Four Questions about Same-Sex Marriage

,

Now that the California Supreme Court has usurped the will of the people by striking down their democratically-decided law,  there is sure to be a debate over the next few months about the merits of Same-Sex Marriage.   The issue may even make it to the ballot box in November in the form of a California Constitutional Amendment.

Political process aside, I’d like for you to weigh in on the following four questions:

1.  For what secular purpose does the state endorse traditional marriage (i.e. what benefits does the state experience from traditional marriage)?

2.  What would be the results to society if every adult lived faithfully in traditional marriage?

3.  What would be the results to society if every adult lived faithfully in same-sex marriage?

4.  In light of your answers above, should the state legally equate heterosexual and homosexual relationships by endorsing same sex marriage?

Sorry if this sounds like a test.  I just want to see how much people have thought through this very controversial issue.

/by

What if the God of the Christians was real?

,

Frank will be back in the US anytime soon, so he’ll be taking back the helm shortly. So as he returns, I’d like to ask our Atheist fellow travelers in search of truth this question:

Atheist readers, what if you were to suddenly find out tomorrow that the God of the Christian Evangelicals was real?

I.e. that He HAD created the world, had created you, the Bible was true, Jesus had died on the cross for your sins etc etc.

What would you do?

Now I realize that you may be wont to say: Ah, it won’t happen.

And I agree it won’t happen tomorrow and if you are right and I am wrong, it will NEVER happen.

But do humor me. What if it did happen?

I’m not asking HOW it would happen (see Frank’s earlier blog on this) but IF it happened, how would you react?

What is your response?

Anger? Agreement? Kowtowing to this being? Resigned acceptance, passive aggression, active aggression, resigned damnation?

Would you fall on your face and worship him? Why or why not?

What would you do?

Do you think a being that creates you automatically deserves your worship? (Note he does not needs it, but desires it.)

So what would you do if you found out tomorrow that the God of the Bible was real?

/by

Obscuring Clear Statements with "Clarifications"

Thomas Sowell continues his brilliant insights into the current presidential campaign.  Speaking of Barack Obama’s comments on how average folk in small towns are “bitter” and “cling to guns or religion,” Sowell points out:

In politics, the clearer a statement is, the more certain it is to be followed by a “clarification,” when people react adversely to what was plainly said.

Obama and his supporters were still busy “clarifying” Jeremiah Wright’s very plain statements when it suddenly became necessary to “clarify” Senator Obama’s own statements in San Francisco.

People who have been cheering whistle-blowers for years have suddenly denounced the person who blew the whistle on what Obama said in private that is so contradictory to what he has been saying in public.

However inconsistent Obama’s words, his behavior has been remarkably consistent over the years. He has sought out and joined with the radical, anti-Western left, whether Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers of the terrorist Weatherman underground or pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli Rashid Khalidi.

Obama is also part of a long tradition on the left of being for the working class in the abstract, or as people potentially useful for the purposes of the left, but having disdain or contempt for them as human beings.  (Read the complete column here.)

Perhaps Obama made those statements– which were given at a supposedly private function–  because he actually believes them.  His voting record and associations seem to suggest that is the case.  I have not heard him clearly apologize or retract the sentiment behind the statement.  If he believes what he said, at least we know the truth.  No further “clarifications” are necessary.

/by

Google: Religious Pro-Lifers Need Not Apply

Seems like the Google we all love has some very one-sided rules when it comes to advertizing.  While Google accepts ads in support of abortion, they don’t allow “abortion and religion-related content.” This is from the UK’s Daily Mail:

[Google’s]  Dublin-based advertising team replied: “At this time, Google policy does not permit the advertisement of websites that contain ‘abortion and religion-related content’.”

Google does, however, accept adverts for abortion clinics, secular pro-abortion sites and secularist sites which attack religion.

The Christian Institute has now started legal proceedings against Google on the grounds that it is infringing the Equality Act 2006 by discriminating against Christian groups.

It is seeking damages, costs and the permission to publish its advertisement.

Mike Judge, Christian Institute spokesman, said: “For many people, Google is the doorway to the internet.

“If there is to be a free exchange of ideas then Google cannot give special free speech rights to secular groups whilst censoring religious views.

“To say that religious sites with material on abortion are ‘unacceptable content’ (while) advertising pornography is ridiculous.”

Funny how making this ad hoc connection to religion only seems to muzzle one side– the pro-life side (how many religions do you know that would advertize in support of abortion?).   Google’s values aren’t nearly as good as their search engine.

/by

The Jesus Freak Resource Center

,

More from the witty Mike Adams about our experience with the faculty at UNC Wilmington (I’m glad he has tenure– he doesn’t hold back at all.  It’s like he’s from New Jersey!).

/by

Sex Education: A Hypocrite vs. a Teacher

Now that the Center for Disease Control has revealed that 1 in 4 high school girls have a sexually transmitted disease, do you think it’s time to emphasize abstinence as the only 100% certain way to avoid the negative consequences of pre-marital sex?  Of course, liberals will have a conniption over such a suggestion.  But what is often forgotten by those who emphasize contraception as the answer is that the consequences of pre-marital sex are not merely physical.   There are intense emotional, mental, psychological, and spiritual consequences to having sex outside of marriage.  There is no condom for the heart.  Moreover, we should not be concerned only with avoiding the negatives of pre-marital sex, but the benefits of saving yourself for your husband or wife.  (Some mistakenly think the Bible is silent on pre-maritial sex, but it’s covered by the word “fornication.” Click here for more on that.)

Unfortunately, many parents are reluctant to give the abstinence message.  It’s not because they think their kids would be incapable or unwilling to comply, but because they themselves were not abstinent when they were teenagers.  “How could I be such a hypocrite,” they think.  Well, there’s a difference between being a hypocrite and being a teacher.  Hypocrites tell you not to do something while they willingly do it themselves.  Teachers, on the other hand, know that they’ve hurt themselves and others by their past sins and mistakes and want to teach you to take the better path.

I’m not suggesting that you reveal to your kids your own sexual history.  I’m simply saying that you don’t need to be morally perfect to be a good parent or a teacher.  We have no trouble teaching our kids not to steal despite the fact that every one of us has stolen something in our lives.  It’s time we applied that same logic to the issue of sex.  We can spare our kids a lot of pain, and protect them for their future, if we do.

/by

Yes, Mr. Spitzer and Mr. Obama, Character Matters

The brilliant Thomas Sowell interjects some good judgment into what he calls “‘Non-judgmental’ Nonsense.”  Click here.

/by

"Expelled" is a Must See: Freedom is the Victim

I just had the privilege of attending an advance screening of Expelled:  No Intelligence Allowed, starring Ben Stein.  The movie, which opens April 18, is a must-see for any American interested in freedom (that should be all of us!).   Expelled uses the Berlin Wall as a metaphor for the wall that the academic and media establishments have erected to keep any intelligent explanation for origins out of the fortress of scientific respectability.   Freedom is the victim of this wall:  academic freedom and freedom of the press in particular.

The movie is not so much an  investigation into the evidence for intelligent design as it is an expose into the suppression of anyone who says there’s evidence for intelligent design.   Investigator Stein exposes the numerous instances of institutionalized bias against professors, scientists and journalists who dare to question Darwinian orthodoxy.  Some who have questioned Darwin and merely mentioned that intelligent design may be a legitimate area of study have been summarily fired from their jobs and blacklisted in their career, hence the title Expelled.  Why are the Darwinists doing this?  What are they hiding?  What are they afraid of?

If you follow the ID-Evolution controversy, you’ll recognize the players on both sides.  Stein meets with ID proponents such as Bill Dembski, Jonathan Wells, Stephen Myer and Guillermo Gonzalez, as well as Darwinists Daniel Dennett, Eugenie Scott and even Richard Dawkins.  In Stein’s disarming manner, he exposes the bias and vacuousness in the positions of the Darwinists, even getting Dawkins to admit at the end that he has no idea how the first life began but that intelligent aliens might be responsible.   With that, Stein points out that Dawkins is actually a proponent of Intelligent Design (for Dawkins, ID is OK if it points to aliens, but not OK if it points to God).

But Expelled is not some dry documentary with a bunch of talking-head interviews strung together.  Interlaced with vintage film clips (some quite funny) and a variety of music genres (the opening is a violin version of Pink Floyd’s The Wall), Expelled moves along at an entertaining pace.  Yet, it takes quite a serious tone when Stein (who is Jewish) makes the connection between the ideas of Darwin and the ideas of Hitler.   Ideas do have consequences, and the Darwinian notion of survival of the fittest led directly to Hitler’s quest to weed out undesirables in his plan to create the super race.  Hitler even made the connection in his 1924 book Mein Kampf.

Several of the Darwinists interviewed expressed that they lost their faith in God because of Darwinism.  Dawkins is famous for saying that Darwinism made him an “intellectually-fulfilled atheist.” However, as Stein points out, Darwin had nothing to say about the origin of life or the origin of the universe. Today, due to discoveries of the universe (it exploded into being out of nothing) and life (“simple” life is far more complex than anything Darwin suspected), those origin questions are even more difficult to answer for the Darwinists.  There are a couple of spots where Stein lets the Darwinists hang themselves with their outlandish speculations of how life began.  It’s so embarrassing that after watching Expelled, those thinking of leaving the faith because of Darwinism may want to reconsider.

My one criticism of the movie is that I wish it had just a bit more on the evidence for Intelligent Design.  There is animation of the interior of a cell, but there is no explanation of what is actually going on.  One key point that needs to be made is this: when we see something with the evidence of design (say Mount Rushmore), we don’t simply lack a natural explanation for it, we have positive, empirically-detectable evidence for an intelligent sculptor (see Chapters 5 and 6 of our book I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist).   However, due to time contraints, I understand why the movie could not go into much detail on the evidence.  The main point of the movie is not scientific evidence but academic freedom.

There’s a lot more that could be said, but Expelled is better seen than said.  This is exactly the kind of movie that Christians should support because it’s much more than entertainment.  The movie communicates an important message without feeling preachy.  You can take anyone to this– believer or not.  If you’re like me, my wife and 15 year-old son, you will walk away feeling that there’s an injustice being done to us all.  Freedom is being suppressed, and we need to speak up to restore the spirit of free inquiry that made this country great.  Expelled is helping to break down “The Wall.”  Will you help as well?

/by

Scandal at Planned Parenthood?

Planned Parenthood ripping off the state of California?  That is the allegation by it’s former vice president of finance and administration.   Read about all the details in the California Catholic Daily.   To see how the drive-by media covers it, see the paltry article in the San Jose Mercury News.

Planned Parenthood was founded  by racist Margaret Sanger who once said: “The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.”   How could an organization founded on such wholesome values stoop to theft?

/by

Obama, Clinton Message: Class Warfare and Unity?

As I watched the debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, I couldn’t help but notice the inherent contradiction in their message (they both have the same message– they were both nodding in agreement with each other all night).  They both say they want to bring the country together (whatever that means), but somehow they think they can do that by engaging in class warfare.  According to Obama and Clinton, all Americans must come together for “change” and “hope,” unless you’re an American who makes more than $75,000 per year.   Somehow, if you make money, Obama and Clinton think you are the problem.

How can the most economically-productive people in our society be the enemy of economic growth?  Aren’t the people who make more than $75,000 creating more jobs and paying more taxes than those making $35,000?  And for those candidates who conveniently quote scripture, aren’t we supposed to use and multiply the talents God has given us?

The class warfare rhetoric isn’t even based on fact.  The truth is the top 1% of taxpayers in the U.S. pay 39% of all taxes (that’s 2 percentage points higher than when President Bush took office).  The top 25% of taxpayers, pay 86% of all taxes.  And the top 50% of all taxpayers, pay 97% of all taxes (HT: www.RushLimbaugh.com).  Moreover, the reduction of tax rates usually results in an increase in tax revenue to the government (as the Bush tax cuts showed). That’s because tax cuts fuel economic growth, which results in more revenue to the government even though the tax rate is lower (e.g. 35% of $200,000 is more than 39% of $150,000).

But even if the rich were not “paying their fair share” (whatever that means), you can’t unify a country by political rhetoric that continually divides people by their income.   Nor can you create economic opportunity by punishing those who create it.

I hope Obama and Clinton dispense with the class warfare rhetoric and give up on their proposed socialist policies.  Everywhere socialism has been tried it has failed, including in health care (rich Brits and Canadians come here for their health care; gee, I wonder why?).  Moreover, class warfare ignites the wrong kind of passion in the electorate– envy, revenge and covetousness.   That’s wasted energy and it produces dependence on government rather than on the true engines of economic growth–opportunity, individual responsibility and hard work.   After all, the government can’t give you anything unless it takes it from another citizen first.  That’s not a good recipe for unity.

/by