Abortion: Who decides Who Dies and Why

[Author's note: this is a conversation grown too large for the comment box, and about a topic serious enough to warrant a new post: Abortion, and who decides who dies and why].

Anonymous says,
"'And regarding the Atheist Faith, you are ignoring the challenge for you to provide evidence supporting your own faith'

No more than you ignore the challenge to prove that every imaginary being isn't real. Frankly it is incredibly demented to proclaim the existence of something and then say that if you can't prove it is not so, you lose the argument.”

False. The challenge is for you to prove your claim. Atheism claims (a) to be evidence based, (b) logic based, and (c) that there is no deity. Yet under claims (a) and (b), Atheists cannot know claim (c). This Atheist claim therefore is irrational. No amount of Guilt by Association diversion can relieve you of the fact that Atheism cannot prove its claims and is therefore irrational. No amount of Tu Quoque will relieve you of Atheism's irrationality either. The Atheist claim is purely ideological, and being without substantiating evidence, is blind faith: religion, the worst kind: irrational.

I need to remind you that we are talking about Atheism here. The subject is the rationality, logic, and evidence (all of which are Atheist claims) which Atheists are able to produce to support the claim that there is no deity. You want to throw in all other beliefs as a Tu Quoque attempt to condemn by the Fallacy of Guilt by Association. But if Atheism is rational, logical and evidence based, then it must work within its own constraints. Because Atheism cannot do that, it is irrational, illogical, and totally without evidence for support of its claims. That has no other dependencies on fallacious argumentation. This observation is direct and devastating, because Atheists cannot provide a direct answer in the form of evidence or logic; they must contrive ways around it or deny the application of the argument to themselves in a particularly weak Special Pleading.

” It's not-material therefore it doesn't exist. If it did exist, you would present material demonstrating such. It would be a obvious. But no, you have to hide behind weasel words like "provide material evidence for the immaterial". Excuse my language, but what bullshit. What a cowardly argument. At least say it is a matter of faith. At least reference a personal experience. At least say something respectable even if it is indefensible instead of something cowardly AND indefensible.”

By which we can presume that you are unable to provide any evidence for your argument that there is no deity, so you attack the counter-argument itself, rather than provide the evidence which Atheism and Philosophical Materialism claim and promise. It should be clear that a deity, say that of the bible, is not material. So where is your evidence that such a non-material deity does not exist, non-materially? No evidence, then you have no argument other than persistent belligerence.

The Theist claim is specifically for a probable non-material existence. The Atheist claim is specifically that there is no such non-material existence. So back up your position, using the vaunted tools of Atheism: logic and empirical, experimental knowledge. You have taken an unyielding position, yet you cannot support it so you are reduced to denigrations. Denigration is the default position for Atheism, because there is no logic nor empirical possibility for defending their irrational belief.

But logically your statement fails right out of the chute. You make the unsubstantiable inference that existence is totally material, therefore existence is totally material, an obvious circularity, which fails logic first, and empirical substantiation second. It is this type of reasoning which places Atheism into the irrational category, and does so using the exact tools which Atheists claim but cannot use: logic and empirical validation.”

“I believe in evidence. I believe in the natural world. I believe in people. I believe in a LOT of things. The only "claim" atheism makes is that theism is on the same level of every other "immaterial" claim and thus almost certainly false. There is an entire material universe and in all that we have found, gods have been absent.”

The claim you make is Philosophical Materialism, not Atheism, because it deals with the material/non-material issue. Philosophical Materialism suffers from the same irrationality, because it makes claims for its fundamental principles which it cannot support with either logic or empirical validation. It cannot prove its fundamental claim that there is only material existence and no other existence. Even in Physics, String Theory is at odds with this claim. It is not a scientific claim, nor is it rational: it is purely ideological, a wish.

Both Atheism and Philosophical Materialism are purely ideological with no hope of support for their claims. They project truth claims which have no truth value, logically, and have no hope of empirical support. By claiming to have found no [non-material deity] in the [material universe], you make the standard Category Error: searching material space for a non-material entity. One cannot find green marbles by searching a bowl containing only red marbles. It is also the standard Inductive Fallacy: what I have not seen cannot exist.

” Actually, that's where the conversation started, to provide a connection between the religion and abortion. I provided statistics and bible verses condoning the murder of children. It is you who is constantly throwing up red herrings. Like prove something doesn't exist. Ya okay wise guy.

Your Bible verses were false; your statistics do not show causation.

OK, so go ahead and show that religion causes abortion, rather than that abortion corrupts Christians.

And again, look up red herrings.

"I am arguing for personal responsibility in sexual activity."

Yeah, who isn't? Education, a social safety net are the best means imo. Not outlawing abortion which can be demonstrated to have only negative consequences.”

Only negative consequences? For whom? Certainly not for the humans being killed in mass production. Again, you have no empathy for at least 50 million humans, as is demonstrable by your positions taken. And the only reference to sexual responsibility you’ve made is in response to mine, and your response is of questionable sincerity.

” There are religious arguments against all contraceptives. What's the result? More abortion. More disease. Or maybe you are okay with condoms and reject the verse:

" it is better to spill your seed in the belly of a whore than spill it on the ground."

This is indicative of your ignorance of the Bible, and your willingness to apply any sort of false, sleazy accusation against it. There is no such verse in the Bible, or you would have referenced it. There is no reference in the Comprehensive Concordance, which logs every word and its usage in the Bible. Your claim is false, and you made no attempt to verify it before you made it. It is basically slander. Like it or not that is both intellectual malfeasance and an indication of your particular brand of morality. Injecting false claims in an argument in the hopes that no one will look them up will not work for you here.

Next, kindly prove your assertion that religious arguments (only Catholic as far as I know) produce directly more abortion and more disease, and that they are not false applications of statistics or epiphenomena. I strongly suspect that you are making another charge which you cannot substantiate with actual empirical proof, rather you wish it to be true in order to bolster your argument for sustained massacre of guiltless humans.

” How about this. Let's say abortion is illegal. What punishment should you deliver to a women (and the doctor I suppose) who then receives/performs an abortion? Stoned to death perhaps? I dunno, why don't you flip through your book of absolute morality and let me know.”

Well, premeditated murder seems to apply, unless the fetus is denied human status. Civil and criminal codes already exist for things like that. What has changed is that the status has been denied to certain classes of humans, based on tortured logic such as yours: you, yourself, can determine whether or not certain classes of humans are to get the same protection under law that you have. And you have decided that those certain classes of humans are lesser than you, based on your personal valuation criteria, and therefore they do not rate the same protection which you get. You have assumed the personal moral authority to pronounce death for an entire class of humans. That’s why you are dangerous.

” "Only the death sentence for the new human produced by the rape. "

Yes. At a couple weeks development (a reasonable time after a rape to identify a pregnancy) the potential human has no nervous system and cannot feel any pain (this doesn't start until week 9). It has no memories and cannot feel loss. The suffering incurred by the potential human is non-existent. The majority of all abortions occur before week 9. Ones that occur in the later trimesters are frequently because the fetus would self-terminate or result in an nonviable birth anyways.”

And there it is, the Atheist Moral Encyclical on Human Termination; Death Sentence Rules. There is little more to say, except that you forgot the “valuation of resource balance” theory. Under that theory, killing anyone not productive is acceptable.

I suspect that it would not be hard to place a defensive moral value on protecting oneself from Atheist determinations of death sentences for other categories, in fact it might wind up being necessary: i.e. a moral bounty on Atheists who wish to kill others. Moral of course. There is no moral difference between that personal valuation of the value (self preservation, or class preservation) or lack of value of other individuals: only opinions. Your opinion kills outright; the reactive opinion would kill in defense against Atheist valuation opinions. Would it not be possible to declare that a person who works from a moral void and fills that moral void with his own "wisdom" has no value himself? It’s the same rationale, only not in your favor this time.

And why should you be favored over any other category, from anyone else’s viewpoint? Well, you have no case, except for your own personal opinions concerning what gives value to a human. So it boils down to who has the most power to enforce their values on the other categories: Nietzsche, of course, was right, the only truly honest Atheist.

What is the value of a single Kulak? None; Atheists killed them all. Why? Atheists had the power. Kulaks were in the wrong category.

” Even in such a case, I would be personally torn. However what I am certain about is that it is wrong to say to the women that it is illegal for you to terminate.”

Certainly under the Atheist propensity for placing judgments of immorality on those who would save the fetus, but in favor of saying to the woman: "kill it if you wish", you would choose “kill it if you wish”. And since when is 9 months a “life time”? Or perhaps it might save the woman/girl suffering if she were killed, too? Why is that not an option? Why is killing the fetus the only option? You choose favored classes to salve and unfavored classes to savage as if you were the supreme decider.

” And seriously. How can you in one line say you argue for personal sexual responsibility, and then in the next saying that the victim of a rape should bear the life long consequences of an undesired child? What if the victim is 14 and the rapist is her father? What then. Where does your sense of (apparently) absolute morality draw that line? Look it up in the bible and get back to me, okay?”

The subject, again, is whether you have the moral authority to decide who dies and who does not. I do not claim that authority. You have no problem making that claim of authority, which you think is justified by tear-jerking claims. Under your valuation, the teenage girl is given enough of your priority that it is acceptable for her to murder the other human, who is given no priority. By your standards, it is also possible to decide to give less priority to the girl and to kill her to save her the pain. Not everybody likes the same classes of humans, so there could be negotiations regarding which class lives and which class is to be killed. Whatever your morality is, under the aegis of Atheism, the fact is that your intention, which is that of deciding life or death of other humans based on your personal moral inclinations, makes you dangerous.

And again, what of the rapist? You slid past that one: should he be killed too? Or is he more protected than the other human?

In terms of pain and suffering, should all sufferers be killed? If not, why not? In terms of valuation of a developing human’s ability to feel pain or acknowledge existence, killing you in your sleep would fill that requirement, as would killing all drug overdosers, etc. You cannot stop this once you start it, because now it is just a matter of degree and opinion, no longer being a moral issue in your mind. Again, categories are negotiable, especially relativist categories.

Back to a 14 y.o. girl. The trade-off is emotional pain vs. death according to you. You intend to assuage the victim’s pain by killing an innocent party. Can you be sure that the killing will release the emotional pain, or will it breed the guilt of causing a death on top of having been raped? According to the feminists on The View, such a procedure could be seen as a second rape, this one with a purposeful fatality of another human. Can you adjudge this emotional damage not to be the case in the long term mental health of the girl? You cannot be omniscient enough to prejudge the outcome. You cannot support your statement.

Your arguments of acceptable conditions under which to kill another human demonstrate the relativism of your personal morality. If it is OK to kill some innocent human under conditions (1) through (149), then those conditions are relativist and subject to negotiation and change. And you, of course, would be the one to do it. Not only the conditions, but the categories are also negotiable. You seriously think you are not dangerous? Well, only to others.

So why should anyone trust you, or any Atheist? Give us a reason which places you solidly in an unchanging category of trustworthiness. Base it solely on Atheism. Hint: don’t bother claiming empathy. Empathy carries no material weight. You have empathy only for certain categories of humans. Why should I not expect to wind up on your next list? You certainly devalue me enough for me to expect such an eventuality. Categorical empathy is just classism, and classism presages class wars. The relativist class to which you seem to belong is morally and rationally unarmed.

The Atheist Ethicist Explains Bigotry

The Atheist Ethicist explains why it is bigotry not to trust Atheists with government or much of anything, really.

” When a person's religion touches on policy, then we have every right to judge that person's religious beliefs. If he thinks his God wants him to adopt a path that will kill millions of innocent people, that is good reason to vote against him.

The candidate has two options. "Either you agree to leave your religion at the door when you enter public office, or we have every right to judge your religion and to judge you a poor candidate on the basis of those beliefs." If a candidate holds that he does not believe in the separation of church and state, then we have a duty to judge his fitness for office by judging his religion.”

If a person claims Atheism, we have a duty to discover his self-derived moral system, and judge his fitness for office based on his relativism and lack of absolutes, both of which are mainstays of Atheist ethics. If a person holds that moral absolute considerations are not to be found in government, and must be purged however necessary, then we have a duty to judge his fitness for office by judging his religious hatred.

”Yet, this explains why the rejection of a candidate grounded on atheism is bigotry. Atheism, strictly defined, has no policy implications. Atheism says that it is certainly or almost certainly the case that no God exists. You cannot infer any policy objectives from this fact. You cannot even infer the conclusion that religion is a bad thing. Whereas only beliefs that have policy implications are relevant to a candidate's fitness for public office, and atheism has no policy implications, atheism is not relevant to fitness for public office.”

This is completely false. It can be inferred that an Atheist will not use logic which is grounded in absolutes, and inferred that the Atheist will use ethical considerations which are situational and relativistic, not being grounded in absolutes either. It can be inferred that the Atheist, especially the Atheist ethicist, will have conferred upon himself moral authority to make ethical decisions for the ethically benighted masses that need his guidance and regulation. It can be inferred that moral and intellectual relativism as well as moral proclamations will be part and parcel of Atheist policy objectives.

”My argument is not that criticism of atheists by its very nature is out of bounds - the way that some argue we must ignore a person's religion. My claim is that false and unfounded malicious claims about atheism represent bigotry that has no place in legitimate public discussion. They fall in the same moral category as claims that Jews are a part of a greedy cabal out to control the economy and blacks are unfit for any duty other than basic manual labor.”

In which the Atheist Ethicist places all criticism of Atheism into the same category as racism, thereby conferring upon them the automatic condemnation of the politically correct, regardless of any merit contained in the argument. The only criterion is the declaration that a claim is false, unfounded and malicious. He previously tried to establish that any claims about Atheism other than the rejection of God are false; so any other claims about Atheism are thus bigoted. But there are consequences which we are perfectly entitled to examine, and the consequences of the void of Atheism are severe.

”In the case of atheist candidates, we live in a society filled with unfounded hatred and bigotry that prevents people from voting for atheist candidates even when they are the better candidate. That bigotry is so intense and profound that the honest atheist knows never to even try to run for public office, and (with very rare exceptions) only the dishonest atheist has any hope of serving in public office. Of this latter group, we probably have several, and they may otherwise do an acceptable job, but replacing them with an atheist who is not so comfortable with public deception would likely be a plus, all else being equal.”

We must immediately ask here, “what exactly is an honest Atheist”? Based on what set of criteria? The concept of honesty is not derivable from the concept of Atheism. Would the “honest” Atheist start out by declaring his lack of morals due to Atheism? Or would he declare his Consequentialism, or his Virtue Ethics, or his obeisance to Humanism, all three Manifestos? Or maybe he would declare that morals are defined by scientific findings, or possibly were determined by Natural Selection, red in tooth and claw on the one hand, or mentally evolved to total selfless cooperation on the other? Or possibly he would admit that his morals are relativistic, and subject to change without notice? Exactly what would an “honest” Atheist claim?

This is supposed by the Atheist Ethicist to produce a feeling in the voter that his welfare as a human is being represented somehow. But relativism means relative to the relativist; any decision would necessarily be made for the benefit of the relativist. We already have a government full of those.

”We create a culture that brands all atheists as immoral, and that then grants the honor of public service only to those who fit the stereotype, while barring all who value truth and honesty.”

Once again, neither of the concepts, truth nor honesty, are derivable from the concept of Atheism. What is derivable from Atheism is the rejection of the only authoritative moral source, and substituting himself into that role. Moreover, the propensity of Atheists to reject absolutes allows us to infer that neither truth nor honesty is possible under such a rationale.

”We see this in surveys that show that atheists are considered as untrustworthy as rapists, that they are the group people claim are least likely to share their values as Americans, and are the people they would least like their child to marry. Atheists are feared for having no moral foundation and, thus, are thought of as being as willing and eager to do whatever benefits themselves regardless of who is harmed because they acknowledge no divine authority that tells them not to or threatens to punish them if they do.

Atheists seem not able to see themselves as anything other than the mythological creatures they create in their own imaginations: rational, good without morals, superior thereby. Why can they not see that by not having moral standards it is perfectly necessary that they do not share the values of the majority of Americans who do have moral standards? What seems so obvious is perfectly opaque to Atheists.

The Atheist Ethicist is wasting his time crying bigotry for not considering Atheists to be “good”. Rather he should tell us exactly what “good” means to an Atheist. What does it mean to every Atheist? Do they have anything in common, morally? Why do they need Atheist Ethicists? He should tell us exactly why anyone, any Atheist even, is justified in trusting another Atheist, in view of the admitted moral void attached to Atheism.

With no moral basis, why trust them?

It seems that Atheists are quite comfortable with their individual, personal “ethics”, all of which are different, yet all of which are “good” by their own definition. They are so comfortable being “good” under these tautological circumstances that they are completely unable to identify with anyone who uses a different authority to establish a stable concept of morality. Such stability in morality is actually feared by Atheists, who get their dander up at the thought of moral absolutes. They would fail under absolutes, and they know it. They could never declare themselves good, all good, billboard good, under absolutes. Those who subscribe to stable concepts of morality are to be feared.

After all, not all lifestyles would be considered moral under absolutes. Under relativism it is possible to accept whatever is convenient at the moment: homosexuality, then pedophilia; abortion, then infanticide. No problem. It’s all good, just ask the ethicist.

Well, of course it’s not ALL good. It is bigotry to question the values of an Atheist. Again, just ask the Atheist Ethicist.

The Atheist Ethicist goes even further: it is bigotry writ into the currency, into the pledge, into the minds of children the moment they enter school the first day. Bigotry institutionalized and focused on the poor Atheist. Apparently the cure would be to institutionalize Atheism instead, to teach relativism and moral voids and fear of absolutes and intellectual grounding. One nation, without God, in the absence of absolutes...? In Atheism We Trust...? No absolutes need apply...? Relativism institutionalized and religion legislated against due to its bigotry? All contrary arguments outlawed due to bigotry? (After all, bigotry is already a hate crime). Consequences can be ornery things. And denying them just makes the suspicion even worse.

None of this seems to be apparent to the Atheists who see no problems with their own versions of "goodness" conflicting with reality, much less other versions of goodness.