Is Religion Natural?

What belongs to the order of nature? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

While browsing Facebook on Sunday, I saw a meme shared in an apologetics group saying homosexuality is natural because animals perform homosexual acts. Religion is not because animals do not do that. Therefore, it’s not homosexuality that isn’t natural, but religion that is unnatural.

Memes are to some people meant to get you thinking. This one did get me thinking.

“Why do people think arguments so dumb are so powerful?”

To begin with, as in memes, there is never any defining of terms. What is religion? What does it mean to be natural?

I could also question that animals don’t do religion. Some animals are said to have strong burial rites that they follow. Who is to say that a lion roaring over his prey is not designed to praise his creator that way?

There’s also the problem that there are many behaviors that animals do that we would not consider to do. Animals freely poop in public and unless you live in San Francisco, this is normally frowned upon. Animals also eat their own young and again, most of us don’t have a drive to legalize cannibalism because it’s natural.

But if the person wants to play this game, we’ll play this game.

I do not know of any animals who are writing rational discourses or presenting rational arguments. By this standard then, to make a rational argument is unnatural. Therefore, we should not make rational arguments.

I also do not know of animals doing science. Now I know that so many of our atheist friends love science, but if we’re going this route, then science has to be deemed as unnatural. Therefore, if we want to do what is natural, we cannot do science.

Now if you’re an atheist reading this argument, do notice something.

Nowhere in here did I say homosexual acts are sinful. While I do think that, you do not have to agree with me on this point. I just said that this is a bad argument for a position. It is possible to affirm that you think my view is false and yet that an argument against it is bad. I think there are bad arguments against atheism and bad arguments for Christianity.

If someone wanted to refine this, they would need to define their terms. I never did in this piece because I wasn’t the one making the argument and I was trying to go by the understanding I figured the meme maker had. I could be wrong, but that’s part of the problem of the poster not defining his terms. I can’t read his mind.

And for Christians, keep in mind this doesn’t make the argument either. This argument I have presented cannot establish homosexual practice is wrong. We must make our own arguments that way.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

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