Dear Alliance Party, is there room in your party for a public representative who believes gay sex is a sin?

Equality, LGBT, Politics / / by

On the eve of Gay Pride — a massive, brightly-coloured celebration consisting of not-always-clothed people gyrating and pouting in a bid to tell the whole world that what they do with their genitals is no one’s business — the words of Tim Stanley ring truer than ever: “being tolerant is not merely enough; you must celebrate. Otherwise, there is no place for you in politics”.

We’re at the stage now where the diktats of our new illiberal liberal society demand that not only are we to tolerate leftist ideologies such as abortion and same-sex marriage, we must also celebrate them. It is not enough to say, “I disagree with your ideas, but I respect you” — we must also drive a rainbow-coloured float to work each morning while a team of feminists throw handfuls of abortion pills at passers-by to the tune of Bad Romance blasting out over giant nipple-shaped speakers.

Take Tim Farron, for example. Despite not proposing a single policy that would adversely affect the LGBTQ+ community or abortion law, he wasn’t rainbow-affirming or abortion-loving enough and so quickly found himself in breach of Liberal Democrat orthodoxy. In other words, Tim Farron was too liberal for the Liberal Democrats.

Then there was that time the Thought Detectives came after Dan Walker for having the sheer audacity to present a TV programme and be Christian at the same time. In this Brave New World, presenting a breakfast TV show or leading a liberal political party is a job reserved only for the enlightened, you see. “You religious should stick to herding goats,” they seethe with love and tolerance.

Now that the dust has settled on the Tim Farron episode, I’ve been thinking a lot about the Liberal Democrat’s sister party here in Northern Ireland, the Alliance Party. Just like Tim Farron, the Alliance leader, Naomi Long, also claims to be a person of faith. Unlike Tim Farron, however, she has no such issues reconciling her faith with the liberal zeitgeist; she’s more than happy to proclaim that marriage is more of a government registry of friendships than what Jesus describes in Matthew 19, and her position on abortion is vague and watery enough (“I don’t like it, but…”) to gain her the acceptance of the progressive magisterium. For now, anyway.

So – since the Alliance Party never shy away from telling us how progressive and diverse they are, I’d like to ask them this: is there room within your party for a public representative who publicly states that gay sex is a sin? I’m not convinced there would be —  Tim Farron said it wasn’t a sin and his progressive inquisitors still weren’t happy — but I could be wrong. Maybe the rainbow colours they put on everything are really a celebration of the Noahic Covenant.

Or, if nobody is willing to admit to disagreeing with gay sex, what about the lesser secular sin of disagreeing with pre-marital sex? After all, pre-marital sex is wrong in many religions, not just Christianity. If their answer is, “No, we’re progressives. We believe in sex before, during and after marriage. Take your troglodytism elsewhere,” then not only does that exclude many Catholics and Protestants, but also Muslims and Jews who seek to live under the beliefs of their church from publicly representing the Alliance Party.

These are fair questions to ask because, for the benefit of those who don’t know, the sins of pre-marital and gay sex are long-standing and fairly bog-standard Christian doctrines. Of course, there are some Christians, like Naomi, who are happy to embrace other sexual philosophies (but not all sexual philosophies; we still have a long way to progress in that regard) — but many don’t.

So, would these Christians — and adherents of other faiths who hold to traditional values — feel safe to publicly air their views, or would they be advised not to? Would they enjoy the public backing of their tolerant and fair-minded leader or would they, like Tim Farron, find working for Alliance while holding certain beliefs impossible?

atheism matrix christianity

Life in the Matrix: three insurmountable problems of atheism

Atheism, Christianity, Evil / / by

I’m not afraid to admit that there are difficulties with theism. There are things that are hard to understand, and there are things that are unpalatable. These problems, however, are nothing – nothing! – compared to the insurmountable problems with atheism.

In fact, out of all the options out there, atheism is by far the least persuasive explanation of the way things are. Here are three reasons why:

1. The existence of evil

If there’s one thing that everyone can agree on, it’s that evil happens in the world. Whether that’s terror attacks, the unfair distribution of wealth, cancer or whatever; most agree that evil is an objective feature of reality. And this, say some atheists, is a good enough reason for rejecting the idea of God (as emoted by Stephen Fry in that interview on RTÉ). To a certain degree, I can understand this view. The world is demonstrably full of evil and it can be difficult to reconcile this fact of reality with a loving God.

For the atheist who is an atheist because of evil, however, this doesn’t get them off the hook. Getting rid of God does not get rid of evil because now the atheist has to solve the problem using the limited resources of naturalism. And they’re not going to get very far with naturalism even making sense of evil, never mind solving it, because, as celebrity atheist Richard Dawkins puts it, “The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference”.

In other words, excrement happens.

The existence of evil, therefore, is actually an argument for God. When an atheist says ‘evil,’ they assume there is such a thing as ‘good’. When they assume there’s such a thing as good, they assume there’s such a thing as an objective moral law by which to judge between good and evil. But if they assume an objective moral law exists, then they must posit some sort of lawgiver – which is the very thing they say doesn’t exist!

2. You can’t get living stuff from dead stuff

For atheism to be true, it must meet the minimum requirement of life coming from non-life (abiogenesis). If life can’t be shown to come from non-life, then we can’t even get started. But how did life come from non-life? As yet, nobody has come up with any answers. There are competing theories, of course, but they’re merely starting places offered up by materialists, many of which (all?) have been quickly shot down by other materialists.

And as time goes on and the more we learn about the complexities of chemistry and biochemistry – and even the complexities of the simplest of living cells – we realise that the problem of getting life from non-life is not going to be solved by any naturalistic explanation.

Of course, atheists (at least the ones I’ve engaged with) usually answer this problem with: “Life came from non-life because we’re here. Therefore, it happened.” But this is circular reasoning, the atheist equivalent to, “The bible is true because the bible says it’s true”. It is based on naturalist presuppositions that won’t be disturbed by evidence. It is philosophy, not fact.

3. The existence of consciousness

One of my favourite films from my yoof is The Matrix, a sci-fi action thriller set in a dystopian future where reality turns out to be a computer simulation run by sentient machines – the Matrix. It’s a bit like how the DVLNI works, only with sunglasses and cool music. Early on in the film, the hero, Neo, meets a character called Morpheus, who offers him a choice between taking a red pill, which will show Neo the harsh truth about reality and a blue pill, which will keep him blissfully ignorant.

This is not unlike atheism. Instead of being enslaved and subdued by sentient machines, the logical conclusion of atheism is that humans are enslaved and subdued by an evolutionary need to survive. Our brains are hardwired for survival, nothing more, nothing less. “DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music,” says Dawkins. On atheism, then, humans are nothing more than fleshy automatons.

The Atheist philosopher and science historian, William Provine, succinctly  states:

Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear — and these are basically Darwin’s views. There are no gods, no purposes, and no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end of me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will for humans, either.

Another atheist philosopher, Daniel Dennett, agrees: “Consciousness is an illusion of the brain, for the brain, by the brain.” (Thought: since consciousness is an illusion of the brain, and Dennett used his brain to make that statement, why should our brains believe his brain?)

If these atheists are correct, then things like justice and love are nothing but simple chemical reactions bouncing about in our meat computers. Breathtaking scenery is nothing more than light waves, and music is just bouncing molecules. None of these things is actually real. They are useful fictions that help aid human survival.

But there is an even bigger problem. If consciousness is just an illusion of the brain, then who or what makes our decisions? If consciousness is a mere effect of chemical reactions in the brain, then the conscious act of deciding is not our own, but rather our head meat responding to stimuli beyond our control. There is no such thing as ‘choice’  (sorry all you ‘pro-choice’ atheists out there, that’s a meaningless term on your view), rationality, freethought or consciousness. We are merely slaves, born into evolutionary bondage.

Most atheists, though, take the blue pill. That is, to quote Morpheus, they “wake up in their beds and believe whatever they want to believe”. These are the atheists who believe things like justice and love to be real things, worth fighting for. These are the self-styled ‘freethinkers’ (ha! If only they knew!), who meet up in Premier Inns to discuss which religious aspects of their particular corner of the Matrix they dislike the most.

Then, the higher up the atheism ladder you go, atheists like Dennett and Provine (and others like Sam Harris and Jerry Coyne), take the red pill. These atheists are aware of the true nature and consequences of atheism and are happy to tell us how deep the rabbit hole of atheism goes. They know there is no ultimate meaning, for anything or anyone. In fact, some of them even argue that we could actually be living in a Matrix!  Anything but God, I suppose.

So when an atheist rejects God, it’s important to ask the question, “Ok, so God doesn’t exist, now what? What is true, and how would you support it?” Because when you study the alternatives, giving up Christianity is not merely rejecting the hymns you were made to learn in Sunday school or railing against the DUP for tying up the swings on Sunday that one time.  It’s giving up on a complete system of thought that underpins the kind of Western culture everyone wants to live in, from justice to compassion to a binding corpus of human rights based on a coherent understanding of what it means to be human – none of which an atheist can ever hope to account for, regardless of which pill they choose.

 

Science proves the real archaic law to be the 1967 Abortion Act

Abortion / / by

One of the biggest fallacies of the Northern Ireland abortion debate is the argument that since the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 is old, it must therefore be wrong.  You’ve heard it many times: “NI abortion laws are archaic. They’re from the middle ages or something!” This, of course, is a type of GCSE-level reasoning known as ‘chronological snobbery’ or a ‘current year fallacy’. A law should live or die on its own merit, not on how old it is.

Which brings us on to the British Medical Association (BMA).

Tomorrow, the BMA will vote on whether or not to completely decriminalise abortion. While a vote in favour will not change the law, it will send a clear and terrifying message that the current medical zeitgeist does not believe in the equality of every human life – much to the delight of the chronological snobs. It’s 2017, you see, and protecting all human life is so, like, 1861.

But if the law were to change in light of this, say in some sort of hellish dystopian future where the Green Party have come to power, then the abortion limit will be increased to 28 weeks and practices like sex-selective abortion, as advocated by the appropriately-named Dr Wendy Savage, would be perfectly legal. #TrustWomen indeed. The ones that are allowed to be born, that is.

However, for anyone who is concerned with right reasoning, no such vote is necessary. The issue of abortion, while emotionally complex and culturally divisive, is actually a straightforward one. The only question that needs asked is the following:

What is the unborn?

The answer to this question trumps all other considerations because if the unborn is not a human being, then no justification for abortion is necessary. Abortion would be no more immoral than having a tooth or a tumour removed. However, if the unborn is a human being, then no justification for abortion is good enough.

In other words, an unborn human’s right to life is more important than its unwanted-ness, the right to choose (whatever that means), financial hardship, its gender, its skin colour, its disability, or any of the other reasons you’ll regularly hear given for abortion. If the unborn is human, then the BMA voting on whether or not to criminalise abortion would be like Starbucks voting on whether or not to slay their least productive coffee farmers.

So how do we know if the unborn is human or not? This is how: science.

It’s amusing how the religious are charged with being anti-science, yet when it comes to abortion (and other cultural issues like how many genders there are), there’s no shortage of secularists and/or atheists willing to beclown themselves by claiming that a fetus is not human (or that there are six million genders) – despite established science saying otherwise.

As far back as 1970, when ultrasound technology was in its infancy, and three years before Roe vs. Wade introduced wholesale abortion to the US, the editorial in California Medicine put it plainly:

“Since the old ethic has not yet been fully displaced it has been necessary to separate the idea of abortion from the idea of killing, which continues to be socially abhorrent. The result has been a curious avoidance of the scientific fact, which everyone really knows, that human life begins at conception and is continuous whether intra-or extra-uterine until death. The very considerable semantic gymnastics which are required to rationalise abortion as anything but taking a human life would be ludicrous if they were not often put forth under socially impeccable auspices.”

The humanity of the unborn is also affirmed by leading embryology textbooks,¹ that establish, in no uncertain terms, that from the earliest stages of development, the unborn are distinct, living, and whole human beings – like this one. Of course, for the abortion-choicer, the denial of science and use of subterfuge is wholly necessary because otherwise, they couldn’t call themselves ‘pro-choice’.

Interestingly, there are some abortion-choice supporters intellectually honest enough to embrace the science. Ronald Dworkin, a prominent American philosopher and abortion advocate, in his book Life’s Dominion, simply said: “Abortion deliberately kills a developing embryo and is a choice for death”.

Faye Wattleton, a former President of Planned Parenthood (!), writing in Ms. Magazine, put it this way:

“I think we have deluded ourselves into believing that people don’t know that abortion is killing. So any pretense that abortion is not killing is a signal of our ambivalence, a signal that we cannot say yes, it kills a fetus.”

So – here’s a former President of Planned Parenthood, an organisation that is to abortion what Ikea is to furniture, saying that its entire support base (pretty much) is deluded. I’ve yet to hear or see any abortion rights campaigner concede that abortion is killing, have you? Yet here is an abortion industry leader saying just that. Perhaps the rank-and-file abortion activists would be better off spending their time reading up on embryology instead of prancing about in vagina hats.

So we know the unborn are human, not because Scripture tells us (it does, by the way – Ps. 139:13 & Luke 1:41) or because we’re all misogynist pigs (ad hominem!), but because science has weighed in and told us so. That means — it follows necessarily — that if it is wrong to take an innocent human life, and abortion takes an innocent human life, then abortion is wrong. This is true even if a fertilised human looks like a clump of cells, or if you can’t afford it, or if its father is a criminal. It is true even if the BMA vote in favour of decriminalising it.

So when someone accuses a pro-lifer of supporting an ‘archaic law,’ a moment’s reflection should reveal how absurd this is. “You oppose a law that tries to protect all human life, and yet you support a law that seeks to destroy human life, even for the flimsiest of reasons?” OK, then. Which law is the medieval one again?

¹See T.W. Sadler, Langman’s Embryology, 5th ed. (Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders, 1993) p. 3; Keith L. Moore, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology (Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1998),pp. 2-18. O’Rahilly, Ronand and Muller, Pabiola, Human Embryology and Teratology, 2nd ed. (New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996) pp. 8, 29.

Human rights and the problem of atheism

Atheism, Human rights / / by

Visit any atheist website or Facebook group and you’ll quickly discover that atheists pride themselves on being the white knights of equality and the moral guardians of human rights. Yet their own worldview — evolutionary materialism, the understanding that humans are an unintended byproduct of time plus chance plus matter — gives absolutely no basis for such lofty ideas as equality and human rights.

This was demonstrated perfectly during the recent debate between Christian philosopher William Lane Craig and the chair of Atheist Ireland, Michael Nugent, who, during the Q&A, casually asserted that human life is no more valuable than animal life.

For most people, this is a deeply disturbing idea. But Nugent, to his credit, was only being logically consistent. If there is no God, then he is completely correct; human life is literally no more valuable than animal life (or any other form of life, for that matter).

Here’s the logic:

  1. There is no God; all life is the product of time plus chance plus matter.
  2. As such, humans exist on an unbroken continuum with animals. They are Darwinian primates, nothing more, nothing less.
  3. Therefore, human life is no more valuable than any other form of animal life.

Nugent is not alone. Peter Singer, a committed atheist and one of the world’s leading ethicists, put it this way during this TV interview:

“Why do you think a member of the species Homo sapien, just because they’re a member of that species, has a right to life that, for example, a non-human animal – let’s say the gorilla who was shot in Cincinnati Zoo last week – does not have? Even though the gorilla has far more self-awareness, far more ability to form relationships with others, than a member of the species Homo sapien with severe brain damage.”

So where does this idea of human equality from?

Nancy Pearcey writes that Alexis de Tocqueville, a 19th-century political thinker, believed the idea of human equality came from Christianity:

“The most profound geniuses of Rome and Greece never came up with the idea of equal rights. Jesus Christ had to come to earth to make it understood that all members of the human species are naturally alike and equal.”

For a more contemporary example, atheist philosopher John Gray, states:

“Darwin has shown us that we are animals,” and therefore “the idea of free will does not come from science. Instead, its origins are in religion — not just any religion, but the Christian faith against which humanists rail so obsessively.”

How do atheists account for human rights and human value if they reject Christianity?

Not coherently. Without the understanding that every human is, by nature, intrinsically valuable, atheists have to contrive another set of criteria that human beings must meet in order to be considered worthy of rights. We see this most prevalently today with secular arguments for abortion, where an unborn human must be, amongst other things, “viable” and “sentient” before she can be considered worthy of life. Merely being human is not enough.

Indeed, being born isn’t necessarily enough, either. Singer goes as far to recommend a 28-day quibble-free return on newborns, “My colleague Helga Kuhse and I suggest that a period of 28 days after birth might be allowed before an infant is accepted as having the same right to life as others.” Again, he’s being perfectly consistent because, when you think about it; newborns also fail to meet the standard of viability and sentience that are set for the unborn.

peter singer belfast bigot

Infanticide apologist Peter Singer. Good job he’s not a leading ethicist who advises governments or anything. Oh, wait.

For atheists, then, human value is determined subjectively by those in power, depending on what their particular culture believes during whatever time period they happen to live in. For intellectually honest and logically consistent atheists, like Singer, this means that the value of a human life can sometimes be even less than that of an animal’s — which is why some atheists can be, without any sense of irony, both pro-choice and vegan. Save the whales, kill the babies, if you will.

Scary biscuits, isn’t it? Perhaps not if you agree with those in power, or you just so happen to satisfy the requirements necessary to be granted rights. But if the powerful are the ones who give humans their value, they can also take it away. As we see with what is happening to gay men in Chechnya, there is nothing to stop those in power from reimagining the line between human value and animal value to something the atheist doesn’t like. One society says the unborn have no rights, another says gays have no rights. Which one is wrong? Says who?

Atheism and human rights are completely incompatible

Of course, this doesn’t prove atheism wrong (we can appeal to other arguments for that), nor does it mean that atheists cannot be capable of great moral deeds, but it does prompt the question: which view is better equipped to answer our deep intuitions that we should care for the weak, the oppressed, and the disabled? The view of Michael Nugent, who belives that humans are no more valuable than rats? Or the view of Helen Rosevere, a Christian missionary whose belief that all human beings are created equally compelled her, under pain of rape and civil war, to practice medicine and establish hospitals in the Congo?

Thankfully, atheists are an inconsistent bunch. Even if they are willing to openly express the view that human beings are nothing more than moist robots that have no more value than a fruit bat, none of them actually live like they believe it (being a vegan doesn’t count because Plant Lives Matter too). To be a good atheist is to be a bad atheist.

As Christians, we need to call them up on this. Human equality and the idea of intrinsic human value are the logical outworkings of Christianity. And if atheists wish to hold consistently to these ideas, they must abandon their atheism. They can’t have it both ways.

How on earth do we vote, for heaven’s sake?

Politics / / by

A guest blog by The Puritan.

Gratia, I am The Puritan, friend of the Belfast Bigot. We met many years ago at the University of Erfurt whilst studying for our respective degrees; the Bigot in Patriarchy and Misogyny Studies, and I in Applied Homophobia and Corporal Punishment — so I can assure you that my views and opinions are just as outdated and bigoted as his.

You might say that we came to our narrow-minded conclusions together while imposing our correctitude on unwilling participants throughout this Newfoundland of ours, Northern Ireland. Indeed, it was my idea to tie up the swings on Sundays.

Hark! ‘Tis I, The Puritan. I like to read scripture by the hearth, sparing not the rod on my twelve children, and feasting on quail pottage.

Although I am an active member of the clergy, on my off days I am prone to bouts of reasonableness — particularly after a quart or two of my homebrew Buckfast, which I make with thine own bare feet — so forgive me if I don’t fit how you imagine a hidebound doctrinaire to be!

As a ‘man of the cloth’ people often ask me who they should vote for. Or what issues they should prioritise as they go to vote. So I’ll do my best here to explain my dogmatic and fanatical views.

Election time again? Huzzah! It feels like it was only a few months ago we were going to the polls to cast our votes to…oh wait! It was! Yes, here we are, going back to the polling booths again to vote for the same politicians, who are standing on the same policies, with the same parties for the second time in 10 months!

Why bother?

I understand the frustration and apathy out there amongst the voting public. And in truth, I feel somewhat the same. However, there is more to this election than meets the eye — this is one of the most important elections in recent years. In this election, same-sex marriage and abortion are right at the forefront of almost every party’s election manifesto.

Sinn Fein, SDLP, Alliance, People Before Prophet (sorry, ‘Profit’), the UUP (by proxy of Mr. Nesbitt’s “We’ll find ourselves on the wrong side of history” speech), the Green Party, and that bearded Labour fella with the back-to-front t-shirt, are all raring to give a hearty Norn Iron “aye” to ‘equal marriage’ (well, ‘equal’ in the context of including gay people. Bisexuals would still have to deny their true selves by marrying only one person, and anyone with an eye on their cousin can go straight back into the incest closet from whence they came). This means that only the DUP would oppose a change in the current legislation.

Furthermore, a change to the current legislation on abortion, specifically in regards to Fatal Foetal Abnormalities (which, by the way, isn’t a term you’ll find in any medical book) seems to be gaining momentum. While there is not the cross-party support for abortion as there is for ‘equal marriage,’ there is a growing hysteria, brought about by quinoa-eating liberals, who think we’re denying damsels in distress the opportunity to vanquish their babies via forceps or saline, rather than letting nature take its course. This has led to many who are supposedly opposed to abortion, falling over themselves to vote this through the assembly, simply because the definition of abortion has been loosened to include children with proposed unsurvivable conditions. Because this makes them less human, apparently.

For those of us who are archaic enough to value marriage and life, this makes for grim reading. Up until now, our only refuge has been the DUP’s willingness to temporarily set aside their democracy and invoke a Petition of Concern, thereby stopping any bill to change the law, in its tracks. Their willingness to drop the Petition of Concern, I believe, would have drastic consequences, virtually guaranteeing the implementation of the above two policies.

But it’s the DUP!

I know, I know! The DUP, at times, don’t display anywhere near the attitude of loving their neighbours that Christ calls us to. I find their arrogance a bit off-putting too if I’m honest. Not to mention they have all the charm and craic of a Translink AGM.

But — I am very aware of their fallenness and of their imperfections (as I am of my own), so whenever I go to the polls, I go to elect someone who will seek to put those laws in place that are compatible with the Bible.

Additionally, it may be helpful for Christians to vote across party lines in order to highlight their support for those candidates who support the biblical view of marriage and the preciousness of life. The life of a child and the future of marriage are too important to vote along the green and orange divide. Do your research and find the politicians who stand with us on these things — and support them with your votes; let your conscience guide you as to preference.

So, in conclusion, when I go to the voting booth, I go holding my nose, yet thankful for the freedom to vote, and the awareness that I serve a righteous and just King. A just King who is the perfect leader and Who, one day, when this world is no more, I’ll be serving in His kingdom, because His is an everlasting kingdom.

pro-life belfast both lives matter

Actually, Labour Alternative, both lives do matter

Abortion, Pro-choice, Pro-life / / by

Abortion advocates are in a rage at the moment.

Nothing new here, of course, they’re always raging about something, but this last month their rage has been more apoplectic than usual.

Their anger climaxed when Both Lives Matter, a new pro-life group set up in Northern Ireland, launched a billboard campaign claiming that 100,000 lives have been saved due to NI’s laws on abortion.

The billboard was vandalised shortly after going up.

Nothing says “tolerance” like the tearing down of a different opinion.

Normal people will find it odd that anyone could become outraged at the mere suggestion of people being alive today because they weren’t aborted, but this is the type of people we’re dealing with. Truth is to abortion fans what direct sunlight is to vampires. This is why, when faced with the light of truth and goodness, their eyes and faces began to burn so badly that they had to literally destroy the billboard for fear of bursting into flames.

Sean Burns, South Belfast candidate for the abortion-choice Labour Alternative, put it this way:

“This campaign is an insult to women who have had an abortion for whatever reason (for instance, if the mother didn’t want a girl — Bigot). It is also a blatantly untrue (sic) to say our backward laws are saving any lives. In fact, this archaic denial of the right to choose puts the lives of women as risk, as we saw in the South with the tragic death of Savita Halappanavar.”

A couple of points: firstly, notice how he doesn’t even bother to engage with the ‘100,000 lives’ claim. He merely asserts that it’s untrue without offering any compelling counter-argument. This is a standard pro-choice tactic. By dismissing you, they don’t have to defend their position. And if they don’t defend their position, then nobody will find out how vacuous and fallacious their arguments are. Instead, they get to stay in their Safe Spaces, eat chickpea curry and conduct a memorial service for Harambe. Then, when it’s safe, they creep out under the cover of darkness to tear down any message that doesn’t agree with crushing the skulls of unborn human beings.

But here’s where their argument defeats itself: if there’s such a huge demand for abortion in NI — as pro-choice groups are constantly telling us — then it’s reasonable to assume that there have been at least 100,000 women in NI since 1967 who have wanted an abortion but couldn’t — and subsequently didn’t — have one. Therefore, it is perfectly plausible that those former unwanted pregnancies are now alive and part of society. Who knows, some of them might even make up the dozen or so people who vote Labour Alternative.

However, if there isn’t a huge demand for abortion in NI, and our abortion laws don’t save lives, then pro-choice groups are lying. Which is it?

Secondly, abortion advocates need to stop using Savita Halappanavar and other hard cases to score political points and disguise their true position of abortion on demand. An independent enquiry concluded that Savita died of sepsis – something an abortion could not have prevented – and medical misadventure.

The fictitious “women will die” argument gets rolled out anytime there’s an attempt to defend NI’s abortion laws, despite thousands of lives necessarily being saved, and not a single death ever resulting from a lack of abortion. Pregnancy is a horrible disease, they scream, and abortion is the only cure.

Well, I’m with the Dublin Declaration on this one; there is never any medical justification for the intentional killing of an unborn child. Sadly, there may be situations where a baby doesn’t survive the medical intervention needed to save the life of a mother, or the baby may need to be delivered early, but the additional step of maiming, poisoning, and carving the baby up before throwing it in a bin, is never needed. The vast, vast, vast majority of abortions are carried out on healthy women with healthy pregnancies resulting from consensual sex. Everyone knows this.

Burns continues, “Nor does it stop women having abortions. It just means thousands of women are forced to travel to Britain at great expense.”

Of course, laws against abortion won’t stop abortions. Just like laws against rape don’t stop rape. That’s not the point. Laws are deterrents, not absolute guarantees. This is how it works: if something is illegal, people generally won’t do it. If something is legal, people generally will do it. This is basic stuff. Any serious politician ought to know this.

The question we should be asking is, “Are NI laws against abortion good?” Well, abortion is the intentional act of killing a live human being – a description that begs no questions – so, yes, they are.

Finally, and predictably, Burns invokes the Twin Towers of modern Leftist ideology — censorship and name-calling:

“I will be submitting a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority about this inappropriate, inaccurate and offensive campaign but, more importantly, we need an active movement which is prepared to take on these bigots and win abortion rights for women in Northern Ireland.”

If you have no good arguments, then why not whisper in the ear of power to silence your opponent, or call them a bigot? And that’s what Labour Alternative are doing here. But what is a bigot? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a bigot is: “A person who is intolerant towards those holding different opinions”. Who does that sound more like? The people making a plausible claim that anti-abortion laws save lives, or the people who make sweeping character judgments and tear down speech they don’t like?

Just when you think things couldn’t get any more asinine, East Belfast Labour Alternative candidate, Courtney Robinson, speaking in her capacity as self-appointed representative of all women, said this:

“The anti-choice campaign ‘Both Lives Matter’ has been masquerading as a human right groups (sic) but it is nothing of the sort. They not only insult women here but also the heroic Black Lives Matter movement in the United States which has been challenging racist violence and inequality.”

The world has become accustomed to irrational and hysterical Leftist snowflakery in recent times, so it should come as no surprise that someone would take offence at the name ‘Both Lives Matter’. Just a hunch, but I’m guessing they went with ‘Both Lives Matter’ because ‘Both the Mother’s Life and the Baby’s Life Have Intrinsic Value and an Unalienable Right Not to be Dismembered or Poisoned Alive’ doesn’t have the same ring to it. Nor would it get their point across in time before someone tears down the billboard. Seriously, wise up.

‘Both Lives Matter’ is a fundamentally equal statement. By opposing it, Courtney Robinson is actually aligning herself with inequality. If Courtney Robinson really believes that black lives matter, she’s more than welcome to join the pro-life movement in condemning the biggest killer of black lives in America – abortion. Nothing keeps the black population in check like abortion, just as eugenics-enthusiast Margaret Sanger dreamed it would when she founded Planned Parenthood. There is a reason why there are more Planned Parenthoods in poor black neighbourhoods than anywhere else; aborting blacks is big business.

Courtney continues:

“This group is totally out of touch with ordinary people. So are all the main parties, none of which support the right to choose despite 55% of people wanting to see the 1967 Abortion Act extended to Northern Ireland. Fifty years after women in Britain won the right to choose, women in Northern Ireland are still being criminalised for exercising control over their own bodies. In the upcoming election, Labour Alternative will continue to campaign unapologetically for abortion rights and provide an alternative to the dark-age politics of the main political parties.”

These are just shameless diversion tactics. An appeal to the masses doesn’t make something right. And the age of a law – any law – is completely irrelevant in determining whether it’s a good law or a bad law (by the way, if you want to see something from the Dark Ages, take a look at the instruments they use to perform abortions with).

The only thing that matters here is the nature of the unborn. If abortion doesn’t take a human life, no justification is needed. Abortion at any stage, for any reason, I say. If abortion does take a human life, as science confirms, then no justification is good enough — regardless of how many people agree with it.

So, when it comes to casting your vote this election, be aware that Labour Alternative don’t really care about women. They only care about preserving sexual freedom, one of the pillars of liberal and Leftist ideology.

If Labour Alternative really cared about women, they’d speak out against the millions of females aborted yearly simply because they are female. They’d speak out against abortion as the tool of abusive and unscrupulous men, who use it to destroy the evidence of rape and incest to avoid responsibility and commitment and to use more women for more sex. But they don’t speak out against these things because they are moral cowards. They don’t care about women. It’s not possible. You can’t support abortion and be pro-woman.

So, instead of virtue signalling, Labour Alternative, why not make a stand for actual equality? Make a stand for all the disabled, black, and female unborn human beings annihilated daily simply for being disabled, black, and female. Make a stand for both lives.

hitman abortion northern ireland

‘Medieval’ NI murder law needs updating, say assassin campaign group

Abortion, Pro-choice, Pro-life / / by

A group of assassins have called for Northern Ireland’s “medieval” murder law to be brought up to date.

Although assassinations do occasionally happen, the group said it is “almost impossible” for contract killers to eliminate a human target in this country.

A spokesperson for the Assassin’s Brotherhood of Reforming Terminations (ABORT) said the law needs to be brought up to date.

The intentional killing of a human life is wrong, said the Northern Ireland government.

Currently, there are only a handful of contract killings carried out in Northern Ireland each year.

For scores of Northern Irish hitmen and hitwomen, however, this means a trip to Russia or China – where contract killings are less frowned upon – to look for work.

A hitman who wanted to remain anonymous said he turned to paid homicide after losing his job selling orthopaedic shoes when British Home Stores folded.

“I told the job agency that I was a big fan of Steven Segal and I wanted to become a hired gun, and they said, ‘No. You can’t choose that’. I was devastated. I had grown a ponytail especially for it and now I just look ridiculous.”

He added: “There is no other option than to get on a plane – or sometimes a speedboat – to find work in parts of the world where assassinations are less stigmatised. We’re not in the 1800s – it’s medieval.”

A second assassin spoke about the “financial burden”.

“I got myself into debt because I had to buy winter clothes – Russia’s freezing – and then customs confiscated my £3,000 samurai sword.”

“Flying back from Russia was the worst part. I was worried the briefcase containing my polonium and silencers wouldn’t make it through security at George Best airport. Thankfully, I remembered to label the briefcase as “gift” and it went through OK – but it was touch and go. I should never have had to leave home in the first place”.

‘Choice issue’

ABORT’s founder, and part-time assassin, Xavier Denim said: “We want equality for Northern Irish terminators. We don’t want assassinations on demand or for the sake of convenience, but it’s a choice issue. People should have the right to terminate inconvenient and costly human beings. The law needs bringing up to date.”

The Contract Killing Act 1987 is still the law governing Northern Ireland. It allows for assassinations on a number of grounds such as failure to pay your TV license, or putting out the wrong colour of bin on collection day.

But campaigners believe the “burden of proof to meet these criteria is such that it can be almost impossible for an assassin to terminate their target”. The act was brought in to update the existing, and even more archaic, 1872 Criminal Code – which made the act of killing human beings illegal.

Christianity in tatters as ancient discovery questions nativity (again)

Christianity, History / / by

For the umpteenth Christmas running, skeptics and freethinkers have called into question the reliability of Christianity after a bargain hunter discovered the oldest nativity scene ever found — an ancient artifact depicting three wise men and a baby.

The artifact, now badly sun-faded and covered in crisps, was found in the stock room of a charity shop just outside Lurgan, during an attempt to find a pair of suit trousers for a Job Seeker’s interview / funeral.

“It contains imagery that is completely identical to the Christmas story. But it predates it by thousands of years,” said antique dealer and atheist thinker, Flutura Templeton-Windsor.

“This discovery places a huge question mark over what Christians have been brainwashed to believe, because it proves that the Christmas story was ripped off from an earlier myth – just like The Da Vinci Code tried to tell us,” Templeton-Windsor said with her mouth.

The artifact features three uniquely attractive men, some cracking fashion sense, and a baby.

“It could be interpreted as cover art for a mildly-amusing but completely forgettable piece of performance art, with the zany demeanor of the men, and the comedy pee stain, but other details make this just like the Christian nativity,” said Templeton-Windsor.

She noted that the wise man in the middle is sporting a quite brilliant moustache, symbolising the majesty of the events that would follow.

“Thousands of years ago, moustaches were associated with fertility and new birth, so this is concrete proof that this is about the birth of something awesome,” Templeton-Windsor said.

The artifact becomes even more true when the other wise men are taken into consideration.

“The wise man on the right, like the one in the middle, has an open-necked robe, exposing a generous burst of chest hair. Back then, chest hair was only displayed by men who were seen as “stars” in their community. As we all know, the Christmas story involves a star that came from the east. He’s a star and he’s in the east of the picture. It all fits.”

Experts aren’t sure what purpose the wise man on the left serves, or if he ever did anything of note again, but a second similar artifact, found underneath the passenger seat of a police-auctioned Ford Capri, has him wearing a sweet purple turtleneck. This is hugely significant, explains Templeton-Windsor:

“As well as purple signifying royalty, which God-botherers believe Christ to be, purple turtles were seen as mythical creatures, often appearing in the art of many ancient cultures. He is secretly telling us that the Christmas nativity is also a myth. Just look at his cheeky wee face, if you don’t believe me.”

Like every Christmas when these stories rear their peer-reviewed heads, experts believe this discovery will be too much for Christendom to bear and expect to see a sharp decline in church attendance as a result.

“No doubt this will throw Christian believers into chaos,” Templeton-Windsor said with a scoff. “Much like those Horus memes did last year and, the year before that, the Zeitgeist film that I never bothered to watch but quote relentlessly on Facebook.”

How not to argue for abortion

Abortion, Pro-choice, Pro-life / / by

One thing that has become clear in the debate about abortion in Northern Ireland (and everywhere else) is that, in lieu of a single convincing argument, abortion proponents like to carpet-bomb the conversation with multiple terrible arguments in the hope that quantity will make up for quality. This is because abortion-choicers have already decided that pro-lifers are ignorant women-hating rubes who wish to impose their religious views on everyone else, so why even try and come up with a convincing argument?
Exhibit A: This Belfast Telegraph Facebook thread on Liam Neeson’s abortion-choice advocacy. There are too many awful abortion-choice arguments here, so I’ll respond to the best of the worst.

don't like abortion, don't have one

The common “don’t like abortion, don’t have one” argument confuses objective claims with subjective claims. When a pro-lifer says abortion is wrong, they’re making an objective claim that abortion unjustly takes the life of a defenceless human being. In other words, abortion is objectively wrong for everyone, regardless of whether one likes it or not. It misses the point entirely, like saying, “Don’t like wife beating? Don’t beat your wife!”
Subjective claims cannot be deemed right or wrong as they are matters of personal taste. You cannot reasonably argue that cheese and onion crisps are objectively better than ready salted crisps. But objective claims are different. They can be evaluated as true or false based on the evidence. “Every successful abortion intentionally ends an innocent human life” is an objective claim based on evidence. If you think it’s wrong, prove it with science and facts. Anything else is intellectual laziness.

“Shut up, you silly man!” is basically what this comment is saying. Instead of defending the abortion-choice view with facts and reason, this person is trying to censor the pro-lifer by attacking their gender (but, oddly enough, not Liam Neeson’s gender). But: arguments have no gender.
Furthermore, there is no such thing as a “woman’s perspective” on abortion that trumps all rational inquiries into the issue. Feminists – let alone women in general – have no single view on abortion. The ability to bear children is irrelevant. And who says men can’t physically bear children? This is 2016! Oh, the transphobia!

bad abortion arguments

Two terrible arguments for the price of one here. Scientifically, we know “Embryos, zygotes and foetuses” are distinct, living, and whole human beings. It doesn’t matter what names we give them. Sure, they differ in appearance but not in nature. This is such an obvious truth that not even abortion providers deny it. Faye Wattleton, a former President of Planned Parenthood, said: “I think we have deluded ourselves into believing that people don’t know that abortion is killing”.
Philosophically, there are only four differences between the embryo you once were and the individual you are today: size, the level of development, environment, and degree of dependence. None of these are value-giving properties. Humanness determines human value. And the unborn are human beings.
The second bad argument here is the absurd idea that in order to be against abortion, you must first care about already-born children. This is like some sort of ultimatum a movie villain might make: “If you care about the hostages, you’ll give me the gold bullion”. Or, “If you care about animal rights, why aren’t you adopting all the turkeys this Christmas?”

Suppose pro-lifers don’t care for born children (they do), it doesn’t follow that that justifies the deliberate killing of unborn children.

bad abortion arguments

The idea that personhood begins at birth (or that a “person” and a “human” are separate things) is an arbitrary assertion. When pushed, the pro-choicer will probably respond by defining “person” as something that is self-conscious and capable of living independently. It is these qualities, say pro-choicers, that give human beings the status of “person” and therefore the right to life.
There are a couple of serious problems with this, though. First, why is a capacity for thought, self-awareness, and intelligence value-giving in the first place? And why a particular degree of development? Why not full development? Is an adult human with an IQ of less than 40 a non-person? If not, why not? Says who? These are questions that abortion advocates never adequately address.
Second, all of these qualities don’t materialise until some time after birth, meaning newborns are also disqualified. After all, infants are not self-aware and cannot make conscious decisions until (at least) a few months after birth, so what’s wrong with infanticide? Same goes for comatose patients, dementia sufferers, and those who are simply asleep.
It is true that “Being against abortions will not stop them,” and, “Having abortions illegal will not stop them”. So what? By that logic, should we legalise murder, domestic violence, and burglary? After all, being against those things and making them illegal doesn’t stop them. Nonsense. The core question is the status of the unborn: Are they human beings? If so, we should legally protect them like any other vulnerable group.

“I will hunt you down, I will find you, I will kill you” – said the abortionist to the unborn child.

In sharp contrast to the lazy and ill-thought out pro-choice arguments above, the pro-life position is robust. It stands up to scrutiny. Pro-lifers contend, based on philosophy and scientific facts, that no human being, regardless of how developed they are or where they’re located, should be excluded from the community of human persons. It is an inclusive view open to all, especially the weak and powerless. Pro-life means equality, in the truest sense of the word.

ashers bakery

BREAKING: Ashers building to be demolished and replaced with big gay bouncy castle

LGBTQIA, Marriage equality / / by

Following the Appeal Court ruling that Ashers bakery acted unlawfully by refusing to make a “gay cake,” the Equality Commission has now ordered the bakery to be demolished and replaced with a rainbow-coloured bouncy castle.

The inflatable structure, made possible by a £5million government grant, aims to combat bigotry by teaching medieval religious nutjobs how to be more tolerant through bounce. Anyone who continues to challenge society’s ever-changing views on sexuality won’t get a go.

Outside the Equality Commission headquarters, news of this development was met with scenes of delight and jubilation by a 10-strong crowd. One of the activists, Ze Magee, speaking through tears of joy, said:

“I welcome this move, so I do. Nothing makes you more tolerant than a bouncy castle because you have to learn to take turns on it. Trust me, this will be good for the faith community and other bigots. The Government knows best.”

Also present was local freethinker and self-proclaimed “bright,” Bernie Hamill, president of Humanists Against Bigotry (HAB), who said:

“This is great news for rationality. Intolerance is absolutely morally wrong and the people of Northern Ireland will no longer tolerate it. Especially if it’s coming from people who believe in an imaginary sky fairy.”

Hamill then handed out tracts promoting the Humanist message that morality is subjective and life has no ultimate meaning.

Hector Munroe, director of the publicly-funded Equality Commission, and sporting rainbow-coloured hair in celebration of the ruling said:

“There’s only two ways to make these sub-human bigots understand. One is to whisper in the ear of power and drag them through the courts. The other is to replace their businesses with bouncy castles. It’s 2016. You just can’t believe whatever you want and expect to get away with it. The Appeal Court ruling proved that”.

He did, however, stress that the religious have nothing to fear from the Equality Commission, adding:

“To be clear, we want to encourage businesses run by the faith community, not crush them. In fact, we asked a Muslim-run bakery to cater for the opening ceremony, which they’ve agreed to do … so long as women aren’t allowed on the castle. And men don’t hold hands. Not even to keep their balance. So naturally, we’re delighted at that.”

The opening of the bouncy castle will take place in the new year, with tribute act Lady Gayga cutting the ribbon. The bakery’s former owners will also be in attendance, albeit they’ll be forced to watch from a cage dangling over the River Lagan.

Efforts to get Bert and Ernie to attend the opening ceremony have so far proved unsuccessful. The pair released a statement expressing their concern about the sexualisation of children’s TV characters and the fact that puppets don’t exist below the waist and therefore have no sexual orientation – or ability to bounce.