I keep thinking about this post where Matt Yglesias and Atrios violently agreed with each other that once you allow people to start injecting, nay, demanding that everyone toes the line on the god talk, the very real differences between theologies and dogmas becomes a serious danger to the peace. It’s clear that the Pollyannaish hope behind all the vague talk of “faith” for politicians is an attempt to smooth over the serious quarrel between people who want a secular society and people who want a theocracy of sorts based on their particular religious beliefs, an attempt to make this serious quarrel “apolitical”, like, “Gosh, guys, we all have faith isn’t that good enough?” No we don’t and no it’s not. The only way that religion can’t be politically divisive is for everyone in a society to agree on a strict separation of church and state, that religion is a private matter and that we make no laws based on religious beliefs.
There’s very few people that think that basing laws on dogma is a good idea unless they have repugnant political ideas that can’t be explained logically, so they have to hide behind god. Christians who agitate for social justice might have private religious motivations, but their views are generally sound when held up to secular standards—the greatest good for the most people, equality under the law, democracy, etc. But people who have to wave their Bibles around all the time are generally trying to cover up ideas that don’t hold up well under scrutiny, like the belief that women and gays shouldn’t be equal citizens. I don’t have an issue with the religious left at all—they’re good allies—but a lot of the god talk coming from the Democrats now is directly attributable to some on the religious left who’ve been clamoring for more of it. They shouldn’t. Bringing religion into a secular arena like this will only backfire, because the people who benefit the most from waving Bibles instead of making arguments are those on the right.
For example, this new acceptability of god talk for the Democrats has already resulted in a situation where all the major Democratic candidates were pushed into a situation where they had to give an approving nod to religious bigotry, when Tim Russert asked them to name their favorite Bible verse. It was one of those things packaged like a softball question, like, “What are you reading now?”, but it was actually about as repulsive as it gets, because the unspoken assumption was that non-Christians are simply ineligible to run for President. And even if any of the candidates wanted to challenge that assumption and refuse to answer by pointing out that they’re running to be leader of all Americans, including all non-Christians, they would have been roasted. So they all played along like it was a softball, when in reality it was an assertion of an incredibly bigoted assumption. It’s like asking all the candidates what nickname they have for their penises; the underlying assumption is you have to have one to be President.
It’s like this Barack Obama flag pin crap. The flag pin is presented as an apolitical baseline, but it’s clearly anything but. It’s as much about smuggling in hotly contested political ideas by pretending their unquestionable beliefs as the word “faith” is. And I applaud Obama for calling bullshit.
“You know, the truth is that right after 9/11, I had a pin,” Obama said. “Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we’re talking about the Iraq War, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won’t wear that pin on my chest.
“Instead,” he said, “I’m going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism.”
Obama’s stand here shows how words like “faith” and “patriot” are vague enough to be used to smuggle in toxic political ideas. The endless bloviating about “faith” is about quietly asserting Christian superiority in a country that supposedly honors religious freedom. Same crap with “patriot”, which is being used to smuggle in the idea that the war in Iraq should be above political investigation and questioning.
In theory, “patriot” could mean a lot of things. I’ve mentioned before having people accuse me of wanting to “lose” in Iraq, and using that to question my patriotism. But in my mind, to “win” in Iraq, i.e. to conquer a foreign nation, gut any chance of its democracy, and sell of its national assets to foreigners, is to lose our grip on respect for rule of law and democracy. To save America—i.e., the American of democracy and equality—we must leave Iraq. But because I want to save our nation, I’m no longer a “patriot”. And most people in this country know on sight that the concept of patriotism means, right now at least, a willingness to burn America to the ground in order to support the policy ideas of BushCo. America is in direct conflict with the Bush administration, and those who are siding with BushCo against our country have staked out the word “patriot”.
That’s the danger of nationalism in a nutshell, and it’s the same issue with “faith”. Once you have people running around bragging about their faith or their patriotism, odds are that they are up to no good, that their seemingly silly pandering is about pushing anti-American, anti-freedom notions. Patriots against constitutional rights! The faithful against their countrymen who don’t share their faith! Sowing needless acrimony and dismantling our democracy left and right.
Of course, Roy has a slightly different but compelling explanation.
68 Responses to “Crucifixes and lapel pins”
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I am not a patriot; I am an American citizen. But I’ve done enough family genealogy to know I am descended from many patriots.
To me, a patriot is either one of those who fought in the Revolutionary War, or a football player.
Patriots against constitutional rights! The faithful against their countrymen who don’t share their faith! Sowing needless acrimony and dismantling our democracy left and right.
Exactly right, but I’d be more explicit that those who wave the American flag and the Bible in the same hand are equally ignorant of and opposed to what both the Constitutution and the Bible say.
The lefty Christians who “have been clamoring for more [God talk]” are trying to weaken the hold that the Religious Right has on that religion and the hold that the GOP has on Christians.
Those are decent goals, but it’s simply wrong to inject religion in politics, period. All this “Democrats are religious too” crap is just repeating the Religious Right’s strategy, and if successful it will be just as disasterous.
Anyway, politicians are horrible theologians. Whenever they try to inject doctrine into their campaigns it gives me headaches, even if I agree with their overall goals.
Your flag
lapel pindecal won’t get you into heaven anymore. John Prine dusts off his old classic.Gotta go to Orwell on this:
By ‘nationalism’… I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognising no other duty than that of advancing its interests. Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. Both words are normally used in so vague a way that any definition is liable to be challenged, but one must draw a distinction between them, since two different and even opposing ideas are involved. By ‘patriotism’ I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.
The people bleating about how you’re a supposed “traitor” or how Obama is a supposed non-patriot or how you need to support the troops if you want to be “patriotic”: they aren’t patriots. They’re nationalists. Nationalists in every sense, including the Orwellian.
My favorite Bible verses are the ones that say “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” and “by their fruits shall you know them.” Which, applied to our current crop of obsessive godbotherer/chauvinists, leads straight to the numerous verses Jesus and, I believe, many of the OT prophets had about folks who spend a lot of time saying words and practicing rituals about how “faithful” they are but actually demonstrate in their actions no faith or charity to speak of (though they speak and speak and speak of it…)
I believe every religious tradition in the world recognizes this paradoxical inverse relationship between profession of faith and its practice. I know that kind of thing is in the Koran at any rate.
In fact, the Faith-obsessives seem to have damn little actual faith in anything whatosoever, certainly not in this God they claim to be “fearful” of and yet think will overlook their numerous crimes and misdemeanors that mere secular authorities and institutions keep catching them red-handed in. (See for instance Pam’s ongoing daily additions to the list of spectacular right-wing hypocrisies on individual and institutional scales…) Reactionaries are always worried that people will come under this that or the other “influence” as though they don’t even believe people have any form of free will or capacity for moral evaluation, but are mere robots programmed by any stray meme that happens to waft in through the window. These are the same people who hold that it’s OK to let people starve with bleeding ulcers in the streets because doubtless this is the mere consequence of their free choices.
For reactionaries, every day is opposite day.
The first thing I focus on in my poetry classes every semester is the issue of abstract language versus concrete language, for precisely this reason. I want my students to understand that the reason politicians use abstract language is because it allows the reader to substitute their own definitions for those words, and allows the politician sufficient wiggle room to adjust his or her message. A great poem to show how this can work is E. E. Cummings’s “next to of course god america i,” and I’m always pleased with how quickly my students pick up on what he was doing in that poem.
As an outsider, I have to ask if this America of democracy and the rule of law ever existed outside the minds of left-wing Americans. The times in history - especially modern history - when it has not been trampling those principles overseas and/or at home seem to be pretty short, exceptional instances from what I can tell.
I wonder if maybe American “liberals” need to adapt to the possibility that the problem is more fundamental than “this administration” or “that criminal politician”, and is a fault of American society… after all, you do seem to keep lurching from one administration doing exceptional things “against the principles of democracy and the rule of law” to the next. If it is done exceptionally for 50 years in a row, doesn’t it become something of the norm…?
when Tim Russert asked them to name their favorite Bible verse.
While it is a stupid and bigoted question, the only good answer is probably Matthew 6:5-6 - you know, the one about hipocrites praying in public in order to be seen being religious?
Did anyone give that as an answer? Would have served him right as it simultaneously demonstrates knowledge of the bible while sending a less-than-subtle message about the question!
My first thought was “Render unto Caesar….” but I haven’t been bothered to go look up which Gospel it’s in.
I mean, it’s the biblical justification for separation of church and state, you can’t get any more relevant than that.
We’ll be vacationing in France next year. I’m going to pick up a “France Flag” lapel pin to wear the next time we go patriot crazy in this country.
Anyone else want one?
Demosthenes:
I think some of the crazy wingers think they’re nationalists, but in the orwellian sense they’re not. I hate to talk about false consciousness and suchlike jargon, but these self-styled “patriots” have done more damage to the country they claim to love than any foreign power since the british burned the white house.
As for bible verses, I’ll stick with either Matthew 21:13 “And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves” or the always-apposite “Jesus wept.”
While it is a stupid and bigoted question, the only good answer is probably Matthew 6:5-6 - you know, the one about hipocrites praying in public in order to be seen being religious? - Ms. Kate
Maybe not as snappy of a come-back as , but, given the current ARM crisis and credit crunch, I’d go with Leviticus, 25:35-37: “And if thy brother be waxen poor, and his means fail with thee; then thou shalt uphold him: as a stranger and a settler shall he live with thee. Take thou no interest of him or increase; but fear thy God; that thy brother may live with thee. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon interest, nor give him thy victuals for increase.”
“While it is a stupid and bigoted question, the only good answer is probably Matthew 6:5-6 - you know, the one about hipocrites praying in public in order to be seen being religious?”
If a candidate used that verse, they would have been treated as if they had told a vicious ethnic joke on the air, or farted loudly on live TV.
There’s only two ways sanity will return regarding the place of religion in America:
One is a very slow, painful process that recognizes we are in this together: believer/non-believer, christian/jew, buddhist/hindu, shinto/Islam, etc., and requires people to be tolerant and respectful enough to prevent bloodshed, and without allowing one single faith to dominate all the others.
The other involves enough savage civil warfare to either eliminate religious diversity, or cause enough sorrow and grief among the survivors to convince them #1 is a better path.
It’s probably going to be very ugly for the next century or so…
If a candidate used that verse, they would have been treated as if they had told a vicious ethnic joke on the air, or farted loudly on live TV.
About the only way they’d get a more vicious reaction is if they quoted the Koran–which would be almost as awesome as if someone quoted the Bhagavad-Gita when asked that question. Or Dianetics.
My favorite is the last verse, Revelation 31:32 “Dude, I am SO fucked UP! Holy shit, did I just write that down?”
Libertarian, I bought a sterling silver Canadian flag pendant in 2004 and have worn it proudly ever since- but then again, my grandmother’s parents were both from New Brunswick and I was working on Gram’s genealogy at the time.
Which ever verse says, “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” or something like that. Cause I’m an atheist, and think religion’s done more harm than good.
Give strong drink to him who is perishing, And wine to him whose life is bitter. Let him drink and forget his poverty And remember his trouble no more.
Proverbs 31:6-7
“Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly Meaningless!
Everything is Meaningless.”
Ecclesiastes 1:2
Amanda wrote:
Such a statement assumes that people can somehow separate their religious views from everything else, but that’s clearly not the case. Oh, we may think that we do, but we are unitary beings: what we think today is based upon all of our experioences and education, secular and religious, and it all influences how we reason, whether we realize it or not.
Certainly we make laws based on religious belief; the laws prohibiting same-sex marriage are obvious ones, but there are also laws which prohibit polygamy and laws which forbid you to walk down the street naked. If you tell a judge, “God damn you,” it isn’t a threat you can carry out (since you are, in effect, asking God to condemn the object of your invective, to Hell), but it sure can get you a contempt of court citation and a pleasant stay in the greybar hotel.
Of course, Amanda recognized that some people are motivated by religion, and approves of it in some circumstances:
Which is another way of saying, religion is OK, if I like the outcomes, but not OK if I don’t. Whether you accept it or not, there are plenty of people who believe, for example, that prohibiting abortion is for the “greatest good for the most people,” and many, though not all, are motivated by religious faith.
This, in particular, amused me:
No, it is a recognition that, as of the moment, only people who claim to be Christian are running. (Obviously a Jew could have answered the same question, though a Muslim could not.) Non-Christians are certainly eligible to run; whether they get very far is, of course, a matter for the voters to decide.
And the voters are absolutely within their rights to take their decisions any way they choose. If someone decides to vote for (or against) a candidate due to the color of his skin, the configuration of his genitals, his political platform, his religion, his speaking ability, his hair, his height, whether he rolls his eyes and ahems at inappropriate (or appropriate) moments, his political party affiliation or his résumé, all of those considerations are ones within the right of the individual voter.
I can send Amanda a picture of what happened to the large US Flag decal that somebody gave my son when he was eight … I used it as a background on my computer for quite some time after!
Cause I’m an atheist, and think religion’s done more harm than good. - rowmyboat
Well, you’re right, religion has done more harm then good. However, one could say the athiests have done as much, or even more harm. (not my point yet) But it is humans that has caused all the harm, end of story. Only humans can cause harm in a criminal way to other humans. Animals are just being animals.
I am not political. I don’t agree with the far right, and I don’t agree with the far left. And I never agree with the middle. I have no idea how to explain politics, other then someone trying to gain power over someone else.
I see people call the USA a democracy. This country is not a democracy. It is a republic, a nation ruled by laws. But to call the USA a nation is not entirely correct. The federal government is a federation of smaller nations/states. The USA is actually a union, comprised of 50 states. However, most if not all of the states are democracies. People vote on a lot of the important issues. And most issues the people can force a vote and the state has to accept it. A pretty clean form of democracy.
The USA is a role model for a one world government, something the political left AND right have been pushing for. Thats right, both the left and ride side are working for the same goals. They just merely say different things to get elected. Then push their own agenda, which is usually different aims to achieve the same goal these days.
Someday we will have a local,county,state,nation,union,world governments. Which could have a potential to solving serious world problems. But like the USA, it will be perverted and eventually run by corrupt humans.
And if you want to attack and discredit religion, I say go ahead! If those people get snotty back, shows you how mature they are.
Such a statement assumes that people can somehow separate their religious views from everything else, but that’s clearly not the case.
Actually, thoughtful adults can. Most people are aware of the difference between those things they believe that have secular reasoning and those things they believe that are unprovable—and therefore the latter stays out of the law. If someone claims hat they can’t tell the difference, grab your wallet, since they’re fixing to take you for a ride.
I’ve always been fond of a line from Paul (who is generally a favorite of fundamentalists) about the gospels being written on tablets of flesh rather than of stone (I.e. within people rather than in a book). Always confounds the bibliolatrists.
This would’ve been my answer, given the veto of health insurance for kids so recently–Matthew 25:40-45
40
And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’
41
17 Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
42
For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
43
a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’
44
18 Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’
45
He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’
Which is another way of saying, religion is OK, if I like the outcomes, but not OK if I don’t. Whether you accept it or not, there are plenty of people who believe, for example, that prohibiting abortion is for the “greatest good for the most people,” and many, though not all, are motivated by religious faith.
No, what it’s saying is that laws should be secularly justifiable first, last and always. If they happen to fit into a particular religion’s mindset, so much the better, but that should never be the controlling factor. And the people who are arguing that prohibiting abortion is for the greater good are full of shit–no two ways about it.
A verse for the working poor, Deuteronomy 25:4
“Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn.”
Oh, and it occurred to me that asking this kind of question is a softball to the God-obsessed, a way to let them bring religion in under cover of “well, they asked me specifically for a Bible verse, and I had to answer the question.” If they just asked for the most inspiring quote from any written work they’d have to let people quote from Mao’s little red book.
I think the most apropos verse for the current political system might be, “Jesus wept.”
As for Mr. Russert’s question, my guess is that such would not have been asked, had the politicians of all stripes not first invoked the Diety in some sort of support for his/her campaign. ‘Tis the season for politicians seeking power over the rest of us to trot out his/her “person of faith” bona fides, no? The observer should merely file these things away with the other obligatory displays of solidarity with various groups during an election campaign.
Nevertheless, there are aspects of our society, as imperfect as it is, which we have because of people of faith. One cannot read Martin Luther King’s writings and not see his faith in a Creator who provided a dignity to all humans as anything else. “Faith” is merely a short hand means of expressing a belief in things which transcend humanity — things which are inviolate.
As Christina demonstrates, the injunction to help the poor comes from a faith in the truth of Christ’s words, not from some man-made morality. For in a man-made world, there is no compelling reason for me to open my wallet to help the poor if such an act adversely affects me or my family.
Regards.
Re: abortion … my religion tells me that it is a sin for a pregnant woman to give up her life for the sake of a fetus. Shall we mandate abortions when the life of a woman is at stake?
I’ll not push for legislation based on this aspect of my religion. I’ll not even push to ban blood sausage. I’ll push for legislation regulating interest, relating to the religiously mandated pursuit of tzedek (justice, but n.b., tzedakah also means charity), letting the land rest, etc. Even if I would push for such economically liberal legislation based on my religious beliefs, there is a secular justification for that agenda too (nu? indeed many atheists support it). OTOH, about my abortion mandate … well, where is the secular justification? Nu? where is the secular justification for the anti-abortion position opposing my pro-abortion position?
Fershteyn-zie, Dana?
DAS asked:
Some people, including me, see abortion as the taking of a human life. That’s absolutely enough justification, without the first reference to religion (and there are some pro-life atheists), for people to think that abortion ought to be banned.
Yes, I know that many of my friends on the left disagree, but you ought to at least see that people can hold that view rationally.
Religious leftists are certainly nice people in general. I tend to agree with them about a lot of things. But they are a sign of secularization. A good sign. As really orthodox people say, a secular society corrupts.
Some people, including me, see abortion as the taking of a human life.
And what is that based on? Because it’s not based on any rational scientific position, not if you understand the research and aren’t falling back on bogus claims made by anti-abortion activists.
Incertus, anti-abortion sentiments are also not based on anything in the Bible.
I believe people whose first name starts with the letter ‘D’ are evil and must be destroyed before they destroy the earth and all who dwell here.
Also, lapel pins are okay, as long as they don’t actually pierce the cloth of the lapel. Lapel cloth, while a mere flap of fabric to the unenlightened, actually represents god’s sacred foreskin and must be kept holy.
Always remember that the word ‘god’ is never to be capitalized, for that would represent a raising of god above all others and would be incompatible with his teachings about his humble place in the universe.
I also believe that to compromise on any of my beliefs is to be apostate and deserving of destruction myself…
Dana,
So … what if we do consider a fetus a human life? Even still, what is the justification for saying that a woman cannot terminate a pregnancy?
Is one required to donate blood to your child to save his/her life? Is one required to donate an organ? Would you be in favor of such laws? Could such laws be made based on secular arguments?
What if your child needed your blood and someone hooked you up to a mechanism to pump your blood into your child? Would you argue that the law could prohibit you from disabling the mechanism? Is there a secular argument for making such a law?
If not, then why should abortion be any different? Why cannot women disable the mechanism by which their very blood is stripped of nutrients by a fetus?
I still don’t get the secular argument for outlawing abortion …
Except for the fact that there is no basis to determine that a blastocyst or fetus is a “human life” without reference to religion. There is certainly no scientific evidence, so we are left with faith or belief unfounded on any empirical fact. You can BELIEVE all you want. That don’t make it so, nor does it make it the basis for a rational law.
My bible vs answer? 2 Kings 2:23-25
The bit where God sends 2 she-bears to kill 42 children for making fun of a bald man.
Dana:
Some people, including me, see mayonnaise as a crime against nature. That’s absolutely enough justification, without the first reference to religion (and there are some pro-mayonnaise atheists), for people to think that mayonnaise ought to be banned.
QED.
I think Nigel Powers said it best in Goldmember:
“There’s only two things I hate in this world. People who are intolerant of other people’s cultures and the Dutch.”
…
Some people, including me, see mayonnaise as a crime against nature. That’s absolutely enough justification, without the first reference to religion (and there are some pro-mayonnaise atheists), for people to think that mayonnaise ought to be banned. - Dan
OTOH, some people do reach their anti-mayonnaise positions primarily based on their religious faith. My father for instance believes mayonnaise to be against the laws of Kashruth (in spite of whatever the Orthodox Union might say when they certify the kashruth of Miracle Whip and Hellman’s). So if my father pushes to ban mayonnaise and denounces pro-mayonnaise people as anti-Semitic, does that mean we lefties should complain about the anti-mayonnaise religious quasi-right and their anti-egg-onist politics?
;)
I find it difficult to stigmatize the religious as a monolithic group since they vary so widely in actual beliefs and political implications of those beliefs.
But surely politicians touting their religion are as much scoundrels as those who hide behind patriotism.
I like Ms Kate, Mother of All Apple Pies’ response to the Russert question: Those who flaunt their religion are hypocrites, according to the Bible (Matthew 6:5).
Of course I should like Ms Kate, Mother of All Apple Pies since apparently we have offspring together. I consider myself the father of this apple pie, and if she is the Mother of All Pies…
Can we discuss custody?
Incertus, anti-abortion sentiments are also not based on anything in the Bible.
You might want to tell the sign-waving, abortion-clinic-bombing, Bible-quoting psychopaths that, because they’re pretty convinced that they are.
Dana, I think that many people who are pro-choice understand that there is a life, or a potential life, that is lost. However, in order to believe that every woman should carry every fetus to term, you must believe that pregnant women have no right to control their organs if there is someone else’s life at stake. And if you’re honest with yourself, you don’t limit that at pregnant women - you say that *no one* has the right to control their organs if someone else’s life is at stake. The problem is that there are literally a dozen people dying right now because they don’t have your organs - people in renal failure, with liver damage, with leukemia, with hypovolemic shock - who can *only* survive with *your* organs. There is no question about this - organ matching is not a flexible process. You may choose to be a good Samaritan and donate your organs, yet I don’t think that you would support a government movement to tie you to a table and forcibly remove your kidney, liver, bone marrow, or blood. Because choosing not to save someone else with your internal organs is not murder, it’s a human right. And that’s where pro-choicers are coming from. Abortions aren’t murder - they’re choosing the woman’s right to control her organs over the fetus’s supposed right to use her organs to save itself. And if pro-lifers are consistent, they’d have to apply that same right to the fetus when it’s a leukemia patient 30 years later, and they can only survive with you’re bone marrow. And I haven’t found one yet that’s been willing to do so.
Religionists seem to believe that, since religion can’t be proven, and moral precepts such as the wrongness of murder can’t be proven, that removing religion from politics means we’re opening the doors to everything including murder.
It’s a logical fallacy, but a very powerful one because it’s so scary. And it does mean we have to go back to first principles that don’t include religion to decide what’s right and wrong. Some things will fall by the wayside, and religionists think that their religion knows better than the average Jo/e does what’s right and wrong, and why they shouldn’t stray from the beaten path.
This, I think, is where Amanda is coming from when she says she is okay with religionists supporting objectively correct positions out of religious belief. After all, if you’re an atheist, you would have to say that religious beliefs about morality do not actually come from any deity, since there isn’t one. They simply reflect what the religionists themselves think on the subject.
So when people have socially responsible religious beliefs, they have socially responsible beliefs. And when people have sick religious beliefs, they have sick beliefs. The belief could as easily have come from a parent, teacher, or political speaker. The source doesn’t matter. The beliefs do.
If there is no scientific proof, then you don’t believe it? When did science be the end all of arguements?
Can science be trusted? I suppose to a degree, science is a tool of test, observing and research. Science is run by humans and humans make mistakes. Some by accedient (I suppose that would not be a sin) and some by purpose(sin, eh?). No the matter of abortion is moral as well social issue.
I have made a few observations on the matter of abortions. I have seen some women who wouldn’t abort a child no matter what, even if it means death for them. I have seen women that couldn’t be bothered with a child ever in their life and would abort without another thought. However the one that took me back was when I saw self proclaimed Christian women get pregnant outside of wedlock, one of their first thoughts was to abort. I asked them why, and the answer I got was “It is a sin to get pregnant outside of marriage.” Well, hmmm. That made me think. Some people have got things mixed up. Pregnancy was the result of sex. Having sex outside of marriage was the sin. They already had it confused. One of them didn’t have the abortion, she had a miscarriage (That is a sad sight indeed) and the other went on and had 3 abortions.
With our society being all over the place, no side can agree on abortion, It just makes me wonder. Why would a woman want to have an abortion in the first place. A lot of women are pressured by the father of the child, so he doesn’t have to be responsible for it. And some women don’t want to be punished for 18 years (even if the father is involved) and have it damage her career.
I have no answer, other then I have 4 children myself and it would agonize me to know that I forced a woman to abort our child.
Women are accused of committing a sin when they abort, how many abortions would their truely be if men that got them pregnant would have been more responsible?
Men are just as guilty (if you want to look at the sin issue side of it) as only some of the women.
Tough issue
Dana writes:
Some people, including me, see abortion as the taking of a human life.
You’re the same Dana that was just celebrating Bush being elected as President, yes?
I assume that in your opinion Iraqis killed in a useless and unnecessary war are not as human as American fetuses.
With our society being all over the place, no side can agree on abortion,
Just to clarify something–pro-choice people don’t really care if anti-abortion people agree that abortions are good or bad or dependent on the circumstances. We’re perfectly willing to engage in conversations about it, and would never suggest that a person who finds abortion to be morally repugnant be forced to have one. Agreement on the goodness or badness of abortion isn’t the issue. It’s the control over one’s body that is the issue. Don’t want to have an abortion? Good for you–don’t have one. But don’t force that attitude on women who have made the difficult decision to have one.
Some people, including me, see abortion as the taking of a human life. That’s absolutely enough justification, without the first reference to religion (and there are some pro-life atheists),
There really isn’t a secular argument for an embryo being the moral equivalent of a sentient human. What atheists are out there who are anti-choice tend to be all male, and completely willing to subjugate their supposed interest in rationality to fuck women over on this issue. Every anti-choice argument must refer to magic on some level, or at least ignoring science and fact. I don’t think magic has a place in the political discourse.
Now, I think religious people have every right to be anti-abortion, just not anti-choice. There’s a difference. You, Dana, can believe what you wish and if getting an abortion bothers you, then don’t. What you can’t do in a free society is push your irrational religious beliefs on me. That’s theocracy, totalitarianism. Would you like it if I banned your church? No. Luckily for you, I won’t, because I understand that religious freedom is the price of peace. In exchange for my willingness to let you have your private beliefs, I expect you to let me have mine and stop trying to legislate that I live by your dogma.
Imagine if I started a religion that required that women abort their first pregnancies for good luck. Would it be right for me to use the law to force you to live by my religious belief? No. Then why do you think it’s okay to do it to me?
That you can’t understand equality—that in order for YOU to have the right to what YOU believe, you have to respect MY right to believe what I want to—is very narcissistic.
Phoenician beat me to it.
I assume that in your opinion Iraqis killed in a useless and unnecessary war are not as human as American fetuses. -PhoenicianRomans
Personally I would morally and ethically put that at the same level, wouldn’t you? Human is human, end of story… no matter their race or religion…
There really isn’t a secular argument for an embryo being the moral equivalent of a sentient human.-Amanda Marcotte
Secular perhaps not. Religious most certianly. (Difference of opinion?)
What you can’t do in a free society is push your irrational religious beliefs on me. -Amanda Marcotte
There is a rub there. While I see you firmly believe that statement Amanda, Christianity believe is must share it’s belief. That is a major ideal/practice. However, it does not believe in pushing those beliefs downs ones throat. If they don’t wish to believe that and prefer to go their own way. God allows free choice. As far as legislation of morals. The government does legislate based upon morals of the society it governs. Hence, murder, theft, corruption etc. are illegal. Where as sex outside of marriage used to be illegal and in some states it still is, isn’t enforced anymore.
While a Christian isn’t supposed to force you into submission, either through violence or legistlation, some are a little zealous in our Lords Great Comission to get as many people to believe in God as possible. Some try to force others. Their heart is in the right place, however, their execution is a little bit to be desired.
That you can’t understand equality—that in order for YOU to have the right to what YOU believe, you have to respect MY right to believe what I want to—is very narcissistic. -Amanda Marcotte
You are technically correct Amanda. However in other countries things are a bit different, Athieism is forced upon some people. And they don’t have the right to freedom of religion, like we do. Hence religious persecution abounds. Just remember, these people you call wingnuts are not stupid. They are as smart as you, They call you liberals, which is a bad word in some circles. They think you are a stupid person which is clearly not the case. So here you have people on both sides who think they are smart and morally superior to the other. If you wish to take them head on or even out flank them, you will have to outsmart them. Insulting from either side is degrading.
I think I have seen almost all the arguements from both sides of the political spectrum (if I am so unpolitical, why am I here? Strangley, political ideals intrigue me…) and so many of them are being repeated over and over to the point most of them are cliche`. And neither side loses or gains, which might have been a strength in this country. But when one political side takes power (republicans 2000-2006) then they make a mess, democrats do the same. The people vote in an offset and the government basically stalls in its social engineering process of steering this country. Right now we are stalled. But what I find truely interesting is that the whole country has been steadily shifting to the left. To the point that republicans are more to the left then the FDR and JFK politicians (back in the day).
This country (union of states) is being changed in ways that I am sure the political left and right does not agree with. And whats funny is the left thinks it is the right doing it and the right thinks the left is doing it. When infact it is neither one doing it. The present generation of politicians in Washington DC don’t care about abortion, or freedom of religion. They care about power. They crave power, and they are corrupt. Maybe not all, but way too many of them are.
Oh by the way, pleased to meet you Amanda… You seem like a pleasant enough of a blogger type.
Secular perhaps not. Religious most certianly. (Difference of opinion?)
Lee, whether or not you believe that a fetus is as “human” as an actual adult is not really the point. Amanda and I seem to disagree in that I believe it is possible for someone to have a genuine conviction about the humanity of a fetus without necessarily being motivated by a desire to control female sexuality.
However, when somebody cheers on an unnecessary war while also weeping over the humanity of the poor aborted babies, then Amanda’s position seems stronger for that person. It’s not about death or respect for human life - otherwise that person would equally despise murdering people with guns and bombs as well as D&Cs.
It’s about punishing Da Bitchez for murdering (poor innocent baby-type) people for soft girly reasons while celebrating Our Boyz In Khaki murdering (brown foreign-gabbling) people for strong manly reasons.
It is contemptible. I have contempt for these people.
citation?
Oh right, you must mean China.
But what does that have to do with the American situation? Not much.
Lee:
You honestly think that the only reason murder, theft, corruption, etc. are illegal is because they’re arbitrarily “immoral”? Can you really not think of any practical secular reasons why those things are prohibited?
This sounds a lot like the stuff I was being told on Friday by a mentally challenged 15-year-old about how “Bible-beating liberals” were trying to push mandated prayer into the public school system.
In other words, Lee, there seems to be some amount of confusion in your comments between reality and the exact opposite of reality.
Dana, I can only understand how rational people think that abortion is morally equivalent to murder if I allow that they don’t know about the neurological development of the fetus.
Probably the best place to go to for answers on these questions is the Journal of the American Medical Association article on fetal pain:
The brain wiring that’s necessary for the experience of pain — the most primitive of mental phenomena — doesn’t appear until the beginning of the third trimester. When we’re talking about a creature that can’t even have pain experiences, let alone reason or have relationships with others or have long-term desires for the future, I really can’t see how anyone would think that something with the value of an ordinary human life is at stake.
No Christian is an American nationalist. If the fundies believed they could bring Jesus back by destroying America, they would destroy America. All hardcore Xians shoulr be considered potential traitors.
The fundies claim the 10 Commanments are part of the basis of our law. They make it sem that no one believed that theft, perjury, fraud, and murder were a bad basis for a civilization until a magic man gave magic tablets to a mythical ancestor who was outside our Western cultural tradition.
Wrong! Our laws are based on pre-Christian Saxon tradition, Roman Law, Greek political theory, and Enlightenment radicalism. There’s just no room for your penis-cutting, tribe exterminating, alleged magic-man in the sky filth to contaminate our proud heritage. We do not need you. We fell under your infectious spell and became stronger by casting most of it off. Soon we will cast the rest of it off.
The government does legislate based upon morals of the society it governs. Hence, murder, theft, corruption etc. are illegal. Where as sex outside of marriage used to be illegal and in some states it still is, isn’t enforced anymore.
This is your brain on religion. You can’t morally differentiate between murder and sex outside of marriage.
Why? Why can’t a non-Christian have a favorite bible verse? I’m an atheist and I have several. And, of course, the Old Testament is part of the Christian bible so a religious Jewish person would have no trouble whipping out a couple of verses.
But it basically comes down to this, Tim is sitting in a room with a bunch of people who say that the Bible is the basis for their religious beliefs. Asking them what their favorite verse is seems perfectly reasonable. If all the candidates had claimed to be huge baseball fanatics, asking them who their favorite team is would be reasonable, wouldn’t it? And it certainly wouldn’t imply that only baseball fans can run for president.
I love when Christians say that a Muslim should not be allowed to be president because they put their religion in front of America. So I ask them, does that mean you think America is more important than your god?
So the first question we should ask our candidates at a debate is, which is more important, Jesus or the US Constitution?
“So the first question we should ask our candidates at a debate is, which is more important, Jesus or the US Constitution?”
Given the underwhelming respect the Constitution has received lately, I’m afraid to find out how this would be answered…
epistemology, did that pie taste as good as it looks?
Anyone who asks the question “How can atheists be moral in the absence of a God?” is demonstrating their own dangerous moral frailty.
Theists posit that God is good. But is God good because there is an objective standard of “good” that God meets? Or is good “good” because it is what God desires? In other words, do we use good to define God, or God to define good?
If you use God to define good, then literally anything “God” wants becomes “good”. Murder unbelievers? Burn witches? Slaughter all your enemies, including the women and children, except for the teenage girls, who you take home and rape? It’s all good as long as God says so! (And, in fact, the Old Testament strongly suggests that God not only approves of the Israelites doing such things, but in some cases directly admonishes them to do so.)
But, the modern Christian says, that’s wrong! God couldn’t have said to do those things, because they are evil, and God is good. So the Bible is just being metaphorical there. OK, fine, but that means that “good” *doesn’t* mean “whatever God says” — there’s an objective standard of good that you’re applying to the words of God, and if they don’t match up, you’re throwing out the words. In other words, you don’t actually *need* God. You are figuring out “goodness” without reference to God.
So, either you have an internal moral compass, or you don’t. If you have an internal moral compass, then whether you are a theist or an atheist, you know good from evil, right from wrong, and if someone tells you it is good and Godly to go to the Holy Land and kill the brown people who worship Allah, you know it’s wrong. Killing is wrong. Rape is wrong. They just *are*. God doesn’t need to tell you so, you just *know.*
And if you don’t have an internal moral compass, then someone can tell you that God said it was a good thing to torture an elderly woman until she confesses to crimes that make no logical sense and then burn her to death, and you’ll agree, this is a perfectly fine and Godly thing to do. Because God said you should not suffer a witch to live.
To complicate matters, often ideas of right and wrong come from the culture we live in, rather than God, whether you’re a theist or an atheist. But theists often then project their vision of right and wrong onto God. For instance, I will bet you that black Christians who call homosexuality an abomination and think it’s like the worst sin ever would all agree that God abhors slavery. Except the *same* book of the Bible that rants about homosexuals also says it’s okay to have slaves. There’s nowhere in the Bible that mentions abortion, but Jesus Christ *specifically* says you can’t get a divorce — yet protesters don’t line up outside Vegas chapels to prevent people who have been divorced from remarrying.
To me, it seems obvious that there are three major places we get our sense of right and wrong. We get it from our culture (which may be our subculture), our religion if we have one, and our own internal moral compass. The people who are truly “good” are the ones who can look at evil behavior being perpetrated and called “good” by their culture and their religion and say, “No, this is still wrong.” Abolitionists and slavery. The rape of teenage girls in arranged marriages in countries where that’s legal. Prejudice against people who love a consenting adult of the same sex. People who stand up against these attitudes and practices and say “this is wrong” are people with an internal sense of good and evil. And those people are just as likely to be atheists as theists.
Now, what philosophical underpinning can we use to determine what is wrong and right? A sense of “it just *is*” is of course subject to terrible bigotry as well; good people are using *some* kind of objective metric to determine what is good and evil. And what I think it boils down to is “would I like this treatment if it were done to me?” It’s the ability to empathize with the situation of another human and ask “what would it be like if I were in his or her shoes?” This is why sex out of wedlock is not actually morally wrong — because when you objectively consider it, no one is being hurt. At best it’s a paperwork issue, a bookkeeping problem for society about as objectively bad as not making out a will. Killing and rape and theft are morally wrong because they cause other humans real, quantifiable harm.
Abortion becomes a morally sticky issue if you believe that humans are human from conception (and you *can* get there philosophically, without going through theism) — but objections to abortion that are *also* coupled to objections to birth control, sex education, universal medical insurance for pregnant women and children, and state-supported day care demonstrate plainly that the desire is actually to make women suffer for having sex, not to prevent abortion. Also, I believe that people who object to abortion and do not have a secret agenda to make women suffer are simply not applying empathy correctly; they have perhaps been convinced by their subculture that women go get abortions for trivial reasons, and they don’t imagine what it’s like to be pregnant under circumstances where a pregnancy can destroy your life. Those people, we can reach.
Dan:
There is such a thing as secular morality. I’m not sure if you’re saying there isn’t. Apologies if I misunderstood.
The entire book of Romans has a lot of passages good for beating fundies up one side and down the other, but a personal favorite is Romans 11:34-35:
34″Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?”
35″Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay him?”
Geeno:
It was yummy. Huge yellow apples, crisper than granny smith, but not so tart. Can’t remember the name, darn it. They came from a local farmer’s market.
For the crust, use the food processor to blend the butter and flour (not too fine) then work the water in with a fork. And I add a little instant tapioca, along with flour or cornstarch, so it’s not runny.
Alara Rogers:
Not only doesn’t the Bible discuss abortion, but it doesn’t discuss conception. Indeed it repeatedly refers to the “breath of life.”
The implication is that our soul enters our bodies when God breathes the breath of life into us. At birth. This whole abortion argument is based on a terrible misreading of the Bible. It derives from a melding of pseudo-science and theology. Our souls enter our bodies at birth according to my reading of the Bible. Conception as the starting point was made up by theologians looking over the shoulder of scientists and misunderstanding what they see.
Just bought my airline tickets to see the folks for x-mas. Made sure not to be there over a full weekend, or too long, so I would have to spend as little time with the fundie relatives (they are NOT family) as possible.
Although I refuse to go to church with them (I’ll often cook while they’re away) I enjoy the holidays with family (I just wish I could have more of my family of choice involved with my family of origin–geography and all that).
This whole war on christmas thing is such complete and utter bullshit. Almost all of the atheists (and even a few jews) I know celebrate the holiday, not in its religious form, but in the secular form (my family and I have moved toward small gifts for each other, but major gifts as donations).
JoAnne:
Actually, I think that the phrase “secular morality” is an oxymoron. Morality implies the reception of fixed behavioural dictates from on-high, something that is (or ought to be, anyway) incompatible with secularism.
But I consider myself somewhat idiosyncratic in that I think the words “ethics” and “morality” describe completely different — and mutually exclusive — ways of processing the world.