Thoughts on a starling, atheists, choices and God

            I was watching a starling work on building a nest.  It was in the upper corner of an outside stairwell at a hotel.  The starling had a piece of a leaf in its beak and was trying to squeeze into a small opening in which it was making its nest.  It had to make several attempts before it was able to balance properly while retaining its grip on the partial leaf and still get through the opening.  This made me ask a simple question: why would the starling go through all this trouble?  Why not just lay its eggs in the crevasse without building a nest at all?  Certainly the eggs would be safe from weather and predators there.

            Of course, birds don’t think, they just behave, right?  So the starling simply follows its pre-determined, genetically distilled reality without analysis, right?  Well, not so fast.  What made the starling put its nest in the place where it put the nest?  What made the starling choose a particular piece of leaf versus some other piece of leaf? 

            Before entering seminary, I was a practicing trial lawyer for 23 years.  I get the idea of evidence.  I also get, though, that two people looking at the same evidence sometimes come to different conclusions about the meaning of and value of evidence.  As a Christian, I see the starling and immediately think God.  I immediately think of a world made and ordered which follows certain principles.  I think of a world in which God makes provision even for the birds of the air.  Part of that provision is that starlings, like so many other birds, build nests rather than just plopping their eggs in any old place.  So, I see the starling behaving and conclude design because it certainly appears the starling is making decisions.

            The atheistic naturalist, however, sees the starling doing the same thing and concludes, time and chance, I guess.  The starling really isn’t choosing anything.  It picks up the particular leaf because it was, in some sense, genetically pre-destined to pick up that particular leaf, at that particular time, to place it in that particular crevasse, in that particular stairwell, to build that particular nest, right?  There is no design, and no decision making, just raw reaction based chemical and electrical activity that was functionally determined billions of years ago.  Ultimately the starling was building it nest because it was predestined to build its nest, just like I was predestined to be there at the moment and predestined to write these words because some blob of inanimate material mysteriously morphed into animate material way back when.  I am no more deciding to write these words than the starling decided to make its nest.  We just can’t help ourselves.

            There is a stark difference between these two possibilities.

            I understand why one might choose to conclude we and the starling are captured by our genes, given Darwinian evolutionary theory.  What I don’t understand is why anyone would WANT that to be true.  It has to mean that our lives have no intrinsic value, meaning or purpose.  It has to mean that we are ultimately robots on a course over which we have no control.  We simply react.

            Yet, that’s not how we live our lives from day to day.  We live like our choices matter.  The starling appears to be making decisions.  You can claim its all an illusion, like the Buddhists.  But even (most?) Buddhists step back onto the curb when they see a truck barreling down the road, getting ready to hit them!  We don’t live like the truck is an illusion.  We don’t live like robots, either.  We engage all the time.  Atheists are constantly telling me how irrational and unscientific my worldview is.  But based on their own theorizing, am I not simply behaving based on the chemical and electrical reality in my brain, and therefore, doing precisely what the cosmos has unintentionally programmed me to do?  Therefore, there is no rational or logical basis for claiming I should not believe in God because the cosmos made me this way! I am utterly, properly, and profoundly right, then to believe what I believe.

            Experience tells us our choices matter, though.  Even atheists don’t live like their choices are irrelevant.  Even atheists choose to send their children to a particular school because they think it’s important for them to get the best education.  Even atheists choose to drive in a manner that doesn’t cause accidents, because someone, including the atheist, could get hurt.  Even atheists operate every day as if it matters whether they exercise, eat right, or take the right nutritional supplements to maintain their health.  Because inside of us, in our fully honest moments, when no one else is looking, we know that our decisions matter.  We know that life doesn’t just appear to have intrinsic purpose, value, and meaning: it does, in fact, have intrinsic purpose, value, and meaning.  In fact, we crave these things.  How did the random, unintentional animation of some previously inanimate blob of stuff cause us to have these desires?  It just doesn’t make sense.

            Christianity makes sense of these longings, though.  A creator God designed us to have purpose, value, and meaning based on our relationship to him.  That’s why starlings make choices about which scrap of paper or which leaf to put into their nest.  God designed them to make those choices.  We are designed to make much more sophisticated choices like whether we hurt another human being or not, whether we move our family to a new place, whether we treat our bodies well or not, whether we . . .  you get the point.  That creator God infused us with longings for purpose, meaning, and value.  In order to guarantee that our longings actually have that intrinsic purpose, meaning, and value God provided a perfect standard that secures this reality: his son, Jesus Christ.  God stepped into time and space and acted as a human being in order to give us sufficient evidence to see his glory and to acknowledge him as creator and sustainer of our reality.

            Jesus is the only person in recorded history who died, was raised from the dead, and never died again.  The offer of the gospel of Jesus Christ is you can review the evidence and make a God-given choice to accept the evidence or reject it.  And, if the gospel message of God’s intervention in time to give us purpose, meaning, and value is true, then our choices matter eternally.  Otherwise, how are we not simply puppets of the cosmos?

            The starling acts like its choices matter.  What about you – will you continue living a lie – will you continue living like your choices matter when time, space, chance, chemicals, and electricity say otherwise?  Or, will you accept that there is a God who designed you and that your choices really do matter? 

http://www.9marks.org/answers/what-gospel

An Atheist Rips Kirsten Dunst for Not Understanding Gender Theory - But Why?

“I feel like the feminine has been a little undervalued. We all have to get our own jobs and make our own money, but staying at home, nurturing, being the mother, cooking — it’s a valuable thing my mom created. And sometimes, you need your knight in shining armor. I’m sorry. You need a man to be a man and a woman to be a woman. That’s why relationships work.”

            So said Kirsten Dunst . . . an actress . . . from Hollywood.

            Why does this matter?  It’s not so much that she said something reasonable, level-headed and sensible, it’s the immediate, nasty, and villainous attacks which started following Ms. Dunst’s comments.  In what supposedly passes for some sort of commentary, Erin Gloria Ryan on the website Jezebel, for instance, uses an extremely profane four letter word as part of her title, then simply dismisses Ms. Dunst’s comments because “[Ms. Dunst] is not paid to write gender theory so it shouldn't surprise anyone that she's kind of dumb about it.”  In other words, Ms. Dunst doesn’t agree with Ms. Ryan, therefore, nothing she said can have any value.

            I find myself asking:  Why do people like Ms. Ryan feel compelled to be so mean-spirited?  What animates such despair that she would feel compelled to write the kind of vindictive and malicious words she has used against Ms. Dunst?  If the most recent article on Jezebel, the website Ms. Ryan edits, is any indication, it results from her atheism.  Atheism claims that no transcendent authority exists of any kind.  Humans are their authority.  Thus, we can say whatever we want, whenever we want, about whatever we want, however we want, in whatever form we want.  Right?  I mean isn’t atheism all about freedom?  Freedom from God placed restrictions on living?  Live and let live?

            Yet, Ms. Ryan seems to think Ms. Dunst is wrong.   This happens so often with atheists that I’m beginning to wonder if they are even able to see it.  How is it that Ms. Ryan concludes Ms. Dunst is wrong?  If we are our own authority, shouldn’t she take a live and let live approach?  Shouldn’t that be at the heart of atheism?  Yet, again, and again, so often it has become ubiquitous, atheists aren’t simply saying live and let live.  They’re out there proclaiming something – they’re out there proselytizing for their worldview (see various books by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and others).  The American Atheists organization has a website which proclaims all kinds of goals and aspirations.  Frankly, it’s downright bizarre.

            The American Atheists define atheism as: “the mental attitude which unreservedly accepts the supremacy of reason and aims at establishing a life-style and ethical outlook verifiable by experience and scientific method, independent of all arbitrary assumptions of authority and creeds.”[1]

            There’s only one itsy bitsy problem with this definition: it’s completely arbitrary.  It also fails to meet its own standard (which means it’s irrational) and it sounds an awful lot like a creed.  First, it’s completely arbitrary to “accept the supremacy of reason.”  Human beings have emotions and those emotions matter.  Ask any mom, atheist or not, who just lost a five year old to leukemia.  Let’s see if reason alone reigns supreme in her thinking.  Not.  Nor should it.  Second, how do you verify ethics by experience and scientific method?  By ethics I presume the atheists here mean how humans should govern their interactions with each other?  That certainly seems to be what the website suggests.  Gosh, just the events of the 20^th century strongly suggest to me that experience dictates that human beings are pedantic creatures who will most often act in their utter self-interest even at a gargantuan cost of human life, enormous human suffering, and tremendous destruction of property.  This is despite roughly 5,000 years of recorded human history leading up to the 20^th century, which certainly, I think, would have been a sufficient period of time from which to draw all the appropriate data necessary for us humans to get it right . . . right?  Problem three is that the proposed definition is, itself in the form of a creedal statement describing what atheists believe.  Upon what authority have the American Atheists determined that this is what people ought to believe?  With no transcendent authority, human purpose can only be a purely arbitrary purpose, suffering from the whims of human tyranny.  How is it the American Atheists have come up with a proper determination of what ought to be?

            So we get a relatively innocuous opinion from an actress who simply responded to a question.  She was honest in her answer.  How can she possibly be wrong, given the atheistic worldview?  Who cares whether Kirsten Dunst is paid to write “gender theory.”  In fact, who cares what “gender theory” is.  Who cares whether reason reigns supreme or not.  How can it possibly matter?  There is simply no basis for atheists to make these kind of claims without being completely arbitrary.

            The atheist dogma, ironically, crashes in on itself.  It claims to be independent of “arbitrary assumptions of authority,” except, of course, for its own arbitrary assumption that its statements about reality are authoritative.  Thus, Ms. Ryan can claim Ms. Dunst is wrong because she arbitrarily believes that “gender theory” has some sort of authority to which Ms. Dunst apparently unwittingly owes some allegiance, even though Ms. Dunst may not agree with it or even, gasp, believe in it!

            Sounds vaguely familiar . . .

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[1] http://www.atheists.org/about-us/aims-and-purposes (accessed April 17, 2014).

Coming Soon to the Internet Near You: No More "Hate" Speech

            S.2219 might not mean anything to you right now.  It may never.  What it is a bill proposed by Senator Edward Markey of Massachusetts which requires the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to

Analyze information on the use of telecommunications, including the Internet, broadcast television and radio, cable television, public access television, commercial mobile services, and other electronic media, to advocate and encourage violent acts and the commissions of crimes of hate, as described in the Hate Crime Statistics Act (28 U.S.C. 534 note).

According to Congressman Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), chief sponsor of the House version, the bill will target “hateful activity on the Internet that occurs outside of the zone of First Amendment protection”.  

            Let’s review the First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

            It’s not long.  The English isn’t overly complicated or complex.  Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech.  To what zone outside the First Amendment does Congressman Jeffries refer?  In particular, what part of the First Amendment allows Congress to “target” so-called “hateful speech”?  The words simply aren’t there.  The First Amendment’s prohibition against Congress abridging freedom of speech is very, very broad.

            Since the handful of you who have actually read my blog must know how much I love irony, I have to think of Catherine Ross, Professor of Law at George Washington University who claims the First Amendment contains a “norm of tolerance” and a “respect for difference.”[1]  Wonder what she might say to Congressman Jeffries?  She thinks homeschooling is dangerous because she claims it doesn’t respect this alleged norm (again, not found in the simple wording contained in the First Amendment).  But isn’t one person’s “hateful activity on the Internet” potentially just another person’s “difference of opinion”?  Given the common effort these days for people to categorize difference as hate speech, what does Congressmen Jeffries actually mean?  What is Senator Markey trying to do? 

            This isn’t a political issue for me.  This is a practical issue for me.  I am writing a blog in which I have taken very clear stands on certain issues (homosexual behavior, creationism, Christianity as truth) which many people would argue are “hate” speech.  Hopefully it’s not because they claim I’m saying things in a hateful way.  However, if the NTIA is scouring the Internet I might well show up in its reporting, depending on how it arbitrarily defines hate.  The Department of Homeland Security suffered a kerfuffle a year ago or so when so-called “fundamentalist Christians” showed up in their documents as potential terror groups.  The Army ran into similar problems for the same reason.  The Southern Poverty Law Center routinely claims that anyone who does not accept the homosexual agenda wholesale is a hate group.  Do Congressman Jeffries and Senator Markey propose that guys like me fit in this category?  Am I then part of the reporting?  If so, what do these two propose to do with such reporting?  What purpose does it serve?

            The reality here is clear.  I see language twisted so badly, so often it makes Bavarian pretzels look straight.  Congress shall make no law . . . abridging freedom of speech.  Not freedom of “nice” speech, not freedom of “kind” speech, not freedom of “loving” speech, not freedom of “decent” speech, not freedom of “respectable” speech, not freedom of “what we arbitrarily define we like” speech, but freedom of speech.  What these folks want to do is change the rules without changing the Constitution so they can get rid of their perceived political enemies by targeting them via the NTIA (as an aside, until I saw the reporting on this law, I had never heard of the NTIA, had you?).

            Do I like it when I read articles by people denigrating what I believe?  No.  Do I like it that the purveyors of the website Jezebel think it’s reasonable to use the F-word as part of a headline to attack the recent comment by actress Kirsten Dunst regarding men and women’s roles?  No.  Do I like it that Mark Joseph Stern of Slate.com routinely rummages through his bag of clever phrases to bash Christians about everything and anything?  No.  Do I like it that pornography gets zillions of hits every day?  No.

            But, here’s the thing, and there just ain’t no getting around it.  Freedom means freedom.  Yes, we do permit very limited restrictions on speech: you can’t lie, you can’t make false claims to people and profit from those false claims, you can’t yell fire in a crowded theater when there is no fire, thereby causing a stampede that might hurt people.  Let’s face it, though, these limitations don’t have anything to do with point of view.  Hate is a very subjective standard which varies depending upon who is claiming the language or “activity” is hateful.  To allow some faceless bureaucrats in our federal government to make some kind of report based on such an arbitrary and subjective standard utterly undermines the whole idea of freedom of speech.

            Let this possible law serve as a clear warning to those who think their freedom of speech is safe.  It’s only safe until it isn’t.  As I write this I am chilled to the bone as I think back to just about three years ago when I told two lawyer friends that they would likely see me in jail at some point in the future because of my beliefs and my convictions about those beliefs.  While that day is not here, bills like S.2219 tell me my days are numbered.  

            Disagreement and difference of opinion isn’t hate.  Frankly, very few of us in the United States really comprehend what hate means.  We’ve never really seen it in action.  We haven’t faced the Nazis or the KGB and learned what true hatred looks like.  The faux-hatred we cry about and complain about is often nothing less than us throwing temper tantrums because someone thinks differently than we do and won’t just shut up and go away.  This law ought to terrify all of us.  Don’t say you haven’t been warned when the Feds show up at your door with a warrant or take whatever other action this law ultimately intends for the government to take.  Whatever action is proposed, it will have nothing to do with free speech.

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[1] Catherine J. Ross, Fundamentalist Challenges to Core Democratic Values: Exit and Homeschooling, 18, Wm. & Mary Bill Rts. J. 991 (2010), http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmborj/vol18/iss4/8

The United Nations, Abortion, Robots and Torture

            Right now the UN is trying to determine, get this, if the Catholic Church’s pro-life position is “torture.”   Frankly, the so-called logic to come to this notion is so tortured (forgive the pun) it’s too hard to recreate in a short blog post.  More stunning is that the UN is actually giving this serious consideration.

            Let’s just think out loud for a minute.  Waterboarding (think Al Qaida) (dunking someone’s head under water repeatedly to give the sensation of drowning in order to cause a fear of death) –  torture.  Bamboo shoots shoved under the fingernails (Japanese during World War II) – torture.  Nazi medical experimentation on Jews (I refuse to describe it) – torture.  The Catholic Church having a religious understanding that a fetus is a human life which should not be aborted – torture.  Huh?

            No, I don’t understand where the UN is going with this.  What I do understand is the UN operates from a Eurocentric secular dogma that believes abortion on demand is a primary moral good.  Moreover, what I understand is the UN is utterly hypocritical in this belief.  How do I come to that conclusion?  Read on.

            Right now, the UN is debating about the potential of warrior robots taking the battlefield.  Why?  Here’s the quote:

            “All too often international law only responds to atrocities and suffering once it has happened,” said Michael Moeller, acting head of the U.N.’s European headquarters in Geneva. “You have the opportunity to take preemptive action and ensure that the ultimate decision to end life remains firmly under human control.”

So when warrior robots kill people, that’s bad because the decision to end life should remain under human control.  Why?  What difference does it make who decides to kill?  Isn’t the person killed just as dead, no matter who pulls the trigger, or who wields the knife?  There is something peculiar about a deliberative body that claims, on the one hand, to have some sort of concern about life ending decisions, yet on the other hand accuses an organization that has concerns about life ending decisions being guilty of torture.

            Hmmm, are we onto something here?  The Catholic Church is against abortions – the killing of humans by surgical instrument wielding humans – and this position is labeled torture.  The UN is against the killing of humans by robots – so shouldn’t this mean the UN itself is guilty of torture because of its position against the killing of human beings? 

            I know I’m missing something here.  Oh yeah, the Catholic Church’s position might make someone feel guilty about having an abortion, so I guess that’s the “torture.”  Robots don’t feel guilty, so the UN’s position isn’t really impinging on anyone’s feelings.  We can’t have people ever feeling guilty about killing another human being.  Oh, yeah, I forgot, according to the Eurocentric secular reality children in utero really aren’t human beings, they’re something else.  But, if that’s true, then the Catholic Church can’t be making anyone feel guilty because those who have and perform abortions aren’t doing anything wrong.  Why would they feel any guilt about engaging in a moral good?  I don’t know.  I guess the UN people are just way too smart and sophisticated for this good ole boy from small town USA to understand.

            The UN is right to be concerned about allowing robots on battlefields because they will act based purely on cost/benefit considerations.  Is it worth using the ammunition to kill this person? Yes, fire.  No, don’t fire.  Is it worth the time it will take to kill this person?  Yes, fire.  No, don’t fire.  Will killing this person benefit the party for whom I am acting?  Yes, fire.  No, don’t fire.  Worse, one can imagine robots simply indiscriminately killing because there is no mechanism for robots to make the kind of decisions human beings make in the moment, like recognizing friend versus foe.

            Yet, ironically, isn’t abortion often simply a cost/benefit consideration?  Will this baby cost me too much money? Yes, abort.  No, keep.  Will it take me too much time to raise this baby?  Yes, abort.  No, keep.  Will I lose out on life “benefits” if I keep this child?  Yes, abort.  No, keep.  Isn't abortion the indiscriminate killing of human babies? Is there any significant moral difference between the decisions robots might make and those we already permit when it comes to abortion?  Somehow the UN thinks so but I'm having real problems seeing it.

            At this point, it is torture thinking about how hypocritical and inconsistent the UN is.  I think I’ll lodge a complaint with the UN!  Oh wait, then they’ll accuse me of torture for taking the position it is torture to claim that the Catholic Church’s position on abortion is torture while failing to acknowledge that a similar position on robot killing isn’t torture.  Got it?  Or did I just torture you?