Christianity and Bigotry

I've been watching a lot of politically liberal and progressive shows on YouTube lately and I've noticed something. When talking about Christians criticizing homosexuality or Atheism the word bigotry comes up a lot. It almost seems that you're either pro-LGBT lifestyle or that you are bigoted and hateful. I think it's important, however, to define what that word actually means. According to the Oxford Dictionary, a Bigot is someone who has hatred or fear for a population whose appearance, beliefs or customs disagrees with his own. The disagreement itself isn't bigotry, but the way the disagreement affects someone. People disagree with each other's lifestyle choices all the time. For instance, Christians disagree with Islam. Christians believe Islam is immoral because it teaches a false god. Secular Humanists believe that both Christianity and Islam are immoral because they're morally opposed to their deities. Christians and Muslims obviously denounce Secular Humanism on the basis of it denying God himself.

The point is,  is that we disagree with Humanism and Humanists disagree with Christianity. There's no reason, though, to believe that all Humanists are bigoted against us just because they don't agree with our religious beliefs. That is ridiculous and unfair.  It's certainly possible to personally oppose something because you genuinely think it's harmful to society but to also defend one's right to practice it. Certainly, the Bible only legitimizes heterosexual marriages, but we have to remember that this country's laws are not subject to the tenants of a religious belief, even if it is the majority, and even if it is true. Banning same-sex marriages on religious grounds creates a slippery slope because the religious majority might not be the same for long. What happens if Christianity were no longer the majority religion? I don't see any reason why marriages we may disagree with from a Christian standpoint should remain unlawful under a secular government. I've said from the very beginning that from a personal standpoint, I'm not in favor of same-sex marriages, however, I support the right of a same-sex couple to legally be allowed to engage in one. Premarital sex is a sin in the Bible too, but no one is fighting for it to be illegal. It is un-biblical for a Muslim to marry a Christian as the two are unequally yoked, but nobody seems to have a problem with that remaining legal either.

A lot of my fellow Liberals are very quick to call anyone who denounces a lifestyle they support bigots. I find it odd that these people use such language when many books have been written criticizing the Christian and Islamic lifestyles. Why is it bigoted to attack the lifestyle choices of transgender people but it's perfectly OK for an Atheist to attack the religious lifestyle of Christians?

The truth is, is that criticism of your lifestyle should be fine with you. If you truly believe you are right, it shouldn't bother you. If you were giving to the poor and helping the sick, somebody bashing that lifestyle choice wouldn't bother you a bit, because you are completely confident that it is right. Just address the criticism. Don't suddenly call them bigots, try to censor them or shut them up. Address the criticism. Again, if you're right, it shouldn't be hard. Understand that there are lifestyle choices you oppose too, but it doesn't make you a bigot until you begin to hate the people who practice those lifestyles.

Christians are to hate the sin but love the sinner. Humanists are taught to love the Christian but hate his religious beliefs because they're supposedly bad for us and society. I'm fine with that. Obviously, I think Humanism is wrong in that regard but that's fine. We shouldn't adopt double-standards and preach principles only when they're convenient for us. We should preach these principles even when we're the ones on the receiving end of the criticism.

Blessings
Autumn6

People Are Making Way Too Much of The Nye/Ham Debate

The debate that took place between creationist Ken Ham and popular television personality Bill Nye has gotten a lot of buzz lately. The general consensus is that Bill Nye "won" the debate while Ken Ham "lost". To be quite honest, I have to admit that I walked away feeling the same way. This, of course, has given the Atheist community on the internet a huge boost in confidence, and boy have they made it clear that Christianity has finally been proven to be unscientific and ridiculous, that the Bible is a book that should be thrown into the dustbin of history and that there is no god.

OK, I might be exaggerating some, but I'm trying to make a point. The mistake that I'm seeing from so many Atheists out there is that people have turned this debate into a Science vs. Religion debate. Now, granted, Young-Earth Creationism is primarily a worldview based on religion, but certainly Ken Ham's version of the Genesis account isn't the only religious worldview about the history of the world, life and the universe or even the only Christian account.

I want to show you a video of  what the general reaction to this video looked like. Notice how the commentators review this debate. It starts off as a general and fair analysis of the actual debate, but about halfway through they begin to make the debate a complete referendum on the Bible itself and Christianity.

Notice as the video went further and further, the commentators made the debate itself more and more about religion in general than Ken Ham's views. This video was obviously not the only response to the debate, but I chose it because it represents a polite, but unfortunately, misinformed analysis of the debate. Atheists, as a result of this debate, have felt emboldened to do this but it isn't intellectually responsible to place the views of one movement onto all of religion or Christianity as a whole.

The truth is, is that Young Earth Creationism isn't what the Bible teaches. At least, not in my opinion. The problem though is that many Atheists believe that it is. They're making the same mistake Ken Ham is making and actually agree with him more than they would like to admit. Therefore, they've turned this into an attack not on Ken Ham's interpretation of Genesis, but rather, an attack on the Bible itself. As I've stated before, most Christians do not believe that a proper interpretation of Genesis calls for a recent creation. And this isn't even because of recent developments in science. St. Augustine of Hippo did not believe in a recent creation either and did not think that each "day" of Genesis should be taken as literal, 24-hour days and this was over a millennium before Darwin was even born! Therefore, the attack on the Bible's credibility in response to this debate is attacking a straw-man.

Another point that I want to make, and this one is interesting, is that just because Ken Ham lost doesn't mean that creationism itself has been dis-proven. It just means that Ken Ham failed in defending it. We have to remember something about debates: that winning doesn't mean that you are right. It just means that the other person didn't do as good of a job at defending his positions as the winner. Now I'm certainly not calling myself a Young Earth Creationist, but the fact is is that this debate hasn't done anything but provide us something to talk about for a few weeks.

Notice that I'm using the term "Young Earth Creationist", because that is the view that Ken Ham was defending. A creationist, technically, is somebody who rejects Evolution and believes the Genesis account. Creationism, however, doesn't have to mean believing in a Young Earth. Most creationists actually do not believe that the Earth is only 6000 years old nor do they believe in a world-wide flood. There is no reason whatsoever to believe that the Bible taught that the flood was a global one. Again, this was specifically Ken Ham and Answers-In-Genesis's version of Creationism and not the view that most professed Creationists or ID theorists hold. In fact, the Discovery Institute, an Intelligent Design advocacy group, was highly critical of the debate because they felt like not all views on the origin of life and the universe were represented.

I think it also needs to be noted that Evolution is a scientific theory and not a philosophical worldview. I find it odd that both Ken Ham and many of the Atheists that responded to the debate have conflated the theory of Evolution with Atheism. Evolution isn't a threat to religion as Ken Ham and the many Atheists who have responded to this debate have claimed. It's even odder to me that Bill Nye was one of the only few people to not have made the mistake of claiming this himself. I think Mr. Nye did a great job in this debate, not only because his arguments were fact-based. He didn't attack Ken Ham's religion, but only his arguments. This is why Mr. Nye was so effective in this debate, in my opinion. He could have easily sneaked in attacks on religion and faith and so-on but he knew this would detract from the topic at hand and ruin his credibility. He avoided doing that because he was actually trying to convince all people, Christians and other religious people alike, that Evolution is a scientifically plausible theory that is accepted almost universally by the scientific community and "here's why". He knew that attacking Christianity as a whole would only put every Christian in the room, the people he was most trying to win over, on defense. He was extremely careful to specify that Ken Ham's creationist view was Ken Ham's creationist view, and not what the Bible actually teaches. Good job, Mr. Ham. Good job. Now go tell all your Atheist fans to pipe down, lol.

The fact of the matter is this: Science won. Not Atheism. Many Christians actually sided with Bill Nye in response to the debate. Some even adamantly....like this one...

ZOMGitsCriss Attempt to "Disprove" God Fails Miserably! Why She Will NEVER Be a Philosopher! (Part 1)

Cristina Rad, the popular Youtube vlogger, has recently put up another video arguing against the existence of God. As usual, it is a profanity laced, sarcastic diatribe. 


Cristina Rad, the beautiful 30-year old Romanian Atheist whose known for her hard-hitting and vitriolic attacks against Theism, has come out swinging for the fences once again, particularly this time at the Christian God (surprise, surprise). She claims to have once been a devout Evangelical Christian herself, but then turned to eventually becoming an outspoken Atheist. Unfortunately, very few people have attempted to take her to task on her arguments because of the huge fan base she has that is quick to troll and spam the dislike bar of anyone's video who even attempts to refute her claims. However, her latest video is the first I've seen where she actually tries to provide evidence against God's existence. Anyway, here it goes. The first part of the video is really all that's necessary because later she starts trying to auction off her paintings. While her paintings are nice and all, we're talking about her arguments against God's existence here. Anyway, check out the video below.

Now the first thing she says here is that a negative cannot be proven. Actually, a negative CAN be proven. For instance, we can easily prove that there is no pot of gold in my closet. I think what Cristina is trying to say here is that God's existence cannot be definitively proven or disproved. However, that has nothing to do with the proposition of His existence being either positive or negative.


Cristina continues on to say that the burden of proof lies on the person making the claim and not on the person objecting to it. However, Cristina has made it quite clear that she holds the positive belief that there is no God. We are both making knowledge claims here. Therefore, we both must accept the burden of proof. Today, I'm going to concentrate on Cristina's arguments rather than going about erecting my own for the sake of time. I'll provide arguments in favor of God's existence perhaps at a later date, but as I've stated earlier, this particular blog is about answering Atheists' claims against the existence of God rather than defending the arguments in favor of the existence of God. There are already really good sites out there for defending the truth of God's existence using arguments for His existence. Godandscience.org is good, as well as Carm.org and Reasonablefaith.org. There are many others, though.


God's Omnipotence


Cristina's first argument is against God's omnipotence. She uses the old classic Omnipotence Paradox which attempts to disprove God's omnipotence. It goes something like this:


"If God is omnipotent, meaning He can do all things, could He create a rock so heavy that he cannot lift it?"


Now, let's take a look at this here. If someone is omnipotent, then that means he can do anything, right? So if he can create a stone so heavy that not even he can lift it, that would mean that he ISN'T omnipotent because he couldn't lift the stone he created. But if he were unable to create a stone so heavy he couldn't lift it, this would mean that he can't do all things, therefore, isn't omnipotent either. Thus, an omnipotent being cannot possibly exist because no matter which option you choose, his omnipotence returns false. That's how the argument goes. Most Christians will quickly say that God cannot create a stone so heavy He could not lift it, but the Atheist will say "Ahah! So God can't do all things! Therefore, He isn't omnipotent!" However, is this argument true? Is God not omnipotent just because He cannot create a rock too heavy for Himself to lift? We'll see...


What's Infinity + 1?


The problem with this argument is with the Atheist's definition of God's omnipotence. The Bible says nowhere that God can do any possible thing even if that thing contradicts the very nature of God himself, and creating a stone too heavy for Himself to lift would be doing just that, just like sinning or being in the presence of evil (the Bible says God can do neither of these things, by the way). God's omnipotence is not the ability to do all things even if it contradicts His very own nature. God's omnipotence means, simply put, maximal dominion over all His creation. Because God has maximal dominion over all His creation, there's no way that any stone He creates could be one which He could not lift as that would mean that He does not have maximal dominion over it and therefore, couldn't have created it. Given this, no such stone could ever possibly exist since the very nature of such an object would be self-contradictory.


What is the True Meaning of God's Omnipotence?


As stated earlier, the real meaning of God's omnipotence is maximal dominion over all His creation. Maximal dominion over all creation does not mean the ability to do every conceivable thing even if it contradicts itself. Such an argument is absurd because no such "thing" for God to do could even exist to begin with. Logical truth is a product of God's very own nature.  Therefore, God cannot do something that is self-contradictory like creating rocks that He doesn't have maximal dominion over since something that is self-contradictory cannot be true.  No such rock, in any possible world, could ever exist. Some Atheists will then ask: "OK, could God create a married bachelor?" The answer would be no. The concept of a married bachelor is self-contradictory and therefore false. 


God's Omniscience


Cristina attempts to debunk God's omniscience by using the Bible. The problem here immediately is that even if Cristina were able to point out problems with God's omniscience in the Bible that I fail to address here, she would have only successfully disproved biblical inerrancy, and not the existence of an omniscient God. Luckily, however, she brings up no such argument even against Biblical inerrancy. Let's take a look at some of the Scriptures she brings up.


Genesis 3:9 - But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?"


Genesis 3:11 - And He said, "Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?"


Genesis 3:13 - Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?"


God did not ask Adam and Eve what they were doing or where they were because He didn't know; He most certainly did. In fact, the Bible makes it very clear that God prepared the death, burial and resurrection of Christ before the very foundation of the world (I Peter 1:20). Therefore, if God didn't know Adam was going to sin, he would have never prepared for it beforehand. 


Anyway, God asked Adam and Eve where they were and what they did because He wanted to reveal to the audience (us, the readers) through Adam and Eve's responses that they were hiding from Him out of fear and shame after sinning against Him.


Cristina then goes on to start complaining about God punishing them for a crime He knew they would commit (in a profanity-laced drivel). Cops often know when somebody is about to commit a crime but that doesn't mean that they're going to arrest the person before he commits it or that they won't arrest him after he does!


Genesis 22:12 - Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.


The phrase, "Now I know" is used here by Cristina to suggest that at some point, God didn't  know that Abraham had faith (feared the Lord). There are two problems with this argument. The first is that earlier in the book, long before Abraham's test of faith, God acknowledged Abraham's faith. Genesis 15:6 tells us that God counted Abram (Abraham) as righteous because of his faith. Therefore, we can conclude that God knew of Abraham's faith prior to the test. The second problem with this argument is that the Hebrew word for "know" is translated from the word Hebrew word yada, which has multiple meanings that range from simply learning something new, to certifying something to be true. In this tense, God does not mean that he's learning something new about Abraham (Genesis 15:6 tells us He already knew), but that He is certifying Abraham's faith by him passing the test. God knew Abraham believed in Him and feared Him because that's the very reason God changed Abram's name to Abraham to begin with! 


Cristina then goes on to Noah's Ark, saying that God could not have "regretted creating man" if He already knew that man would be sinful. However, I don't see the logical contradiction here. I do things all the time that I know I'm going to feel bad about later, but also knew was the right thing to do. Just because God feels bad about doing something doesn't mean that He feels it was a mistake, nor does it mean that He didn't know he was going to feel bad about it. God wasn't sorry for what He did, he just felt bad about what He did because God doesn't like punishing people that sin against Him, but knows its the right thing to do.


Genesis 8 - But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.


Cristina makes the mistake of suggesting that God remembering something automatically implies that at some time He forgot. However, just because someone remembers something doesn't mean that at ANYTIME that person forgot. For instance, if I were to say that someone remembered to bring his name badge to work today, that does not imply at all that the person forgot to and had to be reminded. This argument makes no sense (just like most of Cristina's arguments).


OF COURSE God would remember Noah and all the wild animals if He's omniscient. God would remember EVERYTHING if he were omniscient! 


Genesis 9:14 - Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind.


Cristina uses this verse as proof that every time a rainbow is in the sky, God is reminded of His covenant with man because he forgot about it. This argument is easily refutable with the example sentence:


"Every Memorial Day, we take time to remember those family members whom we lost in  battle".


Certainly, this sentence in no way suggests that we have forgotten about our loved ones we have lost in battle and that every Memorial Day we have to be reminded of them because we forgot. Nor does it mean that we will ever forget about those loved ones whom we have lost either. The sentence simply implies that Memorial Day is a time we reflect upon the sacrifices our loved ones made to our country. Obviously, the word "remember" is being used in that same way by God in the fact that when He sees the rainbow, He reflects upon the covenant made between He and mankind. Cristina Rad often tries to disprove God's existence using rhetorical tricks, blatant logical fallacies and equivocations rather than honest arguments and does a very poor job here.


God's Benevolence


Of course, Cristina goes into the same tired arguments against God's goodness by bringing up the doctrine of Hell. She basically asks that if God is so good, how could He send people to Hell for disobeying His commands? The bottom line is this: BECAUSE God is infinitely good and infinitely holy, sinning against Him would warrant an infinitely severe punishment. The heinousness of a crime is measured not only by the crime but also to whom it is being committed against. If I were to slap a random person across the face, he could press charges but I wouldn't necessarily go to jail. However, if I slapped the president of the United States across the face, the charges would be far more serious. Now imagine slapping the creator of the entire Universe across the face? Wouldn't that warrant an even greater punishment? Sinning against an infinitely holy God is an infinitely heinous crime and therefore deserves an infinitely severe punishment.


Cristina makes some really bad logic later on in the video by suggesting that life being a "gift from God" can't possibly make sense because most people's lives are going to result in eternal damnation. Again, she fails to use logic here. Life is a gift, but it's up to US to decide what we do with it! Let me give you a really good example. If my mother bought me a gun for Christmas, it certainly doesn't mean that a gun can't be a genuine gift, especially if I collect guns. However, if I decided to go out and kill somebody with this gun, that doesn't mean that the gun itself wasn't a gift or that it was wrong for my mother to give me the gift. God gives people their lives and THEY decide what they will do with them. It certainly doesn't mean that God was wrong in giving us life just because He knew that WE would decide to live one in rebellion against Him. God possibly also has morally sufficient reasons for creating "vessels of wrath" (Romans 9), individuals who God knows will rebel against Him no matter what the circumstance so long as they have free will. This answers the question of why God would give us a gun, knowing that we're one day going to turn it on Him.


Conclusion


All in all, Cristina Rad's arguments are more popular than they are substantive. Her arguments have long been refuted and will continue to be. She was also working on a book at some point called "The Unreasonable God", although I'm not sure what happened to it as she possibly lost interest in writing such a book. Anyway, you can check out the rest of Cristina's videos here.

Zinnia Jones Is a Hateful Hypocrite!

Zinnia Jones, the popular transvestite Youtube vlogger that calls herself "The Queen of Atheism" is as hateful, bigoted and hypocritical as any individual, religious or otherwise, I think I've ever seen on the internet outside of Pat Condell, whose videos are so vitriolic against religion that not even Atheists take him serious. Anyway, Zinnia has gained widespread popularity on Youtube for promoting Atheism, gay-rights and other liberal values. She has a number of anti-Christian videos on her page. They are, for the most part, hateful and bitter diatribes against Christianity and Christians in general. She also has a number of videos where she strongly encourages tolerance and equal rights toward homosexuals. She is strongly against the bullying of gay people, as am I. 


She is also strongly opposed to criticism against homosexual lifestyle, to the point that she believes that anyone who disagrees with the homosexual lifestyle and criticizes it in public is immoral, a homophobe, and intolerant. Recently, Zinnia Jones went as far as to praise Cisco Communications for firing Christian apologist Dr. Frank Turek for writing a book that criticizes same-sex marriages. 

It is obvious that Zinnia supports the firing of Dr. Turek for writing his book. Zinnia also mentions Dr. Turek's views on DADT as part of the reason he was fired from Cisco and not just him writing the book. While I'm aware of Dr. Turek's views on DADT, as well as him supposedly comparing gay people to pedophiles, these specific views had nothing to do with him being fired from his job.


Dr. Turek was fired solely for a complaint that was filed by an employee that  had never even read his book! The employee literally did a Google search on Dr. Turek and saw that he had written a book opposing same-sex marriages, called Human Resources and had him fired from his job literally the same day. There are no reports that Cisco fired Dr. Turek on the grounds of any specific opinions expressed in the book itself or anywhere else for that matter, simply that he wrote a book opposing same-sex marriages and that was enough to get him fired. Listen to Dr. Turek's side of the story below.

I totally understand it if somebody doesn't agree with Dr. Turek on the idea that same-sex marriages are harmful to society. However, Zinnia has no room to praise the firing of a person for publicly criticizing a lifestyle when she does so herself every week in her blogs and on Youtube! 


Zinnia makes it crystal clear that the Christian lifestyle is harmful to society and is better off done away with, yet when Frank Turek says the exact same thing about the homosexual lifestyle, in a book he wrote that happened to have been found by someone Googling him, it's "hate speech" and grounds for firing from his job. It seems to me that Zinnia and many Youtube Atheists like her are quite good at dishing it out but do not seem to do so well at taking it. I wonder how Zinnia would feel if she were fired from her job for stating that Christians support genocide, or that conservative Christianity should be outlawed. Now, I'm gonna give Zinnia the benefit of the doubt and say that she wasn't being totally serious in that video about outlawing conservative Christianity, but it doesn't matter. She said it and that's all that counts. For instance, I don't think a lot of people are serious when they call something they don't like "gay", but I'm quite sure that Zinnia doesn't like it when they do. To Zinnia, it's OK to make snide and hurtful jokes about Christians but it isn't OK to do the same toward LGBT's because she herself is a member of the LGBT community. This is absolute hypocrisy in the highest form. 


In her latest video, Zinnia points out the wrongheadedness of the One Million Moms campaign to have Ellen Degeneres fired as a spokesperson for JCPenney because of her homosexuality. Zinnia rightfully states that Ellen should not be denied the position of being JCPenney's spokesperson for simply being gay. 

While I agree with a lot of what Zinnia says in this video, I find it woefully hypocritical coming from her.


Here she is, condemning the One Million Moms for trying to get Ellen Degeneres fired from JCPenney for her homosexual behavior, when less than a few months ago she was praising the same thing being done toward someone for his Christian behavior of speaking out against same-sex marriages. Ladies and gentlemen, if this is not a perfect example of someone talking out of both sides of their mouth, I don't know what is. Zinnia Jones's own words condemn herself! Her hatred toward conservative Christians is obviously nothing more than angry projection. In reality, she's every bit as hateful and bigoted as the religious fundamentalists in which she criticizes.


Here's the deal, Zinnia...


Bible believing Christians are not going to accept the homosexual lifestyle, just like people such as yourself don't support the Christian lifestyle. Therefore, we're just going to have to agree to disagree, treat each other with respect and acknowledge the fact that we are all citizens of a society where differences of opinion are going to exist. Don't get mad at Christians for preaching against your lifestyle when you're busy preaching against theirs! I totally agree with you that homosexuals should not be treated like second-class citizens and given equal rights, but I totally disagree with you that Christians shouldn't be given the same treatment!


Unlike Frank Turek you haven't lost your job for speaking out against Christianity, so it is easy for you to point and laugh at others whose lifestyles you don't agree with and say they deserve it when such a thing happens to them. Homosexual activity is protected by law and nobody can get fired from their job for being a practicing homosexual. Homosexuals are free to practice their behavior in public. Christians are not always free to publicly speak out against such behavior, however. Atheists are free to speak out against religion. Christians are not always free to even read the Bible in public. It's easy to point fingers at Christians and talk about how immoral we are for speaking out against things you hold dear to you, but just realize that you're doing the exact same thing to us almost every time you upload a video on Youtube.


You've got a ton of hatred in your heart, Zinnia. Just know that I don't dislike you. I feel sorry for you.


Regards,
Autumn6

Ellen vs. The One Million Moms

I know that this blog is mainly about Atheism vs. Christianity, but I want to take a detour for a moment to talk about something I've seen lately in the news. I'll occasionally do this every now and then when topics that interest me come up.

A California appeals court ruled that Proposition 8, the act that was set out to ban same-sex marriages, was unconstitutional. This, of course, has led to the legality of same-sex marriages in the state of California. Ellen DeGeneres, a very famous and openly gay comedian and talk show host, celebrated on her show recently that Prop 8 had been ruled unconstitutional and that she also has been chosen to be a spokeswoman for JCPenney stores. 

A conservative online activist group called the One Million Moms quickly went about opposing the decision made by JCPenney and Ellen spoke about this on her show recently. Check out the video below.

First of all, I want to say that as a Christian I have mixed feelings about this video. I'll start with the One Million Moms. I understand where they're coming from in the idea that they don't support the homosexual lifestyle and therefore aren't Ellen fans. However, my question is this: If this is really about Ellen being a spokeswoman for a big corporation like JCPenney, where were they when she was a model for Cover Girl (another big corporation)? Where were they when Ellen was a judge for a short time on American Idol? Where were they when Ellen decided and announced that she would have a talk-show at all where she would reach millions of people every week?

For these reasons, I am convinced that this One Million Moms group is really only out to get a message across and are using Ellen's recent partnership with JCPenney as a means of gaining attention for themselves. I'm fully convinced that this One Million Moms group isn't the slightest bit concerned over the well-being of a big corporate giant like JCPenney, nor do they really fell that customers are going to be any more reluctant to shop there now that Ellen is a spokesperson for the company. I find it very hard to believe that this group really believes that JCPenney's stores will suffer because one of the most beloved (if not THE most beloved) lesbians on the planet is a spokeswoman for their sores. I understand it if an activist group has a message they want to get out to the world, but I don't really think that it is fair to use Ellen's name as a springboard to do this. This only makes the Christian faith look bad and opportunistic. 

Now, onto Ellen herself. I want to start by saying that I think, while I can't say for certain because I don't know her personally, that Ellen is a generous and well-to-do person, regardless of whether or not you may agree with her homosexual lifestyle or not. Therefore, what I'm about to say has nothing at all to do with how I feel about the homosexual lifestyle or me being a Christian. 

I think that the manner in which Ellen went about criticizing the One Million Moms was, for the most part, careful and appropriate. I think also, however, that Ellen could have refrained from using language such as "haters" to identify those that criticized the idea of her being a spokeswoman for JCPenney. I don't think this One Million Moms group actually hates Ellen as a person nor do I believe they are a "hate group", so when Ellen uses language like this, she's almost making it sound as if anyone who disagrees with her is a "hater". 

Also, when Ellen started reading the posts on Facebook from her supporters, the crowd applauded loudly when the One Million Moms group were referred to as "bullies". I think that might be a little bit extreme. There are views that Ellen herself doesn't agree with, nor do most people in her audience agree to but I don't think it would be fair to call them bullies. Just because there may be views in which we do not agree, we shouldn't resort to extreme labeling of people and I saw some of that here.

I want to say that I don't agree with the One Million Moms group in the idea that JCPenney's sales are going to drop because of Ellen's presence with the company. Let's be honest, people that watch NASCAR are mostly people that hold conservative values, but many of the sponsors for NASCAR are beer companies and drivers tend to curse up a storm over the radio during the races. Not only do these people claim that NASCAR is "great American family tradition", this doesn't stop these people from grabbing a beer and tuning in every week to watch people wreck each other into the wall, do burnouts in victory lane and thanking God for getting paid millions of dollars from Budweiser or Miller Lite to do so. So I don't think Ellen being a spokeswoman for JCPenney is going to stop conservative moms from shopping there anytime soon. 

And btw, NASCAR is super cool so what I said wasn't a crack on NASCAR, haha. Jeff Gordon ROCKS!!

Anyway, I think that Ellen will make a great spokesperson for JCPenney because America loves her. She's charming, respectful and funny with a beautiful smile. She makes the gay community look good, unlike blowhards such as Perez Hilton who does just the opposite. She isn't hateful like he is, nor dogmatic like Dan Savage is. She's pleasant, opinionated and caring which is good to see.
 

The Euthyphro Dilemma (Part 2)

In my last post, I went over the basics of the Euthyphro Dilemma and what I felt was the best refutation to it. As good as this refutation is, though, Atheists have come up with some objections to it. Before I begin, let's review what the Euthyphro Dilemma is and what I feel is the best response to it.

The Euthyphro Dilemma goes like this: If objective moral ethics and duties are grounded in God, that would mean that God says something is good because it is good, which would mean that objective moral ethics and duties didn't come from Him but are just enforced by Him, or that something is good because God says it is. However, this would make morals arbitrary and based on nothing. 

The response I offered in my last post was that neither option in the Euthyphro Dilemma is correct, but rather, God's moral standard for us is based upon his own moral nature. I will list the most common objections to this response and offer my comments.

1) How do you know God's nature is good? How do you know God is good and Satan is evil?

This is like asking how I know a bride is a woman and a groom isn't. A bride can't be anything but a woman and a groom cannot be a woman, just like God cannot be anything but a morally perfect being as God, by philosophical definition, is the greatest conceivable being, and that if we could conceive of any greater being, it would be God. If God were evil, he would not be worthy of worship and therefore, not the greatest conceivable being, therefore, by definition, not God. In other words, claiming that God could be evil would be just like me saying that a married man could be a bachelor. There is no possible world in which a married bachelor or an "evil god" could exist because such a thing is self-contradictory. If the creator of the universe were evil, he wouldn't be God, but rather, an evil creator of the universe. If the one we called God were really nothing more than just an evil creator of the universe, human morals would reflect upon this. Human morals would contradict this being's morals on all levels (i.e., unworthy of worship) and human morals would coincide with the one we call Satan's on all levels. In other words, Satan would be God and God would be Satan. However, notice that we're still calling the good one "God", because God, by definition, is the greatest conceivable being, and that if we could conceive of any being greater than that, it would be God. I highly doubt that anyone is going to say that Satan is a greater being than God on any level. Therefore, God is the good one and Satan is the evil one.

2) Come on, Autumn6! Don't give me that "Greatest Conceivable Being" crap! We all know greatness-making properties are subjective! What you may call "great" I may not!

Responding to this could take up an entire blog post on its own, so I'm going to be lazy and link to this article. 

3) I don't believe the God of the Bible is great at all!

The person saying this, if he were going to use this as an argument against our response to the Euthyphro Dilemma, must give us a knockdown argument against the greatness of the God of the Bible. Not only that, but he then must either give us an even greater conceivable being than the God of the Bible that doesn't contain logical contradictions, or demonstrate to us why it would be impossible for a greatest conceivable being (God) to even exist in the first place. If a god in question is not the greatest conceivable being, then this being is not God.

4) What caused God to have His nature?

God is uncaused, therefore His nature is uncaused. God's omnipotence, for instance, is not something God created for himself but exists along with his nature. We can say, therefore, the same thing about his moral nature.

5) God does things that are evil and contrary to His nature, such as commanding genocide, rape, killing of innocents, etc. In other words, God's morals contradict themselves, therefore, His nature is self-contradictory and His "greatness" destroyed...

God allowing and permitting evil is not the same thing as Him endorsing it. If God has morally sufficient reasons for allowing and permitting evil things then this ultimately means that His nature is still morally good, even if the means by which He carries out His tasks must consist of suffering and death. God doesn't have control over everything, as He's given us free will, therefore, there are certain things God doesn't like that He has to allow in order for His plan to be carried out on our behalf.

Genocide is mass murder. Murder is taking the life of an individual without God's permission. Therefore, when God permits the killing of an individual, this, by definition, isn't murder no more than President Obama killing Osama Bin Laden wasn't "murder", but rather, a justified killing.

Finally, God never permits anyone to forcibly copulate with anyone in the Bible. God never condones sex outside of marriage. See Deut. 22:25-27. It tells us that rapists are to be put to death. 

6) If God is omnipotent, why are you over hear saying he "cannot lie"?

Actually, the ability to lie would be a weakness, not a strength, as it would be the ability to fail. If I were to boast, saying "I can't lose!", this would be a greatness-making property I am attributing to myself, saying that I do not have the ability to lose. If it were possible for me to lose, this would diminish my greatness in a given aspect. Telling a woman that she "couldn't look bad even if she tried" would be a greatness-making property that I am attributing to her and she would see this as a great compliment to her beauty. When we say that God is omnipotent, we are not saying that God can do "anything" but rather, he is "all powerful". All-powerful beings CANNOT lose, CANNOT stop being all-powerful and CAN'T lose. All-good beings CANNOT do evil. God's omnipotence means maximal power, not possible weakness. God's moral perfection means maximal goodness, not possible evil, as if evil were even possible, God could not be all-good.

7) If God's Nature is uncaused, then God is not the author of what is right and wrong.

I agree! God isn't the author of what is right or wrong because if He were, moral laws would have been created by Him. Moral truths are dependent on God's existence but that doesn't mean that God created them, but rather, they are a property of God.....which leads us to and finally....

8) How do you know that these properties are good?

If God's properties weren't good, he wouldn't be the greatest conceivable being. Again, this is like asking me how I know brides do not have Y chromosomes. 

The Euthyphro Dilemma (Part 1)

In Christian theism, it is believed that objective moral ethics and duties are based upon what God's commands are for us. In other words, we know that something is wrong if it contradicts what God has told us to do or is something that God has specifically told us not to do. As Christians, we believe God has revealed His moral standards to us in the Bible.

I want to say right now that this post is not going to be about the actual standards themselves that God has laid out in the Bible (we'll talk about that some other time). Finally, I am not claiming that an Atheist cannot have a sense of objective moral ethics or duties. My purpose for this series is to defend the logical tenability of morality within the Christian worldview, not to go over specifics about biblical principles or attack the morals of Atheists.

Christians believe something is good because God has declared it to be so. Atheists, however oftentimes bring up the Euthyphro Dilemma as an objection to this position.

The Euthyphro Dilemma comes from a conversation that took place between Socrates and Euthyphro in Plato's dialogue Euthyphro, where Socrates asks Euthyphro, "Is [a good deed] loved by the gods because it is [a good deed], or is it [a good deed] because it is loved by the gods?" In a mono-theistic sense, does God say something is good because it is good, or is something good because God says it is?

If you say that God says something is good because it is good, good would exist independently of God and therefore would mean that objective moral ethics and duties weren't given to us by God. Under this scenario, God would not be the moral law giver, but simply the moral law enforcer. Such a scenario would beg the question: who then is the moral law giver?

If you were to propose then that something is good because God says it is, this would be begging the question since we're saying now that God says something is true because He says it is. What makes God right and somebody who disagrees with Him wrong? One could say that God is right because He runs the show, but this would make morals arbitrary in the fact that God could have said anything was right or wrong, whether it be giving to the poor, caring for the sick, lying, pedophilia or anything else and it would have been right or wrong solely based upon God's whim! Running the show doesn't automatically make the policies of the one running the show right. Just look at all the corrupt governments out there today with their wicked and corrupt laws. How then, can we know if God is right or wrong in His moral policies for us? Simply put, we can't.

You see? No matter which option you choose in the Euthyphro Dilemma, you're going to run into some tough philosophical problems.

RESPONSE:

The most common response from Christians (as well as Muslims) to the Euthyphro Dilemma is the one made famous by St. Augustine of Hippo and later used by medieval Christian apologist Thomas Aquinas. There are a number of other responses, but I feel that this one is the most logically sound and easiest to understand.

Saint Augustine proposed that neither option of the Euthyphro Dilemma is the correct one and that the Euthyphro Dilemma commits the logical fallacy known as a false dilemma. A false dilemma is a proposition in which only a limited number of options are given when there are other options available. For instance, if I were to say that Ellen DeGeneres were either heterosexual or bi-sexual, this would be a false dilemma because I'm only giving you two options when there is another available, in this case that Ellen DeGeneres is a homosexual. With the Euthyphro Dilemma, you're given two options: a) God says something is good because it is good, or b) God says something is good because he just does. The problem here is that there's a third option that the Euthyphro Dilemma leaves out, and that's the possibility that God's commands are a reflection of His character and nature and are neither arbitrary or obtained from elsewhere. What Augustine proposed was that God says something is good because it is consistent with His nature, and that something is evil because it is contrary to His nature. For instance, Titus 1:2 tells us that God cannot lie, and so therefore it is wrong for us to do so since we are to follow after God. Goodness is anything that is consistent with God's nature, so therefore, evil is anything that contradicts God's nature. 

Most philosophers agree that this response to the Euthyphro Dilemma would be successful if God's nature itself weren't something that should be questioned. However, this is not the case according to many Atheists, which is why in Part 2, we're going to go over the most common objections raised by Atheists to this response. Until then, have a blessed day and I'll talk to ya later!

Blessings,

Autumn6