Religion and Philosophy

Comment Of The Day: “Wait! Is THIS Peak Stupid In The Age Of The Great Stupid?”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Yesterday’s post about the theology PhD student telling a congregation that Jesus was transsexual based on artist renditions of him was calculated to trigger lively responses, and indeed it has. CD-VAPatriot is one of the Ethics Alarms readers who doesn’t comment often but is always sharp and provocative when she does, and this Comment of the Day is another example. (I have recently figured out that EA has a lot of female participants here. Good.)

Here is CD-VAPatriot‘s Comment of the Day on the post, “Wait! Is THIS Peak Stupid In The Age Of The Great Stupid?” …

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I’m often left speechless by Woke World, but this one takes the cake. I’m physically sickened by this claim.

I have no problem with the LGBTQ crowd, although when their group constantly holds their needs/wants/ideals over the importance of everyone and everything else, it becomes an issue. As for the trans community, I feel very sorry for those adults who believe they were born the wrong gender. I feel that this conviction comes from the mind of someone who is mentally ill. Mutilating healthy body parts, removing healthy organs, using heavy duty medications one’s body doesn’t actually need is considered Xenomelia (Body Integrity Dysphoria)…which is classified as a mental illness. I consider transgenders in this category. My heart breaks for someone in that much pain. I believe that someone suffering from such a serious illness should be treated with complete compassion.

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Wait! Is THIS Peak Stupid In The Age Of The Great Stupid?

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

It’s a now-familiar tactic when minority groups seek attention and enhanced self-esteem: find a universally admired historical figure of note and claim that he or she was a member of that group. Abraham Lincoln was gay! Cleopatra was black! (That worked out well…) Jesus was gay AND black! Still, I didn’t see this coming, but the Great Stupid knows no bounds, apparently:

Worshipers at a Trinity College at Cambridge were treated to a sermon by Joshua Heath, currently seeking a PhD in theology. He argued that Christ takes on a transgender body in historical artwork, appearing both masculine and feminine in different paintings.  As proof, he displayed Jean Malouel’s painting called “The Pieta,” in which the body of Christ is shown with blood running down his side. Heath noted that the blood coming down from the side wound of Christ to the groin in the painting “takes on a decidedly vaginal appearance.”  “[I]f the body of Christ as these works suggest the body of all bodies, then his body is also the trans body,” Heath concluded.

Oh. So if someone paints a portrait of me a few centuries from now showing me with the head of an aardvark, that would be solid evidence that I had the head of an an aardvark? Good thinking there, Ace. Paintings of Jesus prove absolutely nothing, as the “Jesus was black” advocates correctly pointed out. The evidence indicates he was probably dark-skinned and swarthy, and less than five feet tall. But trans is “in,” so we now have to debate whether Christ “identified” as a woman.

The residents of Woke World are apparently incapable of saying, “That’s ridiculous” when an “in” group is the topic, so Michael Banner, the Dean and Director of Studies in Theology and Religious Studies at Trinity College felt it necessary to endorse Heath’s fantasy. He wrote in response to a complaint about the sermon that Heath’s “speculation was legitimate, whether or not you or I or anyone else disagrees with the interpretation.” 

Can The Great Stupid get more stupid than this?

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Source: Campus Reform

Oh For God’s Sake…A 6th Grader Should Know This Law Is Unconstitutional, And The Texas Senate Doesn’t? [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Texas Senate Bill 1515, introduced by Sen. Phil King (R-Weatherford), an ethics dunce, is on the way to the Texas House for consideration. Given the degree of right-wing derangement in Texas, a fair match for Woke Derangement in California, New York and other states, it’s a better than an even bet that public schools in Texas will be required to prominently display the Ten Commandments in every classroom starting next school year. Next up, I suppose, will be a Texas law requiring citizens to say the Lord’s Prayer every morning and to pass a yearly Bible literacy test or be forced to wear sack cloth and ashes. There is no chance, zip, nada, uh-uh, zippo, that the Ten Commandments law survives a legal challenge. None. That is not, as Mona Lisa Vito states under oath in “My Cousin Vinny,” an opinion. It’s a fact.

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Ethics Dunce, Rabbi and “Rolling Stone” Columnist Jay Michaelson Provides A Depressing Lesson In How “Bias Makes You Stupid”

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Was this really so hard an episode to respond to competently?

As discussed in this post, the Dalai Lama got himself videoed while pressuring a young boy to kiss him (on the lips) and asking the boy to <cough> suck the holy man’s tongue. Too bad Peter Graves is dead: he could play the Dalai Lama in a movie…

“Joey…would you like to suck my tongue?” was apparently cut. But I digress.

On “CNN Tonight” panel this week, and host Alisyn Camerota asked Michaelson to comment on the disturbing video. Ethics Aalrms frozen solid, the rabbi answered,

“The Dalai Lama is a very playful human being. And we may see this in a weird, kind of gross, sexualized way, but this is about as sexual as a bowl of plain rice. There is nothing sexual … or erotic happening in this encounter. Tibetan culture just has different boundaries…[the tongue] is what we kiss with, it’s sexualized … it’s not seen that way in Tibetan culture. This is a part of the body. It’s something playful….The apology was in order. This was clearly something that was at best, you know, insensitive to how this would be seen by a large swath of the world population. [But]“the Dalai Lama is one of my spiritual heroes. I have met him. Being in his presence is really one of the most powerful experiences I’ve had in my life. And the aura of loving kindness that he has is evident, even here where he’s being playful in a way that in Western culture would certainly be inappropriate.”

Since the rabbi wasn’t defending Joe Biden, Camerota felt free to actually practice journalism and challenge this spin, saying, “the boy doesn’t want to” kiss the Dalai Lama or suck his tongue,” and adding that the Dalai Lama is “taking the boy’s head … just sort of reading the body language here. I’ll take your word for it that it seemed differently there culturally, but the boy doesn’t seem to be wanting to participate in this.”

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Ethics Hero And “Bite Me!” Déjà Vu: San Jose Sharks Goalie James Reimer [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

You may not believe this, given how often it is I have to do it, but I hate repeating myself. This post is essentially identical to this one, from January: same issue, same pandering, power-abusing sports league (the NHL), same awards (Ethics Hero and A “Bite Me!”), same despicable news media coverage; different team (the Sharks in place of the Flyers) and different player (Sharks goalie James Reimer replacing the Philadelphia Flyers’ Ivan Provorov…during the game against the Islanders,).

As in the case of the Flyers two months ago, the Sharks hosted a Pride Night (what someone’s sexual activities have to do with hockey and why they are something to be proud of remains a mystery to me), and announced that, in addition to offering silly LGTBQ+ themed, “Great Stupid”classic items like these…

…during the game against the Islanders,and promoting it with pandering blather like this…

…the team also committed its players to wearing special pride-themed jerseys during pre-game warm-ups. Well, you can’t do that, not ethically. It’s compelled speech by an employer with a threat of negative consequences for any employee who doesn’t comply. I would (and have) refused to go along with such edicts as an employee in the past even when I happened to agree with the sentiments I was ordered to endorse.

Like Provorov, the Sharks goalie declined to be pushed into endorsing something he chose not to, stating,

“For all 13 years of my NHL career, I have been a Christian — not just in title, but in how I choose to live my life daily. I have a personal faith in Jesus Christ who died on the cross for my sins and, in response, asks me to love everyone and follow him. I have no hate in my heart for anyone, and I have always strived to treat everyone that I encounter with respect and kindness. In this specific instance, I am choosing not to endorse something that is counter to my personal convictions which are based on the Bible, the highest authority in my life,”

He should not have been placed in a position where he had to make such a statement. (I would have preferred to see a shorts statement about compelled speech and political endorsements in general, but that’s just me.)

Predictably, and just as in the case of Reimer, the Woke Borg, Mainstream Media Division, attacked. One hockey writer described Reimer as “absolutely a homophobe” and beclowned himself by writing, “Here’s also what I believe, Jesus would unequivocally love and celebrate the LGBTQ+ community. He’d be the first to wear a rainbow.” Another sports writer wrote that Reimer is “hiding behind the Bible to refuse to endorse gay people having rights and existing.” A bit less mainstream, a newsletter about sexism in sports spat out, “Under the umbrella of disingenuous bullshit, you can fuck right off with this statement. If you truly believed the queer community is welcome in hockey, you’d wear the shirt. You do not get to have it both ways. Jesus is not impressed.” More assumptions about that well-known hockey fan, Jesus of Nazareth!

The NHL and the Sharks are the ethics villains here for putting their players in this position.

The NHL and the Sharks are the ethics villains here for putting their players in this position. The Sharks tried to both double down and weasel out, issuing this:

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When Ethics Alarms Don’t Ring: Oklahoma Republicans Vote Against Banning Corporal Punishment Of Disabled Students

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

As an ethicist, I see news stories like this and want to hurl myself through the nearest wood-chipper. On the Left, we have racial-grievance fanatics claiming that eliminating discipline for disrupting class is necessary to avoid perpetuating “systemic racism.” On the Right, we have virtual Neanderthals with ethical standards stuck in the 19th century advocating teachers hitting cognitively challenged kids because…the Bible says so.

No wonder it’s so easy for Leftist fascism to get a foothold in our culture, when conservatives undermine their credibility with positions like that.

Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plains and apparently through one ear and out the other of a lot of elected officials, is one of the 19 laggards that permit child abuse in the public schools. (Watch the Indian School corporal punishment inflicted on students in the “1923” miniseries now streaming on Paramount+, if you dare.) Democrats in the state legislature introduced House Bill 1028, a modest proposal—I would think—to outlaw school district personnel from “using corporal punishment on any student identified with a disability in accordance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.” It didn’t even outlaw teachers beating kids in general, just students with disabilities. But the GOP has a super-majority, and not enough alleged conservatives (why is beating students “conservative” voted against the bill to narrowly kill it, 45-43.

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Dispatches From The Great Stupid, An Ethics Dunce Family, And West Coast Bizarro World [Link Fixed!]

/ Jack Marshall / 42 Comments

This story is so mind-meltingly stupid that it actually makes me angry.

I am not going to be kind. When woke delusions get this serious, innocent people are going to be hurt. That’s Jennifer Angel above, a small business owner and Oakland baker. She was an anarchist and extreme social justice advocate, as if anarchy doesn’t lead directly to injustice. I’m sure she was a nice person, just permanently crippled by living too long in California and hanging out with aging hippies. Jennifer didn’t deserve to die, and die horribly, but she did: when a thief broke into Angel’s car while she was in it, grabbed something and jumped into a getaway car, Angel chased the thief—after all, that’s what you have to do when there are no police, as Angel wished. Sadly, she got caught in the door of the fleeing vehicle was dragged down the street, her head smashing against the pavement repeatedly. She was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Angel’s family and friends issued a statement, and it is utopian claptrap for the ages. here is most of it, and when I can’t stand by without commenting, I will interrupt: Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “Ethics Quiz: As The Founders Roll Over In Their Graves”

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

This was one of those times that a last minute addition to a post attracted more commentary than the main topic. Discussing a city ordinance permitting animal sacrifices for religious purposes, I asked, “Is circumcision the slippery slope that brought us to this ridiculous point of cultural confusion?” This sparked extensive discussion. “Male circumcision” has been a tag on two EA articles,  but the blog has neglected the issue, for reasons too painful to go into. Humble Talent, in a discussion with Ryan Harkins, remedied that failing with gusto, in two successive comments that I’m stitching together here as a single Comment of the Day on the post, “Ethics Quiz: As The Founders Roll Over In Their Graves”:

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“Most of those men have to then have a circumcision, and as an adult, it is far more painful than as a baby.” [Ryan Harkins]

This is not true. It’s actually more painful for the baby. At the normal point in development the procedure occurs, the foreskin is adhered to the tip of the penis by the same kind of connective tissue that holds fingernails to nailbeds. If left, that tissue eventually breaks down, but the reality is that for babies, you’re doing something on par with pulling a fingernail out before doing the exact same thing that adult men who experience circumcision call extremely painful.

It’s the exact same pain, except in children it’s usually conducted without anesthesia. You just don’t remember it.

“Circumcision is often performed on infants without anesthetic or with a local anesthetic that is ineffective at substantially reducing pain (Lander et al., 1997). In a study by Lander and colleagues (1997), a control group of infants who received no anesthesia was used as a baseline to measure the effectiveness of different types of anesthesia during circumcision. The control group babies were in so much pain—some began choking and one even had a seizure—they decided it was unethical to continue. It is important to also consider the effects of post-operative pain in circumcised infants (regardless of whether anesthesia is used), which is described as “severe” and “persistent” (Howard et al., 1994). ”

But while you might not remember, your body does. Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: As The Founders Roll Over In Their Graves…[Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

The headline: “Hamtramck City Council votes to allow animal sacrifice for religious purposes in the city.”

The act of animal sacrifice is often practiced among Muslims during the celebration of  Eid al-Fitr, and Muslims make up a majority on the council, it seems. There’s not much more that needs to be said, is there?

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz to begin this cold and gloomy Thursday (at least where I am) is…

Are animal sacrifices for any reason ethical in the United States of America?

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Cowardly And Unethical College Administrators…Again

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

The ethics of this controversy are easy. How could Hamline College administrators screw it up so badly? That’s easy too.

An adjunct professor of art history at Hamline University (in Minnesota, where strange things are always happening), Erika López Prater, knew that Islam forbids depictions of the Prophet Muhammad, so before showing a 14th-century painting of Islam’s founder, she alerted any Muslim students taking her class through her course syllabus that images the Prophet Muhammad would be shown and studied in the course. She directed students with any concerns to contact her. No student did.

Before the class in which paintings of Muhammad were about to be shown, she again alerted students in case anyone felt they needed to leave. No student left. But after Dr. López Prater showed a painting featuring the prophet, a senior in the class complained to the administration. Then Muslim students who were not in the course argued that the class was an attack on their religion. Guess what?

Hamline officials told Dr. López Prater that she was out. Emails to students and faculty pronounced the episode “Islamophobic.” Hamline’s president, Fayneese S. Miller, co-signed an email saying that respect for the Muslim students “should have superseded academic freedom.” Continue reading →