@Pericles.

You've mistaken the ontological for the cosmological arguments for the existence of God. Of historical note: Aquinas wasn't persuaded by the (Anselm's) ontological argument.

I'll assume you weren't trying to impugn Godel's theorem because he was a theist and looked forward to the afterlife, but just mention it out of biographical interest.

For me, I know there's an afterlife. We're made for it. We're supposed to be using our freedom preparing for it. When the love songs speak of 'this person, no other, and for ever' that's no trick, our hearts really do have the deepest longings for unlimited love.

"You've made us for yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you" St. Augustine (one of those geniuses of the Western Tradition I mentioned).

I hope Christmas, a measure of God's humility and loving desire for us, is a time of Grace and blessing to you Pericles.

Mishka,

I am very glad that you believe in God and are not a humanist. Yet strangely, some of your views are very close to those of humanists.

The hypothesis that "a child is a product of human sperm fertilising a human egg" is materialistic. Based on that it's clear how your claims follow -that a child does not select its parents and cannot express his/her wishes through them. No wonder -a product of sperm+egg cannot express its wishes even when 70 years old.

The preservation of the sperm+egg-product is in the genes' interest, but I find it strange why we, you and I, should bother to adopt and own their interests as ours. I do however believe that it is of value (though not an absolute value), because this body serves as our "home" for a period of time, a temporary earthly shell using which we can learn, pray and serve the Lord.

Like you I don’t think, and I believe I made that clear already, that anyone has the right to take another’s life without a justification. There may be other justifications besides self-defense (which itself is already a compromise: turning the other cheek is superior), but selfishness is not one of those.

I wasn't saying that the state (and people of goodwill, but how in hell did those two get to be bundled together?!) should allow parents to kill their children, only that if the children in question were not introduced to the state, then the state is in no position to either allow or disallow their killing. It is simply none of their business.

A secular humanistic government is in no position to distinguish right from wrong, up from down, darkness from light, divine from demonic. The only justification for their existence is the agreement of people to participate. If a family does not agree to participate, then government has no justification whatsoever to tell it what to do in its internal affairs.

As for people of goodwill, certainly, I would not speak with or be friends with people who kill their baby for selfish reasons.

*We are all human organisms.*

Indeed we are, Mishka. But of course not all human organisms are
people. No human brain and you are an organism, not a person.

I'll stick with the biological definition of "child", rather then
the feelgood, less accurate versions. No human brain, no child.

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

As to the wealth of the Catholic Church, you clearly forget that
huge money spinner: legacies! All those childless couples
and spinsters need to leave it to somebody, huge numbers want their
ticket to heaven. The US Catholic Church paid out over a billion$
in compensation claims for sexual abuse, but of course the Catholic
Church is globally the largest landholder on the planet.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7558375/ns/business-cnbc_tv/t/church-finances-challenge-pope/

The Vatican owns banks in Spain and all sorts of shareholdings too.
They are a very powerful financial organisation.

True, I do get them tangled up Martin Ibn Warriq.

>>You've mistaken the ontological for the cosmological arguments for the existence of God.<<

Each, however, requires the premise that God exists before it embarks upon its argument. In that sense they are identically circular - certainly from a non-theologian's perspective.

>>Of historical note: Aquinas wasn't persuaded by the (Anselm's) ontological argument.<<

The relevance of this escapes me, I'm afraid. But again, probably only because I have had no theological training.

>>I'll assume you weren't trying to impugn Godel's theorem because he was a theist and looked forward to the afterlife, but just mention it out of biographical interest<<

Impugn? Sort-of, probably. But not because he was a theist, but because he expressed a firm belief in the existence of an "afterlife". To me, this casts doubt upon his ability to draw rational conclusions from any set of data.

>>For me, I know there's an afterlife. We're made for it. We're supposed to be using our freedom preparing for it.<<

That's pure wishful thinking, I'm afraid.

I can certainly understand how people who believe in God need also to believe in an afterlife. But the concept is so riddled with internal contradictions, it is beyond rational contemplation.

Not that "rational contemplation" plays any part in your belief system, of course, but I thought I'd point it out anyway.

>>I hope Christmas, a measure of God's humility and loving desire for us, is a time of Grace and blessing to you Pericles.<<

Given what you know about my stance on God, was this deliberately ironic? Or is it just automatic, a sort of religious version of Tourette's Syndrome?

Whichever, I hope you and your family have an enjoyable holiday season, and wish you health and happiness for the New Year.

Yabby, the Catholic Church is a major provider of education and health care all over the world. I hate to imagine the suffering that would go unalleviated if it ceased its charitable works.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role_of_the_Catholic_Church_in_Western_civilization#Social_justice.2C_care-giving.2C_and_the_hospital_system

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholicism_in_Australia#Social_and_political_engagement

As for your odd ideas about children, Yabby, a foetus has a brain. In fact, an embryo has a brain. Not only does it have a brain, but brain activity has been established as early as 40 days, and while there is plenty of growth and development to go, the same can be said of the brain post-birth.

Yuyutsu, though I am glad you do not approve of killing for selfish reasons, I find your position less defensible than that, let's say, of Yabby, who appears to be convinced that a foetus doesn't have a brain until the last trimester. You say "I would not speak with or be friends with people who kill their baby for selfish reasons" but fail to allow for the state to intervene on the child's behalf. I find that thoroughly immoral. If you truly believe a situation is murder, how can you suggest that the state should stand by and allow it to take place? I have friends who have had abortions, often for selfish reasons, but they were convinced that their child was not yet fully human and therefore (in my assessment) were not fully culpable. Culpability requires knowledge that the act in question is wrong. You have that knowledge. You recognise that infanticide and abortion are wrong, and yet you deny the state any right to stop this wrongdoing. Saying that you don't condone murder but offering a loophole for people to commit murder (by not introducing their child to the state) is warped and utterly lacking in compassion for the potential victims. It's an arrogant and false neutrality that denies the basic human right of a child to not be deprived of its life.