He says, *immediately* after appealing to religion as a basis for what is universally true.
Some Red State/Blue State Indicia
- Thread starter nsacpi
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He says, *immediately* after appealing to religion as a basis for what is universally true.
To be completely honest I haven't practiced since I was 13 and completed my Bar Mitzvah. But when one is actually believes in a higher power than themselves they understand universal truths exist and nothing can be more universal than anyone who engages in child mutilation is my enemy and they should be punished.
Sure, in a lot of very important and practical respects. But I’d absolutely argue that they aren’t fundamentally different in the way you are deploying the concept of faith here. I do not need to have faith to care for my fellow man. I do not need to have faith to accept that actions can be defined as moral or immoral. Things do not need to be universally true to be moral or good. And once you’ve decided based on your faith that something is universally true about something you have no experience with, and then write legislation that impacts them, I don’t think I’m out of line to invoke religion.
Again, sure, whatever. But this is the same logic that informs the very types of governance you regularly attack on this forum. I find that form of governance oppressive whether it’s done to restrict the actions of others in Afghanistan or Texas.
Its clear who needs more faith in their lives when 'doctors' can tell them to believe whatever they want.
Islam is a bastardized faith that have foundational building blocks in hatred and abuse.
The Judeo-Christian faith is what has brought all prosperity in the world and while I'll always lean towards Judaism in my own personal preference these foundational learnings are THE UNIVERSAL TRUTHS>
My personal belief is that raping babies is bad and I would not be persuaded by any arguments to the contrary. Fortunately I don’t seem to run into much conflict on that front. But in a purely philosophical sense, no. It depends on the foreknowledge of what a baby is, why it must be protected, why causing harm to one is bad, why rape would cause harm, etc.
But that’s why I think laws are good *even if* they aren’t rooted in any universal truth. One does not need to appeal to the fundamental reality of the ****ing universe to ascertain it would be good if babies weren’t raped and that we should have laws that say you can’t do that. I don’t just float around the world trying to decide if rape and murder are bad on a case by case basis. You can believe something to be true without believing it’s a fundamental certainty.
Yes, this is what I would expect someone who is of the Judeo-Christian faith and is declaring anybody who isn’t is an aimless sheep who can’t tell right from wrong. What I don’t understand is how this would differ from the views of a non-practicing Muslim who believes that the Judeo-Christian faith is the bastardized one. I don’t want your universal truths to directly inform our government’s actions just as I don’t want Islam’s truths to directly inform our government’s actions.
Let’s say a mentally disabled person with absolutely no comprehension of what they’re doing were to harm a baby. Was it immoral for the person to do this, or was it simply a tragic failure on someone else’s part to protect the child from a dangerous situation? Fortunately this is unlikely because most people can and thankfully do figure out it’s bad to do this and I’m not sure how it’s morally bankrupt to suggest that we shouldn’t rape babies because it’s harmful rather than because a divine creator told us so.
I’m not looking to spend my day poking holes at Judeo-Christian scripture to make a point on the internet because I think it’s *gasp* immoral for me to attack your belief system simply because I don’t share in it. But I’d encourage you to perhaps look at other religions more charitably than to take accounts from scripture and use them to demonize an entire population, because there are some flowery stories in the Bible.
Hey, now you’re getting it! We were fortunate enough to develop immensely complex brains that allow us to look at a baby and generally come to the conclusion we should not harm one and that we should make laws to ensure others don’t do that as well. Tigers were not, so while I’d shoot the tiger mauling a baby, I wouldn’t do so because the tiger didn’t understand some universal truth, it would be because I used my brain to choose to protect the baby.
How does not acknowledging that make me morally bankrupt though? I’m coming to the same conclusion — people should not harm babies — despite believing everything is essentially a cosmic accident. I don’t share your conclusion on health care for trans people not because I think there couldn’t possibly ever be harm in “mutilating genitals” but because I don’t share your framing of gender-affirming care as such. What would compel me to change my views will not be conservatives chastising me about morality based on not sharing their faith, but rather evidence that these individuals undergoing these operations are not receiving better outcomes than those who don’t or that the risk of negative outcomes due to the care is too high.