Comments on: Written on the Heart?

By: Michael Currie

Michael Currie — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 17:51:57 +0000

Ray, To your question ” does the natural law have to be Supernatural ?”. In a restrictive sense the answer is no, since the natural law is merely an acknowledgement of the order of things. To my limited understanding of these things the materialist version of this order is that it is self ordered, kind of a perpetual motion machine operating in an open system or maybe a closed system that is running down but either way traditional morality, understood by materialists as a series of shoulds and shouldn’ts passed down from on high, has no standing. In its place is a kind of cost/benefit analysis or worse an arrogant claim to a self actualized awareness of the right gleaned from their superior grasp of the reality of the world or even worse simply the will to power.
The appeal to the supernatural, inspite of many bizarre manifestations and exceptions, was and is an acknowledgement that existence is not flat. Given your apparent pro-abortion position it seems that you think that there is no such thing as a rational pro-life position, whether religious or secular. So I don’t quite understand your need to make the issue of the supernatural central to your comment. What am I saying “central”, it was all there was. No need to reply, please.

By: C. Ehrlich

C. Ehrlich — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 16:25:28 +0000

David Gray, if you want to discuss what I’ve written, then address what I’ve written. If you want to talk about other pertinent details, then present those details. Otherwise, just introduce a new topic and drop the pretense that you are responding in a reasonable way to anything I’ve actually stated.

By: David Gray

David Gray — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 23:27:03 +0000

>>It’s not really a matter of being against “the blood sacrifice of children” or “the willful shedding of innocent blood.” Stated in these terms, you’ll find general agreement among Christians and secular people alike.

And the Nazis would have nodded their heads too. They would argue the Jews weren’t innocent. The secularist equivalent would argue that children aren’t children until they have emerged from the womb for either a moment or an extended period depending on their level of degradation. What’s your point? Fact is lots of people who are willing to advance evil will nod their head to statements of good. The devil, so to speak, is in the details.

>Take for instance the view that aborting a human zygote is, morally speaking, just like murdering a 12-year old child, or the view that resisting a ban against first-term abortions is like supporting Nazi death camps.

These are cute formulations but regrettably not relevant to current popular discussion as Roe v Wade has been interpreted in such a way as to functionally allow abortion up to the moment the baby escapes from the mother and even then they are not safe.

The fact that folk are, for selfish reasons, willing to disregard the biology of the matter and question the humanity of the conceived child is certainly disturbing. Personally I think Molech worship is a slightly better comparison for those who favor legalized abortion than National Socialist Germany but given the education level of the secularist audience it probably doesn’t speak to them.

By: C. Ehrlich

C. Ehrlich — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 18:41:47 +0000

David Gray,

It’s not really a matter of being against “the blood sacrifice of children” or “the willful shedding of innocent blood.” Stated in these terms, you’ll find general agreement among Christians and secular people alike.

Rather, what’s curious are the peculiar views of pro-lifers. Take for instance the view that aborting a human zygote is, morally speaking, just like murdering a 12-year old child, or the view that resisting a ban against first-term abortions is like supporting Nazi death camps.

These are views that seem to stand in need of a sociological explanation. What accounts for the correspondence between being an evangelical and having beliefs such as these? Just as with the correspondence between being an evangelical and supporting the Bush wars, or being excessively skeptical about climate change, it seems unpromising to try to account for evangelical attachment to such positions in terms of any superior commitment to morality, divine revelation, clear-sightedness, etc.

By: David Gray

David Gray — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 17:20:31 +0000

>>TFor evangelicals, however, the correspondence might just be like the link between evangelicalism and climate change skepticism; or between evangelicalism and supporting Bush’s wars.

Well for historic evangelicals it ought to be untrue as the Bible is very clear about the blood sacrifice of children and the willful shedding of innocent blood. But for the modern evangelical it may be increasingly true as the modern evangelical is increasingly a liberal and as such, as pointed out by Machen, has ceased to be Christian.

By: Chuck

Chuck — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 23:35:33 +0000

If the presidential election had been held in September of 1968, George Wallace would have won. While the public was not driven to the KKK in great numbers, it certainly recoiled from the Civil Rights Movement and its supporters. That was the basis of the Southern Stratregy that transformed the southern states from Democratic strongholds to Republican ones.

In June of 1992, Bill Clinton was behind George Bush until the day he announced that pro choice was going to be a litmus test for his judicial appointments. If you look at the polling data, the next day he pulled ahead of Bush and never lost ground after that.

Whether you would see the same results after 20 years is open to question but there is no question that the behavior of pro-life activists in the early 1990s was devastating to their cause.

By: JB in CA

JB in CA — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 21:57:50 +0000

My second point is that if reason is to be anything other than instrumental (if it is to yield anything other than what Immanuel kant called hypothetical imperatives–”if you desire X, then you must do Y”), we have to inquire where the moral or compulsory force comes from. —Joseph Knippenberg Mr. Knippenberg should leave Kant alone. That’s atrocious. —C. Ehrlich @ C. Ehrlich: What are you saying is atrocious? Knippenberg got Kant's notion of a hypothetical imperative exactly right.

By: PeteG

PeteG — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 20:09:49 +0000

C. Ehrlich writes: it may just be wrongheaded to try to account for the connection in terms of any superior commitment to morality, divine revelation, clear-sightedness, etc.
Then again, it may not.

C. Ehrlich again: And, even if this were a secularist’s only reason for taking sides in the abortion debate (which is totally plausible), why assume that it would be the only consideration she regards in other controversial issues?

First of all, to take the pro-choice side because of a visceral reaction at seeing religious pro-lifers is a feeble reason at best. And secondly, the only reason I would assume that she would consider it sufficient reason in other important matters is – from what – memory, experience?

For C. Ehrlich, I suspect that any reason is good enough when it comes to being pro-choice, and not one is helpful when it is for the other side. Are my suspicions correct?

By: C. Ehrlich

C. Ehrlich — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 16:33:02 +0000

These days the regular correspondence between being a Christian and opposing abortion rights is interesting. I suppose we can understand this connection for Roman Catholics. For evangelicals, however, the correspondence might just be like the link between evangelicalism and climate change skepticism; or between evangelicalism and supporting Bush's wars. That is: it may just be wrongheaded to try to account for the connection in terms of any superior commitment to morality, divine revelation, clear-sightedness, etc. The connection between secularism and pro-choice likely involves a diversity of factors. Knippenberg's discussion is quite unhelpful. According to his own clarification, his KKK analogy is clear case of the straw man fallacy. Is anyone suggesting that a secularist's "only reason for taking one side rather than the other in the debate is a kind of visceral distaste for the folks on one side"? And, even if this were a secularist's only reason for taking sides in the abortion debate (which is totally plausible), why assume that it would be the only consideration she regards in other controversial issues?

By: Ray Ingles

Ray Ingles — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 16:28:01 +0000

Joe DeVet –

How does any “ought,” any judgment of the good, or any preference for one course of action over another come to be? If his introspection is honest, he will find the natural law in there.

Sure, but does that natural law have to be supernatural?

http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2007/07/12/universal-morality-and-the-morality-of-the-universe/