atheism and children

[Alex K]

Maybe it doesn't always show, but I'm also a sucker for harmony

[Catholic_Lady]

Not sure what you mean by taking an explanation at face value, though.

Sorry, you always keep saying the church says this and the church says that. At the same time you keep relativising the dogma by saying you understand and you don't judge. Gays, IVF and all the other matters we discussed. Because you're good at heart and you really don't want to judge. And that's why I said, there seems to be some inner conflict.

Hopefully you've seen my explanation for saying "the Church says this, and the Church says that" on my post to Alex. :-)

As for me not judging people, that's actually perfectly in line with Church teaching lol. Judge the sin, not the sinner and all that.

[Alex K]

I agree with abaris, and I would like to add an observation of my own to explain. I think the impression abaris relates here is created by the fact that once challenged to discuss your justification for certain viws you would often state a stance of the church as a reason for your views and then refuse to discuss them further. This creates the impression that you feel compelled to accept the teachings of the church, and that your own reflections on them, while you might entertain them, can never have the power to sway your opinion away from church doctrine.

 

There have been very few times that I have refused to explain things any further. Those times all happen because people were starting to get very rude, and I'm sorry, but there's only so much that I think is healthy for me to subject to. The thing that I think you both fail to understand is that when I state a stance of the Church, it's because it's also my stance. And since people here love to say I cherry pick from Christianity when I state my views, it's become habit to always clarify that it's in line with my faith, and not stuff I'm cherry picking.

I still think it's very rash to tell someone you've known for 2 months on a forum that they have never, in their life, asked themselves why or reflected on matters. I'm not sure how anyone can presume to know that and make that accusation.

Always take what I write as a commentary on your young online persona here. It isn't meant to attack you as a person, but to attack perceived inconsistencies in or problematic aspects of your views as you present them here. To leverage a criticism, I think you too quickly become defensive and feel that you are being attacked as a person, and as a result don't address the points others make adequately before offering a knee jerk reaction.

For example, if you reread the text you quoted above you will find that I don't even accuse you of never reflecting on church doctrine. I say that you give the impression that acting on them and rejecting a piece of dogma seems out of the question for you.

But I accept your explanation that you're in the habit of stating whenever your own thoughts are in line with church teachings, and that this does not necessarily mean that you have no independent opinion. But be aware that this style creates that impression especially if no further reasons of your own are offered for those positions.

[Clueless Morgan]

So then you're just committing the naturalistic fallacy.

Can you explain what that is?

It's when you take a factual statement about how the world is and twist it into a values-laden statement about how the world ought to be when the value-laden statement does not follow from the factual statement.

For example: "GM foods are unnatural, therefore GM foods are bad" commits the naturalistic fallacy in connecting a factual statement about GM foods (that they are artificially produced by humans in labs*) to a moralizing statement about them being bad, or wrong when it doesn't follow, with logical necessity, that because something is altered, developed or invented in a laboratory that it is automatically "bad," "wrong," or "immoral."  After all, vaccines are developed in laboratories and the majority of the world (anti-vax nuts aside) are in agreement that vaccines are a very, very good thing.

*for the sake of simplicity, I'm not including human farming practices and centuries, if not millenia, of artificially selection that have shapes practically all of the food we eat, which are both equally "unnatural"

Though you are cloaking it in terms of "sanctity" and "holiness," it doesn't change the fact that, fundamentally, you are committing the naturalistic fallacy:

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.

i.e. Sex is the "natural" way to conceive, therefore it's the moral way.

To clarify what I mean, I will define sex and rape as two discreet types of acts;  sex is the consensual act, and rape is the nonconsensual act.  I'm not intending to trick you by using those words interchangeably; my use of the word sex above means "consensual sex" not rape.

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.

Boiled down to its essentials, all you're really saying here is that "IVF is an unnatural way to conceive a child, therefore IVF is immoral."

You are taking a fact about the world (That sex has been the traditional method of conceiving a child/that IVF divorces the sex-act from conception) and twisting it into a value judgement (that sex is the best way to conceive/that IVF is therefore wrong) and using the language of religious sanctity and holiness to cloak the underlying message.

That is why I'm interested in why you draw a line between artificially creating a human life in a laboratory, and artificially saving a life by developing a vaccine in a laboratory.

So I'll ask again: Do you think that dying (and presumably imminently joining God in heaven (if you're lucky)) is a sacred process? [edited for clarity]

[Exian]

And also the belief that anything natural is inherently good, like poison or ectopic pregnancies.

[abaris]

I don't believe He has deemed IVF to be sacred.

Why? On what grounds? I don't know what the current position of the church is, but why do you believe so?

[Catholic_Lady]

 

There have been very few times that I have refused to explain things any further. Those times all happen because people were starting to get very rude, and I'm sorry, but there's only so much that I think is healthy for me to subject to. The thing that I think you both fail to understand is that when I state a stance of the Church, it's because it's also my stance. And since people here love to say I cherry pick from Christianity when I state my views, it's become habit to always clarify that it's in line with my faith, and not stuff I'm cherry picking.

I still think it's very rash to tell someone you've known for 2 months on a forum that they have never, in their life, asked themselves why or reflected on matters. I'm not sure how anyone can presume to know that and make that accusation.

Always take what I write as a commentary on your young online persona here. It isn't meant to attack you as a person, but to attack perceived inconsistencies in or problematic aspects of your views as you present them here. To leverage a criticism, I think you too quickly become defensive and feel that you are being attacked as a person, and as a result don't address the points others make adequately before offering a knee jerk reaction.

For example, if you reread the text you quoted above you will find that I don't even accuse you of never reflecting on church doctrine. I say that you give the impression that acting on them and rejecting a piece of dogma seems out of the question for you.

Well I just think it's a bit ridiculous when people who barely know me here start accusing me of never having asked myself why and never having contemplated the matter lol. I'm not sure on what grounds anyone here can accuse me of that. 

I really don't understand what you mean when you say I "give the impression that rejecting church teaching is out of the question." Why, is it because I agree with all of it? I've been asked whether I would still follow the Church if the Church came out and said rape was ok, or if they came out and changed their teaching on IVF. I've said no to both of those. So I'm not sure how I'm "giving the impression" that I'd blindly follow whatever the Church said without contemplating the matter.

But I accept your explanation that you're in the habit of stating whenever your own thoughts are in line with church teachings, and that this does not necessarily mean that you have no independent opinion. But be aware that this style creates that impression especially if no further reasons of your own are offered for those positions.

Well, it's either I do that and get accused of blindly following, or I don't do that and get accused of being a cafeteria Christian lol. Now I've had both happen.

[Catholic_Lady]

Can you explain what that is?

It's when you take a factual statement about how the world is and twist it into a values-laden statement about how the world ought to be when the value-laden statement does not follow from the factual statement.

For example: "GM foods are unnatural, therefore GM foods are bad" commits the naturalistic fallacy in connecting a factual statement about GM foods (that they are artificially produced by humans in labs*) to a moralizing statement about them being bad, or wrong when it doesn't follow, with logical necessity, that because something is altered, developed or invented in a laboratory that it is automatically "bad," "wrong," or "immoral."  After all, vaccines are developed in laboratories and the majority of the world (anti-vax nuts aside) are in agreement that vaccines are a very, very good thing.

*for the sake of simplicity, I'm not including human farming practices and centuries, if not millenia, of artificially selection that have shapes practically all of the food we eat, which are both equally "unnatural"

Though you are cloaking it in terms of "sanctity" and "holiness," it doesn't change the fact that, fundamentally, you are committing the naturalistic fallacy:

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.

i.e. Sex is the "natural" way to conceive, therefore it's the moral way.

To clarify what I mean, I will define sex and rape as two discreet types of acts;  sex is the consensual act, and rape is the nonconsensual act.  I'm not intending to trick you by using those words interchangeably; my use of the word sex above means "consensual sex" not rape.

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.

Boiled down to its essentials, all you're really saying here is that "IVF is an unnatural way to conceive a child, therefore IVF is immoral."

You are taking a fact about the world (That sex has been the traditional method of conceiving a child/that IVF divorces the sex-act from conception) and twisting it into a value judgement (that sex is the best way to conceive/that IVF is therefore wrong) and using the language of religious sanctity and holiness to cloak the underlying message.

That is why I'm interested in why you draw a line between artificially creating a human life in a laboratory, and artificially saving a life by developing a vaccine in a laboratory.

So I'll ask again: Do you think that dying (and presumably imminently joining God in heaven (if you're lucky)) is a sacred process? [edited for clarity]

You're missing the point. It's not that ______ is unnatural, so ______ is immoral because it is unnatural. It's that _______ is sacred, so taking it out of a sacred context is immoral because it's sacred. Yes, the sacred context in this case is marital sex, which is a "natural" thing. But it's not because it is natural that it's the right venue for creating life. It's the right venue for creating life because it's sacred. (though I should note that for something to be sacred it means it has a supernatural component to it. I'm saying marital sex is natural here for the sake of the discussion, but we believe it to be more than that.)

That's why most other medical procedures (including shots), regardless of how "unnatural" they are, are perfectly moral. They are not thwarting a sacred act.

If everything unnatural was immoral because it was unnatural, then I'd be committing about 300 sins as we speak. I understand why you're struggling with this, and it's because to you the word sacred bears absolutely no significance or meaning whatsoever. I understand that and would never expect you to agree with me. But if you're trying to understand my point of view, then you need to understand that I do believe it's a HUGE deal for something to be sacred. We regard it as being on a supernatural, Godly level, and we take that extremely seriously. It means the world to us.


To answer your question, no, I don't think dying is regarded as a "sacred" act, like creating life is.

[Catholic_Lady]

I don't believe He has deemed IVF to be sacred.

Why? On what grounds? I don't know what the current position of the church is, but why do you believe so?

Well apart from me believing that the Church is a direct link to God on these matters, which is a big part of it, mind you...

...It really makes no sense to me that something that does not come from God would be deemed sacred by God. I mean, the very definition of sacred, as I understand and accept the word, is that is comes from God.

[Clueless Morgan]

You're missing the point. It's not that ______ is unnatural, so ______ is immoral because it is unnatural. It's that _______ is sacred, so taking it out of a sacred context is immoral because it's sacred. Yes, the sacred context in this case is marital sex, which is a "natural" thing. But it's not because it is natural that it's the right venue for creating life. It's the right venue for creating life because it's sacred. (though I should note that for something to be sacred it means it has a supernatural component to it. I'm saying marital sex is natural here for the sake of the discussion, but we believe it to be more than that.)

And you're actually making my point by reasserting this position. You are employing the naturalistic fallacy without even knowing it and, as I said before, cloaking the fallacy in religious language.

Why is male-female sex the appropriate moral way to conceive a child? Because, as you have already said, God deems it sacred. So here is another question: How, then, do you know God deems it sacred if it's not due to the sheer fact that prior to the advent of modern medicine the only way to conceive was through male-female sex?