I really appreciate the patience and attention to detail both sides are displaying in the comments thread that started about natural law and sexual ethics generally but has turned into a discussion about the moral implications of family planning. There are a lot of dimensions to this discussion, but, reading through the arguments, I think I end up disagreeing with the other side’s assumptions much earlier than you might expect. Here’s part of a post by KL: Since sexual intercourse... Read more
–1– Turns out I’m pulling an all nighter with a problem set tonight, so this will be an extremely brief Quick Takes post. If you’re wondering why I’m so busy, look to yesterday’s post for an explanation and add in the fact that my senior thesis is due only a little over a week. YIKES. So this week, you’re going to get links to the tabs I opened most recently in Chrome to reference in my essay. And after I... Read more
It’s Bulldog Days — the preview weekend for students admitted to Yale. I’m busy all day chatting up the prefrosh (and hypothetically squeezing in some time for my senior thesis) so no post today until the Quick Takes go up around midnight. I am going to try to catch up on some of your comments and questions, so watch the “Recent Comments” widget at right. If you have any questions about college or my studies, feel free to post them... Read more
I’ve heard two major types of Christian arguments against homosexuality (or, more precisely, against acting on a homosexual orientation). I find both unpersuasive, and I thought I’d close out this series inspired by Christiopher Yuan by explaining why I don’t buy the arguments and why I think one of them is never worth making to non-Christians. It is Bad because God forbids it. God asks people to do a lot of strange things, especially in the Old Testament. At the most... Read more
This was more fun to use as an illustration of ‘nudge’ than Cass Sunstein’s book This is part of a series of posts which tackles sexual ethics and debating strategies (but not at the same time) There’s a (probably) apocryphal George Bernard Shaw story in which he approached an elegant woman at a party and asked, “Madam, would you go to bed with me for one hundred thousand pounds?” She was stunned, but, after a moment’s reflection said she would.... Read more
This is part of a series of posts which tackles sexual ethics and debating strategies (but not at the same time) In this last post on problems with Christopher Yuan’s rhetoric (meant as a caution to Christians or anyone else addressing a hostile audience), I want to highlight a misstep that occurred outside of the main lecture. At the beginning of the talk, some of the members of the sponsoring groups passed out index cards and told us to write down any... Read more
Over spring break, during some of the time I should have spent on my senior essay, I was reading books by Robin McKinley. I’ve read and liked a number of her books, so I was tracking down and reading the ones I’d missed. Some were good, some were so-so, none were as good as Spindle’s End and only Chalice was terrible. Plenty of authors have trouble with exposition, dropping long, clunky bits of backstory into the plot or forcing characters to spend time... Read more
On April 1st, 2011, it turned out that the advertised visit from an ex-gay, Protestant minister was no prank. When he came to campus, controversy erupted, even though the substance of his arguments was not as offensive as I had feared. His talk seemed like as good a lens as any to talk a little about sexual ethics and debating strategies (though, so far, not in the same post). Both are topics I like opinionating about, so here goes: ... Read more
This is part of a series of posts which tackles sexual ethics and debating strategies (but not at the same time) A few weeks ago, in my post detailing mistakes atheists make about Catholics, one of the big ones was assuming that Catholicism, a tradition with a 2000 year history, doesn’t have at least a plausible sounding explanation for common objections to its tenets. Now, I know we atheists haven’t had as coherent a series of apologetics, but we’re not stupid. If... Read more
–1– Last week, I mentioned in my quick takes that I was going to see an ex-gay speaker who came to visit campus. There’s been a big backlash on campus, so I’ve been posting about my reaction with a news roundup, a brief defense of the speaker, and an example of (perhaps inadvertently) hurtful rhetoric. Today, the first real defense of the talk came out in The Yale Daily News, so I’m linking it here and I’m adding it to the... Read more
Unequally Yoked
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