I think we're talking at cross purposes.
I'll summarize and end.
1. I don't recall bringing schools up, but they are obviously important to you so I'll discuss them. Schools are going to teach values. Period. They can't do otherwise. The decisions they make throughout the day are infused with value judgments and are in many cases values driven. Therefore, the question is not whether to teach values. They do and will. The question is what values. Or, more basic, the question is how the schools should decide what values. And here, all I want is a level playing field -- so that deists (as you choose to call them) and atheists both have an equal opportunity to try to persuade the schools to adopt their values. You seem to feel that atheists should have a free hand to try to persuade the schools to adopt atheistic values (which include keeping God out of school), but that deists should not have a free hand to try to persuade the schools to adopt their values (which include keeping God in schools). I don't want to prevent you from advocating for the adoption of your values . But I don't want you to prevent me from advocating for the adoption of my values, either. Level playing field, that's all.
2. Maybe you think atheists want to force those who think oocytes have souls to get abortions?
That's silly. And you know it. You were just being intentionally provocative (one of your more endearing traits when you direct it in the correct channels, such as responding to artistry!) The problem with abortion is, as I have noted before, a problem of definition of human life. Which has varied considerably over the centuries. To be provocative myself, since Hitler viewed Jews as sub-human, it was okay to kill them. Similarly, since anti-lifers believe that a fetus (the oocyte is an unfertilized egg, which is not at issue here) is sub-human, it is okay to kill. Your basic argument is that society should allow them to hold this belief, and act on it. By extension, then, however, you have to agree that Nazis shoud have the right to kill Jews and homosexuals (which they view in the same terms as you view the fetus), that slaveowners should continue to be allowed to treat slaves as property instead of people (the basic principle behind abortion -- the fetus is the woman's property, to kill or let live as she chooses), etc. I say otherwise. I say that society has not only the right but the duty to define who is entitled to the protection of its laws, andis entitled to protect those it deems entitled to that protection even against people who belive they are not human.
Answer me this: on what logical basis can you say that society is entitled to say that Jews are fully human and to kill one, even if you believe they are subhuman, is murder, but that society is NOT entitled to say that the fetus is fully human and to kill one, even if you believe it is subhuman, is murder?
I am not saying that atheists (as you put it) want to force believers to have abortions. That's silly, as you know. I AM saying that believers are entitled to persuade their government to protect fetuses just as it protects other human lives which some people would deny human status to.
3. I would have been happy to have you at the bus stop distributing your atheist literature, too. I have no fear of your ideas. But you seem to have a great deal of fear of mine. That tells me much. |
