Top 3 Reasons to Believe Christianity

If you're a Christian, what kinds of evidence do you use when sharing the gospel with non-Christians? We all have our subjective experience of how we came to faith, but those may not convince others that Christianity is objectively true. Here are 3 objective lines of evidence that every believer should be able to share with others. These are the biggest reasons we SHOULD be Christians and why they should too.

1. The God of the Bible is consistent with the cause of the universe

Science has shown us that the universe is not eternal and must have had an absolute beginning. Because time, matter, and space are all parts of this universe, the cause of the universe must be timeless, spaceless, and immaterial. It must also be extremely powerful and highly intelligent in order to have designed this universe. This begins to sound very much like the God of the Bible. There is much more that could be said here and many lines of evidence to back up these statements, but this is the very quick intro.

2. The evidence for the actual, historical resurrection of Jesus proves Christianity is true

This is the number one evidence for Christianity. If you give your children nothing else, this is vital. Even the Apostle Paul said that if Christ is not raised, our faith is in vain. They must know and understand the evidence for the resurrection. It is on this one historical event that Christianity rests.
We have 4 separate eyewitness accounts in the 4 gospels that verify the resurrection event. We also have independent attestation from non-Christian sources as to the major claims of Christianity very early on and we have the writings of the early church fathers to show that Christian claims have not changed over time.

 
There are several historical facts that even non-Christian historians agree are true based on these lines of evidence:

• Jesus really did die on the cross
• The tomb was empty
• The disciples really believed Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to them
• Christianity exploded out of early 1st century Israel based on the testimony of the apostles

The best explanation for these 4 historical facts is that Jesus did actually rise from the dead. People may die for a story they believe to be true, but people don't die for a story they made up and know to be false. The apostles were in the position to know whether the resurrection actually happened and they went to their deaths without recanting. Again, there is much more to be said here, but this is the core of the issue.

3. The morality given in the Bible is consistent with natural law

This is a very neglected line of evidence, but very useful in helping young people see that Christian morality is not unreasonable and helping them stand against the ridicule of the culture. This one is more difficult to explain in a nutshell, but we see over and over again that immorality violates our design, not just a set of arbitrary laws.

 
For example, God commands us to abstain from sex before or outside marriage. That's not an arbitrary command. Premarital sex produces heartache, disease, poverty, abortion, and children who are raised in broken homes without a mother or father and thus are more likely to commit crimes, be promiscuous, drop out of school, and have emotional problems. Adultery produces many of the same effects, breaking up homes and harming men, women, and children in the process. These kinds of results show that extramarital sex isn't just immoral because of God's law, but because it deeply harms us by violating the way we were designed to live. We weren't meant to treat our bodies as playthings to be used as we please. Sex means more than just rubbing body parts together for fun.

 
Our design as humans involves not only our physical design, but our emotional and spiritual design as well and immoral sex violates that design. We can see from nature that extramarital sex is harmful and that shows us that God knew what He was doing when He gave us His laws.

There are many more lines of evidence and much more detail that could be covered for each of these, but these are the big main points every Christian should be able to explain.

Homosexuality Violates the Design of our Bodies

Homosexuality, at its root, says that my body tells me nothing about how I should function sexually, and that I can do what I feel like rather than fulfilling the design of my sexuality which is rooted in the biology of the human body. This treats the body as if it is inconsequential and pointless - just a shell of meat that we wear rather than part of who we are. The "true self" in this view is the soul or mind or some non-physical entity that is inhabiting our bodies. The body is viewed as separate and unconnected to the true self, to be used as we please.

This mind/body dualism is actually a very low view of the body compared to the traditional Christian view, which says the body is inherently good, created by God, and part of who we are, not just a shell we inhabit. A lot of Christians today have lost this understanding, but this has been the historic Christian view since the beginning.

This presents a powerful way to reach those struggling with homosexual desires or similar issues (like transgenderism) with a positive message that their bodies are not irrelevant to who they are, but are good and integral parts of their being. Our bodies do have a lot to show us about who we are because they exhibit features that have a design. Behaviors that fit with our design are good and behaviors that violate our design are bad - not just morally bad, but bad for us as well.

Rather than a negative message that they are evil and twisted for having same-sex desires, we can present a positive message that their bodies are good. Our design tells us how we should live.

For example, we can study the digestive system to see what it is for and how it works. But that study also shows us good ways and bad ways of treating our bodies. If we eat nutritious food, then our bodies are helped. If we eat junk food or overeat or binge and purge or starve ourselves, these violate the way our bodies are supposed to work and cause harm. We can see that anorexia and bulimia are disorders precisely because they violate the way the body is designed to work.

It is exactly the same with the sexual organs. Our bodies have a way they were designed to work. They are designed as either male or female and the sexes are designed for their sexual organs to fit together and through that action to create new life. Our desires or attractions do not trump the design of our bodies. If we treat our bodies incorrectly, it causes harm.

This is a high view of the body that treats the body as an important part of who we are and which gives us valuable clues about how we should live so that we can flourish. Note that we do not have to rely on Christian moral teaching at this point. This is an argument from natural law, which is accessible to anyone, even if they don't believe the Bible. And that makes it easier to reach those who are not Christians.

It is worth noting at this point that Christian teaching, not coincidentally, is in line with what we can see in nature. This is good evidence for the truth of Christianity. Christian morality doesn't violate our design. It fits perfectly.

For more arguments like this about the design of human bodies and human sexuality, check out my new book The Bible and Science on Gender, Sex, and Marriage.

Playing God with Human Reproduction: The Immorality of IVF Technologies

Humans are sacred. The creation of humans is sacred. Children are designed to be formed from the act of sexual intimacy between a husband and wife. When you take the conception of the child outside the marital union and involve third parties (doctors, technicians, etc), you are separating things that God designed and intended to be kept together - sex, marriage, and children. Creating a child in a lab is as much a deviation from God's plan as creating that child through fornication or rape. The child, of course, is just as valuable, regardless of the circumstances of their conception. But we should recognize that an injustice has been done to the child in these cases. 

Every child is made in the image of God and has natural rights. But we violate the natural law when we take conception outside the marital sexual union. It is unfair to children, it treats them as property, and it misuses the sexual design God gave us.

Killing Children

The most serious and obvious problem with in-vitro fertilization is that it commonly results in the intentional killing of human children. We see a lot of dehumanization of embryos created through IVF. They only get implanted if they're judged to be healthy enough. Clinics discard embryos that have genetic defects or "extra" embryos. If too many embryos implant, the babies are "reduced" (i.e. some are killed). These are human children we are talking about, and it is common practice to create more than can be implanted or carried and kill the rest. It's not okay to kill a few babies to get one to hold.

The IVF process also provides opportunity for eugenics and further dehumanization of children. If you want a boy, they can discard the girls for you, or vice versa. "Extra" embryos are commonly frozen for later use (notice the wording - they are there to be used), which increases their risk of damage or death. So we are placing human children in dangerous situations for the convenience of adults, so they can be used as their parents see fit.

Freezing embryos is a risky process. Not only can the freezing itself cause damage or death to a human child in this way, but there's no guarantee that the parents will be able to gestate the child later or that they will choose to, even if they can. People most often freeze embryos in case their current IVF cycle fails, but it if doesn't fail, they may or may not ever implant those frozen embryos. There are currently nearly a million frozen embryos in storage. The vast majority will likely never be given a chance to develop and be born. Many are donated to science, to be experimented on as if they were not living human beings. Others are discarded directly. Some are "donated" like unwanted clothes or trinkets at a thrift shop. At least they get to live. But what are we doing to their psyche when they find out their own parents gave them away?

Eugenics

There has also been talk of genetic tampering with embryos to fix genetic defects or imperfections. This is currently something science is capable of doing. This is not decades down the road. We can do this now, with technology available today. In the very near future we may have designer babies that have been genetically modified to the parents' specifications. You may be able to pick your child's height, eye and hair color, athletic ability, intelligence, and so on. It will certainly be possible to eliminate children with genetic conditions like Down syndrome, Turner syndrome, Celiac disease, Autism or even just nearsightedness or hearing impairment. After all, if children are products designed to fulfill the desires of adults, the customer should be happy with their purchase, right? Nobody wants to spend all that money and get a broken child. This is the mentality that IVF leads to, and we are already seeing it today.

We have to remember that children are people, not a collection of traits designed to make their parents feel good. Treating them as products to be manufactured to specification or discarded when they are not wanted is dehumanizing. It's not a coincidence that people tend to dehumanize human children when they play God in creating them. None of this is possible without IVF first being accepted and normalized. 

Destroying the Family

IVF also allows for any number of further deviations from God's design for families. The biological parents need not be the parents who intend to raise the child, for example. The biological parents may not have even met one another, much less had love or a marriage covenant. With sperm or egg donation, the child is being deprived of their biological heritage on purpose. Homosexual couples use IVF in order to create custom children since their unions are naturally infertile. Surrogacy depends on IVF. 

Sperm and egg donation is immoral. Children have a right to know their biological parents. It actively harms children when we deprive them of their biological heritage. They need to know such things as whether diabetes or heart disease or cancer runs in the family because that's important to their own health care. They need to know whether the person they're dating might be a lost sibling with the same donor father or mother. But more than that, they need to know where they came from and who their parents are. They deserve to be loved by the people who gave them their nose and eyes and whose smile they bear. They need to hear how they look like their grandma or how they have daddy's chin when they are growing up. This gives children a vital understanding of who they are that is missing when their biological parents have been stripped from them. Many adopted and donor-conceived children feel this loss as an ache inside them to know where they came from and who their biological parents are. It is a tragedy when a child loses their parents to accident or disease or abandonment. Why would we impose that tragedy on them on purpose? We don't have that right. 

Surrogacy 

Let's talk a little bit more about surrogacy as well. Surrogacy compounds the dehumanization of the child by also treating women as mere incubators for growing a child. It is bad for both women and children. Gestation is not just a biological process. It is highly emotional and spiritual as well. The bond between mother and child that develops during gestation is completely ignored in surrogacy. At birth, a baby already knows the mother's voice and heartbeat and needs her specifically. I have seen this for myself at the births of my own children who knew and were soothed by the sound of my voice, above the voices of others in the room, when they were mere minutes old. They knew me. They wanted me. No one else would do. Studies have shown that babies learn in the womb. There's a sacred bond between mother and child that develops during gestation. Yet with surrogacy, the child is taken from the only mother she knows at birth. This is highly traumatic for an infant. It has been termed "the primal wound." We should not be intentionally causing trauma to babies so that adults can obtain a child on demand.

There is also a very serious problem that no one wants to talk about when we give children to people who are not their natural parents. There's a certain connection and investment that happens with natural parents that tends to help prevent child abuse. While it is certainly possible for natural parents to abuse their children, it is actually fairly rare. Most abused children are abused by boyfriends or girlfriends of their parents, step-parents, more distant relatives, or unrelated caretakers, not their natural parents. In fact, the mere fact of biological relatedness is not necessarily protective if the child was not created in the natural way and raised by those biological parents. This is a major reason that we carefully screen foster parents and adoptive parents (or at least try to) to be sure they are capable of caring for the child properly and will not be abusive. We don't generally just hand children to strangers without any sort of vetting process. One major exception to this is with surrogacy.

As it stands now, almost anyone can buy a child through surrogacy, with no one checking to be sure they aren't neglecting or abusing that child. There have been a number of cases in recent years where children were being harmed after being obtained through surrogacy. In one notable case, a mentally handicapped man who was not married and was already caring for elderly parents alone had obtained several infants within a short period of time through surrogacy and could not care for them adequately, but little was done since he was their biological father. In another case, a disabled child who had been obtained via surrogate was being denied life-saving medical care by the biological parents who did not want to raise the child while the surrogate who carried him wanted him and was being denied the chance to save his life. There have been multiple cases of biological parents demanding that surrogates abort a disabled child before birth or abandoning them once they are born. Again, we see dehumanization because they're treating the child as a product to be manufactured to specification and they want a product that is not defective. It is also common practice to hand children over to homosexual couples or single parents through surrogacy and thus intentionally deprive them of a home with a mother and father.

There is also the problem of the rights of surrogates being trampled. Many are poor women in countries like India who carry a child for money. This womb-for-hire commerce has some serious problems. If a natural mother plans to give up her infant for adoption, she has every right to change her mind after the birth. Women often change their mind when their child is born because there is a strong emotional bonding that takes place during childbirth. Yet a surrogate is usually not given this option. She can be strongly bonded to the child, yet the child will be taken from her to be given to people she often does not know and cannot be sure will care for the child properly. In several cases, surrogates have been pressured to abort a child for developmental problems and refused and then are required to hand that child over to the same parents who wanted that child dead. In some cases, the intended parents refuse the child due to developmental problems and leave an impoverished surrogate with a child she can't afford to raise, but yet she hates to give up to a foster system. If a surrogate accidentally becomes pregnant with her own child during the surrogacy process, this may not be realized or, if it is, she may be forced to hand her own biological child over to the commissioning parents until the legal issues are worked out.

Clinic Mistakes

There are so many serious problems with surrogacy and other uses of IVF technology. Even when a married couple intends to produce and gestate their own biological child and they don't kill extra embryos, mistakes can occur and the wrong egg or sperm can be used. What do you do when your wife is carrying another man's child because of a mistake like this? You don't have this problem with the natural delivery method.

Health Problems

There is also the issue of health concerns for children. Babies produced by IVF also have a higher rate of embryo death and a higher rate of birth defects or other health problems. More than half of IVF cycles fail. So they're creating and implanting babies that we don't know can be carried successfully. They may be implanting those babies in a womb that cannot care for them. Of course, babies can also die from natural causes when IVF is not used. Some couples have repeated miscarriages, for example. But that's not something we humans are causing. It's a natural outcome. When we take it on ourselves to control the process of conception and implantation, we also own the outcomes in ways that don't apply to natural processes.

Financial Concerns

In addition to the above concerns, there is the issue of money. Not only is IVF extremely expensive (and therefore difficult to justify given the number of existing children who need homes), but that money is given to doctors and reproductive clinics who are discarding embryos, sending them to be experimented on, or freezing them until some future date that may never come. Even if a couple does not discard their extra embryos and does not freeze their children for a later date, they're still funding an entity that does. The money they pay for their "ethical" IVF is keeping the doors open for clinics that mistreat other embryos.

The Root of the Problem

The problems of IVF go beyond these more obvious issues into the depths of what sex and procreation mean. I don't think God ever intended for us to separate the creation of children from the marital act and involve third parties like doctors and technicians. I understand that it is a natural and good desire to want your own biological children, but good desires cannot be rightfully fulfilled outside God's rightful means. It's a good desire to want sex, but we have to fulfill that good desire only in marriage because that is the proper way. It is the same with bearing children. We have to stick to God's way. The tragedy of infertility does not justify taking matters into our own hands or inflicting harm on children. Children are a gift from God, not an entitlement. 

Sex and Reproduction are Sacred

Sex, marriage, and childbearing are all an interconnected web by God's design. They are sacred because they mean something more than just the sheer biological facts. Sex isn't just a pleasurable rubbing together of body parts as our society claims. It has meaning. A sacred meaning. Similarly, the creation of a new life is not just a matter of two cells merging to start a new life. It has sacred meaning. We tamper with that at our peril.

Part of the sacredness of procreation is the mystery and symbolism that God gave us in sex itself and how it is meant to bring husband and wife together to become one flesh and through that union to create new life. The union of husband and wife symbolizes Christ and the church, as we know, but I think we often fail to understand how deep the imagery goes. During the marital act, the husband gives, emptying himself into the wife, and she takes what is given and gives back the fruit nine months later. Similarly, Christ emptied Himself, pouring out His life on the cross. We, the church, take what is given, and bear fruit - not only in our own lives, but in others we bring to Christ. Our biology means something much deeper than we realize. Christ creates new life that will last forever by unity with us just as we create new lives that will last forever through our marital unity.

When we create children in a petri dish, without sex and that union between husband and wife, we are destroying the pattern God gave us which points to Him. We are taking that which is sacred and treating it as if we could re-design and re-purpose it for our own ends, in violation of the Creator. We are treating the physical as the only reality, and ignoring what it means.

The Tragic Results of Violating God's Plan

It's no surprise that when start playing God with our reproduction, lots of evil results. That's why we have hundreds of thousands of frozen embryos - human children - stored in freezers around the country with little hope of ever having a life. That's why we have embryos discarded as "extras" with no regard for their intrinsic value as human beings who bear the image of God. That's why doctors can so casually suggest a "reduction" if too many embryos implant. That's why it's such a mess when doctors inadvertently use the wrong sperm or mix donor eggs with donor sperm and create a child with biological parents who have never even met and who will not be raising the child together. That's why we have children born from donor sperm who will always wrestle with the heart-rending question of "Why did daddy not want to know me?" That's why we have people commissioning a child through surrogacy who think nothing of aborting or abandoning their biological child when he's "defective."

Ignoring the sacredness of reproduction means denying the sacredness of our humanity and treating the physical as all there is. When we deny that we are more than physical beings and think we can manipulate human creation to our own ends, we deny the intrinsic value of ourselves and our children. This leads to many abuses, but most commonly the children are the ones most harmed. Keeping the God-given connections between sex, marriage, and children means valuing humans as made in the image of God and therefore designed to be created according to God's plan. The mentality of IVF is that humans are not sacred, but only flesh that can be manipulated and repurposed as we desire.

These many serious problems I have outlined arise, not as occasional, unrelated bugs in the process, but as intrinsic features because of the wrong worldview. There are systemic problems with IVF technologies because the underlying worldview is false. The fruit of IVF is rotten because the tree is rotten. 

What We Lose When We Dismantle Taboos

Suppose I told you that my husband sometimes goes hiking alone with another woman. She's beautiful and just a few years younger than he is. He also has been known to call her and talk at length about what is going on in his life and hers. You might be concerned for the state of my marriage. However, you would be missing an important piece of information. She's his sister.

That sort of information makes a huge difference, doesn't it? It's the difference between appropriate and inappropriate. It's the difference between concern that an affair is brewing and totally normal and acceptable interactions. But why?

The difference is the cultural taboo on incest which allows us the presumption that close family interactions are platonic rather than sexual. Most people think of a taboo as a negative thing, but they are really positive because they are protective. The taboo against incest makes it unthinkable to inject a sexual note into family ties, and this gives us the freedom to interact with family members in close and intimate ways without fear or shame or innuendo or temptation. The taboo protects our family relationships so that we can enjoy one another's company. My husband can go hiking with his sister without needing a chaperone or coming back to an upset and suspicious wife precisely because of this taboo. She's not just another woman. She's his sister. Sisters are not objects of sexual attraction.

Taboos are important for the flourishing of human society. They are not optional. They are vital. What happens when we undermine and break down useful taboos that have been long established is that we diminish our own freedom and the freedom of those around us. We make ourselves more suspicious, more encumbered, and make all our interactions more complicated and tense. In the end, we break down society.

Let's take a look at one such example - the acceptance of homosexuality. In times past, homosexuality was taboo. It was unthinkable for the vast majority of people in society. If people engaged in such behavior, they did it secretly. This shame and revulsion around homosexual behavior has been claimed as wrong and harmful and even repressive, but in reality it was freeing. A taboo against homosexuality allows for the assumption of platonicity in all same-sex interactions. It allows men to be friends with other men and women to be friends with other women without injecting a note of sexuality into those friendships. When we accept homosexuality as normal, we destroy not only the taboo, but also the presumption that same-sex friendships are platonic which derives from it. This breaks down our ability to form and maintain close friendships with others of our sex.

It has long been noted, and sometimes lamented, that men and women cannot be platonic close friends. The question of sex is always an element, no matter how much we might like to avoid it or deny it. Even if the people involved have no sexual attraction to one another at the moment, there is always the possibility that it will develop later and always the concern that other people will misunderstand the relationship or that signals will be misunderstood as sexual cues. This forms a serious barrier to male-female friendships.

Yet when we normalize homosexuality, people of the same sex are no longer seen as being off limits as sexual partners and this has implications for all our future interactions. It produces the same distance and barriers between same-sex friends as men and women have been dealing with since the dawn of time. If homosexuality is normal and acceptable, then same-sex friends have to contend with sexual elements appearing in their friendship. If they do not wish to send sexual signals, it takes a lot more effort and care to avoid them. Once you destroy the presumption of platonicity between people of the same sex, it places distance and caution between them lest other people misunderstand. It makes things more awkward. Every word, every gesture, every expression of affection becomes a potential minefield of complications and misunderstandings. In the end, we usually seek distance to relieve the tension and stress and it leaves all of us more disconnected, isolated, and emotionally poorer.

Our society is breaking down and our people are becoming more isolated, sad, and lonely at least partly because we have been breaking down the taboos that protected us. We tore down the fence without first asking what it was there for. The Sexual Revolution was a society-wide experiment with human nature, and it has failed miserably. The aftershocks are still causing damage. And they're not over yet. Not only is homosexuality becoming more and more accepted and normalized and transgenderism is well on its way, but there are movements beginning to normalize pedophilia, incest, bestiality, and more. Not satisfied with the damage already done, some are attempting to "fix" society by destroying all the rest of the taboos we have left. But rather than the utopian paradise they think they are ushering in, they will produce an utterly broken, dysfunctional society full of absurdity and loneliness. If you want to fix something, you need to have an idea of how it's supposed to work and the limits of what you can do. Neither have been addressed adequately.

One way that we can help to counter this current toward the cultural abyss is to stand up and boldly proclaim that taboos are good and useful because of the boundaries they produce and the safety and clarity they foster - not just for those who are "normal," but for everyone. We have had taboos in place against deviant behaviors to protect us. They provide guideposts to shape our choices and our behaviors. They provide freedom to ignore some options as unthinkable. They foster clarity of communication, without mixed signals and misunderstanding. When we have good taboos that rule out harmful and immoral behaviors, society flourishes. When we tear them down, we descend into madness.

Should Christians Be Cremated?

It is common for people today to ask whether it is acceptable for Christians to be cremated. Many have a sort of vague idea that it's not okay, but don't really know why. Others instinctively believe cremation to be perfectly fine because it's accepted in our culture and they can't imagine what would be wrong with it. In times past, being buried was an extremely important issue to many, with some even believing that they could not enter heaven unless they had been properly buried. Sailors often wore a gold or silver earring in hopes that if their lifeless body were to wash up on shore, the precious metal would cover the cost of their burial.

But is it really all that important what happens to our bodies after we die? Is cremation wrong? To clarify the issue, it is helpful to ask a couple of questions.

1) Does being cremated prevent a person from going to heaven or having a resurrection body?

2) Should Christians choose to be cremated?

There is a distinction between these two questions that is not always apparent when discussing cremation, but I want to answer these questions separately because they are separate issues.

In response to Question 1, I think it's clear from scripture and scriptural principles that being cremated does not prevent anyone from being resurrected or going to heaven. God does not need an intact physical body in order to provide us with a resurrection body. A person can't be prevented from going to heaven by what someone else does with their dead body. Whether a body decays, is burned, is eaten by animals, or whatever else may happen to it, this does not affect the eternal future of that person. We are safe in God's hands when we trust in Him. We don't have to worry about whether someone will burn or otherwise destroy our bodies after we die. The early Christians were often fed to lions or burned alive, and they knew that they were going to be safe in heaven when their ordeal was over. Nothing that man can do to our bodies can separate us from God.

On the other hand, the symbolism and tradition of burial among Christians contrasted with the burning of bodies by heathens is not something to ignore either. Christians have always buried their dead as a symbol of the hope for bodily resurrection while many who reject God have used the burning of dead bodies to symbolize returning to the earth and a distinct lack of hope in a future resurrection.

Christianity has always taught that our bodies are not merely physical stuff that is irrelevant to who we are. We are not souls who have a shell of a body to live in for a time. Rather, our embodied existence was always intended to be an integral part of who we are. And that is why we will have resurrection bodies in heaven, because a part of our enjoyment of heaven comes from a physical experience and part of God's eternal plan for us is that we are to be embodied souls rather than just a spirit.

Thus, when we treat the physical body with respect during our lifetime and when we treat it respectfully in death by not purposely destroying it, we show our respect for God's plan that we are to be embodied creatures.

Burning our bodies is not respectful of our bodies or their Creator. Just as burning a flag is a way to show contempt for the flag and thus the country symbolized by that flag, burning a human body shows contempt for that body and the God in whose image that person was made. There's a reason so many enemies of Christianity burned the bodies of Christians - either alive or dead. There's a reason cultures all over the world often burn the bodies of their enemies. There's a reason burning a cross is easily discernible as a sign of disrespect. People burn things that are considered sacred to show that they do not hold them sacred or worthy of honor.

We should not treat our bodies with contempt or disrespect. Others may do so to our bodies after we die, and we cannot prevent that entirely. But we should not make the mistake of choosing to have our bodies burned because then we are the ones showing disrespect.

We should not treat the body as irrelevant or an anchor holding us down. Our bodies are given to us by God as part of His perfect plan. We aren't godlike spirits that need to be freed from houses of flesh, as some false religions teach. We don't need to escape our bodies to become perfect. Flesh is not intrinsically evil or base. Rather, God will perfect our bodies.

On the other extreme, we should recognize that our physical bodies are not the entirety of who we are either. We are not merely dust of the earth that will return to dust and that's all. We don't cling to the empty hope that we will live on by returning to the soil and being recycled into another living thing over and over as many atheists do.

Both of these extreme views - that the body is everything or the body is nothing - are a corruption of the correct and Biblical position that both body and spirit are integral and important parts of who we are. Choosing cremation or any sort of burning of the body claims either that the body is nothing, and thus can be disposed of with impunity, or that the body is all there is, and thus is not sacred. Treating a dead body with honor and respect means not purposely destroying it. The symbolism of burial affirms that we are not merely a body, but also that the body is sacred and important, not a useless shell that can be destroyed when we no longer need it. And that is why Christians have buried their dead for thousands of years, and why they should continue to do so.

Why Women Should Not Be in Combat

I know it’s not very politically-correct to say this, but women should never be placed in combat positions in the military. Women, by their very design, are not as well-suited for battle conditions as men. This includes multiple aspects of their physical and mental design.

For example, the forearms of women have a deeper notch in the upper arm bone that makes their forearms more flexible. Because of this, women can move their arms further back than straight at the elbow. Men's arms do not reach 180 degrees, and this is a strength feature. A man will be able to lift more weight than a woman, even if their arm muscles were of the same mass, just because of this alone. But in addition to that, a man's bones are thicker and tougher than a woman's as well.

Of course, the idea of equal muscle mass is an illusion because the biology of men (including much higher levels of testosterone) means they can put on much more muscle mass than women and they lose it more slowly (meaning it's easier to stay in shape). When it comes to sheer strength, women simply cannot compete with men on a general basis. Some women are stronger than some men, of course, but men as a group have a much greater potential for strength than women. Few women have the ability to carry a grown man off the battlefield or to carry the large packs of supplies they need for a mission. They simply don't have the strength.

Women also have hips that are wider to allow for bearing children, but those same pelvic bones are less well designed for running fast, which can be important in evading enemy fire, keeping up with the pace of the group, or charging enemy lines.

Speaking of their pelvic region, women also have a genital area that is much more vulnerable to infection under dirty and primitive conditions often seen on the battlefield. A woman has a large surface area of moist mucous membrane in that region and a much shorter urethra, both of which make her far more vulnerable to infection that can travel easily to internal body regions and become serious or even life-threatening. The design of male genitalia makes men able to handle less sanitary conditions for longer periods without serious health risks.

Of course, women also have a monthly bleeding issue that makes hygiene and privacy more difficult without sanitary bathroom facilities. And not only do women need to keep that area especially clean at that particular time of the month, but even daily tasks like urination are more difficult for women. Having to squat makes women not only require different facilities and better sanitation for their elimination activities, but makes them more vulnerable during a surprise attack. A man surprised mid-stream is still on his feet, ready to run or charge. A woman...not so much.

Even the skin of women is less adapted for battle. Men have fewer blood vessels to the skin than women, which means that men bleed less from superficial wounds. Obviously, anyone can bleed to death if the wound is severe enough, but the lesser blood loss from superficial wounds means men are more likely to survive and keep fighting even after being wounded.

Men have a larger lung capacity than women, even at the same height and body mass. This gives them a greater ability to intake oxygen. Men also have a greater percentage of red blood cells in their blood, allowing them to transport more oxygen to their muscles when needed. These features give men greater endurance.

All of these individual features I have mentioned point out potential liabilities for single-cause injury or death. However, women also have less of an ability to stand up to the long-term physical strain of being in combat and are more likely than men to experience physical breakdown and require medical care for less quantifiable reasons.

In addition to the many physical reasons that women are less adapted to battle conditions, women are also less mentally prepared for the horrors of battle. Not only does the physical strain weigh more heavily on them and cause physical breakdown faster in women, but the same is true mentally. Women are more prone to mental issues like PTSD in the wake of battlefield stresses. The horrors of war will break down many men, but women are even more vulnerable to this side effect.

Women are designed to be nurturers. Men are designed to be warriors. Their physical and mental designs reflect this. Women have strengths that men do not have, but men also have strengths that women do not have. Being an effective soldier on the battlefield is not in keeping with a woman’s design.

Because women are not designed for battle, putting a woman into combat is a risk to both the woman herself and to the rest of her unit. Her physical and mental health will be more threatened by what she encounters than a man in the same situation. Thus, battle is more dangerous to her. But when any member of a unit is compromised in speed, endurance, strength, or mental fortitude or when they are injured or killed, it places a greater risk upon all of them as they try to make up for the lack and protect their fellow soldiers. Having a woman in the unit is a liability that simply wouldn’t exist if that woman were replaced with a man.

I've already identified many reasons from biology that women should not be in combat, but there are many other issues that could be put forth. I haven't even mentioned here the significant challenges involved in men and women sharing close quarters, the instinct of men to protect women even when it would not be advisable in a military context and the threat this poses to male soldiers, the very real risks of rape to women in the military (both from fellow soldiers and from the enemy if they were to be captured), the need for privacy, the sexual tension, the cost of separate sleeping and bathroom facilities, and many other relevant issues.

What it comes down to is that, if the military were just for show and didn't engage on the battlefield, it wouldn’t matter whether we had women in it. But if the military is a serious force designed to engage in battle efficiently and effectively, then for purely practical and ethical reasons alone, women should not be part of its combat forces.

Marriage and the Needs of Children for a Mother and Father

In my last blog post, I pointed out some of the reasons that government should protect traditional marriage and not redefine marriage to include same-sex couples. On that post, I received a comment stating that studies have shown that children raised in same-sex households are not negatively affected by it. However, this assertion is false.

Yes, a few studies have shown no difference between homosexual parenting and heterosexual parenting. However, several studies have found a difference (see here and here and here). Importantly, many of the smaller, non-random, or self-reported studies have shown no difference while larger, randomized, or more objective studies have shown significant differences in child outcomes with different kinds of parenting. Also, some studies which showed no difference compared homosexual parents to single mothers, not to married biological parents. The emerging picture from the studies is that the best environment for children is a home with their married biological mother and father. That's what the science says. And social scientists are beginning to stand behind these findings more and more, in spite of their unpopularity in the culture at large.

New studies about domestic partner violence are also painting a far less flattering picture of same-sex relationships than are portrayed in the media. We know already that households with lots of violence are bad for children, but now we are seeing that same-sex relationships are more prone to violence than heterosexual relationships. And because of faulty cultural beliefs about same sex relationships, many victims are suffering in silence.

Not only that, but many people raised in same-sex households are speaking up about how it negatively affected them and supporting traditional marriage as being best for children. Take a look here, here, and here, for example.

However, even without this extensive data, it is evident that same-sex parenting inherently, as part of the design, deprives a child of one or more of his biological parents. Obviously, if children are born into a male-female marriage and then divorce occurs and the custodial parent "marries" a same-sex partner, this is just one way for children to be raised in a same-sex household. In such cases it is obvious that the child is being purposely denied a biological parent.

But children conceived through sperm or egg donation are also being deprived of a relationship with a biological parent. The studies are showing that this has a marked impact on these children. Many such children have testified that they always longed to know their absent parent, that it has harmed them psychologically, and that being donor-conceived is, in many ways, worse than the death of a parent. Children who lose a parent to death have had a tragic loss. But children whose parent was paid to go away and not be a part of the child's life not only have that same tragic loss, but will always wrestle with the heart-rending question of "Why didn't they want me?"

If we, as a culture, raise same-sex relationships to the level of marriage, we are saying to these children in same-sex households that they are not deprived in any way when they objectively are. Such a position claims that children being raised without one of their biological parents is just as good as children being raised with both of their biological parents. That is patently absurd.

In fact, same-sex marriage not only does away with biological parenting as the norm, but it tells children that they don't even need a parent of each sex. At least when children are adopted by a husband and wife they have a male role model and a female role model so that they can understand the differences between men and women and learn to relate to both of them. Studies show that men and women parent differently and children need both. We have studies showing the necessity of mothers for a child's development (see here and here). We also have studies showing how vital fathers are to development (see here, here, here and here). Lacking a mother or a father objectively puts children at a disadvantage - whether that occurs through single-parenting or through same-sex parenting.

In order to claim that same-sex parenting is equal to mother-father parenting, you must claim that a mother adds nothing to a child's life that cannot be supplied by a man and that a father adds nothing to a child's life that cannot be supplied by a woman. That is simply false. It not only runs counter to everything we know about the impact of mothers and fathers on a child's development from the research, but it contradicts our own experience and intuition as well.

In addition to all these things, studies have shown that same-sex relationships are far less stable than male-female marriages. Thus, children raised in same-sex households are far more likely to experience the break-up of their family and all the upheaval and trauma that entails.

From all these studies, we can see that children need their biological mother and father living with them, in a stable relationship with each other that provides a good, non-violent environment for raising children. This is the ideal. Adoption or foster care isn't ideal and everyone knows it, but we have to do what we can for existing children who have been unavoidably separated from one or more of their natural parents. But, unlike adoption, same-sex marriage and parenting elevates what is clearly not the ideal - a child deprived of one or more biological parents - and makes it legally equal to the actual ideal of married biological parents raising their children. In doing so, it erases the cultural understanding of that real ideal and systematically and inherently deprives children of a parent on purpose - not merely due to a tragedy.

Why Government Should Protect Traditional Marriage

The problem with the same-sex marriage debate is that nobody (or almost nobody) is making the right argument.
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On one side of the issue we have those who advocate for same-sex marriage, claiming that heterosexuals have the right to marry whoever they want and homosexuals should be allowed that also, out of fairness. On the other side you have people saying that homosexuality is a sin and thus should not be allowed. Both sides are making flawed arguments.

The problem with claiming that homosexuality is a sin is that whether or not it is a sin is irrelevant to making law. We live in a secular country, not a theocracy, and we don’t make everything that is wrong illegal – nor should we. Coveting, lust, and not remembering the Sabbath are sins, but I think we all agree that making and enforcing laws against these things would be bad. 

In this country, laws are based on the concept of inalienable rights (also known as human rights or natural rights) – rights that all people have by virtue of being human and which government cannot grant or take away. These principles of inalienable rights are consistent with Christianity, but can stand alone as a justification that all people can agree with. What’s more, they offer an objective means of determining how government should be involved in making law about various issues. 

Before we get into the arguments about same-sex marriage, we need to understand how government handles different behaviors and why. There are only 3 ways that government can treat behaviors. It can prohibit them, permit them, or promote them. 

Because the highest purpose of government is the protection of inalienable rights, government should NOT prohibit behaviors that the people have an inalienable right to engage in. For example, we have the inalienable right to bear arms and thus government should not prohibit gun ownership. Government prohibition of something the people have a right to do creates an unjust law that itself violates inalienable rights. 

On the other hand, government SHOULD prohibit behaviors that violate the rights of others. So, for instance, government must make murder and theft illegal because these behaviors violate inalienable rights. Any violation of inalienable rights should be prohibited by law in order to protect those rights.

However, there are many behaviors that are not a direct violation of inalienable rights. In such cases, government's main purpose (its secondary purpose, if you will) is the good of society. Thus, behaviors which are definitely bad for society should be prohibited while behaviors which are definitely good for society should be promoted. For example, driving very fast in a car may not always violate the inalienable rights of others (it only does if you hurt them or their property), but it is bad for society for people to be driving recklessly, so driving too fast is prohibited. On the other hand, government promotes giving to charity by providing tax incentives for doing so. Of course, it is necessary for the people to consent to any laws that limit their freedom through their representatives in government. But these are good laws that the people can pass on themselves for the good of society as long as the laws do not violate anyone's inalienable rights. 

The default government position for behaviors is to simply permit them. Before a behavior can be prohibited, it is necessary to prove one of two things. You either have to prove that the behavior violates someone's rights OR you have to prove that it is bad for society and that prohibiting it does not violate anyone's rights. You can't just decide to prohibit something for no good reason or you violate the right to liberty.  

Similarly, before you can promote a behavior you must prove that it is good for society and that it does not violate anyone's rights. You can't just go around promoting behaviors without good reason or you are not protecting the interests of society as a whole. 

So that's the background. The question is, what is government's role with regard to different kinds of human relationships? Which behaviors should be prohibited? Which should be promoted? Which should be simply permitted? 

Certainly some types of sexual relationships should be prohibited. Pedophilia, for example, is prohibited because it is harmful to children (and therefore society) and because it violates the inalienable rights of children (who cannot consent to sex). 

Traditional marriage between a man and a woman has been promoted by government since the beginning because it is good for society. A traditional marriage is procreative, producing the next generation of citizens, and also forms a stable environment in which to raise those children, making them more likely to be good and responsible citizens. Thus, stable marriages are in society's best interest and government promotes this ideal by recognizing and protecting the marriage relationship and by providing economic incentives (such as tax breaks) to encourage people to marry and raise children in stable homes. It's an investment in the future. 

In addition to producing the next generation, marriage forms both an economic and a social unit and provides benefits to society in this way as well. Economically, marriage is a wealth-building institution. Married people make more and save more than singles and children of married couples are far less likely to be poor. Socially, marriage is good for all parties – men, women, and children. Married men live longer and are happier and healthier than unmarried men. Women who are married and children who live with their married parents are far less likely to be abused. Children of married couples are more likely to do well in school. These are just a few of the many advantages of marriage to the individuals and to society as a whole. 

By contrast, homosexual relationships do not provide these benefits to society. No logical conservative is advocating that we prohibit same-sex relationships between consenting adults. We don't cart people off to jail for engaging in consensual homosexual acts, nor do we want to. However, because same-sex relationships have not been shown to be a good for society, the proper role of government with respect to same-sex relationships is to simply permit them. Until same-sex relationships can be shown to have the same benefits to society as traditional marriage, we should not promote them.  

Of course, some claim that same-sex couples have a right to marry. The problem with this claim is that there is no such right to marry whoever one wants. If there was such a right, then it would apply to many more than just homosexuals. Pedophiles who want to marry young children, zoophiles who want to marry animals, those who wish to marry close relatives, and those who want to marry multiple people would all have a “right” to do so if there is a right to marry whoever one wishes. I think we all agree that this is not the case. Civilization has always placed restrictions on marriage and it always will. The only question is what the proper restrictions are. 

The thing is, marriage means much more than just two people that love each other or who want to commit to one another. Marriage is a natural unit based on the biology of human reproduction and, most importantly, the needs of children for care and stability. Only a union of a man and a woman can produce children naturally. Every child has just one biological mother and one biological father. And since both parents have equal responsibility for their child’s care, it is only natural that parents would form permanent unions in order to share that care and provide the stable home the child needs. Thus, every society on earth has figured out how to have marriages as individuals form a marriage relationship with another person of the opposite sex in order to raise a family together. There are lots of kinds of sexual relationships (committed or not), but only the permanent, exclusive, and comprehensive union of a man and woman produces a natural family unit. 

Because the natural family is a natural unit, it has natural rights and responsibilities of its own that government should recognize in order to protect those rights. One of those rights, for example, is the right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children. If there is no such thing as a natural family with its own natural rights, then there is no such thing as parental rights. In such a case, every man, woman, and child is an individual ward of the state and has no natural family ties. This would also mean that parents bring up their children only by permission of government, which may be revoked at any time. In a society that is increasingly denying the existence of the natural family, it is no wonder that parental rights are also under attack.

One of the responsibilities of the natural family is that parents care for their children, providing food, shelter, love, and education. One of the advantages of this arrangement is that both the mother and the father bring different strengths to the parenting table which are both needed by the child. When one is missing, the child will be disadvantaged. 

In addition to these profound reasons that marriage between a man and a woman is important to promote, there is the extremely important issue of children’s rights. One of the rights of children is to be cared for by their parents. Every child deserves to know and live with their biological mother and father. They also deserve to know where they came from and have a sense of their family history. Obviously, in an imperfect world, this doesn’t always happen, but it is an ideal worth holding up and encouraging in our society. That is why promoting traditional marriage is important in order to help as many children as possible to have this ideal in their lives. 

But not only does a same-sex “marriage” not provide this ideal to a child, it actively undermines this ideal by encoding in law that children have no right to both of their parents and that children don’t need both a mother and a father. Thus, not only are children raised in same-sex household purposely deprived of either a mother or a father, but they are being told by the law and by society that they aren’t lacking anything - they have two parents, after all, and there is nothing about those parents’ genders that matters to their upbringing. But this is quite untrue. Children need and deserve both their mother and their father. Thus, same-sex marriage denies children their rightful parents inherently, as part of the design, not merely as a response to unavoidable circumstances as adoption does. And thus elevating same-sex relationships to the status of marriage unavoidably violates the rights of children and should not be made law. 

In conclusion, it is because of the many benefits of traditional marriage to society as well as its intrinsic natural rights that government protects and encourages marriage. Same-sex relationships do not have the same status as marriage because they are intrinsically different relationships. Homosexual relationships are not a natural unit and can produce no children. They thus have no claim to the natural rights that marriage has. Since same-sex unions have not been shown to provide the benefits to society that marriage does, they are not and should not be encouraged the way marriage is. 

Most importantly, in order to protect the rights of children to their mother and father, we must not pretend that same-sex relationships are marriages. We must not encode a vision of the family in our laws that denies children one of their parents as an inherent part of the design. We must uphold the ideal of a married mother and father for every child.

Why We Need A Secular Argument Against Abortion

Many pro-life advocates use the Bible in making their arguments. While the Bible does have a lot to say about the unborn and about the value of human life in general, the use of Biblical arguments in the discussion of abortion’s legality is often well-intentioned, but misguided.

You see, laws in this country are not based on religion. In fact, our Founding Fathers specifically planned to create a nation where religious freedom was protected. In order to do that, one must have a secular country based on logical principles, not a theocracy. 

History has shown that government based upon religion inevitably persecutes those who disagree with the religion in power. Many, if not most, of those who came to America and founded this nation came to escape religious persecution. They knew firsthand the dangers of living in a church state. They wanted to ensure freedom for all, so they set up a secular government and laid out basic principles to limit the government’s power and prevent oppression of the people. Their principles were based on the concept of inalienable rights – rights that are innate in every human being and which government cannot grant or take away. These rights include the right to life, liberty, ownership of property, religion, a fair trial, and many others – all developed from basic logical principles. And, in this country, laws are to be made by the people, but only in accordance with these principles so that no one's rights will be violated.

Of course, these logical principles are quite consistent with a Biblical worldview – and not by accident. The concept of inalienable rights, for example, comes from the view that mankind is the product of a Creator who has endowed them with these rights. Religious freedom is also consistent with the Bible. After all, even God Himself does not force Himself upon anyone, but gives all people the free choice to choose Him or not. But one cannot enforce every doctrine from the Bible in a secular society. There are things that are wrong, according to the Bible, which cannot be made law. How would one, for example, make lust or coveting illegal? And while the Bible commands us to remember the Sabbath day, one cannot enforce this on all people within a society without violating their freedom of religion. Thus, not everything that is wrong should be illegal.

How does one decide, then, what should and should not be legal in a secular society? The answer lies in applying these basic logical principles and in protecting the human rights of all the people. Thus, murder should be illegal – not because the Bible says it is wrong, but because such a behavior violates the inalienable right to live of the victim and because allowing such behavior is bad for society. Similarly, theft should be illegal – not because the Bible says it is wrong, but because theft violates the right to own property of the victim, and because theft is bad for society.

If we hope to make abortion illegal we must use these same basic principles and develop a secular argument for the rights of the unborn. It is this secular argument we MUST be making if we are to succeed. Many of us who are pro-life are Christians and have religious reasons to believe that abortion is morally wrong according to the Bible. However, that does not mean that abortion should be illegal in a secular society. We have to make the right argument if we are going to produce change.

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So here is a secular argument that abortion should be illegal.

To begin our argument we must first show that the unborn are living human beings. After all, only humans have human rights. To do that, we use science.  

Science uses criteria such as growth, responsiveness to the environment, movement, and metabolism (using food for energy) in order to distinguish life from non-life. Living things, including a single-celled human zygote, show these characteristics and non-living things do not.

So, it’s quite obvious from science that the unborn are living things. What kind of living thing depends on what the parents are. Obviously, the offspring of human parents is human. This is confirmed by the presence of distinctly human DNA and a human pattern of development. Thus, it is clear from science that the product of human sperm and egg is alive and human.

Of course, even sperm and egg cells show characteristics of being alive and they have human DNA, but they are not separate organisms. A sperm or egg cell is simply a piece of an adult human’s body that is essentially broken off and on its own (just like a skin cell can be removed from the body and stay alive for a little while). So sperm and eggs are alive, but not capable by themselves of being anything more than a piece of the body they came from. But once a sperm and egg meet, a radical event takes place that forms a completely new entity. This new cell, a zygote, has a complete and unique set of human DNA that lays out the entire plan for its whole body.

Individual cells that are part of a larger body work to grow and preserve the larger body and are not important in themselves. All that matters is that the body survives, even at the expense of some of the cells. Thus, each cell works for the goal of supporting the body, not preserving itself. Once a zygote is formed, however, this new individual now works as a separate unit toward the goal of growing, preserving, and developing himself. He no longer functions as a part of another body, but forms a new body all his own. The zygote is in fact a new individual, different from both parents, that is already either male or female and which follows the distinct pattern of human development. It just takes time for him or her to grow. But all the information for building the adult body is there from the beginning. The development of the organs and organ systems is just a matter of time, but the instructions are already in place in the zygote, as is the ability to function as a separate entity. This is all well-understood science and can be found in any introductory biology textbook.

So, it is very clear from science that a zygote is a separate, living human individual. The argument that a human zygote is not alive or is not human has already been thoroughly debunked by science.

The newer argument put forth by the pro-choice bunch is that a zygote or embryo isn’t a person (which is a question of value, not science, and thus can’t be answered by science). Basically, the pro-choicers are trying to claim that not all humans are people, which is a very dangerous thing to claim.

The million-dollar question is, if not all humans are persons, then how do we know who is a person? When does personhood begin? Some say at birth. Some say at viability. Some say when the heart begins to beat. Some say when they’re self-conscious. So who gets to decide which definition of personhood is right? And what if they’re wrong? What if they’re allowing real persons to be killed? History says that’s what happens when you try to separate personhood and humanity. We’ve used other definitions of personhood in the past – definitions that excluded some members of the human race. But every time we have claimed that some human beings were not persons, we have been wrong.

At one time, our country claimed that blacks were not persons. Thus they were enslaved and mistreated as their inalienable rights were ignored and denied. The same thing has been done throughout history. Certain groups have been denied legal personhood in order to ignore their innate rights. In Nazi Germany, for example, the Jews were not legal persons, and thus the Holocaust, in which 6 million were slaughtered, was completely legal. It’s very convenient to claim that those you wish to kill or exploit are not persons. Thus, it’s a very common rationalization when one wishes to ignore the rights of others.

Every time we have claimed that some human beings were not persons, we have been wrong. Every time. And it led to horrific results. What is happening now is that we are saying that the unborn are not persons. And, not surprisingly, their rights are being ignored and they are being slaughtered.

But it’s not logical or right to claim that a human being must be born in order to be a person any more than it is to claim that a human being must be white or male or non-Jewish in order to be a person. Logically, all humans must be persons. To deny that is to use some arbitrary criteria for what constitutes a person and thus exclude some humans from that definition. Historically, that has always been wrong and has led to terrible tragedies of justice. What needs to happen is that we recognize and protect the inalienable rights of ALL human beings, born and unborn.

In claiming that the unborn are not persons, what the pro-choice side is really arguing is that we, as a society, decide who has rights. But rights don't come from society or from government. If government grants them, then government can decide, arbitrarily, to take them away from anyone they please. This country was founded on a different proposition – a radical idea that people have innate rights that are not dependent on government. That it is fundamentally wrong for anyone, even government, to violate these rights. These are known as inalienable rights – innate rights of all humans that cannot be taken away for any reason. It is on this fact – this higher law – that our case for the rights of the unborn rests. And it was this higher law on which our Constitution was built.

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The truth is, the unborn do have inalienable rights. They are human beings with the same rights as all other human beings. And those rights should be protected in a secular society just as the rights of all other humans should be. This can be demonstrated with science and logic and can convince even those who do not believe the Bible. More importantly, this is WHY abortion should be illegal – not because the Bible says it is wrong, but because abortion is a violation of basic human rights. All people should be in favor of protecting the rights of all human beings, regardless of their religion.

Linked up with Time-Warp Wife, NOBH, WLWW, and WFMW.