Tag Archives: Human Rights

Videos

Is Barack Obama a Christian? Are Democrats the party of atheism?

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Watch this video of a Democrat member of Congress and see what Democrats think of God.

Is that typical for Democrats? I think so.

What about Barack Obama? Does Barack Obama believe in God? Is Barack Obama a Christian?

I don’t think that he does believe in God – at least he seems to not want to acknowledge it in public.

I actually think he is an atheist. And Ann Coulter agrees with me. She thinks that all liberals are atheists.

Here is a helpful video showing Barack Obama’s view on whether faith in Christ is necessary for salvation.

He doesn’t believe that Jesus is the only path to salvation, which I think is required to be an authentic Christian.

Here is a series of 7 videos examining whether Barack Obama is a Christian. (The link has transcripts to each clip)

I really don’t care whether he is a Christian or not with respect to being the President, but I do care that people know his view of Christian doctrine.

Commentary

Richard Dawkins’ rhetoric about religion and child abuse

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Vic Reppert wrote an interesting post a while back on Richard Dawkins’ view that parents teaching their religion to children is child abuse.

First, this is what Dawkins said:

“God Delusion” author Richard Dawkins complains that “Our society, including the nonreligious sector, has accepted the preposterous idea that it is normal and right to indoctrinate tiny children in the religion of their parents, and to slap religious labels on them — ‘Catholic child,’ ‘Protestant child,’ ‘Jewish child,’ ‘Muslim child,’ etc.”

Dawkins says those “labels” are “always a form of child abuse” and concludes:

“Maybe some children need to be protected from indoctrination by their own parents.”

Then Reppert writes:

The thinking that leads to religious persecution goes like this: those guys over there who are teaching false religious claims are exposing others to a greater likelihood of eternal damnation. So we have to stop these people no matter what it takes. Maybe people need to be protected from false teaching. Believe me, religious persecutors have everyone’s best interests at heart.

So do anti-religious persecutors. Removing eternal damnation from the picture doesn’t eliminate the temptation to persecute. They will say that these religious people may not be exposing people to hell, but they are spreading scientific illiteracy and possibly ushering in a new dark age, and they just have to be stopped.

If I were told that I could not teach Christianity to my children, you can bet I would consider myself to be a victim of persecution. (Unfortunately for Dawkins, we already “indoctrinated” our kids, and they are dedicated Christian adults now.)

Yes, yes, I know, Dawkins says maybe. And the next atheist that comes along will say definitely. And it will be more tempting for these people to say definitely the closer they are to acquiring political power.

I don’t agree with Vic Reppert on many things, but he’s right about this. And I think Dawkins’ views are particularly alarming given the moral relativism, anti-reason and anti-science ideas so dominant on the secular left. I posted recently about the atheist philosopher Arif Ahmed’s denial of moral facts, which is the view that is consistent with atheism and an accidental, materialistic universe. It was interesting to see how Ahmed’s denial of moral realism did not stop him from being politically active on the basis of his personal preferences. And he was perfectly happy forcing his personal preferences on other people despite admitting that morality is illusory when considered objectively.

Atheists don’t believe in moral realism, but they do believe in pursuing pleasure and avoiding moral sanctions from those who disagree with them. And the more militant ones liek Dawkins and Ahmed will use political power to pursue those ends. If you are religious, and you teach your children that some actions are objectively immoral, then your children may grow up and judge atheists or vote in policies that limit their hedonism. Then the more militant atheists would feel bad, or be prevented from doing things that make them happy – like killing inconvenient babies who appear after recreational sex. And the more militant atheists may want to put a stop to you making them feel bad. There is nothing in their worldview that prevents them from using violence to stop you from making them feel bad. On their view, the universe is an accident, and you have no “natural rights” like the right to life, objectively speaking.

So you can see how the denial of objective moral values and duties leads to things like abortion today. Their victims today are weak, and small. Many people are therefore inclined to agree with them that the right to happiness of the strong trumps the right-to-life of the weak, (a right not grounded by the atheism worldview, which denies objective human rights). Tomorrow, if they had more political power, perhaps the more militant atheists would graduate to more draconian acts, like other atheists (Stalin, Mao, etc.) have in the past.

Atheist Aldous Huxley explains what atheists believe about morality and why they believe it:

For myself as, no doubt, for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation.The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality.We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom.

Atheism is just the denial of objective moral duties, achieved by denying the existence of the objective moral duty prescriber, also known as God.

Atheists oppose science and evidence

Theists support science and evidence

News

Alberta judge defends student’s free speech against U of Calgary

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A surprising defeat for fascism in Alberta, Canada. (H/T Andrew)

Excerpt:

An Alberta judge ruled last week that universities are not entities deserving of independence and protection from the state, but rather that they are part of the state. In her decision, involving a case where twin brothers challenged being punished by the University of Calgary for negative Facebook posts about an instructor, Justice Jo’Anne Strekaf ruled that the university violated the Charter right to free expression. The landmark decision may have legal precedence, but it will unnecessarily handicap universities when acting as universities.

As only Parliament and provincial legislatures are subject to the Charter, Strekaf has confirmed that at least some policies held and enforced by universities are on par with government legislation when certain Charter rights are concerned.

In 1990, a Supreme Court ruling concluded that, despite government regulation and funding, universities “control their own affairs and enjoy independence from government regarding all important internal matters.” That ruling, long cited by universities accused of violating the Charter, did leave open the possibility that some university activities could be subject to Charter review.

Strekaf’s contribution is, briefly, that when dealing with the hiring and firing of staff, universities are not government. With respect to students, however, universities educate them according to a government mandate and, therefore, are government.

While the university argued that its disciplinary policies are part of a private contract between the U of C and students, Strekaf concluded that those policies are too closely related to the school’s educational mandate to not be considered government action.

Strekaf could have only ruled that the punishment (six months’ probation) was excessive, or inconsistent with university policy, or that the students’ comments were not defamatory, and left it at that. But no, the judge went all the way, and whittled Ivory Tower autonomy down to a pathetic nub.

[…]If Strekaf’s ruling holds, it will prove popular among any number of campus protest groups, and anti-abortion clubs in particular. Such groups have been denied campus space for their activities at schools across the country, and have even been arrested and charged with trespassing. They may now have a remedy.

I hope this decision will help the Canadian pro-life students who have to deal with censorship and coercion all the time. You’ll recall that the Canadian pro-life students face censorship, expulsion and even imprisonment from left-wing university administrators.

Neonatal survival after withdrawal of artificial hydration and nutrition can last up to 26 days, according to a case series presented here at the 18th International Congress on Palliative Care. Although physical distress is not apparent in the infants, the psychological distress of parents and clinicians builds with the length of survival, said Hal Siden, MD, from Canuck Place Children’s Hospice in Vancouver, British Columbia.

“These babies live much, much longer than anybody expects. I think that neonatologists and nurses and palliative care clinicians need to be alerted to this,” he said. “The time between withdrawal of feeding and end of life is something that is not predictable, and you need to be cautioned very strongly about that if you are going to do this work.” He presented a series of 5 cases that clinicians at his hospice had overseen over a 5-year period.