I will comment soon on the Connecticut decision, but first a more amusing judicial action. A state court trial judge in Nebraska has dismissed a lawsuit against God for lack of service of process. The atheist-plaintiff, bless him, gave it a pretty good go. His very creative argument ran thus: God is invoked during court hearings and before legislative assemblies. These are facts of which the court can take judicial notice, and which demonstrate that God is omnipresent. Because God is omnipresent, service of papers on him anywhere is effective.
It's a pretty good argument, actually. If only the theist had studied a little theology, he would know that God is spirit, and therefore has no hands (as we conceive of them) with which to receive process papers. Perhaps the atheist will next argue for an exception based on special circumstances resulting from God's disability.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Friday, October 10, 2008
Connecticut creates same-sex marriage
Of course I will comment on the Kerrigan decision, handed down in Connecticut today, when time permits. I am swamped at the moment, grading mid-terms and trying to meet a publication deadline for a scholarly article. In the meantime, enjoy the much-deserved ridicule that the scholars at Bench Memos are heaping on the decision.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Just another Wallisian Christian celeb?
First, Jim Wallis tried to make it okay for Christians to vote for a pro-abortion candidate. Then Brian McLaren followed suit. These two paved the way for the inevitable: an evangelical celebrity who would go the whole nine yards and endorse Barack Obama.
Meet Donald Miller. Apparently Miller's claim to fame is a book that he authored, entitled Blue Like Jazz. I've heard rave reviews of the book but have not read it; there's too much great literature out there and so little time to spend on fads. Miller is using his fame to campaign for Barack Obama. Like other Christians who have recently announced their support for Obama, he wants to treat abortion like a traffic management issue and marriage like a civil rights issue. And he has some absurd notions about law and the Supreme Court. All this proves is that he has never given a moment's reflection or study to moral, legal, or political philosophy. But young Christians are listening attentively and taking his assertions very, very seriously.
I am sure that Miller's heart is in the right place. And he is right to support male mentorship and assistance to the poor and suffering. (It is interesting to note, however, that conservative Christians have been championing and furthering these causes for decades without fanfare or self-aggrandizement.) Good on him for motivating young Christians to good deeds. But before opining on policy, law, and morality, he would do well to read a book or two on the subjects.
Meet Donald Miller. Apparently Miller's claim to fame is a book that he authored, entitled Blue Like Jazz. I've heard rave reviews of the book but have not read it; there's too much great literature out there and so little time to spend on fads. Miller is using his fame to campaign for Barack Obama. Like other Christians who have recently announced their support for Obama, he wants to treat abortion like a traffic management issue and marriage like a civil rights issue. And he has some absurd notions about law and the Supreme Court. All this proves is that he has never given a moment's reflection or study to moral, legal, or political philosophy. But young Christians are listening attentively and taking his assertions very, very seriously.
I am sure that Miller's heart is in the right place. And he is right to support male mentorship and assistance to the poor and suffering. (It is interesting to note, however, that conservative Christians have been championing and furthering these causes for decades without fanfare or self-aggrandizement.) Good on him for motivating young Christians to good deeds. But before opining on policy, law, and morality, he would do well to read a book or two on the subjects.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Another Catholic falls for it
What is it about Obama that induces once-reasonable Christian intellectuals to check their reason at the door? Nicholas Cafardi joins Doug Kmiec in endorsing Barack Obama for President.
Cafardi's justification falls far short of reasoning. It is full of fudges, contradictions, plays on words, and outright prevarications. He’s wrong to suggest that the abortion battle is lost. And he's irrational to adopt a consequentialist justification for his position. The issue is not one of reducing the total number of abortions, as if abortion policy were somehow comparable to traffic management. Even assuming what is manifestly not true, namely that Obama's proposed policies would reduce the number of abortions in America, encouraging others to vote for Obama is immoral. The issue with abortion in this country is that a tyrannical judiciary compels the participation of the American people in a grave moral wrong. Cafardi is enabling that evil.
Cafardi vastly overstates his case on torture; McCain publicly and emphatically opposes torture, and no reasonable person believes that all enhanced interrogation techniques amount to torture. Reasonable people can disagree about the justness of the Iraq War, and it is telling that the Pope has not spoken out against American activity in Iraq since becoming Pope. And to call “ignoring the poor” an intrinsic evil is not to make an argument but rather to slander one’s intellectual opponents.
The problem is that many people are going to reason: If Kmiec and Cafardi support Obama, it must be reasonable for a Christian to do so. This is the stuff that really gets my goat. I have no problem with hearing and reading these arguments from my secular friends. To get it from a Christian brother is just galling.
UPDATE: A very thoughtful colleague challenges my reasoning here. Given that McCain is not opposed to embryonic-destruction research and is arguably opposed to abortion not in principle but rather as a matter of political expedience, isn't a vote for McCain immoral in the same way as a vote for Obama? I respond in two parts.
First, I am not really voting for McCain, I am voting against Obama. That is a distinction with moral significance. My moral obligation is to avoid being complicit in the perpetuation of a grave moral evil. A vote for Obama certainly entails that complicity. A vote for McCain (as compared with, say, a vote for a write-in candidate) makes it less likely that Obama will be elected.
Second, there is a relevant distinction between voting for a candidate and endorsing that candidate. Voting for Obama is bad enough. Encouraging others to vote for Obama is morally unjustifiable.
Cafardi's justification falls far short of reasoning. It is full of fudges, contradictions, plays on words, and outright prevarications. He’s wrong to suggest that the abortion battle is lost. And he's irrational to adopt a consequentialist justification for his position. The issue is not one of reducing the total number of abortions, as if abortion policy were somehow comparable to traffic management. Even assuming what is manifestly not true, namely that Obama's proposed policies would reduce the number of abortions in America, encouraging others to vote for Obama is immoral. The issue with abortion in this country is that a tyrannical judiciary compels the participation of the American people in a grave moral wrong. Cafardi is enabling that evil.
Cafardi vastly overstates his case on torture; McCain publicly and emphatically opposes torture, and no reasonable person believes that all enhanced interrogation techniques amount to torture. Reasonable people can disagree about the justness of the Iraq War, and it is telling that the Pope has not spoken out against American activity in Iraq since becoming Pope. And to call “ignoring the poor” an intrinsic evil is not to make an argument but rather to slander one’s intellectual opponents.
The problem is that many people are going to reason: If Kmiec and Cafardi support Obama, it must be reasonable for a Christian to do so. This is the stuff that really gets my goat. I have no problem with hearing and reading these arguments from my secular friends. To get it from a Christian brother is just galling.
UPDATE: A very thoughtful colleague challenges my reasoning here. Given that McCain is not opposed to embryonic-destruction research and is arguably opposed to abortion not in principle but rather as a matter of political expedience, isn't a vote for McCain immoral in the same way as a vote for Obama? I respond in two parts.
First, I am not really voting for McCain, I am voting against Obama. That is a distinction with moral significance. My moral obligation is to avoid being complicit in the perpetuation of a grave moral evil. A vote for Obama certainly entails that complicity. A vote for McCain (as compared with, say, a vote for a write-in candidate) makes it less likely that Obama will be elected.
Second, there is a relevant distinction between voting for a candidate and endorsing that candidate. Voting for Obama is bad enough. Encouraging others to vote for Obama is morally unjustifiable.
More divisive than ever?
Several conservatives I know have gotten themselves into hot water these past few weeks because of their supposed incivility toward liberals. Meanwhile, liberals seems to be stepping up their ad hominem attacks on conservatives, and particularly Sarah Palin. My sister-in-law summed up neatly something I have been sensing for a few weeks: this election is different than presidential elections past. "It is feeling really intense, divisive, and almost antagonistic to me – even among my friends," she observed.
I think, to some extent, the identification of incivility is overstated. An increasing number of people seems to take offense at civil, direct factual claims. So, for example, when I claimed recently that Obama is morally self-deceived on the issue of abortion, an acquaintance excoriated me for slandering and "wanting to win," whatever that means. But I didn't slander Obama (see New York Times v. Sullivan). Nor do I particularly want McCain to win (though I really don't want Obama to win). And I did not engage in an ad hominem attack. Obama's stance on abortion is morally indefensible. And that fact is relevant both to the substance of his position on abortion and to the question of his judgment. Both of those questions are relevant to his campaign for the presidency.
On the other hand, I suspect most Americans who know someone of the opposite ideology have experienced some genuine incivility these past few weeks. I have. Is it worse this year, or does it just seem that way? I have the impression that it is worse. And I think there are three causes.
First, I wonder whether Facebook and blogs have exacerbated the problem. I suspect a lot of conclusory/slightly-ad-hominem comments that people made to their ideological soulmates over the kitchen table in elections past are now appearing in the status bar on Facebook, which of course is open for all to see.
Second, I think Obama and Palin are pitch-perfect representatives of the cultural divide in a way that no national candidate has ever been before. To have them both in the same election is just too much for civility to bear. Obama represents everything I detest about the liberal elite. And Palin seems to really raise the ire of that same liberal elite.
Finally, I think the two cultures in American society have drifted further apart since 2004, thanks to the same-sex marriage decisions and Bush's mistakes in Iraq. Just when a consensus was starting to develop about the immorality of abortion and the need for better health care policy, along came the Massachusetts and California courts and a badly-botched counter-insurgency in Iraq.
These are not excuses, but I think they are reasons why this election has been so gut-wrenching. It's likely to get worse in the next few weeks.
I think, to some extent, the identification of incivility is overstated. An increasing number of people seems to take offense at civil, direct factual claims. So, for example, when I claimed recently that Obama is morally self-deceived on the issue of abortion, an acquaintance excoriated me for slandering and "wanting to win," whatever that means. But I didn't slander Obama (see New York Times v. Sullivan). Nor do I particularly want McCain to win (though I really don't want Obama to win). And I did not engage in an ad hominem attack. Obama's stance on abortion is morally indefensible. And that fact is relevant both to the substance of his position on abortion and to the question of his judgment. Both of those questions are relevant to his campaign for the presidency.
On the other hand, I suspect most Americans who know someone of the opposite ideology have experienced some genuine incivility these past few weeks. I have. Is it worse this year, or does it just seem that way? I have the impression that it is worse. And I think there are three causes.
First, I wonder whether Facebook and blogs have exacerbated the problem. I suspect a lot of conclusory/slightly-ad-hominem comments that people made to their ideological soulmates over the kitchen table in elections past are now appearing in the status bar on Facebook, which of course is open for all to see.
Second, I think Obama and Palin are pitch-perfect representatives of the cultural divide in a way that no national candidate has ever been before. To have them both in the same election is just too much for civility to bear. Obama represents everything I detest about the liberal elite. And Palin seems to really raise the ire of that same liberal elite.
Finally, I think the two cultures in American society have drifted further apart since 2004, thanks to the same-sex marriage decisions and Bush's mistakes in Iraq. Just when a consensus was starting to develop about the immorality of abortion and the need for better health care policy, along came the Massachusetts and California courts and a badly-botched counter-insurgency in Iraq.
These are not excuses, but I think they are reasons why this election has been so gut-wrenching. It's likely to get worse in the next few weeks.
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