Thursday, July 25, 2013

Homosexuality: Disrupting God's Soul Mates

DISCLAIMER: This post is predicated on Christian theology and is addressed to Christians.

As a Christian, one of the things that discourages me most is the large number of fellow Christians that accept, and even advocate the legalization of gay marriage. There are even some churches that refuse to marry straight couples until gay couples are allowed the same. However, a Christian that truly believes it is best to allow people to marry who they wish and that God is omniscient is severely contradicting himself and allowing himself to be "carried about with every wind of doctrine."

God's Plan


Let us begin by explaining this hypocrisy with the most rudimentary of theology. Most Christians would agree that God is omniscient--that is, He is an all-knowing God with infinite wisdom. So it follows that what God prescribes or ordains is best for us. In Genesis 1:21-25 Adam was in need of a helper; alone in the world, he had not a suitable helper to aid him in tending the Garden of Eden. For this reason, God created Eve, his helper. This was God's creation of the institution of marriage; in verse 24 it says "Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave unto his wife and they shall be one flesh." By extension, this means God has created every man a soul mate--a helper that the man shall cling unto and become one. This forms the first basic theological  point: that God has created every person a soul mate that is best for that person.

What if this soul mate happens to be of the same sex? Many Christians who advocate gay marriage no doubt fall into this same trap of ignoring that God does not make one's soul mate the same sex. Many times in the Bible (Leviticus 18:22, Romans 1:24-27, Jude 1:7, etc.) homosexuality is shown as an abomination unto God with severe consequences. Some dismiss the most explicit passage in Leviticus simply because it is in the Old Testament, however this is a moral law, not a ceremonial or cultural, which means it is still as binding today as the 10 commandments (future article to come soon.) Everywhere the practice in mentioned in God's Word it is shown as a sin. This forms the second basic theological point: that homosexuality is a sin.

Destroying Soul Mates


Given that the two points made in the last section are accepted by Christians (which is easy enough since the Bible explicitly points out both numerous times) it is easy to see why homosexuality hurts people: because it stops a person from marrying the soul mate that God designed specifically for them. Think about it, every person has someone who God made for them which, according to His plan, is the best person for them to marry--their soul mate. A person's soul mate will help, guide, and strengthen them throughout life as well as love and care for them with a deep love. However, to support homosexual marriage is to either deny that this is true (which I have shown earlier it is true) or to support someone marrying a person that isn't their soul mate and therefore isn't best for them.

Final Thoughts


As I consider Christians who support same-sex relations, I suppose they do so in an effort to help others live the best life they can and be truly loved. In short, it is compassion that moves them. However, this sentiment is expressed in contradiction to God's Word. If a Christian were truly compassionate upon a homosexual, they would teach them the Word of God, show them that God has designed a special soul mate for them and help them enter into a biblical and godly marriage. By supporting traditional marriage, a Christian supports the idea that the soul mate which God has created for a person is the best spouse for him/her. If you know a Christian that supports gay marriage, please share this article with them and help guide them on a path of biblical truth in love. Also, to those who say homosexuality is permanent, I would encourage you to watch the following testimony. 

Sunday, July 21, 2013

What is Open Mindedness?

Open mindedness seems to be the all-important virtue for our society today: those who have mastered it are treated as intellectual geniuses who have evolved beyond themselves to embrace the world, and those who do not are treated as imbeciles unable to participate in any form of intelligent discussion. However, even with our obsession over this virtue, many people are unable to grasp what it means or practice it--including those who hail it as the chief political virtue.

Open Mindedness Predicated on Humility


In order to be open minded you must be willing to change your currently held ideas and beliefs if sufficient evidence has convinced you the opposite to be true. This should be a rather common sense practice: once you're proven wrong you change your opinion to coincide with the truth. However, to do this, one must accept that they are in error, something which only the humble can easily do. It is for this reason that open mindedness, and the ability to earnestly seek the truth is predicated on humility, yet this same humility is lacking in most of society today--especially those who boast that they are experts or more intelligent.

A Conservatives Best Debate Tool


Open mindedness is a great tool to use in debates with liberals. It usually tends to be a liberals that pride themselves on open mindedness and tolerance, yet when they are faced with opposing political opinions they quickly deny their legitimacy with any number of insults (eg racist, homophobe, Bible-thumper, etc.) However, this can be used to a conservative's advantage with a simple question:

Do you consider yourself open minded?

The most likely answer is "yes" to which one should reply "Open minded enough to consider my thoughts? Good. Then ...." and proceed with the argument. This is not only useful only for presenting the argument in a fair manner, but also instrumental in concessions. Because the majority of conservative ideologies (if not all) are based on simple truths, and logical premises and conclusions, open mindedness can be used to gain a concession. After the arguments have been presented and you've justified your position with statistics, logic, and science, the other person will either agree that you are correct and leave knowing the truth, or they will insist that their fallacious ideas are correct. To which you may simply reply:

You told me you were open minded. I've shown you how (my argument) is correct with reasonable, logical conclusions drawn from reasonable premises. If you really are open minded why won't you concede that your argument doesn't hold up under inspection?

This is of course only a rough template, but the idea is the same. Expose their hypocrisy in hailing a virtue they do not possess. Even if they never do concede, those who watch your debate or listen in will understand that yours is the more level headed and logical argument.

Final Thoughts


Open mindedness, at least for some people, is a virtue they praise but do not truly understand or hold. When you use it as a tool to expose the truth, nobody who holds truthful ideas or positions will ever fear it. It is only those whose pride and hubris does not allow them to be wrong that cannot accept this virtue and these people will always drift through life always believing lies and fallacious arguments.

Sunday, June 30, 2013

Even Dollars

Today's society seems to be dominated by ideas of efficiency, and rightly so: the most efficient methods of using time or resources lead in the end to a more profitable endeavor. With such a premium placed on this virtue of the modern era, it is surprising to see that one of the most mundane aspects of life, paying for goods, is also one of the most wasteful and inefficient aspects of our society. However, the solution is simply and easily implemented: include tax in the price of goods (like gasoline) and set the price to even dollar amounts.

Why the Current System is Flawed 

Go to the average supermarket and purchase a single item; perhaps a book for $4.99. The sales tax of your state is 8.875%. You clearly have no idea how much money you owe until you've checked out, and even then one must receive a number of small coins in change. This scenario illustrates two of the most inefficient and easily fixable aspects of added sales tax: namely the inability to ready exact change if one must pay with cash as well as the existence of change which is detrimental to the company and the individual.

Supermarket Traffic Jam


Let's take them one at a time. First the exact change. Although there are fewer people who pay exclusively by cash today, there are large populations that prefer this classic payment method. However, time is wasted by counting out cash that could have been readied before hand if the price were known. Although the amount of time it adds to a single transaction may be negligible (15 or 20 second) the time quickly adds up when a line of customers wishes to pay for their goods until the amount of time wasted is minutes. The same phenomenon happens in traffic jams: a single car slows down and the car behind it slows down too, going ever so slightly slower. Eventually the chain continues until the freeway is at a standstill without any cause except the magnification of small changes in speed. In such a way check out lines become horribly inefficient and slow means of paying for goods when every transaction takes longer than necessary thereby wasting the time of the cashier as well as every person in line.

Coins are Leeches


When a large supermarket has coins and bills delivered by an armored car, a fee is added according to the weight of the money transported. This is ultimately the reason that dollar coins, although more efficient for a country, are less efficient for a business since they weigh more than a bill and therefore cost more to transport. Since storing and transporting coins costs money, it should then be questioned how to either eliminate or restrict the amount of coins that are handled.

Enter the even dollar method.

Since all goods already have taxes included in this system, a cartload of groceries may cost $214.00. This is an exact number, one that can be paid in all bills. When all customers orders ring up as even dollar amounts the need for pennies, nickels and dimes to give exact change is eliminated which means the store does not have to waste as much money transporting and storing change.

Final Thoughts


Although changing the current system would be complex and involve cooperation between manufacturers and stores in complex agreements over price, in the end including tax in goods saves the public and stores time and money. Of course, I'm not the first one to ever propose the idea: England already includes taxes in the price of goods. In the end, the stores that employ this method will not only gain a competitive edge over other stores by saving time and money, but will draw a larger customer base due to convenience. I understand this is a complex and very involved issue, but the ideas behind it are sound: they only need implemented.

Let me know what you think: do you own a store or business? Could you implement this system? Does it sound feasible for your purposes? Leave a comment below!

Friday, June 28, 2013

Is Homosexuality a Choice?

"You can't say gay couples shouldn't be married, after all, they are born that way." is one of the most common arguments for gay "marriage." The idea is if the public is convinced that homosexuality is innate  and not a choice, then the public as a whole will become more accepting of homosexuality and gay marriage. However, this argument has no scientific support and indeed, neurology may provide an explanation of how homosexuality is indeed a choice.

Hasn't it Been Proven to be Genetic?


The short answer is no--there has never been any biologic or genetic explanation for homosexuality. In fact, Colombia University professors Dr. Byrne and Parsons explain that there "Is no evidence at present to substantiate a biological theory. [T]he appeal of current biological explanations for sexual orientation may derive more from dissatisfaction with the present status of psychosocial explanations than from a substantiating body of experimental data." Quite simply, there is absolutely no experimental or observational evidence that homosexuality is genetic. In fact, there is much more evidence that it is due to psychological conditions or the persons own free will. This would indeed explain the large number of ex-gay persons who become heterosexual after a religious experience.

So, Why Are They Gay?

Although there are a number of theories, none of which have been tested, I personally hold one to be most likely: namely, that homosexuality is a result of a neural plastic connections favoring homosexual behavior being strengthened by active stimulus. This is simply a smarter way to say that when a person's reward centers in the brain are triggered during sexually deviant acts (such as homosexuality) a connection between homosexuality and rewards builds. Perhaps this short video can explain better than I the mechanism by which I purpose homosexuality is derived.


Simply replace the porn addiction with homosexuality and its a pretty concise and intuitive reason for homosexuality. However, what is most interesting about the video was the part at the end. Specifically when the narrator said that porn addiction can be overcome by actively blocking the stimulus. Which brings me to my final point.

Ex-Gays: Evidence Against Innate Homosexuality


There exists large populations of people who, having been homosexual for long periods of time, decide to no longer be homosexual. Many reasons exist for their wishing to leave the homosexual lifestyle, but the most prevalent ones are internal--not dictated by societal pressure as shown here. This includes spiritual as well as emotional reasons. Pretty simply, if homosexuality truly was innate, something one is born with like left handedness, then there should be virtually no people leaving homosexuality. However, large numbers of people do, which strongly indicates that heterosexuality is the default for all people.

Why It Matters


One of the ways that homosexual activists plan on integrating their perversion into the public and achieving their goal of marriage redefinition is by swaying public opinion. One of the easiest ways to do this is by constructing the image of an oppressed people who are unfairly treated due to no fault of their own. Simply put, they want to victimize themselves so the average American will emotionally support their agenda. However, this method can only work if it appears they have no control over their oppression, ie. born that way. By perpetuating the lie that homosexuality isn't a choice, their propaganda is strengthened and their goals are even nearer. So what, dear reader, may you do to stop this? Share the truth: simply explain why homosexuality is a choice and educate the public. In due time the truth shall surface and their foot shall slide; but we can help it along. 

Sunday, June 9, 2013

When Does Life Begin?

Pro choice advocates never fail to explain that there is no way to know for sure when life begins and that the answer is purely philosophical: only able to be answered by religion which, they are quick to point out, has no place in government. However, this somewhat logical sounding conjecture is based upon a faulty premise: that there is no way to determine when life begins, when in fact there is a simple and quite clear answer from science, namely, that life does indeed begin at conception.

Biology and Life


Biology, after all, is the study of life, so biologist have determined 7 criteria that all life meets. Although not a perfect model, it does work for all known life including humans. These 7 criteria are:

  1. Homeostasis
  2. Organization
  3. Metabolism
  4. Growth
  5. Adaptation
  6. Response to Stimuli
  7. Reproduction
By definition, if something meets all 7 of these criteria, then it is alive. This is the way scientists can logically classify viruses as not alive and bacteria as alive. However, when these seven criteria are applied to the zygote (fertilized egg) it becomes clear that it is indeed alive simply because it meets all 7 criteria. 
The only place this is not considered alive is
in the philosophy of a pro-choice advocate. 

What About Sperm and Eggs?


When applying science to the issue of abortion, pro choice advocates immediately argue that sperm and eggs are alive too, so to say purposefully aborting a zygote is murder is akin to saying menstruating is murder as well. However, this is a glaring example of a reductio ab adsurdum fallacy. Sperm and eggs are alive, but they are part of the person that produces them simply because they have the exact same copy of DNA as the man or woman. However, since a zygote contains unique DNA, it is clearly not part of the woman or the man, but instead a new individual. Since the zygote contains DNA that differs from the mother or father, is biologically, scientifically and medically alive, and abortion terminates the viability of the zygote, abortion is therefore murder to any logical mind.

A Final Thought


In arguing against abortion, many pro choice advocates who hear this argument simply reply "All those arguments have been dismissed by the courts a long time ago. If it's not illegal then they must have thought about that and saw its all right." This, however, is putting a large amount of blind faith into an imperfect court system. After all the courts at one time argued that slaves were subhuman and since they weren't people they didn't deserve the same rights as white men (Dred Scott v. Sanford.) Today this is seen as a glaringly racist statement and is condemned as such. In such a manner, the abortion of children on the basis that they are not people and don't deserve the same rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as everyone else will eventually be seen as an infanticidal decision and Roe v. Wade will one day be overturned. 

Of course, there are a number of logistical problems with completely outlawing abortion, but if done in incremental steps with appropriate infrastructure for the placement of unwanted babies in caring homes, this crime against humanity can be eliminated.