Rape is not about sexual gratification -- it is an act of reprehensible violence intended to degrade and humiliate a woman. I could never nor want to defend the act of rape in any way, shape, or form. It's simply deplorable behavior. Furthermore, I want to hear nothing said about "legitimate rape" or any other such nonsense intended to diminish the gravity of the crime. Blaming the victim is a despicable tactic all too frequently employed by unscrupulous defense attorneys more interested in winning than in seeing justice served. Survivors of rape are already forced to live with memories of the violence and the feelings of helplessness, rage, and humiliation for the rest of their lives. If the woman happens to become pregnant as the result of being raped, an additional unfair burden is placed on her shoulders. At that point, the innocent victim faces a truly horrible choice -- what does she do with the baby? She became pregnant through no fault of her own -- but how can she keep that baby, if she cannot love it? Does she have that child aborted? Should she have the baby, and put it up for adoption? No woman should ever be forced into the position of having to make such a difficult decision through no fault of her own. And I can't judge her decision from where I stand. Because of rape and incest, I could never in good conscience bring myself to support a universal ban on abortion, no matter how evil and barbaric I think most abortions are. Men who rape women are cowards. If murder is the worst thing one human being can do to another, rape would have to be a … [Read more...]
Face Palm Sunday
Yesterday was Palm Sunday. The face palm moment came early. Before church, I visited a place on Facebook called The Battlefield. The group consists of theists and atheists who are interested in (more or less) cordial debate. I felt compelled to respond after one of my atheist friends asserted if Sir Isaac Newton were alive today, he would reject Young Earth Creationism and more than likely be an atheist, according to these statistics. Several replies came to mind. Naturally, I responded with all of them. First of all, such speculation is both silly and irrelevant. Newton has been dead almost 300 years. It's impossible to say what he would be like today. And it seems rather foolish to assume modern science would be anywhere close to where it is today if Newton hadn't lived and accomplished what he did, when he did. The issue of Young Earth Creationism is semantic, and especially for this argument. It can help divide Christians from each other, but does not separate theists from atheists, the more important point of contention in that forum. Secondly, historically speaking, the polar opposite has been true in regard to the relationship between super-intellect and spiritual beliefs. Polymaths like Newton, da Vinci, and Emmanuel Swedenborg were if anything uber-religious people, and most certainly not atheists. Modern polymath Michael Guillen has three PhDs, and he's a Christian. The appeal to modern authority falls flat because Newton was the authority of his time. If he were alive today, it would be reasonable to assume that Newton would still be an authority … [Read more...]
Misinformation
I don't care who you are, or how smart you are. Someone, somewhere, has lied to you. We've all fallen prey to misinformation. Furthermore, we've all been guilty of spreading lies as a result, intentionally or not. Of course, I am not immune. Two quick personal examples: not long ago, I posted a link on Facebook to a fake website called www.obamaphone.net. Also, a while back I wrote an erroneous article for Examiner.com, repeating the urban legend that a Jewish rabbi in Israel had ordered a dog to be stoned to death. In both cases, a couple of my intrepid friends were kind enough to come to my rescue, pointing out what soon became obvious to me. I had fallen for a hoax. And in both instances, I probably should have known better. The "Obama" phone fake website was sort of a dead giveaway because of the suffix. Official government websites end with ".gov" extensions. Years ago, I had learned that lesson the hard way. I once typed "whitehouse.com" instead of "whitehouse.gov" while at work and found myself staring at a hardcore porn website--I distinctly remember my ears burning with embarrassment, and how I couldn't close that browser window fast enough. Yet somehow, I forgot that lesson when I saw the fake "Obama phone" website, and took the bait hook, line, and sinker. My problem was gullibility--the fake site simply reinforced information I already accepted as true. Unfortunately, I am not alone. We all tend to give a lot more credence to information that reinforces our personal worldview than we give information that contradicts … [Read more...]
