atheism and children

[Javaman]

Can you clarify just what you mean by the word sacred? Particularly with regards to the italicized part of your statement?

I can think of two possible meanings here. One, as a sort of general euphemism for thinking that human life is possibly the most precious thing we can imagine (colloquial usage). Or two, a word that has a specific and exclusive meaning to those who already believe Catholic doctrine is true.

You use the word sacred a lot, so I want to be sure I'm understanding you correctly here.

Sure. By sacred I mean coming from God and thus regarded with reverence.

Ok. That's what I suspected. Your Church's opposition to IVF only makes sense if you already believe that Catholic doctrine is true, even if it sounds like justa bunch of ridiculous woo to others.

Do you understand why so many dismiss your Church's position as nonsensical?

Bear in mind, you don't have exclusive rights to the use of the words "sacred" or "reverance".

[Javaman]

The Ten Commandments can be summed up in that one word, sacred. Your life is sacred, your work is sacred, your time is sacred, family is sacred, marriage is sacred, your property is sacred and so is your neighbors.

Sounds like an awful lot of stuff is sacred.

If my neighbour's property is sacred, does that mean hospital facilities and equipment are sacred?

If my work is sacred, does that mean the work of doctors and nurses is also sacred?

Is my sperm sacred? Is one of my wife's ova sacred?

If not, why not?

Feel free to chime in here CL.

[Longhorn]

Sure. By sacred I mean coming from God and thus regarded with reverence.

So then everything is sacred.

[Javaman]

Sure. By sacred I mean coming from God and thus regarded with reverence.

So then everything is sacred.

Don't be absurd! Not everything is sacred.

Conception via IVF is clearly not sacred.

[robvalue]

I don't understand how "nature" can be independent of God. If nature is taking its course, then surely it's the universe God has set up, with the rules he set up, taking its course.

Otherwise, who is making the rules?

It keeps coming back to this. Did God make the rules, or did he turn up and is constrained by them? No one seems to want to pick a side, because they need both possibilities depending on the situation, to remove responsibility from or give credit to God.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

That may be because it wasn't an analogy to show an objection to IVF, per se. You have to remember where that analogy originated from. Someone said they don't understand what the problem is with IVF if the end result is the same as having sex - you have a kid.

My analogy was simply to show that there can be a right and wrong way of going about the same end result.

That's all that was.

I have several times now given my reasons as for why I think IVF is wrong, so I don't think it's fair for you to say that I have not. I will try to look for one of them and repost it.

Here was the first time I addressed it:

The short answer is this:

We believe reproduction is a very sacred act. And as all things sacred, we believe it should be guarded and protected and kept in the purity of its natural form. We think if a couple can't conceive, the more moral thing would be to adopt and give a home to one of the many homeless children of the world.

I later, in multiple other posts, added to this by saying that by "reproduction" we mean the actual conception... the actual joining of egg and sperm, which is the fixed point when a new human life begins.

Since we think human life is sacred, and thus the creation of human life is sacred, we believe it should remain guarded and protected in the confines of sexual intercourse. Remember, we also think sex is sacred. As is marriage, and as is the love between husband and wife. We think something as sacred as human life should come from a place that is equally as sacred - the lovemaking between husband and wife, where a human being can come into this world through love, literally.

We don't think masturbating into a jar and then having a stranger join sperm and egg together on a petri dish in a medical office, is the proper context for such a sacred thing as the beginning of new human life to take place.

Of course, none of this can even begin to make sense to you if you don't think human life is sacred, if you don't think sex is sacred, and if you don't think the love between husband and wife and marriage is sacred lol. But we do. So you have to see it through our lenses if you're genuinely trying to understand where we are coming from.

I was with you in understanding your reasons *why* until this last sentence/paragraph.

This use of an ambiguous word, 'sacred' doesn't sit well with me, and also it seems as though you accuse me (and by extension others) of not finding an inherent 'worth' in human life/life per se should we not ascribe to this undefined notion of sacredness. This is false and not a description which could be aimed at me with any reasonable certainty of it being true.

If we're talking 'sacred' in a spiritual/religious way, then certainly I would agree that there is nothing sacred about us or indeed anything in the Universe. However, if we are talking in terms of *worth*, then you'll find that I agree very much about the worth of life, not just human life but all life.

Indeed, talking in terms of worth, this actually makes your position the more ambiguous and dismissive. Because a couple may not be able to create a child through traditional sexual intercourse, the above description seems to suggest that any other form of conception thus has less validity/worth. When I ask as to your actual reasons *why* you disagree, and when I state that you have still not given a good reasons as to *why*, it is here I am focusing my critique. 'Because it's sacred' reads 'Because cop-out'. Again, a couple who has IVF treatment still make love, they still have sperm and egg, but for one reason or another there is no creation of a zygote. Joining them in dish and then inserting them into the womb is effectively the exact same thing. There is still love between the couple (one would presume as given), they still have intercourse, there is still *love* for the entire process and the result.

Your rejection of this for couples who receive IVF is, for lack of a better word or description, perplexing and unfounded. You have absolutely no authority to suggest that conception through IVF is any less valid in terms of worth (let alone love) when compared to a couple who are lucky enough to be able to conceive through conventional means. Your insinuation that a couple that have to resort to IVF to conceive has less *worth* or *love* is not welcome, and certainly should be met with the fiercest criticism.

Your above post is effectively an apology of bigotry and a way of squaring the circle in order for the RCC to save face when confronted with ambiguity.

[robvalue]

It makes no sense to me either.

If something is "immoral" but has no specific negative consequences, then I don't much care that it is "immoral". If no harm is being done, who cares? The only harm left is that to the feelings of undemonstrated supernatural beings. If they can have their feelings hurt, they are rather pathetic and very much obviously human constructs. And if they'd stop us doing something merely because they randomly decide it hurts their feelings, they are a deranged dictator.

I have no problem with someone saying they wouldn't personally do [action], for whatever reason, that's up to them. But labelling the action as universally immoral requires justification if you're applying it to people who don't agree with your religion. If immoral simply means "upsets God" then I really couldn't care less what is and isn't immoral.

[Longhorn]

Your above post is effectively an apology of bigotry and a way of squaring the circle in order for the RCC to save face when confronted with ambiguity.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Longhorn]

And, unsurprisingly, the muslims have this one neatly sorted out too. Infertile? Allah doesn't want you to have kids. Sure, Allah's a dick, but at least he makes his opinion clear, without vague buzzwords like sacred

[Fidel_Castronaut]

But that would still be by your own definition, opinion or feeling of what is evil. Evolutionary ethics is nothing but pragmatism. Even Darwin admitted that if the philosophical out workings were to be made of his theory the future is nothing short of unbridled violence.

You are confusing two completely different things which you must never ever confuse: 1. how human nature and the resulting peaceful constructive, but also destructive character traits arose through our evolution by natural selection as a social species, a process which is described by the neodarwinian synthesis (at least in principle), and 2. what it would look like if we were to imitate nature in the planning and construction of our society, something you call "evolutionary ethics" to somehow shift the blame to a scientific theory - which makes no sense - when it is actually simply your God's shameful way of doing business as witnessed by science.

And let me stress that Darwin's theory and its modern versions are not possibly a guide how to behave but a faithful description of how nature around us behaves, in the same way Einsteinian Gravity theory is not an instruction  to push your granny down the stairs.

If you have a problem with "the consequences of Darwin", you are having a problem with the cruelty of nature - in that case welcome to the club. The difference between atheists and you is that we can actually acknowledge that nature is an unmitigated disaster, and consequently work on improving the situation, whereas you Christians somehow still have to believe that it's cool the way it is, making excuses for your imagined abusive tyrant who lets his creation suffer. Many atheists feel that nature is cruel and proceed to do something about it. Christians do too, of course, but you guys first have to overcome this sick idea that somehow creation deserves it, as evidenced by the stockholmesque excuses you make for the cruelty of your God upthread, and what reads to me almost like a declaration of ethical bankrupcy.