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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:19
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quote:
True, but the children retain the same moral rights over their own body as the mother has over hers. |
Even assuming that a fetus is the same as the mother, which I'm not willing to grant until most doctors and scientists agree that it is, you forget that the fetus has no way to express any desire or enforce any rights. Further, even if it could, those rights would still be subject to the rights of the mother, because the mother's body is necessary for the fetus to stay alive, not the other way around. Any way you cut it, the mother's consent is morally required.
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Frozen embryos can survive without the consent of their mother. |
I suppose, but there's probably a 99.9% probability that it will never be adopted, and in the meantime, I don't agree - nor do most scientists and doctors - that a bunch of cells floating in a petry dish has any rights.
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:19
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quote:
Atheism is a religion, in that it cannot be proven along empirical grounds, and is based upon the dictations of conscience. |
That's ridiculous. You don't have to prove the non-existence of God. While I believe in God, I at least know that much about logic. You can't prove a negative - rather, you have to prove a positive. The burden of proof is on those who believe in God to prove that God exists, not on those who don't believe in God to prove he doesn't exist.
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:19
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quote:
To remove religion from government is no different from persecuting others according to their beliefs of conscience. |
Uh, how? You aren't persecuting anyone by forcing them to not enforce their religious beliefs on others any more than you persecute someone by not allowing them to stone their children for disobedience. Religious freedom doesn't extend to enforcing your beliefs on others, through force or the mechanism of the state.
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Drachasor
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quote:
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
To remove religion from government is no different from persecuting others according to their beliefs of conscience.
This is why I asked the question I did of Drachosaur. It is only those who allow religious expression, who can also permit deviations of conscience. The absence of religion is the same as the establishment of religion. |
There are basic moral truths that almost everyone agrees on. Those can be espoused by the government and encouraged in the schools. A wide variety of justifications and reasonings on them can be discussed in ethics classes.
There would still be moral disagreements, but those always exist.
In any case, the lack of a religion espoused by the government is not the same as the espousing of a religion by the government. One allows a plurality of views in the government and the other does not. Naturally in the former you will have to justify laws by more than just religious decree; afterall, there are many that would not accept a particular religious decree by a particular religion.
-Drachasor
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Drachasor
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quote:
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
An agnostic religion does not forbid the religious from practicing their faith as they see fit, even in the legislature. |
re·li·gion Audio pronunciation of "religion" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (r-ljn)
n.
1.
1. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
2. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.
2. The life or condition of a person in a religious order.
3. A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.
4. A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.
Agnosticism is doubt on a belief, and atheism can merely be the lack of a belief.
Neither is a religion by itself.
-Drachasor
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:19
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quote:
An agnostic religion does not forbid the religious from practicing their faith as they see fit, even in the legislature. |
So you believe that in a religiously free state, people should be able to exercise their religion by passing laws based solely upon that religion and enforcing them on others? That basically just sounds like mandating the ruling party's religion.
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:19
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quote:
Which is precisely why assurance that God does not exist must be based on faith rather than upon reason. Reason does not permit such assurance, as one cannot conclusively prove a negative. |
Right, nor does it have to. I can be rational and believe that there are no alien artifacts on the dark side of the Moon.
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Ben Kenobi
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McGregornobi!
Oct 2002
time: 21:19
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quote:
BK, I simply can't understand why abortion is such a major issue for a Presidential candidate - the President does not really set abortion laws. Congress writes the laws, and the Supreme Court rules on challenges to the law. Now, the President can INFLUENCE Congress, and he can make appointments to the Supreme Court - but you should realize that any makeup of the Supreme Court that is not composed of social conservatives with a political agenda is not going to overturn Roe.
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And you answer your own question. The president can veto laws passed by congress. He makes the appointments to the Supreme court that must be considered by the Congress. He can propose bills for the approval of the Congress.
There is much that a prolife president can do, and much that a pro-abortion president can do.
Why do you think Kerry has established a litmus test for his Supreme Court nominees?
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So, while the President can impact abortion, aren't there more important issues that he has more direct control over? Such as, I don't know, starting wars?
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Congress must approve of all wars, DF.
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As for the rest of your emotionally charged speech about abortion and embryonic stem cells, why don't you just defer to expert scientific opinion? When doctors agree that embryos and fetuses are living humans, the same as you and me, then I'll be closer to opposing abortion, although you still ignore the fact that a fetus relies on the body of the mother for support, so the continued consent of the mother seems to me to be morally required as well.
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I do defer to scientific opinion. Scientific opinion has established that human life begins at conception. How one can treat the same process use to make babies through In Vitro fertilisation, differently from the same process used to harvest stem cells, is a complete mystery to me.
Who do these frozen embryos rely upon for their support? Their biological mother, or their adopted mother? Who has more right to the child, the woman who does not want them, or the woman who is willing to raise them and care for them? Who is the true mother to these children?
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But in any case, I don't pretend to more about science and medicine than doctors and scientists, and THEY overwhelmingly do not take your view on abortion and stem cell research.
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Do they overwhelmingly support or oppose abortion? Of course, the researchers who are involved in embryonic stem cell research will have vested interest in preserving their funding.
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Why do you think that is - do they all have a political agenda? No, I doubt it. The ones with a political/religious agenda tend to be the social conservative/religious right doctors and scientists.
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How so? How can you say that it is only the conservatives who have a political agenda? That makes no sense to me. The liberals have a political agenda that must also be considered.
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:19
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quote:
And you answer your own question. The president can veto laws passed by congress. He makes the appointments to the Supreme court that must be considered by the Congress. He can propose bills for the approval of the Congress. |
As for the Supreme Court, even the current Court isn't gonna overturn Roe - even many of the "conservatives" on the Court wouldn't do so. It takes more than a conservative appointee to overturn precedent like that.
As for Congress, yes, the President can propose and veto bills. However, a bill can get proposed without the President, and vetos can be overturned.
I don't deny that the President has influence, I just think that matters that are more fully under his control are more important.
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Congress must approve of all wars, DF. |
Oh, Congress can declare war, but the President is certainly able to de facto create a war, by sending in troops, or bombing.
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Scientific opinion has established that human life begins at conception. |
Links, Ben, links. Back that up. If the majority of doctors believed you, then I don't think they would perform on demand abortions.
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Who do these frozen embryos rely upon for their support? Their biological mother, or their adopted mother? Who has more right to the child, the woman who does not want them, or the woman who is willing to raise them and care for them? Who is the true mother to these children? |
A right to the child? I thought that it wasn't property?
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Do they overwhelmingly support or oppose abortion? Of course, the researchers who are involved in embryonic stem cell research will have vested interest in preserving their funding. |
Maybe, but doctors and scientists don't have the same vested interest in preserving abortion on demand.
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How so? How can you say that it is only the conservatives who have a political agenda? That makes no sense to me. The liberals have a political agenda that must also be considered. |
Yes, and I agree with you, yet at the same time, I can see no reason a doctor would support abortion for political reasons when he "knows" that an abortion is killing a living, breathing human who is the same as one of us. That would violate his oath, and I don't think that if the majority of doctors really believed that, that they would so violate their oath.
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:19
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quote:
Any establishment of Catholicism, provides, by definition, special privileges to the Catholic church, and to the pope. |
Then if that's the definition of Catholicism, then I do not think a Catholic state would be a positive thing.
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The removal of religion from the state constrains the expression of believers. Why are they going to speak in favour of what they believe, when the state actively opposes such influence upon their policy? |
Why are believers going to speak in favor of what they believe? Well, to start with, Jesus commanded it. The point of witnessing to others isn't to promote public policy, but to save the person to whom you are speaking.
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Ben Kenobi
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McGregornobi!
Oct 2002
time: 21:19
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quote:
While what makes someone happy might vary from person to person (and this can be found out, though it is harder), how satisfied someone is with their life, how much they enjoy it, other such factors can be fairly accurately judged by asking them to grade such factors on a 1-10 scale.
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So why would the happiness of someone who rates a 2, be the same as someone else who rates a 10? This is not an empirical measure, as it is reliant upon individual opinion.
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Unhappiness is much, much easier to measure. Depression and other mental illnesses, poverty, difficulty with affording basic needs, high levels of stress are all things that are much easier to spot.
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Okay. Given these conditions, what evidence do you have that believers disproportionately suffer from these blights of unhappiness?
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More improvements to such measurements would come by understanding the brain better.
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Why does happiness have anything to do with the brain?
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David Floyd
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The bottom of a large bottle of beer
Jan 1970
time: 05:19
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quote:
The removal of religion from the state constrains the expression of believers. Why are they going to speak in favour of what they believe, when the state actively opposes such influence upon their policy? |
Furthermore, how does this constrain anything? Believers are still free to speak in public about their beliefs. The fact that their beliefs won't become public policy doesn't restrict their free speech - it just means their ideas won't be applied. The free speech of communists in the US isn't constrained simply because their speech won't result in a communist US state, right?
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Ben Kenobi
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McGregornobi!
Oct 2002
time: 21:19
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quote:
As for the Supreme Court, even the current Court isn't gonna overturn Roe - even many of the "conservatives" on the Court wouldn't do so. It takes more than a conservative appointee to overturn precedent like that.
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True. Given Stephens and O'Connors resignation, that tips the scales, particularly if Rehnquist also has another prolife replacement.
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As for Congress, yes, the President can propose and veto bills. However, a bill can get proposed without the President, and vetos can be overturned.
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Not without a 60 percent support in the house, which means, given the current partisanship for such measures, all prolife bills could be killed by a pro abortion president.
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Oh, Congress can declare war, but the President is certainly able to de facto create a war, by sending in troops, or bombing.
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Which is a violation of the separation of powers supposedly enforced by the constitution.
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Links, Ben, links. Back that up. If the majority of doctors believed you, then I don't think they would perform on demand abortions.
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Do the majority of doctors provide abortion on demand?
I'll get the links in a moment, I'm trying to tread water with all the others in the thread.
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A right to the child? I thought that it wasn't property?
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I'm taking your argument, and running with it to make other conclusions.
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Maybe, but doctors and scientists don't have the same vested interest in preserving abortion on demand.
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Not as a whole, but there is a substantial component that are funded by abortion industries, because the two complement each other.
If abortion provides the needed fetal tissue for research purposes, than the researchers dependent upon such tissue, will also have a vested interest in preserving their supply.
The same is true of the abortion industry, if these 'surplus' children, can be used for a better purpose, then they justify their own actions.
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Yes, and I agree with you, yet at the same time, I can see no reason a doctor would support abortion for political reasons when he "knows" that an abortion is killing a living, breathing human who is the same as one of us. That would violate his oath, and I don't think that if the majority of doctors really believed that, that they would so violate their oath.
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True, if they understood what they were doing, then they would not be involved.
But just because the doctors who perform the abortions, insist that abortion kills a blob of tissue, does not mean that scientifically, the unborn child is just a blob of tissue.
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Ben Kenobi
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McGregornobi!
Oct 2002
time: 21:19
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quote:
Then if that's the definition of Catholicism, then I do not think a Catholic state would be a positive thing.
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Neither do I. But in my situation, I would be better off in a Catholic state, than I would be in an atheist one.
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Why are believers going to speak in favor of what they believe? Well, to start with, Jesus commanded it. The point of witnessing to others isn't to promote public policy, but to save the person to whom you are speaking.
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True, but a believe in a position to influence public policy, can reach many more people than they would be able to do otherwise. It's the whole principle behind the idea, of having a Christian leader being a benefit to both the church and state.
Interestingly, it's not an ideal of Mennonites, particularly, since the Mennonites saw some of the inherent conflicts between the goals of the state and the goals of religion, and have instead chosen to keep themselves apart from the state. Many chose not to vote, in order to maintain their conscientious objector status, rather than submit themselves to the dictates of the state.
So it's two very different approaches, yet both of them have justification along Christian principles.
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03-11-2004 00:52
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