A former 40 year Atheist analyzes Atheism, without resorting to theism, deism, or fantasy. *** If You Don't Value Truth, Then What DO You Value? *** If we say that the sane can be coaxed and persuaded to rationality, and we say that rationality presupposes logic, then what can we say of those who actively reject logic? *** Atheists have an obligation to give reasons in the form of logic and evidence for rejecting Theist theories.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
An Interesting Poll From Gallup Regarding Abortion Attitude Perception
It's a secondary indicator that what Americans think has no bearing on the reality of their government.
2 comments:
Anonymous
said...
It may sound naive - but can somebody explain to me why atheists are supposed to be pro-choice and Christians pro-life? For Christians, life on earth is a filtering process (dividing people into those who will go to heaven and those who will go to hell), so if a child dies early, he/she hasn't sinned and should theoretically go straight to heaven (unless I'm confusing things and that's the Islamic approach). Yahwe had no problem wiping out the totally innocent babies of some Middle Eastern settlements (Jericho, Sodom & Gomorrah etc.)
From an atheist point of view, the possibility of existing at all is infinitely small. There is no pre-defined pool of souls, each of which will eventually get a body, but each person is absolutely unique, and the existence of each person is an incredible coincidence. I for example have to (absurdly, I know) be grateful for Adolf Hitler surviving childhood (unlike many other kids in those days) - had it not been for him, there would not have been a population migration post WWII, and my parents (from different eastern, but effectively isolated, german regions, Danzig vs. East Prussia), would never have met in the refugee camps of the Western Allied zones when the Red Army pushed westwards. Impossible coincidences like this one go all the way back to early microbial life, and nonetheless I exist.
Really, I think that a shitty life is still a trillion times better than not to have existed at all, and I wouldn’t want to keep that from anybody, even if that person is the child of a rapist or is totally retarded. They were among the winners of this incredible lottery, so why shortchange them and not give them a chance to see all this - but abort them instead, as if they never existed? In religious circles, it’s the pressure from the family and community not to have a child out of wedlock, obviously nobody wants to have their good name blemished. Explain to me how this is not one of the most evil sins imaginable? In non-religious circles, it might be the inconvenience of having to put the career on hold – hey, who gives a shit, there’s nothing glamorous about a working life!? Both reasons are bullshit, but it’s not the womans’ fault, the community/society are responsible for not being more welcoming of the new person and for not supporting the woman with absolutely everything they’ve got.
I think that there’s not a single society on the planet that gets this right. The religious people are dishonest, and the non-religious people are religiously opposed to what the religious ones are up to, without switching on their brains and thinking about how we could actually improve things. When I look at my little daughter – I’m so infinitely glad she’s here, even if this has made things impossibly complicated for me. It’s simply not me (or my peers) who should be the centre of attention.
I agree up to a point: religious people, some of them, are dishonest in their approach to abortion. This has happened within my own kin. Abortion is sold to Americans as a health procedure - sold not by religious sources, but by the non- or anti-religious. It's not just a phony "health" procedure, but actually a convenience for those who don't want the responsibility for their actions.
This appeals, even to some of the religious, who are under pressure to adapt to the "new understandings" which paganism claims to have contributed to our culture. "We must evolve", claim the pagans... when what they actually mean and do is to devolve into selfism and falseness.
There is no "health improvement" with abortion as it is done in the abattoirs; when a mother's health is endangered by her fetus, it is a hospitalization issue, necessitating care by actual "do no harm" physicians, not the kill mill slaughterers.
Almost all of the abortions done these days have merely the intent of killing.
2 comments:
It may sound naive - but can somebody explain to me why atheists are supposed to be pro-choice and Christians pro-life? For Christians, life on earth is a filtering process (dividing people into those who will go to heaven and those who will go to hell), so if a child dies early, he/she hasn't sinned and should theoretically go straight to heaven (unless I'm confusing things and that's the Islamic approach). Yahwe had no problem wiping out the totally innocent babies of some Middle Eastern settlements (Jericho, Sodom & Gomorrah etc.)
From an atheist point of view, the possibility of existing at all is infinitely small. There is no pre-defined pool of souls, each of which will eventually get a body, but each person is absolutely unique, and the existence of each person is an incredible coincidence. I for example have to (absurdly, I know) be grateful for Adolf Hitler surviving childhood (unlike many other kids in those days) - had it not been for him, there would not have been a population migration post WWII, and my parents (from different eastern, but effectively isolated, german regions, Danzig vs. East Prussia), would never have met in the refugee camps of the Western Allied zones when the Red Army pushed westwards. Impossible coincidences like this one go all the way back to early microbial life, and nonetheless I exist.
Really, I think that a shitty life is still a trillion times better than not to have existed at all, and I wouldn’t want to keep that from anybody, even if that person is the child of a rapist or is totally retarded. They were among the winners of this incredible lottery, so why shortchange them and not give them a chance to see all this - but abort them instead, as if they never existed? In religious circles, it’s the pressure from the family and community not to have a child out of wedlock, obviously nobody wants to have their good name blemished. Explain to me how this is not one of the most evil sins imaginable? In non-religious circles, it might be the inconvenience of having to put the career on hold – hey, who gives a shit, there’s nothing glamorous about a working life!? Both reasons are bullshit, but it’s not the womans’ fault, the community/society are responsible for not being more welcoming of the new person and for not supporting the woman with absolutely everything they’ve got.
I think that there’s not a single society on the planet that gets this right. The religious people are dishonest, and the non-religious people are religiously opposed to what the religious ones are up to, without switching on their brains and thinking about how we could actually improve things. When I look at my little daughter – I’m so infinitely glad she’s here, even if this has made things impossibly complicated for me. It’s simply not me (or my peers) who should be the centre of attention.
I agree up to a point: religious people, some of them, are dishonest in their approach to abortion. This has happened within my own kin. Abortion is sold to Americans as a health procedure - sold not by religious sources, but by the non- or anti-religious. It's not just a phony "health" procedure, but actually a convenience for those who don't want the responsibility for their actions.
This appeals, even to some of the religious, who are under pressure to adapt to the "new understandings" which paganism claims to have contributed to our culture. "We must evolve", claim the pagans... when what they actually mean and do is to devolve into selfism and falseness.
There is no "health improvement" with abortion as it is done in the abattoirs; when a mother's health is endangered by her fetus, it is a hospitalization issue, necessitating care by actual "do no harm" physicians, not the kill mill slaughterers.
Almost all of the abortions done these days have merely the intent of killing.
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