Tag Archives: Christianity

News

Alliance Defense Fund’s strong opposition to divorce

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This is timely, at a time where I am considering whether I would do more good supporting Christian/conservative groups on campus as an assistant professor or as a free speech lawyer defending campus groups from student governments.

No one is better at these kinds of issues than the ADF.

Here’s the article.

Excerpt:

The longer I live, and the more time I spend in the Christian conservative movement, the more keenly I’m aware of the extent to which divorce is devastating the Body of Christ.  It’s destroying children’s lives, destroying their parents, and destroying our cultural witness.  I’m 41 years old, and by this point I’ve seen friends’ marriages end because of adultery, because they felt “trapped,” because the other spouse was cruel, because they allegedly “fell in love” with someone else, because of addictions, or because they simply “wanted to be happy.”  Every single time — every time — one or both of the spouses made a series of deliberate decisions to place their own desires over those of their husband or wife, over the best interests of their children, and over the explicit admonitions of the God they allegedly serve.

I am increasingly of the opinion that the Christian community simply will not prevail in the cultural battle to preserve marriage — especially when the argument for marriage absolutely depends on the fact that marriage does not exist merely to fulfill adult desires and sustain adult happiness — if we treat our own marriage vows so shabbily.  How can we tell any population of Americans — whether inclined to homosexual behavior or even polygamy — that marriage is the earthly model of Christ’s relationship to his church if we treat it as an instrument of our own happiness?

[…]Frequently I hear talk of “divorce recovery” or someone saying they’re “going through” a divorce.  This passive language detaches individuals from the acts of will that cause the dissolution of their family.  You “recover” from the flu.  You decide to divorce.  Divorcing couples are capable of almost-epic feats of rationalization.  Divorce without adultery?  They rationalize it by saying that their spouse’s failings are the moral equivalent of adultery.  Fall in love with someone else?  They rationalize it through facile arguments that God loves them and wants them to be happy.  Children devastated?  They rationalize their actions as ultimately for the best because (despite all social science to the contrary) divorce is better for kids than living in conflict.  Couples float away on oceans of psychobabble — incapable of confronting the hard truth: They are making a deliberate choice to defy God.

A bit more from a follow-up post.

Excerpt:

Marriage is particularly fragile not just because of very real cultural changes in the Body of Christ, but because of a key (and catastrophic) legal change — the institution of no-fault divorce.

[…]And so we’re faced with an enabling church and an enabling legal system — two escape hatches that are all too tempting in times of distress.  The enabling church (including, sadly, many pastors and Christian peers) argue that various real or imagined spousal sins are the “equivalent” of adultery or the “equivalent” of abandonment.  The enabling church tells you that “God’s best” or “God’s plan” is not the cross but a happy life, a joyful life.  And the enabling legal system is all too ready to take your check, put you in the system and process your (sometimes) very fast, and (occasionally) very cheap divorce.

It then lists the well-known damage done to children, and continues:

How, you ask, can parents be so much happier when their children are so much worse off?  Wouldn’t the emotional and sexual collapse of their own children cripple the parents’ emotional well being?  Not if they long ago shifted their life priorities — away from the Biblical model of self-denial and to the world’s model of personal fulfillment.

Divorce is child abuse. Period. I’d like to see the church come out and preach sermons with the facts and statistics on what divorce does, and then provide people with practical advice and STRICT RULES about how to conduct courtships, marriages and parenting to the glory of God.

Marriage as an engineering problem

God is the customer of the marriage product, and he expects adults to love each other self-sacrificially, to honor moral obligations, and to raise the children to know him and serve him effectively.

There is no room in marriage for amusement and self-centeredness.

  • No emotions
  • No intuitions
  • No “chemistry”
  • No “fun”

We should be designing marriage as a solution to specific problems with the aim of serving God in our relationships.

If we can’t agree to do that, then we should all serve the Lord as singles. Marriage isn’t about YOU.

News

Review, audio and video from the Christopher Hitchens vs William Dembski debate

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The video is here.

The audio is here. (133 megabytes!)

Details:

  • Opening statements – 15 minutes
  • First rebuttal – 10 minutes
  • Second rebuttal – 5 minutes
  • Q&A – 30 minutes

Summary of Hitchens’ opening speech, snarkified and with spin removed

Contentions:

  1. God has to make the universe the way I would, but he didn’t.
  2. I don’t like some things that people who claim to be religious do.

Arguments from science:

The fact that our current universe is running out of usable energy (entropy) means that there is no God, because God, if he existed, would agree with me that the universe should go on forever.

The fact that the universe is a very big place means that there is no God, because God, if he existed, would agree with me that the universe should be very small.

The fact that the universe is a very old place means that there is no God, because God, if he existed, would agree with me that the universe should be very young.

The fact that the universe contains exploding stars means that there is no God, because God, if he existed, would agree with me that the universe should not contain exploding stars.

The fact that the universe is expanding means that there is no God, because God, if he existed, would agree with me that the universe should not be expanding.

The fact that the Earth is a small rock means that there is no God, because God, if he existed, would agree with me that the Earth should not be a small rock.

Arguments from history:

Although I don’t believe that there is any objective standard of right and wrong, I personally feel that Islamic terrorism is yucky yuck yuck. It’s just my opinion though, since there is no objective standard of morality on atheism, but only arbitrary personal preferences and arbitrary customs that vary by time and place. Since these Muslim terrorists claim to be acting on behalf of God, and I don’t like what they do, therefore God doesn’t exist.

Although I don’t believe that there is any objective standard of right and wrong, I personally feel that Israeli military expansion is yucky yuck yuck. It’s just my opinion though, since there is no objective standard of morality on atheism, but only arbitrary personal preferences and arbitrary customs that vary by time and place. Since these Israeli military expansionists claim to be acting on behalf of God, and I don’t like what they do, therefore God doesn’t exist.

Arguments from the human condition:

Although I said a minute ago that we should be cautious about the good experimental science that supports theism by showing that the universe came into being from nothing, fine-tuned for complex life, based on multiple lines of experimental evidence, I actually think that Darwinian evolution is true beyond a shadow of a doubt, based on ZERO lines of experimental evidence for macro-evolution (the evolution of new body plans and organ types). But since Darwinism is definitely true – as true as man-made global warming! – then God couldn’t exist. Why? Because God would not use a gradual process to create life, because I wouldn’t use a gradual process to create life. Also, we are similar to chimpanzees which proves that molecules to man evolution is true. Certainly there is no peer-reviewed evidence that human and chimpanzee DNA are actually very different. (Note that the link goes to Nature, the #1 peer-reviewed science journal).

When you were in your mother’s womb, you grew some hair and then it fell off, proving there is no God, because God, if he existed, would agree with me that babies should not grow hair in their mother’s womb, only to have it fall off.

Humans have appendices that have no purpose that is apparent to me, based on my vast experience with biology gleaned from writing snarky columns. Since I don’t see a purpose to your appendix – certainly there is no peer-reviewed evidence that the appendix has any useful biological purpose – therefore God does not exist.

When you were a child, you grew some teeth and then they fell off, proving there is no God, because God, if he existed, would agree with me that children should not grow teeth, only to have them fall off.

There are a lot of species that go extinct in the history of life and this proves that there is no God, because God, if he existed, would not have wanted lots of species to go extinct.

The smart theistic evolutionist Francis Collins believes in Darwinian evolution and he’s smart. I can’t give you any reasons why he believes in Darwinian evolution right now, but you should definitely believe in evolution because of his authority and his skill at avoiding debates on evolution with his critics in the intelligent design movement.

You need to be more humble like me, you ignorant fools. If you simply read more cosmology, physics, chemistry and biology, like we clever journalists have, then you would be a smart atheist like me! And humble, too, you ignorant, illiterate fundamentalists!

Summary of Dembski’s opening speech

Contentions:

  1. Evolution is false, Hitchens’ proofs from his book don’t work.
  2. Hitchens makes historical claims that are falsified by the evidence.
  3. The progress of science falsifies atheism
  4. Theism explains the big question of life better than atheism

Darwinian evolution vs. the evidence:

Junk DNA is not junk because the latest peer-reviewed scientific evidence shows that the so-called Junk-DNA actually has important functions in the cell. (Note that the link goes to Nature, the #1 peer-reviewed science journal).

The fossil record does not show a gradual pattern of emerging body plans because the latest evidence on the Cambrian explosion shows that new body plans emerged fully-formed without gradual developmental pathways.

The inverted retina is not a bad design, the counter-intuitive design actually is superior when the latest published research is considered.

Hitchens’ argument about the evolution of the eye rely on mathematical simulations, not on experimental evidence.

Hitchens is committed to Darwinism whether there is any evidence or not, because he pre-supposes materialism, so some form of evolution MUST be true, regardless of how lousy the observable evidence is for it.

Historical arguments:

Hitchens dismisses Israel’s time in Egypt and at Mount Sinai, but the evidence is written up in books like those of James K. Hoffmeier, published by Oxford University Press.

Hitchens dismisses the historical records about Jesus, but these are again made clear in publications of top academic presses. (E.g. – N.T. Wright, Richard Bauckham, etc.)

The progress of science falsifies atheism:

Atheism requires that chemical evolution be true. Darwin thought that cells were simple because he needed them to be simple for this theory, and he didn’t know anything about what cells were really like. But the progress of science has shown that the complexity of cells is enormous.

You can actually use rigorous methods developed by Bill in his book “The Design Inference”, published by Cambridge University Press, and apply them to effects in nature, like archaeological artifacts, radio signals from space, and… cells and molecular machines.

When you apply the mathematical methods for inferring design to biology in books like “Signature in the Cell” or “The Design of Life”, components of living systems are found to be designed for a purpose.

The big questions are answered better by theism than atheism:

Other arguments: the cosmological argument, the fine-tuning argument, the moral argument, the argument from rationality/reason, the argument from mathematical foundations of reality, the argument from the the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus, etc.

News

Supreme Court hears arguments on whether to allow Christian campus groups

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Story from the Wall Street Journal.

Excerpt:

Conservative and liberal justices on the Supreme Court dueled verbally over whether a student religious group has a constitutional right to receive state college funds while excluding homosexuals and others who violate its beliefs.

The case, argued Monday, stems from San Francisco, where the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law says its policy requires that student groups seeking benefits such as school funding or preferred access to meeting rooms admit any interested student.

Hastings refused to accept the Christian Legal Society as a registered student group because, starting in 2004, the organization has held members to a “statement of faith” prohibiting “fornication, adultery and homosexual conduct.”

The society sued, contending that the Hastings antidiscrimination policy violated its First Amendment right to associate with those it chooses and to select members and officers committed to promoting its beliefs. Lower courts agreed with Hastings, setting up a Supreme Court argument with both sides represented by lawyers who gained prominence during the administration of President George W. Bush.

[…]The student group was represented by Michael W. McConnell, a conservative scholar who has challenged prevailing views requiring a rigid separation between church and state. President Bush appointed him to a federal appeals court, but Mr. McConnell stepped down last year to head a center at Stanford Law School and litigate cases like this one.

“If Hastings is correct, a student who does not even believe in the Bible is entitled to demand to lead a Christian Bible study,” Mr. McConnell told the Supreme Court. While the school could bar discrimination based on “status”—such as race—it could not stop a student group from limiting membership to those who pledge fealty to its beliefs, he said.

And what about the wise Latina, who was appointed by Barack Obama, and hailed as a moderate?

Liberal justices said Hastings’s policy reflected a wish to avoid parsing the specific form of discrimination each student group might employ. Outside groups could still use campus facilities even if not officially registered, they said.

“Your group is not being excluded or ostracized completely,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said. “You can meet in the cafeteria, you can meet in open spaces in the school.”

Elections have consequences.

Now I guess that there were apparently some people who thought that voting for Obama was consistent with authentic Christian faith. But look at how Obama’s judges like up on the issue compared to Bush’s judges. Real Christians are having their fundamental rights attacked by the secular left on campus, and the judges on the Supreme Court and going to decide what happens to those real Christians. University campuses are run by secular humanists who have no reason at all in their worldview to care about protecting anyone else’s rights – morality on naturalism is survival of the fittest and might makes right. They have no principles.

I vividly remember having a talk with two “Christians” who were heavily into NBA basketball and memorizing movie dialog in the parking lot of our office prior to the 2008 election. They assured me that all that was necessary to be a Christian was to attend church and to have a good time at church. They would not listen to a word I said about policies that were consistent with the Christian worldview – not even on abortion or traditional marriage. Obama had the right color of skin, and that’s all there was to it. And now we see the results of their voting. What will happen when they meet the authentic Christians they helped to persecute in Heaven?

In addition, let this be a lesson to Christians who are interested in making a difference in the world – we need more experts in the law like McConnell who have top tier credentials. Don’t waste your life – think about the most effective thing you think you might be able to do, and do that thing. It’s not meant to make you happy, it’s self-sacrificial service.

You can read more about McConnell here.