Tag Archives: Reason

News

New research shows that drug-facilitated sexual assault is a myth

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Story in the UK Daily Mail. (H/T Suzanne at Big Blue Wave)

Excerpt:

A toxicology expert from the Forensic Science Service, which analyses evidence for the police, told the Mail he had come across only one sample of blood or urine containing Rohypnol – the most commonly talked about ‘date-rape’ drug – in the past decade.

‘The reality is drink spiking is very, very rare’, said senior forensic scientist Michael Scott-Ham. ‘Alcohol itself is the problem.’

A controversial study, published last week, claimed drink spiking is an ‘urban myth’, a modern scapegoat for a generation of women who cannot face the fact that the vast amounts of alcohol many are imbibing could be in any way responsible for a loss of control, which can have devastating consequences.

‘Something very curious is going on,’ says Dr Adam Burgess, who spent a year researching the issue at the University of ‘s school of social policy for a project funded by the British Academy.

‘How can you account for this great big gap between lack of any evidence for drink spiking and what so many women believe is going on?

‘There’s a displacement exercise going on here. Why, despite all the evidence, do women so readily blame the spiker rather than the amount of alcohol they are drinking? That is the real issue here.’

[…]Could it be that women instinctively feel that if they admit to themselves how much they had drunk they would also be admitting they were somehow to blame for putting themselves at risk?

Believing your drink was spiked transfers the blame to a malevolent, external force, something which women have no control over. It shifts responsibility.

[…]Dr Burgess and his team interviewed 236 women at three universities in Kent, Sussex and London during 2006 and 2007.

They sought to investigate students’ knowledge of ‘date rape’ drugs, whether they or someone they knew had been a victim and whether they had changed their behaviour in relation to the perceived threat.

And consider closely how the attitudes of these women diverge from reality, such that they perceive themselves as helpless victims, even though they are in fact directly responsible for their own misfortunes.

Only ten out of the 236 claimed to have experienced drink spiking personally and none had been subject to sexual assault.

Yet 55 per cent claimed to have known someone whose drink had been spiked.

But among respondents, 75 per cent believed having a drink spiked with drugs was a more significant risk factor for sexual assault than drinking alcohol or taking drugs, despite the fact that police believe the opposite is true.

Another pivotal study offers further evidence that alcohol is the drug to be guarded against.

The study, conducted by the Forensic Science Service in 2005, examined 1,014 cases of ‘drug facilitated sexual assault’ by analysing blood and urine samples from victims gathered by police forces in England and .

In only 21 – about 2 per cent – were traces of drugs found that the women had not taken voluntarily.

These included Ecstasy, gammahydroxybutyrate (GHB) and tranquillisers. Alcohol was picked up in 46 per cent of cases. Illegal drugs such as cannabis and cocaine were in 34 per cent of cases.

Suzanne, who is pro-life, adds:

I am certain that massive amounts of alcohol consumption contributes to abortions in this country.

If you’re a woman who drinks large amounts of alcohol around strange men looking to score, you’re placing yourself in danger. That is the reality.

Unfortunately, people have a strange way of denying reality.

[…]You are responsible for the foreseeable consequences of your actions. Doing something stupid under the influence of alcohol is one of them. That’s obvious. So don’t get drunk.

Well said!

My previous article on women behaving irresponsibly is here. An article from Laura of Pursuing Holiness also talked about the danger of women refusing to take responsibility for their own choices. Her article has a lot of scary examples. And a previous post that documents how leniently women are treated when committing domestic violence is here. According to the best available research, women commit acts of domestic violence at about the same rate as men, even though male victims are almost never recognized by social services.

Commentary

UK’s Chief Rabbi blames atheism and Darwinism for falling birth rates

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The article is in the UK Telegraph. (H/T MercatorNet via ECM, Big Blue Wave)

Excerpt:

The leader of Britain’s Jewish community claimed the continent’s population is in decline because people care more about shopping than the sacrifice involved in parenthood.

He blamed atheist “neo-Darwinians” for Europe’s low birth rate and said religious people of all denominations are more likely to have large families.

[…]The Chief Rabbi warned that secular Europe is at risk, however, because its moral relativism can easily be defeated by fundamentalists.

And he claimed that its population is also in decline, compared with every other part of the world, because non-believers lack shared values of family and community that religions have.

Lord Sacks said: “Parenthood involves massive sacrifice of money, attention, time and emotional energy.

“Where today in European culture with its consumerism and instant gratification – because you’re worth it – where will you find space for the concept of sacrifice for the sake of generations not yet born?

“Europe, at least the indigenous population of Europe, is dying.”

“That is one of the unsayable truths of our time. We are undergoing the moral equivalent of climate change and no one is talking about it.

I blogged about the UK’s looming demographic crisis previously.

So the Chief Rabbi seems to be in agreement with my views on atheism and morality. Logically speaking, atheism simply doesn’t meet any of the minimum requirements for rational morality. The problem for atheism is that the decision to commit to a marriage for life and to have children involves massive self-sacrifice. But on atheism, life is just about having happy feelings before you die – so they cannot rationally ground the decision to marry and procreate.

Mentoring

What are some popular philosophical objections to Christian theism?

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Since we’ve been looking at history and science so much recently, I decided to list some philosophical objections to Christian theism.

Here are a few of the most common objections:

Let me just comment on the first two briefly.

First, the problem of evil. You should definitely start by making the atheist define what evil is, ontologically. This is, of course, impossible on an atheistic worldview, since there is no such thing as an objective moral standard or objective moral duties, on atheism. On atheism, there are only two possible sources of moral values and moral duties: 1) individual personal preferences and 2) arbitrary cultural conventions. Neither of these is adequate to ground a robust notion of evil.

Second, for the problem of suffering. People today are pretty sure that God, if he exists at all, would want humans to make themselves happy in any way that they want. This is, of course, a pretty self-serving concept of God. The purpose of life on Christian theism is to know God, and suffering may be necessary to help us do that. Even Jesus suffered. My own view is that suffering is necessary to cause people to desire God more than they desire earthly happiness and comforts.

Third, the hiddenness of God. Check if your objector is already familiar with the standard scientific arguments for the existence of a Creator and Designer, as well as the minimal facts case for the resurrection. There is a lot of evidence available, but it takes a little digging to find it. God is not interested in coercing people’s will by dazzling displays of his power. He is interested in having a relationship with people who are interested in him, and that means people must seek him.

You can find some less common or less interesting objections in my list of arguments for and against Christian theism.