Tuesday, December 03, 2013
Fanatic homeschooler Kevin Swanson is continuing to condemn the Hunger Games series on what he insists are Biblical grounds. As in regards to the first film, he insists that David in the Old Testament sets a better example for Christian youth because the Hebrew shepherd boy was so deferential to authority that he would not assassinate a slumbering Saul when the opportunity presented itself. Yet their seems to be no indication as of yet in the Hunger Games cinematic storyline of Catniss or any of the other protagonists getting so horny that they have their romantic rivals murdered so they can get their freak on.
Monday, December 02, 2013
Sunday, December 01, 2013
Diseased Televangelist Apparently Lacked Faith
One's sympathies naturally extend to the families that have lost loves ones that aren't serial killers and terrorists.
However, one cannot help but observe in these situations that when you, mere pewfiller, fall ill that to these faith healers it is because of some unconfessed sin in your life (usually refusing to send a direct deposit each month into the bank accounts of these religious charlatans).
Yet when such tragedy befalls these types, the event is spun in terms of them going home to the eternal reward that they so richly deserve.
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Friday, November 29, 2013
Doesn't “How The Grinch Stole Christmas” convey the message that a thief that returns what belonged to you to begin with should be rewarded? The special should have ended with his corpse hanging from the tree in the town square. If the Who's in Whoville weren't so soft on crime, the Grinch would have been too afraid to loot their village.
Isn't 8:30 am on Thanksgiving when a sizable percentage might not even be out of bed a little early to activate the telephone prayer chain? So it's worth the risk of someone getting up and breaking a hip forcing them into the hospital because someone else is on the way to the hospital? God's last name is not Gallup or even Zogby. He's not more likely to answer a prayer the way that you want it just because that petition's polling numbers are on the rise.
Ivy League Word Games Undermine Human Dignity
In Isaiah 5:20 it says, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” At the time abortion was legalized, opponents of the procedure warned that, if this moral floodgate was opened, there would be no telling what might pour through that would further devalue human life overall and increasingly erode traditional taboos.
Those professing to be enlightened and progressive scoffed that such a claim was an over-exaggeration designed to elicit fear. However, in the thirty-plus years since the legalization of abortion, some of the nation’s most celebrated academics in the most prestigious publications are now advocating that we as a society do away with infants that do not live up to some standard while going out of their way to defend the rights of animals and criminals.
Princeton Professor of Bioethics Peter Singer, who advocates bestiality (giving a whole other connotation to the phrase a boy and his dog) and animals rights as epitomized by the Great Apes Project which argues gorillas and orangutans deserve many of the protections enjoyed by human beings, believes that it is permissible to kill an infant up until 28 days after birth because an infant is not self-aware nor worthy of personhood since the baby has no preferences concerning living or dying. Furthermore, such a course of action might be of benefit to the family.
Interestingly, Singer is not some lone crank that got hold of a bad batch of pot in the faculty lounge. Professor Steven Pinker, director of MIT’s Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, in the November 2, 2000 issue of the New York Times Magazine defended the practice of infanticide by suggesting that the killing of an infant should be treated differently than a person.
Pinker argues that we only have a right not to be killed if we have “an ability to reflect upon ourselves as a continuous locus of consciousness, to form and savor plans for the future, to dread death, and to express the choice not to die.” Thus, infants do not qualify for protections against murder, and may be disposed of without offense.
The fundamental issue of this debate is perhaps one of the most important of all in this day of unsettled foundations. That of course is the question of what exactly is a human being.
Both Singer and Pinker argue that newborns should not enjoy legal protection from on the part of parents or the medical establishment because they are not fully human since they have not reached a certain level of development. The traditional ethical position contends that the baby is entitled to the same protections from bodily harm as any other member of the human family. Though these two professors have countless accolades and honors heaped upon them for their acclaimed erudition, both science and Biblical teaching affirm the position considered outdated by influential opinion-makers.
From scripture, it clearly teaches, “Thou shalt not murder.” And though many theologians and Bible scholars grant an exception for the taking of human life in the case of self-defense in the case of war or when confronted by someone intent on doing bodily harm and in the case of capital punishment authorized by the Noahic covenant as spelled out in Genesis 9, in no way does an infant pose the kind of threat presented by these specific exceptions. Inconvenience just does not constitute that manner of bodily harm.
Jeremiah 1:5 says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” In Psalms 139:13-16 it says, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;...My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.”
If the embryo inside the mother is not a distinct person in his own right, how is the Lord able to know a specific collection of cells apart from the mother? Life as a continuum from conception and gestation on through birth and maturation is further confirmed in Psalms 51:5 which says, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” Nonpersons are not capable of existing in a state of sin.
Those with degrees as long as their arms cannot turn around and claim such speculations are ancient Hebrew superstitions. These prophetic revelations are confirmed by the very science the wonders of the modern world are based upon.
Both the fetus and the newborn are as genetically unique at these particular stages as the ethicists and physicians pondering the nuances of this philosophical quandary. Scott Rae writes, “(1) An adult human being is the end result of the continuous growth of the organism from conception. (2) From conception to adulthood, this development has no break that is relevant to the essential nature of the fetus. (3) Therefore, one is a human person from the point of conception onward (142).”
One of the most powerful arguments against both infanticide and abortion is that if you devalue human life at these stages, what is to prevent it from being devalued at other stages by radical utilitarians and the like? This is what happens when the standard suggested by both Peter Singer and Steven Pinker is employed.
For starters, what even is a “continuous locus of consciousness” and even if we knew, how many would even want to reflect upon it? Furthermore, even if one did, shouldn’t human value be based on something more than whether or not the individual is tickled pink at the prospect of his own belly button?
What if the individual does not temporarily possess the ability to reflect upon oneself as a “continuous locus of consciousness”; does this mean the disgruntled spouse has a window of opportunity each night to whack their mate as the sleep and get a get of jail free card? After all, during many stages of sleep one is not even aware of one’s surroundings much less one’s inner emotional workings.
The other criteria used to determine whether or not an infant is worthy of life are no less troubling. Both Pinker and Singer hold to a standard that an individual is not worthy of life unless one has the ability to ask to be kept alive.
If that is the case, if one slips on the ice and knocks themselves out, they had better come to before the ambulance gets there because who knows what organ hungry doctors would do if this criteria is allowed to play itself out. Before you know it, your kidneys and corneas could be on airplanes headed in multiple directions.
All joking aside, Pinker’s comments especially cause one to stop and pause to wonder if these remarks could be used to justify a sliding scale for human life not all that different than the blue books used by insurance companies to assess automobile depreciation. For example, Pinker says, to be worthy of life, one must savor plans for the future and dread death. Since the twenty-year old has more of these than the eighty-year old, doesn’t it then follow that it would be a greater offense to kill the twenty-year old than the eighty year-old? If the Professor has raised his children in light of such values, I trust for his own sake he does not let his guard down around them for fear of what he might find being plunged in his back as he ages.
Furthermore, who at some point in their lives (especially during the moody teenage years) hasn’t gone through a period where they didn’t care one way or the other whether life continued or not? Even if one is no where near jumping off the root of a building or suck fumes out of an exhaust pipe hasn't gone through times where the thought did not transiently skip across out minds how much easier things would be if we simply didn't wake up the next day. That did not mean that those around us had the right to do away with us.
It has been said that a society will be judged by how it treats its weakest members. If current academic opinion about how easily the unborn can be discarded is any kind of barometer, America could be in for a tumultuous twenty-first century.
By Frederick Meekins
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Issue Of Personhood Foundational In Bioethical Debates
In numerous bioethical debates approached from a secular perspective, many seemingly noble principles such as autonomy, individual choice, dignity, the common good, and the preservation of limited resources are invoked to justify various positions. However, when these complex issues are approached from a Judeo-Christian perspective, many times the implications and morality of these decisions are altered profoundly.
Perhaps the most fundamental concern raised by a standpoint informed by the principles of the Bible is none other than personhood. Though something we each possess, its value varies drastically depending on the worldview each of us brings to the concept.
For example, to the person living out a consistently evolutionary or materialistic perspective, the idea of personhood is not that important since it is merely an arbitrarily contrived social and intellectual construct with no inherent worth other than what we decide to give it. Thus, it is no major concern if the concept is altered to exclude those at the extreme ends of life’s continuum unable to sustain themselves apart from intensive medical intervention.
However, if one approaches the matter from the Judeo-Christian perspective, the concept of personhood impacts dramatically the techniques and procedures one finds morally justifiable. Since man is made in the image of God, the life and spirit of man (his personhood if you will) is unique in all of creation. As such, it is due a respect placing it just below the reverence due God Himself.
Since the human being holds a special place in the heart of God, it is God Himself that establishes the guidelines regarding how we are permitted to relate to and treat other human beings. In Genesis 9:6, where God establishes His covenant with Noah it says, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man”. Later in the Ten Commandments this decree is reiterated in the command “Thou shalt not commit murder”.
From this, it is established that it is morally incorrect to take an innocent human life not having itself taken another human life. Therefore, it is improper to deliberately take a human life that does not threaten yours or has not violated the law.
Since the minds of men dwell continually on evil, a number of wily thinkers attempt to skirt around the issue by redefining personhood to make it distinct from the humanity of these individuals facing the prospects of having these procedures inflicted upon them. However, even these attempts prove inadequate as they endeavor to describe things how some would like them to be rather than how God created them.
For humanity/personhood is something one possesses inherently rather than bestowed upon you as a result of having reached some developmental milestone. The individual remains a distinct biological entity throughout the continuum of existence.
If anything, by limiting personhood to those having reached some arbitrary standard such as viability, quickening, or sentience speaks more to the limitations of medical science than an actual state of ontology. And with advances, these frontiers are being pushed back further all the time.
Things are now to the point where doctors are able to do surgery inside the mother’s womb. A photo of one such procedure where a tiny hand reached out of the mother’s abdomen got Matt Drudge fired from the Fox News Network. It was feared such an image might unsettle or disturb the consciences of viewers regarding the issue of abortion.
Scott Rae in “Moral Choices: An Introduction To Ethics” concludes his examination of the abortion issue with the following argument advocating for personhood of the unborn: “(1) An adult human being is the end result of the continuous growth of the organism from conception... (2) From conception to adulthood this development has no break that is relevant to the essential nature of the fetus... (3) Therefore, one is a human person from the point of conception onward (142).”
by Frederick Meekins
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Perhaps if its Dean wasn't a gay-pandering atheist, the National Cathedral wouldn't have to start charging tourists a $10 admission. There may be a away around this. The broadcast story pointed out the fee would not be accessed against those coming to the Cathedral to worship. Since the structure usually holds several worship services per day, it might pay to sneak into one of these and then stay in the building to snoop around once that has concluded. The last time I visited, I saw there was cash register at the designated "visitors entrance." The trick is just to barge straight through the front door and to just keep walking like you know what you are doing.
Monday, November 25, 2013
It was proclaimed from a Baptist pulpit that a generalized pronouncement that one would shoot a nocturnal intruder does not exhibit a proper fear of God. Instead, the believer is to rely on the Holy Spirit to provide a solution in such a situation. But who is to say in such a self-defense situation that it is not the Holy Spirit leading the individual to blow the assailant's brains out?
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Don't Claim All Links Are Equal If You Aren't Willing To Treat Them That Way
The founder of Reddit Alexis Ohanian told a university audience, “If all links are created equal, the Internet is the world’s largest stage and platform for ideas.”
But apparently not all links are viewed as equal on the site if a number of moderators are censoring or suppressing access to alternative sources of information through the site to the right side of the political spectrum.
It might be retorted that on a private website it is well within its rights to propagate the vision of the world that it sees fit.
However, in comparing the rhetoric that claims to celebrate the bold expression of all ideas without fear of rejection or of the consequences and a reality where some ideas are forbidden as being less than equal than others, those caught redhanded in such a conceptual cookie jar are in part responsible for the long steady march towards the totalitarianism that Orwell warned about.
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Friday, November 22, 2013
According to a story in a local paper, apparently sexually assaulting someone after they get liquored up after playing beer pong is a greater outrage than sexually assaulting someone after simply getting them liquored up. So is it that there is something inherently more immoral about beer pong or that the state is somehow not getting a tax cut from a gaming element being added?
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Southern Baptist Seminary President Insists Pedophiles Should Walk Free & Proud
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If Paula Deen had been scheduled to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her accomplishments in gastronomic broadcasting and just days before the award was bestowed upon her it was revealed that decades earlier she uttered the “N-Word” to her husband after a gun had been put in her face, should she have still be extended this honor? If not, then why was Oprah Winfrey still allowed to receive her's despite salivating on national television over the prospect the deaths of elderly White people?
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
A critic of social media at a Ligioner conference said the words “monetized relationship” like it was a bad thing. But isn’t that marriage essentially is? One partner gives certain things so that they can get certain things in return. Women feigning shock at such an observation wouldn’t marry a poor man if he was the last one on earth and men posturing how much more valiant than these sentiments would have no interest in the relationship if it meant never seeing their wife with her cloths off.
The same leftwing female campus ministers working to set up a place where WOMENNNNN can be inspired through “storytelling, mentoring, and connection” would probably burn their bras in protest if they wore any if news got out that Promisekeepers was conspiring in a similar fashion on behalf of men in an academic setting.
A critic of social media at a Ligioner conference remarked that the sense of COMMUNITY created through these communication technologies is false because no one is there to lift you up should you become discouraged. However, if one turns to those in positions of conventional church authority during such times, you are often just reamed a new one for having fallen into sin over something as minor as not having one of those chicken-excrement smiles plastered across your face.
A critic of social media at a Ligionier denounced these kinds of websites because the providers would rather monetize than connect with you. So I guess the speaker wasn’t provided with a fee for his services and all of the tickets to the event were provided gratis on a first in line basis. Interesting how in Christian circles it’s appropriate for some to make money from the goods and services that they provide but not others.
Rick Warren Throws Support Behind Establishment Of Non-Episcopal Anglican Church
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Tuesday, November 19, 2013
A Baptist pastor complained about contemporary parents having to provide entertainment, activities, or toys for their children. In other words, once those of this mindset have had their fun making the child (with the minimal amount of movement possible in order to avoid the possibility of such gyrations potentially leading to dancing), they pretty much just want a child to make themselves look good. The rest of the time, I guess, the child is obligated to occupy their time rocking back and forth chanting Scripture like a student in some kind of Christianized madrassa. This pastor continued that he did not think that parents do not need to provide their children with toys or activities because these did not exist for centuries. That's because most of your kids would have died before they were five years old, the rest were worked to death in the fields or sent off to fight in their lieges' wars, and the few that made it through all that were probably eager to be planted in the ground by the time they were 45 years old. But those were the good all days were are suppose to be eager to get back to.
According to an anti-movie preacher, those that think that motion pictures can serve as a method through which to reach the lost with the Gospel are guilt of the sin of Uza who was struck dead for touching the Ark of the Covenant to keep the scared relic from falling to the ground. Granted, nothing can replace the foolishness of preaching in spreading the salvation message. However, what is to be done with creative types within the church? The way these hardline fundamentalist churches are operated, there is no way there individuals are going to be allowed to express themselves unless they are part of the in crowd that run these places. Most will be shouted down with a Bible pingpong bashing if they even raise a question that has the hint of clashing with the interpretation preferred by the pastoral staff or Sunday school teachers. If these types ever took over, it would probably be a daily marching out to the equivalent of the Cambodian rice paddies of anyone that dare exhibit literary inclinations.
A pastor opposed to entertainment suggested that parents should toss out anything as soon as it violates the guidelines of Philippians 4:8. Does this include passages of Scripture such as when Tammar was raped by her half-brother or when David got so horny watching Bathsheba bathe that he was willing to have his devoted friend murdered in his pursuit of her? So if ugly details are allowed in the Bible as a way of arriving at more profound truths, why is such a literary strategy to be forbidden in other forms of narrative?
A Baptist pastor bragged how, if his son exhibited any signs of liking or loving something more than Christ, it was gone. Wonder how long until the child learned that particular household it did not matter so much what was happened on an individual's inside so long as the boy learned to squawk the expected platitudes on signal like an exceptional trained parrot.
It seems that the pastor of a series of sermons against the existence of motion pictures has himself been the subject of allegations that he undermined a child molestation investigation of those on his pastoral staff. Seems to me that the Bible speaks more against bearing false witness and that those harming children would be better off with a millstone placed around their necks than whether or not sequential film footage is used in the production of dramatic narrative. A church that has had a pedophile problem on the pastoral staff doesn't exactly have much of a leg to stand on in condemning dating as part of its congregational constitution.
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