Comments by "PM" (@pm71241) on "Abortion, Gay Marriage, and Porn (Pt. 2) | Bishop Barron | SPIRITUALITY | Rubin Report" video.

  1. Hmm... Utopianism leads to the piling up of corpses. There's probably some truth to that... So ... isn't the idea of "Gods eternal kingdom" (or any version of "the afterlife") utopianism?
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  2. James Walton Well... that would all be very fine if the religious would settle for aiming for their kind of perfection only for them selves. But as you heard... he does actually want to make certain small adjustments towards the utopia by legislation. - most glaringly the abortion issue. I still see authoritarianism ...
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  3. James Walton "The question is: where do you draw the line?" Basing legislation in belief systems without any evidence. Have a nice day too...
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  4. Andrei ... sure seems a lot of Christians have forgotten to save their "adjustments" for the "other" world then ...
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  5. Mary Angelica "Having such bans as laws do not imply utopianism." No - but making these small "adjustments" (As Barron calls them) based on a utopian ideology is. "If it is true that abortion is the killing of an innocent human being, why would making abortion illegal be utopianism while in other cases of killing it's just common sense law?" Because it's an absolutists world view disconnected from reality based on bronze age mythology. The world is more complex than a black and white interpretation like that. Aside from the scientific part and there being no evidence at all for the "soul" concept - there's the freedom of the individual and self ownership of the woman. I have no use for the opinion of religion when deciding a question like that. Authoritarianism, absolutism and superstition should not be a factor.
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  6. James Walton I'm saying that you cannot have it both ways. You cannot sit and argue that other peoples "adjustments" made on the basis of utopianism leads to the piling up of corpses and then, at the same time, advocate your own set of "adjustments" justified by your own utopianism.
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  7. James Walton "so science, as far as I understand it, will never give us an answer to the question of whether killing or enslaving a human is justifiable." Even is we allow that premise: Neither will belief systems based on imaginary beings and bronze age dogma.
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  8. James Walton Facts and reason and pragmatism goes. If you want to claim that life begins at conception and abortion should be completely banned, then you have to at least: 1) Realize that many pregnancies abort them selves without anyone noticing in the first month after conception. 2) Tell me how you respect the womans self ownership of her body by having the government set up police in her womb granting rights to something which can't exist outside her body. 3) Account for when the "soul" which makes the egg before conception different from the egg after enters the embryo. 4) Tell me which twin of monozygotic twins get the soul - and how you know. ... and a lot of other questions aimed at your religiously motivated absolutism. I'm not in favor of abortions... No one is. Especially not women. It's not an easy thing to do. But you have to allow for some pragmatism and evaluate each on a case by case basis. The earlier in the pregnancy, the more pragmatism is needed. Cases do exist where in late term you have the choice of killing the fetus OR the mother by not aborting. That's one of the most hard decisions to take in life, but religion has NO! None, ZERO role to play in the decision on the part of the government. The only religious views relevant here is that of the woman.
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  9. James Walton Short comments > "... and, ultimately, through an appeal to some sort of ultimate foundation." Well... as long as that ultimate foundation is not a fantasy creature epistemological indistinguishable from any other of the thousands of Gods humanity has invented. "... but then you have to concede that all morality is therefore relative," Nah... I don't. But it's not really important where and to which extend I find an objective moral basis. I'm not the one with the authoritarian tendencies. ad 1) I was actually not speaking of miscarriages in general. I was speaking about all the very early rejections of the embryo which then woman probably doesn't even notice and just think that contraceptions worked (or that they were lucky). So, when do you deem that such a "misfire" was actually an accident or you would have to prosecute the woman for negligence leading to manslaughter? ad 2) "and I think it's hard for me, as a man," Yeah... that alone should make both of us recuse our selves from forcing any woman to anything in this regard. ad 3) Oh this was very much to do with a concept of  a "soul". Your argument just above was that there was either 1 human or 2 humans. So at some point you must think that a single cell turns into a "human" ... whether or not you call it "soul" is irrelevant. The point is you think you know when a "human" starts existing. ad 4) Yes - see above. If there's either 1 or 2 humans, which one of the cell clusters is then not "human"? Or - unless you want to argue that any human cell or group of cells is "human" ... then ... by that definition and logic you will be obligated to keep your chopped of leg alive or face criminal charges.
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  10. Holo4ever 17 So the church didn't advocate against condoms in Africa?
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  11. James Walton Well... for starters ... from a classical liberal point of view it violated all the central tenets: self ownership, the right to the fruits of your own labor, that one persons freedom only extends so far that it does not infringe on other peoples equal freedom.
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  12. Komninos Maraslidis I know that James Walton put an assumption into his question that morality has to come from some objective source. ... And I know that I didn't answer his question. I don't know whether he actually insists morals has to come from a bronze-age book, but I'm aware that people thinking they have argued that morality has to come from "God" often quickly jump to the next step postulating that they then know the nature of that God and what "he" wants. My answer was not like that because I don't think you can find a more objective basis for morality than liberalism, but because I honestly think it's more useful for everyday life to think in the terms of "Rights of Man" and classical liberalism, then in terms of natural sciences when you wonders what the moral think to do.
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  13. "The church is extreme in its demands" .... Well... yeah.
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