Earlier this week I explained why I thought same-sex couples should be given opportunity to have the same legal rights as married couples. Peter Jensen makes the case for the uniqueness of marriage. I’m not sure what to think. Are they mutually exclusive?
Archive for May, 2008
HH linked to the answer to “Can Chance Produce Information” at Ask The Atheist. What do you think?
Sorry, no time today to continue the series on torturing babies. But there is a great discussion going on in the comments of yesterday’s post to read and throw in your own $0.02. Can’t wait to hear your thoughts.
Yesterday, after outraging you by revealing the pleasure I take in torturing babies, I asked ‘what makes something good?’
One answer is that there is an objective moral law written into the universe that is independent of anyone or anything. It just is. Love is good, hatred is bad, it is right to help someone in need, murder is evil – regardless of what we, or anyone else, think about them.
Christians should find this pretty comfortable – we believe that some things are definitely good regardless of what you think about it. I will, however, pause to point out that the ‘anyone else’ in an objective theory of ethics includes God. This theory of ethics says that right and wrong are absolutes, and God commands what is good because it is already good – not because He decided it to be that way. For the Christian, the question you need to ask is ‘is it good because God wills it, or does God will it because it is good?’ (feel free to throw around ideas in comments, I will discuss this later in the series.)
However, atheists should squirm at this idea. Many people distance themselves from the ‘God part’ of Christianity, but unthinkingly (and inconsistently) retain their system of morality. Nietzsche pulled no punches in his attack on this behaviour:
When one gives up Christian belief one thereby deprives oneself of the right to Christian morality. Christianity is a system, a consistently thought out and complete view of things. If one breaks out of it a fundamental idea, the belief in God, one thereby breaks the whole thing to pieces: one has nothing of any consequence left in one’s hands. Christian morality is a command: its origin is transcendental, it possesses truth only if God is truth-it stands or falls with belief in God.
What did Nietzsche see?
The atheist’s universe is ruled by chance. We live in an empty world without reason. We owe our very being to the dictates of that indifferent, purposeless, and arbitrary tyrant, Chance. If there is no reason why we should have evolved, why should there be any reason to behave in a particular manner? There is no more basis for believing in an objective morality than there is for believing in an objective meaning of life.
Essentially, my question is this: ‘the universe does not care that you exist, why would it care what you do?’
In the words of Ravi Zacharias, “when you admit a moral law, you must posit a moral lawgiver … if there is no moral law giver, there is no moral law…”
So, apart from a moral lawgiver of some sort there can be no morality. Tomorrow I will consider some possible moral lawgivers.
So maybe Fairtrade isn’t the best option (though I’m still not sure what is). I feel like I need more information. Here are some links to reliable sources of information about the slave trade:
Unicef have a section of their website devoted to child exploitation and abuse (and a factsheet), while UNESCO has information and links to more.
Here is the 2007 U.S. Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report (you can find previous years if you browse around.)
Freedomcenter.org has lots of information. And have a look at freetheslaves.net.
If you have any more links, please leave them in the comments.
I like to torture babies for fun.
Very few people deny the existence of any ethical truth. Were the statement above true, you’d be rightly outraged. We know that there exists good and bad.
Have you ever considered the question ‘what makes something good?”. If you accept the existence of ethical truth, you must account for its existence. How do you explain it?
Traditionally, there are three possibilities:
1. morality is objective, absolute, and independent of anyone’s opinion – a moral law distinguishing good and evil is just ‘there’ in the universe;
2. morality is subjective – the moral law exists because of the say-so of a moral lawgiver. This might be you as an individual, a certain culture, or an authority such as God.
3. there is no morality.
What do you think? One of the above? Another one? Why?
Over the next few days I’ll unpack some of these, including the difficult question of ‘is it good because God says so, or does God say so because it’s good?’
Does reaching the edge of scientific knowledge naturally invite metaphysical speculation?
In the comments of this post, HH declared that it does not: it invites more research. I agree, it definitely invites more research – but shouldn’t it also cause us to turn around and wonder what it means, this thing we have discovered?
My breath was taken away last year when I read the final paragraph of my physics book, the faithful (if slightly heavy) Giancoli. Having detailed the precise laws governing our world, having explored the weird, tiny world of quantum mechanics, having looked into the awesome cosmos, its incredible hugeness, the wonders of its beginnings, its amazing spectacles – Giancoli turns now towards the science itself in the final paragraph of the book:
One aspect that is especially intriguing is this: calculations on the formation and evolution of the universe have been performed that deliberately varied the values – just slightly – of certain fundamental physical constants. The result? A universe in which life as we know it could not exist. [He cites one example.] Such results have given rise to a philosophical idea called the Anthropic principle, which says that if the universe were even a little different than it is, we could not be here. It might even seem that the universe is exquisitely tuned, almost as if to accommodate us.
Wow! What way to end a physics textbook!
I’m in favour of equal rights for same-sex coupls. And I’m a Christian. What the?
As far as I know, there is only one thing you can possibly do to change how the law treats you. In theory, our law treats every single person according to the same laws. If you get yourself into a situation of poverty, you will be treated the same way as anyone else in the same situation. Everyone who breaks the law faces the same legal system. No-one gets special privileges.
Except married couples.
Two couples can be identical in every respect, except one is married, and the law treats them completely differently. I don’t know the figure in Australia, but in the US about 1400 legal rights are conferred onto married couples that are not available to un-wed couples. These include:
- Joint parental rights of children,
- status as “next-of-kin” for hospital visits and medical decisions,
- right to make a decision about the disposal of loved ones remains
- immigration and residency for partners from other countries
- spousal veterans benefits
- joint filing of tax returns
- wrongful death benefits for surviving partner and children
- tax advantages
Let me state something very clearly: all sex outside of heterosexual marriage is wrong. On that point I accord with the Bible and nearly all other Christians.
However, the current situation is one of clear and arbitrary discrimination against same-sex couples. Nowhere else in our legal system are rights offered on the basis of race, gender, nor creed. If we are to offer legal rights to couples of one persuasion, it is obviously discrimination to deny them to those of another. I cannot think of any reason for such discrimination. (Can you?)
“But what about the sanctity of marriage,” you might exclaim. Marriage is a sacred, God-ordained institution. Jesus said “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? ” (Matthew 19:4,5)
That’s why I think the way forward here is this: establish a legal institution of gay civil-union which affords to same-sex couples the same rights as to heterosexual couples. But don’t call it marriage. Let the Christian church make it clear that all sex outside heterosexual marriage is wrong, and the new institution is certainly not that. (In that respect, this post’s title is misleading).
The Biblical institution of marriage is maintained: it is offered only to heterosexual couples. The Biblical view of homosexuality, and extra-maritial sex of all kinds, is not compromised. And arbitrary legal discrimination is resolved.
When did the state become a sin-nanny? I’m unsure, is it the state’s job to legislate that sin be illegal? Or is the state’s job merely to maintain a peaceful, free, and just society.
I concede there might be arguments alone the lines of preserving the sanctity of marriage by maintaining its uniqueness. My mind isn’t completely made up on this issue, so if you disagree why not leave a comment.
… aka violinkid.
I want to watch this movie: (Black Gold)
… that no-one read my essay on the soul. Correct?
Daisy blogs her poetry. Read some here. We wrote a poem together a while back, taking turns to write a few lines. It was like a dance, or maybe a battle.
Broken, left ashamed, bare,
open for the world to see.
To judge,
to try to understand,
to love, to help.
Reaching for a moment
pure enough to have meaning.
Untainted from the world.
Thankful, clean, Awake.
The cocoon ripped open.
That ray of light,
blinding, peeling our eyes open,
making us face the truth,
maybe too soon.
Painfully beautiful.
Now restored, now healed,
it’s a joy to be
broken, left ashamed, bare.