Pope Warns of the Dangers of Progressivism

[Symmetry]

I don't see why abortion shouldn't become a political issue due to a significant amount of religious citizens being opposed to abortion on principle, if it's okay for gun control to become a political issue due to a significant amount of citizens being opposed to gun control on whatever principle they have.

Yeah. I'm on the opposite side of that. I think religion and government should be divided completely. If the reason one is pro-life is because of religion, and that person's solution is to have government activtiy, that bothers me.

An interesting ideal, but surely impossible. Religious faith affects morality.

[crispybits]

I don't see why abortion shouldn't become a political issue due to a significant amount of religious citizens being opposed to abortion on principle, if it's okay for gun control to become a political issue due to a significant amount of citizens being opposed to gun control on whatever principle they have.

Yeah. I'm on the opposite side of that. I think religion and government should be divided completely. If the reason one is pro-life is because of religion, and that person's solution is to have government activtiy, that bothers me.

An interesting ideal, but surely impossible. Religious faith affects morality.

Impossible to have thought control legislation yes, but not impossible to weed out of a reasoned argument:

Why do you oppose abortion?
Because the Bible/my preacher says foetuses have souls.
XXXBEEPXXX Invalid Argument

Why do you oppose abortion?
Because I think it's murder.
XXXDINGXXX Valid argument (so far, still plenty of time for follow-up questions and counter-arguments / cross examination)

Anyone standing up in a political arena and making any appeal to a religious basis for any legislation should be immediately and permanently barred from any public office imo. Either a case is good enough to stand up on objective, reasoned grounds, or it's not.

[Symmetry]

Perhaps people should be allowed to judge what they consider reasonable, Crispy, even the religious folk.

[crispybits]

Indeed, and they are free, outside of the influence of the secular law, which everyone pays for the enforcement of and must abide by, to voluntarily decline to act in certain ways (i.e. get abortions) if that goes against their religious beliefs. If all believers did only that, then there would not be the debate that is currently taking up at least 5 threads on this front page of this sub-forum alone in various different guises. The trouble starts when they start trying to impose their personal religious beliefs upon everyone. Therefore, by ruling out any form of religious justification, and only allowing debate on non-religious premises for secular law, the problem is solved. If the case for X or Y is strong enough and agrees with the Bible or whatever holy book you want to name then it will pass the test of debate anyway.

I could start a religion tomorrow that has the tenet that the world is overcrowded in the extreme and God has spoken to me in a vision and amongst a bunch of other things told me that babies are not given souls until the moment they leave the birth canal and until further notice anyone within my new church who becomes pregnant MUST have an abortion to help bring the numbers down. If we are to use religious rules to dictate the secular law, then why is my claim to enforced abortions any less valid than the hardcore christian claim to banned abortions? We both have identical motives, evidence and logical structure to our disagreement.

[Symmetry]

You could try to start a religion like that, much as you could try to start a political movement banning anyone with religious belief from office. You won't, and if you did, you'd be unlikely to succeed.

Working out how to cooperate with people you disagree with is a better way of achieving political success.

[crispybits]

Define "succeed" in terms of religion? Is there a minimum number of followers I must have before I'm allowed to use religious claims to influence secular law?

Edit - also not banning people with religious belief, just banning those who try to enforce their religious beliefs onto everyone via secular law by using them as justification for changes in legislation.

[Symmetry]

Define "succeed" in terms of religion? Is there a minimum number of followers I must have before I'm allowed to use religious claims to influence secular law?

No there's no figure. A successful religion in this context, if I were to tentatively define one, would be one that gains followers.

[AndyDufresne]

You all can follow me if you want. I'm pretty cool.

Or, you can follow His Divine Holiness, Chewbacca, though I am not sure how many adherents there still are for this religion.


--Andy

[thegreekdog]

I don't see why abortion shouldn't become a political issue due to a significant amount of religious citizens being opposed to abortion on principle, if it's okay for gun control to become a political issue due to a significant amount of citizens being opposed to gun control on whatever principle they have.

Yeah. I'm on the opposite side of that. I think religion and government should be divided completely. If the reason one is pro-life is because of religion, and that person's solution is to have government activtiy, that bothers me.

An interesting ideal, but surely impossible. Religious faith affects morality.

Impossible to have thought control legislation yes, but not impossible to weed out of a reasoned argument:

Why do you oppose abortion?
Because the Bible/my preacher says foetuses have souls.
XXXBEEPXXX Invalid Argument

Why do you oppose abortion?
Because I think it's murder.
XXXDINGXXX Valid argument (so far, still plenty of time for follow-up questions and counter-arguments / cross examination)

Anyone standing up in a political arena and making any appeal to a religious basis for any legislation should be immediately and permanently barred from any public office imo. Either a case is good enough to stand up on objective, reasoned grounds, or it's not.

The logical nature of religious peoples' arguments stem from #2. They can say "I think abortion is murder" and then say "that's why I oppose abortion" without involving religion in the second part (just the first).

[thegreekdog]

I don't see why abortion shouldn't become a political issue due to a significant amount of religious citizens being opposed to abortion on principle, if it's okay for gun control to become a political issue due to a significant amount of citizens being opposed to gun control on whatever principle they have.

Yeah. I'm on the opposite side of that. I think religion and government should be divided completely. If the reason one is pro-life is because of religion, and that person's solution is to have government activtiy, that bothers me.

An interesting ideal, but surely impossible. Religious faith affects morality.

I don't disagree that it's difficult. I'm not sure it's impossible (at least right now when it comes to abortion).

[crispybits]

Define "succeed" in terms of religion? Is there a minimum number of followers I must have before I'm allowed to use religious claims to influence secular law?

No there's no figure. A successful religion in this context, if I were to tentatively define one, would be one that gains followers.

OK while I was at the pub tonight I was talking with a couple of atheist friends and described my miraculous experience and what my church stands for and they have converted - my first followers. I have followers now so I demand changes to secular law based on the tenets of my religion right?

[crispybits]

Impossible to have thought control legislation yes, but not impossible to weed out of a reasoned argument:

Why do you oppose abortion?
Because the Bible/my preacher says foetuses have souls.
XXXBEEPXXX Invalid Argument

Why do you oppose abortion?
Because I think it's murder.
XXXDINGXXX Valid argument (so far, still plenty of time for follow-up questions and counter-arguments / cross examination)

Anyone standing up in a political arena and making any appeal to a religious basis for any legislation should be immediately and permanently barred from any public office imo. Either a case is good enough to stand up on objective, reasoned grounds, or it's not.

The logical nature of religious peoples' arguments stem from #2. They can say "I think abortion is murder" and then say "that's why I oppose abortion" without involving religion in the second part (just the first).

That's why I said "plenty of time for follow-ups". So then we ask "what is murder" and we get something close to "the taking of a human life". So then we need to define what a human life is. There are early developmental stages where a single embryonic cluster (not sure of the correct scientific term for that) could still split into multiple feotuses. There could also easily be defects within that cluster that would mean that it will never reach term, and so to remove it from the womb would not in any way prevent it growing into a human being. With advanced enough scanning technology or DNA sampling there is no technical reason why we can't eventually scan earlier and earlier and for more and more information. But for now we have to draw a line in the sand somewhere. Where do we draw that line and why?

If all of these questions are answered by rationality and reason as best we know how then there's no problem because the debate will end up with our best understanding given our current knowledge. If someone has to go to a religious argument then they abandon any foundation to their argument and declare the equivalent of "I'm right you're wrong and nothing anyone can say will ever change my opinion" and worse, they prevent or attempt to prevent the debate being conducted with both honesty and integrity (because they have to sacrifice one or the other to make a baseless claim to knowledge).

[smegal69]

[mrswdk]

Why do all the pro-homo freaks rain down so hard on the Pope? Apart from anything else I'm pretty sure he recently said that men fondling other men is none of his concern.

[Symmetry]

Why do all the pro-homo freaks rain down so hard on the Pope? Apart from anything else I'm pretty sure he recently said that men fondling other men is none of his concern.

Huh?

[mrswdk]

He basically said that if someone wants to be gay then he doesn't give a shit.

[Symmetry]

Why do all the pro-homo freaks rain down so hard on the Pope?

Huh?

[mrswdk]

What aren't you getting here?

[Symmetry]

What aren't you getting here?

Why you said "Pro-homo freaks".

[mrswdk]

Some people insist on forcing their opinions on homosexuality down your throat whether you want to talk about it or not. The people who sit around cursing out the Pope for being a homophobe are just that type (and in this case they're incorrect anyway).

[Symmetry]

Some people insist on forcing their opinions on homosexuality down your throat whether you want to talk about it or not. The people who sit around cursing out the Pope for being a homophobe are just that type (and in this case they're incorrect anyway).

Huh? Who do you think forces homosexuality down your throat?

[mrswdk]

There are two acquaintances of mine who regularly force their unsolicited opinions on homosexuality into some of our conversations, looking for support for inane truisms such as 'discrimination is bad' and ranting about some statement that some random person made against homosexuality recently. It's really tiring.

[Symmetry]

There are two acquaintances of mine who regularly force their unsolicited opinions on homosexuality into some of our conversations, looking for support for inane truisms such as 'discrimination is bad' and ranting about some statement that some random person made against homosexuality recently. It's really tiring.

I can imagine. If you're the kind of person who says stuff like "pro-homo freaks", there are likely many frustrating encounters in your life.

[mrswdk]

All dogmatists are freaks.