I just became aware of another referendum related to same-sex partnerships, this one in Washington State.  In May 2009 Washington’s legislature approved a bill that expanded the rights of domestic partners to include all the same rights as married couples, lacking only the name “marriage.”  Again, this was put to the voters as a referendum, and the citizens said, “Yes.”  The final vote was 51% to 49%. 

I find it interesting that those who supported the referendum to expand domestic partnership rights, raised nearly 1.1 million dollars for their efforts.  Those who opposed the referendum, however, only raised $60,000.  And yet still, the vote was within 2% points.

Once again, when the question of same-sex marriage is put to the voters, the voters say “No” (the 31^st time).  Last spring, Maine’s legislature passed a law making same-sex marriage legal in that state.  The law was stayed, however, until the people had a chance to vote on it yesterday.  And they said no, but not by much (53%).

Very cool.  Use the scroll button beneath the picture to zoom in.

HT: William Dembski

It’s common to hear people say Christians are biased, not objective.  How can we respond to this charge?  J.P. Moreland makes a distinction that I find helpful.  He notes that there are two ways to be objective: (1) psychological objectivity: the absence of bias (2) rational objectivity: the ability to tell the difference between good and bad reasons for a belief, whether or not you accept that belief.^[1]

Humans are psychologically objective (50/50) only in areas we know nothing, or care nothing about.  Once we come to know something about a topic we typically go from being psychologically objective to psychologically biased, even if the degree of our bias is minimal.  Such bias is to be expected, and is good.  After all, what would be the use of studying out an issue/topic if after having studied it you could not draw a conclusion?  We should expect informed people to be psychologically biased.

But does the presence of psychological bias eliminate the possibility of being rationally objective?  Are we locked into our own culturally relevant way of viewing the world?  Is reason and argumentation useless for the person who is no longer psychologically objective?  No.  We all know this to be true because we have all had experiences in which we changed our beliefs on an issue because they were challenged by good arguments.  It should be clear, then, that our psychological bias (lack of psychological objectivity) does not eliminate our ability to be rationally objective.  Postmodernists understand this.  That’s why they try to reason with the modernists to change their worldview, while at the same time denying the validity of reason and argumentation!

[1]J.P. Moreland, “Truth, Contemporary Philosophy, and the Postmodern Turn,” a paper presented at the November 2004 Evangelical Theological Society meeting in San Antonio, TX.

I found the following statistics from the Marriage Index quite interesting:

• In 1970, 78.6 percent of adults age 20-54 were married. In 2008, it dropped to 57.2 percent
• In 1970, 77.4 percent of first marriages were intact, but only 61.2 percent were intact in 2007
• Today, only 60.3 percent of all babies are born to married couples, compared to 89.3 percent in 1970.
• Half of all children born to cohabiting couples see those unions end by age five.
• In 1970, 68.7 percent of all children lived with their own mother and father. In 2007, that percentage had dropped to 61.

HT: Al Mohler

If I were a bumper-sticker manufacturer “fear error, not terror” would be my next product.

I was thinking this morning about all the things people tend to fear in this world.  People fear local thieves and robbers, rapists and murderers.  We fear for our financial future (or present in many cases).  We worry about our relationships with other people, and the well-being of our loved ones.  We fear terrorist attacks on this nation.  But how often is it that we fear error?

I am bothered by the moral evil that runs rampant in our day.  I am concerned for personal, relational, and national safety.  But there is nothing I fear more than error.  I’m not referring to some sort of emotional fear that grips my heart, but an intellectual fear that grips my mind.  I am always cognizant of the existence of truth and error, and do my best to maximize true beliefs and minimize false beliefs.  Why?  Because nothing matters more in this world than the truth.  Nothing has greater power than truth, but likewise nothing can be more damaging than belief in that which is false.  You may live your whole life untouched by the egregious evils that occur in society, but if you embrace false ideas the consequences will be far worse than any terrorist attack.

The simple truth of life is that beliefs have consequences.  True beliefs have good consequences for both this life and the life to come; false beliefs have bad consequences for both this life and the life to come.  That’s why I am so concerned with false doctrine in the church.  If God is one way yet we think He is another, the results could be disastrous.  If the kingdom of God works in one manner and yet we think it works in another, some of our kingdom-efforts may be counter-productive or even spiritually dangerous for both ourselves and others.

Reality is not what we make of it.  Reality is what it is independent of what we think about it.  That’s why it’s so important that what we believe about reality actually matches up with reality.  The only way to ensure this is by continuing to develop the life of the mind.  We must continue to grow in knowledge and understanding, adding new knowledge to existing knowledge, and allowing new information to refine our current ideas about what is true and false.

We cannot be lackadaisical toward issues of truth.  We should not allow people to communicate error without being challenged.  Why?  Is it because we want to be nitpicky and contentious?  No.  It’s because too much is on the line.  We would never allow someone to believe that crack is good for the body without challenging that belief, so why do we think it’s ok (and even preferable) to allow someone to believe false religious ideas without challenging them about those beliefs in a loving way?  Their spiritual life may be on the line, and if they are in a position of teaching authority they may be endangering others’ as well.

My mind is the gateway to my soul, just like my mouth is the gateway to my body.  I wouldn’t think of eating poisoned food, and neither will I carelessly digest poisoned ideas.  There is a plethora of truth-claims in the world, many of which are religious, and the majority of which are false.  And the last I checked our churches do not have error-proof walls, and our people are not infallible.  That means at least some false ideas can be found within our own churches, and in our own minds (including my own).  If poisoned ideas are floating all around us we ought to be extremely cautious about which claims we accept as true.  That’s why we need to be careful in our thinking, and critical of both old and new ideas.  He who is easily persuaded to believe one thing is often easily persuaded to believe something to the contrary as well.  That’s why I regularly tell people not to believe what I say simply because I say it.  I want them to raise their best objections against my view.  I want them to study out contrary opinions.  I want them to challenge me.  Why?  Because that’s the best guarantee that we will arrive at truth, and the best way to be confident that what we believe is true is actually true.

We shouldn’t get upset when our ideas are questioned or challenged by a thoughtful dissenter.  It’s an opportunity for us to reconsider our own belief system—to reevaluate whether or not it corresponds to reality.  If it does, then we have the opportunity to help someone else dispel a false belief and acquire a true one.  If it does not, then we gained the opportunity to grow in knowledge of the truth.  Either way we are winners!

So fear error, not terror.

CIRM is the CA agency that oversees the distribution of 3 billion dollars for stem cell research in CA.  The agency was created by constitutional amendment via a ballot initiative in the 2004 election.  From its inception, it has directed most of its energies and funds to promoting embryonic stem cell research (ESCR).  It seems, however, that they have finally caught on to the fact that ESCR is not the most promising area of stem cell research.  Of the $230 million in grants awarded to 14 institutions yesterday, 10 of them were for adult stem cell research (ASCR).  Good.

HT: Wesley Smith

Darwinian evolution entails more than just the concept of one species changing into another over a long period of time.  It involves a fully naturalistic process: natural selection working on random genetic mutations, genetic drift, etc.  If Darwin’s theory of evolution is scientifically sound—meaning the naturalistic processes it invokes are fully capable of producing life and all of its many variegates—then adding God to the equation is superfluous.  It would be like providing a scientific account of water boiling by saying water will boil at time t1 when X amount of heat is applied to Y amount of water at Z altitude, but then adding that fairies are also involved in the process.  If naturalistic processes are adequate to explain why water boils, then not only is there no need for the fairy hypothesis, but there is no room for it.  The same is true of Darwin’s theory of evolution.  If the theory is scientifically sound, and naturalistic processes can fully account for all of life, then there is no need for, and no room to fit God into the picture.  In other words, if Darwin’s theory is scientifically sound, positing a theistic form of evolution is superfluous.

One might say, however, that naturalistic processes are not fully adequate to account for all of life, and this is why one must add God to the equation to make it work.  To make such a claim, however, is to admit that the scientific theory itself is not sound on its own.  It requires some outside supernatural force to patch it up.  Here’s the rub: If Darwin’s theory of evolution is not adequate in itself to explain the data, why should we feel compelled to fit theism into the picture?  Let’s face it, the only reason a theist would postulate a theistic form of evolution is if he was convinced that the evidence for evolution was so compelling that intellectual honesty demands that he reconcile the scientific evidence with his theistic belief.  But if Darwin’s theory of evolution lacks the evidence necessary to make it a sound scientific fact, what compelling reason is there to reconcile the theory with theism?  If Darwin’s theory is not sound in itself, it doesn’t need God to shore it up.

For further reading see my article titled “Theistic Evolution: The Illegitimate Marriage of Theism and Evolution”

I’ve come to learn that while money cannot buy happiness, a lack of money can purchase a lot of misery.

I’m late to the game on this one, but I just discovered some great statistical information regarding changes in the religious identity of Americans between 1990 and 2008, as well as a great interactive online chart visually displaying the information.  Here is some of the most pertinent information:

• Those who claim to have no religious affiliation (called “Nones”) have grown in every state since 1990. 
• The west and northeast coasts dominate the no religion category.  VT comes in 1^st with 34%.  CA ranks 15^th with 18%.  MI ranks last with 5%. 
• Non-Christian religions have grown in all but 6 states since 1990. 
• Protestants have diminished in all but 4 states. 
• Catholics have diminished in all but 20 states. 
• Catholics have increased in CA from 27% in 1990 to 38% in 2008. 
• The northeast has the highest percentage of Catholics (RI has 46%).  CA ranks 5^th with 38%.  AL ranks last with 6%. 
• The south is mostly Protestant (AL has 80%).  CA ranks 45^th with 35%.  MA ranks last with 26%. 
• CT has the most non-Christian religious adherents (8%).  CA ranks 6^th with 5%.  Wyoming ranks last with 1%. 
• For those who simply don’t know what to say their religious identity is, OR comes in 1^st place with 7% (compared to 2% in 1990), and DE last with 2% (in 1990 they were ranked 1^st with 6%).  CA has 5%.

The beliefs of Nones was broken down further:

• 51% believe in a deity of some sort
• ~24% believe in a non-personal God
• ~27% believe in a personal God
• ~36% are agnostic (~19% hard agnostics, ~17% soft agnostics)
• ~7% are atheist
• 22% of 18-29 year old are Nones