On Recent Viral Videos

I'm going to try to write this and my next article without being too polemical. It will be difficult, but these two article are coming from a place of utter frustration. Frustration at the fact that so many people in our society can't think. This is evidenced by the number of videos by vloggers on YouTube that contain poor arguments (actually, that's too charitable; their arguments are downright pathetic), and further evidence by the number of people sharing these videos so that they go viral because the people sharing these videos can't think and don't realize how poor (read: pathetic) the arguments actually are. So I'm going to write two articles responding to two such videos. This first one will be responding to a video by vlogger jaimekid2 Ben Shapiro's arguments against abortion. Why am I responding to these videos if the thinkers are so unsophisticated? Because people are taking them seriously.

So what is jaimekid2's argument against abortion? He says, "Ben Shapiro is wrong on abortion. The reason why he is wrong is because he doesn't hold his values consistently."

Read the rest at the Life Training Institute blog.

Book Review: A Practical Guide to Culture by John Stonestreet and Brett Kunkle

Special thanks to Brett Kunkle for providing me with a free copy to review the book.

There aren't many books that I'm aware of that try to talk about the culture as a whole. There are certainly some good ones out there (such as Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death), but Stonestreet and Kunkle's book, A Practical Guide to Culture, takes it a step further in that they don't just talk about our culture and how we got here, but they actually provide practical steps on how Christians ought to live in this culture and how to raise Godly children in a culture that can't wait to corrupt them. Even if there were other books about culture, as culture has a tendency to shift rapidly, books like this one are constantly needed. After all, the concept that a person can marry someone of the same sex, as one of our Supreme Court justices rightly pointed out, is younger than the smartphone. "Trans rights" wasn't even a thing more than a few years ago.

Read the rest at the Life Training Institute blog.

So Joss Whedon Made a Planned Parenthood Propaganda Film...

There's no doubt Joss Whedon is a great director. I have the entire Firefly series on DVD and I'm a huge fan of the Avengers movies (and I have friends who sing the praises of his other shows, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dollhouse). However, in a bizarre turnaround, Whedon has set his sights on promoting Planned Parenthood by filming a three-minute short film called Unlocked. The film, of course, is well-made, but it doesn't make any sense.

Read the rest at the Life Training Institute blog.

Book Review: Life's Work: A Moral Argument for Choice by Dr. Willie Parker

Life's Work: A Moral Argument for Choice by Dr. Willie Parker is a new book defending abortion rights by an African-American doctor who is a self-proclaimed "Christian" (the reason for the quotes around Christian will become evident below). For all the lip service Parker says about rationality and wanting to approach the issue rationally, I've rarely read a more irrational defense of abortion rights.

Read the rest at the Life Training Institute blog.

Zero Reasons a Fetus is Absolutely Not a Person

A friend posted an article on Addicting Info to my Facebook wall titled 14 Reasons a Fetus is Absolutely Not a Person, written by one Wendy Gittleson (who has obviously never seen the inside of a logic textbook and has no sense of shame). This article will be a bit polemical, mostly because of her undeserved arrogance and the fact that her article doesn't even come close to doing what her headline alleges she is going to do. Seriously. Just take one look through her 14 questions (they are not arguments), and you'll notice one glaring omission: none of these 14 questions offer any sort of argument for why the fetus is not a person. They are merely hypothetical questions one might pose to a proponent of fetal personhood (such as myself), and some of the questions are incredibly dumb. Only one question is actually legitimate. But none of these are arguments that support the proposition "a human fetus is not a person." Ordinarily I'd pay no mind to this article and I would consider it not worth my time to respond to. But it was posted to my Facebook wall and another friend encouraged me to respond because there might be people who are actually taken in by this garbage. And I'll be doing this completely sober. Pray for me.

Read the rest at the Life Training Institute blog.

Thinking Clearly About Fetal Organ Donation and Human Dignity

A while ago I came across this letter from a dad whose unborn daughter, Eva, had a debilitating disability and would die a few days after birth. Of course, it's a very difficult situation to go through. No parent ever wants to outlive their son or daughter. However, the circumstances regarding their decision to bring the child to full term, while it appears noble on the surface, actually doesn't respect the inherent dignity of their child.

Read the rest at the Life Training Institute blog.

On Teen Vogue's Recent Abortion Articles

Teen Vogue, apparently a publication geared toward teenagers, has recently published two articles about abortion. Now, seeing as though I'm not a teenager, I don't have any kids, and I'm a man of reasonably good taste, I don't read Teen Vogue (or, really, anything with "vogue" in the name of it). But it's distressing the kinds of things publications geared toward teenagers will try to push on your kids. This just goes to show how important it is for parents to be aware of what their children read.

One such article is called "11 Thoughtful Gifts Your Friend Who Just Had an Abortion Would Appreciate." It's actually a "slideshow", so I would encourage you not to click through it as slideshows only artificially inflate the number of clicks a website garners, giving them more money from their sponsors. I only read through one or two of the supposed gifts you should give your post-abortive friend. It's written in a style that's super-casual and intended to be funny (rather than helpful). However, before you click through you are greeted with a pop-up box that talks about how abortion is "never a simple decision" and making it as a teenager is "more than a little terrifying." Never mind the fact that encouraging children to abstain from sex would be an excellent way of ensuring they don't have to make these decisions. Instead, we'll just offer gift ideas for a girl who does go through it. Of course, to Teen Vogue, the reason many women need post-abortion counseling is "not because the act itself is so terrible, but because sometimes the world can be." In other words, the "abortion stigma" is the reason so many women regret their abortions, not because they're killing their own child.

Read the rest at the Life Training Institute blog.

More of the Same Fallacies From an Abortion-Choice Advocate

I was pointed to an article by Alan Levinowitz called "Why Do Pro-Life Advocates Only Seem to Care About Unborn Lives?" Of course, the real reason is because abortion-choice advocates are too lazy to do any real research into what people in the pro-life movement actually do. But that would make for a very short article.

Levinowitz starts off by saying he uses abortion as a case study in his comparative ethics course. Considering how rife with fallacy his article is, it actually does give me concern for his students. He is apparently drawing his students away from the pro-life argument not based on logic or reason (which is essential for coming to conclusions on ethical questions) but based on emotion and logical fallacies. There is a silver lining here -- Levinowitz does recognize that abortion-choice advocates can't take the "moral superiority" of their position as granted and should seek out challenging dialogue partners to discuss it further. So if Levinowitz happens across this article, please get in touch with me. I'd love to discuss this further with you. We could even set up a debate on this issue, if you'd be game for it.

Read the rest at the Life Training Institute blog.