It certainly wouldn’t have been offensive in most of the former communist bloc.
In others… there are still pockets of religiosity in Europe.
Hinduism sounds like a fascinating belief system.
Some pockets of religiosity overlap places in the former communist bloc, such as Poland, I think.
But let’s take Great Britain for example. I don’t think he would have had a problem.
France? Not at all. Germany? No. Switzerland? Maybe, but I’m not sure.
I’m not sure in most of the cases. Why? Because companies do not mix work with ideology here.
From what I’ve seen, of course.
I think Hinduism has absorbed Buddhism, and I remember’s Buddha’s attitude toward the question of god(s):
focus on your specific burning problems and the solutions to them rather than god(s) and metaphysics.
Just FYI to all who have reported this thread.
Great Debates is the forum for witnessing. This clearly counts as a form of (anti?) witnessing and is, therefore, appropriate here.
Not the OP, and I’m not entirely sure that the OP has done a very good job of defining his thesis, but my point of view of “putting up with” is having laws imposed on me and my community that are based entirely upon someone else’s religion, or allowing employers to impose their religious views upon their employees.
An argument on the basis of heartbeat is no better than an argument on the basis of a soul. Why does a heartbeat make you care about someone else’s abortion? Or more specifically, what harm does someone else’s abortion cause to you, and how does a heartbeat strengthen that argument?
I’ve seen this argument, and it essentially says, “A heartbeat can be detected at X weeks, therefore abortion should be banned after that time.” I do not find that a compelling argument, only an assertion of opinion.
I can show the harm done to a woman by her being denied bodily autonomy. Can you show me the harm done to you by her having an abortion? If not, this is not a secular argument, but one based on beliefs and opinions as to how others should live their lives.
While these arguments do tend to be compelling to the public, that is specifically because we are steeped in religion and religious beliefs that create a bias towards thinking that a heartbeat has some sort of relevancy. Once the argument is analysed secularly, however, it is only an empty assertion. If asked why a heartbeat is relevant, no one has given an answer that does not fall back on spiritual or religious beliefs.
That’s the sort of thing that we have to put up with from religious people that I would like to see diminished as people use critical thinking, rather than church doctrine to guide our society into the future. It’s quite the uphill battle, and I honestly think that we are currently losing ground.
I disagree entirely. Hopefully, religion will not be allowed to continue to impose its beliefs on society.
There will be those who feel that not being allowed to impose their beliefs on others is a form of persecution, and there will probably be some hostility towards those who do. In general, I don’t see religious belief going anywhere, and I see tolerance for those with different beliefs being on the rise.
Just look at the pushback the OP on this fairly left leaning and atheistic board got. The people on this board, and the vast majority of those like us, will defend your right to worship and believe however you wish.
As long as those beliefs do not involve imposing them on others.
Which is why I hear the same voices that are justifying anti SSM or pro-life stances with bible verses also rise in hysteria about “Sharia law”. It’s not that they don’t want religious law imposed, they just want their religious law imposed.
Which is why I brought in atheist conservatives, who don’t have the same incentives as religious conservatives. I do think the discussion on abortion does involve a lot of questions of when does the fetus become a ‘human’ and therefore there may indeed be a harm to a person, if it isn’t personally to oneself (if the fetus is seen as a human at some point - viability or otherwise - then ending the pregnancy can be seen as infanticide)… which I think can indeed be a secular argument. I tend to be a human rights at birth sort of person, but I can easily see secular arguments for personhood prior to that even if I don’t agree with them. I think it’s somewhat disingenuous to claim that atheists or secularists can’t determine that life begins prior to birth and therefore the fetus (or I guess they’d say baby) should have additional rights.
Hold up. You yourself even claimed that the OP hasn’t done a good job defining his thesis. So granted people are going to push back when people have told the OP you can already push back against religious people, you can speak out against religious based laws, etc., and that’s not considered enough. So what does not putting up with it mean? And there has been no attempts to clarify. If it’s not putting up with religious laws - does that mean fighting to repeal them? Because you can do that. Is it refusing to obey them? So people are going to wonder if the not putting up with is more nefarious.
We have to put up with you.
Besides, ‘putting up with people’ is part of the deal. It is all printed on the back of the ticket.
I fully support the right to abortion, pretty much without limits and without conditions. Part of this support directly relates to your point about a woman’s bodily autonomy.
But your argument here is not an accurate reflection of the main argument against abortion. People don’t argue against abortion because it does harm to the people making the argument; they argue against abortion because of the harm that it does to (what they consider) a human life. And a person can make that argument even if they are secular.
As a secular humanist, I believe that murder is wrong for a variety of reasons, not because it harms me personally, but because it violates the right to life of the victim and, more generally, because allowing murder would risk complete societal breakdown. But none of my opposition to murder relies on any religious belief.
If a person believes (for example) that life begins at the detection of a fetal heartbeat, then it would be completely feasible for them to oppose abortion on a purely secular basis, arguing that termination of the pregnancy violates the fetus’ right to life. I happen to disagree with them about that, but it’s not an inherently illogical argument to make, and nor is it inherently religious. I’ve run across a number of secular anti-abortion types who make precisely this sort of argument.
More silliness.
A heartbeat is a perfectly reasonable indication of biological life, and if the life in question is human, then it’s a perfectly reasonable indication of a human life. I’m a secular humanist who does not even believe in the concept of a soul, but I do believe in the concept of a heartbeat because I can feel my heart beating right now, and because I understand scientifically that the fact that it’s beating is keeping me alive. Are you really arguing that a soul and a heartbeat are medically or physiologically equivalent?
And again you mistake the anti-abortion argument. An opponent of abortion doesn’t generally say, “I oppose your abortion because of the harm it does to me.” They say, rather, something like “I oppose your abortion because it terminates a human life.”
I don’t agree with their arguments at all. When it comes to the question, “Should abortion be legal?”, I agree with you completely that the answer is “Yes.” But your arguments here are all over the place, and demonstrate a complete lack of logical coherence.
This is pretty much my position. I think that it might be reasonable to make some consideration of human rights before birth (say, at viability), but even then I don’t think that the human rights of the fetus are equivalent to the human rights of the mother. Until it’s actually born, her rights come first, and it’s her decision.
Wait a minute. If your standard is “pure selfishness,” how does a woman being prevented from having an abortion affect you? How does it affect you, a purely selfish person, if a woman is murdered or raped or enslaved?
Words like “sacredness” or “sanctity” have a religious sound to them, but they refer to something that people of many different religions (or none) believe in, and that forms much of the basis for our laws against (and horror of) murder. It gets really hard to sharply define what counts as a specifically religious value or argument and what doesn’t. Why is it okay to invoke “bodily autonomy” but not “sanctity of life”?
Instead of disallowing “religious” arguments, my standard would be to disallow arguments based on religious authorities, like the Bible or the Pope or the Koran, that are specific to a particular religion, when you are arguing with, or imposing laws and policies on, people outside that religion.
Bolding mine.
An excellent post overall. The bit I bolded really hits it on the head. That’s exactly how it sounds to me too.
For folks used to thinking like your Mom, all that blather sounds normal. To anyone else, it simply sounds somewhere between Dark Ages-levels of ignorant and certifiably insane. Yet if one lives in the religious 3/4ths of the US’s land mass and especially in the monoculture of a smaller town, everyone thinks about like that and any pushback can get you ostracized or worse.
In an insane asylum, the sane people are the outcasts.
Which is why I pointed out that the only honest position to start to build an ethical framework is one of selfishness. How does this harm me?
“How does this harm a person?” is noble, but ultimately unworkable unless you start defining for them what is harm, even if they would not agree. I’ve seen many anti-SSM arguments that claim that they are trying to prevent harm to these poor deluded people by not letting them validate their relationship.
I do not claim that life begins at birth, and it would be extremely disingenuous to claim that that is my position. Life began somewhere between 3.7 and 4.2 billion years ago. The egg and the sperm are alive, and the blastocyst formed upon their merging is alive. If someone is claiming that life begins at some point other than that, then they are the ones who are factually wrong.
A “new” life is formed the moment of conception. Not at 6 days or 6 weeks or at 6 months. These are facts.
None of these facts justify giving a fetus any more rights than the expectant mother wishes to extend to it.
To make any other claim about when life begins or rights associated with such is making an argument based on your beliefs, not on the facts.
The only truly secular argument against abortion is that the new being is a unique creature that the universe will never see again, and I feel a bit of sadness to know that that unique creation will never be able to expand into its full potential. So, abortion causes me harm. However, when I weigh the harm that is inflicted upon myself when I feel sad over unrealized potential against the harm that would have to be done in order to prevent it, I find it coming up woefully short.
I don’t know exactly what the OP had in mind. However, as I said, in this thread, there has been quite a bit of defense of religious belief.
I defined what I mean by “not putting up with it”, the OP is free to redefine what he means, but he seemed to be hostile to the idea of people believing in things that he didn’t think were reasonable to believe in. That is exactly what has gotten criticized the most in this thread.
Exactly, because they cannot make an argument that is based on how it harms them, they have to make an argument as to how they think it harms someone else. They start with the assertion that a fetus should have rights, and extrapolate their argument from there. It is the argument as to why it should be considered to have these rights that they handwave off. That they consider it to be a human life does not sway me. I also know for a fact that it is alive and that it is human. I do not consider that to be valid, unless they can explain why this human life should have these rights.
I believe that murder is wrong specifically and only because it harms me personally. I don’t want my right to life to be violated, and I have friends and family that I would miss would they be murdered. A complete societal breakdown would also harm me.
I am not in danger of being aborted, none of my friends or family are in danger of being aborted, and I think that allowing women access to the full range of reproductive rights will make society better.
And what if you point out that a new life began the instant of conception, which is the only factual place to draw that line. What does a heartbeat mean in the context of “life”? They are basing their decisions on how others should live their lives on a belief, as you said, not a secular argument.
As I said, we are so steeped in religion that we have to think that there is some special “quickening” or something that happens during development that turns non-life into life, and the abortion argument tends to center around when that takes place. Which completely ignores the fact that there is no such quickening, no such time when life “begins”, and any such assertions are entirely based on belief, not on facts.
But why? What happens to the fetus when the heart starts beating that makes it more worthy of protection than the rapidly dividing cluster of cells that happens at conception? Both are alive, both are human.
No, I am arguing that they are equivalently irrelevant. Both require a belief that there is some special unmeasurable characteristic that comes along at some certain point in development.
I am not mistaking the anti-abortion argument in any way, I did not say that they say that they oppose abortion because of the harm that they can demonstrate that it causes, I am saying that that is exactly the argument that they do not make. And the reason that they do not make an argument as to the harm that abortion does is because they cannot.
They have to fall back on assertions, like opposing someone else’s abortion because it terminates a human life. I agree entirely that an abortion terminates a human life, that is not in question, that is an indisputable fact. Now they need to convince me that I should care about that, and that is where they fail and have to turn to beliefs and assertions, rather than actual secular arguments based on fact and logic.
And you are right, most of the abortion debates that I have seen have been geared around trying to persuade that a fetus is “alive”, or is “human”, with the idea that once you have agreed that it is a living human, you would obviously extend it the same rights that you would wish for yourself.
That is the step that is taken “on faith”, and has no justification without falling back on religious or spiritual beliefs.
Is that because you do not think that a 2 minute old zygote is a living human, or is it because that argument does not persuade you?
Given that you attributed to me an argument that was 180 degrees from what I said, I will assume that it was a lack of understanding on your part that makes you make this assertion.
Point is, in the end, every anti-ssm or pro-life argument always ends up falling back on belief, rather than logic. I have laid out an extremely logical framework here, and I’ll admit that it is a bit complex and not all that easy to grok, but it is indeed entirely coherent, even if it is not based on cultural assumptions that you take for granted.
I see a perfectly valid argument for personhood for a fetus.
The mother extends it those rights.
Not all secular arguments are correct, and not all controversies with secular arguments before and against can be resolved. But notice how the more rabid anti-abortionists claim that life begins upon fertilization or implantation, and want to ban abortion procedures that happen long before heartbeats or brainwaves. And they argue for this using nonsecular arguments about when the unproven soul is created.
In purely secular arguments we can agree to disagree so long as the issue doesn’t affect one directly, as in we shouldn’t force anyone to get an abortion or prevent someone from getting one before viability. Religious arguments boil down to going against god - or whatever version of god is believed - which ends the argument right there. Or would if they ever presented their god. Note that other gods having different positions doesn’t matter to them.
There are a number of ways. To start, I have sisters that I would be devastated if they were raped or murdered. I also have friends of the female persuasion that I would like to continue to enjoy being friends with, and those friendships would be ended or altered were they to be murdered or assaulted.
These things harm the society that I live in.
If women are prevented from having abortions, then there will be unwanted children who grow up impoverished and poorly educated that I will have to support with my tax dollars and will have to worry about committing crimes against me. The women will, rather than fulfilling their potential and enriching the world that I live in, instead be forced into a situation that dissuades them from doing so.
Pure selfishness requires enlightened self interest in order to function.
A religious value is one that invokes belief, rather than logic, as its justification.
I can invoke “bodily autonomy” because I do not want mine violated, and the best way to ensure that is to make sure that no one’s is violated. “Sanctity of life” is a bit more nebulous, could you define it?
I agree that any argument ripped directly from the pages of the Bible should be a complete non-starter when determining secular policies, unfortunately, it is not.
However, I also point out that religion is so dominate that there are cultural assumptions that are made that are actually religious in nature.
Just in the post up from this, I was debating someone who felt that the argument that life starts when a heartbeat is detectable is a valid secular argument, even though it is not only non factual, it is actually counterfactual. The assumptions required to make that assertion are all based on religious or spiritual beliefs, even if the poster in question does not share them.
The only time I have ever been at a dinner table when everyone else bowed their heads and said a little prayer…I did not. I sat perfectly still, but I did not bow my head. I said nothing. I showed no disrespect.
I hadn’t been told in advance it was going to happen! If I’d had fair warning, I could have explained my situation to the host and asked permission to be out of the room at that point. Ambushing the guest is a poor form of hospitality!
Otherwise, I tolerate religious beliefs the same way I tolerate different preferences in cuisine or entertainment. John hates Chinese food. Linda can’t stand horror movies. Okay: that’s something to know, and to respect.
One time, at band camp… 
So, I was hanging out with a girl after our morning sessions, and we went to the cafeteria for lunch. We sat down, and I started eating.
I noticed she wasn’t eating, and asked if everything was ok. She replied that she was mad at me that I didn’t join her in praying before her meal.
I didn’t even know what to make of that one.
Wisdom from an old co-worker: There are three things I do not do: time-travel, mind-reading, and magic. Except sometimes I do magic.
Being mad at someone for something they hadn’t been told about is kinda dumb!