{"id":7816,"date":"2013-08-12T15:59:00","date_gmt":"2013-08-12T19:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?p=7816"},"modified":"2013-08-12T15:59:00","modified_gmt":"2013-08-12T19:59:00","slug":"turing-2013-atheist-entry-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2013\/08\/turing-2013-atheist-entry-1.html","title":{"rendered":"[Turing 2013] Atheist Entry #1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This is the first entry in the Atheist round of the 2013 Ideological Turing Test<\/a>. \u00a0This year, atheists and Christians responded to questions about sex, death, and literature<\/a>. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Polyamory<\/strong><\/h2>\n

It seems to me that the purpose of civil marriage is not to tell people who they should be in a relationship with, but rather to grant legal recognition and rights to the people who are in fact in relationships. As such, the question is not \u201cshould more than two people be allowed to form a marriage?\u201d but rather \u201cdo more than two people want to form a marriage?\u201d<\/p>\n

The answer, in most cases, is no.<\/p>\n

Some days, it\u2019s as much as my wife and I can do to stay married to each other. I can\u2019t imagine trying to negotiate a relationship between more than two people with career and personal needs and aspirations to balance. I find it hard to imagine that anyone wants group marriages other than a few hippies and some fundamentalist Mormons<\/a> and Muslims.<\/p>\n

However, in a free society, we don\u2019t ban something simply because the majority of people don\u2019t want it. Indeed, whether we can call ourselves a free society is best measured by how we treat our minorities. If anything, the fact that so few people would want to engage in polyamorous relationships is all the more reason to recognize them where they do exist. It\u2019s certainly not going to make my marriage stronger to keep some committed group of three or four consenting adults in a long term relationship from having legal recognition and the ability to visit each other in the hospital and have community property together. I don\u2019t want that kind of relationship, and so whether the people who do want it are recognized really doesn\u2019t affect me at all. One of the lingering effects of puritanism in our society is that so many people think that their existences will somehow suffer if people who are not like them are allowed to live in peace.<\/p>\n

Now, I do see certain concerns from a women\u2019s rights perspective, in that realistically many of the people taking advantage of the recognition of polygamous relationships might be members of fundamentalist religious sects who tend to treat women and children badly. That\u2019s a serious concern, and I think it\u2019s probably the best argument that people bring against recognizing these relationships. However, it\u2019s important to remember that we already have laws against child abuse and spousal abuse. Far more women and children are abused by men in \u201ctraditional\u201d marriages than by members of plural marriages. Moreover, it\u2019s arguable that it\u2019s being forced to live in the shadows outside the law that makes it so easy for these families to treat their members badly. If they are recognized in terms of their family relationship and come out of hiding, it\u2019s that much easier for women and children in these families to come to the authorities if they are experiencing abuse. Finally, making it easier for religious fundamentalists who believe in polygamy to integrate with mainstream society is probably the most powerful weapon we have against the sexism and child abuse so common in those circles. If they stop living on the margins and start sending their kids to public school, surfing the internet, going to mainstream doctors, etc. just like any other family, they are that much more likely to come in contact with the opportunities and technologies of modern society which, I firmly believe, tend strongly towards instilling in people a desire for freedom both from patriarchy and superstition.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Euthanasia<\/strong><\/h2>\n

If it\u2019s never permissible to end a life, then why exactly do we all die? If there\u2019s one thing we can say for certain, it\u2019s that life is a 100% fatal condition.<\/p>\n

Look, I don\u2019t mean to be flip. But if there\u2019s one thing that is utterly and completely our own, it\u2019s our lives. That\u2019s why it is always wrong for someone to take another person\u2019s life against their will. But it\u2019s also why it\u2019s frankly kind of offensive to claim that I don\u2019t have the right to end my life if I choose to.<\/p>\n

A person doesn\u2019t give their consent to be born. They don\u2019t sign a contract committing to remain alive until some outside force chooses the time of their death. So why would we not have the right to choose when to end our own lives? To force someone to remain alive against their will would be a form of slavery.<\/p>\n

Now, let\u2019s be clear: There are certainly a lot of situations in which someone who expresses a desire to die is not actually doing so freely, but rather under the influence of depression or emotional coercion. For the same reason that I think it\u2019s essential that our right to end our lives how we choose and when we choose be respected, I think it\u2019s also important that if there\u2019s a reason to think that someone is seeking to end their life due to depression or outside pressure, we provide them with counseling.<\/p>\n

However, there are times when it\u2019s completely rational to choose a dignified end to life rather than seeking to get every last minute of suffering. I\u2019ve seen many articles in which it\u2019s stated that doctors would prefer not<\/strong> to end life in an ICU surrounded by a bunch of other doctors and nurses trying to revive them. And that\u2019s hardly surprising. What kind of quality of life is that? What kind of sick worldview would hold that we\u2019re required to suffer as much as possible rather than slipping quietly away in a morphine fog when it\u2019s clear that there\u2019s nothing left but pain and increasingly desperate medical procedures?<\/p>\n

And if we have the right to end our lives when we choose, it\u2019s simply a matter of justice that those who through disability aren\u2019t able to do so themselves have a physician\u2019s help.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bonus<\/h2>\n

I think the genre which would best express my worldview is the coming of age novel.<\/p>\n

The novel is the quintessential modern literary form. The narrative structure allows a focus on psychology which allows deeper insight into the human experience. It allows for complex plot and for multiple viewpoints.<\/p>\n

The coming of age novel in particular deals with what I think is the key human experience: that point when we realize that there is nothing magical about adults. In some says, I\u2019d say that religious experience is rooted in a refusal to ever quite accept that there are no \u201cadults\u201d out there operating on a higher plane and looking after us.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a scene in Annie Dillard\u2019s An American Childhood<\/em> which crystalized for me the pretense behind religion. The main character is sitting in her church service and it suddenly becomes very plain to her that there\u2019s simply nothing going on there. The same realization came to me much more gradually, but when I read Dillard\u2019s book in high school I thought it summed up the liberation of realizing that there\u2019s no god tip-toeing through the room when people close their eyes and pray.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the book I\u2019ve read most times in my life is Ender\u2019s Game, another coming of age novel, and while Card himself seems intent on bringing in religious topics (he\u2019s Mormon) I always drew a lot from the way in which Ender realizes that the adults are not guardians of goodness. And it\u2019s especially key that it\u2019s empathy that allows him to understand the \u201cBuggers\u201d in a way in which the adults in his life are incapable.<\/p>\n

One set of books that I found myself unable to love, even though I read a lot of fantasy, was the Narnia books, and I think one of the reasons is that Lewis never really lets his characters grow up. They have to remain children in relation to his god-stand-in, Aslan. The only character who does clearly grow up is Susan, whom Lewis condemns.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

You can vote on whether you think these answers were written by a Christian or an Atheist here<\/a>. \u00a0Comments are open to discuss the substance of the post\u00a0and<\/strong> for speculation about the true beliefs of the author, so please vote before looking at the comments.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the first entry in the Atheist round of the 2013 Ideological Turing Test. \u00a0This year, atheists and Christians responded to questions about sex, death, and literature. \u00a0 \u00a0 Polyamory It seems to me that the purpose of civil marriage is not to tell people who they should be in a relationship with, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":7711,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[224],"class_list":["post-7816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ideologicalturingtest","tag-atheist-turing-answers-2013"],"yoast_head":"\n[Turing 2013] Atheist Entry #1<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This is the first entry in the Atheist round of the 2013 Ideological Turing Test. \u00a0This year, atheists and Christians responded to questions about sex,\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" 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