Parents of a 5-year-old “transgender child” have filed a complaint against a St. Paul charter school, alleging it failed to protect him from bullying and refused to teach all the students their preferred transgender-awareness curriculum.
David and Hannah Edwards, whose child was born a boy but now thinks he’s a girl, has filed with the city’s Department of Human Rights, claiming their child “wasn’t able to take full advantage of Nova’s educational opportunities because of her gender identity and expression. This violated her rights.”
When the boy showed up at school wearing pink tennis shoes and wanting to wear a jumper like the girls in gym class, other children reportedly pointed and laughed at him. The parents contacted the school and wanted something done to protect their child from bullying, despite the fact that the school currently has an anti-bullying policy.
Nova Classical Academy’s executive director, Eric Williams, told 5 Eyewitness News the school has a mandatory policy, called the Bullying Prohibition Policy, which they are simply trying to follow. “He says that means providing a safe and welcoming environment for all students, regardless of their status.”
The Edwardses, however, wanted more—for the school to teach only their views of human sexuality and to be engaged in helping their five-year-old boy transition to a girl.
When it comes to the secular left, reality itself is no defense to their need to feel good about whatever it is that they decide they want to do. You better bake them a cake, or else. You better call them the sex they want you to, or else. You better let them use the bathroom they want, or else.
Meanwhile, in Colorado
ABC News reports that the appeal filed by Christian baker in Colorado has been dismissed, meaning that he will be forced to violate his conscience and participate in gay wedding ceremonies.
So, the ACLU and the Colorado Supreme Court decided that:
Christians do not have a right to own and run their own businesses in accordance with their conscience
Christians do not have a right to their personal beliefs, they must act as if they share the secular leftist beliefs of the ACLU and Colorado Democrats
Christians do not have the same right to equality and fairness as other minority groups favored by the secular lefist elites, including the ACLU
it is OK to use the law to discriminate against Christians and to punish Christians for acting on their religious beliefs
The right of LGBT people not to feel offended overrides the right of Christians to have freedom of speech and freedom of religion – in America
The mention of Plato brings to mind another possible atheistic response to the first premise of the moral argument that if God does not exist, then objective moral values and duties do not exist. Plato thought that the Good just exists as a sort of self-subsistent idea, as an entity in and of itself. Indeed, it is the most real thing in reality. The Good simply exists. If you find this difficult to grasp, join the company! Nevertheless, that is what Plato believed. Later Christian thinkers, like Augustine, equated Plato’s Good with the nature of God. God’s nature is the Good, and so it was anchored in a concrete object, namely, God. But for Plato, at least, the Good just sort of existed on its own as a kind of self-existent idea.
Some atheists might say that moral values, like Justice, Mercy, Love, and Forbearance, just exist all on their own as sort of abstract moral objects. They have no other foundation; they just exist. We can call this view Atheistic Moral Platonism. According to this view, moral values are not grounded in God. They just exist all on their own.
Unintelligibility of Atheistic Moral Platonism
What might we say by way of response to Atheistic Moral Platonism? Let me make three responses. First, it seems to me that this view is just unintelligible. I simply don’t understand what it means. What does it mean, for example, to say that the moral value Justice just exists? I understand what it means to say that a person is just or that some action is just, but what does it even mean to say that in the absence of any persons or any objects at all, that Justice just exists? It is hard to understand even what this means. Moral values seem to be properties of persons, and so it is hard to understand how Justice can just exist as a sort of abstraction.
Lack of Moral Obligation on Atheistic Moral Platonism
Secondly, a major weakness of this view is that it provides no basis for objective moral duties. Let’s suppose, for the sake of argument, that moral values like Justice, Love, Forbearance, and Tolerance just exist on their own. Why would that lay any sort of moral obligation upon me? Why would the existence of this realm of ideas make it my duty to be, say, merciful or loving? Who or what lays such an obligation upon me? Why would I have the moral duty to be merciful or loving? Notice that on this view moral vices like Greed, Hatred, and Selfishness presumably also exist as abstractions. In the absence of any moral law giver, what obligates me to align my life with one set of these abstract ideas rather than with some other set of abstract ideas? There just doesn’t seem to be any basis at all for moral duty in this view. In the absence of a moral law giver, Atheistic Moral Platonism lacks any basis for moral obligation.
Improbability of Atheistic Moral Platonism
Finally, thirdly, it is fantastically improbable that the blind evolutionary process should spit forth exactly those kinds of creatures that align with the existence of this realm of abstract values.1 Remember that they have no relationship with each other at all. The natural realm and this abstract moral realm are completely separate. And yet, lo and behold, the natural realm has by chance alone evolved exactly those kind of creatures whose lives align with these moral duties and values. This seems to be an incredible coincidence when you think about it. It is almost as if the moral realm knew that we were coming! I think it is a far more plausible view to say that both the natural realm and the moral realm are under the sovereignty of a divine being, who is both the creator of natural laws that govern the physical universe and whose commands constitute the moral laws that govern our ethical duties. This is a more coherent view of reality. Theism is a more coherent view because these two realms of reality don’t fall apart in this disjointed way. They are both under the sovereignty of a single natural and moral law giver.
For those three reasons, Atheistic Moral Platonism is a less plausible view than theistic based ethics such as I have been defending.
And now, I must be mean to the atheists, because I think this me too nonsense is just ridiculous, desperate intellectual dishonesty.
I remember having a conversation with one of my IT project managers who was an atheist, and she asked me what I thought would happen to dogs when they died. I said “well they don’t have an afterlife so they just rot away when we bury them and get eaten by worms”. She was aghast and said “no they don’t, they go to Heaven”. That was just her wishful thinking, there. And that’s what morality on atheism is: wishful thinking. It’s just an appearance package that gets bolted on absolute meaninglessness and hedonism. And even if the atheist tries to make traditional decisions in their own lives, they typically push for full-on dismantling of Judeo-Christian values, especially in the sexual realm. And that spills over into abortion, divorce, same-sex marriage and government restraints on free speech, conscience and religious liberty.
Dear atheists: you cannot duct tape morality onto nihilism and have it be rational. We know you’re doing it to feel good about yourselves and to appear normal instead of wearing your nihilism openly. But your faked morality is not even close to the morality of theists, and especially not of Christian theists. Christians go against their self-interest because we imitate the self-sacrificial love of Christ, who gave himself as a ransom to save others. That makes no sense on an atheistic worldview, since this life is all you have, and there is no afterlife where your actions are in the context of a relationship with that self-sacrificial Son of God. In any case, free will doesn’t exist on atheism, so that means no moral choices regardless. These are the common sense implications of atheist first principles, and in fact that’s what you hear expressed from the finest atheist scholars: no free will, no right and wrong, no life after death.
If you want to see what atheists really think about morality, then take a look at this post featuring Matt Dillahunty, where he is asked to condemn the Holocaust as objectively wrong, and he refuses to do it. That’s intellectually consistent atheist morality right there. If the universe is an accident, and human beings evolved by accident, then there is way things ought to be, and no way we ought to act. And no one is there is no ongoing two-way relationship for our conduct to be part of, anyway. On atheism, human beings will die out individually and collectively in the heat death of the universe. Once the heat death of the universe arrives, there will be no one left to care how we lived after we’re dead – there is no one waiting for us who cares how we act towards him and towards others. Atheists can arbitrarily put any limits they want on their actions, based on what makes them feel good, and what makes people like them, perhaps taking account the arbitrary customs and conventions of the time and place they find themselves in. But it’s delusional and irrational make-believe for atheists to claim that morality is rational on their worldview.
Click for larger image of chat between a sensible man and a crazy woman
Dina sent me this horrifying article from the UK Daily Mail.
It says:
A man received a barrage of abuse over texts after refusing to sleep with a woman during a date.
The screenshots of the messages, which were posted to image sharing site Imgur last night, show the man’s female date initiate conversation before launching into an angry rant.
The unnamed woman even goes so far as to suggest that her date had no right to turn down the opportunity to sleep with her, asking him whether he was gay and telling him no only means no when a woman says it.
‘Can I ask you something?’ the woman says.
Once her unnamed date from the the night before agrees she continues. ‘Why didn’t we have sex last night?’
The rational man writes, ‘I’m not really sure. Just didn’t feel like it. That bad?’
It seems as though, according to the woman, it certainly is bad, as she goes on to send some foul-mouthed messages.
‘It kind of ****** me off because I took a good 2 [sic] hours out of my time to get all ready, shave my legs, and what not… I’m actually super ******* ****** I wasted 2 hours of my time getting ready for nothing.’
The confused woman goes on to add, ‘I literally kept giving you hints and was trying all night.’
However, the man stands his ground and replies: ‘I just didn’t want to. Sorry bout it lol. What’s the big deal, it’s just sex [sic].’
But the woman just can’t accept no for an answer and loses her cool completely at his response, as she writes: ‘The big deal is I wasted 2 [sic] hours…Okay **** that a whole night trying to have sex with you and you just ‘didn’t want to.’
‘Like what’s the issue? Are you actually gay and lying? Am I that ******* hideous? Not that ******* hard to whip your **** out???’
And she even argues with the man’s protestations of ‘no means no’ as she claims that the anti-rape catchphrase only has significance when she uses it.
However, the man still manages to keep his composure and cooly answers the message, calling the woman ‘hypocritical’ and repeatedly telling her that he ‘didn’t need reasons’ to not want to have sex with her.
He also sarcastically remarked: ‘Rape is only rape for women, got it.’
Taking the comment seriously and without any explanation, the woman replies: ‘Basically.’
Read that part in bold carefully. She thinks that if she asks for sex, then the man has no right to tell her no. Compare that with the hysteria we are seeing from feminists over the “rape culture” on university campuses, where an unwanted kiss can now be prosecuted as sexual assault, and speech that offends a woman is “sexual harrassment”. Where is the chastity and the modesty that we should expect from women? Is anyone brave enough to tell this woman that her approach to relationships is destructive and harmful?
The real underlying problem is feminism
I am seeing a lot of people trying to blame men for the way that the culture has gone ever since feminists pushed the sexual revolution on us. I think we should be blaming feminism. Feminism is the idea that there are no differences whatsoever between men and women. As such, the feminist prescription for the culture is that women start to work like men, drink like men, and have sex without feel bad afterwards like men. That’s what they’ve been teaching women to do in the schools for some time, and guess what… young women believe this and they are acting on it. The normalization of fatherlessness through the generous single mother welfare programs pushed by Democrats just makes the problem worse.
Young women these days want to get attention from men, but they don’t want to be saddled with the responsibilities, expectations or obligations of a relationship with him. So, they are very proud about not listening to a man, not caring for him, not investing in him, not auditioning for the role of stay at home wife and mother in any way. They try to get attention from men who have no interest or aptitude for marriage by showing skin and jumping into bed on the first date. They have been taught that their selfishness, i.e. – career, travel, fun, etc., is more important than pursuing marriage. Marriage-minded men are avoided because they are “sexist” for expecting her to develop the skills necessary to actually perform as a wife and mother. The feminist approach of promiscuity-not-marriage basically ruins the woman’s ability to commit to a man for life in the way a non-promiscuous woman could.
Women have a narrow window from 18-35 where they can invest their youth and beauty into the life of marriage-minded man, in order to build relationship capital with him that will keep him committed to her as she ages and loses her looks. Obviously, the more she focuses on learning useful skills, both professional and domestic, the more she will be able to attract a good man – a man with a long-term plan who is prepared to commit to a woman through all the stages of her life. Her late teens and 20s is the time to demonstrate ability to be a wife and mother. But a feminist woman’s purpose for a man has nothing to do with marriage. She doesn’t look for men who want to get married, she avoids them. She just wants to get attention and to show off the handsome men she can attract to her friends.
Older women seem to be telling younger women to not marry too soon. Older women tell the younger women to have fun with their sexuality, to focus on fun and thrills and travel and having experiences. Don’t worry about marriage, have fun with hot guys. But the truth is that women cannot waste a moment of time finding a good man early and building her value with him by investing in him. From the time a man starts to work, he can benefit from a woman’s support. As this Washington Post article notes, a wife can have an enormously positive impact on her husband’s income, career and health, during these early years. When a woman decides not to make it a priority to find a man early and apply her youth, beauty and femininity to encourage and motivate him, she is losing out on being married to a strong man who will be there for her as she ages. Men do fall in love with women who invest in them – if they are good men. It’s her job to find a good man, and to make good decisions with her life in order to attract him.
Marriage to a man is not something that a woman can “put off” with impunity. The choice to party and travel and have fun in her youth comes at a price. What sort of person would put off investing into a retirement fund early so she can waste the money of thrill-seeking and adventures? Everyone knows that sooner you find something worth investing in and start investing in it, the more of a return you will get over the long term. You can’t just hope and pray for a retirement fund to materialize at age 35, after you spent all the years before having fun and traveling around. You have to build it up over a long period of time. Similarly, you can’t just find a perfect husband at age 35 when you are ready to stop all your selfish fun-seeking and travel. You have to build that man into a competent husband, by helping him with his health, career, saving, and so on. Men and women benefit from each other, and they do better as a unit. The sooner they start to function as a unit, the more they can help each other, the more wealth they can build, the more of an influence they can have.
When you present the need to rollback feminism to man-blaming pastors and parents, typically, they will tell you that we have to keep the feminism intact, and men simply have to marry women who are acting like the women in our news story (until they reach age 35). I have had Christian men tell me that although I was chaste and industrious in my youth, I must now lower my criteria and continue to pursue marriage to women who, like the woman in the story, have not prepared themselves in any way to be content with the roles of wife and mother. I’m sorry, pious parents and pastors, but I am not on board with your “make it work out for her so she’ll be happy” plan. Women like the ones in the news story are not prepared for a life-long commitment. Pursuing fun for the first 35 years of one’s life does not prepare a woman for marriage. Feminism is not compatible with self-sacrificial love for a husband. The time to fix the new generation of young women is now, though, so you all should get started with them. Get started rolling back their feminism instead of taking it as a given. Don’t talk to me about my obligation to marry, you need to focus on producing marriage-minded women who reject feminism. Then we’ll talk.
WINTERY KNIGHT 