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

Sorry about that.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.