"There is no heaven; it's a fairy story"
Discussion
standards said:
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.
ChrisGB said:
fluffnik said:
She's an autonomous being, it's her call.
That does seem a bit of a cop out. ChrisGB said:
Remove the viable fetus, then it too is an autonomous being and it can grow up to enjoy all the "recreational sex" it would have missed out on if aborted.
After what 5 weeks, there are 2 hearts beating in the pregnant women. This is just a growth?
Yup, it's still just a growth. There is no actual self, just potential.After what 5 weeks, there are 2 hearts beating in the pregnant women. This is just a growth?
ChrisGB said:
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?
Christopher Hitchens held much the same view as the RC church on abortion, I do not. Neither of our options could properly be presented as the Atheist Position.There is a continuum from conception via self awareness to autonomy.
Before birth the interests of the mother are paramount because she is an actual autonomous being not just a potential.
Halb said:
standards said:
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.
ChrisGB said:
Of course people's sex lives affect me.
We are not little islands, and how we act affects others.
WTF?We are not little islands, and how we act affects others.
I am not intending to quote out of context - if I have, please put me straight.
How on earth does other peoples' sex lives affect you?
As long as we are talking consenting individuals, what people get up to in the (metaphorical) bedroom is entirely their business.
Who rubs what against who-else's other what in private has absolutely nothing to do with you until such time as you are invited to join in.
Or are you suggesting that anything other than vanilla XY plus XX mish posish should be made illegal?
ChrisGB said:
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.
Carbon, uniquely, can form four bonds per atom which means it's easy to make big and complex molecules using carbon as a framework.
ChrisGB said:
If we don't know how it started, we can't say how likely it is elsewhere. Can we?
We may not be able to build life from scratch yet, but we've been doing serious organic and physical chemistry for years and we're getting quite slick at life-like processes like protein folding.Organic chemistry is keen to happen with the slightest nudge, and life is, at root, organic chemistry...
fluffnik said:
Before birth the interests of the mother are paramount because she is an actual autonomous being not just a potential.
Are people wrong to be upset about a miscarriage?Can you ever "improve on" a disagreement with an appeal to rights? How can it not just descend into top trumps? Not rhetorical.
bikemonster said:
ChrisGB said:
Of course people's sex lives affect me.
We are not little islands, and how we act affects others.
WTF?We are not little islands, and how we act affects others.
I am not intending to quote out of context - if I have, please put me straight.
How on earth does other peoples' sex lives affect you?
As long as we are talking consenting individuals, what people get up to in the (metaphorical) bedroom is entirely their business.
Who rubs what against who-else's other what in private has absolutely nothing to do with you until such time as you are invited to join in.
Or are you suggesting that anything other than vanilla XY plus XX mish posish should be made illegal?
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.)
I am talking from the point of view of virtue ethics - that habits form behaviour. If I watch porn every night and go find a random person who will agree to doing porn-like things with me in my "bedroom", I become a person who sees others as the means to an end, the end being my pleasure. This may be tit for tat, but it is still a picture of the other in terms of their utility to me.
So yes, how people act towards each other in every situation, including sex, affects over time everyone else they interact with, so also me.
This is the basis for objecting to libertarianism too - there is no such thing as (maximum) negative empirical liberty - everything you do, even in private, turns you over time into a sort of person who interacts with others in a way formed by everything you do.
ChrisGB said:
fluffnik said:
Before birth the interests of the mother are paramount because she is an actual autonomous being not just a potential.
Are people wrong to be upset about a miscarriage?Nowt wrong about with being excited about and rooting for a potential future and being upset when that potential evaporates...
ChrisGB said:
Can you ever "improve on" a disagreement with an appeal to rights? How can it not just descend into top trumps? Not rhetorical.
You can, with luck, improve mutual understanding.No interest in top trumping...
ChrisGB said:
I am talking from the point of view of virtue ethics - that habits form behaviour. If I watch porn every night and go find a random person who will agree to doing porn-like things with me in my "bedroom", I become a person who sees others as the means to an end, the end being my pleasure.
What's true for you isn't necessarily true for other people.Lots of people manage to have sex lives that would make your hair curl and yet, outside the bedroom, are completely normal, considerate, compassionate and empathetic members of society.
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