Imagine no Religion...

This news breaks my heart. We are living in the 21st Century. However, in Somalia on October 28 a woman who was raped was found guilty of "adultery" by Islamic courts, buried to her neck, and STONED TO DEATH. All of this occurring in a soccer stadium in front of a crowd of thousands...

Why do I, an atheist, care about religion?

Because of stories like this. Stories of people who might otherwise be good, be so manipulated by "infallible dogma" that they can commit heinous evil.

And before the Christians can claim a moral high ground, I would recommend they check out the following verses in their bibles:
First: Mat 5:18-20 to establish the fact that the Law stands... every "jot and tittle" straight from Christ's supposed mouth.

Let's take a look at the Law the "perfect, all knowing, all good, all powerful God" commanded:
Deuteronomy-
17:2-7 <--Kill everyone who has religious beliefs that are different from your own.
24:10-23 <--Whoever curses or blasphemes must be stoned to death.
A man curses and blasphemes while disputing with another man. Moses asks God what to do about it. God says that the whole community must stone him to death. "And the children of Israel did as the Lord and Moses commanded."

Who else should be killed, Lord?
Homosexuals should be stoned: Leviticus 20:13
Children that Curse their parents: Leviticus 20:9 Exodus 21:17
If women being raped don't scream loud enough: Deuteronomy 22:23-24
A woman if she isn't a virgin on her wedding night: Deuteronomy 22:13-22

Don't pretend for a second that Christianity is any better... just don't.

However, I can pre-empt a popular response. If you turn your bibles to John 7:53-8:12 you can read the story of Jesus and the Woman taken in adultery. it's everyone's favorite verse, "Let the one who is without sin among you be the first to cast a stone at her." Powerful stuff. Then, he actually lets the girl go and doesn't condemn her (possibly because she's actually innocent, because he's never let a guilty person off the hook without a good chastising in any of his other accounts). It raises some questions... does Jesus really think the Law of God given by Moses was no longer in force and should not be obeyed? Did he think her sin should not be punished?

Doesn't matter, actually because here's the kicker: it was not originally in the Gospel of John. In fact, it was added later by scribes. The story is not even found in early manuscripts of John; such as the two 3rd century manuscripts of John's gospel (P66 and P75 for "papyrus 66 and 75") as well as the 4th century Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus where we get more or less the best and most complete early version of John's gospel. No, the story mysteriously pops up circa 400 AD in Codex Bezae. The vast majority of textual scholars even admit that this story was made up.

For the laypeople, here's a wikilink:
Pericope of the Adulterer

Why I'm voting for Obama.

I've said a lot about why I'm not voting for McCain and Palin. However, I've not suggested any good reason to vote for Obama. Here's a massive start:



Cheers.

Don't Vote

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Election topic: Gay Marriage

I'm in an ongoing debate concerning whether or not gay marriage should be made law. I think that it should. I wonder if any of my blog readers have anything on the subject that they'd like to say.

My Case For Changing the Civil and Legal Definition of Marriage to Include Same Gender Couples

First, we’ll begin with definitions:

1. What do we mean by marriage in this context?

2. What are Same Gender Relationships? (this is important in our analogy within the Civil Rights Argument)
a. What is homosexuality?

And the conclusion… this is painless. :-D

3. The Case for Civil rights
a. The importance of Civil Rights.
b. Gay Marriage is a matter of civil rights that is different, but analogous to the change in marriage law to include interracial marriages. I will ultimately argue that the Supreme Court case that recognized Interracial Marriages as a civil right under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution has.

1. What do we mean when we say Marriage?

Quote:
My Opponent says,
"We have all talked about marriage in our own terms. My ordering toward procreation, Erik's expression of love, Corvines "human well being", and all of that, these are not the objective definition of marriage. If you are to look at just the objective definition of marriage, without any connotation whatsoever, it is just a word. Marriage means marriage, just like how cheese means cheese, and jump means jump."

The debate that we’re having concerns the civil, legal union of (at the moment) of a man and a woman. For the purposes of this debate, we are only talking about the civil institution of marriage as it is recognized by the government. That is, informal or non-legal union (such as any religious ceremony) is not what we’re talking about.

Because we are talking about the civil institution, it is subject to law, and law is subject to lawmakers. These lawmakers can change the law to reflect the desires of their voting constituencies (the people) while at the same time ensuring as much personal liberty as possible (ideally). So, marriage in this sense, is a social creation. Also, it doesn’t appear that the people of the U.S. want to get rid of marriage and still wish the institution to persist… so I’m not going to concern my arguments with whether or not we should get rid of it.

This also raises another important point: Marriage exists only as how we define it as a civilization. Marriage has not looked the same over time, and responds to the rapid evolution of our social mores and taboos.

-Until the mid 19th Century, women had no legal rights in marriage. They could not own property, sign contracts, or legally control any wages they might earn.

-As late as 1930, twelve states allowed boys as young as 14 and girls as young as 12 to marry (with parental consent).

-As late as 1940, married women were not allowed to make a legal contract in twelve states.

-In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down state anti-miscegenation laws in Loving v. Virginia. As a result of the decision, Virginia and fifteen other states had their anti-miscegenation laws declared unconstitutional. Those states were: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia.

Quote:
My opponent also says,
”Here is the interesting part: most of the connotations of marriage are derived from the objective definition, and its practice. If you change marriage, you change the connotations that are attached to it.”

This illuminates a fundamental flaw in many arguments concerning same sex marriage: opponents believe that there is some objective definition of marriage.
Examining the historical record shows that this is simply mistaken.

Here are some attributes of a civil and legal marriage and the attached connotations:

1. The people getting married must be of legal age and consenting adults. In most instances this is 18 years old (the time the country recognizes, for the most part, that you are an adult). This completely invalidates any argument for pedophilic marriages (they aren’t adults or legally consenting) or human-animal marriages (they aren’t legally consenting citizens).

2. Marriage typically requires proof of citizenship; however it doesn’t preclude one partner from having citizenship in a different couple from getting a legally-recognized marriage. I just tacked this on there because it further invalidates the human-animal marriage “rebuttal”.

3. You also must be mentally lucid in order to get married. This is important because it (ideally) prevents people from obtaining marriages while intoxicated for obvious reasons (namely that it distorts our judgment and ability to give sound consent). This is just the final nail in the coffin of the human animal marriage argument.

4. You cannot be too-closely related to your intended spouse. So incest is out.

5. Either partner can have any possible ethnicity without prohibition or penalty. We’ll get to why this later.

Here are some things about marriage that aren’t required.
1. You are not required to be in love. This is because there is no way in a court of law for us to prove one way or another that two people are or aren’t in love. This usually is not an issue because marriage is a contract made by consenting adults, and people that aren’t in love don’t tend to get married. I make this point because any debate about whether or not homosexuals are in love is just as irrelevant.

2. You are not required to have sex, to prove you’ve had sex, or to pledge to have sex. I’m sure this sounds strange when talking about marriage, but bear with me. Shakers can get legally married. Celibate monks can get married. Marriage is not a recognition of a sexual relationship, it is a recognition of a legal relationship. This is also why it is a false distinction to suggest that “sex matters” when homosexuals wish to get married. Recognizing a Same Sex Relationship does not, therefore, require that there be any commentary on the sex life of that relationship—it is a legal non-issue. This also means that, contrary to what my opponent has stated, marriage is not changed so that it connotes their “sexual behavior”. Here’s where I believe the logic of my opponent is mistaken:

Quote:
”If sexual preferences or the act of sex is irrelevant, then a homosexual can enjoy marriage to a member of the opposite gender (another irrelevant point) just as much as a heterosexuals could enjoy this marriage. So, there is no reason to alter the definition of marriage to suit sexual desires, preferences, or orientation because those are irrelevant to the issue and to practice.
If you are saying that sex is such a relevant factor that constitutes change to marriage (the defining factor for homosexuals), then you are tearing down the loving, caring, and compassionate side of marriage to being about sex and sexual acts that are not about procreation. You say things by doing this, like the relationship that a man and a woman have can't be what it is without the sexual desire/act in regards to non-procreative purposes. This, of course, is a slap in the face of these relationships.

You should understand from paragraph 2 why this is an erroneous position.
Even though I say sex is irrelevant, I do not say that the consensual relationship is irrelevant. Quite the opposite, in fact. You bring up procreation… which leads to the next point…

3. You are not required to ever, if the consenting adults choose, make children. As many marriages do tend to result in childbirth, the institution has accommodated this through multiple benefits as well as equally (legally) shared partnership by the couple over the raising of the child. Now, I think that these benefits should be given to all parents, regardless of the marital status and for the most part they are—if only for the sake of the child. The reason I bring this up is because my opponent defines marriage this as such:
Quote:
I have to repeat this point nearly every post it seems: "Ordered Toward" does not mean "Only a Means to". The key difference is that success or failure at an attempt does not change the nature of that attempt at all. Therefore, the infertility of a couple is classified as a "failed attempt" at procreation, instead of being different in nature altogether.
If you have a relationship that is founded on the infertility of one or both of the partners, then this is an abomination that does not deserve the respect of marriage.

You probably know why this statement is also wrong. Marriage is not “founded on fertility” (my quotes, not his, I know what his statement reads). This is not how we define marriage. Marriage makes legal provisions for a couple that decide to have babies, but it is not about babies.

Tangentially, it should also be noted that an infertile couple’s “attempt” at procreation will be as successful as a homosexual couple’s attempt—every time. Neither are “failed attempts”, they are both “futile attempts” (depending on the severity of the infertility, of course). However this makes me wonder… if the last line is to be supported, what about the young married couple that decide they don’t want to procreate? What if the woman gets a hysterectomy? Should we then remove their rights as a married couple because they are willfully abstaining from procreation?

I suspect that you do not think we should.

2. What are Same Gender Relationships?
This one should be easy. Same gender relationships or, if you prefer the Greek, homosexual (meaning of the same sex, or gender) relationships are by all definitions completely similar to their heterosexual counterparts except in two regards:

-The members of the relationship are the same gender!
-Because they are the same gender, any sexual activity that they choose to participate in will not produce offspring!

Other than this, there is no reason to believe that same gender couples cannot carry on the same relationships that heterosexual couples (you know, the folks we let marry each other) do!

But that’s strange! Why would anyone be attracted to the same gender?

Good question. There’s no smoking gun that people are born with their sexual orientation completely sorted out. However, there is good evidence to suggest that there is a genetic component and environmental component to the people they desire to have relationships with.

But there is an important lesson to be learned: asking for the specific reasons that people are homosexual is a valid scientific inquiry, it is actually secondary to an even more important fact. Human beings have no choice in what gender they choose to form meaningful (sometimes intimate) relationships with. It’s also worth mentioning that we don’t consider homosexuality the same as Albinism or Klinefelter Syndrome (my opponent suggests any comparison to genetics demands this analogy) for the obvious reason there is no pathology associated with homosexuality (there’s also intrinsic to Klinefelter or Albinism that would preclude them from getting married).

Now why is this important…?

Let’s examine a bit of history:

3. The Case for Civil Rights

Rewind the clock to April of 1967. The Apollo program has started up recently, the Vietnam War is in full swing, and one year from now (nearly to the day) Martin Luther King Jr. will be assassinated. However, he would live to see some of his dream fulfilled. For 3 years ago, in 1964, congress passed the U.S. Civil Rights act which stated, “All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin or sex.” This also validated the 14th Amendment, which ensures all people due process and equal protection under our laws.

Anyway, the Supreme Court is hearing a case. A white man, Richard Loving, married a non-white (she was of mixed Native American and African American descent) woman outside of their home state of Virginia. They did this because Virginia had a law known as the “Racial Integrity Marriage” which banned the marriage of any white and non-white couple (this was known as an anti-miscegenation law). Police discovered them in their home (after they had returned to marriage) and attempted to prosecute them for breaking this law….a case which worked its way up to the Supreme Court and this eventful day. The trial lasted from April until June 12th; when the Supreme Court made its, unanimous, decision that the anti-miscegenation laws were indeed unconstitutional and violated the right of the couple to due process and equal protection of the law (including marriage) protected by our 14th Amendment.

So why do I bring up interracial marriage as an analogy?

Because my opponent’s statement…
Quote:
If sexual preferences or the act of sex is irrelevant, then a homosexual can enjoy marriage to a member of the opposite gender (another irrelevant point) just as much as a heterosexuals could enjoy this marriage.
…is no less bigoted than a Virginian suggesting that because interracial marriage is an aberration of “his definition” of marriage, Loving can enjoy a marriage as long as it’s with a white woman.

Some people grow up and find they are attracted to blondes. Others like brunettes. Still others prefer a sense of humor, curly hair, compassion, honesty, small feet, a big nose, green eyes, a laugh, a brilliant smile, dark skin, light skin. Some men like men. And some women like women. None of us have a choice in what general characteristics we like. Hopefully all of us will find someone who finds us as fascinating, unique, beautiful, funny, and profound and choose to spend their lives with us. Usually our country doesn’t care about our preferences. And they shouldn’t.

Because if two consenting adults decide to live the rest of their lives together and have this union recognized by the country, I believe they have a Constitutional Right to do so. And I have yet to hear a good reason that this shouldn’t be so.

I’m proud of my country. It was founded on this idea of freedom. But when it comes to the story of Same Sex Marriage… we still live in a tragic era where we deny the civil liberties based upon a moral objection against a particular relationship preference.

My moral objection shouldn’t impinge upon your freedoms so long as your freedoms don’t limit mine. I’ve got hope that the ideologues will set aside their freedoms and embrace the idea that, “while I might not agree with your choices, I’ll protect to the death your liberty.”


Think about it.

An open mind!

You know the Minchin music video I had up in my blog? The one entitled "If you open up your mind too much your brain will fall out"? Apparently Eagle Vale Anglican Church minister, the Reverend Craig Hooper, says he was keeping an open mind about a cloud.

What cloud, you might ask?

This Cloud

Enjoy :-D

In other news, a Catholic Priest says Jesus wasn't god, Mary wasn't a virgin, and the resurrection never happened: CLICK

Physicians of integrity..

I intend to be a Physician with integrity and character. That is, I don't intend to mislead my patients. I do intend to at the same time my autonomy and theirs. That is, they may choose whether or not to permit my course of treatment or may choose from a less desirable option so long as I'm permitted the freedom to consent as well. This all comes from a more or less libertarian philosophy that people have the freedom to choose what is done to them (granting some exceptions, like children, emergencies, and the mentally unstable) as well as the freedom for Doctors to choose when it comes to non-elective procedures.

This all, of course, relies on a Doctor's commitment to "first, do no harm" and to do to the best of my ability "for the good of my patients".

These are ethical statements. These are philosophical positions that we take as Physicians that are far more fundamental to the profession than biochemistry and physiology.

I'm not the sort of person that accepts big concepts arbitrarily. Surely these ethical principles come from somewhere... but where do they come from?

I think that in order for people to be good Physicians, they must at one point question how we can come to know what is "right" and what is "wrong". Without any concept of this, then how can we take the Hippocratic Oath with any intellectual honesty?

This question is too big for a single entry, much less a blog, to discuss. But I think it is worthwhile talking about a few of the wrong answers to the question of ethics.

Wrong answer #1 There is no absolute morality. It is relative to upbringing, culture, the powerful, etc (insert justification). Why do I think this is wrong? The simple answer is that it fails the law of non-contraditon. That is, in order for the statement to be true it would have to be false. Isn't stating that "morality is relative" in itself a relative statement?

Secondly, I don't think a whole lot of people really believe in moral relativism. The easy way to convince people of this is to do something they might not like, like kick them in the shin. "That wasn't nice!" they might respond. "Well according to your morals it wasn't right. But according to mine, it was morally just." This is a trite example, you could get more complex, but you get the point.

Wrong answer #2 We get our morals from God (or some other transcendent law-giver). Now, my problem isn't if the morals themselves are somehow transcendent or metaphysical in nature, but with the idea that there is some being... some moral law-writer.

Here's why: Is something "good" or "right" because God commands it? Or does God command it because it is "good" or "right"?

If the latter is true, then "good" exists outside of the supposed "law giver". However, if the former is true, then morality is relative to God's Will. So that if God asked us to kill our kid (a la Abraham) it would be a "good" thing. Also it doesn't follow that just because the law giver can't do wrong if we define what he/she does as "good" that he/she "won't" do (by our understanding) evil.

Then again, none of this is a big problem. Because in order to take this question seriously, you've got to presuppose that there is a God. Since you can't prove this presupposition, our concept of "good" and "evil" is suddenly outside of our realm of knowledge.

I feel so Greek.

I wish we would talk more about such things...

I was thinking the other day, an activity that I like to do and don't allot nearly enough time to partake in, and it occurred to me that I lack a very important virtue in my philosophy sometimes: humility.

I'm beginning to understand why Dawkins' and Hitchen's philosophy is often, erroneously, mislabeled "militant". Dawkins and Hitchens are activists. And, by being persuaded by many of their arguments (not all), I feel a moral obligation to debate the more outspoken theists that I meet.

Not surprisingly, this convinces no one to repeal their original claims. And I thought of my own journey, why then had I changed so much from my former apologetics-driven, C.S. Lewisonian Christian background?

Let's begin with a small story about the Theory of Evolution. In high school, I was informed by my parents and peers that the theory of evolution was incompatible with religion. However, their arguments seemed diminished by the certainty that my freshman biology teacher explained the theory, clearly and substantiated by evidence. And so I lived in a sort of limbo, compartmentalizing evolution as one of those things we all have to learn in high school to graduate. One year, I took a social studies course that examined cultural and religious heritages around the world taught by a very passionate christian man named Jim Warren. Mr. Warren spent a few days outlining the theory of evolution as a "model" which was based upon as much faith as the alternative "model" known as Intelligent Design. His position (from my uneducated mind) seemed unassailable. I took his advice and read from the pillars of ID literature: Wells, Behe, Meyers, etc. I felt excited... like I was one of the special few who knew the conspiracy of knowledge that was Evolution, and equipped rhetorically to battle with those who supported it.

Fortunately for me, I chose to major in a credible Biology program at Hope College (an otherwise religious institution, though you'd be surprised). I made it through the first year of basic biology without much discussion concerning evolution. My second year, however, I scheduled the supposed "organic chemistry of biology": Biology: Ecology and Evolution... the course that would make-or-break a biology major. This course was taught a passionate, argumentative, sharp professor named Dr. K. Gregory Murray.

One day, Dr. Murray decided to open his class to a debate on Intelligent Design. He began with a general discussion on what a scientific "theory" is. Basically, the idea is that "theory" in a scientific sense of the word explains a set of facts. That is, apples tend to fall off trees to the ground, massive bodies tend to be attracted to one another (in a general sense) and this corresponds to an invisible and measurable potential energy. The Theory of Gravity unites these phenomena.

I didn't let him get that far.

He held up a ruler, asking us to predict what would happen if he released the ruler. Like a smartass, I shouted, "It will float." He didn't lose a beat, "Why do you predict that?" "Well Dr. Murray, if you expect us to believe the infinitesimally small probability that somehow simple amino acids, nucleic acids, and lipids could spontaneously arrange into the first simple organisms then I must accept the equally infinitesimally small (sic, I know, it was redundant) probability that the ruler will somehow float..." His response was unexpected: he didn't argue with me. He just egged me on. He let me outline everything I believed: the flawed Miller Urey design, irreducible complexity such as flagella and clotting cascades, as well as my arguments that speciation hasn't been witnessed."

Here's the kicker and what I think separates me from the truly irrational theists: I tacked on, "If I'm wrong, I'm completely open to the evidence and wouldn't mind being shown that I'm wrong." I said this honestly, because I honestly didn't think he had any good evidence. I thought I'd pegged him.

He dismissed class, and I walked out confident that I'd shown him up.

The next time I saw Dr. Murray, he greeted me with a stack of copied research papers. All of them peer reviewed. Each one directly refuting every single argument I made the previous day: papers on the evolution of the flagellum, blood clotting; papers demonstrating observed instances of speciation; papers showing the recent work in abiogenesis (along with a courteous note on the top of the stack carefully explaining that evolution applied as long as life exists. How that life came to exist is not a question that has anything to do with evolutionary theory. Likewise we don't need unified field theory to know about electromagnetism). The note also asked, politely, for me to read through these and re-consider my position.

Thankfully, my intellectual honesty persisted and I found that my previous position on evolution WAS mistaken. I admitted this in front of my classmates as well, happily.

Something remarkable happened. All of that excitement that I'd built up feeling like I was "in the know" as an Intelligent Design advocator started to come back... differently. I began to feel a different, more profound excitement. The parts that weren't slipping into place started to and I was able to at least marvel at the grandeur of the idea. I mentioned earlier how we can know some parts of quantum physics, gravitation, and electromagnetism without having a grand Unified Field Theory in physics. In biology... Evolution is this grand theory! It unifies all of biology in explaining the question of how life could be so complex and diverse. Now I could engage in research and feel like a part of the community. I imagine this is how a histologist would feel after suddenly agreeing with Cell Theory!

This draws back to my original question: How has my life changed over the years?

The answer is that it has changed not from a confirmation of my presuppositions but a willingness to accept viewpoints that explain reality more rationally (this includes being substantiated by evidence) than my previous held positions.

I try to remind myself of that every day.