Atheists and the emerging acceptance of pedophilia

[Mornac]

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A Plea to Atheists: Pedophilia Is Next On the Slippery Slope; Let Us Turn Back Before It Is Too Late

Rabbi Moshe Averick
August 29, 2011

It is axiomatic that in the world of the atheist there is neither morality nor immorality, only amorality. This is often misunderstood to mean that atheists have no values. That conclusion would clearly be erroneous. To associate atheism with amorality is not to say that atheists have no values, they certainly do; amorality is a commentary, not on the existence of values, but on the significance of those values. Since in the atheistic worldview we are nothing more than upright walking primates, our value systems have no more significance than those of our jungle dwelling relatives. In the Darwinian view, the human is to the cockroach as the cockroach is to the paramecium. To imagine that we are something “more” is just that: a product of the human imagination.
 
It  would be absurd then for the atheist to suggest that any particular individual or society has the authority to dictate to all human beings what their values should or should not be; it would be even more absurd to suggest that the pronouncements of any individual or society obligates others to behave accordingly. For the atheist, morality is simply a word that is used to describe the type of system that an individual or society subjectively prefers. Each society establishes, maintains, and modifies its values to suit its own needs.
 
“Morality is the custom of one’s country and the current feeling of one’s peers. Cannibalism is moral in a cannibalistic country.” (Samuel Butler)
 
Since these values are nothing more than reflections of the prevalent subjective preferences they obviously will shift and metamorphose to accommodate changing needs and attitudes. In my own lifetime I have witnessed radical societal swings in moral behavior and attitudes regarding marriage and sexuality, homosexuality, the killing of unborn children, euthanasia, and the use of illicit drugs.
 
One can reasonably predict that as the infatuation with skepticism and atheism grows among the influential “intellectual elite” of our society, so too will their readiness to embrace more radical changes in moral values. Religious believers expressing dismay and horror at the ominous moral storm clouds looming on the horizon are met with smug derision, hysterical counter-accusations, or utter indifference. There is nothing that atheistic societies are incapable of rationalizing and accepting – including the sexual molestation of children.
 
No doubt, this assertion will appear preposterous to some atheists, and will spark outrage. Yet the logical and philosophical consequences of atheists’ belief systems are inescapable. When asked by journalist William Crawley if he thought that pedophilia was “just wrong.” Professor Peter Singer of Princeton University – a world-famous philosopher of “ethics” – responded as follows:
 
I don’t have intrinsic moral taboos. My view is not that anything is just wrong…You’re trying to put words in my mouth.”
 
Singer went on to explain that he is a “consequentialist.” For the benefit of the philosophically challenged let me explain “consequentialism” in a nutshell: If you like the consequences it’s ethical, if you don’t like the consequences it’s unethical. Thus, if you enjoy child pornography and having sex with children it’s ethical, if you dislike child pornography and having sex with children it’s unethical. In an article entitled “Heavy Petting,” Singer likewise gave his stamp of approval to bestiality. As a reward for producing such pearls of wisdom, he has been granted the privilege of teaching our children “ethics” at an Ivy League university. Moreover, he is by no means the only atheistic philosopher industriously engaged in greasing the precarious slope on which Western society totters. Hence, my “plea” to atheists, for the philosophical groundwork for the acceptance of pedophilia has already been put in place by such philosophers.
 
Joel Marks, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the U. of New Haven, who for 10 years authored the “Moral Moments” column in Philosophy Now, made the following, rather shocking about-face in a 2010 article entitled, “An Amoral Manifesto.”
 
“This philosopher has been laboring under an unexamined assumption, namely that there is such a thing as right and wrong. I now believe there isn’t…The long and short of it is that I became convinced that atheism implies amorality; and since I am an atheist, I must therefore embrace amorality…I experienced my shocking epiphany that religious fundamentalists are correct; without God there is no morality. But they are incorrect, I still believe, about there being a God. Hence, I believe, there is no morality."
 
Marks then quite boldly and candidly addresses the implications of his newfound beliefs:
 
“Even though words like “sinful” and “evil” come naturally to the tongue as say a description of child molesting. They do not describe any actual properties of anything. There are no literal sins in the world because there is no literal God…nothing is literally right or wrong because there is no Morality…yet we human beings can still discover plenty of completely naturally explainable resources for motivating certain preferences. Thus enough of us are sufficiently averse to the molestation of children and would likely continue to be…"
 
At this point the utter intellectual (and moral) bankruptcy of Marks’ position becomes apparent. After correctly concluding that a world without God is free from the shackles of the illusory concepts of morality and immorality, he pathetically attempts to have his cake and eat it too by suggesting that there is something “good” or “better” about the preference to being averse to child molestation. One does not know whether to laugh or cry at this dismally transparent exercise in grasping at straws. Isn’t that very point the entire difference between “preference” and “morality?”  The recognition that there is something inherently and intrinsically abominable in child molestation renders the act immoral, rather than merely not to one’s taste. Morality implies that there are principles of behavior that are part of the very fabric of reality; principles which Dr. Marks understands can only have significance if they come from God. Preference, on the other hand, is subjective and notoriously capricious. As in: I prefer chocolate ice-cream over vanilla. I prefer jazz to hip-hop. I prefer that people have sex with adults instead of children and the family pet.
 
However, as Dr. Marks acknowledges, others have different preferences, no less valid than his own. Dr. John Money of Johns Hopkins University proclaims: “If I were to see the case of a boy aged ten or twelve who’s intensely erotically attracted toward a man in his twenties or thirties, if the relationship is genuinely totally mutual, and the bonding is genuinely totally mutual…then I would not call it pathological in any way.”  (In view of his professional opinion, I wonder how many neighbors are courageous enough to arrange play-dates for their children at the Money residence.)
 
On August 17, 2011 a symposium sponsored by an association of mental health professionals called B4U-ACT took place in Baltimore, Md. The official brochure declared:
 
“This day long symposium will facilitate the exchange of ideas among researchers, scholars, mental health practitioners, and minor-attracted persons who have an interest in critical issues surrounding the entry for pedophilia in the Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association.”
 
In plain English, this is a symposium whose goal is to facilitate the removal of Pedophilia from the American Psychiatric Societies official list of Mental Disorders (DSM). B4U-ACT has already coined a bland, innocuous, and inoffensive term to make the idea of child-sex more palatable: “minor-attracted persons.”  This phrase sounds almost pleasant, distinctly unlike those nasty and soon-to-be-politically-incorrect words like “pedophile” and “child molester.” (How does pedophobic grab you?) Not surprisingly, the featured speaker is Dr. Fred Berlin of Johns Hopkins University, a colleague of Dr. John Money. Child advocate, Dr. Judith Reisman disclosed that the conference is part of a strategy to condition people into accepting pedophiles: “The first thing they do is to get the public to divest from thinking of what the offender does criminally, to thinking of his emotional state…to empathize and sympathize…You don’t change the nation in one fell swoop, you have to change it by conditioning.”
 
Although first published nearly two decades ago, a special issue of The Journal of Homosexuality called “Male Intergenerational Intimacy” edited by three prestigious scholars (all PhD’s) gives us a taste of what is to come:
 
“In contemporary Western society, intimate sexual relations between men and boys are considered as immoral…regardless of the emotional contexts in which they occur [not according to Joel Marks and Peter Singer!]…the current social climate makes it rather difficult to look at these relationships in an objective way…man-boy relationships are not uncommon. As in homosexuality, man-boy sexuality occurs and not seldom in a context in which both partners consent…in these relationships a diversity of feelings are or can be expressed: affection, attachment, desire, domination and submission…men who feel attracted to boys have to legitimize their feelings toward themselves as well as towards society.”
 
All we are missing now is a scholarly “scientific” study which informs us that we have finally isolated a “man-child attraction” gene! An old German expression comes to mind: “So fangt es immer an”- “It always starts in the same way.” What also comes to mind are the lyrics of an old protest song from the 60’s: “And you tell me over and over again my friend, you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction?”

The atheistic notion that life emerged randomly from ancient Earth’s prebiotic slime, coupled with the Darwinian belief that humans are no more than intelligent chimpanzees, leaves us morally bereft. In a society whose schools consider it a noble undertaking to teach a teenage boy how to use a condom, but streng verboten to teach him that God has forbidden us to steal or murder, how can one anticipate anything other than a gaping and ever-expanding moral sinkhole? While there exist real challenges in determining exactly what God requires of us in the moral sphere, let us, at least, agree on the following before it is too late, and move forward from there:
 ■All men are created in the image of God and are therefore inherently and intrinsically precious.

 ■All men have been endowed by God with unalienable rights and among these are the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

 ■Thou shalt not murder.

 ■Thou shalt not steal.

 ■Thou shalt not bear false witness.

 ■Thou shalt not commit adultery, incest, or bestiality.

 ■Thou shalt not have sex with children, and if you do you will be looked upon as a disgusting and contemptible criminal and will be treated as such.

 ■Thou shall teach these laws to your children.
 
We hold these above truths to be self-evident, not by proxy of some pragmatic social contract that can be amended and revised as often as societal whim and convenience demands, not as the result of the pompous and vapid philosophical musings of so called professors of “ethics,” but because they reflect the eternal, immutable, and absolute moral laws that emanate from Almighty God, the Creator of the universe and all mankind.
 
A wise man once observed that while belief in God after the Holocaust may be difficult, belief in man after the Holocaust is impossible. The choices before us are clear: we will either seek a transcendent moral law to which we will all submit, or we will seek our own personal and societal indulgence. If we turn to God in our quest to create a moral and just world, we have a fighting chance; if not, we are doomed to spiral into the man-made hell of the human jungle.

http://www.algemeiner.com/2011/08/29/a-plea-to-atheists-pedophilia-is-next-on-the-slippery-slope-let-us-turn-back-before-it-is-too-late/

[johnhp]

But doesn't one of the men you cite as authorities claim that married men, much like yourself, are the biggest dangers when it comes to the violation of children?

[ivanm]

I wonder which side of his ass Mornac pulled that one from.  If atheists did not have morals then we would see more violence spawned by their disbeliefs, but no, we see violence spawned by Islamic extremists and bigoted Holy Crusaders.

When religious people cannot get along and resort to war then that is a poor example for anyone, including the atheists.  Mornac just does not get it, Chrisitianity dwells heavily on our spiritual well being and rather lightly on our mortal behavior and well being.  Judaism beats the Christian
plagiarism hand down when it comes to people behaving themselves and treating each other fairly. 

The fallacy of the Christian religion is the belief that love of Christ will change us to behave correctly, but many people just cannot connect the dots unless they learn of Judaic principles like the Ten Commandments.  The books of Genesis, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy are loaded with page after page of advice for our every day behavior. 

Maybe if Mornac would read the bible more he would understand the basis of Catholic dogma, except for the part  that has been fabricated by self serving clerics.

[Observer]

A Plea to Atheists: Pedophilia Is Next On the Slippery Slope; Let Us Turn Back Before It Is Too Late

Rabbi Moshe Averick
August 29, 2011

It is axiomatic that in the world of the atheist there is neither morality nor immorality, only amorality.

There is no reason to read beyond this point. He starts off with a false premise.

[johnhp]

I wonder which side of his ass Mornac pulled that one from.  If atheists did not have morals then we would see more violence spawned by their disbeliefs, but no, we see violence spawned by Islamic extremists and bigoted Holy Crusaders.

When religious people cannot get along and resort to war then that is a poor example for anyone, including the atheists.  Mornac just does not get it, Chrisitianity dwells heavily on our spiritual well being and rather lightly on our mortal behavior and well being.  Judaism beats the Christian
plagiarism hand down when it comes to people behaving themselves and treating each other fairly. 

The fallacy of the Christian religion is the belief that love of Christ will change us to behave correctly, but many people just cannot connect the dots unless they learn of Judaic principles like the Ten Commandments.  The books of Genesis, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy are loaded with page after page of advice for our every day behavior. 

Maybe if Mornac would read the bible more he would understand the basis of Catholic dogma, except for the part  that has been fabricated by self serving clerics.

Of course.

[johnhp]

There is no reason to read beyond this point. He starts off with a false premise.

See, you can be correct some times.

[Mornac]

I wonder which side of his ass Mornac pulled that one from.

--Pulled what one from?

If atheists did not have morals then we would see more violence spawned by their disbeliefs, but no, we see violence spawned by Islamic extremists and bigoted Holy Crusaders.

--No one said that atheists didn’t have morals. Like all relativists they have morals based on their own self-interests.

When religious people cannot get along and resort to war then that is a poor example for anyone, including the atheists.

--Bizarre conclusion. The Japanese in the WWII era were a religious people who were lsent into war by their emperor-god. The allies of the west were still a largely Christian crowd back then. Do you think we should have rolled over and surrendered after Pearl Harbor in the name of "get(ting) along "so as to not set “a poor example for anyone, including the atheists.” I’m afraid you and I are going to have to disagree on that point.

Mornac just does not get it, Chrisitianity dwells heavily on our spiritual well being and rather lightly on our mortal behavior and well being.

--I can’t speak for your ill-defined “Christianity”. I can only speak as a member of Christ’s Catholic Church. If you have a question as to where we stand on any issue, please ask it.

Judaism beats the Christian plagiarism hand down when it comes to people behaving themselves and treating each other fairly.

 
--Which of the hundreds of sects of Judaism are you speaking of?

The fallacy of the Christian religion is the belief that love of Christ will change us to behave correctly,

--More precisely, that is the fallacy of the thousands of sects of the sola scriptura religions, and yes, it’s a big problem for them.

but many people just cannot connect the dots unless they learn of Judaic principles like the Ten Commandments.

--I agree.

The books of Genesis, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy are loaded with page after page of advice for our every day behavior.

 
--I’ll take your word for it. I’ve never read those volumes as entire books.

Maybe if Mornac would read the bible more he would understand the basis of Catholic dogma,

--I already understand the basis of Catholic dogma. Is there a specific item you want to learn more about?

except for the part  that has been fabricated by self serving clerics.

--And which part would that be?
 
 

[Sassy]

A Plea to Atheists: Pedophilia Is Next On the Slippery Slope; Let Us Turn Back Before It Is Too Late

Rabbi Moshe Averick
August 29, 2011

It is axiomatic that in the world of the atheist there is neither morality nor immorality, only amorality. This is often misunderstood to mean that atheists have no values. That conclusion would clearly be erroneous. To associate atheism with amorality is not to say that atheists have no values, they certainly do; amorality is a commentary, not on the existence of values, but on the significance of those values. Since in the atheistic worldview we are nothing more than upright walking primates, our value systems have no more significance than those of our jungle dwelling relatives. In the Darwinian view, the human is to the cockroach as the cockroach is to the paramecium. To imagine that we are something “more” is just that: a product of the human imagination.
 

Can't take the author serious when the first paragraph is either spoken from ignorance, or a plethora of out right lies.

[johnhp]

Can't take the author serious when the first paragraph is either spoken from ignorance, or a plethora of out right lies.

Except of course, that Mornac's view that atheism is all about selfishness is something affirmed by SOME atheists....of course Mornac's own lack of charity here can find no similar excuse.

[Pepsi]

There is no reason to read beyond this point. He starts off with a false premise.

I had the same reaction..

[Mornac]

Question for any atheists present:

On what grounds would an atheist pedophile object to engaging in a sexual act with a ten year old boy if the ten year boy invited it?

[johnhp]

Question for any atheists present:

On what grounds would an atheist pedophile object to engaging in a sexual act with a ten year old boy if the ten year boy invited it?

Not an atheist, but perhaps unlike you, Mornac, he is not a married man and, therefore, much less likely to sexually abuse children.

[Sassy]

Question for any atheists present:

On what grounds would an atheist pedophile object to engaging in a sexual act with a ten year old boy if the ten year boy invited it?

Pedophiles know no religion, political party, etc.  Pedophiles are perverts and should suffer extensively for their crimes against children.

[johnhp]

Pedophiles know no religion, political party, etc.  Pedophiles are perverts and should suffer extensively for their crimes against children.

Well, according to one of Mornac's experts, pedophiles are very much more likely to be married men, like Mornac, for example, than not.

[Mornac]

Pedophiles know no religion, political party, etc.

--Is it possible for an atheist to be a pedophile, or are they exempt from that proclivity for some reason?

Pedophiles are perverts and should suffer extensively for their crimes against children.

--I’m afraid that johnhp and these guys would disagree with you on that point. They hold that pedophilia is not a perversion but merely an orientation that they should not be vilified for.