Why Do Atheists Marry?

It is the Easter long weekend and I am in a spiritual mood, so I will post something related to religion. The question I want to ask readers out there is the following: why in the world do atheists marry?

The idea of romantic love, that is, being in a monogomous intimate relationship with someone, and then marrying him or her and being committed to that person for eternity--it is a very spiritual concept based on supernatural ideas such as the belief in a one and only true love and the belief that each party to the partnership is meant to be together.

Atheists are not supposed to believe this. Atheists are non-religious and non-spiritual. They do not believe in anything that cannot be verified by scientific experiments. The view of science is that humans are mere animals. As animals we procreate to keep the species alive because evolution and natural selection select for traits in humans that allow us to perpetuate our genes. Hence we follow our natural instincts, which for a man is to find a woman, rape her, get tired of her, move on to another woman, and then rape her, and so on and so forth. As atheists believe in science and science cannot prove morality then it follows logically that atheists cannot believe in a woman's right to not be raped. Atheists have no morality, that is, they have no concept of what is right or wrong. True atheists will rape, pillage, and plunder.

But most atheists don't do this. Most atheists don't rape. Most atheists are not true atheists because even atheists want to believe in those concepts not proven by scientific experiment. They want to believe in human rights and justice. They want to believe in the sanctity of marriage and they want to believe that women deserve respect.

To be a proper atheists, to actually start from the premise that you cannot believe in anything that cannot be proven by science and then extend that to all areas of your life--you will live a very sad and lonely life. There will be no meaning, no purpose, and no hope. You may as well hide in the corner and cry, if not just quietly kill yourself. Some atheists may be at this final stage of despair (and if you are one of them I encourage you to seek out help from a therapist, preferably a theist) but most atheists are young and immature atheists, still simply rebelling against some easily-identifiable organised religion because they need to channel their anger at something. But at the end of the day these young atheists still hold onto many other spiritual concepts like justice, purpose, romantic love, and marriage.

I Married My Horse

Above you can watch a documentary on Youtube about men in America who have intimate relationships with non-human animals. One man even married a pony. An episode of Jerry Springer featured the man, but this episode was never shown on TV because management watched it and disapproved.

What I find interesting is the politics of bestiality. According to libertarian ideology, bestiality is okay because libertarians believe that humans are free to do whatever they want with their property so long as they do not harm other humans in the process. Non-human animals are the property of a human and so that human is allowed to marry or have sexual relations with that animal if he or she wants it. According to Liberty Scott (see Bestiality, Oopss), "The fundamental point is that the animal does not have rights. Since it is legal to kill the animal, farm and hold the animal as property, having sex with it is no different. The Dutch prohibit cruelty to animals, in that deliberate sadistic conduct or cruel neglect of an animal you own is illegal - but do not prohibit bestiality, but acts of bestiality that are cruel are prohibited because they are cruel, not because of the sexual dimension."

No wonder the Libertarian Party in the US is so unpopular.

Sex and Sloth: The Two Greatest Threats to Survival

Earlier I wrote about my new Casio watch that I purchased from Ebay for around $30. Someone commented on that post and said something like, "Good luck pulling chicks with that watch." I deleted the comment because it wasn't productive, but for a while I thought about what he said and I am going to talk about it now.

I believe that all humans are born with debt. Every human needs food and water to live. We need a certain amount of kilojoules of energy, a certain amount of protein, vitamins, minerals, etc. When we are hungry, it is as if your body is sending you a bill that you must pay off with food. I call this food debt.

I believe that debt is bad since it restricts freedom and happiness. Therefore, it is essential that I pay off this debt. One way I can pay off this debt is to buy income-producing assets like shares, property, and bonds. The more income-producing assets I buy, the greater my passive income is. As my passive income increases, it may one day increase to a level where I can completely cover my food debt.

In order to buy income-producing assets, I must save cash. I must not buy luxury goods like expensive watches or expensive cars. If I do buy these goods, I therefore save less, buy fewer income-producing assets, produce lower passive income, and thus increase my probability of death.

I understand that some or many females may be attracted by a man's signals of high reproductive fitness, such as an expensive car or an expensive house. I also understand that it is within the nature of humans to mate and propagate their genes. However, for the sake of survival it is necessary that I suppress this instinct. If I give in to the sex instinct, it means I put more resources into attracting a mate. If I do this, it steals resources from other endeavors in life, such as paying off food debt, which is essential to increase the probability of survival. Thus I have proven logically that sex kills.

Another threat to survival is sloth or laziness. Humans have a tendency to do what is pleasurable in the short-term to the detriment of the long term. For example, you may binge on sugar or alcohol, unaware that too much sugar can make you fat or alcohol, even in moderation, increases the risk of mouth cancer by 75 per cent.

Sex and sloth then are the two biggest threats to survival that I have identified, and I make a conscious effort to suppress these instincts for the sake of my own survival.

Austrian Dad's Treatment of Children and Parents' Rights

An Austrian dad has locked his daughter in a dungeon for 24 years. He raped her and produced seven children with her, one of whom died and was incinerated in an oven. The dungeon was soundproof and had a keyless entry system.

Many conservatives especially argue that parents have the rights and the privacy to take care of their children as they please. This is the argument behind homeschooling. Parents are also given privacy.

So you think that this Austrian dungeon case highlight how privacy and choice given to parents can be dangerous? In this case, one child attempted to escape and run away but the police caught her and returned her to her parents. They assumed that parents know what is best for their children. Austrian police did not want to let the children go to another family because they prefer the child to be with the biological father rather than an unrelated family. But this case clearly illustrates that a father doesn't necessarily care for his children.

The only solution to this problem then is more government intervention. E.g. regular checks to see if the children are okay, using sonar to find cavities in concrete, etc.

If this is not implemented and if the conservative idea that parents are made free to do as they wish to their children, then I believe this dungeon scenario will be replicated. The demand for child sex is strong. If there is a way to supply that demand that is safe and protected by privacy and freedom laws, it will be done. Right now there may be hundreds of children locked away in underground dungeons and we may not know.

This I would argue is a case for government intervention.

Children Locked in Underground Dungeon in Austria

Link: "House of Horror" Children Never Saw Sunlight

I've heard about the news from Austria of a man named Josef Fritzl who sexually abused his daughter when she was 11. When she was 18, the girl was lured by her father into the basement. The father locked her up and kept her hidden in the basement for 24 years. During this time he continually raped her. The girl eventually bore seven children.

While all this was happening the wife and neighbors had no idea what was happening. The dungeon was soundproof and had an electronic keyless entry system.

What scares me is if this man can get away with this then anyone now can replicate what he has done. In fact, many people may have done so, and even today many children may be locked away in secret dungeons.

While I was walking around today I kept thinking that there may be a bunch of locked up children right underneath me and I wouldn't know.

This I think is the product of privacy. When men and women are free to do whatever they want in the privacy of their own homes, then the will practically have the freedom to produce their own children and molest them.

In this case, when the girl went missing the rapist father told everyone that she had run away. He then forced the girl to write letters begging everyone not to look for her.

When a child is missing, police should take into consideration the possibility that something like this might have happened and perform checks of the house. Sonar can be used to find cavities where dungeons may be.

Hedonism for Hunger

In feminist B--ch Magazine there is an article called Tree So Horny about a group called F--- For Forests, which explicitly uses pornography and sex to raise money to save forests.

I wonder why the same concept cannot be applied not to fighting against deforestation but to beat world hunger. I have already thought of a name for the group, Hedonism for Hunger where participants engage in hedonistic acts for the sake of raising money to fight world hunger. The money raised can go to the World Food Programme just the profits from Free Rice does.

Many people feel guilty engaging in acts of hedonism. However, if the hedonism is for hunger then that gives people a good excuse.

One of the main problems of the sex industry I believe is the fact that it doesn't cater to shy virgins. I suspect a large number of young virgin males and females would like to go to a brothel but are bothered by the high costs, the embarrassment, and the fear of being ridiculed for their inexperience.

High costs can be fixed through economies of scale. Thousands of clients can be lined up on a conveyor belt and a handful of sex providers can give the service to each quickly.

The problem of embarrassment can be fixed with guarantees of anonymity. A brothel may encourage all its customers to wear rabbit masks upon entry. In public someone wearing a rabbit mask will look like he is going to a fancy dress party, so the individual wearing the mask will not be too embarrassed.

Ragged Dick

Links:

Ragged Dick Audio at Librivox
Full Online Text of Ragged Dick
Ragged Dick at Amazon.com

I've just finished listening to Ragged Dick by Horatio Alger Jr. The book was written in the 19th century. It is about a young boy named Dick Hunter who shines people's shoes for a living. Through hard work, thrift, honesty, charity, and some luck, he grows up to become a respectable person. This story is the first and most popular of Alger's many rags-to-riches books. Many believe Horatio Alger's books had a profound impact on the creation of the so-called American Dream.

The story is very enjoyable to read. The characters are very lovable. The plot surprisingly contains themes that I could certainly relate to and I'm sure many people will see in certain fictitious characters some of the behaviors of their friends in the real world. So ubiquitous is the American Dream in our lives today that we can recognize its symptoms so easily in Ragged Dick.

On the downside, the ending of this story is just laughable. I won't give anything away but let's just say there is some deus ex machina.

There have also been recent (2006) revelations that Horatio Alger Jr was a homosexual pedophile (or pederast). This doesn't surprise me because some of Ragged Dick contained what I perceived as homoerotic parts. For example, once Dick Hunter shared a bed with a younger boy. Even the title "Ragged Dick" has homosexual connotations. Horatio Alger Jr was inspired to write Ragged Dick after living in New York and living with and observing young boys who worked in the streets. There is speculation that he had sex with these boys, but that has not been confirmed.

Incest and The Libertarian Question

Stanley Kurtz wrote a piece titled The Libertarian Question in which he attacks polygamy, incest, and homosexuality. His title refers to the question that libertarians ask about polygamy, homosexuality, and incest, that if these minority sexual practices are legalized, how does it harm those with normal sexual practices? There is no harm in a physical sense. A gay couple having sex in the house next door does not affect me in the same way that a murderer stabbing me in the chest with a knife does. Even though fringe consensual sex doesn't physically harm other people, Kurtz is still critical of the practices. He begins by looking at incest.

The deeper problem, of course, is the sexual abuse of children by older family members. The impossibility of real consent, as well as the potential psychological damage in cases of incestuous child abuse, are matters of very serious concern.

Even if a libertarian wants to spread freedom, the ability to consent is assumed to come about with sufficient maturity. This means that usually libertarians will not advocate total freedom for children simply because they are too young to make decisions for themselves. Most libertarians then would not advocate sex between children and adults even if both parties consent. However, if it can be argued that child sex does not harm children, as some pedophiles like Lindsay Ashford claim, then things may be different. If a father or mother decides to have consentual sex with his or her daughter or son who is above the age of consent, what is the problem? One argument that can be made is that incest increases the odds of genetic diseases in offspring, which can be seen as harmful to future generations. Kurtz doesn't use this argument though. He claims that if sex between fathers and mature daughters is allowed, this makes sex between adult and children more tempting.

To see the mechanism of our incest taboo at work, imagine a world in which consensual adult incest was legal. Once we see or hear of couples — even a relatively small number — who engage in legal, consensual, adult incestuous relationships, the whole idea of incest with minors becomes thinkable.

Pretty much, because you see the act happening around you, you are more likely to do it yourself. But if we are to take this idea and apply it to other aspects, then we would have to ban all violent movies because people might think it's okay to murder. We'd have to ban driving because driving under the speed limit might make it too tempting to drive over the speed limit. We'd have to ban mobile phones because their existence makes it too tempting to use these mobile phones as timing devices in bombs used for terrorist attacks. The list goes on. Any politician can claim this causes that causes this. In this complex world, just about everything causes everything.

Kurtz says the following: "The reason we need an incest taboo is because there is no effective way for the state to protect children from sexual abuse by family members. Children are essentially at the mercy of the adults who care for them." He is pretty much saying that a ban of incest is needed because if you don't ban sex between children and their parents, they will do it anyway. But if he thinks that a ban on child sex is insufficient to stop parents from abusing their children, what makes him think parents are going to stop having sex with their children after incest is banned?

[O]nly by building into adults a psychological mechanism of disgust and horror at incest can society protect children from the psychological harm of abuse by close relatives.

Why can't a psychological mechanism of disgust and horror at pedophilia be established to protect children from psychological harm? Why attack something more general and therefore forbid harmless and innocent acts? For example, let's take the act of having adult sex in general. Adult sex can be classified as consensual sex or non-consensual sex. Using Kurtz's arguments, I could argue that there needs to be a psychological mechanism of digust and horror at all sex (even consensual sex) so that victims of rape can be protected. Why not just condemn rape specifically in stead of targeting sex in general? By targeting sex in general you forbid both consensual adult sex as well as rape. If nobody can have sex then the human race will be extinct in the long run. Likewise, why forbid all incest when incest between father and mature daughter is harmless and incest between father and immature daughter is assumes to be harmful?

The rest of the article is very long and he talks about homosexuality, polygamy, as well as many other abnormal sexual practices. But I will restrict this post to the topic of incest.

What annoys me most about this piece is that the author Steven Kurtz is a member of the Hoover Institution, an institution that claims the following in its mission statement: "[T]he Institution itself must constantly and dynamically point the road to peace, to personal freedom, and to the safeguards of the American system."

Personal freedom? Why then does this guy condemn homosexuality, incest, and polygamy?

Mary Byler and Amish Abuse

The Amish seem like good people. In fact, many of their philosophies seem very nice. E.g. they do not permit the taking of photographs in the hope that families do not compete with each other trying to produce the perfect family photo, which may lead to envy and other things the Amish consider sins. The Amish live without any technology and they isolate themselves from the rest of the world.

While all this may seem very romantic, there are downsides. The isolation of the community leads to inbreeding, which means that the frequency of heritable diseases are higher in the Amish community than it is in the general population.

Another fear I have is that because the community is so isolated it may be more difficult to detect or intervene in cases of child abuse. One case that pops to mind is the Mary Byler case. Mary was an Amish child who was sexually abused by her father at the age of 3 and then at the age of 7 she was raped by her cousins and brothers. When the girl told her mother, the mother blamed the girl. This I think is very sad.

I am not saying that sexual abuse is widespread only in the Amish community because, as we all know, sexual abuse occurs just about everywhere, but the Amish's isolation as well as their highly male-centric culture doesn't help protect the vulnerable. This I suppose is my own personal taste, as I simply prefer individualism over collectivism.

I am very uneasy about government interfering in the lives of ordinary citizens, but if it for the protection of basic human rights like the right to not be sexually abused, I'm more tolerant of interference.

Libertarianism and Bestiality

I want to look at a piece titled Liberating Libertarianism from the Lunatics by Rich Powers. He says the following:

I...had the pleasure of hearing a Libertarian Party speaker earlier this year. Before he even arrived, the room was abuzz about this chap. You see, he is known the county over for speaking to high school seniors and using bestiality - yes bestiality - to illustrate libertarianism. "You can have sex with a horse and, so long as you don't infringe on anyone's rights, you can go ahead and do it." Never mind that animals can't give consent, but the fact is that's the worst possible way to spread your ideology...period. Instantly, you lose prospective voters who might otherwise agree with you.

Libertarianism can be summed up in the following statement: "You are free to do whatever you want so long as you don't reduce other people's freedom to do whatever they want."

Here is an argument that some (maybe most) libertarians use to promote bestiality. According to them, libertarianism holds that pursuit of happiness is moral. Sex in pursuit of happiness is selfish and also moral. Sex between humans and non-human animals is also moral under libertarianism.

Sex between humans and non-human animals or any trans-species intercourse has the benefit of zero risk of pregnancy, meaning there is no worries about having to rush to the abortion clinic the day after.

Some people criticize bestiality, saying that non-human animals cannot consent to sex and therefore sex with animals goes against their freedom. This may be true, but if we uphold this idea then killing animals for food would be immoral as well and we should all be vegetarians. When humans kill animals for food the animals certainly don't consent to being killed. Killing an animals is done at the expense of the animal's will and for the pleasure of meat-eating humans.

When you kill an animal for food, the animal almost certain doesn't consent to being killed because by the laws of evolution all animals try to live and not die.

Animals gain pleasure from sex because sex as a behavior is favored for in human evolution. Most animals gain pleasure from sex although many may not enjoy it if they do not consent.

The bottom line is that when an animal is killed there is almost a zero percent probability that the animal consented to being killed. However, when an animal is the victim of sexual intercourse, there is a positive probability that it consents and enjoys the sex.

Therefore, based on expected probabilities alone, raping an animal is likely to do more to increase the animal's welfare than killing it for food.

If pleasure if the basis of morality (e.g. if we adopted a utilitarian system of morality) then if killing animals is moral then it follows that raping animals is also equally moral if not more moral because the animal victim of rape is more likely to enjoy being raped than being killed.

If I am Christian, What do I do if My Parents Want me to be Gay?

I am straight. Suppose my parents want me to be gay. I have two choices. I can either (1) obey them and be gay or (2) disobey them and not be gay.

If I go with the first option and be gay, I am going against God because I am gay.

1 Cor. 6:9-10, "Or do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God."

However, if I go with option two, disobey my parents, and be straight, then I also go against God because I disobey my parents.

Exodus 20:12, "Honour thy father and thy mother."

Ephesians 6:1-3, "Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour thy father and mother."

So in this situation, no matter what, it seems as if I am a sinner. What do I do?

This question has been exported to Yahoo Answers.

Bestiality on Second Life

Second Life is a virtual world where people create online identities and then live a virtual life in a virtual world. The authorities have been clamping down on virtual child sex on Second Life and now they are clamping down on virtual animal sex.

Bestiality May Be Knackered In Second Life
Duncan Riley

Linden Lab, the creators of Second Life, may be extending their crackdown on “Broadly Offensive” behavior to Bestiality, following attempts to remove virtual pedophilia (or Age-Play) from Second Life in March.

The Second Life Herald (NSFW) goes on to ask whether consenting adults dressing up like animals and partaking in virtual sex with each other or with human shaped avatars (virtual bestiality) constitutes broadly offensive behavior.

“Furries” have a long history in Second Life, and new users are presented with the option of taking an animal form when first setting up their avatars.

Second Life fans will argue that sex-based play in Second Life only makes up a small portion of Second Life, but it remains a popular pursuit; the popular destination lists for Second Life regularly feature nightclubs and dedicated sex spots (or as is sometimes the case, nightclubs that are sex spots as well).

More at http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/07/21/bestiality-may-be-knackered-in-second-life/

Sexual Nationalism and Pedophile Nationalism

One of the arguments for nationalism is that if you allow different groups to live together then conflict will erupt. For example, Jews and Muslims living in the Middle East just don't seem to get along. The answer, according to nationalists is to divide people up so they can live among their "own people." Jews live among Jews and Muslims live among Muslims.

Every day I hear about homophobia. Most people in the world are religious and most people tend to follow an Abrahamic religion, i.e. Christianity, Islam, or Judaism. The Abrahamic religions all seem to denounce homosexuality. Throughout history this has been the case. Sometimes I wonder why so many Christians hate homosexuals because it seems to go against the teachings of Christ of the New Testament who taught about love and tolerance, etc. But anyway, because of the influence of the Abrahamic religion, it is probably not surprising that many people are homophobic.

If Jews and Muslims can't get along and the answer is to separate them into their own nations, then why don't we apply the same concept to the conflict between homosexuals and heterosexuals? If homosexuals and heterosexuals cannot get along then why not just create a separate nation for homosexuals? Maybe slowly change an existing nation (e.g. America) into one that is fully tolerant of homosexuals or establish a country where homosexuality is actively practiced and is declared as the state sexual orientation.

There are many pedophile activists around and many pro-pedophile organizations like NAMBLA. Pedophile activism has created a lot of controversy, as you can imagine. There are websites like Perverted Justice that tries to bait pedophiles and shame them using public humiliation. Another site that I think is strong on child protection is Warriors for Innocence. These people claim that they are the "only thing that stands between evil and the innocent." Pedophiles can be divided into two groups: those who are attracted to little boys and those who are attracted to little girls. The former are labelled boylovers, and there is a wiki available called BoyWiki that, according to the site, is designed to "record and preserve our own history, culture, and heritage." This sort of language is very similar to the language of other nationalists.

Given that there seems to be so much conflict between pro-pedophiles and anti-pedophiles, why not just allow pedophiles to have their own country where they can do whatever they want? This may not work because, for most people, even just the thought that a child in another country is abused causes discomfort. However, even a Muslim who believes that some child in Israel is reading the Torah instead of the Koran might be uncomfortable as well, so if nationalism applies to religion then why shouldn't it apply to sexual orientation?

Update 3/7/2007:
What I would like to know is how pedophile nationalism fits into Christian morality. The bible says that followers must submit themselves to the authorities. Romans 13 says, "Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong." In other words, do what the government does. However, what if the government in power is corrupt. Does a Christian have to submit to the power of a dictatorship? No, because there are exceptions to this rule of following the government. Acts 5:29 says, "We must obey God rather than men." Therefore, if any country were formed that supports pedophilia and child molestation, Christian citizens can refuse to submit to it if pedophilia is forbidden by God. But is it? Does the bible condemn pedophilia? According to Positive Liberty, the bible does not actually condemn pedophilia. However, even though the bible doesn't explicitly condemn pedophilia, it does condemn fornication and sins of the flesh, which would include pedophilia.

Update 3/12/07:
Note that this entry is not pro-pedophilia. It is an exercise in reductio ad absurdum that highlights how silly nationalism is.

Image: Girl is Alice Liddell, photograph by Lewis Carroll