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Internet Deconstructing State Church in Finland
Agnostic writes "Freethinkers of the city of Tampere, who advocate separation of state and church in Finland, created a Web site
in 2003
to assist people in resigning from the church. The Web site soon became a big success in Finland. 39% of all resignations in 2004 went through the web site and 69% of all resignations in 2005. In the same process 22% more people resigned from the church in 2005 than in 2004. The most common reason cited for resigning from the church has been saving church income tax (1.3% on average)."
Nothing for you to see here. Please move along..
I resigned from the church ages ago, where's the site to help people resign from the state?
Could someone from over there please explain how this Church Income Tax works? sounds scary. Of course, over here in the U.S. the old traditional Baptist churchs do their best to get everyone to tithe (10% of income), but it's not a line item on our form 1040
for "resigning" from AOL
The most common reasons cited for resigning from the church have been saving church income tax (1.3% on average)
In medieval England, wasn't the church tithe 10%? They're lucky its only about one percent!
Money is more important than jesus
I wonder what membership fee we pay a year just to be called an American?
...I'm outta here!
Have fun flaming...
Dismantle is indeed part of common english, please get a good dictionary (Meriam-Webster online, for example). Deconstruct however is a literary term, a type of criticism.
This just goes to show that if churchs want to keep people envolved they need to change to meet what people want / can tolerate. The tax thing is just silly, it is like a resturant adding tip to your bill for you. Once churches relize that they are a service then they will start to change for the better.
+5 .. You don't even have to read the article to get that impression.
Of course paying a TAX that goes to the CHURCH doesn't STINK of PROMISCUITY.
I think your post is much more about paranoia than it is about this article.
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"People aren't being encouraged to seperate the two, they are being encouraged to abandon religion all together. What are the numbers of new enrollment in other religions besides the state run religion, in Finland? I am just saying that if your desire is to seperate church and state, then create a movement to seperate the two. Don't create a movement to get people to abandon religion. That is just subversive."
So what? There's nothing wrong with that either, if that's their choice. People have been "subversively" trying to missionary for millenia now.
As long as your imaginary friend is saying "DONT kill", I'm cool with it. It's when they switch to saying "DO kill" that I get concerned.
stuff |
Agreed. Europeans, with few exceptions (Poland, esp.) are attending weekly church services less and less. Last time I read about it, European church attendance was down to almost nothing percentage-wise (single digit attendance). In the US, they say that about 50% of people attend church services weekly. I disagree with this number from experience. I personally attend every Sunday I am not ill, but none of my neighbors attend. None of my co-workers attend except one. I live in Northern Virginia where it's very modern and people are generally very educated.
I cannot say why church attendance is down. People in America say church attendance is going up. I don't see it despite the rise of mega-churches.
Consider Europe:
In the Middle Ages, the states in Europe were relatively weak next to the Catholic Church; the Vatican maintained the Empire Rome had left behind. As individual states became more powerful and less subservient to the Vatican, the idea of a "law higher than the state" remained; this was used to justify England's Magna Carta, the USA's Declaration of Independence, and the French Revolution. In the case of Vatican City, the idea of church as an independent state remains.
Consider Asia:
Marx and Lenin would never approve of the superstitions that continue to dominate Chinese culture after the Communist revolution; yet any religion that dares to become popular is immediately cracked down upon. Why? It's competition to the official state religion, Communism. Even today, China is no more Communist than, say, the United States of America, yet the Church of Mao remains as active as ever -- and remains the state religion.
Every state has its official religion, and every church represents a government with its own laws and enforcement.
Even in the USA, getting back to said Declaration of Independence, the principles behind it need not be defended so much as practiced; as an exercise, walk through the individual grievances against the King listed therein and count how many could apply to the current government of the United States.
Organized religion is either co-opted by a government or competing with it. All governments are theocracies, and all religions are independent states.
The state is a church, and the church is a state.
Given that, what does "Separation of church and state" really mean, anyway?
It's not just Baptist churchs in the U.S. which try to get folks to tithe.
Slashcode turned my "does not equal" sign into a question mark. Deconstruct != dismantle. Contrary to the implication of the title, this article has nothing to do with deconstruction.
When I went through this process, it was not yet possible to resign through Internet. I had to visit the church office and the priest wanted to have a serious discussion with me. I was a bit rude and cut it short...
Internet used to get people out of sending money to the church? Splits voluntary religious power from mandatory state power?
I see a new threat to Freedom lurking on the horizon, ready to enter the Republican Party platform as "them" in the "us vs them" Terror War just in time for 2006 Campaign Season.
Didn't I hear about some "Cathedral vs Bazaar" terrorist manifesto praising the Finnish cyberterrorists attacking America's beloved Microsoft?
We've got to rip these Internets out by the roots!
--
make install -not war
The exodus from the Church of Finland is just another example of the desire of citizens to opt out of certain government services that do not serve them. As an American I would like to opt out of Social Security, farm subsidies, K-12 public schools, and public television.
an ill wind that blows no good
How is it any different than trying to get people to join a religion? If you are ok with people who have faith in a particular religious dogma going and trying to convert others to their views, what's wrong with peopel who belive in no religious dogma trying to convert others to their views? Some people honestly believe that religion is a large source of the world's problems and to truly advance we need to abandon it. You may not agree, but it's not a carzy viewpoint. It certianly is no more extreme than, say, believing in a virgin birth and reserrection of the dead.
"I cannot say why church attendance is down" I think most people just don't think its real any more.
It's easy to go through life deciding the "slant" of everything before you actually read it. While I'm unabashedly an atheist, there are plenty of reasons for a theist to bow out of a state-sponsored faith that don't involve "furthering an Atheistic lieberal religion" or whatever you're assuming this is put in place to do.
Unless I'm misreading, this is about resigning from one particular, state-run church which you are born into as a citizen. Are people who follow different faiths "anti-religion" even though they can devote their every waking moment to a religion which doesn't include this particular Lutheran denomination? Read this and get back to us.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Don't create a movement to get people to abandon religion. That is just subversive.
And to create a movement to get people to join a church by proselytizing on the street, door-to-door, in the malls, in the restauruants, in the supermarket, in people's snail mail, in their e-mail, on TV/radio, on the Net, in the newspapers and magazines, and even in ^*(*^&*() public restrooms, for crying out loud is just so much better, isn't it?
I won't be mentioning which religious organizations tend to do this, but they all seem to belong to one religion, at least in the U.S.
My blog
Apart from your silly assumption that it's somehow automatically bad to get people to abandon religion, your argument is severely flawed: You are assuming that the people who leave the church somehow believed before they left the state church and stopped believing after they left just because they choose not to have the government pick which church they wish their money to go to.
Scandinavia really needs to get rid of the state churches. Most people are members not because they want to, but because they can't be bothered to resign their membership, or don't even know that they are members. In Norway, for instance, a child that is born to a mother that is a member of the Norwegian state church is automatically enrolled as a member, while a child born to a mother belonging to any other religious or secular society must explicitly be added, and similarly a child enrolled in the state church stays a member until he/she decides to resign the membership, while other organizations typically need to get the child to actively "take over" the membership once they reach 15 years.
The result is that the membership of the state churches is in no way an indication of what level of support they enjoy, and is only used as an excuse to justify the differences in government funding. In Norway, for instance, the funding to the state church is decided. Then that amount is divided by the number of "members" of the state church, which is hugely inflated by their membership policy, and the resulting amount is what is granted per member to other registered religious and secular movements.
Getting people to leave the state churches is a way of removing the grossly undeserved preferential treatment they get. Let the people who actually want those churches pay for it.
Um ... so what?
They're not being "subversive," they're just allowing people to make a cost/benefit analysis for themselves.
The question that's being asked implicitly is: 'Is whatever you're getting from the Church worth 1.5% of your income?' And people -- apparently -- are saying 'no' in droves.
If people had a need for another religion, doubtless they'd find one. If they aren't, perhaps it's because that's not something that they require in their lives.
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What can't it do?
"Deconstruction" - is a PHB word and as such has no place with anyone with an IQ above room temperature.
Construction is a erudite word meaning "building". You cannot 'de-build'. If you mean dismantle or demolish, say so.
Apart from use in philosophy etc, this word is not valid.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
"I can support the seperation of church and state. But that isn't what is going on here. People aren't being encouraged to seperate the two, they are being encouraged to abandon religion all together."
I disagree. Church and state are separate in the US, but it's completely obvious that religion has an insane overall effect on politicians and hence politics. In Finland, we have an official state religion, but it has virtually no power to influence anyone.
I feel that the latter is much more important, and as such fighting religious influence directly is no bad idea.
My Sig: SEGV
I am just saying that if your desire is to seperate church and state, then create a movement to seperate the two. Don't create a movement to get people to abandon religion. That is just subversive.
Churches have special classes for kids where they teach a watered down puppies and ponies version of religion that is palatable to young, impressionable children. That's quite subversive in my book. And I'm sure I could go on about other subversive religious attempts... "Intelligent Design" anyone?
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
If we're limiting ourselves to common English, and all...
This space intentionally left (almost) blank.
No, the problem in Finland(I live here) is that the Lutheran church is so dominant(in numbers, but not in influence) that the state has agreed to help them collect money, using the our regular taxation system. This is NOT an action of a state separated from the church, and also unfair against the other religions in the country. Mind you, the official line of the state is that they have nothing to do with the church. Yet almost all governmental ceremonies are atleast partially Lutheran, considering the location(church) or content(psalms, biblereading).
On top of this, ALL businesses pay a certain percentage of church-tax. It doesn't matter if none of the employees are members of the church, hell even Muslim-owned businesses pay taxes to the Lutheran church.
I used this webpage to resign last year, for purely faith-related reasons. Some regions of the country do not allow resigning by email, even if you add all the vital information. I was sent a letter home with a form to fill in and sign, and a return envelope. I was officially not part of the church 5 weeks after I used that webpage. This because we have what they call a "regret-month", which basicly just makes you wait 4 weeks before it makes it official. Like I haven't thought through my choice BEFORE sending in my resignation.
She: Hey, are you a traitor? Me: No, I'm atheist.
Yeah—Derrida, Spivak, et al. were nothing if not archetypical PHBs. Again, please educate yourself.
Here's your paragraph slightly changed to demonstrate exactly how rediculous and hypocritical it is.
Aww. Are the little evangelicals scared the same tactics used against them that they use all the time? Boo hoo. People might decide religion is total garbage and embrace the 20th Century, we cannot have that!
Is this News for nerds? I submitted a story the other day about Bill Gates' left toe being slightly bigger than his right and it got rejected. And *this* thing comes through? Come on!
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This is what separation of church and state means. It does not mean that private citizens or politicans are prohibited from openly expressing religious views in public or on government facilities. It means that the United States cannot establish an official state religion or for all intents and purposes do so by providing funding to one. There is nothing even stopping a government from funding all "real religions" (ie something that is not obviously a bullshit scam like Scientology).
what!?!? missionary is subversive? I thought that was the one position that wasn't going to get me into trouble.
If you think imaginary property and real property are the same, when does your house become public domain?
You have to understand a couple of things about the Finnish Lutheran Church and its role in the Finnish society first.
Historically everyone in Finland belonged to the Lutheran Church. Children born were automatically "enrolled" if at least one of the parents (or maybe just the mother) belonged to the church, and since 99% (or so) did, practically all children born in Finland became Lutherans as well.
It didn't matter how religious you were, if you were born in Finland, you were a Lutheran, even if you worshipped pagan Gods in your free time. You had to specifically resign from the church to stop being a Lutheran.
The Finnish people are not particularly religious, especially the younger generations. People go to church only when it's forced upon them (e.g. beginning and end of school year) or for "special occassions" (e.g. christening babies, confirmation, weddings and funerals). Extremely few people attend Sunday service.
Christening and confirmation are usually done mostly by habit rather than by some religious need. Confirmation, in particular, has more to do with teenagers having a blast (and sneaking into each others' rooms during the summer camps most teenagers attend to get the confirmation done) than anything religious. It's more of a rite of passage than reaffirming your belief in God.
Finally the Lutheran Churches' privilege to tax people in Finland has been very unpopular for at least two decades. People don't quite see why they have to pay part of their income to an institution that they have no connection with.
This has nothing to do with any anti-religious movement. The Freethinkers are not bashing Christianity, they are just making it easier for people, who are not religious, to resign from the church.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
Everyone's knee-jerk reaction is to say 'good for you' but I wonder how much of a part their church instidution plays in providing support and services we now associate with government. Are these taxes simply lining the coffers or going to things such as a version of welfare and social services?
Don't create a movement to get people to abandon religion. That is just subversive.
Actually its probably one of the best movements we could get going. Lets abandon myth and start looking at the world logically. And it would be one less thing to use to justify killing each other.
What better way to separate church and state than to get people to excercise their right to remove the Religion line item from their tax return? Eventually the government will take the hint.
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
Fuck religion.
...at least from a German point of view, which is quite naturally the only one I can have with regard to this topic. ;-)
That term suggests that the church is somehow an official organ of the state. In Germany, that is not true. The churches (!) that are officially acknowledged as churches (!) by the state have the right to have their members pay taxes. This has been laid down in "concordats", i.e., treaties between state and churches, several of which exist since 1924.
The churches themselves are still independent, and so is the state.
It's not too much money, by the way. Not a reason for me to resign from my church anyway. Which, in turn, is just a personal opinion, of course. :-)
People in America say church attendance is going up. I don't see it despite the rise of mega-churches.
If thats true, its probably because these people have an irrational fear (of terrorism) and thus need something, anything to believe in so they feel better. So they choose to believe in something equally irrational.
I wonder ... is paying the church tax helps you advance into heaven?!
In the Middle Ages, the states in Europe were relatively weak next to the Catholic Church;
Well, it varied; Henry of England managed to start his own competing church just in order to remarry and Philip of France plundered the Church whenever he needed a buck.
the Vatican maintained the Empire Rome had left behind.
If you mean the actual roman empire, it was of course Greek Orthodox and maintained (spiritually at least) by the Patriarchate until being overrun by Islamic forces. If you mean the Holy Roman Empire, it was an implacable enemy of the Vatican and fought innumerable wars against the Popes.
As individual states became more powerful and less subservient to the Vatican, the idea of a "law higher than the state" remained; this was used to justify England's Magna Carta,
Partly, yeah.
the USA's Declaration of Independence,
This was justified in Deist or Humanist terms, not Christian and certainly not Catholic ones.
and the French Revolution.
You mean the well-known atheist humanist movement which wiped out a good chunk of France's Christian clergy?!?!
In the case of Vatican City, the idea of church as an independent state remains.
No. A state directly controlled by the church remains. There used to be several such states, now there's only one. I don't think anybody goes from this to considering the remaining state and the church to be the same; it's just that one is based in, and forms the government of, the other.
Anyway, you get the idea...
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
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Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
...ah, how little of the mechanics of love you know. *any* position will get you into trouble...
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
For the Finns here: this is the official note for resigning from church or other religious group:
http://lomake.fi/forms/pdf/MAIST/Vrk+1.70a
That is just subversive
Subversive? We're talking about combatting Lutheranism, here. There's nothing more subversive than Lutherans. They have managed to completely take over most of the upper midwest of the US, causing Minnesota to have thousands of lakes in which to hide their underwater fortresses (called "Perches"), and making almost everyone chant their subversive mantras, "Oh yah, you betcha" and "Well, OK then!"
Their prophet, Garrison Keillor, uses his vast network of National Public Radio stations to broadcast his "Pray At Home Companion" show directly into the minds of members, who then send in money and get back tote bags with subliminal messages embroidered onto them by Hmong immigrants working in Wisconsin sweat shops. Keillor's goal? Transition to a sinister god-like form known as a "Lex Lutheran," which allows him to have a hot, but dumb, female sidekick.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Church and state are separate in the US, but it's completely obvious that religion has an insane overall effect on politicians and hence politics.
Indeed, and I believe its very wrong. One of the main reasons I don't support Bush is that he seems hellbent on pushing his religous views on the nation; see stem cell research for the biggest example, although there are others. Indeed, even the war in Iraq and the war on terror in general feel like he believes he's 'gods warrior.'
They're not being coerced to abandon religion. Everyone, no matter their religious affiliation, is a member of the Church of Finland upon birth. So all these people who are resigning? They're resigning either because they didn't have a religious affiliation to begin with, or because they don't like to be taxed just because they were born and the government decided to automatically make them members of their church. RTFA.
At the risk of contributing to the flame war...
:-D
I think it's a bit unfair to categorize non-religious people as "Freethinkers." People with religious beliefs aren't necessarily stupid, uninformed, enslaved, or otherwise non-free--Christianity included. Slashdot editors should be more careful when choosing their words.
It's funny how much reverse discrimination there is against Christianity with all the anti-Christians shooting it down with charges of bigotry, intolerance, and hypocrisy. Words like "free thinkers" seem to betray your critical stance as intolerant, bigoted, and hypocritical.
I think the critics of religion and the religious blow-hards truly hate about each other are all the things human they see in themselves despite their faith or lack thereof.
I think both sides should just shut up and practice what they preach. If your free thinking includes not believing in God, enjoy your freedom but respect others' rights to choose to believe in it as they are free to think something different than you. If you choose to believe in a god, Jesus, Buddha, Allah, Krishna, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or Linus Torvalds, or whatever, you should not gloat or judge others who don't think like you.
In other words, be free to think but shut the f**k up about which side you think is right. It's immature and assinine to argue about it and counter-intuitive to the notion of "Free thinking." Use reason and respect, people.
The world would be such a better place without all the name calling and judging going on between people who think differently than one another.
Slashdot probably would be a better place, too. (But it just wouldn't be the same).
PS> Yeah, maybe a "State Church" isn't such a hot idea. I think we should be glad that the US doesn't (yet) have one. Thank God for term limits!
People aren't being encouraged to seperate the two, they are being encouraged to abandon religion all together. What are the numbers of new enrollment in other religions besides the state run religion, in Finland? I am just saying that if your desire is to seperate church and state, then create a movement to seperate the two. Don't create a movement to get people to abandon religion. That is just subversive.
What is the difference? If your religion is state sponsored and you believe in seperation of church and state, then what other principled choice do you have? Or do you suggest illegally dodging the tax and still going to church on Sunday?
But I doubt that is what actually is going on. I suspect that most of the people resigning were never really members in the first place. In advertising it is called "opt out". The only choice you are given is to resign if you are by default a member of the church.
I think this whole concept of a "state church" is what the founding fathers were against, and the motivation for separation of church and state, not petty crap like what is going on in San Diego.
I mean seriously, I think all the folks who rant against the US being a theocracy and hot-bed of fundementalism, etc, etc. need to travel around a little bit more, I think they'd be in for some surprises... even in Europe!
Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
People aren't being encouraged to seperate the two, they are being encouraged to abandon religion all together.
And that's a good thing. Most religions are a dangerous form of self-delusion, and the True Believers have a tendency to be downright hostile towards their fellow humans. There's also a long history of violence motivated by religion.
Besides that, if the state church of Finland believes that it's okay to take money from people without their knowledge and express consent, they're cocksuckers no matter what.
"The newly born animals are then whisked off for a quick run through a giant baking oven." --heard on Food Network
This topic is relevant on Slashdot why...?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Call the Church Police!
And now, I'd like to conclude this arrest with a hymn.
I'd still be a little concerned that they need an imaginary friend to tell them not to kill...
"A Lisp programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing." - Alan Perlis
A tithe is either a [[tax]] when enforced by the state, or a [[membership fee]] when enforced by a church. Tithing according to the Old Testament of the Bible should be 10%, but the New Testament, which lays down the law to be followed by present day Christians, merely suggests we joyfully give that we may receive. 2 Corinthians 9:7 Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.
Given that, what does "Separation of church and state" really mean, anyway?
It means that there should be no official religion for a country - since a religion is chosen by the people (or by their parents), and can't be enforced. Clergy should not occupy state offices (i.e. governor, senator, etc). Religion should be excempt from taxes.
I live in Mexico, and we have this distinction very clear. There's also been an "anticatholicism" idea in the government, because for more than 70 years (until 2000), it was the freemasons who were presidents and ruled the country. So more than a separation between Church and State, we have a Church persecuted by the State. The most agressive attack against the Catholic Church was when Plutarco Elias Calles became president and declared religion illegal in 1926, and temples were destroyed or taken by the state to become public libraries. This led to the famous "cristero war". Not surprisingly, all references of the cristero war taught in official history books portrayed the movement as some kind of anarchy - and the people who fought this war in favor of the Church, were portrayed as "savage indians" controlled by the catholic hierarchy. The official books did not mention how many innocent people were slaughtered, and how many priests and religious people were persecuted.
Since then, religion is forbidden to do public acts of worship outside churches (except when permitted explicitly by the State), and priests are forbidden from wearing religious outfits in the street. Even Pope John Paul II could not use his tiara when he visited Mexico for the first time in 1979.
All this changed when president Carlos Salinas (independently from the corruption of his regime followed by an economic crisis) modified the freedom of religion laws.
As you can see, religion is a touchy subject, and so is politics. But it becomes much worse when these two are mixed together. For example, the traditionally opposing party in Mexico (PAN), which was founded by compromised catholics, is labelled as "the right-wing" by the freemasonry-founded party (PRI), and they use that name, "the right-wing" to portray PAN as some kind of religious fundamentalists who are intolerant of anything. Insert rumours of secret catholic societies, murders of famous members of the clergy, and it all becomes more and more blurry.
Political reasons. A functioning state church attracts religiously inspired people into one flock and under one "official" Lutheran doctrine that's very, very stable - and dare I say pseudo-secular in its tolerance towards minorities and other religions - in the long run.
This marginalizes the influence of the more miltant lunatic (evangelical) fringe and enhances the stability of our society. I would go as far as atttributing the complete absence of a credible religious right in Finland to the existence state church.
Those who seek the destruction of the one, monolithic state church should think about what they're wishing for.
The owls are not what they seem
It may not sound like big news if 41000 people use a web service in some small country somewhere. But it is actually a huge effect. In a country of 5 million, nearly 1% of all people - including kids and pensioners - have resigned from a powerful institution with few clicks in the last couple of years. In US that would correspond to almost 3 million people!
And the Church is terrified. Thay are losing income at an increasing pace. They have already announced a need to shrink the number of priests and church workers in the future.
The Lutheran Church of Finland is still trying to defend it's bastion as a major institution on par with government, army and universities. The lutheran church in Sweden has already been kicked out from government protection and the process is beginning in Norway.
The Chuch is still powerful - almost evil - consider this:
- Most don't even notice that 1.3% of their income is sucked out
- At the age of 14, kids have to go to religious camps where they are forced to attest their faith. When they graduate, they are rewarded with presents and told that "now they are adults". You might have thought state-churches are tame, but this a Brainwashing, and nothing else. Bloody sickening.
- Even today there is just one (or two?) graveyards for non-religious people - and the church loves it's monopoly - if you are as an atheist buried to church graveyard, you'll have to pay hefty extra.
- Religion is thought in school, and the 85% who are members, MUST attend and pass. Otherwise no diplomas are coming your way. Could we possibly use this time better? Maths, languages, anyone?
- Due to all this brainwashing, is it no wonder that many people in Finland are completely unable to critizise or question the church or religion. Even though nobody talks about it, it is somehow accepted as a part of "culture".
In this perspective the phenomenon that is reported here is perhaps THE best internet movement that has ever taken place in Finland. Lot's of money and people are involved, and I hope, some cleansing of thinking as well.
Umm...I'm not sure which religion you are talking about but there are at least two prominent religions that proselyte extensively in the US: Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons.
And as for subversion, I kinda think that is a reasonable goal.. They want the church out of the government, therfore undermining the government. Or simply to destroy (with civil/social methods) the state religion.
While I might not applaud their actions, I still feel that they deserve the right to forward their beliefs.
Storm
Subversive? No. Subversive is arguing that OUR immortable leader living invisibly and undetectably in the sky is more all-powerful than YOUR immortal leader living invisibly and undetectably in the sky to justify violence or to tolerate sickness and suffering. That's not just subversive, it's sick and wrong by any standards I understand.
So long as people use their religious affiliation to justify acts of inhumanity, encouraging people to separate from religion seems to me to be the only moral thing to do.
Let me guess. Jedi?
Read my blog.
You speak in generalities. Not all churches partition their congregations by age. There are still many churches that forego Sunday schools and everyone worships together in one assembly.
I get religious folks knocking on my door quite often, a few times a month most months, trying to convert my non-believing ass.
So, why can I not go knock on their doors to try and convert them back to a reality based life rather than a faith based life?
Personally I don't think we see enough non-believers trying to convert the believers. If they can knock on doors trying to advertise their cults then the non-believers should likewise be free to do so without being called on it. Mind you most non-believers won't waste their time because they understand that this is a lot to do with a mental condition existant in many of the believers.
Better yet, how about we try to get them to embrace the 21st Century?
A clump of cells is.... you. You just happen to be a slightly larger clump. ;)
kurzweil_freak
5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.
Pssst, I have a secret for you...NO ONE CARES besides a handful of overly anal retentive individuals like you.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
Are people who follow different faiths "anti-religion" even though they can devote their every waking moment to a religion which doesn't include this particular Lutheran denomination?
;)
Duh.
A dumbass is allowed to post on slashdot? I didn't know that. Did anyone else here know that?
Next time, before you regurgitate more three-decade old propaganda, why don't you do a little research on abortion? Do you have any idea what an aborted fetus looks like? Do you know that most abortions require re-assembly of the "clump of cells" to assure that no pieces remain in the womb? If you don't want to start an argument about abortion, don't come onto these forums spitting complete bullsh*t acting like it's a commonly accepted fact that abortion isn't a legalized form of murder. There happens to be a very heated and ongoing debate about that very issue; treating it as a foregone conclusion only makes you look like an ass.
Wheee! Tangent! Someone mod this joker offtopic.
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He certainly was when He was on earth. He rebelled against umm... RELIGION. Religion is forcing people to do things to stay in the church...
2000 years later and we still haven't learnt a thing.
People ask me if I am religious. I tell them "no, I am a Christian". Meaning I am neither Lutheran nor Catholic nor Baptist nor any of the other sets of rules and regulations that make up a denomination.
seems that deconstruct is synonymous with dismantle. There's nothing wrong with the usage of that word in the title.
Yeah, but they all REALLY say, mainly, "Obey Me!" So they may be saying "Don't kill" right now, but that can change as soon as someone gets a divine inspiration...
There is no state church in Finland per se, and citizens are not born into Lutherian church by default. Their parents can also choose otherwise, ie. not to became members of ANY church.
I'm decidedly not a fan of state churches, but saving less than 2% on your taxes is a *terrible* reason to withdraw. I mean, come on, 1.3%? Buncha misers. How can a church even survive on that in the first place? If we only gave that percentage of our income around here, our churches wouldn't be able to cover the utility bills and such, much less pay the pastor any kind of salary.
If you object to having the state decide your religion for you, then withdraw for that reason. That's a good reason. Don't withdraw just because you're too stingy to cough up the measley 1.3% tithe. Sheesh.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
but keep in mind, we've only had a short go at it, i mean, the world's only as old as those 2000 years you spoke of...as i try to keep a straight face.
Did you fail the reading comprehension part of the SAT? The only thing the website facilitates is getting out of a tax to a church many did not choose to join. Of the three most common reasons cited for leaving the church on the webpage, only one had to do with lack of belief. Do you really think that nonbelievers should be forced by any state to subsidize the beliefs of any religion?
The only movement that encourages people to abandon religion is called "reason". Bonehead.
Hey - don't look at me. I was provoked!
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
How many times are you going to post this? Do you think the repetition will make it correct?
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
No no no. Everyone is NOT a member of Luthetarian church at birth. Their parents can also choose otherwise.
>I won't be mentioning which religious organizations tend to do this, but they all seem to belong to one religion, at least in the U.S.
Haven't been to Utah much, have you? Or Idaho? Where I live, I have *three* completely different religions showing up semi-regularly at my door asking me to join them. I always say I can't coz I'm too busy waxing the goat in preparation for MY religion and ask if they'd like to join. They always say no, even though my religion involves cute blond women and free chocolate chip cookies. Shows how smart THEY are.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
I'm a clump of cells, you insensitive clod!
The cell is the structural and functional unit of all living organisms, and is sometimes called the "building block of life."[1] Some organisms, such as bacteria, are unicellular, consisting of a single cell. Other organisms, such as humans, are multicellular, (humans have an estimated 100 trillion or 1014 cells; a typical cell size is 10 m, a typical cell mass 1 nanogram). -Wikipedia, "Cell (biology)"
Why do you assume people are abandoning religion by leaving the church? I don't remember there being anything in the bible about people not getting to heaven unless they pay their church income taxes...
Too bad nobody, but nobody, ever actually uses it in that sense. Nevertheless, I took pains to include "almost" in "almost universally" specifically in hopes of appeasing dimwits such as yourself; a futile effort, I should have known.
I can understand why this is coming out of Tampere. I was on a two week tour of Finland back in '88, which included concerts in a number of churches and cathedrals. Most of them were really nice, except for the one in Tampere (Tampereen Tuomiokirkko). The art in the place was downright scary. Behind the altar is an image of the Resurrection which looks more like Night of the Living Dead. (An exaggeration, perhaps, but they certainly didn't seem happy about being alive.) To the side was a painting of some sort of bone demon with a scythe. And to top it off, the dome overhead had an image of a huge coiled snake, jaws open, with an apple in its mouth, poised to attack the viewer from above. Maybe a dozen locals attended the concert there, while the other concerts were well attended, and I can't blame them a bit.
"Deconstruction" is almost universally understood to refer to a specific sort of literary analysis.
In the US and France this is true. In other places, however, the more archaic usage is more common. It is often used to refer to "demolition" or "dismantlement," but with an orderly, methodical connotation. Since this article is about Finland, I suspect they probably repeated the usage they heard from sources there.
I suspect a more appropriate word in the title would have used a form of the verb "to erode,"...
I disagree. Erosion implies a natural process, whereas this was a directed use of technology. That seems an inappropriate connotation to me.
Please educate yourselves.
Please get over yourself and realize your interpretation of something is not the only one. Language is fluid and varied. On a forum devoted to technology it is inappropriate and off topic to complain about spelling, grammar, or word usage that does not prevent you from understanding the meaning of the writing. Besides, you wouldn't want anyone to sit here and rip apart your every word and phrase, despite it being immaterial to the topic at hand. I hope the moderators mark you as "offtopic" for you certainly are.
"Please educate yourselves."
Might I suggest you go forth and do likewise. The correct word in this situation would be 'disestablish', meaning to deprive a subject of its official status. This leads to 'disestablishment' (the taking away of official status), which is a policy favoured by 'disestablismentarians' and called, obviously, 'disestablishmentarianism'.
Mind you some people very much disagree with this policy, and instead advocate the opposite, 'antidisestablishmentarianism'. Which is the second longest word in the Oxford English Dictionary (after 'floccinauccinihilipilification').
Everyone here already knew that, except you.
Then what church do you go to? Christ certainly did not rebel against RELIGION, just the Pharisees take on it. There are still rules you need to live by to be a Christian and one of those is associating with those of like beliefs (i.e. church). The new testament IS secondarily all about the local NT church and what it is, how it should act, what it should do and what it should believe. Baptist (or any name) is simply how you filter that information. You can BE a Baptist without belonging TO a "denomination". I don't belong to the Sounthern Baptist Convention but I am a independent fundamental Baptist because I believe the Baptist beliefs are what the Bible talks about. However, my creed is Christ!
I find your religion interesting. Where do I sign up and where are the cute blond go... I mean women?
It's correct whether repeated or not; my hope is that the repetition will assist its penetration through your cinderblock cranium, though it does appear to be rather too thick.
Seriously. This is more of a disestablishment. In Finland. So a sort of disestablishment du Fin. And newer than the popularly referred to disestablishment, so perhaps, neodisestablishment du Fin. Its proponents, of course, proneodisestablishment'Du'Fininsts. Its opponents, standing up for their state church, are of course the antineodisestablishment'Du'Fininsts. Whilst the proneodisestablishmentarianism'Du'Finist camp appears to have an early lead, do not discount the antineodisestablishmentarianism'Du'Finist group. They'll move soon enough.
They're there affecting their effect.
I am making no statements on what I believe should be done, please don't try to ascribe false ones to me to pick an argument where there isn't one.
My point is a very simple one: To espouse that people should give up religion is no more subversive than it is to espouse that people should join a religion. I am also pointing out that while some may consider their view that religion is a major problem extreme, misinformed, incorrect, etc, I am pointing out that it's certianly not any more so than views required by most major religions.
I am not making a statement as to what I think should be done or my views on religion, not because I won't talk about it but because I am not interested in getting in a fight tanget to my main point. I am simply pointing out that that it's not "subversive" to preach against religion.
After extensive discussion, my friends and I have 3 good ways to get rid of door-to-door types permanently.
1)Answer the door naked. Particularly good if the preachers are female and/or bring small children.
2)Preach Satanism in return. Tell them to abandon their false Christ and embrace their dark lord. Offer to bring a vial of chicken blood to baptise them. Extremely effective if they bring their kids again, and less likely to have the cops called on you.
3)Tell them you're Jewish. I don't know why, but they seem to not bother Jews as much as other Christians. Easier to convert someone on minor points of theology than an entire belief system, I guess.
2 is probably the most fun though.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Oh, right, I'm off topic and the guy above me... he was on topic? Please! At least downmod us together! Let's have some equality here people!
Apparently people in this thread just really don't like me.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
It would merely be replaced by some "logical" reason to kill each other. You can live on Vulcan if you want, Romulans have more fun. ;-)
The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.
And might I suggest you read the article summary? The church is under no threat of losing its official status under the Finnish state, and the topic of disestablishment is therefore entirely offtopic in this discussion.
"Subversive" means an action intended to overthrow authority.
Now, I may be wrong, but I've always rather defined "civilized nation" as one that doesn't have a religion in authority.
Hear me out.
Rule 1) Religion, of any sort, breeds a zealotous portion of the 'believer' population
Rule 2) Corruption of government usually only takes a small number of aligned individuals
Rule 3) Zealotous behavior involves cruel punishment for those who break even the smallest religious edict.
Rule 4) Zealots often like to surround themselves with others who 'understand them', ie more zealots
Rule 3) Given rules 1 and 2, and the concept of having a religion in charge of government, it is likely that the government will eventually impose cruel punishment on even the smallest of dissenters. The governmental body will shrink into a small gorup of extremely religious people, and the country will fall under oligarchy / monarchy.
See? Not civilized.
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Parent says
www.dictionary.com says
Conclusion: Parent is either wrong or the dictionary.com entry is written by someone not reasonably well-educated in English.
Modus tollens is a form of proof.
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.
So, I wonder if I can get this post modded up by being the first person to use antidisestablishmentarianism in a slashdot thread properly and in context?
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/
-Tom
Virginia? Modern?
oh kay...
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The cross in San Diego was quite offensive. It made me feel unwelcome because I am not Christian. It was on government property and could be seen by a lot of the city. Although it was an obvious violation of the separation of church and state, a judge had to order it removed many times before it was taken down. Religion is quite a bad thing IMO. Believing in a god is harmless for the most part. However, many wars have been started over religion (eg. the crusades). The real problem with religion is corrupt/stupid religious leaders who do not respect other people's beliefs or lack thereof. Also, why believe in god? I might as well believe in the invisible pink elephant in the room. (Not that it is possible to be invisible and pink, but most religious beliefs contain irrational/impossible components.) Look here: http://www.google.com/search?q=dawkins+religion for more problems with religion. I don't think there is a problem with people believing in whatever thing they want. They just shouldn't try to make other people believe in it if they don't want to and they shouldn't kill other people for what they believe.
"A witty saying proves nothing." -- Voltaire
Baby killing:
Yes, The killing of babies and children in Iraq, Afganistan,and Palestine in the oil/religion wars is terrible.
Socialism:
You do realize that every society today has elements of socialism.
If you really disaggree with socialism, then you are likely a pure libertarian, and you would like only private roads, private police, private education, private parks,.... 'private' probably meaning ran by a corporation/religious organization that you do not vote for.
Coffee:
Yes, coffee is bad.
Starbucks:
Yes, bad.
Crack:
Yes, crack is bad.
Prius:
Hybrid does not fix the problem of endless expansion of roads.
Exactly what are you advocating?
Actually, in the realm of some object oriented languages, the term deconstruct does have the meaining of dismantling. For slashdot this use is thus alright. We could even call the web site mentioned in the article a deconstrutor of the church.
It ought not be about "what the people want/can tolerate." It ought to be about the Truth.
No, Western Europeans are attending church less and less. In Eastern Europe, churches are packed and there has been a great revival in faith after the end of Communism. In Romania, for example, most people end up having to stand outside and listen to the liturgy over loudspeakers because there aren't enough churches to fit everyone.
While I agree that some taxes should be "a la carte", there are many government provided services that constitute public goods - things we constantly benefit directly or indirectly from whether we do so knowingly/willingly.
I certainly agree that farm subsidies should be done away with, and Social Security is in need of a big overhaul, no doubt. I personally like PBS, but I understand the difficulty with it as a public good.
K-12 public schools, however, provide a service that as consumers we all benefit from. Think of it like an effective road system - even those who do not own cars or never actually use the roads themselves (an unlikely problem that would affect perhaps only a few Americans), all benefit from the rapid, efficient movement of goods and services that these roads provide (some less rapid than others, of course). Roads reduce transaction costs by allowing for rapid transit and remove the free-loader problem by charging everyone to use them. The alternative would be extensive use of toll roads, an expensive undertaking.
K-12 public education does much the same. It reduces transaction costs by teaching all (or at least the overwhelming majority) of the citizens basic skills such as literacy, basic math, and civics/a basic understanding of history and government (perhaps where education is lacking the most), and basic job skills - typing, perhaps some computer programming, the use of basic software, etc.
The alternative? Well, you could home school, which effectively removes any woman with children from the job market, an unlikely proposition given the number of single mothers about. You could pay for private school, but most lower class - not to mention most middle class - citizens couldn't hope to support that (keep in mind - the wealthy pay a majority of the taxes in this country, what they pay in taxes for education could not hope to cover the cost of a private school tuition). Alternatively, you could just leave the kids at home all day, which leaves millions of young men and women uneducated, unemployable, and unsocialized, and therefore likely leading them into lives of crime/dependence. As the son of an educator who has worked most of her life in lower class school districts, I can assure you that many of the mothers of these children would not go out of their way to assure they had any sort of education - their efforts now are more often based on legal requirements than anything love for their children or hope for their success.
Imagine the difficulty many businesses would have with employees coming to them who were entirely illiterate and incapable of basic addition and subtraction. Snide comments aside about how this is already often the case, think about it - I cannot think of any job that does not require at least these basic skills. Everyone from your burger flipper at McDonald's to your friendly Wal-Mart associate needs them, not to mention much of the geometry done by construction workers and the like (and I have a lot of respect for construction workers). Should businesses be expected to train incoming employees to read, add, subtract, divide, and multiply? I can imagine that would greatly impact their bottom line, and the amount we all pay. Should we create a permanent underclass that is unhirable because of these faults? That would have high societal costs as well, even if welfare were completely done away with.
Public education keeps "kids off the streets", trains people with at least the basic skills that allow them to function in an economy, and reduces transaction costs for all of us. Don't be too quick to throw it away and refuse it funding - you benefit from it, whether you realize it or not.
I used this very service in TFA to resign from this very church, and I did it because:
- It's a service I don't use.
- No point in paying for it.
I'd imagine that no small amount of the 80% of the population in Finland who currently belong to it think similarly. (though perhaps there's a certain tradition in belonging to the church though you never go there...)That said, there are things like old/ancient churches that the church has some responsibility over, which I appreciate for their historical value, but I'm not really affiliated with the organization itself.
Belief? Nope, I choose to make my own beliefs.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
In fact, "deconstruction" also refers to "The process of taking apart a structure with the primary goal of preserving the value of all useful building materials, so that they may be reused or recycled." (California Integrated Waste Management Board)
This use is jargon, but so is the literary one.
Flamebait it may be, but control is certainly at the heart of the kneejerk defense of merging church and state. These people literally don't want to give people a choice of what religion gets espoused, they feel obligated to defend the Euro state churches because they're Protestantism. I guarantee that they would be singing a different tune if this discussion was about forced tithes to Catholicism. "Whore of babylon" and similar.
Unfortunately, for the time being, due to financial considerations, Agnostic Anabaptists For Free Love And Chocolate Chip Cookies, Ltd., are implementing a BYOB policy regarding the wimmens. I found mine on the Internet, but we encourage our acolytes to use any and all available means. Luckily, chocolate chip cookie ingredients can be found at any local supermarket for very reasonable prices, and oftentimes such grocery markets contain (at higher price and more effort) cute blond women as well!
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
As I already wrote elsewhere: Too bad nobody, but nobody, ever actually uses it in that sense. Nevertheless, I took pains to include "almost" in "almost universally" specifically in hopes of appeasing dimwits such as yourself; a futile effort, I should have known.
I tried for ten years to convince myself I was approaching the matter logically in opposing religion. It took me returning from another country, where I'd spent six months, and sitting in a service for the first time in several years. The pastor (who didn't know me) pointed to me and gave me a specific word for something that had happened the last week I was over there (which I hadn't told anyone about). Was I being logical? No, I was just being obstinate.
So don't tell me denying spirituality it is about logic and denying myth. Myth is things that cannot be proven. Spirituality can, at least in some cases, be proven if you actually evaluate what you see logically instead of with a viewpoint that you already know everything.
Religion is entirely congruent with thinking logically. If you access to a university library, try browsing the stacks dedicated to a little old subject called Philosophy of Religion. There are plenty of arguments for the existence of God and of the existence of the soul that are seen as worth considering even by the atheist scholars in the field.
Couldn't agree more. But the current public school system, particularly its funding structure, is amoral. I am embarrassed to be a party to it. The underclasses are condemned to languish in underfunded, crime ridden, failed schools. The affluent attend feel-good country clubs. Even potentially good students are discouraged and stunted by the political pablum slung at them by the liberal elite. Privatize schools. Introduce market forces for teachers, defang the unions, add vouchers for student mobility and positive changes will occur.
an ill wind that blows no good
I always enjoy the (more extreme, thankfully less common) theists I talk to who lecture me on how atheism leads to rape, murder and all other forms of evil and tragedy. "Well, perhaps if *you* didn't have God..."
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
Also, the "regret-month" doesn't exist anymore. As soon as the magistrate or whatever receives the paper back with your name scribbled on it, you've resigned.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
You, sir, know nothing about Finland and should be ashamed of speaking authoritatively on the matter when you are ignorant of it. There is no single "Church of Finland". In fact, there are two churches in Finland that the government recognizes and passes on income tax money to, the Lutheran Church and the Finnish Orthodox Church. One gets enrolled in them only if one's family is already in the church, it's not applied to all and sundry regardless of their religious affiliation. The people who are "opting out" of the church right now are indeed abandoning religion, because they are turning against their own family's decision to enter them in the rolls.
So, and I may be afraid to ask (I can't tell), what's the waxed goat for?
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There is no "state church" in Finland. The government recognizes two different groups (Lutherans and Orthodox) to which income tax funds may be directed. Furthermore, the money is taken only from people whose families gave the express consent at their birth. Please stop spreading FUD.
Who made you the vocabulary police? Do you want to stomp your foot and pout until everyone uses words the way you want them to, regardless of what the dictionary says?
Just in case, here is the original video of this. Nice spoof!
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
You're somehow confusing church (an establishment organized to handle religious services) for religion (a set of personally held beliefs). Quitting one does not mean abandoning the other.
Me? I'm all for the separation of church and religion (google for Unitarian Universalists).
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it was 1/10th of income(or potates
Somebody dispatch Dan Quayle to assist this poor soul with their spelling.
[UID-HeinzIntel]
Massachusetts was the last US State in to disestablish its state church in 1833 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Established_church). The state church in MA was Congregationalism (which I think is now part of the very liberal "United Church of Christ"). When MA abolished state religion, they did it as a matter of public policy, not because the US constitution forced them. The idea that the several states are forbidden by the Federal constitutions to have a state religion is fairly modern and was only expressed by the Supreme Court in the 1940s. Up until then, established religion by the individual states and local communities was considered compatible with the federal constitution because the Bill of Rights was usually interpreted to only apply at the Federal level. However, as a practical matter, AFAIK every state has had a prohibition on offically established religion as a part of their state constitutions for a very long time.
Stormin, take these steps if you want protection from being modded down.
Go find a cliff or a bridge somewhere, then take your entire fucktarded family. Have all of them jump off to their deaths, after that jump to your death.
Problem Solved.
This debate is only in the U.S. The rest of the Western world got over it a long time ago, women's rights are a fact of life, and yes, it's commonly accepted that abortion isn't a form of murder. Sorry to burst your bubble.
Yeah, I had to fill out the form, and sign it.
And atleast for me, I had to wait one month(or it took one month before it was confirmed by letter to me) in October last year.
She: Hey, are you a traitor? Me: No, I'm atheist.
Don't worry though, they'll catch up one day. From what I observed, it's mostly just old people anyway. The young are still drinking, fucking, and having fun just like their peers in the West.
Was it his left toe vs. his right toe on his right foot? Was it his two "big toes"? You have to be more specific in order for anyone to be able to properly misinterpret the article!
Don't create a movement to get people to abandon religion. That is just subversive.
Your statement just gives me a strong desire to become subversive, er, to create a movement to get people to abandon religion.
I believe the freedom of minds is as valid as the freedom of bodies. Dogmas just enslave minds.
In fact, I really wish there were lots of atheist humanistic movements, their whole purpose being to get people to abandon religion. The world would be a better place.
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
Unlike the Jewish (Christian/Muslim) god, the Greek gods didn't really 'smite' the humans or 'taught them a lesson', at least not as often; they more or less fooled around with them. Zeus for example really looved the women, he used all his magic tricks hunting after hot chicks. - To be fair though, if you read Homer et al you will find there were morals, virtues and values, but it was more of a karma/fate thing, not a 'faith' thing.
Polytheists were also naturally more tolerant towards other beliefs as well, compared to quite an amount of monotheists who even resort to waging wars in the name of religion.
And when you gaze long enough into the code, the code will also gaze into you.
You have to become an acolyte to find that out. And I hope you don't mind peanut butter, lots and lots of peanut butter. Are you allergic to penicillin?
I just read an essay on the importance of Dadaism in modern art, hence part of the tone of my posts about the AAFFLACCC, Ltd.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Umm...I'm not sure which religion you are talking about but there are at least two prominent religions that proselyte extensively in the US: Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons.
As if they were two different, distinct religions instead of two different sects of the same religion.
My blog
And this is news for Slashdot? Replacing Finland's Christianity with State Atheism? Replacing one religion with another?
Disgusting.
. . . Says the Anonymous Coward.
Wow... are you having a bad day? Or are you just an angry person?
I think you need to put the keyboard down, go outside, and stand in the sunshine for a few minutes.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
maybe I'm crazy here, but how many religions 'officialy' promote violence?
I, personally, am religious.
I dont do violent things to people. no one I know does violent things to people. huh.
as for brainwashing....
I am currently attending BYU. that's a Church-owned school. there's more religious references in a day than the rest of this post.
and you know what?
It has some of the best schools for:
buisness
Computer science
robotics
foreign language.
yes, these are nationwide ratings.
how many of you people know a foreign language? esp. you americans.
at this religious school, not only are religious classes required, foreign language requirments are much higher than other schools.
you know, foreign language, that thing that allows you to talk to people not american?
so, because some random zealots use religion as an excuse to promote violence, does that mean religion is bad, or the zealots?
I don't mind preaching either way. it's what happens.
so, if your state church loses membership, don't try to blame the site. try to increase your own members' faith.
duh.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Worth considering by who? Justifying things on the basis of ancient philosophies in the absence of empirical evidence is useless. You can argue all you want about the existence of the soul or God or the Tooth Fairy, but until you can measure these things, no one cares.
In the US a church is a tax-exempt entity, a charitable organization. If they don't pay taxes for the revenue they bring in, and their members can write off the contributions to the church, doesn't that in effect mean the rest of us are paying money that people paying the church don't?
So if I take a vacation with my family I don't get to write it off. But if I donate the same amount of money to my church, who then sponsors an trip to Europe that we participate in, that money is deducted from my gross income. And I directly benefit from money I "donate" to my church.
If you move a few signs around the equation, isn't that the same as taxing people who don't go to church? Double-time? Because if I donate to Oxfam they don't take me on a field trip to another country. They use the money to help someone else.
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
It's easy to forget that most countries don't have the "Establishment of Religion" clause. Even Russia has a list of "official" religions. My parents both went to state-subsidized Catholic schools in Canada — despite being Jewish!
I fondly remember an episode of Yes, Prime Minister, where they're arguing over the appointment of a Bishop for the Church of England, which is sort of an arm of the state. One candidate is an atheist. Does this disqualify him? Nobody's sure.
This may shock you to your core, but the phrase "the rest of the Western world" is not the same as the phrase "the rest of the world". While it may be true that socialist western europe has little issue with abortion, this doesn't mean the issue is non-controversial.
Here's a sampmling of religious opinions from around the world:
So that's, Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism being (for the most part, not without controversy) against abortion. Oh yeah - it's a settled issue all right. I'm aware that that's just religous organizations, but the point of this list is not that religious people are against abortion, but that anti-abortion sentiment crosses many social, religious, and regional divides.
Add to that the fact that a lot of south and central american, eastern european, african and asian nations are vehemently opposed to abortion and we come to the inescapable position that anyone who thinks that a non-controversial issue in western europe is by definition a settled issue is cultural imperialist with a rather myopic world view.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstatz.htm#RelCo n
total from list above 809,215,732.
This article is interesting and all but how comes it is on Slashdot?
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
I call bullshit. First, if the body systems are working after 11 weeks all body systems are working, yet 12 weeks later, the parasitical clump of cells has only 15% chance of survival? Yes it is a parasite, it relies on the mother until it gets out of the womb. A parasite is a life that relies on a host for nurishment, or anything else.So the woman has every fucking right to get an abortion at anytime during her god damned pregnancy. It's fucktards like you that give more evidence as to why all religions should be outlawed. And your whole fucking account should be mod-bombed into oblivion.
Except we can't resign from it -- they just take some of our taxes and give it to the churches of their (current administration) choice: http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/fbci/ Troll-ish? Perhaps. But you like it.
I do believe there's a difference between a snipe/quip and a rant.
If you're sniped at, just snipe back. You're being provoked; the guy just thinks a long, drawn out response is funny. "Man, I really pissed that guy off!"
In other words, don't feed the trolls.
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We've managed to get them to almost stop knocking on our door now, the last few I've basically answered in a very foul mood and once they state their purpose or pull out their religious pamphlets I say "sorry, I do not believe in cults nor wish to join one", the look on their faces is priceless, they'll take a few seconds to regain their composure then say something like "we are NOT a cult!" and I go on to explain that yes they are a cult in every sense of the word whether they think so or not.
Then I close the door on their face at that point since I have better things to do than argue with the delusional. The nice thing is you then see them jotting down your address and they tend to avoid knocking again unless it is a different crew.
Religion classes happen only by consent. Neutral lessons in elämänkatsomustieto (knowledge-of-the-ways-of-viewing-life or some such wordmonster), with elements of ethics, sociology, religious studies, cultural anthropology and the like, are meant for nonreligious students and those of minor religions, but students and their parents can swap religion classes for them.
(fi.wikipedia to the rescue!)
I didn't like the huge cross on the hill in San Diego either. It wasn't really clear what its message was. For all I knew, it was threatening to torture me for all eternity after I died. Or maybe it just wanted to take away my freedom and force me to live a "Christian" lifestyle (ie. bizarre rules about my sex life and stuff).
On the subject of message, though, I didn't understand why Christians would want a symbol of their religion associated with a war memorial. Were they trying to send the message that Christianity approves of war or of people being killed in war? Was it like when frat boys try to pee their name in the snow except with a war memorial and a replica of a Roman torture device rather than snow and pee.
In some ways, though, it seemed vaguely appropriate. After all, putting a replica of a device used to torture people to death to further a foreign military conquest at a site meant to commemorate a brutal foreign military conquest does seem somehow appropriate.
Being that a.) I live in the US, b.) slashdot is hosted in the US, c.) the US is the most influential nation in the world, I would say that the debate is fairly far from being "closed." Besides, when did "Western Europe" become representative of the world? As I recall, that leaves out the Eastern half of Europe (a fairly large chunk) and the other five populated continents. It's certainly not a foregone conclusion in Asia, Africa, South America, and Australia. I could really care less what Europe has decided about abortion. I've seen what an aborted fetus looks like, and no one, anywhere, who looks at the same pictures will be able to sit there and tell me that they aren't staring at a desecrated human body.
Further, this has nothing to do with "women's rights." I am so sick and tired of that asinine point of logic. Ask any medical doctor whose life takes priority when a pregnant woman is at risk, and they will tell you neither. The two lives are always held as equally important until it becomes clear that carrying the pregnancy to term will result, unquestionably, in the death of the mother and the child. If there's a chance one or the other will survive, the options are weighed. The medical field doesn't just consider the fetus to be a random assortment of cells until it pops out of the woman, and neither should we. I fail to see how telling a woman: "if you get an abortion you are killing your child" somehow infringes on her 'rights.' It's a simple fact. I never said that I thought abortions should be illegal. I just know what they are and I'm sick and tired of people acting like it's some clean, innocent procedure that handles an "unexpected pregnancy." They cut the baby into pieces, suck it out of the womb, and reassemble it.
Yay for the civilized "West." We'd rather lie to ourselves about the things we do, and dress them up in euphemisms, than deal with the decisions we make.
Don't forget the Seventh Day Adventists. At least in my neck of the woods.
-h-
Consider this: how many people were killed as a result of the Roman Catholic church in the last 2000 years? I say "thank god" that in the last 100 years or so religion has become less powerful and therefore less dangerous. But we aren't completely free from the oppression of religion yet. What's the biggest source of violence in the news today? All the troubles in the Middle East come from religious fanaticism. If Jerusalem weren't a holy city in three religions, other problems in that region wouldn't be so acute. The oil around there is valuable from a money point of view, but no suicide bomber will kill himself for money.
Does this not suggest that in a contemporary setting, "political ideology" is far more dangerous than "religion"?
Certainly, fanaticism is always dangerous, but religion makes for more dangerous fanatics. It's only because religion is becoming less relevant that politics is gaining ground in killing people. Any type of belief that goes beyond reasoning is dangerous, and religious hate can become associated with political motives, look at Northern Ireland for an example.
I fully support the freely available clause. I am not looking to save a buck. I want the system to serve as many as possible. Indeed I think basic healthcare and dentistry should be included as well. To do otherwise is to waste human capital, the most unthinkable crime.
I am embarrassed about the amoral->immoral typo.
an ill wind that blows no good
Your family does not specify your religion. You specify your religion. If you're not given the choice, I would submit that you have suffered an abuse of faith.
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Two things.
1. Some people actually do by the "clump of cells" tripe. Most of my post was copy-paste anyway, so I don't mind putting the info out there.
2. The only thing that bugs is me is that my post was modded off-topic three times whereas his post - certainly no more on-topic than mine - hadn't been downmodded a single time (last time I checked). Not that slashdot politics are a surprise to me, but it's still annoying. I know I was off-topic at that point, and don't mind the downmod itself.
Anyway, your point is well-taken, I guess. In general I try not to feed trolls, but I guess sometimes I just can't help it.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
"It wasn't really clear what its message was."
...which is exactly why I have no problem with it, and truly don't understand people's problem with it. A cross is now a very generic geometric religous icon, moreso than say, a giant buddha.
Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
Three of the religions you cited shared the same book.
The last one considers killing parasitic insects to be unethical.
I think you need to find a broader base of support.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
The OP was talking about looking at the world logically, and I responded that religion can be logical. With words like "empirical evidence", tou are talking about science, which is a rather different thing than logic.
You're failing to mention that every company operating in Finland also has to pay to the church. Part of the "communal tax" that's mandatory to all companies is paid to the Lutheran Church, no matter who works in the company. Effectively this causes everyone spending money in the country contributing to the Church. Last year they got 86 million euros this way, or about 17 euros per capita. I'd rather have that in my pocket and have a couple more pints. ;)
"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid, it is true that most stupid people are conservative."
There's a website for that too:t ter.htm
http://www.utlm.org/onlineresources/nameremovalle
Not the case for Romania, at least, though it may be true for some parts of Bulgaria and Greece. At church services, young people outnumber the old considerably, with children being a very noticeable presence. Romanian youth, no matter how much debauchery they do outside of church, nonetheless consider church attendence a good thing and a vital part of the Romanian national identity. And in fact, the recent reaction against certain Western influences and political systems there seems to have sprung from the youth.
Define "broader." Last time I checked, the three Abrahamic religions formed the majority of the world's population. Or are you just saying: "find a base of support that I approve of, namely people who think like me, because clearly I am right?"
But you want broader? I'll toss in the Hinduism as well (for another 14% of the world's population):
Now we're at 74%. Broad enough yet? Let's throw in the Sikhs. I've always admired their religion so even if we only get another
So pretty much every single religion I can find is historically opposed to abortion. But maybe it's just religion in general you have a problem with? That would hardly be uncommon here on Slashdot. In which case I reiterate my initial point: the religous views were easy to find and served as a good baseline for how abortion is seen by lots of different cultures and societies around the world.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
Article 4, Section 1 of the American Convention on Human Rights , signed but not ratified by the U.S., and ratified by most central american countries:
The U.N. Declaration of the Rights of the Child
For crying out loud, abortion is almost entirely illegal in Ireland. But I suppose South American, Central American, and Ireland aren't Western countries?Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
Only the lowest form of idiot would ever engage in the literary form of deconstruction, as it requires the combination of abject stupidity and fondness for intellectual masturbation. Most idiots realize that intelligence isn't their forte, after all.
The non-profance usage of the word is more common, outside of your circle-jerk pseudo-intellectualism.
"Hi, my name is scientific fact. I'm sure we haven't met, but you just called me bullshit, so I feel the need to interject here. You see, I'm formed by a series of rigorous studies that are repeatable--basically, when someone quotes me, they can't lie, otherwise they're not me. So, you see, when someone says: '11 weeks into the pregnancy, all body systems are functional,' and it's scientific fact (me) then you can't really call it bullshit, you know, because it's been proven. You may want to check out wikipedia for more on me with regards to pregnancy."
Now that my friend scientific fact has chimed in, I'll also note that you're a complete moron who's too much of a chickenshit to post under a real account. And I wasn't aware that something too weak to support itself, and yet created by the host (in the overwhelming majority through consensual sex), was immediately deserving of death. And don't try and pull the rape card; no one here is going to posit that a woman who's had a pregnancy forced on her is obligated to have the child.
Here, have a cookie; it's ok to be wrong.
> After extensive discussion, my friends and I have 3 good ways to get rid of door-to-door types permanently. ...
>
> 2)Preach Satanism in return. Tell them to abandon their false Christ and embrace their dark lord. Offer to bring a vial of chicken blood to baptise them. Extremely effective if they bring their kids again, and less likely to have the cops called on you.
ROFLMFAO!!
Back in my college days it was a regular annoyance/occurrence to get approached by Christian recruiters, no matter where you were on the campus. Their most irritating tactic was to come up and sit down next to students who were eating a meal, especially in the food court at the student union building. "Hi can I sit here thank you ARE YOU BORN AGAIN?"
It became so irksome that the humor columnist for the college newspaper wrote a devastatingly funny article about the phenomenon: [paraphrasing] "Here I am, wrestling with my stacked-high hamburger so that I can eat it without having the thing squirt on my shirt or collapse all over the place, and some Christian nitwit plops down in the set next to me and starts telling me that my soul needs to be saved!"
The columnist proceeded to offer suggestions on how to handle the Souls for Jesus crowd. My personal favorite? "You want me to come to a prayer meeting on which day? Oh, sorry -- that's my date for gay sex with Satan."
"All hands, BRACE FOR IMPACT!"
Zeus is so going to kick your ass.
His name is Jupiter.
Stick Men
"Erode" implies a whittling away. That would seem applicable to the article. "Dismantle" or "Disassemble" might also be appropriate. "Deconstruct" is clumsy and was likely a poor choice on the orignal author who is likely not a native speaker of English. Depending on the dictionary chosen, the literary form is the only one given. Using Merriam-Webster, Hyperdictionary, and Google, only the literary form of the meaning is provided. Others, such as dictionary.com, define it as a symonym of dismantle. As a native English speaker, the flavor of "Deconstruct" would be to mean dismantle and attempt to glean understanding of how the item was put together. Which goes with the literary meaning.
Given the Freethinkers want to erode the power of the church, and go so far as to pay postage for others to resign from the church, they probably meant "erode" or maybe "dismantle", not "deconstruct".
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
I think its caused they've been trying to convert Jews for ~2000 years and have failed.
I call bullshit.
Do you think it makes you look cool to call bullshit at biological facts? Go to wikipedia and look up fetal development yourself. I don't have time to waste convincing you of facts you can find in any decent encylopedia, textbook, etc.
Yes it is a parasite, it relies on the mother until it gets out of the womb
Oh wow - that's edgy and creative there. Did you get that straight from Agent Smith in the first matrix movie, or did you think it up all on your own?
Oh wait, maybe by "host" you mean another human? OK, that works. How parasitic were you when you were 1 year old? Would you have done really well on your own? When you were 8. Hell - for all I know you still live in your parents basement.
So:
1. A parasite is someone that depends on a host for life.
2. A human infant depends on a host (generally called "parents") for life.
C1. A human infant is a parasite.
3. It's ok (for the host) to kill a parasite.
C2. Infaticide is OK.
You're fine with that, right? Or now do you want to start distinguishing between endo- and ecto- parasites?
Note that I'm only playing with your dumb-ass argument, which is essentially an incredibly stupid version of James Rachels more famous pro-abortion argument involving a violin-player. If you want to actually read the argument you're ripping off, maybe we can start to talk. But you'll have to get comfy with the fact that James actually does support infanticide, and that his argument actually doesn't defend abortion-as-birth control.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
It's not bullshit. As it says, all the systems are doing their job, but they're not able to support life on their own yet. A one ounce fetus can't live on its own.
Other than that, I have to agree. Normally killing is a bad thing, but when a person is growing inside your body, you should be able to do what you please about it. Abortions are probably not the best option, but it's not my place (or the government's) to make that call.
when a person is growing inside your body, you should be able to do what you please about it
I would agree with this, except for the fact that a fetus doesn't appear inside a person by magic. As long as we're talking about consensual sex, I think that changes the issue. And the truth is that the vast majority of American abortions are just birth-control. It's abortion-as-birth-control that I have a problem with.
You break it, you buy it. How hard is that to understand (and it should apply to man AND woman).
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
I agree that the cross thing is petty.
I don't agree that this is all there was to the separation of church and state. The separation protects the church as much as it does the state... remember that many of these people came from a country whose king destroyed an entire religion just to get a divorce. Nowadays, I suspect that a lot of Christians who backed the "religious" right now are beginning to discover that old adage about lying down with the dogs.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
It's like having the option of opting out of a mafia protection racket when by default the whole neighborhood is in, doesn't make the crime any less.
Except, you know, the mafia doesn't let you out just like the state doesn't let you out of most other taxes. The church tax lets you peacefully out if all you do is ask.
Violence is pointless in this endeavor unless you're hoping to use it to force your decision on others. There is no justification for it.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Abortion will always be more humane than infanticide, which is the common alternative. However, if you're a Jesus freak, all that matters is the point that the soul enters the body. Where is that on your timeline? It's almost certainly not before day 7, as the majority of blastocysts never implant, or don't survive the first few days after. Unless, of course, you believe in a Cruel God, in which case carry on (I wouldn't begin to guess what sort of God wants you to wear his underwear, so you'll have to specify).
This is especially cool if you believe than a baby who dies before baptism goes to Hell, and that the soul enters the body at conception, dooming 60% of people to Hell before birth.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The 14th Amendment is what extends the limitations of the federal government to the state and local governments and was passed in the wake of the Civil War to prevent Confederate states from discriminating against the newly freed slaves.
In 1833, it was still generally permissable for state governments to establish state religions, restrict free speech, restrict free press, forbid the bearing of arms, quarter solidiers in homes, etc., etc., though most state constitutions banned some or all of these acts. This just wasn't brought into question again until much later.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I don't really think you mean to say what it is you're saying, because that has huge moral implications. If you're going to concede that it is a life growing inside of the pregnant woman, then you have essentially granted the unborn child all rights that any other human being is given: most importantly, the right to live. Just because it is infirmed and therefore unable to live outside of the mother does not immediately mean the mother has the right to eliminate the child. If you believe this, then you must by proxy also agree with infanticide (the dependence is no less severe once the baby leaves the womb) and euthenasia. (Should people with respirators or other life-support machines be at the whim of the hospital?) So what this means is that the mother is going to be terribly inconvenienced by the child's growth and subsequent birth, but no amount of inconvenience and/or physical pain can ever reasonably justify the ending of another's life.
Really, if you want to make a stand in favor of abortion, the only place that's logically consistent and doesn't imply a whole host of other evils is to maintain that the fetus is not really a human being. And that, in my opinion, is not true; therefore, abortion is murder. Can abortion be justifiable? I think, in certain cases, yes--if the mother is going to die, or if she was raped, then obviously it should be her choice: NOT because of some "woman's rights" argument, but because (in the case of the former) it's her life at stake, and in the latter because she was an unwilling participant. Both of these are rights I would extend to anyone. But after that, I think no one's "rights" (man or woman) eclipse those of the unborn child.
Besides, pregnancy is so easily avoidable. It's not rocket science. Don't have sex if you don't want to risk having a baby. If you're going to have sex, (even protected sex, with birth control as well), you have to accept the fact that a baby could be conceived. Accept the consequences of your actions. And if you are poor/uneducated/whatever, why is that an excuse to kill an innocent life? Is it the baby's fault that you couldn't control your sexual desires?
You are a walking argument for retroactive abortion.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
So credulous fools world wide share a belief that abortion is wrong? You're not exactly helpig your case here ...
I'm aware that that's just religous organizations, but the point of this list is not that religious people are against abortion, but that anti-abortion sentiment crosses many social, religious, and regional divides.
Anywhere that more children means more economic success will be predominantly anti-abortion. Anywhere that children are instead an economic burden will be OK with abortion. It's not complicated. When technology makes it possible to completely decouple reproduction from sex, the whole thing will become a non-issue in any case.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I almost agree, but I still think that a woman should get to make that choice for herself, even if she's an idiot. I would never recommend an abortion to anyone, but growing a person in your own body is a unique situation. I don't think anyone should have to use their body in a way that they would prefer not to. Fetus be damned, so to speak. Or maybe mother be damned, if you believe literally in that sort of thing.
If the fetus is a human being with all rights from conception and women should have all babies which are voluntarily conceived then why is it okay to kill an innocent human being simply because the father was a rapist?
You are saying that the child is responsible for the crimes of the father- which we do not hold true other situations.
Personally-- I do not think human life is anything special. I think millions of born, walking, breathing children are allowed to die or rot in foster care every month who could have been saved by some of the money spent to save a mass of cells that lacks conciousness. I think of the millions of people killed by religious people for religious reasons (most of whom would be against abortion-- on both sides of the killing line).
But if I agree with your general argument that a 21 cell mass should not be killed in general, then why is it okay to kill the innocent offspring of a rapist? What if the mother says it is rape but it isn't? (something like 50% of cases of rape accusation were found to not be rape in a recent study of college age women).
Likewise, if the only way to get an abortion was because of rape- you would see rape accusations go way up. So we are killing innocents there so the only way to close that door is to not allow a rape exception.
Maybe... just maybe... we should stay the hell out of it until the fetus is viable outside the mother. And maybe we should force people against abortion to pay for the upbringing of such forced births. You know "Are you against abortion? If so check "YES" to authorize $50 extra taxes to help cover the costs of raising the children".
Increasingly, we are at the same time telling other people how to live, and making them pay for the costs of having to live that way.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Theological aside: Mormon doctrine specifies that little children are innocent, and none of them go to Hell.
This is the interesting thing, however, I believe that doctrine but I don't really expect anyone else to. So I would not expect the US - or any nation - to make laws based on that (or any other) religious belief of mine. I'm not interested in living in a theocracy - not even a Mormon one. (Although if I had to pick I'd probably go with Mormonism becase at least a fundamental tenent of our religion is freedom of religion (including atheism) for everybody. But still, I'd rather just avoid theocracy all together*.)
So as far as the abortion argument goes I leave God and religioun out of it. You're not interested in my religious convictions and - from a policy standpoint - I don't think you should be. Ensoulment, to me, is a sideshow that has nothing to do with the ethics, economics, and politics of this issue.
Slavery is wrong without bring God into it, anti-semitism is wrong without bringing God into it, Jim Crowe laws are immoral without bringing God into it, and abortion is wrong without bringing God into it. It's a question of human rights. That's where my abortion argument starts and ends. There's just no reason to bring Jesus into this (no matter what I happen to think or believe about Him).
-stormin
* this is why I do not live in Utah
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
Just FYI: the correct word is "disestablish" if they're trying to actually do away with the church. If they're just trying to help people get out of the church for other reasons, without actually destroying the church, then it would be "disenroll" or some variation.
At any rate, glad I live in a country where I don't actually have to pay to worship a deity. Some do, I don't.
"My God...it's full of trolls!"
There are like six of us posting ahead of you; you're gonna have to specify which one of us is the walking argument. I'm hoping you mean the AC, but if you mean me, that's ok too.
People in America say church attendance is going up. I don't see it despite the rise of mega-churches.
That is because the mega-churches are all on the other side of big oceans. The biggest churches in the U.S. only hold a paltry 25,000 or so. True mega-churches in Asia and Africa seat 100,000
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
The GP made a slight mistake, he/she should have used better instead of different.
Getting people to leave [a] religion is better than getting them to join one, for the simple reason that getting someone to stop believing in omni-potent, omni-present invisible men with long beards in the sky (and other metaphysical claptrap, at least as far as the three Judeo-derived sectsare concerned) is a self-evident Good Thing.
So remember:
Helping someone become less psychotic: Good.
Helping them become more so: Bad
Anywhere that more children means more economic success will be predominantly anti-abortion. Anywhere that children are instead an economic burden will be OK with abortion.
There's a grain of truth in what you say. Modern western europeans just don't have children. Perhaps because they are an economic burden, perhaps because there's something soulless and nihilistic about modern wester civilization. I'm sure we could have an interesting discussion on the topic.
But how does this reflect the morality of the question? Do you think the Holocaust would have happened had Germany not been at war? Would there have been gas chambers had Germany been at peace and prosperous? (Hint - the answer is between "not as likely" and "no possible way").
Anti-semitism always correlates to economic problems in a country. Does this make it right? Does it make it acceptable? Even if your simplified hypothesis is right, being able to say who is likely to do something or why they are likely to do it isn't very likely to answer the question of whether the thing should be done or not.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
Actually, it was a glib sentiment aimed at all the people flogging this argument. Six eh? Cool, I can roll dice.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
Much better actually. Now you have 3 fundamentally different religions that support your argument, rather than relying on three religions from the same source and 1 fringe religion.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
I agree that it's a unique situation, and the idea of forcing a woman to carry her child for 9 months seems anti-feminist.
But keep in mind that if a man and woman have sex and she gets pregnant we have no problem as a society saying that the man - like it or not - is resonsible for the kid for 18 years. So if a man wants the kid, but the woman doesn't - he's S.O.L. And if he doesn't want the kid, but she does, he's also S.O.L.
I agree that, in general, no one should have to use their body in a way they don't want to. But I also believe in consequences. If a man impregnates a woman - he damn well better pay up for 18 years. He gets to live with the consequences of his action. All I'm saying is that a woman should also be treated as a rationale, thinking human being. It's paternalistic and sexist to hold men responsible for their actions and to treat women like irresponsible children. So where is the real anti-feminism? (Keep in mind that the vast majority of early suffrage-era feminists called abortion "child murder" and accurately predicted that it would be used as a tool to further sexualize and dehumanize women if it was legalized.)
As long as we allow abortion-on-demand in our society we continue to hold men and women to a double standard. It's benevolent sexism, but it's still sexism.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
You might argue that killing something that has no soul is cruel, but not that it's murder, nor immoral if done in such a way as to cause no pain.
But then, it's the folks who argue that the soul enters the body at conception who wind me up, as that is used to argue against methods of preventing children that any fool can see are more humane than abortion, such as the "morning after pill".
But then, if you believe anything can be wrong without bringing God into it, the you believe that God is not the origin of morality, which is not an idea that many theologicians of any faith are happy with, as it implies that God could do evil.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
You are both totally off topic but you still managed to provoke the most interesting discussion in this thread.
I just wish I could say I even the slightest bit surprised by all the lame attempts at comebacks against yours and SpectheIntro's comments but they're just the standard emotional driven responses that are a staple of Slashdot discussion whenever certain topics come up (evo/creation anyone? Just kidding, please don't)
Of course, I'm still wondering why this post even exists. To me it seems more like one of those stupid cases from the patent office that every always rallies against. Someone takes a relatively simple process and puts it on the web and suddenly someone thinks it's a big deal, or in Slashdot's case, 2 years later someone thinks it's a big deal. No great breakthrough in computing, just a simple web page that sends an email to a city councilor. Even the numbers involved are relatively minor (69% of 0.6% or 5.25 million people used this site).
--
Now, try to mod that off topic!
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
You were pointing out that a lot of people believe a certain way. I was pointing out a strong correlation between a societies belief on this issue and the economics of the issue. I see no conclusions one can draw from your data beyond "beliefs about proper action within a society are well correlated to beliefs about actions that bring economic success in that society".
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Let's review the situation. Some people really don't like the city putting a monstrous cross high on a hill top but then some Christians decide that only they get to decide what people should like and dislike and force the cross on everyone else even though these Christians don't even have a clear reason for putting there in the first place.
So who's being petty here?
Maybe the government should force all Christians to take a crap on a cross. I mean, it's not like it actually matters whether they do or not, so if they object they are just being petty.
It's called respect for individual freedom: I don't force my paranoia on you and you don't force your paranoia on me - even it's totally trivial and meaningless. Of course, Christians totally don't get the whole common decency and respect for personal space thing - they're convinced that they know the absolute truth and need to force it on everyone else. And then if someone objects, rather than doing the decent thing and respecting the other person's objections they climb up on their high horse and trivialize that person's objections and criticize that person's lifestyle.
"What you want isn't important because as a Christian I have decided that I am right and you are wrong and I get to decide what matters to you and what doesn't! You objections to having to put up with my paranoia don't matter because what you want is sinful because you aren't Christian!"
My standpoint is that a child in the womb is a special case. Pregnancy is different because the baby is literally living inside of its mother. I think that a person's body is their absolute domain. It's the one thing that you, or I, or a pregnant woman should have absolute control over. So I think she gets to kill it (or him/her, if you like) if she wants. Because I think her right to decide how she uses her body supercedes the child's right to live. If there were an alternative that allowed her to stop bearing the child but not kill it, I might be in favor of outlawing abortion. Now that I read my previous post again, "Do what you please about it" isn't quite what I meant. I probably should have said, "Do what is necessary to stop it." If it were possible to move it to an artificial womb or a surrogate mother, then outlawing abortion would be another matter.
It differs from a born infant's dependance on its mother or a patient's dependance on a hospital because in neither of those cases is a person forced to use their body in a way they don't want to. It's not about the child's dependance on its mother; it's that the one right supercedes the other. While I lean towards calling abortion morally wrong, I think that forcing a person to use their body in a way they don't want to is morally wronger. Or at least as wrong. It's her call to make, but that doesn't mean both alternatives are right.
I don't argue that a fetus isn't a human being. That's kind of a bitch move. For that matter, I don't think it makes a difference whether it is or not. In a few months it's *going* to be one, so it doesn't make sense to me to treat it with different moral standards.
Pregnancy is avoidable. I think it's a bad thing if a girl gets herself knocked up then has daddy pay to get the kid killed. It's especially stupid since she could have prevented it so easily. She's definitely going to Hell for it (not that I believe in Hell). But it's her body, and it's between her and the gods.
I never said it's ok; I said I would make a provision for it. That is a political firebomb, mostly because it would literally be forcing someone who had no say in the matter to live with the consequences. It's a difficult moral question, and one I do not think the state is in a position to answer--thus, we leave it up to the woman in question, as she'd had the decision forced upon her. An innocent life is still being taken, but in that particular case, the entire situation is a tragedy, and there's no way around that anyway. I don't believe the state has the legal power to force a victim of any crime into action, which is essentially what banning abortions due to rape would be. Do I think abortion is the right decision to make in this case? Honestly, no--but I understand why someone would make that decision, and I'm not going to tell them otherwise.
Not necessarily. Yes, a lot of rape accusation in this country is false (I don't know if the statistic is 50%), but qualifying for a "rape abortion" would necessitate the filing of a police report. If someone is willing to lie through their teeth, wrongfully indict someone, just to abort a child, then there's not much I can do about it--but I think a lot of eyebrows would raise if these laws were passed and magically the abortion rate didn't go down, when an overwhelming majority of abortions now are not the result of rape.
We are telling them to live with the consequences of their actions because there is a human life at stake. And if our society is unwilling to financially support an institution whose sole mission is to protect innocent life, then what the hell is the point? It's not like someone is holding a gun to a woman's head, sticking a fetus into her, and then the big bad govt is coming along and saying: "Sorry honey, that one's a keeper." She had sex, almost definitely consensual sex, and got pregnant as a result, and now has a human life inside of her. That's a very serious deal, and we shouldn't, under any circumstances, allow the wanton slaughtering of innocents. It's just wrong, and I don't want to live in any society that just accepts it outright. (Which is why I will never live in Western Europe.) And on the flip side, the father of the child should be legally obligated to support that child for eighteen years, period--he is just as accountable as she is. I think it would be incredibly sexist to hold a woman accountable for her pregnancy, but to let the man off scot-free.
OK, whatever. I'm happy to oblige.
t ml
d .html Go figure.
Here's what the Zoroastrians have to say on the subject (I've always liked that religion too): (if you don't want to read all of it the cliff notes is that they think it's bad)
The Vendidad is the "Book of Laws" for the Zoroastrian Faith. Here is what it says about abortion:
"9. If a man come near unto a damsel, either dependent on the chief of the family or not dependent, either delivered [married] or not delivered, and she conceives by him, let her not, being ashamed [of her adultery or fornication] of the people, produce in herself the menses, against the course of nature, by means of water and plants.
10. And if the damsel, being ashamed of the people, shall produce in herself the menses against the course of nature, by means of water or plants, it is a fresh sin as heavy [as her adultery].
11. If a man come near unto a damsel, either dependent on the chief of the family or not dependent, either delivered [married] or not delivered, and she conceives by him, let her not, being ashamed of the people [fearing the people will think her shameful], destroy the fruit in her womb.
12. And if the damsel, being ashamed of the people, shall destroy the fruit in her womb, the sin is on both the father and herself; the murder is on the the father and herself; both the father [of the child] and herself shall pay the penalty for wilful murder.
13."If a man comes near unto a damsel, either dependent on the chief of the family or not dependent, either delivered or not delivered, and she conceives by him, and she says, 'I have conceived by thee;' and he replies, 'Go then to the old woman and apply to her for one of her drugs, tha she may procure thee miscarriage;'
14. "And the damsel goes to the old woman and applies to her for one of her drugs, that she may procure miscarriage; and the old woman brings her some Banga, or Shaeta, a drug that kills in the womb or once that expels out of the womb, or some other of the drugs that produce miscarriage and says, 'Cause thy fruit to perish!" and she causes her fruit to perish; the sin is on the head of all three: the man, the damsel, and the old woman." (Vendidad, Fargard 15: 2a:9-12, 2b:13-14)
http://www.angelfire.com/mo/baha/zoroastrianism.h
The Shinoists seems to have a weird acceptance of abortion. They apparently accept that abortions will be done, but then apologize to the aborted in special shrines: http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9610/desmon
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
Yeah, I had kind of the same reaction. Big deal.
I didn't really try to start an abortion war (no, really, I didn't) I just responded to someone's flamebait with some flamebait of my own, and then things just went out of hand.
But it's been fun.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
But then, if you believe anything can be wrong without bringing God into it, the you believe that God is not the origin of morality, which is not an idea that many theologicians of any faith are happy with, as it implies that God could do evil.
:-D
Well now you know why the other Christians never invite Mormons to their parties. We believe God perfectly follows morality - not that he created it. After all - if he created morality doesn't that make him ultimately responsible for evil too?
You might argue that killing something that has no soul is cruel
Unless we want to debate theology, I just wouldn't bring the soul into it at all.
But then, it's the folks who argue that the soul enters the body at conception who wind me up
No really... I'm just not going to talk about souls!!!
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
As originally inspired, a tithing in church meant a tenth child of a family was "deadicated" to church service. The people that changed this to mean 10% of monetary value in the form of banknotes and metal specie are hippocritts or employed by another's lie that they unmercifully defend. To this day, only a few congregations uphold this manner of church service. A church built on dependence of money is not a politic but a corporation. Ask yourselves if your church is unlimited, built of hands of able-bodied people that provide services without any denomination of artifice. Laughably, the same people that would force you to "know" that a tithe is money are usually the same people that accuse able-minded students and equally disposed historians applying rules of evidence to disprove text-book flaws in history; usually, accusing well-studied people of revising history when in-fact it is another's greed to revise history. (on an unrelated note: the Holocaust is a scam performed by false Jews: I said it).
On a parallel train of thought, a "dollar" was a measurement and not itself limited to gold and silver as said in the Constitution of the United States of America or the Bill of Rights attached onto it. There is the lawful money in the form of a milled spanish dollar, gold or silver, as measured; then there are the pseudo dollar evinced by paper money and fiat money. Bank notes are only as good as the controlling words that convey title to their bearer/posessor. A UNITED STATES Federal Reserve Note is neither Federal and neither a Reserve and neither a Note; it is a cause of a non-domestic non-federal corporation known as "FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM", has not set-aside any value for special use known as "Reserved", and neither is a note conveying title to property. Use them as a receipt of your labor/debt to someone, albeit a deceptive receipt.
Whatever you improve with your labor, you can draft your own bank note to represent your security interest in that property, and can tender that banknote of your interest to someone in an equal exchange for another value or stock or liquid securety or surety: lawful money. Don't let a non-politic force it on the people.
without prejudice
See my other nearby post too, please, as it may be pertinent.
I don't consider it an issue of women's rights. If a man managed to get pregnant, I'd give him the same choice.
Child support payments are a bit different, I think. As I understand it, the non-custodial parent makes payments, whether it's the mother or father. So there's no double standard there. Also, they're not punishment (although they may feel like it). They're intended to defray the cost of caring for a kid. Abortions aren't free either, although the price does seem out of proportion to the killing. But that's because it's not a punishment.
I don't see a double standard anywhere here. Both men and women can be required to make child support payments, and both men and women can legally have abortions, or at least there's no precedent for disallowing it in the unlikely event that a male pregnancy should come up.
As for consequences, maybe abortion should have some. I'm sure the psychological impact is pretty big as it is. Hell, someone just got killed, so maybe jail time is appropriate. But it should still be up to the mother. If she wants to make it stop and is willing to accept the consequences, then she should be allowed to, whether killing the kid is right or not.
Hm. Well, skewing offtopic with you, I'd say 'clump of cells' is rather accurate right up into the 450th trimester, strictly speaking. I usually use the 'neural activity limit' - when the kid's brain is around the size of the smallest animal I'd have a problem with killing (ie: a kitten), is the point at which I would concede that abortion would be wrong.
I don't know what trimester that is, and honestly I don't care (My girlfriend and I have a 'No Babies' rule that insists upon the use of condoms). It is not for the state to make moral decisions. It is for the state to make socially efficient policy (e.g.: laws against murder are socially efficient; laws against abortion aren't.)
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In spite of the Dan Quayle reference in my comment, you still managed to fail it... In addition to being an archaic spelling for potato, it was also a famous spelling error by a former VPOTUS. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potatoe
[UID-HeinzIntel]
Actually its probably one of the best movements we could get going. Lets abandon myth and start looking at the world logically. And it would be one less thing to use to justify killing each other.
what is more logical than...
"you will never achieve real, lasting, peace, prosperity and joy unless the whole community of people treats others as they would like to be treated themselves."
jesus alledged that this was a fundamental truth. it sounds 100% logical to me.
ignoring this "law," if you will, has *always* yielded similar evil, depressing results.
the idea that increased technology and increased knowledge will solve the worlds problems is the fable - and some intellectual types don't quite get this... yet.
and may never will. if they did, they'd admit some carpenter 2000 years ago had better insight into the human condition than they do.
the issue isn't technology, it is relational - how will people view and treat other people.
the usa is the richest country ever. so, let's look at the results...
1. the fed'l governemnt is bankrupt.
2. almost every state government is bankrupt.
3. most local governments are bankrupt.
4. the government steals from people not even born.
5. depression runs rampant.
6. poverty and child hunger is still a serious issue.
7. the government is sold to the highest bidder.
8. our jail system is *massive*, yet not big enough.
9. drug use is epidemic.
10. crime is significant.
11. the average citizen values a BMW more than a corolla + feeding 1000s of starving children.
nope, jesus said guys like you, who put faith in technology and education alone, would fail. what has technology and education CONSISTENTLY delivered?
bigger and better ways to KILL MORE PEOPLE MORE QUICKLY.
in fact, that donkey riding dude born in a manger 2000+ years ago said guys like you would develop weapons so powerful that "now flesh would survivie" except he return and put a stop to the relational madness.
nope, my religious views are rational. very rational. much more rational than someone who relies on inputs (education and technology) that produce more efficient ways to KILL PEOPLE.
ps - i don't belong to any organized religious group b/c i believe every one i'm familiar with is screwed up pretty badly - so i'm not endorsing the nonsense too often passed off as christianity today. don't put me in that boat. but don't throw out the christ baby with the bath water (institutions that basicaly serve their self interest and manmade traditions above the teachings of god).
remember, that same donkey rider said that christianity would deceive many.
"for many shall come in my name and say that i am christ and shall deceive many."
pss - eternal hell is pure nonsense. god isn't a sadist - even if religious "management" would prefer him to be one so they can better impose their will upon the people.
As a Finn, I'd like to share my perspective. I'm 21, so my perspective is modern and not from the possibly more repressive times.
Most are aware of this, but the amount is seen as negligible compared to the "effort" of resigning. Further more, a common viewpoint is that this money goes towards paying your place in the graveyard someday, and supporting church buildings, where many like to get married.
The brainwashing isn't quite working, then. All kids view this as the compulsory part of the one summer, where they endure a week of playing ping pong and singing songs by the campfire to get the presents. All in all, it's much like I imagine the American summer camps for children are, except it's a one week, one time deal. There are lessons about religion, and it's all pretty much memorising prayers and learning how the indexing works in the bible. As religious brainwashing, it's completely teeth-less.
You can choose to either study religion or non-religious view-of-life-stuff (Elämänkatsomustieto), and as far as I know, being a member of the church doesn't forbid you to choose either one. The classes are about aspects of different religions, admittedly weighted on the Lutheran church. This is all useful, general knowledge, since religions are an important thing to know about. The classes don't try to force anyone in to the religion, they are thought as history and geography are. You don't get diplomas if you fail history, either.
The reason no one appears to "critizise or question the church or religion" is not that everyone has been brainwashed, but because religion really isn't such a big deal to vast majority of Finns. We Finns are private people, who like to go about our lives and keep our thoughts to ourselves, not needing organised ceremonies for that. There's nothing really to rebel against - the church has never told me what to do or not do.
Finally, I'd like to note that although I'm against the church tax and don't practice religion at all, I haven't resigned from the church since i) I'm lazy ii) It seems like making a statement, and I like to think through before making statements and iii) I don't want my burial to be a big expense to someone else and like to think that I support the upkeep of beautiful old churches.
I mean seriously, I think all the folks who rant against the US being a theocracy and hot-bed of fundementalism, etc, etc. need to travel around a little bit more, I think they'd be in for some surprises... even in Europe!
I think anyone who thinks that Finland is a theocracy needs to travel around a bit more themselves. We Americans are far more religious than any Scandinavian nation, and ancient, tax code fossils are not representative of how the nation actually views religion today.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I just read an essay on the importance of Dadaism in modern art, hence part of the tone of my posts about the AAFFLACCC, Ltd.
*groan* Why didn't I see that acronymn before?
My blog
I didn't realize there was something soulless and nihilistic about making sure your family isn't larger than you can afford to support. There are two ways of raising young that nature has provided for. Creating a lot of offspring in the hopes a few survive to adulthood, or investing a lot of resources in a fwe offspring to ensure that they will survive to adulthood. With humans reaching adulthood isn't an issue of course. But the quality of the childhood IS still an issue. Two families making the same amount of money can't devote the same amount of attention or resources to 6 or 7 children (and some conservative families get even larger than that going well past 10 children) as they can to 2 or 3.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
I'll clarify the double standard.
Making a baby takes two people. Alice and Bob. If a baby is made Alice can override Bob's desires for that baby one way or the other. So Alice has deciding power. However,if Alice keeps the baby, Bob has an obligation, either to be the caregiver or to pay child support. So Alice has all power, but Bob still has to pay for Alice's decision. That's a double standard.
Furthermore, I agree that child support is not punitive. But it is about holding people responsible for their actions. We hold men responsible for their actions, but we offer women an "out". This is a further double standard. They both made the same decision (have sex) but their options, powers, and obligations are sharply different.
I believe abortion does have consequences. Look up "post abortion syndrome" - a variant of post-traumatic stress disorder. I'm not tyring to punish people - and certainly not single young women facing unexpected pregnancy. I know abortion is it's own punishment. I'd rather not have young women in that position in the first place.
So my arguments for making it illegal are for two reasons.
1. As long as it is legal, women will face intense pressure to choose it as an option. They don't get good info at clinics, their sig others or parents frequently want the "problem" "taken care of" and with abortion legal and only a fw hundred bucks the pressure to do the harmful thing (for the woman) is intense.
2. Most women (and men) assume that if something is legal it can't really be that awful. The worst part of Roe v. Wade wasn't making abortion legal - it was making it socially acceptable. I believe that women can make decisions for themselves if you give them the righ info - but you try passing an "informed consent" law in the face of NOW, NARAL, etc.
My ideal law would restrict abortion excpt in cases of rape, but there'd be no obligation to prove rape occurred. Because the important thing is to create an environment where women can be supported in their choices and have the infor to make those choices. Furhermore, the only person who would be breaking the law in an abortion, in my mind, would be the MD. The woman is already going through enough.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
"Some people really don't like the city putting a monstrous cross high on a hill top but then some Christians decide that only they get to decide what people should like and dislike and force the cross on everyone else even though these Christians don't even have a clear reason for putting there in the first place. So who's being petty here?"
Mmmm, you are? It's been there for like 50 years as a memorial to the WWII war dead (N.B. cross is a pretty standard grave marker). I mean seriously, even freaking communist countries like Viet Nam allow religious icons on public land... and Christians are well in the minority there. If Japanese-Americans wanted to put up a Shinto memorial to the 442nd war dead in a park somewhere, I'd have no problem with it, nor should you.
Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
I didn't realize there was something soulless and nihilistic about making sure your family isn't larger than you can afford to support.
When you can prove that this in any way follows from what I've written, I will bother to respond to the rest of your post.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
What you say makes obvious sense, but then again so does the idea that the earth is flat.
The US is much more of a theocracy and hot-bed of fundementalism than countries like Finland. When you're not listening, we often refer to it as 'the Iran of the western world'.
My take is that this is because the church is government controlled. The best way to make something tired, lazy and inefficient is to have government run it, and I don't think religion is any exception. So I think the extreme vitality, diversity and power of US churches is there exactly because they are not run or protected by the state, but have to compete with each other on a level playing field for souls, power and money.
By a similar logic, I don't foresee a great future for religion in Iran either. The people despise the ruling mullahs.
Why do you assume people are abandoning religion by leaving the church? I don't remember there being anything in the bible about people not getting to heaven unless they pay their church income taxes...
that's b/c there's nothing in the bible about going to heaven under any circumstances.
the meek shall inherit the EARTH.
the saints shall reign on EARTH.
jesus' second coming is to EARTH - there is no second ascension mentioned in the whole book!
god's kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, is coming to earth - that *is* what the good news *is*...
thy kingdom come (TO EARTH!), they will be done on EARTH as it is heaven...
yes, our reward is in heaven, but my son's reard is in toys-r-us. that doesn't mean his next toy will be given to him in toys-r-us, does it?
nope.
revelations tells us that when jeses DESCENDS OUT OF HEAVEN TO EARTH our reward DESCENDS WITH HIM!
it is in heaven now, but our reward will be given to us here on the earth (or in the clouds for those resurrected first).
so, rtfb (read the fun book) - you will see i'm paraphrasing clear and concise statements.
does that mean everyone who teach going to heaven is 100% wrong?
absolutely, 100%.
how can this be?
"for many shall come in my name and say 'i am christ' and shall DECEIVE many."
did you think he was kidding?
i won't even get started on the eternal hell fallacy. no, it doesn't exist and no, god doesn't possess the EVIL in him to develop such a sadistic plan.
does that mean that almost every christian church slanders god's good name?
absolutely!
how can this be?
"for many shall come in my name and say 'i am christ' and shall DECEIVE many."
did you think he was just joking?
rtfb - read the fun book. you might be surprised how badly it is misrepresented by folks who claim to know it.
Also it should be mentioned that the reason why people don't bother to resign from the state church is that it's not such a big deal -- yeah, it's a "State church" but it generally means that the church enjoys "special protection" by the State which these days means nothing more than the fact that the government pays lip service to it, like going to church at the beginning of Parliament once a year, and that some of society's functions are co-operative with the church, like this taxation issue.
It's not like there's some theocracy going on around here. You can't have a state church in these modern times and actually have it USE its special status for something, like religious indoctrination in schools in the spirit of intelligent design -- people would get pissed off. I would actually argue that Americans have much more of a de facto state church than we do, considering how much God is a real force in politics.
People here are rather secular, and they are members of the state church mostly out of habit, like I am. They like the fuzzy feeling they get out of a church wedding, and then there is the older generation that would get upset if their offspring resigned from the church. I know that my membership is mostly because I don't want to piss off grandparents...
I want to play Free Market with a drowning Libertarian.
Yes and millions of people die stupid, useless, horrible deaths every day- but for some reason we only seem to care about the ones inside women who had, definately had, consensual sex. I see it as a punishment for them for breaking the the anti-abortionists moral code.
While you read this, several living, young human beings probably died of starvation. Why are their lives so much less important than a tiny cell mass that is months from being viable? As the ads say, you could save one for 50 cents a month. You could save 1600 for 800 a month. How can you have a soda each day when that would save a human life for an entire month? You can't unless you are engaging in the same calculus as a young female who says her life is more important than another life.
And you can't have it both ways on the rape issue.
Either *some* rape victims will not be believed and forced to bear the child or *some* innocent men will go to prison for raping someone they had consensual sex with so the girl can have an abortion. It is one of those very messy edges of the issue that won't resolve cleanly.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Actually the relationship between church and state keeps things away from fundamentalism;)
If only 10% of people (instead of like 90%) belonged to it, it'd be much more fertile ground for more extreme viewpoints.
I'd actually think it was pretty cool if the cross got replaced with a Shinto memorial. But that would never happen because you Christians are way too petty to ever allow something like that.
Then what church do you go to? Christ certainly did not rebel against RELIGION, just the Pharisees take on it.
this is true. it is also true that he didn't support any organized religious group under some name, either.
There are still rules you need to live by to be a Christian and one of those is associating with those of like beliefs (i.e. church).
actually, that's not true. spirit led people are supposed to associate with spirit led people. they will often have similar beliefs, but may have differing beliefs, too.
it also isn't a law. god's prophets were often ALONE. all by themselves. if god could save them, he could save others who, in good conscience, couldn't find a single other person with similar beliefs today. i'm in that boat today. i can't find a group to associate with b/c they teach traditions of men of god's truth. worse, they slander god's holy, good and righteous character by portraying him as an eternal torturing sadist.
not many religious groups are outside of that nonscriptural nonsense - and every one that i'm aware of is pretty much loony in their own way.
The new testament IS secondarily all about the local NT church and what it is, how it should act, what it should do and what it should believe.
"church" isn't a human religious government. there is one single "church" composed of spirit led christians. who is spirit led? i don't know. only god does.
Baptist (or any name) is simply how you filter that information. You can BE a Baptist without belonging TO a "denomination". I don't belong to the Sounthern Baptist Convention but I am a independent fundamental Baptist because I believe the Baptist beliefs are what the Bible talks about. However, my creed is Christ!
fair enough. but i can't be a baptist when i believe they slander the most valuable asset in existence - god's holy and righteous character - by teaching plato's version of eternal hell, can i?
btw, i can logically *prove* god couldn't create an eternal hell system...
1. god is love.
2. love does NO HARM to one's neighbor.
3. people buring in hell are HARMED.
these 3 statements can't be rationally reconciled.
either you believe god isn't love, or you believe love does harm one's neighbor or you have to reject the eternal hell nonsense.
misapplying the the lazarus and the rich man parable doesn't make plato's imagination truth.
the wages of sin is DEATH, not eternal life in hellfire. the dead know NOTHING. resurrections are meaningless unless one is lifeless - dead - prior to the resurrection.
read ezekiel 37 to see what a *real* physical resurrection looks like.
so, no, i can't associate with others who believe like me b/c, being an independent thinker, i'm probably the only one who believes as i do.
i can, however, hang around folks who stand for what i believe is goodness... and i do.
Not quite...
So you're attempting to refute the statement that not all churches segregate their congregations by age by citing one example of a church that does? That's some pitiful logic.
Which is the worse double standard- to give Alice 9 months to end the pregnancy, or to allow the state, and another individual (presmably we are accepting that the baby is another individual), complete control over her body for 9 months? If you decide to donate your kidney to somebody, you can pull out at any time. Ditto for giving bone marrow or blood. So the State forcing a woman to allow another person to co-opt her body for nine months is pretty extreme, even if that person needs her body to stay alive. And while parents must both support the child after it is born, neither by law has to, for example, donate a kidney to him or her even if not doing so means that the child will die. In fact, I can't think of a single law that requires us to do or not do anything at all to our bodies for any reason what so ever, except for laws against abortion, and also laws preventing suicide. Even after we die, our bodies are our own. The state can possess and sell your posessions if you don't have an heir, but it can't sell your body. In your post, you seem to refer to the father as simply giving money to take care of the child. Presumably, then, the mother would be raising it? So the father has to send a check, while the mother's life is consumed by care of the child- that seems like a pretty bad double standard to me, and if we are assuming neither parent wants the child, then it is one that benefits the father.
Saying that God didn't create morality, he simply chooses to alway do good certainly gets you out of the theological question, but it opens up a lot of argumentws about morality as you now need a *reason* why an action is good or evil, you can't just answer "God says so".
So why is is evil to kill something, if we don't bring souls into it? It's not evil to destroy a rock, or cut down a shrubbery, do you find it evil to kill a pig, if it's done without suffering? What about a puppy?
If you postulate souls, then that allows a simple bright-line rule about when killing something defaults to evil. Without souls, you're left with arguments about utility to society and the like (which aren't very helpful in arguing against abortion).
Most people have a simple rule: "ewww, icky" is evil, otherwise good. This is not a rational rule. Presumably you have a rational rule?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
"I cannot say why church attendance is down" I think most people just don't think its real any more.
that may be some of it, but i bet a LOT of it is that they see how the church acts and, frankly, they get disillusioned. i, for one, can't belong to any religious organization. once i learn what they stand for - i can't support them with my membership.
this is true even though i'm *convinced* god is real and his teachings are 100% on point, even if misrepresented and bastardized by so many religious management teams and marketeers.
You're grossly misrepresenting this entire issue in order to score rhetorical points.
1. No abortion law would force a woman to do anything with her body. It would simply restrict doctors from performing abortions. This isn't just a word trick. It's the difference between forcing someone to do something (which laws rarely do) and simply restricting a class of surgical procedures - which is relatively routine.
2. It's not like pregancy is some weird procedure that incapacitates a woman. I'm not saying it's easy. But it's not like your life just stops when you're pregnant. (How do I know? My wife is pretty far along right now, that's how I know.)
3. resumably, then, the mother would be raising it? Only if she wants to. Once the 9-months are up, the mother can either find relatives to help, or she can give the child up for adoption. Even if you make abortion as birth-control illegal, we're still talking about 9 months period. After that the woman has no obligations that she does not assume herself. This makes this statement: So the father has to send a check, while the mother's life is consumed by care of the child moot.
It comes to this: if a man and a woman have consensual sex they are taking risks. Included among the risks are: getting your heart broken, getting an STD, and getting pregnant. Once there is a pregnancy, there is another human life. The primary objective of good gov't (according to Jefferson) is to protect human life. The child, as a human, has a right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". So you have to ask which right takes precedence - the right of the child to live, or the right of the mother to convenience and comfort for the next 9 months? Right to life, in my opinion, takes precedence.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
Saying that God didn't create morality, he simply chooses to alway do good certainly gets you out of the theological question, but it opens up a lot of argumentws about morality as you now need a *reason* why an action is good or evil, you can't just answer "God says so".
You're absolutely right. And as long as we're this far off-topic, why should I be bothered in moving from abortion to theology?
First of all, I'd like to point out that I never liked the arbitrariness of morality existing "because God says so". So although it certainly is more complicated, at least we have the possibility to remove the arbtirariness from the equation.
Most people have a simple rule: "ewww, icky" is evil, otherwise good. This is not a rational rule. Presumably you have a rational rule?
I'm not going to tell you that I have a completely rational rule. Instead, I'll tell you what my philosophical inspiration is, and where I'm working on from there. First of all, I was most impressed with Simone deBeauvoir's theory that freedom could serve as a basis for all morality. She did some very impressive work at tying it all down to a single root cause. Whatever led to human freedom was "good" and whatever took away from it was "evil". It was kind of left as implied that freedom is inherently superior to lack of freedom. I'd go with that.
I'm just not sure if freedom is really low-level enough. In my own work, I'm trying to make sense of a deeper level - existence or growth. The will to develop, to grow is fundamentally good. The lack of will to grow is evil. Of course that's rather abstract, so getting from there to ordinary rules like "be honest" is going to involve a lot of work. The details, such as I have them developed, are beyond the scope of a slashdot post.
Finally - the general theory I have for morality is that it is more akin to laws of physics than to legal laws. Laws of physics are inherent to that nature or structure of the universe. I believe morality is also intrinsic to the universe - although in a different sense. This is in contradistinction to the idea of morality by divine fiat - which is clearly modelled after the legal-law paradigm.
So, it's not perfect by any stetch of the imagination, but it's what I'm working with and it seems more compelling to me than "good is good because god says so".
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
It may not sound like big news if 41000 people use a web service in some small country somewhere. But it is actually a huge effect. In a country of 5 million, nearly 1% of all people - including kids and pensioners - have resigned from a powerful institution with few clicks in the last couple of years. In US that would correspond to almost 3 million people!
Statistics.
And the Church is terrified. Thay are losing income at an increasing pace. They have already announced a need to shrink the number of priests and church workers in the future.
They're honest to let go people that have no good work scheduled to them. A state wouldn't be so kind as to keep labor ready in correlation to need, but to cause an insolvency to induct in the politic of unused service offsetting actual labor being rendered. It looks like the book of Job is being accurately used in the job security at that church. The clergy are being honest, and want no unnecessary burden to attach/tact/tax upon the congregation.
The Lutheran Church of Finland is still trying to defend it's bastion as a major institution on par with government, army and universities. The lutheran church in Sweden has already been kicked out from government protection and the process is beginning in Norway.
The tone in your words resonate of an unconditional dislike to a church. Whatever doesn't qualify as a church, is not to be trusted to minister on your behalf and to the generosoty of your credit.
The Chuch is still powerful - almost evil - consider this:
- Most don't even notice that 1.3% of their income is sucked out
- At the age of 14, kids have to go to religious camps where they are forced to attest their faith. When they graduate, they are rewarded with presents and told that "now they are adults". You might have thought state-churches are tame, but this a Brainwashing, and nothing else. Bloody sickening.
- Even today there is just one (or two?) graveyards for non-religious people - and the church loves it's monopoly - if you are as an atheist buried to church graveyard, you'll have to pay hefty extra.
- Religion is thought in school, and the 85% who are members, MUST attend and pass. Otherwise no diplomas are coming your way. Could we possibly use this time better? Maths, languages, anyone?
- Due to all this brainwashing, is it no wonder that many people in Finland are completely unable to critizise or question the church or religion. Even though nobody talks about it, it is somehow accepted as a part of "culture".
1.3% of income is all necessary for an efficient government (not Government/person). If they didn't notice their money moving to the church services, and don't notice any improvement to their quality of life in the form of actual church services, then there is a refund in order. I agree that it is sickening for a church to qualify who has committed adultery and who is not, especially whhen the scope of language divides the innocent nature in children to act like an adult in concert with the Queen of the damned. With your evidence of graveyards, according to my Bible, evince that a church that holds graveyards is a grave itself; the Lord Jesus says to "let the dead burry the dead." And don't try my ears to say what religion is or not; all law is a matter of religion; your anger is misplaced at religion and the truth that upholds and established religion, when it need to be re-directed to the misplaced trust a malevolent court wards over you as the subject in controversey (become a court of competent jurisdiction already). There needs to be taught reciprocal thought process, to audit all manner of teaching; starting with "faith" defined as "the evidence of things not seen."
In this perspective the phenomenon that is reported here is perhaps THE best internet movement that has ever taken place in Finland. Lot's of money and people are involved, and I hope, some cleansing of th
without prejudice
That's a straw man and you know it. Yes, millions of people die every year (not day). Do I do my best to lessen the impact of those deaths? Of course. If we had a law mandating the killing of anyone on a day-to-day basis, in a similar fashion to abortion, then I would be opposed to that as well. You can't accuse me of hypocrisy because it's not like I'm saying "abortion is bad" and then killing other innocents wantonly. This is a moral issue, one that involves the legal ability to slaughter innocents. I am against allowing the death of innocents, as a principle, in almost all cases. My hands do nothing to encourage the deaths of innocent by starvation; I can effectively do nothing because I am not governing their countries. I do, however, have a voice in the US, and can directly affect abortion legislation, so I will. I'm not saying the lives lost to abortions are more important than those lost to other tragedies; I wish there was something more that could be done about other tragedies, but I am either ill-informed about them or disgusted at the ways in which we've decided to fight them. I am, however, well informed about abortion, and believe I can effect change in this arena. To try and tell me then that my desire to do so is somehow hypocritical or otherwise ill-founded is to criticize any person who attempts to participate in one good cause without participating in every other. What are you trying to prove?
No, I didn't say a rape victim should ever be denied an abortion. Quite frankly, I'd be comfortable with American laws simply stating that abortions are illegal except in cases of rape or possible death to the mother. If women want to lie about it, fine. That's something I can't avoid. But I wholeheartedly believe that the simple fact that the Supreme Court says it's "ok" to abort a baby has more influence on the number of abortions than anything else in the US right now. If a woman is so desperate to not face the consequences of her actions that she'll falsely claim rape, then it's unavoidable. She'll find some way to kill that child. But that distinction, on a philosophical level, is very important. And it's one we should make.
A tithe is either a [[tax]] when enforced by the state, or a [[membership fee]] when enforced by a church. Tithing according to the Old Testament of the Bible should be 10%, but the New Testament, which lays down the law to be followed by present day Christians, merely suggests we joyfully give that we may receive. 2 Corinthians 9:7Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.
:-)
A tithe is not a tax. The root cause of "tax" is to resist and impede an unlawful conveyance or use of property. Tax is originally not monetary in nature, but in the perspective of persons ministered through society is the conveyance attached with fiscal operation. Thereby, all tax exercised through an office of trust, either public or private, is "attachment" evinced in Negotiable Instruments Law. If satisfactory performance is "payed", then the "tax" is displaced. Coercing services upon a person, and demanding a tax of that person for the services rendered or not, is unlawful; it's not a tax, but a lien executed with deception and quiet title.
An example; it is thought that "street-sweeping" and "garbage collection" services are unconditional and with necessity or lawful, when in fact they are voluntary and optional. About 2 years ago, a lady locked her motor-carriage shut near the road without a key at the house. The lady 'phoned a message to move the motor-carriage before it could prevent the "street-sweeping" service from rendering service. A good 15 minutes before the "street-sweeping" service personel arrived or even seen with a "parking witch" in towe, I sweeped and panned the entire road reasonablly clean of debris and left a large non-negotiable Note attached to the broom leaned to the bumper of the locked motor-carriage. Service was already rendered, and it was not lawful to try the matter again/twice/double-jeopary because the true Street Sweeper already appeared and was payed for his 15 minutes of labor. The "parking witch" arrived, studied the Note, shook his head as he motored away as to figure there is to be found prey to obstruct a quasi-contracted "street-sweeping" service.
What does that have to do with tithe? Check my post history, here where I reason tithe is simply a "measure of ten" and applied in de jure church as one of ten children dedicated to perform church services. Tithe in the form of money is deception. A tax is an attachment to impede or resist an act or performance. A tithe is voluntary. There is a lot of corruption moving about. Lazy people throw fines (an excessive executive order) and coerce people to voluntarily admit into staged entertainment/detainment at theatres with tickettes.
At least I know I'm speaking to someone reasonable.
without prejudice
Pregnancy is different because the baby is literally living inside of its mother. I think that a person's body is their absolute domain.
Did you see the Simpson episode where Wigam (what's his name? - the police guy) tells Homer he can do whatever he wants to someone who comes into his house? So then Homer's like "hey Ned, come over" and grabs a club. And as Ned walks over Chief Wiggam says "it doesn't work if you invite them in".
Same principle here. A woman - or any person - has absolute sovereignty over their own domain unless they are the ones responsible for bringing someone else there. It's like (and this is a weird, stretched example - but a valid one) if I were to kidnap somebodys small child and surgically insert it into myself - does that mean I can do whatever the hell I want with it? Because now it's in me? NO - because I'm responsible for it being there in the first place, so I can't play that card.
Same deal.
And finally, don't act like in American law or morality you can do whatever you want with your own body. You can't inject certain substances and you can't commit suicide. There are limits here.
So again, BECAUSE the child is inside the woman as a result of of the woman's own choice the "my body" argument is not as valid, and the childs right to LIVE trumps the womans (self-compromise) right to have dominion over her own body (for a limited period of time).
One more thing. Imagine we could create an artificial womb - what then? I'd say a woman has the right to expel the child, but would then (as with a man) by financially obligated to it. You can't just create a kid and walk away.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
I agree with you that abortion as birth control says a lot about the person doing it, and it's not good.
I think there's a difference between people who've taken precautions and still gotten pregnant, then do something about it as quickly as they possibly can (using a morning after pill, for example).
There's also something else to consider though. Do you really want the people who would use abortion as birth control bearing (and raising) lots of children?
While you read this, several living, young human beings probably died of starvation.
Blah blah blah.
A - I DO care. I donate heavily. I can do two things at once.
B - It's about sphere of influence. The US should save US lives first, foreign lives second. That's what countries are there for.
C - It's about principle. Our gov't is not necessarily betraying its principles when it doesn't give enough foreign aid. It is betraying its principles when America is no longer protecting the right to "life, liberty and happiness" of those conceived in its borders.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
I wonder ... is paying the church tax helps you advance into heaven?!
There is no tax. To enter the door, you need a key. The key can't be bought. The key is carried by the living. Many of the people ask if it's a monkey.
without prejudice
Just to point out, there's a difference between life and human life. Every cell in your body is alive yet we slough them off and they die all the time.
Possibly excepting the parasite guy I think pretty much everyone agrees that ending human life without a REALLY good reason is bad. Different people just have different definitions of when mere life becomes human life.
Today, a State is divisioned/separatged to administer executive remedy with an office of public trust. A de jure church can only minister that original in the charter (Holy Bible). Look at the first section of the Law of Nations, and you'll discover the state is the people while an independent state is known simply by a change in character as "State". Strange how a "S" can change from a "s", to mean the difference between subordinate or independent? Perhaps this has more to evince the disappearance of "the Great State" or whatever lingo they were once known throughout the "Great Registry." A church does more to move the role of the state; the church congregation as legislative and the judiciary is the clerck/clergy. A judge doesn't subpoena evidence/faith into the room of negotiation/court without disqualification (joinder to one of the parties); a judge only acknowledges dishonour or disgrace from another's interest in a matter.
Didn't anyone remind you that "all law is a matter of religion"? Law is upheld by oath to be Trusted with property to held on another's benefit. Think of law as the grantor, in a matter of Trust law. A state doesn't separate from a church, and that's a verry ill-balanced metaphor or paradigm to employ. This is true because the origin of that chaotic statement would trace back to the masonic routes of the United States of America/organic (aka Jefferson, Franklin, et al) co-existing to the several states (Virgina, Pennsylvania, et al). The united "States" in terms of Law of Nations as was chartered under, are said to be Nation-states competing against their grantor/state. That is why it is said Massachusettes is a state while "State of Massachusettes" is a Nation-state within a state (unlawful). This is not allowed even by the Constitution, and was only possible because the original state was revoked by the then King. If the King reclaimed his estate, then the Nation-state would be at second-rate birth-right and thereby quashed of any claim. That could be why the United States can't prove it is de jure, because it's verry founding stemps from National Emergency and Executive Orders implicitly admitting a perpetual state of war to prevent the de jure claim.
without prejudice
Oh yeah, the old 'it's a potential life' x-tian. Using your fucktarded logic, then sperm must be potential life as well. Most likely you have fucked your hand, so thousands of dead sperm. You just committed murder. Once again going by your fucktarded logic, you are going to hell for killing. The bible states 'thou shalt not kill.' Shame on you for committing murder.
How about this one: "To please no one will I prescribe a deadly drug nor give advice which may cause his death. Nor will I give a woman a pessary to procure abortion." - the Hippocratic Oath
I may twist orthodoxy to partly justify a tyrant. But I can easily make up a German philosophy to justify him entirely.
1. No abortion law would force a woman to do anything with her body. It would simply restrict doctors from performing abortions.
:-). But I wonder if your wife would be so quick to write off the difficulties of pregnancy ;-) (I am a man also, BTW.) Also, talk to her about it after has given birth. I have spoken to, I think, my mother about it, and she has told me that in a way, for her birth was a very scary thing because her body was completely out of her control. The child does to some degree take over the womans body slowly, but more completely, over the 9 months, to the point that during child birth itself, the child completely takes control. This is biologically natural, but it doesn't change the nature of what it is- the child co-opting the mother's body for its own benefit.
I thought that the medical community typically self regulated what sorts of medical procedures it performs, perhaps with the exception of new and experimental procedures whose risks are not well understood. Many types of abortions certainly don't fall under the category of experimental. But my knowledge of this is limited. But in any case, what if Jehova's witnesses hypothetically wanted to pass a law that denied blood transfusions? Would you be so anxious to make these subtle distinctions about whether such a law is forcing a person to act upon their body, or simply routinely outlawing types of surgical procedures. What if they wanted to pass a law that allowed blood transfusions only when your life was in immediate danger? Would that make it OK? I know for me, it would not, and similarly if my wife is pregnant, and her health or life is in my estimation in any danger due to her pregnancy, I want the State the heck out of the decision. I would presumably feel the same way if I were a woman.
2. It's not like pregancy is some weird procedure that incapacitates a woman. I'm not saying it's easy. But it's not like your life just stops when you're pregnant. (How do I know? My wife is pretty far along right now, that's how I know.)
Well, congratulations
Only if she wants to. Once the 9-months are up...
What I was trying to say with that last statement, and probably should have just said, is that the nature of child birth pretty much favors the man who doesn't want to have a child over the woman. In principle, the very hypothetical situation you describe can occur, and genetic testing evens the playing field a lot, so to speak, but as a practical matter, it is easier for a man to keep an unwanted pregnancy from affecting his life than a woman, if for no other reason that over the course of the pregnancy he can physically separate himself from the reality of the child in a way that the mother cannot.
It comes to this: if a man and a woman have consensual sex they are taking risks...
I was specifically trying to adress your comment that allowing abortion is in some sense as much, or nearly as much, anti-feminist as outlawing abortion, which I think is simply not accurate. This is God's, or Nature's fault, but there is an inherent unequalness in pregnancy, and it tends to favor the man.
Once there is a pregnancy, there is another human life. The primary objective of good gov't (according to Jefferson) is to protect human life.
The problem with the statement is that we mean something a heck of a lot more sophisticated and complicated when we refer to human life. Muscle sheets grown for medical research are in some sense human life. So, perhaps, are human ears grown on the back of mice. Or a hypothetical human heart grown in vitro. So when we refer to the opinions on abortion of the geniuses of the past, secular and religious, their wisdom is not as topical as we would like it to be, because they could not imagine the sorts of issues we are dealing with now. While a fertilize egg is certainly human life, I have never heard a convincing argument for why it is a human individual, or at least deserves to be tre
Note my emphasis. The list you quote isn't a declaration of rights in and of itself; it's a declaration that the deprivation of rights on the basis of the listed factors is unacceptable.
The part you emphasized is stating that it is not acceptable to deprive a child of the given human rights on a basis of the family they're born into. Basically, it's denouncing things such as India's old caste system, not making a statement on the morallity of abortion.
right out of the brothers karamazov. you're so cool.
As much as I agree with you, you've chosen some awful examples.
IIRC the Spanish Armada was sent on behalf of the Pope to punish Elizabeth for her father leaving the Catholic church, her and her brother supporting the reformation and the nation of England for letting them get away with it. Sure, the spanish wanted power rather than piety, but the pope was in on it.
The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon (templars) were a religious order famed for their unorthodoxy later on in the order's existance. Phillip IV was a close ally of the current pope at the time, all of his actions against the order had papal blessing whether they were the pope's idea or not.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
I challenge you to rationally justify your expectation that the sun will rise tomorrow.
Seriously, philosophers have been trying to do that for hundreds of years and none has yet succeeded.
I wouldn't want to inadvertently find myself inside an imaginary church.
Come to think of it, perhaps they keep the invisible pink unicorn in there.
lalala
A father and his twelve-year-old son, carrying bibles, smartly dressed. Apprehensive kid says something about a mission. I interrupt, take option three, but thanks anyway, close the door. All day I wondered whether I had been unjust to the poor boy—perhaps I should have heard him out—but how can one have a sensible exchange about religion with a child? It took me off guard; I hope he had better luck elsewhere.
In Spain we have separation but sadly we have concordato. Help us to fight them. http://concordato.org/
Oh, and in Ireland there are MANY options to get an abortion. One involves an hour drive, the other an hour flight. There used to be a medical ship performing them outside of Irish territorial waters, but I think that's gone these days.
You need to differentiate between geographical, religious, cultural, political and economic groups - "Western countries" is too vague.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
It is of course not that easy that one is the cause and one is the cover. The religion and the social conditions at the end of the middle ages were both necessary conditions for the crusades. Making social conditions the cause of wars is like make humans a cause for war. Humans are indeed a necessary condition for wars, but there are humans that don't go to war, and there are people in miserable social conditions that don't go to war. Something else is needed.
However, christianity in itself has a number of characteristics that makes it prone to be a cause or cover for wars. For one, it is universalistic: That is, it claims it is the only path to salvation. Hence it is a good deed to bring another human to the belief. The degree to which the aims sanctify the means have varied through the centuries, but the basic principle has lasted into modern days (today, many churches aren't as absolutist in their views of this principle, but this is a fairly recent development).
There's another understanding of this scene:
Peter says, "You're the Messiah, God's Son."
Jesus says, "You're Peter."
Jesus built his church on the bedrock that God and human came face to face and each recognized the other for who he was.
There's also something else to consider though. Do you really want the people who would use abortion as birth control bearing (and raising) lots of children?
No, I don't. But that doesn't mean I think we take that out on the innocent children. Furthermore, there are a lot of people I don't particularly want to have children, but it's a long way from there to making "minimum requirement" type of laws for pregnancy. A long road I don't even want to start down.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
I thought that the medical community typically self regulated what sorts of medical procedures it performs
r om%20Winter02-03.pdf. Abortion is a hellish procedure and it is generally men who actively coerce women into it or at least - through refusal to support them - leave them in a predicament where it seems like the only option. I think the real societal cost of making abortion illegal would be in giving genuine support to women in crisis prenancy - and that's a cost that I'm willing to pay. I think it's a price we, as a society, are indebted to pay. Our current abortion law is like telling mothers of infants they are free to kill their children and then expecting them to do this if they can not afford to feed them. This is a perverse view of freedom.
You mean like assisted suicide? We just let the medical community self-regulate on that? How about euthanasia?
Next.
This is biologically natural, but it doesn't change the nature of what it is- the child co-opting the mother's body for its own benefit
Thanks for the congrats. And I have talked to other people about pregnancy. My mother had 6 of us kids. But I'm not trying to argue that being pregant (or labor) is not a burden. It IS. And I'm not saying it's punishment. It's just the natural consequence of having sex. It's a risk you run. And once you've run the risk you have to ask which right has priority:
1. right of child to live (for ever)
2. right of woman to control own body (for 9 months)
Both in terms of time frame and severity (not to mention culpability - the mother is 50% resonsible for the child being there, the child is 0% responsible for being there) the right of the unborn to live is the primary right that ought to be protected.
The problem with the statement is that we mean something a heck of a lot more sophisticated and complicated when we refer to human life. Muscle sheets grown for medical research are in some sense human life
Not to be rude, but this is silly. A fingernail is not a person. An embryo is. This is not a complicated issue. One is a human entity in its entirety, the other is not. Believe me, I've been down this road countless times and the only thing that surprises me is that people still think it's a valid contention. Human life, in this sense, means a unique human being. Not a part of one (human ear on a mouse) and not a potential of one (a sperm or an egg).
I'm not trying to score points. I just think your posts are normally pretty good, but you don't seem to have the courage to face the cost of deciding abortion should be made illegal. But outlawing abortion, we pay a cost in womens rights, paid for by and large by women and not by men.
I realize there is definitely a cost, but I flatly disagree that it is the cost you think it is. Go and read anything from the "feminists for life". Abortion on demand does not free women - nor does it respect them. Try some links: http://www.feministsforlife.org/voices/Voices%20f
The only difference is that with abortion we can also convince some of them that their unborn child is a "clump of cells". This usually works until about the time that that same woman sees her "baby" (because that's what they call it if you want to keep it) when she eventually gets pregnant on purpose.
But at heart abortion is just that - the expectation that women abort their unborn rather than become a burden on their boyfriend or on society. It allows men to treat women as reusable sexual objects. When a woman has an abortion she is not free - she lives with that for the rest of her life. But now the father is out of child payments and responsibility. How is that equitible?
Just go ahead an replace "abortion" with "infanticide" in all your arguments and tell me how comfortable you are with legalizing infanticide in the name of women's rights - and whether you think it would make anyone free.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
It would be morally wrong, unless there is a provocation.
bin Laden claims many were in place, his attack did not come out of the blue.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The Church shouldn't have any influence over the state - big business doesn't like competition.
I am anarch of all I survey.
"remember that many of these people came from a country whose king destroyed an entire religion just to get a divorce"
Creating a splinter is not "destroying" anything, unless you want to consider every other Christian offshoot as "destroying" what it spawned from.
"I mean seriously, I think all the folks who rant against the US being a theocracy and hot-bed of fundementalism, etc, etc. need to travel around a little bit more, I think they'd be in for some surprises... even in Europe!"
So because someone else is going through the same (or worse) treatment, we should feel grateful and not want better for ourselves and our government? Absolute bullshit.
Oops, typo. Just for clarity sake the numbers should read:
"(69% of 0.6% of 5.25 million people used this site)"
Guess I should be a little more careful when commenting on the way out of the office for the day.
--
Any typos in the above comment are, of course, due to the 'Friday Effect'
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
"Religion is entirely congruent with thinking logically."
Based on false premises. The most dizzyingly complicated Christian apologetics build their arguments on expectations and preconditions that atheists find laughable.
"There are plenty of arguments for the existence of God and of the existence of the soul that are seen as worth considering even by the atheist scholars in the field."
There are no arguments for the existence of the "soul" convincing to anyone outside of pseudo-theistic and certainly pseudoscientific new-agers. Your "surely some atheists must cave to this incredible logicmachine!" statements are based on wishful thinking, nothing more.
Please point out, at your earliest convenience, where either Stormin or myself, or any of the pro-life people in this thread, have attempted to justify our logic by means of religion? Every point we've made has been either philosophical or scientific in nature. The only time God has come up is when one of you f*cking morons decides: "ZOMG, TEHY"RE PRO LIFE, THEY MJUST LOV E JESUSSSBS1!!!!!!111111000!!!"
I know this may tax your severely underpowered brain, but try and consider for a moment that there are perfectly ethical and moral reasons to oppose abortion that have nothing to do with religion. This is not about scripture. A fetus is a human life. We should not kill humans without extremely good cause. Inconvenience for nine months on the part of a mother who engaged in consensual sex is not extremely good cause. An abortion ends the life of a fetus. Therefore, abortion is wrong, and should be illegal, except in cases of rape or potential death of the mother. Show we where the fuck that involves prescribing my religious beliefs on someone. Really, I'm fascinated. Please do.
On top of this, ALL businesses pay a certain percentage of church-tax. It doesn't matter if none of the employees are members of the church, hell even Muslim-owned businesses pay taxes to the Lutheran church.
If your turban feels tight, you'd better return that brand new Nokia of yours ... and on the other hand, a Nokia phone is just what your Bible should have next to it for the "secular" connecting of people. ;) Yes, they don't really advertise being Finnish (they prefer being thought of as a Japanese corp), but part of their revenues end up paid out for these churches too.
But it's not that the church is scared of losing money so much -- it has more investments (and yearly corporate tax income) that it can comfortably stash away. (Hell, they're probably the largest Finnish entity doing ethical investing.) The church's problem is the same as Microsoft's: once it gets below 90% "market share", it's former dominance and assiciated glitter is gone no matter how much it has in the bank.
You mean like assisted suicide? We just let the medical community self-regulate on that? How about euthanasia?
Assisted suicide and euthanasia are important issues in their own right, but let's admit that their are important differences between them and abortion. Even if we assume that a fetus is a complete human being, then abortion is about whether a woman can have a procedure done to her own body that also directly affects another person's body. This is a completely different issue than assisted suicide or euthanasia, which is about whether we want to allow people to end their own lives, either through their own actions, or by proxy. But frankly, I don't terribly like the idea of the State involved with that decision, either.
Not to be rude, but this is silly. A fingernail is not a person. An embryo is.
I don't take offense, but I think you are drastically oversimplifying the issue. I believe that we are more than simply a clump of cells, or a bunch of atoms, or a bunch of subatomic particles, both in a metaphysical sense, but also in a physical sense. We exhibity behavior that I think ultimately cannot be most satisfactorily understood as the simply the behavior of a clump of cells. We are something more. We love, think, hope, and dream, among other things. But I am a scientist, and I expect our humanity to be associated with something observable in Nature, at least as a general rule. A fertilized egg (let's talk about a fertilized egg, since it is a less ambiguous term than "embryo" or "fetus") does not exhibit any of these properties. It is only a cell, and it will divide, and that is it. A muscle cell in the lab also divides, and also has a genetic code. I certainly don't consider the muscle cell to be a person because it does not do these things that I associate with a human being, such as dream, love, etc. Similarly, if we found some entity that was certainly NOT human life, a robot or an alien say, that exhibited these properties, then I would presumably have to extend everything important about the concept "human being" so that it applied to the new entity as well. In my view, a fertilized egg is most correctly understood as part of a natural process that includes then existence of a human being.
Go and read anything from the "feminists for life"...
Freedom is a complicated concept. For me, it means something along the lines of being allowed to do what God intends you to do. I don't think that as a general rule, God thinks using abortion as birth control is a good thing to do. However, freedom also means the government staying out of people's lives, and letting them decide what God intends for them to do. The US has a history of this liberal interpretation of what "freedom" means, within limits of course. Women don't necessarily gain freedom in an absolute sense by having abortions, but by being allowed to have abortions they do gain freedom in the liberal political sense I mentioned above. I think you are right, though, in that we don't want women feeling coerced to have abortions.
Our current abortion law is like telling mothers of infants they are free to kill their children and then expecting them to do this if they can not afford to feed them.
Again, I think this just misconstrues the country's attitude towards abortion. I think the truth in what you are saying is that many womens-rights organizations want to ignore the cost of allowing abortions. They don't seem to want to admit that abortions are by default bad things, and in a best case scenario only the best of several bad options. But again, I claim that you seem to want to similarly ignore that making abortions illegal impedes womens rights or freedom, in the liberal political sense I mentioned earlier.
But at heart abortion is just that - the expectation that women abort their unborn rather than become a burden on their boyfriend or on society.
One more thing on this characterization of abortion- practically speaking, I think the "cost"
You probably didn't, but take a look at the subject line. The topic is about religion. You may not have started it, but that's the way it went.
There's more to it than "inconvenience" and there is certainally more to it than nine months. Unwanted children will not be cared for. If the mother is irresponsible to get pregnant by accident in the first place, what kind of child would she bring up? I've always argued that many of the problems in our society are directly linked to bad parenting. Many parents would rather watch TV than to rear their children into responsible adults.
This isn't a debate I enter often, so this may be wrong but I remember reading once about how crime statistics were linked to abortion. In places where it was outlawed, unwanted children were dropped out one after the other. Crime rates shot up as did unemployement and all the other issues associated with lazy-as-fuck parenting.
That's bad logic. If it's wrong, it's wrong. The old adage here "two wrongs do not make a right". Potential death is of course different (as the fetus would die anyway), but I don't really understand the "rape only" clause. It's either murder or it's not.
Perhaps you didn't, but you are prescribing your own moral beliefs on everyone else which is just as bad. In fact, some religious people would say it is worse as they are on a "mission from god" or something. ;-)
My stance on this issue is quite simple. It's a decission for the doctor and parents involved only. You can make your opposition known, but don't try to physically or legally stop them. Some people believe that cars are destroying the planet and are morally wrong for that reason. Should their beliefs trump yours? Should you give up your car?
It is not a bloody straw man.
It is a fact. By focusing your efforts on the abortion issue other people are dying of cancer, starvation, genocide.
You have made the personal decision that that is worse than the other ways of dying so it gets your attention, money, posts, and volunteer time first. You have made the decision that occasionally going to a movie, having a steak dinner, and driving a new car is more important than the lives of several thousand humans around the globe that you could donate food to.
99% of us do that *every* day. We are not going to sacrifice our ice cream after dinner so that 6 people in indonesia can be saved from starving for a month. I accept that most of us do the same thing. What I don't do is pick a particular subset of dying people and use it as a pretext to try to control other people's lives.
I also hate cigarette smoke but I hate the move to ban "second hand" smoke even more. We are all giving up our freedoms one at a time- and as we give each one up, another yahoo rises to point out yet another freedom that is too dangerous for us to continue having.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
It is not our government's job to force us to involuntarily donate money to foreign countries, many of whom may be making insane decisions that bring on their own pain.
My point is that many more humans could be saved with the money and time that are spent fighting abortion. The fight over abortion, the war on terror, and the war on drugs are basically destroying our country.
The abortion fight causes the religious conservatives to close their eyes and keep voting for evil people who are selling the country away to soulless multi national corporations who exploit children, run sweatshops, and engage in completely amoral behavior while destroying people's lives and poisoning our land. In the past the religious types would have been fighting these things- but as long as the republicans *promise* to fight against abortion, they get the votes without regard to all the other damage being done. Hell, I don't even think the republicans *want* to win the issue. The second they do, they lose their base.
The wars on terror and drugs are turning a nice easy going libertarian capitalist country into a fascist state where everything is owned on a monopoly basis by corporations for "live + 75 years".
I don't even know why I'm going on about all this- I saw all this a decade ago and mostly just disconnected. I'm gerrymandered into an 80/20 district where my vote doesn't matter either bleeding way. I do volunteer work but increasingly see that it is futile. I give donations but increasingly feel the same. Every time i see the head of some charity organization is making five times my salary, I wonder why the hell am I donating money to them?
Every time I see a religious type outright lying in an argument over evolution, I am saddened.
It is so easy to just ignore all this and be very happy in my personal life and so pointless to get involved any more.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
My point is that many more humans could be saved with the money and time that are spent fighting abortion. The fight over abortion, the war on terror, and the war on drugs are basically destroying our country.
So what? Are you saying we should have allowed slavery to continue and then used the economic might of the US resulting from that to make sure Africans didn't starve?
You're not making nearly as much sense as you think you are making.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
Whatever led to human freedom was "good" and whatever took away from it was "evil". It was kind of left as implied that freedom is inherently superior to lack of freedom. I'd go with that.
Oddly enough, I wrote a paper on that back in college (between dinosaur attacks). It's the best non-devine system for morality I've seen, because it allows for the possibility of divine morality. If you can't prove what's "good", then you need to err on the side of freedom, lest you restrict the actions of the guy who actually has the answers. The only hitch is that you must assert that enabling freedom is good (and restricting it evil) as an axiom, you can't reason to there from "we don't know what the right system is". That dovetails nicely with a bunch of theodicy (evil exists in the world because freedom is important), but is less of a satisfactory answer for us atheists.
Remember as you work on your own beliefs that there are people who's moral philosophy is that controlling others is good (doing it for their own good, or just the joy of maliciously screwing with people). It's quite difficult to discard "freedom is good" as an axiom and work to a lower level because of this. Best of luck!
My point on the abortion issue was that most people feel that killing a blastocyst is evil for the same reason they feel that killing a cute little puppy is evil, despite being OK with killing animals for food - it's a completely emotional basis. Unless you assert a soul, it's hard to find a rational basis for this.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
You're making a lot of leaps without much ground to stand on. First, there isn't more to it than nine months. If the mother is determined to not take care of the child, make it a ward of the state. We have a system in place for this very purpose. And to counter an argument that is often brought up against that point, we can't proactively judge the quality of anyone's life. It's unethical to say: "Well, their life would have sucked anyway, so let's just kill them." We do not have the right or the ability to say, with any modicum of certainty, whether someone else's life would be worth living. We should not punish an innocent child for the acts of his/her parents.
I don't know where those statistics are from but they sound extremely circumstantial. I'll just say that correlation does not imply causation, and leave it at that for now. I happen to share your disdain of bad parenting, but this is probably where my view differs from what pro-abortionists commonly believe: I don't care about the parents. My only concern is to make sure an innocent life is not taken. If they are going to be idiots or irresponsible (and I honestly do not believe that most people who get abortions are), then that's unfortunate, but their child has the right to live, just like anyone else. And I will defend that right to the death.
Explain how the logic is bad? I am in favor of outlawing an act that, by my proposed points, is immoral. You haven't refuted any of the underlying logic; you're just trying to tell me it's impractical because you don't want stupid parents raising kids. That's besides the point. Abortion is the murder of a human being. We should endeavor to prevent murder wherever possible. It seems pretty straightforward.
As far as the rape-only clause, let me make a quick analogy. We both agree that murder means "to kill intentionally," right? If I shoot someone in the head because they looked at me funny, I am murdering them. If I shoot someone in the head because they broke into my house and shot at my family and me, I am also murdering them. The difference there is the intent, though. In my eyes, an abortion because of rape is still murder, but it should be an option, because the rape victim didn't have a choice in getting herself pregnant. The state does not have the legal right to force someone into action, especially not the victim of a crime. However, the amount of abortions performed because of rape is exceedingly small. (I do not have an official statistic on-hand, because Planned Parenthood has fought tooth-and-nail to make sure that very little data regarding the rationale behind abortions remains anonymous. However, the few studies I have read all concluded that it was less than 10%.) Therefore, the majority of abortions are for "elective" reasons, and I don't believe there's any elective reason that could possibly justify murder. The state has the legal right to force someone to accept the consequences o
My point on the abortion issue was that most people feel that killing a blastocyst is evil for the same reason they feel that killing a cute little puppy is evil, despite being OK with killing animals for food - it's a completely emotional basis.
This is probably true. But it is also true that most people opposed to limiting abortion feel that way for reasons that aren't rational either. The rhetoric is charged on both sides, and I think it's almost axiomatic that human beings tend to make political and religious decisions in non-rational ways. (Decision-making is another fascination of mine, although I'm just learning the basics as I work my way through "Consciousness Explained" by Dennet.)
Unless you assert a soul, it's hard to find a rational basis for this.
It depends on the context. If I am arguing the philosophical morality of abortion I may need to dip back into abstract principles, but what I'm really arguing for above all else is a policy decision. It's law. And I can argue that case effectively without any recourse to mention of a soul one way or the other.
In fact, my primary argument against abortion (as birth control) is constitutionally based. First of all, the Roe v. Wade decision is ludicrous (from a constitutional law standpoint). Secondly, the primary right is the right to life. I believe burden of proof should be on those trying to restric the application of this freedom (since every time it has been historically restricted it has been done so wrongly, as with the Jews, blacks, etc.) So if you want to see a fetus has no right to life - you have to say why. The reason for this is simple: a fetus is unambiguously a unique human being. So if you want to deny a human being human rights - you have to provide the reasoning. I've never seen this successfully done. And as long as the fetus retains the right to life I consider this to trump the right of the woman to control over her own body for 9 months (if pregnancy results from consensual sex between competent adults).
That's a hard-line stance that is softened considerably by my arguments about abortion and sexism. I feel America's abortion policy is decidedly anti-woman. Just look at the reaction of NARAL and NOW to "informed consent" laws. Clearly the pro-choice leaders are far more interested in protecting idealogy (to say nothing of revenue) than with actual freedom (since freedom is nullified by ignorance). So even though I feel the hard-line "right to live" trumps "right to body" is sufficient, I feel the case is actually far, FAR stronger than that once you bring in additional societal issues. I honestly feel like women are cheated by this policy. We tell them they are free, but what we mean is that they are free not to be a burden to men who want to use them for sexual gratification. If women also want to have sex without consequences, then I guess they're happy too. But we've managed to coerce them into making a horrible decision in the name of freedom. It's truly Orwellian.
So even though I'm happy to get into theological and philosophical issues, when I argue abortion policy I find that I can get all the ammunition I need from constituional law etc. rather than needing to go all the way back to defining good vs. evil. I mean, you could argue every issue all the way back to questioning of moral axioms, but I just don't think you need to do that to get an answer in this case. So I start with law, move to sociology, and then move into philosophy if absolutely necessary. Theology I never bring into it except for academic interest.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
I think it does help sway the line a bit though. For example, is it better to allow morning after pills, which are seen as abortions by many religions, or to force all those women who don't want a child to bring it to term? What's worse, aborting a clump of less than a dozen cells or condemning a child to a bad upbringing by resentful parents?
ARG!!! - I can't believe I'm getting into this stupid thread...
I just have one point: You can't rely on those kind of reports as an
acceptable version of english - words are often used to obscure rather
then inform. So, you will see words shackled into tortured arrangements
that strongly imply one thing while actually meaning another.
That is why words such as 'tasked' and 'realignment' become so popular.
Then again, the way normal people use the language - double negatives, 'got'
instead of 'had'...
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
I don't want to come off as mean, because you have some interesting interpretations here, but if you formated the post into the more common paragraph/sentence structure it would be much easier to parse. And your shift key obviously works, but you missed capitalizing every sentance. Also, the extra spaces break the flow more than you may have realized. And finally, a few citations would strengthen your position.
But hey, it's easy to be a critic...
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
What's worse, aborting a clump of less than a dozen cells or condemning a child to a bad upbringing by resentful parents?
This is a totally false dichotomy. Why not just do adoption? Furthermore, by this logic, you have to ask why we don't just line all foster kids against a wall and shoot them.
For example, is it better to allow morning after pills, which are seen as abortions by many religions, or to force all those women who don't want a child to bring it to term?
Not just religions, but science too. At conception you have a new human being. So I'm opposed to the morning-after pill. There is some moral difference, however, since with the morning after pill you don't know you are killing a human being - you just might be. So legally, I think there's some room for debate.
But my main beef is with your "isn't abortion better than..." This is a quality of life argument. They are extremely compelling, extremely popular, and almost always extremly irrational.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
Science doesn't say that at conception you have a new human life. That's a religious statement. Some of us aren't religious. Adoption is great -- but it has problems. Otherwise there wouldn't be so many kids living in families that don't want them.
Your third sentence is ridiculous and convinces me that you've made up your mind and aren't even considering new ideas. Have a good day.
Science doesn't say that at conception you have a new human life.
In a way you're right. It's not science, it's common sense. But it sure as hell isn't religion.
Here's the thing. It's a unique entity - that much is obvious (it's not the same as the mother, has it's own DNA, etc.). It's also alive. So you tell me. If it's alive, it's human, and it's unique how is it not a human being?
Your third sentence is ridiculous and convinces me that you've made up your mind and aren't even considering new ideas.
I'll let you know when you hit me with a new idea. You certainly haven't done it yet.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
It's an irrelevant fact. Simply because there are other evils present and ongoing in the world does not mean I shouldn't fight another evil at home. What are you getting at? That it's all pointless?
I make the judgment that it is worse to deliberately kill someone who is completely innocent than to, by inaction, possibly prevent the death of another through indirect means. And further, until you can prove that my abstinence of movie-going, steak-dinners, and a new car directly translates into lives saved, you're not proving anything. From where I'm standing, a great deal of the money we donate to charities or to foreign countries in need of aid gets funneled right into the hands of corrupt politicians. Does this mean we shouldn't keep trying to help? Of course not; it's our duty to try to prevent suffering when we can. But it does shed quite a bit of doubt on your idea that my simple lifestyle is somehow directly contributing to the deaths of innocents.
This doesn't make any sense at all. I am not attempting to control someone's life. A rational human being should be held accountable for their actions, end of story. If you think forcing someone to accept the consequences of having sex is "controlling their life," then the argument is essentially over. You're no longer operating rationally. All I am attempting to do is show that we have legalized a form of murder (which we have) and change it.
This is true only if you consider that lives saved through education are irrelevant, and that any money and time we give to another cause directly translates into lives saved. I'd be willing to say that you're probably right, but I don't measure it only along number of lives saved. I see a terrible precedent set in American culture by allowing on-demand abortion, and I can think of no worse loss of life than the murder of an innocent child. Our government currently does not protect our children's right to life. This needs to change, and requires our most immediate attention.
I share your disgust of the current Republican party and of the religious conservative voting bloc, but just because both are moronic about it doesn't mean the cause isn't good. I wish the religious conservatives in this country would actually follow their religion for a change, and that the Republicans would stop being bold-faced hypocrites, but that doesn't mean I won't continue to voice my opinion against abortion. It takes a lot more than pro-life to win my vote, though.
In addition, historically, the issue of abortion was considered to be at stake in 1948 with the first DRC. The issue was left ambiguous, because on the one hand the rights of the child were affirmed from conception, while on the other the rights of the woman were not to be infringed as well. You might search here for "unborn" to see what I mean.
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
1) The issue of abortion is the ultimate case study in the right of people not to be ruled by others' moral beliefs, whether religious or otherwise.
(A) On the one hand, you have women who might desire an abortion, but could be prevented by legislation based upon a certain set of moral beliefs. That is certainly an undesirable situation.
(B) On the other, you have unborn children who are as deserving of legal protection as any other "blob of cells" that functions as a human being; yet, they might be denied their legal protection because of legislation -- in my state of Maryland -- based on a certain set of legal beliefs. That is also an undesirable situation.
In either case, the moral beliefs of one person or group will have a significant effect on the future life of another person. It is incorrect to argue that people who believe that (A) is more tolerable than (B) are "religious nutjobs", or are even trying to impose their beliefs on others. Many, like myself, feel that we must support the lesser of two evils, until a third solution appears. Isn't that what real ethical decision-making is all about?
2) The belief that humans are people from conception transcends religious boundaries. It is true that certain religions -- notably, Catholicism -- promote that view. However, it is also true that some atheists and pagans hold that life begins at conception. That was the official position of the AMA prior to 1973 (no position is held now), and it was the official position of most of the US legal system prior to 1972.
Bottom line: you can't divide up the world into "all the idiots that disagree with me" and "the reasonable people that agree with me."
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
Saying "Roe v Wade is constitutionally stupid" isn't really an argument about whether abortion should be legal, intead being an argument about whether such law would be constitutional. It helps not to mix levels!
You assert that "a fetus is unambiguously a unique human being". That is quite controversial, unless you (merely mean homo sapiens, without any moral connotation, which isn't useful for the argument). Heck, thinking of an infant or even a child as a human being is a luxury of our wealthy culture. It seems that it was common among stone-age tribes not to name an infant (thereby recognizing it as a human) until a certain age.
Here's how I see it: from zygote to infant to adult is a continuum of becoming a person (a moral entity, a thing which one bears more moral responsibility for kiling than a pig). Because we need a law, we need to goverment to arbitrarily choose an age where the fetus is considered a person, with the full rights of a citizen, or we need to invent finer-grained stages and arbitrarily choose ages for each.
Just like there's no age at which one magically becomes an adult, and maturity differers between individuals, but we need to pick an age for the purposes of law, so we pick 18. OK, so we actually pick quite a few finer grained stages: age of consent, voting age, drinking age, draft age, etc.
For abortion I think the argument can therefore be simplified to a question of picking an arbitrary age, and understanding that won't be any more perfect than trying to pick the age of consent. From a biological perspective, anything earlier than about 2 weeks is just silly, because the majority of fertilized eggs don't make it that far anyway. From a social perspective, anything before about 6 weeks is pointless, because any law that doesn't allow a woman to motice that she's pregnant and spend a few days making the decision won't limit the number of abortions, only the number of legal ones.
Also, realistically, you need a second milestone: before the fetus can survive without the mother, it doesn't make a lot of sense to try to preserve the life at the fetus if that puts the life of the mother at significant risk.
Setting those two milestones at the end of the first and second trimester just doesn't seem that far off. Maybe you could bring the "first trimester" deadline for abortion-as-birth-control in a few weeks, but that's about it.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
A person without religion is like a fish without a bicycle.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
Let me start out by saying that the argument you make in favor of being pro-choice is the only argument that, in my mind, has any rational basis at all. And it does have some basis. What it really comes down to is the definition of "human being" (or "person", whatever you want to pick), and the argument that it's a continuum is persuasive.
There are some issues, however. First of all, let's set aside historical definitions because they're either pure speculation (e.g. customs of stone-age tribes) or almost universally invariable examples of what not to do.
You're right to point out that considering infants to be human beings is a relatively modern development. My counterpoint is that this expansion of definition is NOT a "luxury'. Indeed, take a look back at human history and find for me a single example of when a non-homo sapien was ever considered human, only to later be revealed to be a non-human. It's really never happened. And if it has, it's never led to any serious damage.
Now ask the question: how many times through history has something we now consider a person or human being been considered as less than a human being? It is precisely this mistake - this dehumanization of what we now consider human - that has led to a vast majority of the carnage in human history. From outright examples like slavery, anti-semitism, and the Boer rebellions to more insidious examples like religious war the standard precursor to the greatest evils humanity has committed has been to dehumanize the intended victim.
So I would make the serious warning that those who attempt to demarcate what is a human being and what is a homo-sapien have an almost unparalled history of utter failure and that the results of that failure have universally been bloodshed, shame, and misery. It is perhaps the greatest sign of our current western civilization that we have as all-embracing and generous a definition of human as we do. Ultimately, homo-sapien is scientific (the fetus IS in our species and a unique instance thereof) but person is ALWAYS and forever up for defintioin. We can exclude Jews, we can exclude blacks, we can exclude Christians or muslims, lepers or the elderly, infants, or toddlers. We have, in our past, done all of the above and view those decisions with universal abhorence and revulsion.
Now we are doing the exact same thing with the unborn. We have the luxury of extending or revoking personhood because they are powerless and voiceless. But I contend that all the reasons that you give for so doing come down to: a fetus is not like me. Dependent? So are all children. Missing bodily parts? So do amputees. If you lose both your arms and both your legs - we CAN revoke your status as a human just as Nazis considered parapelegics or quadrapalegics sub-human and exterminated them. But do you want to do that? Then why do you want to do this to the unborn?
So I reject your statement: From a biological perspective, anything earlier than about 2 weeks is just silly, because the majority of fertilized eggs don't make it that far anyway. Guess what - most people at 99 don't make it to 100 (or a lot of them don't). Does this make them less human? If you are end-stage brain cancer - are you less human? Survival rates have NOTHING to do with humanity - NOTHING. The "silliness" you perceive is a result of arbitrary cultural norms. It's relative. It would have seemed genuinely silly to consider Jews human if the Nazi empire had lived long enough to raise generations in that mentality. That a concept is silly doesn't necessarily reflect anyting about the concept: it tells us more about the thinker. There's no logic here, it's not biologica, it's purely rhetorical.
And this one is even more ridiculous: From a social perspective, anything before about 6 weeks is pointless, because any law that doesn't allow a woman to motice that she's pregnant and spend a few days making the decision won't limit the number of abortions, only the number of legal ones.
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
take a look back at human history and find for me a single example of when a non-homo sapien was ever considered human, only to later be revealed to be a non-human. It's really never happened.
There's substantial evidence that humans lived alongside Neadertal man for quite some time. Gilgamesh's rival and later ally Enkidu might very well have been Neandertal, to judge by the description given. My brother was a hairy man and I am a smooth man. There probably are examples of a creature who was considered human but was not homo-sapiens. Doesn't seem relevent however.
I think it's important to avoid blurring the disctinction between "moral entity" (or "person", informally), and "homo-sapiens". The two concepts are not equivalent. Any creature able to understand the moral consequences of it's own actions is probably a person, regardless of species. Merely having human DNA doesn't make you a person, witness HeLa cells (a new species that evolved from Humans in the past century, which I find quite amusing).
If you want to assert personhood for an infant or fetus, you probably want to go with "will probably become a person". But then, for the first week after conception, that doesn't work either (you'd need "might possibly become a person"), and it's somewhat arguable all the way to adulthood. There's a huge problem with "might possibly become a person", BTW, in that there are several species that, if mankind only spent enough time and money on the needed research, could be made just a little bit more intelligent than they are today, and given enough genetic manipulation would become smart enough to be considered people. Do we have a moral obligation to do that?
The metaphor is apt not because abortion=murder, but because we're talking about whether or not an action is moral and you've reduced it to practicality. That's just not relevant.
And here you've missed the entire point of passing a law. This really gets on my nerves. A law is not a declaritive moral statement. Making something illegal merely because it's immoral has caused so very much sorrow in human history. The point of a law is to incent behavior that makes society a better place (by whatever values your morals suggest). A law that makes an action illegal, but only incents people to take that action more frequently is a very stupid law. A law that successfully prevents an action but incents behavior that is worse is a very stupid law. Practicality is everything in law.
About most of your other arguments: you seem to be assuming that the evolution of human society is one of moral progress. We used to be barbaric, but now we're moral, and so on. That's a fallacy. History is trivially a progress from being less like now to being more like now, and that's all. People always believe, throughout history, that the perfect morality is pretty much like what the society they belong to believes, just tweaked around the edges. The past is therefore seen as ascent from barbarism, and the future as descent into decadence. It's meaningless. "Now" has no special moral relevence. Cultures evolve towards better use of resources, or get conquered by cultures that do so, and the underlying pattern is one of economic effeciency.
The evolution of culture and morals throughout history is one of beliefs that promote increasing ecenomic effeciency. You can't read anything else into it. Heck, most of the remaining anti-abortion ferver is from a religious sect that's frantically pro-population, and has relied on outbreeding its competitors for centuries. That doesn't make them wrong, of course, but it's one more example of how the dominant morality is governed by how well that morality spreads itself.
My point on the survival of the blastocyst was also a practical one, BTW. If you define that as "human", then more that half of humans die before birth, and all of human society should be turned on its head to prevent that. Silly. Biologically, it's clearly not a big deal to the survival of the species if a "human" dies at that stage - very little in the way of resources have been committed to it, so very little is lost (biologically speaking).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Despots (and thence there governments) derive their authority from fear.
Monarchs (and thence there governments) derive their authority from historical happenstance.
You meant democratic governments. Are there any current examples of democracy??
>>> "I know the Church has never been big on literacy for the masses"
... that same church in which thousands of believers (monks) spent nearly every day transcribing scripture, that preserved a huge canon of early literature by creating more (surviving) copies than any other early book ...? That same church that has the most published book in (known) history as it's central text? That same church whose people went to all corners to teach literacy - admittedly to serve an agenda of Bible knowledge.
Never?
What you mean is that in the established church of the middle ages many "bishops" abused their positions of power keeping latin scripture in order to subvert the masses from coming in to contact with the truth.
Sorry to respond to your flame, but come on. You can do better than that.
Any creature able to understand the moral consequences of it's own actions is probably a person, regardless of species.
You've simply created another criteria for humanity - and one that I flatly reject for these purposes. We simply do not use this criteria when deciding who gets "human rights". Retarded people and infants, for exampe, are afforded MORE protection, not LESS - despite (because of?) their inability to meet your criteria.
If you want to assert personhood for an infant or fetus, you probably want to go with "will probably become a person".
No, you've obviously not understood my point. I abslutely refuse to use that "back door" entry - and it's absurd for you to rely on either. Do we treasure the lives of down syndrome kids because they may, one day, have "human comprehension"? What about sociopaths? They're not as cute and cuddly - but do we say that because of their inability to perceive morality they must therefore be denied human rights? No - in both of these cases we extend the definition of person to those who flatly fail to meet your proposed criteria nor or in the forseeable future. The path you're walking down in unnecessary and doesn't get us anywhere anyway.
I understand the definition of "person" you are using, it's common in philosophy, but I'm not using it. The whole POINT of my argument was that we can define a "person" any way we like. You've picked one arbtirarily. This is totally MISSING THE POINT. The point is that we can choose intelligence, or any of a million other factors or combinations thereof, but in my opinion the best moral definition for person IS "any living homo sapien", not because that has to be the definition, but because it is the best categorization we can make. You've got to try and understand that point. Some people said Jews weren't people, others said blacks weren't people, some say infants aren't people, others say retards aren't people. I'm REJECTING THOSE CRITERIA as being different versions of "you're not like me, so you're not a person".
The point of a law is to incent behavior that makes society a better place (by whatever values your morals suggest).
We are in perfect agreement on this point. I fail to see how my law - AS I ENVISION IT BEING ENFORCED - would be impractical. Believe me, I've been here and thought of this, but we're covering a lot of ground first. The moral argument is one thing (the reason I want to incent behavior) the law is another. I understand full well they are not the same.
About most of your other arguments: you seem to be assuming that the evolution of human society is one of moral progress
That fallacy does annoy me, and I do not make it. I'm not assuming that human society always progresses. Contrast Rome, say, with Nazi Germany. Progress? I AM, however, saying that there are some things once viewed as morally OK that we now view as wrong. All I'm saying is that even though not all history is progress: we can learn from history. That's all.
Cultures evolve towards better use of resources, or get conquered by cultures that do so, and the underlying pattern is one of economic effeciency
Your assumptions are as naive as the ones you accuse me of making. Firstly, I flatly reject the utter moral relativity you seem to be espousing. Secondly, I don't think it's any smarter to attribute economic darwinism to society than it wouuld be to attribute moral darwinism to society. You've substituted one version of the fallacy for another - i've made neither.
If you define that as "human", then more that half of humans die before birth, and all of human society should be turned on its head to prevent that.
Now THIS is an argument that pisses me off, and I had hoped you'd be smart enough not to make it. Society is happy with letting people die. Hundreds of thousands every year from car accidents. We could all drive 25 mph and save lives. We don't. We're happy with the loss of li
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
I was merely pointing out that the clause:
Which you quoted and emphasized the "birth or other status" part of has nothing to do with the morallity of abortion. The only way to interpret it as such is to intentionally misread it. The language of the selected clause is pretty clear in all actuality. Let's take the parts in question directly:
It's meant to be part of the whole of the statement, not an individual clause in itself. There's no ambiguity to this statement - it is what it is.
I'm really not interested in debating the whole of the Declaration, and it's certainly possible that upon reading the full text of it, that there may be a few clauses that address the matter of abortion. My point was simply that Principle One of the quoted declaration does not have anything to do with the morallity of abortion. It's a statement denouncing discrimination based on a number of factors.
To suggest otherwise is either a case of improperly parsing the language of the declaration or willful misreading. I'm fully willing to believe it was the former, the language of this type of thing certainly isn't easy to grok the first time through.
Explain then why introductions to the philosophy of religion written by atheists give equal time to theistic arguments.
Agreed, that is a better option. However, it has many flaws. Some close friends of mine grew up in foster care and some of their experiences are pretty bad. Stuff I'd rather not go in to. However, I do have other friends for whom this has worked out very well of course. Secondly, adoption is less and less in demand nowadays with the explosion of fertility services. Many parents will try treatment after treatment rather than adopt. While it is an option, it's one that's dwindling. As fertility treatments advance things won't improve.
Actually, no. The definition of murder is to wrongfully kill someone. Now, the question is; is there a situation where it is right to kill someone? You give the example of someone attacking your home and family. If it came down to it, no alternatives, do or die, then it is probably morally justified by most people's viewpoint to kill in defence. The problem is that many of the deaths in this situation are probably commited by over-zealous householders and were unneccessary.
I don't understand that view point to be honest. In your eyes, how can one rape justify a murder? You consider abortion murder (which I'll come back to), so if you seek to ban it based simply on that fact then you can't go making exceptions.
Now, is abortion murder? It comes down to your own beliefs and many people believe that life doesn't begin at conception. I'm not stating my own view point deliberately as it's not relevant to the argument. You argue that killing and stealing are universally agreed to be wrong. The point of conception is subjective. That's where the grey area comes in.
None, at least not directly. It's just an example of a topic where there are different viewpoints. If it was down to some people, cars would be banned. We are supposed to be living in democratic societies and the view on cars is that a ban is not the concensus of the population. The same applies to abortion; there aren't enough people who agree with you to make it law. In my view the current situation is probably the most desirable one. People have the right to choose for themselves meanwhile we can debate the topic and persuade others via arguments to hopefully come around to our respective viewpoints. People who undergo the operation are counsoled and given advice. It's not something entered into lightly, at least here in the UK. And it's morally frowned upon, the way it should be. It should be discouraged but ultimately it's not yours or my choice to make for someone else.
Sorry for the short reply, your post deserved much more as you make your point very well, unfortunately I don't have the time right now to respond to everything. I do agree with much of what you are saying.
I never took issue with your point, just the fact that you keep saying it over and over.
I'm not surprised at your reaction, however. I've run into your insecurity before.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
"Birth or other status, whether of himself or of his family" is grammatically ambiguous. It might mean
"(Birth | other status) whether (self | his family)", which is how you take it. It that case, "Birth status" must make sense in terms of his family, in which case it means, presumably, something like a caste system.
However, it also might be parsed
"Birth | (other status, whether (self | his family))" in which case birth status might still mean a caste system or else his status as born or unborn.
Because of two factors, I opted for the latter parsing. (a) The authors have already emphasized "before and after birth" in the previous clause (which is admittedly separated by a distance, but nevertheless gives some idea of their thinking), and (b) birth status in the sense of a caste system is an odd instance of the general term "status" to set off against "other status." Why not say "race or other status", or "economic or other status", considering that hereditary caste systems a la India and feudal Europe are fairly rare, AFAIK? So ... and I could be wrong, understand, but I'm not persuaded yet ... I think the second parsing is more likely.
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
This is a statement that the rights outlined in the Declaration are to be appied regardless of the listed attributes. Notice the attributes listed immediatey where we're talking about -- "national or social origin, property, birth or other status." These are all socio-economic conditions. For birth, in this context, to mean the actual act of being born would require a bit of a logical leap, especially given that 'birth' is grouped with 'or other status' in the list.
What we're looking at is a statement followed by a list of conditions. It might be somewhat ambiguous if birth were a singular item in the list without further clarification, but the 'or other status' addition provides the clarification needed to remove any real ambiguity from the statement, especially when listed in the context of a number of other socio-economic status factors. The final clause of the statement, 'regardless whether of himself or of his family,' would further lend to the first interpretation, given all the other attributes listed could be potential grounds for discrimination to his family, but it'd be rather hard to discriminate against his family if they were never born.
Like I said before, I'm certainly willing to concede that there could be elements to the Declaration that support the notion of the listed rights beginning at conception, but Principle One just doesn't do it. The way the Declaration is structured suggests that each of the sections labled Principles are statements justifying the message of the Declaration. This structure suggests that each Principle is a facet of their argument which can logically stand on its own.
Taking a sentence a number of paragraphs prior to Principle One and using it to change the logical meaning of the statement just registers as a total misparsing to me. The intent and context of the document is to declare the rights to which all children are entitled. The first principle is a statement that these rights apply to [b]all[/b] children. It's a statement that they should be guaranteed regardless of the listed factors. The insertion of an anti-abortion statement into the middle of a denouncement of discrimination just doesn't stand up from a logical stand point. It just doesn't fit into the context of the first principle at all.
Given the specificity of the rest of the declaration and the structure of the overall document had that been the writer's intent, it seems far, far more likely that they'd have included it in a statement of its own. Shoe-horning it into a statement on a completely different matter just doesn't make sense and is why I can't see it in any way being the intended reading of that section.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction
No form of science has ever furnished a rational basis for even the most trivial future expectation.
You'd make a good Kierkegaard.
I always enjoy the (more extreme, thankfully less common) theists I talk to who lecture me on how atheism leads to rape, murder and all other forms of evil and tragedy.
I always enjoy pointing out that atheists are signifigantly underrepresented in prison populations. I can only find two alternate explanations for that fact:
1) Atheists are commit less crime, which pretty well makes atheists more moral than theists; or
2) Atheists are genius masterminds who pull off lower arrest and conviction rates than dimwitted theists, thus explaining the lack of atheists in prisons.
I then invite them to pick whichever explanation they preffer. Of course I've never gotten an answer on that one... or at least not any coherent answer. Chuckle.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
This is a completely different issue than assisted suicide or euthanasia, which is about whether we want to allow people to end their own lives, either through their own actions, or by proxy. But frankly, I don't terribly like the idea of the State involved with that decision, either.
Just to be clear: the gov't heavily regulates medical procedures. The idea that the gov't is somehow staying out of plastic surgery or lasik or organ transplants or skin grafts is absurd. From the fact that MDs need a license to practice to the fact that hospitals and outpatient surgery centers face inspections your whole assumption that somehow gov't should "stay out" of abortion because it's a medical procedure has no legs to stand on. Gov't regulates health care.
We are something more.
Again, I don't want to be disrespectful but I've heard this a million times. And as far as I can tell there are only 2 rational positions to take. First of all, I agree 100% that you are something more than a fetus or an embryo. This is absolutely true. But you are also something more - in just as important and real a sense, as an 8-year old, a 2-year old, or a 1-yr old. You're also more human, in your ability to reason morally, than a genuine sociopath will ever be. You're more human, in you ability to be self-sufficient, than retarded people. You're more human, in your ability to love, than someone with autism. So you have to take one of two positions:
1. All human beings are equal (we're all "persons")
2. Develop some criteria for distinguishing between a member of the species homo sapien, and a "person".
You're clearly trying to do #2, but I challenge you to do so in a way that doesn't lead directly to infanticide, euthenasia, eugenics, etc. That's my whole point. You're welcome to say "kiling 20-year old is worse than kiling a fetus" for any of a vareity of reasons that are valid and true. But I claim that you will not be able to generate non-arbtirary criteria (e.g. something other than: "my criteria is that you've been born") that I won't be able to aply to humans who have been born.
I think the truth in what you are saying is that many womens-rights organizations want to ignore the cost of allowing abortions. They don't seem to want to admit that abortions are by default bad things, and in a best case scenario only the best of several bad options
That's exactly what I'm saying. The difference is that you drastically underestimate the power of these organizations to influence our society. Think about it: you can't even pass informed consent laws in this country. You want women to be free from feeling coerced to have abortions and yet the people in power refuse to even guarantee them information, let alone freedom from coercion. I think you're just naive about how this issue really works. I hate to be emotional about this, but when you've (at age 16) had a 14-year old girl sob on your shoulder "I killed my baby" because her parents told her to get an abortino or get out of the house, maybe you'll understand what I'm talking about. Just imagine yourself as a single woman who's unexpectedly pregnant: what does society want you to do? Get an abortion and all your problems are solved. Sure - you'll have to live with it, but no one else will be burdened by you and your unwanted baby. It's not just babies that are unwanted: it's mothers.
But again, I claim that you seem to want to similarly ignore that making abortions illegal impedes womens rights or freedom, in the liberal political sense I mentioned earlier.
I am NOT ignoring that!!! But practically all laws limit freeom: that's what they do. If a father wants to molest his child, that's illegal. That restricts his freedom. But society values the right of the child more than that of the father in this case (the father does have a right to pursue happiness, right?). In this case the imposition on women is greater. I REALIZE this. I would only want to pass laws against abor
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
*whacks self on hand.*
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
I enjoy your perspective on the women you know who have gotten abortions- the women I know who have gotten abortions, or who have entertained getting an abortion, have done so in the context of medical reasons, not because it was an unwanted pregnancy. So this surely affects our different perspectives on the issue. But let me say one more thing about this notion of personhood verses homo-sapien-hood. Even though the Biblical account has God giving Adam life with a single breath, in Nature birth and death both seem to me to be processes, not events. So it is not clear to me that a line should be drawn in the sand to say "personhood begins here!" We cannot draw such a line to define what is alive. Is a virus alive? A prion? The Earth as a whole? Simply because we do not know how to draw such a line does not mean that a virus and a prion and the Earth must be alive. It just means we don't understand what it means to be "alive" as well as we should. I see personhood in the same way. All that a fertilized egg seems to have in common with you and I is that we are both comprised of cells with human DNA, and that we are both part of a natural process that certainly involves the existence of a human being. If that is enough for personhood, then, for example, there seems to be no interesting or good reason why we are persons, but animals are not. More seriously, it would seem to imply that I believe that there is more to it, and as a scientists my beliefs tell me that we should be able to see that difference, or at least see something that motivates me believe in that difference. Society must always have its members near the fringes of humanity. Sociopaths (assuming true psychopathy exists) probably fall into this category, as do children born with only brain stems, adults who are nearly brain dead, etc, and finally the fetus, or perhaps even the embryo, after some period of gestation. I simply think that how we deal with each one of those cases must be more complex than saying "well, they have an element of personhood, or at least human DNA, so we must logically treat them as fully living human beings." In many cases this is probably the right conclusion, but the reasoning is wrong.:
1. All human beings are equal (we're all "persons")
2. Develop some criteria for distinguishing between a member of the species homo sapien, and a "person".
You of course left out one possibility- that personhood is only a construct created to make sense of the world, in which case we don't necessarily need to be completely logical in determining what is a person and what is not, since we are reduced to using the concept of "personhood" only for its utility, not its Truth. I don't think either of us believe this to be true, but it must be considered as a possibility.
One more thing on the medical regulation- as I understand it the government does regulate medicine, but typically with the goal of protecting or informing the patient, which is not the case with abortion if you do not believe the embryo/fetus to be a person.
I disagree. I've known many women myself who've gotten abortions, and I know dozens more who've testified that they get abortions - above and beyond all else - because they don't feel like they hvae a choice.
I guess one more one more thing! I would be quite happy to give women more money for child care so that they feel like they can have the child. I agree them feeling like the cannot afford to have a child is not acceptable. Unfortunately, the corporate interests with, eg, the religious right, and other prolife groups seem to find themselves align, only seem to support issues like this when they don't cost the government any money. So I don't think you can blame just the prochoicers for women not feeling like they have enough money to raise a child. Politically this is a completely separate issue, which I tend to think is a real failure of imagination on the part of the US public.
in Nature birth and death both seem to me to be processes, not events. So it is not clear to me that a line should be drawn in the sand to say "personhood begins here!" We cannot draw such a line to define what is alive.
I agree - they are processes. So what is or is not alive may not be clear. But this doesn't mean we should not draw a line. The line is a practical necessity - even if it doesn't arise from objective reality. "Ownership" isn't really a part of objective reality either (as opposed to possession) and it is also hard to define, and yet it is necessary that we do our best. The same applies here.
You of course left out one possibility- that personhood is only a construct created to make sense of the world, in which case we don't necessarily need to be completely logical in determining what is a person and what is not, since we are reduced to using the concept of "personhood" only for its utility, not its Truth.
You misunderstand me entirely. I've not only accounted for the possibility that it's not a part of objective reality: I'm depending on it. The word "person" (as we're using it) is not something that arises from objective reality - it's an existential term. We give it meaning and definition. This doesn't pop up as a third option, it's the reason we have the two options (at conception, or some other definition). I'm not in search of some ultimate Truth of personhood, anymore than I think we could find some scientifically-sound definition of "ownership".
We called Jews sub-human before, we give them equal humanity now. Whether or not there actual is a value for their humanity is irrelevant. The point is that we agree now it was a morally wrong to denigrate them before - and I believe that for the same logical reasons it is morally wrong to denigrate the unborn now. There's no need, at this stage, to answer the question of whether or not humanity exists in objective reality or not. I think it does not, but in any case the question is academic.
One more thing on the medical regulation- as I understand it the government does regulate medicine, but typically with the goal of protecting or informing the patient, which is not the case with abortion if you do not believe the embryo/fetus to be a person.
True, but circular. If the embryo/fetus is not considerd a person, I don't have a case. That's why I'm arguing that it is morally wrong to not consider them a person. From the argument that the unborn are persons flows everything. If you disprove that, there's no reason to bring up medical regulation at all: you've already won.
Politically this is a completely separate issue, which I tend to think is a real failure of imagination on the part of the US public.
There are two general kinds of crisis pregnancy centers. Those that serve as fronts for abortion centers (look at how much of Planned Parenthoods operating budget comes from profits from abortion). Then there are the numerous centers run by NRLC (national right to life committee) and affiliated organizations. Practically any main-line pro-life group (e.g. those who don't want to blow shit up) spend considerable quantities of their scanty resources supporting crisi pregnancy centers. I've done volunteer work this way myself.
So I think you're wrong. The same grass-roots organizations that oppose abortion are already volunteering/donating/staffing and doing all they can to support crisis pregnancies. If we let them have their way, outlawing abortion (as birth control) would go hand-in-hand with accelerating efforts to support women in need. The hypocrisy of the pro-choice donors is amazing. They're happy to write checks to support NOW or NARAL so that all women can have the choice to be coerced into abortion, while genuine crisis-pregnancy centers languish for lack of funds.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
I've not only accounted for the possibility that it's not a part of objective reality: I'm depending on it.
You are right- I did misunderstand you, sorry. I believe that our notion of personhood should at least be motivated by scientific discovery, and that Nature will make some definitions of personhood more coherent and true than others. If personhood is simply a social construct, then I think your reasoning is even less valid. We don't need to draw an exact line of personhood if that makes the concept less useful to us. We shouldn't even be asking if a fetus is a person. We should be asking how much it benefits society for us to consider a fetus a person, or to not be a person. I personally don't know how to intelligently evaluate that. That is why I look to Nature to motivate whether a fetus is a person or not. This is different from, say, ownership. For me, ownership is a means to help people, who are ends. So my problem with communism isn't that it abolishes ownership, but that it seems to result in tyranny which harms people. But if people are the ends, then I don't know how to evaluate what is a person or not based what on ends its produces.
We called Jews sub-human before...
Again, my consideration of Jews as being perfectly human is motivated by observation. I believe that Nature has an opinion on whether or not a Jew is as much a person as I am, and that this opinion of Nature reflects the opinion of God. So, I believe that we now consider Jews to be persons equal to non-Jews is moral progress. If personhood is simply an invention of Man, then I don't think we can consider this to be moral progress, which I think is absurd, and I have theological problems with personhood being an opinion of God, but not reflected in Nature.
True, but circular. If the embryo/fetus is not considerd a person, I don't have a case...
Except that even if a fetus is a person, then with pregnancy, Nature has put the woman in a relatively unique position with pregnancy. This may be a good enough reason to medically regulate abortion, but this is still medical regulation of a fundamentally different sort than that you have talked about, and limits the womens rights in fundamentally different way than mens rights are limited, even if limiting those rights is justified.
There are two general kinds of crisis pregnancy centers.
I'm not sure what you mean by these centers. I have heard of some centers that i guess might be called crises pregnancy centers. I wasn't thinking about those sorts of centers. My perception of those centers is that their primary function seems to be to convince women of the truth of abortion as those who run it see that truth, namely that abortion is always something to be avoided, even after one has an unwanted pregnancy. I don't know a lot about them though. But in any case, I was referring not just to making pregnancy easier for women, but making being a single mother easier. Heck, making being parents a little easier in general. Children are very expensive and time consuming throughout their entire lives. I wish we spent a little more political energy addressing their needs instead of, say, the estate tax, homosexual marriage, or flag burning.
We shouldn't even be asking if a fetus is a person. We should be asking how much it benefits society for us to consider a fetus a person, or to not be a person.
This is one of the most egregious logical errors you've made. How do you get from "personhood is defined existentially" to "personhood should be defined in terms of societal utility"? There's no justification for you to make this leap. None whatsoever. I can't even come up with a metaphor for how arbitrary that leap was.
That is why I look to Nature to motivate whether a fetus is a person or not
You're driving me nuts. You keep saying that's what you want to do. Then you list off a bunch of reasons why a fetus is not a person. Then I point out "OK, fine, but using that criteria neither is an infant/sociopath/retard, etc." And then you drop it entirely, only to bring it up again later in the discussion.
Please respond to my major point of contention. If you think you have found a natural definition of "person" please explain how this criteria allows us to consider the examples I've listed as "persons" OR come out and say you think they are not persons.
I didn't follow your argument about ownership, but let's just drop that for now. Above all else, you simply need to respond to me about your criteria for defining persons. Once we've had that discussion, a lot of my other points are (I think) going to start to become clearer to you.
I'll hold off other responses until we address this issue.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
I just want to try and make sure exactly what I'm asking you.
My argument:
A. We need to generate an existential definition of "person"
1. We don't have a natural definition of "person". I'm not saying one doesn't exist, just that we don't have one.
2. In order to resolve the abortion debate, we need a definition of "person".
3. Since we can't use a natural definition, we must generate our own.
B.The existential definition we should choose is: a person is created at conception
1. The necessary conditions for personhood: homo sapien, living, entity
2. Thus there's no person before conception (no requirement is satisfied)
C1: Earliest possible moment for "personhood" is conception.
1. Any criteria that tightens "person" requirements beyond the three mentioned will also exclude people commonly accepted as "persons".
C2: Therefore either the line is at conception OR abortion should be legal but so should some things we currently consider murder.
1. I don't want to broaden scope of murder (do you? - this is where I'm asking for your response)
C3: Therefore we should declare (existentially) that the 3 requirements are not only necessary, but sufficient for "person" status.
A corollary to C3 is the following:
1. Past examples of creating additional conditions for personhood:
- anti-Semitism
- racism
- sexism
- discrimination based on physical capacity
- discriminaton based on mental capacity
- discrimination based on political/societal influence
- discreimination based on education
2. All of these examples have been rejected not because of specific causes, but because the TYPES of criteria have been rejected.
C1. Therefore you can't use any of these types of criteria to tighten definition of "person".
1. There are no additinoal criteria available (feel free to argue)
C2: Therefore the original 3 critiera (living, homo sapien, entity) should be sufficient.
Those are my arguments as clearly stated as I can do right now. Please let me know which premise, conclusion, or logical step you think is wrong.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
You write 2 posts ago: I've not only accounted for the possibility that it's not a part of objective reality: I'm depending on it.
I assume:
1) A is objective if and only if A reflects an external reality, or something we must all agree on about external reality.
Then you claim:
2) Personhood is not objective.
3) Then I conclude that according to you, personhood is not part of external reality. Then why talk about personhood at all? Let me say something about my background- In philosophy of science, which is my background (I took classes as an undergrad, and its a bit of a hobby for me), a standard position is that scientific concepts (for example, the property of being a particle) don't necessary reflect external reality, but rather the language we must use to try to describe the world. Then we use these theories only because they are useful in that we are able to make predictions with them. If personhood is not part of external reality, then the only reason I can see to use it is because it is useful in some way; after all, I don't see how it can be true. Maybe you have another reason for using it that I simply can't imagine. If you do, I would be very much interested in hearing it. So then I conclude:
4) Personhood is not part of external reality, so the only reason that we use it is for its utility.
5) If all we use personhood for is its utility, then we necessarily have to be terribly logical in the way apply it. As long as we use it in a useful way, that would seem to be all that matters. Ultimately, this doesn't seem to me to be coherent way to approach things, since usefulness is for me not enough to determine something as important as personhood.
As to a natural criteria for personhood that does not include a fertilized egg (the term "fetus" is much more vague), I propose one such criterion is that a person should be complex enough such that we cannot completely understand its activities purely in terms of cellular activity. In fact, I might guess that persons cannot be understood as being mechanical at all in a clock-work sense, although I understand that the jury is still out as to whether or not we can be seen as functioning like a clock. But it took thousands of years to determine that tribe or race affiliation didn't affect whether you were a person or not. We have had, what, 50 years to be able to think intelligently about at what stage in gestation a fertilized egg becomes a person. I don't think we completely understand what it means to be a person, so I don't think we know how to draw a line that says "personhood begins here." This is heavy stuff, and I think we simply don't have all the answers yet. So I can't draw the line. But I can say that a fertilized egg, or a blastula is on the not-a-person side of it, because people are not simply cells. And I can say that all the mentally retarded kids I have met are certainly people in that they have emotions and are capable of moral action in so far as they can conceive the consequences of their actions, they are just less smart (I am much less sure about psychopaths, assuming they exist, but that is a different issue.)
My background is in physics (not just a hobby.) 100 years ago, there were a lot of arguments about how the hydrogen atom could exist. If we consider it as a miniature proton ball orbited by a miniature electron ball, the acceleration of the electron would basically cause the atom to cease to exist very quickly. It turns out were were completely, totally wrong about the nature of the electron, wrong in so fundamental a way that we couldn't even talk about an electron in some physical situations. It turns out that we can't even talk about the electron having an exact position, momentum, or acceleration when it is "orbiting" a proton, so the question of how the hydrogen atom could exist despite the acceleration of the electron was meaningless. My feeling is that personhood is the same way. Biology is showing the frayed edges of where our current notion of "person" doesn't even make sens
You simply believe what you want to believe. That's your vaunted "rationality."
A couple of issues:
Personhood is not objective.
Then I conclude that according to you, personhood is not part of external reality.
This is incorrect. Here's the counterexample. Personhood is not objective in the sense that China is not objective. You can't prove the existence of China objectively. Proof: is Taiwan part of China? Prove that with science. It's impossible. That doesn't mean China doesn't exist. Merely that there's something more complex going on then objectivity.
Personhood is not part of external reality, so the only reason that we use it is for its utility.
Utility is an empty word. I agree that,in general, the only reason is utility, but utility means use for something. Unless we define that something we're just substituting one variable for another. My problem was that you jumped straight to utility - economically. Why does that make sense? Why not it's utility in terms of capacity to be used as a means to achieve morality? Why not aesthetics?
But we don't even need to go there because, as I pointed out, we haven't proved that personhood is not part of reality. Just that it can't be proved objectively.
Now - on to your criteria.
it took thousands of years to determine that tribe or race affiliation didn't affect whether you were a person or not. We have had, what, 50 years to be able to think intelligently about at what stage in gestation a fertilized egg becomes a person. I don't think we completely understand what it means to be a person, so I don't think we know how to draw a line that says "personhood begins here."
I agree. Which is why I point out that, historically, we've ALWAYS erred on the side of being too exclusive. If someone asks "is this a human?" and, historically, EVERYTIME we've said "no" (I'm leaving out questiosn like "is the rock human?" because no one would seriously ask that) we've been wrong and the result has been misery then, all things been equal, when the questin was raised again why wouldn't we err on the side of inclusiveness for once? That's not a proof - just a reason to get people thinking.
I have issues with your complexity argument but I think it's fascinating. The simplest issue is this, however, we do not know how a fetus develops. It's beyond clock-work at such an early stage that using your definition would rule out every method of abortion except, possibly, the morning after pill. So I disagree with it philosophhically, but I'dbe overjoyed if you actually followed it because from a practical standpoint we'd be almsot identical.
But I can say that a fertilized egg, or a blastula is on the not-a-person side of it, because people are not simply cells.
Contrast this (what I just quoted) with this:
And I can say that all the mentally retarded kids I have met are certainly people in that they have emotions and are capable of moral action in so far as they can conceive the consequences of their actions, they are just less smart (I am much less sure about psychopaths, assuming they exist, but that is a different issue.)
I'd say the REAL difference you consider retarded kids kids is that you have met them. We consider things human not by their innate qualities, but by our relationships to them. Believe me - if you're pregnant (meaning you and your wife/sig other if you're a guy) than the fetus MATTERS to you. It's real. Because you think about it (even though you haven't met it). So if you thought about an unborn child thenI think it would seem real to you as well. They've been so successfully dehumanized that you lack the capacity to imagine a relationship with them. It's a failure of imagination. (And for the record, sociopaths do exist. We have a family that is friends with ours, and their son is a real sociopath. It's a very sad condition. Any "immoral" act to him is like making a careless gramatical error to you.)
It turns out that we can't even talk about the electron having an exa
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
Proof: is Taiwan part of China?...
:-) But presumably, we can approach this in two ways. We can say that the political reality determines whether Taiwan is part of China. In this case, we might say that it is an open issue, since China doesn't have the political power to really take Taiwan, but the US doesn't have the political power to make China recognize Taiwan either. Then the Chinese-hood of Taiwan is somehow a social construction, and it would seem to me that "God" (Nature, whatever) probably doesn't think of Taiwan as part of China, or not part of China. Then it seems to me if I am part of Taiwan, and don't want to be part of China, I have to frame that argument in terms of Taiwanese political will. I might argue that not becoming completely part of China isn't in the Taiwanese interests, which are presumably complex. The other way to come at this is to say essentially that God has an opinion on whether Taiwan should be part of China. This, incidentally, is my inclination. Taiwan doesn't want to be part of China (as far as I am aware), and since I believe that Taiwan is the Taiwanese people, and to "really" be part of China only happens because the people want to be part of China. Now, my argument as a person in Taiwan who does not want to be part of China is subtly, but importantly, different. I argue that the reality is that Taiwan is NOT part of China. The Taiwanese people must then use their political will to make the social construct on the map reflect the reality that Taiwan is not part of China, and therefore deserves to be recognized by China.
Before I get really wordy, I want to point out that I don't want to prove personhood with science, precisely. I just want the personhood status motivated by science. So for example, I can't use science to prove that you and I have moral worth. However, within a particular ethical framework of thought that is not provable by science, I can use science to motivate the judgement that you and I are equally persons, and thus must have equal moral worth.
Disclaimer: I don't know that much about the specifics of the Taiwan-China issue!
Sorry to be so long winded, but the whole point of this is that my belief is that arguments about the personhood of the fetus should be of the latter type. God has an opinion on the personhood of a fetus, and we must use our political will to make political reality reflect God's opinion. I don't know how to gauge God's opinion if personhood is not objective, or at least heavily motivated by objective observation. This motivation will probably be complex. But if, as you describe, personhood is not objective at all, then I don't know how to go about this. The argument over abortion would seem to me to become like the first argument for the China-hood of Taiwan, where instead of using the military might and will of China and the US to determine whether Taiwan is part of China, we use votes and political will of the US population to determine the personhood of fetuses.
My problem was that you jumped straight to utility - economically.
Sorry, it's best if you forget my comment about ownership. I was trying to make a comment similar to my Taiwan-China comment earlier, but did a poor job of it. I have no idea how we should gauge "utility" of considering a fetus a person or not a person. This is part of the reason I want so badly to be able to motivate personhood with observation.
EVERYTIME we've said "no" (I'm leaving out questiosn like "is the rock human?" because no one would seriously ask that)...
The problem is that I think people have asked that. Ancient gods can be seen as nature regarded as people. As I understand the religious history, one "innovation" of the Hebrews was that you didn't need to sacrifice your first born child to a god (Baal?) anymore, I guess to get good crops, or whatever. Human beings can be superstitious, and this can cause a lot of suffering. People anthropomorphize everything. Hell, I just threw my old c
I really like the way you approached the Taiwan-China question, and I think it was a good exercise for us to go through.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is my attempt to describe in abstract terms the approach that you liked.
1. You observed that "the way things are" is different from "the way things should be" (in this case, the way God wants them to be)
2. You're belief about "the way things should be" was motivated by non-scientific criteia (e.g. "I believe that Taiwan is the Taiwanese people"). Now this point is fascinating becase it's exactly what I've been trying to say wih personhood: it depends on existential definitions. An existential definition bascially means that the meaning comes from what we want it to mean. You're saying that if the Taiwanese people want Taiwan to be a state then - existentialy - it should be a state. Do you see what happened? You've associated your "the way things should be" with existentialism.
3. The critical final piece is that once you've established the discrepency between "the way things are" (objective realty) and "the way things should be" (existential definition) you then believe we have an implicit duty to work from the former to the latter.
Now I ask where science came into this. First of all, science is necessary to describe the objective reality. Without understanding that, we can not see a discrepency (e.g. you can't solve the equation x-y with only a value for x) But science can not directly help with either of two things.
1. the analysis of "what should be" - since it doesn't exist and can't be tested and
2. the criteria for establishing your existential definition.
What science led you to say that if the Taiwanese people want to be Taiwan they should be? Surely according to the Chinese people Taiwan IS China, so there are no Taiwanes people to have an opinion about Taiwan. Why pick one over the other?
In any case, this is exactly what I want to do with abortion. First of all, we should look at the objective reality. In this case the objective reality is that there have been something like 25-30 million abortions since Roe v. Wade. The most common occurs from 8-12 weeks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_development#Fet al_Period - see "The fetal period" See also: http://www.catholic.net/rcc/loveboth/tinyfeet.jpg (that's around 8-weeks, it's a famous picture) and also http://www.alexanderandturner.com/assets/images/cy 13c.jpg
So currently most abortions take place by using a vacuum to rip apart an 8-12 week old fetus that has arms, legs, a beating heart, it's own blood system, etc. But it's also legal to have abortions during the full 9-moth term (hence the last picture). Consider partial-birth abortion. Here's a scientific drawing of the process: http://www.truthnet.org/abortion/Partial-Birth_Abo rtion1.jpg and here (warning you do NOT have to click if you don't want to) are pictures of the results: http://www.abortiontv.com/Pics/AbortionPictures6.h tm Clinton vetoed 2 bans on this procedure, and the current state bans have mostly been overturned.
Partial-birth abortion isn't even that late term. They use saline poisoning for late-term abortions. That's possibly an even more hideous procedure than partial-birth abortions.
And to get a final understanding of the objecive reality you have to realize that thanks to th Supreme Court any law that bans or limits abortion without an exceptin for "health of the mother" is unconstitutional. Health has been defined as "all factors relating to the well-being of the mother" which turns the exception into a loop-hole t
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
Persuade me that common sense is better justified than the wildest mystical lunacy.
"Common sense is sensible," by the way, is no better a justification than "mysticism is mystical" might be.
You're saying that if the Taiwanese people want Taiwan to be a state then - existentialy - it should be a state.
:-). So I don't understand it very well.
This is close to what I was saying. I have a particular ethical framework. As part of that ethical framework, I believe more or less that a people should be able to govern themselves. This ethical framework is complex. However, it is motivated by observation, and scientific observation in general. Similarly, I try to make the type of belief I have in God motivated by observation, including scientific observation. I think this make my beliefs more fragile than yours are. For example, the personhood of fetuses, and of those near death as well (the severely brain damaged, say), makes me question on some level whether a person exists at all. I don't think you have this problem, since for you personhood is only a matter of will. But on the other hand, I think that my concept of personhood can be made richer by scientific inquiry in a way that yours cannot be. As an analogy, I can't "prove" that an electron exists, precisely. Sure, I can use experiments confirm that electrons work as a theoretical device, and I don't have any idea how to theoretically talk about the physics of an atom without using the theoretical device of an electron, so I think that an electron has reality, but we don't fully understand whatever our theoretical electron refers to. Our intellect forces us to somehow understand the world less completely than God could. But the concept of an electron is certainly strongly motivated by experiment. I can never imagine personhood being as cleanly motivated by observation as electron-ness is, but I want for my concept of personhood to have a kind of relevance to my experience that I think can only be provided if my experience is allowed to have relevance to my concept of personhood. So with Taiwan, I start with the belief that a people should be allowed self determination. This belief could be shaken or defeated by the right experiences. For example, as a most extreme example, if I could be shown that all such self determined people ultimately destroyed themselves due to their self determination, I would have to think long and hard about whether I thought people should be self determined. Then, based on this belief, we can observe that the Taiwanese people don't want to be part of China, etc. However, my reasoning is different than what you describe.
As for existentialism- eventually in my life, I need to read more about it. I am still to a certain degree stuck in the enlightenment
The trouble is, you just went for "the Taiwanese people want to be Taiwanese" without explaining why you cared about that.
That's true. I went a little bit into why I thought this was true in my first paragraph. Ultimately, we get back to why I think you and I have such important value. This is for me a matter of faith, and I don't think its a faith that is only a matter of will. But as much as possible, I try to think about every aspect of my beliefs. For me, saying that it is just a matter of will feels too much like a cop-out.
I appreciate your comments about the current number of abortions given, etc. Let me just make two comments. The first is on the Supreme Court decisions. This has to do with the legality of abortions. This is a matter of law, and is based on this right to privacy which is read from the Constitution but not explicitly mentioned, and in general I just don't understand it very well. The second is on "partial birth abortions." The only person I know who I could consider getting such a late term abortion was a woman who had been trying very, very hard to get pregnant, and finally did get pregnant. Shortly into the pregnancy, tests showed the baby would be born with only a brain stem. She decided to carry the child to term. Then, in the 7th term, she got high blood pressure (I think), or whatever pregnant women sometimes get, and had to remain bed ridden for the next 3 months, with nothing to
I believe that I am a tree.
You're trying to use a special technical defintition for "human" to mean moral entity. I'd recommend a different word, because in most peope's usage, only members of our species can be human. For example, if we met a species of aliens that we're intelligent and moral, we might consider them "people", but we'd likely not consider them "human". Similarly, if we discoverd a species of monkey that, with proper education, could hold a job, the debate would be over whether they should be considered "people", not whether they should be considered "human".
If you're trying an ontological end-run, trying to assert that all members of the species homo-sapiens, even single-celled ones, must be "human" and therefore moral entities, you need to make an actual argument for that, not just get clever with definitions.
You have asserted that all members of a particular species are "people", but you haven't presented much of an argument for that claim. All you've really said so far to support your belief is: "the Nazis (and others like them) rejected this belief so it must be true" and "it's consistant with my intuitions about morality so it must be true". Color me unconvinced - you think your species is uniquely moraly important, big surprise.
Further, it's not clear whether you'd allow for an entity who was a member of a different species to be considered a moral entity on par with humans - can a non-human ever be a "person", even hypothetically?
We could all drive 25 mph and save lives. We don't. We're happy with the loss of life we have.
Hmmm, let me put this three different ways.
- You said you think freedom is important, do you think it's a good moral tradeoff to significantly reduce a woman's freedom in order to reduce mortality in the first two weeks from 60.1% to 60%?
- Do you believe in the kind of God who would consign 60% of humanity to death in the first 2 weeks of life, or are you making an argument that's only consistant with some of your beliefs? If you believe God exists and matters, you need an answer to this.
- If so very many lives are lost in the first two weeks, and there was a drug that would prevent a significant percentage of these lives from being lost, shouldn't women be forced to take this drug, even if it has unpleasant side effects? Shouldn't we be spending billions to discover such a drug? Many, many more lives (by your definition) are lost in this fashion than are lost due to abortion, why aren't people worked up about it?
BTW, it's not moral relativism I'm arguing for, it's moral provincialism I'm arguing against. You seem to insist that the morals you were taught while growing up (or somehting reasonably close to those morals, anyway) are the One True Moral Code, despite being just one of thousands of moral codes believed just as strongly by thousands of cultures, and most of which just happen to be what's beneficial economically to their culture. There's no particular reason to believe that your intuitions are correct, after all, only that they they're practical.Most people involved in moral philosophy are simply trying to prove their pre-existing beliefs correct. As a methodology that's fine, most science works the same way. But getting to the point where you can say "this set of principles is logically consistant, can be reduced to a few axioms, and passes the test of my moral intuitions pretty well" is where the argument begins, not where it ends (though it's a fine excercise in it's own right). For every peroson on Earth there's a set of axioms that meet those criteria - who is right?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Because it's a philosophy of religion class!
"When words lose their meaning, people will lose their liberty." -Confucious
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.