It’s a man’s world and it always will be
Infamous feminist author Camille Paglia’s opening statement in a recent debate about whether men are obsolete:
If men are obsolete, then women will soon be extinct—unless we rush down that ominous Brave New World path where females will clone themselves by parthenogenesis, as famously do Komodo dragons, hammerhead sharks, and pit vipers.
A peevish, grudging rancor against men has been one of the most unpalatable and unjust features of second- and third-wave feminism. Men’s faults, failings and foibles have been seized on and magnified into gruesome bills of indictment. Ideologue professors at our leading universities indoctrinate impressionable undergraduates with carelessly fact-free theories alleging that gender is an arbitrary, oppressive fiction with no basis in biology.
I wondered if Al Mohler had written her speech, especially when I came to this bit:
When an educated culture routinely denigrates masculinity and manhood, then women will be perpetually stuck with boys, who have no incentive to mature or to honor their commitments. And without strong men as models to either embrace or (for dissident lesbians) to resist, women will never attain a centered and profound sense of themselves as women.
Read the rest of this astonishing turnaround here. It’s about on the same level as Bill Clinton campaigning for abstinence. It’s just a pity that so much damage is done to our culture along the way as progressives experiment with their latest theories. I can imagine many similar public reversals regarding homosexuality in 10-15 years, if our culture survives that long.
6 Surprising Scientific Findings About Good and Evil
Evolutionary theory has always struggled to come up with an objective basis for morality. The latest attempt by Harvard’s Joshua Greene argues:
- Evolution gave us morality—as a default setting. One central finding of modern morality research is that humans, like other social animals, naturally feel emotions, such as empathy and gratitude, that are crucial to group functioning. These feelings make it easy for us to be good.
- Gossip is our moral scorecard. Greene suggests that a primary way that enforce morality is through gossip. He cites the anthropologist Robin Dunbar, who found that two-thirds of human conversations involve chattering about other people, including spreading word of who’s behaving well and who’s behaving badly. Thus do we impose serious costs on those who commit anti-social behavior.
- Humanity may, objectively, be becoming more moral. Green is pretty optimistic about humanity. He says it’s far easier now than it ever was to be aware that your moral obligations don’t end where your small group ends. We’re just more conscious, in general, of what is happening to people very distant from us. What’s more, intergroup violence seems to be on the decline. Here Greene cites the recent work of his Harvard colleague Steven Pinker, who has documented a long-term decline of violence across the world in modern times.
And if your eyebrows are arching ever higher as you read this - It’s easy to be good? We’re moral by default? Gossip is our judge? We’re getting better and better every day and in every way? – you’ll be relieved to know that this “scientific” research is solidly grounded upon games in labs!
What a relief to have the Word of God that explains the source of morality, makes God the judge of it (let me fall into the hands of God and not into the hands of men), and that reveals the only way to become more moral begins with admitting our immorality (1 John 1:9).
Religion Without God
In a ruling that recognized the Church of Scientology as a religion in the UK, Lord Toulson, Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, said: ”Religion should not be confined to religions which recognize a supreme deity…”
The atheist writing this article sees a significant turning point here, though not going far enough:
What this means more broadly is that the tired old Protestant-inflected definitions of “religion” are losing hold in diverse Western nations. And it’s about time. Religion can no longer be seen as a “set of beliefs in God,” as conventional wisdom might put it. A global, plural view of religion must rid itself of emphasis on both “belief” and “God.” Religion refers to behaviors and practices as much as, and often more than, belief.
“Religion is simply doing the same things together.” Not only does it not require belief in God (Toulson), it doesn’t require any belief at all!
Do you shovel snow with your neighbor? You have a religion. Play tennis with a colleague? File for 501c.
Religion in America’s States and Counties
Click through to see a red v blue map with a difference. This time it’s Southern Baptist (red) v Roman Catholic (blue), the two largest “denominations” in the USA. Other interesting stats:
- Some 21 states are requiring insurers under the federal health-care law to provide exemptions from contraception coverage for employers that object on religious or other grounds. And 13 states in recent years have banned abortions past 20 weeks.
- Islam is the largest non-Christian religion in the nation, claiming 20 states scattered mostly throughout the Midwest and South. In the West, Buddhism is the largest non-Christian religion in 13 states. Judaism is the largest non-Christian religion in 15 states, mostly in the Northeast. Hinduism reigns in two—Delaware and Arizona. And the Baha’i claim South Carolina.
- Counties in many Western states and some New England states have high diversity, while there are pockets of low diversity throughout the middle of the country, Utah and the South.
- Religious participation was highest in Utah, the Midwest and parts of the South reign supreme. Religious participation was lowest in California’s Alpine County (4.3 percent), Hawaii’s Kalawao County (3.3 percent) and Nevada’s Esmeralda County (3.1 percent).
- The numbers of congregations per 10,000 people were lowest in New York’s Bronx and Richmond counties, Michigan’s Macomb County and Nevada’s Clark County, where there were only four congregations—defined as regular religious group meetings—per 10,000 people.
Statistics come from the “2010 U.S. Religion Census: Religious Congregations & Membership Study,” an every-decade research effort sponsored by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies, which gathers statistics for religious groups or scholars interested in such.