News

Atheist congressman introduces bill to force states to allow homosexual adoption

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Story from LifeSiteNews.

Oh, yes. He’s a Democrat. And an atheist.

Excerpt:

Last week a bill was introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives proposing federal-level punishment for states that ban homosexual couples and non-married individuals from adopting children.

Touted as a measure to help more children find homes, Democratic California Rep. Pete Stark’s “Every Child Deserves a Family Act” recommends that states allowing foster care placements only into married heterosexual households be deprived of federal child welfare funds.

The law would have an impact on Utah, Florida, Arkansas, Nebraska and Mississippi, which either explicitly restrict adoption to heterosexual couples, or restrict it to married couples while not recognizing same-sex “marriage.”

[…]The bill reads: “In order to open more homes to foster children, child welfare agencies should work to eliminate sexual orientation, gender identification, and marital status discrimination and bias in adoption and foster care recruitment, selection, and placement procedures.” It also authorizes those who claim their bid for adoption was compromised by such factors to sue in a federal court.

For a survey of the research on which family arrangement is best for children, click here. For a primer on why people oppose same-sex marriage, click here. For a primer on why atheists cannot ground moral behavior rationally on atheism, click here.

Commentary

MUST-READ: Hugh Hewitt interviews Richard Dawkins on his new book

18 Comments

Transcript here. (H/T Muddling Towards Maturity)

Excerpt:

HH: On the person of Jesus Christ, did He exist?

RD: I suspect He probably did. I suspect there are lots of itinerant preachers, and one of them was probably called Yehoshua, or various other versions of Jesus’ name, but I don’t think that a miracle worker existed.

HH: How do you rate the evidence for Christ’s existence, manuscript evidence, eyewitness evidence, things like that?

RD: As I said, it wouldn’t be at all surprising if a man called Jesus or Yehoshua existed. I would say the evidence that He worked miracles, He rose from the dead, He was born of a virgin, is zero.

HH: Well, you repeatedly use the analogy of a detective at a crime scene throughout The Greatest Show On Earth. But detectives simply can’t dismiss evidence they don’t want to see. There’s a lot of evidence for the miracles, in terms of eyewitness…

RD: No, there isn’t. What there is, is written stories which were written decades after the alleged events were supposed to happen. No historian would take that seriously.

HH: Well, that’s why I’m conflicted, because in your book, you talk about the Latin teacher who is stymied at every turn, and yet Latin teachers routinely rely on things like Tacitus and Pliny, and histories that were written centuries after the events in which they are recording occur.

RD: There’s massive archaeological evidence, there’s massive evidence of all kinds. It’s just not comparable. No…if you talk to any ancient historian of the period, they will agree that it is not good historical evidence.

HH: Oh, that’s simply not true. Dr. Mark Roberts, double PhD and undergraduate at Harvard, has written a very persuasive book upon this. I mean, that’s an astounding statement. Are you unfamiliar with him?

RD: All right, then there may be some, but a very large number of ancient historians would say…

HH: Well, you just said there were none. So there are some that you are choosing not to confront.

RD: You sound like a lawyer.

HH: I am a lawyer.

Read the whole thing.

Now, obviously, Hugh is not an expert and he is going about his defense all wrong by trying to argue for general reliability of the gospels, instead of arguing for several specific “minimal facts” passages that pass standard historical criteria. But Dawkins is not going to call him on it. For a good debate on the reliability of the gospels, try Richard Bauckham versus James Crossley.

Related posts

My previous post on Richard Dawkins, including my opinion of his intellectual capability and honesty. Here’s another atheist, Peter Atkins. And did you hear Craig’s debate with Arif Ahmed? These are all Oxford University atheists, just like the one Greg Koukl is debating in Calgary on Friday.

Events

Calgary readers: apologetics conference and debate starts Friday!

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Here’s the schedule from the Faith Beyond Belief web site. This conference was organized by Jose Ruba, the same pro-life debater who has been shouted down at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec and St. Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia!

The debate is on Saturday at 7 PM at the University of Calgary, against a University of Calgary philosophy professor, who has 3 degrees, including a PhD, from Oxford University. The topic is “Do Objective Moral Truths Exist?”.

Friday, October 23rd, 2009
“Ambassadors for Christ: Why Christians Need to have a Faith Beyond Belief”
Clergy and Ministry Workers’ Lunch
(12 pm – 2:30 pm)
Greg Koukl will speak to clergy and ministry workers about the unique challenges and opportunities in reaching our postmodern generation. As a former pastor, Greg will delve into what church workers in particular need to do to equip their congregations to be good ambassadors for the kingdom of God.

Friday, October 23rd, 2009
“Ice Cream is not Insulin”
A Youth Event
(7 pm – 10 pm)
This event is geared towards, youth, youth pastors and parents to help them understand what kind of culture youth are dealing with. Greg will examine how we can help young people embrace the truth of the gospel.

Saturday, October 24th, 2009
Ambassador Training Sessions
(9 am – 2:30 pm)
A detailed and informative way to learn about the Christian worldview and how to defend that view in our culture. Christians will be trained to be good ambassadors for Christ: equipped with the right knowledge, trained to share that knowledge wisely and challenged to embody the right character.

Saturday, October 24th, 2009
“Do moral truths exist?”
Rm. ICT 102 , University of Calgary
(7 pm – 10 pm)
Join Greg as he debates Prof. John Baker, a philosophy professor from U of Calgary. This event is co-sponsored by the U of Calgary Freethinkers.
For more details check out: www.calgarydebate.ca

Sunday, October 25th, 2009
Full Gospel Tabernacle Sunday AM service
(10 am – 12 pm)
Join our host church’s Sunday morning service. Greg Koukl’s talk will be part of a series at the church on how Christians can defend and articulate their faith.

Sunday, October 25th, 2009
“Where do we go from here?”
Sunday Volunteer Lunch
(12:30 pm – 3 pm)
After hearing Greg Koukl speak during the weekend, we’ll challenge volunteers and others about what we should do locally to help create Christian ambassadors.

Hosted by Faith Builder International Church
Calgary Saddle Ridge Community Hall 7614 – 42nd Street NE.

*Note: All events will be held at the Full Gospel Tabernacle, unless otherwise indicated.
Events are free but a free-will offering will be taken.

Full Gospel Tabernacle
155 Falconridge Cres NE, Calgary, Alberta T3J 1Z9
fullgospeltabernacle.org

Does this schedule give you any ideas for your own church and local university? He’s really done a good job on this conference, hasn’t he? You can still send him a donation if you want!