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Hey thread, long-time reader, rarely a poster. I'm a cradle atheist from a culturally lutheran country (Denmark). these threads were one of the first placed I encountered the concept of religious intellectual traditions. Before that my exposure to religion in general and christianity in particular had consisted of: a) baptism-confirmation-marriage-burial religion, which is only kept around out of tradition but doesn't mean much in peoples everyday lives b) the kind of religious people who get on the news, i.e. not the kind of people who seem reasonable or sensible c) mormon missionaries, which seemed kind and likeable enough, but didn't exactly give me a reason to believe d) some in hindsight very dated and protestant/atheist historiography, which had given me a mistaken impression along the lines of "during The Middle Ages THE CHURCH monopolized all truth and suppressed any opposition, but then The Reformation and more importantly THE ENLIGHTENMENT happened, and now people were capable of reasoning". What I'm saying is, these threads have been an eye-opening and very enjoyable set of experiences.
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Jan 14, 2021 08:08
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 06:28 |
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WrenP-Complete posted:I gave my sermon! It was about becoming aware of our own reactivity, calming ourselves, and taking a deeper dive into a multiplicity of truth, dialectic and non duality. My grandfather said it was an encapsulation of the values he's been trying to impart to me my entire life. Really incredible experience. Sounds like a pretty great experience. Glad to read it went so well, shalom 
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Jun 19, 2021 07:51
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I don't know about the rest of you, but I should hope parents spend rather more care on their children than taking them for walkies, giving them food, petting them and telling them what a good boy/girl/enby they are. edit: not to mention the commitment over time. A dog who lives to 20 and then dies had a long life. A person who lives to 20 and then dies has had their life cut short. Granted, a pet isn't going to grow up and move out, but still. Caustic Soda fucked around with this message at 17:53 on Jan 6, 2022 |
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Jan 6, 2022 17:48
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docbeard posted:In non-child-vs-pet news, my surgical wound is healing about twice as fast as initially projected and while I'm still facing some major challenges, health-related and otherwise, I feel like I'm on a good path. Everyone's thoughts, prayers, and well-wishes (here and elsewhere) have been more valuable to me than you will ever know. Thank you. That¨s great news Hope you continue to meet your challenges with success.
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Jan 6, 2022 19:28
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That comic got me smiling wider and wider, until I got to the last panel and died laughing.
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Apr 4, 2022 20:03
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Freudian posted:This next bit was a further edit, but posts came in while I was typing it, so gently caress it, it's a new post. The issue is also somewhat muddied in that there's no clean definition of what makes someone a person, so singling out when/if a fetus becomes a person is difficult. If the measurement was purely intelligence or independence, then an adult crow would be more of a person than an infant, let alone a fetus: a crow has object permanence, passes the mirror test, can recognize others and do problem solving etc. But I don't know anyone who would argue in earnest that a crow is more of a person than a fetus or a baby*. Intelligence as a measurement of personhood is further problematic due to its history of being abused for eugenics, "scientific" racism or classism and so on. Personally, I feel no issue with drawing the line somewhere around the end of the first trimester, since at that point IIUC the brain is still very far from being developed. But to be honest, part of my comfort is the rather arbitrary fact that the 12. week of pregnancy is where the line is currently drawn here in Denmark, and that seems to work out fairly well. Then there's the more purpose-focused part of abortion, which IMO invalidates the comparison to infanticide. Abortion accomplishes something that infanticide simply can't: namely, that someone who gets an abortion doesn't have to go through pregnancy or birth, and so suffer the dangers, pains and inconveniences of those two. This can be seen in how no-exceptions abortion bans can and do place the lives of pregnant people** in danger. At the point where infanticide is possible, it's too late for that, the birth has happened and the pregnancy is past. In a similar vein, if a child is carried to term and lives, then infanticide doesn't accomplish anything that adoption can't do better: a parent (or parents) who is unwilling and/or unable to care for a child gets rid of them, in a way which also provides utility for the people who adopt, not to mention the child itself. A third issue which can muddy the debate - but which thankfully isn't a problem in this thread - is that some people who are allegedly 'pro-life' (not including anyone in this thread) and busy talking about the sanctity of life don't couple that with their treatment of other people. One deliberately-extreme example being the kind of person who'd bomb an abortion clinic. Less-extremely, people who approve of the death penalty or are just generally callous towards the suffering of non-fetuses/infants. This can make it difficult to assess the extent to which someone who argues against abortion does so in good faith. That doesn't apply here, though, due to the high amount of thread regulars, and the remarkably (pleasingly) high amount of compassion and thoughtfulness in general shown by thread regulars. * The internet being what it is, there's probably someone, but it's even further from mainstream thought than moon landing-denialism or Posadism or what-have-you. **I write 'people' and not 'women' since it's biologically possible for girls (or AFAB men and enbies) to get pregnant. Caustic Soda fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Mar 21, 2023 |
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Mar 21, 2023 19:40
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 06:28 |
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Edit: I'd just like to add that it's extra interesting for me that we have this discussion, because here in Denmark it's a settled issue, politically. There are precisely 0 parties who oppose abortion here, and IME it's generally seen as a sign of backwardness when other countries make an issue of it. Not coincidentally, 'American conditions' are generally used as a pejorative, at least on the Danish left, though that can be - and is - also applied to non-abortion-related differences.zonohedron posted:Peter Singer, among other currently-living philosophers, advocates for infanticide if the infant's parents are okay with it, for exactly that reason - there's no clear difference between a 24-weeks-gestation fetus and a baby born at 23 weeks 6 days, therefore it's illogical to protect one and not the other, and illogical to protect either rather than an adult corvid, pig, or monkey. Personally, I think Singer is a good example of someone using 'logic' as a buzzword, the way someone else might use 'natural' or 'scientific' or 'inevitable'. An equivalence between an infant and an adult corvid/pig/monkey might just as well be used to argue for better treatment for corvids/pigs/monkeys, rather than worse treatment for infants. As previously stated, I'd also argue that infanticide is (in addition to being viscerally disgusting - also a part of the abortion issue) strictly inferior to adoption, as already mentioned. WRT the value of a human / a person, I personally (no pun intended) do not consider them to be one and the same. Granted AFAIK all known people are human*, but being human is not in itself sufficient to be a person, and I do not think that being human is valuable except insofar as it bestows personhood. This is of course the crux of the abortion issue: whether the fetus should have a right to life as a human being, a person, or some combination thereof. To take a different example of my distinction between humanity and personhood, if I had a stroke tomorrow that rendered me an irrecoverable vegetable/coma, I'd argue that my personhood was effectively at an end, and what remained was less deserving of regard than any sensate animal**, and should instead be treated with the regard comparable to a corpse***. I acknowledge your understanding of the dangers of pregnancy, and empathy for the pregnant. IMO, that's a good example of how the general ethos of this thread and you being a thread regular helps me know that you're arguing in good faith, since you've a history of such reflected compassion (that's a compliment, just to be clear ) That said, I'd argue that it's impossible for us to structure our society without directly or indirectly assessing other peoples (and beings) worth. In practice, how people are treated is directly related to factors such as how similar they are to others, whether they're seen as innocent, deserving, capable of contributing, seniority etc. This is at once a necessity and also not necessarily bad in itself. With modern medicine, abortion in a case of life-threatening pregnancy is prioritizing the pregnant person over the fetus. By contrast, a C-section with pre-modern surgery/medicin and the attendant risk/near-certainty of death for the mother is prioritizing a late-stage fetus/newborn over that of the mother.Wrt. the burden on the potentially pregnant, I think it's relevant here to mention the options that can forestall anyone being in a situation where they might want an abortion, even if they can't reduce the demand for abortion to zero: sex ed, birth control, a supportive environment for someone who chooses not to get an abortion, financial stability for a potential parent/parents etc. This is another case where it's easier for us in this thread to have a constructive discussion, since out in the world there's a fair amount of people who are allegedly pro-life yet don't do anything to actually make parenthood more appealing as an option. All stick and no carrot, as it were. *Though compassion might lead one to argue particularly clever non-human animals might deserve comparable rights. **Barring those that are directly harmful to humans, such as disease spreaders or maneaters and the like. *** Though this comparison is inexact, given that a human being in an irrecoverable coma would be better suited for organ donation than a corpse. Caustic Soda fucked around with this message at 20:36 on Mar 22, 2023 |
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Mar 22, 2023 20:27
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