Women in Combat or Women as Victims

One of my most visceral reactions is against those who would perpetrate violence against women. Even when young, movies such as The Burning Bed would cause me to have a strong emotional response. So, when I saw Eve Ensler's "One Billion Rising" events held this Valentine's Day, coupled with the U.S. Senate's passage of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), you would think I would be elated. But these events actually brought more questions to my mind than adulation, primarily due to the recent announcement by Leon Panetta to allow women to serve as combatants. It seems to me that these positions contradict each other, even as the same elected officials continue to push for both.

Photo by Israel Defense Forces

Let's look at Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) as an example. Gillibrand serves on the Senate Committee on ordering the military to come up with a plan to send women into battle. In so doing, she said "Just like it was wrong to discriminate against service members because of whom they love, it is also wrong to deny combat roles to qualified women solely because of their gender." But such reasoning does not fly. Women simply don't have the upper body strength men do, and they have 30% less muscle mass overall. Now, I know that there are some women who are stronger than weak men. However, this fact is unconvincing for two reasons. One, weak men get stronger through training. Testosterone builds muscle. And those that can't strengthen themselves due to some physical ailment will usually be assigned to non-combative roles. Secondly, women's strength can atrophy faster than men's.  Marine Captain Katie Petronio, who herself has been in combat-type situations, makes this argument.

Beyond the strength issue, there's another big concern in allowing women in the military, and that is that gender matters.  Ryan Smith in the Wall Street Journal did an excellent job in painting a picture of what combat conditions really look like, as he had served as a Marine infantry squad leader in Iraq in 2003. He tells of being enclosed in a vehicle for 48 hours, urinating and defecating just inches away from fellow soldiers, then having to strip with all his comrades while his clothing was burned for decontamination.  Will women feel empowered by such actions? Will men?

Men and women also interact differently.  When polled, 17 percent of male marines would leave the service if women were placed in combat roles, their biggest concerns being "fears about being falsely accused of sexual harassment or assault, fraternization or some Marines getting preferential treatment. They also worried women would be limited because of pregnancy or personal issues that could affect the unit before they are sent to the battlefield." The truth on this matter is we simply don't know what effect a large-scale deployment of women in combat units would have.  There's no data because it has never been done before.

Then there are the larger family issues. According to this report, over 30,000 single mothers have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan and about 10 percent of women in the military become pregnant each year. So, female soldiers train and work alongside their male counterparts, but one in ten must be replaced so they can take maternity leave. Does that affect a unit's effectiveness? Add to that the higher divorce rate among female service members and one can see that sex makes a difference on how one processes military situations. These differences will only become more acute when more women are placed in high-pressure combat roles.

Ten months after her Senate proposal demanding women be placed in combat roles, the same Senator Gillibrand is standing before the Senate lobbying for the VAWA. "There is simply no room for partisan gamesmanship when we're talking about the safety of our families," Gillibrand said. "For millions of women and families, VAWA serves as a lifeline to keep them safe." So, Gillibrand seems to think that it is appropriate to focus on the sex of the person when worrying about the safety of women and their children. If such is the case, that standard should be applied appropriately to the question of female combatants.

 It's important to realize that the Violence Against Women Act is calling for special protection for women, that a man attacking a woman needs to be categorized differently than a man attacking a man. If one were to ask why women need such special protections, the reasons listed would be pretty much the same as to those that are offered for keeping women out of combat roles. But folks like Gillibrand want it both ways. On one hand, women can do anything men can do.  Give them a gun and everyone is equal (even though combat is not simply firing a weapon.) On the other, a fight between a man and a woman isn't a fair one, so women need the protection of the law. A woman should never be punched, but its O.K. to put her in a situation where she can be killed.

Equality has never meant that we must erase our differences. God made men and women differently, and this is clear when we look at biology. Gillibrand rallies for keeping families safe, but women in combat works against that standard, not toward it.  It also does nothing to strengthen our military. Remember, the military should first and foremost be concerned with protecting our troops and winning battles. Of course we should do so in an ethical way, but I don't see barring women from combat situations any less ethical than barring asthmatics from the military altogether. If barring women from combat is somehow discriminatory, then we must judge the VAWA legislation to also be so. It is simply inconsistent to hold to both positions.

Are the Smartest People Only Concerned with Science and Technology?

Every year, the online magazine Edge asks 150 people who they deem the "most complex and sophisticated minds" a provocative question and publish their results.  This year, that question was "What *Should* We be Worried About?" While each person submitted a short essay containing their answer, you can see a pretty fair synopsis of the results at the Motherboard site. The article is telling in many ways.

Photo by Vincerama

One of the most immediately noticeable things in the collection is simply how many of the respondents focus on science and technology as points of worry.  Of the 150 answers, half dealt with these topics.  They either saw science as the ultimate savior of mankind that is somehow being stifled, science leading us into monstrous or disastrous consequences, or our increasing dependence on technology and the Internet as our ultimate undoing.  Compare that with only three answers dealing with economic issues, two on governments or political issues, and twenty-three who worried in some way about our cultural shortcomings or homogenization.  (There were even eight who said we worry too much about being worried!)

Of course, when one looks at who Edge considers the smartest people in the world, they tend to bias their results. There are no people listed whose primary focus is in ethics and there are just a few professional philosophers—thus inadvertently underscoring Anton Zelinger's worry that "we are more and more losing the formal and informal bridges between different intellectual, mental and humanistic approaches to seeing the world." Of course no theologians were invited to the party.

In the responses, you do see several nods towards religion, but they are all cast in negative terms. Science writer Matt Ridley is worried about what he terms "superstition" and writes with alarm that "the fundamentalists are breeding at a faster rate than the moderates." Tim O'Reilly worries that "the rise of anti-intellectualism" (which he clarifies for us as "conservative elements in American religion and politics") will stifle technological process.

But, religion and ethics are key to answering many of the other worries voiced in the collection. Seirian Summer is worried about synthetic biology spiraling out of control. Both Stanislas Dehaene and Melanie Swan are concerned that our technology will become so advanced authorities and companies will soon be able to read people's brains. And Colin Tudge claims that "Science has become increasingly narrow-minded—materialistic, reductionist, and inveterately anthropocentric: still rooted, philosophically, in the 18th century." As I've said before, science does not have the tools to deal with these issues, since they are fundamentally questions of morality.

There are a few other answers that are notable. Benjamin Bergen wants our kids to hear obscene words, claiming such language "carry no intrinsic threat of harm." I wonder if African-Americans feel that way about the "N" word? Thomas Metzinger is concerned about the proliferation of illegal drugs. Daniel L. Everett is worried about the demise of the scholar. And Roger Schank is worried "that people can't think, can't reason from evidence, and don't even know what would constitute evidence." On that last point I agree. I hope Edge magazine will also lose their myopia and think more about asking experts in morality when morally charged questions arise.

Is It Fair That Hell Is Eternal? (video)

I recently received a letter from a person asking how a loving God could sentence people to Hell for all eternity. The writer said that it didn't seem fair that a finite amount of sins should be punished for an infinite amount of time. However, this misunderstands both the difference between sin and holiness as well as the status of a person who has an active will even after death.

Watch this short clip on my response to this particular question and see why an eternal separation from God is both fair and makes perfect sense.

A. N. Sherwin-White on Jesus as Historical Figure

Oxford historian A.N. Sherwin-White was a well-recognized scholar in the history of ancient Rome. He was president of the Society for Promotion of Roman Studies and was a fellow of the British Academy. Dr. Sherwin-White knew ancient history as well as anyone. He also knew myth, how to separate myth from history, and what made good grounds for judging historical aspects of ancient sources. Here, he comments on the comparative historical support for the life of Jesus of Nazareth and the life of Tiberius Caesar:

It is astonishing that while Graeco-Roman historians have been growing in confidence, the twentieth-century study of the Gospel narratives, starting from no less promising material, has taken so gloomy a turn in the development of form-criticism that the more advanced exponents of it apparently maintain—so far as an amateur can understand the matter—that the historical Christ is unknowable and the history of his mission cannot be written. This seems very curious when one compares the case for the best-known contemporary of Christ, who like Christ is a well-documented figure—Tiberius Caesar. The story of his reign is known from four sources, the Annals of Tacitus and the biography of Suetonius, written some eighty or ninety years later, the brief contemporary record of Velleius Paterculus, and the third-century history of Cassius Dio. These disagree amongst themselves in the wildest possible fashion, both in major matters of political action or motive and in specific details of minor events. Everyone would admit that Tacitus is the best of all the sources, and yet no serious modern historian would accept at face value the majority of the statements of Tacitus about the motives of Tiberius.' But this does not prevent the belief that the material of Tacitus can be used to write a history of Tiberius. The divergences between the synoptic gospels, or between them and the Fourth Gospel, are no worse than the contradictions in the Tiberius material."

A.N. Sherwin-White. Aspects of Roman Citizenship and the Question of Historicity. Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament. (Eugene OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 204) 187-188.

Are Beliefs Separate From Knowledge?

Are beliefs separate from knowledge? In my time as an apologist, I've heard many people try to dismiss beliefs as silly or meaningless while claiming to only rest in knowleldge. Usually, it's voiced something like "Well, you may rely on your beliefs, but I rely on facts like those that science gives." But this kind of separation make a crucial mistake. You see, beliefs are necessary for knowledge to exist.

First, we must understand that beliefs in and of themselves don't normally exist without any precursor. We don't make things up out of thin air and then say we believe them. For example, imagine we're sitting in a house of a friend.  I cannot ask you to believe that there is a Rodent of Unusual Size in the next room just because it would be fun to believe in such a thing. You wouldn't really believe the claim. Even if I offered you a $1 million prize for believing in the ROUS and you tell me you believe, I don't think you really hold that the claim is true—you just assent to the claim to get the money.

However, if I provide some background for my claim (e.g. our friend's father is a bio-chemist working on the effects of growth hormone on rats and he uses the next room as a laboratory) your beliefs may change.  You have some additional information that supplements your belief and it gives further justification for you to actually believe the claim. Therefore, your beliefs become established on prior evidence or they have some other justification attached to them.

Most beliefs work this way.  It is very rare that someone believes in something with no prior background or reasoning at all. Humans are rational creatures and it's in our nature to seek some kind of support for our beliefs.  When that support is sufficiently justified and the belief is true, we can say that we have knowledge. That's how knowledge is defined; knowledge is only possessed if someone has a belief that is both justified and true.

Beliefs and Knowledge

Realize not all beliefs, even with justification, are true beliefs. For example, one can make the claim that if you run for several miles daily, you will lose weight. The person begins running and, sure enough, he loses weight. Do his beliefs count as knowledge? Not necessarily, since it depends on what the belief is. When you ask why he believes that running causes one to lose weight he may say, "I believe that running every day is performing an exorcism of the fat-demons. When you run, they are expelled and they can't catch up to you. So you lose weight." So, while his claim does in fact prove to be true, he does lose weight, his justification for the claim is lacking and he doesn't know that he will lose weight.

There are many beliefs that science holds where the claims produce a true response. Quantum theories produce some very good, highly accurate predictive results. But we don't yet know that these quantum theories are correct. We simply know they give us an accurate outcome.  Like the runner who loses weight, the reason why he loses weight may be wrong, even though the end result is just as he predicted. There are several different and competing quantum theories; which demonstrates that we simply don't know.  It's not knowledge yet. 

So, to separate the concept of knowledge and belief into different realms is, I think, itself unwarranted.  Yes, some beliefs are less justified than others. But beliefs are a necessary requirement for knowledge. Without a belief you cannot know anything. And this shows that just because a belief happens to be a scientific belief, it is not necessarily any more justified than any other.