From in an LDS Pamphlet...

"There is a falsehood that some are born with an attraction to their own kind, with nothing they can do about it.  They are just "that way" and can only yield to those desires.  That is a malicious and destructive lie.  While it is a convincing idea to some, it is of the devil.  no one is locked into that kind of life.  From our premortal life we were directed into a physical body.  There is no mismatching of bodies and spirits   Boys are to become men -- masculine, manly men -- ultimately to become husbands and fathers.  No one is predestined to a perverted use of these powers."

(Source)

On the one hand, we have legions of gays and lesbians who claim that they didn't choose their sexuality in exactly the same way that I didn't choose my own.  Are they lying to me?  Are they actually heterosexual, or confused, and want to be gay by choice?

And on the other hand, we have an official church document saying that those people are liars.  Or, at best, they think they're telling the truth, but have themselves been misled by someone?

I'm inclined to believe the former.  In my own life, I've observed the following:

Masculine males who are attracted to women.
Feminine males who are attracted to women.

Masculine males who are attracted to men.
Feminine males who are attracted to men.

Throw gender identity on top of that, and you've got men who feel inside that they should have been born as women, and vice versa.  I can't believe that these folks, some of whom are driven to suicide, are lying to me.

The working conclusion that I've come to is that physical gender, perceived gender identification, and sexual orientation are distinct biological processes.  In most cases, they match up (men act masculine and desire women, and vice versa).  But some people are born with different switches, and it leads to all the various combinations.  Or, in some cases, early life trauma can mess up natural sexual development.  And they aren't binary switches, either.  There's all kinds of shades of gray in the middle.

The pamphlet asserts that the notion that "people are born with an attraction to their own kind, and nothing they can do about it" is a falsehood, and that they can only yield to those desires is "malicious and destructive lie".

It takes some careful reading to parse this.  Is the lie that people are born a certain way?  Or is the lie that there is nothing they can do about it?  From all the testimony I've heard, I can't come to any other conclusion other than people are born that way.  But I agree (technically) that they aren't "forced" to yield do those desires.  They could attempt to choose a straight lifestyle, or remain celibate, I guess.

Coincidentally, this quote is taken from a pamphlet about masturbation.  I'll leave that subject for a different time, but the pamphlet is specifically intended for young men, and basically talks using their little factories and the product produced for martial purpose.

I wonder what the view is on female masturbation?  Certainly nothing is physically lost when a young woman masturbations (in the same way that semen is for men).  So is it a problem?  I'll wait until I get home from work to google that one... :)

Finally, there is the implicit linking of masturbation and homosexuality.  This not only doesn't make sense to me, but I can't imagine there is any actual evidence that justifies even the lightest correlation between the two.  Maybe the church elders know something I don't.

The Morality of Atheists

Theist apologists seem to have this view that theists have no morals.  Since we don’t believe in God, and since God was the one who gave us our morality, then we’re simply free to do whatever we please.  If I feel like raping or murdering someone, and since I don’t have any fear of divine punishment, what’s stopping me from doing that?

There are a couple angles to this, and I’m not sure which one is intended.

On the one hand, the argument could be made that God indeed granted us our moral compass, and the fact that we (as a society) don’t go around raping and killing each other is evidence that we have some ingrained sense of right and wrong.  This is an idea that I can get behind.  I have done things that were “wrong”, and I have felt guilt.  I’d argue, though, that the source of that sense of right and wrong isn’t divine.  I think it’s much more likely that it’s the result of individual people learning how to behave in their respective society, as well as a species-wide evolution of acceptable behavior.

What about feral children?  I think there’s some evidence that humans who are raised by animals (see Oxana Malaya) take on the qualities of those animals.  Isn’t that an indication that we learn what is acceptable behavior, at least to some degree, from what we see around us?  And doesn’t it make sense that certain qualities could be selected for and selected against that have led us to where we are now?

But on the other hand, theists really seem to believe, in spite of all available evidence, that atheists are evil and sinful and purposely “turn their backs” to God (which implies some level of belief) so they can continue living in their sinful ways.  I’m not sure who they’re describing when they use those words, though.  Either you believe in God or you don’t, but I’m not sure how many people believe in God AND reject him.  Satanists, perhaps?  I’m not sure.

Anyways, Ray Comfort said it best himself:  “I’d be in jail if I wasn’t a Christian.”

My jaw dropped when I heard this.  What an astonishing thing to say!  If I understand him correctly, he’s saying that the only thing holding him back from breaking the law is fear of God.  In my mind, that makes him a Bad Person.

I don’t believe any gods exist, yet I’m not in jail.  You know why?  Because I have a rational and reasonable understanding of how my actions affect other people.  I understand that my right to swing my arms ends where another person’s nose begins.  I understand that there are consequences to my actions. 

So what stops me from stealing something that I want from a store?  A few things.  First, I understand and agree to live in a society that has rules.  Second, I understand and agree with the underlying reason those rules exist.  And finally, I want to raise a child and set a good example of what it means to be a good person.  I didn’t understand these things as a child, and in fact as a child I acted in ways contrary to this.  I think most kids do.

More Evolution

Behind Ray Comfort, Kent Hovind is one of my favorite apologists.  He makes it all sound so easy, and has a very smooth, comforting, easy way of discussing very difficult subjects.  Mostly he does this by misrepresentation and outright lies, unfortunately, but he's still fun to listen to. In one of this talks, he showed a photograph that was clearly a family portrait with his wife and two kids.  "Now, that's not my wife", he said, and after a comedic pause, he continues "that's just a picture of her."  That's funny! Anyways, I thought this was a fascinating video that breaks down Hovind's definition of "kinds" of animals and their place in evolution.  Really well done.

Some Thoughts on Evolution

Evolution is kind of a weird third party to the whole religion/atheism thing. One can be a theist and still “believe in” evolution. One can be an atheist and still think that evolution doesn’t pass muster.

So what does evolution mean? I think a lot of people are muddled.

My understanding is that evolution means “change over time”. When we say that a species has evolved, it means that species, as a whole, is different than it used to be at some point in the past.

This should be so flatly obvious that I have a hard time imagining anyone would disagree with it. This is the basis for the selective breeding that we’ve done on farm animals, thoroughbred horses, orchids, and show dogs for centuries. If you want to change the shape of the nose of a particular breed of dog, you simply mate pairs that have the noses you like, and pick the puppies from the litter that are closest to what you want. Then mate them with others. After a few generations, you’ll have a dog with different shaped nose.

But people who don’t accept evolution seem to miss some fundamental point. They say “Yeah, I agree with that, but I’ve never seen a dog give birth to a duck.” They say this as if they actually think that that’s what evolution would predict: that in a single generation a parent would give birth to a wholly different kind of animal.

Or they talk about transitional forms. They say “if an animal evolved from one kind to another, then we should see some hybrid mixture somewhere in the middle.” I’m not sure how they can say this with a straight face, but they do. It’s a totally fallacious challenge, because anything you ever show them, they can just respond “that’s not a transitional form… that’s just an extinct species from Creation.”

So there are two halves to the picture. In very short order, we can show that species of animals can change in just a few generations. There have been experiments with fish that have been stocked into different streams with varying degrees of predators. The fish that were put into streams with bigger fish that would eat them changed color over some generations, turning dull and brown and camouflaged. The natural variation in coloration over generations favored these kinds of fish. The fish that were put in streams with few or no predators turned more brightly colored. In this case, flashy colors helped attract mates, and that trait was selected.

Or these California salamanders.


Creationists readily accept these changes, I think. What they just can’t seem to grasp is that the accumulation of these changes over a long period of time can add up to substantial changes.

In this post, the first words were one color. Now they are another color. Can you find the exact word that is half red and half blue? Of course not. But you must admit that there has been drastic change over the course of this post.

I’m running out of steam. Hopefully this makes some sense.

Is the Bible Reliable?

I find Bart Ehrman to be a pretty compelling speaker when it comes to the accuracy of the Bible.

Textual criticism isn't a religious idea.  The study of many copies of a text to determine if it has changed over time has nothing to do with religion.  This is a purely analytic, academic subject.  It just so happens that we have lots of copies of the Bible, and lots of people looking at it.

Listen to the beginning of this video:  Question #6:  Have the gospels been accurate preserved down through the centuries?





In this video, the response from the debate opponent, Craig Evans, isn't shown.  In a separate video, we hear his response.  He generally agrees that the text certainly does contain changes, but they are mostly minor and typographical in nature, or slight embellishments.  The core message of the gospels remains clear, he says, and more or less hand-waves away these minor issues.

Then skip to the following question at 10:22:  Do scribal errors and textual variants significantly impact any teaching of Jesus or any important Christian teacher?



Dr. Ehrman quotes some very famous quotes from Jesus, and probably surprises many people by saying that those quotes only exist in textual variants.

He makes a very compelling argument, in my opinion, that we should at least cast some doubt as to whether the Bible is a trustworthy and reliable guide.

Pretty much this...