The Volokh Conspiracy
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"'God Will Never Give You More Than You Can Handle In Life,' Says Man Unfamiliar With God, Life"
Thought this was a pretty amusing headline, from the Babylon Bee. Can't speak to this as a matter of theology, but I liked it as dark humor.
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Choose reason. Every time.
Choose reason. Especially over sacred ignorance and dogmatic intolerance. Most especially if you are older than 12 or so. By then, childhood indoctrination by substandard parents fades as an excuse for backwardness, superstition, bigotry, ignorance, and gullibility. By adulthood — this includes ostensible adulthood, even in the most desolate backwater one might encounter — it is no excuse.
Choose reason. Every time. And education, modernity, inclusiveness, science, progress, freedom, and tolerance. Avoid superstition, ignorance, bigotry, backwardness, insularity, authoritarianism, silly dogma, and pining for good old days that never existed. Not 75 years ago. Not 175 years ago. Not 2,000 years ago. Never, except in fairy tales suitable solely for especially young or gullible children.
Choose reason. Every time. Be an adult.
Or, at least, please try.
Thank you.
“[I]t does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
— Thomas Jefferson
Live and let live. Believe in whatever you want, or nothing at all… Be traditional or progressive, on any or all issues — so long as nothing is imposed on others.
It used to be hard for conservatives to grasp this. Now, the pendulum has gone the other way…but it will center out eventually.
I believe people are entitled to believe as they wish.
I prefer reason. I encourage others to choose reason.
(Responsible adults neither accept nor advance superstition-based arguments in reasoned debate, particularly with respect to public affairs.)
But does using reason get one to view death positively?
Joy Pullmann, executive editor of the Federalist, wrote a column during the peak of delta variant, arguing that Christians should not treat the possibility of dying from COVID as a bad thing. Running under the headline “For Christians, Dying From COVID (Or Anything Else) Is a Good Thing.”
If dying from anything is a good thing, optimism is always present, because death will always come, and that is a good thing. You may ask why christians aren’t lining up to jump off a cliff in order to get all of the benefits of death as soon as possible, it is because that is up to god.
This is where I declare victory for reason. Thank you for your assistance
I’m fine with people believing whatever they want so long as they don’t try to pass laws trying to make everyone else follow the tenets of their religion (pro-life, anti-gay), or make everyone stop what they’re doing to pay attention to their religion (prayer in schools). So long as it’s on your own time and I’m not affected by it, I’m good.
Liberalism basically mandates we all adhere to that belief structure or pay a huge penalty. Even if you don’t believe in God I don’t see how you can make any philosophical difference between the mandates coming from “religion” as opposed to modern leftism.
Huge penalty, huh? Wanna exercise your persecution complex a bit & back that up with some substance?
While we wait, a Rule of Thumb: There’s no whiny crybaby faux-victim like a right-winger. Hysterical victimhood is like mother’s milk to them…..
You don’t want to “trust the science” and take the vaccine? Lose your job! You don’t want to do art that supports gay marriage? Lose your business! You don’t want to sign a diversity pledge? Lose your place in a university!
I can go on. There are plenty of situations where the modern left is dogmatic and treats anyone who disagrees with them as heretics.
Ron DeSantis and the Texas legislator like the way you think, clinger.
Bigoted clingers gonna cling.
Can you make everyone else follow the tenets of your ideology if isn’t religious?
BCD, and Jimmy the Dane:
The measuring stick is whether a particular law has a non-religious purpose. Most religions teach that murder is wrong, but that doesn’t mean it violates separation of church and state to pass a law against murder, because there are also plenty of non-religious reasons why laws against murder are a good thing. Ditto laws against theft, fraud, and pedophilia. Your religion may condemn those things, and good on it if it does, but we don’t need religion to tell us that society is better off if those things are illegal.
The problem arises when the only, or primary, purpose of a particular law is to endorse religion. If you take religion out of it, there really aren’t that many good reasons to prevent same sex marriage, which is why opposition to same sex marriage basically collapsed once people started actually thinking it through. The lion’s share of opposition to gay marriage is religious.
And, laws should be made based on whether they are good policy, not whether someone’s religion supports them.
“The measuring stick is whether a particular law has a non-religious purpose.”
IOW, so long as your faith proclaims itself to be secular, bringing down the government’s hammer on people is OK.
The first thought that went through my head too. Don’t change the law or Constitution, just change the definition of the words.
It’s a made up standard, that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.
Look at this gender nonsense. It’s absolutely a religion, it takes complete faith to believe what they believe.
Just the other day, some serious hospital, like a Harvard one or something pronounced that a baby knows it’s gender identity in the womb.
Gender, a cultural concept, is somehow grasped by a clump of cells that isn’t even human. How on Earth can that be?
Bellmore — That isn’t what he said at all. He said laws which have a purpose other than persecution of the religious are presumptively okay. And he also said laws tailored to impose religious precepts on others are not okay. Thus, the “government’s hammer,” is well and justly used against those who pass and prosecute the latter class of laws.
And you too deliberately pretend to misunderstand the obvious, that statism is a religion too, with the difference that statism’s central conceit is that everybody except the believer needs to be controlled by the believer. God-religions have been that bad, some still are, but it is not the foundational belief.
Statism is entirely about running everybody’s live, 100%. Without that, Statism vanishes. It doesn’t even stop moving like that famous parrot. It simply ceases to exist.
You deliberately pretend to believe that “liberalism” and “statism” are the same thing. You should invest in a dictionary.
You’re co-mixing a few things here. An important concept though is that many religious “laws” are basically society laws. The religion and society were one and the same and the religious laws that stuck were the ones that helped the society prosper and survive.
That’s why there were anti-murder laws. Because they helped the society survive and prosper. Many Jewish dietary restrictions were based on the relative health risks at the time they were written.
In terms of laws against homosexuality, in purely in terms of “religion”, it didn’t matter. In terms of society however, hetereosexual couples would have children more often, and more of them in a given couple than a homosexual couple. Something that holds true today. Having more children helps a society survive.
“In terms of laws against homosexuality, in purely in terms of ‘religion’, it didn’t matter. In terms of society however, hetereosexual couples would have children more often, and more of them in a given couple than a homosexual couple. Something that holds true today. Having more children helps a society survive.”
Heterosexual couples would have children more often?? How so? Are John and Joanna going to copulate more often if gay/lesbian coupling is outlawed than they would if it is legal? Are they less likely to use birth control? Are they less likely to abort in the event of conception?
Don’t beclown yourself.
Biologically intact natural families produce superior children.
Choose reality every time.
The claim that I am questioning is that heterosexual couples would have children more often if gay/lesbian sexual coupling is outlawed. You responded with an equally questionable, unresponsive comment, asserting that biologically intact natural families produce superior children.
Your claim is counter-intuitive as well. It seems to me that those who necessarily have to consciously and deliberately choose to rear offspring (no matter what the couple’s sexual orientation) are likely to be better prepared for parenthood than couples who pop out oops babies.
You are responding to what was not said or claimed.
Here is what was said:
“heterosexual couples have more children than homesexual couples.”
Not quite true to assert “greater”; should be “greater or equal”, or “not less than”. But you didn’t argue the obvious trivial quibble, you made up a strawman.
Context matters. The claim was in context of an alleged secular purpose for laws prohibiting homosexuality: ““In terms of laws against homosexuality, in purely in terms of ‘religion’, it didn’t matter. In terms of society however, hetereosexual couples would have children more often . . .”
The claim was hetereosexual couples HAVE more children than homosexual couples.
That’s documented fact.
The comment thread was whether laws have a religious or secular purpose. I quoted verbatim what you said, including the juxtaposition of “laws against homosexuality, in purely in terms of ‘religion’, it didn’t matter” with ” [i]n terms of society however, hetereosexual couples would have children more often”.
I did and do ridicule that juxtaposition relative to the purpose of laws — “terms of religion” vis-a-vis “terms of society”. Don’t try to weasel out of what you said.
The common thread, as was brought up, was how “religious” laws often had a secular purpose. The example of Jewish dietary laws was given, as how at the time they would actually promote health and safety.
Laws regarding homosexuality, especially at the time they were devised, would shift a balance towards hetereosexual relationships. Heterosexual relationships would have more children. Keep in mind, at the time they were devised, there was no chemical birth control. One could be reasonably assured that in a homosexual relationship, one could avoid having children. The same was not true in a heterosexual relationship.
Do these superior children includes some that are homosexuals?
That’s always sad, and I’m sure the parents search for where they went wrong.
I mean seriously, do you think any father has said “I’m proud my son is gay”?
We see demented, sick parents these days transing their children, they are more proud of that than a gay son. lmao
Why does your blog attract so many bigots, Volokh Conspirators?
Why do none of you ever object to the bigotry exhibited by your fans at your white, male, conservative blog?
I sense it is because you are paltry fucking people. Part shared bigotry, part low-life cowardice. I also believe this is part of the reason your employers wish you would take your bigoted, ugly, stale right-wing thinking and works elsewhere.
Carry on, clingers. So far as your betters permit.
Who says they are proud their kid is straight?
Also telling you went for the son now child, You never seem to get to bent out of shape about lesbians…always the buttsex with you,
I absolutely gua-ron-tee that homosexual couples cannot create more children than heterosexual couples.
Pretending to misconstrue the obvious is a pretty sorry way of arguing.
The spurious claim is that outlawing homosexual coupling would result in hetero couples having more children. Explain, if you will, how that can be true. Gay and lesbian couples cannot conceive their own offspring, irrespective of their legal status.
No, you made that up in order to respond to it.
Read it again. Natural couples produce more children than gays. That was his claim, and it’s obviously true.
“Something that holds true today”.
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2020/09/fifteen-percent-of-same-sex-couples-have-children-in-their-household.html#:~:text=Among%20couples%20with%20children%2C%2054.7,have%20adopted%20children%20or%20stepchildren.
Yes, a couple years ago I used the concept you describe in discussion with someone supporting formal government enforcement of Shar’iah in a suburban Detroit township, if the citizens of the town voted for it:
One has to remember John Calhoun’s insistence that abolitionism couldn’t possibly have any rational non-religious purpose. He saw things, and wrote, much as the Rev. Arthur Kirkland does today, seeing the fight over slavery as a stark battle between reason, tolerance, science, enlightenment, and civilation, on the one hand, and an extremist, fanatical religiousity in the service of dark supersitition and barbarous savagery. For him it was a simple matter of black and white. It was obvious to him which was the only possible way that any man not bound by the throws of hate and darkness could see things. Either you love your neighbor and tolerate them including their queer institutions, or you hate your neighbor and seek to pose your wretched, primitive, barbarous, utterly archaic and immodern morality on them by force.
I don’t see how my lack of faith in a Deity (that is, belief without evidence) lessens my ability to abide by such a moral code.
Tell you what, let’s just both agree that “Six Commandants” capture a pretty good and fairly universal moral code…but please feel free to keep the other four of them inside your own belief system…while I’ll continue to work to keep them out of government.
That’s the Thomas Jefferson/Christopher Hitchens view.
It seems fair, but religious people won’t stand for it. Hitchens explains why at about the 30sec mark here;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD58DQ7OHT0
You don’t have to have religious motives to be pro-life. You simply need to believe that all life should be protected to the greatest reasonable extent.
That idea can be held without any religious beliefs at all.
Anti-gay in the other hand is pretty much a religious thing.
Actually, I think it’s mostly a squick thing.
As is so often the case, it comes back to the children. The children who might be tempted away from the true path in their formative years by the speech or the behavior or even just the existence of the non- or differently-believing neighbors. So while the neighbor’s beliefs may not break one’s leg, their completely passive presence threatens one’s children with eternal damnation. The stronger your beliefs, the more you fear this. Who wants their children damned?
So really, what other choice is there except to silence the neighbors, convert them, chase them away, or exterminate them??
When I found a religion I should decree that if all your neighbors are going to hell, so are you. And if all your neighbors are virtuous, you will go to heaven. Compare Conway’s game of life. Free riders are allowed up to a point. But beware if you are wicked in a mixed neighborhood and one of your virtuous neighbors also turns to the dark side, for now you no longer have quorum.
A naked male walks into a little girls shower, several naked children scream “There’s a naked man in here we can see his penis!”
The naked male responds, “I am not a man, I am a woman therefore I belong in here.”
Using your reason, can you resolve this conundrum?
Reason alone cannot resolve the terrors that BravoCharlieDelta invents in his mind every day to convince himself of his false victimhood status.
As for the little girls, the adult man is clearly not little so should be removed from the “little” girls shower.
I guess you missed the national news in late June/early July 2021 when essentially that exact thing happened at Wi Spa in Los Angeles.
In the short term, the conflict was resolved by leftists beating up women who didn’t want a biological male in their locker room. In the longer term, the subject of the complaint was charged with multiple counts of indecent exposure, adding to a long criminal history.
They have to pretend this isn’t an issue. Reality doesn’t matter.
The Party of Reason, apparently isn’t the Party of Reason and Reality.
Get back to us when that actually happens. The answer to your question is why do we have age-segregated changing areas in the first place.
We don’t have age-segregated changing areas, we have sex-segregated changing areas.
Oh yes we do. A 50 year old man in a high school locker room had better have a good reason for being there.
Notice how you had to move the goalposts to a high-school changing room in order to make your argument?
But even so, it’s the school that is access restricted, like a private club, not that the changing room is age segregated. As a quick example, the largest school system in Virginia allows new students of up to age 22, who can then spend at least 4 years (but possibly 6, or 8 under some programs, or more). “With approval”, even older students can attend – you’ve likely seen the feel-good news stories of elderly folk finally getting their diplomas.
Although it does seem like people that are older than 22 will be required to pay tuition.
So while a 50 year old person would be unlikely to be in a high school with 13 year old girls as a student, a 25 or 30 year old is OK by pre-existing polices.
And in the specific instance being referred to, it was a spa – a business, not a restricted access government facility like a school or prison.
A 50 year old man in a high school locker room had better have a good reason for being there.
Is “He’s the PE teacher” a good reason?
Get back to us when that actually happens.
Here you go.
https://wpde.com/news/nation-world/school-bans-girls-volleyball-team-from-locker-room-following-complaints-about-trans-player-transgender-women-bathroom-privacy-vermont-randolph-high
The answer to your question is why do we have age-segregated changing areas in the first place.
As already pointed out, we don’t have any such thing…despite your idiotic high school locker room comment.
Ok, you’ve now demonstrated for the 20th time that you can’t read. The original comment to which I responded was “there’s a naked *man* in here.” Your link is about a high school student, a peer of the rest of the volleyball team.
And yes, we do have age-segregated locker rooms. My YMCA has separate locker rooms for adults and children.
And I’m really losing interest in engaging someone who simply can’t read. Get back to me if there’s a reason I should care about your opinion.
Ok, you’ve now demonstrated for the 20th time that you can’t read. The original comment to which I responded was “there’s a naked *man* in here.” Your link is about a high school student, a peer of the rest of the volleyball team.
Look, you lying shit-for-brains (let’s revisit your brilliant if-a-fetus-is-a-person-it-is-liable-for-trespass theory)…the original comment was…
“A naked male walks into a little girls shower”
“The naked male responds, “I am not a man, I am a woman therefore I belong in here.””
What were you saying about not being able to read?
Yes, and the *children* screamed that there’s a naked *man* in here. As usual, you used a selective quotation.
Yes, and the *children* screamed that there’s a naked *man* in here.
But the individual said that they weren’t a “man”, didn’t they?
As usual, you used a selective quotation.
As usual, you’re lying.
Chop off her penis. Conundrum solved.
Leave your mom out of it.
And ask her to stay out of the children’s locker.
Love the Bee. Probably one of the best satire sites out there today. No one is immune from their poison pen.
It is diarrhea masquerading as titillation for the right wing goobers who have been stung by…words.
Ingest away!
In other God news….
Fascinated God Attends His First Shabbat Dinner
https://www.theonion.com/fascinated-god-attends-his-first-shabbat-dinner-1848734051
It was said of a certain pastor I once knew that whenever he preached, God would record it because he sometimes had to listen to it three or four times to figure out what on earth he was talking about.
Since this is The Bee, let’s flip the scenario.
“Man Will Never Give God More Than He/She/Zhe Can Handle.”
Dear God,
I think you’re a phony and don’t really exist but just in case. . . I let a little ol’ lady merge into traffic the other day (for those who have traveled in Northern Virginia, you’ll know that’s kind of a big deal).
Do I get any brownie points?!?
Your humble servant,
apedad
PS. Can I have a boat?
A big boat!!!
a.
If you search the web archives long enough, you might find a ‘Frank and Earnest’ cartoon that goes like this;
Frank is asking God if it is true that, to God, a second is like a thousand years, and a penny is like a thousand dollars.
God responds “yes”.
Earnest asks “Can we have a penny?”
God says “Sure, just wait a second.”
Pope Francis speaking to a huge crowd from the balcony at the Vatican.
Brothers and sisters. I have good news and I have bad news.
The good news is I just received a telephone call from the Lord our God.
The bad news is that he was calling from Salt Lake City.
That’s a great joke.
One of the greatest jokes South Park ever did is make the Mormons the only religion that got it right. Heaven is full of them and everybody else goes to hell.
Not a true statement. It’s just something people tell themselves when they’re going through a tough time.
God Will Never Give You More Than You Can Handle In Life ?!?
Sounds like something Bildad, Eliphaz or Zophar would say…..
I was looking forward to all the finger wagging morality lectures about Christianity from people who are not religious and have no idea about Christianity, but like to pretend to they do.
The most egregious oppression is the purely hypothetical kind.
I dunno …. People who ARE religious usually lead the way in having “no idea about Christianity” …..
(they’re awfully big on “finger wagging morality lectures” too)
Jimmy, I spent the first thirty years of my life in the evangelical church. Don’t give me any bullshit about I don’t understand it.
If you understood evangelical Christianity you would still be associated with that church. Thanks for proving my point though.
Jimmy, one of the most foolproof ways to get people to disbelieve the Bible is to get them to actually read it.
It is more credible than the 1619 Project…..
If you simply cannot grasp that the world was a much different place in Antiquity then you are better off in the world on the non-believer.
Every period if Antiquity reveals a prominent thinker or two who lays that excuse to waste.
If anything Christianity is an extension of most of that thought and philosophy of Antiquity.
You stick with superstition and bigotry, Jimmy. They suit you. And other gullible, lousy people.
I’ve always said the most effective way to make an atheist is to send them to Catholic school.
All I know is you are a very non Christ like Christian. Or someone who claims to be faithful but seems more a devotee of rage than Jesus,
Read the Gospels at least before posting, gees…..at least responding to a post about how most non-Christians don’t know anything about Christianity. We all know you are a stooge but your clownery does not need to be so obviously advertised.
Which of this blog’s right-wing, bigoted, gun nut fans is James Brennand of San Antonio? Does anyone know his screen name at this site?
Thank you.
lawtalkingguy hasn’t posted in the last week or so and wouldn’t surprise me if he finally went off the rails….
The title seems to somewhat axiomatic.
If God “gives” you more than you can handle in life, then almost by definition would be dead after the “giving.” So no problem.
And that time comes for everybody.
See “The Same To You Doubled” by Robert Sheckley.
Nice!
It’s that “book between Esther and Psalms” counselor.
This is ALMOST what the Bible teaches, though. Here’s the passage from 1 Corinthians 10:13;
“No temptation has overtaken you except something common to mankind; and God is faithful, so He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.”
So, not much about what God gives you “to handle” in life, it’s more what you are tempted to do wrong in life. In that case, you are guaranteed an exit such as it were.
Thanks DaveM. It’s good that someone who comments on a post about Christianity has actually read scripture. You may be the only one.
I was going to ask the anti-God crowd what the alternative is to “God will never give you more than you you can handle”. Is it: “If God gives you more than you can handle, give up and throw in the towel”? Or is it “If God gives you more than you can handle, blame God” ?
Adult-onset supervision is sad.
Not half as sad as unsupervised autocorrect….
Maybe it was the Hand of God.
Makes at least as much sense as any other supernatural claim.