The Language of Abortion

A friend pointed me to Aggie Catholics where they have this great pro-life commercial by Signal Hill. I've written before, in "What's another word for 'thesaurus'?" about how human beings are dehumanized by language, and in particular the claim that calling human beings "human beings" is too vague.

Signal Hill is an advocate for human rights that provides information on life issues, women's health, and family support. Signal Hill's position is grounded in the conviction that the life of human beings ought to be understood as a fundamental human right and protected from conception until natural end.

Signal Hill undertakes in-depth research and provides leadership in the fields of life issues, women's health and human rights. We provide resources for counseling, outreach, support and understanding for women and families struggling with issues surrounding pregnancy, abortion and other life-related issues. We are non-judgmental, compassionate and caring. Signal Hill faces today's most challenging issues with maturity, dignity and academic excellence. Everyone has the right to make informed decisions and it is our mission to make certain that education is provided with clarity and individual support.

There is a large amount of educational and helpful material available on the site. I wish we had a similar site in the US (or maybe we do - please post if you know of one). I know about Option Line, but they don't have the same depth of informational materials as Signal Hill.

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Science of the Gaps

One phrase used by atheists and Christians alike is "god of the gaps". The phrase originally meant that that it is not helpful to say that whatever science can't explain is God, because someday science may explain it. Today, however, it is used as a panacea in ay discussion about the existence of God. But, as Isaac Asimov's Salvor Hardin remarks in Foundation (one of the greatest SF books of all time), "It's poor atom blaster that won't point both ways."

The book of Genesis is often scoffed at as being unscientific, but the scoffers miss an important point - it is not a science text. However, it does impart some truths which are scientifically verifiable, but which atheists throughout history have railed against, even to the point of distorting science. Creation, for instance. Genesis teaches that the universe, and everything in it was created, and created over time.

And so we have early natural philosophers (for so were physicists called) declaring that the Earth was static and unchanging. Until it was incontrovertibly shown that mountains and oceans did rise and fall, and there were earlier forms of life, and even a time when the Earth itself wasn't. No, problem, must be the stars that are eternal. But then we saw stars die, and eventually, be born, and that was no longer defensible.

OK, cried the astronomers, but the universe itself is in a steady state and has existed forever. Until the "primeval atom" or "big bang" (which was the creation deniers' own derogatory term for it) destroyed that claim. Now atheists embrace the big bang, and we hear that the universe might come and go, but it's just because the multiverse is eternal. Except now that idea too appears to be false, as the BVG theorem says that any multiverse with universes with an expansion rate greater than zero (like our own universe) has to have a beginning.

I know, I've written about this before in "Belief Part 3", but this is a blog about what I think. I think it seems like the creation deniers' "gap" is getting smaller and smaller.

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March for Life 2012

Where has Mike been? At the March for Life in Washington D.C. I would have loved to have blogged about the event beforehand, but life got in the way. So, here's my all too brief recap.

This was my second time at the march. Despite all the news stories showing "clashes" between pro-life and pro-choice protests (in near equal numbers), neither I nor anybody I spoke with has ever seen a pro-choice protester during the march. I'm told by some locals that there is a small group of a dozen or so pro-choice protesters who come with news teams for a photo shoot at the Supreme Court building early in the day, before the march starts, and then leave. As I said I have not seen it, but if you look at the news shots they never show anything but closeups featuring a small number of pro-choicers. I do know that from before the march starts until it ends the Supreme Court steps are empty. [BTW if you look at the Washington Post slideshow linked to above, my favorite is picture 4, where an "antiabortion advocate, points her finger at an abortion rights advocate" - they don't mention the blurry finger in the foregound that the abortion rights advocate is giving the antiabortion advocate]

From what I saw, this year's march was about the same size as last year, although people who have been going for many years said they thought it was bigger. The U.S. government will not allow the official head count to be released, but according to LifeSiteNews the number was estimated to be 400,000. The thing that was different about this year's march was the ages. The last march I was at was a pretty good cross section of young to old. This year the march was by far dominated by kids. By kids I mean high school and college age kids. They were religious (one group handed me free rosary beads), political (many had "I vote Pro-life first!") signs and friendly (one group was giving free hugs).

A group of young ladies and gentleman gave me an "I'm worth waiting for" sticker, although I told them that I being married with three kids, I hadn't been waiting for a long time. I saw the very vocal "Silent No More" women, the "Chicago Life Mob" people, and the TFP youth, all impeccably dressed and handing out material while the bagpipes played.

I took a few pictures, but my batteries died at some point and by the time I replaced them I had lost some good photo ops. Here's a few that I did get:


I'm sot sure what building it was, but the people on the steps in the background were all spectators who were cheering wildly as we passed, and dancing on the steps, and the ones in front were giving out the free hugs.


The brave "Silent No More" women started the march right behind us.


It's hard to see much from the middle of the march (actually we were right near the front, but it's hard to tell). The umbrellas made it harder.


We passed the Chicago "Life mob" people. I'd seen their flash mob video and their pro-life rosary video.


They were carrying two platforms with cheerleaders on them. They were singing and chanting like crazy. I can't believe the amount of energy these kids have!


Not my finest shot, but this is looking down Constitution Ave. from Capitol Hill. The yellow crane, near the left hand side of the picture, is near where the rally was before the march started. Having been near the end of the march before I can tell you that it takes something like an hour after the march starts before the people in back even get moving.


Just another random shot taken during the march. I think this is near the Supreme Court, which is where the march officially ends. However, there is a steady stream of people continuing on to go talk to their representatives. The pro-choice ones make it a point to be either out or in "staff meetings" the entire time, so you don't actually get to speak to them, but you can leave messages with their staff.


The pro-life representatives have receptions for their constituents and whoever else wants to join. This was in "the gold room" of the house offices, where Congressmen Garrett and Smith, of New Jersey, were handing out donuts, coffee and other refreshments to pro-lifers after the march. The room was packed, so we basically got some food and went searching for our pro-choice legislators.

I could write about the fun we had on five hour ride down or the five hour ride home, but I'll leave that to your imagination. I left my house at 5:30 AM and got home at 10:30 PM. A long day, but a satisfying one.

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Weasel Words

I've been reading the text of S-1/A-1, the latest attempt by the New Jersey legislature to redefine marriage, and I find the wording troubling. The bill purports to create equality for same sex couples who are currently being discriminated against by hospital visitation policies and employers' benefits.

I think the most troubling thing about this bill, for those who oppose or support same-sex relationships, is that it is deemed necessary at all. Under the current NJ civil union laws, P.L.2006 C103, same-sex couples are provided "the same rights and benefits as heterosexual couples who choose to marry" and now we are being told the law needs to be changed to provide same-sex couples with the same rights and benefits as heterosexual couples who choose to marry. But that language is already in the law. One has to ask why the existing law is not being enforced, and why should we expect a new law granting identical rights will be enforced any differently?

But there are also many important differences in the wording of the law. The existing law authorizes religious institutions (and others) to conduct same-sex civil unions. The new law requires that they do so, except for very narrow restrictions. The existing law states exemptions for [emphasis mine]:

any institution, bona fide club, or place of accommodation, which is in its nature distinctly private; nor shall anything herein contained apply to any educational facility operated or maintained by a bona fide religious or sectarian institution

any organization operated for charitable or educational purposes, which is operated, supervised or controlled by or in connection with a religious organization

The proposed law contains the following exemption:

no member of the clergy of any religion...shall be required to solemnize any marriage

any such religious society, institution or organization, or any employee thereof

The exemption for performing same-sex "marriages" only applies to clergy and employees. The definition of clergy is "ordained to perform pastoral or sacerdoatal functions." How would this apply to denominations that have non-ordained ministers or elders? In fact, the original text of the bill said ministers or clergy, but the word "minister" was removed. The second exemption applies only to actions of employees of religious organizations. Many (most) functions of many churches are performed by lay ministers who are not employees, and therefore they would not be protected under the law.

But all of this points to a bigger problem. The exemption is based on religious organizations, not on individual belief. I can refuse to support same sex unions if I am an employee of the Church, but as a member I have no protection under the law. For that matter, an atheist who believes marriage is the union of a man and woman has no conscience protection. If an exemption is allowable for belief, then it should be made on the basis of belief, not on employment. If an exemption is not allowable based on belief, employment should not matter.

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Life

It seems, according to a Mr. Zimmer, that NASA has wasted $2.5 billion, because scientists can't define life. Last November, NASA launched Curiousity, a rover designed to look for life on Mars. However, according to the article:

When NASA says it wants to find out if Mars was ever suitable for life, they use a very circumscribed version of the word. They are looking for signs of liquid water, which all living things on Earth need. They are looking for organic carbon, which life on Earth produces and, in some cases, can feed on to survive. In other words, they’re looking on Mars for the sorts of conditions that support life on Earth.

But there’s no good reason to assume that all life has to be like the life we’re familiar with. In 2007, a board of scientists appointed by the National Academies of Science decided they couldn’t rule out the possibility that life might be able to exist without water or carbon. If such weird life on Mars exists, Curiosity will probably miss it.

Of course, the claim of the article, that scientists can't define life, is absurd. The standard definition of life used by biologists is in no way restricted to carbon-based water loving life forms. But we do have to use some criteria for looking for life, and in fact, I think looking for places that we think are like Earth is a good strategy. Certainly we stand a greater chance of finding life if we look in places like those where we know life exists.

But what the article fails to mention is how we could look for the kinds of life proposed. If we make no assumptions about the chemistry used or the conditions required, we literally have to look at everything, everywhere. That is not something we have the technology to do. It's easy to criticize someone else's methodology as being too narrow, but harder to come up with an alternative approach.

A few years ago I attended a lecture by Freeman Dyson. He has an interesting idea, which I like to explain this way. There's an old joke about a drunk looking for his keys under a street lamp. A passerby stops and helps him look and finally asks if he's sure the keys are here. The drunk replies that he thinks he lost the keys in the alley. Then why have we been searching here? Because the light is better, says the drunk.

Dyson's idea is not to look for life where we think it is, but to look where it is easy to look. Hunters find animals in the dark by shining a light out into the darkness, and when the animals look back, observing the reflections from their eyes. The method is called "pit lamping" and it is illegal in most places.

According to Dyson we could search for life in the solar system without ever leaving Earth. We simply (OK, it's not that simple, but easier than sending robotic probes) illuminate parts of the solar system with powerful beams of light and using ground-based telescopes observe the reflection. By analyzing the spectrum of the returning light we could look for chlorophyll or other chemicals associated with photosynthesis. This assumes the life gets its energy from light, which is not necessarily true either, but as I said some assumptions have to be made or the search is too hard.

Dyson gives a similar lecture in the TED talk entitled Let's look for life in the outer solar system.

At about 3:50 into the video he begins speaking about the search for life. It sounds like a viable way to search, for someone who had the desire and funds. Is it a likely way to find life? Dyson himself admits it is not, but it covers a large amount of real estate very cheaply.

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Banning Books

Well, looks like old "Sarah" (if that's her real name) is up to it again. This time, though, she's posing as homosexuals. That's right. In Spain, no less!

According to this article in LifeSiteNews, a homosexual campaign to suppress a book on healing same-sex attraction backfired, creating lots of publicity for the book.

A campaign waged by homosexuals in Spain to suppress a book about reparative therapy for homosexuality has backfired, generating media coverage that has drawn new attention to the formerly ignored work.

As a result, the publisher says that it has been overwhelmed by requests for the book and is now in the process of printing 7,000 more copies.

“Understanding and Healing Homosexuality,” which has been available since 2004 in Spanish, became the object of protest in Spain in December when the book was republished by Libros Libres and the new edition appeared in the catalogs of such online booksellers as Amazon, La Casa del Libro (the House of Books), and La Corte Inglés (The English Court).

The book, written by therapist Richard Cohen, discusses Cohen’s own liberation from homosexual attraction, what he regards as the principal causes of the problem, and methods for bringing about the healing of same-sex desires.

The appearance of the new edition sparked a protest on Twitter and other Internet media, including a petition that gathered tens of thousands of signatures demanding the removal of the book. Reporting on the campaign in the Spanish news media began on December 27th and has continued unabated.

Asked about the controversy in the Spanish media, Cohen told El Pais that he believes that “gays and lesbians who are happy have the right to live their lives. I would hope that they would respect the right of other who want to explore an exit from homosexuality.”

Join a Facebook page to defend marriage here.

P.S. I know this must really be Sarah in disguise, as everyone knows homosexuals are all about freedom and Sarah is evil.

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My marriage won't affect you

"My marriage doesn't affect you" is the phrase used by some proponents of redefining marriage to mean, well, whatever they want to mean today. The claim is that redefining marriage is a "private" thing, and it is not your concern. But marriage is not a private thing, and it does affect us all.

Here in New Jersey same-sex civil unions have been recognized by the state since 2006. According to the bill:

Those rights and benefits afforded to same-sex couples under the “Domestic Partnership Act” should be expanded by the legal recognition of civil unions between same-sex couples in order to provide these couples with all the rights and benefits that married heterosexual couples enjoy;

And the state of NJ is now considering yet another bill (actually the same bill that failed to pass in 2010) to redefine marriage because, as I pointed out in "Same-sex marriage, why not?" and further explained in "Bigot", it doesn't matter if they have all of the rights, same sex "marriage" is about getting the state to force you to accept such relationships as being "good". If you care about this kind of bullying, call your legislators and governor Christie and ask them to oppose this bill and defend marriage and religious rights.

But back to my point. Redefining marriage will affect you. Last week a New Jersey judge declared that a United Methodist Church had to allow same-sex civil unions on its property in spite of its moral beliefs. From LifeSiteNews:

The United Methodist Church teaches, “The practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching,” and that “ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions shall not be conducted by our ministers and shall not be conducted in our churches.”

But Judge Metzger said church doctrine was irrelevant...

“He said this isn’t a case of religious liberty, which is simply not true,” Jim Campbell, who represented the resort and serves as litigation staff counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), told LifeSiteNews.com. “What this case involves at its core is the rights of a religious group to use its property in a way that is consistent with its religious beliefs.”

Campbell said most people will find Metzger’s belief that the state can force a religious facility to violate its conscience “a very scary concept. If that is a principle of the law, then essentially the government can cast aside religion if it deems something more important.” Campbell called Metzger’s ruling “an error of Constitutional law.”

The local ruling seems to place non-discrimination above concerns of religious liberty, the mirror image of a Supreme Court ruling that took place earlier in the week. In the Hosanna-Tabor case, Chief Justice John Roberts ruled: “The interest of society in the enforcement of employment discrimination statutes is undoubtedly important. But so, too, is the interest of religious groups in choosing who will preach their beliefs, teach their faith and carry out their mission.” He concluded, “the First Amendment has struck the balance for us.”

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