?”
Frank, I read whole chunks, not skimmed, but I didn’t read every chunk. I wrote a long piece for you at the time, going through my various problems with it. I can’t remember why I didn’t send it. Perhaps I thought it would be rude given your generosity in sending me the copy in the first place. Perhaps I’ll try to dig it out not.
In the meantime though, in short I got frustrated by the number of times you would make an argument that was based on a misunderstanding of, say, what evolutionary science states or predicts. Or you would say “Science hasn’t even attempted to explain phenomenon ‘x’”, when I’ve read whole books where scientists go into ‘X’ in detail.
Also, this is off-topic, but it explains one of the problems I had with the book, I was somewhat nauseated by your colleague discussing how he loved to taunt Jewish Atheists about the holocaust. But I suspected if I mentioned that to him or you, the response would be ‘Yeah, but how COME you’re nauseated, that proves our point, right?’. And the thought of that kind of disgusted me further. It seemed he was exploiting the most horrendous event of the 20th C to win an argument, and grinding it in the face of one of the victims.
I’d be ashamed of any atheist who would bring up the holocaust to a practicing Jew, to their face, ‘Where’s your God now, Jew?’ in order to score points in a debate. Neither side would win converts that way.
January 31st, 2010 at 4:18 pm
“the data in Blankenhorn’s book is true; like all data, the question is its interpretation.”
I’ve already asked if there was any data to show a rise in single parents. All you’ve said is that there was a rise in illigitimacy, which you say is associated with single parents (SP). Now, if SP had actually risen, Blankenhorn wouldn’t have to talk about a secondary factor rising that is associated with SP - he’d just quote the data on rising SP!
Again, does Blankenhorn actually have data to show single parenting in those Scandinavian countries rising at a faster rate than in non-SSM states?
At any rate, as pointed out in another web discussion of Blankenhorn’s book:
“Even if we grant that support for same-sex marriage correlates with negative factors such as higher divorce rates, it also seems to correlate with positive factors such as higher education, greater support for religious freedom, and greater respect for women’s rights. On Blankenhorn’s logic, we ought to oppose those things as well, since they “tend to hang together” with the negative trends.”
Or to put it another way, “when babies correlate with dirty bathwater, we don’t take that as a reason for throwing out babies”
January 31st, 2010 at 11:27 pm
Hi Nathan,
As you know, “I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist” is book that builds a 12 point argument from the first chapter to the last. It’s not meant to be skipped around and read in “chunks”, but from beginning to end. And the argument from the holocaust had nothing to do with “taunting,” but simply pointing out that the atheist has no objective grounds to object to the holocaust or any other evil (nor does the atheist have any objective grounds to support anything, like SSM, either).
You know, one of my frustrations with this blog is that people come here and bring up all sorts of objections and assertions based on sound bites and straw men. When I recommend resources that deal with these issues in more depth, people don’t check them out but continue to repeat the same tired arguments. Maybe this internet blog-comment thing just isn’t for me. Takes too much time, and it’s not about truth for too many people, but merely defending their position at all costs. Frustrating and a waste of time.
I would send you my book on SSM which deals with the issues you bring up on that issue, but given the fact that you haven’t read my first one after nine months I don’t see the point.
Blessings,
Frank
February 1st, 2010 at 7:29 am
“but simply pointing out that the atheist has no objective grounds to object to the holocaust or any other evil”
Yes, and we debated at serious length about what the Christian justification for ‘objective morality’ is too. And it comes down to a straightforward tautology:
1. What God says is good.
2. God is the standard by which good is defined.
This just raises the problem of why God is the standard of good, rather than, say, Satan, and why God saying something is good actually makes it ‘good’. In other words, Euthyphro’s dilemma. Your reply to that attempts to offer a third option, where good is somehow emitted from God, it is part of his nature. But this just begs the question. Where does his nature come from? What makes his nature ‘good’. You’re either judging him good by your standards or his own.
I think that eventually brought you on to citing a CS Lewis argument which relied on ideas like ‘evil has to be an absence of good’, or ‘evil is a reaction to good, not the other way round’, where one could establish what was good and bad using logic. To me this ignored simple counter examples like slavery came before anti-slavery - the ‘good’ option was a reaction to the ‘bad’, not the other way round.
But even if this argument worked then it meant you had shown you could use logic alone to establish ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and therefore the ‘God’s nature’ part became superfluous.
So I’m afraid the Christian is not left with any greater claim to calling Nazis evil than the atheist, which means you ARE left with one man taunting another about the murder of the latter’s relatives.
At any rate, the holocaust would be horrifying to Jews (and all humans) even if one couldn’t call the cause ‘evil’. After all, few people nowadays would call the Haiti earthquake ‘evil’, and yet it caused immense suffering to huge numbers of people. Does the fact that the surviving victims can’t call the cause ‘evil’ mean that one can tell them they have no right to be upset about what’s happened? I don’t have to debate whether a flu virus is ‘evil’ before I get immunized against it.
Say someone came along who claimed they had an animist philosophy that involved calling earthquakes ‘evil’. They argue that unless you share their philosophy you’ve got no ‘right’ to be upsete about earthquakes, or to try to prevent their damage. What would you think of their debating technique if they were taunting Haiti victims saying ‘You lost all those relatives and yet you have no justification for calling the earthquakes evil!’?
February 1st, 2010 at 7:43 am
“My book on SSM which deals with the issues you bring up on that issues”
Frank, I’ve deliberately tried to restrict myself on this thread entirely to discussing the data you quote from Blankenhorn. That, after all, was the purpose of the thread. I’m sure you have plenty of other points and other arguments, but I find it makes sense to debate one point at a time.
Blankenhorn’s argument seems extremely easy to refute, for the reasons I already listed above. And although, as I said, I’m sure you have many other arguments, which I’m sure your book goes into at depth, I haven’t seen you answer my specific refutations of Blankenhorn’s points.
You say we can all interpret his data differently, but I still haven’t even seen that he HAS any data that rising SSM in these countries correlates with SPF rising in the same countries than in states without SSM. Without that data, it’s not even a case of interpretation - the data doesn’t exist. Furthermore we have the problem of causation =/= correlation, which Blankehnhorn himself admits. And then the issue that SSM has a negative correlation with divorce, which you ignore. And finally the positive correlation SSM has with other desirable properties.
And none of that has anything to do with alternative arguments that your book on SSM may or may not offer. Those are OTHER arguments, and we are trying to discuss THIS argument. You either stand by it or you don’t. If you want to say you can’t defend it, but still oppose SSM for reasons you list in your book, then go ahead.
February 2nd, 2010 at 5:33 pm
I wrote this a few days ago, in direct response to the post by Dr. Turek. He has written a bit sense, but this post doesn’t address the latter posts in any way.
Nathan said:“But who you fall in love with - which is a HUGE part of what marriage is all about - is NEVER a choice. Not in my experience anyway.”
Frank Turek said:No, love may be a HUGE reason WHY people get married, but it is NOT a reason why the state endorses marriage. When you go for a marriage license, they don’t ask you if you “love” the other person.
As Nathan pointed out, your logic here is self defeating. If not asking about “love” is proof that marriage is not about love, then not asking about children is proof that marriage is not about children.
I’d like to read from the Bible: a book you know well. I think the following verses have been read at every single Christian marriage ceremony I have ever attended (I will use NIV becuase I think it’s very common in these ceremonies).
But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, He took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib He had taken out of the man, and He brought her to the man.
The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,
for she was taken out of man.”
For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
Perhaps just as common is:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres… And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
There is no way you can deny that these two passeges are the great themes at a majority of Christian wedding ceremonies.
There is a lot of talk about love and a man cleaving to his wife. It’s not “but for Adam, no suitable child bearer was found.” It very specifically says helper. To attempt to boil marriage down to an institution focused on possible children is myopic in my view. It is about more than that, and surely you know that.
Frank Turek said:Marriage is endorsed by the state because the future of society, including its survival, safely and stability, is dependent on men and women procreating and committing themselves to one another.
I don’t pretend to have read the story behind the writing of every marriage law. It seems you have, so I won’t argue this point directly.
I will look at some indirect evidence. The state does not discriminate in any way against those who have children out-of-wedlock, as far as I know. It’s not like I get a bigger tax deduction or a free education for my child becuase I am married. (In fact, in some cases there has been a higher burden for being married, a so called ‘marriage penalty.’) If what you say is true, then the actual state of things doesn’t make sense. There is an obvious disconnect here.
Moreover, if two people with homosexual feelings want to commit to one another, nobody is stopping them. People in “love” can pledge themselves to one another without state sanction.
Right, they just can’t do things like visit eachother at the hospital after a terrible accident. Or form a family unit by being able to extend benefits to the person they love.
Are such things not important? Honestly.
You really can’t imagine why such things might be a detriment to a good and healthy relationship?
Some may say: “I am for all the rights, just not the label of marriage.” Such arguments — about granting equal benefits — through civil unions, would be much more convincing if so many voters in so many states had not voted exactly to deny such rights — even when the work marriage was not attached.
Maybe you don’t believe all those voters were correct, and you do believe that all rights should be equal, just without the title of marriage, but the fact is many in your movement do not, why not distance yourself from them.
You want to say “nobody is stopping them” except that people in your movement are actively working to and sometimes succeeding in doing so.
Can you say honestly that there aren’t many in your movement who disagree strongly with the Lawrence ruling? How do you feel about it?
If there was a substanital number of people in your movement who stood up and loudly said “I don’t believe in same-sex marriage, but this denial of rights is unequivocally wrong” then I would be much more willing to grant some credibility to the no one is stoppind people from living happily in love.
Either the denial of rights is wrong, or it’s something we can accept. I haven’t seen any fracture in the movement, which signifies the latter. When you say “no one is stopping them” I can’t help but disagree.
So, the fact is are many people stopping “them” — attempting to and being sucessful — and they are the very people of your movement.
Frank Turek said:SSM is again more about forcing people to accept homosexuality than it is about marriage.
I’ll simply repeat what I said in my post above.
Do many homosexual seek acceptance? Sure. With all that’s happened in the last hundred years, from pink triangles at Auschwitz to Matthew Shepard, can you really blame them?
I have been to tolerance marches where firecrackers, rocks and eggs were thrown at the participants. Do you really blame people for wanting to fight against hatred that’s directed at them?
Frank Turek said:For example, business people will be forced to give benefits to homosexual couples even against any moral or religious objections they might have.
This is a poor argument. If I think it’s immoral for dark skinned people to serve food to white people becuase I think they are such an inferior race, would you defend my right to not hire African-American waiters? If I think it’s immoral to marry someone of another race, would you defend my right not to extend spousal benefits to my white workers Asian wife? If I think having children out of wedlock is immoral, should I be able to turn away single parents from renting a property from me based on that alone? Can I just put “single parents need not apply” in my ads?
Frank Turek said:Individuals have already been sued in states that have SSM for not doing gay weddings!
And to make it worse: lost! (A photog in New Mexico was fined some $7,000 recently!)
I will be the first to admit some of these cases which pit religious conviction against the law are tough. Do I think it’s right that Yeshiva University was compelled to allow same-sex couples into the married dormitory? I don’t know; I agree it’s tough. Should the photographer have been punished? I also think that one is tough, and I lean toward no without knowing all the facts.
Do you argue that it’s simple?
As I said, unless you think it’s ok for a restaurant to not allow Asians, or a car company allowed to not hire Native Americans, then you agree that sometimes people have to be compelled to do things they may not like to protect the rights and dignity of others.
If you want to accept that premise and have an honest conversation, that’s wonderful.
(By the way, New Mexico, where the photographer case took place, rejected a Domestic Partnership bill giving many of these rights — again not just marriage, but equal rights.)
Frank TUrek said:Parents are unable to take their kindergarten kids out of classes on homosexuality in those states!
But homosexuality exists weather you believe it a moral evil or not. Ignoring it in school won’t make it go away. Also, it’s not as if parents are prevented from opining on it at home. If parents were able to remove their kids from any part of the corriculum they wished then the system would dissolve into chaos. I’ll give a real life example, when I was taught about “Manifest Destiny” it was presented as some wonderful heroic and romantic concept. The truth is it was not. It was at best terribe and at worst genocidal. Do I want it presented to my daughter in the way it was presented to me? No, not really. Am I going to seek to keep her out of classes that will discuss the topic? It’s never really crossed my mind.
(But I do so, and the guy next to me won’t let his daughter go to science class (evolution), and the other guy won’t allow for learning about WWII — afterall — how could he have his daughter hear those lies about the so-called Holocaust, and the next guy doesn’t want his daughetr to hear about Lenin — lest she think maybe people do deserve peace, land and bread. That guy over there — he’s keeping his kid out of geology and geography — did you hear they’re saying that the earth is like billions of years old? And on and on and on.)
As it stands parents have the right to home school, but I realize this option is not viable for many. When it comes to my daughter I don’t mind if she hears views with which I disagree. She is not obligated to believe what I believe and I have every right to give her a full explanation of my opinions. I will spend more time with her than any teacher ever will.
Anyway, this has nothing to do with marriage. You always complain that I bring up side issues and the like.
Frank Turek said:Finally, you say falling in love is NEVER a choice. You are again confusing feelings and behavior. Any one of us could “fall in love” with someone else at any time, but that does not mean we ought to BEHAVE by leaving our current spouses because we’ve “fallen in love” with someone else.
I think you’re on the verge of a good point here, Dr. Turek.
There are two problems with it. First of all, many people simply do leave for the new lover. Our laws fully allow for this and accept it. If they didn’t, your argument might have more merit. Remember we are talking about legal treatment of relationships here.
(If you want to make a moral argument - an ‘ought’ argument — go for it, but it’s a separate thing from a legal and civil treatment argument. Clearly we accept and legally sponsor many things people “ought not” do. This arguemtn is not about that. This argument — again — is about legal status.)
Secondly, if I am married for 8 years (as I have been) and meet someone I like better (which I haven’t), I have still gotten to enjoy 8 years of love without anyone bothreing me and telling me my love is wrong. 8 years of openly experiencing perhaps the strongest emotion one can feel. That’s wonderful.
You seek to deny that to many people. You seek to deny them the full right to enjoy what many would argue is the one thing that is most central to the human experience.
I mean, come on, you are saying: “you may love this person, but you shouldn’t act on it. Just ignore it, supress it or whatever it takes”
How would you have replied if someone told you that when you were first falling in love with your wife?
That’s not intended as a rhetorical question, by the way.
Would you have said: well, if someone doesn’t like it then I will keep my love for this woman a sectet, or would it have made you want to proclaim your love for her from the highest mountain top?
I hope for your sake that you’ve been in love, and if you have then both you and I know the answer to that last question.
It’s a shame you seek to deny your experience to others.
Frank Turek said:This is the central fallacy with the entire sexual license movement— don’t blame us, we can’t help it! Well then, don’t blame me then either, I just have the anti-gay gene.
Dr. Turek, I don’t want to form false conclusion about this statement. What do you mean, you have the anti-gay gene? Are you saying that you are indeed anti-gay? (Whether you believe such a gene actually exists or not.)
What I mean is, are you saying that it goes beyond possible ramifications for society for you? You just don’t like gays or homosexual acts, and would on that basis try to limit them, even if the detriment to society were demonstrably nonexistant?
Again, you are seeking to deny what many people consider the central piece of the human experience to the human population.
Even if there were such a thing as an anti-gay gene, I would not seek to take away any rights or benefits from you based on the fact that you have it. I would never say that you shouldn’t be able to see the one you love in the hospital because of how you feel about homosexuality.
Frank Turek said:That of course is nonsense. Laws are about behavior, not feelings. So regardless of our feelings– be they for the opposite or same sex, be they for children, beasts or our relatives– we all need to stop the lame excuses and take personal responsibility for our behavior (emphasis mine)
Again, if I “fall in love” with someone else. I can leave my wife and go marry my new girl. The law fully accepts it. I can do this 4,5,6,7 times, and at worst the court clerk will give me an odd look, but also a marriage license.
So, your arguments are again diverging from facts. Surely you don’t say that it’s ok for heterosexuals to follow their feelings, but not for homosexuals, so why are you acting like it?
Anyway, last I checked marriage carried many responsibilities. So by withholding it from many people, you are preventing them from doing exactly what you’re wanting them to do!
Frank Turek said:And the behavior that’s best for society is marriage between a man and a woman.
As the person who this post is about said, gay marriage could have many societal benefits. One of them being homosexuals not entering what are essentially fake marriages to fit society’s standards.
Andrew (what happened to that guy) had a great answer to this objection. If everyone were cobblers, we would all starve. Therefore being a cobbler isn’t “best for society.” As he said, should we all shake our fists at cobblers?
Should we deny them rights?
You would never argue such a thing.
Frank Turek said:You want to commit yourself to someone else, then go right ahead, but don’t claim that YOU are being discriminated against if society doesn’t endorse it. You are not.
This is rendered completely factually incorrect by your own statements above.
You know of and defend this discrimination — you defended it just a few lines ago — now you act like it doesn’t exist. At least above explained why the discrimination might be warranted. That was far more honest, now it just seems like a perfect example of doublethink.
(To not allow discrimination might force someone to be party to something they disagree with morally. As I said, this is a valid concern, and something that should be honestly discussed.)
Frank Turek said:Your behavior is, and for good reason.
And what is this good reason? With all due respect you have not presented one. I really like you as a person Dr. Turek and I owe you the respect to tell you that. Every arguemt you’ve presented here has been easily batted down. At worst your arguments lack logic and are self defeating and at best they are special pleading. You have to either do much, much better in your arguments, or open your heart and change your views.
It is best if we all remember that we are sinners — guilty, corrupt sinners. Let’s think about ways to help eachother, not tear eachother down.
February 3rd, 2010 at 6:00 am
I’d add another point, Luke.
Blankenhorn’s argument could be reduced to a kind of algebra.
X = a right granted to Group A but not Group B. The argument is that if Group B are also granted X, Group A may be less inclined to take advantage of X. (NB, Group A still has X). Therefore we should not grant X to Group B.
Now, for this argument to convince anyone, it would have to work regardless of what your previous opinions are on whether Group A or B deserve X.
So, test this argument out. Come up with your own X and B, such that B is a group that you think SHOULD enjoy X. For example, imagine it’s votes for women.
* I argue that giving votes to women will make men less inclined to vote
* I argue that letting Asians go to school will discourage Hispanics from going to school.
* I argue that allowing Baptists to run for public office will put off Catholics from doing the same.
None of these would be good arguments. It’s not women’s fault if the men aren’t voting, and it isn’t a good reason to remove THEIR rights. Instead, you should be focusing on the men.
You can argue that these are all bad examples, as women voting, or educating Asians are all POSITIVE things. But this merely points out the flaw in your argument - you are STARTING OFF with the idea that gay marriage is wrong, when that is supposed to be what you are trying to PROVE. The argument only works if you already agree with the conclusion. I believe this is ‘begging the question’.
So if heteros are marrying less, you should be focusing your argument on them. Write a book listing the advantages of hetero marriage. To blame it on the gays is to use an argument that, as I have clearly shown above, is begging the question and is special pleading.
February 3rd, 2010 at 11:47 am
Luke,
So, Dr. Turek -and by extension, all of civilization for about 6 thousand years- has been “easily batted down” in his attempts to make the case for marriage as it has always been. Duly noted.
You may find me a bit more offensive, as I believe homosexuality to be an abomination. The reason why statistics are so abominable within the “hetero community” is due to the liberalization of peoples views regarding happiness, accountability, love for children and yes, patriotism. The fact that society coddles homosexuals instead of trying to get them to repent of their evil ways is a symptom of the fatal disease of liberalism. It presumes that God “makes” homosexuality. And that is the same kind of “thinking” that assumes one must “follow ones heart” in order to find happiness. Rubbish.
In a civil society (the main thing our founders were trying to found) it is incumbent upon all citizens to be responsible and not call evil good because, that inevitably leads to calling good evil. Hence, our current state of uncivil society where abominations like homosexuality are slowly brought from “tolerance” to acceptance to glorification. Witness current culture in the west. Europe leads the way in hedonistic depravity and, as such, will soon be unrecognizable from its not so distant past -sans a radical trend reversal. As well, America is following suit and we must repent and return to God or be destroyed from within by our own selfish and cowardly flesh.
You may be spitting mad after reading the above, yes? It is merely common sense and was common knowledge at one time. It was of such common knowledge that it was hardly ever spoken because the inmates had not yet wrested control of the world outside of theirs. (not talking homosexuality exclusively here. its promotion is symptomatic of what is destroying our culture though.)
We don’t live within the realm of common sense, however. Ours is a time of insanity. That is why the God of the Bible is needed now more than ever. People who are completely lost have the self righteousness of an inquisitor and those who have the truth, cow before them. Simply watch as the anti-prop-8 people picket, fire, physically abuse and otherwise intimidate people exercising their rights of conscience. It is reminiscent of what was going on in Germany in the late 20’s early 30’s, only on a smaller scale. The thuggish mentality is the same and those same “gaystopo” thugs have a friend in the White House and have not been heard from for the last time, no doubt.
Be looking for this to change. All in His time. All in His time.
p.s. I suspect you will think this hate, but that is because you do not understand the difference between hating the sin and hating the sinner. That is a Christian concept that does not fit into an ungodly mindset, I know. And that is why I don’t hate myself anymore than I hate homosexuals. We each need to be saved from our sins just as much as the other.
February 3rd, 2010 at 12:57 pm
Dr. Turek,
I will respond as briefly as possible to some of what you wrote since the post I responded to.
Mark,
Just because an argument persists for thousands of years does not make it particularly convincing, correct or effective. See: slavery.
I am not sure if I recognize and argument in the rest of your post. I do know that I am not spitting mad at it. I am not even annoyed. I wonder you say such things. You often mention things like this in your post. It’s as if you try so hard to be an oppressed victim, but usually it just doesn’t connect, and leaves me wondering why.
As far as your point that our time is one of “insanity” I’d just like to say that Dr. Turek and I have discussed this before. Many social factors, which you and I would relate to morality have trended positively for decades. Violent crime is probably about as low as it has been in the history of this nation. Abortion rates have been in a general downward trend for a long time now. How is any time period with segregation possibly considered more moral or less insane than the time we live in now? There are many other examples.
But again, I don’t think any of what you say is hate and it doesn’t make me angry. Why do you concentrate so much on such negative emotions, and why do you spend so much time displacing them on others?
Luke
February 3rd, 2010 at 3:15 pm
Dr. Turek,
I agree with you that this blog format can be frustrating. It has value though, and I have certainly learned a lot of things through my visits here.
I am very open to reading your book on same-sex marriage. I am not sure how long it would take me to find the time (I have probably a hundred books I need to be reading right now for assignments), but I’ll do it as soon as I can.
The reason I hesitate and just say I’m open to it, is I would like to know what more I will find in it.
Will I find more of examples to support arguments I’ve already found lacking on a logical basis? (For reasons I’ve explained.) Or will I just find more arguments along these same lines?
I am not likely to find 22 poor arguments more convincing than 10 poor arguments. I don’t mean this in any rude way, I am just trying to be honest — this is why I have taken the time to show you why I believe that your arguments are lacking.
I’ll give it a try though. I’ll refrain from commenting on this thread unless you ask me something, until I’ve read the book.
To answer your other question, I’ve never read “I Don’t Have Enough Faith.” I listen to your radio program fairly regularly and read your writings here. I am pretty familiar with all of the arguments you present — not just from you but mostly from various other sources. Philosophy and the Bible are kind of a hobby, so… I do really like the way you present many of these familiar arguments. The only argument where I would say I still lack a basic understanding of the facts involved is the whole “out of nothing” claim, which I am still hoping you’ll respond to on the other thread.
I do think your book does a good job of putting many of these arguments together in a presentable form, but I think each individual argument can be challenged.
As I’ve told you before, I don’t think you can convince anyone with facts that G-d exists. I think what you can do is show that G-d is not ruled out by any scientific explanation. That way, when someone’s heart becomes more open to faith, faith is still possible. If someone is not ready to believe, no moral or kalam argument will make them believe.
I guess I’ve just never felt any need to do more than scan through your book. I am more interested in looking deeper into the individual arguments — as I said above: 22 lacking arguments are no more convincing than 10 lacking arguments. Breaking down and really examining some of the basic arguments are more interesting for me.
If I did read every word, I don’t know that I would find anything I haven’t seen before. In fact I’d be shocked if I did.
I think some very interesting challenges to your arguments have been presented here and I wish that they were discussed more. That’s what interests me.
To comment again on some of your frustration with the blog. I get it. Sometimes you feel that people aren’t even paying attention to your argument, or reading it. I would disagree with you that it’s not about truth for many people. I think there is just sometimes a disconnect and people suffer foam cognitive dissonance. I just don’t think any of us are less guilty of that than anyone else.
Just to give you an example of this from my viewpoint. I wrote a rather exhaustive and point-by-point post in response to what you wrote on this thread. Your only response to any of my points focused on “[my] false comparison to inter-racial marriage.”
Here is the problem, as Nathan pointed out I never made any such comparison. I never even came close to making one.
Of all the time I spent and all the words I wrote, you picked out an argument you were prepared to answer - even if it’s one I never made, and that’s the one you responded to.
I could just as well conclude that “it’s not about truth” for you. Maybe that would be right, but I’m not going to come to that conclusion.
It’s the nature of the format, and if we want to interact, we just need to make an attempt to be as honest as possible.
February 3rd, 2010 at 7:02 pm
Luke said, “Just to give you an example of this from my viewpoint. I wrote a rather exhaustive and point-by-point post in response to what you wrote on this thread. Your only response to any of my points focused on “[my] false comparison to inter-racial marriage.”
Here is the problem, as Nathan pointed out I never made any such comparison. I never even came close to making one.”
Which was referring to the following from Lukes’ previous post of Jan. 29 at 1:15pm,
“Dr. Turek said:Since marriage laws apply equally to ALL people, no one is being discriminated against
The exact same thing could be said — and was said — about anti-miscegenation laws. Everyone had the same right — the right to marry someone of their own race.”
I’m sure that is an honest mistake, and it is also a good “example of this from my viewpoint”. Perhaps we all should proof read a little better before hitting “Submit Comment”.
More to the point -it appears to me- that people w/ such diametrically opposed views will often approach the debate from a stand point of, “They are wrong so, what must I do to show them where they went wrong for, I am right.” Which tends to cloud ones search for real truth and lends to statements like, I am very open to reading your book on same-sex marriage. that are “backed up” with statements like, Will I find more of examples to support arguments I’ve already found lacking on a logical basis? (For reasons I’ve explained.) Or will I just find more arguments along these same lines? WOW! Does that last paragraph say, “Will I find “X”, or will I just find “X”?” ? What would you call that, a paradoxical presupposition or, a presuppositional paradox? Certainly, it would be hard to conform to such a “standard” without simply “admitting” what you already see his point of view as being. No?
And again, I’ve never read “I Don’t Have Enough Faith.” is inexplicably followed by, I do think your book does a good job of putting many of these arguments together in a presentable form…. Perhaps you are using “I do think” as “I do believe” or, “I do trust that…” but I hope you can understand how one might think such statements are reflective of a lazy, if not disingenuous, attitude.
Your point(s) about the argument for the existence of God is well stated.
But then this, I guess I’ve just never felt any need to do more than scan through your book. I am more interested in looking deeper into the individual arguments — as I said above: 22 lacking arguments are no more convincing than 10 lacking arguments. Breaking down and really examining some of the basic arguments are more interesting for me. is presupposition of “Biblical proportions”, to coin a phrase, and I wonder what you would say if someone said the same regarding a serious work of yours. (Especially considering your disappointment with Dr. Turek regarding something he hasn’t even done.)
And then you punctuate thus, If I did read every word, I don’t know that I would find anything I haven’t seen before. In fact I’d be shocked if I did. Can you imagine a role reversal here? Again, what would you think of that?
I just don’t think any of us are less guilty of (cognitive dissonance) than anyone else. This actually goes to my previous point re: modern cultures’ tendency to make all human action/interaction relative. Agree to disagree?
In closing, Of all the time (Dr. Turek) spent and all the (chapters) (he) wrote, you picked out a (conclusion) you (had) pre(supposed) - even if it’s one (he) never made, and that’s the one you responded to.
I could just as well conclude that “it’s not about truth” for you. Maybe that would be right, but I’m not going to come to that conclusion. Well, not just yet anyway. It really depends on whether you “make an attempt to be as honest as possible” when responding to this.
Sorry for the “gotcha” nature of this post, it simply had to be said.
February 4th, 2010 at 12:18 pm
Mark,
Don’t worry about the “gotcha” nature of your post. I don’t mind at all.
Mark said:I’m sure that is an honest mistake
Mark, it wasn’t a mistake. It is very clear that I never compared the two types of marriage. I compared the argument that Dr. Turek was making to an argument others made in the past.
To be clear, I compared arguments; the arguments were alike.
The two things need not be alike for the arguments about them to resemble one another.
I could have for example use education. Supporters of Plessy once said, there is no discrimination, everyone has the same right: the right to an education.
Am I now comparing same-sex marriage to education? Are you going to point out to me that one involves buildings and teachers and the other involves girls making out, so they’re in fact nothing alike?
I know that; I am not comparing SSM to education. I am comparing arguments.
I don’t get how you can not see that.
As far as the rest of your post. I simply don’t understand what you’re trying to say. Sorry.
I said I was open to reading his book, as opposed to ‘I will read your book’ and gave the reasons why I am hesitant given that I have 100 other books I need to be reading.
If Dr. Turek comes back and says, in the book I actually rebut many of your answers I will be much more likely to read it. Either way, I closed with saying that I would read it — and the reason I did so is that I have a lot of respect for Dr. Turek and he asked me to read it.
On his other book, I’ve scanned through it and read sections. Dr. Turek already pointed out that to him this is different than “reading the book.”
I do like his presentation and think the book has value. I think it’s added value is in the presentation and organization of the arguments. The arguments themselves are largely developed more in depth in other books.
I’ve read some of those other books and I’ve heard Dr. Turek speak on this subject for literally dozens of hours. That’s why I said I doubt there’s anything in there I haven’t heard. I was just being honest. This was not intended to be rude in any way, I think Dr. Turek would admit that what is new and novel about his book is the presentation and organization, not the arguments themselves.
I think my post on that note was rather complementary of Dr. Turek and the book. If it didn’t come off that way. Sorry.
February 4th, 2010 at 7:13 pm
Luke,
I was operating w/ the belief that the fundamental premise, “words mean things”, was in affect.
My missteak, never mind.
February 7th, 2010 at 6:41 am
I just found the notes I made on ‘I don’t have enought faith to be an atheist’. It’s all from the morality chapter.
“First, you seem to have major misconceptions about the process of evolution. These misconceptions are so great that it affects everything you write about the subject. I urge you to talk to a biologist and ask him or her to explain the basics to you and answer any questions you may have. So many times in the chapter you would pose a rhetorical question that science supposedly can’t answer, when in fact the answers are well known. This got frustrating to read – I just wished you had talked to a biologist first!
But I’ll touch on a few points:
1. ‘Darwinist’ is an antiquated, nonsensical term, similar to calling physicists ‘Newtonists’. Even saying ‘evolutionists’ isn’t right, like referring to astronomers as ‘moon landing-ists’. Given that evolution is accepted by virtually every working biologist, just say ‘biologist’.
2. “Darwinism asserts that only materials exist”. It doesn’t. Evolution deals with how creatures develop over generations. It makes no assertions about whether an immaterial world exists. Francis Collins and Ken Miller are two of your country’s most esteemed biologists, and both are committed Christians.
3. “Is there an atom for love?”. I don’t think one can meaningfully describe there as being an ‘atom for anything’. But we can certainly tell which chemicals give us the feeling of love. Can you measure love? Well if you measure the serotonin levels in a group of mothers and then give them their babies, you can predict who will hold their babies the closest and for the longest. If you can’t imagine an evolutionary advantage in a species developing high levels of serotonin, you’re just not thinking hard enough.
4. “Morality can’t be merely an instinct because we have competing instincts”. That’s a complete non sequitur. We’ve evolved many instincts, and yes, they compete with each other. Over time they will reach an optimum level that aids survival. This isn’t an argument against evolving to feel guilty about not helping out our fellow man. Sometimes the instinct to help wins out, sometimes it gets over-ridden by another feeling.
5. “Wilson says social morals have evolved because those ‘co-operative’ morals helped humans survive together. But this assumes an end – survival – for evolution.”
Frank, there’s nothing in what Wilson said there that makes such an assumption! I’m baffled as to where you got that from. I can only guess that it goes back to basic misunderstandings you have about evolution. There is always variance among individuals in a species, and among groups in that species. If one group develops a practice that (unwittingly) aids its survival, then it will prosper more than another group that does not adopt that practice. No foresight is required.
6. “Wilson assumes that survival is a ‘good’ thing’. Again Frank, there is nothing in your quoting of Wilson that suggests he has made this assumption. Survival means the genes are passed on. No value judgment is needed to make this rather obvious observation.
7 . After that you start getting into the ‘Hitler v Mother Theresa’ thing and say that ‘Darwinists’ can’t explain why anyone SHOULD obey any biologically derived ‘moral sentiment’. But this is a strawman attack as science makes no claims to have such answers. All the preceding points were answering the question of why we feel guilt, why we are a co-operative species etc. Wilson addressed this, and you’ve done nothing to debunk him. Associating evolution with racism does nothing to debunk it either. It’s like trying to debunk Isaac Newton because someone dropped a rock on your head.
7. You quote Hitler. It is immensely disingenuous to claim Hitler was influenced by Darwin, when he doesn’t mention the scientist once in Mein Kampf, but cites the influence of Martin Luther and his faith countless times.
You then quote a 1925 biology textbook to ‘prove’ that racism is ‘associated’ with evolution. You completely ignore that racism is ‘associated’ with the bible. You know as well as I do that the bible was used to justify slavery for hundreds of years. Racists also quoted passages about the ‘son of Ham’ to justify Africans’ lower status. But you would point out that this is a dishonest argument as it says nothing about the veracity or the morality of the bible.
As you can see, it’s hard for me to make headway with the chapter, or follow a line of argument through, when virtually every line comes up with something I disagree with, or that seems to be based on a strawman or simple untruth.
February 7th, 2010 at 5:25 pm
You then quote a 1925 biology textbook to ‘prove’ that racism is ‘associated’ with evolution. You completely ignore that racism is ‘associated’ with the bible.
Not to mention the fact that, in 1925, racism was pretty much “the norm” in all areas of American society. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that a textbook from that era — on any subject — had racist content or implications.
February 8th, 2010 at 5:34 am
I just read in a history book yesterday that HG Wells - of The Time Machine, War of the Worlds and The Invisible Man fame - was well involved in the Eugenics movement. I guess that means anyone who reads his books or watches movies based on them must tacitly support eugenics too.
You ever read the original Dr Doolittle books? They actually spell out in them the beliefs of the books’ heroes that black people are inferior to whites. You have black a black prince in one of the books coming to the doctor asking to be ‘turned white’ so that women will find him attractive.
It’s a fact that views in those days were very different from ours. And who is to say that text books in 1925 were not as subject to intervention and interference from politicians and education boards as they are today?
February 8th, 2010 at 11:39 am
Nathan and Dr. Turek,
Have either of you read Hume’s An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals?
Thanks,
Luke