imajulianutter, none of what you have written makes sense. You are inconsistent and irrational in your attempts at arguments, and you twist what people say to make it fit with what you think they must be saying given that they hold a contrary opinion. I don't see the point in attempting any further discussion with you. Sorry.

Yuyutsu, I think I will allow your posts to speak for themselves. My only response is to say that I disagree with you vehemently and believe that Australians would not want to live in a state that refused to protect children because their parents were of a different religious or cultural persuasion. As to your final sentence, I am opposed to religious persecution but I approve of the humane slaughter of animals for consumption. I do not think it is any more immoral for a human to eat meat than it is immoral for a lion to do so.

Good to see you waving the white flag of surrender Lindy. It would be even better if you were to actually examine the behaviour of Israel rather than simply believe the Israeli propaganda.

Mishka Gora,

You have put forward a well-framed and worthwhile article, and I wish it could be given wide and thoughtful consideration throughout the world at large. Who knows, it might thusly provide some means towards overcoming the major deficiency, as I see it, in the exercise of conscience - which is the inordinate flexibility with which individuals are prone to exercise, or to deny, 'conscience', depending on particular circumstance.

This flexibility reveals itself so clearly when an individual is starving or is placed under severe stress, or is indoctrinated to hate or to loathe some other group or society, is raised without a proper sense of morality, is perhaps recruited as a child soldier, or is defending home, family, kin, or 'group'. Thus, not only does no universal sense of conscience exist, but is rather subject to environment and environmental influence, and particular circumstance.

There may only be one chance for conscience, and that is in a universally free, safe and supportive world, where universal human rights prevail above all else. Such a world may only be achievable under a democratically elected, benign and benevolent world government, with universal suffrage, and where all the resources of the Earth are deemed to be the propery of all. In our present situation it is only the fortunate minority who are free to exercise conscience, compassion and benevolence unreservedly, and even they may be expected to falter.

Sadly, I can only view conscience as a privilege, exercised by one in consideration of the wellbeing of another, a Samaritan act, a genuine exercise of the 'Golden Rule', by the privileged as an act of charity and moral strength, rather than as a universal right or responsibility, unfortunately. Wished that it may not always be so, but given the inherent nature of man it may take a more advanced humanoid species to overcome man's baser drives and ambitions.

We appear far from the attainment of universal wisdom.

Mishka,

You oppose religious persecution -unless it happens to be YOUR religion that persecutes others. Perhaps you are trying to justify it by claiming that your belief-system is technically not a religion. Humanists fail to admit to being a religion, based on the poor excuse that their belief-system has no identifiable god, but missing the elephant in the room, that although they do not make it explicit, they consider MAN to be God.

The humanist doctrine claims that we are just biological blobs and that the highest religious value is in keeping those blobs breathing, especially if they are of the human kind. The arrogant claim by humanists that they know what is the good of a child better than its parents, is based on nothing but this dogma. Since humanists do not believe in spirit, they do not accept, for example, that a child selects the parents to which s/he is born, thus appointing them as his/her best representatives; also that a baby's spirit may at times wish/need to visit earth only for a short term.

The act of "protecting" the life of a child against its expressed wish, interfering with the integrity of a family united in a different religious persuation than the state's, amounts to violence and your argument about what "Australians would not want" is of the Argumentum ad baculum (appeal to violence) fallacy type.

So you consider it moral to kill and eat a cow, but not a human baby, even when the adult cow is more developed and aware than the human baby. That preference for humans is none but another humanist dogma.

The lion preys because he is slave to his instincts. It is those same instincts that drive humans to cling to life practically at all costs. There is nothing sacred or particularly moral about those instincts, it is not the voice of God, but essentially the voice of the genes screaming "propagate us". If you need an example, one result of sanctifying our instincts and those little tyrants (our genes), would be that no child would know who his/her father is!

Saltpetre, thank-you for sharing your thoughts. I’m afraid I’m less optimistic than you about the likelihood of universal human rights and freedom under a democratically-elected world government. History suggests to me that attempts at artificially uniting peoples under a larger umbrella than that of nationhood tend to have the reverse effect of what's intended and create more division and less freedom. So too with democracy in many parts of the world, where the majority vote for repression. Conscience may well be a privilege of sorts, but if it is I believe it comes with a heavy responsibility. Ultimately, though, I think conscience is something we are all born with, but it is something that must be used frequently and habitually to function at its best. It must be informed, as it cannot operate in a vacuum, but it shrinks and shrivels if indoctrinated. And it is something I like to believe unites all humans, regardless of creed or race.

Yuyutsu, I wouldn't call myself a humanist, but I suppose you’ve based that label on the fact that I accept that most humans are carnivores. In fact, I do believe in God, not that man is God as you suggest – if you haven’t worked it out from my previous posts, I’m a Christian of the Catholic variety - but oddly enough I still don’t approve of religious persecution, no matter who’s doing the persecuting. I don’t perceive saving anyone’s life as religious persecution, and I don't see how any child, especially a newborn, could legitimately express its wish to die. I don't believe that a child selects his or her parents - oddly enough, I have this idea that a child is a product of human sperm fertilising a human egg – and I don’t think anyone has the right to take another’s life without a justification such as self-defence. If that’s a dogma, so be it, but I would rather my dogma than your dogma that says that the state and people of goodwill should allow parents to kill their own children in the name of freedom of religion.