I mentioned earlier that there’s a bill in the Maryland legislature to allow gay marriage. So wouldn’t you know it, that’s bringing out the religious anti-equality brigade.
Via FSTDT, I learn about Protect Marriage Maryland, a group affiliated with NOM (at least, according to Yahoo! News; this fact appears neither on NOM’s nor PMM’s site, as far as I can tell. It’s almost as if they’re embarrassed to be associated with each other).
It’s just a holding page for now, but it says:
Protect Maryland Marriage is a Political Action Committee (PAC) formed to preserve the current Maryland Family Law §2-201 which states that “Only a marriage between a man and a woman is valid in this State.” The following sections go on to state that “A man may not marry his: grandmother; mother; daughter; sister; or granddaughter,” and that “A woman may not marry her: grandfather; father; son; brother; or grandson,” nor may they marry their in-laws, nieces, nephews, or similar family relations by marriage. All of this will be threatened if the marriage law is changed to benefit one small but vocal and well-funded sexual minority.
Oh, goody. A slippery-slope argument. We haven’t had one of those in, oh, fifteen minutes. If Adam and Steve are given the same legal rights as Joe and Mary, then it’s only a matter of time before daughters are having sex with their father, eating bacon is sanctioned by the state, and men are allowed to trim their beards! Who will save us from such defiance of God’s law?
We believe there is value in preserving the traditional definition of marriage, and that efforts to change this definition do violence to the family structure
Pray explain to me how allowing two men or two women to marry would affect existing marriages, or prevent me from marrying a woman?
and the reality that children do best when raised in a stable family with the love, attention, and physical presence of their biological mother and father.
I hear this argument a lot, and it basically comes down to stereotyping.
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that the premise is true; that the optimal environment for children is for them to be raised by their loving and attentive biological parents. Let’s say that children raised this way have a 95% chance of completing college, of holding down a steady job, of not having any serious mental problems, of staying out of prison, of not becoming addicted to any drugs, and of maintaining a healthy body weight. All of that.
Let’s say that children of gay parents, children of divorced parents, children of gay parents, children of adoptive parents, children of parents who live together but aren’t married, all do worse than the optimum.
Let’s grant all that, for the sake of argument.
So what?
Should we tell unmarried couples that, because the odds are against them, they shouldn’t even have a shot at trying to raise normal, well-adjusted kids? Is that really the argument? “You probably won’t get an A+, so you shouldn’t be allowed to try”?
Because if that’s the argument, shouldn’t we forbid interracial marriages again, if those don’t last as long as intraracial marriages? Should we forbid marriages between members of different religions, for the same reason? Should divorce be forbidden once a couple has children? Should straight married couples be forbidden from adopting children?
Should we note that most world-class mathematicians are men, and forbid universities from admitting women into their math programs?
We believe that the current marriage law enshrines this reality. While some families may not always be able to provide such opportunities to every child, keeping the current law is the best way to respect the natural family, the rights of a biological mother and father to be able to raise their own children, to educate their children and teach them their own religious values–not the religious values of the state
The state doesn’t — or at least shouldn’t — have religious values. It should be neutral. That’s what the first amendment is all about, remember? Freedom of religion and freedom from religion?
Or is “teach […] the religious value of the state” code for “acknowledging that there are people of other religions, or none, and they have the same rights as we do”? If so, first amendment again.
–and to provide the model for an ideal family for children to be raised in.
For this argument to carry any weight, everyone who is currently allowed to get a marriage certificate in Maryland has to be put in the “ideal family” category. This includes serial divorcés, people who don’t like or want children, and so on, and so forth.
We are a non-partisan group composed of many faiths, different races, and all types of citizens who are concerned for the future of our state, our country, and our world being threatened
Our world is being threatened by gay marriage? Oh, puh-leeze. Quit whining and stop exaggerating. Don’t you know that hyperbole will melt the earth’s crust and unleash flocks of flying demon-hippos to piss on the heads of the godly?
by those who seek to force moral, law-abiding citizens to embrace or accept behavior that most of us find contrary to the tenets of our deepest religious & philosophical beliefs. The first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees that Congress will not violate our FREEDOM OF RELIGION. We firmly believe that as citizens of Maryland, our state legislature should do the same.
And you know what? Having the state grant marriage certificates will do nothing to stop churches from marrying whomever they like, or refusing to marry whomever they like. If you want to marry a man’s dog to his garden rake, go ahead (just don’t expect them to get a marriage certificate). And likewise, you can continue to be as bigoted as you like. Just don’t expect the state to impose your religious views on others.
The first amendment gives you the right to practice your religion. It does not give you the right to inflict it on others. You do not have the right not to be offended.
Here’s a video from ProtectMarriageMD’s YouTube channel:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NLPCkk9-YQ&w=560&h=345]
Note how they’re not even pretending that this isn’t motivated by religion.
Over on YouTube, Evid3nc3 has a movie about his deconversion:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSy1-Q_BEtQ&w=560&h=345]
I say it’s a movie because at nearly three hours (and counting; it isn’t finished yet), it’s really a documentary movie. But I think it’s well worth the time to watch it: for one thing, instead of just talking into a camera for three hours, he uses graphics to illustrate his points and to provide references.
For another, he covers the fact that religion “degrades gracefully”, as they say in systems parlance: there are multiple components, but none are essential (kind of the opposite of “irreducible complexity”). For instance, the phone system and power grid have lots of interconnected nodes, so that if, say, a station in Chicago breaks down, the rest of the system is unaffected: you can still make calls from Los Angeles to Mobile. The sound quality might suffer, or the system might only be able to handle a smaller load, but calls will still go through.
Likewise, there are a number of elements supporting religion: the morality it provides, the power of prayer, the influence of other believers, and so on. Even if you knock one of these out, e.g., by demonstrating that creationism is bunk, the other elements remain. Evid3nc3 goes through these and shows how each one, in turn, crumbled when he examined it closely.
His story also resonates with me because we both started out the same way: by trying to figure out the whole “God” thing, but also preferring truth over comforting fiction. Of course, big parts of his journey are different from mine, but the endpoints are similar.
Anti-gay-rights activists, when they’re not busy being worried about all the buttsecks going on without them, are fond of pointing out that God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. Clearly, men are supposed to fuck women, not other men.
Except, remember why God made Eve in the first place?:
18 The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.
20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found.
<p .21 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.
22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
In other words, Eve was Plan B. The original idea, apparently, was for Adam to stick his dick in one or more of the animals. Literally get some pussy, if you will.
So I don’t see why the homophobes are so upset at the thought of two dudes getting it on. At least they’re dating inside their own species.
I’ve been invited to be a contributor at Secular Perspectives, a blog associated with the Washington Area Secular Humanists.
My first piece is up now, and begins thus:
Have you ever watched a movie where some people are stuck in a broom closet or a train compartment, and wondered “Gee, I wonder how they managed to fit the camera operator in there with all those people”?
The trick, of course, is that they don’t: there’s a set with four walls that make the closet, and they remove one of the walls to allow the camera to shoot the scene. Then they can replace that wall and remove a different one, to shoot the scene from another angle.
All of these pieces of film are then edited together so that as you’re watching the movie as it cuts back and forth from one shot to the next, you’re also seeing scenery and props jumping in and out of existence (with the occasional revealing mistake — glasses inexplicably filling up, cigarettes magically growing longer and shorter, and so forth).
A similar phenomenon goes on in arguments and claims about gods.
One common creationist objection to evolution is “where did the information come from?“.
There are many responses to this. But one thing that often gets lost in the noise is: it doesn’t matter.
What matters is, how do new organs appear? How do new body parts, behaviors, genes, chromosomes appear? As long as that happens, it matters not one whit whether “information” goes up, down, or sideways. In fact, if you define “information” as “the entropy of the universe, with a minus sign in front”, it’s easy to demonstrate that evolution requires a decrease in “information”.
The problem is that it’s fairly easy to show with a few examples that “new” organs, aren’t actually new, but really just variations on a theme. Think of bat wings and human hands, for instance. There are also many known types of mutation, including gene duplication, that can plausibly lead to the sorts of variation we see.
These examples are simple and clear enough that lay people can understand them. So creationists focus on “information” and play the same game as with “kind”, “God”, and “designer”: use a word that everyone thinks they understand, at least somewhat, rely on handwaving, intuitive arguments to make their case, and stubbornly refuse to provide a formal, testable underpinning for this intuition.
There’s a big difference between understanding a thing, and merely knowing the name for it. The “where does information come from?” argument plays on the fact that you can have a name for an ill-defined concept. So my advice is to treat “information” the same way as “quantum charm” or “GDP” or “melanoma”: if you don’t have a good idea of what the term means, ask your interlocutor to clarify until you’re sure you’re talking about the same thing.
And if it turns out that under some definition, an increase in “information” is impossible, well, who cares, as long as it doesn’t prevent the evolution of limbs and organs?
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Matt’s response:
Matt: It’s absurd to think that Moses was required for people to know that killing is wrong. We live in society, we interact with each other, and we can see the consequences of our actions. That’s all it takes.
He agrees that truth is truth, regardless of what anyone thinks.
Truth is an emergent property of the universe. Morality arises from the interaction of thinking, reasoning beings in society.
Jacobse clarifies that if we know killing is wrong, it’s not because Moses delivered that law. He rambles on for a while about “narrative”, and how atheists can discover moral truths, before coming back to his central point: that he wants there to be an ultimate authority for what’s right.
He adds that he could enjoy a beer with Matt.
And then he turns right around and blames eugenics on “the atheist experiment” in the 20th century. This is the beginning of the Godwin theme that will make up most of his argument for the rest of the debate.
If I understand correctly, he’s saying that truth is a person. Which is patent nonsense.
Stay tuned for part 4, in which Matt FAQs up the priest.
(See what I did there? “FAQs him up”? No? Should I have gone with “Kung FAQ grip” instead?)
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Hans Jacobse’s opening statement:
The first problem comes less than two minutes in: “Atheism, properly understood…” In other words, “I’m about to tell you what you believe”, not a promising beginning for a fruitful debate.
He continues:
Atheism, properly understood, allows for no objective existence of anything non-material, not made from matter. Philosophical materialism is the philosophical ground of atheism.
One word: software.
Software is non-material. It is, if I understand the definition that Jacobse gives later on, transcendent. On one hand, you can change a book by altering the ink pattern on its pages; on the other hand, you can convert the ink patterns to air vibrations or a flow of electrons, and still have the same book.
This is not some abstruse academic question. It is a practical matter that comes up every time you agree to a software license that says you own the DVD, but not the program on the DVD. It keeps an army of intellectual property lawyers employed. So I hope Jacobse isn’t saying that atheists deny the existence of non-material things like music, mathematics, and personalities.
I would argue as a historian that atheism cannot exist except in a Christian society. I would argue that. It’s actually an outgrowth of our Christian heritage.
I’m sure this will come as a shock to atheists in Japan, India, and Israel, to pick but a few.
does atheism even acknowledge the independent existence of the transcendent, or any being, or even principle apart from matter, apart from that which can be quantified using the tools of science? The answer, at least if the atheist is true to his premises, must be no.
Again, thank you for telling me what I believe. What would I do without you?
You can’t see it in the video, but there’s a mounting pile of strawmen behind his podium.
He goes on to trot out the “no ultimate authority” boogeyman.
But the value he [the atheist] places on one moral act over another is necessarily derivative, which is to say dependent on a view of the universe, of nature and reality, that is not his own.
In other words, we’re incapable of figuring things out on our own.
But even other religions recognize what I consider an elementary fact of the universe: man cannot live by bread alone, which is to say that man is more than the molecules that shape his body.
This seems trivially true, given that the molecules that make up our bodies get recycled every so often, even while we continue to be the same person. And no one argues that a given person is equivalent to a few bucks’ worth of water and other chemicals. The arrangement of those chemicals is crucial.
I think what he’s tap-dancing around is that if the universe is “merely” arrangements of matter, then there’s no magic, and he wants there to be magic.
Truth is a category of existence. A transcendent category of existence, which is to say truth exists apart from any comprehension that I may have of it.
I think this is as close as he ever gets to defining the term “transcendent”.
The truth, and thus morality, can never escape a sort of continuous relativism in the atheist paradigm. Imprisoned, that is, to the shifting winds of the day.
I’ve addressed this elsewhere. Even if our discussions of morality don’t include an ultimate supreme authority, our morality won’t be arbitrary because it’s tethered to reality: we can look at specific actions and events, be it the Holocaust or a parking ticket, and decide whether we like those outcomes, and what sorts of rules we can come up with to codify them.
The most maddening part about this presentation was the way that Jacobse erected an army of straw men, punctuated with the occasional present-company-excluded, and ignored the points that Dillahunty made in his opening statement just prior.
But it gets worse.
I recently happen to come across your website
www.ooblick.com through the section /text/evoquotes. Actually, I had bookmarked the quotes some time ago and happen to cleaning up some old favorites when I saw them again. I do not know if this website is still being maintained or if you are still interested in any dialogue about it. My first question is are these quotes for real? If so, doesn’t it give you even a small pause regarding your anti-creationist stance? I moved up to your main page and it is quite an interesting collection of works. I particularly like the “ooblick” recipe itself. I didn’t realize that I had been inadvertently making ooblick every time I created a rue to thicken my gravy.In any case, I am a creationists and that is my main concern with your page, in particular the “message to creationists”. It appears the site is quite dated and I’m wondering if it has ever been updated. You may feel you’ve heard every argument before and if you are not interested in any feedback that is perfectly fine. You simply need not respond. Likewise, I don’t want to spend a lot of time on this message if you are not interested in any polite and respectful dialogue.
I will give you this feedback, however, if you are still listening. If you’d like to respond, I would be interested in discussing it in more detail, point by point. There didn’t appear to be a way to respond publicly on your site, so I’m sending you this email. You claim to have heard every anti-evolution argument there is. However, if that were true, you wouldn’t be posting the fallacious comments you have made. To be honest, there is very little if anything that is true on this page. What is surprising to me is that you are critical of creationists for not understanding evolution, yet you have not bothered to even look up creation theory. This is not surprising to me. If you think about it, we are all indoctrinated in evolutionary dogma in school, so there are few people that do not understand at least the basics of evolutionary theory. Since scientific creation theory is not allowed to be taught in school, I’ve never met an evolutionist that had an inkling about what creation theory is actually about.
Throughout the site you appear to want creationist to provide extremely specific detail about the ancient past, yet you do not insist on these same standards for evolutionists. For example, when exactly did the first life form appear? Where on earth did it appear? what did it look like? How many years did it take before it evolved into something else? If it actually happened, why can’t we repeat the event in the lab? Please provide a complete list of transitional forms between this first life and the organisms found in the Cambrian explosion. Where is the Oort cloud (the supposed source of short term comments that demonstrate a young universe)? Really, this list could go on ad infinitum and I doubt you could answer any of them. On the other hand, I can actually answer many, if not most, of the questions on your site.
There certainly are well defined creationists theories regarding our origins and they are backed by substantial POSITIVE evidence in their favor. In no way is creationism simply anti-evolution. However, just as evolutionists point out faults with creation theories, it is natural for creation scientists to do the same. After all, there are only two viable scientific theories of our origins at the moment and any negative evidence against one is evidence in favor of the other. That is because we are talking about historical theories and it is the preponderance of the evidence which matters, since neither can be scientifically proven.
This is already long, but if you would be interested in having me actually respond to your comments point by point, I would be happy to oblige.
…tom
Okay, tell you what. Why don’t you take your “viable scientific” theory of creation, remove all the bits that have been debunked ad nauseam and refuted in the Index of Creationist Claims (such as CA510.1, your assertion that evidence against evolution is evidence for creationism), and see what you have left.
If it’s still a viable scientific theory that can withstand scrutiny, and can be tested through experiment, come back and we’ll talk about it.