Your equality laws are unjust, pope tells UK before visit

From Steve Bell at the Guardian: Your equality laws are unjust, pope tells UK before visit

On Illinois

Later this week I will be flying out to Champaign, IL. So far everyone I have met from the "most average state" has been very bright and forward thinking. To ruin my illusion PZ posted this video.

Apparently gay rights and Christian rights don't mix. Guess which side is becoming oppressive to try and win the day....

Right to bare breasts?

One huge problem with society is the fact that we are all told we are equal, when we clearly aren't. Mathematics and quantum physics don't make me squeamish, but I am truly terrible at football. I see no reason why I have the right to force my way onto a football team, just as I don't think someone who is mathematically 'as thick as two short planks' should start probing the fundamental properties of the universe.

I also think that some races, on average, are better at others than certain things. Certainly some sports are dominated by people of certain ethnicities. I doubt anybody argues with that. So why would there be an uproar if anybody of sufficient importance suggested, even with evidence, that people of a certain ethnicity were, on average, terribly poor at mathematics? These abilities would be down to genetics - something that we can't change - so why not embrace them? Or at least let them guide our decision making.

Men and woman are clearly biologically different. Intellectually they may be equal, but physically men are generally stronger. There is nothing we can do about this. But what about equal rights when it comes to going bare chested in public? Should women be allowed to if they choose?

I take the line of Jessie Whitfield, it really doesn't bother me if they do. If we take equal rights to its obvious conclusion then it seems inevitable. So what is stopping women from legally being allowed to?

I bet that there is a large slice of Bronze Age values courtesy of the Old Testament thrown in somewhere! I find it hard to see why people need to be protected from breasts - people suckle from them as children, so when does it suddenly become offensive to see them?

Homosexuality and Positive Discrimination

An issue that has been in the news (reasonably) recently in this country is the decision to allow homosexual couples to adopt children. This is the current climax of various ‘gay rights’ legislation, but is, understandably, the most controversial.

Normally I have absolutely no issues with equal rights, but the issue here raises questions that go beyond the rights of minority groups (i.e. they affect the children being adopted). Now I left school in 2004, and to be perfectly honest I wouldn’t want to have been adopted by gay parents. It would be an invitation to regular bullying – even in a school that was far from the decadent inner-city comprehensives that seem to be the worry of many parents. I understand that people have different views, and I know some perfectly normally people who have been bought up (for at least part of their lives) by gay parents. I guess I’m still divided on the matter.

I was wondering the other day what would happen if a similar agenda was laid before the American public?

My biggest issue however is the way that minority groups can create their own organisations that exclude, or partially exclude, the majority. The existence of gay nightclubs for me becomes much more sinister when you consider what would happen to somebody who tried to open a heterosexual nightclub. Or what about a white police officers’ association? A male businessmans’ club?

Is this a form of positive discrimination?

At Least Make Your Mind Up

I have met so many people who somehow manage to accept not only the history of the Earth being uncovered by science, but also manage to claim to be Christians. This is pure idiocy.

If you believe that the Bible is the word of a god, and you choose to believe and follow the teachings of that god, then surely it's all or nothing? Surely you can't pick and choose?

Well, apparently you can, because what they believe to be the divine word of god they feel free to interpret however they want. The Bible says, explicitly, that god "hates" homosexual men, yet we now have "gay priests". I'm all for equal rights, but equality for homosexuals and Christianity are mutually exclusive. It says it in the book, and the book comes from god.

Similarly I was recently told that the story of Adam and Eve was meant to be metaphorical. A metaphor for what exactly? Was it taken to be metaphorical when it was first written? The only real thing that has resulted from it is widespread misogyny.

Is it possible to combine rational belief with the book of Genesis (we'll ignore the rest for now)? Of course not. You can accept reason, or accept the doctrine. Is it reasonable to expect Noah to build an ark to carry two of every animal? No, and especially not given the dimensions. Is there sufficient water on the planet to cover the near-entirety of the Earth's surface? Obviously not.

There are even people who claim to be able to reconcile the existence of dinosaurs with Genesis, even claiming that they were on the ark. The top trump is yet to come, the dating of the bones by various scientific disciplines (which all agree) are a test of faith by their god.

Isn't this just getting desperate? Isn't their sufficient evidence already to show your holy book to be at best factually flawed?

I'd argue that the case was stronger than that. The Bible claims to be the true words of god. The fact that the words are now wrong surely implies that god was wrong. For a self-declared supreme being this is tragic indeed. RIP.