Morality, Religion & Philosophy: December 2004 Archives

Is it considered heresy for a Christian to doubt that a particular book of the Bible ought to have been included in the canon? There must be at least some books that are heretical to doubt, otherwise we could doubt away the whole Bible -- but there are books that don't appear to be essential. Even if one believes that the books of the Bible that ought to be included in the canon are divinely inspired, does that mean that questioning the selection of the canon itself is off limits?

Here's a non-exhaustive list of things I believe are immoral but should not be illegal. The point is that not everything good should be enforced by other humans at gunpoint.

1. Pride.
2. Lying in general, although subsets such as fraud and perjury should be illegal.
3. Aborting babies conceived by rape.
4. Devising wicked schemes.
5. Being bloodthirsty, delighting in pain and suffering.
6. Stirring up trouble over pointless things.
7. Idolatry.
8. Using God's name as a swear word.
9. Disrespecting the Sabbath.
10. Dishonoring your parents.
11. Adultery.
12. Pre-marital sex.
13. Coveting.
14. Gluttony.
15. Laziness.
16. Lust.
17. Unjustified anger; being short-tempered.
18. Greed.
19. Listening to or spreading gossip.
20. Neglecting the study of God's Word.
21. Neglecting to pray.
22. Neglecting evalgelism.
23. Neglecting church attendance and participation.
24. Drunkenness.
25. Being inhospitable.
26. Neglecting your family.
27. Neglecting the instruction and discipline of your children.
28. Insincerity.
29. Being bullying or overbearing.
30. Being manipulative.
31. Being discouraging or pessimistic.

I'll add more as I think of them.

The Village Voice has a no-duh article about the burdens of being a woman -- as a man it's interesting to read, but as a rational human it's hard not to wonder why Anya Kamenetz writes as if she's pondering a profound conundrum.

If you're a woman between the ages of, say, 18 and 30, then chances are good you were raised by a mother who aspired to be an '80s superwoman, a CEO-domestic goddess in shoulder pads—and so, minus the shoulder pads, do you. Creative satisfaction, along with money, romance, and gorgeous offspring, is part of our deluxe have-it-all package. And yet, in the years between college and settling down, we run smack into some harsh economic realities that can leave us sounding like women on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

"Just make me sound not too insane," pleaded one woman who reluctantly agreed to talk about her situation.

"I'm in this really hard place and I honestly don't know what to do," said another.

And, "Is this making any sense at all?"

The cause for much of the confusion is that these women have been told that they can have their cake and eat it too, which is impossible for any of us to do. They don't seem to realize that although they have, as women, more biological options than men do, they don't have any additional time or energy to take advantage of every option at the same time.

On a limited budget of time and money, we have to somehow prioritize making a living, making our mark, and making a family. As hard as this economy is for young adults in general, it's that much more complicated for women, who not only earn less but want more. Both men and women of this generation are taking on unprecedented debt for their educations, but at 76 cents on the male dollar, women have a harder time working their way into financial stability. They're also more likely to take time out of the labor force, which slows the career climb and drags down earnings.

Differences in expectations and ambitions between men and women almost wholly account for the pay discrepancy, and taking time out of the work force to have as child is part of that. Why should a person, male or female, who takes a year or more away from a job expect to get paid the same as a person who doesn't? It wouldn't be fair, and it doesn't even make sense. A person has to decide whether time with the child is more important than a higher salary, and in families with two parents it's generally the woman who wants to stay home. Plus, it's convenient because she has boobs.

Lagusta Yearwood, 26, is a chef with her own gourmet-vegetarian meal delivery service, lagustasluscious.com. She has struggled to get the business up and running while paying off about $45,000 in debt from student loans and from living on credit cards while in college and culinary school. "I was an English and women's studies major [at the University of Rochester], and now I'm a cook," she says. "I'm happy I went to college, but if I'd known I would come out with so much debt and wouldn't be making money from my degree, I wouldn't have gone."

Yes well, many Americans are over-educated. We tend to worship education as the solution to every problem, but that doesn't always turn out to be the case.

Marriage has traditionally been the means for women to provide for themselves and their children. Of the dozens of women on the 2004 Forbes Richest People list, nearly all of them made their fortunes through marriage. But few twentysomething women today are counting on a breadwinner.

"I feel like girls are really brought up to imagine their lives with a partner," says Sara, 27, who is getting her MFA in creative writing at Columbia. "I can imagine myself in a long-term relationship but not in a way that has any impact on the way I think about my economic life."

This changing ambition among women is probably largely due to the failure of men to live up to our responsibilities. A woman would be crazy to become dependent on a man who can't provide for her and who may not stick around very long. Raising a family is, I imagine, hard, and modern men tend to be flighty and more concerned with comfort than with honor and integrity. Women I know who have found honest, hard-working men who really mean "till death do us part" are incredibly happy in their relationships and don't seem to have much trouble trusting and depending on their husbands.

Kemah, 24, approaches the question a little differently. She is majoring in film and theater at Hunter College and will be around $60,000 in debt by the time she graduates next year. She has resolved to have children whether or not she can find the right partner. "My thinking five years ago was that I have to get married to accomplish some of the things I want to do. Now that I'm getting older I think I can do it myself. I didn't grow up with my father and I don't want to depend on a man."

That's a perfect example of how one pathetic man hardened and disillusioned his daughter. As men, we must prove ourselves worthy to be trusted, otherwise it should be no surprise when we're not. Respect is earned through action.

Young women today were raised with clear messages of achievement and self-reliance. They often outnumbered men at their colleges and graduate programs, and are making economic sacrifices for the fulfillment of their own dreams, without waiting for anyone else's permission. They have taken their equality for granted. Yet as they now struggle to establish themselves, they're realizing, for the first time, the betrayals of gender.

Women are not betrayed by their biology; women have more options than men do but only the same amount of time, so they have to make more decsions and leave more roads untraveled. That's only a burden if you count success by what you haven't done rather than by what you have. If a woman's glass appears less than half-full, it's because she has a larger glass.

Dr. Fels says that as women's access to education at all levels has improved, their second-class citizenship often doesn't kick in until after graduation. "Right now the disadvantages are invisible. It's not as clear as being let into a school, but institutions that employ people still ignore families and children," she says. "It's an issue that women feel is their problem, their personal dilemma, but is really a major issue for the entire country." The good news is that we're not crazy; the bad news is that the system needs a major intervention.

And here we must part ways. As they say, the biology of women isn't a bug, it's a feature. Rather than longing to be just like men, why don't women revel in the opportunities they have, in the joys and sorrows that us men will never know? This writer blithely assumes that what men have is somehow better than what women have, but isn't that view itself a product of a male-centered world view?

(HT: Gawker.)

Jonathan Witt of Witting Shire has written a short article in The Seattle Times explaining again the enlightenment of Antony Flew (which I first mentioned here). His conclusion hits the nail on the head:

The amazing complexity of even the simplest cell; the information-bearing properties of DNA; the exquisite fine-tuning of the laws and constants of physics that make organic life possible; the Big Bang of the cosmos out of nothing — these signs of intelligence do not compel our belief in a God who thundered from Mount Sinai, lay in a manger or hung from a cross. But the evidence does have metaphysical implications, drawing us to a still place of wonder where such notions can be reasonably entertained.

It will always require faith to believe in God: that's a feature, not a bug.

Hebrews 11:6

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Only once God's existence is acknowledged can the search for truth really begin.

(HT: Bill Hobbs.)

Three awful things that go terribly together. Regarding my tolerance of legal abortion in cases of rape and incest, Paul Hsieh from GeekPress asks the question some other readers brought up as well:

If you don't mind me putting you on the spot, I'm wondering how the rape-and-incest exception fits in with the rest of your views on the fetus being a human life worthy of legal protection.

I understand those pro-choicers who don't view the fetus as worthy of legal protection and hence allow unrestricted abortion through the end of 2nd trimester.

I understand those pro-lifers who view the fetus as worthy of legal protection, and would therefore forbid all abortions.

But I've never understood the position (which I know that some conservatives take) which would ban abortions except in the case of rape/incest. (For the sake of discussion, assuming that the fetus is healthy and would grow up to be a fully functioning adult). Is there something about the way the fetus was conceived that makes it murder to abort if the mother was not raped, but makes it not murder if the mother were raped? After all, the fetus is equally human and equally innocent (or equally not human/innocent depending on one's ideology) in both cases.

Good question. First off, many pro-lifers wouldn't make the exception, and I'm not sure if my position is in the majority or not. That said, the reason I would tolerate the abortion of healthy babies conceived through rape or incest is that unlike in the vast majority of pregnancies, in such cases the mother bears no responsibility for the conception. Whenever sex is voluntary there is a chance of pregnancy, no matter how remote, and by making the decision to have sex a woman is implicitly accepting the responsibility of handling whatever consequences may result; it isn't morally acceptable to kill another human being to spare yourself inconvenience brought about by your own actions. However, in cases of rape or incest where the woman does not consent, she does not bear any responsibility for the pregnancy and should not be legally required to carry the baby to term.

An imperfect analogy is the difference between finding someone tied to a train track and actually tying someone there yourself. If you find someone tied to a track you have no legal duty to untie them before they get hit. On the other hand, if you tie someone down and they get killed then you are a murderer.

Now, this sets aside the question of moral responsibility -- but the law and morality are different matters. I think abortion should be legal in cases of rape or incest, but I don't necessarily think such abortions are desirable or morally acceptable. That's a more difficult question, and in general I think it would be best to tolerate the unasked-for inconvenience (and risk) of pregnancy in order to protect the life of the baby. However, I wouldn't force a woman to make that decision.

Update 041220 6:36pm
Many people don't get it. Forcing a hypothetical raped woman to carry her baby to term is akin to the police arbitrarily taking your wallet and giving it to the nearest homeless guy. You aren't responsible for him; if you choose to give him charity it may be noble, but society has no business forcing you to do so. In the case of the raped woman, society can't even do much to share the burden of the painful, traumatic, and difficult service she must render -- there is no one else capable of bearing her child but her, whereas the general populace can be taxed collectively to help a homeless man, thus reducing the burden on any specific person.

Is it morally right to help homeless people? Yes. Should you be forced at gunpoint to help homeless people? No. Is it morally right for a mother to carry to term a baby conceived through rape or incest? Yes. Should she be forced to do so at gunpoint? No. (And all laws are essentially coercive threats to enforce compliance with deadly force.)

Mourn for those who will never enjoy even a single Christmas and try to count the number of I I I I I's uttered by one Amy Richards.

Now I'm 34. My boyfriend, Peter, and I have been together three years. I'm old enough to presume that I wasn't going to have an easy time becoming pregnant. I was tired of being on the pill, because it made me moody. Before I went off it, Peter and I talked about what would happen if I became pregnant, and we both agreed that we would have the child.

I found out I was having triplets when I went to my obstetrician. The doctor had just finished telling me I was going to have a low-risk pregnancy. She turned on the sonogram machine. There was a long pause, then she said, ''Are you sure you didn't take fertility drugs?'' I said, ''I'm positive.'' Peter and I were very shocked when she said there were three. ''You know, this changes everything,'' she said. ''You'll have to see a specialist.''

My immediate response was, I cannot have triplets. I was not married; I lived in a five-story walk-up in the East Village; I worked freelance; and I would have to go on bed rest in March. I lecture at colleges, and my biggest months are March and April. I would have to give up my main income for the rest of the year. There was a part of me that was sure I could work around that. But it was a matter of, Do I want to?

I looked at Peter and asked the doctor: ''Is it possible to get rid of one of them? Or two of them?'' The obstetrician wasn't an expert in selective reduction, but she knew that with a shot of potassium chloride you could eliminate one or more.

Having felt physically fine up to this point, I got on the subway afterward, and all of a sudden, I felt ill. I didn't want to eat anything. What I was going through seemed like a very unnatural experience. On the subway, Peter asked, ''Shouldn't we consider having triplets?'' And I had this adverse reaction: ''This is why they say it's the woman's choice, because you think I could just carry triplets. That's easy for you to say, but I'd have to give up my life.'' Not only would I have to be on bed rest at 20 weeks, I wouldn't be able to fly after 15. I was already at eight weeks. When I found out about the triplets, I felt like: It's not the back of a pickup at 16, but now I'm going to have to move to Staten Island. I'll never leave my house because I'll have to care for these children. I'll have to start shopping only at Costco and buying big jars of mayonnaise. Even in my moments of thinking about having three, I don't think that deep down I was ever considering it.

And so two lives are ruthlessly ended to save trips to Costco. Apparently adoption was never considered as an option. Here's a reasonably wealthy, healthy woman who purposefully quit taking birth control pills and then refused to take responsibility for her own actions, preferring instead to spare herself a few months of inconvenience by murdering her children.

(HT: James Taranto.)

I confess that I'm not intimately familiar with the ins and outs of the liberties that Michael J. Totten supports, but as a religious conservative (with libertarian inclinations) I'll answer his call and provide a brief overview of my perspective (for whatever it's worth).

First off, it's important to recognize that almost everyone claims to be in favor of freedom and liberty, and yet there are still plenty of disagreements. For instance, the pro-choice crowd supports the freedom of a mother to kill her unborn child on a whim, whereas the pro-life crowd supports the freedom of an unborn child to not be killed without good reason. Which side is really more pro-liberty? It depends on how you define the term, and if you're shaking your fist at me and yelling no it doesn't you idiot! then I doubt you'll care about anything else I have to say here.

Since "it depends" doesn't get us very far, let me give you an abridged list of what liberty means to me as a conservative right-wing Republican Christian (as I generally consider myself, tongue-in-cheek).

Book burning: People should be free to burn their own books, and this doesn't appear to be an area in which the federal government should get involved. I wouldn't really care if towns or even states decided to ban/burn certain books, but I think it would be pretty bad policy and I wouldn't want to live in such places. Nevertheless, I'm pleased with our current First Amendment protections that restrict the actions of states and cities as well as the federal government.

Drugs: I've written a lot about propospals to legalize drugs. I think that the War on Drugs is poorly implemented and wastes a lot of money, but I'm not at all convinced that broad legalization would be better. I suspect that the right answer is somewhere in between.

Sex: I don't think the government should be involved in what consenting adults do in private. I do think the majority has a right to shape the public sphere according to their tastes, and those with minority view points should either try to convince the majority to change their minds or content themselves with exercising their freedom in private.

Abortion: I think the right of an unborn child to live trumps a mother's desire for comfort and convenience. I would tolerate legal abortion to save the mother's life and in cases of incest and rape.

Guns: Love 'em. Every mentally stable abult should have the right to carry a concealed weapon at all times until they do something to forfeit that right.

Government: Unlike many conservatives, I don't want to cut taxes to maximize government revenue -- I want to keep cutting taxes even lower and minimize government revenue down to the bare bones. I expect we could cut 70% of the federal budget and all benefit from it. I'm not keen on President Bush's proliferate spending, but I vote for him because he's pro-life and pursues an aggressive foreign policy that spreads my version of freedom around the world.

As a general principle, I refer you to Eugene Volokh's treatise on burning witches:

Witch hunts are wrong for a simple reason: We know that there are no witches. If there were witches, who could blight your crops, make you sterile, and turn you into a newt just by an incantation or two, then of course we should hunt them. And humane as I like to be, if witches really had these awesome powers (which quite likely wouldn't stop at the bars of their prison cell), of course we'd have to take some radical steps to protect ourselves. I'm just as much against burning as the next man, but in a case like this . . . . Wait a sec, I don't need to be in favor of burning them, because we know that there are no witches!

He goes on to defend the concept of racial profiling because there are in fact Arab terrorists. Likewise, there are drugs that should not be legal, there are weapons that should not be privately owned, there are natural monopolies that benefit from government regulation, there are sexual practices that should be prohibited, and so forth.

Lots of libertarians make strong arguments in favor of drug legalization. Yes, the War on Drugs is a disaster. Yes, people should be generally free to engage in personally harmful practices that don't hurt others. Yes, it's hypocritical that some drugs are illegal while others aren't. And so forth. The thing that holds me back is that we can see what the likely results of drug legalization would be, and it wouldn't be pretty. Just consider alcohol, which is legal but horribly abused in America and all over the world. Does anyone think we wouldn't see worse results from legalized heroin, crack, and meth? Ecstacy? GHB?

Libertarians like to argue that social constraints will limit drug abuse even if legal restraints are removed, but look at how social restraint in Britain is breaking down.

Teenage girls in Britain are binge drinking more than boys, turning the tables on a traditionally male practice, a study has shown.

More than a quarter of girls in the 15- to 16-year-old age group admitted to binge drinking.

Admitted. How many other are lying to themselves as well as the poll-takers?

"The ladette culture has lost its stigma and women are quite happy to go out and drink together. Twenty-four hour licensing will only make matters worse. We do not really know why it is happening but researchers in Australia and America, where there is a similar problem although not so great, think there is a disproportionate amount of advertising aimed at young women.

"Girls have great social freedom in Britain and they think it is okay to get biliously drunk,'' said Prof Plant, professor of addiction studies at the University of the West of England, Bristol.

The problem is, frankly, excessive social freedom. Notice that I didn't say legal freedom, because I don't think we need laws to solve every problem (I'm libertarian-ish). The thing is that when laws disappear, social restraint starts to break down as well. There's social stigma associated with breaking a law, and that stigma can be more powerful than the law itself. However, once social restraint breaks down -- because the law disappears, because people stop caring about the law, or for whatever reason -- then all manner of dangerous and absurd practices can begin to tip the equilibrium of civilization.

On that note, anyone who thinks that the freedom and prosperity we enjoy in America is the "natural state" of life is crazy. Our civilization is not fragile, but it's not indestructable either, and certain groups have been taking sledge hammers to the foundation for quite some time. We need to be careful about major changes we make to the structure of society, and we have to assume that every decision will have unintended consequences that we can't forsee at the time.

(More on drug legalization.)

Via the elegant DeoDuce I discover that Democrats are considering a retreat from unrestricted abortion.

It might have sounded shocking, but John Kerry isn't alone in taking a new look at how the party is handling the explosive topic of abortion. As Democratic strategists and lawmakers quietly discuss how to straddle the nation's Red-Blue divide, abortion has become a prime target. "The issue and the message need to be completely rethought," says one strategist. Along with gay marriage, abortion is at the epicenter of the culture wars, another example used by Republicans to highlight the Democrats' supposed moral relativism. Polls show that most Americans support legal abortion, yet they also favor some restrictions, particularly after the first trimester. Strategists say that's where many Democrats are, too—the public just doesn't know it. With pro-life Sen. Harry Reid newly installed as Senate minority leader, Democrats are eager to show off their big tent. ...

Democratic lawmakers have found themselves boxed in by a pro-choice orthodoxy that fears the slippery slope—the idea that allowing even the smallest limitation on abortion only paves the way for outlawing it altogether. As a result, most Democrats opposed popular measures like "Laci and Conner's Law"—which makes it a separate federal crime to kill a fetus—and a ban on the gruesome procedure called partial-birth abortion.

A small group of pro-choice Democrats—mostly from Red States—bucked that trend, voting for one or both measures. Still, the issue is so thorny that nearly every lawmaker contacted by NEWSWEEK declined to discuss those votes or the topic in general. But a handful of those senators—including Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, Arkansas Sens. Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, and Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh—have joined a new progressive advocacy group, Third Way, that hopes to move the party to the center on a number of cultural issues, including abortion. The effort is headed by a team of strategists who helped the Dems find middle ground on gun safety.

Make no mistake -- the Dems are pulling back because they're losing votes over abortion, one of the most emotional and powerful issues of our generation. This is how two-party democracy works folks, so take note of the system in action.

It won't be easy for the Democrats to extricate themselves from their allegiance to the abortion industry, but they won't have much choice since the trends are clearly against them. And yes, my eventual goal is to prohibit nearly all abortions -- not by hijacking the courts as the left is so fond of doing, but by convincing people and going through the democratic process.

Famous British atheist Antony Flew has decided he now believes in God -- can commenter Mark be far behind?

A British philosophy professor who has been a leading champion of atheism for more than a half-century has changed his mind. He now believes in God more or less based on scientific evidence, and says so on a video released Thursday.

At age 81, after decades of insisting belief is a mistake, Antony Flew has concluded that some sort of intelligence or first cause must have created the universe. A super-intelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature, Flew said in a telephone interview from England.

He's certainly not a Christian, but at age 81 he may still have time for further spiritual growth. So what's he saying?

There was no one moment of change but a gradual conclusion over recent months for Flew, a spry man who still does not believe in an afterlife.

Yet biologists' investigation of DNA "has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce (life), that intelligence must have been involved," Flew says in the new video, "Has Science Discovered God?" ...

The first hint of Flew's turn was a letter to the August-September issue of Britain's Philosophy Now magazine. "It has become inordinately difficult even to begin to think about constructing a naturalistic theory of the evolution of that first reproducing organism," he wrote.

That sounds about right. Once one acknowledges the existence of God, it becomes profitable to ponder: does God interest himself in human affairs?; how can a human learn about God?; does God expect anything from me? From the the article it appears that Dr. Flew believes in a God in such a way that his newfound revelation will have no practical effect on his life or on any other belief system, which strikes me as awfully convenient.

Flew told The Associated Press his current ideas have some similarity with American "intelligent design" theorists, who see evidence for a guiding force in the construction of the universe. He accepts Darwinian evolution but doubts it can explain the ultimate origins of life.

I've written on evolution and complexity before. I doubt this turn-about will have much effect on the overall debate, but perhaps it's indicative of the doubts that linger behind the fanaticism of modern atheism.

(HT: Donald Sensing.)

Amanda Witt has a poignant Christmas observation about people who don't seem to be enjoying the season -- in Seattle no less!

What was wrong with everyone? On the ferry home, studying our miserable fellows, I put that question to Jonathan.

He shrugged. “Their ideology is finally seeping into their souls.”

This is what he meant: If you believe that man is nothing but a random collection of atoms, geared only toward self-preservation and bound by no moral imperatives, there comes a point when all your loud demands for justice and equality begin to ring hollow in the void of the universe. Why should you care if women are beaten by their husbands, if salmon die, if Iraqi children fall? Even if, irrationally, you do care, why should you expect anyone else to care? There can be no rights—and no wrongs—in a world inherently constructed around the survival of the fittest. All our caring is but pretense, masking the meaninglessness of life and the inescapable selfishness of our own lives.

Having lost our wits, we now are losing our wit. When there is nothing to smile about, no one smiles.

But what if all those miserable people are mistaken? Perhaps the world is a sensible place, shining with meaning and morality that is, blessedly, not dependent upon us. Perhaps after all there is something to smile about.

This is quite right, and pointing out the final end of secular philosophy is generally sufficient to stop any debate. Sure, the most strident will affirm that their beliefs imply that the universe is random and meaningless and insist that such a conclusion does nothing to invalidate the premise -- which is logically coherent -- but how many of the rest of us are comfortable with such a perspective? Comfort, they will correctly insist, has nothing whatsoever to do with Truth, but most of us will choose comfort over truth any day of the week, and twice on Sunday (heh).

That's not to say I don't believe what I claim, but most people don't put much effort in to examining their beliefs no matter what they happen to be. Both religious and irreligious people alike tend to be rationally ignorant about many of the details of their belief systems. Lest any irreligious readers think that religion is all about comfort, consider that most irreligious people prefer secularism because it allows them to indulge in every vice without fear of judgement. Secularism sells itself on immediate comfort, whereas Christianity sells itself on future comfort -- recall the innumerable martyrs upon whose bodies Christianity was founded. Either way, most people pick based on an unconscious and flawed cost/benefit analysis rather than a real investigation into Truth.

(HT: Bill Hobbs.)

The AP reports that fewer teens are engaging in sex, which is certainly a good thing, but they miss one of the most significant results from the National Center for Health Statistics report on "Teenagers in the United States: Sexual Activity, Contraceptive Use, and Childbearing, 2002".

Among Hispanic teen males the percent declined from 61 to 55 percent; among non-Hispanic white teen males it declined from 50 to 41 percent; and most remarkably, non-Hispanic black teen males’ levels of sexual experience declined 17 percentage points, from 80 to 63 percent. Some of these groups that are now showing changes between 1995 and 2002 did not show changes in the earlier time interval, between 1988 and 1995 (non-Hispanic black and Hispanic males aged 18–19 years). However, the youngest male teens and non-Hispanic black teen males have declines in sexual experience of fully 19 and 17 percentage points, respectively, between 1988 and 2002.

This is clearly good news for the black community, which struggles with a high illegitimacy rate (up to 75% of black children are born to unmarried women) and a high abortion rate.