In his opening post in the debate, Paul of Reasonable Doubt makes a few arguments. I’ve already covered abstinence and lifelong marriage in my opening post, so I’ll respond to the other points here.
Masturbation
Paul cites the story of Onan as an example of the bible’s stand against masturbation. This is understandable because some Christians have made that exact case. But the story of Onan is not actually about masturbation. Onan’s brother dies and God orders Onan to marry his brother’s wife to continue the brother’s family line. Onan doesn’t want to and withdraws before ejaculation. His crime is neither masturbation nor practicing early withdraw. His crime was disobeying God’s. The bible is strangely silent on masturbation. My position is that this is because masturbation is morally permissible, but not encouraged. Many secular people think masturbation is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but I think “permitted but not encouraged” is just about right.
Looking at a Woman In Lust
One of the reasons for disagreements on secular versus Christian morality is a lack of mutual understanding. Secular people often look at morality from a political context: which behaviors should be allowed and which behaviors should be illegal? But Christian morality is fundamentally a blueprint for living the good life. There are a lot of things that are immoral that shouldn’t be illegal. Getting angry at your friends, family, or coworkers. Telling a lie. Getting drunk. Those things shouldn’t be illegal but someone who is giving the blueprint to living the good life should not hold that they are morally good. They are wrong.
God wants you to have a loving heart. He wants you to follow the spirit of law rather than the letter of the law. In fact, that phrase comes from Christianity. The New Covenant is about letting the Holy Spirit lead you down the path to the Good rather than simply following a bunch of rules written on a stone tablet. If doing X goes against the blueprint of living a good life then thinking about doing X is also against the blueprint of living a good life. I agree with Paul that you shouldn’t be arrested for thinking about doing X. That is the reason why I am against laws against hate crimes. People are punished for their thoughts and their actions. But I agree with progressives that it is morally wrong to have hateful thoughts about others.
The same reasoning applies to looking at women in lust. I know secular people occasionally negotiate relationships where people are allowed to “look but not touch” but if you truly love your significant other you won’t want to cheat. Sure, everyone gets tempted, but you won’t want to cheat. That’s a difficult standard and everyone falls short (no one is righteous), but that is certainly the ideal.
Same Sex Marriage
I’m not familiar with the empirical literature on homosexuality except to know that it is hard to find a general population study with enough gays in it to make robust statistical conclusions. So most studies are filled with various selection effects and accounting for them is very tough. My outsider’s perspective is that both the progressive and conservative reviews of the literature are politicized and biased.
I will make a quick argument against samesex marriage. I’ve already mentioned the evolutionary basis of sexual depravity in my opening post. One point that I did not draw out is that it is a good evolutionary strategy to take care of your own biological children. It is a bad evolutionary strategy to take care of someone else’s children. Thus people have all manner of evolved defenses such as neglect, abuse, and even outright murder of children, as a way to protect against investing time and energy raising someone else’s children. Daly and Wilson put tested this theory on humans in their book Homicide. They found that children were 70 to 100 times more likely to be killed by a stepfather than by their biological father. And even that number may be too low because some of those alleged biological fathers were probably cuckolded by their wives. The crime reports simply assume that a non-stepfather must be the biological father. Abuse and neglect follows a similar pattern. It think it is unconscionable to allow people to bring children in the world with a premeditated desire of separating them from a biological parent. That imposes a vastly increased risk of abuse, neglect, and infanticide on the children.
24 comments:
But your argument about stepfathers is a general argument against all adoptions, not an argument against any form of marriage!
Also this then turns things over to reproductive technology with the creation of a zygote from 2 eggs already under way.
Also the study probably had more cases where the partner remarries so their biological child is the stepchild of their new partner. I doubt anything like that is true of couples who adopt because of the self-selected nature of adoption. So I think you may also be arguing against divorce (or at least remarriage), rather than same sex marriage!
Hiya Michael,
It's good to see you back here again! I always enjoy your comments.
Notice the use of the phrase "premeditated desire". Intention is the key. In the case of adoption the couple did not intentionally bring a child into the world. That is also why we have laws against selling babies. We don't want birth mothers to intentionally get pregnant in order to sell their babies. That would result in intentionally bring children into the world with the premeditated desire of separating them from their biological parents.
Apply the same moral reasoning to that everyone accepts in the case of adoption to same-sex couples. We see that it would be immoral to let them procreate because they too would be intentionally bringing a child into the world with the premeditated desire of separating it from a biological parent.
Hi again,
I still don't see how this could possibly be an argument against marriage?
Furthermore, by your logic, it should also be illegal for anyone to have a baby if they plan to give it away (but only permanently, presumably it will still be ok if they plan to have regular contact with it) -- is that right?
Also as per before, I'm not sure there is evidence specific to the situation you're describing which is different to the situation being studied (of stepparents). Finally, how much extra risk is needed before the argument would prohibit someone from breeding? Is it a ratio or an absolute figure? For instance, if the chance of being murdered goes from 0.0002% to 0.002% that is a 100-fold increase but in terms of absolute probability would you consider it significant?
I think we need to define terms! Marriage is a contract that brings with it certain rights and duties. One of those rights is the right to procreate. I believe it is immoral to procreate out of marriage.
adoption. In the real world people will make mistakes. We are always going to have young people who have premarital sex and get pregnant. Adoption is a great solution that is good for the young couple, good for the child (at least given the circumstances of its conception), and good for the adoptive couple. But clearly it would be wrong to intentionally procreate.
Regular contact with child Giving a child away and maintaining "regular contact" is still wrong. Divorced fathers and boyfriends who move out when their girlfriend gets pregnant cannot live up to the duties of the marital contact by spending quality time with their child on Sunday afternoon. That is not a substitute for a father.
Another problem: these divorced dads and boyfriends should be on the hook for child support. Are defenders of samesex marriage going to impose the same financial duty on sperm or egg donors?
Incidence of death. Abuse and neglect are more common than outright murder and follow a similar pattern. But let's just stick to murder. I disagree with utilitarianism but one common objection that I find to be weak is the argument from slavery or genocide. People often charge "utilitarians will support genocide if it maximizes utility." Well, given the nature of declining marginal utility, oppressive acts like slavery and genocide would never maximize utility even if there are a thousand racists for every one slave.
The same reasoning applies here. Even if children who are outright murdered are extremely rare, declining marginal utility suggests that the tragedy of even extremely rare deaths outweigh the utility gains of samesex couples in other cases.
Note that I'm not a utilitarian. I believe that intention and "the means" are also morally significant factors in making moral decisions. But that only amplifies my case. Even if samesex marriage did maximize utility, putting children at risk involves using a bad means to achieve a good end.
Where the heck did you get that definition of marriage from? How do you possibly think two gay people are going to procreate? Two old people? A couple where one is infertile?
"It is a bad evolutionary strategy to take care of someone else’s children."
This is just plain wrong...
Insects have found that looking after your cousin/sibling is a great evolutionary trick. In fact, insects have more DNA in common with their siblings than they would with their children!
Most social animals also tend to have group creches and group feeding.
Vampire bats will return to the cave and feed other bats' children after they have fed their own, expecting others to reciprocate when they have a more successful night.
Most animals have some form of maternal (and occassionally paternal) instinct. This means they will often adopt a stray if there is enough food to go round.
I may respond to some of your other points when I have a little more time...
I'm not denying kin selection and reciprocal altruism. In fact, if you read my review of evolution's rainbow you will see a far more exotic situation in which caring for someone else's offspring may be in one's self-interest.
But let's break it down. (1) samesex parenting does not involve men or women caring for kin. They are caring for an unrelated stranger. Even if lesbians did get their brothers to act as sperm donors, the research on kin selection shows that altruistic behavior declines with genetic relatedness. The lesbian co-mother would only be half as related to the children as a biological father.
(2) reciprocal altruism does not apply to samesex parents either. What ongoing reciprocal relationship are the sperm donor and the lesbian co-mother in? Did the lesbian co-mother promise to care for the sperm donor's child in return for the sperm donor caring for the co-mother's own child?
So you're saying Christian morality has nothing to say on masturbation? I would disagree, but even saying nothing is still bad - if you are banning pre-marital sex then masturbation is necessary, and very useful for when you meet your lifelong monogamous partner and they ask what you like...
So is looking okay or not? Does a couple having a mutual use of pornography count as immoral?
Samesex marriage
You mention nothing, not one thing, that counts against two gay people who wish to live together for the rest of their lives never having children. yet you still deem it immoral (even if you don't most Christians do and the Bible certainly does!)
Masturbation Saying nothing about masturbation is neither bad nor good. My take is that the bible is silent because it is permissible, but has the potential to lead people down a slippery and immoral slope.
Looking I've covered looking.
Samesex marriage One of the duties that marriage confers is the right to procreate. As to non-procreating gays, I think they should be free to live together and do as they please but I do not think it is moral. But that's an empirical debate and I'm not familiar with the literature, as I've explained in my rebuttal.
If to Jesus, looking at a woman with lust is adultery, then it would seem to me that masturbation would be sinful as well. How do you masturbate without lust? Doesn't seem possible to me. Your only argument is based on absence of reference in the Bible (according to your interpretation of Onan) and I would counter with "evidence of absence is not absence of evidence." Anyway interesting blog.
Hiya Austin,
Thanks, I'm glad your enjoying the content. Please stick around and add your thoughts. As to masturbation, I agree that masturbating to one's next door neighbor would be immoral. If you are married and your wife is exhausted with the kids then it might be permissible to masturbate to images of one's wife. If you are single it might be permissible to masturbate to a generic idealized image of what you would like your wife to be like. It also might be permissible to masturbate in a purely mechanical fashion, without any fantasy.
One of the interesting things about the discussion with atheists is that it forces you to think about other topics that might not otherwise come up. I would never have expected to come up with a theology of masturbation!
Doh! I didn't realize that you were a Christian until I clicked your profile. I assumed that you were an atheist trying to back me into a corner.
So let me ask you. If masturbation is immoral then what are people who are abstinent until marriage supposed to do for their 10+ years from puberty until marriage?
Justin, you don't half play fast and loose with 'Christian Sexual morals'. There are not many Christians who would agree with homosexual marriage (in spite of your ludicrous definition of marriage!) or divorce or masturbation.
Michael makes the great point that your anti-homosexual argument is actually an argument against step-fathers. In fact, your whole argument against non-kin parantage is based in some really dubious stats and is completely oblivious to the cost benefit analysis of adoption. The increase in risk of abuse/harm at the hands of non-related step-parents is massively outweighed by the increase in earnings/happiness/life expectancy etc. of growing up in a family structure of adopted parents. Alos, most people that adopt have decided that it is a good thing to do and are, on average, (massive generalisation) better parents than genetic parents.
And you did not even remotely cover looking. Are a married couple using pornography, as a marital aide together, being immoral?
Quite frankly, I find the Christian morality regarding pornography to be horrifically immoral and hypocritical - I ask you this, would the Bible be considered anything other than pornography if someone wrote it and released it today? It has torture, incest, pedophilia, beastiality, rape, murder and genocide as core components.
Jesus calls us to pick up our crosses daily and to follow him. The 10+ years before marriage is what I would call good training in mastering ourselves so we can freely choose to follow Christ. It also teaches us about ourselves, that we are not as strong and holy as we would like to think and that we need Christ and his grace.
It seems to me that you are holding those with homosexuality tendencies to a higher moral standard than heterosexuals. I think you might find this talk by Peter Kreeft interesting...
http://www.peterkreeft.com/audio/11_moral-theology.htm
I've already covered adoption upthread. A proper analysis shows that adoption is good when the birth mother did not intend to get pregnant. Divorce from low-conflict marriages is bad.
I did cover looking in this very thread. It is immoral. And yes, it is immoral for married couples to use pornography as a "marital aid." That follows from a general principle of Christian morality, which is that God cares about what goes on inside your heart. If you go through life angry and thinking bad thoughts about people, then God will be sadden even if you are scrupulously polite. Loving others starts with the heart.
I ask you this, would the Bible be considered anything other than pornography if someone wrote it and released it today? It has torture, incest, pedophilia, beastiality, rape, murder and genocide as core components.
I find that objection naive. I think atheists should make a more honest attempt to understand the bible before they criticize it. Or let me weaken that. If atheists want to point to passages about slavery and rape then go ahead. I will provide my defense. But if they are going to criticize the bible in holistic terms then should understand in holistic terms first. The bible is not a record of wonderful people doing wonderful things. The bible does not shy away from the dark side of human nature. If humanists wrote a bible it would be filled with people like Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
This is interesting stuff, I'll take the time to properly read this debate after my final exams are over!
Do you hold to theistic evolution yourself, JM? Or are you more trying to argue that even if God doesn't exist and mechanical evolution does take place, then Christian morality is still true?
By the way I'm definitely a different michael to the first one who commented. just though i'd make that clear :P
Hi Michael,
Do you hold to theistic evolution yourself, JM? Or are you more trying to argue that even if God doesn't exist and mechanical evolution does take place, then Christian morality is still true?
I believe in intelligent design, but I also subscribe to an old earth and microevolutionary change. As such, I tend to make pretty heavy use of sociobiology to defend Christian morality.
I do not think that there are any ethics on atheism other than enlightened self-interest. But even that is enough for me. Rational self-interested actors behind a veil of ignorance would choose the more pareto efficient society.
But if you are demonstratign and deriving right and wrong from nature and evolutionary reasoning, then surely you're arguing that you can have objective morality without God? Also how do you bridge the gap from is to ought when looking at evolution for morality?
Hi Michael,
I must not be doing a good job explaining!
First, I'm making no attempt to bridge from is to ought. My argument is that sexual selection shows that many morally abhorrent behaviors are in one's evolutionary self-interest. So if I were bridging from is to ought, I'd be arguing that rape, adultery, and infanticide are moral.
Secondly, I am not giving atheists objective morality. There are a couple ways to think about this. First, if every debate about applied ethics turns on whether or not there are objective ethics on atheism, then we might as well give up applied ethics. I've never seen a good argument for atheist ethics. This cuts both ways. Atheists might say "monogamy is only moral if God exists to provide the foundations of morality, but you haven't shown that God exists." Then debates on abortion or abstinence would get bogged down on whether or God exists! I think it is reasonable to suspend these issues to debate applied ethics.
Secondly, I don't need atheists to accept objective ethics, only enlightened self-interest. This falls well short of objective ethics, but it is strong enough to establish the point that premarital sex leads to arms races, and therefore is not pareto efficient.
Most atheists not only don't claim objective morality (Sam Harris' latest attempts aside) they actively argue against the possibility of such a thing. However, applied ethics is a different beast, even with subjective morality (or ethics) you can still compare and contrast situations and decide which is better for a given set of goals. It is the selection of these goals that is morality and in no way is predicated on the existence or otherwise of any gods.
The only way to avoid arms races is not by banning premarital sex but by forcing people to marry people they don't want to. That is the only way to ensure most men get a woman and vice-versa. I would submit that the forcing of people to do virtually anything is itself immoral and moreso when it comes to marriage. I am not sure how premarital sex leads to anything apart from premarital sex. (Most) People still want to get married, meet their 'soul-mate' settle down and have kids. Polygamy may lead to the type of arms race you talk about, but that's the way of the world - that's how it goes with nice cars, big houses and Lear jets, only the select few can have them, those that get lots of money in an economic arms race.
Ohhh I see! No I'm just very slow at understanding :P
I'm guessing you get quite a lot of people who start spouting the is-ought stuff when you start talking about sexual selection lol, I think we just jump straight to that conclusion before listening, my bad.
Thanks for taking the time to explain this to me.
I just saw the exchange you had with Luke and drj at
http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=2996
I really enjoyed reading that discussion! I've gotten really excited by the prospect that my beliefs on homosexuality and abstinence until marriage can be justified using secular reasoning. I've always thought that since Christianity is true, then homosexuality, promiscuity etc are all immoral. And the only way you can convince someone of the immorality of those actions is by converting them to Christianity and the rest following from there.
But the prospect of Christian ethics to be demonstrably true has really excited me! Usually when my atheist buddies have brought any of these subjects up, I tend to get kinda shy on them and try and re-direct the conversation to things I've looked at which I see as apologetics; ie worldviews, Jesus' christendom etc. I've got a LOT of reading to do with all this new stuff I had no idea about when it comes to Christian morality!!!
March Hare, thanks for your comment. Your first paragraph helped me some more, I appreciate it. =)
Hiya March,
My anecdotal experience is that most atheists who debate with Christians subscribe to some form of objective ethics. And according to this survey of philosophers, a whopping 56% subscribe to moral realism. Given that most argument for objective ethics are not based on moral realism, I think that fits my anecdotal experience.
Moving on, premarital sex falls into the a category of voluntary consensual behaviors that impose net external costs on society. See also: polygamy, dueling, and whites-only businesses.
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