Young people seem to like gay marriage more than they like individual liberties
The main thing I remember about this man is that he strongly pushed for gay marriage in the state of Washington, and that he was celebrated by atheists when gay marriage became the law in Washington. Everyone was proud of him, proud of gay marriage, and proud of their state, because this is the kind of morality that atheists champion.
The mayor of Seattle, Ed Murray, said on Tuesday that he would resign after announcing in May that he would not seek a second term. Several men have comeforward to accuse Mr. Murray of sexually abusing them decades ago, when they were underage.
The announcement came just hours after The Seattle Times published a story with an account by a fifth man, Mr. Murray’s cousin, who said Mr. Murray had abused him in the 1970s.
[..]Mr. Murray, 62, a Democrat, is the city’s first openly gay mayor, and had served in the State Legislature for many years before being elected in 2013.
[…]The liberal Mr. Murray is generally considered a father of Washington’s same-sex marriage law, which he pressed in the State Legislature for years.
The radically-leftist New York Times isn’t about to tell you what this Democrat gay-marriage activist actually did – that’s not news that’s fit to print. For that you have to go to Life Site News.
Gay activist Terry Bean and Barack Obama
Not the first time
Here’s some Democrat concern for the chldren, reported in the far-left CNN, of all places. Headline: “Obama backer, Democratic fundraiser Terry Bean charged in sexual abuse case”.
Excerpt:
A prominent supporter of President Barack Obama and co-founder of the Human Rights Campaign was arrested last week on charges of sodomy and sexual abuse related to what authorities said was an encounter with a juvenile male.
Terrence Bean, 66, a major Democratic donor and a celebrated gay-rights activist, was indicted on two felony charges of sodomy and a misdemeanor count of sexual abuse by a grand jury and arrested in Oregon Wednesday, according to a statement from the Portland Police Bureau.
[…]The charges relate to an alleged encounter the two had with a 15-year-old boy in Oregon last year, The Oregonian reported. Bean’s attorney has denied the charges and said in a statement that Bean is the “victim of an extortion ring.” CNN is not naming the alleged victim because the network does not identify minors or victims of sexual assaults.
[…]Bean, a real-estate developer and co-founder of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund and the Human Rights Campaign, is a powerful figure in Democratic politics.
The Oregonian reported that he helped raise more than half a million dollars for Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, and Federal Election Commission records show he’s contributed thousands to Democrats, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and others.
Photos posted online show him with the Obamas, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and aboard Air Force One with the President.
In remarks at a 2009 Human Rights Campaign dinner, President Obama thanked Bean, calling him a “great friend and supporter.”
This goes right to the top of the Democrat party. Gay activists are connected to people at the top of the Democrat party. When a person votes Democrat, they’re either pedophiles themselves or they are (effectively) voting for increased normalization of pedophilia.
Pedophilia is nothing but the elevation of the desires of selfish adults over the protection of children. And we already know where the Democrats stand on that – we just have to look at how they reconcile irresponsible recreational sex with the right to life of the unborn. This is the party of adult selfishness. They don’t care about the needs of children at all. They see children as commodities, instead of people made in the image of God in order to know God.
Objective morality for atheists
I have a friend who is an atheist who tells me that he doesn’t need God to ground objective moral values. He is a good person, he says. He supports gay marriage. He was proud when the Seattle mayor got gay marriage passed in his state. He says that objective moral values are easily grounded on atheism.
Let’s review what objective morality (moral realism) really means in practice for atheists:
In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.
Whatever morality atheists try to claim, the truth is that their worldview cannot ground it rationally. This universe is an accident. There are no objective human rights. There is no objective morality. There is no free will nor moral agency. There is no judge of our actions when we die. Other human beings are just lumps of matter to be used for our own pleasure, as long as we are powerful enough to escape the disapproval of those accursed Bible-believers. Assume that every atheist is either like the Seattle mayor or is proud of what he is doing. That’s what atheists vote for, after all. This is the world they want to actualize through their voting. The whole point of atheism is to get rid of moral restraints on the pursuit of pleasure. The great virtue that motivates young atheists to turn away from the Bible is just “I want to get drunk and have premarital sex without consequences”. End of story. It’s not intellectual.
White House legislative affairs director Marc Short told reporters on Tuesday that President Trump would not demand that border wall funding is tied to a legislative replacement for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
Speaking at a roundtable event hosted by the Christian Science Monitor, Short said the administration didn’t want to “bind” itself by making a demand that would likely be a nonstarter for many lawmakers.
“We’re interested in getting border security and the president has made the commitment to the American people that a barrier is important to that security,” Short said. “Whether or not that is part of a DACA equation, or … another legislative vehicle, I don’t want to bind us into a construct that would make the conclusion on DACA impossible.”
There had been speculation that Trump would require any compromise on potential DACA legislation include money for a wall along the southern border.
Trump’s not going to use DACA as leverage to get us the border wall.
Trump has been awful at pressuring lawmakers in both parties into supporting conservative legislation. I can’t think of a single piece of legislation that he has even tried to be persuasive on. It’s the President’s job to drum up support for legislation that he promised during his campaign. He does this by being intelligent, informed and persuasive. Trump had a lot of confident words about his ability to make great deals during the campaign, but so far, we haven’t even seen him try to make a great deal. Everything that requires a legislative solution – from the Obamacare repeal, to the border wall, to the Iran deal, to the debt ceiling – has been a complete failure.
And now the White House is even saying that Trump has always favored amnesty.
President Donald Trump’s request that Congress protect illegal immigrants is not a change of heart, but something Trump has always supported, according to White House press secretary Sarah Sanders.
Trump presented a hard-line immigration policy on the campaign trail and said during an August 2016 campaign speech that “there will be no amnesty.”
“Our message to the world will be this: you cannot obtain legal status, or become a citizen of the United States, by illegally entering our country,” he stated during the speech.
However, last week President Trump announced that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) amnesty program will be rescinded in six months and that Congress has until then to “legalize DACA,” which protects roughly 800,000 illegal immigrants from deportation.
Asked about Trump’s support of amnesty, Sanders said, “I think the president has spoken out very clearly that he wants us to make this decision based on a variety of factors. But the number one thing is that he wants responsible immigration reform and part of that is including that in the process.”
She went on to say that Trump “always wanted responsible immigration reform.”
Trump did mention immigration reform during that Arizona immigration speech in 2016, but in a much different manner.
“When politicians talk about immigration reform, they usually mean the following: amnesty, open borders, and lower wages,” Trump said in reference to politicians such as Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
800,000 people is a lot of people. Many of those people will use more in social services than they pay in, and some of them will actually be dangerous, as reported in this CNS News story:
Jamiel Shaw II (Dec. 22, 1990 — March 2, 2008) was a promising young football player at Los Angeles High School. He was being prospected by Rutgers University and Stanford University.
On his way home on March 2 after participating in a weekend football training program, Shaw was confronted by two Hispanic men who asked him in which gang was he a member. (Shaw was only several blocks from his home.)
When Shaw did not respond quickly, Pedro Espinoza, an illegal alien gang member and a DREAMer, shot Shaw in the stomach and the face. Shaw died shortly thereafter at a hospital. (Jamiel Shaw Sr. had heard the shots and discovered his dying son on the street.)
Espinoza, who had several previous arrests, including gun charges and an assault on a police officer, was convicted of first degree murder on May 9, 2012.
Wouldn’t it be great if all the people who voted for the DREAM Act were now tried as accessories to murder? I would really like to see that. But even that would not be enough to make up for the loss of a child to a repeat-criminal.
Look, I can admit that Trump made a good decision on the Supreme Court nominee. But he was elected because people thought he would repeal Obamacare and build the wall. We were told that people who had actually performed actions to achieve those ends, like Ted Cruz, were unreliable. Trump was the best candidate, because he was a tough-talking outsider who could make deals. Well, we’re still waiting for him to be persuasive to Congress on legislation. He had a big mouth, but he isn’t able to back it up. There was nothing in his background that demonstrated that he would back it up.
He used to tell us that we’d get tired of all the winning. Maybe so. But first, we have to start winning. Let’s win one time to get the winning started. Build the wall.
MY NOTES ON THE DEBATE: (WC = William Lane Craig, CH = Christopher Hitchens)
WC opening speech:
Introduction:
WC makes two contentions:
– there are no good arguments for atheism
– there are good arguments for theism
These topics are IRRELEVANT tonight:
– social impact of christianity
– morality of Old Testament passages
– biblical inerrancy
– the debate is whether god (a creator and designer of the universe) exists
1. cosmological argument
– an actually infinite number of past events is impossible
– number of past events must be finite
– therefore universe has a beginning
– the beginning of the universe is confirmed by science – universe began to exist from nothing
– space, time, matter, energy began at the big bang
– the creation of the universe requires a cause
– the cause is uncaused, timeless, spaceless, powerful
– the cause must be beyond space and time, because it created space and time
– the cause is not physical, because it created all matter and energy
– but there are only two kinds of non-physical cause: abstract objects or minds
– abstract objects don’t cause effects
– therefore must be mind
2. teleological argument
– fine-tuned constants and ratios
– constants not determined by laws of nature
– also, there are arbitrary quantities
– constants and quantities are in narrow range of life-permitting values
– an example: if the weak force were different by 1 in 10 to the 100, then no life
– there are 3 explanations: physical law or chance or design
– not due to law: because constants and quantities are independent of the laws
– not due to chance: the odds are too high for chance
– therefore, due to design
– the atheist response is the world ensemble (multiverse)
– but world ensemble has unobservable universes, no evidence that they exist
– and world ensemble contradicts scientific observations we have today
3. moral argument
– objective moral values are values that exist regardless of what humans think
– objective values are not personal preferences
– objective values are not evolved standards that cultures have depending on time and place
– objective moral values and duties exist
– objective moral values and duties require a moral lawgiver
4. argument from resurrection miracle
– resurrection implies miracle
– miracle implies God
– 3 minimal facts pass the historical tests (early attestation, eyewitness testimony, multiple attestation, etc.)
– minimal fact 1: empty tomb
– minimal fact 2: appearances
– minimal fact 3: early belief in the resurrection
– jewish theology prohibits a dying messiah – messiah is not supposed to die
– jewish theology has a general resurrection of everybody, there is not supposed to be a resurrection of one person
– jewish theology certainly does not predict a single resurrection of the messiah after he dies
– therefore, the belief in the resurrection is unlikely to have been invented
– disciples were willing to die for that belief in the resurrection
– naturalistic explanations don’t work for the 3 minimal facts
5. properly basic belief in god
– religious experience is properly basic
– it’s just like the belief in the external world, grounded in experience
– in the absence of defeaters, those experiences are valid
Conclusion: What CH must do:
– destroy all 5 of WC’s arguments
– erect his own case in its place
CH opening speech:
1. evolution disproves biological design argument
– evolution disproves paley’s argument for a watchmaker
2. god wouldn’t have done it that way
– god wouldn’t have waited that long before the incarnation
– mass extinction and death before Jesus
– god wouldn’t have allowed humans to have almost gone extinct a while back in africa
– why insist that this wasteful and incompetent history of life is for us, that’s a bad design
– the universe is so vast, why would god need so much space, that’s a bad design
– there is too much destruction in the universe, like exploding stars – that’s a bad design
– the heat death of the universe is a bad design
– too many of the other planets don’t support life, that’s a bad design
– the sun is going to become a red giant and incinerate us, that’s a bad design
3. hitchens’ burden of proof
– there is no good reason that supports the existence of god
– all arguments for god can be explained without god
– atheists can’t prove there is no god
– but they can prove there is no good argument for god
4. craig’s scientific arguments don’t go far enough, they only prove deism, not theism
– the scientific arguments don’t prove prayer works
– the scientific arguments don’t prove specific moral teachings of christianity
5. if the laws of physics are so great then miracles shouldn’t be allowed
– good laws and miracles seem to be in contradiction
6. extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence
– none of craig’s evidence was extraordinary
7. science can change, so craig can’t use the progress of science
– it’s too early for craig to use the big bang and fine-tuning
– the big bang and fine-tuning evidences are too new
– they could be overturned by the progress of science
8. craig wrote in his book that the internal conviction of god’s existence should trump contradicting evidence
– but then he isn’t forming his view based on evidence
– he refuses to let evidence disprove his view
– but then how can atheists be to blame if they don’t believe
– so evidence is not really relevant to accepting theism
9. the progress of science has disproved religion
– christianity taught that earth was center of the universe
– but then cosmology disproved that
Response to the big bang and fine-tuning arguments:
– was there pre-existing material?
– who designed the designer?
WC first rebuttal:
Reiterates his 2 basic contentions
CH agrees that there is no good argument for atheism
– then all you’ve got is agnosticism
– because CH did not claim to know there is no God
– and he gave no arguments that there is no God
CH’s evolution argument
– irrelevant to christianity
– Genesis 1 allows for evolution to have occurred
– christianity is not committed to young earth creationism
– the origin of biological diversity is not central to christianity
– st. augustine in 300 AD said days can be long, special potencies unfold over time
– also there are scientific reasons to doubt evolution
– cites barrow and tipler, and they say:
– each of 10 steps in evolution is very improbable
– chances are so low, it would be a miracle if evolution occurred
CH’s argument that god is wasteful
– efficiency is only important to people with limited time or limited resources
– therefore god doesn’t need to be efficient
CH’s argument that god waits too long to send Jesus
– population was not that high before jesus
– jesus appears just before the exponential explosion of population
– conditions were stable – roman empire, peace, literacy, law, etc.
CH’s argument that Craig’s scientific arguments only prove deism, not theism
– deism a type of theism, so those scientific arguments work
– all that deism denies is miraculous intervention
CH’s argument that Craig has a burden of proof
– theism doesn’t need to be proven with certainty
– must only prove best explanation of the evidence
CH’s citation of Craig’s book saying that evidence should not overrule experience
– there is a difference between knowing and showing christianity is true
– knowing is by religious experience which is a properly basic belief
– showing is done through evidence, and there the evidence does matter
CH’s rebuttal to the big bang
– there was no pre-existent material
– space and time and matter came into being at the big bang
– the cause must be non-physical and eternal
– cause of universe outside of time means = cause of universe did not begin to exist
– this is the state of science today
CH’s rebuttal to the fine tuning
– CH says scientists are uncertain about the fine-tuning
– craig cites martin rees, an atheist, astronomer royal, to substantiate the fine tuning
– the fine-tuning is necessary for minimal requirements for life of any kind
– the progress of science is not going to dethrone the fine-tuning
CH’s argument about heat death of the universe
– duration of design is irrelevant to whether something was designed
– cars are designed, yet they break down
– design need not be optimal to be designed
– ch is saying why create if we all eventually go extinct
– but life doesn’t end in the grave on christianity
CH’s rebuttal to the moral argument
– CH says no obj moral values
– but CH uses them to argue against god and christians
– but CH has no foundation for a standard that applies to God and Christians
CH’s rebuttal to the resurrection argument
– empty tomb and appearances are virtually certain
– these are minimal facts, well evidenced using standard historical criteria
– best explanation of these minimal facts is the resurrection
CH’s rebuttal to religious experience
– prop basic belief is rational in the absence of defeaters
– so long as craig has no psychological deficiency, experience is admissible
CH first rebuttal:
it’s not agnosticism
– if there are no good arguments for theism
– then there is no reason for belief in god
– that is atheism
– everything can be explained without god
god wouldn’t have done it that way
– homo sapiens is 100K years old
– for 98K years, they had no communication from God
– lots of people died in childbirth
– disease and volcanos are a mystery to them
– life expectancy is very low
– they die terrible deaths
– their teeth are badly designed
– their genitalia are badly designed
– why solve the problem of sin by allowing a man to be tortured to death
– that’s a stupid, cruel, bumbling plan
lots of people haven’t even heard of jesus
– many of them die without knowing about him
– they cannot be held responsible if they do not know about jesus
the early success of christianity doesn’t prove christianity is true
– because then it applies to mormonism and islam, they’re growing fast
objective morality
– belief in a supreme dictator doesn’t improve moral behavior
– i can do moral actions that you can do
– i can repeat moral positions that you can say
religious people are immoral
– genital mutilation
– suicide bombing
moral behavior doesn’t need god
– we need to act moral for social cohesion
– it evolved for our survival
– that’s why people act morally
– it’s degrading to humans, and servile, to require god for morality
free will
– i believe in free will
– i don’t know why, because i can’t ground free will on atheism
– a bossy god seems to reduce free will because then we are accountable to god
WC cross-examination of CH:
WC why call yourself an atheist when you have no reasons?
CH because absence of belief is atheism
WC but agnosticism, atheism, verificationism all don’t hold that belief, which are you?
CH i think god does not exist
WC ok give me an argument for the claim you just made to know god does not exist
CH i have no argument, but i don’t believe in god because it depresses me to think he might be real
WC would you agree that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence?
CH no i don’t agree
WC moral argument: it’s not epistemology it’s the ontology – have you got a foundation for moral values and duties?
CH i do not, it’s just evolution, an evolved standard based on social cohesion
CH cross-examination of WC:
CH you said that the historical reports of jesus doing exorcisms are generally accepted – do you believe in devils?
WC i commit to nothing, what I am saying there historical concensus on the reports that jesus did exorcisms
CH what about the devils going into the pigs, do you believe that?
WC yes i do, but the main point i’m making is that the historical reports show that jesus acted with divine authority
CH do you believe in the virgin birth?
WC yes, but that’s not historically provable using the minimal facts methods, and i did not use the virgin birth in my arguments tonight, because it doesn’t pass the historical tests to be a minimal fact
CH do you believe that all the graves opened and dead people all came out?
WC not sure if the author intended that part as apocalyptic imagery or as literal, i have no opinion on it, have not studied it
CH do exorcisms prove son of god?
WC no, i am only saying that the historical reports show that jesus exercised authority and put himself in the place of god
CH are any religions false? name one that’s false
WC islam
CH so some religions are wicked right?
WC yes
CH if a baby were born in saudi arabia would it be better if it were an atheist or a muslim?
WC i have no opinion on that
CH are any christian denominations wrong?
WC calvinism is wrong about some things, but they are still christians, i could be wrong about some things, i do the best i can studying theology so i’m not wrong
WC second rebuttal
Response to CH arguments:
no reasons for atheism
– no reasons to believe that god does not exist
– ch withholds belief in god
why wait so long before contacting humans with jesus
– population matters, not time – jesus waited until there was about to be a population explosion
– there is natural revelation (Romans 1) for those who lived before christ
what about those who never heard
– (Acts 17:22-31) god chooses the time and place of each person who is born to optimize their opportunity to know him based on how they will respond to evidence (this is called middle knowledge)
– those who haven’t heard will be judged based on general revelation
WC re-assess the state of his five arguments:
cosmological argument
– heat death of the universe won’t happen on christianity
moral argument
– if no objective moral standard, can’t judge other cultures as wrong
– no transcendent objective standard to be able to judge slavery as wrong
name an action argument
– e.g. – tithing
– the greatest command – love the lord your god your god with everything you’ve got
– atheists can’t do that, and that is the biggest commandment to follow
moral obligations
– there are no objective moral obligations for anyone on atheism
– on atheism, you feel obligated because of genetics and social pressure
– on atheism, we’re animals, and animals don’t have moral obligations
resurrection
– the belief in resurrection of 1 man, the messiah is totally unexpected on judaism
– they would not have made this up, it was unexpected
religious experience
– experience is valid in the absence of defeaters
CH second rebuttal:
faith and reason
– Tertullian says faith is better when it’s against reason
it’s easy to start a rumor with faith-based people
– mother teresa: to be canonized she needs to have done a miracle
– so there was a faked miracle report
– but everybody believes the fake miracle report!
– this proves that religious rumors are easy to start
– the resurrection could have started as a similar rumor by people wanting to believe it
name an action
– tithing is a religious action, i don’t have to do that
moral argument
– i can be as moral as you can without god
– i can say that other cultures are wrong, there i just said it
– without god, people would still be good, so god isn’t needed
religious people did bad things in history
– this church did a bad thing here
– that church did a bad thing there
– therfore god doesn’t exist
religion is the outcome of man’s struggle with natural phenomenon
– that is why there are so many religions
WC concluding speech
no arguments for atheism presented
What CH has said during the debate:
– god bad, mother teresa bad, religion bad
atheism is a worldview
– it claims to know the truth
– therefore it is exclusive of other views
what does theism explain
– theism explains a broad range of experiences
– origin of universe, CH has dropped the point
– fine-tuning, CH has dropped the point
– moral, CH says that humans are no different from animals – but an evolved standard is illusory, there are no actual moral values and standards, it’s just a genetic predisposition to act in a certain way – that’s not prescriptive morality
– resurrection, CH has dropped the point
– experience, craig tells his testimony and urges the audience to give it a shot
CH concluding speech
HITCHENS YIELDS HIS ENTIRE CONCLUDING SPEECH!
A question & answer Period followed end of the formal debate
Further study
Check out my analysis of the 11 arguments Hitchens made in his opening speech in his debate with Frank Turek.
WINTERY KNIGHT 