Since it’s been so long since I updated this site, let’s see how long it takes people to notice the change.

I wanted to go ahead and say my piece on international politics. In general, I consider myself to be a liberal-leaning moderate. I tend to vote democrat. Many of my political opinions may seem contradictory or at least counter-productive given my profession. The ACLU and the democratic party seem to be the natural enemies of traditional law enforcement.

When it comes to the war in Iraq, I support the troops 100%. I don’t want their home-coming to be a repeat of Vietnam. They do an incredibly difficult job and my hat goes off to anyone who can face the rigors of bona fide combat and come out the other side even marginally sane.

That being said, though, the war itself is an absolute jest. I told people right after the invasion: "Mark my words. There will be nothing in Iraq, and then North Korea and Iran will come back with functional nuclear programs. We’re going to the wrong place" Prophetic, and so accurately so that I wish I had one of the people who heard that to corroborate it. Imagine that...a man with no access to top-secret intelligence or analysis reports and only a bachelor’s worth of education regarding international politics predicting what would happen. But, one can argue the justification for the war and the doctoring of intelligence all you want. The problem that remains is...what now? If we wash our hands of the whole mess right now and bring everyone home, there is every possibility that 1) Iraq will dissolve into a bloody and protracted civil war or 2) that the Baathists that supported Hussein in the first place will re-gain power. If we wait until the country is more stable, more American lives will be lost, more Iraqi civilians will die because of the methods their countrymen have chosen to wage their war. And what of the opposite extreme? Will it become a permanent occupation? Will Iraq become another Puerto Rico?

And given how we reacted to Iraq and Hussein, why are we not over in the Far East kicking the ever-loving shit out of Kim Jong Il? His missiles can’t reach us yet. DO something about it before the whack-job’s ICBM’s can make the trip. I LIKE San Francisco. I would be supremely disappointed if it were converted from the hip, fun town it is to a radioactive, smoldering ruin. I just do not understand the rationale. We have no evidence of WMD’s in Iraq except for grainy photos and shady tips. We have Kim Jong Il all but shouting about his nuclear program from very rooftops of Pyongyang. Why are the boys dying in the sands of Iraq? Was Hussein really that close to nuking the home turf? Guess what? North Korea really is. And the great thing about ‘rogue nations’, as they’re called in diplomatic parlance, is that they don’t have that much to lose. You absolutely DO NOT barter with a psychotic dictator like Kim Jong Il. If he threatens you, and you acquiesce, you set the precedent and teach him that it fucking works. It’s like in my job...if a hostage taker tells you to drop your gun and you DO, guess what? Now you have no gun and bad guy has all the leverage. Well done. No...in that situation you shout right back that the gun goes nowhere and if the hostage gets shot, bad guy’s the next one dropping. The analogy is almost a carbon copy of the situation between N. Korea (bad guy), the US (cop) and the hostage (Japan). And yes...I realize the dangers of painting the US as a cop. Don’t write to me about it. It was an analogy to prove a point. I just want to say that if we have to sacrifice American lives-and I’m not really sure we needed to in the first place-why not do it in a place where it would make more of an impact and truly improve national security?

Of course, the thing people always point out with North Korea is China. Over a billion strong, with a huge economy, an active nuclear program and the missile technology to deliver it. However, the international state of affairs currently, I believe, gives China FAR too much to lose if they take North Korea’s side in an armed conflict. We are China’s market. If they make enemies out of us, they lose their economy. The problem is, there’s every chance that our economy would suffer first and hardest in that scenario because our service-based economy depends largely on the hardware and industrial goods from China. So it’s a question of who could last the longest.

And all this brings me, circuitously, to the recent events in Israel which actually prompted the post. A smile and a nod to Israel for how they are handling the current crisis. While it’s true that their hard-line stance may destabilize the region and at the worst cause a regional war, how else was Israel supposed to deal with the abduction of its servicemen? It’s JUST like above. If Hamas or Hezbollah kidnaps soldiers and demands the release of Palestinian political prisoners, and Israel DOES it, do you think those soldiers are getting released? Perhaps. But if they do, it’s only to show the Israelis that they’d better repeat the performance the NEXT time Islamic militants kidnap Israeli citizens and soldiers. And believe me, there will be no end to the repeat performances if Israel caves. I was actually very disappointed the other day when I read that Israel had changed its demands for cease-fire from the disassembly of Hezbollah in Lebanon to simply the return of the soldiers. What better message could there have been for their enemies? "If you harm our citizens or kidnap our soldiers, we will destroy the governments and nations that support you." It’s like WWII and Pearl Harbor. Japan wanted to shock the US into submission with a swift, decisive and brutal attack. What did it accomplish? The most advanced industrialized nation on Earth turned its eye on Tokyo and said that nothing short of unconditional surrender would be accepted. And we followed through. I will be disappointed if Israel does not do the same. The kidnappings were an act of war. Violence continues in that case until the act of war is rectified. 

I think the EU and UN also need to re-evaluate their stances on this conflict.  I'm sorry...Hezbollah has NO reason to exist except to wage war on Israel and western states.  They need to go and I believe Israel is justified in demanding it.  At the very least, Hamas attempted to attain legitimacy by participating in the Palestinian government.  Not so with Hezbollah.  For years they've held the southern end of Lebanon in a strange limbo outside the reach or will of the Lebanese government.  They have no reason to exist except as a terrorist organization.  They should be destroyed.  The EU and UN should be making resolutions pressuring Hamas and Hezbollah to return their captives, NOT telling Israel to keep cool and try to talk through things.

And speaking of rogue nations...a word to the Islamic militants and Palestinians who would love nothing more than to slit Israel’s throat. Israel is like a more stable N. Korea. A tiny splinter of a nation surrounded by enemies and equipped with a nuclear arsenal. If you really do bring true war on Israel, they will respond the way any nation or animal responds when cornered with nothing to lose. Trust me...if it comes down to the choice of 1) being annihilated or 2) unleashing nuclear war in the Middle East, the desert sands will glow in the dark my friends. So bring your Jihads and intifada’s. Maybe then the Islamic world will see that there are, eventually, repercussions for attempting to force one’s ways on people. (Ironic, of course, that so many people feel the same way about us...)

And that’s about all for now. On these topics, there is SO much room for discussion. If anyone disagrees, wishes to add details, or has questions, I certainly do welcome them. As always, though, please do make them constructive.

The April, 2006 issue of Scientific American contained a very small article that piqued my interest.  The article basically outlines an ecological study which shows evolution at work in fish.  The article, titled "Survival of the Smallest", by Sarah Simpson, says, "Ongoing experiments on captive fish reveal that harvesting only the largest individuals can actually force a species to evolve undesirable characteristics that diminish an overfished stock's ability to recover,"  It details how the common practice of 'throwing the little ones back' (which has the idea behind it to allow young individuals enough time to reproduce) has caused evolutionary selection in some fish species.  The example used in the study was the Atlantic silverside, which showed that populations where the largest individuals were killed/harvested had, on the average, adult fish that were 70% smaller than normal.  It seemed, after analysis of the results, that 'artificial' selection forced the fish to slowly evolve (activate genes or give small-gene mutant fish more ability to survive) into smaller versions of themselves.  What's more, the speed with which the environmental factors decimated the populations didn't really give the fish genome time to adapt chemically to the changes.  The smaller fish were rife with other medical problems and fertility issues.

This article, I felt, was important for two reasons.  First, it is yet another empirically observable study that shows evolution at work in real time.  It helps prove the theory (which I still say should be considered a scientific LAW at this point).  But examples like that are numerous.  One can hardly read an ecology or biology book without encountering dozens of such examples.  No, the second reason this article caught my eye is the most important one, and prompted this post:  evolution is not always an improvement.

Popular interpretation of the theory has seemed to put forward the idea that evolution is always moving forward.  Evolution is always an advancement.  What people forget-or never learned about-is that the bare-bones theory of evolution (natural selection causes changes in organisms gradually over time) makes no assertions whatsoever that the changes will be for the better.  The engine of evolution (genetic mutation and variation) is NOT, as ID proponents might like to make it, a directed force.  It is random.  As is natural selection.  The selecting force in an ecosystem is ALWAYS an environmental factor.  But it should be remembered that, like the case of the Atlantic silverside, natural selection can, at times, overwhelm a species.  Over 90% of all the species that have ever lived on the planet are dead.  Gone.  Extinct.  Natural selection can be like Mother Nature's bitchy sister.  Remember evolution's simplicity:  Those organisms that have the genetic makeup which allows them to produce more offspring than their counterparts will thrive.  This does not always mean advancement.  Sometimes...just sometimes...it means survival of the horny.  Their offspring may be deformed or otherwise inviable, but there are more of them, and that means they win.  (Pay attention white trash...your ideals may win out simply because of the fact that your malodorous offspring are so numerous that your cultural ideals have a better chance of survival, despite their stupidity)  The fact that bacteria, microbes and so on still exist should be a testament to the fact that some designs are durable. 

Another common misconception is that what is advantageous for homo sapiens is advantageous for everyone.  Flat-out wrong.  High intelligence and tool use are advantageous to us because of our lack of physical prowess.  For most creatures (look at plants), intelligence and tool use are not at all necessary.  In fact, to most ecologists and evolutionary biologists, intelligence can be seen as a liability in most species.  Why waste resources (food, blood, calories and bone protection) on a giant brain when your legs, hooves and teeth do the job just fine?  If you're a rock-stupid water buffalo on the African Savannah, will it really get you any more fine buffalo chicas if you can craft a wicker basket from papyrus?  Oh, you could try, but I'm pretty sure your enormous efforts would be rewarded by the female buffalo with a monumental disinterest and a glazed-over look of epic stupidity in her eyes.  No...the male buffalo is better off, in evolutionary terms, staying dumber than a bag of hammers and spending his time breaking lion backs with his hooves and generally becoming the largest, fattest bastard he can.  And if he does so, evolution will reward him with a large harem of the finest females around.  It's good to be the king.  Laziness is rewarded in the natural world (when possible).  The simplest, no-frills designs are usually the best.  Anything flamboyant or extraordinary you see is most likely the result of high enviromental pressure.  Look at plants and microbes.  Unchanged for billions of years except minor variations.  And they just sit there. 

Humans are predators.  Make no mistake about it, my friends.  Bi-focal, forward-facing eyes to judge distance to prey...incisors and eye teeth useful only for tearing apart flesh...the chemistry and gut to digest fatty meats (pepsin, gall-bladders and so forth)...we are predators.  But without the brains and tool use to compensate for our embarrassing lack of indigenous weaponry, we are as the 'Far Side' once described us in the guise of two anthropomorphic crocodiles lounging on the side of a river:  "That was incredible!  No teeth, no claws, no fur, no nuthin!  Just soft and pink!"  Indeed, some ecologists theorize that intelligence is really only useful and adaptive in predators.  Predators, especially animal predators, must be smarter than their prey.  Lions hunt in prides and use something similar to small-unit tactics to outwit the infuriatingly dumb wildebeest, zebra and buffalo.

So...when you think of evolution, pure evolution, don't make the mistake of thinking it's always going someplace.  Sometimes, when things are good, evolution backtracks because the lazy and stupid have as much chance to bone one another as the go-getters.  Directed evolution is, for the most part, decried when it comes to humans (eugenics) and taken as a fact (for good or ill) when it comes to plants and animals (selective breeding).  Left to its own devices, evolution is as random as the genetic engine that fuels it.

Kayla mentioned an article to me tonight that had given her an idea for a blog post. I told her to run with it, and then she told me that I might be able to write more eloquently about it and told me to do so. I have to admit, after hearing the story, that I agree with her take on things. The article basically explained how some schools are slowly changing nursery rhymes to be more politically correct so as not to offend adults or expose children to possibly damaging concepts. The article, Kayla said, used the example of ‘Ba Ba Black Sheep’. She said that some schools were changing the term ‘black’. One school even went far enough to rename the black sheep a ‘rainbow’ sheep. Absurd? Certainly. But given the political atmosphere, not unexpected and not unbelievable.

Once again, I wish to state that my personal beliefs lie in the middle. I will always strive for a happy medium and a ‘Goldilocks Effect’ where things are ‘just right’. Being ‘politically correct’ may seem like a plague of the liberal end of the political spectrum, but conservatives are guilty of the same atrocities. Witness: The attempts by Intelligent Design proponents to get their ideas into public school curriculum and ban the teaching of evolution. Witness: The rancor and anger of some people (especially in the deep south, for some reason) when gays try to publish magazines or promote activities or inform people of tolerance. Both ends of the political spectrum are guilty of censoring people in different ways and for different reasons. And I would posit that both sides are, like the theists and atheists, completely wrong in their justifications.

Granted...political correctness has been around as long as society has. I’m sure there was a well-meaning priest in ancient Sumeria who wanted passages taken out of the Epic of Gilgamesh because they were too ‘racy’ for the public. The Grimm fairy tales, in their original versions, were just that. Grim. Hansel and Gretel is perhaps the least modified wherein the ghastly witch intends to eat the children. Less well known, though, may be the story of Cinderella. Do my dear readers know that in the original version, Cinderella’s evil step sisters were punished by Prince Charming for their attempted deception by having their feet shoved into red-hot iron shoes? No, of course you don’t. Because that particular version of the story isn’t fit to be animated by Disney. If memory serves, someone also had their eyes plucked out, but I could be wrong. So, a form of political correctness has always been around.

Where does one draw the line, though? As Kayla pointed out, if you teach toddlers the rhyme of ‘Ba, ba rainbow sheep, have you any wool?" Some horrified grandparent WILL invariably pull little Tommy or Susie (or more likely little Andrew or Madison, judging from the most popular names of 2004) aside and demand to know who the hell ‘rainbow sheep’ is and where they heard that drivel. The Germans and Japanese have been accused of an extreme form of political correctness wherein some schools seem to have a gap in their history lessons when it comes time to teach about what happened between 1939 and 1945. Should we revise history books to keep people from being horrified by the truth?

The censorship exercised by both ends of the political spectrum can be tied back to the debate on the freedom of speech, guaranteed in the first amendment to the US Constitution. From the outset, neither the Founding Fathers nor the US Supreme Court has upheld the belief that ALL speech is sacred, no matter what. For instance: most municipalities have made it illegal to say things that would incite public panic or endanger the public (yelling ‘fire!’ in a crowded theater, for example). This is a governmental action which abridges the freedom of speech, but this exception has been legally upheld in the interest of public safety. Likewise, specific threats of violence and so forth are also prohibited by most state statutes. In my particular jurisdiction, it is called a ‘threat against life or property’. It is illegal to make such threats. In addition, culture has always somewhat censored our freedom of expression. Does anybody really doubt that our contemporary hip-hop videos would have been banned, censored and vilified back in the stuck-up 50's or back in the teens when women usually revealed only their ankles? Cultural norms and societal mores have always played a part.

However, does this make sense? After all, if we’re going to have to face the reality that not ALL speech is protected, who do we appoint judge and jury, and what criteria should we force them to use when deciding which speech is protected and which is banned? Using the example of hip-hop videos above, it’s easy to look at the analogy and mock the generations past for out-dated and un-enlightened morals, but think about it. Future generations will look at us the same way for different things. Indeed, many European cultures find it inexplicable right now that we tolerate unprecedented amounts of violence and savagery in our media, but go apoplectic over an exposed areola during the Super Bowl half-time show. And guess whose violent crime and murder rates are higher? Exactly.

It is my contention that the current legal controls on speech and expression are the only ones needed. In the interest of maintaining a peaceful, civil society, those prohibitions are all you need. Indeed, many political scholars and historians feel that the freedom of speech was included in the Bill of Rights because the Founding Fathers believed that the free flow of ideas was crucial to maintaining a healthy society. Censoring speech for purposes of ensuring public safety, disarming panic and reducing violent crime by prohibiting specific threats of violence is all one needs. Changing nursery rhymes is not the answer, nor is discriminating against certain groups or theories (evolution) because you don’t agree with them. Regardless of how well you shelter your children, parents, they will see the world for what it is. If you are afraid that ‘Ba Ba Black Sheep’ will make your child racist, maybe you should have aborted them because they are rock-stupid. I kid though. Seriously...if you are afraid of that possibility, don’t change the rhyme. Educate your children about the possibilities and give them the tools to deal with the world. Hiding racism (although I can’t see how that rhyme is in any way racist) from your kids won’t help. They’re going to discover it sooner or later. Rather than sheltering them, expose them to it in a productive way and equip them to deal with the ugliness of the world.  TELL them it's wrong...don't white-wash an innocuous nursery rhyme.

And on the flip side, I do not condone the use of the nefarious ‘N’ word. I do not like it, and I personally believe that it is a tragedy that black culture in this country has chosen to immortalize so heinous and hateful a word in their popular culture. However, I don’t cringe and gasp when someone uses it. If you read my other site, you should know that I am a police officer by profession. I’ve heard stories of heated verbal arguments witnessed by other officers. An outraged citizen will approach these officers and demand that they do something about the horrible speech directed at them. Let me make this perfectly clear: If someone calls you hateful names, disparages your ethnicity, family and sexual orientation...it is NOT illegal. It is crass, uncivilized and immature, but it is not illegal, nor SHOULD it be. Leave us alone. We are not your personal moral crusaders. We are here to protect you, your families and friends from physical or monetary harm. If you’re offended, grow a pair and grow the hell up. Unless the moron hits you or THREATENS to hit you, we cannot do anything about it. And that’s EXACTLY the way it should be. Hate crime laws are instituted to mandate stricter punishment to violent criminals whose acts are based on hatred of a specific group. They do NOT make it illegal for someone to call you hateful names.

As I’ve said before when speaking of the religious man, Tim, who found my sites, I believe in the freedom of expression. I may absolutely HATE everything Tim says and what he stands for, but he is MORE than welcome to believe what he wants and SAY what he wants in his own public forums. It’s none of my business, no matter how angry it may make me. If you don’t like the very proven and scientific theory of evolution being taught to your children, educate them yourself. Take them out of public school and teach them creationism. No one is stopping you. At the very least, take two minutes out of your day and explain that evolution is not the only possible explanation (although it IS the right one).

At the end of the day, political correctness forces blinders on people. It hides a perhaps ugly and offensive truth from people. I prefer to face that truth and accept the old adage that people who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. Got a gap in your textbooks from 1939-1945, Japan? Here’s hoping you realize what happened and apologize to China before 1 billion + people decide to take revenge for the innocents of Nanking.

As for us...I like the quote from the movie, "The American President": "You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating, at the top of his lungs, that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours."

I welcome comments, criticisms or examples I neglected.

Well, Tim has gotten himself banned from my blogs. For the moment, I will not ban his IP address and see how many comments come rolling down the road. Each one, as soon as I see it, will be erased with my editing utility and replaced by a large *CENSORED* message, instead. People will then be able to see just how pig-headed and stubborn such fundamentalists are. And in the interest of fairness, I will explain why Tim has gotten himself banned.

First off, Tim, I never once solicited your opinions. You, of your own free will, decided to visit my sites and begin preaching. I did not find your site (I would never have looked for a site like that) and begin telling YOU to change YOUR life. You found me. I humored you because I thought maybe something intelligent would come of it. You have, however, at every turn demonstrated monumental ignorance and a lack of ability to communicate your own beliefs. You do not respect my opinions or the methods I use to reach my opinions, and you do nothing but repeat yourself.  Your comments, after hearing them ad nauseum, contribute nothing worthwhile to the purpose of this site.  Maybe ONE tirade on scripture could be tolerated, but I keep hearing the same thing OVER and OVER again.  It's not worth the headache.

The straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back, however, was the fact that you knocked my father’s information. It’s obvious you didn’t even really read or comprehend it because if you had, you would see that scripture wasn’t really necessary to support his arguments. And the fact that STILL, after so many warnings about how I don’t accept scripture, you say that scripture is the only way to go.

I wish to make this one thing CRYSTAL clear, Mr. Schouten: If you want to knock somebody’s beliefs, you had DAMN sure better stick with me. My father is WAY out of your league, you ignorant, narrow-minded charlatan. My father is a Harvard-educated attorney who has forgotten more about Christianity than you will EVER be able to cram into that thick skull and diminutive brain.

You and I are done. You have, at every turn, proved yourself to be a small-minded uninteresting man. You are the reason people hate Christians. You are the Christian equivalent of the Muslim terrorists who rely on one literal interpretation of the Kuran and small-minded logic to fuel their hatred. However good your intentions were in first contacting me, you are now, in my eyes, a worthless human being who will never see beyond the dogma he’s adopted for himself.

Don’t bother trying to write anything else. Don’t bother trying to apologize (as if you really would). You’re done. Any correspondence I see from you will be immediately replaced by the *CENSORED* message I warned about. I didn’t ask for your opinions, but I tolerated them because I prefer to be more open-minded than you do, Tim.

For everyone else, I will retain Tim’s previous comments so that others might see the train of thought that led, inexorably, to this conclusion. I will even keep the links Tim left to his own blog, because I truly do believe in freedom of expression. Tim is free to think how he does. He is free to express himself and I will not stop that in any way. If his religion is for you, please see his posts and contact him. However, I absolutely do not have to tolerate his ignorance, stupidity and inability to defend his own positions in my little corner of the Web. I truly wish it had not come to this. I wanted to have some serious discussions wherein I might actually learn something, or at least give my brain something to chew on. I still have that hope, but it is dwindling.

To anyone who reads either of my blogs regularly, you should by now be aware of a couple of comments posted by a man named Tim.  I wish to say, first off, that I think Tim is doing what he feels is right.  He is trying to convince me of a morally superior way of life, and a way of life that he firmly believes will lead to my eternal happiness.  If his brand of religion happens to be your slice of pie, he has left links on his comments to his own blogs.  I invite you to visit.  Tim is doing what he feels is right, what he believes in, and at the end of the day, there are few nobler causes.  And so...after having calmed down somewhat, I want to take the opportunity to thank Tim for his efforts.  I understand what he is trying to do, and it is a good cause.  I think if Tim could find different methods to argue for his stances, he and I could have some extremely fruitful and productive interactions.

However, Tim and I have irreconcilable differences.  I happen to see ALL religions as different pathways to the same end.  Whether you call that end 'salvation', 'enlightenment' or simply the struggle for human perfection, all religions take you there in different ways.  Tim's world view is governed by the Bible, and he believes that everything within it is holy writ which is not subject to error.  (At least, that's the way it sounds from the context of his posts.  I could very well be wrong.)  This is just too conflicting with my own view, which depends on reason, observable evidence and logic to explain things around me.

I used a quote from one of my personal idols on my other blog:  "If any man can show me that I am wrong in thought or deed, I will gladly change.  I seek the truth, which never yet hurt anybody."--Marcus Aurelius.  And I feel that is the way I want to live my life.  I think I hold to that fairly well.  I just have certain standards when it comes to what I accept as being 'shown that I am wrong in thought or deed'.  Scripture is not one of them.  At best, it is anecdotal evidence that has been filtered through too many translators to retain its original meaning.  Any diplomat will tell you that even when dealing with people of the SAME language, meanings can get misinterpreted.

The ability to deal with being proved wrong is a crucial difference between bona fide scientists and religious zealots.  Any scientific fact is subject to peer scrutiny of such severity that-for the most part-only bald-faced truth gets through.  If the evidence cannot be proven, reproduced and demonstrated, it is discarded.  It is a harsh lens with which to see reality, but it is one that has allowed us to produce wonders such as nuclear physics, space exploration and the computer and technology ages we now enjoy.  The same scientific method that produced the theory of evolution produced the computers on which religious people type their electronic tirades against evolution.  There is no escaping it.

The only abstract method of reasoning that I've accepted as being remotely capable of contemplating the unknown is philosophy.  It at least approximates science in the rules by which people explore the unknown.  Prayer is worthless to me because any result I get from prayer can easily be explained away by psychosomatic responses and a host of other psychological factors.  This is the reason scripture is tossed out the window on principle when I see it in an argument for or against something.  The only way to PROVE scripture is to pray about it, and your faith could just be an illusion.  You can't prove otherwise, so scripture gets thrown out.  I find some value in meditation, but it is too similar to prayer to be trusted.  Any results gained from meditation are easily explained away by psychological science.  So philosophy it is.  I enjoy metaphysics the philosophy of science because they give a systematic and somewhat logical way to look at the foundations of reality.  It is not dependent on faith, it is not subject to judgment errors and it IS subject to peer scrutiny the way true science is.

So...let me paint the picture.  I am MORE than willing to entertain other possibilities.  If people want to try and prove my positions wrong, please do so.  If it's done constructively and with evidence I accept as real, I think the only possible outcome is a gain of knowledge for both parties.  Even if we don't agree with each other, we'll have learned something about ourselves and the other party.  But please...I beg you...understand my reasons for rejecting scriptural evidence and respect it.  There SHOULD be other evidence for your positions other than scripture.  Give me those.  I will consider them and test them, and I will let you know what I come up with.

To Tim, I wish to say that if my responses to your posts have been harsh, I apologize.  It was not my intent.  But given my reasons for rejecting scriptural evidence, there are few things that make me angrier than people who expect me to change a belief structure based on something I hold to be unreliable at best.  The post on evolution should demonstrate that.  So if I've been harsh, I do apologize.  I realize that your motives are pure.  But please, please, please respect the criteria *I* use to judge the world.  Think of me as a courtroom judge who sees the Bible as a highly unreliable witness that I WILL NOT allow to testify on my witness stand.  There must be other witnesses to present for your case.  Give me those.  I will listen.

Gay rights and gay marriage have been hot topics for a few years now.  We had a referrendum in our state recently which helped solidify the legal definition of marriage to help exclude gay marriages.  The intent was to make sure that there would be no future loophole.  I think the only conservative religious stance I hate more than their rejection of evolution is their stance on homosexuality.  I want to approach this issue in two different ways.  First, I want to discuss why gay marriage and rights for committed gay couples would be a bad thing to these people, and then I wish to totally destroy any of their rationale for hating gays.

The political discussion these days hinges on whether or not it should be legal for homosexual couples to marry.  The right to marry would entitle these couples to a host of other rights that would be beneficial in terms of taxes, health care and so on.  The basis for most of the resistance, as I understand it, is that opponents assert that homosexuality is intrinsically immoral, and should not be supported in any way.  I will deal with that later.  At the end of the day, though, I don't see how legalizing gay marriage affects relgious conservatives AT ALL.  Except to offend their moral sensibilities, how does it hurt them?  How does it affect their lives?  I would assert that it doesn't affect them at all.  In fact, I think the only thing we have to be careful about when legislating gay marriage is not taking it too far.  Legalizing gay marriage, in and of itself, means nothing to religious conservatives except to offend them.  Forcing churches and religious groups who dislike homosexuals based on religious reasons to perform gay marriage ceremonies would be too far.  Freedom of religion and all that.  Unfortunately, freedom means that others around you are free, too.  Free speech means sitting quietly by and listening to something that makes your blood boil.  But in our society, is that really a risk?  If we legalize gay marriage, will it mean an inevitable slippery slope where religions are then hated and discriminated against for their refusal to perform gay marriage ceremonies?  Will we get to the point where we force religions to perform them?  I doubt it, but it's a possiblity.  I'm in favor of legalizing gay marriage because I think it's a remote possibility and one that we can easily see and protect against.

The assertion that homosexuality is intrinsically immoral or bad seems to have three basic arguments:  religious, scientific and philosophical.  I wish to tackle all three because I think all three have logical flaws and serious problems.

First:  religious.  And when I say that, I specifically refer to Christianity.  It is by far the most prevalent religion in this country and by far the most vocal in its hatred of gays.  Since passages in the five books of the Torah (Old Testament) are cited in damning gays, I suppose one might be able to include Judaism, but I have yet to hear a serious Jewish attack on homosexuality.  It seems to be somewhat accepted these days.  My research on Islam turned up only one passage that wasn't related to the Hebrew story of Sodom and Gomorah.  This passage from the Kuran expressed a much more compassionate and forgiving view of homosexuality than most mainstream Christianity.

The first passage that most cite is 1) Genesis 1:28-"Be fruitful and multiply." and 2) Genesis 19-"Sodom and Gomorra".  Most conservatives interpret the 1:28 passage to mean that God intended for human sexuality to be strictly heterosexual for the purposes of procreation.  The Sodom and Gomorra tales are interpreted to mean that Sodom was destroyed partly because the people there wanted to take the angelic messengers and have sex with them.  The first passage (Gen. 1:28 is difficult because there is true scholarly skepticism that the creation story was genuinely Hebrew, which casts doubt on its authenticity.  Many scholars believe that recent archaeological evidence from ancient Babylon point to the fact that the Hebrew creation story was copied from a MUCH earlier version.  http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_bibg2.htm  The Sodom and Gomorrah story I think can be interpreted not as a prohibition against homosexuality, but a prohibition against non-consensual sex.  In the context of the story, it seems clear that IF Lot had offered up the angelic messengers to the mob, the mob wouldn't have cared whether or not the messengers WANTED to have sex.  They would have taken it.  So, one can interpret the story of Sodom as a warning not against homosexuality, but against rape.

The second common passages cited come from Leviticus:  18:22 and 20:13.  Both of these passages deal with the Mosaic Law and are ambiguous about whether or not they condemn merely homosexual acts or homosexual tendencies, or even just homosexual acts in a woman's bed.  Regardless, the second passage reccommends death for the sinner.  VERY few religious groups still advocate the death penalty for gays, obviously, but they still cite this passage.  The problem with these two is not just problems with interpretation, but also with the fact that much of the Mosaic Law is not treated as relevant by modern day Christians.  (Indeed, there are many sects of Judaism which eschew parts of the Mosaic Law.)  So...it's really unclear exactly how these passages relate to the modern world.

New Testament passages include 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, 1 Timothy 1:9-10 and Romans 1:26-27.  The first two can be discarded on the basis of translation problems.  The Timothy passage in particular, is said to have wrongly interpreted the literal Greek that Paul used in the passage.  The Greek word arsenokoitai  is not directly translatable to any readily available English concept.  The Corinthians passage has the same difficulty in the interpretation and translation.  Indeed, the interpretations I uncovered hinted that the word arsenokoitai  may even be meant as a boy sex slave, which would bring us back to a prohibition against rape and slavery rather than homosexuality.  The Romans passage is the only one that seems to hold directly translatable, New Testament evidence against homosexuality.  The Old Testament passages can be discarded outright because most Christians believe that the coming of Christ as the Messiah fulfilled the Mosaic Law and rendered it obsolete.  In their view, the Mosaic Law was intended as preparation for the Messiah.  One can quote Romans, and there is little, it seems, that religious skeptics and liberal Christians can say about it.  It is an oft-quoted passage in the armory of the anti-gay movement.

However, one can still discard religion just because it is unprovable.  At the end of the day, ANYONE can write something that says gays are evil.  It doesn't make it true.  Even if that person had millions of people who believed him, it doesn't mean it's true.  And as I've posted before, if you're going to use scripture or religious reasoning to affect other people's lives without their consent, you'd damn well better have some proof beyond the words.  Romans may be free of the translation and interpretation problems of the other passages, but I still maintain that it's worthless words on paper until someone can prove otherwise.

Second:  scientific.  Unfortunately, the philosophical arguments are somewhat tied up in this one, so I will treat them as being somewhat similar.  The scientific and philosophical arguments against homosexuality seem to follow several different paths.  Homosexuality has been called 'unnatural'.  Scientific evidence has been presented to indicate that the biological function of the reproductive system is simply to make more humans, which is impossible with homosexual couples.  The 'nature vs. nurture' debate is also linked to whether homosexuality is a naturally occurring phenomenon or a subconscious creation of our behavior.  There are those that claim homosexuality is a pathology of the genes or brain.

First, let's get something out of the way.  Most psychologists, regardless of whether or not they think homosexuality is linked to nature or nurture, agree that homosexuality is a permanent and unchangeable orientation of that person.  One cannot choose NOT to be gay any more than a heterosexual person can choose to BE gay.  I think social factors affect when a person admits or realizes that they ARE gay, and I think there is a small percentage of people out there who have neurological disorders severe enough to participate in the lifestyle despite a lack of interest, but I think for the most part that homosexuality is a permanent, unchanging orientation.  The cause of that orientation is still being researched, but I think the results are really beyond dispute.

'Unnatural' and the biological function of the reproductive system:  First, I wish to say I have a beef with the word 'unnatural' to begin with.  EVERYTHING is natural, people.  Cars, phosphates, pesticides and nuclear waste...they're ALL natural.  And let me explain why.  Everything that exists is the result of one of two things:  1) physical or chemical processes (i.e.-nuclear fusion in stars, chemical reactions, geology etc.) 2) the actions of living things.  If you claim that industrial pollutants and recombinant DNA in food is 'unnatural', you MUST also say that beaver dams are unnatural abominations.  You MUST say that bird's nests are unnatural.  You MUST say that termite mounds are unnatural, and so forth.  Nothing unnatural exists.  It's impossible.  Unless you claim that human beings are not natural themselves, anything we make or produce is just as natural as anything else in the world.  As for the biological evidence...you're wrong.  Anti-homosexual groups use this argument to say that the reproductive system is designed to produce more humans, which does not happen in homosexual relationships.  They also say that no evidence in the natural world for homosexuality exists.  As for the purpose of creating more humans...the biology of the reproductive system is not in doubt.  However, there have been studies done (and I WISH I could find the proof, but I can't) that indicates that there may be evidence for a genetic marker in some mammals (rats, specifically) that tends to switch on and make individuals gay.  In these experiments, when rat populations in captivity with limited room and resources reached a certain threshhold, genes within certain rats activated and tended to make them predisposed towards members of the same sex.  In evolutionary biological terms, this might seem to be a genetic fail-safe against overpopulation.  If the resources are limited, it makes sense to have individuals in a population gay so that the population doesn't decimate local resources and doom everyone.  Not only that, but the second article linked below indicates that homosexual individuals in a population may be helping to ensure the survival of the group by promoting cooperation and altriusm.

As for no evidence in the natural world...wrong.  There are gay animals.  Chimps, goats, fruit flies and penguins have all been observed in gay pairings, to name just a few.  Many have interpreted these observations as isolated incidents of pure animal lust, which might make sense.  However, scientists have also observed that penguins in particular form monogamous, long term homosexual relationships.  http://www.jrn.columbia.edu/studentwork/cns/2002-06-10/591.asp  http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/02/07/MNG3N4RAV41.DTL  Gay animals happen, people.  Why?  No one really knows yet.  But it happens. 

Now, as that second article points out, just because animals do it isn't necessarily 'carte blanche' for humans to do it, but it shoots down the argument.  Whether homosexuality is morally wrong I think should based on logic and reason.  Most of the laws we enact as human societies are intended to preserve the society and facilitate interaction.  No killing, stealing, violence and so forth.  Most morally reprehensible acts are considered so because they negatively affect fellow human beings.  Stealing, killing, lying and cheating...  If those are the criteria by which we decide which laws to enact, how would legalizing gay marriage hurt one's fellow human beings?  I propose that it doesn't.  Not in the least.  If anyone argues with that or has evidence I don't see, please let me know.

So...does it really make sense to condemn these people and deny them equal rights based on spurious logic and scriptural evidence that, to me at least, amounts to nothing more than an outdated myth?  I don't think so, and I welcome criticism and threats that I'll be damned to hell.  Bring it.  I'll shoot down any argument you bring me. 

For further reading regarding the religious passages pertaining to homosexuality, please see:  http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_bibl.htm

Let’s entertain two examples in two completely different fields that demonstrate the same principle. First: God is omniscient. He knows everything that has, is or ever will happen. He knows thoughts, prayers, dreams, desires...everything. Given this fact, God knows the choice you are going to make long before you ever actually make the choice. Chicken or fish? God knows. He knew before the Earth was created...IF He’s omniscient. Should you go left or right at this intersection? God knows. Harvard University or Yale? God knows. Everything in the universe is known to at least ONE if you believe God is omniscient. Given THAT fact (debatable as a fact, but I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt for the moment...), your fate is known to God. The way your life will end up is KNOWN to God. Will you choose the chicken or fish? God already knows which one you’re going to pick. Say God KNOWS you’re going to pick the chicken. Since that’s the case, while you’re sitting there staring at the menu, you are GOING to choose chicken. It’s not like you can suddenly choose the fish and prove God wrong, can you? Of course not. God is omniscient and can’t, by definition, be wrong. Were you really ever free to choose the fish, then? If God is omniscient, you have a fate that is already determined. There is no way around it. One can debate whether or not there was freedom in your choices, but your fate is sealed.

Example 2: A deterministic universe. Think of a tree. A giant, 100-ft tall oak tree in the middle of summer. How many leaves are on it? It would be a daunting task to count them, but I think just about anybody who reads this will agree that even if one doesn’t count the leaves, there is a definite-albeit unknown-number of leaves on the tree. Be it 3,487,571 or something else, most people would agree that there is a definite number of leaves on the tree. Moreover, everyone would agree that if you took a snapshot of the oak tree, the leaves would all be definite in their positions, color and chemical makeup. We might not ever be able to measure the exact angle, position, color and chemical makeup of each particular leaf on the tree, but most would agree that they have these properties. "The sea, at any exact time and place, has exactly a certain salinity and temperature, and every grain of sand on its shore is exactly disposed with respect to all the others." (Richard Taylor, Metaphysics, pg. 35) If one could take a snapshot of the universe at any one time, common sense would tell everyone that whether or not you KNOW everything about the universe, everything in the universe is in the exact place it’s supposed to be. Now...how did that happen? Common sense again tells us: cause and effect. Everything is the way it is right now because of a chain of causal events. You’re sitting at your computer right now because you took a definite route home from work, caused electrons from the wall socket to flow through your computer, and gave your computer a series of logical commands which led, inexorably, to this post. Causal chain. This fact is so ingrained in us, so subconscious and pervasive that it can be seen in other species of animals. Richard Taylor, in his book on metaphysics, uses the example of a dog startled by a loud noise, who jumps up and looks around for the source of the noise. Things, our bodies tell us, do not happen for no reason. If something happens, it had a cause. Period. This one bare fact has fueled science. How did the mountains get that way? Why does the Grand Canyon have horizontal stripes? It didn’t happen for no reason. How did that happen? What caused it? Whether your answer to the Grand Canyon question is geology and water erosion or ‘God willed it’, everyone has an answer for that question. The Grand Canyon being just so had a cause.

If determinism is true, which it seems to be, then the universe is a giant domino board. Everything that you observe and everything that happens was caused by something else, which was in turn caused by something else and so on...logically to the beginning. That beginning could’ve been the Big Bang, it could’ve been God willing the universe into existence (which begs the question of where God came from, but I digress) or perhaps the most unnerving possibility of all: there was no beginning. Some astrophysicists believe that the Big Bang wasn’t actually the beginning. It could’ve been just the result of a Big Crunch from a previous universe. So common experience and scientific data tell us that the universe is inevitably deterministic. Remember...even theists and religious zealots have answers to the questions about how things happened. The cause for them is just God or something supernatural. Everything still has a cause. Don’t kid yourself. Even chaos theory, which says that some systems are inherently unpredictable and appear random, are in fact deterministic at their core. A sandstorm is a chaotic mathematical system, but the scientists aren’t saying that things inside the sandstorm happen for no reason. It seems chaotic and random because it’s impossible for us, currently, to measure every single one of the factors that build up and cause the macroscopic sandstorm. It’s very difficult to ‘count’ all the ‘leaves’. But the chaos mathematicians still conceded that the individual variables within the chaotic system are inherently deterministic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory And yes, I realize Wikipedia may not be the most reliable of sources, but it’s the easiest route to something I’ve heard before. Probability states that the coin flip will be random. Determinism states that it only appears random. Determinism states that if you knew the exact conditions and variables involved (the position of the thumb, wind currents, friction coefficients on both surfaces, etc.) one would be able to predict how the coin would fall.

So the universe is a domino board. Logically, this leads to the same implication as God’s omniscience. If every choice you make is the result of a causal chain of prior thoughts or biological desires which were in turn caused by more prior thoughts (which could’ve been caused by perceptions outside your body) and so on ad nauseum back to the moment when God created the universe or the Big Bang flicked the first domino, were you really free to make that choice? The domino can’t CHOOSE not to fall. One of my favorite authors is Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy). He has a way of taking abstract philosophical principles and explaining in extremely humorous layman’s terms. Douglas Adams, in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe gave an homage to determinism when he described the ‘Total Perspective Vortex": "...since every piece of matter in the universe is in some way affected by every other piece of matter in the universe, it is in theory possible to extrapolate the whole of creation–every sun, every planet, their orbits, their composition and their economic and social history from, say, one small piece of cake." This leads to other possibilities. If some alien being were able to have perfect knowledge about all the factors and vectors and matter and energy in the universe at any one time, it might be theoretically possible to KNOW the future by extrapolating where things SHOULD be and what they SHOULD be doing five million years from now.

Of course, the other implication to all this is that you were no more FREE to choose the chicken or fish in a deterministic universe than you were in a universe where God knew you were going to pick chicken. The thought, "I think I’ll have the chicken,", in a deterministic universe, was caused by a nearly infinite string of antecedent causes. In fact, determinism leaves even less room for freedom than God’s omniscience. At least with omniscience, an abstract being’s mere KNOWLEDGE of your choice doesn’t mean you weren’t still free to make that choice. You may not be able to choose fish, but it doesn’t mean the option wasn’t open. Nothing was FORCING you to choose chicken like in determinism. I’ve heard theists use this as a proof for God, too. "Your choices ARE free, right? Then determinism can’t be right. It has to be God. God allows free agency and determinism doesn’t." The whole argument is a waste of time because 1) your ‘freedom to choose’ could very well be just an illusion and 2) it still doesn’t explain all the cause and effect that really does go on out here. And yes, determinism does not prove atheism either. You’ll never prove God didn’t flick that first domino, so shut up.

So it begs the question...is human freedom an illusion? Whether you think God is the cause of everything or science and physics is, it means unpleasant things for freedom. I truly want others’ opinions here. If anyone has any suggestions, I’m open. I WANT to believe that my choices are free, but the evidence for it is dwindling quickly.

To be sure, there are chinks in determinism’s armor. Quantum physics is perhaps the strangest and yet the most proved theory in science today. Quantum physics deals with physics at the very first building blocks of reality, on scales FAR smaller than atoms or molecules. Unlike chaos theory, which admits to deterministic but unknown factors, the quantum world seems to be TRULY random. Cause and effect seems to disappear for the most part way down there. It really all started with Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, which states that it is impossible to know both the mass and velocity of a particle at any one time. Measuring one will change the other. Perfect deterministic knowledge is impossible on the quantum level. Most logical assertions and equations in the macroscopic world have to be translated into probability equations on the quantum level. Whereas you can KNOW through measurement, mathematics and observation the exact position, velocity and mass of, say, Mars, you can NEVER know the exact position, velocity and mass of any one proton. Any quantum particle in any particular set of circumstances has a probability set and a wave function. Say it has a 95% chance of doing one thing, a 4.9%% chance of doing something else and a .1% chance of doing a third thing. It will PROBABLY do the first thing, but it might not. It’d be like throwing a bowling ball for a perfect strike with the very slim, .1% chance that the ball will just stop in front of the pins for no reason. That’s how things work on the quantum level. Causes don’t seem to work right. This raises all sorts of questions. If the basis for reality is really random, where does the cause and effect predictability of the macroscopic world happen? How do we get the ballet of orbits and gravity from a flighty electron that will just randomly teleport itself somewhere? And, can the quantum world be considered a chaotic system where we just don’t know the deterministic factors that cause quantum probability? The frustrating thing is that Heisenberg says, adamantly, that not only will we never know, it's IMPOSSIBLE for us to know.  And as for freedom, randomness is no answer to the determinism question. If the universe is NOT deterministic, then it is random (law of excluded middle). If your choice for chicken or fish was not caused by anything, then it’s random. And if it’s random, it’s not really a choice. You’re still not free, you’re just crazy.

So are we free? I don’t know. I’m leaning towards no because I can’t find a scientific, philosophical or religious explanation for how we CAN be given the above. I would truly welcome suggestions and comments. I need the help...

In the "Nichomachean Ethics", Aristotle wrote that the mean or middle ground is a good place to be. In his book, "Dark Nature: A Natural History of Evil", Lyall Watson wrote that extremes in the natural world are not good. He wrote that the ‘Goldilocks Effect’ (when things in the world are ‘just right’) is at work everywhere. Both men, who both happened to be naturalists, offer examples of this in the natural world. A star (like our sun, which fuels the furnace of life for every organism on Earth except the ones down on the volcanic sea vents) is a thermonuclear explosion held in a ‘Goldilocks Effect’ by gravity. It is a giant, gravity-controlled nuclear bomb. The weak and strong anthropic principles (too complex to make me write about here) belie underpinnings of a ‘Goldilocks Effect’. Every ecosystem on the planet is held in check by myriad different forces and maintains a quiet equilibrium. So, the middle ground or a place of equilibrium seems to be a favorable position no matter where you are. When it comes to God, I hold a staunch middle ground and will not budge except for evidence which I firmly believe will never come. I do not know if God exists. I believe in the possibility of God, because the atheists are just as up in the night, I think, as the theists.

Two events, both involving the same person, prompted this post. Tara is a woman whose intellect and convictions have garnered my respect. Although not technically my sister-in-law, I think of her that way. Just because Kayla and I aren’t married doesn’t mean I don’t love her as if we were. I read Tara’s most recent post and discovered her to be the victim of something I consider to be as heinous as hard-line conservatism: a sort of liberal fascism. She basically states that if her children turned out to be gay, she would still love them but would never be able to accept their lifestyle on moral grounds. She has received criticism for this statement. She has been called a gay hater, criticized for her willingness to condemn her children in such a way, and even been called ‘ugly’ because of it. I think this is a tragedy, and it speaks to the same fundamental problems in the opposite pole’s position. The other event was a comment Tara made to my last post. It got me thinking. She basically asks rhetorically why some people need proof of God’s existence. I think one might reasonably ask why ‘believers’ (Tara, you’re right, there aren’t really any better words, are there?) DO NOT need proof. Faith seems to fuel them, and I can’t understand why. I respect the convictions, but I don’t understand it.

I think both extremes have problems. For one, I think the people who post comments to Tara calling her a gay hater and so forth are fueled by the perception of Tara (from one sentence) as a religious zealot. This is not the case, and the problem with making that sort of snap judgement is the fact that it is a direct polar opposite of religious people categorically damning gay people for being evil. Both sides automatically slam shut the door based on tiny bits of information which does NOT give the whole picture. Both sides are so determined that their position is the ‘right’ one that dissent is not even given lip service.

So that leads me, circuitously, to proof for or against God’s existence. The gay debate, I think, hinges on God more because the arguments for or against are so religious in nature. The gay debate itself is FAR too complex to address in this post, which has a different aim. Suffice it to say that I think most people would agree...people love, tolerate or hate gays based mostly on adherence to or rejection of religious beliefs. The empirical data has led to no real conclusions yet. So the vitriolic opinions of both sides depend largely on whether or not God is up there, what He actually said or says regarding gays, and what the place of society and government is in that whole scheme of things. So...where to go from here?

It is my position that atheists and theists alike are wrong when they categorically confirm or deny God’s existence. By the very nature of the concept, it is outside the scope of scientific enquiry and human understanding. So, I am going to take what many might consider to be the epistemological ‘easy ground’. I will attempt to prove my own position by pointing out the flaws in the two opposing positions. Childish? Maybe. Unconvincing? Probably. Definitive? Certainly not. However, agnosticism, by its very nature, has nothing to prove.

Here is cusp of the argument: Atheists and theists, when they attempt to prove or disprove God, try to bring deductive closure to a strictly inductive argument, and it is NOT possible. They both make the same logical mistakes in completely opposite ways. Think about any argument you’ve heard that tries to prove or disprove God. I can all but guarantee it uses the amount of human understanding as its basis. Atheists state that we know so much about the nature of the universe and how it works that it effectively proves God doesn’t exist. Astronomy, geology, DNA and evolution prove that God had no hand in creating the Earth or mankind. Well, no. There are gaps in our understanding of those processes, and even if there weren’t, there would be no way to prove that God didn’t just create those processes and let them run on their own. Theists state that life is organized chaos which is so remarkably complex that random chance alone could NOT have created it. Well, no, again. Our understanding of the processes is incomplete. We don’t know how easy it is for the precursors to organic molecules to suddenly generate organic molecules. We don’t know the sheer number of earth-like planets out there that might increase the chances of life happening. Remember: It only has to happen once. Given infinite time, those infinite monkeys WOULD finish off Shakespeare’s literary works.

This concept...that God somehow lives or dies in the gaps in human knowledge, is an old one in metaphysics and philosophy. The ‘God of the Gaps’ always has room, no matter how small the gaps in our understanding become. In the last post, I hinted at the Copernican idea of God as the clock-maker. Scientific method and logical reasoning will ALWAYS leave room for that God. The atheists will NEVER have a leg to stand on because they are trying to disprove a concept that is, by definition again, outside the scope of scientific method or logical reasoning. God is supernatural. God is beyond us. God is divine. Quantum physics can’t PROVE anything about God. However, the theists again make the same mistake in the opposite way. Complexity, gaps in knowledge and the sublime beauty of the natural world logically don’t prove anything about God. To point at ANYTHING in the natural world and say, "There is God," is wrong. You can point at anything in the natural world and say, "It’s possible that this is God’s direct handiwork." But that’s all. It’s ONE possible explanation, and probably not the right one, given past experience.

The mistake that both sides make is a category error. They assume that the natural, empirically observable world can tell us things definitively about an entity that exists entirely outside that world. Atheists say that evidence in the natural world proves God isn’t there. No. The natural world can’t prove ANYTHING about something that 1) you claim isn’t there, or 2) might be there, but is outside the system. Theists say that evidence in the natural world proves God IS there. No. If God is the clockmaker, then he set the rules and set things in motion, and does not interact with it anymore. If God still interacts with the natural world, then there should be empirically observable TESTABLE methods to prove that interaction. Until we can see that divine finger pushing things along or interfering somewhere, you haven’t PROVED anything except that it’s POSSIBLE for God to exist. That’s it.

In the scope of logical discourse and scientific method, this is the conclusion. There is always room for God, but you will never prove that He’s there. It cannot be done. God is an unknown that people can believe in, have faith in, discard completely, or study curiously.

Tara asks rhetorically why people need proof of God’s existence. In the abstract sense, I think empirical proof of God is totally unnecessary. I do. Whether or not God exists in the abstract and whether or not people believe in God is a moot point. I have my own moral framework without God, and the atheists do, too. In a practical sense, though, proof of God’s existence is absolutely necessary. Banning gay marriage across the board for little more than religious reasons is dubious at best when one cannot prove the impetus behind the prohibition. Stopping the shipment of condoms to sub-Saharan Africa because of the belief that procreation is absolutely sacred even though these condoms could save countless lives from AIDS...I think that’s just flat-out wrong when your justification for such an action cannot be proven. God says you can’t use a condom? Where? And even if you point out the words, where is this God fellow anyway? Let him defend such a proclamation. And just as a frustrated side-note, you’ll notice that nobody ever whines and complains that medical science is saving babies and mothers from complications. Nobody ever says, "No C-sections! It’s against God’s divine plan." Hypocrisy, in my book. Proof of God’s existence is necessary if, and only if, God is going to be used as an excuse to interfere in other people’s lives without their consent. If you want to ban gay marriage or stop condom shipment, you’d better come at us with more than, "God said so," Of course, the opposite is true as well. Atheists have absolutely no right to ban private prayer in school, they have no right to bash other people hatefully for their own personal beliefs, and so on.  They can't prove the religious people are wrong, so shut up.

To end this horrifically long post: If anyone ever looks at you and SERIOUSLY tells you that they’re going to PROVE that God does or does not exist, tell them this: "Oh, so you’re going to prove to me in fifteen minutes what the best minds on the planet have failed to prove over and over again for 7000 years? I can’t wait. Although, you might want to call the news first. I imagine this is something the rest of the world will want to hear." Maybe that will keep them quiet...

I've followed the political debacle in Pennsylvania as closely as I have any news story (which is to say not very).  I find the debate fascinating, but I think I've resisted following it too closely because the whole situation makes my blood boil.  I try not to think about it.  Here's my stance, to make sure I am CRYSTAL CLEAR up front:

Evolution is not a theory.  It is a stone cold fact.  Over 150 years and mountains of empirical data should leave no doubt.  Your God is a theory.  And a flimsy one at that.

There ends, I hope, my emotional involvement in the discussion.  'Intelltigent Design', plain and simple, is not a scientific theory.  It doesn't meet the criteria.  It may find an appropriate home in sociology classes as an odd movement in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, but I think that's all it is.  To put it bluntly:  any scientific theory which follows scientific method must do a couple of things.  First, it must make predictions about the world around us.  Second, those predictions must be empirically testable using methods known to science.  Third, the results of those empirical tests must be repeatable.  ID fails on all three.  It is not science.  It's not even close.

The basic premise of ID is that the natural world (and specifically life and I would imagine even more specifically, HUMAN life) is too complex, too fine tuned and too 'just right' to be explained by random chance alone.  Concepts like 'specified complexity' and 'irreducible complexity' are introduced to try to demonstrate that the natural world is too beautifully constructed to have happened by random chance.  Proponents of ID state that since this is the case, one can infer that the natural world happened not by random chance but at the will of some intelligent causal agent.  (Google William Dembski, Michael Behe or the Discovery Institute to get a much more detailed explanation of the concept.  I won't even deign to call it a theory here.)  In a nutshell, that's it.

Evolution, on the other hand, is a theory which states that living organisms undergo gradual changes by means of natural selection.  That's it.  Until Watson and Crick discovered DNA in the 50's, nobody was even really sure of the METHOD by which organisms passed traits from one generation to the next.  But even before that fateful experiment, scientists knew that SOMEHOW it worked.

Here's the basic difference between the two:  One can infer predictions and design testable, repeatable experiments based on the theory of evolution.  For instance...scientists began to speculate that, due to evolution, it was likely that certain strains of microbes would eventually develop resistance to antibiotics.  They stated that if evolution and natural selection works the way the theory says they should, bacteria should EVENTUALLY develop resistant strains to medicines.  Here's how it works:  A population of bacteria naturally has genetic variations amongst the cells.  Mutations.  It's the method by which evolution should work, if it's right.  If one introduces an environmental factor that affects survivability (like penicillin), evolution states that those who are most fit to survive will do so and pass those genetic traits on to their offspring.  The scientists reasoned that if evolution was right, the there would eventually (over trillions of cells and minor mutations and thousands upon thousands of generations of bacteria) come a mutation which would allow a bacterium to survive penicillin.  So...they started waiting.  And guess what?  Penicillin is all but useless now because nearly all the microbes it was previously effective against have mutated into strains that penicillin does not affect.  Evolution made predictions (1) that were empirically testable (2) and repeatable (3).  Don't believe they're repeatable?  Ask any health care provider how many different antibiotics are slowly going the way of penicillin.  It's repeatable.

Intelligent Design does not make predictions.  In essence, the only thing ID does is point out gaps in our knowledge and flaws in our understanding.  It basically says that since we don't understand the processes which could have brought something into existence, it implies that there is an intelligent causal agent behind it all who is, by definition, unknowable.  It states that the intelligent designer is abstract and unknowable.  It then follows that the intelligent designer's existence (if they're unknowable) is also untestable.  By definition, then, that disqualifies ID as a scientific theory.  And when one really thinks about it, just pointing out that we happen to be dumb in some areas is not really an accomplishment.  ID gives us no tools with which to further our understanding of the world around us.  It offers no solutions, and only points out flaws.  It's not helpful, and it's not science.  Every cornerstone of ID is rife with logical flaws and grevious misunderstandings of the empirical evidence they claim actually supports their idea.

One last point:  I fail to see how the theory of evolution denies God.  It seems to me that the reason people like the idea of ID is because it gives hope that God still has a place, that their faith is not misplaced.  Why do so many people feel the need to deny evolution?  I think because it undercuts the cornerstones of their lives:  faith.  I don't think it needs to be that way.  Most people who embrace creationism or ID (creationism-LITE) do so because of a literal interpretation of the Bible, and most specifically, the book of Genesis and the creation story.  I've never understood how literal interpretation of the Bible was a good idea.  Most people (even the fundamentalist zealots) would agree that stoning adulterers is an idea whose time has passed.  But, if you take certain passages of the Bible literally, I feel you have to take it ALL literally.  If you pick and choose, I would need to see criteria for why one chooses to interpret ONE part literally and ANOTHER part symbolically.  And those criteria would need to be consistent.  I think if people are truly honest about the scripture they hold so dear, I think they'd find that the VAST majority of it is symbolic.  The creation story is a great story, don't get me wrong, but I think it was, at best, a metaphor.  That being the case, I don't see why God and evolution can't be reconciled.  To me, evolution is a sublimely elegant solution.  Its beauty and simplicity (unlike many scientific theories, like quanutm theory, most children can understand the basics of evolution) hint more at a divine power than anything ID proponents can throw at me.  Why couldn't the concepts of science be the WAY by which God created the Earth?  Why couldn't the phrase 'Let there be light' usher in the Big Bang?  Why couldn't volcanic activity be the way by which God created the seas and the air?

In the 1600's, a guy named Copernicus proved mathematically that the Earth was not the center of the universe, and nearly got killed for it.  When the theologians could no longer supress the knowledge or deny it, it was suggested that maybe God is like the ultimate clock designer.  Maybe God simply set the gears and springs in the specific way He wanted.  What if that's the case?  What if the entire universe is just God's giant domino board?  I'm agnostic and I don't know whether or not the Big Guy is up there, but I actually can't think of a more fitting tribute to God's majesty, power and omnipotence than watching the universe unfold in all its grandeur.  What if all it took to make this happen was one divine finger-flick to set the dominoes falling?  I actually think that's more impressive than the alternative.

And as a post script:  anyone who disagrees is welcome to post dissenting opinions.  ID proponents or evolution bashers are welcome to offer opinions.  But I ask this:  let them be constructive.  And don't be surprised when I systematically point out every logical flaw in your argument.  You cannot prove God exists (any more than the atheists can disprove him) and you cannot suddenly make ID legitimate science.  It cannot happen, and I would take GREAT joy in proving it to you.  Throw SETI and criminal forensics in my face.  I'll shoot it down.  Throw entropy and thermodynamics at me.  I'll show you that you don't understand the theories if you think they prove God. 

"With all thy getting, get understanding."