Ethics

Libertarianism: Where are MUH Roads?

Libertarianism: Where are MUH Roads?

This is absolutely hilarious but in a way so true. Incase you don’t know, libertarianism is the political stance that greatly reduces the role of the state and greatly increases the role of the individual ‘s liberty. The government is limited to just the protection of individuals from coercion or violence. One of the most damning difficulties with this belief (despite some of its appeal) is the idea that abortion is an issue that the government should get out of. But then they claim to protect the rights of every individual, including their life, which is utterly contradicted by their stance on abortion. You cannot be neutral on this issue.

They then oppose “ALL government laws at ANY level” (source) that requires registration or restrictions on the ownership or manufacturing of guns. That’s just ridiculous because it suggests that murderers have a right to own a gun as well. Not all regulations are bad; it’s good for us conservatives to remember that. Sometimes they are very important in ensuring that criminals (or corporations) do not harm us. It’s not just about the individual, it is also about the family and the society that it is comprised in.

The Great Porn Experiment

This is absolutely eye opening and I think everyone who thinks porn is permissible should have a look at this. With over a million views, I’m surprised but pleased with the positive response that this is getting and I hope that it continues to spread around the internet. Too many people think porn is harmless and by consequence harm themselves and their relationships. The fact that this has become so normative is a sad testimony of just how mechanically sexual our society has become. As Roger Scruton points out:

By focusing on the wrong things we pollute and diminish the right things. In pornography, desire is detached from love, and attached to the mute machinery of sex. This is damaging to adults in just the same way that modern sex education is damaging to children. For it undermines the possibility of real erotic love, which comes only when the sexual act is hedged round with prohibitions, and offered as a gift and an existential commitment.

Is Guessing On A Test Dishonest?

Is Guessing On A Test Dishonest?

I’m reading an utterly fascinating book called “Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes” and I came across an interesting story:

I (Randy) remember grading my first multiple choice exam in Indonesia. I was surprised by how many students left answers unmarked. So I asked the first student when handing back exams, “Why didn’t you select an answer on question number three?”

The student looked up and said, “I didn’t know the answer.”

“You should have at least guessed”, I replied. He looked at me, appalled. “What if I accidentally guessed the correct answer? I would be implying that I knew the answer when I didn’t. That would be lying!” I opened my mouth to respond, but then I realized I was about to argue him to a lower standard! I shut my mouth. My American pragmatism had been winning out over my Christian standard of honesty.

I was taken off guard by this story because I never once equated guessing with lying. Are the cultural mores that different? Are Americans really less honest than Indonesians? That’s just difficult for me to accept. It just is a part of our American more that we guess on a test, it is not expected of us that we only answer if we presume to know the answer. To this Indonesian student however, quite the opposite is the case. We may be able to respect someone who decided to live by this principle in America, but we never imagined someone would be appalled at the mere idea of doing so. If we argue otherwise, are we really pushing a lower standard?

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Sexual Insanity: Morning After Pill, Sex Ed & Bathrooms

Sexual Insanity: Morning After Pill, Sex Ed & Bathrooms

According to a recent article by the AP:

The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday had lowered the age at which people can buy the Plan B One-Step morning-after pill without a prescription to 15 – younger than the current limit of 17. The FDA decided that the pill could be sold on drugstore shelves near condoms, instead of locked behind pharmacy counters.

Sex today has become an immediate commodity, something that you can conveniently “separate” from its procreative functions in order to trade non-committed pleasure with someone at your leisure. Any commitment that a person does have is completely incidental and emotional now, it has no objective reason for being pursued. A committed partner is just as good as say a friend with benefits; it’s just a matter of what works best for you. So it is no surprise then that we find sex increasing with the youth because it’s easy, takes no responsibility, and it is relatively painless. The FDA sees that there’s more demand for this with younger ages, so they’re naturally going to cater to that. Pills are for treating sicknesses, which fertility apparently is since it gets in the way of sexual pleasure. There’s a sickness alright, but it’s a sickness that’s in the depraved heart of men.

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Obama: God Bless Planned Parenthood

Obama: God Bless Planned Parenthood

President Obama is the first sitting president to publicly speak on Planned Parenthood:

“When politicians try to turn Planned Parenthood into a punching bag, they’re not just talking about you,” he said. “They’re talking about the millions of women who you serve.”

“The fact is, after decades of progress, there’s still those who want to turn back the clock to policies more suited to the 1950s than the 21st Century,” Obama said. “And they’ve been involved in an orchestrated and historic effort to roll back basic rights when it comes to women’s health.”

“Thank you Planned Parenthood. God bless you. God bless you,” Obama concluded.

I shouldn’t say this is particularly surprising as this is coming from a man that has supported infanticide if the woman so chooses. Pro-lifers have pointed out the implications of abortion for some time now, but it was simply dismissed as a slippery slope. First, I think it should be obvious to anyone that a distinct human being is inside that woman’s womb (it’s not the woman’s body) and it has all the capacities for reasoning and willing in its nature or else it could never develop its capacities into what we see in adults. Second, even if that is not granted, you are senselessly taking away the future hopes and dreams of that life. Lastly, you were once a fetus and that is all you need to know to see that abortion is wrong. If you were not identical to that fetus, then it was not you because you could never exist without first being a fetus. If one was to go back in time and take your life then, it would be just as wrong as killing you now.

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Moral Relativism’s Cruel Logic

I really like how Brian Godawa made a short film like this that demonstrates philosophical ideas and their consequences. Now this is sometimes used against atheism and I can see its force, but some of the more sophisticated atheists could avoid this issue altogether by appealing to some natural law-esque standard of ontologically accounting for moral values. At least they can do so without directly appealing to God (albeit impossible not to do so indirectly, imo), but the fact remains that morality fits much better with a theistic worldview than a naturalistic worldview.

Philosophy of Ethics with Calvin & Hobbes

Philosophy of Ethics with Calvin & Hobbes

I love these double standards. It’s an accurate depiction of how subjective morality must necessarily work in the real world. Why? Because humans innately know to some degree what is good and they necessarily will that which they perceive as good. They cannot will that which they perceive as something evil being done to them. It’s similar to people that deny that our external reality is real but in their lives show that it is real by not jumping in front of a moving train. Perhaps you cannot immediately prove that you are not a brain in a vat but it is simply a properly basic belief that you are not in a vat. It is the job of the opposer to present an argument and I have not seen one good argument for subjective morality. If you think subjectively, then you must live subjectively.

H/T Poached Egg.

The True Nature of Love

Little children, we must not love with word or speech, but with truth and action. 1 John 3:18

Introduction

What is love? Some seem to think of it as just a sentiment, an emotion, or an acceptance of everyone and anything. Others can intellectualize it to the point of cold hearted abstraction. Neither of these views provide a complete picture of love as the former lacks substance but the latter lacks compassion. What these two have in common is their lack of focus on the act of love – it is not simply a belief or an emotion, it’s something that you do. To get a better understanding of what this looks like, we need to distinguish between three kinds of love: agape, phileo, and eros. Agape is an unconditional sacrificial love that wills to do good for others with truth and action. Phileo is a conditional yet loyal affection for friends, family, and society. Eros refers to a sensual or passionate love that is often (but not always) expressed in a sexual manner. Like the Bible, I’d argue that agape is the greatest of these loves for it functions through our intellectual and volitional faculties on the basis of what is truly good for a person and from there it wills to do that good in action. Unfortunately, it is also the most difficult love of them all because it cannot depend on what you feel about a person or whether they feel the same way about you.

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Last Reunion

This anime music video is just epic, it makes a powerfully emotional point. The basic story is that two young boys met each other on a remote island and became as close as brothers. They were adopted into an orphanage because their parents were either dead or away and only had each other and their dreams to become pirates as their purpose for living. Ace, the older brother, gets captured by the Navy after losing to Blackbeard. Since Ace is a renowned pirate, the Marine plans a public execution date. The Marines riles up Whitebeard to a great war and many of the most elite forces gathered together at Ace’s location to battle.

Luffy, the younger brother, endangers his life to save his older brother. It is clear since the beginning that he is no match for these elite warriors, but he goes out of his way anyway to fight to the death. Now I won’t spoil what happens at the end for anyone, the point I just want to make here is how powerful this love was. How far would you be willing to go for someone? Would you fight and lay down your life for them? Yet that’s precisely what Jesus did for us. But he topped them all by dying for his enemies not through power and glorious battles but through lowly submission. Today that’s called weakness, for Christians that’s called love.

No one has greater love than this, that someone would lay down his life for his friends. – John 15:10

Porn Influences Opinion on SSM

According to a recent study, the more porn that you watch the more supportive you are of gay marriage. That’s not surprising, it’s pretty much common sense. The more you are exposed to something, the more you will become accustomed to it. There was a time when people had shame for watching pornography, at least during their younger years. As time progressed, their moral consciences became darkened, obtuse, and blunt to its effect (Romans 1:21-22). The very act of masturbation itself is an affirmation that one can have sex outside of marriage with any sex because it already involves using our sexual organs contrary to their natural ends. Naturally then, a person becomes accustomed to the pleasure and begins to see it as a good and sees his former “guilt” as nothing but a child’s innocence. Before you know it, your intuitions change and you pseudo-rationalize away any position that is contrary to yours as absurd and counter-intuitive. That’s what psychologically begging the question looks like, it can happen to even the best of us.

Link to the study here.

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