On Abortion

About two years ago, I was at Boys State (Bunch of guys in Flagstaff forming their own government that'll actually govern them) listening to a republican and a democrat state senators talking about abortion. Like me in this blog, their goal was to consolidate the two polarized sides of politics to make progress. Then they came to abortion, and they told me what they both believed in, and I completely agreed with them. Here's what they said.

1) They both believed that abortion should never become an illegal procedure. Our constitution, through the 9th amendment in conjunction with 3rd and 4th amendment, provides us with right to privacy, and abortion falls right into that category.

2) They also believed that abortion should be as discouraged as possible because they both believed abortion was usually a bad thing. The mothers should be aware of all the repercussions of abortion, such as increased rate of breast cancer and possible aspect of future infertility. They should also be made aware of alternative options, such as adoption and the "doormat" policy (law stating that abandoning babies at a designated areas (orphanage, hospital, clinic, shelter, etc.) 24 hours (I think) after birth is legal, at which point the parents lose the custody rights to the State of Arizona).

I'm personally against abortion, really. When you have much, MUCH safer options like adoption and doormat policy, why would you take all that health risk and $$$ and get an abortion? I don't believe, however, that God is against abortion. For the religious, here's a theological explanation for that:

As you know, circumcision is the sign of covenance with God. Though Jesus nullified this rule (thank you Jesus) when he came by, it is generally accepted that a human being is up for recognition by God as a baby. In other words, a human being can be recognized by God as a human being when human being is eligible for circumcision (i.e. after birth). Now, before you counter this with "Well, what about girls?", remember that Christianity is a religion that heavily bases its concept around male superiority, which is understandable considering that at the time the faith was developed into an organized religion, the world was a patriarchal world.

This is also why mainstream Judaism does not oppose abortion.

Also, Exodus 21:22-23.

“And if men strive together, and hurt a pregnant woman, so that her fruit [children] come out, and yet no harm follows; the one who hit her shall surely be fined, according as the woman’s husband shall impose upon him; and he shall pay a fine as the judges determine.”

Notice that even though the criminal in question has killed the fetus, he is only FINED, not executed (or banished, exiled, condemned, etc.). This also shows that before birth, fetus is NOT considered a human being.

Why Christians must fight for separation of church and state

In the Constitution of the United States, there are three distinct clauses that enforces separation of church and state throughout this nation. These are 1. Freedom of Religion clause, 2. Establishment clause, and 3. Supremacy clause (to influence the state government). Now, ever since President Kennedy banned school prayers, Christian rights have been fighting to keep the religious influences in the governmental institutions, from elementary school to the judicial courts. Though a noble intention is definitely behind this effort, it is extremely detrimental, both for this nation and the faith, to have a merge of church and state.

It's not too hard to explain why a theocracy is detrimental to a nation, with rich examples from the Holy Roman Empire to modern-day Iran. Theocracy (religious leaders having political authorities) too often leads to corruption, oppression, and eventual collapse of the nation.

But let us consider through the eyes of the religious. How can the church leaders having political power damage the church itself? Well, to answer that, we should examine the Catholic church before the Renaissance. Rampant with corruption, the church became an oppressive kleptocratic organization and consequently an object of hatred and fear. This eventually led to the creation of Protestants defying the Catholic church, significantly weakening the church and causing decades of religious holy wars.

When religion and politics come together, it's not God who's going to be in charge of the nation; it'll be the clergymen. And Clergymen are just your everyday ordinary human beings. With the divine authority behind them, it is impossible not to become corrupted by power. There are no checks and balances or separation of powers. Just the "Will of God", which in reality would just be the will of the clergymen.

So, next time you complain that school prayers are outlawed, think about what happened to the Catholic church, or what Iran is like right now. Do you really want your country to be ruled like that?

On Homosexuality

In this day and age, the topic of homosexuality is almost unavoidable when you're talking about religion. So let's dig right in. DISCLAIMER: Be warned that this is a purely religious approach to the subject and is not considering social, political, or any other factors in evaluating homosexuality. But if you are religious and don't like homosexuality, you're in for a surprise.

As far as I'm concerned, homosexuality is a sin. It is an activity not condoned by God and without repenting through Jesus Christ, it is a one-way ticket to hell.

Having said that, let us clarify my viewpoint a little bit. There are some christians out there calling for a tactical nuclear strike of San Francisco, New York, Las Vegas, Vermont, Massachusetts, and recently, Connecticut, citing the precedence of Sodom and Gomorra. This punishment of God, along with Noah's Flood, is the main examples that christian-rights present to prove that homosexuality is a 'super-sin' that will burn you in hell.

No.

A person who studied Bible enough would know that there are no rankings among sins. This is because in christianity, punishment for sins are all the same - Hell. Dante's Divine Comedy and his 'levels of hell' are not mentioned anywhere in the Bible. And sinners (ALL sinners) are to spend the rest of the eternity in Hell. Then, it would be a bit ridiculous to have hierarchy of sins among men, considering the punishments are the same. Jesus is not going to say during the Final Judgement that "Oh, well, since you committed light sin, I sentence you to 2 years in hell with parole after the first year" or "Since you're a homosexual, I sentence you to 50 years in hell with no parole". Every sinner is going to hell. Forever.

This is why Jesus told everyone that only the ones without sin may cast the first stone. Everyone is a sinner, one way or the other. Cheated on your last exam? You're a liar. Checked out that girl who just passed you by? You're an adulterer. Watched Chris Rock stand-up last night? You're a blasphemer. Even Christians, at one point of their lives, have committed sins. At that precise moment, you're all sinners under God's eyes, homosexual or not.

Some christian-rights may argue that because God acted so angrily against Sodom and Gomorrah, homosexuals should be viewed as more sinful than others. But they're called CHRISTians because they believe in the concept of Christ. One of the missions of Jesus was to "update" the laws written during Moses's time. Jesus blatantly violated the Sabbath laws, chilled with the prostitutes, and touched a leper without quarantining himself (three big no-nos in Jewish laws). He replaced these archaic rules with simple phrases like "love your enemies" and so on. He declared the precedences set in Old Testament to be obsolete. Therefore, intense anger against Sodom and Gomorrah is no longer applicable.

Another mission of Jesus was to "update" the "divine judicial system" so that salvation can be more feasible. Before Christ, once you sin, you were done. You were going to hell, and that was the end of it. Even a small slipup would ruin your chance of going to heaven. Drank milk FIFTY-NINE minutes after eating a meat? Hell. Kissed your wife goodbye while she was going to quarantine herself during her menstration and didn't quarantine yourself? Hell. Not a Jew? Hell. This is why during the Old Testament, only 3 people made it to Heaven (Yes, that's right. When the Bible says "so and so died" that means they went straight to hell.). But with Christ in the picture, the mechanism of salvation became functional; basically, as long as you repent your sinning nature through Jesus, you're a clean slate. (This is what Christians are talking about when they say "Thank you Jesus for your sacrifice.". Basically, in translation "Thank you for taking all the heat for our sins (by dying on the cross) so that we won't be screwed even when we sin (and we will).") Therefore, because homosexuality is a sin in divine law, homosexuals can repent through Jesus and be saved.

Everyone is a sinner. Homosexuals, heterosexuals, bis, it does not matter. We all have sinned in Christian concept. Therefore, discrimination of homosexuals as the 'super-sinner' is in violation of Christianity.

Scientific Bible

In this post, I'm going to prove that these concepts do not contradict that bible at all. For the sake of the argument, let's just assume that Big Bang theory, evolution, natural selection, and all other 'anti'-religious scientific ideas were all true. Let us also assume that there is indeed a God, and he's sitting down to write the Bible which will allow the mankind (the Hebrew race at first) to understand what happened (creation). If the Genesis said "The Human DNA sequence, which can be divided into four specific chemicals, form a double-helix with the geometric quantity of..." or "As demonstrated by the survival rate of the Pogonomyrmex occidentalis shown in these charts, we can see the definite patterns of some genetic phenotype carrying on to the latter generation, depending on the benefits and the costs of such variation.", how much of that would the people understand when they're living in the age where if you say "Human Genome Project" they go "God bless you."? In fact, if the secrets of life was completely explained in a book, how much of it do you think people would understand? Personally, half the time, I don't know what my Biology professor's even talking about during lecture.

If people don't understand, then they won't believe in God and they'll all burn in hell and Satan would win (bad). So then God would 'dumb' the language down so that people can understand what has happened in the beginning. Hence, we have a situation where Ph. Ds are criticizing Little Mermaid for having very little scientific merit.

It is also rather interesting that Genesis and Big Bang theory/evolution matches up roughly.

Genesis 1:2 .. the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep... (after big bang, clouds and clouds of gases and dusts all over the place)

Genesis 1:3 ... God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. (Formation of stars and planets)

Genesis 1:5 ... God called the light day and the darkness he called night... (Orbitation of the stars and planets)

Genesis 1:7-8 ... God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it... God called the expase 'sky'... (Formation of atmosphere)

Genesis 1:9-10 .. Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear. ... God called the dry ground land, and the gathered waters he called seas (emergence of surface above water level.

Genesis 1:11-12 .. God said 'Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it.." (Emergence of vegetation (evolution sequence: Seafaring vegetation --> land plant w/o seed --> land plant w/ seed --> land plant w/ edible fruit)

Genesis 1:20 .. God said Let the water teem with living creature... (evolution sequence: water lifeforms were the first living animals)

Genesis 1:25 ... God made the wild animals according to their kinds... (evolution sequence after water lifeforms came land animals)

Genesis 1:27 ... God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Notice that human is the final creation of God)

Not too different now, are they?

Scientific Dogma

Dogma. Noun. 1. An authoritative principle, belief, or statement of ideas or opinion, especially one considered to be absolutely true. 2. A hilarious Kevin Smith movie that everyone should watch.

The atheist-liberals and agnostic-liberals tend to accuse the conservatives of basking themselves in an orgy of religious dogmas. 'If it goes against the Bible, then it must be wrong.' 'People who don't believe in God is going to burn in hell for eternity.' ' Gay people are evil' 'Abortionists are murderers and they're gonna go to hell for killing babies.' To be fair, the accusation isn't exactly unfounded.

But what astounds me is that the accusers are unaware of their own shortcomings; they have a dogma too. Several, really. 'If it is scientifically proven, then it must be true.' 'People who believe in God are retarded and should try reading secular books for a change.' 'Southern Baptists are racists' 'Pro-lifers are dumb Catholics who didn't go to high school.' Out of these, let's take a look at the first dogmatic law that the liberals worship: 'If it is scientifically proven, then it must be true.'

Here is the justification for the theory of evolution: Theory of evolution has been proven again and again by scientists through scientific method and scientific research. Therefore, the theory of evolution must be true. Let's simplify the sentence: Science has been proven by scientists through science. Therefore, science is true. It's a circular logic.

Some would say since science is a method of discovering truth, it can justify anything. But while it is true that science is a method of discovering truth, we do not know if the scientific method is indeed faithful to the truth. We can be pretty sure, but are we so sure to the point where we're worshipping the research lab as the modern-age Oracle?

Everyone thought that Newton's theory of gravity was true. Then Einstein came along with his Theory of Relativity that broke down that 'truth'. Then physicists discovered that atoms weren't the smallest building blocks (another 'truth' demolished), but quarks were (apparently), and the Theory of Relativity didn't work anymore. And I'm sure someday, someone will come along with a new theory that would demolish whatever 'truth' was established based on the concept of quarks. The point is, science, by nature, is unstable. It is constantly changing. So how can you make something like that into a 'truth-identifying machinery'?

Perhaps one day we can get rid of all these dogmas in our societies and actually try to establish some form of free marketplace of ideas.

Biotheology 101

I'm a Christian. Not "I'm a liberal who is really atheist, but also a Christian", but devoted Christian who feels really bad about skipping church every Sunday. I am a fervent supporter of the Intelligent Design theory (though I have many qualms with the popular version of the ID), and I think God rocks. I was a sunday school teacher for two years, and read the Bible front to back three times. Some would even call me a 'Jesus-freak'.

Having said that, I also believe that the Christian-Rights are being extremely unreasonable in their demands toward our educational system, especially in the issue of natural selection/evolution. It's true that natural selection/evolution are just theories. It is very true that students should be aware of alternative theories of origin of life, such as creationism and intelligent design, if not for the religious purposes, for the sake of preserving free marketplace of ideas. But we're forgetting one thing here. It's a SCIENCE class.

Telling the SCIENCE teacher to teach creationism/intelligent design is like telling the baptist minister to preach the benefits of funding abortion with medicaid; it simply does not make sense. The purpose of the course is to teach the scientific progress that mankind have made in the field of biology, study of life. When you force the instructor to teach creationism and intelligent design as a scientific theory in a science class, you're changing the nature and purpose of Biology. It's not even biology. It's biotheology.

Should there be a class where they teach all aspects of origin of life theories? Absolutely, provided the high school/college in question has enough resources and time to make such a class available. But this should not be done in a SCIENCE class. Just like we teach Pythagoras's Theorm, not Pythagorianism, in geometry class.