Category: sexual ethics

A Response To Kilted Cajun On Censorship

Can the religious right speak on issues of culture? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I watch a lot of gaming videos on YouTube being the Gaming Theologian on there. (Looking for a video editor by the way, if you’re interested.) One of the channels I watch is the Kilted Cajun as I love it when the DEI nonsense is exposed. However, recently I watched a video I agreed with on some levels, but my disagreements were quite serious, so I left him a reply and told him I would be writing this.

So at the start, KC (As I will call him for short) says that he one hundred percent opposes censorship. For the most part, I agree. I say that as someone who also detests the porn industry. I want to see them defeated because people have their hearts changed. (And not Phantom Thief style per Persona, but because they come to their own conclusions about pornography)

He then talks about a game where a lady’s posterior is clearly shown. Now it was nothing that really got me riled up as I agree with KC that I could also see that across most any beach in America from a woman in a tight bikini. At the same time, I know many of my readers might object to seeing such, so I won’t show any pictures, but know that this is what has started this whole discussion.

There are some people who are complaining and objecting about this. Okay. I get it. At the same time, I also want to hear it. Why? Because that’s how we as a society work. We all come together and express our viewpoints. I want to see the Woke and DEI crowd lose tremendously, but I also want them to say what they really think and do so freely. The left has gotten people to be scared to say what they think lest they be called a name like a racist, bigot, sexist, or any term ending in -phobe.

Generally, my thinking is if my opponent is saying something really stupid, I want to get out of the way. Let him speak. Let him say it. If the woke really think conservatives have all those negative traits, let them speak so it can be apparent to all. Strangely, it doesn’t work that way.

Yet this is the way freedom really works. Freedom means you have the freedom to hold different opinions. I remember a debate on TheologyWeb years ago where someone claimed bigotry is not a right and the response was “Yes it is.” Yes. You are free to be a bigot if you want to. You are free to hold any negative opinion you want to. If you think people like myself are idiot Christians who should have no place in society, then you are absolutely 100% free to have that opinion.

I have had times where my Dad has called me before. I am a man in my 40’s, but I still keep in close contact with my parents. (They’re here this week for me getting my Master’s.) My Dad has called to talk about things like a satanic statue being built or a service from them or a church building from them.

My response is “Okay. And?”

Our Constitution in America guarantees freedom of religion in America and not just freedom of the religion I hold. If I say “Christians are free to build churches, but Muslims are not free to build mosques, then I do not really hold to freedom of religion. I only hold to it if it benefits me. If I accept freedom, I have to accept people will use it in ways that I do not like.

As we go along in the video though he asks why decency is being brought up about a woman’s butt being shown and says “are you judging people’s morals based on your own personal morals” about the person complaining about it.

The answer to that one is “yes”, but that’s because who else’s morals are you going to judge them based on? We all do this every day. We agree with behavior X because of our moral beliefs and we disagree with Y because of our moral beliefs. KC opposes censorship, which I also happen to oppose, but that is a moral belief. To say “censorship is wrong” is a moral belief. That doesn’t mean it’s false, nor does it mean it’s true. We can only know if a belief is true if it corresponds with reality, if there are really objective moral principles out there that we all are to follow. If there is no objective morality, then it’s just personal tastes. If there is, then one of us is right and one of us is wrong.

Note in saying this I am not saying KC is a moral relativist. I have no reason to think he is and all the reason to think he is not. I am saying his viewpoint relies on moral objectivity.

This would apply in other areas as well. In science, did man evolve from lesser animals or not? He either did or he didn’t. It’s not both. Having a belief on one side or the other doesn’t make it right or wrong. It is whether or not that belief matches with reality.

Did Jesus rise from the dead? I say yes. An atheist says no. Both of us can freely have our belief. What matters is reality and that is where we must look. We can’t just say “That’s our belief.”

So when it comes to moral judgments, that is what we judge behaviors on. We judge them by our own personal beliefs and those could be right or wrong. Let’s suppose I was sent an advance demo copy of the game in question. To be fair, I decided to play through it and let’s suppose I really liked it and I enjoyed a story with it. Here is something I would say and I say this as someone who I think is viewed as a Christian leader.

“Game X is a really fun game with a great story that really draws you in. (Describe some bits of the story without spoiling it.) I do want parents to know though that it does have XYZ in it. (Statements about the butt in question) Then add “Make your own decisions when it comes to you and your children.” Some people might say “I am not bothered by that, and I really want to experience the story so I will buy that.” I also know that since I think I have a position of trust with parents, I don’t want to violate that. I don’t want to have a parent come to me and say “I bought this for my 11 year-old child and I had no idea this was in it! Why didn’t you tell me?”

I really don’t think KC would have a problem with that. That would be me just saying let the buyer beware in a sense. If you don’t like this in your games, don’t buy it. If you live with children and you don’t want them to see this or see you playing it, then don’t buy it. All of this is assuming the game is good. If it’s awful, I will tell you that it’s awful outright, but if you want to subject yourself to it, be warned also about XYZ.

I might make statements on more extreme cases. If I saw something in a game that I considered blasphemous towards Jesus, I could say “I really encourage you to not buy this game.” I know that I can’t make that decision for you. You decide for yourself.

KC then goes on to say that the reviewer, Dread Roberts, is pushing his views on others. We don’t want the left doing that and we don’t want the right doing it either. The problem is that first off, Dread Roberts is not doing that. He is stating his belief.

The second problem though is that KC in saying this is doing what he condemns. He is saying “It is my moral belief that you shouldn’t push your moral beliefs on other people.” He can hold that, but as soon as he says that DR is wrong for pushing his views on others, then KC is implicitly pushing a view that you shouldn’t push views.

I propose a better way to look at it. I think KC would be better saying “Thank you for your opinion on what should be allowed and not allowed. I 100% disagree and here is why.” The thing with freedom of speech is it applies to everyone and that includes hearing moral opinions I do not like. At the same time, when they are shared, I want them expressed in the best way possible. I don’t want to tell my opponent not to share them. I want false beliefs shared so I can publicly show them to be wrong.

KC then points out that DR says that this is not where the future of gaming should be heading. KC says that it’s not up for DR to decide but for the market to decide. The problem is both of those statements could be true. Hypothetically, let’s suppose DR is right. He has full freedom to express that opinion, but at the same time, he’s not saying to hijack the market, which is impossible anyway, and make it be that no one can buy the game. I don’t think DR is being asked to be a gaming csar to get to decide what is and isn’t released. He is simply saying what he wants to see. He doesn’t want to see games with this material in it and thinks it would be bad for gaming. Fine. That’s his view. He is not calling for it to be a federal crime or something of that sort. I do agree. It’s up to the market to decide. It’s like an election. I never liked it when Obama won, but it was up to the electorate to decide. I didn’t want anyone to vote for him, but I would completely defend their freedom to vote for him.

DR then says that he thinks people who say they want to save gaming really don’t. With this, I disagree with DR. I want to give the benefit of the doubt. I agree 100% with KC that wokeness and DEI is bad for games. At the same time, I want producers of games to have the freedom to put as much wokeness and DEI in a game as possible. Let it fail at the marketplace. While saying that, it doesn’t mean everything is beneficial for gaming. Companies can be free to put into their games things that I thoroughly disagree with that I too think can be bad for gaming, but again, that is what freedom means.

KC goes on to say that players should have the choice to buy what they want and play what they want and see what they want. I agree. If anything, I think something like DR’s post could lead to the Barbara Streisand Effect. I would have recommended had he wanted to post on this to say “Yeah. This is just something in the game and I want you to make a fully-informed decision, especially if you’re a parent, and let’s move on.” After all, it was when people started talking about “Hot Coffee” in a Grand Theft Auto game that sales started to soar and the scene wasn’t even easy to find in regular gameplay and I think you needed a special code for it. KC even says that you have to go out of your way to make this option available for this female character and if that’s true, and I have no reason to think otherwise, then yes, DR is promoting the Barbara Streisand effect and will likely see more sales of the game.

Now let’s briefly say something about female characters in video games. They are usually made to be beautiful and at times, this can mean what seem to be exaggerated proportions, especially in the butts and the breasts of these characters. Think of the original Lara Croft and the original Tifa Lockhart. I never played the Tomb Raider games, but I did play Final Fantasy VII that had Tifa in it. When I heard the remake was coming out, I was thankful that Tifa was not flattened in it. Because I am a perv? No. Because that is the way the original character looked and I did not want to see game producers bend a knee to this ideology that says women cannot be beautiful lest the male gaze come along. Women are made to be beautiful.

That being said, it is up to the man watching Tifa what he does with her. If you are someone who struggles with that kind of thing and says “I just don’t want to play that because my mind will go places I don’t want it to go”, then you do you. I don’t have a problem with that. That is you properly using self-control. We do no service to women if we make them purposely unattractive to men. Women are meant to be beautiful and that is part of their glory.

I also agree with KC 100% when he says that mostly, all we want is fun games. Yes. Of course, in my fun games, I like a lot more as well which I think is well in line with what KC is saying. I am thoroughly enjoying Persona 5 Royal because of the story and the mix of the real world with the metaverse. As someone on the spectrum also, I am watching what I say to other characters and getting to see when I gave what the game says is an appropriate answer, showing empathy. It has me looking at my relationships outside of the game and thinking “What bonds am I building with my fellow man?” I am actually going through a second time because I got a bad ending the first time because I did not build bonds properly thinking that the best route to go was power up my character as much as possible. I really learned something from that.

KC says he has no problem with what DR believes, but with him pushing it on other people who don’t want to hear it. The problem is, if sharing a belief is the same as pushing it, then KC is pushing his belief that you shouldn’t push a belief. Maybe some people don’t want to hear what KC says. Okay. He has a right to say it. It’s the same with scrolling through Facebook or X. I see people saying stupid things on there. Okay. They say them. I disagree, but I want them to be free to say them. That’s why it’s called the marketplace of ideas. We all share our ideas and debate which ideas are right and which are wrong.

He then refers to Melanie Mac who shows up in the comments. I really like Melanie and why wouldn’t I? A Christian girl who loves to play video games? Awesome. Anyway, she says she wouldn’t want to play such a game with nudity thrust in her face. KC says then don’t buy it. That’s fine. Vote with your wallet like everyone else does. I agree with KC here. MM has her opinion and she’s free to share it and she’s free to vote with her wallet. The marketplace of ideas and freedom allows for everything.

MM goes on to say that she would feel like a loser playing a character like that. KC goes on to say that that’s a sort of passive-aggressive slap to everyone who wants to play a character like that, but is it? MM is saying “She would feel like a loser.” Okay. That’s her opinion. We couldn’t say she was wrong. That would be like me saying “I feel sad” and you say “You don’t feel sad! You feel great!” You could think I shouldn’t feel sad and think of a thousand reasons why I should feel great, but you could not deny that I feel sad.

KC then asks how MM could do such a thing and she should keep her religious views out of it. The problem is this is actually censorship of a kind. I don’t care if someone expresses an opinion if their views come from religion or not. Suppose someone says “I think murder is wrong because the Ten Commandments forbid it.” That’s a religious view, but it is also one I think is right. I could give you plenty of reasons outside of the Bible that I think marriage should be between one man and one woman, but what matters is if that belief is true. The fact that it is also a view backed by religion doesn’t matter. If that was the case, then we should eliminate laws against murder because religions also view murder as wrong. KC is implicitly saying “Religious views should be kept to yourself, but secular views can be shared everywhere.” That’s not what freedom is. Let all views be expressed and let the best case win.

KC then refers to Bible Thumpers. It is not clear what this means. Would I be a Bible thumper even though I am entirely open to evolution, don’t believe in Young-Earth creationism, am not a dispensationalism at all, etc.? I fully hold to many of the orthodox creeds and can easily sign an orthodox statement of faith.

He goes on to say that the right were the ones that raised the outcry about games like Dungeons and Dragons and the satanic panic. Yep. The satanic panic went way too far and many criticisms of D&D and video games and anime and many other things do not really understand them. I have done a lot of reading on the satanic panic and I consider it ridiculous. While I do think real Satanism exists, I also am quite hesitant to call something satanic. Make it too all encompassing and you then include things like Tolkien and Lewis.

I also do think that you can enjoy a series even if you disagree with the moral viewpoints. Star Trek is highly secularist. Star Wars was made with New Age and Buddhist thinking in mind. I have several friends who are devout Christians who enjoy both. I personally don’t, but not for those reasons. I just never got into them. I can freely enjoy a James Bond movie even though I think Bond is doing something wrong in the way he casually sleeps with other women. You take the good and you spit out the bad.

So in the end, I fully agree with KC that I do not want to see censorship. That being said, I think his way of approaching MM and DR is itself leaning into censorship. Let us come together and say “I think this is good for gaming and here’s why” or “I think this is bad for gaming and here’s why.” Let the cases present themselves and let the marketplace of ideas decide when they go to the marketplace of gaming.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

Is Masculinity Bad?

Is it bad to be a man?

Recently, I was still going through The Bully Society and I was reading about the bully economy. While the book has a lot to say about the problem of bullying, it fails a lot in the area of solutions, and in this case tying the problem in with capitalism. Am I to think that if we went to socialism, all the kids in the world would join hands and sing Kum-Bu-Yah together?

Anyway, the author notes that some of the attributes given to masculinity are also similar to capitalism. Those are aggressive, competitive, and powerful. That is the way the market is seen sometimes. I could defend capitalism here, but I have done that in other posts.

For now, I notice that it seems that being aggressive, powerful, and competitive are bad things inherently. There is no doubt these can be used for evil purposes, but that does not mean that they are evil. I can use my car in my apartment parking lot to drive to work and church. I can also use it to drive over little old ladies crossing the street. The car is not the issue. The person is the issue.

You can think it wrong for a man to be powerful, but if a man is going to make a positive change, he needs some power. You can think it is wrong for him to be aggressive, but if he is going to go forward in pursuit of a goal and stand up to evil, he needs to be powerful. You can think it is wrong for him to be competitive, but if he is going to want to excel, he needs to want to be better than those who don’t.

I can say on my end that while I do not see myself as aggressive or powerful, competitive does ring true, but that is what has caused me to study academically far more. It is wanting to be the best at what I do that has got me here. Had I not had this kind of spirit in me, I would have heard the doom and gloom about a diagnosis of autism and said “Oh well. Guess I’ll never amount to anything.”

What would be better is to ask the question of what a man is instead of saying that those ideas of masculinity are bad, or at least implying that they are. This is part of the problem. We do not know what men are, but usually it is assumed that whatever they are, they are bad.

If society does not know what men and women are, it should not be a shock that we have issues like failing to understand marriage and relationships or that we have debates over transgenderism. I acknowledge that in some ways, the question of what a man or a woman is is a simple question. In another way, it is a complex question. It gets to a question of essences, which I consider a problem for a purely materialistic position.

So if a man does not have any indicator that he is a man, then what will he do? He will try to seek it elsewhere. He could do so by being powerful in a gang. He could do so by being competitive in sports or even video games. He could do so by being aggressive in business or with women. Some of these are fine, but some aren’t. It is fine to be competitive on the athletic field, provided you are not wronging the others out there. It is not fine to be powerful in a gang and seek to do wrong to other men and women. It is fine to be confident with women. It is not fine to be so aggressive that you force your way onto them.

If a man doesn’t know if he is a man, he could still try harmful ways. He could think he has to sleep with as many women as possible, highly persuasive since sex often leaves a man feeling like a man. He could be willing to cheat to get ahead in sports, say by taking steroids. He could seek power by trying to beat up other men or even kill them. He could try to get material possessions as a status symbol to everyone else.

By the way, women will also try counterparts, but seeing as I am a man, I am talking about them.

What he likely will not try is to try to build up character and be a man of virtue. We have lost sight of virtue as what builds up a person and ultimately a society. A society cannot last if goodness is not one of the goals of society. If all a society cares about is going for all that you can get and the vapid pursuit of pleasure, it will fail.

Unfortunately, not much is said about that. Everything else is blamed. It’s the video games. It’s the guns. It’s the schools. It’s capitalism.

No. The problem is us.

We need to change.

We need a return to virtue and men being virtuous men and women being virtuous women. Unfortunately, with moral relativism, we don’t really know what virtue is either. The more we blame everything else, the less we will care about virtue.

Masculinity is not bad, but anything we do without virtue will taint everything else. We must return to that and I contend only Christianity can truly give us the virtue we need.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

The Ouroboros of Feminism

Has feminism really helped women? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I have been reading The Bully Society and the book talks about how women are often treated, including by other women! Women live in a quite contradictory world. If you wish to remain a virgin until you’re wedding night, then you’re a prude. If you do sleep around with men, you’re a slut.

I have said that the self-esteem movement was a failure. Feminism was also a failure and has become an ouroboros. If you do not know, that’s the depiction you will see sometimes of a snake that eats its tail.

The first mistake is that it has been thought that men and women are different and therefore, one is superior to the other. This doesn’t follow. There are plenty of things that are different to one another, but it does not follow that one is superior. Cats and dogs are different and people have their preferences, but it does not follow that one is superior. The same could be said with various foods, colors, books, movies, etc. Sometimes there is a superior, but not just because two things are different.

There was also the question of men sometimes getting different treatment, such as in the workplace, but this was not because men are superior. It was because men and women are different in that women can miss long periods of work at a time when they have children. Men are not the same way. It was tempting to write “Do not have the same problem” but that assumes that it is a problem.

I happen to side with what the Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft said. Men are superior at one thing, being men. Women are superior at one thing, being women.

Keep that in mind as we go along.

Unfortunately, women started seeing their being a woman as the problem. While the pill certainly helped some, it was abortion that really got the ball rolling. With that, women were able to eliminate pregnancy. Thus, they could have careers like men.

Just pause to think about that. Innocent human lives dying for the sake of a career. We read in the Bible about the Canaanites performing child sacrifice, but we’re worse. At least they saw that as a real sacrifice and did it for the good of the harvest.

Baby: Why must I die?

Canaanite: We realize what a value you are to us so we are sacrificing you as a gift to the gods so that they will bless us with a bountiful harvest so we can all survive.

Baby: Why must I die?

Women: Because your mother didn’t want to have you and just wanted to have sex without consequences and if she has you, she can’t get that promotion she wants at work and go on to have a successful career. You are an inconvenience on her path to independence.

They are both wrong, but the Canaanites make a better case.

In The Bully Society, it is claimed that many of the early feminists wanted men to start treating sex the way women did. Generally, women seem more interested in building relationships. Men generally tend to be more interested in, well, sex. Not so, instead, women started to act more like men and why wouldn’t they? They had already killed their femininity with abortion.

Fast forward past that and the LGBTQ people start making cases. “Hey! If couples get married all the time without children and we allow abortion, then really children don’t matter. Right? If marriage is not really about children, but about the happiness of the people involved, then why can’t we get married?”

And if it is true that marriage is not about building up a stable family unit for a future generation, then they have a point. Why can’t they? It is as if the whole of society had ceased to really think about marriage and what it was and decided that whatever this is, we can just apply it to another group.

With that, the sexes in a marriage became interchangeable. You don’t have to have a man and a woman. You can have two men or two women. Now we have people marrying buildings and animals and other inanimate objects and even themselves. Before long, the Mormons will surely be pushing for polygamy, and why not? After all, if male and female are artificial ideas thrust on marriage, why stop at just two people?

It was only a few years after that we went the next logical step. Note in saying logical I am not agreeing with it, but I am saying that if you accept the premises already mentioned, the conclusion does naturally follow. If men and women are interchangeable in marriage, why not everywhere else? This gets us to the transgender movement.

Remember how I referred to Kreeft earlier saying men are superior at being men and women at being women?

This is no longer the case.

Men claiming to be women are winning sports competitions. They are winning beauty pageants. They are even winning poker tournaments. Not only that, but many women are defending this. Who are the superior women now?

Looks like men are.

Oh. What else do the men get out of this?

They still get to keep their jobs. They also get to have all the sex they want with the women who will kill the children so that men don’t have to have responsibility for them. They also don’t even have to marry the women any more to get to have sex.

Women meanwhile have lost their femininity and are being beat by men in what was supposed to be the areas for women.

This is the end result of feminism.

True femininity encourages women to celebrate being women. It tells them having children is not a hindrance but is a gift. It tells them to celebrate the differences they have from men. It tells them to have men earn sex with them by making lifelong commitments to them prior. It also tells them to stay faithful to the men that they do marry and build families together.

In this deal, women get to have a future with their DNA passed down to their children, they get to be provided for by their husbands, they get to be loved and adored, and oh yes, they get to have the sex without worrying about the consequences because having a baby isn’t a problem to them. They can also tell men to get out of women’s sports and other women’s areas. They can work if they want to, but it’s not a requirement.

Maybe it’s just me, but it looks like women are better off with a more traditional approach.

If you are a woman, celebrate it. Don’t be a feminist.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

The Failure of Self-Esteem

Does it work to build up a child’s self-esteem? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I am going through The Bully Society now, among many other books. Something I am noticing in this book is the rampant problem of bullying in our schools. That’s not a shock. What causes it though is often making sure kids have the right fashions or that men are men and not coming across as feminine or “gay”. It’s odd that in schools, those who are educated are the ones who are the oddballs and the schools lavish everything on the athletes.

As I keep going through this, I have a dominant thought.

The self-esteem movement is a colossal failure.

We have spent so much time telling kids to feel good about themselves and be proud of who they are. Meanwhile, you have numerous kids around them telling them that they are shameful and embarrassing and they should not be proud of who they are. Who do children at that age want to please more generally? Their teachers and other adults, or their younger peers?

Knowing that, which voices are going to speak the most to them?

The problem with the self-esteem movement is that it is grounded in nothing. Think about how it is when you get a mass text or a mass email from a business that tells you how much they are thinking about you. You know they’re not. You’re just a name on a list. They don’t know who you are.

It is the same with the self-esteem movement. “Oh! You’re telling me all these wonderful things about me! Thank you so much! It means so much that you see me that way and….wait….you just said the exact same thing to them….and to that other person…and to the next one.”

At that point, you realize it has nothing to do with you.

Kids then want to go to the people who do know them and those are their peers. They will do anything because they want to be accepted and not rejected. They want to fit in. In principle, there’s nothing wrong with that. We all want to be accepted. We all hate rejection.

The problem can be sometimes these kids do things that they shouldn’t do because they want that acceptance. Status has been defined before as buying things you don’t want with money you don’t have to impress people you don’t like. It is really short-term thinking. It’s not about children building up good character, but about children being liked.

This also leads to them getting involved sexually. The problem is, they approach usually from very different standpoints. A man needs to be sexually active in society because that is what a man does. The man is not thinking about long-term commitment. He’s thinking about notches on his headboard and getting the woman naked. This is also why so many guys dump girls after they sleep with them.

Girls generally want love and often think “if I give the man what he wants, he will give me that love.” The sad thing is, it doesn’t work. The idea of feminist empowerment so that women can enjoy sex the way men does is a failure because women are not men. Women end up being used and the guy still gets what he wants most of the time.

So what are children chasing after for acceptance? Material things and sex. Why shouldn’t they? What else are they being given to ground their worth in?

The church definitely needs to improve. Often, our message is the same as the world’s, but with a Christian veneer painted on it. The goal is often to get young people to feel good about themselves instead of being good themselves. It is to determine how they stand with God based on their feelings instead of a sound understanding of Scripture.

That also means a whole teaching of theology and doctrine and the reasons behind it. Hard work? Yes. Would you prefer to keep doing what we’re doing instead? How is that working out?

Our young people are worth it. They need a solid foundation for who they are in Christ. Only then will they not chase after everything else for identity.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

 

Book Plunge: Anarchy Evolution Chapter 7

Is there a place for faith? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Once again, it’s a relief to read Graffin in comparison to other atheists. Graffin does not speak down on faith entirely. There is a problem that he never defines it, but at least he’s not on a tirade like someone like Richard Dawkins is. He says there is a place for it.

So let’s start with this quote I found directly relevant to me:

Not everyone feels empathy to the same degree. On the one hand, some autistic people appear to be born with a neurological condition that severely limits their ability to appreciate the emotional state of other humans, despite having similar experiences. On the other hand, sociopaths either feel no empathy or have become so adept at suppressing it that they never bother to assume another’s perspective. And all of us can become so tired, frustrated, angry, or bored that we ignore our empathic impulses, even when doing so makes others and ourselves miserable.

Graffin, Greg; Olson, Steve. Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God (p. 184). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Speaking as one such person on the spectrum, it’s not that I do not care about other peoples’ emotional states. It’s that I cannot tell what those states are. If someone is silent around me when I think they should say something, I wonder if the problem is me or not. This is especially so when it comes to the opposite sex. I know other neurotypical men struggle with this, but I suspect much more with me. Is the girl flirting or is she just talking? If she speaks with me is that interest or not?

That being said, empathy is not a good basis for our relationships since people have different degrees of understanding and just because I can feel X with someone, it doesn’t mean that I am obligated to do anything. Not only this, this is a highly western way of thinking. This is not a Woke thing with saying Western Civilization is bad. Western Civilization is incredible. It’s saying that in Eastern honor-shame cultures, empathy wouldn’t have the same appeal. People would think not based on how the individual feels, but on the attitudes of the group at large.

Graffin goes on to say that Western religions base moral codes on analogizing human nature and then looking at superhuman figures, such as Jesus or for a lot of Catholics and Orthodox people, saints. (Not to say Protestants don’t have saintly role models as well.) I do not know what he means by analogizing human nature, but I contend he would be benefitted by reading a book on Christian ethics to see how we make our decisions.

In a surprising twist, he says that science is based on empathy. He says that it relies on a shared experience of the world. He then turns and says it is also the best basis for human ethics, which again does not work since many cultures actually have quite different experiences of how the world should work. How do we adjudicate between them? We have to point to something beyond them.

Many religious believers mischaracterize naturalists as people without faith, but that is absurd. Everyone must believe in something—it’s part of human nature. I have no problem acknowledging that I have beliefs, though they differ from more traditional kinds of faith. Naturalists must believe, first of all, that the world is understandable and that knowledge of the world can be obtained through observation, experimentation, and verification. Most scientists don’t think much about this point. They simply assume that it is true and get to work. But this assumption has relevance to people other than philosophers. When intelligent design creationists, for example, speak of replacing methodological naturalism in science classes with theistic naturalism, they are threatening to remove this assumption from the shared presuppositions of public discourse.

Graffin, Greg; Olson, Steve. Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God (p. 204). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

This is a surprising statement again, but yet a refreshing one. He is right in that science assumes that the material world exists and we can have knowledge of it. This is something they should consider. I am again unsure what he means by theistic naturalism.

He also says natural selection is not the main driving force of evolution. He says luck is actually a big part of it. He also says we cannot base our lives on the idea of saying “I am more fit than you, so I get to reproduce and you don’t.” The problem is, “Why not?” Graffin may say he doesn’t like that, but the person who thinks they are more fit could just say “Why should I care about what you like? I need to produce progeny!”

He also says we cannot judge people with respect to an arbitrary idea of what should be considered optimal, but from a naturalistic perspective, why not? It can be granted he would not like that. It is not granted that from his perspective, that is automatically wrong. Graffin has to give the reason why the person in power should care.

He then tells us that simply by existing in the human race, we all have a worth and a dignity that is inherent. Okay. Why? If all we are is matter in motion from a cosmic accident that will die in a universe that will cease to be, why should I think any life has inherent value? I agree that all human life has inherent value, but I do not think it can be supported in naturalism.

I don’t believe, for instance, that evolutionary biology or any scientific endeavor has much to say about the value of love. I’m sure a lot can be learned about the importance of hormones and their effects on our feelings. But do the bleak implications of evolution have any impact on the love I feel for my family? Do they make me more likely to break the law or flaunt society’s expectations of me? No. It simply does not follow that human relationships are meaningless just because we live in a godless universe subject to the natural laws of biology. Humans impart meaning and purpose to almost all aspects of life. This sense of meaning and purpose gives us a road map for how to live a good life.

Graffin, Greg; Olson, Steve. Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God (p. 206). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Why doesn’t it follow though? If Graffin’s worldview cannot explain love, it is a quite weak worldview. Humans can import meaning to loving relationships, but they could also just as easily import it to destructive ones. Who is to say someone would be wrong in doing so in naturalism? What is this good life Graffin speaks of? Again, there is no real in-depth look at the questions.

He lastly speaks of love in relationship to Allison, his now wife. Love requires a trust in that there is no 100% knowledge, though there can be good evidence. He describes love as a unique feeling. I contend love produces feelings, but it is not a feeling. It is an action that one does. Still, Graffin does speak of that trust as a form of faith, which again is refreshing.

Next time, we’ll talk about what it means to believe.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Your Husband Thinks You’re Beautiful. Accept It.

Can you accept a compliment? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

My pastor gave a sermon Sunday on marriage and he talked about how men have a great need for respect and women for love. No problem there. He also said that men need to regularly tell their wives that they think that they are beautiful.

I agree with all of this. I had no beef with the sermon, but I do have a concern that many men do this and many women resist it and this is a problem. Keep in mind that I am speaking about an all things being equal marriage and I am not at all talking about one where a spouse is abusive.

I still subscribe to marriage blogs and recently, the XY Code had a blog about the truth on your husband thinking you are beautiful. When he says it, you can usually expect that he means it. Of course, men don’t help their case if they regularly talk about how beautiful the actress on TV is or have a problem with pornography, but neither one of those means he doesn’t think his own wife is beautiful.

Unfortunately, we live in an age of Instagram where everyone puts their best pictures on social media. How many women will post a picture of themselves when they first get up in the morning and have bed hair, for example? What you see of people on social media is usually their very best.

I remember this being a struggle in my marriage. I regularly told my ex-wife she was beautiful, no matter what changes she went through, and I meant it every time I said it. There was only one woman who turned my head and I did not speak about others. I had promised to one and wanted to turn all my desires to that one. The problem was she had a hard time believing it.

Ladies. If your husband tells you you are beautiful and you say no, many problems are going on in that situation.

First, you are telling him that he is either a liar or deluded. Now you could say hypothetically that maybe you are not beautiful and he is deluded, but while he could be mistaken, he cannot be mistaken in that that is what he thinks. Why not just accept it? Why not be thankful you married a man who thinks you are beautiful? He chose you out of all the women in the world after all! If you call him a liar, you are building up distrust between you and him.

Second, you are damaging yourself. You are permitting yourself to insult yourself. Why? What are you gaining by that? Note that this is not saying you should not do things to take care of yourself. There is no problem with saying “I am beautiful, but I also need to go to the gym and watch what I eat and take better care of myself.”

Third, you are also teaching your husband to not compliment you. What husband will want to compliment his wife if it leads to an argument every time he does so? Why would he want to say you are beautiful if he ends up being put on trial for doing that? Men are fast learners in this area. If we do something and we just get chastisement for it, we learn to not do that. (Ask a man to wash the dishes and if your first words to him when he is done are criticism, he will realize he should not do that anymore.)

So in the end, you are calling your husband a liar. You are insulting yourself. You are shutting down future compliments and then wondering why your husband does not pay attention to you or call you beautiful.

This is not to say men do not have areas, but this is one that I want to address. I know many men who have had the exact same struggle I have. You would be surprised if you took the time to listen to know just how much your husband really loves you and treasures you and wants you to know that. I hope I can do that again with a special lady who yes, I will say is beautiful.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Final Statement on Christian Body

What do I say about this book at the end? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Ultimately, as I finished this book, I found it extremely lacking. I found Frost didn’t deliver on his claims. We were told that we need to heed the words of Biblical scholars, but I didn’t see a single one cited. If there was one, that was the rare exception sadly.

I also find Frost makes statements that he doesn’t back. Sure, I could go and look up myself if I wanted to, but the rule is that if you make a claim, you are the one to back it. If we are making a claim about the culture of the Bible, we should point to scholars of that culture to have it backed.

However, the biggest problem with this book is that Frost is really just too antagonisitic. When you make statements about a society and say clothing is the problem, despite the society doing just fine for well over a thousand years until the sexual revolution came along, there is something else going on.

Frost often looks to have both guns blazing at his opponents painting them as lesser Christians who don’t really believe the Bible. Consider how after he makes his case at one point the idea is that if you do not agree, you are living in

rebellion against God. Even if he had made a case, a statement like that is more likely to harden someone against his position.

I still think the position is incredibly weak, but I think those who want to see a better presentation of the case are encouraged to look at Philip Oak’s book, Surprised Into Freedom, instead. Oak writes with more of a pastoral heart towards his audience and he does cite scholars and others quite often. Do I agree with his conclusions? Not at all. Do I think he makes a better case and is more evenhanded to his audience? 100%.

So am I going to review the book? Probably not. I have looked at a series of replies to me and sometimes when I have a spare minute, I do a little bit of writing on that, but if I share it, it could be months down the road. The reason is right now I am preparing for PhD work. I need to read multiple books in order to do a written test and then an oral examination on the topics to show that I am capable. I have no intention of taking this lightly.

On top of that, I have two final classes I am taking and I am reading for those. I also have a class on research and writing where my professor has encouraged me on video games and violence. I had suggested this topic, but he did think while it was interesting, it is too niche. There are just not enough people talking about it. My topic of video games and violence is something that more people are talking about and is relevant to my PhD studies and would be contributing to my Defend talk next January. I am thinking in light of recent events to especially look at mass shootings and the data on them. (If anyone wants to get me Kindle books on the topic, I welcome the generosity.)

By the way, all of this is on top of the personal reading that I do every day, having a part-time job here, and just then at the end of the day after all of this having some time for myself.

So as I come to this leg of the journey, I ask for your prayers and if you are willing, I have a Patreon here on this blog and I definitely encourage you to become a member. It would mean so much to me if you did that and even a small amount means a lot. If you can just donate even $5 a month, I would be thrilled to have you as it’s not just money that I get, but every time it comes with a message of “I believe in you and I support you in this.”

I do intend to keep blogging and I plan to blog on other areas, such as that I have downloaded the manifesto of the trans shooter and plan to go through that and give my thoughts on it, especially on some comments on autism in there.

Until next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Christian Body – Do You Trust The Bible?

Is going nude a sign of believing the Bible? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

At the start of this section, Frost says the following:

The controversy exists because most people who call themselves Christians are not familiar with the Bible except the parts read to them on Sunday mornings by preachers speaking from motivated confirmation bias. Christians typically assume many beliefs that are nowhere in the Bible, or they add teachings because they do not trust it to stand on its own.

Frost, Aaron. Christian Body: Modesty and the Bible (p. 273). UNKNOWN. Kindle Edition.

Sadly, this is very true.

My family and I loved the show Home Improvement and we usually saw Tim Allen movies in the theater together. Recently, Allen has been sharing on social media how he has been going through the Bible for the first time and that there’s a lot of good stuff in there. Some people I saw were surprised saying they thought he was a Christian.

It seemed sad to have to see people say “Just because you’re a Christian, it doesn’t mean you have read the Bible.”

Whatever you might think about Bart Ehrman, he is certainly right when he says that he has students come in for their first class and he asks them if they think the Bible is the Word of God. So many hands go flying up. Then he asks “How many of you have read all of the Bible?” Far fewer hands go up. Ehrman is right to ask that if you think the Bible is from God, don’t you think you should want to know what it says?

But to get back to what Frost says, a problem I have had with the book is that we are expected to have chapter and verse. No. You don’t. There are many issues that we ask about today that aren’t discussed in the Bible because they weren’t around in Biblical times. Can a Christian see an R-rated movie? Can a Christian play a video game that has violence? Can a Christian listen to rock’n’roll? We can even consider topics like dating as we know them weren’t around back then. Most marriages were arranged.

This is why it’s a misnomer to think there has to be a chapter and verse that says “Thou shalt wear clothing in public!” or “Thou dost not hath to wear clothing in public!” For this, we go to the work of cultural scholarship with an interest in the Biblical culture. We can look at pagan cultures, but only in comparison to the Biblical culture.

One advantage of being at a seminary besides a library is that you have so many great minds right here. When the idea of archaeological evidence came up, I decided to go talk to our professor of archaeology and we have had a number of great conversations on the topic. Something fascinating he told me is that outside of pottery, the most common item dug up in Israel is loomweights.

This first conversation where he said this took place at the Post Office where I work. He showed me a book he had just got about the culture of the time and pointed out that even the idols of the pagan deities depicted them wearing clothing and told me that Jews would not do nude artwork, for instance, because that would be close to violating the second commandment for them.

Frost’s issue doesn’t come down to one side believes the Bible or not. Francis Beckwith said once that if they can’t trump you with logic, they will try to trump you with spirituality. It comes down to how we interpret the Bible. I try to look not just to chapter and verse, but also to the culture of the Bible and see what I can gleam from that and something disappointing about Frost’s book is he seems completely unaware of this important research.

Next time, we’ll wrap this book up.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Christian Body – Is Grace Sufficient?

Is grace enough to overcome? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

One of the big problems with Frost’s book is that he is so antagonistic in it. He comes in with both barrels blasting too often and when he wants to comment on what the other side thinks, he paints them as denying most everything he can about Christianity. So it is that the same happens when we come to the topic of grace.

Frost says that for many Christians, grace can help them overcome the evils of pornography and dehumanization, but it doesn’t help them joyfully appreciate the human body. Perhaps this is so for some, but not for all. I cannot say that I have ever struggled with porn by the grace of God, but I can say as a man who was married I had a deep appreciation for my wife’s body and often said that if the only evidence I had for the existing of God was her body, that would be enough to settle the case for me. I knew of no other way to explain something that beautiful.

There is a problem with how we talk about grace. Consider Sam Allberry. He is a great speaker on issues of the church and sexuality, and yet he himself wrestles with same-sex attraction. There are some people who have become Christians and lost that attraction, but not all. There are plenty of people who have become Christians while in the clutches of alcoholism and escaped that, but that doesn’t mean that they have to go out and fully appreciate the fruit of the vine by going to a bar and drinking alcohol. That could even be foolish for them.

Sometimes God delivers us fully from wrong desires. Sometimes, He doesn’t. It doesn’t make any Christian a lesser Christian or a greater Christian. All Christians regardless will have struggles in this world until the day they die or until the day Christ returns.

Some people could be delivered from porn and yet never marry and get to enjoy the real presence of a beautiful member of the opposite sex in all their glory. Some might not. Some could have no desire for porn again. Some could have a daily struggle. There is no “One size fits all.”

One reason I would not be out in the public nude is that I don’t want to risk doing anything that would cause my fellow man to stumble in any way. I have to show consideration for them. If I had no problem with alcohol, I would not drink alcohol in front of someone who struggles with it. (For those wondering, I made a lifelong vow early on that I would not drink alcohol so I would not risk doing anything to damage my reputation. I have no problem if someone can control their alcohol.)

Frankly, Frost’s book would be a lot better if he didn’t spend as much time demeaning the other side. Frost comes off as if he thinks he is the super Christian and everyone else is less than he is. His case would be better if he wrote more conversationally instead.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Christian Body – The Master Deceiver

Is Satan behind it all? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

There’s an argument that strikes me as strange coming from the naturist position whereby the devil is said to have been the ones to tell us to cover ourselves up. You would think then that if that was a wicked suggestion, God would not have gone along with it. Immediately after the pronouncement of exile is declared on Adam and Eve, God makes clothing for them Himself.

It would seem as if by this argument, that God and the devil both agree about how they view the human body, which is strange.

So Frost says at the start that many people cannot get past purdah because they cannot accept the incredible beauty of the human body.

That must explain why the pornography industry is so strong. People just can’t accept the beauty of the human body. That must be why guys dating women often wonder about what they look like under all those clothes. That must have been why when I was a married man it was always a joy to see my wife’s body naked.

He then says the devil jumps in and tells you it’s a sin to be enthralled by the beauty. No. Absolutely not. That’s the design of the system. Men and women were supposed to be enthralled with one another. The problem is what you do with that beauty. Are you looking at men and women that you have no right to look at? Are you treating them as just objects to satisfy your desire?

Frost then says:

An important step in overcoming the pornographic lusts of prudish modesty standards is agreeing with God that His creation is gloriously beautiful and worthy of admiration. Satan hates the creation of God and would rather feed our cultural revulsion for nakedness.

Frost, Aaron. Christian Body: Modesty and the Bible (p. 264). UNKNOWN. Kindle Edition.

He is absolutely right on the first part. The body is worthy of admiration, but pornography is not admiration. It is exploitation. It is treating the person on the other end of the screen as just a body. That dehumanizes them.

Naturism from what I see goes the other way. This is not saying anything about cultures where naturism is the main way of living. This is about our culture. They go and say “The body is not inherently sexual.” Both sides are living in denial. The body is sexual and in the proper context is meant to be sexually arousing. This is in our DNA.

This does not mean that different things can be arousing to different people and there are some things you shouldn’t be aroused by. If you are aroused by children, for instance, you need help. If I were to use a personal example, I am a huge fan of the series Smallville and my crush on the series was always the character of Chloe. Most guys went crazy over Lana and later Lois. Nah. Chloe all the way for me.

What drew me to her at the start? It wasn’t that she was a supermodel, but her character on the show was really smart, and I like girls with a good head on her shoulders. It was through that that the rest of her got more beautiful to me over time. The same happened when I was married. My wife became the standard of female beauty for me over time.

Yet with the second part of the above quote, does he think we have a cultural revulsion for nakedness? The porn industry is betting that we don’t, and so far they’re winning that bet. From when I was married, behind closed doors, I would have no objections to nudity in a private setting. Frost seems to have a fundamentalist mindset in mind that would be an extreme minority position.

I regularly wonder who Frost is responding to in this book and he seems to only think in extremes. It’s quite problematic going through. Unfortunately, nothing I saw in the book ever got better.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)