Duty to Breed

Colorado State Senator Scott Renfroe said that God "created men and women, male and female, for procreation." For good measure, he added that homosexuality is an "abomination" and a sin "equal" to murder.

A letter by L. E. Bell in today's Rocky Mountain News expresses a similar sentiment on the procreation point: "By simply observing the marvelous and complex design of a man and a woman, it is obvious that the Creator (God) intentionally designed a man and a woman (exclusively) to be married, and to produce offspring."

The argument implies a religious duty to breed. It is behind the Catholic ban on birth control, the Mormon directive to bear as many children as possible, and the Protestant "Quiverfull" movement.

But, while raising children is an important part of many marriages, it is not a necessary part of marriage. Many heterosexual couples choose not to have children or cannot have them. They enjoy marriage for the romantic love, the partnership, the mutual respect, and the physical intimacy. Marriages that do not bear children are not, contrary to the suggestion of Renfroe and Bell, somehow of second-class or diminished status. Likewise, homosexuals can partner to enjoy the same fruits.

Moreover, while homosexual couples cannot get pregnant on their own, women can get pregnant using outside sperm, while men can adopt children (though I'm not sure how this works under modern American and Colorado law). So homosexual couples can raise children. (Is a homosexual couple that raises children superior to a heterosexual couple that does not, according to Renfroe and Bell?)

There is no good reason to claim that married couples have a duty to breed or that their marriage is justified by breeding. There is no good reason to claim that homosexuality is morally wrong (never mind a sin comparable to murder). There is no reason -- there is only religious faith based on an ancient book of mythology.

Theory Versus Practice

One of my beefs with Christianity is that, because of its many unsound ethical tenets, it encourages members to voice one set of principles and act on another. Here is a great example:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's 18-year-old daughter, an unwed mother, says teenagers should avoid having sex.

However, Bristol Palin acknowledges that abstinence is "not realistic at all."

Now, I don't think younger teens have any business having sex (with others), and I look to parental responsibility to address the matter. But of course Christians say that all sex before marriage is wrong, an unjustifiable position. And so we get people like Bristol Palin spouting Christian doctrine while acknowledging its inapplicability to a well-led life. Perhaps if Bristol hadn't been torn between her theory and her practice, she might have been more conscientious about birth control.

Murder Is Not Honorable

Fox reports, "Muzzammil Hassan, 44, remains jailed after being charged with the second-degree murder of his wife, whose body was found Thursday at the office of Bridges TV, their television station in Orchard Park, near Buffalo."

The victim's head was cut off. The possible motive? "Aasiya Hassan filed for divorce on Feb. 6."

The deeper possible motive, of course, is a religious culture that tolerates and even encourages such barbarism. The "religion of peace" seems to have claimed another victim.

Religion and the Law

In response to a column by David Harsanyi in the Denver Post, letter writer Martin Voelker rightly points out that "churches aggressively push their arbitrary 'divine' rules into U.S. laws." How? Many religious people want to outlaw abortion, restrict or outlaw birth control, ban pornography (however defined) and limit naughty language, legally discriminate against homosexuals, etc.

After that Voelker gets off track. He claims that churches "reap billions of public dollars for their tax-exempt enterprises." But this confuses a subsidy with a tax break. If we're going to have non-profits for any sort of ideological advocacy, then the rules must be extended to religious groups. However, religious groups should have to play by the same rules as everyone else. (Ultimately, I think all groups should be "tax-exempt," which would eliminate problems associated with those rules.)

Voelker also quotes a line from an atheist ad: "Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings." But the religious will shoot back that the likes of Hitler have misused science. Natural science is applied, specialized knowledge, and the proper application of science depends on a sound philosophical foundation.

However, Voelker does suggest that, in the broader sense, ethics can be a science; he writes that "we must negotiate what constitutes acceptable ethical behavior based on observations we can agree on." This is a little ambiguous; agreement does not demonstrate ethical behavior -- the goal is to agree on what is true. For a start on that, I recommend such works as the recent book by Tara Smith.

'Personhood' Advances in North Dakoka

The AP reports (via Fox), "A measure approved by the North Dakota House gives a fertilized human egg the legal rights of a human being..."

Those who thought the resounding defeat of a similar measure in Colorado would put an end to such nonsense were overly optimistic. Those driven by faith-based politics will keep pushing their agenda, no matter what, regardless or political or ideological failure.

As Diana Hsieh and I have written, a fertilized egg is not a person. And nobody has every offered any sort of reasonable argument as to why it should be considered a person. But the bill in North Dakota is not about reason. It is about the alleged commandments of God.

Maher Tackles Religion

The most amazing thing about Bill Maher's Religulous, a documentary that criticizes religions of all stripes, is that, so far as I know, Maher hasn't had to worry much about death threats. This movie is a lot more insulting to Islam than, for instance, the Danish cartoons. But Maher is an American, and moreover he's a comedian. Strangely, then, Maher was able to make a more interesting documentary than might have been possible to more "serious" documentarians. I recommend it, despite a variety of flaws.

Religulous has a split personality. It is filled with low-brow jokes and cheap shots. Yet it also reveals a wealth of interesting facts about many religions, such as the predecessors of Christian myths, and its concluding message is surprisingly serious. "Religion must die for mankind to live," says Maher in the closing segments, in which nuclear blasts are superimposed with religious passages. Dark words for a funny man.

The film has two main shortcomings. First, Maher pokes fun at the many absurdities of religion, the low-hanging fruit, but he never gets around to talking about the most sophisticated forms of religion. Thus, Maher's conclusions don't follow from his arguments.

Second, Maher offers no real alternative to religion, he offers only doubt. He is "preaching the gospel of 'I don't know.'" "Doubt -- that's my product," he says. But if he has no answers to the "big questions," how is he possibly going to get the religious to seriously question their faith? In a contest between religion and nothing, religion will win every time. The religious do not lack doubt -- they doubt everything Maher has to day. But man cannot live by doubt alone. He needs a positive philosophy. In the absence of a serious alternative, religion will continue to dominate.

Taxes and Religion in Schools

Mike Adams is irritated that a teacher at Los Angeles City College called a student a "fascist bastard" for promoting religion in a class presentation. And Adams has picked an easy target; the teacher's behavior is inexcusable. However, the target is so easy that Adams neglects to put more serious issues in his cross-hairs.

Adams writes, "In November, Jonathan Lopez attempted to give his informative speech on God and the ways he has seen God act miraculously in his life and in the lives of others. In the middle of that speech, Lopez spoke of God and morality and read the dictionary definition of marriage. He also read two verses from the Bible."

Curiously, Adams neglects to mention what the two Bible verses were, but it's clear where this was headed. The teacher, Adams relates, is a supporter of gay marriage.

The teacher, John Matteson, left a note with the student: "prostyelsyszing [sic] is inappropriate in a public school."

You could make a pretty good case that any teacher who refers to students "fascist bastards" -- as this teacher apparently did twice -- should be fired. What a jerk. Yet Adams fails to seriously explore matters of free speech in the context of tax-funded institutions.

Adams equates the teacher's conduct with censorship with a "chilling effect on First Amendment expression." (I would be interested to learn whether Adams is similarly committed to overturning censorship of pornography and unsavory language.)

The basic issue, then, is whether the student has a Constitutionally protected right of free speech to rail against homosexuals in a tax-funded classroom. The only possible answer is that no answer is possible. Forcing others to fund religiously motivated attacks on homosexuals violates their rights of free speech -- people have the right not to fund speech they find offensive. But excluding such speech violates the rights of the student and his supporters, who also pay (or will pay) taxes. Forced wealth transfers for the propagation of ideas inherently violates people's rights.

The only solution that consistently upholds people's right of free speech -- along with their rights of property -- is to stop the forced wealth transfers. But Adams, along with practically all conservatives, show no interest in that. Instead, many conservatives look to increase tax funding of "faith-based initiatives" and the like.

On a free market, should schools allow speeches, in speech class, of a religious or bigoted nature? I think so. However, a school that allows attacks on homosexuals is going to have a hard time banning racist speeches. My sense is that the student should be able to meet the assignment according to his own judgment, and if he's an idiot, he will earn a reputation as such. Teachers obviously can grade down for lack of cogent argument. Surely there are lines that no school would like to cross, such as neo-Nazi marches on campus. But these are tricky issues best left to the boards and leaders of private institutions.

God's Stimulus

Karl Kappler wrote a peculiar letter to the Rocky Mountain News:

As our nation increasingly turns away from God, we are seeing the tragic results of our infidelity ("Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people," Proverbs 14:34.)

God is the one who bestows blessings on a nation. The proposed economic stimulus package is not the answer. We need to turn back to God if we want to see his stimulus plan unfold. And it's free!

But what is the mechanism by which "God's stimulus" is supposed to work? I take it he won't drop manna, or oil, or power lines from Heaven.

Usually, when one claims a particular cause for something, this is followed by some explanation of how the cause functions. For example, when I claim that the primary cause of the modern economic recession was political meddling in the economy, I point to easy-money Federal Reserve policies and other federal encouragements of risky mortgages (and other investments). But Kappler suggests a cause without explaining how it's supposed to work.

At least "LetsThink" does add some sort of causal theory in the online comments: "Humanists (John Dewey, etc.) took over our educational system, and taught Evolution theory (there is no God) to our youth for several generations. Their strategy worked. There has been an frightening explosion of crime, sex before marriage, homosexuality, pornography, abortion, gambling, and teen suicide."

With respect to crime, "LetsThink" is simply wrong: crime rates generally have fallen. But, even if the other trends are as stated, what does that have to do with the economic recession? Apparently there's a general loss of responsible action, which would feed into irresponsible lending and political decisions.

I actually think "LetsThink" is on to something. Obviously there are deeper ideological roots to the mortgage meltdown; why is it that politicians thought it was a good idea to try to manipulate the economy in certain ways? I do think that a breakdown of education has a lot to do with why so many people greet Obama's grand claims with credulity.

However, notice that America's left has essentially proposed a secular version of religious altruism. It is our duty to serve our fellow man, both lines posit. They merely differ in the details on how to promote that end.

It is a common error of Christian apologists to point to naughty atheists and pretend that they represent atheism. But atheism is not a positive philosophy; it rules out supernaturalism without suggesting a replacement. John Dewey -- whose religious views I won't attempt to summarize -- is as much my enemy as is the religious right.

D'Souza on Darwin

I agree with Dinesh D'Souza's central thesis today: the biological theory of evolution does not, by itself, imply atheism or disprove supernaturalism. I hope that D'Souza's more evangelical brethren note at least the first part of D'Souza's claim: "[W]e can embrace Darwin's account of evolution without embracing his metaphysical naturalism and unbelief." If you're going to be a Christian, at least be a sophisticated one, not a snake charmer.

Beyond that, true to form, D'Souza impugns the motives of his opponents. D'Souza suggests that various atheists latch on to evolution as a way to display their hostility to religion and to God. He writes of Darwin:

When his young daughter Annie died at the age of 10, Darwin came to hate the God whom he blamed for this. This was in 1851, eight years before Darwin released his Origin of Species.

Around the time of Annie's death, Darwin also wrote that if Christianity were true then it would follow that his grandfather Erasmus Darwin and many of his closest family friends would be in hell. Darwin found this utterly unacceptable, given that these men were wise and kind and generous. Darwin's rejection of God was less an act of unbelief as it was a rebellion against the kind of God posited by Christianity. A God who would allow a young girl to die and good people to go to hell was not anyone that Darwin wanted to worship.

Whether or not Darwin's initial motivation was hatred of God, it's neither fair nor accurate to turn concerns over tragedies and hell into basically psychological issues. There is a big difference between rebelling against God -- which presumes the existence of God -- and concluding that God does not exist (and therefore there is no God to blame or rebel against).

D'Souza himself has acknowledged the theoretical difficulties of a God who permits " all the suffering" in the world. And the stricter notions of hell do tend toward a reductio ad absurdum of the faith. Now, many Christians have decent answers to the problem of suffering, and some Christians reject hell altogether. So neither of these issues definitively disproves Christianity.

Issues like evolution, suffering, and hell can prompt one to reconsider the more fundamental foundations of one's religion. While none of those issues, by itself, disproves religion, enough such concerns can -- and should -- promote a deeper examination of one's religious faith. Whether one ultimately retains or rejects that faith depends on one's deeper philosophical conclusions.

Huckabee on 'Anti-Religious' Stimulus

Along with Jim DeMint, Mike Huckabee is primarily concerned that the so-called "stimulus" package is "anti-religious."

Andy Barr writes for Politico (via Paul Hsieh), "The former Republican presidential candidate pointed to a provision in both the House and Senate versions banning higher education funds in the bill from being used on a 'school or department of divinity.'"

But declining to force people to fund religious institutions against their will is not "anti-religious," and forcing them to do so would violate their religious freedom.

The problem with the "stimulus" bill is not that it is "anti-religious," but that it massively violates rights through hundreds of billions of dollars of forced wealth transfers.

Flight 1549: Too Busy Flying to Pray

God had nothing to do with saving Flight 1549, as I've argued.

Recently the pilot of the plane, Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, explained to Katie Couric just what did save the day:

Asked if he at any point prayed, he told Couric, "I would imagine somebody in back was taking care of that for me while I was flying the airplane."

"My focus at that point was so intensely on the landing," he said. "I thought of nothing else."

There were just three and a half minutes for Captain Sullenberger to accomplish what only a few commercial airline pilots had ever done, and he was determined to avoid the fate of an Ethiopian airliner, which landed in the Indian Ocean in 1996 and broke into pieces, killing most of the passengers on board.

"What were some of the things you had to do to make this landing successful?" Couric asked.

"I needed to touch down with the wings exactly level. I needed to touch down with the nose slightly up. I needed to touch down at a descent rate that was survivable. And I needed to touch down just above our minimum flying speed but not below it. And I needed to make all these things happen simultaneously," he explained.

And he had to keep his cool. "The physiological reaction I had to this was strong, and I had to force myself to use my training and force calm on the situation," he said.

He told Couric that wasn't a hard thing to do. "It just took some concentration."

This is an amazing story of human courage. To pretend that God somehow saved the plane (apparently after allowing it to crash land) only detracts from the true causes of the happy ending: thoughtful action by pilot, crew, and passengers.

Happy Birthday, Darwin

Charles Darwin was born February 12, 1809. He became one of the world's greatest scientists, and certainly its greatest biologist. His birth date deserves our recognition.

However, I'm a bit leery about an advertising campaign by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. It's funding a Colorado sign stating, "Praise Darwin; Evolve Beyond Belief." Darwin certainly does merit our praise. However, his central significance is not the stir he's caused among the religious; it is his contributions to science. And the advice, "evolve beyond belief," doesn't mean anything. A belief can be true or false. The only way to evolve beyond belief is to quit thinking. The proper goal is to reach true beliefs and shed false ones.

Thankfully, there are much better ways to celebrate Darwin's birth date, such as by checking out his complete works or listening to Keith Lockitch's talk, "Darwin and the Discovery of Evolution."

'Personhood,' Again

The "Voice of the Catholic Lay Faithful" announces:

Febraury 6, 2009 - Washington, DC – The Personhood movement is catching fire as Maryland joins 15 other states across the country working toward the legal recognition of all human beings as "persons" under the law.

Delegate Don H. Dwyer, Jr. will introduce a Personhood Amendment this coming week in the Maryland General Assembly. The amendment recognizes all human beings from their biological beginning as "persons." ...

"Here we are some 36 years after Roe v. Wade, (the Supreme Court decision that decriminalized abortion), and we now have 3-D and 4-D color sonograms that give us a real-time look into the womb," Del. Dwyer said. "There is no doubt today that there is a human being in the womb and that human being should be considered a person."

Whether or not Dwyer "doubts" that a fertilized egg is a person, it is not, in fact, for the reasons that Diana Hsieh and I explain. (Diana pointed me to the link.) Lack of doubt about something does not imply it is true. Certainty results from overwhelming evidence proving something in the total context of knowledge. Lack of doubt, in this case and many others, implies only an unwillingness to seriously question. There is only one way one can reach the conclusion that a fertilized egg is a person, and that is through religious faith.

The cited release makes the same mistake that all proponents of such measures have made: to leap from "human being" in the sense of being alive with human DNA to "person." No such logical leap is warranted; it is an equivocation. But the advocates of such measures have no need for facts or reason; they have faith.

'Attack on People of Faith'

Senator Jim DeMint told Neil Cavuto:

Well, this morning, I went to the National Prayer Breakfast.

Barack Obama spoke about the importance of faith. Tony Blair spoke about the importance of faith. It was a great experience, over 3,000 people from all over the world.

Then, I get back here, and we're working on this so-called stimulus bill that would prohibit any religious activity in any college or university facility that uses any of these funds for modernization or renovation.

It is just a phrase that I think the ACLU had stuck in this bill, because they are the real proponents of keeping it in there, that would really take advantage of religious freedom, Bible studies, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, whether it is on a student center, a dorm, an auditorium where prayer might be offered.

But this is hardly a fundamental problem with the alleged stimulus package. The root problem is that it massively violates rights through billions of dollars of forced wealth transfers. Yes, it violates the rights of the religious to force them to fund activities that exclude religion. But it also violates the rights of others to force them to fund religious ideas and activities.

To his credit, DeMint opposes the "stimulus plan" in general, not just for religious reasons.

Jesus On the Dole

Apparently God needs more welfare. Via Diana Hsieh:

Declaring that "there is a force for good greater than government," President Barack Obama on Thursday established a White House office of faith-based initiatives with a broader mission than the one overseen by his Republican predecessor.

The article discusses the problem of tax-funded religious groups hiring on religious grounds. But that is merely a peripheral problem. The gigantic problem is simply the forcible transfer of funds to faith-based groups. Any such program inherently violates the rights of conscience and property of those who do not wish to finance such organizations.

Obviously the other major problem is that the expanded program will bring religious organizations more under the power and influence of federal politicians. He who pays the piper calls the tune. The bipartisan faith-based initiatives threaten to undermine the separation of church and state that has significantly contributed to the relative liberty of the West.

Everyone who cares about religious liberty, believers and nonbelievers alike, must criticize Obama's effort at every opportunity. Faith-based welfare should not be expanded, it should not be reformed, it should be completely eliminated, in the name of liberty.

Bailouts Versus Free Speech

Fox News reports:

Democrats in Congress have declared war on prayer, say conservative groups who object to a provision in the stimulus bill that was passed by the House of Representatives last week.

The provision bans money designated for school renovation from being spent on facilities that allow "religious worship." It has ignited a fury among critics who say it violates the First Amendment and is an attempt to prevent religious practice in schools.

However, forcing people to fund schools that do allow "religious worship" violates their free speech rights. We have the right not to finance the propagation of ideas with which we disagree.

There is, of course, an obvious solution to this that violates no one's rights of free speech. Reject the bailout.

Hitchens, D'Souza Debate (Again)

Does God exist? Jean Torkelson reviews the recent debate between Dinesh D'Souza and Christopher Hitchens. I didn't attend the debate, as I didn't want to surrender $10 plus an evening to go.

Here's a telling line from D'Souza: "To me, doubt is intrinsic to religious belief. 'Belief' is not the same thing as 'knowledge.' If I knew for sure, I wouldn't have belief. Belief means trusting in God even (with) doubts. That doesn't make belief unreasonable or irrational."

But there is a huge difference between believing something is probably true based on spotty evidence, and believing that God exists based on no evidence. Of course D'Souza claims that various facts about the natural world demonstrate the existence of God, but the natural facts he cites do not support his supernatural conclusion. Notice how D'Souza tries to have it both ways: he claims to prove the existence of God, but in the end he claims that such a proof is unnecessary. God is not only unproved but unprovable and conceptually incoherent. But, as D'Souza makes clear, he will go on "trusting in God" even though he has no good reason for doing so, and such a practice is indeed unreasonable and irrational.

Hour of the Powerless

The AP reports that the massive Crystal Cathedral and its television ministry is having financial trouble. "Members often tie their donations to the pastor, not the institution, said Nancy Ammerman, a sociologist of religion at Boston University."

If I were a Christian, I would wonder whether such fancy spending is really what Christian living is all about. I mean, have you seen the place?

People should be free to give away their money to whomever they please. But the fact that many seem to give it away to a forceful personality raises questions about their motives. It's pretty sad if you've got nothing better to do with your l life than sit around watching some demagogue ask for your money to do "God's" work.

L. Ron Simpson

"Twentieth Century Fox television would not comment on whether Nancy Cartwright, the voice of Bart on 'The Simpsons,' will face disciplinary action following her voice message urging Scientologists, in Bart's voice, to attend an upcoming conference."

This is a legitimate contractual matter; Fox pays the lady quite a lot (I presume) to provide Bart's voice, and use of the voice elsewhere reduces its value.

Why Scientologists think that using Bart's voice might help them is another matter entirely. But I guess Bart Simpson is taken a lot more seriously in the culture than L. Ron Hubbard.