Ken Ham is relieved that a gay penguin has died. Sphen and Magic, two male penguins in an Australian zoo, have had their unholy pairing broken up by the death of Sphen. Did you know that they’ve been used by secularists to claim that gay sex is natural and moral? (I don’t think so — it’s more that it’s clear same-sex behavior is not unnatural, since it occurs in, you know, Nature). According to Ham, though, it doesn’t count! Because they’re animals.
Yes, these penguins have been used to teach children that same-sex attraction is “natural” and therefore it must be moral. But animals are not moral creatures! And to impose human characteristics on animals is a fallacy called anthropomorphism.
I kind of agree. The relationship between Sphen and Magic does not say that this is how humans should behave; it only says that the rules various cultures have imposed on people are not universal and immutable…but then, that’s exactly what fundamentalists object to, that their rules are not absolute.
But ol’ Ken goes on to say his Bible does insist that monogamy between a man and a woman is the only allowable relationship.
Now, unlike penguins and other animals, humans are moral beings as we are made in the image of God. And God has written his laws on our hearts (Romans 2), which is why we have a conscience that knows the difference between right and wrong. Furthermore, God created marriage, so God defines marriage, and true marriage is one man for one woman as we learn in Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 2:24.
One man and one woman? His patriarch, Abraham, had one official formal wife, Sarah, and two concubines, Hagar and Keturah. King David was married to Michal, Abigail, Ahinoam, Maakah, Haggith, Abital, Eglah, and Bathsheba, and others that we don’t have names for. That last one is an appalling story of sexism, misogyny, and murder that, we’re told, is a shining example of God’s forgiveness.
David first caught a glimpse of Bathsheba one evening while she was bathing on her rooftop. Lust overtook him, and even though Bathsheba was already married to a soldier named Uriah, David slept with her. When David found out she was pregnant, he tried to cover up his sin by calling Uriah home from the battlefield so that he could sleep with his wife. When Uriah refused to have relations with Bathsheba, out of duty and respect for the men still in battle, David sent him back into the war and had him killed so that Bathsheba would be free to marry him.
God sent the prophet Nathan to confront David about his grievous sin. David wholeheartedly repented and God mercifully forgave him, but the consequences of David’s sin plagued him for the rest of his days. Bathsheba’s first son died as a result of David’s transgression, but God gave them Solomon soon thereafter—who would one day take the throne and be listed in the lineage of our Savior.
Everything is OK if you make a show of repentance. That’s the lesson I learned from the Bible.
The Godster’s retributive aim is pretty iffy. “You two sinned, so I’ll kill this guy.”
In the Godfather movies, the Corleone family went to church. Even during their assassination events.
This is the kind of thing that has cemented in my mind that creationists are BSers more than liars. A liar tries to mimic the appearance of truth, which takes effort. A BSer doesn’t care.
I sort of never understand why this all powerful God is such a control freak and so needy in terms of being worshipped. Does he also expect to be worshipped by Whales and Elephants and insist that they follow his moral rules (rather than those enforced by the Matriarch in their group)? Asking that I worship this dipshit is a bit like asking that I worship Donald Trump! Similar psychological problems.
The Holy Word of YHWH:
Hmm, no mention of marriage there.
The word ‘marriage’ is not specifically used, but I suppose ‘wife’ implies that they are married. The ‘cleaving’ and ‘flesh’ makes it all sound like butchery though. And note that it doesn’t specifically say ‘one wife’ or ‘one husband.’ The word husband isn’t even mentioned, for who knows what reason (maybe a wise man like Solomon knows).
Remind me again, Kenny boy, how many wives did Solomon have? Was it “more than one”? I think it might have been “more than one”.
Made up story is made up.
Anthropomorphism is not necessarily a fallacy. Anthropocentrism more likely is. After all, we are only one of an estimated 8.7 million living animal species on earth. Are humans so exceptional that the other 8.699,999 species do not and can not have moral agency?
The question is more: why is homosexuality, more than heterosexuality, a moral issue in the first place? I’m an ethicist and I have never heard a good argument for that.
The apple didn’t fall far from the tree because God gave Solomon 300 wives and 600 concubines.
I’m just concerned about magic. An grieving penguin is a heartbreaking thought.
,,,and god punishes David by killing seventy thousand of his subjects not, say, by killing him or deposing him.
Jim Brady @4 ; There are Christians who believe that animals worship their god e.g. Christopher Smart’s cat Jeoffrey in his ‘Jubilate Agno’ which I admit I know of only through Britten’s setting.
Actually, since homophobia is bad, logic forbids that an all-good God approves homophobia.
@ducksmcclucken, #10: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2024/aug/26/sphen-has-died-it-seems-magic-and-all-the-other-penguins-are-sad
It’s really pathetic that this old fool is crowing over the death of a PENGUIN and smugly acting like he’s got the last word. If this is what he has to do to get attention and an appearance of relevance, maybe it’s time we stopped acting like he’s worth our attention.
I always let the inimitable Betty Bowers explain traditional/Biblical marriage:
Does anyone else remember the IgNobel prize for discovering Necrophilic sodomy in wild ducks?
If you are celebrating the death of a penguin then there’s something seriously messed up with you.
Possible exception for Batman fans but even there – really?
Ken Ham lies a lot.
King Solomon, a hero in the bible who built the First Temple, had 700 wives and 300 sex slaves.
If Ken Ham’s religion was true, he wouldn’t have to lie about it all the time.
I highly recommend the videos of Dan McClellan, a Biblical scholar, co-host of the Data Over Dogma podcast, and (surprisingly) a Mormon, for his take on what the authors of the Bible probably were thinking at the time. Here’s a topical example:
https://youtu.be/-d3Rds60tJo?si=KelzzVEq5a_mg74H
This is how Dumb Idiot Ham does business – cherry picking bible verses that suits him while ignoring the passages that don’t, such as the passages that tells of women from defeated nations being regarded as spoils for war that men can take as slaves and wives and rape all they want, men having more than one wife, women getting sent back to their father if their husbands found something about them they don’t like, etc.
He, playing god, acts as if he is the final authority on everything science, the bible, and religion when he’s really not.
#20
…spoils *of war that…
Wrong! God apparently wanted humans to remain innocent naifs forever. It was the Serpent who clued Eve in to a certain tree, leading to humans having knowledge of good and evil.
Stupid Ham can’t even get his own story right.
I had a homosexual ram once. These kinds of example are important in getting away from the Dawkins “astonishment that anyone could believe that sex is a continuum, instead of a straightforward binary”. And the Ken Ham nonsense – yes Ken, humans are animals.