Of those picking “Secular” as their religion, 17% think abortion should be illegal with few or no exceptions. That compares with 25% of white mainline Protestants.
The sample was asked about stem cells. Is it more important to conduct research or to not destroy human embryos? 72% of the Seculars think research is more important. Among white mainline Protestants support for research runs to 73%. A majority of Catholic whites -58%- also think research is more important.
The demographic with the lowest support for stem cell research was… self identified conservative Republicans. Mainline white Protestants had the highest support (by an assuredly insignificant margin over Seculars).
I’m seeing a lot of broad brushes in this thread, supported by belief rather than facts. But I respect people of all faiths.
I can hardly stop you. And it’s something I’ve said repeatedly in the past. If you intend to use it to bash atheism in some fashion; I’ve never said that atheism is a good thing. It’s simply the absence of a bad thing.
White Evangelical Protestants had a support level of 44%. Among conservative Republicans, 38% thought it was most important to conduct stem cell research (as opposed to “Not destroy embryos” or “Don’t know”).
38<44: White Evangelical Protestants support stem cell research more than self-identified conservative Republicans.
Support for research among Seculars and white mainline Protestants was about the same.
For the last year. Every year before that it was lower. Also, these are not separate groups we’re talking about here. A self-identified (are the other groups, not self-identified? Who does the identification then?) republican and a white evangelical protestant are likely to be the same thing.
Please follow the bouncing ball. You know full well that I said nothing about your personal belief regarding the status of the unborn. Rather, I addressed your claim that stem cell research has been blocked due to “people’s beliefs in fairy tales” – a clear and obvious implication that religion is to be blamed for this belief.
Your claim is fallacious on multiple levels. First, because stem cell research has NOT been blocked. Only embryonic stem cell research has been restricted. And second, because the status of the unborn as a living human organism is NOT exclusively religious in nature. To dismiss this as “people’s belief in fairy tales” is a fairy tale unto itself.
The implication is crystal clear. How else should one interpret the remark about “people’s belief in fairy tales”?
Nonsense. You specifically said, “If you’re not talking about atheists on this board, what’s your point?”
Not just organisms, but living human organisms. Let’s not pretend that we’re just talking about any old organisms. If you’re going to debate this issue, you have got to stop moving the goalposts.
Again, irrelevant to the topic at hand, especially since I said nothing about the number of atheists who espouse such claims.
Their belief is that God made the little person in the woman’s belly and it should be protected because God did it. Most secular and liberal believers are for it. IF IT WAS NOT FOR BELIEF IN FAIRY TALES THERE WOULD BE MINIMAL OPPOSITION TO EMBRYONIC STEM CELL RESEARCH.
And I agreed and clarified that.
People’s belief in fairy tales makes them give extra consideration to what are essentially just a bunch of cells. These cells have been imbued with a soul from their creator.
Why is the Catholic church so opposed to abortion? Do they care about children? No, other than to bugger them, that is. What they care about is that God’s will isn’t blocked and that they have a ready source of more converts (bugger material).
The latest data suggests that secularists and white mainline Protestants have similar support for stem cell research. This was the case in 2004 and 2006. There was some divergence in 2001 and 2005, but I’m not surprised that this dataset shows some noise.
It’s not hard. Xtain != Fundamentalist Xtian.
Interestingly, support for stem cell research tended to track upwards for all groups. Groups showing the most rigidity were conservative Republicans, those with less than a high school education and secularists. The biggest gains in support for stem cell research were in the religious groupings. I contend that such flexibility is to be commended, though religious and nonreligious fundamentalists may disagree.
Do you have the raw numbers or percentages? I wouldn’t be surprised if the numbers for secularists were more rigid simply because they started at a higher percentage. After all, you can go from 10% to 20% support a lot easier than you can go from 95% to 105%.
I wondered about your hypothesis as well. Both seculars and white mainline Protestants capped out at 72-73% support. But seculars started off from a higher base in 2002: (66% vs. 51% – which really isn’t that different.) I suspect that most opinions were pretty soft in 2002 and that responses reflected a certain degree of reflex action at the time. Then again, I see from wikipedia that there was some Congressional activity during 2004-2006, which may have generated some media.
My major point is that characterizing the stem cell controversy as one pitting Christians vs. atheists is cartoonish. Seculars can be described as rigid in the technical sense, which is to say that I was using jokey rhetoric. All that said, I should concede that Bush was playing to a narrow religious base when he banned federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, though not the privately funded type.
You interpret that statement as “the belief that an embryo is an organism is simply a religious one?” You’re off your rocker.
For fuck’s sake, what is this, a game of wear your opponent down?.
You said:
“I said nothing about the atheists on this board. What I am saying is that medical textbooks affirm that the embryo is a living organism, which means that this belief is not exclusively religious in nature. When people (whether theist or atheist, Christian or non-Christian, conservative or liberal) insist that this is simply a religious belief, they are simply mistaken.”
I said:
If you’re not talking about atheists on this board, what’s your point? Who are these people that claim that the belief that an embryo is an organism is simply a religious one?
You said:
I most certainly did NOT claim that all atheists on the SDMB espouse this claim. I didn’t even claim that a significant number of them do, though I suspect that’s true.
I said:
What the hell are you talking about? I didn’t claim or infer that you made that claim.
You said:
Nonsense. You specifically said, “If you’re not talking about atheists on this board, what’s your point?”
Now did I claim or infer that you made the claim “that all atheists on the SDMB espouse this claim” that the belief that an embryo is an organism is simply a religious one? No, I did not!
I asked why you’re bothering writing so much about something no atheists on this board or no where that I’m aware of claim. You’ve made a huge straw man to knock down. Congrats.
Said the pot to the kettle. You said this:
You went from claiming that the textbooks you linked to back up your claim: “What I am saying is that medical textbooks affirm that the embryo is a living organism” (which is true) to saying “Not just organisms, but living human organisms”, (which is not true). The textbooks you cited did not make that claim.
It’s relevant because you’re wasting everyone’s time knocking down a straw man.
It is the plain and obvious reading of the text. Any other interpretation is pure sophistry. The fact is that you find this embarassing, so you’re trying to dance around it.
Bull. The claim was most certainly made. Whether this quote came from an atheist or not is irrelevant. In fact, I specifically emphasized that I don’t care if the person in question believes in God or not.
Oh, please. While it is technically true that the medical textbooks did not SPECIFICALLY state that the the embryo is a human organism, every scientifically literate person knows that organisms reproduce after their own kind. The embryo was produced by human beings, contains human DNA, and if left to mature naturally, it becomes a human post-natal organism. These references do not specifically emphasize that the embryo is a human organism, but only because anyone that needs no clarification. It would be like attempting to explain high school physics in a graduate-level text on quantum mechanics.
You are delusional. You’re the only one here that believes Uzi statement “people’s belief in fairy tales” is equal to “the belief that an embryo is an organism is simply a religious one”. It’s ridiculous to make such a connection. Uzi never inferred what your imagination wants him to have.
Where?
Dude, you’re funny. That’s the whole point. You have stated that the medical textbooks you linked to did. Is writing “specifically” in bold supposed to help your argument? It didn’t. You attempted to make a point that supposedly medical textbooks agree with you and they don’t. You failed. Again, no one anywhere has denied that embryos are organisms, so what point do you think you’ve made by stating the obvious which is something no one would or has denied?
What the fuck are you talking about? Another straw man here? Of course they do. What fucking point do you think you are making here? I’m guessing you’re attempting to claim that the textbooks you linked to claim that one celled human zygotes are human and deserve the respect and rights as the rest of us? If so, you’re wrong.
Thanks, Captain Obvious!
So, your whole point in linking to textbooks was to make us aware that when mommy and daddy fuck, embryos are sometimes the result and that if left to mature, babies will pop out? You’re so full of shit!
You accused me of moving the goalpost when it was you that did the moving. All along you’ve been pretending there is something special about being an organism, unlike a blood cell. You did not intend for organism to be synonymous with human (and neither did your textbook links), so stop pretending you were and that it was supposed to be obvious. And you’re the one that accused Boyo Jim of equivocating. Hilarious!
Gotta agree. So what if a fertilized egg now has new DNA that will make it a distinct organism from either the sperm or unfertilized egg it came from? Big deal. The religious/philosophical part comes in when it now supposed to be given some kind of special consideration as a human being. Otherwise, a fertilized egg is no more ‘human’ than an epithelial cell.
To be honest, I never sat down and thought about whether I can call a fertilized egg or embryo a human organism that is distinct from any other cell. You know why? Because I prefer precise terms like fertilized eggs and embryos. The human organism is classified as an animal. That means it’s multicellular.
BTW, JThunder’s links were to pro-life cites which probably gave selected quotes from real textbooks but with a pro-life agenda in mind. Here’s a funny quote from Lewis Wolpert, a developmental biologist who also wrote a textbook (quoted on PZ Myers blog):
Seriously, JThunder, I don’t know why you’re carping on whether or not atheists “wrongly” claim that embryos are not human organisms. You’re getting stuck on semantics that is irrelevant. What an atheist obviously means is that a human embryo is not a human being. If an atheist claims embryos are human beings, they are making this claim from a philosophical, not scientific, standpoint. I suspect that this philosophical viewpoint is a remnant of their religious upbringing or the very religious environment in the US. Nevertheless, science is not in the business of identifying human persons with inalienable rights.
Also, many Christians claim embryos are human beings solely because they think the soul enters at conception. I can’t think of any other reason. I bet many liberal or mainstream Protestant Christians may believe this but they weigh the ‘evil’ of not curing diseases or making unwanted children who will suffer to killing a soul in an embryonic stem cell.
DT, would it not follow that any individual “embracing” (for lack of a better word, perhaps) atheism would be an example of a good thing, then? And that the more people there are who do so, the better? Make sense**?**
Actually, it is possible (if not likely) for an atheist to consider an embryo a human being. The difference would be that the atheist would admit that he could be wrong. The pro-choice position does not necessarily mean that you believe an embryo is not a human being, it just means that you accept this is a philosophical question without a clear answer, and so it is better to allow people to choose for themselves.
The problem with the religion part is that when someone thinks God said it so that settles it, trouble ensues.
Not to speak for him, but if there are a bunch of believers who are not out killing and looting only because they think God will get them if they do, then atheism, even if correct, might not be good for them. I think atheism is just a correct position about the world, and as such is no more a moral imperative than understanding physics.
It’s a “good thing” the way that not being racist is good; it’s good because it 's the absence of something bad, not because it’s especially virtuous. Saying “I’m an atheist, admire me!” is like saying “I don’t hate black people, aren’t I great?!” Pretentious.
