Ah, those "quiet moments": staring deeply into a lit fireplace, idly turning a snifter of brandy you can't bear to drink. Of course, I don't have those. I'm one of those "horrific" supporters of abortion rights who doesn't deny that fetuses are scientifically human. My mind, as you have perceived, is full of blood-drinking bats that shriek all through the night.
"There is, to be blunt, no scientific way to prove or disprove the existence of God."
Yes, that's the whole point of the FSM. There's no way to prove or disprove him, either. The whole joke is that, though you can't disprove God, you also can't disprove an infinite number of other creatures, so choosing to believe in just the one out of the infinity is arbitrary.
So, what you are condescending to explain to the mockers is something that they obviously already understand. Meanwhile, you have an article on this site by Scott Payne, whose point, such as I can understand it, is that a spiritual revelation he experienced was part of his "study of reality". Also, when we fail to accept the revelatory power of these types of visions it "limits what we stand to discover". It's a total appropriation of the language of science to describe religion.
This series seems to me be an exercise in condescending to explain to atheists what they already understand and you guys don't. That's a pretty self-serving misreading of the Simpsons, to boot. You really think they were trying to say that scientists shouldn't debunk religious hoaxes?
Sorry for not being more clear. Yes, it seems to me like you're writing in favor of results-oriented judicial decisions, due to sentences like this:
'So how do we get abortion removed as a focal point of the Culture Wars? Here I tend to think that Damon Linker is correct: overturn, or at least significantly narrow, Roe and its progeny including Casey"
The subject of how various reworkings the results of judicial decisions would satisfy current prejudices is, I think, a gross topic for conversation.
However, I agree with you that the reasoning in Roe fails because it doesn't directly provide an absolute right to an abortion. In my uneducated view, the correct decision would have been to provide states with an alternative between providing absolute abortion rights, or an absolute right to life for the fetus beginning at conception. Similar to the choice provided by the California Supreme Court in "In re Marriage Cases."
However, I don't want this arbitrariness enshrined in law by state legislatures any more than by the Supreme Court. I believe that these arbitrary lines are shaped by prejudice and violate the spirit of the Constitution.
"I’m not really sure where you got the ‘i’m after punishing sex’ line."
I never said you did; you're misquoting me. It's true that I don't have a lot of respect for views like yours, popular as they may be. You' pay lip service to the "difficult moral calculations" that you've supposedly figured out. But you don't show your work. After all, it's the "middle position", which, no duh, is where all difficult moral calculations lead. I think you're just hedging your bets, like a lot of Americans who want legislation towards the middle of the "spectrum". (A spectrum which is shaped by women on one end with no agency, and women on the other end who made their bed, and now must lie in it.)
What I am saying is that when we talk about these compromises, we mean banning the abortions that most people want to ban, according to polls. And those majorities are shaped by a significant chunk of people who think stricter abortion laws will force people, especially women, to take fewer risks in their sex lives.
For example, imagine a state where there are strict abortion laws. Now imagine a woman who would have gone to bed with a guy without these laws, but because she can't be sure of her access to an abortion, decides she'll wait until she knows that he would definitely not abandon her if she got pregnant. There are a lot of people who would think that this is an unqualified good thing, and these people are both seeking to punish sex, and they are making moral judgments about certain types of behavior. And these people factor in to your compromises.
I don't know how much more obvious this can be than the fact that even the most conservative states have to write rape exceptions into their fantasy trigger laws. Once you allow political compromise to shape legislation, you are allowing prejudice against certain types of behavior to be a factor in who lives and who dies.
Rape exceptions and other loopholes are what make any laws that would actually vote through unconstitutional. We can't offer these protections to some fetuses, or to some women, based on some mass delusion that women who need abortions can be placed along a "spectrum".
Chris Dierkes;
"But can you see that the entire disagreement roughly comes back to this point: is abortion in that category? in fact both sides could argue themselves into the side of the defense of rights on their side–in fact they do."
This is a moot point. As soon as you start creating abortion laws via political compromise, you are inevitably going to end up drafting unconstitutional laws.
These "compromises" always end up as back door bigotry. Some believe that fetuses must be protected against harm. But for most that belief evaporates if the mother is a victim of rape, or if the child is seriously ill, or if the mother's health is at risk. (But it better be "serious" risk, goddammit!)
It should be clear that the greatest potential for compromise exists where there is most contempt for the hypothetical woman seeking the abortion. Whether or not you think that states should be able to deny abortions to women because their reasons for wanting one aren't good enough, or because they "should have made up their mind already", the idea that we can grant rights to unborn children based on our moral judgment of their mothers, without violating the Constitution, is absurd.
Maybe you could draw up a law that granted legal protection to fetuses that was principled upon a sincere desire to protect the "rights" of unborn humans, and not to punish sex. And perhaps, in that case, there would honestly be room for debate as to whether or not it was Constitutional. But there would be no political support for such a law, so who cares?
I think what James Williams above me says is right on. I only disagree slightly and would say that what the FSM, along with its many variations, ridicules is, more specifically, a tendency for people to try and treat their religious faith as if it is rational. By definition it is not. The FSM is a useful reminder not to try and impute rationality to one's faith just because it's a popular faith.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “less (legal and moral) light re: abortion”
Am I the only one who notices that Kyle's "plot-holes" are completely inane?
On “induction leading to abortion qualms”
Ah, those "quiet moments": staring deeply into a lit fireplace, idly turning a snifter of brandy you can't bear to drink. Of course, I don't have those. I'm one of those "horrific" supporters of abortion rights who doesn't deny that fetuses are scientifically human. My mind, as you have perceived, is full of blood-drinking bats that shriek all through the night.
On “Falsifying the Unfalsifiable”
"There is, to be blunt, no scientific way to prove or disprove the existence of God."
Yes, that's the whole point of the FSM. There's no way to prove or disprove him, either. The whole joke is that, though you can't disprove God, you also can't disprove an infinite number of other creatures, so choosing to believe in just the one out of the infinity is arbitrary.
So, what you are condescending to explain to the mockers is something that they obviously already understand. Meanwhile, you have an article on this site by Scott Payne, whose point, such as I can understand it, is that a spiritual revelation he experienced was part of his "study of reality". Also, when we fail to accept the revelatory power of these types of visions it "limits what we stand to discover". It's a total appropriation of the language of science to describe religion.
This series seems to me be an exercise in condescending to explain to atheists what they already understand and you guys don't. That's a pretty self-serving misreading of the Simpsons, to boot. You really think they were trying to say that scientists shouldn't debunk religious hoaxes?
On “Roe and the Culture War Morass”
Mark Thompson;
Sorry for not being more clear. Yes, it seems to me like you're writing in favor of results-oriented judicial decisions, due to sentences like this:
'So how do we get abortion removed as a focal point of the Culture Wars? Here I tend to think that Damon Linker is correct: overturn, or at least significantly narrow, Roe and its progeny including Casey"
The subject of how various reworkings the results of judicial decisions would satisfy current prejudices is, I think, a gross topic for conversation.
However, I agree with you that the reasoning in Roe fails because it doesn't directly provide an absolute right to an abortion. In my uneducated view, the correct decision would have been to provide states with an alternative between providing absolute abortion rights, or an absolute right to life for the fetus beginning at conception. Similar to the choice provided by the California Supreme Court in "In re Marriage Cases."
However, I don't want this arbitrariness enshrined in law by state legislatures any more than by the Supreme Court. I believe that these arbitrary lines are shaped by prejudice and violate the spirit of the Constitution.
On “D. Linker on Culture War-Abortion”
Chris Dierkes
"I’m not really sure where you got the ‘i’m after punishing sex’ line."
I never said you did; you're misquoting me. It's true that I don't have a lot of respect for views like yours, popular as they may be. You' pay lip service to the "difficult moral calculations" that you've supposedly figured out. But you don't show your work. After all, it's the "middle position", which, no duh, is where all difficult moral calculations lead. I think you're just hedging your bets, like a lot of Americans who want legislation towards the middle of the "spectrum". (A spectrum which is shaped by women on one end with no agency, and women on the other end who made their bed, and now must lie in it.)
What I am saying is that when we talk about these compromises, we mean banning the abortions that most people want to ban, according to polls. And those majorities are shaped by a significant chunk of people who think stricter abortion laws will force people, especially women, to take fewer risks in their sex lives.
For example, imagine a state where there are strict abortion laws. Now imagine a woman who would have gone to bed with a guy without these laws, but because she can't be sure of her access to an abortion, decides she'll wait until she knows that he would definitely not abandon her if she got pregnant. There are a lot of people who would think that this is an unqualified good thing, and these people are both seeking to punish sex, and they are making moral judgments about certain types of behavior. And these people factor in to your compromises.
I don't know how much more obvious this can be than the fact that even the most conservative states have to write rape exceptions into their fantasy trigger laws. Once you allow political compromise to shape legislation, you are allowing prejudice against certain types of behavior to be a factor in who lives and who dies.
Rape exceptions and other loopholes are what make any laws that would actually vote through unconstitutional. We can't offer these protections to some fetuses, or to some women, based on some mass delusion that women who need abortions can be placed along a "spectrum".
On “Roe and the Culture War Morass”
So, you're in support of results-oriented judicial decisions.
On “D. Linker on Culture War-Abortion”
Chris Dierkes;
"But can you see that the entire disagreement roughly comes back to this point: is abortion in that category? in fact both sides could argue themselves into the side of the defense of rights on their side–in fact they do."
This is a moot point. As soon as you start creating abortion laws via political compromise, you are inevitably going to end up drafting unconstitutional laws.
These "compromises" always end up as back door bigotry. Some believe that fetuses must be protected against harm. But for most that belief evaporates if the mother is a victim of rape, or if the child is seriously ill, or if the mother's health is at risk. (But it better be "serious" risk, goddammit!)
It should be clear that the greatest potential for compromise exists where there is most contempt for the hypothetical woman seeking the abortion. Whether or not you think that states should be able to deny abortions to women because their reasons for wanting one aren't good enough, or because they "should have made up their mind already", the idea that we can grant rights to unborn children based on our moral judgment of their mothers, without violating the Constitution, is absurd.
Maybe you could draw up a law that granted legal protection to fetuses that was principled upon a sincere desire to protect the "rights" of unborn humans, and not to punish sex. And perhaps, in that case, there would honestly be room for debate as to whether or not it was Constitutional. But there would be no political support for such a law, so who cares?
On “atheism and monsters”
I think what James Williams above me says is right on. I only disagree slightly and would say that what the FSM, along with its many variations, ridicules is, more specifically, a tendency for people to try and treat their religious faith as if it is rational. By definition it is not. The FSM is a useful reminder not to try and impute rationality to one's faith just because it's a popular faith.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.