Ten Commandments have no Role in Public

Last updated on: May 25, 2012 at 10:18 am By Bob Seidensticker

Some Christians have no patience with a separation between church and state and want to display the Ten Commandments in the public square—the state-supported public square.

Judge Roy Moore is an example. As chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Moore installed a 2.5-ton granite monument in the Supreme Court building showing two tablets holding the Ten Commandments in 2001. He said, “Today a cry has gone out across our land for the acknowledgment of that God upon whom this nation and our laws were founded. … May this day mark the restoration of the moral foundation of law to our people and the return to the knowledge of God in our land.” A lawsuit was filed, Moore lost, he was ordered to remove the monument, he refused, and he was removed from office.

And now he is the leading candidate for getting his old job back. We live in interesting times.

A 2007 poll compared Americans’ knowledge of the Ten Commandments with the seven ingredients in a McDonald’s Big Mac hamburger. More people remembered “two all-beef patties” from the TV commercial than remembered “thou shalt not kill” from Sunday school. Even among churchgoers, 30% didn’t remember “thou shalt not kill,” and 31% didn’t remember “thou shalt not steal.”

One atheist wit observed that the Big Mac had an unfair advantage—it had a jingle. Solution: set the Ten Commandments to music. “Only God, no idols, watch your mouth, special day, call your mom … on a sesame seed bun.”

How big a deal is this? Does poor recall of the Ten Commandments correlate to poor morals? I say no, and I think Americans’ poor memory in this case isn’t a shocking oversight; instead, it reflects the irrelevance of the Ten Commandments in modern life. We don’t need the Commandments to remind us that killing is wrong, and they’re not an especially complete or relevant list for secular America. “Don’t enslave,” “don’t rape,” and “no genocide” are glaringly absent, and “have no other gods before me” has no place in the state-supported public square.

(Sorry, pro-lifers—abortion was obviously not top of mind for God when he dictated the Commandments, since he included “don’t covet” but omitted “no abortion.”)

To wiggle out of uncomfortable baggage, some Christians try to play the “Get out of the Old Testament free” card. They do this when they want to talk about slavery and genocide being a product of that foreign culture. Okay, but then haven’t you shed the Ten Commandments as well, since that’s also in the Old Testament?

The Old Testament is relevant today or it isn’t—it can’t be both ways.

As ancient legal codes go, the Mosaic law isn’t all that groundbreaking. It is predated by not only the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi but Mesopotamian law and Egyptian law. In fact, the pediment of the U.S. Supreme Court building, which many history revisionists claim holds the Ten Commandments, is actually a frieze of Moses along with two other ancient lawmakers, Solon (Athens) and Confucius (China). This artwork is shown in the photo above. And no, Moses isn’t holding the Ten Commandments but rather blank tablets. Moses is also depicted on a frieze inside the courtroom, but he is simply in a procession of 18 great lawmakers.

What if all people followed the basic conventions that society agrees are its moral foundation? That would be great, but if this happened, why give the credit to Christianity? That is, why point to morality and say, “Aha! That’s the good ol’ Ten Commandments they’re following!” No, morality comes from society. The Ten Commandments are a reflection of some of the best traits from society, not the other way around.

What if we discarded the religious baggage—important within Christianity but irrelevant to the secular, all-inclusive society—and distilled down social wisdom into a secular Ten Commandments? Here’s a version from A.C. Grayling’s Secular Bible.

1. Love well
2. Seek the good in all things
3. Harm no others
4. Think for yourself
5. Take responsibility
6. Respect nature
7. Do your utmost
8. Be informed
9. Be kind
10. Be courageous

At least, sincerely try.

NYC Atheists has an excellent version here (search for “Atheist Freedoms” on page 4). And here is Christopher Hitchens’ version (skip in the video to 6:30)

The Ten Commandments is nothing more than a fragment of an interesting historical document. An example from Georgia shows the problems with treating it as if it’s more than this. Poverty in that state has recently increased so that it is now the third-poorest state. What is its legislature spending time on? Getting the Ten Commandments in all public buildings, including schools.

I guess it’s easier than actually solving problems.

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully
as when they do it from religious conviction.
— Pascal

Photo credit: djv2130

The Irrelevant Wisdom of the Ten Commandments

Related links:

“National Capitol,” Snopes.

The Irrelevant Wisdom of the Ten Commandments

Last updated on: March 19, 2012 at 4:00 am By Bob Seidensticker

atheism and christian apologetics Few Christians can list the Ten Commandments in order, but almost all are familiar with them:

1. Have no other gods before me
2. No graven images
3. Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain
4. Keep the Sabbath day
5. Honor your mother and father
6. Don’t kill
7. No adultery
8. Don’t steal
9. Don’t lie
10. Don’t covet

These are the well-known Ten Commandments from Exodus 20. What could be ambiguous about this list? Stay tuned as we run through the story.

It takes 11 more chapters for God to finish giving all his secondary commandments, first rules for how the people should conduct themselves and then rules for the temple and priests.

After weeks of waiting for Moses to return from Mt. Sinai, the anxious Israelites make a golden calf in chapter 32. Moses is furious when he finally returns. He smashes the tablets, has the calf ground up and force-fed to the faithless people, and orders the Levites to slaughter thousands of their fellow tribesmen.

Then follows an indeterminate amount of time during which God descended on Moses’ tent as a pillar of smoke and “the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend.”

As a side note, it’s interesting that this appearance of God to Moses (Ex. 33:11) as well as that to Abraham (Gen. 18:1–2) is denied in other parts of the Bible. We’re later told, “No one has seen God at any time” (John 1:18) and “No man has seen or can see [God]” (1 Tim. 6:16).

Back to our story: Moses goes up Sinai a second time in Exodus 34. God says, “I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablets which you shattered,” so we know that this nothing new, just a replacement set of commandments. But the contents are very different:

Make no covenant with the Canaanite tribes
Destroy their altars
Make no idols (“molten gods”)
Observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread
“The first offspring from every womb belongs to me”
Rest on the seventh day
Celebrate the Feast of Weeks
No leavened bread during Passover
Bring the first fruits of the soil to the Lord
“You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk”

The chapter ends with these words: “And [Moses] wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.” This is the first time this label is used in the Bible.

You want to display the Ten Commandments in public? Go for it, but put up this list. It’s the official list, after all.

Contrast this with the story of the first tablets, which concludes at the end of chapter 31, “[God] gave Moses the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written by the finger of God.” There is no mention of a “ten commandments,” and these stone tablets presumably contain all of the rules given in chapters 20 through 31.

Another detour: chapter 34 has this savage claim, “[God] will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations” (Ex. 34:7). And yet, three books later, we get this contradiction: “Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin” (Deut. 24:16).

I guess this too can be rationalized: Deut. 24 is talking about what man must do. Man needs to treat people fairly and punish only the wrongdoers. Ex. 34 is talking about what God will do. God has a long memory and will hold a grudge against you to punish your descendants.

Speaking of punishments, the Ten Commandments list crimes without giving punishments. For you traditionalists who like the “thou shalt not” set of commandments, “Positive Atheism” has handy list of the corresponding punishments. God has a pretty limited imagination, and you can guess what they are: “He who sacrifices to any god, other than to the LORD alone, shall be utterly destroyed” (Ex. 22:20), “the one who blasphemes the name of the LORD shall surely be put to death” (Lev. 24:16), and so on.

Display the Ten Commandments in public, just put up the correct ten. I dare you.

Say what you will about the Ten Commandments,
you must always come back to the pleasant fact
that there are only ten of them.
— H. L. Mencken

Photo credit: Wikimedia

Related links:

“Can God be seen?” Skeptics Annotated Bible.
“The Two Flood Stories,” Failing the Insider Test, 3/2/09.
“Which Ten Commandments?” Positive Atheism blog.
Frank Zindler, “Hang the Commandments — All 30 of Them,” American Atheists.

Does the Old Testament Condemn Homosexuality? (2 of 2)

Last updated on: March 12, 2012 at 4:00 am By Bob Seidensticker

Did Jesus exist? Last time we looked at the Sodom and Gomorrah story. Let’s move on to the book of Leviticus.

You must not have sexual intercourse with a male as one has sexual intercourse with a woman; it is an abomination (Leviticus 18:22).

Sounds pretty damning, but the word “abomination” also describes eating forbidden food (Deut. 14:3), sacrificing blemished animals (Deut. 17:1), performing divination and similar magic (Deut. 18:12), and women wearing men’s clothing (Deut. 22:5). Clearly, these are ritual abominations.

Mary Douglas makes sense out of the confusing purity laws in Leviticus, where things are clean or unclean seemingly arbitrarily. She argues that clean things are proper members of their category. A proper fish has fins and scales, so that makes it an abomination to eat improper sea animals like clams and shrimp. A proper land animal—one that is part of civilized society—is cloven hoofed and cud chewing like a cow or goat. To be clean, any animal or wild game must share these characteristics—hence no rabbits (not cloven hoofed) or pigs (not cud chewers). “Unclean” means “imperfect members of its class.”

A sacrifice must be a perfect animal, hence no blemishes. A priest must be a perfect man, hence he can’t be blind or lame. Don’t mix seeds in a field; don’t mix textiles in a garment.

Homosexuality fits easily into this taxonomy—proper sex is man with woman, so man/man or man/animal sex is explicitly forbidden. But it’s ritually forbidden, not forbidden because of any innate harm.

Here’s another popular bludgeon:

If a man has sexual intercourse with a male as one has sexual intercourse with a woman, the two of them have committed an abomination. They must be put to death; their blood guilt is on themselves (Lev. 20:13).

First, note that this again is nothing more than ritual abomination.

Second, note the punishment. Don’t point to the Bible to identify the crime but then ignore its penalty. Do modern Christians truly think that the appropriate response to male homosexuality is death?

Third, note what else this chapter demands: unclean animals can’t be eaten (20:25), exile for a couple that has sex during the woman’s period (:18), death to spiritual mediums (:27), death for adultery (:10), and death for anyone who curses his father or mother (:9). It comes as a package of out-of-date tribal customs—with what justification can one select the anti-homosexual verse and ignore the rest?

If Jesus was the once-and-for-all sacrifice that did away with the need for the Old Testament ritual laws (Heb. 7:11–12 and 8:6–13), then get rid of them all.

God said, “I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you” (Gen. 17:7). Verses like this would saddle Christians with all the Old Testament customs, from the sacrifices to the crazy stuff like genocide that they’d like to distance themselves from, and they’ll say that they apply to Jews only. Fair enough—then stop cherry picking Old Testament passages if the Old Testament doesn’t apply to you.

This selective reading reminds me of Rev. O’Neal Dozier, in the news because he’s a Rick Santorum backer, saying that homosexuality is the “paramount of sins” and that it is “something so nasty and disgusting that it makes God want to vomit.” My first impulse to this energetic condemnation is to wonder if Haggard’s Law applies, but more to the point, why is homosexuality at the top of the list? Why should it be any worse than any other “abomination” such as eating shrimp, telling a fortune, or a woman wearing pants? (Unless, of course, Rev. Dozier is simply using the Bible as a sock puppet to have it speak his opinions.)

Apologists like Dozier who say that the Bible is clear in its rejection of homosexuality won’t say the same thing about the Bible’s support for genocide, slavery, and polygamy. They’ll say, “Okay, slow down and let me tell you why the surface reading isn’t correct.” The predicament for today’s Christian is the clash between modern morality and the warlike culture of the early Jews.

A common response to God’s embarrassing actions in the Old Testament is to say that he is mysterious and inscrutable to our simple human minds. But then these same Christians will contradict themselves and say with certainty that God is against homosexuality, abortion, and taxes.

We at least are largely in agreement on where the problems lie, but apologists who pick and choose which commandments must be taken literally are beating the copper of the Bible against the anvil of their faith. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Shouldn’t the Bible speak for itself? Why is the atheist the one interpreting the Bible literally?

Or if the Bible is simply the sock puppet used to give an argument credibility, I’d appreciate Christians dropping the middleman, admitting that their beliefs come from their innate moral sense, and defending them.

Morality is doing what is right regardless of what we are told.
Religious dogma is doing what we are told regardless of what is right.
— Unknown

Photo credit: Wikimedia

The first post in this series is here: Homosexuality v. Christianity

Related links:

Mary Douglas, “The Abominations of Leviticus.”

5 Recommendations to the Pro-Life Movement

Last updated on: January 21, 2013 at 9:28 pm By Bob Seidensticker

Christian apologetics, Christianity, and atheism It’s easy to assume that pro-life proponents are decent people who honestly want to see good done in the world. The problem is that their arguments are out of touch with reality, so let me make some suggestions that I think will make the movement more effective.

I’ll admit that it’s odd for a pro-choice advocate to offer suggestions to the pro-life movement, but I want them to be more in line with reality, and I can critique from a very different perspective than an insider can.

1. Don’t Deny the Spectrum; Embrace It. When trying to shock someone with the downsides of abortion, would a pro-life advocate discuss the horrors of the “morning after” pill rather than talk about a late-term abortion procedure? Of course not. There is a spectrum of personhood from a single cell to a newborn baby, and pro-life advocates know it. Their “it’s a baby” claim for the fetus at every stage of development ignores the glaring fact of the spectrum.

Today, the pro-life movement minimizes information and discourages all abortions. The result is that the abortions that happen are often delayed, resulting in the death of an older fetus. If the pro-life movement acknowledged the spectrum and worked with it, they would instead encourage early detection of pregnancy and a prompt discussion of next steps so that any abortion is done as early as possible. An early abortion is better than a later one from every angle. Of course, pro-lifers could put forward their argument against abortion, but making abortion a taboo subject delays addressing the problem and makes any abortion later than it needs to be. Instead of a zero-tolerance approach to abortion, they would focus instead on minimizing the harm.

Recognizing the spectrum would also free stem cell research from nonsensical constraints. (You’re delaying research into treatments that could improve public health because of a worry over the rights of cells?! Get serious.)

2. Embrace Allies. While I’m pro-choice, I don’t like abortion. The pro-life advocate doesn’t like abortion. In fact, the scared teenage girl going to the clinic doesn’t even like abortion. No one ever said, “Gee, I’m feeling kinda gloomy today. I think an abortion would perk me up.” Some people see abortion as the greater of two evils and others see it as the lesser of two evils, but everyone sees it as a bad thing.

Why focus on the disagreement when both sides of the debate are actually in agreement? And here’s the really important agreement: no one likes the primary cause of abortion, unwanted pregnancy. Instead of the current conflict, all sides should be marching arm in arm toward a better way to minimize unwanted pregnancy.

3. Focus on Education. Whatever we’re doing to discourage unwanted pregnancies in the U.S. isn’t working. Half of all pregnancies are unintended, and evangelical young adults are about as likely to have had sex as any other group.

Among countries in the West, the U.S. compares poorly. In the U.S., the annual birth rate was 56 per 1000 women aged 15–19. Compare this to 8 in the Netherlands. The U.S. abortion rate for that group of women was 30 per 1000, while it was 4 in the Netherlands. Clearly, there’s tremendous room for improvement.

The goal of the pro-life movement has been to stop abortion. Instead of swimming against the current with this approach, they should work with the current by stopping the need for abortion.

Teen sex is a bit like teen drinking. When a kid gets to be 15 or 16, the parent warns the kid against underage drinking. But the wise parent gives a part 2: “If you do drink, or the driver of your car has been drinking, call me. I’ll pick you up anytime, anywhere, with no questions asked. Your safety is the most important thing.” The lesson: drinking is bad, but getting hurt while drunk is really bad (and avoidable).

Likewise, if a parent wants to tell the kid that sex is bad before marriage, that’s fine. Just give the part 2: “If you do have sex, you need to know how to have sex safely and use a condom.”

The results show that abstinence-only sex education doesn’t work:

A 2007 Congressionally mandated report found that, on average, students who participated in abstinence-only education had sex at the same age as students who had comprehensive sex education. They also had similar rates of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, and used birth control at similar rates as students who had comprehensive sex education.

As children grow into adulthood, they get adult bodies. Wishing it weren’t so doesn’t help. Why wouldn’t we want to give them the owner’s manual that goes along with those new bodies? It’s like kids having access to the car keys without being given driver’s education.

Don’t our children deserve the best training for minimizing unwanted pregnancy? Abstinence-only training has been given a shot and doesn’t work. If you oppose the frank teaching of how to not get pregnant in Health class, avoiding abortion must not be the critical issue you say it is.

4. A “Pro-Life” Movement Should Treat Threats to Life in Priority Order. There are roughly one million necessary abortions per year in the U.S. But around the world there are ten million deaths per year of young children that are not necessary. You want to protect life? Then do so by focusing on this much larger number of children in the developing world who die of mostly preventable causes. Jesus said nothing about abortion, but he did talk about helping the poor and sick.

5. Tell Politicians to Leave You Alone. Politicians buzz like flies around the pro-life cause, eager to solve the problem. At least they say they want to solve the problem, but they have little motivation to do so. A solved problem doesn’t get votes, and as long as it’s unsolved, the problem remains a vote getter. Politicians benefit from the controversy, not a resolution, and they would stand in the way of the pro-life movement working in harmony with pro-choice advocates.

The Christian can become a marionette to the politician who can say “If you’re truly a moral person, you must vote for me.” Christians should just say no.

Photo credit: macropoulos

Find the first post in this series about abortion here: A Defense of Abortion Rights: the Spectrum Argument

Related links:

Maia Szalavitz, “What We Can Learn From the Dutch About Teen Sex,” Time, 11/14/11.
John Blake, “Why young Christians aren’t waiting anymore,” CNN Belief Blog, 9/27/11.
Tyler Charles, “(Almost) Everyone’s Doing It,” Relevant magazine, 9/11.
Nancy Gibbs, “Why Have Abortion Rates Fallen?” Time, 1/21/08.
“Rick Perry Struggles To Answer Question About Sex Ed: ‘Abstinence Works,’” Huffington Post, 8/23/11.
Gregory Paul, “The Chronic Dependence of Popular Religiosity upon Dysfunctional Psychosociological Conditions,” Evolutionary Psychology (2009) 7(3): 398–441.

Why is it Always Men Advancing the Pro-Life Position?

Last updated on: January 21, 2013 at 9:31 pm By Bob Seidensticker

Christian apologetics and atheism meet here It’s Blog for Choice Day!

On this, the 39th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision making abortion legal in the U.S., Pro-Choice America (NARAL) asks, What will you do to help elect pro-choice candidates in 2012?

I will make it easier to be a pro-choice politician by spreading the word about the sensible arguments in favor of the pro-choice position. My approach has been to post this series of articles on this topic.

Today let’s ask why it’s always men advancing the pro-life position. It does seem unfair that the gender that isn’t personally inconvenienced by pregnancy is the one pushing the restrictions. (Okay—it’s not always men who are the vocal pro-life advocates, but it often seems that way.)

I remember a podcast by a popular Christian apologist during which a woman caller asked this question. The apologist (a man) seemed annoyed. He said that murder was murder. (I argue that abortion isn’t murder.)

More to the point, he said that his moral opinion was relevant regardless of his gender. I’ll agree with that, as far as it goes. But I think that the woman had an important point that is rarely acknowledged, since only a woman can have an abortion.

Let me try to create a symmetric male-only example. This apologist is of the age where he might have been in the draft pool during the Vietnam War. So let’s suppose it’s 1970, and this guy comes back from a tour fighting in Vietnam. Readjusting to life in America is tough, and he has nightmares and other symptoms of what we now call PTSD. His wife is sympathetic and, after some prodding, he shares the problem with her.

“Oh, you should go see Dr. Jones about that,” she says. “I’m part of a community of veterans’ wives, and I’ve heard all about that. He does wonders with returning soldiers, and he’ll fix you up in no time.”

Our hero hesitates, not comfortable discussing his demons with a stranger. “I don’t think so.”

“No, really. I’ve heard a lot about this, and that treatment should work for you.”

Tension increases as they go back and forth. Finally, he says, “Honey, I really appreciate your sympathy. I know you want to help. But you must understand that you will never, ever understand what I’ve been through. Put in 18 months in Vietnam and then we’ll have something to talk about. Until then, you really don’t get it.”

Similarly, our 60-something male apologist will never, ever completely understand what it’s like to be 15 and pregnant, faced with disapproving parents and ridicule from classmates and pro-lifers shouting “murder!” at the suggestion of an abortion, wondering how she’s ever going to get her life back on track.

If the male apologist wants to comment on the topic, that’s fine, but a big dose of humility (and sympathy) would make his position easier to take.

Next time: 16 Arguments Against Abortion, with Rebuttals (Part 2)

Photo credit: tsand

Find the first post in this series about abortion here: A Defense of Abortion Rights: The Spectrum Argument

What’s Wrong with the Pro-Life Position?

Last updated on: January 21, 2013 at 9:35 pm By Bob Seidensticker

Atheism and Christianity One commenter to this blog made the excellent point that the label “pro-life” for the anti-abortion movement is a bit odd. In this contentious debate, I wanted to label those in each group as they prefer, but who’s not pro-life?

In the Christian view, life on earth is “the cramped and narrow foyer leading to the great hall of God’s eternity” (William Lane Craig). What a dismal view of life—something simply to be endured as we wait for the real Life to begin. By contrast, the atheist, certain of only the one life we all know exists, is the one who lives life to the fullest. It can be argued that the atheist is the one who’s truly pro-life.

But let’s leave the conventional labels alone and consider the pro-life position. If there were no downsides of carrying a fetus to term, if carrying the fetus to term were nothing more than a minor inconvenience for the mother, the abortion question wouldn’t be an interesting issue. But of course there are downsides—big ones. To bring a child into the world, poorly cared for in the womb, unwanted and unloved by its mother, abandoned by its father, neglected or abused, or growing up in squalor or in an abysmal home—for me, that potential harm eclipses the harm of denying a cell the chance to grow into a person. Demanding that the state step in and declare that it knows the consequences better than the mother seems an odd position to take for typically conservative Christians.

The pro-life advocate has a quick answer: carry the child to term and give it up for adoption. But this does nothing to address the problem of the woman unable to or uninterested in caring for herself and the baby properly during the pregnancy. Or of the baby with identified birth defects. Unhealthy babies are far more likely to live out their childhood in foster care.

“Just put it up for adoption” is hopeless naïve when only two percent of all births to unmarried women ended in an adoption. For teen mothers, the rate is even less. Let’s not pretend that if the mother’s life and home situation aren’t conducive to raising a baby until adulthood that she’ll always put the baby up for adoption.

Even if a teen mother chose to have her baby adopted, the consequences of the pregnancy are dramatic. She’ll miss school, she’ll be ostracized, and she’ll go through an emotional meat grinder when it comes time to give up her baby. And since the statistics say she won’t, that she will almost surely keep the baby, she’ll have no chance to get back on track for the life she had planned.

I have a mental image of an anti-abortion activist looking with satisfaction on the girl he just talked out of having an abortion, with no understanding of the shackles he may have placed on her life or the hellish environment to which he has may have consigned that child-to-be. Infuriating.

The alternative to abortion rights is compulsory pregnancy. My claims are simple: that (1) some lives are truly abysmal and (2) creating such a life (for the mother or the child) is a bad thing. I doubt that my argument has convinced any pro-lifers to budge in their position, but I do demand that they acknowledge the terrible burden that making abortion illegal would place on a million women each year.

Next time: What Does the Bible Say About Abortion? Not Much.

Photo credit: Wikimedia

Find the first post in this series about abortion here: A Defense of Abortion Rights: The Spectrum Argument

Five Emotional Pro-Choice Arguments

Last updated on: January 21, 2013 at 9:37 pm By Bob Seidensticker

In the last post, I argued for a spectrum from a single cell (not a person) to a newborn baby (a person). This is in response to pro-life advocates who deny this spectrum to argue that we have a “baby” from newborn all the way back to that single cell.

I’d like to make five arguments in favor of my position. To do that, I’ll try to bypass the intellect to some extent and appeal to emotion.

1. Child vs. Embryos. Suppose the fertility clinic were on fire, and you could save either a five-year-old child or ten frozen embryos. Which would you pick?

Of course, everyone would save the child.

But now imagine the same situation two years later. The ten embryos have become one-year-old babies and the child is now seven years old. Which would you save? Obviously, the ten babies.

As an aside, note that the decision in the second instance is much tougher. In the first, we lost ten insensate embryos, but in the second, it’s a child. No one equates a newborn or a child with an invisible clump of cells.

2. Different Reactions to Abortion Procedures. Anti-abortionists focus on the horror of a late-term abortion. Did you ever wonder why they don’t focus instead on a woman swallowing a Plan B (emergency contraceptive) pill? Or a drug-induced abortion (the most common procedure for first-trimester abortions)? Imagine anti-abortion activists carrying signs, not with a photo of an eight-month-old fetus but with life-size drawings of a 100-cell human blastocyst. The signs would appear blank.

By choosing as they do, they admit that all procedures are not equal and that there is a spectrum. Their story is more powerful the older the fetus is. A blastocyst is very unlike a person, but an 8-month-old fetus is very much like a person.

3. Slaughtering Animals for Food. Which would be more horrible to watch: a woman swallowing a pill of Plan B or a cow going through a slaughterhouse? The cow can experience fear and pain, while the single cell can experience neither. The cell’s claim to superiority is only its potential to be a person.

There’s a big difference from what is and what might be. A blastocyst has impressive potential but has vastly fewer cells than the brain of a fly. The only trait it shares with a person is its DNA, a vague and abstract commonality.

And there’s no guarantee that our imagined cell will develop properly during pregnancy. A single cell might become a human baby or not, just like betting $1000 on black at the roulette table might win or not. With half of all pregnancies ending in spontaneous (natural) abortion, the odds for each are about the same.

4. Cloning and Skin Cells. Imagine that in ten years we are able to clone a human from a single skin cell. Would you never scratch your skin to avoid killing a potential human being, like the Jain who wears mesh over his face to avoid accidentally breathing in a flying insect? And if not—if “potential human being” is very different in your mind from “human being”—then why not see that same difference between a single cell and a newborn baby?

5. Saving Another Person’s Life. If a blastocyst is a person, would you give up your life for it? You might risk your life to save a stranger; is the same true for a stranger’s blastocyst?

What we value changes across this spectrum, and, while we might intellectually argue that a human is a human is a human, emotionally we don’t see both ends of the spectrum the same.

Let me make clear that I’m simply arguing for the existence of a spectrum. We can agree on this and still disagree on when the okay/not-okay line is for abortion. The status quo seems to resolve this well: society decides on the upper bounds and then allows girls and women to choose.

Show me why a single fertilized human egg cell is equivalent to a trillion-cell newborn. It’s not equivalent in any important biological sense; why should it be equivalent morally?

Next time: What’s Wrong with the Pro-Life Position?

Photo credit: ebmarquez

Find the first post in this series about abortion here: A Defense of Abortion Rights: the Spectrum Argument.

An Atheist Ad Campaign—a Holiday Tradition!

Last updated on: December 12, 2011 at 4:00 am By Bob Seidensticker

Today, Seattle Atheists launches an ad campaign on local buses. Twelve buses will carry banner ads with photos of four people in average settings with the tag line, “1 in 4 is an Atheist.” The campaign runs through early January.

One in four Seattle residents has no god belief—in other words, they are atheists. Seattleites may not consider that the person who sold them their morning coffee might have been an atheist. Or the person who drove their bus or repaired their car or did their taxes or treated their illness. Atheists are their coworkers, their friends, their family. Whether they realize it or not, they know plenty of atheists.

These are smart people who take pride in their work and love their families and appreciate the great things about America, just like religious people.

The Problem. While atheists do their part within society, they don’t always get the same consideration in return. They’re sometimes told, “This is a Christian nation and if you don’t like it, move to Europe.” Some risk their jobs by revealing who they are, and some risk ostracism and the loss of their family or community. Some are bullied or discriminated against within schools or by the military. Seeing this, many atheists remain silent. Many churchgoers are among these silent atheists.

The political season is a time when atheists are particularly reminded how out of step they are with much of America. The U.S. House recently passed a resolution to reassure us that, yes, “In God We Trust” is still our national motto. Governors appeal for prayer to solve problems rather than using the power of their office. Political candidates often vie with each other to be the most Christian. When it comes to people we wouldn’t vote for, atheists are at the bottom.

What Atheists Want (and What They Don’t Want). Many of the fears Christians have about atheists are invented by clergy or politicians. American already is a secular nation—the Constitution makes this clear—but that’s not a threat to Christians. Indeed, it’s the best environment for Christians.

Christians can send their children to public school and know that they won’t hear a Bahá’í or Satanist prayer. Christians can go to a city council meeting and not see “Allahu Akbar” in Arabic script on the wall. Christians can go into a courtroom and not see a Shinto or Hindu god of jurisprudence glaring down at him. But while government is constrained in its religious speech, citizens are not, and Christians can still preach or hand out flyers in the public square. Everyone wins.

Atheists don’t want Christians denied their right to free speech. When atheists object to preachers recommending political candidates or “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, they don’t want to limit the rights of Christians or get special privileges, they just want equality.

Next Steps. If you’re an atheist, consider coming out. Politely make your presence known. The biggest factor in the American public becoming more tolerant of homosexuals was simply knowing one, and it works the same way for atheists. But whether or not you feel comfortable making your atheism public, find local atheist or freethought groups and connect with your community.

If you’re a theist, be aware that there are atheists all around you. These are people just like you, honest and hardworking. Instead of praying before a meeting, evangelizing in the workplace, or putting a Jesus fish on your web site, consider if actions like these may offend others. Encourage your friends to speak their mind and be who they are.

James Dobson Needs My Money (and an Education)

Last updated on: August 8, 2013 at 11:53 am By Bob Seidensticker

James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, was good enough to send me a letter a few days ago. Not a personal letter—he basically just wants me to give him some of my money—but a letter nonetheless. He outlined some of his views about the Christian foundation our country was built on, reported how our country is going to hell in a jet-propelled handbasket, and made the irresistible swipe at homosexuality.

In case he forgot to send you one, I’ve highlighted a few interesting bits of his letter to reply to.

Our Founding Fathers clearly understood the relationship between Christian Truth and the stability of our (then) new nation. Here are just a few quotes that express that essential connection.

And he goes on to quote mine the founding fathers’ writings to find their most pro-Christian statements.

When pundits bring up quotes from the founders, you know that they’re out of arguments. The U.S. Constitution is the law of the land, regardless of what the founders thought, wrote, or wanted. They had their chance to define how the country should be run, and they seized it. That document was revolutionary at the time and now, with a few amendments, effectively governs us more than two centuries later. It supersedes any other writings of the founders.

Thomas Jefferson, … revisionists tell us, wanted a “wall of separation” to protect the government from people of faith.

No need for revisionists—Thomas Jefferson himself talked about “a wall of separation between church and state.” And, to be precise, the First Amendment protects the people (whether or not of faith) from the government, not the other way around.

Dobson then goes on to give a long quote by Abraham Lincoln. Well, not really by Lincoln. This was a Senate resolution for a National Fast Day signed by Lincoln. And this was the same Lincoln who said, “When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad. That’s my religion.”

This was the same Lincoln who said, “The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion.”

This was the same Lincoln who said, (more…)

Christianity Can Rot Your Brain

Last updated on: October 24, 2011 at 4:00 am By Bob Seidensticker

There’s a lot of killing in the Bible—the honest and wholesome kind. The God-commanded kind.

What are we to make of this violence? Apologist William Lane Craig takes a stab at justifying “The Slaughter of the Canaanites.”

Craig’s entire project is bizarre—trying to support the sagging claims of God’s goodness despite his passion for genocide—but he gamely has a go. Craig responds to the question, “But wasn’t it wrong to kill all the innocent children?”

… if we believe, as I do, that God’s grace is extended to those who die in infancy or as small children, the death of these children was actually their salvation. We are so wedded to an earthly, naturalistic perspective that we forget that those who die are happy to quit this earth for heaven’s incomparable joy. Therefore, God does these children no wrong in taking their lives.

What’s this supposed to mean?? Does it mean that Andrea Yates was actually right that she was saving her five children from the possibility of going to hell by drowning them one by one in the bathtub? Does it mean that abortion is actually a good thing because those souls “are happy to quit this earth for heaven’s incomparable joy”? I hope none of Craig’s readers have followed up with this avenue to salvation.

It’s hard to believe that he’s actually justifying the killing of children, but there’s more. Let’s parse Craig’s next paragraph:

So whom does God wrong in commanding the destruction of the Canaanites? Not the Canaanite adults, for they were corrupt and deserving of judgment.

I thought that genocide was wrong. Perhaps I was mistaken.

Not the children, for they inherit eternal life.

Yeah, right. Killing children is actually a good thing. (Are we living Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, where “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength”?)

So who is wronged?

Wait for it …

Ironically, I think the most difficult part of this whole debate is the apparent wrong done to the Israeli soldiers themselves. Can you imagine what it would be like to have to break into some house and kill a terrified woman and her children? The brutalizing effect on these Israeli soldiers is disturbing.

Uh, yeah. That was the big concern in my mind, too.

Can you believe this guy? My guess is that he is a decent and responsible person, is a good husband and father, works hard, and pays his taxes. But he’s writing this? It’s like discovering that your next-door neighbor is a Klansman.

This brings up the Christopher Hitchens’ Challenge (video). Hitchens challenges anyone to state a moral action taken or a moral sentiment uttered by a believer that couldn’t be taken or uttered by an unbeliever—something that a believer could do but an atheist couldn’t. In the many public appearances in which Hitchens has made this challenge, he has never heard a valid reply.

But think of the reverse: something terrible that only a believer would do or say. Now, there are lots of possibilities. Obviously, anything containing variations on “because God says” or “because the Bible says” could be an example.

“The Bible says, ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’”
“Despite the potential benefits to public health, we should avoid embryonic stem cell research because it’s against the Bible.”
“God hates fags.”

Or, as in this case, “God supports genocide.”

This reminds me what physicist Steven Weinberg said: “Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you’d have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion.”

In other words: Christianity can rot your brain.

Photo credit: Wikimedia

Related links:

Greta Christina, “One More Reason Religion Is So Messed Up: Respected Theologian Defends Genocide and Infanticide,” AlterNet, 4/25/11.
Adam Lee, “Defending Genocide, Redux,” Daylight Atheism, 4/11/11.
Richard Dawkins, “Why I refuse to debate with William Lane Craig,” The Guardian, 10/20/11.
Tim Stanley, “Richard Dawkins is either a fool or a coward for refusing to debate William Lane Craig,” The Telegraph, 10/21/11.