Chapter 6: Sociology

[bookhobbit]

Or: Gay Marriage and Premarital Sex Are Bad. 

Also the Islam chapter is going to talk a lot about polygamy, I remember that very well. Brace yourselves; this is one of the more lengthily Islamophobic chapters in the book. (Law, I think, is another.) 

Also, I minored in sociology in undergrad, so I'm going to have a lot of thoughts about all this, I expect.

In short, gird your loins for a humdinger of a chapter.

 

The chapter starts off quoting Ephesians 5:31, the one about a man and a woman becoming one flesh, the one that conservatives like to trot out when same-gender marriage gets discussed. I have to quote the first body paragraph:

All sociologists acknowledge the existence of social institutions such as family, church, and state. They differ, however, in their description of the origin, authority, and purpose of these institutions and how each relates to the individual. These differences result from assumptions inherent in their worldview.

This is a false comparison, suggesting as it does (in the context of the book and the next paragraph) that there are fundamentalist and non-fundamentalist sociologists and that each are equally prescriptive. There isn't really A Single Origin or Purpose for social institutions; they're multifunctional and arise through different pathways. Also, sociologists don't really talk about the inherent, objective authority of a social institution so much as like, the perceived authority of it. 

I'm going to probably be trotting out "social science must be descriptive, not prescriptive" a lot this chapter. (With limited exceptions like "we have a duty to our subjects of study to decrease injustice and promote equity wherever we can within our society" and things like that. But IMO changing your own society for the better, while value judgements are involved, is not the same as judging other societies by an objective standard. I'm getting distracted here.)

The Christian worldview teaches that God created men and women in His image; the atheistic worldviews, however, teach that men and women are evolving animals. The atheistic worldviews are the predominant views among modem sociologists, who consider God, Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, and the sanctity of the family to be pre-scientific myths. 

"The sanctity of the family" is not considered a "pre-scientific myth". What Noebel means is that the "atheistic [i.e. non-fundamentalist Christian] worldviews" in question don't see a single family structure as Best and Most Pure. Also, I hate the term "pre-scientific", and I don't know that a contemporary sociologist would use it. Especially because sociologists with Scholarly Opinions about God, Adam and Eve, and the Garden of Eden would presumably be specialists in religion and would be more interested in talking about the social function of these ideas than talking about how they're "pre-scientific myths".

Christians understand that this erroneous view is responsible for many of the failures we see in contemporary society, such as drug and alcohol abuse, crime, abortion, sexual perversion, disease, and poverty.

"Understand," not believe. Hm.

Christian sociology affirms the individual's free will and responsibility. There is a fundamental difference between it and atheistic sociology. Atheistic approaches claim that society determines our consciousness and actions. Christianity, on the other hand, holds that we are free to choose between right and wrong, good and evil, and that we shape society in the process (rather than being shaped by it).

There's a false dichotomy here. Any sociologist worth their salt would say that people both are shaped by and shape their society. It's a dialogue, not a monologue. And it doesn't take away free will ("responsibility" is loaded). We are shaped by the society we live in and that we grew up in, but that doesn't take away our power to make decisions in the moment. 

Also this is FUCKING rich coming from a Cavinist (fundamentalists are almost all Calvinists) who probably agrees with the doctrine of the elect.

Christianity grants us control over our society,

It doesn't have the power to do that, and also I disagree. Fundamentalism didn't teach me that I had control over society, just that I had an obligation to change it, which is also something that social justice, which at least some sociologists care about, teaches. 

The Genesis account of Adam and Eve's sin not only demonstrates that we are responsible for our actions, but also teaches that we are guilty before God.

I haven't thought about it since I left the church but I just can't get over how fucked up the entire idea that Adam and Eve's choices meant that ALL OF HUMANITY is guilty. Again, how can you believe in hereditary sin and yet not support reparations for descendants of enslaved persons or returning land to Native American people it was stolen from?? There's no logical consistency here. If you are responsible for the sins of Adam and Eve, how are you not also responsible for the sins of your ancestors that you still benefit from?

Christian sociology, therefore, attempts to understand society in light of our free will and the consequences of our free choice to turn away from God. 

Why is it "free choice" when we were born guilty? Again, this is something I haven't thought about since I left the church, but the idea that original sin damns us to hell by default makes the idea that turning away from God is a "free choice" sort of suspect. I completely understand the internal logic, believe me, I lived it, but once you start questioning it it falls apart badly. 

The fall has caused all societies over all time to be marked by alienation and imperfection and sin.

This suggests that injustices are just a natural, normal part of the world that we should do nothing to correct, and it underlies a lot of conservative feelings about social justice.

Some historical examples of our imperfections and state of alienation include Rousseau placing all five of his children in orphanages, the poet Shelley living in a nightmare, and the Apostle Paul calling himself chief among sinners.

This is such a random fucking collection of people and feelings. It really highlights when he does things like this how much he's just an angry man ranting about things he doesn't like.

The history of the dark side of our human condition—a tale of degeneration and devolution rather than evolution—fills volumes. Alienation pervades all of our relationships, with God, with others, and even within ourselves. 

Evolution is morally neutral; it just means change. Its opposite is staticness, not "devolution". It's not a quest towards Better. It's just change. This is not just Noebel, lots of people including lots of non-Fundies use this rhetoric, but it's almost always imperialist at the core. Positing that one society is Better ™ than others is almost always gonna wind up being used as justification for violence against someone.

Sociologists who understand that we are alienated from God because of sin will interpret data differently than those who believe we are inherently good but have been corrupted by our society and environment.

Note again: understand, not believe. Also, for most contemporary sociologists, "are humans inherently good" is just not a question of study, nor is the concept of "corruption". Again, these are heavily imperialistic ideals. (You certainly see them in things like Marx etc but happily we can critique that.)

The Christian worldview sees each person as valuable and able to contribute to society. 

And if you don't do it the way they want you to, don't they let you know it.

Rather than seeing the individual as helpless in the face of societal and environmental pressures, Christian sociologists view the person as more important than the social institution.

Sociologists don't think that individuals are "helpless" in the face of those pressures, just that they are heavily impacted by them. 

Even though Christian sociology values the individual over the social order, social order is still important in the Christian worldview.

There's some stuff going on here I think where Noebel is trying to signal Individualism Good because of all the "free western individualism vs oppressive eastern collectivism!" that a lot of racists will do but also trying to be like "still bad to not be Christian though".

The sociological concept that the individual is more important than institutions in society and that society is important because God created us as social beings is called pluralism. 

SUPER NOT WHAT PLURALISM MEANS IN SOCIOLOGY. Actually, pluralism usually relates to things that basically go "multiple things can be true/valuable/real/important at the same time" which Noebel doesn't believe. This is such a blatant misinterpretation of the concept. He seems to get the idea from this book?

In this view, neither society nor the individual is the only true reality; both must be valued in order to correctly understand reality.

This is weird language -- "true reality", "valued -- that doesn't really line up with how doing social science works. But the basic idea of "the individual and the society are both important" IS true in social science also. We just don't study individuals as much as we study society because sociology is about society. 

Bringing the slave trade to an end was one of the great feats of human history. It was accomplished primarily by evangelical Christians. 

HOLY FUCKING HELL. Well, I mean, the slave trade was also carried out primarily by Christians (evangelicals, if you want, although obviously there are complications with using that term in a more historical context) so like. It's a Christian V Christian thing here. I have an issue with saying that bringing the slave trade to an end was a great feat of human history instead of saying that the transatlatic slave trade was one of the worst injustices in human history. Why was ending it great? It never should have existed in the first place. Let's talk about that instead of pretending that it somehow arose naturally with no human intervention.

Thomas Sowell, Black Rednecks and White Liberals (San Francisco, CA: Encounter Books, 2005), 116, "Moreover, within Western civilization, the principal impetus for the abolition of slavery came first from very conservative religious activists—people who would today be called 'the religious right.' Clearly, this story is not 'politically correct' in today's terms. Hence it is ignored, as if it never happened."

Abolition did not come from "conservative" religious activists because conservativism involves preserving institutions and abolition was a progressive movement because it suggested change. I just...this is so fucking...WHAT THE FUCK. I THINK he's talking about Quakers, but Quakers are not the traditional "religious right" and they never have been. And we DO talk about the role Quakers had in abolition insofar as we ever talk about slavery in American schools, which is not as much as we should.

Also like. The idea that the principal impetus for abolition was white Christians and not. You know. Enslaved people.

The family is ordained by God (Genesis 2:23-25) and is a fundamental social institution. The Bible strictly defines the family and its role in society. James Dobson and Gary Bauer say that a family exists when "husband and wife are lawfully married, are committed to each other for life, and [the family] adheres to the traditional values on which the family is based."'

What does "traditional values" mean, Jimmy and Gary? I mean, I know, but I want you to say it. Don't be mealy-mouthed or use meaningless shortcut words. The idea that the family is "based on" values is also weird, because families look different across different cultures and times.

Other films with a positive family message include The Patriot (2000), Cheaper by the Dozen (1950 & 2003), Raising Helen (2004), and ' Pride and Prejudice (2005).

Another extremely baffling and random collection of things, but a fun illustration of fundamentalist values.

Unfortunately, society today does more to discourage marriage and family than to build it up. The many forces working against marriage and family are primarily a result of the Secular Humanist-Inspired sexual revolution. For example, children in public schools are taught that homosexuality is a normal lifestyle; students are given condoms and encouraged to use them instead of practicing abstinence until marriage; teenage girls are taught about abortion and how to obtain one without their parents' consent or knowledge. Dobson and Bauer label these practices "a crash course in relativism, in immorality, and in anti-Christian philosophy.""

Do I even need to say anything? I just wanted you to see it.

Attacks on the traditional family come largely from proponents of relativistic, materialistic worldviews. Humanists, Marxists, and many Postmodernists deny the existence of the soul, thereby devaluing the importance of the family.

I truly can't follow the line between "no soul=family not important" and I was raised in this religion so I think it's just Noebel.

There's a few paragraphs about the role of the church; in sum, to provide community and to tell people that they're guilty and will be judged. I find it a tad hypocritical. Then we're onto the conclusion of this section: 

Christian sociology values both individuals and social institutions. As individuals, we are free to make choices, but our choice to turn away from God alienates us from Him and others. Society as a whole is also fallen and imperfect and responsible for its choices and attitudes. 

This is weird, because throughout this whole chapter he's been arguing that society is shaped by individuals and now he's suddenly saying that society makes its own choices like it's an independent entity? I don't understand who is supposed to take responsibility for this. How can a society be "responsible for its choices and attitudes" in the Christian sense?

Deterministic worldviews that deny the free will of individuals and institutions deny the significance of both. There can be no meaningful judgment if forces outside our control determine all individual and corporate actions.

Nobody says that forces outside our control determine all individual and corporate [I think he means like in the sense of collective, I HOPE] actions, just that they shape them. This feels to me very strawmany and I think what he's really doing here is dogwhistling anti-social justice rhetoric. What he really means I think is "the idea that structural inequality exists is anti-Christian".

As humans, we will face the consequences for choices we make in creating our society.

 Well, but this is an issue I have in general with how a lot of people talk about society, humans don't really choose to create society. Society exists, and changes over time. There was no point where we wilfully created it. 

The church is charged with demonstrating Christian love within itself and in society at large.

How's that workin' out for ya?

We are not free to wreak mayhem in the social order;

He means "have divorces and premarital and queer sex" here.

Onto Islam. He starts off with this quote:

Humanity is one single family of God and there can be no sanction for.. barriers. Men are one—and not bourgeois or proletarian, white or black, Aryan or nonAryan, Westerner or Easterner. Islam fives a revolutionary concept of the unity of mankind.

Think about this quote. Think about the fact that Noebel portrays Islam as dangerous. Think about what Noebel might be thinking, going "hmmm, the quote that best portrays the danger of Islam is one that says society should have no barriers."

Like Christianity, the family, worship of God, and the state are central to Islamic teachings, yet there are substantial differences between the two worldviews in each area. Thus the Muslim view of sociology summarized as revolving around the polygamous family, the mosque, and the state.

He never explains the difference between the church and the mosque, sociologically. 

Further, the Qur'an states the differences between men and women: "Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has given the one more (strength) than the other, and because they support them from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in (the husband's) absence what God would have them guard" (4:34). Muslim apologists explain these passages as indicating that men are to care for women, not that women are essentially inferior. 

OH LIKE THE FUCKING WIVES SUBMIT TO YOUR HUSBAND PASSAGE?? The hypocrisy of FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIANS claiming that Islam is misogynistic. People like Noebel claim every day that women and men have different roles in society and that men's role is to protect, safeguard, and lead women. SO HE SHOULD AGREE WITH THIS.

There's some more stuff about misogyny in Islam and I'm not going to quote it. What I'm going to say is that there is also a dialogue about misogyny in Christianity, and Noebel is totally ignoring it in favor of demonizing Islam. It's absolutely true that holy books primarily interpreted by men can be applied in ways that oppress women; but fundamentalists should work on the log in their own eye before trying to take out the speck in their brothers'. I once wrote an essay for the Bible class we used this textbook in about how women should be allowed to be pastors because this was and is still a subject of debate in Christianity.

The Muslim view of marriage is well developed, though diverse. Some modem Muslims are quite uncomfortable with some of Islam's teachings and practices regarding marriage. But all Muslims agree that a marriage is a contract that may be broken through divorce (though most believe that divorce may only be initiated by men).

This is an interesting piece of rhetoric. "Modern Muslims" are portrayed not as interpreting the teachings of Islam differently, but as being "quite uncomfortable" with Islam's teachings, stripping their agency. Divorce is brought up as a bad thing to paint Muslim marriage as worse somehow than Christian marriage, and to make it even worse, only men get to do it! How oppressive! He gives no citation for any of this. Obviously, this is a sample size of one, but here's a mosque talking about the scriptural procedures and it's much more complicated than that.

Unsubmissive women may be beaten (some say "lightly")

ugggHHHHHH

Adultery is severely punished (4:15-18; 17:32; 24:20), but in common practice the application of punishment often falls much harder on women than men, since the value of a woman's testimony is discounted.

Let's see how the Bible compares!

The foolishness of some non-Muslim women who marry Muslim men is tragically portrayed in the movie Not Without My Daughter {\99\, MGM). This true to life story portrays a Muslim man living in the United States who is caught up the fervor of the Iranian revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979. He returns to Iran, ostensibly for "a visit," taking his American wife and daughter with him. When he refuses to return, his wife battles Islamic law and tradition in her fight to escape back to the U.S. with her daughter.

What the fuck. WHAT THE FUCK. Instead of portraying this as "an abusive man traps his wife somewhere she doesn't want to be, as abusive people often do" it's portrayed as "Muslim men are brutish and cruel and will abuse you". WHAT THE FUCK.  "The foolishness of some non-Muslim women who marry Muslim men is tragically portrayed" WHAT THE FUCK!!

There's a lot about polygamy, establishingthat modern Muslims mostly don't do it and many argue that it's not really feasible and should be understood in historical context. It's unusually nuanced of Noebel to discuss this but he can't resist sneaking in a jab:

After all, they argue, no man can treat multiple wives with equality, for not even Muhammad did that (as we will see below). While this argument does not accord with traditional Islam, the observation regarding Muhammad is instructive.

Once again he feels the need to diss Muhammad (peace be upon him) and argue that Muslims who don't have multiple wives are ~nontraditional~ which is somehow a bad thing even though he also loves arguing that traditional Islam is like bad and violent. You can't win with this guy, although it makes sense because he thinks everyone who's a ~nontraditional~ Christian is a gutless traitor.

This discrepancy is difficult to resolve, although Muhammad offered revelations that permitted him this excess. NonMuslims, however, have a difficult time not seeing this as self-serving pretense on the part of Muhammad.

It's the fucking MEANESS here. Have some fucking respect for other people's religion for five minutes, you arrogant dick.

In addition to having up to four wives, the Muslim man is given no limit on the number of concubines he may own and have sexual relations with.

Oh, like King Solomon you mean?

The sexual appetites of Muslim warriors are also noted, as is Muhammad's approval of their mistreatment of female prisoners of war.

Oooh this seems racist.

Christians no doubt find the sexual practices allowed Muslim men deplorable and perverse.

OKAY IT'S EVEN WORSE THAN I THOUGHT JESUS FUCK.

Polygamy occurred in biblical history, in the lives of David, Solomon, and others. Some Muslims assert that the Bible both condones and promotes polygamy and that Islam is superior to the Bible since it limits the number of wives to four. These limitations are insufficient, however, to curb problems inherent in the practice.

Which is probably why, as you yourself admit, many Muslims do not practice polygamy. So why are you arguing like they do? 

The biblical picture of marriage and even polygamy strikes a very different chord than that of Islam. For instance, when God created the first humans, he created a monogamous couple, Adam and Eve (Genesis 1:27; 2:21-25)

Adam and Even exist in Islam....????

Moreover, Jesus' relationship with the church is the perfect example, in that He has one bride (not "brides"), a relationship illustrated by marriage

But....the church-bride is composed of multiple people......also the social context of that metaphor is completely different.

Muslim societies tend to be patriarchal—that is, they tend to be dominated by men. 

Log in your own personal eye, Noebel.

Muslims educated in Western universities often realize that these traditions conflict with genetics and other physical concerns.

Oooh holy fuck I just wanted to put this here to show you how blatantly racist he is being.

Islam does not distinguish between social institutions and the state. Rather, Islam is a comprehensive reality—the state is to be as much Islamic as is the local mosque.

Oh, you mean like how Christian nationalists like you IN THIS VERY BOOK claim that American should be Christian in government and follow Biblical laws? But it's bad and scary because brown people are doing it and they're not Christians!!!!

Anyway. Secular Humanism.

Writing about the scientific nature of social science in The Humanist, Read Bain says, [...] During the last fifty years the social sciences have made great strides toward becoming natural sciences and most of the former psychosocial mysteries have become matters of rapidly developing scientific knowledge."

This was published in 1972, 50 years ago. I doubt most social scientists would agree with it today. He also quotes some Fromm, from '69, about humans being "helpless" before society, so I guess this is where he gets it? But the thing is, he keeps quoting these theorists from 50, 60, 70 years ago as if nothing has changed since then. But that's not how science is really supposed to work. It's not a sacred text (ideally), but a stepping stone. So if he really wants to present a cutting-edge, up-to-date view of worldviews in our time he should quote relatively recent social science -- at least recent enough to still be in high school and undergrad level textbooks, which is sort of the level at which the average person will have absorbed these things. But he doesn't.

Secular Humanist sociology focuses on research and activism in order to restructure society and create a new social order based on Humanist values.

Remember how he said that Christianity teaches that we have control over society and secularism teaches that we don't? 

Secular Humanist sociologists are intolerant of the biblical view of the traditional family.

By "intolerant" he means "do not believe it is the only family structure". I also find it weird how he keeps referring to "Secular Humanist sociologists" as though that's an academic group working in sociology today, which it's not really. It's not an academic movement like Marxism is.

The advent of the feminist movement within Secular Humanism provides a strong rationale for the demise of the traditional family. 

Feminism Is Destroying Families.

Using social activism to restructure society begins by breaking down traditional moral codes, especially in the area of sexuality. This goal is best achieved by slowly introducing non-traditional themes into popular culture. Humor has been found to be especially effective in disarming the public.

Important to note the way that Noebel frames queer representation (he's talking about gay people on TV here) as "indoctrination". 

Secular Humanist sociologists have suggested numerous alternative lifestyles to replace the traditional family.

SOCIOLOGY IS NOT PRESCRIPTIVE. THIS IS NOT HOW IT WORKS. He goes on to cite several people WHO ARE NOT SOCIOLOGISTS saying things like "open marriages exist" as things to support this.

A number of alternates to marriage have been suggested, such as open marriage, triads, group marriage, same-sex marriage, part-time marriage, and pre-marital living arrangements, alternative lifestyles such as homosexuality, bisexuality, pre- and extramarital sexual relationships, and something called "genital associations."

The idea that these have been "suggested" rather than like....are already all going on all the time.....is wild. Also, I've looked up genital associations and I think he's talking about the new sexual bill of rights and I don't think it means a specific type of relationship, it basically seems to just mean in context "relationships involving sex". It seems to be a broad umbrella term, not a new type of relationship. This really brings to the forefront how little he understands his own sources.

There's a bunch of stuff about how secular humanists are indoctrinating our children and also that it's hypocritical that secular humanists are indoctrinating our children because secular humanists support separation of church and state. What Noebel misses is "don't teach children a specific religion in the classroom" isn't the same as "teach children to hate Christianity". 

Then there's some stuff about self-actualization, none of which quotes any actual sociology and all of which is very much theorists from 50+ years ago only. Then some stuff about socialism which I think might be better served in the economics chapter.

Secular humanists believe social activism will bring about a culture of universal self-actualization. Reese says, "Informed and active people can make of society what they want it to become." Optimism like Reese's tends to highlight the flaws in our current culture in contrast to the Utopian society Humanists are working to effect. 

....yes? I mean I'm not a utopianist but....if you want to change things....you have to point out the flaws...?? Anyway, this is the same writer who at the beginning of this chapter was like Society Is Imperfect Because Sin.

Secular Humanist disdain for modern society reflects an open distrust in all traditions and a desire to abandon or rework all existing social institutions.

This is very threatening to fundamentalists, whose disdain for modern society in the form of "the world" doesn't extend as far as actually enacting social change.

Onto Marxism, whose views Noebel describes thusly:

As humanity improves through the evolutionary chain of being, so does society.

Put a coin in the "not how evolution works" jar.

Although Marxist sociologists deny that we have free will

Noebel is throwing around the term "free will" a lot in this chapter, and I suspect that most of the people he's using it for would disagree with his assertions about their views. "Our lives are shaped by economic forces"=/="we don't have any free will at all." In fact I don't think that most people would use the term "free will" particularly at all in these contexts because like. The way he's using it is kind of specifically Christian.

Marxist sociology and psychology run parallel at this point: our individuality and usefulness are determined by society until the time when our free will is required to create the socialist society.

That's super not how the whole thing works.

Regardless of opposition, the march toward socialism and eventually communism is inevitable. Those who support these changes will become free, and those who resist will remain enslaved to capitalism.

Well...no....I mean....socialism, communism, and capitalism are collective systems, not individual ones? Like, we're not making individual choices here.

Some stuff about communist dislike of religion. Blah blah we've been over it all before.

Thus, education is seen as a valuable tool for shaping ideology, a tool employed to create citizens more likely to cooperate with and fit into the Marxist notion of the uhimate society. Once capitalism and bourgeois society are destroyed, students will be educated to detest and distrust religion and to embrace a materialistic view of the world.

You see how this is an extremely slanted and loaded description, right?

William Z. Foster's Toward Soviet America published in 1932 provides a comprehensive view of Marxist ambitions for education in a future communist America.

This NINETY YEAR OLD book was criticized by its own author less than 20 years after publication, so I really doubt it corresponds to modern American communist policies.

In the new social order premarital and extramarital sex and adultery cease to have the same meaning because within the context of community, there is no private property and everyone belongs to everyone.

Or, you know, no one belongs to anyone?

Danilov's remarks reveal Marxism's basic flaw—a sociological system built on the failure to correctly assess humanity's true nature.

Which, of course, fundamentalist Christianity has assessed perfectly.

Onto Cosmic Humanism.

So there's something of a complicated line I want to draw here. Noebel says that

Cosmic Humanists see marriage and family as outdated, unenlightened institutions. In their traditional Judeo-Christian forms,

Then he starts talking about divorce being something Cosmic Humanists think is okay, even good when necessary. Then he says:

Thus, attempting to maintain traditional versions of marriage and family is counterevolutionary.

Thus, not divorcing is "traditional Judeo-Christian". But divorce has traditionally been allowed in Judaism. What he really means is "Christian".

Some scaremongering about Cosmic Humanists Permit Homosexuality. Also some scaremongering about Cosmic Humanists are In Our Schools:

The implementation in public schools of Values Clarification, sex clinics, moral relativism, biological evolution, Cosmos, and globalism indicated that Cosmic Humanist proselytizers have succeeded in establishing a foundation for their new faith.

Attributing all these to cosmic humanists seems wild. Also note "globalism", which is often a white supremacist and especially anti-semitic dogwhistle.

This section is very short, so now we're onto Postmodernism. He quotes the exact same thing about abnormal and normal being categories under fire that he quoted LAST chapter, -1 for repeating yourself, Noebel. It really gives you a sense of how little he's read the sources he's actually interested in -- he can't even come up with another quote.

The Postmodern views of how we live together in society are nontraditional regarding family, church, and state.

What does "nontraditional" mean? 

Foucault does not include the church in his view of societal institutions.

Well, not explicitly, but the quote Noebel references talks about "system of power which defines the regular forms and the regular permissions and prohibitions of our conduct". Noebel defines this as "law", but it probably also means "religion".

The French Postmodernists were particularly anti-Roman Catholic.

That's because Catholicism was the institution under which they were operating. American postmodernists are probably particularly anti-Fundamentalist, as he implies when quoting Richard Rorty throughout this chapter. Also Protestants who say Roman Catholic instead of just Catholic when they have no reason to specify are almost always anti-Catholic. I don't know why. Maybe because of the bit in the Apostles Creed that goes "I believe in the holy catholic church"?

Other Postmodernists show their contempt for Christian concepts of love, sex, and marriage, preferring various forms of "free love" (hooking up, shacking up, living together, cohabitation, etc.).

"Contempt"=not practicing them. Also, he uses three different synonyms for a shared household without marriage here -- shacking up, living together, cohabitation. Those all mean the same thing. And I wouldn't really call them free love -- probably the majority of people cohabitating currently are monogamous and in a long-term committed relationship. Why not mention, like, polyamory or open relationships here?

Postmodernists encourage open conversation about the way we experience sexual relationships.

The fact that this is seen as a bad thing!

What used to be considered perverted, abnormal, or deviant sexual behavior is now viewed as personal preference, and no moral pronouncements are attached to the actions. 

Again.....cool?

The line between heterosexual and homosexual practices is blurred. 

Not sure what this means. Not "bisexuality", I think, because he says "practices", implying it has to do with the kind of sex you're having and not the people you're having it with. My partner thinks he means "straight people are doing anal sex", which is possible. It might have to do with trans people, but if it did I doubt he would be subtle.

Then he quotes the Truett Anderson quote about normal and abnormal a THIRD TIME. This man has not read his primary sources, he has read a bunch of secondary sources and is taking primary source quotes from them. 

There's a bunch of scaremongering about education and how postmodernists teach that there is no right and wrong. He cites SCARY university courses about GAY TOPICS such as "Lesbian Communities and Identities" and "Homosexuals, Heretics, Witches, and Werewolves: Deviants of Medieval Society." He talks at length about how many of these there are, highlighting especially some race and gender and race and sexuality ones. 

Not only has the subject matter of courses and departments shifted dramatically away from traditional fare, 

It hasn't, it's just added stuff. You can still fucking study economics or classics, Noebel.

Christianity is often viewed with contempt and ridicule. 

No, fundamentalist Christianity is. Then he AGAIN!!! re-quotes Rorty's thing about getting fundamentalists' kids away from their parents, so he's running out of original material.

Not all new courses are met with enthusiasm. Richard Zeller, a sociology professor at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, attempted to introduce a new course that would examine the effects of political correctness in response to students' claims that they felt pressured to assume politically correct views in order to pass courses. BGSU's Director of Women's Studies, Kathleen Dixon, protested vehemently, saying, "We forbid any course that says we restrict free speech.""^ The course was voted down, and Zeller resigned in protest after twenty-five years of teaching at Bowling Green.

OOOhhOOOhhh he's being ~CENSORED~? Look, it's more complicated than that. Also, the supposed "liberal bias" at universities is like...I came in as a fundie and I never felt like my professors were trying to "intellectually mug" me. I changed my mind, yes, because I felt like the things I was being presented accorded more with my then-Christian values than what I was being taught at home. 

 

Other "new ways of living" that might restructure society toward a Postmodern view could include any of the following "skirmishes on the sidelines:" pick a quarrel with your conservative neighbor; refuse to buy a certain brand of condensed milk; surf the net at work; deface billboards; sell pirated copies of CDs; buy fake designer labels; celebrate fragmentation, diversity and deviancy; teach a "safe-sex" course in church or school; turn vices into virtues; make the abnormal normal; legalize sodomy; decriminalize marijuana; legalize same-sex marriage; praise the concept of a "living" Constitution; subscribe to MTV; attend art exhibits by Andy Warhol, a Madonna concert, a performance of the V[agina] Monologues; view X-rated movies; protest Christian prayer in government schools; support the A.C.L.U; defend NAMBLA; label Christians and conservatives as right-wing religious fanatics or Fascists; support the Green Party; protest "under God' in the pledge; remove "In God We Trust" from U. S. money; support all tax increases; publicly burn your fur coat; drink French wine; help an illegal alien across the border; keep Intelligent Design out of the schools; join the anti-globalization protests; and so on. 

I'm speechless. The mixture of things here reads like a hit list of things he personally has feelings about, which I'm realizing is characteristic of all lists in this book. 

Over the past thirty years, a number of popular recording artists have expressed elements of Postmodern thought in their style of music and in their lyrics. This nihilistic philosophy is expressed in the 1977 song by British band Ian Dury and the Blockheads. The opening stanza reads, "Sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll are all my brain and body needs." John Mayer's 2003 release Any Given Thursday expresses the meaninglessness of life in the lyrics, "I just found out there's no such thing as the real world. Just a lie you've got to rise above. I am invincible as long as I'm alive." The group Third Eye Blind's song "Horror Show," featured on the Varsity Blues soundtrack (1999), says

It doesn't matter what Third Eye Blind says here, what matters is this vague collection of pop culture personal expression being leveraged as though it's systematic postmodern propaganda and not, like, someone's Feelings.

Kinsey's two reports, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953), presented evidence contradicting the traditional view of sex and marriage.

WHAT EVIDENCE??? What view? EXPLAIN.

The scientific format of these reports drowned out concerns of critics—who can argue with science? The result has been comprehensive sex education that introduces young children to Heather Has Two Mommies and teaches teens the virtues of "safer" sex.

Well firstly fundamentalists AND scientists both argue with science all the time, secondly neither of those examples are a direct result of Kinsey's studies.

Now fifty years later, the startling discovery is that Kinsey's research turns out to be a house of cards resting on dishonest research, fraud, and outright lies. The fact is, he used faulty methods for gathering statistics. 

He definitely had sampling issues but that happens when you study something people really don't like talking about. You have to do like snowball samples and stuff. Most of the criticisms of "fraud" and "lies" I can find re: the Kinsey report are from conservative Christian (both Catholic and Protestant) sources. I definitely agree that we can criticize his findings, but nobody really quotes his numbers these days? Like....the thing is, even if Kinsey was a total fabricator, that doesn't change the fact that the state of modern sexology has moved beyond what he found. He's not the only researcher in the world.

Kinsey's reports claim to be representative of a crosssection of the nation. In actuality, his team interviewed a disproportionate number of prisoners, pimps, prostitutes, pedophiles, and unmarried adults.

WHAT THE FUCK.

Second, the majority of those interviewed had volunteered to reveal their sexual histories to an interviewer. Well-known psychologist Abraham Maslow pointed out to Kinsey at the time that using volunteers would bias the results toward the non-normal end of the behavioral scale.

Bias is fine as long as you acknowledge that and are aware of it, and with extremely taboo topics it can be unavoidable, but holy shit "non-normal".

Third, some of the information Kinsey reported could have been gathered only through criminal activity! As it turns out, buried in the report, Kinsey admits that some of his statistics were taken from the personal diaries of pedophiles (although Kinsey did not use that term).

What criminal activity are we talking about here? Not pedophilia, because that's not the information gathered. Taking things from personal diaries? I don't think that's a crime. I'm absolutely baffled. This is LITERALLY all he says about the alleged crimes.

Fourth, and more telling, was the naturalistic worldview at the root of Kinsey's research (the same naturalism that is foundational to Postmodernism). Kinsey, like current-day Postmodernists, blurred the line between behavior and morality by assuming that human behavior is no different in kind than animal behavior. Based on this view, there is no moral value attached to the various kinds of sexual acts that are available to the human species. Thus, whatever a person does sexually is natural, whatever is natural is permissible, and whatever is permissible is good, even for children.

There's been more Gays Are Pedophiles in this chapter than I've talked about because after a while it gets repetitive. Noebel uses the extremely strong emotive value of child abuse to paint sexual freedom as dangerous and deviant a lot. Basically his argument (conducted in the background, mostly) is that gay rights lead straight down to adults having sex with children.

Also note that bad statistics and even lies are less of a concern to Noebel than a "naturalistic worldview".

As we are fond of saying, "Ideas have consequences." And, as it turns out, the results of Kinsey's ideas have led many down a destructive path. One result has been the skyrocketing incidence of sexually transmitted diseases over the past 50 years. In Kinsey's day, there were only two known STD's, both of which were treatable with penicillin. But today, that number has blossomed to over 24, with over a dozen having no cure!

Note how he paints this as the result of more people having the wrong kinds of sex, rather than unprotected sexual contact, and also how he suggests that Kinsey is personally responsible for this. (He's also used a LOT of exclamation marks in this chapter compared to his normal level, so you can just picture him sitting at his desk all wound up about this illicit sex people are having.)

The capstone of this proliferation of disease is HIV, a virus that can be passed on through homosexual sex acts which, thanks to Kinsey's mainstreaming of homosexuality, has also been on the increase.

It can be passed through straight sex, too, but he doesn't want to talk about that. I'm not sure how exposed non-Christians of my age were to "AIDS exists so gays are bad" rhetoric, but a Bible teacher (not the one who taught this textbook; the grade before) used to tell us that AIDS was God's punishment for homosexuality. Also, Kinsey did not mainstream homosexuality all by his little lonesome; a lot of different things were going on. 

In contrast to the view of sexual license that Kinsey promoted, a 1996 study published by researchers at The University of North Carolina supports the traditional view of sex. The study found that lower sexual activity among adolescents is correlated with higher levels of well being. 

FUCKING define "traditional". Anyway, here's the study, and I'm going to break it down some.

Basically they asked students if they'd had PIV, whether they'd attempted suicide, and whether they were depressed. Race, income, and age were not statistically significant factors -- that is, the researchers tested them statistically and found they didn't make a difference. Also, a lot of teenagers, especially girls, regret their sexual activity and wish they'd waited. The article uses this to argue that abstinence-only sex education is better. My problems with it are as follows:

1. "sexual activity" being defined as PIV; the author didn't ask about other forms of sexual activity and how teenagers felt about their experience with them

2. although the authors acknowledge that it COULD instead be that depressed teens seek sex, they say that this is debunked by their findings and I don't think this is true, so I think they need to give more attention to that

3. the article fails to address reasons why teenagers might be depressed after having sex, like stigma, nonconsensual encounters, shame, negative side-effects that could be alleviated with better sex ed (e.g. STDs and pregnancy) and basically just concludes that teen sex makes you unhappy and depressed

So, I think there's more that could be done about this study to lend more nuance to the results. Like, how many teenagers have parents who know that they are sexually active, and does having parents who know and are okay with that correlate with how depressed they are?

In addition, according to a study published in 2000 by Edward Laumann and colleagues, "a monogamous sexual partnership embedded in a formal marriage evidently produces the greatest satisfaction and pleasure."

What gets me about this is large-scale studies are great for predicting what the majority of people like but they're not useful tools for individuals. Like, you can't go "70% of people in a monogamous formal marriage had great sexual satisfaction and only 40% of people shacking up did" or something and then say "so you'd be happier if you got married" if the person is one of that 40% satisfied. That's an oversimplification, but you get me. This is a potentially useful explanation for why many people choose to have monogamous formal marriages, but a bad basis for prescription. (Not even gonna get into the "if you're in a monogamous formal marriage you experience less stigma than people who aren't which can contribute" angle but it sure is there.)

We end on some classic culture warrior stuff that really just comes back to Christian nationalism, the favorite theme of the book. What I really want to reflect on is the way that Noebel paints all of what he calls "alternative lifestyles" as attacks on Christianity. It's absolutely not enough to him, for people to respect his lifestyle and live their own. The mere existence of non-Christians is an attack on Christianity. It's this all-or-nothing viewpoint that makes it impossible for him to understand so many of the very perspectives he's trying, and failing, to present.