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This is Problemattic — Quick — Schrödinger’s Rapist

My first point I’d like to make is that the debate around abortion is not primarily about whether or not you believe it is ok to kill another human being. It is primarily about when you believe life begins. If you believe that human life begins at conception, then you will likely fit in the so called ‘pro-life’ camp, and be anti-abortion, believing abortion is killing a human being. If you believe that human life begins at birth, then you are likely to fit in the so called ‘pro-choice’ camp, believing that abortion is not killing a human being, and therefore the woman should be free to make their own choice. Of course, it’s possible to believe that human life begins at a time between these points, and people have varying degrees of certainty in their belief of when life begins.

The key point is that your belief about when life begins will determine what you think of abortion. And the problem is that it’s really hard to come up with a consistent argument for what constitutes human life. There just isn’t an easy answer. What I’d like to look some ways we can try to use to determine when life begins, and make a bit of a comment about them.

• The Potential to become Human. The argument is that once conception has occured, if the embryo is left uninterfered with, it will eventually become human.
  However, a good number of viable embryos do not make it to full term, and therefore each embryo represents a chance at human life, not a definite human life. Are we allowed to try and alter such probabilities? Perhaps. On one hand, if I throw a grenade into a room that may or may not contain people, the fact that the room only contained a chance of having people wouldn’t be a justifiable reason for throwing the grenade. On the other, if we must in all cases preserve any and every potential human life, then we must ensure that every egg has it’s maximum chance of being fertilized. Most people consider abstaining from sex acceptable behaviour.
• Unique Genetic Code. Once conception has occured, a cell with a distinct genetic code is formed. If we define human life on the basis of a unique genetic code, then life begins at conception.
  A couple of things need to be taken into account here. First, a person is more than their genes. Identical twins have pretty much identical genes, but they are different people, and each entitled to their own unique human life.
  Second, in every human being there are a number cells that have different genetic codes, as the consequence of mutations, and even as part of normal functioning (when B Lymphocytes are being produced, their genome is shuffled to produce different antibodies). If you define a human life simply on the basis of a distinct genetic code, you will need to consider each of these cell populations to be human lives. Cancer is has a unique genetic code, but we don’t consider cancer to be a human life.
• Physical appearance, based on Embryology. Using this criteria, something is alive if it resembles a human being. You’ve probably seen photos of little fetuses, who are only so many weeks old, but they’ve already got fingers, and by the time they’re four weeks old they have their own heart, etc… So, abortion is wrong after the first few months of pregnancy.
  This method can tend to be very subjective, when we need some objective criteria, otherwise it’s just based on a gut feeling, and what if my gut feeling disagrees with your gut feeling. The objetive criteria needs to exclude non-human embryos, which in early stages can resemble human embryos. The other thing we need to take into account is that someone doesn’t lose their humanity if they are disfigured. If someone were scarred beyond recognition, do they lose their humanity? If losing the appearance of humanity doesn’t mean losing humanity, then it follows that gaining the appearance of humanity doesn’t mean gaining humanity.
• Sentience / Consciousness. If something can think, then it is alive. If we use this criteria, abortion is wrong after the fetus has become self aware.
  There are a couple of issues with this. Firstly, if I lose consciousness, I remain human. People are not entitled to kill me in my sleep, just because I’m not awake. So perhaps a better definition would be the capacity for consciousness?
  Secondly, how do we know if fetuses have consciousness? We can’t ask them when they’re in the womb, because they can’t speak, and we can’t ask them when they can speak, because by the time they’ve learnt the language required to answer such a question, they will have forgotten.
• Independence from Mother. If something can exist on it’s own, then it is alive. So once a baby can survive on it’s own, it’s effectively human. Using this criteria, abortion is ok up until an age when it’s sufficently developed to survive on it’s own (so you’d need to look at how young a preterm birth can be, yet still be viable).
  On the other hand, a new born is still dependant on the Mother until it’s old enough to look after itself. In fact, some babies don’t really become independant until their twenties…

I once thought that “I couldn’t live without you” was a pretty romantic thing to say. Now I see it as part-exaggeration, and part-disempowerment. Part-exaggeration, because it simply isn’t true. Part disempowerment, because it implies that an individual is somehow incomplete on their own, and that they are dependant on the other individual. If it’s true, it implies that they have ceded soverignty to something else, have given up their independence, have grown accustomed to relying on someone, and consequently become weaker. In my view, relationships should make us stronger, not more dependent on the other party. This doesn’t mean keeping oneself seperate and never admitting to weakness, on the contrary, it’s about acknowledging weakness in order to overcome it together.

On a similar note, I don’t think anyone should ever hold their partner to be the most important thing in the world. There are more important values than unwavering devotion to one’s spouse; it’s far greater to be two individuals united by a common love for Justice and Mercy, Love and Dignity, than two individuals infatuated with each other.

The big news is that I’ve moved away from the city of my birth, and have moved to sunny dunedin. Har har. I wish it was sunny. But, I am really enjoying myself, I’ve gone back to university to retrain as a (medical) Doctor. Bit of a big decision, but over the past years I’d been looking for a way to integrate my desire to pursue knowledge, and my desire to do stuff for people. Medicine is great like that. The entire class is a bunch of geeks (though not socially inept geeks), and the profession, while having it’s fair share of ethical issues, offers a relatively objective way of helping people.

So, that’s what I’m up to. Now you know why I don’t update this regularly! (and if I do, you’ll know why I suddenly start spouting medical stuff)…

For a start, is it really healthier for us? It seems intuitive that natural is good right? Well, natural food is good, but if you’ve ever been stung by a bee, or stepped on a thorn, you’ll have (hopefully) quickly learnt that nature is not geared towards meeting our needs. Yes, there are a lot of non-organic substances that can mess us up, but there are also a lot of organic substances that can also mess us up good. So we should avoid the fallacy that natural = good.

Is it better for the environment? Perhaps. It might prevent the build up of chemicals that build up in the environment, but bear in mind that organic farming produces less food per acre than non-organic farming. Again, chemicals can be bad, but so can organic products.

My main issue I have with organic food is that it is often taken to be a primary indicator of healthiness, when it’s only a secondary measure of healthiness. Maybe organic foods are healthier than non-organic foods? If that’s the case, we should buy them not because they’re organic, but because they’re healthy. So why bother looking for what is and isn’t organic? Why not just look for healthy foods? If it’s organic, sweet. If not, no worries. No sense getting all dogmattic about it.

[There's also the issue of 'organic' starting to become a brand name, which starts to exclude small scale local farmers, which kinda defeats the whole philosophy behind it all.

So: buy healthy, buy local. Importantly, make sure you read up on where you food is coming from. Be aware of where you food is coming from.

Yeah, what are other's thoughts on the matter?]

Premise 1: ‘It is not good for man to be alone’. It is an inalienable right that someone should be able to live with their mutually chosen partner. An individual’s right to form a close intimate bond with another individual should not be taken away, without very very good reasons.

Premise 2: There exists homosexual individuals who would not be satisfied by a heterosexual relationship. I’m not saying that homosexuality has a solely genetic aieteology, I’m just saying that some people are at a point where they just couldn’t do a heterosexual relationship.

If one deems homosexuality to be wrong, this means that there will be individuals who have had their right to form an intimate relationship taken away from them.

What would you do if someone told you that even though you loved someone, you were not allowed to be with them? If you have a partner, think about them. What would it be like to look upon your very relationship as something pathological, something wrong, something to be repressed, ignored? Think what it would be like to spend the rest of your life away from them, knowing that although you both love each other, you must live apart?

I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

Biblical passages apparently condemning homosexuality

In reality, it is hard to make a watertight biblical argument against homosexuality. To my knowledge, there are three main biblical passages that appear to be against homosexuality. The first is in old testament law (e.g. Leviticus 18:22), but is alongside a lot of other bizarre commandments, which no christian I know observes (e.g. don’t wear cloths with two fibres?), so there is no reason to see the law’s condemnation of homosexuality as anything more than an obscure old law.

The next is the example Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 19), cities that were destroyed by God for their unrighteousness. The question is, what were they doing that caused them to be considered unrighteousness? The bible gives us an example; angels visit the town, and the men of the town want to homosexually rape them. Some take this (as does christian tradition) to be an indication that homosexuality is wrong, but this misses the far more obvious sin; rape. Any town that’s default response to visitors is attempted rape is unrighteous, heterosexual or homosexual. So this account doesn’t provide evidence that homosexuality is wrong.

Lastly, there are a few new testament passage that mention homosexuality amongst a list of other negative attributes. The most notable one is Romans 1, where Paul talks about people turning away from God, and engaging in homosexuality, among other things. This may appear as a scathing condemnation of homosexuality, but we should look closely at what Paul is actually saying. For a start, Romans is a horribly difficult book to understand, so we should be careful in coming to firm conclusions from a single passage. Among various interpretations, it is possible that Paul is quoting another passage, and doesn’t actually agree with what the passage is saying, which would explain why Paul suddenly flips the blame onto the readers in Romans 2: “Therefore, you are without excuse, every one of you who passes judgment.”. Additionally, it is entirely feasible that Paul (or the passage Paul is quoting) is not commenting homosexuality per sei, but pagan cults that involves sexual rituals.

The bigger picture

So there is some apparent biblical condemnation of homosexuality. But it’s in isolated passages, which can be explained as culturally irrelevant today. What we should look to is the broader picture of the bible, and ignore the pieces that seem to be artifacts of the culture of biblical authors (e.g. slavery, a decidedly non-christian practice, is all but endorsed in Colossians 3). What is the broader picture, and what does it have to say about homosexuality?

Jesus did not come to the ‘in’ crowd. He came to the outcasts of society. He helped the lepers, he associated with ’sinners’, with tax collectors, with prostitutes, with the common people, all the people who the religious leaders looked down upon. He came bringing reversal to exploitation, he hated the idea that religion was being used to make money of people, that people were being oppressed by the economic and religious systems, and he fought against it. It took a while, but eventually his disciples caught on to the idea that the kingdom of God was not just for Jews, it was for Gentiles too. It wasn’t just for free men, but for slaves, for women, for everyone. Before God, all men and women are equal. All men and women. The end of James 1, James makes it pretty clear that if we resort to following the old ways of respecting one group over another group, we are really going against the message of Jesus.

I put it to you that Homosexuals are the outcasts of modern society. Admittedly their lot in society has been getting better, but unfortunately this has been because of efforts outside of the church, and in fact their lot has been impeded by the church. It should be the other way round - the church should be advocating for homosexual rights.

An appeal for Christians to accept, and advocate for homosexuals

It’s hard to be different. Our society is heavily heterosexual, to be homosexual is a deviation from the norm. Someone who comes to terms with being a homosexual can go through a very difficult journey. They have to come to terms with being different from what seems like everyone else, they have to deal with an inner conflict as they try and work out who they are, and what they believe is right and wrong, they have to come to put up with all the derogatory comments towards homosexuals, the reactions of others when they come out, which can range from surprise to moral condemnation to disgust. Some people can be accepting, but others are not - and the most screwed up thing is that Christians are often the most unaccepting people.

Christians condemnation of homosexuality is an evil, as it goes against what Jesus taught, and also, it causes much pain. Consider the familiar example of someone growing up inside Christianity, but coming to the realisation that they have homosexual feelings. There is an inevitable dilemma; either reject the church dogma that homosexuality is wrong, or reject a part of themselves. Both of these choices can be incredibly painful, one often leading to a disconnection from church, family, sometimes all they know, the other often leading to a rejection of self, a horrible, horrible fate. I have seen people destroyed by this dilemma. People shouldn’t have to make this choice.

In the past I believed homosexuality was a sin. Naively I contributed to the christian culture that preached that homosexuality was wrong, that people who ‘had it’ could repent and change. I now recognize that I contributed to oppression; I contributed to the culture that causes a lot of pain for many people, a lot of which I probably wasn’t aware of it. No more.

One church I went to was a bit outside of my comfort zone. The first thing they lost points for was for the offering, where they read one of those passages designed to manipulate people into giving more money, and pretty much said that if you want to prosper, you should give to the church. It all sounded too much like the prosperity doctrine: God wants you to have lots of money, and will help you achieve it, just so long as you give us a little money. I don’t like it, because it’s manipulating people, and because I don’t think God is about money, he’s much more interested in more important things. Anyway.

They lost some other points for being too pentecostal for me, gained some points because the guy who sat next to me was pretty friendly, and then they had an altar call, which meant I started to mentally subtract points for it. But then I got thinking, maybe an altar call, if properly done, isn’t a bad thing?

One of the problems with church these days is that church can turn into a spectator sport. There are the people up the front, and the people in the seats. The people up front do stuff, and the people in the seats don’t. I don’t think that’s good. In church, everyone ought to be part of the community, and so everyone should be part of the service. There should be no “audience”.  There is a lack of participation. And an altar call is one thing that creates participation. It breaks down the divide between audience and performers, and gives people an opportunity to respond in a meaningful way.

So I’m thinking, while altar calls may often be manipulative, and may make you wince, I think there is a place for them in church. We probably need to think about them, and make sure they’re not manipulative - because forced participation is not genuine participation - but I’m thinking that they are a good thing.

So what do you think? How should an altar call be done? How can we give people the option of genuinely participating? What other things can be done to give other opportunities to participate in church?

What I find interesting is the effects this alternate model would produce on blogging, if every blog adopted the no-comment philosophy. The main effect will be a spreading effect. Ideas contained in posts - Memes - will spread a lot quicker from blog to blog, as in order for discussion to occur, multiple blogs will have to be involved. This has advantages and disadvantages.

The main advantage is that people will become more connected, and come into contact with diverse ideas. For example, because of brehaut using this strategy, this has meant I have had to post here, meaning you have read it, and become aware of what I’m reading, and who I have contact with. Which is usually good.

The main disadvantage is that people may not care about what I’m reading. So far I haven’t really posted anything on this blog about it techy stuff, and maybe that’s what people want? So the spreading may be good for ideas, but this may add ‘noise’ to blogs, where the posts in response to posts proliferate, and blogs might end up losing their focus.

Don’t know if I’d make my blog a no-comments blog, but it’s interesting to think how it would be if it were different.