Without any reference to religion, would you care to explain to me why it is wrong to dispose of a glob of cells just because they have the potential to become a feeling, intelligent being? For that matter, without any reference to religion, would you explain to me why conception is the boundary - just think of all those sperm and eggs that lose their potential to become a feeling, intelligent being because people aren’t having sex every possible minute of every possible day?
Yes, later on in the pregnancy I accept that there are arguments (which I do not necessarily agree with, depending on how late in the pregnancy) against abortion that are not motivated by religious belief, but I do not accept that being against first-trimester abortion can be motivated by anything other than illogical belief.
It appears you are willfully ignoring the evidence people have offered.
Are you serious? The move to stop gay marriage is a move to deny a segment of our population equal rights. The fact they haven’t had these rights before doesn’t eliminate suffering. Did women suffer when they had no right to vote. How about blacks? Was it a waste of time to fight for those rights? What about the laws that made it illegal for whites and blacks to marry?
There is a definite movement that is based in large part on religious beliefs and an interpretation of verses lifted from a 2000 year old book declared to be “the word of God” What the Bible says god thinks about gays shouldn’t even be factored into the equation at all, but instead its a large part of it.
Doesn’t continued suffering count as suffering? Does it register that people are trying hard to let this suffering continue and to deny human beings equal rights due in large part to their religious beliefs?
It’s an inaccurate exaggeration to claim that all antiabortionists use their religious beliefs to justify their stance. It’s safe to say most of them though, and without the support of that percentage the movement would have little effect.
My question is how many people who truly believe abortion is murder and want to make it illegal, will step up to the plate and support all these kids they insist woman must have. If you’re going to deny someone the abortion choice then you’d better put some energy into an alternative for them and the children.
How much of law enforcement budget should be allocated to finding, arresting, and prosecuting women who have abortions, and those who preform them or even assist. Which degree of murder should it be? Premeditated?
The question is not “How is religion “encroaching” on everyday life?”, I think the fact that murder is illegal is quite relevant. I mean, that whole civilization thing that religion imposed upon us is pretty impactful on my every day life. How about you?
Religion in terms of ancient civilization was not considered a discrete entity, that is a ‘Modern’ convention, literally. In fact it is at the root of ALL modern conventions. The formation of the state coincided with a movement away from religion as the dominant social force. The giving of law was considered a religious matter. Now that we have the state we have this idea that there is a separation between civilization and religion. To my mind civilization and religion are one in the same. Religion is social cohesion, regardless of whatever ideology you build that social cohesion from, it is a form of religion. In my opinion trying to remove religion while keeping society is nothing more than an untenable and twisted form of doublespeak, allowing ideologues to define their agenda as something other than the the ‘religious’ agenda. People call Communism a ‘political religion’, but so is any ideology that is capable of gaining enough currency to dominate political discourse. The religion is defined by any group that maintains cohesion from a centralized ideal, whether that is Jesus, the Covenant of Abraham, Submission to Allah, The worker’s state, or Currency.
I would argue that religion is systemic, that it follows certain organizing principles that are what keep human beings bound to one another. The symbols that curry favor, while having some functionality and changing the dynamic of who is in charge and to what degree, are not universally necessary for religion. Without religion, we would all be atomized individuals with no allegiance to anything. It is no mistake that the family has been the foundation for civilization, and that the Frankfurt school saw the Family as the cornerstone of aristocracy.
So I would say the answer is yes, to both of your questions. A lot of the basis of religion is an attempt to move beyond our anarchic animalistic impulses, to be able to see beyond the next bite of food we take so as to plan and build systems that will ensure that we not only eat 1 second from now, but that we eat a few years from now.
ALL ancient cultures were religious; saying that morality comes from religion because it came from religious cultures is like saying it came from cultures where tools were used, therefore morality comes from tool use.
Certainly; that’s a major reason for the defectiveness of moral/legal codes historically. Religion reaching it’s corrupting hand into it and twisting it, passing laws against gays and unbelievers and sex and abortion and condoms and thousands of other things.
Can YOU prove that religion wasn’t a handicap to the development of morality ?
In some places. In others, it was “I’m the King; you do what I say or these guys with spears will stick you.”
Can you justify laws against murder, or slavery, without some appeal to religious belief?
Is something like “human life has value” a religious belief? What makes a belief a religious belief?
How do you define “negative impact on society”? Doesn’t that depend on what kind of society you value, what direction you prefer to see society go in? Can medicine, sociology, etc. tell us what we should ultimately value?
Sure, it benefits me to live in a society in which I don’t have to watch my back every waking instant. Convince many people that having laws against murder, rape and slavery (amongst many other things), we band together and make rules against those things. The benefits of such a society outweigh the freedoms of being able to kill at will.
There is a whole branch of philosophy called “Ethics” which discusses these things. It isn’t complicated to figure out that murder may be seen as disadvantageous and be outlawed without ever invoking an appeal to a deity.
Easily. While they prevent me from murdering or enslaving someone else, they also protect me from being murdered or enslaved by someone else. Those laws are a codified way for society to protect its members and maintain stability. A wimp may have valuable skills that are useful for society even though he is unable to protect himself. As well, one does not need religion to have empathy for others; otherwise given the prevalence of atheism these days you’d have far more antisocial behaviour than you do now.
Well, perhaps not in the criminal courts, but in the civil courts (specifically divorce courts), adultery has legal ramifications, at least in some states. Although no-fault divorces can be had pretty much anywhere in the U.S., citing a “fault” like adultery can make the process much faster.
Anyhoo, even though mswas is wildly and comically incorrect on matters of history and constitutional law, I’ll cheerfully stipulate for the sake of argument that there was a time when religion was useful in some ways to unify a state and codify its laws. Now we have borders, (small-r) republican sentiment, constitutions and patriotism to hold nations together. Religion served its purpose. It’s time for it to gracefully change from ruling people’s lives to simply guiding them, before fading altogether.
And if the OP can’t find encroachment, he’s just not looking hard enough or, I expect, at all.
Do you want to be murdered ? Do you want to be enslaved ? No ? Neither do I; then let’s make it illegal for both of us. Expand that to all of society, and you have your justification.
And you can’t justify anything with religious belief any better than you can with a simple assertion of “It’s wrong because I say so !”
I don’t disagree with this. I’m not sure religion gave us civilization. I’d be more inclined to say that religion has been and continues to be a significant part of civilization. I’ll admit I haven’t really studied this.
I’ll agree that people who assert that society would be better off without religion doesn’t really have a leg to stand on. IMO it’s an emotional response more than a reasoned one.
Still, we can see where forcing our religious beliefs on others doesn’t have a good track record. can’t we? Should we allow the moral equivalent of witch burning out of gratitude for what religion has done for us?
I think so but I think you make a valid point. One worth thinking about.
It can be but it doesn’t have to be. Haven’t philosophers come to that conclusion?
I’m referring to something that is unique to a dogma or where religious belief is the primary justification, in the face of a lack of evidence.
Is it completely arbitrary? Isn’t is based at least in part on a sense of empathy? What I want for myself I should support for others?
No, we must decide what we value as individuals. Hopefully consciously but too often subconsciously. We must also be willing to question what we value and why we value it.
Whether or not you personally buy this, that’s the secular pro-life argument. There are, actually, pro-life atheists, folks who assign absolutely no weight to God or religion.
The fact of the matter is that morality, religion and law overlap by definition. Only laws that solely rely on religious arguments run the danger of violating the establishment clause. Realistically, despite what anyone may argue in the thread, it is virtually impossible for something to have a realistic chance at becoming (and remaining) law where there is not even a remote secular argument to support it. Whatever impression someone else may give you, the fact that religion may support a particular position does not, by itself, make that an invalid position.
In the U.S., any law that does not violate the Constitution is valid law, so long as it was established as law by a duly elected legislature. That’s how it works, whether it’s abortion law or anything else. Religion, purely and by itself, can’t encroach on your rights. There has to be a secular foundation–at least so far as the Constitution requires it–or the courts will strike down the law. And even if the law’s drivers are rabid religious fanatics, that does not change this fact even a little.