The Washington Post has an interesting article in its archives: “What will future generations condemn us for?” The author, Kwame Anthony Appiah, notes that throughout history, societies have had moral blind spots:
Looking back at such horrors [such as slavery and lynching], it is easy to ask: What were people thinking? Yet, the chances are that our own descendants will ask the same question, with the same incomprehension, about some of our practices today. Is there a way to guess which ones?
Appiah offers a list of characteristics of past blind spots to help us spot our present ones:
First, people have already heard the arguments against the practice. The case against slavery didn’t emerge in a blinding moment of moral clarity, for instance; it had been around for centuries.
Second, defenders of the custom tend not to offer moral counterarguments but instead invoke tradition, human nature or necessity. (As in, “We’ve always had slaves, and how could we grow cotton without them?”)
And third, supporters engage in what one might call strategic ignorance, avoiding truths that might force them to face the evils in which they’re complicit.
These are interesting observations, and they seem to be true, but I think Appiah misses the key element of these past atrocities: they involved a denial of intrinsic human value in a particular group of human beings.
Why is it that Prohibition inspired so much fervor, only to die out, while our horror at slavery continues to grow? The answer is that unlike Prohibition, slavery was a crime against the dignity of a group of human beings. This is the factor that, oddly enough, explains both our current condemnation of slavery and its former acceptance. Because for some reason, crimes against human dignity seem to be at the same time the most atrocious offenses of a society (as recognized by future generations) and the offenses most difficult for the people of the time to spot.
Perhaps this is because people have much to gain from exploiting and/or disposing of others, but in order to do so, our intuition of intrinsic human value must be actively suppressed. (Or it could be our intuition extends only to people who look like us, and universal value must be either learned or reasoned to from knowledge of our own value.) Once a society convinces itself that one particular group of human beings is not as valuable as everyone else, not fully human for whatever reason, its conscience is freed to seek the gain it desires, so it has a powerful drive to justify itself. And unfortunately, as in the case of slavery, once the arguments separating one group of people from the rest of valuable humanity are commonly accepted, it’s very difficult for anyone to see past them.
So if we are trying to discover our blind spots, it seems to me we should be most suspicious of our culture ignoring arguments that human dignity is being violated in some way, particularly if listening to those arguments would inconvenience us.
By now you probably have a major moral blind spot in mind for our culture. See if it ends up in the list Appiah compiles using his criteria:
1. Our prison system
2. Industrial meat production
3. The institutionalized and isolated elderly
4. The environment
(Cross-posted at Stand to Reason)
January 4th, 2011 | 3:19 pm | #1
“By now you probably have a major moral blind spot in mind for our culture.”
1. Abortion.
2. Abortion.
3. Abortion.
4. Abortion.
5. Abortion.
….
January 4th, 2011 | 3:31 pm | #2
Yes, and I wanted to add abortion to TUAD’s list.
January 4th, 2011 | 3:35 pm | #3
Amy,
Amy said:
“So if we are trying to discover our blind spots, it seems to me we should be most suspicious of our culture ignoring arguments that human dignity is being violated in some way, particularly if listening to those arguments would inconvenience us.”
TUAD sums it up well. Abortion. I think your post was trying to lead us in this direction, no?
January 4th, 2011 | 3:40 pm | #4
To add further comment. I pray that future generations will condemn us for abortion if God doesn’t do it first. The stench in God’s nostrils must be overwhelming.
January 4th, 2011 | 3:44 pm | #5
I would definitely agree that all four are current moral blindspots, and also abortion. War itself, and terrorism, are moral blindspots, though I doubt society as a whole will ever realize it. Perhaps some people will at least realize that the possession of nuclear threats, with the implicit willingness to use them, is the greatest terrorist and abortion threat there is. There’s no greater terror than the ability and implicit willingness to turn a country into a radioactive wasteland. Abortion operates on two and [usually] kills only one; a two-way war is likewise [usually] 50% effective and 50% fatal.
Let’s not forget healthcare and the way many ignore the homeless. Or the way we buy Chinese-made items because we can get tube socks for $1.99 instead of $2.99.
Perhaps a good follow-up question: how, and to what extent, does the Holy Spirit play a role in bringing moral clarity where we would otherwise be blind?
January 4th, 2011 | 3:53 pm | #6
Gary said,
“Perhaps a good follow-up question: how, and to what extent, does the Holy Spirit play a role in bringing moral clarity where we would otherwise be blind?”
To alone as we yield to the Holy Spirit inscripturated Word of God, I would suggest.
January 4th, 2011 | 4:09 pm | #7
Other possibilities:
abuse of women’s dignity: lower wages for doing the same job just as well; sexual exploitation; discrimination in employment; exploitation by doctors — why get a radioactive mammogram yearly to check for breast cancer, when radioactivity can cause cancer?!
abuse of men’s dignity: men have no say in whether their unborn children live or die; men get less than half custody in divorce but must still pay half the child’s upkeep; the rape case motto of “a woman never lies” trumps the golden rule of “innocent until proven guilty; nobody seems bothered that men live 5 years less on average and commit suicide 4 times as frequently; lack of “prostate cancer awareness month”; discrimination in employment; public reacts with less horror when men suffer violence or rape
January 4th, 2011 | 4:14 pm | #8
Steve, yes, most definitely. The fact that he doesn’t come up with it is the perfect illustration for his own article, and a sad commentary on our society.
January 4th, 2011 | 4:14 pm | #9
Gary,
For “Prostate Cancer Awareness Month”, what color wristband should we wear?
All kidding aside, your comments on ‘war’ are troubling? is it your opinion that ‘all’ war is a moral blindspot?
January 4th, 2011 | 4:16 pm | #10
Amy,
Sad commentary indeed, thank you.
January 4th, 2011 | 5:09 pm | #11
Steve (#6): Well said.
I have no idea what color bracelet we should wear. And I don’t know what word to fill in for “I love ____” instead of “boobies.”
As for war, yes I would use that broad brush. Can you think of any war where both sides (assuming only two) are justified? I can’t. As a pacifist, I would go further than that, but I would think most people would agree that no war occurs where everyone fighting is justified (or gets what they fought and sacrificed soldiers and civilians for). You’ve got to admit, there’s nothing great about a method for getting what you want that only works for half of those who use the method. Those who get what they want do so at a high price, and those who don’t get what they want pay an even higher price for nothing in return.
January 4th, 2011 | 5:19 pm | #12
Gary,
Are you familiar with Augustine’s ‘just war’ concept, and do you agree or disagree? I’m not a pacifist (in terms of all war is morally wrong), and would disagree wholeheartedly with you that in war both sides, (or at minimum one side?) are not justified in engaging an enemy.
I suppose you take issue with God when He commanded the Israelites to war against the heathen nations?
January 4th, 2011 | 8:39 pm | #13
I’d really rather not have this topic hijack the thread, to be honest. I’m familiar with Augustine’s just war theory, and I disagree with him.
God’s free to do what He wants — He is God, after all. I would give exception for a genuinely theocratically endorsed war (theoretically). However, the war didn’t accomplish the cleansing of Canaan, as Judges testifies to. Joshua reminds me of the cursing of Canaan in Genesis 9. Speaking of which, that very cursing shows that God’s previous use of destruction, the flood, may have given the earth a temporary respite from human violence, but it did nothing to make peace between God and man. Violence was what corrupted the earth then, and it contributes to it even now.
In short: When God tried to cleanse the earth of the corruption, and the human violence which caused it, it didn’t cleanse the earth completely. Noah’s story seems great at first, but it ends with a shame only vaguely alluded to, which led to the cursing of Canaan. I don’t think we can speak of Deuteronomy-Joshua-Judges without at least relating it to Genesis 6-11.
God did not make peace with humanity through the cleansing of Canaan. Nor through the ancient flood. Only through the blood of Jesus. Now, there were plenty of people who claimed to be the Messiah and started their own Zionist groups to try and start the Kingdom of God — an earthly Kingdom under theocratic rule, the boundaries of which are Palestine/Canaan, and would eventually extend to the whole earth.
Every kingdom needs four things:
1. A king to rule.
2. A populace to be ruled.
3. A set of laws.
4. A domain or area of land.
Jesus, in speaking of the Kingdom of Heaven, refutes the notion that the Kingdom of God requires the fourth element. That is, there is no land under theocratic rule. Out of the seventy-something alleged messiahs we know of, Jesus is the only one who ever claimed to be Messiah and refused to extend His influence through violent means.
He got crucified just like everyone else who claimed to be Messiah, but unlike the rest of them, His following did not cease. It died with Him, yes, but when He rose from the grave, His following returned.
God accomplished the inbreaking of the Kingdom through the giving of life anew, taking away death’s sting. God did not accomplish the Kingdom by dealing death, but by defeating death itself. If death is a foe to be taunted (1 Cor. 15:55), then why should we use it to our own ends?
I’d ask that we end this side topic here for now, since it would lead to debate. I don’t mind debate, but I’d rather not at the moment. I just found out that the tumor removed along with my mother’s appendix is not cancerous. I want to spend time in joy and not debate for now.
Take care.
January 4th, 2011 | 10:57 pm | #14
Pacifism leads to tyranny. Allowing tyranny isn’t a very loving thing to do for one’s neighbors. It’s fine to volunteer your own life in martyrdom. It’s wicked to offer up the lives of others.
January 5th, 2011 | 12:59 am | #15
Ortho: interesting. Logically, then, martyrdom would only happen to isolated individuals, since any two potential martyrs would defend one another to the death. How silly that would look.
January 5th, 2011 | 1:19 am | #16
Your strawman doesn’t work. If you want to fight evil by letting people kill you, fine. If you want to fight evil by letting people kill your neighbors, then you are a moral failure and a coward. You would really rather let a child be raped by soldiers than fight for the child? You would really rather let dictators terrorize than fight back for those who cannot defend themselves?
January 5th, 2011 | 8:52 am | #17
Not wanting to hijack the thread, but re: #7 above, there is not a shred of reputable clinical evidence that diagnostic radiation exposure as occurs in screening mammography has increased anybody’s real risk of cancer. Far from representing an “abuse of women’s dignity,” mammography has been a valuable tool in combatting one of the more significant existing threats to women’s health and well-being.
January 5th, 2011 | 9:50 am | #18
Gary,
Gary said:
“I’m familiar with Augustine’s just war theory, and I disagree with him.”
Thank you. That’s all I needed to hear. Although I guess I might add that Aquinas also took this concept of Augustine and fleshed it out, so I guess I can deduce you disagree with Aquinas as well.
May we praise and thank the LORD God with you that your mother’s tumor was not cancerous.
January 5th, 2011 | 10:45 am | #19
Perhaps one blind spot is the doctrine of the primacy of the state.
To who and what do we owe loyalty?
Ourselves: let’s hear it for “self-actualization” :-)
Our families: as defined by the state; rather truncated compared to the traditional extended family; with isolation of the elderly as a result
God via churches (*): operating within limits specified by the state
Friends: not recognized by the state
Those we’ve contracted with: inforced by the state
The state.
It looks more and more like a binary world: me and the state.
Living in Madison may bias my sampling somewhat, but there seems to be a push to define everyone as either wards of the state or revenue streams for the state. I’m told we need lots of day care so mothers can be revenue streams too.
I think the result qualifies as destructive of human dignity.
(*)Or temples, synagogues, etc–the state doesn’t care. Just make sure your hospital is willing to perform abortions.
January 5th, 2011 | 1:02 pm | #20
Gary Simmons: “You’ve got to admit, there’s nothing great about a method for getting what you want that only works for half of those who use the method. Those who get what they want do so at a high price, and those who don’t get what they want pay an even higher price for nothing in return.”
Sounds like an argument against abortion, the war on unborn babies.
January 5th, 2011 | 4:32 pm | #21
Gary,
I am not a pacifist and so obviously disagree with your stand on war, especially just war, but no need to argue that here. Rather I want to ask what you could possibly mean by this:
“the possession of nuclear threats, with the implicit willingness to use them, is the greatest terrorist and abortion threat there is…”
Sorry but I simply can’t see this. The willingness to use violence (presumably in self defense) is a greater blindness in moral terms than the actual taking of human life (by both terrorists and abortionists)??
I have a gun in my home. I will announce to anyone who wants to know that I am willing to use it to defend myself and my family and you believe that is somehow worse than going out and actually killing one of my neighbors?
And then there’s the bit about the Chinese tube socks….
Sorry but I’m just not seeing the equivalence…
January 5th, 2011 | 4:37 pm | #22
I do also agree with Appiah’s number 3: the way we have come to treat the elderly. It is now routinely expected that the elderly will end their lives in institutions.
My son would agree with number 2, the way we raise animals for meat. (He eats meat; he just is against the way we raise it.) He thinks of this as a true humane Christian conservatism, a “compassionate conservatism,” to coin a phrase. :)
The first and fourth might also be correct.
However, the thrust of the article remains completely valid: Where are the life issues? Assisting people to kill themselves? Aborting the unborn? Encouraging multiple conceptions to have one baby?
And I would take issue with Appiah on another point: When people argue based on human nature, as in natural law arguments, that IS offering “a moral counterargument.”
January 5th, 2011 | 4:39 pm | #23
Come to think about it, perhaps the automatic dismissal of any argument with “religious” overtones is itself a blind spot we might, God willing, grow out of.
January 5th, 2011 | 4:47 pm | #24
btw — while we are on the subject of blind spots… what about the place of and care for the mentally disabled in our society? As the father of a mentally handicapped child I could cite chapter and verse ad nauseum about the way in which our society in general (and to its shame the Church in particular) has so very little time or place for my daughter….
and, related to the abortion question there is the deeply disturbing relationship between the rise of elective abortion and prenatal testing and the decline in numbers of children born with Downs syndrome (as one example).
These folks are the definition of “the least of these” and the degree of their marginalization in our culture tells us a whole lot about who and where we are…
January 5th, 2011 | 4:59 pm | #25
Pastor C,
No disrespect to Gary, but I think you can learn a lot of Gary’s views by visiting his blog. I can only pray that as Gary gets older in life, (and no disrespect for your youth, Gary) he will come to understand the true nature of evil, and the capacity for sinful mankind to harm, maim, abuse and disabuse those others of our human race in the most horrific ways possible.
January 5th, 2011 | 5:13 pm | #26
Happy New Year Steve, old friend. Hope you are well and in the fulness of Christ’s mercies and blessing. Thanks for the pointer to Gary’s blog.
I am reminded that early in my own walk I was a pacifist too. In fact I started to reconsider when my wife once said to me “you mean if someone broke in and threatened me an (as yet unborn) children you would not fight them? I said “no I would trust God to take care of us”. The look on her face, part fear, part pity, part anger got me thinking….
wives can do that sometime ;)
anyhow… pax christi vobiscum
January 5th, 2011 | 5:27 pm | #27
Pastor C.,
Thank you and blessings to you as well this new year of 2011. May your borders continue to be enlarged as you serve your co-laborers in Christ. We must meet sometime, pastor. Perhaps for some range practice?
January 5th, 2011 | 6:26 pm | #28
Does abortion really fit the meaning of “blind spot” as Appiah intends it, though? There is a large and vocal contingent making a lot of noise about how wrong it is. Those who support it do not a have a blind spot about it, they consciously choose to ignore or reject the moral arguments. This is different from the widespread attitude toward slavery prior to 1850, the way most of us (don’t) think about prison conditions or the treatment of the elderly, and other similar issues.
January 5th, 2011 | 10:20 pm | #29
TUaD: I had intended it to sound that way. The only difference being that the unborn do not choose. The outcome of that particular war is immediately obvious. :(
Steve Drake: I appreciate the respectful way you’ve handled this conversation. Thank you for that. I hold no illusion that people are generally benign or gentle. Authors that influenced me include Willimon and Hauerwas, plus Hays’ Moral Vision of the New Testament. None of them are based on naivete or the idea of managing to reconcile the world to God based on flowers-and-butterflies type promises.
David C: By that statement, I was referring to the damage caused by nuclear weapons. Specifically, against civilian targets. That threat is more terrifying than the threat of a car bomb because of its damage. Also, when used against civilian targets, it kills — you guessed it — civilians. Including pregnant mothers and their unborn children. Though it does not include the suffering found in an abortion procedure, a nuclear weapon on a civilian target will doubtless kill many unborn children. Sorry I wasn’t more clear before.
The break-in situation, quite honestly, scares the crap out of me. For the pacifist, it is a no-win situation. I’ll own up to that fact quite readily.
Pentamom: I’m unsure if abortion fits his set of characteristics. It depends on how you interpret his first one. Why does he just say “they’ve already heard the arguments against the practice?” He should go on to clarify if he means “but they simply don’t care,” or whatever. Willful ignorance seems to be the point of number four, though.
January 5th, 2011 | 10:24 pm | #30
Ken: I was unsure of that. Thanks for the info. What about the radiation of TSA screening procedures? Is that a silly scare too, or is there some legitimate concern?
January 5th, 2011 | 11:55 pm | #31
Abortion, at least from a widely shared evangelical perspective, is not obviously as morally problematic as the items on Appiah’s list. As I’ve heard it said, unless unborn human embryos deserve far worse than prenatal dismemberment, abortion is presumably in their interest. This is not to deny that abortion can’t be rightly criticized in other ways; it’s only to point out that, at least from a widely shared evangelical perspective, abortion greatly benefits those it most directly impacts.
The failure on the part of evangelicals to acknowledge this is, I suppose, another sign that they have been taken captive by the shortsighted values of the present age.
January 6th, 2011 | 2:23 am | #32
Steve Drake: Thank you again for the gracious interaction. My mother’s appendix burst some time ago and a week ago she went in to have her gall bladder removed. They noticed some gunk (mucin) on her insides from the ruptured appendix and removed the appendix (+tumor) along with the gall bladder. She still needs a round of tests to ensure that no parts of the tumor broke off when the appendix ruptured; it could lead to cancer. Not out of the woods yet. Would you please pray for Melinda Cantwell? I’d appreciate it.
DJ: No. I would not “rather” let anyone get raped or killed whatsoever. Like most pacifists, I have a self-defense and innocent-defense instinct just like everyone else. It’s not a matter of what I “want.” I list this as one of the desires that in good conscience I cannot always fulfill.
And, I do not see how this makes me a coward. My choice is not based on fear. And even if it were, so what? The fight instinct is natural, but so is the flight instinct. The experience of fear is not something to condemn someone for. Rather, having a weak enough will to be unfaithful to one’s duty because of fear is reproachable. The question is: what’s our duty?
…Could we please dispense with the straw man idea that pacifists have a pathology in which they do not have the self-defense instinct…? It’s like saying that Christians hate [premarital] sex because Christians don’t have a sex drive. Utterly ridiculous.
Besides, I was really drawing more of a point from protesting the use of nuclear weapons, rather than arguing for absolute pacifism. That’s one argument that won’t be resolved in this comment thread. Nonetheless, I throw the point around so I have plenty of evidence to opt for alternative service in case the draft is reinstated.
I will point out, however, that you show much concern for loving one’s neighbor but neglect any mention of loving one’s enemies. How do we remain faithful both to the command to love our neighbor and to love our enemy, if the two conflict? That is the central question. A self/innocent-defense response is inadequate because, if fatal, it sends a sinner to hell to save the life of a Christian who would be going to heaven. A nonviolent response is inadequate because it lets an innocent person die while a wicked person goes free.
In truth, both options seem inadequate here. But the reason I point it out as a moral blind spot is precisely because I see many people stress the duty of self/innocent-defense but make no mention of the conflicting duty of loving one’s enemy. This is a moral blind spot, because it neglects the human dignity of a group of persons.
Whether or not you choose to be a pacifist (and to which degree), you still have a moral blind spot until you wrestle with the question of loving one’s enemies also.
January 6th, 2011 | 3:30 am | #33
Certainly, one need not be a religious believer, of any sort, to recognize the blind spot, that is abortion.
Abortion can be shown to be immoral, by using secular arguments, alone. Some, courageous atheists, such as Nat Hentoff, have been Pro-life for many years, despite the ostricism, from some, who claim to be “tolerant”.
I think there are many blind spots: abortion, certainly, but also the treament of women and minorities, lack of economic oppurtunity, the lack of adequate health care, the cruel treatment of animals, just to name a few.
January 6th, 2011 | 3:47 am | #34
Gary Simmons is right to mention hell. From an evangelical perspective, abortion saves the unborn baby from the risk of eternal separation from God and eternal torment in hell (unless, of course, the unborn baby actually deserves hell, in which case it deserves far worse than prenatal dismemberment). If nothing in this earthly life is worth eternal separation from God, the missed experience of the earthly life is a small price to pay to avoid the risk of eternal torment in hell.
So, if evangelical pro-life activists think that they are acting on behalf of the unborn, they are either deluded or worse, believing perhaps that God hates human fetuses and that it is fitting that they should suffer eternal torments far worse than any abortion.
That’s not to say that abortion isn’t wrong for other reasons. It’s just to say that, from a widespread evangelical perspective, abortion isn’t at all bad for the unborn baby. So, from the evangelical perspective, the other things on Appiah’s list are far more grievous. Those immoralities actually have victims.
January 6th, 2011 | 9:24 am | #35
Gary,
What is your view of the ‘death-penalty’? Is this a moral blindspot?
January 6th, 2011 | 11:00 am | #36
JGY: Not necessarily. Simply put: there’s no salvation outside of Christ. Thus, an Evangelical perspective may be exactly as you describe, but it is not the only Evangelical perspective. Since there’s no particular provision in Scripture for salvation of the unborn, it’s an open question for some Evangelicals. Better to have someone be born and accept Christ than to leave it an open question. So, no; Evangelicalism does not necessarily consider a prenatal death advantageous for the child.
Steve Drake: Yeah, actually. I can rarely if ever see the death penalty as being an effective deterrent. While it does prevent first-time offenders from being repeat offenders, it does not do much in the way of preventing first-time offenders. Really, no penalty threat will coerce someone into not breaking the law if the person in question has convinced himself that he won’t get caught.
The death penalty in the Bible, a public stoning, is just that: a public stoning (which is usually though not always fatal). Part of the power behind the threat is that the entire community, not just a few people in uniforms, carry out the execution. Nor is it a small group of vigilantes doing a lynching, since it follows due process.
I don’t believe the Bible ever gives the hint that a private execution by a small segment of society, apart from the widespread repudiation of the offender, is an effective deterrent.
As for whether stoning was the norm, I doubt it given that the narrative of the Bible gives scant evidence of that penalty actually being exacted. It’s more of a maximum penalty. Law codes tend to give the minimum and/or maximum penalty without telling you what the penalty usually is. Non-Christians who criticize Leviticus’ death penalty tend to do so with no sensitivity to that quirk of the law code genre. Christians who point to that death penalty as precedent for the US death penalty likewise tend to neglect the differences between the two and tend to take it at face value and read the maximum penalty as if it’s the only penalty allowed.
If I may ask you a question in return: Do you think it’s possible to be a Christian executioner? Could you administer the lethal injection and then teach Sunday School with a clean conscience? To me, that would create moral dissonance, if I may coin a term.
January 6th, 2011 | 12:41 pm | #37
When I hear JGY and Gary Simmons debating Christian doctrine, I don’t really recognize any of it. Anyone else having that problem?
January 6th, 2011 | 1:11 pm | #38
I have heard JGY’s perspective on abortion from my own pastor – though not as his viewpoint. Whatever we may believe about the afterlife of the unborn, the Bible is clearly biased toward having children rather than destroying them. After all, the same argument JGY made about the spiritual results of abortion could be made about young born children. Send ‘em all to glory!
And not a few parents have tried to do this with their own young children. We call this insane.
January 6th, 2011 | 1:13 pm | #39
JGY,
What you are saying makes no sense. You have basically argued that life has no point.
January 6th, 2011 | 1:34 pm | #40
Gary said:
“If I may ask you a question in return: Do you think it’s possible to be a Christian executioner? Could you administer the lethal injection and then teach Sunday School with a clean conscience? To me, that would create moral dissonance, if I may coin a term.”
I guess the same question could be said, Gary, of an active Christian soldier in war who shoots to kill, and achieves his/her objective. Is this the moral dissonance you speak of?
January 6th, 2011 | 1:41 pm | #41
Craig said,
“When I hear JGY and Gary Simmons debating Christian doctrine, I don’t really recognize any of it. Anyone else having that problem?”
Quite confusing, yes. Have you visited Gary’s blog? I think, and to be fair to Gary, his views are clearly spelled out with his posts and videos there.
January 6th, 2011 | 2:03 pm | #42
I discussed the “abortion greatly benefits [the killed child]” argument with JGY at length in a conversation that started about halfway down this page, if anyone is interested in reading it.
Beyond the moral disgustingness (if you’ll forgive the made-up word) of it (and seriously, at some point you just have to call an idea what it is rather than debate it coolly as if it weren’t monstrous), the idea that we can increase the number of people in heaven by using a loophole to manipulate God (i.e., killing people before they have the chance to sin) is an insult to God Himself and has no place in our understanding of the true God as He has revealed Himself or of our relationship to Him.
January 6th, 2011 | 2:08 pm | #43
Amy Hall: “Beyond the moral disgustingness (if you’ll forgive the made-up word) of it (and seriously, at some point you just have to call an idea what it is rather than debate it coolly as if it weren’t monstrous)…
I agree. Sometimes, ya gotta label the position. And if the opponents don’t like how you labeled their position, so what.
“… , the idea that we can increase the number of people in heaven by using a loophole to manipulate God (i.e., killing people before they have the chance to sin) is an insult to God Himself and has no place in our understanding of the true God as He has revealed Himself or of our relationship to Him.”
Insults to God are blasphemy. JGY is blaspheming God. Not good.
January 6th, 2011 | 3:08 pm | #44
Gary,
You argument that “the death penalty does not deter” is confused in my view for this reason: it is very difficult to accurately measure the number of people who have been deterred from a particular action by the threat of punishment.
In other words; since only the undeterred are counted the question of deterrence must be addressed quite differently. Certainly the murderers themselves are deterred from murdering again (as you have pointed out).
Or to take another tack: Consider that you yourself favor arguments for abstinence education and against abortion. Presumably that would include laws promoting those points of view? How then do you respond to those who say “these laws/programs do no deter the behavior they are intended to deter and are therefore useless?”
As you have pointed out, laws clearly don’t deter the behavior of those who break them (though I think the reasoning may in case be more complex than “I’m not scared, I’m doing it anyway”)… but you are clearly not an antinomian/anarchist type. Rather what you are missing, I think, is an appreciation of the pedagogical function of the law. It is one of the ways in which a culture says “this is what we value and cherish”. That I believe is the ethos behind “life for life” in the Old Testament and in common law.
I am much more ambiguous about my support for the death penalty than I used to be because of the long delays and seeming inequities in the way it is applied. But I believe it is a Biblical and common grace ordinance which I can support because it is a way for our society to say “we hold life to be of such high value that when you take another’s life without sanction you put yours at risk of forfeit”.
And finally I must return to the earlier discussion about the question of nuclear weapons. I recognize of course that the two times they were actually used, a great many innocents died — including the unborn. But that seems to deliberately miss my point. You argue that the “threat” of nuclear weapons is as great as terrorism or abortion. That is quite simply nonsense on stilts. A “threat” does not actually kill anyone…Since their use nearly seventy years ago nuclear weapons have killed precisely zero people, while millions have died at the hands of abortionists, and tens of thousands to terrorists.
It gets back to the question of deterrence which seems to be so bedeviling to your argument. Who is to say that the threat of nuclear deterrence has actually prevented a great deal more death and destruction than if they were removed from the table? Certainly the one time they were actually used, they had the intended effect…
January 6th, 2011 | 3:12 pm | #45
Sorry my last sentence should read: “Who is to say that the threat of nuclear ~weapons~ has ~not~ actually prevented a great deal more death and destruction than if hey were removed from the table? Certainly the one time they were actually used, they had the intended effect…
January 6th, 2011 | 3:44 pm | #46
Pastor C said,
“…and tens of thousands to terrorists.”
And if you consider Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, and others that have reigned ‘terror’ on their own people’, then it’s in the millions as well.
Blessings.
January 6th, 2011 | 5:08 pm | #47
Liberal Hysteria reveals its moral blind spots:
“The Christian-based Centre for Youth Excellence in Winnipeg’s downtown area, along with St. Margaret’s Anglican Church and nearby Tall Grass Bakery, were plastered with pro-abortion and anti-Christian posters during the Christmas season.
The posters, which appear to depict Mary on a donkey being led by Joseph to a building with the words “Women’s Health Care Services” on the outside, state: “We wish you a pro-choice because God raped Mary Christmas” and are signed “Youth Against Christ.””
From Here.
January 6th, 2011 | 7:05 pm | #48
I notice that the discussion Amy links us to presents the reasoning in detail. This line of reasoning (or at least something close to it) strikes me as valid. So what premise do evangelicals reject? The responses to this argument in that thread and here (including Amy’s) rest on confusion–since the the argument nowhere entails that abortion is something that we should perform or promote (just as I’ve emphasized above).
(1) Unborn babies do not deserve far worse than bodily dismemberment.
(2) God does not condemn people to worse than they deserve.
(3) Hell is worse than bodily dismemberment.
(4) Therefore, God does not condemn unborn babies to hell.
(5) Hundreds of millions of unborn babies have been aborted.
(6) Had they not been aborted, some of these would have survived to adulthood.
(7) It is not the case that each of these survivors would have come to faith in Christ (it is unreasonable to think otherwise).
(8) Adults who do not come to faith in Christ are condemned to hell.
(9) Therefore, if some had not been aborted, they’d have gone to hell.
(10) Therefore, abortion has saved some from hell.
(11) We can correspondingly conclude that abortion saves an unborn baby from the risk of hell.
(12) Hell involves eternal suffering and separation from God.
(13) There is nothing in the earthly life for which it is worth risking eternal separation from God.
(14) Therefore, abortion is in the unborn baby’s interest.
January 6th, 2011 | 7:35 pm | #49
Evangelicals reject incomplete or distorted argumentation, as any thinking person should do. Otherwise you could prove anything:
1. War leads to treaties.
2. Treaties are good.
3. Therefore war is good.
Obviously that’s missing important premises.
In the case of your argument here, you are calling on theistic beliefs in all items but numbers 1 and 5. This provides the illusion that you are arguing a kind of theistic case. It’s a feint in the direction of theism, but only a feint, for it veers away from the real thing by excluding a major theistic premise, that God is a God of life and justice who has specifically prohibited the murder of innocents. Nobody here, Christian or otherwise, believes in the kind of god implied in your argument, so I don’t know why it would be of much interest to debate the implications of such a god.
Try inserting You shall not commit murder into your multi-step syllogism, and then see whether it still leads to a conclusion in favor of abortion.
January 6th, 2011 | 7:36 pm | #50
What JGY writes and the conclsion (s)he reaches (#14) is utter nonesense.
What we know and all we know is this. God knew before the world was formed what babies would not be born and the reason they would not be born. He had a plan for this that is in keeping with his mercy and justice.
January 6th, 2011 | 7:40 pm | #51
BTW, I’m having shoulder surgery early tomorrow morning so I won’t be much involved in further discussion here for a while. Hope you all have a good conversation. I’d appreciate your prayers!
January 6th, 2011 | 7:43 pm | #52
Oh, yes, we also know that abortion is murder. People who commit murder or are party to a murder have committed a terrible sin and crime that will live with them at least the rest of their lives. For some, even longer.
January 6th, 2011 | 8:12 pm | #53
Tom Gilson gets confused in the same way: he mistakenly assumes that the 14-step argument in any way precludes the ideas that “God is the God of life” or that God “prohibited the murder of innocent”! For all that the argument says, abortion is still morally wrong. But, just as not every instance of wrongdoing is harmful for unborn babies, neither is abortion–at least according to premises widespread in evangelical circles. So, while Mr. Gilson doesn’t like the conclusion, notice that he hasn’t found any valid way to resist it.
To resist the argument, evangelicals need to either deny one of the premises as false, or to explain why one of the inferences is fallacious. It’s not an argument to simply say that you don’t like the conclusion. It’s also not an argument to say that abortion is wrong–since the argument itself doesn’t deny that or require it to be otherwise!
January 6th, 2011 | 9:02 pm | #54
The “argument” that JGY proposes is not an argument at all. It’s a childish parlor game. The idea that is actually tells us anything about God, His will, intentions, how he deals with the unborn, their final disposition or anything else is absurd.
Just for starters, the entire enterprise rests on the faulty premise that if aborted childern wern’t aborted they might or might not come to faith in Christ. However, the reality is, as I mentioned before, that God has known what babies will not be born from before the earth was formed. That is the reality of their lives. Projecting their lives past their death is projecting a fantasy on a reality. It is utterly meaningless as is his “argument”.
January 6th, 2011 | 9:20 pm | #55
One last comment: No, JGY, evangelicals can resist the argument simply by showing that it rests on incomplete premises. My “war is good” argument has true premises and a valid deduction provided that there are no other relevant factors to consider, which of course is not the case. Your “argument,” such as it is, is false in the same way. Even if all of your premises were true and the deductions were all valid, the conclusion would not be sound, because your premises are incomplete.
It’s not that I don’t like the conclusion. It is that you have argued a case that pretends to be theistic, but is not a form of theism anyone believes in. Suppose I granted all your premises and all the conclusions that flowed from them. Even then the best I could say would be that it’s an interesting academic exercise, but it has nothing to do with anything. Nobody believes in the kind of God you have postulated, so there’s no reason to think there’s anything very important or interesting about the conclusions you draw from your postulates. I hope you enjoyed setting it up as kind of a mental logic game; that’s all the value it seems to have.
January 6th, 2011 | 9:40 pm | #56
Tom, you are confused. There are two ways to resist the argument. The first is to show that one of the premises is false. You apparently cannot do this. The second way is to show that one of the inferences (the moves between the steps) is invalid. However, to show that an inference is invalid, it does not suffice to show that there exists some other truth. Rather, you must show why this other truth has bearing on the validity of the inference.
Consider your own fallacious argument that war is good. The truth that has bearing on the validity of your argument is this: not all things that lead to good things are themselves good. Because this statement is true, your conclusion is not secured by your premises.
This is how argumentation works. To repeat: it’s not enough to point out that God prohibits the murder of the innocent. It’s not even enough to point out that abortion is the murder of the innocent. You must show why such statements have bearing on the validity of the 14-step argument–an argument, by the way, that doesn’t deny any of these things! Again, that’s just how argumentation works.
January 7th, 2011 | 5:33 am | #57
JGY:
I may be getting ready to go out the door for surgery, but I am not confused. Don’t lose sight of the fact that I was not trying to prove that your conclusion is wrong, but rather that it is totally irrelevant to the world in which we live or to the theism you were ostensibly seeking to challenge.
January 7th, 2011 | 10:11 am | #58
But, Tom, if you are not denying the conclusion, then apparently you cannot deny that abortion is in the unborn baby’s interest. Are you simply saying that this fact is “true, but irrelevant”?
Do you think that it is irrelevant that many pro-lifers are then delusional in imagining that they are working on behalf of the unborn when they oppose abortion?
January 7th, 2011 | 12:09 pm | #59
JGy’s argumentation is getting tedious. His logic is twisted and distorted. Professing to be wise, he has become a fool. Does he claim to be a Christian and evangelical? It sounds like he certainly understands Christian doctrine, but maybe only to thus better reject it perhaps. If JGY does proclaim to be a Christian evangelical then maybe he can point to Christian Scripture to back up his claims?
January 7th, 2011 | 12:37 pm | #60
Attention everyone: I have a new plan for getting people to Heaven. Kill them.
January 7th, 2011 | 1:32 pm | #61
Aborting mother to unborn baby in her womb:
“I’m doing this for your own eternal good.”
——–
What if JGY’s mother aborted JGY with that justifying mindset? It’s for aborted JGY’s eternal good!
January 7th, 2011 | 1:38 pm | #62
Steve,
I don’t believe JGY is an evangelical, nor perhaps even a Christian. He is playing the provocateur and seeking to torment whomever rises to the (smelly by now) bait. His argumentation smacks of the village atheist’s “If God is omnipotent he could make a rock so large He couldn’t lift it…” sort.
Reminds me of the old saw that the internet is “proof definitive that a million monkeys with a million keyboards could never, ever, produce a Shakespeare…”
January 7th, 2011 | 1:45 pm | #63
In 2009, there were 225,667 pregnancies in the City with 126,774 resulting in live births and 87,273 resulting in abortions. In addition to those abortion numbers, there were 11,620 spontaneous terminations.
Forty-six percent of all births in the Bronx result in abortions—the highest among the five boroughs, according to the report.
Blacks had the highest number of abortions with 40,798 with Hispanics having the second highest at 28,364, according to the report.
In response, the Chiaroscuro Foundation, a non-profit organization that supports alternatives to abortion, pledged that it will spend $1 million in 2011 to address the City’s abortion rate—nearly double the national average of 23 percent.
“Like it or not, the legality of abortion is a settled question in New York for the time being,” said Greg Pfundstein, executive director of the Chiaroscuro Foundation. “That doesn’t mean we have to accept the fact that in parts of the city nearly half of all pregnancies end in abortion.”
Excerpted From Here.
January 7th, 2011 | 1:47 pm | #64
“He is playing the provocateur and seeking to torment whomever rises to the (smelly by now) bait.”
Sounds like a troll.
January 7th, 2011 | 2:05 pm | #65
TUAD,
Apt analogy. Your prodigious production of statistics, of which I know not where, speaks volumes. Keep it up! I read the article this morning that almost half of NYC pregnancies end in abortion. Quite staggering.
Pastor C.,
Yes, ‘though they knew (know) God, they did not honor Him as God, or give thanks; but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened…exchanging the truth of God for a lie, and worshiping and serving the creature rather than the Creator’ (Rom. 1:21,25). Thanks for confirming my suspicions, dear friend.
January 7th, 2011 | 2:08 pm | #66
(1) Christians who are murdered do not deserve far worse than being murdered.
(2) God does not condemn people to worse than they deserve.
(3) Hell is worse than being murdered.
(4) Therefore, God does not condemn Christians who are murdered to hell.
(5) Many Christians have been murdered.
(6) Had they not been murdered, some of these may have fallen away from Christ.
(7) It is not the case that each of these Christians would have remained faithful to Christ (it is unreasonable to think otherwise).
(8) Adults who fall away from faith in Christ are condemned to hell.
(9) Therefore, if some had not been murdered, they’d have gone to hell.
(10) Therefore, being murdered has saved some from hell.
(11) We can correspondingly conclude that being murdered saves Christians from the risk of hell.
(12) Hell involves eternal suffering and separation from God.
(13) There is nothing in the earthly life for which it is worth risking eternal separation from God.
(14) Therefore, being murdered is in the Christian’s interest.
Seems silly, doesn’t it?
January 7th, 2011 | 2:12 pm | #67
One of the wrongful premises on JGY’s part is # 13:
“(13) There is nothing in the earthly life for which it is worth risking eternal separation from God.”
Certainly there is. In this earthly life, which is a gift from God, one has the chance to come to know Him. It seems to me to be the point of earthly life. Knowing God, the human soul can flourish as souls are intended to do.
What occurs to the soul of an unborn child after death, is unknown. Does it continue to develop? Does it come to know God? But at least we know that coming to know God is possible is THIS life, if one’s life is not destroyed.
Christians are pro-LIFE–not merely pro-Heaven.
January 7th, 2011 | 2:41 pm | #68
This ought not be so easy after the morning I’ve just had…
JGY, I’m not denying the conclusion, but it’s not not because I cannot. It’s for the reasons I’ve already stated. Your conclusion is only valid and/or relevant under a form of theism that no one believes exists. You’re proving an irrelevant point, if any at all. I’m not denying just because it’s not worth it. This is not an alternate-universe blog.
January 7th, 2011 | 2:51 pm | #69
Craig,
You make a point which I often think many including some well meaning Christians overlook. Following Christ is not merely a ticket to eternal glory after some indeterminate time in a vale of tears. Rather the invitation is to “life abundant” in which the joys of this world partake of some of the sweetness of the joys and consolations of the world to come.
Steve,
To be honest I have been regretting having been so categorical in judging another person’s faith. I should have said something more along the lines of: “From the logic chopping form of his argument I don’t believe JGY has learned to think Christianly, nor Biblically, his arguments smack of the village atheist…” though “futile speculation” still certainly fits the bill.
January 7th, 2011 | 2:51 pm | #70
Welcome back Tom.
I trust and pray that your surgery went well and that your shoulder recovers quickly and fully.
January 7th, 2011 | 3:27 pm | #71
Pastor C.,
Correction accepted. I too, am hesitant, until able to hear directly from JGY himself (forgive me JGY if you are of the fairer gender). Thus, my questions in #59 above.
January 7th, 2011 | 5:49 pm | #72
Most of the objections to the 14-step argument tend to fall into one of two groups: they either object to something that is neither assumed, implied nor asserted by the argument in question; or they simply assert that there various problems with the argument without really specifying what these problems are.
Of these objections I will only say this: the reason why the steps of the 14-step argument are numbered is so that you can reference that precise part of the actual argument you find problematic. If you can’t point to the precise step or inference where you believe the argument goes wrong, then you either do not know how to articulate your objection in response to the actual argument; or, what you are objecting to, is not actually the argument, but to some mistaken assumption of yours about what the argument assumes, implies, or asserts. In either case, it is a type of confusion.
In the next comment, I’ll discuss the objections that remain.
January 7th, 2011 | 6:14 pm | #73
It is difficult to find responses that aren’t guilty of the problems I mentioned in #72. But consider Craig Payne’s comments (#66 and #67). In #66 Payne proposes that an analogous argument could be used to demonstrate that “being murdered is in the Christian’s interest.” I can see how someone might think that this is plausible. Suppose that it is possible for a Christian to lose her faith in Christ, upon which her salvation from eternal separation from God and torment in hell depends. Suppose that a Christian has terminal case of pancreatic cancer. After 10 extremely painful and lonely days in the hospital bed, she dies. Suppose, however, that just before she dies, she denounces her faith in Christ on the 9th day, thereby ensuring that the pain of her pancreatic cancer is but a foretaste of the torment in hell that she now must suffer for the rest of eternity. If she had died one day earlier (perhaps by murder), she would have died as a Christian, thereby avoiding eternal torment in hell.
Here’s the question: would it have been in this person’s interest for someone to have shot her in the head on the eighth day? I can at least appreciate why some might say, “plausibly so.”
Now there are of course important differences between this case an the abortion case. One big difference is this: whereas we do not know who is and who is not a true Christian (with saving faith in Christ), we do know who is and who is not an unborn baby.
January 7th, 2011 | 6:21 pm | #74
“Now there are of course important differences between this case and the abortion case.”
Dear JGY: The most important difference was not addressed in your post. Your original argument made the case that Christians theoretically should be in favor of ALL babies being aborted, to ensure their presence in heaven in some way. I pointed out the analogy that, if you are correct, Christians should also be in favor of ALL Christians being murdered while in a state of grace–not just the special cases you describe in Post 73.
I also think your original Premise 13 is incorrect, as was stated previously.
I will say, however, that your post made me think for a while. It was ingenious. But I also agree with Tom Gilson: the reason everyone thought it was wrong is that it does not seem to have any contact with the reality of the Christian life. In other words, no real Christians would agree with your description of how Christians should think.
January 7th, 2011 | 7:05 pm | #75
Craig Payne,
You’re too quick for me. I haven’t had a chance to respond to your #67. But, now, let me respond to both #67 and #74.
The original argument (#48) does not obviously depend on the assumption that all aborted unborn babies go to heaven. It rather depends on the claim (for which it gives some argument) that God does not condemn unborn babies to hell. The wording of step 12 could easily be changed to “there is nothing in the earthly life for which it is worth risking eternal torment in hell.”
If the argument is given purely in terms of hell, one might object that aborted babies miss the chance of going to heaven. But that would itself depend on the assumption that aborted babies cannot go to heaven. And that, at least for most Christians, is dubious at best.
Happily, however, you are more tactful in your #67 response. You deny (with certainty, in fact) step #12. That is, you positively affirm that a chance to live in this fallen world is worth the risk of eternal separation from God and eternal torment in hell (or, alternatively, it’s at least worth the risk of eternal torment in hell). What is it about this earthly life that is “certainly” worth such a risk? Here’s your answer: “one has the chance to come to know [God].”
But your answer here still assumes that aborted babies cannot have the chance to know God. Most Christians, I think, are not going to share your certainty about that.
So perhaps you want to say that unborn babies do not have the chance to know God in this earthly life. That’s plausible. But is that worth the risk of eternal torment in hell? Why? Are you really so certain? What do you make of the scriptural attitudes towards this earthly life that we find in the New Testament?
In #74, you claim that “no real Christians would agree with your description of how Christians should think.” I agree that evangelical Christians have a very difficult time conceding the argument’s conclusion. But that, as I say, has a lot to do with the pro-life agenda that they’ve all been sold. As much as anything else, that may simply be a cultural/political phenomenon. It’s not as if evangelical Christians have a good reason for rejecting the argument’s conclusion. Or, if they have a good reason for rejecting the argument, I certainly have not seen one. As witnessed by this very thread, however, folks do tend to quickly generate a lot of fallacious reasons for rejecting the argument–and this may itself be evidence that Christians have some some sort of psychological obstacles to get past. The point is simply this: even if no Christians will in fact concede the arguments conclusion, it’s evidently not because of sound reasoning, fidelity to the Bible, or anything essential to the Christian faith.
January 8th, 2011 | 12:01 am | #76
So, back on the topic of moral blind spots, what about no-fault divorce? I wonder why that one doesn’t come to mind more often.
Sadly, I have my doubts that the culture at large will ever wise up about that particular one. I agree with the poll on Kwame’s article that the environment is one that will very likely be a big deal to future generations. My main reason for thinking they’ll see that point more clearly than others we’ve raised thus far: it doesn’t involve intrinsic human value.
January 8th, 2011 | 7:58 am | #77
Gary,
Wouldn’t you say that the “environment” is already a “big deal” to the secular left? Concerns for the environment function much like a religion for these folk. You have a deity (Gaia the planet), you have a fall (the presence of human beings — most particularly white men of the West) you have a moral ethic — (drive a prius, recycle, go green! blah blah blah) and even an apocalypse (global warming).
Pretty hard to call all of the green talk/hysteria these days (whatever its actual value) “a blind spot on the environment”…. only somebody with a really distorted sense of perspective would say that we don’t talk about or consider the environment enough. The more I read the list the more I really think it means “stuff Kwame doesn’t like that he thinks everyone else shouldn’t like just as much…”
January 8th, 2011 | 9:04 am | #78
JGY,
The chief difficulty with the case you keep pressing is this: you are wrong. I stated that quite baldly, I recognize, but on these two related claims you are just factually in error, and you continue to be in spite of corrections we have put forth:
And this:
To hold that there are only two ways to resist an argument like this is to be very naive or unaware.
I have not read Craig’s responses in detail, but in my own responses I have shown that your argument can be overthrown on at least two counts: it excludes relevant information, and it bears no relation to the theism you are claiming it connects to.
I’m not going to re-argue those points again. There ought not be any need to do so, for they are not at the least bit complicated.. I’m just going to let you review them one more time.
January 8th, 2011 | 12:36 pm | #79
Dear JGY (responding to Post 75): I will stick by my answer. There is nothing in revelation or reason which tells us specifically what happens to the souls of the unborn. Do they develop? Do they become mature? Do they attain consciousness? I don’t know. I believe God has a good plan for them, by faith in God’s goodness.
However, I do know the value of this life in both Jewish (Maimonides) and Christian (Aquinas) thinking: “The aim of human life is understanding.” In context, this is referring to the knowledge of God, but also more broadly to the understanding of existence which comes with spiritual maturity. This knowledge of God would bring one to Heaven, but arrival in Heaven goes along with the primary aim, not the other way around. Those aborted, therefore (AS FAR AS WE KNOW, which I grant is not very far), are cut off from the primary aim of human life (wisdom, understanding, the knowledge which has as its highest exemplification the knowledge of God).
So I would still reject your original Premise 13: “There is nothing in the earthly life for which it is worth risking eternal separation from God.” Life itself is intrinsically valuable and worth defending, and the possibility of coming to know God, of reaching understanding, is of highest value.
One more technical point: Rejecting premises and / or conclusions are not the only two ways to reject an argument. One can also reject the definitions of terms, or claim that terms are inaccurately or insufficiently defined. I think that is what Tom Gilson is doing.
January 8th, 2011 | 5:41 pm | #80
Can’t leave Abortion off the list.
January 9th, 2011 | 2:00 am | #81
Tom,
In again neglecting to address the actual argument, you are requiring me to engage again in remedial instruction.
An argument such as the one provided in #48 claims to deduce the conclusion from its premises. That is, it makes a claim to validity. A deductive argument is valid if and only if the truth of its premises guarantees the truth of its conclusion. That is, for a valid deductive argument, it isn’t possible for all of its premises to be true and its conclusion to be false.
Now, you want to reject the argument’s conclusion. However, the argument is making a claim to validity. So, unless you challenge either that claim, or the truth of one of its premises, then you simply haven’t addressed the argument. Since you’ve failed to show either where the argument is invalid, or which of its premises is false, you’ve failed to address the claim of the argument.
January 9th, 2011 | 2:35 am | #82
Craig Payne.
But notice that the argument only relies on the claim that God doesn’t condemn unborn babies to hell. Are you questioning that? If so, then which one of the premises 1-3 do you reject?
No one is denying that the earthly life has value. No one is denying the “intrinsic value” of life. The argument is simply denying that the value of the earthly life is worth the very real risk eternal separation from God and eternal torment in hell. Consider the various ways in which the N.T. authors described their own attitudes towards the earthly life. They loved not this life. They longed to be out of here. Of the value that they did place on this earthly life, they spoke of it in terms of instrumental reasons. As we read the N.T. we realize that the perspective of eternity should significantly alter the sort of regard we have to the earthly life. You get the sense that the N.T. authors aren’t really attached to their earthly lives.
And consider the matter for yourself. Imagine (counterfactually, of course) that God is going to turn back the clock on you. One of two things is going to happen to you: you will either be born to an atheist liberal bisexual mother in Brooklyn (with the entirely foreseeable likelihood that you will be raised outside the church, and that you will not become a Christian), or you will be aborted by that same woman. You know that God will not condemn you to hell if you are aborted, but you know that there is a good chance that you will end up being condemned to hell for all of eternity if you are born to the atheist NY liberal. Which of these two possibilities do you hope for (knowing nothing else about eventual outcomes)? If you were entirely self-interested, would you hope to be born to the atheistic New Yorker at the very real risk of ending up in hell to be tormented for all of eternity?
Last point. If Mr. Gilson is confused as to the meaning of any of my terms, he should state that clearly. He can ask if he doesn’t understand something. That’s obviously not what he’s been trying to do.
January 9th, 2011 | 7:35 am | #83
JGY, you missed the challenge I made, and also the entire attending argument. Remedial education is not required. Thank you for the offer regardless.
January 9th, 2011 | 7:46 am | #84
JGY,
Here’s the real problem. I have not been claiming of late that your argument was not valid (I’ve left that up to Craig). I have been saying it was without relation to any theism that anyone believes in. Now, if your argument’s premises are all true yet incomplete in a way that materially affects the argument, the truth of your conclusion is not guaranteed, and I did point that out.
But you have postulated a god different from the God that anyone here believes in—a god for whom the decision on murdering babies is left up to us in the way you have proposed—and your conclusions about such a god are therefore irrelevant and either misleading or trivial, depending on how one looks at it.
I think I’ve repeated that often enough, so I will bid you a good day now.
January 9th, 2011 | 9:55 am | #85
Dear JGY: You wrote, “And consider the matter for yourself. Imagine (counterfactually, of course) that God is going to turn back the clock on you. One of two things is going to happen to you: you will either be born to an atheist liberal bisexual mother in Brooklyn (with the entirely foreseeable likelihood that you will be raised outside the church, and that you will not become a Christian), or you will be aborted by that same woman. You know that God will not condemn you to hell if you are aborted, but you know that there is a good chance that you will end up being condemned to hell for all of eternity if you are born to the atheist NY liberal. Which of these two possibilities do you hope for (knowing nothing else about eventual outcomes)? If you were entirely self-interested, would you hope to be born to the atheistic New Yorker at the very real risk of ending up in hell to be tormented for all of eternity?”
My answer: Of course I would choose life. God’s goodness is available to all, and the gift of life itself is an intrinsic good.
Best regards, cp.
January 9th, 2011 | 10:00 am | #86
I had trouble finding a good argument in JGY’s comments in this thread.
So here’s a question for other readers: what is the most substantive argument, if any, offered by JGY that you found compelling and persuasive? Can you spell out that argument?
January 9th, 2011 | 5:24 pm | #87
TUaD: None. Plain and simple: God doesn’t allow loopholes.
Killing one’s own young is detestable. That should be common sense. “Do not test the Lord your God.”
January 9th, 2011 | 5:26 pm | #88
Dear TUAD: Basically JGY was arguing that:
–since aborted zygotes, embryos, etc., will be with God eternally, and:
–since, if left to live, some of them would end up not with God eternally:
–then it is in the interests of the unborn to be aborted, so as to avoid the risk of eternal separation from God.
–Further, therefore, Christians should not campaign against abortion, since abortion works (ultimately, eternally) in the best interests of the unborn who is aborted.
That’s the basic argument as I see it.
January 9th, 2011 | 5:31 pm | #89
However, of course I agree with Post 87.
January 9th, 2011 | 5:37 pm | #90
JGY’s argument, by the way, which I’ve already mentioned, would also work for the murder of professing Christians and of babies (haven’t mentioned babies yet).
January 9th, 2011 | 5:40 pm | #91
Oops: Post 38 did mention babies.
January 9th, 2011 | 6:09 pm | #92
And TUAD’s request was specifically for something compelling or substantive in JGY’s argument.
January 9th, 2011 | 6:11 pm | #93
Alright, there are a lot of confusions here. Tom Gilson, TUAD, and Gary Simmons all continue to commit the same fallacy: confusing a claim about what is in someone’s interest with a claim about what is morally permissible, right, choice worthy, permitted by God, etc. The argument in #48 only makes a claim about what is in the unborn baby’s interest. Therefore all of the objections that argue that abortion is impermissible, sinful, etc. entirely fail to engage with the actual argument–since the argument neither assumes, implies nor asserts anything to the contrary.
Craig Payne is more careful on this point, but even he mistakenly interprets the argument as concluding that “Christians should not campaign against abortion.” Even if abortion is in the interest of the unborn baby, it may still be morally wrong or sinful for a variety of reasons. Campaigning against abortion may still be appropriate in the name of piety, etc. It’d just be delusional to campaign against abortion under the belief that you are acting on behalf of the unborn child.
Tom Gilson continues to be seriously confused about the nature of argumentation. He apparently doesn’t understand the notion of validity, as commonly used in discussions of deductive argumentation. At this point I can only hope that he will pick up an introductory textbook on the subject, or even to do a little internet research.
January 9th, 2011 | 6:43 pm | #94
JGY, thank you again for your solicitousness regarding my education, but please see #84.
January 9th, 2011 | 10:49 pm | #95
Craig: Glad you agree with post 87. I’d rather you agree with the person behind it, though.
JGY: Have you ever heard of “pragmatics” as a subset of linguistics? It’s the study of the inferred why in the act of communication. When someone claims that a certain thing is in someone’s better interest, generally, the pragmatic meaning is to argue that that particular thing should be done.
Once, when I was young, I was asked to take my feet off of the table. I proceeded to remove my shoes, place them on the table, then keep my feet on the floor. Technically, I obeyed, but I clearly defied the pragmatic intent of the request.
It is actually fair to assume that someone arguing that a certain action is beneficial or preferable is doing so in order to condone or advise that behavior. This is reasonable because, hey, if it’s beneficial, shouldn’t you do it? Duh.
Even without a conscious grasp of pragmatics, you should know that your words would naturally lead someone to believe your intent was to argue that such a thing should be done. Unless, of course, you are a horrible person who believes in not doing supposedly beneficial things.
Or you’re a troll. Either way, I’m through with this thread. Have fun, folks.
January 9th, 2011 | 11:22 pm | #96
Gary Simmons: Oops, sorry. I was writing in shorthand, I guess.
January 9th, 2011 | 11:33 pm | #97
Gary Simmons, what you are saying is absurd. Even if there might have been some pragmatics-based implication (or implicature) it would have been defeated from its very inception, since from the very beginning I bent over backwards to emphasize that the argument does not mean that abortion is not morally criticizable, wrong, sinful, etc. I emphasize this in almost every comment I make in this thread, starting with the first: it’s in comments 31, 34, 48, 53, 56, 58, and 93!
This is more confirmation of what I’ve been suspecting all along: namely, those who have been criticizing the argument simply haven’t actually been carefully reading it. Yet another reason why folks are failing to address the actual argument. Shame on you.
January 10th, 2011 | 6:10 am | #98
Interesting what’s considered shameful here and what isn’t.
January 10th, 2011 | 8:35 am | #99
Dear JGY: I went back and read Post 34. My apologies for overlooking that.
However, I think there is still an implicit argument under what you have been writing. If, as you say, saving the unborn from the possibility of hell is a paramount consideration (Premise 13 in your original argument), then what are the “other reasons” one might consider abortion to be wrong? Would not the paramount consideration take precedence over all others? It certainly seems that this is the general tenor of what you have been arguing.
So I do think lurking back behind your argument is the idea that Christians should support abortion, in order to maintain their logical consistency. If you actually do not think this, again, my apologies.
January 10th, 2011 | 2:19 pm | #100
“(1) Unborn babies do not deserve far worse than bodily dismemberment.
(2) God does not condemn people to worse than they deserve.
(3) Hell is worse than bodily dismemberment.
(4) Therefore, God does not condemn unborn babies to hell.”
#4. We do not know (with a high level of confidence) what happens to the souls of unborn babies who are aborted or have miscarriages or whatever. #4 is a mistaken statement that cannot be concluded and stated with such categorical assurance.
What can be stated with a high level of confidence and categorical assurance is that God is Good and that God is Just.
We also have His Commandment to not murder. And abortion is murder.
JGY, why are you so intent on being so morally unwise?
January 10th, 2011 | 3:09 pm | #101
TUAD,
Bingo!
January 11th, 2011 | 12:37 am | #102
Craig Payne,
Suppose it could be shown that stealing Amy’s car would, from the perspective of eternity, be in Amy’s best interest (perhaps because of all the sinful vanity occasioned by her ownership). Are you tempted to think that this would imply that Christians ought to try to steal Amy’s car? That would strike me as a wildly hasty inference.
The conclusion of the argument in #48 is only that abortion is in the unborn baby’s interest. (The risk of hell, by the way, is a paramount consideration only in deriving that conclusion–not about drawing any further conclusion about what actions we should take with regard to the unborn.) The conclusion doesn’t tell us anything about what we should be doing about abortion–other than resisting the cultural dogma that pro-lifers are acting on behalf of the unborn.
Generally speaking, to say that a given action is in someone’s interest may have very little do do with the question of whether or not the given action is wrong, or is something that we should promote or respect. (Recall the case of Amy’s car.) Abortion in particular may be wrong because it involves murder, because it violates God’s commands, because it conflicts with God’s design for ourselves and other human beings. As such, there is still plenty of room for maintaining that abortion is sinful and that Christians should oppose it–even if they’d be deluded in opposing it for the sake of the unborn.
All this, I think, should be fairly obvious. Why folks continue to confuse claims about what is in the unborn baby’s interest with all these other claims (about morality, sinfulness, God’s will, etc.) is perplexing.
Do you have any advise about how we might steer people clear of these confusions, so that, instead of attacking claims that the argument neither assumes, implies nor asserts, they might rather address the actual argument?
January 11th, 2011 | 8:51 am | #103
JGY: Here are your disclaimers to the effect that your argument does not entail that abortion is a moral act:
These are the ones that you listed in #97, with the exception of #56 and #58, which perhaps contribute to your disclaimer, but only indirectly. With all of these in one place, we can see that you have left a kind of theoretical door open for abortion’s being wrong, in spite of (as you conclude, based on the theism you have assumed for purposes of this argument) its being good for babies. You are saying that while (on theism as you have represented it here) abortion is good for babies, you do not deny that someone somewhere could have a moral argument by which it is nevertheless wrong. That’s all your disclaimers seem to accomplish, which I’m sure you’ll agree is not much.
That leads me to wonder:
A. Is there any moral conclusion at all to which you think your argument leads? If so, what is it, and if not, why not?
B. Do you really affirm (as you stated in 93) that your argument carries with it no implications supporting a pro-abortion moral conclusion? Is not the “good of the child” a moral consideration?
C. Other than #14 in the original argument, is there any further conclusion of any other kind (besides moral) to which you think your argument leads? (Is there some further point you are trying to get at?)
Further on (C): It seems logically necessary that one of these be true:
1. You consider that there are no further conclusions to be drawn from your argument. It is what it is, and it implies or entails nothing more.
2. You consider that there are one or more further conclusions to be drawn from the argument, and that conclusion (or all such conclusions) are moral in nature.
3. You consider that there are one or more further conclusions to be drawn from the argument, none of which are moral in nature.
4. You consider that there are at least two further conclusions, at least one of a moral sort, and at least one of some other sort.
You have insisted that you are drawing no moral conclusions, and that your argument neither entails nor implies any. I have already asked you to explain how that can be. If you continue to hold to that position, then options 2 and 4 here are ruled out (unless you decide otherwise at this point). If your answer is option 1, then one wonders why we are bothering with the discussion. If option 3, then what further purpose or point does your argument accomplish, in your mind?
January 11th, 2011 | 11:17 am | #104
Dear JGY: You wrote: “Suppose it could be shown that stealing Amy’s car would, from the perspective of eternity, be in Amy’s best interest (perhaps because of all the sinful vanity occasioned by her ownership). Are you tempted to think that this would imply that Christians ought to try to steal Amy’s car?”
From this I would take away an implied argument.
(1) From the perspective of eternity, it is in Amy’s best interest that her car be stolen (not necessarily by a Christian).
To this I would add:
(2) Christians should do, as much as possible, what is in others’ eternal interest.
(3) Christians should seek to steal Amy’s car.
You say (3) is a “wildly hasty inference.” However, I honestly don’t see why you cannot see that it is implied in your example (and, in the case of abortion, why you cannot see that you are implying that Christians should support abortion).
Beyond that, I have only two more comments:
(1) I agree with Tom Gilson’s Post 103. It would be nice if you would tell us flatly, based upon the idea that Christians think of themselves as acting in the unborns’ best interest, whether or not you think Christians should support abortion. Then we could stop being coy about whether or not that is “implied” in your argument.
(2) One other consideration we have not brought up is the spiritual effect upon the perpetrator(s) of these acts. Whoever steals Amy’s car, whether or not it benefits Amy eternally, is guilty of a sin. Likewise with abortion: Someone actually has to commit the action. If it is a wrongful action–even if wrongful based on “other reasons”–someone, then, is committing a sin. So Christians should oppose abortion regardless of the “in the best interests of the unborn” argument.
January 11th, 2011 | 11:26 am | #105
JGY:
Here’s a much shorter and simpler route to the most important point I was just trying to make. You wrote this morning that you are perplexed over the way folks confuse unborn babies’ interests with claims about morality, sinfulness, and God’s will. You say the one factor must be distinguished from the others. In support of that you have said that you do not deny that abortion could be immoral even though it is in (as you put it, based on the version of theism from which you have been arguing) in the babies’ best interest.
That means that those of us who naturally and logically think the good of the child actually is a moral consideration should set that belief aside, and refuse to draw any moral inferences from what you have argued about the babies’ interest. We should do that because (a) you have affirmed for us that there is no moral implication in favor of abortion to be drawn out of that argument, and (b) you have not denied that there could be some other grounds upon which abortion could be deemed immoral.
Note that you have not argued in favor of (a) until just now, with the story of Amy’s car; but you were perplexed prior to offering us that argument. Neither have you shown us why your position in (b) is relevant to the question.
With (a) and (b) left hanging that way, all we have had until now are your bare assertions that we need not draw the moral inferences we have drawn. I am perplexed as to why you would find it perplexing that we would do that.
January 11th, 2011 | 11:31 am | #106
Craig, I didn’t see your latest before that last comment of mine. Good points. I especially like the way worded the request to stop being coy.
I had this response to the Amy’s car analogy, which I was going to put in my last comment but decided to save for a separate one, to keep that last one simpler. I think you were thinking along the same lines.
JGY:
I don’t think your argument concerning Amy’s car is a valid parallel.
First, there is a disanalogy of number. Amy is one person who has her own idiosyncratic attitudes toward her car ownership and her own unique circumstances. Suppose it could be shown that stealing her car would be good for her in light of eternity. Surely that conclusion would be based on her very personal situation; one would find no parallel there to the argument you’ve made that killing unborn babies is good for babies generally.
But if it were (very counter-factually) generally the case that stealing persons’ cars were in their best interest generally, then why would that not become a moral consideration? Why would some general good not be morally significant?
January 11th, 2011 | 12:53 pm | #107
So I haven’t read everything in this thread, but it seems that according to JGY’s logic, all babies born from now on should be aborted to prevent their going to hell. Is that right?
January 11th, 2011 | 1:12 pm | #108
Steve Drake asks previously: “JGy’s argumentation is getting tedious. His logic is twisted and distorted. Professing to be wise, he has become a fool. Does he claim to be a Christian and evangelical?”
Dear Steve,
It seems unlikely that JGY would claim to be a Christian and an evangelical. On this First Things post The Atheist Gives Us Nothing JGY writes in the first comment:
“Is it possible that Eco is being reasonable in rejecting the Christian faith? Is there room in this life for well-informed, reasonable disagreement regarding the existence of God?”
Furthermore, down the list of comments, we are informed of the following: “That’s probably the main reason I love JGY. strident gay activists ftw.”
More importantly, given JGY’s continual discussion on another person’s best interest, then let’s discuss that it is in the best interest of JGY to repent of his sins, and to believe and actively trust Jesus Christ as his Savior and Lord. And if JGY is actively gay, then its also in his best interest to repent of his active gay sin, and to fully surrender himself to the Holy Spirit.
P.S. Thank you Steve Drake for your kind “Bingo!” comment.
P.P.S. Thank you Sean for your comments on the First Things post.
January 11th, 2011 | 1:17 pm | #109
Thanks, TUAD.
It appears that neo-natal technology will soon be able to tell us the sexual orientation of babies while their still in the womb. The technology’s maybe a decade or so away.
So I have a proposal.
1) We know that gays go to hell for committing gay sex.
2) We know that aborted babies go to heaven because they haven’t had a chance to sin.
3) Ergo, all gay babies should be aborted.
Does that work for everyone? JGY?
January 11th, 2011 | 1:23 pm | #110
I’m still (cf. #103 to #105) mostly interested in hearing what implications JGY thinks should follow from his argument. After all of his complaints about inferences he did not intend us to draw, it’s about time he did us the honor of telling what he did intend.
January 11th, 2011 | 5:09 pm | #111
The argument of comment #48 argues from premises widely accepted in evangelical circles to a conclusion widely opposed in those same circles.
Despite Mr. Gilson’s oft-repeated claim that the argument relies on a “version of theism” not acceptable in evangelical circles, he has shown nothing of the kind. The claim of the argument is that it secures its conclusion simply from the premises it explicitly lists–and Mr. Gilson has specified neither why these premises are inadequate for that purpose, nor why these premises themselves constitute a “version of theism” contrary to evangelical belief.
Despite nearly everyone’s assertions that abortion is morally wrong/sinful/contrary to God’s will/etc., the argument itself does not claim anything to the contrary. That is, for all the arguments says, assumes or asserts, abortion may still be morally wrong (and something we ought, at least in certain ways, to oppose), and perhaps even for the very reasons that Craig Payne himself helps to articulates:
As I’ve pointed out:
Many people here, however, are eager to rush ahead, wondering what further things might be argued if abortion is in the interests of the unborn. While I agree that this is an interesting question, it’s generally only of interest if it is in fact true that abortion is in the interest of the unborn. Therefore, I encourage these people to focus on the argument for that more circumscribed conclusion first.
Other people perhaps want to use the method of reductio ad absurdum, using the premise that the abortion is morally wrong (or that it is not something we should promote, etc.) to show that any argument that contradicts this conclusion must be unsound. While that’s a fine method of argumentation, and I respect it, it requires a good deal of further argumentation: in particular, it requires a demonstration that the conclusion of argument #48 actually does entail these further claims that contradict the premise about the moral wrongness of abortion, or etc. Contrary to Mr. Gilson’s suggestion, it doesn’t suffice to merely point out that the interests of the unborn are “a moral consideration.” Surely they are a moral consideration, but the question is whether they are a decisive moral consideration in drawing these further conclusion about the moral wrongness of abortion, or etc. Mr. Payne seems to optimistic about this further project, maintaining the plausibility of the following premise:
On a straightforward interpretation, Payne’s premise here is highly dubious. It reminds us of the familiar “consequentialist” lines of thinking that presuppose that decisions about what we ought to do should/can be determined simply by what the consequences of these actions happen to be. This of course is a dubious idea (as has been explored in the vast philosophical literature that’s critical of consequentialism)–and it should be especially dubious for many evangelical Christians who have plenty of alternative standards by which to assess actions.
Finally, there are still other people that are simply interested in JGY’s personal motives for presenting this argument, and JGY’s personal beliefs regarding the larger questions surrounding abortion: Does JGY think abortion is immoral?; Does JGY think we should oppose it politically?; what darker motives might be motivating JGY to present such a troubling argument?, etc., etc. How any of these things questions about JGY are relevant to assessing the actual argument of #48 (i.e., whether the argument itself secures its conclusion) has never been explained. These people seem to want to change the subject–and understandably so, since they appear able neither to produce a sound objection to the argument nor to accept its conclusion!
As for the interest in the circumscribed conclusion itself, we can say the following. If the argument is sound, then:
(1) abortion is in the interest of the unborn.
(2) Since abortion is actually in the interest of its putative “victim,” it is unlike the other immoral acts on Appiah’s list. More than being simply a “victimless crime,” it actually works out to benefit its most direct “victim.”
(3) Pro-lifers are deluded whenever they represent themselves as acting on behalf of the unborn in their opposition to abortion.
(4) The fact that abortion is in the interest of the unborn may be of some value in comforting mothers who have had an abortion, or in comforting fathers who have lost a child in this way.
We could probably go on. But, as I say, these are things we can explore after we assess whether the argument of #48 actually secures the conclusion that abortion is in the interest of the unborn. For a focused, orderly discussion, more self-discipline on this point would be very helpful.
January 11th, 2011 | 5:28 pm | #112
David C., et al,
Do you feel like a voyeur when watching JGY commit intellectual onanism?
January 11th, 2011 | 5:56 pm | #113
JGY, by now you must surely be tired of attempting to carry on this charade. You write,
I have indeed specified why your premises are inadequate to describe any relevant form of theism. Other than a mis-directed answer in #53, you ignored that specification (repeatedly), choosing instead to offer irrelevant “remedial” instruction on valid forms of argument. It’s ironic that now after all the correction you offer me on my supposed errors in argumentative form, you tell me the form I should followed was to specify some error in your version of theism—which is exactly what I did.
Now, do you have a counter-argument to that specification (I’ll let you find it for yourself, it should be easy enough)? If so, by all means tell us what it is. Or do you prefer just to rely on the power of repetition to convince yourself I have not supplied one?
Sure. That’s because you stopped at #14 instead of the obvious conclusion #15, which for some reason you chose to leave hanging. For some reason you think you have the power to decree that the argument stops at #14, and “shame on you” to everyone who sees an implication following #14. I asked you this morning whether you think any moral implications follow from #14. I ask again: do you think your conclusion #14 implies anything at all with respect to the morality of abortion?
Coy.
Neither has it ever been explained why it is so shameful to discuss what may be implied beyond #14. You have only decreed it so.
TUAD: What do I feel like watching this? I won’t say, but it’s not pleasant.
January 11th, 2011 | 5:57 pm | #114
“We could probably go on. But, as I say, these are things we can explore after we assess whether the argument of #48 actually secures the conclusion that abortion is in the interest of the unborn.”
Well, I’ve already argued, a couple of times, that at least one of the premises of the original argument (Premise #13) is false. That makes the argument unsound. That means the argument doesn’t secure the conclusion.
And Mr. Gilson has argued that the argument is incoherent on its face. For example, we could paraphrase the conclusion as “Therefore, an action that is inherently harmful to the child’s interests (by eliminating all grounds for interests) is in the child’s best interests.”
I think these points have been brought out pretty well by now. So I suppose I’m checking out of the discussion; anything I have to say would just be a repetition of points already made. Best to all, cp
January 11th, 2011 | 5:58 pm | #115
I’m checking out now, too. Enough is enough. JGY, you don’t need to answer the questions I just asked if you don’t want to.
January 11th, 2011 | 5:59 pm | #116
Dear Tom Gilson, et al,
I’m turning off the channel. It just feels slimy watching JGY doing his lousy thing.
January 11th, 2011 | 6:24 pm | #117
TUAD,
Not a “voyeur” exactly as presumably that involves some sort of pleasure in the viewing. This is more like motion sickness…
January 11th, 2011 | 11:13 pm | #118
I’m content to leave the argument here. Post #111 describes the general directions of the thread. For anyone interested in the few substantive objections that address the actual argument (e.g., by Mr. Payne), I think they’ll find within the thread responses that are more than adequate.
Evangelical/fundamentalists sometimes think highly of their own supposed fidelity to both biblical truth and values (as opposed to sentiments borrowed from the surrounding culture), and to logical argumentation (as opposed to emotional reactions and dogmatic commitments to positions they cannot defend). Anyone interested in seeing what happens when these pretensions get put to the test will be interested in studying this thread. The peculiar attitude of certainty that all of the respondents seem to maintain (i.e., the attitude that the argument’s conclusion is certainly false) despite the lack of any argument that might ground this level of certainty is worth reflecting upon.
January 12th, 2011 | 6:10 am | #119
With that you have the last word, JGY, other than one note of agreement with you. I believe I speak for others here when I say we too would welcome study of this thread for unsupported arguments and premature statements of certainty.
January 12th, 2011 | 8:51 am | #120
I’d still like to know if it’s acceptable to abort a baby because one knows it’s going to be gay, but oh well. Some other time, I guess.
Btw, I’m half sure JGY is brettongarcia in another guise. They sure reason the same way.
January 13th, 2011 | 8:40 am | #121
JGY’s problem is that his argument will never be convincing to a Christian, because a Christian will never accept that “whether a sinful act harms or benefits the object” is a place to start with moral reasoning. The harm or benefit to the object becomes a consideration only when there is not a prescriptive revealed answer to the question. “Thou shalt not kill” as the revealed answer eliminates the possibility of reasoning from any other direction. It doesn’t merely make it secondary, it causes further reasoning on the question of whether it is permissible to involve the sin of rebellion against clear revelation. “Hath God said” is still the language of the serpent, not of the detached but possibly legitimate moralist.
That is to say, leaving aside whether his syllogism works and establishes that abortion is a benefit to the unborn, it’s inherently an invalid question to ask in the first place, from the standpoint of Christian ethics. No Christian could legitimately accept any conclusion that comes from reasoning that is founded on continuing to explore that which is clearly forbidden.
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