Share this:

This is Brad as Lela is away getting her brain expanded.

I didn’t, in the end, vote for Donald Trump, but I supported his candidacy for president. Lela talked me into casting a vote for Gary Johnson, but the fact is, I wish I’d voted for Trump. I think, if every voter who thought he’d shake up the system but felt intimidated by the Trump-haters so stayed home or cast a no-win vote had actually voted for him, he might have won the “popular” vote. Lela would be so proud of me for pointing out that this vote doesn’t exist … but it sure does seem to matter to a lot of people.

Some of those people are friends, who ask me why I still support Donald Trump as he crashes around the world risking wars, surrounded by FBI investigations at home and not delivering on Obamacare. How can I, an evangelical Christian, not reject him and wish I’d voted for Hillary?

Well, first … Hillary Clinton … you’re kidding, right? She failed to prevent four wars while she was Secretary of State … and those are just the ones we know about.

But why don’t I care about Stormy Daniels? Why aren’t I morally outraged by his cheating on his wife … with a porn star. Don’t I care that he paid off the porn star to keep her quiet until after the election? Where’s the moral outrage that surrounded Bill Clinton’s infidelities?

I think Melania Trump has every right to be angry with her husband. Lela would certainly make me pay if I embarrassed her in public in a similar fashion. But let’s face it. We’ve been here before. Kennedy, Clinton … Trump himself. He’s on his third wife and admits to be a serial philanderer. But the difference between Trump and Kennedy or Clinton is this alleged affair happened when he was a private citizen. In fact, there’s a 2011 interview with Ms Daniels where she confirms the encounter with then-Mr Trump.

 

We knew who he was when just about 50% of the voters put him in office. This isn’t news to me or my father or the many people I know who voted for him. These were the reasons Lela wouldn’t vote for him, while at the same time she acknowledges that the whole news now means very little to her. Trump is a cheesy clown reality star who likes to grub in the mud. We knew that before we elected him. He never promised us anything different and Trump voters didn’t care then. Why would we care now?

 

So when my friends try to label my continued support of President trump as some sort of numb moral surrender along with millions of others in a beaten populace, I don’t agree. I think we’re growing up and recognizing that politicians are not us. They are all corrupt in one way or another. What matters is how they do their job.

 

 

 

PBS and CNN keep saying Trump is doing everything wrong, but his missteps appear to be working. Those friends who question me about why I would support Trump are talking about expanded business in their area. Some of them work for corporations that gave out bonuses with their tax refund. Lela comes from her job telling me about how road permitting delays have been cut by 75%, saving millions on construction projects.

Kim of North Korea is willing to talk about giving up his nukes. Since GHW Bush, there’s been this strong idea that there had to be multi-lateral talks – seven ambassadors in a room to gang up on Kim — in order to make any progress with him … and they made no progress. Trump says he’ll meet with him personally and Kim starts talking about concessions. It’s too early to tell if that will be successful, but it sure seems like that has a potential for progress.

Israel is no longer being kept waiting in the lobby of the White House as they were during the Obama administration. It seems Trump has won over Japan and Taiwan, but he’s also brought the State of Alaska and the Chinese together on a potential gas pipeline and export agreement. Unlike Obama, whose red line was imaginary, Trump has put teeth to Syria’s throat, which Lela doesn’t like, but I think is a good idea.

So, if he’s doing his job well, despite almost monolithic opposition in the American press  … what do I care about a sexual affair from 12 years ago?

Share this:

Before college campuses were adrift in the current morass of anti-thought, New York University social psychologist Jonathan Haidt published The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, a groundbreaking book that really ought to be read before wading into the tide of “trigger warnings”, “microaggressions”, and “safe spaces” that has become the dominate culture of college campuses. Haidt’s book is the most fascinating work on social science to come out in the last five years.  In 2012, our political landscape was already deeply polarized and that has been magnified by several times in a half decade, but Haidt offers hope and a way forward.

Haidt starts by delving into the psychological causes behind our tribal politics. Drawing upon social psychology and 25 of original research on moral psychology, Haidt shows how evolution is responsible for shaping people’s morality that both binds and divides and how politics and religion create conflicting communities of shared morality.

According to Haidt, moral attitudes and judgments originate from intuition, not calculated logic. In his 1739 A Treatise of Human Nature, the philosopher David Hume remarked that, “Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.” According to Haidt, the findings of modern social psychology research largely vindicate Hume.

To illustrate his point, Haidt uses the metaphor of a rider and an elephant. The rider represents the conscious mind with its rational functions and controlled processes. But the domineering elephant is everything else outside the rider’s control: automatic processes that include emotions and intuitions. Although the rider can do “several useful things” such as planning for the future and learning new skills, ultimately “the rider’s job is to serve the elephant.” As a result of this one-sided relationship, the rider mostly “fabricat[es] post hoc explanations for whatever the elephant has done, and becomes good at finding reasons to justify whatever the elephant wants to do next.” In short, “conscious reasoning functions like a lawyer or press secretary.”

How is this reflected in political discourse? When people are asked to believe something that conflicts with their intuitions, they instinctively seek an escape hatch – any reason to doubt the argument or conclusion that is vexing their deeply held beliefs.

Moral judgment is not a purely cerebral affair in which we weigh concerns about harm, rights, and justice. It’s a kind of rapid, automatic process more akin to the judgments animals make as they move through the world, feeling themselves drawn toward or away from various things. Moral judgment is mostly done by the elephant.

If you’re trying to change someone’s mind on a moral or political issue, you have to “talk to the elephant first.”  You can rarely approach someone from a reasoned stance until you have satisfied their emotional or moral foundation.

I’m not going to say I completely agree with Haidt, because my initial first step toward Christianity was actually from a book on reason – Francis Schaeffer’s “The God Who Is There”, but I found a lot of compelling information in Haidt’s book. Through his interdisciplinary research, Haidt and his colleagues uncovered six moral foundations that are shared across human cultures:

1) Care/harm: This foundation is related to our long evolution as mammals with attachment systems and an ability to feel (and dislike) the pain of others. It underlies virtues of kindness, gentleness, and nurturance.
2) Fairness/cheating: This foundation is related to the evolutionary process of reciprocal altruism. It generates ideas of justice, rights, and autonomy. [Note: In our original conception, Fairness included concerns about equality, which are more strongly endorsed by political liberals. However, as we reformulated the theory in 2011 based on new data, we emphasize proportionality, which is endorsed by everyone, but is more strongly endorsed by conservatives]
3) Loyalty/betrayal: This foundation is related to our long history as tribal creatures able to form shifting coalitions. It underlies virtues of patriotism and self-sacrifice for the group. It is active anytime people feel that it’s “one for all, and all for one.”
4) Authority/subversion: This foundation was shaped by our long primate history of hierarchical social interactions. It underlies virtues of leadership and followership, including deference to legitimate authority and respect for traditions.
5) Sanctity/degradation: This foundation was shaped by the psychology of disgust and contamination. It underlies religious notions of striving to live in an elevated, less carnal, more noble way. It underlies the widespread idea that the body is a temple which can be desecrated by immoral activities and contaminants (an idea not unique to religious traditions).

6) Liberty/oppression: This foundation is about the feelings of reactance and resentment people feel toward those who dominate them and restrict their liberty. Its intuitions are often in tension with those of the authority foundation. The hatred of bullies and dominators motivates people to come together, in solidarity, to oppose or take down the oppressor. We report some preliminary work on this potential foundation in this paper, on the psychology of libertarianism and liberty.

Haidt found left-liberals and progressives recognize primarily the first two moral foundations, Care/harm and Fairness/Cheating, but tend to reject Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity, as proper morals. They feel these are base human traits responsible for patriarchy, racism, sexism, xenophobia, and other forms of oppression. The US/EU political left holds an outlier stand compared to most other parts of the world.

Haidt noted that in “Western, educated, industrial, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) cultures,” the moral spectrum is “unusually narrow” and largely limited to the ethics of individual autonomy.

In contrast, many non-WEIRD societies and conservatives use all five moral foundations that include embracing the ethics of divinity and community. Libertarians are a truly unique political species and are not easily placed on the Left-Right political spectrum in that they prize the last moral foundation, Liberty, above all other values.

These are extraordinary differences and would explain the growing political polarization in the United States and why liberals can’t understand conservatives (and vice versa). In today’s political discourse, partisans often seem to argue not so much against each other, but past each other.

Given that human nature is tribal, people automatically form teams with those who share similar values and morals. While morality can “bind” people together through benefits such as group cohesion and unity, it also “blinds” them to the possibilities or even the existence of other legitimate perspectives. That’s the premise of The Matrix. This kind of “moral matrix” can be so strong that it “provides a complete, unified, and emotionally compelling worldview, easily justified by observable evidence and nearly impregnable to attack by arguments from outsiders.”

As challenging as it may be to see through one’s own ideological blinders, empathy is crucial for successful outreach, acts as an “antidote to righteousness,” and has the added benefit of expanding one’s own intellectual horizons.

Why Intellectual Diversity Matters

Human reason has inherent limits, so Haidt reminds us that “we should not expect individuals to produce good, open-minded, truth-seeking reasoning, particularly when self-interest or reputational concerns are in play.”

However, under the right circumstances and conditions, people can use their reasoning powers to check the claims of others. That’s what Schaeffer’s book prompted me to do. It’s what I still do when I encounter reasoning that confounds me or makes me feel uncomfortable. When people “feel some common bond or shared fate that allows them to interact civilly, you can create a group that ends up producing good reasoning as an emergent property of the social system.” It is especially “important to have intellectual and ideological diversity within any group or institution whose goal is to find truth (such as an intelligence agency or a community of scientists) or to produce good public policy (such as a legislature or advisory board).”

Companies that wish to attract top talent in an effort to remain innovative have long embraced intellectual diversity as a paramount ideal. Universities, most of which are still committed to the mission to search for truth and push the boundaries of human knowledge, in particular must embrace complete freedom of speech, open inquiry, epistemic humility, and tolerance for the most radical and eccentric. Championing viewpoint and philosophical diversity goes hand in hand with these fundamental principles that form the bedrock of a liberal education.

Haidt’s findings from moral psychology are consistent with research from other fields highlighting the value of those who “think different.”

Saras Sarasvathy at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business profiled some of the most successful entrepreneurs and found them to be spontaneous contrarians who have “confidence in their ability to recognize, respond to, and reshape opportunities as they develop” to the point that they “thrive on contingency.” Unsurprisingly, entrepreneurs relish bucking conventional wisdom whether it be following standard management practices or any other kind of defined linear process.

Adam Grant at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School has extensively researched how “originals” move the world. Startups, which by their very nature are nonconformist, have a special obligation to hire originals who can seed a resilient culture, anticipate market movements under conditions of extreme uncertainty, and repurpose dissenting ideas in alternative ways. Grant emphasizes how originals can mitigate the risks every company faces:

Conformity is dangerous – especially for an entity in formation. If you don’t hire originals, you run the risk of people disagreeing but not voicing their dissent. You want people who choose to follow because they genuinely believe in ideas, not because they’re afraid to be punished if they don’t. For startups, there’s so much pivoting that’s required that if you have a bunch of sheep, you’re in bad shape.

Eric Weiner speculates that intellectual development is stimulated when one’s world is turned upside down:

Many immigrants possess what the psychologist Nigel Barber calls “oblique perspective.” Uprooted from the familiar, they see the world at an angle, and this fresh perspective enables them to surpass the merely talented. To paraphrase the philosopher Schopenhauer: Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.

Broadly liberal attitudes towards risk-taking, unorthodox thinking, and entrepreneurship are among the reasons why the United States is still the richest country in the world. In science writer Matt Ridley’s wide-reaching book The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves, the writer traced the origins and spread of economic prosperity. He credits voluntary exchange and specialization, specifically what happens when different ideas meet, mate, and recombine to create new ideas, for being the main drivers of human economic and social progress.

Innovations often happen when you combine two or more things in unexpected ways. When you have a diverse group of people working on something, magic often happens because each person brings a different perspective and experience to the table. John Daly, University of Texas at Austin, McCombs School of Business

Authentic diversity must go beyond identity checkboxes to fully include diversity in ideas. Viewpoint diversity drives creative tension, cross-cultural understanding, and the ability to identify and solve problems from multiple perspectives. Creativity and innovation ultimately depend on people stepping outside of comfort zones and trying new things including exposure to radical and unorthodox ways of thinking.

 

Intellectual diversity creates awareness of our own blinders. While there are obvious economic benefits in that, a marketplace of ideas is one of the key underpinnings of a free society. Truth can emerge when views are freely exchanged, challenged, and refined. People’s individual reasoning have inherent limits but through our collective intelligence, we can achieve the impossible.

Even though our intuition-based morality divides our allegiances into different tribes that seemingly cannot coexist with others, accepting and encouraging intellectual diversity creates awareness of our own blinders and provides a possible escape path out of our moral matrices.

Share this:

I cannot imagine the pain Charlie Gard’s parents are feeling now, as they savor their last moments with their precious child. Charlie is 11 months old and he’s dying.

Source: Charlie Gard’s Parents Are Forced to Stop Fighting for their Dying Baby | Marianne March

Chris and Connie have been fighting for months to get treatment for Charlie, ever since he was diagnosed with a rare genetic condition, mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome. But they have been forced to give up that fight.

I can’t imagine their pain, but I can imagine their fury because I share it.

From the Hospital to the Courts

No further recourse was available in the UK, but an American doctor was ready to try to help him.

Charlie is not mine. I’ve never met him or anyone who knows him. Yet I am furious with the British government for refusing to allow his parents to take their dying son to the United States for treatment: a therapy trial, his last and only hope.

No further recourse was available in the UK, but an American doctor was ready to try to help him at Columbia University Medical Center. Charlie’s parents raised £1.4 million through crowdfunding; they had the money to take him to the US by air ambulance.

But doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London didn’t like that idea. They said it wouldn’t help, that the American therapy was experimental. They said the baby’s life support should just stop.

On April 11th, a British High Court judge ruled with the doctors, empowering them to turn off Charlie’s life-support machines. His mother screamed “no” when she heard the verdict.

There was a petition with more than 110,000 names on it. People wrote letters to the Prime Minister, calling on her to release Charlie from Great Ormond Street’s care. The pope said he was praying for Charlie’s parents, “hoping that their desire to accompany and care for their own child to the end is not ignored.”

And now Charlie is out of time.

Even US President Trump tweeted that “If we can help little #CharlieGard, as per our friends in the U.K. and the Pope, we would be delighted to do so.”

Charlie’s parents challenged the decision in the Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court, and the European Court of Human Rights.

All to no avail. The Courts would not allow them to try to save their baby’s life.

Who Can Call This Justice?

And now Charlie is out of time. According to the BBC, “US neurologist Dr. Michio Hirano had said he was no longer willing to offer the baby experimental therapy after he saw the results of a new MRI scan last week.”

It’s possible that Charlie’s doctors were right, that experimental treatment wouldn’t have helped (although his parents don’t think so, nor do American and Italian doctors). But what harm could it have done when he’s dying anyway? And if his parents had the means to give him one last chance, why shouldn’t they exercise their right to do so? They belong to Charlie just as he belongs to them, and no one but Chris and Connie should get the final say on his medical care.

This is outrageous. And it’s wrong.

I never really knew what people meant by the phrase “death panels” before. It was just a term bandied about by talking heads and political personalities. It’s chilling how well it applies in this instance: a group of bureaucrats that sits around deciding who is worthy of medical care.

I don’t know how the power slipped away from the individual, whether taken by force or given away with applause, but this is outrageous. And it’s wrong.

Read with a Box of Tissues

I will leave you with the words of Connie Yate’s, Charlie’s mom:

Due to the deterioration in his muscles, there is now no way back for Charlie. Time that has been wasted. It is time that has sadly gone against him.

We want people to realise that we have been speaking to parents whose children were just like Charlie before starting treatment and now some of them are walking around like normal children. We wanted Charlie to have that chance too.

All we wanted to do was take Charlie from one world renowned hospital to another world renowned hospital in the attempt to save his life and to be treated by the world leader in mitochondrial disease. We feel that we should have been trusted as parents to do so but we will always know in our hearts that we did the very best for Charlie and I hope that he is proud of us for fighting his corner.

Charlie had a real chance of getting better. It’s now unfortunately too late for him but it’s not too late for others with this horrible disease and other diseases. We will continue to help and support families of ill children and try and make Charlie live on in the lives of others. We owe it to him to not let his life be in vain.

Despite the way that our beautiful son has been spoken about sometimes, as if he not worthy of a chance at life, our son is an absolute WARRIOR and we could not be prouder of him and we will miss him terribly. One little boy has brought the world together and whatever people’s opinions are, no one can deny the impact our beautiful son has had on the world and his legacy will never ever die.

We are now going to spend our last precious moments with our son Charlie, who unfortunately won’t make his 1st birthday in just under 2 weeks’ time, and we would ask that our privacy is respected at this very difficult time.

Mummy and Daddy love you so much Charlie, we always have and we always will and we are so sorry that we couldn’t save you.”

Marianne March

Marianne is a recent graduate of Georgia State University, where she majored in Public Policy, with a minor in Economics. Follow her on twitter @mari_tweets.

Share this:

Sometimes it seems as if the Christian movement is divided between two camps. On one side, you have the Frozen Chosen, who have 157 rules for how you should dress on Sunday and keep track of who is a “sinner”. On the other hand, you have the Freedom in Christ group, who smoke cannabis and have multiple sexual partners and will insist that Christ doesn’t care about any of that.

The truth, according to the apostle Paul is somewhere in the middle. The Frozen Chosen are the Pharisees of our day, but the Freedom in Christ crowd is far off the mark as well.

“Everything is lawful,” but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is lawful,” but not everything builds others up. 1 Corinthians 10:23

You’ll notice that Paul is using some popular Christian quotes again. We discussed this in an earlier lesson. Bible scholars believe these were sayings that circulated in the churches, particularly the Corinthian church, in that 1st century and they were being used somewhat like aphorisms and to excuse immoral behavior.

Paul had just warned the Corinthians (and by extension, us) to flee idolatry. Eating food sacrificed to idols meant nothing to the Christian, because God is not knocked from His throne by the stump of a tree sculpted and painted to look like something else. As Christians, we have essential freedom in matters of morally neutral things, but … BUT … our behavior must be tempered with concern for others in the body of Christ. If our freedom is going to be expressed through Christian maturity, it must be concerned with the spiritual benefit to others.

That word “edify” means to build up or strengthen. It’s a word from the vocabulary of building construction. Paul used it in his letters to describe the strengthening of Christian character in ourselves and other people. When we’re faced with a decision about a particular practice, we must first ask ourselves if we have the right to do it. I would say if it’s not forbidden by Scripture, absolutely we have the right. We still need to take a pause and ask the next question. “Is it profitable and edifying. Will this activity build people up, both ourselves and others?” If the answer is “yes”, then we can participate with full abandon.

Do not seek your own good, but the good of the other person. Eat anything that is sold in the marketplace without questions of conscience, for the earth and its abundance are the Lord’s. If an unbeliever invites you to dinner and you want to go, eat whatever is served without asking questions of conscience.  1 Corinthians 10:24-27

Our freedom is going to express itself in serving other people. Our thoughts should always be directed to other brothers and sisters in Christ. We should desire to sacrifice for others. The issue of freedom balances two extremes. Some feel the attitude should be “I don’t care what anyone says about what I do. I’ll do as I please. I operate on the principle of grace and am free to do as I please.” This attitude approaches libertinism. On the other hand, there are others who live in a spiritual straight jacket, afraid to do anything without a sense of guilt. There must always be a balance, but if you’re going to screw up, err on the side of putting your spiritual family members first.

Liberty in Christ will always triumph over legalism. Paul majored on our freedom in Christ. He said it doesn’t matter what we eat, including food offered to idols, because neither the taking of it nor the abstaining from it will have any effect on our relationship with God. All food is a gift from God. Paul encouraged Christians to enjoy life, to not be overly scrupulous. What you don’t know can’t hurt you.

Paul dealt with how Christians should behave when invited to a unbeliever’s home. My parents would have approved of his advice. Eat what’s put before you. The Corinthians shouldn’t make an issue of the origin of the meat or food they were eating. They should eat all of it. Eating a piece of meat that was offered to an idol will not defile the Christian. What defiles the Christian is participating in heathen worship. If eating a piece of idol-meat does not defile the Christian, there is no need to make an issue of it. This simply exercises an overly-sensitive conscience and introduces an unnecessary affront to the hospitality of the host. Paul implied that living out this freedom means that we’re going to have evangelistic entrée into people’s lives. There are nonbelievers who will invite us into their homes, and we have complete freedom to eat with them, whatever they put before us. Paul’s solution to a potential violation of conscience is “Don’t ask!” To the extent that we’re willing to do that, we’re reflecting the life of Jesus, Who ate with tax-collectors and sinners (Matthews 9:10-11). If we are legalistic, uptight, self-righteous, self-protective Christians, “holier than thou” types, our non-Christian acquaintances won’t want anything to do with us anyway. We’re not even going to get invited to their homes. But if we live a life of freedom and openness, that will attract them to Jesus.

But if someone says to you, “This is from a sacrifice,” do not eat, because of the one who told you and because of conscience I do not mean yours but the other person’s. For why is my freedom being judged by another’s conscience? If I partake with thankfulness, why am I blamed for the food that I give thanks for? 1 Corinthians 10:28-30

Paul raised a hypothetical situation in which you’ve been invited to a non-Christian friend’s home, and one of your Christian friends is there who has a weaker conscience. They are offended or confused by the freedom with which you’re indulging: “Didn’t you know this is idol food? Are you sure you ought to be eating this?” Paul suggested that we might decide to refrain from eating the meat so as not to risk leading that younger brother or sister in Christ into sin or confusing their conscience. Paul made it clear, however, that even though we may choose to modify our actions for the good of the weaker brother or sister, we are not to adjust our own conscience. Their weakness ought to make us very gracious, merciful, and sensitive toward them, but the legalism of the weaker one shouldn’t make us feel condemned or influence us toward legalism in our own lifestyle. Paul defended his freedom to partake of any kind of food, especially food that he knew is a good gift from God, and receive it with gratitude. He refused to be fearful about what other people thought of him. He was not going to be controlled by that.

So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God. Do not give offense to Jews or Greeks or to the church of God, just as I also try to please everyone in all things.  1 Corinthians 10:31-33

Paul moved to summarize the entire (three-chapter) discussion. He indicated this with the use of the word “then” (oun). As a general principle, believers should do everything “for the glory of God”—and Paul particularly mentioned here eating and drinking. To do something for the glory of God means to reflect God’s glory in the way we live. We ought to use our liberty carefully and selflessly to glorify God. Our eating and drinking should bring glory to God, not to cause conflict, to honor a demon, or to undermine the faith of weaker brothers and sisters. Paul’s desire was to live out his freedom in Christ, partly because of its evangelistic potential for the sake of the Gentiles and the Jews who didn’t yet know Christ, and partly so he could have an influence on the church of Jesus Christ as an apostle. His concern was having an attractively inoffensive lifestyle of freedom. Paul had already acknowledged that some people were offended by the gospel alone, but he didn’t want his own life to bring offense to the gospel in the eyes of anybody, Christian or non-Christian. The real fear here was that legalism, being controlling, would somehow be the offense that would keep people from the Lord Jesus. His desire was to try to live without offending in any direction, always thinking of both honoring Christ and affecting other people in how he lived. And Paul always looked in both of those directions.

I do not seek my own benefit, but the benefit of many, so that they may be saved. Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ. 1 Corinthians 10:33b-11:1

I’m sure there were people who thought Paul was a man-pleaser (Galatians 1:10). His concern was that his life would be attractive so that they would be drawn to Jesus in him. “Saved” in this context probably includes Christians and means saved in the wide sense of delivered from anything that keeps someone from advancing spiritually (see Romans 15:1-3). Paul is not content simply to live his life as an example for the Corinthians to emulate. He actually instructs them to become “imitators” of him. (4:16). For Paul, as an apostle of Christ, it wasn’t just a matter of preaching and teaching. It was a matter of living out the truth that he taught. In many of those cities Paul went to, he would be the first and only Christian they would see. So watching him live his life was very important for them to understand the reality of the gospel.

Paul asks every one of us to live a consistent Christian life. Do you want to properly balance freedom and restraint? Do you want to be in the world and not of the world? Do you want to have a positive spiritual influence in your community, but not allow that community to mold you so you compromise what’s true and what’s right? Do you want to live a balanced life, not being driven by the extremes of legalism or selfish license? If you do, then imitate Paul. He tried to imitate the selfless life that Christ lived. Glorify God in what you say and what you do and in the attitudes of your heart. As Paul later explained in Romans 7, results aren’t perfect, but we’re only human, so trying our best is good enough.

Share this:

I wrote this back in 2014, but the concepts are timeless so, enjoy.

American psychotherapist Perry London (author of Behavior Control) admitted that, if man is a machine (and he believed we are), it is meaningless to speak of good and evil or moral responsibility. We are no more than computers on legs that procreate and we don’t accuse computers of criminal behavior. If man is no more than a complex physical organism, a relative of the rat and whale, why do we hold men responsible for their actions as if any of us were moral agents? London argued that good, evil and moral responsibility are imaginary, but he also recognized that we seem to need those concepts to live meaningfully. He then went on to suggest ways of programming people to create a better society.

Yeah, by his own admission,  better is a meaningless term in his philosophy, but let’s think about his theory for a moment. All human societies have a common factor in seeing good and evil as distinct and people as moral agents. Yet, in the western world today, we see the terrible fruit of a philosophy that denies a distinction between good and evil. In our society it’s deemed okay to slaughter unborn babies. While we recognize the horror of, say, the Cambodian killing fields, we don’t recognize that we are not far off from them.

“Where the insane reversal of value lies is in the belief that notions like “purity” or “corruption” can have any meaning outside an absolute system of values: one that is resistant to the tinkering at will by governments or revolutionary groups.  The Cambodian revolution in its own degraded “purity,” has demonstrated what happens when the Marxian denial of moral absolutes is taken with total seriousness by its adherents. Pol Pot and his friends decide what good is, what  bad is, and how many corpses must pile up before this rapacious demon of  “purity” is appeased.

 

In the West today, there is a pervasive consent to the notion of moral relativism, a reluctance to admit that absolute evil can and does exit. This makes it especially difficult for some to accept the fact that the Cambodian experience is something far worse than a revolutionary aberration. Rather, it is the deadly logical consequence of an atheistic, man-centred system of values, enforced by fallible human beings with total power, who believe, with Marx, that morality is whatever the powerful define it to be and, with Mao, that power grows from gun barrels. By no coincidence the most humane Marxist societies in Europe today are those that, like Poland and Hungary, permit the dilution of their doctrine by what Solzhenitsyn has called “the great reserves of mercy and sacrifice” from a Christian tradition. (D. Aikman “Cambodia: An experiment in Genocide” TIME, July 31, 1978, pp 39-40)”

That passage was written only 35 years ago, yet we in the West now regularly denigrate the sentiment that Christianity might prevent genocide while increasingly in America, thinkers pretend to have forgotten the fairly recent fruit of atheistic Marxism. Christians are told we should be embarrassed by the doctrine of judgment, that our acceptance of the notion of good and evil is naïve or foolish.

On the contrary, Christianity should rejoice in the doctrine of judgment as one of the glories of the faith. All people feel in their hearts that some things are right and some are wrong, even though we may be unable to explain why we feel that way. The Christian can say with confidence that there is a difference and we can identify it.

We should not be reluctant to admit that real evil exists. God’s character is one of perfect goodness, justice and holiness and defines for us what is good and right. All behavior must be measured against His character. The law of God is written on the heart, but the heart can become confused or hardened, either by cultural traditions or an individual’s sinful choices. All men’s ideas can be checked against God’s character and law. The Christian stands on firm ground when confronted with the immorality of those in power … whether they be elected in a democracy, wielding authority in a dictatorship or expressing their will as the 51% majority of a western society where morality changes with the consensus of the day.

Share this:

Becky Akers

Found on FEE

Those stodgy Founding Fathers! Not only did they study hard, work harder, and marry one woman for life, they also insisted on – get this – morality. As in obeying the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule, and the basic moral teachings of the Bible in general. So strongly did they venerate morality that they frequently observed its unbreakable link with liberty. They believed that moral people alone remain politically free.

John Adams, for example, claimed, “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

“While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued.”His cousin Sam agreed. “Religion and good morals are the only solid foundation of public liberty and happiness.” Indeed, he feared, “A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue then will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.”

Singing the same song was Charles Carroll, one of the Declaration’s signers:  “Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time…”

And George Washington considered morality so necessary to freedom that he spoke at length of their connection in the Farewell Address that capped his career: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. … And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.”

Clearly, the generation that overthrew the world’s most powerful – and corrupt – empire to establish a new, freer country considered Biblical morality essential to their endeavor. But why? Exactly how do strong ethics enhance liberty?

Washington mentioned one obvious reason in his Farewell: “Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice?” By extension, those in elected or appointed positions might not respect their oaths of office, either.

Reflexive Thievery

If these were the only times morality protected freedom, we might dismiss the Founders’ veneration of the former as overblown. After all, few of us will find ourselves in either political office or court … wait. I forgot that every American commits three felonies per day.

But even with the police-state criminalizing most of our behavior, lying under oath isn’t nearly as widespread as another sin that enslaves formerly free people. By far the worst threat to liberty springs from the reflexive thievery, a.k.a. socialism, permeating modern culture and politics.

The idea that my property belongs to me alone has become as quaint as “Thou shalt not steal.”That admirer of America, Alexis de Tocqueville, shrewdly analyzed socialism inhis classic rebuke of it in 1848: along with “an incessant, vigorous and extreme appeal to the material passions of man” (i.e., greed) and “a profound opposition to personal liberty and scorn for individual reason, a complete contempt for the individual,” socialism is “always … an attack, either direct or indirect, on the principle of private property.”

Americans today have so completely converted to socialism that mighty few folks even recognize, let alone condemn, that “attack … on the principle of private property.” Rather, they reason, “I need or want it, and you have it, so you must give it to me.” The idea that my property belongs to me alone, and that no one else has any right to swipe even a penny of it, to restrict my use of it, or to dictate how I employ it has become as quaint as “Thou shalt not steal.”

In fact, Americans have redefined “steal.” It now means, “Acquiring property from another person yourself rather than waiting for government to acquire it on your behalf.” So long as the recipient doesn’t wind up in jail, he will eagerly accept anything politicians “redistribute” to him from his family and friends.

Even folks who would never dream of robbing a man at gunpoint of a third of his income, good Christians who attend church and read their Bibles, see nothing wrong with plundering their neighbors via government. Especially when they favor the loot’s alleged recipients (soup kitchens and other “faith-based” programs, foreign aid to Israel, etc). Few worry any longer whether an act is moral; instead, they assume that if it’s legal, it must be OK.

Policies of Plunder

The predatory and “graduated” tax code that allegedly takes “from each according to his ability” to finance Obamacare, food stamps, Section 8 housing, unemployment, Social Security, etc., is obvious socialism. But many, far more insidious instances abound. And in all of them, American morality is not only dead but so deeply buried that these examples disturb hardly any consciences.

Too many Americans applaud plaintiffs who sue innocent entities as shrewd rather than larcenous.A legal doctrine called “joint-and-several liability … states that damages can be obtained from co-defendants based on who is capable of paying, rather than who was found to be more negligent.” Looking for “deep pockets” so that small inconveniences or even injuries can be parlayed into megabucks often means the wealthiest person or corporation near an accident is held responsible, even if he bears little or no blame. Too many Americans applaud plaintiffs who sue innocent entities as shrewd rather than larcenous.

Since World War II, New York City has compelled landlords to subsidize tenants’ rent through its execrable rent-control laws. This legislation decrees how much rent landlords may charge, the amount – if any – by which they may annually raise it(despite whatever increases in real-estate taxes or in the cost of water and sewage the City has imposed that year), and how long the tenant may inhabit his apartment—even if the building’s owner prefers another renter or wishes to sell or renovate his property. This corruption pits landlords against tenants so thoroughly that occasionally the former plots to murder the latter in the hope of regaining his rights. And though rent-control authorizes tenants to cheat landlords, it bites the swindlers, too, by ensuring that New York’s supply of housing remains dilapidated, scarce, and stunningly expensive.

Once accustomed to living off their landlords – or the taxpayers, via Social Security, Medicare, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, etc., ad nauseam – voters elect socialists to continue their gravy train. They happily sell our liberty for lower rent and free food. Shameless in their thievery, they prove the Founders’ maxim that only a moral people remains free.

Source: Morality Is Indispensable for Liberty | Becky Akers

Share this:

aurorawatcherak

This is my public policy post on this subject. I’ve actually said this before in different words and the more I hang out with anarchists, the more I find myself agreeing with them.

The Bible is very clear that homosexual behavior is a sin. It follows that the commitment ceremonies gays insist upon calling “weddings” are public declarations of ongoing sexual immorality. The Bible tells Christians to FLEE sexual immorality because it corrupts our relationship with God. It is worse than other sins because it involves our own bodies. From those two facts, I judge that God is telling Christians that we may not encourage the homosexual activity of other humans. For the sake of our own relationship with God AND for the sake of the homosexuals we come in contact with, we must NOT participate in their commitment ceremonies, even as an unwilling caterer, photographer, florist, etc.

The Bible…

View original post 1,490 more words

Share this:

This will be a series. Check out the links at the bottom as they come.

We live in a world that is disintegrating, so why are we surprised when our world shows its rotten parts?

God created the universe to be perfect. You can discover that truth scattered throughout the Bible, but it’s actually in the first verses in Genesis. There was no death. Death is a function of disintegration. Logically, if the world God created was not subject to disintegration, it was perfect.

But that state of perfection soon ended. God didn’t do that. Even Satan didn’t do that, though he played a part. Human beings did that. Eve listened to Satan’s lies, but the Biblical account makes it appear that Adam was standing right there.

Mankind had a choice. God created mankind with the ability to make a choice. God placed Adam and Eve in a garden where all their needs were met and He gave them ONE rule to follow so that they would have a freewill choice in how they wanted to live their lives. God placed a tree amid all the other trees. He told them about it so there was no surprise, no secret plot to mess them up. They had a choice.

Eat of any plant in the garden, but that one and you’ll live forever in this beautiful garden and have face-to-face relationship with God, Who is absolute goodness. But don’t eat of that tree because you will lose your life when you do. Enjoy the garden I have you. The price of staying here is obedience to my ONE rule. Genesis 3

We don’t know how long it took for Adam and Eve to screw up the great deal. I tend to think it wasn’t really long. Satan … or maybe it was just Eve’s self-will … began questioning God’s purpose in keeping the fruit from them. God wasn’t telling the truth about the consequences. God was keeping them from hidden knowledge. The fruit was good to eat. What could it hurt?

A lot!Adam and Eve didn’t physically die when they ate the fruit, but they died in all the really important ways. They were cut off from their relationship with God and thrust into a world of decay. Their own bodies began to decay. They blamed each other. They raised a murderer. Their damaged genes were passed onto their offspring to the whole of mankind.

Adam and Eve didn’t physically die when they ate the fruit, but they died in all the really important ways. They were cut off from their relationship with God and thrust into a world of decay. Their own bodies began to decay. They blamed each other. They raised a murderer. Their damaged genes were passed onto their offspring to the whole of mankind.

We lost perfection, but we didn’t lose the memory of perfection. We want the world to be perfect. We rail against the rot in the world, we are puzzled by human beings who act in fallen ways. We know things should be different, but the vast majority of us have no knowledge of why things are not what we dream them to be.

We want a bent and damaged world to pick itself up and act like the perfect world our ancestors sacrificed to their self-will. When that doesn’t happen, we blame the one Being who didn’t cause this mess – God.

Mankind screwed this up all on our own. God has provided a way for the world to be returned to perfection == If we will believe Him and lay aside our self-will to accept it.

More on that in future posts.

Disintegrating World (this post)

 

Share this:

Quick recap of prior posts here and here.

The question of the legitimacy of the homosexual lifestyle is a question of what God has to say about it. If there is no God, then there is no right and wrong, and it doesn’t make any difference what lifestyle you choose—the persecutor of homosexuals is morally equivalent to the advocate of homosexuality. But if God does exist, we can no longer base our moral stance on our own opinions. We have to find out what God thinks on the issue.

Okay, God doesn’t hang out at Barnes & Nobel waiting for someone to ask Him what He thinks on a given issue. Christians look to the Bible and the Bible says God forbids Christians to engage in sexual immorality, which includes homosexual acts.

Here’s the reasoning:

• Christians are obligated to do God’s will.
• God’s will is expressed in the Bible.
• The Bible forbids homosexual behavior.
• Therefore, homosexual behavior is against God’s will and is wrong.

To resist this reasoning requires that you either deny that God’s will is expressed in the Bible or deny that the Bible forbids homosexual activities.

We are talking about behavior here, not orientation. This is an important distinction. Being homosexual is a state or an orientation. A person who has a homosexual orientation might not ever express that orientation in actions. By contrast, a person could engage in homosexual acts even if he has a heterosexual orientation. The Bible condemns is homosexual actions (behavior), not having a homosexual orientation. The idea of a person’s being a homosexual by orientation springs from modern psychology and may have been unknown to people in the ancient world. What they were familiar with was homosexual acts, which is what the Bible forbids.

There are enormous implications in this distinction. The whole debate about whether homosexuality is something you were born with or is a result of how you were raised really doesn’t matter in this discussion. Your orientation is not the crux of the matter. It’s what you do with it that matters. Some defenders of homosexuality are very anxious to prove that your genes, not your upbringing, determine if you’re homosexual because then homosexual behavior is normal and right, but the Bible doesn’t allow that option. Just because you’re genetically disposed to some behavior doesn’t mean that behavior is morally right. Some researchers suspect a genetic predisposition for some people to become alcoholics. My husband would be one of those. He does not get an excuse from the Bible or from society if his drinking disturbs the peace. He’s expected, if he can’t control his drinking, to abstain from alcohol so as to prevent misbehavior. The sober truth is that we don’t fully understand the roles of heredity and environment in homosexuality and it doesn’t really matter. Even if homosexuality were completely genetic, that fact alone still wouldn’t make it any different than a birth defect, like a cleft palate or epilepsy. That doesn’t mean it’s normal and that we shouldn’t try to correct it.

People don’t generally choose to be homosexual. Many homosexuals testify how agonizing it is to find yourself with these desires and to fight against them, and they’ll tell you they would never choose to be that way. The Bible doesn’t condemn a person because he has a homosexual orientation. The Bible condemns homosexual acts. It is perfectly possible to be a homosexual and be a born-again, Spirit-filled Christian.

Just as my sober husband stands up at an AA meeting and says, “I am an alcoholic,” so a homosexual who is living straight and keeping himself pure ought to be able to stand up in a prayer meeting and say, “I am a homosexual, but by God’s grace and the power of the Holy Spirit, I’m living chastely for Christ.” I have heard that statement and was pleased that the Christians there welcomed the speaker as a brother in Christ.

But, does the Bible forbid homosexual behavior? The Bible is so realistic! You might not expect it to mention a topic like homosexual behavior, but in fact there are three in the Old Testament and three in the New Testament where this issue is directly addressed. In all six of these passages homosexual acts are unequivocally condemned. Then there are all those passages dealing with marriage and sexuality which have implication for this issue.

• Leviticus 18.22 — It is an abomination for a man to lie with another man as with a woman.
• Leviticus 20.13 — The death penalty is prescribed in Israel for such an act, along with adultery, incest, and bestiality.

Sometimes homosexual advocates make light of these prohibitions by comparing them to prohibitions in the Old Testament against having contact with unclean animals like pigs. Just as Christians today don’t obey all of the Old Testament ceremonial laws, they say, we don’t have to obey the prohibitions of homosexual actions. The problem with this argument is that the New Testament reaffirms the validity of the Old Testament prohibitions of homosexual behavior, as we’ll see below. This shows they were not just part of the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament, which were done away with, but were part of God’s everlasting moral law.

We know homosexual behavior is a serious sin in God’s eyes. The third place where homosexual acts are mentioned in the Old Testament is the Genesis 19 description of the attempted gang rape of Lot’s visitors by the men of Sodom. God destroyed the city of Sodom because of their wickedness.

The New Testament also forbids homosexual behavior. In I Corinthians 6.9-10 Paul wrote, “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Do not be decieved: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the Kingdom of God.” The words in the list translated “men who practice homosexuality” refer in Greek literature to the passive and the active partners in male homosexual intercourse (I checked this with two Greek scholars I know).The second of these two words is also listed in I Timothy 1.10 along with fornicators, slave traders, liars, and murderers as “contrary to the sound teaching of the Gospel.”

The most lengthy treatment of homosexual activity comes in Romans 1.24-28 where Paul talks about how people turned away from the Creator God and begun to worship false gods of their own making:

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Liberal scholars have done acrobatics to try to explain away the clear sense of these verses. Some have said that Paul is only condemning the pagan practice of men’s sexually exploiting young boys, but that ignores the clear wording in verses 24 and 27 that these homosexual acts by men were committed “with one another” and in verse 26 where he speaks of lesbian homosexual acts. Other scholars have said Paul is only condemning heterosexuals who engage in homosexual acts, not homosexuals who do. That interpretation is contrived and anachronistic. Remember that it was only in modern times that the idea of homosexual or heterosexual orientation developed. What Paul is condemning is homosexual acts, regardless of orientation. Given the Old Testament background to this passage and what Paul wrote in I Corinthians. 6.9-10 and I Timother. 1.10, it is clear that Paul is  forbidding all such acts. He sees this behavior as the evidence of a corrupted mind which has turned away from God and been abandoned by Him to moral degeneracy.

The Bible is very forthright and clear when it comes to homosexual behavior as contrary to God’s design. It is sin. Even if there weren’t all these explicit passages dealing with homosexual acts, such acts would still be forbidden under the commandment “You shall not commit adultery.” God’s plan for human sexual activity is that it is reserved for marriage: any sexual activity outside of the security of the marriage bond—whether pre-marital sex or extra-marital sex, whether heterosexual or homosexual—is forbidden. Sex is designed by God for marriage.

Someone might say that if God intended sex for marriage, then just let homosexuals marry each other and they would not be committing adultery, but that completely misunderstands God’s intention for marriage. In the creation story in Genesis, God made woman as a suitable mate for man, his perfect, God-given complement. Then it says, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife and they shall become one flesh.” This is God’s pattern for marriage, and in the New Testament Paul quotes this very passage and then says, “This is a great mystery and I am applying it to Christ and the church” (Ephesian 5.32). Paul says that the union between a man and his wife is a living symbol of the unity of Christ with His people, the Church.

Viewed in this light, homosexual behavior is a mockery of God’s plan. It flies in the face of God’s intention for humanity from the moment of creation.

No, Jesus never specifically condemned homosexual behavior, but He also did not specifically mention lots of things which we know are wrong, like bestiality or torture. His silence does not mean he approved of those activities. What Jesus does do is quote from Genesis to affirm God’s pattern for marriage as the basis for his own teaching on divorce. In Mark 10.6-8, He says, “From the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and the two shall become one flesh. Consequently, they are no longer two, but one flesh.”

For two men to become one flesh in homosexual intercourse would be a violation of God’s created order and intent. He created man and woman to be indissolubly united in marriage, not two men or two women.

The Bible makes itself clear, so there can be no argument that the Bible allow some wiggle room on homosexual behavior. It is sin, according to the Bible. But maybe Christians are required to follow the Bible or maybe the Bible as we have it does not reflect the true will of God.

We’ll look at that.

Share this:

Okay, so I put my foot in a sink hole last week and they’re hating on me at the Alaska Dispatch News. How dare I not walk in lockstep with the modern LGBT agenda! I am such a hater!  Read Part 1 of this series.

Christians can’t duck this issue anymore. Those of us who reject the legitimacy of the homosexual lifestyle are routinely denounced a homophobic, intolerant, even hateful, which results in tremendous intimidation concerning this issue. Businesses are being forced into bankruptcy or reeducation classes and some churches have even endorsed the homosexual lifestyle and welcome those who practice it to be their ministers.

It’s not just happening in liberal churches. Evangelicals Concerned is a group of people who are to all appearances born-again, Bible-believing Christians and also practicing homosexuals. They claim that the Bible doesn’t forbid homosexual activity or that its commands aren’t valid for today, being just a reflection of the culture in which the Bible was written. These people can be orthodox about Jesus and every other area of teaching; but they just think it’s Biblical acceptable to be a practicing homosexual.

So who am I (or you) to say that these apparently earnest Christians are wrong?

Good question! Who are we to say that they are wrong? This question raises an even deeper question, which we’ve got to answer first. Do right and wrong really exist? You see, we get it backwards often. You have to know that there really is a right and a wrong before you can determine what is right and wrong.

What is the basis for saying that right and wrong exist or that there really is a difference between these two?

Traditionally, Americans (not just practicing Christians) have answered that moral values are based in God. God is by His very nature perfectly holy and good. He is just, loving, patient, merciful, and generous. Everything good comes from Him and is a reflection of His character. God’s perfectly good nature issues forth in commandments to us:

• You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and strength.
• You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
• You shall not murder, steal, or commit adultery.

These are examples of right or wrong based on God’s commandments, which are not arbitrary but flow from His perfect nature.

This is the Christian understanding of right and wrong. There really is such a being as God, Who created the world and made it so we can know Him. He really has commanded certain things. Christians really are morally obligated to do certain things (and not to do others). Morality isn’t just in your mind. It’s real. When we fail to keep God’s commandments, we really are morally guilty before Him and need His forgiveness. The problem isn’t just that we feel guilty; we really are guilty, regardless of how we feel. Even if my seared conscience, dully by sin or justified by a government edict, does not feel guilty, I am guilty if I have broken God’s law.

What Hitler did was sin regardless whether he or his society thought it was right. Chattel slavery is still wrong regardless if the slaveowner or the society he lives in thinks of it. Murder is still a sin even if the killer feels like he’s doing something right. It’s wrong because God says it is wrong, regardless of human opinion. Morality is based in God and are unaffected by human opinions.

There are people who will argue over that because it is a foreign concept in western society today. I estimate that the majority of people today think right and wrong are matters of taste, not fact. Moral values are given the same weight as Baskin Robbins flavors. I like World Class Chocolate. My husband loves Coffee. We can both be right. What’s the problem? It’s just a matter of opinion. I choose to cheat on my partner, you do not. We can both be right and all is well … until my partner divorces me anyway.

If there was no God, these people would be absolutely correct. In the absence of God everything is relative. Right and wrong become relative to different cultures and societies. It’s all up to the flavor-of-the-decade zeitgeist. Prominent American philosopher Richard Taylor, who is not a Christian by the way, makes this point very forcefully.

The idea of . . . moral obligation is clear enough, provided that reference to some lawmaker higher . . . than those of the state is understood. In other words, our moral obligations can . . . be understood as those that are imposed by God. . . . But what if this higher-than-human lawgiver is no longer taken into account? Does the concept of a moral obligation . . . still make sense? (Richard Taylor, Ethics, Faith, and Reason (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1985), pp. 83-4)

Taylor went on to write:

 “The concept of moral obligation is unintelligible apart from the idea of God. The words remain, but their meaning is gone. … The modern age, more or less repudiating the idea of a divine lawgiver, has nevertheless tried to retain the ideas of moral right and wrong, without noticing that in casting God aside they have also abolished the meaningfulness of right and wrong …. Thus, even educated persons sometimes declare that such things as war, or abortion, or the violation of certain human rights are morally wrong, and they imagine that they have said something true and meaningful. Educated people do not need to be told, however, that questions such as these have never been answered outside of religion.

This non-Christian philosopher understands that, if there is no divine lawgiver (God), then there is no moral law. If there is no moral law, then there is no actual right and wrong. They’ve just become human customs, perhaps balwarked by human laws that vary from society to society. Even if we all agree on them, they’re still just human inventions that will evolve … or devolve …eventually.

If God does not exist, right and wrong do not exist and anything goes, including homosexuality. Atheists should have no problem defending the legitimacy of the homosexual lifestyle, but that’s where a new problem arises. Many defenders of homosexuality don’t want to be atheists. They especiallly want to affirm that right and wrong exist, so they make moral judgments about their fellow citizens.

“It is wrong to discriminate against homosexuals.”

That’s a moral judgement, but not one solely relative to a culture or society. They would condemn a society like Nazi Germany which threw homosexuals into concentration camps along with the Jews and other “undesirables”, and when Colorado passed an amendment prohibiting special rights for homosexuals, Barbara Streisand called for a boycott of the state, saying, “The moral climate in Colorado has become unacceptable.”

These kinds of value judgements lack meaning unless God exists. If God does not exist, anything goes, including discrimination and persecution of homosexuals. Murder, rape, torture, child abuse … none of these things would be wrong, because without God right and wrong do not exist. Everything is permissable.

So in order to make moral judgments, we must affirm that God exists, but then our first question reappears in front of us. “Who are you to say that homosexuality is wrong?” We can put the question to homosexual activists now. “Who are you to say that homosexuality is right?” If God exists, then we cannot ignore what He has to say about the subject. The correct answer to “Who are you to make moral judgements?” is now to say, “Me? I’m nobody! God determines what’s right and wrong, and I’m just interested in learning and obeying what He says.”

So, if I’m a Christian or want to pretend to be one, perhaps I need to look at what God says on the subject.

Continued here.