When certain religious beliefs and dogmas discourage scientific and rational critical thought in favor of a primitive system of magical belief, which, as a consequence, results in widespread pain and suffering, these religious beliefs deserve to be critically examined, if rationality and compassion have any value.
When asked to debate, scientists should immediately seize upon the opportunity to explain that such debates are really just entertainment venues – that they have nothing to do with real science – that it gives Creationism/ID undue credibility – that scientists would rather spend their precious time doing real science – and most importantly – that if forced to debate, the scientist’s time, reputation, and expertise is highly valuable.
Since 1980 the National Abortion Federation has identified more than 10,000 reported acts of terrorism against lawful reproductive rights supporters in the United States. There have been thousands of abortion clinic blockades. Clinic workers have been regularly stalked. There have been hundreds of clinic arson attacks, bombings and even anthrax scares. There have been kidnappings and shootings. Nine abortion providers have been murdered.
In the United States, anti-abortion laws before Roe v. Wade (1973) were also a medical and social disaster. Hundreds of thousands of women with botched abortions filled our hospitals each year. (I had a student die from one such an abortion in Tijuana.) Medical costs skyrocketed, families were torn apart and disrespect for the law was intensified
Now we have the army with its strange notion of ‘spiritual fitness’ — which obviously discriminates against persons who might be very fit spiritually and morally, but achieve this without resorting to belief in any supernatural being.
If the large majority of anti-choice Americans, by their own behavior, don’t REALLY believe their “baby killing” rhetoric, why do they REALLY want to force women with unwanted pregnancies to stay pregnant against their will—to be essentially unwilling embryo incubators? What REALLY is going on? Well, consider: Anti-abortion efforts have been almost entirely driven by men — men in Congress and state legislatures and conservative churches. It’s about those men who want to keep women “in their place”, to punish “loose” women, and to force those women who are trying to “avoid their natural roles in life” to fulfill their responsibilities.
Its very doubtful that Uebersax’s analysis of the poor thinking and policy decision in terms of Plato’s “Divided Line Analogy” does anything to illuminate how people go wrong in their beliefs and actions. Intellectual integrity and honesty about what we do know and what we do not know can be gotten on the basis of a common-sense philosophy emphasizing critical reason, a respect for scientific methods, and judicious use of the evidence available to us.
The just-war theory should play a central role (sometimes controversial role) in discussions and debates relating to our government’s war policy, given that our citizens and Congress have not become so lazy and complacent that they won’t even consider the question of the morality of their government’s war policy.
Who really is the mad person? Is it the person who has come to think that a four-wheeled machine is essential to his existence or is it the person who has begun to think that this machine, useful though it might be, should not dominate our actions and thinking?
A misconception arises: for the view of a value-laden fetus is not based (as it should be) on recognition of the potential of the fetus, but is based on the erroneous belief that, in some sense, the fetus already possesses that future personhood.