Albert Mohler:On Marriage

The last weeks and months I've been quite busy. And right now I'm catching up on the shows that Albert Mohler sent before. I just listened to "What Did Proposition 8 Mean for the Same-Sex Marriage Debate?".

He opposes Same-Sex Marriage and is happy that proposition 8 passed . - No surprise.

What was really telling about this show of his was that it clearly outlined that there is a deep difference on the perception of marriage between conservatives in liberals in America and between Americans and Europeans. This was made clear when a lady called and asked him for his point of view on granting civil unions to homosexual and straight couples and leave marriage open to the Churches and religions.

His argument against is was that it would remind him a bit of the former Soviet Union or of those East Block countries, since he had some Polish friends who first had to marry before the state and then in Church. I wonder whether Dr. Mohler also has French or German friends... because this 'double marriage' wasn't a peculiarity of communism or socialism. France, as well as Germany (and many other European countries) do it just the same way. Before you marry in church you also go in France and in Germany to the town hall to have a marriage ceremony over there. Which means you first get married in a worldly manner with worldly rights and duties and then (if you are religious) you go to Church where you enter into that covenant in a religious manner with religious rights and duties.

If you've grown up with this system it really makes sense to you. Why would a marriage closed by the state have religious entanglements? And if you are religious, wouldn't it lower the holy status of a marriage ceremony if it would be about alimony and custody issues too?

I also believe that Dr. Mohler is befooling himself if he thinks a marriage in a muslim perspective equals a marriage in christian perspective. I mean I could now create my own new, religion call it "Rujiklonerastrovernism" and declare Dr. Mohler and outgoing President George W. Bush married according to its rules. And I guess both of them and the state wouldn't care the least about this marriage, my religion or whether I perceive them married according to it or not.
Why should it be different for marriages that Dr. Mohler declares in his Church according to Christianity in a baptist tradition? I don't really know what entanglements come with such a marriage, but I suppose he and the one who would want to get married by him know. So it's just an issue between those 3 persons and their common imaginary friend.

When it comes to state issues like forming unions between two persons I trust state officials to do this. I wouldn't trust them to hand out religious blessings just as less as I would trust Dr. Mohler to hand out driving licenses. And since those unions are very meaningful, even to the secular community, I deem it very appropriate to have them in ceremonial settings - both when it's in the city hall and (if wished) in the Church. The room in which marriages are entered is normally about the most representative they have at the city halls in France and Germany. (I haven't seen one in Poland yet).

Why am I moral?

On a blog that I recently visited I was asked where I, as an atheist, take my morals from. This questions also contains in my opinion the question why one should be moral if (s)he does not have to fear Judgment Day.
The concrete question was, why I would not eat my grandmother. The answer to this question lies within self-interest. My wealth and my well-being depends on the fact that I live in a society that is based upon common rules that make a civil interaction between people possible. The German philosopher Immanuel Kant has put the rule of morality very good in his categorical imperative:

"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become universal law."

So, why would an atheist live according to that rule. The reason is quite simple: It is the only logical way to have a moral society. Just if everyone in a society acts according to principles that he or she could want to become universal laws you can have a moral society.


So far to answer why I would be moral. But I do not deem this answer sufficient because yet I have not laid out what my maxims that I would will to become universal law are. For this I made this little drawing above. My moral actions are ruled by 3 principles: Humanism, utilitarianism and hedonism.
A moral action is an action that makes it to one of the levels that are shown in the sketch. Therefor if you remove the pillars of Humanism for example the action would not be moral at at. It could comply with the rules of utilitarianism or hedonism as much as possible, if Humanism would get violated I would not deem the action moral at all.
So what do those -isms mean:

Hedonism:
Hedonism judges the moral validity of an action by the pleasure it brings. If I go to my wardrobe and decide what shirt I should put on my choice would normally be ruled by the question what shirt I like this day most.
Platon's criticism of Hedonism was: "That it brings pleasure to scratch yourself when it itches, does not give any moral value to scabies."

therefor I need a second moral principle on which to ground Hedonism which is

Utilitarianism:
Utilitarianism judges the moral validity of an action by the overall utility of its outcome. Therefor I might get some short lived pleasure by getting myself infected with an athlete's foot and then scratching myself, but the overall outcome would be that negative that this action would at least not be advisable. If I return to my example with the wardrobe: When I want to go shopping by bicycle and I choose what I should wear during this, my choice would not just be governed by Hedonism but also by Utilitarianism: I would try to choose colors with which I can be easily seen. The question whether I would choose lime-green or bright yellow or a screaming red would again be a matter of taste and therefor Hedonism.

Humanism:
Humanism is the basis of my moral judging. And it has to be. Humanism as the basis forbids against seeing other humans as means to a purpose and not as purpose for all means. There are two axioms that describe very well what Humanism is:

1st: Everyone has the right to live.
2nd: Human Dignity is inviolable.

Humanism is necessary to explain why it is despicable that Stalin killed and mistreated millions of people for the sake of his revolution. On a purely Utilitarian basis this would have been tenable if the projected outcome would have just been good enough.
Just with Humanism you have a basis on which to condemn to make human beings means of your purposes.

The question that remains now and is often asked by theists is: How does an atheist base his or her Humanism.
There are two answers to this. Firstly if I do not want to be made a mean of someone else's purpose then I also can not make others means of my purposes. Secondly there is also historic experience (3rd Reich, Stalinist Communism) who have shown that in systems that lack Humanism the customs will brutalize very quickly.

AMP: Hanging up on Dagmar Herzog

My former partner who lives in London once asked me, if Doctor Mohler doesn't know this blog. After I showed him my blog and he had a look at Doctor Mohlers blog he realized that he never mentioned me. And this is true. A couple of my questions have already been read by him or Russel Moore on an "Ask Anything Wednesday" but he never mentioned or dealt with his critics on his program. (And I hope that I am not his only one).
Does that mean that he doesn't know me or my blog? Most likely he knows me and my blog. I might be a harsh critic when it comes to him and his program (at least I hope to be) but I respect the rules of fairness when it comes to an intellectual debate over the Internet: I keep him, or better his team, informed about any article I post on his program. After some articles (those in which I called him Comrade Mohler for his idea of allying with the Far Left) Google-Analytics which I use to get statistics about the use of this website, showed visits from Louisville, Kentucky where his show is located.
The reason that he doesn't mention me is a different one, and as I listened a lot to his programs I suppose it is this: The show is about Intelligent, Christian Conversation. Whether the listener perceives this program up to intelligent should be up to him but this isn't the point. The two other words are more important to understand this program: Christian and Conversation. It is the goal of Albert Mohler over everything else to save souls. I remember that in one of the first shows by him I listened to he spoke about one appearance on TV in which he more or less said that the debate was secondary to him and his main goal was to get the Christian message out. He bragged about that he had to wait until the host used the name "Jesus Christ" in order for him to introduce that even the host can not even say this name without acknowledging that Jesus is Christ. Totally out of place, and I guess quite a frustrating experience for the host, but soundly what Doctor Mohler is about.
The word Conversation seems pretty clear. It is when two or more persons talk together. But especially when it is used on Christian Radio it has a further connotation. Then the word also implies that it is a friendly Conversation in opposite to a Debate in which two different ideas confront each other. The whole program might be conversational in so far as two or more persons talk but it is pretty much mono-directional when it comes to the message.
For this reason he would not endorse me on his show by mentioning my blog. I guess one thing that was either said by him or on the Way of the Master program describes his attitude towards engaging with other world-views well: I would not allow a bad preacher to preach in my church but I would always follow the invitation to preach at a bad preachers church. I am fine with this and I am always surprised when looking at those statistics how many people find my blog by searching for criticism of Christian Radio on Google.

That was a really long preface to open this blog article. But I deem it necessary to understand why I am in retrospect in some aspects surprised and it some aspects not how the show went.
I was really surprised that they had a guest on that didn't agree with most of what is said on this program. If it would have been just a usual program in which someone who is supposingly an expert on a matter of Christian life talks with Dr. Mohler or Dr. Moore it would have just been one of the less interesting standard programs. When after a couple of minutes it was clear that there was a sound dissent between the host and the guest I got really intrigued.
I can give Dagmar Herzogs point of view as far as the short but very interesting excerpt from her Book: Sex in Crisis: The New Sexual Revolution and the Future of American Politics allows me to. She is a vocal and witty critic of the anxiety that many feel towards sexuality caused by a combination of the influence of the Christian Right and the influence of the recent sexual revolutions around issues like Viagra and the constant lure of Sexuality. The conversation could have been quite a classical one if they would have focused on the second part of what Prof. Herzog thinks causes all this anxiety about sex. But then again I think that she underestimated the anxiety that conservative Christians towards sexuality. In this sense it proved her point almost perfectly when Dr. Moore hang up on her.
At this point I ask my readers to realize that they edited quite some things she said out and that the show that you find on the site right now does not have anymore the point in it at which Dr. Moore hung up on her. I listened to it live on the web as it happened and it could be that my memory betrays me, but as I remember she was talking quite technically when the conversation with her was ended.

I agree with Dagmar in so far as I also believe that the sexually loaded environment can raise our expectations of sex so far that we won't be satisfied anymore with the sex we have. In so far as I can extrapolate the point she wanted to make it is very true that the abstinence only campaign of the political right in the United States contributed largely to the anxiety that many people feel towards sex.
Human beings are also sexual beings. Sexuality is a big part of what and who we are. I was raised in Germany in an area that is predominately Catholic. Catholicism, a religion that embraces celibacy and abstinence only, is a good example how much anxiety it creates to suppress your sexuality. In the course of this your whole environment will get sexualized beyond the point it is. There was this story once told to me about this nun, who just allowed the girls in the Catholic school she was leading to wear white shoes since every other color would be sexually arousing to men around.
Over here in Germany I can not fully imagine how it is to live in a country that advertises abstinence only on a larger scale. I can just speculate what it would be like. Coming in combination with an already sexually charged world around me I would feel really pressed to find the right partner, since this partner will be the only one I could ever experience sex with. A sex that I would expect to hope to be as good as the one shown in all the culture around me. That would cause me a lot of stress, anxiety towards sex and frustration if the sex I one day get isn't quite as perfect as the world around me shows.

I agree with her that the images of sex around us raise our expectation of sex to a level that isn't healthy or normal anymore. I also don't think that the approach of the Christian Right helps to lower this anxiety. In some very unexpected way it makes it even worse. Until I listened somewhat longer to Christian Talk Radio I never got the idea that the union of a man and a women represents the union of Jesus and his Church. That is already quite weird. Adding to this that the act of sexual intimacy symbolized the intimacy between Jesus and his Church is seriously deforming a wonderful shared experience. To make out of this wonderful intimate experience a sacred, perhaps even ceremonial, act is deeply sick.

>From those things I read about Prof. Herzog I suppose I also disagree with her on some points. I'm not afraid of sex and I also don't think it needs to be perfect but other than she I tend to also have a functional view on this issue. Sex is a wonderful intimate experience but it can also be a good mean to help you relief stress, to build self-esteem and to overcome a mild depression. If you choose to have sex for the three last mentioned points you should just make sure that your partner also does not expect more out of it. As long as you have this sex safe (condoms, since just those also protect from STDs and not just from pregnancies) it can be a wonderful as well as helpful experience.

If you are now appalled by this confession of mine, I ask you to turn again to this Program I was writing about. If you host a radio program and you invite a guest in, you should know what this guest wants to say beforehand. If you don't know this exactly you are running with the risk the he or she might say something that doesn't really please you. But cutting him or her out, wasting by this their time and don't letting them make their point is exceedingly rude and morally wrong. I would advise Dr. Moore to listen again to the program of last Thursday in which they praised and proclaimed the virtue of chivalry. In my opinion it makes no moral difference whether you do that to a woman or to a man, but if he is in accordance with what was said on the program he sits in last Thursday, then an even higher amount shame should be upon him. He wasn't even host enough to thank his guest for her appearance at the end of the show.

I at this place want to thank Prof. Herzog for her quick reply after this show in which I asked her whether Dr. Moore really hung up on her during the program.

Learn a foreign language

Barack Obama is absolutely right to demand of his fellow citizens to learn a foreign language. But I he is not necessarily right for the reasons he mentioned. Very few Americans need to speak a second language for their trip to Europe. From this point of argumentation his point was somewhat elitist.
The reason that it is very useful in our modern world to speak at least one other language is that the world become much smaller with the rise of the Internet. While Germany was thousands of kilometers away just 2 decades ago, now almost every part of the world is just one mouse-click away. While you needed to board a plan and travel for several hours to get involved with a different language and a different culture you nowadays just need to switch on your computer and visit the chatrooms of other nations. For the same price you pay for talking to people from your nation.

I see the Internet as the great opportunity of the 21th century. While in the decades that lay behind us the public forum was limited to the local districts and by national media in some way to the nation as itself, the public forum will become global by the rise of the Internet.
If the people of over the world will be able to talk to each other, ideas will start to cross borders in a pace they never did before. And that is a good thing. As long as we are talking we won't fight. My biggest hope that I place into the Internet is that it will crush the prejudices by which we perceived other nations for centuries. And there are deep differences between the differences that are around within the different language communities. The German speaking nations have a prevalent set of ideas that is distinct from the ideas in the French speaking nations, which are again different from the ideas in the English speaking nations.
There is this illusion of being international in the English speaking world, caused by the fact that so many people in so many nations speak English. You know your nation, Canada, Australia, Great Britain and so on and see that all those western nations are all that similar in culture and nationally prevalent ideas. What is then commonly done is that this experience from the English speaking world is extrapolated to other modern non-English-speaking nations in Europe or Asia.
By the difference of language the flow of ideas is interrupted. There might be an idea that catches within the English speaking community that never catches within the French speaking community simply because it never got translated. On the other hand: The might be other ideas prevalent within the French speaking community that a not common within the English speaking one. Ideas that might impede the rise of ideas that were translated into French.
Getting to know a different language community is something that is personally very beneficial, but also something that might be necessary in the world to come.

As it stands now ideas flow better from Europe to America than vice versa - why? Because Europeans can engage into political debates in America. How many Americans could engage by writing a foreign language blog in the political/social debates in France or Russia?

I can engage into a political debate with English speaking people. When I do it, then in the hope to get humanist and social-democratic ideas to flow over the Atlantic into the American debate. When it comes to translating the ideas of the Evangelical Right back into German than I can just say: Ich werden den Teufel tun, evangelikal-konservativ politische Ideen ins Deutsche zu übersetzen.
I simply won't harm my own political aims by helping opposed ideas to catch in Germany and I guess you never expected that. If you would want your ideas to catch over here, you would have to do the work of translating them and arguing for them in a foreign language yourself.

Animal Rights

Some news about me: I broke my foot last Friday. Which is also the reason I respond to Dr. Mohlers show that late. I went to the hospital to see my grandma. When I left I took the stairs instead of the elevator, because the elevator took somewhat too long and I wanted to do something that's good for my health. Unfortunately I missed the last step of the stairway way, stumbled and distorted my left foot. This way I broke the fifth bone of my middle foot. There in one good thing in this whole accident: There is doubtlessly no better place to break your foot than next door to the department for accident surgery where they could plaster my lower leg.
Thanks to this I will be in hospital again on Thursday. Because the fracture is somewhat complicated they have to implant a metal splint. I hope to be home again on Monday in a week.
I wonder a bit how you put this in a theological perspective. An atheist who breaks his foot seems easy - but an atheist who breaks his foot next door the the department for accident surgery seems a bit indecisive on Gods part.

Why should we grant Rights to animals, what would stop us from doing the same with plants?

Dr. Mohler presented one case for granting Rights to animals in his show. And I don't think he presented the best one. Humans make laws for humans. Even if they are unaware of this fact. For example the protection of the environment. While it obviously protect nature and habitats it also protects human society which benefits greatly from living in an intact natural environment. When it comes to water quality it's obvious, but you shouldn't forget the recreational benefits from having a healthy landscape around you.
While animal Rights seem to protect Animals first and foremost, they also protect our society. As a society we also need compassion for each other. To preserve this compassion should be a very high priority for any society. If someone tortures, mistreats or abuses an animal that shows a great lack of compassion for animals on his or her side. And I seriously doubt that she or he can limit that to her or his treatment of members of the animal kingdom. Attitudes do have consequences. Once people accept the mistreatment of animals, who are able to show their pain and agony, it's not to unlikely that they will one day even mistreat humans in the same way.
That's where I also see the difference between mistreating animals and mistreating plants. Plants don't show their pain and agony (if they feel any). Animals do show those emotions. Especially the great apes do that and someone who is willing and able to mistreat those animals or is unwilling to show any compassion to those is a danger to the public order.
Dr. Mohler might laugh at the idea of outlawing great apes in circuses and television, but I see the logic behind all of this. Showing those animals in this fashion at some point dehumanizes them. The behavior of apes shown in circuses or television is in most cases anything but indicative of their natural behaviors. If someone acts in a ridiculous way he is said to act like a monkey. While monkeys and great apes very rarely act this way when behaving according to their nature. The whole dehumanizing insult of acting like a monkey or an ape would loose its effect if apes and monkeys would be shown how they naturally live.

Btw. 2 things

Firstly: Yes, the government of José Luis Rodrigues Zapatero did away with a lot of the conservative elements that Spain was known for. That's because Spain is a very young democracy and it is now just about 30 years ago that Spain was ruled by the fascist dictator Franco. With this time passed between to old regime and the new republic we see the Spanish society cleansing itself from the last influences of that period. I wonder why Dr. Mohler didn't mention the regime of Franco when I lauded the former conservative values of Spain... Maybe because the period of Franco, which is stained in blood, is perhaps the best example how much Christians can become complicit in an inhumane dictatorship.

Secondly: Albert Mohler seemed somewhat afraid that lawyers could be up to define a new case law by forcing precedences. That fear might be true for the anglo-american world. Not for continental Europe. Even thou a lot of my fellow citizens who are influenced by how Hollywood presents the court system (which is then by nature an anglo-american one), case-law is alien to continental Europe. That means for example that the equivalent of a county court in Germany can rule explicitly against the decisions made by higher courts. Our courts are bound to laws made by the legislator, which say have to interpret. In doing so they are free from former decisions. The only thing a judge who rules against the decision made by higher courts is that his decisions will most likely be nullified.

No further argument against polygamy?!

Dr. Mohler claimed on his program that with the advent of gay-marriage there won't be any rational hold against polygamy. I wonder whether he really believes that, because there is a very good rational hold against polygamy that has to do with the fact how human beings relate to each other.
So lets have a look at heterosexual polygamy. I've drawn a little sketch to visualize the problems that come along with such a relational triangle.



I analyze the relation between a man and several women, because that was what polygamy was during most of recorded history.



In order to be in love for a heterosexual the person of desire needs to be of the opposite sex. (Which is the definition of heterosexuality). That means that in the relationship triangle between three heterosexuals there can just be love between the women and the man. Between both women there can be in the best case close friendship.
Let us supposed those three persons met the women fell in love with the man and the man vice versa with both women.

It is unimaginably hard if not impossible to love two persons the same way. The man will have extremely hard problems to feel the same burning desire for both his women for an extended period of time. Even if he achieves to do so, it will hard in the same unimaginable way to show that love to both women equally.

Remember we started this example with the supposing that it is the best case - both women being close friends. How long can a friendship survive this situation? At one point one woman will ask herself the question whether he doesn't love the other wife more. Whether she isn't really wife No.2. In the moment she begins to wonder whether she really is wife No.2 it's just natural that she will test how close her husband is to her. Her best friend on the other hand must in this case believe that she is breaking the basis for their polygamous relationship by trying to be a better wife to him than she is. Which will start a competition between both. A competition driven by jealousy that can lead nowhere but into open or hidden animosity between both females.

The man on the other hand could try to moderate this competition. But would he really have any reason to do so? Having to women who compete for your affection is quite flattering. It also brings him into a situation of power that is hard to resist.
Remember that this is the best case of such a relationship. In a much worse case those women will already join this marriage with a sense of jealousy and competition. In this case the marriage is more or less just about a man being in the center of a competition between two women.



I'm at this point fully a humanist who believes that human dignity is inviolable. In the worst case the dignity of both women gets violated from the beginning. I the better case it is highly likely that it will get violated within the course of the 'marriage'.

If people want to give such a triangle a try against all odds against it, they may do so - but they shouldn't accept a broader society to sanction such a relationship.





Let's move a bit further from the social standard and lets consider whether it would be then permissible to sanction polygamies between bisexual or homosexual people.
You can not ignore that it has different starting points than a heterosexual triangle. With a homo- or bisexual triangle you could really have love between all partners.

At this point I will return to my prior argument - that it is impossible to love two persons the same way AND to show this affection the same way. In an homo- or bisexual triangle you would have the great risk of having a strong love developing between two of the partners and smaller ones towards the 3rd partner in the relationship. I would predict that he or she is kicked out of the relationship triangle sooner or later - or - that he or she becomes a kind of replacement partner with whom you have intercourse when the other partner has migraine.



Also in such a situation I see the strong risk that the dignity of at least one person in the relationship gets violated and therefor I wouldn't want to see it sanctioned as well. If people want to try this social experiment they should very well do so. But they shouldn't expect me to agree to it.

The End of all times

When you talk to people from other worldviews its quite often quite hard to realize how poorly they understand your position. When it comes to the End Times there is a strong and undeniable dividing line between those who stand on an atheist standpoint and those on a religious one.
He is right in analyzing that the world even in an atheist view has an end. To the biosphere as we know it with the next big meteor impact, to the solar system with the inevitable end of the sun and the slow death of the universe that will expand forever and in this course have ever and ever lower energy densities.
When it comes in this universe to the fate of mankind I'm optimist. I believe that mankind will solve the current social and environmental problems on this planet, will survive the meteor impacts to come and finally even escape from this solar system the time the sun will die. Undeniably mankind in such a distant future will be a biologically different species from what it is today. By natural selection our genes will change and our bodies adapt to ever and ever changing environment. But whatever happens, as long as the descendants of homo sapiens will survive - and might it be in some form of artificial intelligences that are beyond our current technological imagination - our culture, our memes as Dawkins called them will persist. They will be newly perceived, newly interpreted but even if our modern thoughts will be just the very lowest basis of a future human culture - they will survive. The ones after us will find new suns who will warm them and spend them energy for a further couple of billion years until also those sources of energy run dry. Afterwards they might be able to find energy close to neutron stars, but eventually one day even those sources will dry up. At this time I believe the ones after us will merely be highly intelligent machines with artificial intelligences beyond the capacity of our modern day brain. As such they will be able to save energy by simply running slower.
For the last of a long line of descendants of homo sapiens time will begin to run, as they begin to slow down more and more. In a universe in which there isn't really anything to see anymore they will see the millennia and millions of years flying buy until one day they will also run out of energy with a final thought into eternity.

Now that I laid out my escatology in a nutshell, lets see how it is different from the Christian escatology. Dr. Mohler said to be fulfilling life, all of life, needs to have a beginning and needs to have an ending just as a good story needs to have. From an atheist position we tell our lives like stories, but this universe isn't a story. It is. It's without a narrator - without a narrative. If there is ever anyone to make it into a narrative than it's by some future technology, some future power mankind or another extraterrestrial civilization.

Yes, the atheist way to view the world means that all the wrongs of the past won't be made right. The only wrongs we can make right are the wrongs of the future by avoiding them. To be able to do that, we need to understand this world in an unbiased way. We need to respect the human being

and we need to realize that ideas do have consequences.
Just like the idea that the end of all times is a thing to long for.

That is what makes atheists afraid of Christian escatology. In the centuries before us it was a mindset of constant waiting, that itself was already quite depressing. But at the moment this old believe that the end of times is something to long for gets into a toxic mixture with a very typical American way of impatience. When especially Christians talk about bring about the end of times by nuclear war - than this in plain scary.
I wish Dr. Mohler would have taken as much time to scold those Christians who feel entitled to accelerate the coming of the apocalypse as he took to scold atheists for their beliefs.

When it comes to the apocalypse the difference between religious people and atheists is that atheists (at least all of who I know) would do anything to avoid it, the religious seem to long for it.
If you believe that this world and what we can make out of this world is the best we will ever have, the idea that the end of this world is something good is genuinely scary.

As Dr. Mohler knows and agrees to: Ideas do have consequences.