"There is no heaven; it's a fairy story"
Discussion
There are a host of very interesting histroical and cultural facts around infantacide and neonaticide - to which I would consider abortion a natural extension. Many cultures allow, or have allowed in civilised society acts which we would consider abhorent in this day and age.
Some studies suggest ancient prehistoric societys would kill up to 25% of their young (usually girls) during times of famine and drought as a means of population control. And these things are still going on in certain parts of the world.
No one in the modern age can surely agree with the premature ending of an innocent childs life, at one day, one hour, or before the cord is cut, so the only question that stands surely is when does life begin and that has to be an arbritary decision - if you feel uncomfortable with the 24week limit on no questions asked abortions then write to your MP - they will repsond.
FWIW my boy was born at 30 weeks and was in special care for a few days with babies on the ward born close to 24 weeks and I can assure you they are more than a collection of cells.
Some studies suggest ancient prehistoric societys would kill up to 25% of their young (usually girls) during times of famine and drought as a means of population control. And these things are still going on in certain parts of the world.
No one in the modern age can surely agree with the premature ending of an innocent childs life, at one day, one hour, or before the cord is cut, so the only question that stands surely is when does life begin and that has to be an arbritary decision - if you feel uncomfortable with the 24week limit on no questions asked abortions then write to your MP - they will repsond.
FWIW my boy was born at 30 weeks and was in special care for a few days with babies on the ward born close to 24 weeks and I can assure you they are more than a collection of cells.
standards said:
Timsta said:
It's not rude at all. Do you have any evidence that it's more than superstition?
All right it's rude in being ignorant-they are different things.Superstitions are disjointed practices, attempts to control fate or nature-like a footballer always putting on kit in a certain order...
Faith is. Sorry should be, a way of life based on a commitment to live a certain way. Trying to be more fully human, to reflect on what you are, how to live, how to choose. How to face death.
I really can't accept the wisdom of centuries of various faiths in struggling with what it is to be human is the same as superstition.
No one I have ever met really lives their whole life dictated by superstition; many try to live their lives by faith. However misguided others might see them as being.
People study philosophy of religion; does anyone do this with footballers being last out of the tunnel carrying a ball?
fluffnik said:
If we educate young people without lying to them there will be far fewer unwanted consequences - infection, unplanned conception, abortion, needless guilt - and a lot more joyous recreational sex.
Win, win.
Educate how? By telling them that condoms are the answer? Where do abortion rates fall with greater availability of condoms?Win, win.
fluffnik said:
Proportionally abortions are far more common in ill educated religiously repressed populations. The same populations which often also suffer high levels of HIV, rape, infant mortality...
Indeed - New York city just last year - 41% of all pregnancies ended in abortion. What is the world average? 10%? 15%?fluffnik said:
There is no correlation between 
Free Love/ and high abortion rates, indeed, quite the reverse.
NYC, for example.Free Love/ and high abortion rates, indeed, quite the reverse.fluffnik said:
...and if you look at America there is a definite correlation between rates of religiosity and abortion.
Seriously! Because someone fills in an abortion form question on their religion with the name of a religion, this is evidence of what exactly? That they have internalised the message of that religion, that they value it above all other considerations? This is slightly improbable.ChrisGB said:
Those advocating population control or reduction should of course set the example.
fluffnik said:
We tend to.
(I meant mass suicide and slaughtering of own families 
).ChrisGB said:
Abortions in New York last year were 50% higher among immigrant groups than among whites, so it is already a form of population control on the poorest. This is not how the world should be.
fluffnik said:
Poorest, least educated, most religious...
Come on fluffers, PH isn't very religious....
ChrisGB said:
Sorry, but how other people consider me affects me.
Of course people's sex lives affect me.
We are not little islands, and how we act affects others.
If I am someone addicted to porn and tending to view others as potential objects for satisfying my lust, with their agreement hopefully, I will view people differently from the person who is very clear in their head that others are not a means to an end, or that a person is not an object, etc.
How you think of and act towards others in one particular situation (eg. the bedroom) will over time turn you into a particular sort of person who tends to do particular sorts of things. So what you do towards others will determine in some way what you do towards me.
You may perceive it affects you, what I said was it has nothing to do with you. Of course people's sex lives affect me.
We are not little islands, and how we act affects others.
If I am someone addicted to porn and tending to view others as potential objects for satisfying my lust, with their agreement hopefully, I will view people differently from the person who is very clear in their head that others are not a means to an end, or that a person is not an object, etc.
How you think of and act towards others in one particular situation (eg. the bedroom) will over time turn you into a particular sort of person who tends to do particular sorts of things. So what you do towards others will determine in some way what you do towards me.
fluffnik said:
ChrisGB said:
Just run with that idea then. How do you account for the warmth of the sun on your face? Goodness is a lack of evil? I need a consistent philosophy here, I hope you can help. For goodness to thrive, it is enough for bad people to do nothing, is that how the world works?
The warmth is down to nuclear fusion, we find it pleasant because it keeps our bodies running nicely on less food.Goodness is almost certainly a prerequisite of civilisation for which there are positive evolutionary drivers, again we find it pleasant because it's good for us.
carmonk said:
Superstition is just a lack of joined up thinking. A happened after B therefore A caused B. You see this in the religious frequently. Pray for something and by chance it happens so your belief in prayer is strengthened. Ask God for a sign and the sun comes out so God is watching over you. Superstition simply replaces the causal link with the supernatural, and in religious belief the supernatural is represented by God. Oddly enough the Catholic Church states indulging in superstitious behaviour is a sin; just one of the many elements of hypocrisy the Catholic religion harbours.
Has it crossed your mind that there's the possibility that there is a difference between superstition and the Christian faith? Hence the RC comment.Certainly the way you describe prayer is not exactly theologically sophisticated. If prayer was like that it would be superstition.
standards said:
Has it crossed your mind that there's the possibility that there is a difference between superstition and the Christian faith? Hence the RC comment.
Certainly the way you describe prayer is not exactly theologically sophisticated. If prayer was like that it would be superstition.
Is there a difference? Certainly the way you describe prayer is not exactly theologically sophisticated. If prayer was like that it would be superstition.
standards said:
fluffnik said:
They all present superstition as fact to some degree.
I agree with the exam results point. Parents seem to be more than happy with many of the excellent Church schools.standards said:
Whatever gave you the idea that people of faith can't be sceptical-doubts are important to thinking beleivers IMHO.
Doubt is one thing but I struggle to see who religion can survive full on sceptical enquiry.standards said:
Superstition is your label and TBH quite rude when applied to the faith that informs much of our culture.
The failing might be mine, but I am utterly unable to differentiate between supposed supernatural entities in qualitative terms. I can see no more reason for believing in any $DEITY than I can for avoiding stepping on the cracks in the pavement.As for faith informing our culture I'd say it more constrains...
fluffnik said:
NoNeed said:
There you go again with the if the mother life is in danger bit. What if it isn't in danger.
She's an autonomous being, it's her call.After what 5 weeks, there are 2 hearts beating in the pregnant women. This is just a growth?
Is there any reasoned refutation of the "atheist" argument against abortion, or does it have to just descend into quibblling about "rights", which are after all just something we choose to ascribe?
fluffnik said:
It seems to me that life is a pretty much inevitable consequence of carbon chemistry around liquid water. I'd strongly suspect that many, if not most, of the low level processes would be the same too.
There might be some dissimilar bio(equivalent)chemistries out there too but it's very unlikely that our carbon based biochemistry is a strictly local phenomenon.
What's carbon chemistry?There might be some dissimilar bio(equivalent)chemistries out there too but it's very unlikely that our carbon based biochemistry is a strictly local phenomenon.
If we don't know how it started, we can't say how likely it is elsewhere. Can we?
ChrisGB said:
fluffnik said:
The warmth is down to nuclear fusion, we find it pleasant because it keeps our bodies running nicely on less food.
Goodness is almost certainly a prerequisite of civilisation for which there are positive evolutionary drivers, again we find it pleasant because it's good for us.
Thanks, but I was after a consistent development of god as hate. If this is the case, how could anything at all be pleasant in itself?Goodness is almost certainly a prerequisite of civilisation for which there are positive evolutionary drivers, again we find it pleasant because it's good for us.
I'm utterly incapable of generating an internally consistent model of any deity as anything; hence my atheism.
Some of the Aztec deities seem to have been complete s
ts but they're no more internally consistent than any other deity I've heard of.fluffnik said:
Faith is incompatible with sceptical enquiry and it's not faith that pushes the boundaries of human knowledge forward...
Eh? Someone has taken over your login fluffnik?The first part: Faith is incompatible. This really is untrue. It could not be more wrong.
The faith that tells you there is a creator God who accounts for there being anything rather than nothing will have strictly no influence on what you as a "sceptical enquirer" delve into within that creation. That you can seriously say otherwise is flabbergasting. Or it means that we both completely reject the sort of faith you are talking about. Faith and scientific method are separate enterprises.
To complain, second part, that it's not faith pushing the boundaries of human knowledge is completely off the mark, a category mistake. It's like complaining that applying the scientific method to my struggle against temptations doesn't give me the spiritual satisfaction that reading John of the Cross does. Faith is not a rival scientific method to the scientific method!!! There is only one way to get good information using the scientific method and by so doing "push the boundary of human knowledge", and that is by using the scientific method. (Well, up to a point anyway, and we are in some ways past that in sub-atomic stuff).
ChrisGB said:
CommanderJameson said:
ChrisGB said:
If the time for a child isn't right, if an abortion is a certainty in event of pregnancy, they shouldn't be having sex. Otherwise, where is responsibility, where is facing up to consequences of your own actions? Should we just be infants where sex is involved? Is lust the only value?
Two questions.- What's other peoples' (consensual) sex lives got to do with you? (Trick question. The answer is "nothing whatsoever")
- What about pregnancy as a result of rape?
Other people's attitudes to other people obviously affect everyone. If you think of one person as a piece of meat, you will tend to think of others that way too. I don't want to be considered a piece of meat, thanks. Thinking of someone as a piece of meat and their happening to do the same towards you doesn't sound to me like a measure of civilisation.
2. Extreme cases make bad law, let's talk generally. Have you read Disgrace by J M Coetzee btw?
- Adults are not children, so your analogy is void. Who said anything about thinking about people as pieces of meat, anyway? Nice strawman. Have fun with it.
- Extreme cases do make bad law, but that's OK, because it's already legal to have an abortion, so let's talk about pregnancy as a result of rape, rather than attempting to dance round the question. (No, I haven't read that book)
fluffnik said:
I don't doubt religions value as an instrument of social control...
The failing might be mine, but I am utterly unable to differentiate between supposed supernatural entities in qualitative terms. I can see no more reason for believing in any $DEITY than I can for avoiding stepping on the cracks in the pavement.
As for faith informing our culture I'd say it more constrains...
Would you like to prevent parents choosing how their children are educated within a varied state regulated school system? Parents seem to value that.The failing might be mine, but I am utterly unable to differentiate between supposed supernatural entities in qualitative terms. I can see no more reason for believing in any $DEITY than I can for avoiding stepping on the cracks in the pavement.
As for faith informing our culture I'd say it more constrains...
Avoiding the pavement cracks is something someone might do for all sorts of reasons. To me it's not the same as living your whole life in a particular way. That might be my failing.
Christianity and culture. Where to start. Language-there are dozens of examples of biblical (KJV) expressions in our language from Adam's apple to the Writing on the wall. How does that contrain?
Just talking to myself here:
Listened to the epic Dawkins and Krauss youtube roadshow posted earlier. I think Krauss is a pretty sympathetic figure, whereas Dawkins comes across as someone literally hateful.
The interesting part really came when Krauss explains that if you have nothing, and you leave it alone for long enough, you will get a universe.
He says that philosophers he talks to assume this is some sort of scam, but he is quite clear: nothing, left alone, gives you everything, there is no scam, he repeats.
OK. Well, to simplify and probably mis-summarise from what I have managed to read and discuss with physicists in the last couple of weeks:
You basically have two mutually exclusive views of the origins in physics (bear with me!) - either some form of string theory or not. The difference will basically be whether "stuff" (I use the term loosely) like space and time are considered emergents, or not.
But uniting both approaches is the realisation of the inadequacy of everyday language for describing what is going on. There are then two options:
metaphor and/or mathematics.
Krauss will be of the mathematics camp. His "nothing" will be basically: what there is, once the constants he wants to make zero are made zero.
He is right that this is not a scam.
But he is wrong that this has any consequences whatsoever for religious belief.
His "nothing" is basically the label for a state of affairs where certain constants are "zero", others not.
It is, and he may well just not realise it, a million miles from the philosophical notion of "nothing", which I suggest is impossible to imagine.
So when I say there is a question about the universe that is unavailable to the scientific endeavour, a fundamental question that the universe raises but cannot answer i.e. viz. to wit. How come anything at all rather than nothing? I can be absolutely confident that I am talking sense. This is not a god of the gaps question, the answer to which "science" will one day have, this is the big one.
(This is not to say that theology will provide a physical explanation - creation is not a sort of making).
Listened to the epic Dawkins and Krauss youtube roadshow posted earlier. I think Krauss is a pretty sympathetic figure, whereas Dawkins comes across as someone literally hateful.
The interesting part really came when Krauss explains that if you have nothing, and you leave it alone for long enough, you will get a universe.
He says that philosophers he talks to assume this is some sort of scam, but he is quite clear: nothing, left alone, gives you everything, there is no scam, he repeats.
OK. Well, to simplify and probably mis-summarise from what I have managed to read and discuss with physicists in the last couple of weeks:
You basically have two mutually exclusive views of the origins in physics (bear with me!) - either some form of string theory or not. The difference will basically be whether "stuff" (I use the term loosely) like space and time are considered emergents, or not.
But uniting both approaches is the realisation of the inadequacy of everyday language for describing what is going on. There are then two options:
metaphor and/or mathematics.
Krauss will be of the mathematics camp. His "nothing" will be basically: what there is, once the constants he wants to make zero are made zero.
He is right that this is not a scam.
But he is wrong that this has any consequences whatsoever for religious belief.
His "nothing" is basically the label for a state of affairs where certain constants are "zero", others not.
It is, and he may well just not realise it, a million miles from the philosophical notion of "nothing", which I suggest is impossible to imagine.
So when I say there is a question about the universe that is unavailable to the scientific endeavour, a fundamental question that the universe raises but cannot answer i.e. viz. to wit. How come anything at all rather than nothing? I can be absolutely confident that I am talking sense. This is not a god of the gaps question, the answer to which "science" will one day have, this is the big one.
(This is not to say that theology will provide a physical explanation - creation is not a sort of making).
Halb said:
standards said:
Has it crossed your mind that there's the possibility that there is a difference between superstition and the Christian faith?
What's the difference?Superstition like avoiding the cracks on the pavement as opposed to a whole way of life, how to live, how to try to understand what we're here for. I think there's a difference.
And yes there might not BE a reason but believing there is a purpose to your life seems to me to be a whole different level of faith to the pavement thing.
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