Should a woman's bodily autonomy be disregarded when it comes to pregnancy?

[leibowde84]

I have never seen a person claim to be a Christian who was so hostile to the very core of Christianity.

1. I have no burden to not use the bible. You can't invent criteria. That is about the surest sign of a hostile bias possible. The bible is so reliable it is a primary archeological text used by even secular archeologists. You might as well say evolutionists can be used to defend evolution. Your dismissing the authors who had by far the greatest possible access to the fact of the matter. You not only do not believe the bible, you don't want to.
2. NT historians use all sorts of materials including the bible (you can even use historical probabilistic calculus), and regardless of what their faith is the consensus view is what I said it was. They are the best in the world at resolving the bibles historical claims and agree those four claims (among many more) are as reliable as history can make them. It was not my claim, it was theirs.
3. Paul was the most committed enemy of Christ possible. Why would I not be referring to him? Or I should say why were not the NT historians referring to him? Your standard seems to be we can trust anything except the best sources and those that are inconvenient for you. You do not seem to get I am not saying what I have concluded. Those four historical events are what NT historians agree are reliable.

I only said that because using the Bible to prove that things stated in the Bible are true is the very definition of circular logic, and, in actually, does nothing but waste time. It does not support your argument at all, so I did not want to waste time with arguments that do not get us anywhere.

 

[leibowde84]

I have never seen a person claim to be a Christian who was so hostile to the very core of Christianity.

1. I have no burden to not use the bible. You can't invent criteria. That is about the surest sign of a hostile bias possible. The bible is so reliable it is a primary archeological text used by even secular archeologists. You might as well say evolutionists can be used to defend evolution. Your dismissing the authors who had by far the greatest possible access to the fact of the matter. You not only do not believe the bible, you don't want to.
2. NT historians use all sorts of materials including the bible (you can even use historical probabilistic calculus), and regardless of what their faith is the consensus view is what I said it was. They are the best in the world at resolving the bibles historical claims and agree those four claims (among many more) are as reliable as history can make them. It was not my claim, it was theirs.
3. Paul was the most committed enemy of Christ possible. Why would I not be referring to him? Or I should say why were not the NT historians referring to him? Your standard seems to be we can trust anything except the best sources and those that are inconvenient for you. You do not seem to get I am not saying what I have concluded. Those four historical events are what NT historians agree are reliable.

And, I'm not trying to be hostile. I just find it incredibly important to question assumptions related to Scripture so that we continue our progress of understanding it.

 

[metis]

There are times when there is very compelling evidence that the courts rule in against the Constitution, eg, Kelo v New London. (Note that some USSC justices agree with me on this.....just not a majority.) For the government to treat something as legal has the nominal effect of being legal, but is nonetheless illegal. I such cases citizen resistance is warranted. Fighting the draft during the Viet Nam war is one such cause. The war was illegal, the daft was unconstitutional, the soldiers were treated as mere fodder, the US murdered & tortured many innocent non-combatants, & our leaders lacked a desire or plan to even win.

I don't have a problem with what you're saying here as I certainly wasn't endorsing all or even most court decisions. Had I been drafted for Vietnam, for example, my wife and I had plans to move to Canada because I conscientiously could not fight in what I believed was an unjust war.

Also, I do believe the Citizen's United decision by the SCOTUS was borderline madness, especially since Roberts about a year before pooh-poohed that idea and referred to it as "reckless", or something like that.

 

[1robin]

I'm just not taking what I believe is an extremist position, namely that somehow the only source of morality is religion. It's simply not true. Yes, there's no doubt that religion more specifies what's to be allowed and what's not, so we do agree on that.

God is the only source of objective moral truth. HIs nature defines what moral values and duties are in any objective case. Now that is not to say we cannot invent ethics and if you want to call that morality that is fine by me, but when I say morality I mean objective morality. Mallum in se, not Mallum prohibitum. It is kind of a grey area without distinguishing definition like those Latin words lead to. Morality is too semantically pliable.

 

[metis]

God is the only source of objective moral truth. HIs nature defines what moral values and duties are in any objective case. Now that is not to say we cannot invent ethics and if you want to call that morality that is fine by me, but when I say morality I mean objective morality. Mallum in se, not Mallum prohibitum. It is kind of a grey area without distinguishing definition like those Latin words lead to. Morality is too semantically pliable.

Mote the two parts of your post that I underlined as they are the polar opposites of one another because you didn't state exactly what you mean by "Morality" in the latter item and how it supposedly differs from "objective morality". However, I do believe I know what you mean.

Biblical morality is not objective but subjective. What is much more objective is what we are genetically predisposed to do, even if there are always going to be some who deviate from those norms for whatever reason.

 

[Revoltingest]

But, in the interest of staying on the topic of bodily autonomy as it relates to a woman's right to choose, I think we should agree to disagree.

Makes sense. But to explain (without arguing), I introduced bodily autonomy as it relates to males because the issue is broader than a single gender. Some aspects apply to one & not the other (eg, pregnancy, the draft), but most apply to both, eg, the right to die as one chooses, the right to sell organs, the right to rent out one's body, the right to not be violated. If the bodily autonomy of one gender may be violated with impunity, then this confers upon government the same power against the other.

 

[leibowde84]

God is the only source of objective moral truth. HIs nature defines what moral values and duties are in any objective case. Now that is not to say we cannot invent ethics and if you want to call that morality that is fine by me, but when I say morality I mean objective morality. Mallum in se, not Mallum prohibitum. It is kind of a grey area without distinguishing definition like those Latin words lead to. Morality is too semantically pliable.

Why is God the only option? How can you be so sure? Couldn't it be possible that we just don't have the required understanding/information and/or we haven't discovered the source yet? The lack of knowledge should not be used as a positive proof of the supernatural.

 

[1robin]

Your first point is my main problem with your reasoning. There is no way to prove that nature cannot create anything naturally. That would be a logical fallacy because you cannot prove a negative. In other words, the absolute best argument you could claim is that, to the best of our scientific knowledge and discovery, we have not yet been able to find a source in nature for ____. This goes for literally everything, and is the basis for the Gods of the gaps argument.

Yes you can but the issue is astronomically complex. What specific thing are you saying nature can produce that I denied it could. In fact nature cannot create anything if you take creation to mean bringing into existence. All it can do is rearrange things from other things. Regardless pick a specific and we can see if nature could "create" it.

 

[Revoltingest]

Morality is too semantically pliable.

With no single religious flavor having majority control to impose their 'objective' morality, we're stuck with this pliable one.

 

[Revoltingest]

Hey! You quoted me! I"m out of the doghouse....woo hoo!

I don't have a problem with what you're saying here as I certainly wasn't endorsing all or even most court decisions. Had I been drafted for Vietnam, for example, my wife and I had plans to move to Canada because I conscientiously could not fight in what I believed was an unjust war.

We might've been neighbors in Canuckistan if Nixon hadn't ended the draft. I planned to move to Ottawa. (He was an odd duck....anti-communist who imposed wage & price controls....a law-&-order guy who ended the draft.)

Also, I do believe the Citizen's United decision by the SCOTUS was borderline madness, especially since Roberts about a year before pooh-poohed that idea and referred to it as "reckless", or something like that.

We'll agree to disagree about that one.

 

[metis]

Hey! You quoted me! I"m out of the doghouse....woo hoo!

We might've been neighbors in Canuckistan if Nixon hadn't ended the draft. I planned to move to Ottawa. (He was an odd duck....anti-communist who imposed wage & price controls....a law-&-order guy who ended the draft.)

.

I have relatives in Quebec, but the problem with my wife and I going there is that they are distant cousins and I didn't know enough French. We probably would have started out in Windsor since they did have sort of a placement program, and then let it take us from there.

Ironically, we almost moved to Windsor several years later, and the only thing that stopped us was the fact that my wife had to go back and forth to her parent's house in East Detroit 2-3 times a week because they couldn't do the paperwork since they couldn't read English that well (my wife and her parents grew up in Sicily).

 

[Madtown]

God is the only source of objective moral truth. HIs nature defines what moral values and duties are in any objective case. Now that is not to say we cannot invent ethics and if you want to call that morality that is fine by me, but when I say morality I mean objective morality. Mallum in se, not Mallum prohibitum. It is kind of a grey area without distinguishing definition like those Latin words lead to. Morality is too semantically pliable.

But, the version of God you prefer, the christian one, isn't objective at all. Many humans that God has created don't even have a concept of the existence of Christianity. That being the case, how on earth could it be "universal objective truth", when it isn't universally available? The version of God you prefer, is the subjective basis of moral truth, FOR YOU.

 

[leibowde84]

Makes sense. But to explain (without arguing), I introduced bodily autonomy as it relates to males because the issue is broader than a single gender. Some aspects apply to one & not the other (eg, pregnancy, the draft), but most apply to both, eg, the right to die as one chooses, the right to sell organs, the right to rent out one's body, the right to not be violated. If the bodily autonomy of one gender may be violated with impunity, then this confers upon government the same power against the other.

There is no way that the draft would exclude women if enacted today (which itself is next to impossible), so I'm not sure that is a valid example. Gender equality has progressed a great deal since the last draft. So, I am interested to hear of another example of men's rights being taken away when women's aren't. Can you kindly provide another? I think this is a valid point, btw. Just need more substance.

 

[leibowde84]

But, the version of God you prefer, the christian one, isn't objective at all. Many humans that God has created don't even have a concept of the existence of Christianity. That being the case, how on earth could it be "universal objective truth", when it isn't universally available? The version of God you prefer, is the subjective basis of moral truth, FOR YOU.

That is certainly correct. Christianity is in no way "universally available." Do the bushmen of Australia's Outback have the teachings of Christ available to them?

 

[viole]

Oh, I know my wife would very much disagree with you on this.

With me? I would say with the evolutionary community.

Yes, your side starts out with God does not exist but evolution does and can be used to explain even contradictory things, now get in the car, lets put on our atheistically polarized shades and go to the library and see why. To make this less semantically confusing let me re-supply the Latin.

1. Malum in se (plural mala in se) is a Latin phrase meaning wrong or evil in itself. The phrase is used to refer to conduct assessed as sinful or inherently wrong by nature, independent of regulations governing the conduct.

This one is what is usually thought of by the word. It cannot exist without God because nothing in nature can produce it.

2. Malum prohibitum (plural mala prohibita, literal translation: "wrong [as or because] prohibited") is a Latin phrase used in law to refer to conduct that constitutes an unlawful act only by virtue of statute,[1] as opposed to conduct evil in and of itself.

This can be had without God. Calling them both morality is just confusing so for simplicity sake lets call this one ethics. Deal?

If you wish.

If you try hard you can find objective criteria, then paste on a subjective goal (nature gas no intent or goal), but this is ethics not morality according the definitions above. With God we have an objective goal and objective duties.

The question is if subjectivity cannot be made objective. If all our experiences are ultimately reduceable to physics and information theory, I don't see why not.

Trying too avoid an X rated response I think they do have evolutionary value but they contend with morality. Evolution wants to survive. Anything that encourages mating would be a "good" but morality is usually restrictive of those naturalistic "goods' in favor of moral "betters". All kinds of ideas like marriage, fidelity, etc...... contradict survival of at least the species as a whole. I not only agree that evolution is complex, it is even contradictory. It is geared for survival but 90% of species have died out. It is not a good system for anything, it is so bad at everything it's ever succeeding is almost a miracle.

I am sorry but this is mainly due to your lack of knowledge on the subject.
It woukd be like saying that it is a miracle that email exists given that the fax got extinct and deduce that there cannot be evolution of communication systems. You really have to defeat your boredom if you want to discuss these things seriously.

Mass extinctions are a point for evolution, not a point against.

I did not say all costs were possible. I said it selects for survival at anything else's expense, even truth.

It selects genes, not individuals. That is why you have less problems to kill an ant than a dog, presumably.

Since a female child screams at even an imaginary threat how did we survive. Your points here don't seem to contradict what I said and they all have counter points. For example screaming may alert the mother for protection. The point is evolution does everything it has the capacity to do and so would justify anything we have the capacity to do. Scream don't scream, rape don't rape, kill your young or don't, tribal war or cooperation. Anything I can do is present in evolution and would be justified..

Well, no. A 200 millions years old fossil of a cow would destroy evolution.

I have been a life long hunter and have read about the great hunters in history. Just sitting around watching what nature does very quickly shows that it is not geared for our ideas of morality. Sit at a water hole in India or Africa and you will not live long enough to dress anything up. Read man-eaters of India by Colonel Corbett and you won't venture off a paved road the rest of your life.

I am not sure what your point is. That the world is a dangerous place speaks for evolution, not against it. This is why sharks did not evolve a lot in the last millions of years. They have basically no predator.

Well even with God's commands there are usually drastic practical necessities. If your kids had any idea how bad the root canal I just had was they would probably stick a tooth brush in each hand on the hour every hour.

Well, I don't know whether you have kids. As a man you can't ever be sure, lol. They don't give a rip about root canals.

Someone said if God did not exist we would have had to make him up anyway. I kind of agree. Our inherent ideas about morality, causality, rights, justice, etc.......scream out for a God so badly that we either have one or we become one to our selves.

Yes, and that is exactly what happened. He has been invented.

You misunderstood. I said roses have no inherent value. You might value them, Hitler may value exterminating Jews, Madoff may value your money, etc.......... societal laws can't be based on 6 billion different valuations. Morality and rights assume inherent value. It is not that I value X it that X has intrinsic value.

Assuming does not entail existence of the assumption. Especilly when we assume different versions of morality.

I thought that was assumed. I even gave examples of the difference. Life is supposed to have rights even if no one valued it. That is unless..................I won't bore you with the abortion speech again.

It is not in ll cases. Otherwise we would forbid abortion. I don't see any right in a bunch of human cells on some Petri dishes. But I see the right of people who might profit from research in that field. You call it life, I call it personhood. They do not necessarily cohincide.

Roses don't have intrinsic value or rights so it is not a good analogy. I can stomp my rose garden to dust and violate no moral code. If I try that with kindergarteners I will be put to death in conservative states.

Therefore stomping kindergarteners is a malum prohibitum, while stomping roses is a malum in se. Did I get that right?

No biological equation equals sacredness.

Why not? If naturalism is true, it could very well be. If a meterorite wipes us out, do you think that it wlll change its natural trajectory at the last moment because of the (self declared) sacredness of human life?

And there is the problem, we all value different things. We need a source for value that does not depend on opinion.

Do we? And who is going to guarantee me that this source exists and is reliable? Some other fallible humans?

If you think inventing something that can't be true solves the problem then maybe.

I m not a theist anymore.

But it does stop us from thinking life has intrinsic value, sanctity, or equality. BTW an expiration date is an effect not the cause. Having no God is the cause of all these other things.

Facts are facts. It is our job to make the best out of it. Or turn to real nihilism. Outside this planet, nobody cares, really.

I was joking. Atheism results in categorical nihilism that most atheists just seem to live as if it were the opposite. I of course does not produce total nihilism. If you search list of the ten most important questions of mankind's history. None of them have ultimate answers without God to the best of my memory.

1. What is our ultimate origin? No clue without God.
2. What is objective moral truth? Nothing without God.
3. What is the purpose of the universe? No clue without God.
4. Why (not how) am I here? No clue without God.
etc.....................

For a moment I thought that things that explain everything, do not explain anything.

Ciao

- viole

 

[metis]

About 20 years or so, I remember reading an article written by a Christian missionary that said that maybe 2/3 of all the people living in China could not even give the most basic information about Jesus.

 

[leibowde84]

But, the version of God you prefer, the christian one, isn't objective at all. Many humans that God has created don't even have a concept of the existence of Christianity. That being the case, how on earth could it be "universal objective truth", when it isn't universally available? The version of God you prefer, is the subjective basis of moral truth, FOR YOU.

Some are in much better positions to accept it than others too, which is my reasoning for disbelief in the concept that belief in Christianity is necessary to be "saved." It is not logically feasible with the rest of Jesus' teachings.

 

[Revoltingest]

There is no way that the draft would exclude women if enacted today (which itself is next to impossible), so I'm not sure that is a valid example. Gender equality has progressed a great deal since the last draft. So, I am interested to hear of another example of men's rights being taken away when women's aren't. Can you kindly provide another? I think this is a valid point, btw. Just need more substance.

As far as bodily autonomy goes, we're fortunate to have few differences in our rights. Off hand, I can't think of any more significant others. Most rights apply to all genders. (Like my use of "all" instead of "both"? It makes me look really progressive.)
I agree that a reinstated draft would likely affect women too, but it wouldn't be easy. Initially, only men would be drafted for several reasons:
- Men are the only ones registering for it.
- The military isn't ready for a massive influx of women.
- Society still confers the privilege of being too dainty to kill & be killed.
- Drafting women would be more disruptive of families.
- Think men object to being drafted? Just wait til women are drafted...<shudder> <shudder>.

 

[metis]

With me? I would say with the evolutionary community.

I sorta wrote in tongue-in-cheek. Oh, wait a minute-- no I'll not expand on that.

Anyhow, on a more serious note, if the woman has orgasms, thus enjoying the sex act more than if she didn't, then she would more likely want to engage in sex, which increases the chances of pregnancy, which in the "olden days" would be an advantage to most bands.

In anthropology, we sometimes use the term "cultural selection", namely those items that are selected for that may not have that much directly to do with natural selection but for whatever reason got selected for anyway. Human female breasts, for example, tend to remain full even when not lactating, whereas the ape line's females' the breasts tend to deflate, much like the Patriots' footballs. Even though the fuller breasts aren't likely to affect survivability, nevertheless they got preferred over the deflated ones.

 

[1robin]

You can repeat the "95%" until you're blue in the face but even common sense should tell you that this is noting more than an assumption since we have no originals. I don't care whom you get that figure from.

No this is the worst case scenario. The numbers range from 300,000 errors to 400,000 errors over the entire textual tradition. You can even buy software and compare all mainstream textual traditions. Actually forget all this because I thought you were challenging the NT. I see your challenging the original OT book. So lets look at the ways that we can have great certainty about the originals even if we do not have them.

Let me first back up and restate my claims. The NT textual accuracy is between 95% and 99.5% depending on who you ask. The book of Isaiah in modern bibles compared with the DSS is at least 95%. Now that is not a claim about how close the modern bibles are to the originals we do not have. It is a claim that modern bibles and the oldest texts we have (and we have some very old ones) are astronomically accurate. Greater by far than any work of any history, there is not even a second place. So having said that what about the originals. Your righty we can never know for sure but we can establish a high probability as to what they contained. You never several things in order to have that high probability.

1. Early copies.
2. Prolific copies.
3. Parallel textual traditions.
4. Independent authors.
5. No centralized controlling force. IOW no Uthman who chose his favorite versions and burned the rest.
etc.......

Some bonuses are texts that go missing early on and only resurface much later, extra canonical corroboration, historical corroboration in a physical context.

If you have all of those and a few I did not mention you can justifiably have faith that the text in our hands is very very close to the original. Now I almost always concern myself with the NT so most of my knowledge is about it. I will quote the one of the bible's greatest modern critics about the NT but it would similar for most of the old.




Most of these differences are completely immaterial and insignificant; in fact most of the changes found in our early Christian manuscripts have nothing to do with theology or ideology. Far and away the most changes are the result of mistakes, pure and simple— slips of the pen, accidental omissions, inadvertent additions, misspelled words, blunders of one sort or another when scribes made intentional changes, sometimes their motives were as pure as the driven snow. And so we must rest content knowing that getting back to the earliest attainable version is the best we can do, whether or not we have reached back to the "original" text. This oldest form of the text is no doubt closely (very closely) related to what the author originally wrote, and so it is the basis for our interpretation of his teaching.


The gentleman that I’m quoting is Bart Ehrman in Misquoting Jesus. [audience laughter]

Keep in mind that this is a man who makes a living criticizing the bible.

So, Spinoza and Einstein's theory about God is "strange" and "meaningless"? Really? Have you ever read any of Spinoza's works? And you take on reincarnation makes no sense whatsoever, and I say this as one who doesn't believe in it. And the Baha'i faith does not conclude that all religions are equal.

All I know of Spinoza's God is casual references made by Hitchens's about him. That is not enough to judge the concept on. Einstein was so self contradictory and inconsistent I just don't take his theology seriously at all. I did not say the Baha'i claim all religions are equal. They claim they are all true. Re-incarnation does defeat it's own purpose, and your claiming it doesn't does not change that.