Does he have a valid point?

[Zzyzx]

.

Bill Maher:
"When I hear from people that religion doesn't hurt anything, I say really? Well besides wars, the crusades, the inquisitions, 9-11, ethnic cleansing, the suppression of women, the suppression of homosexuals, fatwas, honor killings, suicide bombings, arranged marriages to minors, human sacrifice, burning witches, and systematic sex with children, I have a few little quibbles. And I forgot blowing up girl schools in Afghanistan."

Some say "The good outweighs the bad." If so what is that weighty good?

Many say "That is just the other religions." Is that true?

[tam]

Perhaps some are hesitant to answer the question differently, because they think that by assigning more value to one life over another life... somehow means that the lesser valued life is not life?


But this is untrue.

Value does not determine whether something is or is not life. Embryos are human and they are life, they are simply not fully developed (neither is a baby) or yet born. But I would save the three year old over them (no matter the numbers), who is terrified, I am sure crying - which for a three year old is a call for help, and one that I cannot NOT respond to.

I would also save the three year old over an elderly or disabled person who could not get out on their own. And there is no question that the elderly or disabled person is life.

(Of course, this is assuming that there is a reason you cannot try to save both.)



As to the issue of abortion I am both pro-life (because I could not personally and knowingly take what I understand to be life); and pro-choice (because ultimately the decision and responsibility of what to do rest with the woman who is pregnant).


Peace to you.

[Clownboat]

Perhaps some are hesitant to answer the question differently, because they think that by assigning more value to one life over another life... somehow means that the lesser valued life is not life?

"Look at these two life forms. This one is shown to have more value, therefore, the other is not life."
This is illogical and no one has argued for such a thing.

But this is untrue.

Yep, and arguing against it would be a straw man since no one has suggested such a thing.

Value does not determine whether something is or is not life.

Correct, and I think it would do this thread a disservice to continue to bring up such an idea since no one here seems to be putting said argument forward.

Embryos are human and they are life, they are simply not fully developed (neither is a baby) or yet born. But I would save the three year old over them (no matter the numbers), who is terrified, I am sure crying - which for a three year old is a call for help, and one that I cannot NOT respond to.

I would also save the three year old over an elderly or disabled person who could not get out on their own. And there is no question that the elderly or disabled person is life.

No issue here.

As to the issue of abortion I am both pro-life (because I could not personally and knowingly take what I understand to be life); and pro-choice (because ultimately the decision and responsibility of what to do rest with the woman who is pregnant).

IMO, this is very respectable and it sounds like you would not try to restrict this choice from women via laws.

Peace to you.

And also with you. (Did I do that right?)

[tam]

delete - double post

[tam]

[Replying to post 210 by Clownboat]

I can think of no wrong way, Clownboat... unless perhaps if one does not mean it. So thank you for your wish of peace in return.



My post was more directed to why some may have a hard time stating or admitting that they would save the three year old over the embryos (in perhaps thinking that this means they are admitting that the embryos are not life)... not that this is what you meant by your thought question. I understand this is not the question you were asking, only that it might be the implication that some are drawing.


Peace again to you!

[H.sapiens]

[Replying to post 210 by Clownboat]

I can think of no wrong way, Clownboat... unless perhaps if one does not mean it. So thank you for your wish of peace in return.



My post was more directed to why some may have a hard time stating or admitting that they would save the three year old over the embryos (in perhaps thinking that this means they are admitting that the embryos are not life)... not that this is what you meant by your thought question. I understand this is not the question you were asking, only that it might be the implication that some are drawing.


Peace again to you!

I have no problem agreeing with you, but I suspect my analysis of why is different. As humans we have been programmed by our evolution to respond in a rescue mode to the cries of our young (even our young who are not our children). Saving the box is a totally cerebral thing, saving the kid is a totally visceral thing. I'd save the kid.

[tam]

[Replying to post 210 by Clownboat]

I can think of no wrong way, Clownboat... unless perhaps if one does not mean it. So thank you for your wish of peace in return.



My post was more directed to why some may have a hard time stating or admitting that they would save the three year old over the embryos (in perhaps thinking that this means they are admitting that the embryos are not life)... not that this is what you meant by your thought question. I understand this is not the question you were asking, only that it might be the implication that some are drawing.


Peace again to you!

I have no problem agreeing with you, but I suspect my analysis of why is different. As humans we have been programmed by our evolution to respond in a rescue mode to the cries of our young (even our young who are not our children). Saving the box is a totally cerebral thing, saving the kid is a totally visceral thing. I'd save the kid.

Yes, this is a great point. Especially in the heat of the moment, where you have time just to act... you hear a crying child, you go for the crying child.



Peace to you!

[Hamsaka]

Perhaps some are hesitant to answer the question differently, because they think that by assigning more value to one life over another life... somehow means that the lesser valued life is not life?

"Look at these two life forms. This one is shown to have more value, therefore, the other is not life."
This is illogical and no one has argued for such a thing.

I disagree, and explain below.

But this is untrue.

Yep, and arguing against it would be a straw man since no one has suggested such a thing.

Value does not determine whether something is or is not life.

Correct, and I think it would do this thread a disservice to continue to bring up such an idea since no one here seems to be putting said argument forward.

I see that this issue has been a part of this thread from the moment the 'thought experiment' with the 3 year old child and several embryos was brought up. What I put in bold above is the unstated, unacknowledged position the theists are working from, and Tam is clarifying that, perhaps bringing it up for the first time. But it's been there. The thought experiment's goal was to flush these 'values' out so they could be examined, instead of remaining hidden but still driving the 'logic' some theists are promoting.

You can see when Lion IRC and Paprika admitted they'd 'save the greater number' rather than the 3 year old -- they misapprehend the values they are trying to work with. Look at the consequences of such a set of values as Lion IRC and Paprika espouse. This thought experiment backs them into a corner, and to remain 'consistent', they had to DEVALUE the single 3 year old child to that of the several embryos. In their attempt to elevate the value of embryos, they succeed in devaluing the living child, its and its parents/families experience, its capacity for suffering. This is HOW we must develop ethics, take a situation to an extreme, plug in some values, and see what happens. As it turns out, the pro-life position, if acted out, results in an atrocity, something no one with a conscience could get on board with.

[Hatuey]

[Replying to post 215 by Hamsaka]

Precisely. This is the tactic which rational, critical thinkers must take in light of dogmatic and religious thinking. Debate has value. Long, back and forth Debates are necessary. However the better method is to define a singular, sharp point that divides the topic exactly where it must be bifurcated. The example in this thread should be used universally because of what it defines and the thought process one must engage in to answer the dilemma. In today's fast-paced world of Twitter and Snapchat, these quick, tight eye-opening examples are precisely What must be used.

[Buy Oz Moses]

Which religions was Maher talking about?
Surely he can't include Christianity?
"Love one another, feed the hungry, house the homeless, clothe the destitute, tend the sick, visit the prisoners, look after the poor"- Jesus of Nazareth (Mark 12:30, John 13:34, Matt 25: 37-40)

Of Bill Maher's list, these (at least) can be laid at the Christian's door: the crusades, the inquisitions, ethnic cleansing, the suppression of women, the suppression of homosexuals, arranged marriages to minors, burning witches, and systematic sex with children.

You forgot "human sacrifice"... Well at least one human sacrifice, they didn't commit but are sure excited about re-enacting/remembering every weekend. I guess that would be more specifically human sacrifice worship.

[Buy Oz Moses]

[Replying to post 202 by Hamsaka]

Not at all: my suggestion is that one reason people don't have attachment to embryos is because much effort has been spent to dehumanise it - which doesn't assume that everone equates fetus with human being.

In your above 'suggestion' (stated as a claim), you attribute pro-choice endeavors to dehumanize embryos to explain why we (no longer? nowadays?) regard the unborn as equal to 'a child'. Please provide support, even if it is a line of reasoning, to support society's 'shift' toward dehumanizing the unborn. That is all I ask. I gave you an example of how I observe that we have INCREASED the value of unborn offspring in a court of law. What is your example?

According to the Guttmacher Institute’s World Health Organization’s statistics; places in the world that allow contraceptives and are more liberal with Abortion laws have seen massive declines in abortion rates. This chart shows about 160 million women in North America, and only 1.4 million abortions in that region just 6 years ago as opposed to the 4.2 million in all of Europe (Russia is a big place), the 4.4 million in Latin America, 6.4 million in Africa(where abortion is a big no-no) and the 27.3 million abortions in all of Asia in the same year.

Now that's still a hefty 44 million abortions world wide. But it isn't government laws that are decreasing the value of embryos/gooy unborn nano babies in the public view. And I don't believe that it's tied to any specific line of reasoning other than…

kids need to stop with the baby making, or their parents need to get them house trained on contraceptives

A third of the world's pregnancies happens to kids under the age of 18, and about 45% of those are either miscarried or aborted(miscarriages being less than 15% of the 45%)

The more the population grows with unwed, underaged, uneducated mothers, unsupported by the dead beat fathers of multiple younglings, whom(the mothers, not the sperm donors) have to resort to vacuuming up government funding, plugging their untrained and uncared for brats into the public systems(daycares, foster cares and the like)like quarters in a Japanese arcade, creating the human equivalent of Boston rioters in terms of socially and emotionally dwarfed idiots, the better the idea of contraception and pro- abortion clinics starts looking to the human eye. I believe that the worth of an embryo is not decreased in the public eye, so much as the public has no sure fire ethical means of determining every embryo which should or shouldn't be deserving of a chance at life due to the social and economical viewpoint of the world as a whole.

I contend that ooie, gooie baby goo in the womb should be judged as “a life� based off of an assessment of the mother and her conception of the child. There should be a department in social services that is involved with a CSI type of investigation about how the child was conceived. If we have a 15 year old girl who wanted to gain the attention of the basketball superstar all because she's having daddy issues from her nonexistent biological father, then her conception of that embryo against the school bathroom sink in the minute moment of underaged passion needs to be considered a huge mistake. A mistake of the parent that did not raise their child correctly to make better choices about unprotected sex, and a mistake of that 15 year old’s ridiculous misuse of her only assets…wish I was talking about her brain, but I'm not… that 15 year old (and the high school basketball superstar, as well as the parent that raised them)should be forced to do a prison/juvenile center sentence and the girl should carry full term, where after the child is born, no epidural should be given during the birthing process, the child is sent to a thoroughly investigated family who is unable to have children for foster care. The basketball star should be given a vasectomy. The prison sentence for all involved should last 21 years until that “mistake� is a young adult(and hopefully a successful individual), a fitting term as that 15 year old and the high school basketball superstar (as well as the negligent parents)deserve no less than to spend a miserable lifetime behind bars for forcing a child into the world under what would have been considered undesirable circumstances if it weren't for the awesome social services CSI team and that poor yet honorable childless family. Bet you we’d have more earnest parents involved heavily in their children's lives and less underaged pregnancies in no time.

Now if you have woman of any age who was raped against her will, perhaps options could be made for a speedy and safe removal of the embryo.

Believers of the Christian bible should agree that under aged pregnancy should end in abortion as God kills David's son for the way he brought that child into existence through sin in 2 Samuel chapter 12.

And it's not entirely unjust murder for Christians as Jesus says that all children inherit the kingdom of heaven in Matthew 19:14. I assume this includes aborted embryos and miscarriages. So how bad could that sin be? A little sincere asking for forgiveness and voila! Etchesketch shakeroo!

Notice that the larger number of abortions comes from underdeveloped countries though? This is probably due to high rates of prostitution and and rape crimes going un-police’d in those less than fortunate countries.

I personally feel the option to abort an embryo(there should be a legal time frame when the embryo is considered too old to abort, as it is now experiencing life and not just the fertilized version of a sperm-egg booger droplet) should be in the mother’s hands as it is her body and as a consenting adult she has the right to do whatever she pleases with it.

This theory is based off of a discussion some believers were having that God was able to destroy the world with a flood in Genesis chapter 6, solely because he "created" it. And thus should the mother of an embryo she "created" not be in the judgement call of her own design, as she sees fits?

But underaged abortions should still be illegal As a punishment to sloppy parental decisions, save for rape situations and God induced virgin births. Nothing good ever comes from those virgin births.

But then again I am no scientist or expert on what embryos feel or if they can even feel at all. I'm also no expert on laws involving woman's right to choose, so if someone would like to enlighten me more on the subject, I'm open for interpretation so that I might have the best educated guess one could give, not personally having any experiences with abortion in general.

Suddenly the movie "dirty dancing" has a whole new profound back story I never realized in my younger years.