tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4398786616468784014.post3365733561646318099..comments2024-03-26T22:46:36.621-07:00Comments on Religious Deviant: 50 blogs on disbelieft - Strange BedfellowsLausten Northhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06784935133094816365noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4398786616468784014.post-60438489443489773122010-02-13T11:26:30.853-08:002010-02-13T11:26:30.853-08:00Reading your comments again today, I noticed that ...Reading your comments again today, I noticed that I also do a bit of a dodge on the abortion issue. Your comments about an early fetus not having the capacity to suffer are important. I'm not exactly sure where abortion starts to get uncomfortable for me, but it is somewhere in the first trimester. Until science does a better job of explaining what is a viable human life or when does consciousness begin, I will continue to have questions. And I think it will be science that helps us settle this issue, not religion.Lausten Northhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06784935133094816365noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4398786616468784014.post-52867568870015697552010-02-07T19:50:57.444-08:002010-02-07T19:50:57.444-08:00Thanks for checking in Udo and for the clarificati...Thanks for checking in Udo and for the clarifications and especially for looking for common ground. This was one of my strongest statements so far and the issues you are raise are some of humankinds most difficult. I will need some time to reflect before commenting further, and I will take your comments under consideration.Lausten Northhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06784935133094816365noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4398786616468784014.post-92184573533717889412010-02-07T13:05:16.265-08:002010-02-07T13:05:16.265-08:00Wow, thanks so much - again - for taking the time ...Wow, thanks so much - again - for taking the time to reflect on yet another chapter form the book, and also for your thoughtful comments.<br /><br />I suspect you kind of expected me to reply to your notes on my own chapter, and I shouldn't dodge that request.<br /><br />Let me begin, perhaps, with what I take to be your first major concern about the chapter, namely my stance in the abortion controversy. I did not spell out what my precise views are on the matter and what my reasons are for holding them. I meant (and might not have succeeded in doing so) to suggest that religious stances muddy the waters because the use rationales that are implausible criteria for determining the moral status of embryos. Claiming personhood when all there is are a few hundred cells, no central nervous system and no capacity to suffer is implausible. Grounding sanctity of life claims on implausible premises about the soul (no evidence exists for its existence) muddies the waters. Secular analyses offer more reasonable and easier to defend public criteria for moral standing (eg if the fetus is capable of feeling pain, it matters morally that whatever you propose to do to it would cause suffering). To my mind, in multicultural societies you need to aim for criteria that don't require people to accept implausible metaphysical assumptions such as ensoulment, after-life and whatnot. This is the point I tried to make in this context, and I tried to show that the consequences of buying into the God crowd's stance lead to severe human suffering.<br /><br />Your next big question mark seems to have to do with my conscientious objection argument. You seem to be sympathetic, to some extent, to my worries that accepting the conscientious objection logic could lead to abuses in terms of access to health care services, but you don't accept my example of the Aryan church member asking for conscientious objection exemption on patients belonging to ethnic minorities. Your point seems to be about law (ie this would be illegal today), while my point is about the analytical force of the conscientious objection argument. My point is that if the only thing that matters is how strongly someone FEELS the provision of a particular health service would challenge/violate his or her strongly felt religious beliefs, we end up with a health care system that's akin to a lottery. Patients should not ever find themselves in a situation where they are at the receiving end of such a lottery. <br /><br />I suspect we might still disagree substantively on some issues, but I do hope this clarifies my views. I think you're spot on when you imply that there are important occasions where progressive religious people and non-believers should be capable of finding common ground...udo schuklenkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16463788271983027260noreply@blogger.com