Enough shit from the bible belt. Time to do something about it.
If a circuit court judge started saying that he was abducted by aliens, there would be calls to remove him from the bench. Why? Because if he believed something that ridiculous his ability to think rationally and do his job would be in question.
If a state senator declared that Santa Claus was real, would we leave him in place or would we push to drive him out of office? Would you feel comfortable having decisions that effect your life being made by someone who believes a fat, jolly man slides down his chimney every year?
Maybe the belief in a higher power doesn’t fall into that exact category. I have heard plenty of rational arguments for believing in some greater force then us in the universe. I personally don’t buy it, but I can respect it. However, the specific belief in the literal God of The Bible, invisible sky daddy who can make entire eco-systems in six days and doesn’t like it when we don’t pray to him, that DOES fall into the Santa-Aliens category and anyone who believes such stuff is incapable of making completely rational decisions because their belief system influences all that they do.
So we need to make a list of all the people in power who fall into this category. All the politicians, judges, etc. Then we need to hire some lawyers and bring them each into court for competency hearings. A unified movement across the country.
Think that would send a message?
“It is morally wrong to kill a human” is a gross oversimplification of most peoples’ moral stance. For example, the US government kills humans on a regular basis under a wide variety of differing circumstances, yet most of us are okay with it, and even facilitate it in one way or another.
Let me clarify.
The basic principle is that there is such as a thing as a human being. The fact that it is hard to draw a line – are neanderthals human? – does not change the fact that humans exist. You and I are human.
Justin: Fair enough. Killing is wrong. I certainly won’t argue with that.
Thanks for the Carlin elwedriddsche. Good stuff.
Out of genuine interest, I am going to attempt once more to bring this discussion kicking and screaming back to where it began:
I ask again. If a US Senator were to publicly announce that he had seen God and spoken to him, perhaps even received a commandment from him…how would this revelation be received by the public? Has this ever happened? I hear politicians talk of speaking to God (in their prayers), but rarely of God speaking to them.
I only ask because I expect many Christians feel government and politicians in general are too secular. Many Christians probably feel that politicians only give lip service to religion…instead of going the “Full Monty” for the one and true Truth, so to speak. They probably feel the same way about their school boards and judges – that more needs to be done in the fight against moral laxity, etc etc.
On the flipside, it’s apparent to me that most politicians certainly know that there is only so much god-talk the public will accept…so that’s why supposedly devout leaders (like, say George W) don’t go on all the time in public about God, even though they claim from time to time to be acting on a mission from Him. As nutty as the average voter is about Zeus, they still expect their leaders to be rational to a point…that’s why ranting endtimes nutbars like Jack Van Impe or Pat Robertson will never (hopefully) hold office…or at least will continue to have a limited chance of getting in…if they ever do run.
While most politicians give lip service to religion – they also seem to be very careful about how they speak about religion. While they proclaim “praise God” with frequency and conviction, I don’t hear many reliving on CNN the one time Zeus descended from the heavens in his ectoplasmic glory to answer their prayers in person…in turn giving them the conviction to shout “praise God” on national TV.
Is it because they fear secular backlash and disbelief of their supernatural tale? Of course not everyone gets a visit from God…but I have heard a couple of good ones from Evangelicals…close relatives included…and it has almost always been my experience that TrueBelievers frequently have an example of a time or situation where they felt, heard or otherwise sensed God’s presence. So if my family members will share their near God “proof” experiences with me (almost all experienced at times of high stress and lack of sleep, I might add) why won’t politicians?
Furthermore, what obligation does a public official have to recognize his or her own biases?
Zilch played along:
Men with vasectomies have no say in the debate anyway. They had the God-given responsibility to reproduce and snippily said “Duh, not me!”. Only real men have the mandate and the authority to force women to have every baby they help start.
As for people under three, they have the right to make babies too, if they’re males. If they’re females, they have to right to be instructed to reproduce…
I stand by my original assessment, though. Gays make fewer babies per sexual union than any other subset and they teach other’s babies how to be fabulous.
I had to learn how to be fabulous the hard way and that’s no fun. I highly recommend having Brock teach your baby how to be fabulous. It’s less stressful and more efficient!
This is what I get for being busy for a day. I agree mostly with Justin and much of this is a rephrasing according to my own perceptions of reasonable argument.
Oh yeah, I forgot how valuable relativistic ethics are in determining right and wrong.
I am nobody, but I do have the ability to reason. So I think I my reasoning for taking a stance should speak for itself. If people choose to disagree then I am more than willing to let them do so and act on that ability if they can back it up with more sound reasoning than I for my position. After all if a legislator is to be allowed to legislate shouldn’t he first be tested to have sound reasoning?
KPatrickGlover, I believe if you had written your post to say we need some standard for determining competency; the ability to apply logic, critical thinking skills, then no one would have gotten themselves in a huff about it. This thread wouldn’t have launched yet another abortion debate. And, I believe, if we had a standard for determining competency, which I also believe we desperately need, discovery of the candidate’s religious beliefs would not be essential to weeding out the undesirables. There just has to be a correlation with the fundies. Dontcha think?
That was almost as funny as a child = a “crotch-dropping.”
We did come very close to a Jewish VP in 2000. But that was back when we were still the United States.
That point of view sucks. Women host the nugget, men supply the seed, but it is their seed which has the potential to become their child too. Beyond emotional attachment, because a person cannot directly experience it is not a good reason to invalidate their voice in the cause. (I am not a homosexual, but I should still have an equal voice for or against same-sex marriages. I am not terminally ill at the moment, but I should still have an equal voice on the Right to Die issue.)
Liquor stores on closed on Sundays
But seriously, I can think of many, many reasons to be concerned.
Justice,
Nah, frame it any way you like – if the shoe fits, and so on and on…
Nope. It’s hard and dangerous work to grow a sprog, not to mention that popping it out of the toaster seems to sting a bit. How much effort is it to shoot wad, on the other hand? When it comes to raising the rug rats, it’s usually the mom having to do it alone when the sperm donor gets the roving eye. In short, there’s a huge difference in investment in a pregnancy and as far as I of the XY persuasion is concerned, the mom calls the reproductive shots.
@ KPatrickGlove:
I’m sorry, Theocrat, but a fertilized egg is not a human being. A fetus does not become a person human until it can live outside of the womb (usually occurs around four months or so of pregnancy). That’s my idea, anyway, and I’m sticking to it.
You mean 23 matched pairs, otherwise your definition of “human” would only encompass spermatazoa and unfertilized ova. In addition, according to that definition of “human”, trisomics, monosomics, people with Turner Syndrome, metafemales, people with Klinefelter Syndrome, and XYY “males” would all be considered “not human”.
And by that reasoning Sexy Sadie is the first to flunk the rational and logical reasoning test barring her from running for state or national political office or from being appointed to judge anyone in any court of law. Who would have guessed an atheist would be the first to fall to the test. I like it KPG. You’ve got my support.
elwedriddsche,
Not sure what you mean by that, but when I see an entry like this, I wonder how long it will take for the abortion debate to break out. (Usually within a half a dozen comments it seems.)
Limiting voices to only those capable of direct experience would certainly quiet things down. But it is also hard and dangerous work to be a soldier fighting in a war. That means civilians should have less say in whether or not we engage?
So explain to me why others, who had nothing to do with conception, have any say in the issue? Isn’t it the business of the viable/fertile couple (the seed giver and the egg holder)? And isn’t possession 9/10ths of law? The wife now owns the sperm and egg – She should get to decide whether she wants to keep supporting the occupant they create.
That’s OK Justice, it isn’t necessary to prove your innocence (unless it’s an insult to you to be thought of as gay) and if you accept marriage for heterosexuals, you should also accept it for homosexuals. Otherwise it’s inconsistent allowance of a basic right.
And, except if you’re the one dying or the one being kept alive, you really have no say unless it’s your spouse or kid. Live and let die, dude.
We wanted to talk about abortion and, by hell, we did! Rivers run and it’s up to each person whether they want to ride the thread-drift down one.
Exactly. It looks like the opening post hit a conservative nerve, otherwise why bother to derail a thread with a diversion like abortion?
It’s a nation that goes to war, soldiers are just expendable tools. The decision to go to war has at least two dimensions to it. First, is the war just? This is a question for everybody except American soldiers – it is my understanding that they sign away the right to speak their mind freely in case they disagree. Second, can the war be prosecuted with the assets at hand? This is not a question on which chickenhawks should get a vote.
Wow. I came to this late and, quite honestly, have yet to see anything really new or worthy of addressing, so I’m pretty much just going to stay out of this one and let people do their thing.
But I did think this was quite precious.
I’m sorry Justin, I would have thought you understood my point, namely that we do in fact make distinctions about when killing is appropriate or justifiable.
While that’s true to a certain extent Theo, it’s much easier to, say, prevent someone from doing drugs by limiting their access to them than it is to effectively prevent a woman from doing something to her own body. Because a woman cannot be separated from her body, effectively preventing her from aborting her fetus would be insanely difficult compared to most other things we try to prevent people from doing.
Here’s my question: let’s say we make abortion illegal, under the logic that it’s synonymous with murder. Should we then prosecute women for attempting to get an abortion? If they succeed in aborting their fetus, would it be considered a capital crime? What if they do not directly kill it, but endanger it through behaviors like drinking, smoking, or strenuous exercise? Is this reckless endangerment? At some point, might we not decide that it was morally reprehensible for the woman to do anything EXCEPT enter a chemically induced coma for nine months, so as to best protect the fetus from any possibility of intentional or accidental abortion? If we aren’t going to do all of these things, then why bother making abortion illegal in the first place?
This is my problem with the whole movement to legislate morality, and why I fear the influence certain moral issues have on our public policy. I think everyone has the right to think abortion is immoral, and to vocally oppose it. The same goes for racism, addiction, indoctrinating children into certain worldviews, etc. But just because we think something is immoral does not mean we have the right or the obligation to make it illegal. Morality may be a good starting point, but there’s got to be something more behind it.
Man, I have got to start typing this crap out faster. Every time I post, 8 people have already said what I wanted to say in a much more cogent, succinct, and generally entertaining fashion. Maybe I’ll go back to lurking for another 8 or 9 months.
Another example of employing the fallacy of the beard (continuum).
Basic principle: killing a human being is wrong
Grey area: endagering other human being to varying degrees
The point of the fallacy of the beard is that the grey area does not invalidate the basic principle. It does require that grey area cases be treated carefully. That is why our society has laws for murder and laws for reckless endagerment.
We may or may not decide to punish people pregnant women for drinking alcohol. We do punish drivers for drinking alcohol for basically the same exact reason – they are endangering other human beings. However we decide the alcohol case, the decision does not impact upon the “basic principle case” – that killin a human being is wrong.
Brock, first of all I am not a dude. I am a woman. Second of all, I am a strong advocate for the right for same-sex couples to marry, to adopt, etc. and have been even here. You entirely missed my point for saying, “I am not a homosexual,” and your condescending attitude just really pissed me off.
I am absolutely FOR a woman’s right to choose to terminate a pregnancy for any reason that woman decides is good enough, and I am absolutely AGAINST anyone telling her she cannot. But I also think it absolutely sucks that people completely dismiss the voice of what might have been the father. Even given that view, I do not believe the father should have the right to decide for the woman. It is just a situation that sucks.
And actually, this:
is a crock of shit. I don’t have a say if I am the one dying, being kept alive, or the parent or spouse of one thereof, and I am surprised that came from you. I have paid attention to the things you have written, and you seemed to have noticed the fundamentalists are all over that one. Remember Terri Schiavo? Even better, how about Dr. Kavorkian?
elwedriddsche,
A diversion
. You know, so many regulars here have said something about the same ol’ same ol’, whatever that may be for them… for me it is the “you are all a bunch of godless murderers” thing. All I did -I thought- was mention it as the same ol’ same ol’. I think it was just taken wrong.
You make a good point about soldiers/war.
Justice,
don’t mind me, I’m just bullshitting around.
Sorry, Justice, my response was quite snarky. I, as a man, gave the woman the absolute last right to say whether she wants an abortion and you, as a woman, included the man in the decision. I had no idea you were being so generous (because I thought you were a male or forgot, if I knew). The gender of the speaker makes some difference with this subject.
Yes, you have the MOST say if you are dying. I guess I omitted making that distinction.
I’d like to try to explain why I took such offense at your “I’m not a homosexual” line:
All my life I’ve heard well meaning people who aren’t gay say “…But by the way, I’m not gay” and it makes me feel like they’re trying to avoid the negative repercussions of being assumed gay. It feels like they’re giving an open-minded consideration then chickening out.
If someone is so afraid of being mistaken as gay that they have to give an unqualifier, I usually wonder how normal and appropriate they think being gay actually is.
On the other hand they may be trying to suggest that it’s even more generous of them to support gay rights when they have no personal stake in the equality measures. I’m always confused as to the reason for making sure others know one isn’t gay.
It seems I misunderstood the meanings of your remarks (the ones I quoted) and for that I apologize. Sorry I pissed you off for no general good.
As to some voices being “more equal” than others in a debate:
JUSTICE: Is it not a fact that the woman makes the final decision to keep or remove the fetus (and if to remove, then by whichever means are more readily available to her)? Therefore, in a hypothetical relationship – and bearing in mind that in many relationships the man is simply not around at this stage of the game – isn’t it useless to claim that a woman’s viewpoint should not carry more weight? It already does carry more weight. I think we can agree that the situation “sucks”, but can we also agree that the stakes are different for men and women in this issue? You know, like the stakes are different for men who can’t marry each other, or someone who is in excruciating agony and just wants out of this life? Sometimes the input of an outsider on a touchy issue is not welcome or helpful…particulary if that outsider is not in a position to empathize. Brock, am I close?
To Theocrats’s “rebuttal” of my point that an abortion ban is straight lunacy from a public health perspective:
To which Theo responded:
And, to which I now respond:
Bullshit. I fail to see how my argument defending pre-existing legislation because it successfully limits unsafe medical practices and “accidents” in the home can be remotely construed as having an anarchist backdoor loophole…or how it calls into question my views on the merit of law.
If it is not obvious to you by now, the answer is, of course, “Yes”…I do value laws…probably because they make me feel safe.
I think there were 1.3 million abortions last year in America. The sky did not fall – and if all you felt was a little pity or remorse, maybe some guilt, then I think we can all agree that you are very fortunate indeed, compared to the women who underwent these procedures. JUSTICE, you are right, the situation just plain sucks.
To sum up: (And this is directed at no one in particular…) If you aren’t in a position to empathize, don’t be offended if your comments aren’t welcomed by those living persons who are most directly affected by an issue. And also don’t be surprised if your comments seem not to be given equal weighting when it comes time to make a decision that is, ultimately outside the scope of your influence. Peace.
Justin: It’s not the fallacy of the beard. It’s a genuine question I’m presenting. Let’s throw out any discussion of endangerment, since I agree with you that that is a grey area. If we were to legislate such that abortion constituted murder, would we or would we not have to prosecute women who intentionally terminated their pregnancies? Would this be a capital offense? Would we not be legally bound to investigate every pregnancy not brought to term for signs of foul play?
I’m not trying to be facetious or sarcastic here. I genuinely would like clarification on the position of those who support the abortion = murder contention.
Justice: I initially took your post to mean something different than it did as well. It wasn’t until I saw that is was written by you and reread it that I realized what you were saying. Something about the phrasing of your comments, as well as the similarity of your name to another on the board, threw me at first. Not your fault of course, just thought you should know.
I’ve lost track of who said what here in this marathon thread but I would like to make a point to whoever it was that just wasn’t getting it. Bear (bare?) (where the hell is my dictionary?) with me now….
A tree is not equal to the latest novel by Stephen King.
(Human DNA does not equal Human Being.)
Before a tree can become the latest novel by Stephen King, it needs to become paper.
(Before Human DNA can become a Human Being it needs to become a fetus.)
Paper is not equal to the latest novel by Stephen King.
(A fetus is not equal to a human being.)
Paper needs to have concepts and ideas and words printed on it before it becomes the latest novel by Stephen King.
(A fetus needs to develop thoughts and feelings before it become a human being.)
These precepts belong to many things, not just Human Beings and novels by Steohen King.
You do not go to the grocery store to buy a dozen baby chickens in the shell. You buy a dozen eggs.
It isn’t the same thing.
Really.
Nowhere does this apply more obviously than in the case of abortion (and euthanasia, its counterpart at the other end). What cuts to the bone of our hopes and needs, if not human life? What is valuable, what is worth preserving, if not human life?
But what constitutes human life? And what constitutes human life worth saving, and denial of life worth punishing? This is the rub.
Some, especially (but not exclusively) religiously oriented people, believe in absolute right and wrong, and think that there are lines that can be drawn between good and bad, right and wrong, human and nonhuman.
Others believe that the world is more complex than that, and that while we often have to make decisions that split the world in two, that doesn’t mean that the split exists in the world, outside our need to make the decision. That’s my position (if anyone had any doubts).
To get back to JPG’s original topic in a roundabout way, here’s my fairy tale on the development of this difference in worldviews between moral relativism and moral absolutism:
Grud is running from a sabertooth tiger. She comes to a boulder and thinks “shall I go to the right or the left?” She goes to the right, and escapes. Later, she mulls over her experience. “There were two choices. One was good, and one was bad. I chose the good one. Life is like that- right and wrong. I must find the rules for what is right and what is wrong, and teach them to my children”.
Thus was born law- some behavior was right, some wrong; misbehaving kids got spanked. Later, Grood improved upon law, by inventing (or imagining) a Someone who knew everything, and Who thus could ensure good behavior even when Mom and Dad weren’t around, by threatening spanking in the afterlife. Religion was born. And since humans, apparently alone of all animals, know they are going to die, and as Thomas Browne put it, “the long habit of living indisposeth us to dying”, the promise of pie in the sky when we die proved to be a powerful hook.
This is fantasy, of course. Decisionmaking long precedes humans. But only humans have culture codified in law and religion, our way of binding individuals into societies.
If we want societies, we must make more or less arbitrary decisions. But regarding these decisions, laws, morals, as absolute, or beyond human needs, is backwards: humans evolved first, then morality. And morality does not describe the human condition- it is always an oversimplification. Morality, and laws, and religions, necessarily draw lines, as we necessarily decide which way to go around the boulder. But that doesn’t mean that they have any absolute value. That’s putting the eohippus before the equus.
And what does this excursis have to do with abortion? Just this: the lines we draw between right and wrong are necessary to make decisions. But they do not exist outside of our minds and needs. To say that abortion is “right” under some conditions and “wrong” under others is an oversimplification of a complex situation.
I’m a female/gay/aborted fetus. Can I now please get some special consideration here?
Ulfrekr: Whatever it was, it became an interesting display.
Brock,
The likelihood of that being your experience did occur to me after I submitted my comment. I can imagine.
I emphasized what I took as a clause I found particularly amusing. It’s okay; I adore your crazy ass even when it is showing.
rgjp,
Of course the woman ultimately makes the decision, and of course in the hypothetical relationship now absent a sperm donor, the potential father has no voice because he is obviously not speaking. But this started (for me) when someone was quoted making a proposal that comments on abortion beyond that point should be made by women only. (I didn’t catch who originally posted that comment.) In a general discussion, I think it is silly to dismiss an opinion on abortion simply because it was offered by a male. I agree the stakes are different for men and women in the abortion issue. But “different” is the key. The difference should leave the choice up to women, but men do have a stake. In the examples provided so far, we have only worthless men. Although there is great debate over when life actually begins, reality has it that a lot of people develop an emotional attachment to the potential the blob could become as soon as it is known said blob was created. While women are dealing with the issue, “my body, my life,” men deal with the issue, “my child, my life, my complete lack of control.”
Example: Man and woman have sex but do not intend to conceive. She gets pregnant anyway. She wants an abortion. He wants to have the baby. She gets abortion. Man loses potential child. However, we give her an opt-out which we absolutely will not give to men. If she wants the baby and he does not, she’ll have the baby and he will be expected to at least pay child support.
I am not attaching right or wrong to any part of that example. You said: “women’s viewpoints on abortion should be given more weight than men,” so you and I are not discussing the ultimate choice, but whether or not men should have an equal voice in the issue. Considering the above, and so many other related issues not mentioned, I say men absolutely have a stake high enough to be worthy of equal consideration in the discussion on abortion.
Yup, and let me just add that if men got pregnant instead of women there would be no such thing as labor. There’d be “Miller Time” then sweet unconsciousness ‘til the damn parasite was forced by the doctor to vacate the premises.
And the only one deserving say over the question to keep it or get an abortion would be him.
And human cloning would already be another option.
By the way, nice sound with Servo, rgjp.
Thanks Brock. I think you’re right about the Miller Time thing, though personally I’d be looking for something a lot stronger than watery American beer.
Justice, I think we are on the same page:
Couldn’t agree more.