New YouTube Video: "Thoughts on Slavery and the Bible"

For your convenience, here's the "script" I was loosely working from:

Hey! Adderall Apocalypse here! The other day I was in TogetherForPeace/Jack's blogtv room and one of the things we were talking about was the Bible's stance on slavery. Basically, what he was saying was that the Bible (NT) does provide a basis for the abolition of slavery. But he says that the New Testament writers who talked about slavery weren't very concerned with the political activism; they weren’t very concerned with telling the governments of that time that slavery was wrong and they should abolish the practice. They were more concerned with "freeing peoples' spirits." Well, first of all, I don't believe that people have "spirits" the way Jack believes that we do. Secondly, it doesn't really make sense... if God exists and is all-powerful, I would think he’d be able to free slaves, but instead, all he decided to do was, what, make them feel better, in effect? I think that if I was a slave, I’d rather be not a slave than just be made to feel like Jesus loves me or whatever, but that’s just my perspective... what do I know?

So it seems fairly clear that if God exists, he cares a lot more about "cosmic justice" than actual justice here on earth. Obviously, I don’t believe in God or "cosmic justice." I suppose it makes sense that if God and the afterlife is eternal, this life would be less significant—but don’t you see how logically unworkable this is? That God created an entire universe so that 13.7 billion years later, he could insert souls into some monkeys living on a rock in the middle of nowhere so they could live for 70 years, if that, and then, afterwards, face eternal judgment? And then either be with him forever or be tormented forever for their so-called sins? Isn’t it obvious that the afterlife is an idea people made up to combat their fear of death!?
(anyway)
Another thing he said (and I find that a lot of Christians think this) was that the abolitionist movement was largely Christian; [and] they were inspired to become abolitionists largely because of the Bible. But I think that almost everyone back then was a Christian, right? So there were just as many people who were pro-slavery who could use the Bible as justification for owning slaves as there were who were using the Bible to support their opposition to slavery. So I think it would be more instructive to look at the effects of the enlightenment on the views of the people back then regarding slavery because that was an important period of time for the development of the concept of rights. Now, I don't necessarily believe in "rights," but that's a completely different video. The point is that you're not going to see rights being mentioned or discussed anywhere in the Bible. What you'll see in the Bible is, for example, "THOU SHALT NOT STEAL," because God said so, but the real reason for the law against stealing in the Bible is that it’s disruptive to a society, especially above certain levels. This should be obvious to you. So that's as far as the Bible goes: "don't steal." Maybe from that, you could extrapolate that if you can't steal another person's property then maybe a person has a right to their own property, and you can go from there, and I suppose you could do the same with other "rights" like life and liberty, but it seems to contradict the idea that God is the one who wrote the book when, (I’d assume that) he knew all that stuff, but we had to figure it out for ourselves. It’s almost like we didn’t need God or the Bible to come up with those ideas. I would, of course, suggest that this is the case. [links on what the Bible has to say that could be interpreted as being relevant to the issue of slavery]:

Does God approve of slavery?

What the Bible says about slavery

The infamous religioustolerance.org page on slavery in the Bible

You’ll notice that you can use parts of the Bible to argue either way. You might be tempted to say that this is a paradox. But as I’ve said in my blog, I have proposed that there is no paradox, only contradiction. We can argue about that later, I’m sure...

My point is the main verse that Jack was emphasizing in his blogtv room says that in the kingdom of God "there is neither slave nor free, male nor female," etc., so from that verse, the next logical step is that we are all equal in the eyes of God, and the next logical step FROM THAT would be that slavery is wrong. Ok. Fair enough. I would think that if God really were against slavery, he would have just come right out and said it, but we can go with your explanation... but if slavery is wrong and the Bible is opposed to slavery, it just seems unfortunate that nobody figured that out until 1700 years after the Bible was written.

That reminds me: another thing people like to say is that there are absolute moral laws and, therefore, there must be a moral law giver, and that moral law giver is God. But if you look at history, you’ll see that culture dictates morality, not the other way around (not that I necessarily believe in morality, but again, different video). The system of morality in the Old Testament, for example, says that eating shellfish is an abomination (The NIV says, "you are to detest" shellfish, but whatever). But then, later on, some other people came along and tried to figure out what Old Testament laws they were still supposed to follow and which they could ignore. They split them up into three different categories: moral, civil, and ceremonial laws, but just from reading the Bible, how can you tell that there needs to be three different categories? There doesn't seem to me [to be] any obvious way to distinguish between them. But even if there were, it still seems inconsistent. Did God change his mind? Does he do that? I thought he was perfect, right? Again, you can find parts of the Bible to support either side of that argument. [links]:

Does God Repent?

"does god change his mind?"

Thanks for [reading]...

There Are No Sound, Rational Arguments Against Same-Sex Marriage

After looking at some of the reaction to my last political blog, I realized that this isn't acknowledged often enough. I'm not saying this is an absolute truth, just an observation. That said, I often think there's not enough of an effort to understand why people oppose gay marriage. I don't want to seem pedantic, but I feel as though I must break down this issue as clearly and basically as possible.

Not to offend anyone, but in all sincerity, expounding arguments against people who oppose gay marriage is a bit like arguing against religious people or creationists. They're wrong, but there are many levels at which a person can be wrong. A person may incorporate many correct ideas into a worldview or philosophy that is fundamentally wrong, and vice versa. Furthermore, unless you know a person well, it's difficult to tell whether or not they're being intellectually honest about being wrong. With that, let's just dive right in...

All of the arguments against gay marriage I've ever heard (though I do not rule out the possibility that there are arguments I have not heard that might be sound and rational) can be categorized one of four ways:

1. Religious arguments¹
2. Appeals to tradition²
3. "Slippery-slope" and other idiotic, fear-based arguments
4. "Social-engineering" arguments

Furthermore, in my relentless effort to be masochistically thorough, (and though some of them may seem like strawmen, I assure you that you could find at least some people who will need to be convinced of any given item on this list), and as a reminder to everyone just how far the discussion needs to progress in (at least parts of) the U.S., let me assert that the following items have been established far (miles, light years, even!) beyond reasonable doubt:

1. Attraction and a person's sexual orientation are not "choices," neither can they be influenced simply by being around people of another sexual orientation.


2. There is no "cure" for homosexuality (just as there is no "cure" for heterosexuality).


3. There is no "agenda" to try to "turn your kids gay."


4. God is not going to pour judgment upon us if we legally recognize gay marriage.


5. The "gay lifestyle"³ may be something of a "choice," but not only is that completely irrelevant when it comes to the question of whether or not gays should be allowed to marry, but also, I find it difficult to believe that a married gay person would even be able to maintain that "lifestyle."


6. The idea that the prohibition of same-sex marriage is not discriminatory just because "gays can still marry people of the opposite gender" is fallacious. In what other area is there mandated by law any similar type of "one-size-fits-all" policy?⁴ Doesn't that sound a little communist to you?


7. On a related note to the previous item, it is unreasonable to suggest that a gay person who wants to get married should just marry someone of the opposite gender. How would you like it if you were forced to marry someone to whom you were not (nor possibly could be) attracted?


8. Gay marriage (and the struggle for the legal recognition thereof) is analogous to interracial marriage ("and [...] thereof") because in both cases, we're talking about a pair of consenting adults.⁵


9. On a related note to the previous item, there is not a "straight line" (nor, I would assert, any clear or reasonable or probable or plausible pathway) between legalizing gay marriage and "legalizing marriages" other than those between two consenting adults, and to claim that there is such a "slippery slope" is propaganda and a scare-tactic, completely detached from reality.


10. In the long run, anything other than full marriage-equality (as long as there is something called marriage that is recognized by any level of government) for consenting adult gay couples is just "separate-but-equal-2.0" and is in direct conflict with both our founding documents (you know, the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence and stuff) and the idea(ls) of America, not to mention that mantra they indoctrinate children to recite daily in our public "education" camps (which, if I may add, was written by a SOCIALIST!!!1!11cos(0)).


11. This issue is not about obtaining "moral approval" of gay couples (or homosexuality in general) from anyone, although that couldn't hurt. Nor is it a partisan issue. It's about equality under the law (equal recognition, treatment, rights, and responsibilities).

Ok. Now that we have those items settled, let's continue...

Too often, same-sex marriage-proponents (SSMPs) ignore categories 2 – 4 of the opposing arguments or conflate them with the religious category, which, among other things, gives cover to people who use those types of arguments, allowing them to say things like, "Hey, I'm not religious! Don't pigeonhole me with those people! There are other reasons to oppose gay marriage!" But that doesn't mean there are any good reasons!

Another practice that is too common is for SSMPs to accuse gay marriage-opponents of hatred. Again, I don't want to be or appear pedantic, but people should always be careful about accusing other people of things like hatred (or racism) because it generally shuts down discussion and escalates tensions. In any event, no one should jump to such conclusions about anyone else (Joe Wilson, Sgt. Crowley, Barack Obama, anyone?). Besides, you don't have to hate gays to want to deny them the right to marry a fellow mutually consenting adult, [just like a person doesn't have to be a racist to be an asshole (again, see the example of Sgt. Crowley)]. We should be able to recognize that these traits aren't necessarily connected. We should realize that everyone is human and not demonize anyone over a simple disagreement (or even a disagreement resulting from bad faith or ignorance). On the other hand, we shouldn't be afraid to call people out when we have solid evidence that they're lying (or being intellectually dishonest, or hateful, or racist, or whatever).

Fear can be a very powerful political tool. There are many people who seem to believe that allowing gay people to marry each other will have catastrophic social consequences. Well, as it just so happens, I saw a post on Andrew Sullivan's blog a few months ago (in response to a post by Steve Chapman in the reason.com blog) in which he addressed that concern, and I can only say that such fears are (at best) wildly over-hyped.

Some people seem to think that the main reason people get married is to raise children, but that ignores all the other reasons people get married: love, security/stability (financial or otherwise), etc. Some people seem to think that society will be better off if only straight couples are allowed to raise children or (at the other end of this segment of the spectrum of possible views on this topic) that, all other things being equal, children will be better off if straight couples raise them (there are, of course, positions in between those two). Even if this is true, which I doubt, it is not a compelling reason to deny gay couples either the right to get married or the right to raise/adopt children (or to damn children who could otherwise be part of a family to childhood as orphans).

Another point of contention in this issue regards implementation. The "standard" thinking on the pro- side is that the "definition" of marriage should be expanded to include couples of the same gender (where it's not already, remember, this is a state-by-state deal...), although there doesn't seem to be a consensus on how to do this. There are generally three ways: ⁽¹⁾popular vote, ⁽²⁾legislation, ⁽³⁾state supreme court decision. This can become complicated, depending on how far down the rabbit-hole you want to go (in terms of analysis). I could possibly write an entire blog post on this topic alone.⁶

The "standard libertarian" thinking on this issue is that marriage should be "privatized," which means that two (or more) people can formulate whatever agreement or have whatever ceremony they want among themselves, and the government will not be involved at any level. Then, if the people want, they can ask that the government sanction or recognize unions in some way. The details don't really matter as long as there's no discrimination of the aforementioned types. This seems, to me, like a better solution, although I've never heard anyone, anywhere, actually propose anything like this.⁷

Let's remember my main point here. On the most fundamental level, I'm not talking about implementation or federalism or any of the other minutiae accompanying this issue. The most fundamental point I have to make is that gays are just as human, just as American, as the rest of us. The love between two gay people in a committed relationship is in no way inferior to that between two straight people in a similarly committed relationship. Neither is there any reason that their relationship should be considered inferior (or different) by the law.

We must acknowledge that the most important consideration in this discussion is empathy. Sometimes it's easy to believe that certain people (let's call them "conservatives") lack this characteristic. They so often emphasize personal responsibility, (which is, of course, important), but sometimes (seemingly) at the expense of acknowledging the possibility that everyone may face circumstances beyond their control. But I know (or believe) that most of them do take that into account. I sometimes think that if everyone who opposed gay marriage really knew gay people with whom they could empathize (specifically, gay couples who wanted to get married), their opposition would fade. Is that too much to expect?

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¹These can be dismissed out of hand, as a government policy based explicitly on a principle from any religion or combination of religions would be a clear violation of "separation of church and state," or the "establishment clause," if you want to get technical.

²These, too, can be dismissed assuming we've established that a proposed policy is more pragmatic than the current, "traditional" policy, and/or that the protection of human rights/liberties necessitates the abolition of the tradition in question, which is certainly the case in the present example!

³For now, let's give people who use this term the benefit of the doubt and assume that they're talking about something that actually exists in the real world, however stereotypical or cartoony or strawmanish it sounds.

⁴Well, in hindsight, I suppose that characterizing the restriction of marriage to opposite-sex couples as a "one-size-fits-all" policy isn't "entirely accurate." Perhaps I stated this idea more accurately in a previous post:

Legally, in the U.S., marriage is simply a contract (that happens to come with many privileges and responsibilities). I see no reason and can think of no other example in which we deny two individuals the right to engage in a voluntary legal contract that harms no one!

⁵We can talk about recognizing unions between pairs of consenting adults who are, for example, closely related to each other when there's a demand for it, but I don't see that happening any time soon.

⁶Ok. I'll take a stab at this. To those who think that rights should be determined by popular vote, I must ask, "How would you feel if you had to ask 260 million people for permission to marry the person you love?"

⁷On a related note, why aren't there more libertarians in this country? Or are there a lot of people who are libertarian, but just don't know it? Someone help me out here! Thanks.

And Now For a Random Quote From the Pharyngula Files!

One blog I read often is Pharyngula. One of the boxes in the sidebar always contains a random quote of the "religious nutjob" variety. When I went there today, I instantly recognized the quote:

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked, his wrath towards you burns like fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night, that you was[sic] suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep.
["Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," preached July 8, 1741. In Ola Elizabeth Winslow, ed., Jonathon Edwards: Basic writings (New York: New American Library, 1966) p. 159.]

Yes. Jonathan Edwards. "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." Always held in high regard in our household. We were all big fans of that "fire and brimstone" stuff. Special thanks for contributing to my childhood/adolescent immersion into Puritanism, Tabletalk Magazine!

Obviously, this sermon is completely ridiculous, but maybe you wouldn't know that if you underwent similar immersion through the entirety of your upbringing. We can't judge people, but we must challenge one another to question our beliefs. If something is true, then it should be independently verifiable.¹ In our search for truth, though we may be dependent upon the (again, independently verifiable) work of others, we must remember that "authority" means absolutely nothing.

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¹There may be some who claim that "nothing can be completely independent!" This is a different discussion, but for our present purposes, I reject that claim as false, or at least irrelevant. Don't believe me? I'm not stopping you from looking into it!

The Silent Treatment

Once I had this friend who I loved very, very much (I still love her, but not quite in the same way). It might be more accurate to say that I was completely obsessed with her. She didn't like me any more than any of her other friends, but she tolerated me for quite a while. She didn't completely stop talking to me until about a year and a half ago when I temporarily moved to a location within 70 miles of where she lived, although she didn't cut me off from all contact with her, or "excommunicate" me, as she would say.

After this, I would sometimes talk to her on instant messenger when she was online, but she would never respond. Sooner or later, I realized that the way I felt when I was talking to her on IM was the same way I felt when I prayed, and I had to ask myself,"Is it consistent with my view of God that he would [permanently] give me 'the silent treatment'?" I then realized that I had never felt or perceived that God had "spoken" to me, figuratively or literally.

The whole thing made me kind of sad, although I've gotten over it since then. It was just one step out of many on the road to atheism, [in addition to everything else it was. I would never reduce such an experience to just one thing].

Satan[-atan-atan-atan...]!?

My dear mommy found out that I'm an atheist about a month and a half ago when we were watching Hardball w/ Chris Matthews! They were talking about gay marriage, and my mom asked me what I thought about it. I said that I thought it was fine. I believed I had already explained to her why I thought that. You know, America isn't a theocrazy, we should have freedom of choice, blah, blah, blah... But then she asked me if I was still a Christian, as if that had anything to do with whether or not I thought gay marriage was ok. The two are completely unrelated¹. But I didn't want to lie to my mother, so I hesitantly told her that I was no longer a Christian. Then she asked me if I was an atheist, and I hesitantly nodded my head. This is an extremely serious issue to my parents. They still believe in hell. My dad saw it with his own eyes! Well, not his literal, physical eyes... his spirit had separated from his body at the time... but you know... he could still, uh... "feel" things... um... anyway... [SHUT UP! I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ANY QUESTIONS FROM YOU! THIS IS FUCKING BULLSHIT!] She said that she was extremely disappointed in me and she thought that this was the one thing I would retain out of all the things I had been brought up [read: held down] to believe, and my mom is one of those people who seemingly does not distinguish belief in God from morality. I think I said that there wasn't any real evidence of God's existence. This is where things got "interesting." She said something like "You don't think Satan has anything to do with [your loss of faith]?" She was already crying by this point in the conversation. I was thinking two things: ⁽¹⁾ I feel really bad that you're crying right now, and ⁽²⁾ I can't believe you brought up Satan! As if there's any more evidence for the existence of Satan than for the existence of God. Then, my mom told me I was going to hell. I'll remind you that she was crying at the time. She wasn't making a judgment against me, per se, just an "observation" based on what she had always believed; an observation of something she considered a tragedy. It has long been prophecized that in the last daze, even the very elect shall fall away, if that were possible, depending on whether or not you're a Calvinist or an Arminianist or a thousand other possibilities... "they follow the lies—the fables men devise"... anyway, I'm diverging wildly off-topic. At this point, the conversation abruptly ended because at that moment, my dad emerged from the bathroom. My mom has always been good about not ratting me out to my dad, who has a tendency to, let's say, "overreact," so, she just kind of hid her face and pretended to look for something in the chest of drawers or whatever. She had to go to work shortly thereafter, anyway. The next day, mom basically acted like nothing had happened, which I suppose is a good thing. I guess that's cool that she can tell me I'm going to hell one day, and the next, act like I'm still the same person to her... My dad still doesn't know. He's always been one of those "I brought you into this world; I can take you out" types.

Anyway, what I wanted to talk about is the idea of Satan in religion/culture. In Christianity, Satan slowly evolved over about 2 or 3 thousand years into the "Accuser of the Brethren" [and Sistren too, I suppose] and the "Father of Lies/Liars." He must be a busy guy. It's kind of hard for me to imagine the energy it would take. He must be some kind of sadist, taking such pleasure in constantly fucking with people. Especially 6 billion people. The "Church of Satan" sees "Satan" [more appropriately, in my opinion] as a symbol. They don't use the word "accuser;" they use the word "questioner," and he's not the questioner of the regular guy, but the questioner of authority. Looking at it from that perspective, the whole idea seems slightly less nefarious, doesn't it? I don't associate asking questions with the desire to deceive. In fact, what's wrong with asking questions if you're looking for "the truth"? But in religion the form of Christianity my parents practice, it is taken as axiomatic that the truth is already known, and any truth we need to know in the future, God will reveal to us, so there's no point to seeking new information. In fact, any new information that conflicts with this "truth" is casually [or sometimes violently] dismissed as a "Lie From The Pit Of Hell!" After all, what was the original sin? Wasn't it curiosity? Obviously, this is a very "good v. evil," "black and white" world view.

In reality, we all know, and my parents would readily admit, that "good" and "evil" aren't so black and white. It is even said that "Satan comes as an angel of light." This is another way of saying "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." There are probably a bunch of other cliches that mean the same thing.

My point is that my parents have it backwards: "truth" is discovered by asking questions, and blindly trusting in authority is an easy way for evil to be accomplished, even if that is not the intent. Christians have no more of a magical ability to discern between "good" and "evil" than any other type of person. Was the average German any less "Christian" than the average American in the 1930s and 1940s? Was the average Bush voter any less Christian than the average Gore, Kerry, or Nader voter? I highly doubt it. Christianity is correct about the idea that lies can and should be combated with truth. I like the metaphor of "shining a light rather than cursing the darkness." The problem is that their idea of "shining a light" is simply "proclaiming the truth of Christ." There's no concern for refining their ideas about anything through independent sources. The perspective is not that truth is something that we need to discover on our own, it is that we already know the truth and we need to spread it as far as we can. Let me make this perfectly clear: Nobody knows the final, ultimate, absolute truth about anything. All we can know are facts, and we can refine our knowledge of those facts through science and reasoned logic. If somebody has another way of increasing the size of the global knowledge pool, I'd really like to know. Thanks.

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¹The "problem" with gay marriage in this country is that marriage has two meanings: a legal meaning, and a religious meaning. I think these two aspects of marriage should be completely separated. But we have combined the two into one and we still call it marriage, and we've been doing this for hundreds if not thousands of years, so it's going to be difficult to undo.

And Now For Something Completely Different [Warning: Please Do Not Read This!!!]

I was taking a nap today [Oh, Mexican taking a nap. Who would have thought!?] and during it, I had a dream about this youtuber to whom I subscribe (ColourMeAmy), which is strange, considering I've never even come close to meeting her in real life and she's Canadian, and I'm in the American southwest, which is quite far away, although, last week, I did comment on one of her videos, and she replied to me. Anyway, in the dream, she was living in a house in a rural area, but she was in the process of moving and I visited because I wanted to see her off, like somehow I knew where she lived and it was ok for me to be there, although even in the dream, we had never met each other before. So I came in from the back, noticed the house was empty, and then went out through the front door. I wasn't the only one there. There were other people standing around in the front yard. There was a row of trees between the road and the yard. There was no fence in the front, (maybe on the sides). She was near a car on the side of the road, I think packing some of her belongings into it. Some of her stuff had been arranged in piles ready to be placed into whatever vehicle was going to take the stuff away. I (accidentally) knocked over a few things somehow [that's what I do. I knock things over. boohoo...], and then I was trying to keep other stuff from falling down that I had somehow made unbalanced. And that's when she saw me, and she started walking over to where I was, and I was like "sorry, I don't know how this happened," and then, maybe I was wondering "how do I introduce myself to her?" [in case you were wondering, "Adderall Apocalypse" is not my real name]. I don't exactly remember what "happened" next, but she said a few things, and then I probably said a few things, and then, a bit later, I heard the choral intro to Madonna's "Like a Prayer" [still in the same setting; I think everyone else there was the "choir"], although I didn't recognize it at first. So then we both spontaneously started singing the part of the intro that Madonna sings, although I couldn't quite hit the high part ("I hear you call my name"), especially since I had food in my mouth, somehow, so I just stayed silent for that line, and then, I think, after "and it feels like... home..." that's when I woke up. Very strange...

By the way, I really like the song. It's the subject of a joke I'm sure I stole from a music magazine made up. One reason I like the song so much is that it's vague, so I'm not sure what it's about. Is it about fellatio, or is it about God? Or is it about performing fellatio on God?