The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Fetal tissue sting > Comments

Fetal tissue sting : Comments

By Peter Sellick, published 24/7/2015

But why should we be surprised or shocked by the discovery that fetal tissue was actively sought by medical researchers?

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. ...
  6. 15
  7. 16
  8. 17
  9. All
It wasn't only pagans that performed child or other human sacrifice: the story of Abraham being prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac has been well told (Genesis 22:2-8)

And of course the ultimate 'human' sacrifice was that of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
Posted by McReal, Friday, 24 July 2015 7:31:45 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Now an even more disturbing video has conme out.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/static/new-video-planned-parenthood-official-haggles-over-baby-body-part-prices-jo.html?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=cf921810d7-LifeSiteNews_com_Intl_Headlines_06_19_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0caba610ac-cf921810d7-326199314

I don't agree though Peter that making money is not an incentive for Planned Parenthood to be involved in this as the, "I want a Lamborghini" comment at the end of this second video suggests.
Posted by JP, Friday, 24 July 2015 9:21:10 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Sellick writes: "You will notice that pro-abortionists will always use the term "fetus" and never "child" they use "calvarium" instead of "skull", they use "demise" instead of death. Medical euphemisms are used to disguise reality."

Not only pro-abortionists use the term "fetus" but doctors and anyone concerned with accurately describing the process of gestation. A fetus is not a child. To be a child birth has to take place, and the baby has to grow to a certain stage. Those who get hysterical over abortion will call a fetus a child and then will charge those who call a fetus by an accurate designation as using a medical euphemism.

Doctors also call the upper leg bone a femur. Doctors refer to body parts by the conventional anatomical designation. Calvaria (not calvarium) is no more a euphemism than femur. It is the plural calvaria rather than calvarium because it is in several pieces. It should not be called a skull since it is not a skull. Only later in human development when the pieces have fused can it accurately be called a skull. The fetus has clavaria - not a skull.

A euphemism is a mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing. To use anatomical terms and an accurate name is not a euphemism.

It is common in our society to use euphemisms for death. "Passed on" is a common euphemism for death, and it is more of a euphemism than demise which is not a euphemism at all but a fancier word for death.

Sellick continues his emotive language:

"No, we should not be surprised by this, it occurs because we as a society have made the decision that the fetus is not a child,"

A fetus is not a child. That is no societal decision.

A woman is no fetus but an adult human. Many of those who would deny a woman's right to have an abortion erase the distinction between a fetus, a child and an adult in their emotive diatribes.
Posted by david f, Friday, 24 July 2015 9:39:34 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
McReal.
The point about the Abraham story in the context of other cultures performing child sacrifice was that God did not demand Isaac's sacrifice.

The point about Jesus death is that he willingly walked to Jerusalem to oppose the religious powers of the day and suffered the consequences.
Posted by Sells, Friday, 24 July 2015 9:49:38 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
david f - The Queensland Criminal Code certainly recognises that a pregnant woman is carrying a "child" as the section cited below makes clear. Moreover, the penalty is the same for killing an unborn child as for killing a born child.

CRIMINAL CODE 1899 - SECT 313
313 Killing unborn child
2) Any person who unlawfully assaults a female pregnant with a child and destroys the life of, or does grievous bodily harm to, or transmits a serious disease to, the child before its birth, commits a crime.

Maximum penalty—imprisonment for life.

In every day language no woman who is happily pregnant refers to what she is carrying as a "fetus", it is always a baby or a child. It is only when abortion is being considered that the term fetus starts being used. It is obviously less distressing to talk about the demise of a fetus than the killing of a baby or child.

Your position makes as much sense as saying that you can't say "teenagers" you have to call them "adolescents". No, just as femurs and upper leg bones are the same thing, unborn babies and fetuses are the same thing.
Posted by JP, Friday, 24 July 2015 10:04:02 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Any man's death diminishes me. The ultimate 'human' sacrifice is not that of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Millions of human lives have been sacrificed due to greed, hate, prejudice and other human flaws. To say that his death outweighs all others is to diminish and denigrate the sufferings of millions. Christian mythology has elevated the suffering of one person to an unreasonable extent.

The biblical stories of the binding of Isaac, the sacrifice of the daughter of Jephthah and the idea that Jesus could take upon himself the sins of mankind are ugly, primitive fables that hopefully humans in the future will regard as they regard Greek, Roman, Norse and other fables in the present.

Not knowing of all the sufferings and death of all humans it would be arrogant of me to write that any paricular death is the ultimate.
Posted by david f, Friday, 24 July 2015 10:15:44 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear JP,

I never wrote about what people can say or can't say. I objected to Sellick writing that using medical terms is a euphemism cloaking reality.

You wrote: "In every day language no woman who is happily pregnant refers to what she is carrying as a "fetus", it is always a baby or a child. It is only when abortion is being considered that the term fetus starts being used. It is obviously less distressing to talk about the demise of a fetus than the killing of a baby or child."

The above is not true. I am the father of three children. My wife who was a nurse and happily pregnant referred to the contents of her womb as a fetus.

If you want to call a fetus a child you may do so, and I have no objection. However, I object to Sellick writing that calling a fetus what it is is a euphemism. I also think the Queensland law is poorly worded.
Posted by david f, Friday, 24 July 2015 10:32:32 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I never though I would catch davidf using magical language. He believes that something magical occurs when the foetus breaches and instantly becomes a child. Please explain to me how this happens. Is it like then old doctrine of transubstantiation when the host becomes the body of Christ in the Mass? Do we need the Aristotelian philosophy of forms and accidents to explain it?

Oh, I know, we do not at all. The magical change that occurs is only in our minds. And here I was thinking david was a nominalist but he turns out to be a realist, the real things are in the mind. So when a baby breaches it is our minds that produces the change from foetus to child. Human subjectivity wins again.

Why not admit it, the change is a convenient fiction to enable us to do away with unwanted children.
Posted by Sells, Friday, 24 July 2015 10:36:46 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear Sells,

A change from one stage of human life to another is natural - not magical. We are a fertilisd egg at the beginning and a corpse at the end. We become a baby when we are born. Human birth is a wonderful process. We can even think of it as a magical process. We can correctly be labelled as undead humans since all of us will die. However, while we are alive we are not a corpse. While we are in our mother's womb we are not a baby. We become so when we are born. If you want to call a foetus a child you certainly may, but I find your insistence that it is a euphemism when other people call a foetus a foetus unreasonable.

A foetus does not have a skull just pieces of bone that will later fuse to form a skull. In referring to those separate pieces of bome as calvaria it is merely an accurate designation. Since it is not your field your ignorance of human anatomy is excusable.

I feel that you mean well and are probably not a bad person.
Posted by david f, Friday, 24 July 2015 11:05:15 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Unless you have absolute proof that a fetus is in fact also an unborn child then you must give the benefit of the doubt to the mother.

If you cannot prove that a fetus is a child then it is possible that it is not a child and by denying women the right to abortion you are sentencing them to an unwanted pregnancy, birth and motherhood. All these things deny her the freedom to choose her own life and destiny. This is a terrible sentence on anyone. You would want to be absolutely sure of your facts before placing such a heavy burden on any woman.

No one can ever know when life begins and if you cannot know then you should behave in such a way that shows that you cannot know. Do not behave in such a way that proclaims that you do know. There are many things in life that we cannot have answers to and we should have the humanity to say that we do not know.

This is where the arrogance of people like Sellick comes to the fore. Not for them is the humility to say we do not know and to accept their humanity as having limitations. Rather they put themselves above the human condition and deny that we should accept our lack of knowledge and behave accordingly. They want to place themselves above all others because they are so insecure in their worth as a human being. It is enough for everyone else to behave like a human being and to give freedoms where they are due but not for these people who consider themselves above humanity.

They are not human because they would deny the rights of women when they have no proof for their argument. They exalt themselves above the need for logic and reason which are cornerstones of human nature. Either they are part of the human family or they are not. They cannot have it both ways.
Posted by phanto, Friday, 24 July 2015 11:09:41 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
As I understand it Peter, late term abortions are almost only carried out on sound medical grounds alone?

So to get to the nub of the matter what are the medical credentials that allow you to critique other clinicians and their decisions?

The referenced terminology is there to protect the already hopelessly distressed patient!

For you and your ilk there is never a reason to abort? I mean it's not like we're living on an underpopulated planet, or have far too many mouths to feed!?

Typically of the fundamental fanatic there is no valid reason to abort a fetus, be it incest, rape of a child as young as 8 forced into marriage, rohipnol assisted date rape, or an entire promising career ruined by the same!

Very few doctors are unethical as you seem to infer; and must believe they have sound medical grounds in order to undertake such a procedure!

I challenge you to name just one unethical clinician harvesting human tissue unethically or without the informed legal consent of the pertinent patients?

And given things like incompatible tissue and tissue rejection, who the hell are you to sit there "completely clueless", yet sit there like a self appointed God on the day of judgement!

Discarded Fetal tissue is valuable just as donated blood and cord tissue is!

What sting are you implying? There is nothing to see here, other than the slanderous conspiratory theories of, I believe, an anti abortion nutter?

I hope the clinics one and all take out an AVO on you and all your ilk/patent control freaks!

It'd be a very different story if you were the one getting pregnant and finding your kidneys were being seriously compromised by the toxic/lethal side effects of incompatible tissue rejection!

And seriously, when only one life can be saved it is the mother we choose to support! Get a life of your own!
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Friday, 24 July 2015 11:18:46 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Phanto – what sort of proof do you want?

“Human life begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm (spermatozoo developmentn) unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.” “A zygote is the beginning of a new human being (i.e., an embryo).”
Keith L. Moore, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 7th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2003. pp. 16, 2.

“Your baby starts out as a fertilized egg… For the first six weeks, the baby is called an embryo.”
Prenatal Care, US Department Of Health And Human Services, Maternal and Child Health Division, 1990

“Although it is customary to divide human development into prenatal and postnatal periods, it is important to realize that birth is merely a dramatic event during development resulting in a change in environment.”
The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology fifth edition, Moore and Persaud, 1993, Saunders Company, page 1

And when it comes to the possibility of taking human life, the presumption must always be in favour of not risking life. For example, the hunter who shoots a fellow hunter will not be excused because he says that he thought that the object he shot might have been a deer. The burden of proof is on the one who would kill not the other way around.
Posted by JP, Friday, 24 July 2015 11:34:39 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
There are circumstances in which abortion should be condoned. But most abortions are done out of convenience. The resort to a woman's right is a weak argument. Rights are inventions that sometimes stand for justice but at other times are just excuses for doing what we want. More magical thinking. We would like to be able to conveniently and safely do away with unwanted children so we invent a "right" especially so that it may be condoned. Silliness on stilts.

We conveniently forget the father of the child. He has skin in the game but he is rarely mentioned in all this. It is his child that is being killed.

The child also has grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles and possibly siblings.

I can also quote John Dunn "No man is an island unto himself."
Posted by Sells, Friday, 24 July 2015 11:52:12 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
JP:

Why did you need to go and look it up? Should not it be obvious? Many anti-abortionists just ‘know’ that abortion is wrong. They do not appeal to medical science. How do they know this? Long before embryology they declared it to be wrong. It has nothing to do with science.

Haven’t just quoted opinions of various people? Opinions are not proof. No matter how hard you try you can never prove when life begins.

Sells:
“magical thinking”, “silliness on stilts”. Can’t you present your argument without ridicule? Or is that a sign of no argument?
Posted by phanto, Friday, 24 July 2015 12:07:13 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
What makes the destruction of bodies most times wrong - be they young or old, others' or one's own, born or unborn, human or animal, etc. is the selfishness of the act.

Selfish acts are sinful because they reinforce the illusionary conviction as if we are separate entities or bodies with separate interests, other than of doing God's will.

Humans are not sacred and the destruction of bodies, including human bodies, is not the destruction of life because life itself is eternal and cannot be destroyed.

Our body is just a vehicle by which we interface the world. It took us many years to nourish, educate and prepare this body to become as capable and suitable to carry God's good work, so killing it jeopardises all this effort, forcing us to start all over again in a new body. For someone to selfishly sabotage the efforts of another by destroying the body they worked so hard to raise and educate, is therefore a grave crime.

However, a foetus or a young baby have not yet invested significantly in the education of their bodies so they would not suffer significantly at their loss, hence killing them is a lesser sin. Comparatively, killing a grown animal whose brain/mind is more developed than that of a foetus/baby can be a greater sin, especially if done with the selfish motive of eating their flesh. On the other hand, killing a foetus, born or unborn, whose education efforts are still close to zero, unselfishly for the sake of using their tissues to heal others, so they remain alive and not lose their own education, is a good act.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Friday, 24 July 2015 12:44:42 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Yuyutsu,
I hope you are not planning to teach Christian ethics any time soon. Your post is amazingly convoluted. The human body is never just a way of interfacing with reality, it is central to Christian thought. As for getting a new body that does not even fit into any heresy that i know. Can I remind you that there is no life outside of the body, that the incarnation raised the body to be of ultimate consideration, that Jesus died in the flesh and was raised in the flesh and ascended in the flesh.
Posted by Sells, Friday, 24 July 2015 2:01:39 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear Peter,

Being a Hindu by religion, teaching Christian ethics has not even crossed my mind.

Your article raises important moral questions, but it nowhere suggests that its conclusions depend on the Christian view of life or apply only to a Christian audience (in fact, the word "Christian" does not appear in it even once, nor "Jesus").

It is a common teaching to Christianity and Hinduism (as well as many other religions) that selfishness is an obstacle in reaching God - and that was the crux of my response, that what matters most is the spirit of the act, that is its intention, rather than its physical effect.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Friday, 24 July 2015 5:33:30 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Perhaps a less emotionally loaded analysis:

http://www.cruxnow.com/life/2015/07/24/the-hidden-ethics-battle-in-the-planned-parenthood-fetal-tissue-scandal/ ?
Posted by George, Saturday, 25 July 2015 2:43:16 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
.

Dear George,

.

Thanks for that link to the “Crux” article of the Boston Globe Catholic Media.

It does, indeed present “a less emotionally loaded (or should I say “a more balanced”) analysis” than that which appeared in the men’s magazine “heavy.com” on which Peter based his “Fetal tissue sting” article this month.

I am a little surprised that Peter takes the “heavy.com” article on its face value without question. I see that the magazine was created in 1999, a good 20 years after “Heavy Metal”, the American version of the French science fiction and horror magazine, “Metal Hurlant” which first appeared in Paris in 1975.

Bloomberg describes the American “heavy.com” online magazine as follows :

" Heavy.com is an online information and entertainment destination for men that offers information in the areas of comedy, entertainment, news, and action videos; and Heavy Men’s Network, a distribution network reaching men worldwide …" :

http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapid=718452

According to Wikipedia, the slogan (or purpose) of “heavy.com” is :

" Videos, humour and other time-wasting tools " :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy.com

I find it odd, to say the least, that Peter should consider “heavy.com” as a valid source of information for such a controversial subject as the procurement of tissue from aborted foetuses for medical research.

Particularly since popular men’s magazines such as “heavy.com” are renowned, world-wide, for their not-so-subtly misogynous content :

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/Heavy.com

.
Posted by Banjo Paterson, Saturday, 25 July 2015 5:26:59 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Sells wrote: “There are circumstances in which abortion should be condoned. But most abortions are done out of convenience.”

I feel that the above statements by Sells demonstrates his lack of compassion for women who find it necessary to get an abortion and his desire or need to denigrate those women.

The desire to become a mother is a strong drive in most women I have been close enough to discuss the matter with. I have seen many mothers with little children. They hug, kiss, look at with delight and otherwise show how happy they are to have a child. I think very few women get abortions for their own convenience. Of course their desperate need may come across to Sells as mere convenience.

I feel that most women who get an abortion have a great need to get that abortion, and that Sells’ statement has no factual basis. A women needing an abortion is entitled to sympathy and should not be denigrated.

Sells also wrote: “The resort to a woman's right is a weak argument. Rights are inventions that sometimes stand for justice but at other times are just excuses for doing what we want.”

This is more denigration of women. Rights are rights, and a woman desperately needing an abortion may be to Sells just doing what she wants. The right of a woman to have control over her body is a tremendously strong right. She shouldn’t be doing what she wants? She should be doing what Sells wants?

A pregnant woman will have to carry the foetus in her body. She will have to go through labor if the pregnancy comes to term. Her family or the father will not be doing it for her. She will probably have to raise her offspring if there is one. She should have the right to decide whether she wants to continue her pregnancy.

Sells may have let his ideology override his compassion. His ideology exalts the foetus over the pregnant woman.
Posted by david f, Saturday, 25 July 2015 10:10:21 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Banjo,
I don't get your difficulty with the website I used. There were many reports of this event. I chose to use the one with a complete transcript.

Davidf,
I found about the sting from an article in First Things and I experienced a deep feeling of sorrow and disgust that drove me to write the article. I have compassion for the women who have to give up their child but I have more compassion for the child.
I have never heard a pregnant woman talk of her "foetus" they always talk about their baby. The old term for pregnancy is to "be with child." The medical language is always used when abortion is being discussed because it distances us from the reality.

George,
Your desire for a less emotional response is puzzling. It smacks of the division of the human person between heart and mind that is quite artificial. Emotion is thought to displace reason. However emotion often prompts us to realise something that reason will not tell us. Your church would be disturbed by the opinions in the link that justify abortion and tissue use in a quite utilitarian fashion. It goes against the precept that every person is a child of God and can not be used for another's ends. Once we get over the artificial distinction between foetus and child this will all become clear.
Posted by Sells, Saturday, 25 July 2015 12:04:12 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
DavidF :

I don’t think there is such a thing as a drive to have children. There is a drive to have sex and sex leads to children unless some action takes place to stop this from having. I think there is a very strong social pressure on women to have children which is a different thing. Once a child is born it is natural for a mother to nurture and care for it and this is where the maternal instinct kicks in. If there was a drive to have children then you would think that nearly all women would have it.

We do not need to make excuses for a woman’s right to have an abortion. We only make excuses if we think something is wrong and abortion is not wrong unless it can be proven beyond all doubt that it is taking a life and no one can do that. If a woman wants to a have an abortion for any reason then she is free to do so. Anti-abortionists try to induce guilt where none should apply. When Sells says that women have an abortion for convenience it is a judgemental stance with no foundation. The implication is that she should go ahead with the pregnancy and any other choice is selfish.

This is where Christians have a big problem. Doing anything for oneself is considered selfish. If they want to live their lives according to such principles which deny a person the right to choose in their own favour about anything then such is their right. They do not do so gracefully and willing but with deep resentment that other people are not constrained in the same way. They want everyone else to have to suffer what they have freely imposed upon themselves and one way of doing this is to use guilt ridden language. Non-Christians should not be seduced by this manipulation and fall into the trap of justifying what is not necessary to justify.
Posted by phanto, Saturday, 25 July 2015 7:48:24 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Phanto,
Human rights date all the way back to John Locke. Are are obviously and invention of the times. I wrote this in an article on OLO.http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=15228

The language of human rights has come to dominate our world because we cannot any longer talk about truth. This is another way of saying that we can no longer, in the public square, talk about God. Such talk is forbidden because Christianity has become a private matter to do solely with the salvation of the individual believer. It is not a subject for public discussion. Religious people are free to believe what they want as long as they do not attempt to proselytise. This ignores the fact that the search for truth is at the centre of the practice of theology. Christians do not or should not reduce faith to utilitarianism in the hope that belief will provide some benefit. They should be concerned about what is true, a major topic in the gospels, especially the gospel according to John. The eclipse of the understanding of God as truth is the reason we find talk about truth difficult if not impossible.
Posted by Sells, Saturday, 25 July 2015 8:29:13 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear phanto,

We agree that there is a drive to have sex. There is also a drive to be a mother. Whether this drive arises from women internalising the values of society or whether it is something innate I can’t say. My oldest granddaughter does not want to bear a child. She is heterosexual but wants to adopt a child. She has drives to have sex and to have a child. Apparently to her those drives are separate. She is completely irreligious.

I agree that we need not make excuses for a woman’s right to have an abortion. However, I feel that Sells’ statement that most abortions are a matter of convenience is just a self-serving statement that denigrates women. His attitude seems to be, “All hail the foetus. The pregnant woman who doesn’t want to continue a pregnancy is a wicked creature who doesn’t want to perform the function that God has assigned her.”

There is another tradition. Rabbi Hillel said:

"If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, when?"

One should care not only for others but also for oneself. Hillel lived not long before Jesus and Jesus was a Jew, not a Christian. It is reasonable to assume that, if Jesus was not pure myth, that was also his attitude.
Posted by david f, Saturday, 25 July 2015 8:31:22 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
yeah abortion is about that poor 13 year old girl being raped. These killers have much in common with the Nazis.
Posted by runner, Saturday, 25 July 2015 8:33:27 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Sells wrote: “The eclipse of the understanding of God as truth is the reason we find talk about truth difficult if not impossible.”

The above is an example of complete nonsense. Sells has equated belief which cannot be substantiated with truth which can.

Some statements can be determined to be true or false. True statements may be tautologies. True statements can be substantiated by evidence. False statements can be shown to be logically contradictory or disproved by the evidence
.
Example of a true statement:

Green has a wavelength of 530 millimicrons.

Example of a false statement:

Fish are mammals.

As Godel showed some logical statements in an axiomatic system cannot be determined true or false.

Talk about truth is not at all difficult.

God is a human invention. There is no evidence to support the existence of such an entity. That there is a God is an unprovable assumption as are many religious statements.

Example of a meaningless statement:

God is truth.

Since the statement is meaningless serious talk about it is impossible.
Posted by david f, Saturday, 25 July 2015 9:05:18 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
DavidF:

I agree with you that such statements are meaningless. The best response is no response at all.
Posted by phanto, Saturday, 25 July 2015 9:35:43 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Sells,

I do not understand why you find puzzling my link showing that there is also a less emotional and more rational way of looking at the topic of your article (that in principle I agree with) than most of the reactions you got here.

Some confuse arguments for something to be allowed, i.e. to be legal, with those for it being a human “right”. In case of e.g. smoking the distinction is clear (they are legal but I do not think being allowed to smoke constitutes a human right).

As for having an abortion, the distinction is not so clear and arguments for or against the one are often confused with those for or against the other. Of course, in addition to this there are also ethical concerns - evaluated differently by different people subscribing to different ethical norms - and with trafficking in aborted (or miscarried) tissues added, there is also the aesthetic factor that adds to the emotions and confusion.
Posted by George, Saturday, 25 July 2015 11:11:16 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
.

Dear Peter,

.

You wrote :

« There were many reports of this event. I chose to use the one with a complete transcript. »

Thanks for the explanation.
.

I see there has been a call for congressional investigation into the allegations of unethical and illegal actions of the Planned Parenthood organisation which is reported to perform 1 in 3 abortions in the US and is heavily subsidised by public funds.

However, the Speaker of the House of Representatives in Washington, John Boehner, was quoted Friday as having said he wanted more “facts” before ending Planned Parenthood’s public funding which reportedly represents 41% of to the total revenue of the organisation :

http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/24/boehner-wants-more-facts-before-ending-planned-parenthood-funding-heres-8/

We shall have to await the outcome of the congressional investigation which now seems inevitable.

If the allegations are substantiated, obviously, those responsible should be severely condemned and sanctioned.
.

That said, abortion, as such, is neither illegal in the US nor is it deemed to be unethical. The same principle applies in respect of the donation of tissue from aborted foetuses for medical research.

Trafficking of such tissue, whether for medical research or otherwise, is, of course, both illegal in the US and considered unethical.

The gory details of how the foetuses are manipulated in the delivery room in order to preserve them in the best state possible is totally irrelevant to the questions of legality and ethics, though they may impress and shock the uninitiated such as myself.

As George rightly observes: “ … there is also the aesthetic factor that adds to the emotions and confusion”.

In a 2001 article, Heather Boonstra, Director of Public Policy at the Guttmacher Institute in the US noted :

« Dating back to the 1930s, scientists have used tissue from aborted fetuses as a means of understanding cell biology and as an important tool in the development of vaccines. The 1954 Nobel Prize for Medicine, for example, was awarded to American immunologists who developed the polio vaccine based on cultures of human fetal kidney cells. » :

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/tgr/04/1/gr040103.html

Wikipedia says this on “foetus” :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetus

.
Posted by Banjo Paterson, Sunday, 26 July 2015 9:18:58 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Much is being made of Planned Parenthood's role. What of the organisations that sought the tissues and offered to pay? Were these publicly funded? Given that the US had a long standing ban on publicly funded stem cell research, it seems likely they were private or venture capital. Have they been subjected to similar nit picking? Are the shareholders "christian" or just rich?

Rusty
Posted by Rusty Catheter, Sunday, 26 July 2015 10:06:33 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I really don't see the problem with using aborted or miscarried foetal tissue for research that could save so many lives, or cure some horrible diseases.

Abortion is legal here in most states of Australia (and readily available in all of them), and will always be legal. No Government in it's right mind would alienate at least half of the population by making abortion totally illegal, and dragging us all back into the dark ages.

Even though we currently are religiously top-heavy amongst all the Catholics and Hillsong crazies in the Liberal Government top jobs, they still wouldn't do it, because their religious 'convictions' won't ever overcome their political aspirations.

So why not use the foetal tissue, if it is going to be always available anyway?
It won't make one iota of difference to the abortion debate, and it can only do good.
Posted by Suseonline, Sunday, 26 July 2015 2:36:32 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Susan,
I have no problem with using foetal tissue for research. I have a problem with aborting the child. Just because abortion is legal and easy to obtain does not make it right. It just underlines our bankruptcy as a society. What kind of society is it that kills it's children?
At one point in the child's life it is crushed to death in the birth canal and at another point all love and care and expense are lavished on it. What has happened in between? The child has just progressed on its long journey to adulthood. But because we want to relieve ourselves of guilt we arbitrarily ordain, for no reason at all, that at one point it is a foetus and at another a child. Go figure!
Posted by Sells, Sunday, 26 July 2015 3:46:27 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
What kind of society is it that makes medically safe abortion illegal? What kind of society is it that bans contraceptives that makes it more likely for a woman to resort to abortion? It is the kind of society that condemns a woman who needs an abortion to the tender mercies of a backyard abortionist, the use of a knitting needle or suicide. It is a society that puts the preservation of a foetus as more important than the welfare of a pregnant woman.

I recognise the rights of a foetus. A woman who ingests harmful substances during her pregnancy makes it less likely for a healthy baby to be born. If she intends to give birth she should see that her offspring would have a good beginning. A person who attacks a pregnant woman and causes harm or death to her foetus is guilty of a crime. However, I do not recognise that the foetus has equal rights with the woman whose body contains the foetus.

I feel that many of those who do not support legalised abortion disregard the pregnant woman. They do not feel that she has a right on her own to decide to terminate a pregnancy. I feel that this stems from the same mindset that kept woman from the vote and political office, that denied a married woman equal rights with regard to property or even to her children and that denied her the right to decide if she would be married and who she would marry.

The decision to have an abortion may be an agonising one, and a woman who has made that decision should be allowed to have the abortion with as little additional turmoil as possible. However, some opponents of abortion would deny her that peace of mind and want to harass her as she goes to the abortion clinic.

I feel strongly that a woman should have equal rights and access to a medically safe abortion is part of those rights.

The personal is the political in my case and in many other cases.

continued
Posted by david f, Sunday, 26 July 2015 5:36:44 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
continued

My mother was a bright and frustrated alcoholic. Her arbitrary and sometimes selfish behaviour was a consequence of alcoholism. She was a school teacher before she got married, but the school district would not allow a married woman to continue to teach although a married man could. My father like many other middle-class men of his generation thought it a disgrace for a man to allow his wife to work. If she had been able to continue to get out in the world I think she probably would not have become an alcoholic, and I would have had a happier childhood. I am glad that women currently have the freedom that was denied my mother.

During WW2 my bright and beautiful cousin who I dearly loved became pregnant. Her boyfriend went off to war, and they had a tearful and I assume passionate parting. Shortly thereafter she found herself pregnant. Two months after her boyfriend left for overseas he was killed in action. She apparently could not tell her mother or anyone else of her condition, and there was no hope of her boyfriend returning so she killed herself. Had she had access to an abortion clinic she could have had an abortion, got an education and later had children. As it was her suicide was her end and the end of her foetus.

One way to limit the number of abortions is to provide sex education including the use of contraceptives and to make those contraceptives freely available. Some people who disapprove of a women’s right to have an abortion also oppose sex education and the availability of contraceptives. My late wife was a visiting nurse and a compassionate person. One of her clients was desperate. She had a number of children and did not see how it was possible to care for more. My wife supplied the woman with contraceptive information and contraceptives. For that my wife was sacked. If her client had become pregnant she most probably would have gone through the risk of using the services of a backyard abortionist.

continued
Posted by david f, Sunday, 26 July 2015 5:45:52 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Perhaps Peter, the clear difference is definitively contained by the willingness of the potential (and assumedly jointly indispensible) parents to be such at that time. You and many here would dispute their right to make such a decision, even going so far as to question the concept of "rights". well, the "right" of your church to intervene is similarly imaginary. Like the "divine right of kings" it is simply the power to coerce. Long may it remain stunted by the "right" of the citizen to differ.
Every gamete has "potential", every zygote, every foetus, every child, every adult. Potential is clearly not the only criterion. A hundred years ago the Brisbane Hospital did not admit children under five, yet many had straightforwardly treatable conditions. Were they "killed" by deliberate and systemic "negligence"? Most certainly, and by a hospital board of "christians" in a country supposedly 95% "christian". They weren't "worth" the "investment" for perhaps valid practical reasons, principles be damned. Similarly, parents can choose when to invest in potential children, for perhaps valid and practical reasons, for what *they* think are valid reasons. I think you, the church and other objectors may choose to carry any child you can conceive, and good luck.

The real problem here is that Planned Parenthood gave an interview that revealed details of their patients private business, and the greater problem of regarding public medical procedures as having less privacy than equivalent private ones.

I am yet to hear any criticism of the private interests that sought the tissues. If any of the shareholders were "christian" they might benefit from your rebuke more than those who are not.

Rusty
Posted by Rusty Catheter, Sunday, 26 July 2015 6:01:53 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Sells, no one 'likes' abortion as such of course.
We would all prefer that there was no need for any abortions at all.

We need to consider some more full proof contraception for both men and women, so unplanned pregnancies are a thing of the past.

At the end of the day, no one, least of all unrelated males, have any right to say to a pregnant woman that she has no choice but to be forced to carry a child to term and then forced to go through labour against her will.
How would you suggest this would work for you Sells, exactly?
Posted by Suseonline, Sunday, 26 July 2015 6:14:56 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Somehow what started in the article as a moral discussion, has now deteriorated into legal and societal issues.

These are three different topics:

1. What is morally acceptable.
2. What is legally acceptable.
3. What is accepted by society.

There is no strong connection between the three, nor should there be any.

Regarding morality - I presented my views on page 3.

Regarding legality - killing one's own baby should not be illegal, whether born or otherwise: it's none of the state's business unless either at least one of the parents or (later) the child herself registers the child with the state (this most often happens when parents ask the state to pay for their maternity hospital-services or to provide them a paid maternity leave, etc.).

Regarding societal attitudes - they are fleeting, whimsical and vain: people are entitled to their ideas (for example that married women should or should not work), but others are entitled to ignore them. In any case, whatever parents do reflects on them personally, not on society.

So can we please stay on the topic?
Posted by Yuyutsu, Sunday, 26 July 2015 8:15:20 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
continued

When my current wife went to university women could choose only nursing, teaching or library work. Occupational therapy opened up while she was there so she became an occupational therapist. Her insights into mathematics are wonderful although she has only had a high school education in the subject. I feel she would have been an ornament to any mathematical faculty if such an opportunity had been open to her. It is great that the situation is different now.

When I worked in the Netherlands one of my colleagues was a Christian who was deeply opposed to abortion. However, his group took responsibility. If they persuaded a pregnant women not to get an abortion they took upon themselves the responsibility to provide for the needs of the mother and child including the child’s higher education. I doubt that many who demand the right to harass women at abortion clinics would be willing to take on that responsibility.

Four of my grandchildren are girls. They are either in university or past it. Unlike their grandmothers or earlier female ancestors, they have the opportunity to do anything they are capable of doing even though they are women. They also have the right to an abortion should they feel they need one. Men never need one, but some men feel they have a right to deny that right to women.

Sells has already told us of his contempt for women’s rights when he wrote: “The resort to a woman's right is a weak argument. Rights are inventions that sometimes stand for justice but at other times are just excuses for doing what we want.” It’s apparently horrible to Sells that a woman can do what she wants to do if it’s not something Sells wants her to do.

Sells would return us to those evil days – to that dark and ugly world where a woman was primarily a baby making machine.

Margaret Atwood wrote a novel about a dystopia which returned women to servitude.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Handmaid%27s_Tale tells about the frightening vision of a world which could result from following the ideas of Sells.
Posted by david f, Sunday, 26 July 2015 8:37:04 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Davidf,
Sorry you misconstrue, I am a bad person, I am out to destroy your world.
You may like to read something about logical positivism, now a dead movement. The following is long winded but good.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logical-empiricism/

Contraception is another issue. I think the RC church has pushed its logic too far, a bit like the logical positivists!

I object to your painting me as some sort of male chauvinist pig. Of course the situation is fraught when pregnancies occur in situations when the father is absent and a home has not been established. But we, as a society have the means to support mother and child.

Susan,
Perhaps the father of the child should be in the picture. Perhaps, since they have had sex together they might consider forming a family. If this is out of the question one wonders why they were together in the first place. Society should support mothers who find themselves without a supportive father. You speak of childbirth as some horrendous thing when in all history it has been full of joy.

We have a lot of sex education in our schools and it does not seem to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. Perhaps the sexual revolution was a mistake!
Posted by Sells, Monday, 27 July 2015 6:30:29 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear Sells,

I don’t think you are a bad person. I don’t put people into such classifications. I don’t think you are a good person either. I think you are doing what you think is right. In my opinion what you think is right is very wrong.

You painted yourself as a male chauvinist. The word, pig, is something you added.

You wrote: “There are circumstances in which abortion should be condoned. But most abortions are done out of convenience.”

You also wrote: “The resort to a woman's right is a weak argument. Rights are inventions that sometimes stand for justice but at other times are just excuses for doing what we want.”

The first statement ignores whatever reason a woman has for getting an abortion. The second statement is pure male chauvinism. I assume you meant those statements, and, therefore, are a male chauvinist. Apparently to you a woman is a receptacle for a foetus (yes, that is the proper term.) and must, with rare exceptions, go to term.

You have made it clear that you place the foetus as more important than the pregnant woman.

You ignore reality. Childbirth in all history has not been full of joy. Many times it has resulted in the death of a woman who is giving birth. Many times the baby is unwanted. Many times an additional mouth to feed is a great burden. The reality is that sometimes childbirth is an occasion for joy, and many times is simply not so. You mouth untrue platitudes.

I didn’t use the words, male chauvinist pig, but your own words mark you as a male chauvinist.

I think the wisest philosopher is David Hume who said that reason is the slave of the passions.

I think you have a passion to keep your proper place in the world. That passion expresses itself by your justification of keeping women in their proper place – barefoot and pregnant.

I have a passion for female companionship. I find them most enjoyable when they are treated as fully functioning, free human beings
Posted by david f, Monday, 27 July 2015 9:39:30 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
It amazes me that people are surprised at how barbaric ISIS is when we have people making excuses for such barbarity being legal in our own country. Feminist/secularist certainly do have much in common with ISIS.
Posted by runner, Monday, 27 July 2015 10:00:35 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
.

Dear Yuyutsu,

.

You wrote :

« Somehow what started in the article as a moral discussion, has now deteriorated into legal and societal issues. »
.

I think it is exactly the opposite that has occurred, Yuyutsu. Peter has seized upon a scandal that blew up recently over the allegedly corrupt (illegal) commercial and financial practices of the leading health care provider in the US, in order to oppose abortion.

Instead of debating the real issue which was the object (pretext?) of his article - the alleged corrupt (illegal) commercial and financial practices of Planned Parenthood of America - the debate has now “deteriorated” (to employ your expression) into a moral discussion on abortion.

As Peter clearly admits in his article: “This event has been a huge boon for anti-abortionists …” - before adding in the very next paragraph: “We are used to diversionary tactics in ethics”.
.

As I see it, the crux of the problem, like so many others, is the confrontation of antagonistic world views.

Peter has a very open mind in many respects, not in the least bogged down in archaic religious dogma, but occasionally, his mind seems to lapse back to obsolete concepts that may well have had good reason to exist 2,000 years ago - or more - but are no longer valid in this day and age.

Forth century BC Hippocratic oath is a good example. He makes no secret of his determined opposition to abortion and I should be surprised if he does not have a similar position on suicide and euthanasia.

But, you’re right, such questions are simple diversions. We really should “stay on the topic”.

What was it again ?

Oh yes. People from an anti-abortionist organisation, pretending to represent a Foetal Tissue Procurement Company, had lunch with Dr. Deborah Nucatola, Senior Director of Medical Services, Planned Parenthood Federation of America and ... secretly recorded their conversation …

.
Posted by Banjo Paterson, Monday, 27 July 2015 10:56:09 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
.

Oops! Instead of "Forth century BC Hippocratic oath ...", please read: "Fourth century BC Hippocratic oath ..."

Sorry about that.

.
Posted by Banjo Paterson, Monday, 27 July 2015 11:02:56 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
davidf - in a universe that has just happened, completely unintentionally, to come into existence it is hard to see how anything has intrinsic value.

In such a universe a person could choose to attribute value to something but there would be no necessity for all people to attribute value to the same thing. Neither would it be necessary for a thing that is valued today to be valued tomorrow.

Given that, it is hard to see why you think it makes sense for you to berate Sells for valuing something, in this case the fetus/unborn child, more highly than you do. Unless you can definitively show why your preference for what should be valued should trump his preference, then what is the point of your comment?

In a universe that has unintentionally come into being and which has no intended purpose, the way things happen to be is neither good nor bad, right nor wrong, at least that is beyond what the preference of each individual happens to be.

So all discussion and debate such as this is essentially pointless except perhaps to just pass the time until you go into oblivion.
Posted by JP, Tuesday, 28 July 2015 10:13:28 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear JP,

It is hard for me to see why it is necessary to believe religious myths in order to have human feelings. It is also hard for me to see why you use the emotive term, unborn child. You are an undead human as you will eventually die, but it is silly for me to call you that. A foetus may not go to term. If it goes to term it may not develop into a child but die while it’s still a baby. It is both inaccurate and silly to call a foetus an unborn child.

It is hard to see why I should write more.
Posted by david f, Tuesday, 28 July 2015 1:57:47 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
davidf - why do you evade the main point of my comment? In an atheistic universe nothing has any intrinsic value.

I did not say that the atheist cannot experience feelings. Of course an atheist can have feelings about things and can prioritise how he/she chooses to value things. My point is that there can be no basis for an atheist to claim that his/her feelings or values are better or more correct than someone else's.

Thus if an atheist says they believe that a sadistic murderer or a gross environmental polluter are terrible people they are simply expressing their personal preference. There is no intrinsic value to any human life or to the Great Barrier Reef in an atheistic universe.

So why you feel it makes any sense for you to criticise Sells or anyone else for holding different values to yourself, I don't understand.
Posted by JP, Tuesday, 28 July 2015 2:56:50 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
JP:

“Given that, it is hard to see why you think it makes sense for you to berate Sells for valuing something, in this case the fetus/unborn child, more highly than you do.”

How do you know that Sells values the fetus at all? Perhaps he feels like he has to say he values it because it is all part of the Christian package. He is emotionally dependent on Christianity and in order to maintain that dependence he must abide by Christian teaching. You cannot pick and choose which bits you support. If he did not value the fetus he would be ostracised from the Christian community and he needs that community because he is emotionally dependent on them.

DavidF, on the other hand, presents an argument which comes from reason and logic. It is hard to see where he may be emotionally dependent on any group which agrees with his views. He has nothing to lose by proclaiming his support for abortion. He seems to be trying to just get to the truth of the matter.

Where two opposing views are presented and neither of them can be substantiated then it is natural to look for any hidden agenda or emotional dependence. If you had to give benefit of the doubt to either opinion you would give it to David since he seems to have no emotional dependence to protect. If Sells had produced an argument without any reference to religion then he would be on equal terms but he cannot. There will always be suspicion about any of his opinions since there is the great possibility that they are offered in the hope of shoring up his emotional dependence.
Posted by phanto, Tuesday, 28 July 2015 3:09:29 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
JP wrote:

davidf - why do you evade the main point of my comment? In an atheistic universe nothing has any intrinsic value.

You’re right. We live in an atheistic universe, and nothing has intrinsic value. Nothing needs to have an intrinsic value. Everything that humans value has only the value that humans give to it.

The values that we get through religious mumbojumbo are not intrinsic values but values that humans get through the religious mumbojumbo created by other humans.
Posted by david f, Tuesday, 28 July 2015 7:06:49 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
davidf - yes, if atheism is true then any values derived from religion are just mumbo jumbo. But you do not seem to appreciate just what the situation is if atheism is true.

You have conceded that nothing would have intrinsic value but you seem to think that that is of no great significance. Yet it would be the case that everyone's claims of value would essentially be no more than just mumbo jumbo.

So, once again - there can be no basis for an atheist to claim that his/her feelings or values are better or more correct than someone else's.

Thus if an atheist says they believe that a sadistic murderer or a gross environmental polluter are terrible people they are simply expressing their personal preference. There is no intrinsic value to any human life or to the Great Barrier Reef in an atheistic universe.

So why do you feel that it makes any sense for you to criticise Sells or anyone else for holding different values to yourself, I don't understand.
Posted by JP, Tuesday, 28 July 2015 8:13:02 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
.

Dear JP,

.

« … in a universe that has just happened, completely unintentionally, to come into existence it is hard to see how anything has intrinsic value »

I think you’re right, JP. I think the notion of “intrinsic value” is the fruit of our imagination that has no “objective” existence in reality. Any value we attribute to anything is purely subjective and, as you rightly suggest, may vary from one person to another and from one moment to another for the same person.

In economic terms, I understand “intrinsic value” to mean “what something is worth” to a particular person at a particular moment in his or her life, as against its “price” or market value which may be quite different. A masterpiece painting compared to a child’s favourite doll - for the child - is a good example. When that child grows up and acquires a mature sense of aesthetics, perhaps she might place a higher “intrinsic value” on the masterpiece painting than on what was once her favourite doll.

The same principle applies to the immaterial. I tend to place “what little liberty we have” fairly high on the scale of human values. Others may place honour even higher. Still others may cherish life to an even greater extent - and so on.

I understand that there is no such thing as right and wrong in nature and, so far as life is concerned, only what is most efficient for its continuance and development, the so-called human concept of ethics or morality being part of this process.

Also, might I add that I consider that these same principles apply independently of whether, as you say, the universe “just happened, completely unintentionally, to come into existence” or not.

I should be interested to learn what you have to say on the subject as you seem to have a different point of view from that of david f.

.
Posted by Banjo Paterson, Tuesday, 28 July 2015 8:30:45 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear JP,

I don't think you understand that opinions and morals do not have to come from religious mumbojumbo to be valuable and worthwhile. Perhaps some day you may be enlightened. Perhaps not.

Atheism is reality. God, gods and all other religious beliefs are merely human inventions.

Anyhow, it's beyond me to remove your blinders.

Enjoy your life as much as you can.
Posted by david f, Tuesday, 28 July 2015 8:32:56 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Banjo – both you and davidf seem quite ready to accept that in an atheistic universe nothing actually has intrinsic value. That is an easy thing to say but the implications are surely very significant and I would say, very unpleasant, to put it mildly.

If human life really does have no intrinsic value, having just happened to evolve unintentionally from the slime, then Stalin did no wrong in causing the deaths of many millions of people. Now you may want to attribute value to those lives and you are free to do so but there is absolutely no reason why anyone should care what you choose to attribute value to. Your preferences of value are of no significance, and of course no one else’s are either. Stalin had power and so he was able to have his preferences prevail for a time but in the end he died as we all do.

I’m not sure what you are saying in your second and third last paragraphs. On the one hand you seem to concede that there is no such thing as right and wrong but then you seem to say that morality applies independently of whether or not the universe just happened to come into existence completely unintentionally.

If the universe has no purpose it is hard to see how we can do anything wrong and equally how we can do anything right. We may personally prefer that people not do certain things but there is no need for them to be concerned about our preferences. It is hard to see how there can be any independent moral values in an atheistic universe.

This is what I find puzzling about davidf and other atheists. They seem to think it makes sense to express outrage against others with whom they disagree, while admitting, as davidf does, that there are no intrinsic values in an atheistic universe. Davidf wants to have it both ways but if atheism is true his opinions mean nothing except to himself and he might as well just remain silent.
Posted by JP, Tuesday, 28 July 2015 9:21:13 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
JP:
“It is hard to see how there can be any independent moral values in an atheistic universe.” So religious based moral values are independent? Of course they are not.

They are simply rationalisations of religious behaviour. There are no logical reasons for religious behaviour. Religious behaviours are what people engage in when they feel frightened, angry, sad or guilty. They are not logical at all. It is what primitive people do when they are unable to analyse their feelings and understand them to be in accord with nature. They do not know how to respond so they resort to primitive practices and then rationalise them by the most convoluted methods.

To protect such rationalisations and to try and make them seem reasonable they invent values to which they try and make the rest of society conform. They are afraid that there are reasonable responses to their feelings and try to suppress any indication that such may be true.

An atheistic universe makes far more sense than a return to behaviours which belong to cave men
Posted by phanto, Tuesday, 28 July 2015 9:59:33 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
You can count me in there too, JP.

<<...both you and davidf seem quite ready to accept that in an atheistic universe nothing actually has intrinsic value.>>

The same goes for if theism were true. Why anyone should care what a god “chooses to attribute value to”?

<<That is an easy thing to say but the implications are surely very significant and I would say, very unpleasant, to put it mildly.>>

Oh, don’t put it mildly on our account. Please, tell us what the world would be like and, while you're at it, why it’s not like that already given that not everyone believes in a god, or a god that values what yours does.

<<If human life really does have no intrinsic value, ... then Stalin did no wrong in causing the deaths of many millions of people.>>

It can still be wrong to us, and it’s wrong according to enough people for the world to function and exist more peacefully than we did in, say, Biblical times when fewer held such values:

“Happy is the one who takes your babies and smashes them against the rocks!” (Psalm 137:9)

<<Your preferences of value are of no significance, and of course no one else’s are either.>>

They are of significance if someone believes that they should run around killing people (or smashing babies against rocks) while others don't want to co-exist with such a person. That’s significance enough. Any supposed significance from a god dictating such morals and values to us is discredited by the Euthyphro dilemma.

My car won't have any value to me when I'm dead, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have value to me now; nor would a god's valuing of it give it any more intrinsic value than my valuing of it.
Posted by AJ Philips, Tuesday, 28 July 2015 10:20:24 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I find this discussion about values fascinating!

On the one hand, I agree that there are no values in nature: it's a fact that no scientist ever detected a value out there, neither using a microscope nor a telescope nor a particle-accelerator, nor even inferring its existence mathematically. There is simply no such particle, nor wave nor anything else out there which we could call "value".

On the other hand, we do hold values - and we can only do so because we are not part of nature.

Most of us for example value pleasure and the absence of pain, or being alive rather than being dead. Many others also value the survival of the human race as well as other species on this planet. From a rational perspective, however, it's all mumbo-jumbo.

One could argue that values come form the brain, but the brain only produces electro-chemical impulses, so the question remains: why should we listen to and adhere to those impulses should they oppose our values? Our bodies might perhaps have no choice but to perform what the brains tell them, but why should we too agree and consider what our brain suggests as "MY" values?

In answer, if we follow our brain, then it's only because we value following it!

Yes, there is a value in not-killing a baby (born or unborn), but it's not at all because the baby has value - it's because the act of killing would turn ourselves into something we don't want to be.

Religious individuals, regardless whether or not they formally consider themselves religious; attend a church; believe in what religious people are supposed-to-believe; or have a concept of God, value closeness to God as opposed to sinking into deeper attachment to the world. This is why they do not want to behave like Stalin, as opposed for example to others who also do not want to behave like Stalin, but perhaps because they, also irrationally, value being popular, accepted and loved by others.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Tuesday, 28 July 2015 11:42:49 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear Yuyutsu,

We are part of nature. We are not a separate entity. Like any other species we cannot increase in numbers indefinitely. Like any other animal we must eat to live and reproduce if our species is to continue.

According to the Bible man has dominion over nature. That fosters the illusion that we are not part of nature.

Another of the illusions fostered by some religions is that there is a dichotomy between the spirit and the world. The phrase you used 'deeper in the world' is nonsense. There is no dichotomy between spirit and world. We cannot withdraw from the world, be deeper in it or less deep. We are part of it. Nature is all including us.
Posted by david f, Wednesday, 29 July 2015 7:34:30 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear David,

Our bodies are part of nature.

It is only due to identifying ourselves with our body that we believe ourselves to also be part of nature.

When we drive a car we often say "I turn left", "I go 100 Km/hour", "I am nearly out of petrol" and if our car had a mechanical fault which caused an accident we tend to say: "I caused the accident, not the other car".

Deep down we all know that we are not a car, yet we tend to forget it while in the driver's seat.

Same for the body.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Wednesday, 29 July 2015 10:19:49 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
.

Dear JP,

.

You wrote :

« Banjo – both you and davidf seem quite ready to accept that in an atheistic universe nothing actually has intrinsic value. »

No. Not just “in an atheist universe” but “in the universe”.
My understanding is that there is no such thing as a god or the supernatural but I am willing to consider any new facts - supported by relevant evidence - which may come to light.

In the meantime, I do not consider that the term “atheist” is appropriate to describe the universe or anything else for that matter. It makes no sense to take as a reference something that does not exist.

Also, whilst I am quite flattered you assimilate me with david f, I’m afraid I can only speak for myself.
.

You observed :

« On the one hand you seem to concede that there is no such thing as right and wrong … »

More precisely, I wrote :

« I understand that there is no such thing as right and wrong in nature and, so far as life is concerned, only what is most efficient for its continuance and development, the so-called human concept of ethics or morality being part of this process. »

Life is a self-sustaining process, but only what is most efficient (adaptable)survives and develops.

Nature has bestowed human beings with two important, complementary functions: the ability to develop a greater degree of individual autonomy than any other form of life, and the ability to develop a mechanism of self-restraint.

The former is what we call “free will”. The latter is what we call “ethics” or “morality”. But these are human concepts with religious connotations. In nature, free will is autonomy. Right is what is efficient (adaptable) for the survival and development of life. Wrong is what is inefficient.
.
You continued:

« … but then you seem to say that morality applies independently of whether or not the universe just happened to come into existence completely unintentionally. »

Correct. That’s how nature works – whether there’s a god or not.

.
Posted by Banjo Paterson, Wednesday, 29 July 2015 10:21:52 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Banjo - I take your point that “atheist universe” is poor terminology. Are you happier with materialistic universe?

But then I have problems with some of your terminology: “nature has bestowed human beings with two important, complementary functions”. What is this “nature” you refer to? Do you simply mean by this word, physical matter?

You then use the word “bestow” which means to present, give or confer, all of which have the implication of something being deliberately done by a conscious being. Does physical matter deliberately do anything for human beings?

Surely in a universe that has just happened into existence, for no purpose, things just happen as the laws of physics mindlessly and unconsciously act upon physical matter. So “nature” has not “bestowed” human beings with “the ability to develop a greater degree of individual autonomy than any other form of life”.

You say that “the ability to develop a greater degree of individual autonomy than any other form of life” is what we call “free will”. You also say that “in nature, free will is autonomy”. So I am uncertain as to whether you believe in free will or not. In a purely physical mechanistic universe what can free will or autonomy possibly mean?

You then say that “Right is what is efficient (adaptable) for the survival and development of life. Wrong is what is inefficient”. That may be your definition of right and wrong but it is hardly a materialistic definition of such. In a materialistic universe there is no necessity for anything to survive. There is no necessity for anything at all. There is nothing intrinsically right or wrong just as there is nothing intrinsically valuable.

If you have not previously read my OLO article, The absolute weirdness of a deterministic universe, may I suggest you read it, http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=17152 .
Posted by JP, Wednesday, 29 July 2015 11:10:04 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear Yuyutsu,

You wrote: Deep down we all know that we are not a car, yet we tend to forget it while in the driver's seat.

Same for the body.

Dear Y,

It is not the same for the body. The driver is not part of the car, but we do not exist apart from our bodies.
Posted by david f, Wednesday, 29 July 2015 7:26:56 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear David,

<<The driver is not part of the car>>

Nor am I a part of my body.

If they amputate my legs and my arms, am I less me?
If my retina is damaged and I cannot see, am I less me?
If my brain has a stroke and cannot find words or numbers, or cannot remember, am I any less me?

Or on the contrary, if I receive a car and a computer to enhance my body by extending my mobility and ability to plan and communicate, am I more me?

Is there any body part, which if taken apart I would be in it rather than in the rest of my body? Or would I then be in two or more places at once?

Science tells us that every single atom in the body, including the brain, is replaced at least once in seven years: Am I therefore now someone else than who I was when I had a baby's body with much fewer and completely different atoms?

Or am I now perhaps part of a different body to which one of those atoms, previously in my baby-body, migrated?
(more likely, I would then be part of the earth, the ocean or the atmosphere, or luckily of some plant or animal-body)

My name (how others call me) can change, my form (how others see me) can and does change over the years, the qualities of my body and mind also change and so are my abilities, first increasing then decreasing, but who is the one whose name, form, qualities and abilities has changed and constantly continue to change? Could it possibly ever become someone else?

<<but we do not exist apart from our bodies.>>

Possibly so, and I even tend to agree with a stronger statement: that we do not exist anyway, even while we do have an existing functional body.

So what? This makes no difference because I still am what I am regardless whether I possess this property of existence or otherwise (a property which I have already, elsewhere here, claimed to be illusory anyway).
Posted by Yuyutsu, Wednesday, 29 July 2015 10:04:54 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
.

Dear JP,

.

You ask :

« Are you happier with materialistic universe? »

No more than with, say, my materialistic mother, my materialistic brother, my materialistic dog, my materialistic apartment, my materialistic car or my dear materialistic JP.

I don’t think there is any doubt about which universe we are discussing. Just call it “the universe”. I’ll know what you mean - even if it's not exactly what you have in mind.
.

« What is this “nature” you refer to? Do you simply mean by this word, physical matter? »

I refer to the universe and everything in it, such as plants, animals (including human beings), mountains, oceans, stars, energy, etc.
.

« You then use the word “bestow” which means to present, give or confer, all of which have the implication of something being deliberately done by a conscious being. Does physical matter deliberately do anything for human beings? »

Bestow is as good a word as any, but I beg to disagree that it necessarily implies “being deliberately done by a conscious being”. Something may also be bestowed on us by chance. I agree with Monod, that life is the result of chance and necessity (necessity, in this sense, meaning an inevitable event).
.

« In a purely physical mechanistic universe what can free will or autonomy possibly mean? »

Autonomy means independence, the freedom to determine one's own actions, behaviour, etc., without or despite any outside influence.

Plants have more autonomy that inert objects. Animals have more autonomy than plants. Human beings have greater autonomy than all other forms of life.

Though there may be important differences in the rate of development of autonomy among individuals due to all the variables that contribute to its evolution, progress is nevertheless achieved during the lifetime of each individual. Beneficial mutations and experiences continue to accumulate over time, multiplying and diversifying choice patterns to an ever greater degree of complexity until the individual is no longer held to obey any particular predetermined course of behaviour, gaining in the autonomy we call free will.
.

(Continued …)

.
Posted by Banjo Paterson, Wednesday, 29 July 2015 10:37:07 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
.

(Continued …)

.

You concluded :

« In a materialistic universe there is no necessity for anything to survive. »

Once again, I beg to disagree. Life is a self-sustaining process. It is the result of chance and necessity (necessity, in this sense, meaning an inevitable event). In addition, as I stated previously, there is no right or wrong in nature, just what is efficient for its survival and development.
.

Thank you for the link to your article on OLO, “The absolute weirdness of a deterministic universe”. I shall read it with interest.

.
Posted by Banjo Paterson, Wednesday, 29 July 2015 10:40:40 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear Yuyutsu,

This conversation is silly. You are nothing but your body.

You may lose parts of it and still function. However, when your body no longer functions at all you no longer exist.

If you want to believe you don't exist that's fine with me. Eventually neither you nor I will exist.
Posted by david f, Thursday, 30 July 2015 5:10:14 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
JP
Your argument from creation to an ordered universe and hence to value has been tried before and found wanting. This is especially illustrated in England in 16-17 hundred when natural theology was all the rage following the work of Hook, Boyle and Newton. The problem from a Christian perspective is that this god who orders the world could be Aristotle's prime mover or the god of Islam. This god is an unspecified and undifferentiated deity that does not correspond the YHWH or the triune identity.

There is a tendency to deify nature. I think Darwin is essentially right, there is no guiding hand. The universe is governed by un-minded process, it is natural in that it does not contain spirit. This materialist view of the world does not erase faith because faith is not about how nature works but how we find ourselves as human. This finding requires more than a knowledge of mere biology because we are historical beings who can look backwards and forwards in time.

In other words, faith is cultural in the original meaning of the world in that it brings life. Our protagonists in this thread do not seem to get this and insist on arguments from nature. That is why we are at cross purposes.
Posted by Sells, Thursday, 30 July 2015 8:30:24 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear Sells,

You wrote, "The problem from a Christian perspective is that this god who orders the world could be Aristotle's prime mover or the god of Islam. This god is an unspecified and undifferentiated deity that does not correspond the YHWH or the triune identity."

If one doesn't have a Christian perspective why should YHWH or the triune identity be preferred over Aristotle's prime mover, the god of Islam or no God at all? The same problem exists with your argument against abortion rights. You are appealing on the basis of your perspective, but those who do not share that perspective have no reason to accept your argument.

In that regard Obama wrote: “Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns Into universal, rather than religion-specific values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or [invoke] God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.”
Posted by david f, Thursday, 30 July 2015 12:45:58 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear David,

I like your last reply to Peter, it's excellent.

The sentence "You are nothing but your body" is circular nonsense, coming down to "This body is nothing but its body". Whose body? well, the body's body. Whose body's body? well, the body's body's body - turtles all the way down.

I am what I am, this is the most obvious and self-evident thing anyone can say. The question whether I exist or not may appeal to some, but I don't consider it that important. In case I don't exist, then I am non-existent - that's a big deal only to those who are emotionally attached to existing.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Thursday, 30 July 2015 1:12:56 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Sells – I am not really sure what you are saying in your last comment. For myself, it seems that there are only two possible explanations for our existence – either the universe unintentionally and for no purpose spontaneously happened into existence or it was deliberately brought into being by something greater than human beings.

All I have been trying to show is that if the former explanation should be correct then nothing would have intrinsic value and no behaviour would be intrinsically right or wrong. That flies in the face of almost everyone’s actual lived experience though. Very few people seem comfortable saying that there really is nothing wrong with torturing children for fun – that it is only a matter of personal preference as to whether someone chooses to say it is wrong or not. Yet that would be the reality in a purely material universe.

Should we find such conclusions discomforting and in contradiction to the way we live we then may consider the only alternative explanation for our existence – that we are beings created by someone greater than ourselves. That is as far as my comments have tried to take things. It is another further discussion as to who that someone greater than us may be.

I think that before many atheists will consider that question they must come to appreciate just where their own worldview necessarily leads.
Posted by JP, Thursday, 30 July 2015 3:55:59 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear JP,

I think our worldview should be determined by what best fits the evidence not where others think such a worldview leads. Whether it might be comforting or satisfying to think there is a God I cannot accept that there is one. I have believed in such an entity in the past. I can no longer do so.
Posted by david f, Thursday, 30 July 2015 4:13:17 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
My goodness! I agree with davidf. Why would we need the whole Christian tradition if it was as simple as believing in a creator god? In the sixties there was the "death of god" movement. Part of it was that the god of or projections was indeed dead to us. The whole point of the Trinity was that God could be found in history as a human being present to us in the Spirit. No mumbo jumbo here. Thus then idea of god was radically changed from being a distant deity to a God who is close at hand.
Posted by Sells, Thursday, 30 July 2015 5:25:27 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
davidf – a few comments in relation to your Obama quote. Firstly, democracy does not necessarily demand any particular thing - just whatever the majority of the people happen to want at a particular time, be it slavery of a minority or whatever.

Secondly, as already pointed out, in a purely material universe there are no such things as “universal values”. The most there can be are values that many individuals may have chosen and for whatever reason have decided to promote together. That does not make such values anything special – they are still nothing more than just what a group of individuals have decided to adopt. Any opposing values are no less and no more valid than those adopted by the majority. All values in a purely material universe lack intrinsic worth.

Thus, if it is the case that this universe has unintentionally arisen by spontaneous processes for no purpose then there is nothing that humanity as a whole or that any individual needs to aim for. Indeed, any claims that we ought to do this and should not allow that are simply false. It may be in some people’s personal interests to require or prohibit certain things but they would be just bluffing, lying, or victims of delusion if they claim that others actually do wrong if they act in a contrary way. Nothing is intrinsically right or wrong in a purely material universe.

That is a crucially significant point that Obama either fails to understand or simply chooses to gloss over.

However, I am not an advocate for a theocracy and I do agree that in a pluralist society religious believers should not use the force of government to compel others to abide by their religion’s values. When it comes to abortion the Christian can point out that in a purely material universe that no human life, be it before or after birth, has intrinsic value. That may not sound such a big deal but given that it means that there was nothing intrinsically wrong with the Holocaust then it becomes rather harder to stomach.
Posted by JP, Thursday, 30 July 2015 5:42:11 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
JP,

I can understand your position (I am in principle on your side), I can understand David’s position although I cannot understand Sell’s dichotomy between the biblical concept of YHWH and God as understood by theist philosophers who certainly do not see Him as part of, or identical with, nature.

Where we might differ is in the term “greater than” (human beings), where I would rather use “beyond” lest the concept of God be open to all that silly criticism by philosophically unsophisticated zealots. I know, that we sing of God’s greatness because the distinction is rather subtle. Something like between the pseudo-mathematical word zillion and the concept of infinity that became a mathematically treatable concept only 130 years ago (Cantor). You might also recall that Thomists talk about God as ipsum esse (“the sheer act of being itself") rather than ens summum (highest being) to avoid comparing Him with other beings.

I also think that one should be very careful with stating what atheists think or have to think (although it has become fashionable by the New Atheists to claim they know how an educated believer thinks, and if incomprehensible to them call it e.g. mumbo jumbo). I can know what a person who claims to be an atheist said or did (sometimes even try to understand him/her) but I can at most speculate - and better not - on how an atheist thinks on matters of his/her world view, or what were his/her motivations for saying or doing this or that.
Posted by George, Thursday, 30 July 2015 6:34:28 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
"Nothing is intrinsically right or wrong in a purely material universe."

From the universe's point of view only, JP.

Is it right or wrong for you to use an antibacterial handwash? From the microbes point of view!

The CAG permits apologists to argue that the nature and morality of God is absolute and reflected in biblical actions such that the killing of untold numbers of innocent children, of both the born and unborn variety, in the Noahic flood was inherently moral.

Is this right or wrong?

You can only live by killing other living things and eating them. Is this right or wrong, either from the universal or a personal point of view? Saying "either the universe unintentionally and for no purpose spontaneously happened into existence or it was deliberately brought into being by something greater than human beings." is a false dichotomy and does not stop humans having to decide their ethics in 'either' case.

As far as I am aware all cannibal societies have been theistic. Even other theists might argue such morality as wrong.

I am an atheist and would argue that cannibalism is wrong with no consideration of beliefs about universal beginnings required.

However, even Uruguayan rugby players have faced dire circumstances in which it could be defended as a personal situational ethic.
Posted by WmTrevor, Thursday, 30 July 2015 6:35:46 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear JP,

Your points are well taken.

Of course democracy does not imply universal values. A constitutional democracy doesn’t even imply majority values. The US first amendment prevents restriction of freedom of speech or religion even if a majority wants it. Of course the constitution can be amended, but that is not an easy process.

Since I don’t think we live in other than a material universe I regard it as meaningless to talk as though we can choose different kinds of universes. However, even if one believes that universal values are handed down by some big daddy in the sky there is no agreement on what those values are. An appeal to religious values only works if most people agree to those values. There are no universal values.

I think morality is just a method we have worked out to live in society. From what I have read of the pre-Jewish and pre-Christian religions there was in many of those religions no connection between morality and religious belief. One worshiped and made sacrifices to the gods to gain their favour. Morality was determined by philosophy or convention. I have no reason to think that the ancients were any less moral than those who follow the religions of today.

However, you seem to be saying that we must either believe in God or suppress our dissent to that belief to have a decent society. One of my values is embodied in the scientific method. To not follow where the evidence leads is intellectually dishonest. I cannot accept that God is other than a human invention. Therefore honesty compels me to be an atheist.

Values are decided by agreement. If Hitler had won the Holocaust might be condemned, but it would excused on the grounds that it was necessary for German hegemony. John Howard called it a ‘black armband’ view of Australian history to acknowledge the slaughter of the Aborigines. Our nation was to an extent based on that slaughter. If the Nazis had won the Holocaust would probably be similarly regarded.
Posted by david f, Thursday, 30 July 2015 7:40:35 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
George –

I appreciate your warning about not putting words into atheists’ mouths. I hope I am not guilty of misrepresenting the logical outcomes of atheism, which is really what I have been endeavouring to do. If I have erred I am sure there are plenty of atheists here who will set me straight.

Wm Trevor –

you say that I have created a false dichotomy by saying "either the universe unintentionally and for no purpose spontaneously happened into existence or it was deliberately brought into being by something greater than human beings." If you can suggest further alternatives to explain how everything came to exist I would be interested to hear them.

I agree with you that just because a person holds religious beliefs that does not mean they can avoid making ethical decisions. And certainly OT passages where God either takes or requires people to take the lives of children are very, very challenging for Christians to reconcile.

However, the critical point is that within a Christian world-view ethical discussion makes sense, even if you disagree with the conclusions that are drawn. Conversely, if atheism is true ethical discussion makes no sense at all. There is no right and wrong in a godless universe, which even Dawkins acknowledges. That is not to say that individuals can’t choose to call certain things such as cannibalism “wrong”. But if another atheist chooses to say that cannibalism is “right” in any circumstance there really is no way for them to take things further. They each have their preference and there is no standard against which their preferences can be measured.

davidf –

what do you make of those whose values are in opposition to yours? Are they “wrong”? Why? Because you say so?

You say you “have no reason to think that the ancients were any less moral than those who follow the religions of today”. My point is that in a godless universe it is meaningless to talk about anyone being “moral”. There is no particular way anyone ought to act hence no one can be moral or immoral.
Posted by JP, Thursday, 30 July 2015 9:29:06 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Well, I tried to, JP.

<<...I am sure there are plenty of atheists here who will set me straight.>>

But you just continued to assert the same nonsense to others without explaining to me why my points weren't valid. Somehow I don't think you're very willing to be set straight about anything much at all.
Posted by AJ Philips, Thursday, 30 July 2015 9:52:23 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
.

Dear JP,

.

You wrote to George :

« … if atheism is true ethical discussion makes no sense at all. There is no right and wrong in a godless universe … »

The origin of ethics or morality is a matter of conjecture.

Indications from the study of primitive tribes by social anthropologists are that what we call ethics (or morality) had its origins in ancient tribal customs.

According to Claude Levi-Strauss, the incest taboo existed even before there was anything that could be described as culture. He declared that “nature’s sovereignty over man” ended with the advent of the incest taboo (The Elementary Structures of Kinship 1949).

The Finnish sociobiologist, Edvard Westermarck, opined that moral rules originated as emotional tendencies of the tribe to feel approval for conduct that caused pleasure (kindly emotion) and disapproval (resentment) for conduct that caused pain (Ethical Relativity 1932).

It appears that morality and religion, having originally developed independently, gradually blended together. However there are known exceptions :

The Bambala ethnic group of the Congo does not believe that the gods or spirits punish wrong-doing.

The Indians of Guiana follow a code of conduct and practise Animistic religion but there is no connection between the two.

American Indians have a conception of a god that does not include moral good.
.

There appears to be no reason to believe that it is unethical or immoral not to share the world-view of those who worship deity and believe in the supernatural. Nor is there anything that indicates that “if atheism is true ethical discussion makes no sense at all”.

Ethics (or morality) does not find its origins in religion. It is a human concept inspired by the principle of the efficiency of nature, complemented and codified by the various human societies as acceptable moral conduct. As such it is evolutive and open to discussion by the members of the community in accordance with the relevant national laws.

Interestingly, nature also appears to have doted us (and why not other animals as well?) with an innate sense of justice :

http://www.livescience.com/51261-toddlers-have-restorative-justice.html

.
Posted by Banjo Paterson, Friday, 31 July 2015 10:22:44 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear JP,

You wrote: “My point is that in a godless universe it is meaningless to talk about anyone being “moral”.”

Your point is nonsense – no matter how many times you repeat it. We live in a godless universe. There is no reliable evidence for the existence of a God. It is merely an unsupported assertion that a God or belief in a God is necessary for morals. In fact whatever evidence there is supports the idea that atheists are better behaved, more ethical and more moral than those who have belief in a deity or deities. Perhaps the reason is that atheists are dealing with reality and therefore better able to cope with the universe we live in.

http://www.transparency.org/cpi2014/results contains the corruption perception index.

The least corrupt countries are:

1 Denmark
2 New Zealand
3 Finland
4 Sweden

The most corrupt countries are:

172 Afghanistan
173 Sudan
174 Korea (North)
174 Somalia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_by_country lists irreligion by country

Denmark 83%
New Zealand 67%
Finland 69%
Sweden 88%
Afghanistan 3%
Sudan 9%
Korea (North) No data
Somalia not listed

Moral behaviour would seem to be indicated by a low degree of corruption. Irreligion correlates with a low degree of corruption.

Correlation does not mean causation. However, the fact is that there is a positive correlation between irreligion and lack of corruption. I suspect in most if not all indicators of moral behaviour and irreligion there is a positive correlation.
Posted by david f, Friday, 31 July 2015 11:27:43 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
The false dichotomy, JP, is in the misconstruction of your premises. You use 'either this/then this' rather than 'this/not this'. There is a difference in logic between true/not true and true/false.

"If I have erred I am sure there are plenty of atheists here who will set me straight." Not just atheists. George has tried to explain, also. The logical fallacy is your argument from personal incredulity: "if atheism is true ethical discussion makes no sense at all."

That statement is not true. Though, by repeated unsubstantiated assertion, apparently it is to you.

All ethical and moral questions are human mediated and their value is to the humans involved in the situations being discussed.

The divine command theory of morality is examined in a really accessible way in less than ten minutes here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbQBw5DM41o

If it helps to depersonalize it somewhat, pretend the explanation is being directed to a fundamentalist Muslim. Then imagine yourself explaining why it is morally wrong for them to follow what they claim are Allah's commands as they strap on a bomb vest.

Human perceptions about right and wrong can and do exist independent of beliefs about the universe
Posted by WmTrevor, Friday, 31 July 2015 11:37:16 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Brilliant video there, wmTrevor. It's essentially and extremely detailed look at the Euthyphro dilemma and the attempts from theologians to get around it.

Under '2. It's morally wrong to violate God's Commands', I suspect JP is coming from '3' and/or '5', which is why I was asking him why anyone should care about what a god places value in (or thinks is morally right).

JP,

Allow me to, once again, ask you a question that usually nips this in the bud real quick:

How do you know that God is the good guy and the devil is the bad guy? Because the Bible tells you so? What if God's just trying to trick you? Satan is, after all, the one sitting there quietly while God childishly writes stuff about him. Perhaps Satan is rising above it all while sitting back quietly waiting to see if you ever figure out that what God has been saying isn't good at all?

If you are able to determine that God is the good guy, independent of God (or are you happy with circular reasoning?), then not only is God just a useless middle-man that you can cut out, but, by your own reasoning, no-one should care that everyone else thinks that God is the good guy because that decision is necessarily made independent of God and prior to accepting his moral code.

Your argument is self-defeating.
Posted by AJ Philips, Friday, 31 July 2015 1:58:41 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
davidf, Wm Trevor, AJ Philips, Banjo Patterson – okay, let us take it that you are correct that there is no God. Nevertheless I believe that my point that ethical discussion makes no sense in a godless universe would remain correct.

I have repeatedly said that I agree that if atheism is true individuals and/or groups of people can make up what they call moral standards or rules. Problems arise though when atheists make up conflicting moral standards. If one atheist holds that abortion is immoral and another atheist holds that abortion is moral, where can they go from there? Why should the first atheist’s made up moral standard trump the second atheist’s made up moral standard, or vice versa? Who could possibly arbitrate?

Perhaps one of the atheists could do a survey and establish that a majority of people agree with his position. But what would that achieve? Is there some objective moral rule that states that what the majority decide is right? If so, where does such a rule come from?

If atheism is true there is no objective basis for any standards of morality. Rather, all you have is people expressing their preference for what they want to call moral or immoral. Lots of people might choose to call Stalin’s actions immoral but simply making such a declaration would not make his behaviour immoral. His behaviour would just be unpalatable to some people just like vanilla ice-cream may be unpalatable to some people.

That does not mean that people who do things that people don’t like would not be locked up or killed if that could be gotten away with. But just because some may have the power to imprison or kill does not make them morally right and their victims wrong. It just means that they have the power to get what they want.

Atheism logically implies amorality – unless of course you can somehow point to some objective standard of morality in a godless universe.
Posted by JP, Friday, 31 July 2015 3:20:30 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear JP,

Atheism does not logically imply amorality. you ignore the evidence that it doesn't. Why bother with facts? Your mind is made up.
Posted by david f, Friday, 31 July 2015 3:51:39 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
JP:

“Atheism logically implies amorality – unless of course you can somehow point to some objective standard of morality in a godless universe.”

Do you feel guilty when you have hurt someone or treated them unjustly? Do you feel angry when you are treated unjustly? Do you feel afraid when someone is trying to hurt you? Do you feel sad when someone takes away something you love?

Why do you think we have those feelings? If you like - why did God create us with those feelings? What is their purpose? You keep talking as if we need to be told how to behave by someone who is over and above human nature. What is wrong with our human nature? Why would you need to be told how to behave when everything you need exists within your own human nature? The only reason you do not trust those things is because you have suppressed those things at the behest of religious teachers
Posted by phanto, Friday, 31 July 2015 4:12:49 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
JP,

Would I be right in assuming that you’re discussing the purely theoretical here? The reason I ask is because, so long as God continues to act as though he doesn’t exist (communicating with us using nothing more than a disjointed and contradictory book in which an infinite combination of interpretations are possible, and warm fuzzy feelings with more rational explanations), then the challenges you mention exist with or without him.

So if you are just discussing the purely theoretical here, then it’s a nice thought experiment, but it’s essentially meaningless because we don’t live in a world in which the celestial creator communicates with us in any way that is effective, useful or enables us to avoid the challenges you raise.

<<Rather, all you have is people expressing their preference for what they want to call moral or immoral.>>

Well it’s worked so far. Given that so many don’t believe in a god, and that those who do may believe in different gods with different values, how do you explain the fact that the sky hasn’t fallen in? Our current world, with literally billions of different religious beliefs, is as disorganised and “lost” as the “if-atheism-is-true” world that you hypothesise about.

Do you realise that when the brain activity of believers is monitored, the part of the brain that shows activity, when asked what they think God thinks of something, is the same part that shows activity when asked what they themselves think about the very same thing. A different part of the brain shows activity, however, when asked what they think someone else thinks about something. (http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/11/30/creating-god-in-ones-own-image)

This is why everyone’s god agrees with the believer. So, god or no god, you’re still left with the same conundrum.

A non-existent god, or a god that is hiding everywhere, solves absolutely nothing.
Posted by AJ Philips, Friday, 31 July 2015 4:16:03 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Thanks AJ Philips. [Loved your translation of the New Testament by the way, you know when you had two 'Ls' in your surname.]

JP, if this is a thought experiment at some point you need to show that you are thinking beyond demonstrating a failure to square the circular reasoning.

"Atheism logically implies amorality – unless of course you can somehow point to some objective standard of morality in a godless universe."

You have been given reasons and evidence why it is not true that atheism logically implies amorality. But your "unless of course you can..." challenge offers a chance to man up to the burden of proof of the positive claim by -

Asking you to 'somehow point to some objective standard of morality' in a theistic universe.

But since vaguely pointing in the direction of an abstract noun will not advance your argument can we proceed directly to your demonstration of this objective standard or even some example that is testable on this side of a supernatural realm, please?

Think of it as a chance to practise 2 Peter 1:5 "And besides this, using all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge,"
Posted by WmTrevor, Friday, 31 July 2015 6:26:08 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Doh! the joke doesn't work when the corrected version [Loved your brother's translation of the New Testament by the way, you know when you had two 'Ls' in your surname.] isn't followed by a 'post revision' button push.
Posted by WmTrevor, Friday, 31 July 2015 6:32:36 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
.

Dear JP,

.

You wrote :

« Problems arise though when atheists make up conflicting moral standards. If one atheist holds that abortion is immoral and another atheist holds that abortion is moral, where can they go from there? … If atheism is true there is no objective basis for any standards of morality. »

Atheism is not alone in that, JP. It is equally true for religion.

There is a growing cleavage in religion between conservatives and progressives on the one hand and fundamentalists and moderates on the other. None of the world’s current religious denominations are immune to the phenomenon.

There is no such thing as an “objective basis for … standards of morality” within the various religious denominations and sects. All “standards of morality” are purely subjective. They vary from one denomination to another, from one sect to another and internally within each denomination and sect.

The largest single religious denomination in 2015 is still the Catholic Church. Bloomberg recently published an article outlining some of the internal cleavages that resulted in the downfall of Benedict XVI that Pope Francis has inherited and is now desperately struggling to resolve.

Reforming such a mastodon is unprecedented. With a world-wide population of 1.2 billion, assets of $7 billion plus a priceless art collection and a vast range of diversified activities including schools, hospitals, charitable organisations, banking etc., the task is probably impossible to achieve during the pontificate of Pope Francis.

As demonstrated recently, the Curia (central governing body) resists reform and the Pope’s visit to Calabria last year where he told the local members of the Mafiosi, the ‘Ndrangheta, that they were excommunicated, has not facilitated the task.

The Catholic Church has a long association with the Mafiosi whose members are very religious. The local branch in Calabria, the 'Ndrangheta, is one of the wealthiest international crime organizations in the world, with an annual turnover of 53 billion euros ($72 billion), much of it from the global cocaine trade.

The Mafiosi as a whole has not been excommunicated, just the 'Ndrangheta.

Morality has been restored :

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-05/pope-francis-reforms-a-vatican-bank-steeped-in-dan-brown-intrigue

.
Posted by Banjo Paterson, Friday, 31 July 2015 9:56:45 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
There is not and cannot be an objective morality. It used to be a simple matter for our remote ancestors. Members of the tribe shared the same basic morality with some individual differences. This was uncomplicated because there was one basic shared identity.

In the current world it is much more complicated, but our morality is still tribal. It is based on the tribes we identify with. Our morality is largely determined by an amalgam of our identities – ethnic, religious, national, our work associations, our political leanings etc. To this mix we add the influences of the books and periodicals we read along with the ideas we get from other media.

In the current world it is unusual to have a single identity. We may not even have a single identity in our religion. I am not sure what my daughter believes, but I know what she does. On Sunday morning she goes to the Unitarian Church where she sings in the choir. On Sunday afternoon she goes to a Buddhist sangha. On Friday night she lights the candles to usher in the Jewish Sabbath. In addition to her personal contacts she reads and thinks about the various connections of the three religious communities she is involved with.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arden,_Delaware tells about the community she lives in.

“Arden is a village and art colony in New Castle County, Delaware, in the United States, founded in 1900 as a radical Georgist single-tax community by sculptor Frank Stephens and architect Will Price.”

She is very socially conscious and turned down opportunities for high paying jobs to be a school librarian and run reading programs for ‘culturally deprived’ children.

I think she is most admirable and most moral. She has amalgamated all her various identities to be the person she is.

We no longer live in tribal isolation the way our hunter gatherer ancestors did. Even if our amalgam of identities is simpler than that of my daughter we will have contact with different groups who have different moral standards. The different moral standards may be a source of conflict.

Continued
Posted by david f, Friday, 31 July 2015 11:20:02 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
What is needed is a metamorality. That is a morality that transcends all the different moralities in this world so that interactions between different groups can be peaceful.

The metamorality must recognise that other groups having different moralities from ours have a sense of rightness for their morality similar to the sense of rightness we have for ours. However, the problem in constructing a metamorality is the rigidity of dogmatic religion. Dogmatic religion maintains there is an objective morality, and it is determined by the ‘truth’ embodied in their religion. With that attitude there can be no compromise. Groups not sharing the ‘truth’ embodied in the belief system of dogmatic religion are beyond the pale. I suspect that JP believes that his particular sect has that ‘truth’. All would be well if the rest of the world could be aware of that ‘truth’ and accept it. Unfortunately, there can be no compromise with that kind of attitude. Our metamorality must encompass compromise so we can live with other groups.

Atheists are generally aware that standards of morality are the products of human society and therefore do not in general try to impress their morality on others. Since atheists do not have a formal creed there is no all-embracing morality to put on others.

Such tolerance is lacking in dogmatic religion. They send out missionaries to put their mumbojumbo on others. Some religionists are open enough to accept that other groups of people have other beliefs, and there is no objective standard to determine which belief is the ‘true’one. Bishop Spong recognises that his ‘truth’ is his truth, and not something that must be imposed on other people.

http://johnshelbyspong.com/publicsite/index.aspx is his website.

However, I fear JP feels that he (I’m pretty sure he’s male.) has the truth which others should accept. That is a most dangerous idea
Posted by david f, Friday, 31 July 2015 11:25:23 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
JP,

Maybe you understand now what I meant when I said that making God a being like us, only much greater, invites all sorts of silly criticisms based on carrying the anthropomorphic model of God - useful for a a naive understanding of the concept - ad absurdum.

Also, I think it is true that religion as belief in the mysterious, supernatural, can exist and existed without an ethical/moral dimension that is so explicit in Christianity and Islam (and to some extend also in Judaism, if I understand it correctly). Rodney Stark, whom I like to quote here (see e.g. http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=5580#154255) put it thus:

“Some have identified the sixth century (BCE) as the Axial Age in recognition of the pivotal shift in religious perception that occurred along an axis from the Mediterranean to northern China. Even more remarkable than their number … is that all these faiths discovered “sin” and the conscience, as each linked morality to transcendence. Contrasted with the prevailing conceptions of immoral and amoral Gods, this was revolutionary.” (c.f. http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=15315#264888).

I am not an ethicist, but I think what our atheist friends here have in mind is what Catholics call (God’s) natural law that is in-built in our human nature (evolved through evolution, if you like). You can distinguish in everyday life between good and bad, the same as between truth and untruth without having to invoke an e.g. Christian extension of these terms to basic world views presuppositions. Politicians will argue about what is good for us and what not, the same as scientists about what is true and what not about reality, without having to believe in an absolute Truth or absolute Goodness, that we Christians associate with God.
Posted by George, Saturday, 1 August 2015 1:01:38 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
.

Dear david f,

.

You certainly seem to have an interesting family.

Arden looks like a nice little town or village or whatever. I guess everybody knows everybody. That can have both advantages and disadvantages though it seems a rather selective community which gives it a broader perspective than most other little towns of that size.

Apart from the artists, writers and intellectuals, presumably a number of others must earn their living by commuting elsewhere.

With your daughter’s multiple community activities it doesn’t sound as though she would have much time to look after a household full of kids and a husband or partner but, then, she seems to have so many talents and loads of energy and enthusiasm...

I can understand that you are proud of her.

.

Dear George,

.

That is an interesting post to JP – interesting because there’s not much “fat” in there. I have the impression that you have made good use of your exceptional intelligence and slimmed your religious concepts down to the bone.

Perhaps the friction from all these "robust" exchanges on OLO has contributed in some way.

Given the form they’re in now, to my mind they are impeccable. If I had read that post a few years ago, I should have no trouble agreeing with you. I feel quite comfortable with the concept of god you describe.

But, to quote Samuel Beckett :

« Perhaps my best years are gone. When there was a chance of happiness. But I wouldn't want them back. Not with the fire in me now. No, I wouldn't want them back. »

(Krapp's Last Tape, 1958

.
Posted by Banjo Paterson, Saturday, 1 August 2015 6:53:51 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear Banjo,

Thanks for the compliment, however these are not new “religious concepts down to the bone” - they are centuries old, although my recent inspiration came from https://youtu.be/2BQSqHrU7ns.
Posted by George, Saturday, 1 August 2015 7:24:33 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/07/30/1407166/-Catholic-Nun-Explains-Pro-Life-In-A-Way-That-May-Stun-The-Masses?detail=email contains a story about a Catholic nun speaking about those who are against abortion.

A quote from Sister Joan Chittister, O.S.B:

"I do not believe that just because you're opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don't? Because you don't want any tax money to go there. That's not pro-life. That's pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is."

Sister Joan shares a sense of responsibility with my colleague in the Netherlands. Sells dismisses the concerns that can make a woman decide on abortion by claiming that most abortions are for convenience. Sister Joan has compassion for the woman and the child born to the woman.

Shame on you, Sells.
Posted by david f, Saturday, 1 August 2015 12:37:45 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Sister Chittister is a well known figure on the (extreme) left wing of American Catholicism (although in this quote she more or less mimics Pope’s views as made explicit e.g. in his recent Laudatio Si encyclical). There is, of course, also the extreme right wing of vociferous “pro-lifers” and I think it is a good thing that such a wide rage of opinions is now available within the Church, although the official position is still determined by the Pope and Synods.
Posted by George, Saturday, 1 August 2015 7:31:23 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Error: Of course, wide range not "wide rage".
Posted by George, Saturday, 1 August 2015 7:34:28 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear George,

It is good that the Catholic Church accommodates a variety of views and does not enforce a stifling conformity. I have found much good in Laudato Si.

However, I think the pope has caricatured the views of those who are concerned with population. No species can increase in number indefinitely. In paragraph 50 the pope wrote:

“ Instead of resolving the problems of the poor and thinking of how the world can be different, some can only propose a reduction in the birth rate.”

I belong to Sustainable Population Australia. Concern with the birth rate does not mean that other problems of the poor are ignored as the pope implied nor that is it acceptable for wealthier people to have high birth rates. The carbon footprint of the average Australian is about 50 times that of the average Bangladeshi. Reduction in birth rate is only one of many approaches to limit environmental destruction and keep a liveable planet.

In paragraph 98 the pope rejected asceticism and withdrawal from the world.

Jesus lived in full harmony with creation, and others were amazed: “What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?” (Mt 8:27). His appearance was not that of an ascetic set apart from the world, nor of an enemy to the pleasant things of life. Of himself he said: “The Son of Man came eating and drinking and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard!’” (Mt 11:19). He was far removed from philosophies which despised the body, matter and the things of the world. Such unhealthy dualisms, nonetheless, left a mark on certain Christian thinkers in the course of history and disfigured the Gospel.

I appreciate the above very much. Denial of the good things of the world has been treated as a virtue. The Bible states, GEN 1:31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. If God sees the world as good why should worshipers of that God deny it?
Posted by david f, Saturday, 1 August 2015 8:09:58 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
.

Sister Joan Chittister, O.S.B :

« I do not believe that just because you're opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don't? Because you don't want any tax money to go there. That's not pro-life. That's pro-birth. »
.

I wholeheartedly approve and applaud those words of wisdom of Sister Joan Chittister. They echo in my mind with memories I have of a couple of young ladies I have known in times gone by.

One, who was the sister of a friend of my wife, had a compulsive need to be constantly pregnant. I have no idea how many children she ended up having. No longer had she given birth, she was pregnant again. Children seemed to be swarming all over the place. But she never seemed to look after them. They more or less brought themselves up. She didn’t even seem to want children. She just wanted to be pregnant. We never saw her without a swollen womb.

We never met with any of the fathers. She was always alone with the children.

Another young lady we knew definitely wanted to have children, or, I should say, what she really appeared to be interested in was the act itself of giving birth. It seemed to be something of an obsession. She had two children when the couple broke up and divorced. She never had any more and didn’t seem very interested in bringing up the two she had.

I should describe the first young lady as pro-pregnancy and the second pro-birth. I hesitate to qualify either of them as pro-life. What happened to the children after birth didn’t seem to interest them at all.

So far as I know, the fathers, better described simply as biological genitors, never got involved.

.
Posted by Banjo Paterson, Saturday, 1 August 2015 9:46:09 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Some think that actions to reduce population numbers will reduce poverty and preserve our planet. And some think the other way around, namely that actions towards reduction of poverty (that includes education) and of ecological exploitation will lead to reduction, or at least stagnation, of population numbers. The Pope apparently prefers the latter way of thinking.
Posted by George, Sunday, 2 August 2015 7:33:41 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear George,

Nevertheless, the pope still caricatures those concerned with population growth. You mention education. The Sustainable Population Association is very much for education especially for women so that they need not rely on motherhood for status. The birth rate can be reduced by lessening infant mortality so families won’t have many children in hopes some will survive. The pope does not mention contraception and sex education especially in regard to methods of contraception. Vatican roulette is not a reliable method for birth control.

At the Cairo population conference the representatives of the Catholic church allied themselves with the Muslim representatives. The agenda contained provision for contraceptives, access to abortion and education for women. The Catholic representatives opposed the first two, and the Muslim representatives opposed the latter. In return for the Catholics opposing education for women the Muslims opposed provisions for contraceptives and access to abortion.

As far as your implied contention that there is a conflict between reduction of poverty and ecological exploitation as against birth control there is none. The pope simply continues the Vatican opposition to birth control and abortion. Where such is available Catholic women generally ignore the Vatican dictates.
Posted by david f, Sunday, 2 August 2015 9:00:16 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear david f,

I have already gathered that you do not agree with the Catholic position and practice (neither do I with most of the latter), and that in my nutshell formulation of the two approaches, your preference is rather for the first.

You are right that the Pope does not mention contraception, which for Catholics is a very meaningful fact, to the extent that he is being attacked for it by some conservatives.
Posted by George, Sunday, 2 August 2015 9:23:42 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
.

It’s no secret that population growth in undeveloped countries largely exceeds population regression in developed countries. The poor are more prolific than the rich. What can we do about it ?

Stop the invading hoards ? Confine them to their wastelands ? Bomb them out of existence ? Lace their drinking water with sterilising agents ?

Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” may be seen as a good solution. No need to interfere with people’s lives. Just set the markets free and they’ll fix it.

No tariffs, no trade barriers, no privileges, no restrictions – free trade among all nations throughout the world. The poor become richer and adopt the life style of the rich. They have less children and their consummation of world resources drops dramatically.

I’m sure this would appeal to Pope Francis. It’s not difficult to guess why.

.
Posted by Banjo Paterson, Monday, 3 August 2015 1:20:58 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
.

Oops ! Not "consummation". That's Franglais. Please read "consumption".

Sorry about that.

.
Posted by Banjo Paterson, Monday, 3 August 2015 7:18:55 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. ...
  6. 15
  7. 16
  8. 17
  9. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy