All posts by Wintery Knight

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News

What do Democrats like Joe Biden think about the moral teachings of Jesus in the Bible?

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Enraged Joe Biden howls out his hatred for Bible-believing Christians
Enraged Democrat Joe Biden howls out his hatred for Bible-believing Christians

Joe Biden gave a speech to the largest gay rights organization in the United States, the HRC. The co-founder of the HRC, Terry Bean, was recently charged with sexual abusing a 15-year-old boy. Do you disagree with what Terry Bean is charged with? If so, then I think it’s important to know how far Joe Biden would go to punish you for your refusal to approve and celebrate Terry Bean.

Here’s the report on the speech from PJ Media:

Biden announced at an event in Ohio on Saturday that his number one priority, if elected, will be to enshrine LGBTQ rights into federal law via the Equality Act, a contentious, Orwellian effort by left-wing bullies to silence Christians who believe biblical teachings on marriage and reject the view that boys can be girls and girls can be boys.

During a half-hour speech at the Hum4n R1ghts C4mp4ign’s annual gala in Columbus, Ohio, Biden said, “It’s wrong and it is immoral what [the Trump administration] is doing,” citing efforts to bar transgender troops from the U.S. military and protect medical providers from being forced to violate their consciences.

[…]During his speech Biden portrayed LGBTQ individuals as victims, ignoring the fact that it is people of faith who have been the big losers in this war of ideas. Bakery owners are being sued out of existence, medical professionals are being pressured to embrace transgender ideology, and major corporations are pulling their business out of states that seek to protect religious freedom — which, by the way, is what made Mike Pence Public Enemy #1 in the eyes of the cultural revolutionaries.

[…]”The current vice president uses religious freedom as an excuse to license discrimination across broadly [sic] areas and denying LGBTQ Americans their basic rights. It is wrong and it is immoral what they are doing,” he declared.

“Just look at how much damage has been done in the past two weeks,” Biden said. […]The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced plans to allow homeless shelters to turn away transgender people. This is beyond the scope of anything remotely what we’ve seen before.”

To be clear, when he’s talking about homeless shelters, he’s talking about putting biological males in with women who are victims of sexual abuse. But if the HRC pays the piper, then the HRC calls the tune. They’re certainly calling the tune for many of our largest corporations.

When Joe Biden talks about people’s “beliefs”, he means the beliefs of Bible-believing Christians that might cause them to disagree with gay activists like Terry Bean. He’s talking about their right to refuse to participate in, subsidize or celebrate LGBT initiatives, such as same-sex marriage, sex-change surgeries, HRT drug treatments for children, etc. He’s talking about forcing parents to step aside while doctors and educators give hormone blockers to their children. Drugs that can have permanent effects. He basically wants to give gay activists like Terry Bean a veto over the Bible, the church, Christian organizations and Christian parents. A veto backed by the full force of the government.

By the way, the Terry Bean story wasn’t the first time that prominent Democrats have been involved in sex with underage boys. I’ll give just one more example. The Democrat mayor of Seattle – a champion of same-sex marriage in the state of Washington – was also charged, and resigned.

Now, the teaching of the Bible is pretty clear. No sex outside of marriage, and marriage defined as between one woman and one man. The definition of marriage is straight out of the mouth of Jesus. If you deny that, then you don’t accept Jesus as anything other than a normal man. Now, it’s a free country. Non-Christians should be able to vote how they please, and act how they please. But we need to be clear that no Democrat politician accepts the Bible as an authority on moral issues, and that no Democrat politician thinks that Jesus is other than a normal man. No Democrat politician thinks that Jesus knew what he was talking about when he spoke authoritatively about chastity and marriage. Democrat politicians like Joe Biden think Terry Bean knows more these moral issues than Jesus, and that’s why Joe Biden is speaking at the HRC rather than speaking at a Bible-believing organization like Liberty University or the Family Research Council or the Alliance Defending Freedom.

To be clear, I have no problem with people on the other side, like Dave Rubin, who disagree with me on moral issues. Dave lives his life in a way that would not be permissible for a Bible-believing Christian. But Dave accepts and defends my right to disagree with him on moral issues. That is not what we have with Democrat politicians like Joe Biden, who want to use the power of the state to suppress basic human rights, like free speech, freedom of association, parental authority, etc. I don’t want to force other people to act as if they believed what I believe. But I don’t think Bible-believing Christians should vote for someone who wants to use the power of government to force me to act as if I believed what they believe.

Polemics

Abortion debate: a secular case against legalized abortion

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Unborn baby scheming about being only two months old
Unborn baby scheming about being only two months old

Note: this post has a twin! Its companion post on a secular case against gay marriage is here.

Now, you may think that the view that the unborn deserve protection during pregnancy is something that you either take on faith or not. But I want to explain how you can make a case for the right to life of the unborn, just by using reason and evidence.

To defend the pro-life position, I think you need to sustain 3 arguments:

  1. The unborn is a living being with human DNA, and is therefore human.
  2. There is no morally-relevant difference between an unborn baby, and one already born.
  3. None of the justifications given for terminating an unborn baby are morally adequate.

Now, the pro-abortion debater may object to point 1, perhaps by claiming that the unborn baby is either not living, or not human, or not distinct from the mother.

Defending point 1: Well, it is pretty obvious that the unborn child is not inanimate matter. It is definitely living and growing through all 9 months of pregnancy. (Click here for a video that shows what a baby looks like through all 9 months of pregnancy). Since it has human DNA, that makes it a human. And its DNA is different from either its mother or father, so it clearly not just a tissue growth of the father or the mother. More on this point at Christian Cadre, here. An unborn child cannot be the woman’s own body, because then the woman would have four arms, four legs, two heads, four eyes and two different DNA signatures. When you have two different human DNA signatures, you have two different humans.

Secondly, the pro-abortion debater may try to identify a characteristic of the unborn that is not yet present or developed while it is still in the womb, and then argue that because the unborn does not have that characteristic, it does not deserve the protection of the law.

Defending point 2: You need to show that the unborn are not different from the already-born in any meaningful way. The main differences between them are: size, level of development, environment and degree of dependence. Once these characteristics are identified, you can explain that none of these differences provide moral justification for terminating a life. For example, babies inside and outside the womb have the same value, because location does not change a human’s intrinsic value.

Additionally, the pro-abortion debater may try to identify a characteristic of the already-born that is not yet present or developed in the unborn, and then argue that because the unborn does not have that characteristic, that it does not deserve protection, (e.g. – sentience). Most of the these objections that you may encounter are refuted in this essay by Francis Beckwith. Usually these objections fall apart because they assume the thing they are trying to prove, namely, that the unborn deserves less protection than the already born.

Finally, the pro-abortion debater may conceded your points 1 and 2, and admit that the unborn is fully human. But they may then try to provide a moral justification for terminating the life of the unborn, regardless.

Defending point 3: I fully grant that it is sometimes justifiable to terminate an innocent human life, if there is a moral justification. Is there such a justification for abortion? One of the best known attempts to justify abortion is Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “violinist” argument. This argument is summarized by Paul Manata, one of the experts over at Triablogue:

Briefly, this argument goes like this: Say a world-famous violinist developed a fatal kidney ailment and the Society of Music Lovers found that only you had the right blood-type to help. So, they therefore have you kidnapped and then attach you to the violinist’s circulatory system so that your kidneys can be used to extract the poison from his. To unplug yourself from the violinist would be to kill him; therefore, pro-lifers would say a person has to stay attached against her will to the violinist for 9 months. Thompson says that it would be morally virtuous to stay plugged-in. But she asks, “Do you have to?” She appeals to our intuitions and answers, “No.”

Manata then goes on to defeat Thomson’s proposal here, with a short, memorable illustration, which I highly recommend that you check out. More info on how to respond to similar arguments is here.

Here is the best book for beginners on the pro-life view.

For those looking for advanced resources, Francis Beckwith, a professor at Baylor University, published the book Defending Life, with Cambridge University Press, 2007.

News

New study: Biden’s tax hikes hit 80% of Americans, $6,500 less median household income

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These people are all voting for Joe Biden - are you?
These people are all voting for Joe Biden – are you?

This study actually appeared in the Wall Street Journal, but since they have a paywall, I am linking to The Federalist instead. This new study comes from the Hoover Institute at Stanford University. The Biden campaign is claiming that middle-class households won’t feel any effects from these tax increases. But the study is clear. Not only will 80% of Americans pay more, but many jobs will also be lost.

The Federalist reports on the study, which has some very prestigious authors:

A new study shows that Democratic Presidential Nominee Joe Biden’s proposed economic plan would significantly hurt the long-term American economy if implemented.

While many mainstream media outlets claim Biden’s plan will target the wealthy and save the middle-class money, the 50-page study released by the Hoover Institution shows different results.

“Economists have paid too little attention to the economic effects of the Biden plan,” said Casey B. Mulligan, professor of economics at the University of Chicago. “Our report, which focuses on taxation, health insurance, regulation, and energy policy, suggests that these effects are potentially very large indeed.”

The study conducted by a group of financial and economic experts including Mulligan, former Chief Economist of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, and Kevin Hassett, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers since 2017, demonstrates how Biden’s plan will hurt everyone.

This is the bottom line: higher unemployment, lower household income for the average household:

“We conclude that, in the long run, Vice President Biden’s full agenda reduces full-time equivalent employment per person by about 3 percent, the capital stock per person by about 15 percent, real GDP per capita by more than 8 percent, and real consumption per household by about 7 percent,” the report stated.

If Biden’s proposed changes are implemented, the economists warn that, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s projections, 2030 may yield “4.9 million fewer employed individuals, $2.6 trillion less GDP, and $1.5 trillion less consumption in that year alone.” The economists also note that the median household income in 2030 would fall by $6,500 despite Biden’s promises to prioritize the middle class.

You’re not going to be immune to this, even if you’re poor:

While Biden and his VP Nominee Kamala Harris previously promised that they will not “raise taxes on anyone who makes less than $400,000,” they have also promised to repeal the tax cuts made by President Trump, which gave 80.4 percent of all taxpayers a cut and 91 percent of the middle quintile a cut.

I don’t like numbers like this. It’s not just that I have to work the same amount for less take-home pay, which reduces my freedom. It’s also that the pressure on “the rich”, i.e. – MY EMPLOYER, causes companies to ship jobs overseas where labor costs are lower. Did you know that higher taxes causes outsourcing of jobs? The more that business owners have to pay, the more likely they are to pick up and move somewhere else – taking their jobs with them.

I don’t like this. It’s hard enough for me to make a living without the government taking more of what I earn. I’ll have to work longer in order to make up the difference – assuming I can even keep my job.