Author: the Josh Benner Blog

As the year, 2011 winds down, I have decided to reblog some of my favorite posts of this past year. This piece was published on August 18, and it is my personal favorite piece of writing of mine all year. I thank everyone who took the time to read my blog this year. I wrote 68 posts, and I would like to do even more writing in 2012.

Note: this post discusses what I see as a logical paradox in the current debate about abortion as a means of gender selection. Pro-choice advocates who are of a utilitarian persuasion may disagree. This is more aimed towards pro choice libertarians. Full disclosure: I am personally pro life.

I see an ethical paradox in the current bioethics debate pertaining to gender selective abortions.

I have seen a couple of opinion pieces this week discussing the ethics of gender selective abortion. In an announcement last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the gender of a fetus can now be determined as early as seven weeks. (more…)

As 2011 winds down, I have decided to reblog some of my favorite posts from this past year. In this post, I take issue with a couple of philosophical ideas expressed by Stephen Hawking. Originally published August 8.

Brilliant British cosmologist Stephen Hawking was the premier of a new Discovery Channel series called “Curiosity” last night. Part of his focus was why God is not necessary for the existence of the universe.

A response:

The existence of God is either the most important thing in the universe, or is wholly insignificant. God necessarily possibly exists. It is logically impossible for God to be impossible. The last statement doesn’t prove that God does exist, but it states that proof that God does not exist is impossible to attain. (more…)

As 2011 winds down, I’ve decided to reblog some of my favorite posts from this past year. This post is actually the combination of a series of two posts I did on the book “Can Mitt Romney Serve Two Masters.” Originally posted July 13 and July 14.

Conservative strategist Tricia Erickson does not believe that the American people should elect a Mormon president, and by extension, Mitt Romney. She makes this emphatically clear in her new book: “Can Mitt Romney Serve Two Masters?”

She puts fourth the idea that the Latter Day Saint movement has been systematically working to get Mormons in places of political and cultural significance. For the author, a former Mormon herself, she sees this as problematic. (more…)