MattiasLehman's blog

A comon argument I hear agianst gay marriage is that it would take away the sanctity and meaning of marriage. Now first of all, what are the sanctity and meaning of marriage? The question of something losing sanctity because of something someone ELSE does is kinda ridiculous. That prospect is about as ridiculous as the idea of bowling being ruined by left-handed people for those of us who are right-handed. Just because other people do things in a slightly different way has no effect on you. For example, let us imagine a species on a far away planet, or a culture on an isolated island had or has gay marriage. Does this have an effect on straight marriages? If it does, one must swonder from where that effect comes. If it doesn't, that proves that it is simply the opinions of the people in question which taint their experiences.  Read More »

Orthodox Judaism requires that you not do any work outside of your 'home' on the Sabbath. So on Venice, they want to string wire around a section of the city, to allow people to leave their homes. Now I'm sorry, but two things. First of all, does anyone really think that fools god? By that logic, you could consider the satellites around the Earth to set up an 'enclosure' and thereby, end the sabbath. A wire is not a physical home, it only symbolizes a conceptual enclosure. Could not a 'conceptual enclosure' simply be mental, or abstract? Regardless, we ought not be altering things simply due to the religious compulsions of a few, OR many.  Read More »

Often, I hear people claim that they are 'Agnostic'. This is a misnomer, due to misunderstanding of Agnosticism. What such people mean to claim, is that they are weak atheists, or negative atheists, who lack belief in god. Such a description applies to babies, or people who have never heard of the idea of a god. Some would argue that it applies to people who simply don't know what they believe yet. However, not knowing implies a lack of conviction. A belief is a conviction in something's truth. If they lack that conviction in the existence of god, that means that they are at least an implicit atheist. Furthermore, that claim of simply lacking a belief in a god, does not take somewhat of a middle ground. The fact that they lack belief in all gods they know of, means that they have rejected all the gods possible, which is a position of strong atheism, or disbelief, at least of all gods they know of. Therefore, all people who have no specific belief in god are strong atheists, at least towards the deities they know of. Thus, the only people who are complete weak atheists are babies, or people with no knowledge of any supposed deities.  Read More »

You've got to wonder, how long will it be until people realize that perhaps there's a chance that their so-called 'moral' authorities are SLIGHTLY short of perfect. Yet another scandal in the news, this time, over Ted Haggard, evangelical, and founder and pastor(not anymore) of the New Life Church in Colorado. Ted Haggard was adamant on his position towards gays. He did not treat it as a debate, he said quite succinctly in the movie Jesus Camp that he knew what was the correct opinion, as it was written in the bible. After an discussion of evolution with esteemed scientist Richard Dawkins, he allegedly threatened legal action and accused Dawkins of calling his children animals. One wonders if this is such a harsh thing, regardless of its truth. After all, homo sapiens sapiens, as a species, falls under 'animalia'. What else would be more proper? There are five kingdoms: animalia, monera, protista, fungi, plantae. In fact, were he not to concede the fact that his children indeed, were animals. To say otherwise would be to concede that they were either fungus, bacteria, algae or plants. THAT would be the real insult. Of course, such a religious man, assured that evolution is false, firmly against gay marriage, and unquestionably considering homosexuality to be wrong, of COURSE, this man is now discovered as having had a relationship(cemented around crystal meth, often known as the sex drug) with a male prostitute. Relationship, in these circumstances, surely does not mean they met for tea every other weekend. But what is the pious Pastor Haggard's first response? To lie about it. I'm not sure if he was going for the gusto deal, but on top of the apparant moral wrong he had earlier preached on, we pile crystal meth, and the breaking of 3 commandments(lying, adultery, and covetting:  you show me a crystal meth user who doesn't want crystal meth, regardless of WHOSE it is). Not only this, but the first person to come forth truthfully about the affair is a crystal meth using prostitute. I'm not exactly a professional in matters of religion, but I don't think an evangelical 'man of god' should be ceding the moral high ground to well... anyone, let alone a crystal meth using prostitute.  Read More »