Religion and Atheism

[TerraPrime]

From the things I have read, I don't think Islamic theology is any less barbaric than Catholic or Protestant theology. They are all branches of the Abrahamic faith, after all, steeped in the same history of the region, and then diverged from each other based on cultural practices. The biggest difference I can detect is that there are more Christians and Jews who are willing to deviate from the scriptural/religious dictates than there are Muslims willing to do the same. This then creates a pressure for the religious doctrines in the Judaio-Christian faiths to evolve and catch up with the believers lest the faiths became irrelevant (as a side note: this, more than anything else, is evidence that religions are manifestations of human will in the guise of serving the divine, not a set of guidelines revealed by a divine source to aid human behavior). We certainly have religions that do not evolve with time that still exist, like some sects in the Orthodox Jewish community and some groups within the Catholic church. We also have convergent development in some fringe Fundamentalist and/or evangelical Protestant sects that attempt to live by the old traditions. But these groups remain the numerical minority in their respective faith communities.

So, yes, faith and religion affect people's behavior. But so do other things. Economic development, globalization, and advancement of accessible public education all reduce the hold of religions on their followers. This is why some countries, like Iran, ban these cultural exports from the Western world. Just like communism in China and Russia was not ended by gun fires and canons, but by gradual erosion of ideological rigidity through trade and global interactions, it is my belief that the proper tool to combat extremist Islamic sects is through inclusion, dialogue, and embracing the greater Muslim population into the global community. In the arena of competing ideologies, the ones that champion self-determination, individual choices, and personal responsibilities tend to win out over doctrinally rigid views of morality and ethics. With this, we might see the modern Islamic branches undergo the same cultural transformation that Christianity and Judaism underwent decades ago.

This view does mean that the onus is on the Muslims to change their behavior such that there is a pressure on their faith leaders to change the religious views, the same way that divorce became mainstream in Protestant faiths. Change the culture, and the way that people want to lead their lives, and their religions will follow, or those religions will dwindle into irrelevance.

[Bonesy]

I don't know Neil. "What would Jesus do?" is a thing.

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

I don't quite see how blaming Islam, in the sense of giving the individual horrific beliefs that perpetuate evil acts a single blanket term, advances the dialogue.  Once we identify that they're all tied to Islam ... now what, precisely?  What new revelation or new act now opens up to us that we could not have considered before?

Take honor killings.  Killing people is wrong, and we should stop it.  Should we stop it more because it's Islamic honor killings?  Less?  Should we stop it differently somehow?  Making a law against it isn't enough?

Is forcing women to wear beekeeper suits wrong because it's Islamic, or because it's coercion and sexist coercion at that?

Of course there's got to be something pretty massive I'm overlooking here, but it strikes me as sort of like hate crimes legislation.  It's not bad enough you did something we think you should stop doing anyway -- you did it while thinking the wrong thoughts!

It is in this light that I'm constantly wondering: Where is the indefinitely postponed, much-pined-for "conversation about Islam" supposed to go?

 

To be clear, the single most important reason that we need to recognize, explicitly, the fact that we are currently engaged in a struggle with radical, political Islam is not practical - it's philosophical. We should recognize it explicitly because it's TRUE and it is an act of intellectual dishonesty and moral cowardice to deny it or shy away from it. I reject, I think as most people do, the idea of Socrates' Noble Lie - that the maintenance of some social order is more important than the actual truth.  The primary reward of being correct is simply that - being correct. 

Thankfully, I think it's also true that practical benefits flow from this. The reality is that you can't fix a problem, or even really attempt to fix a problem, unless you understand it. If you think that the problem of Islamist violence can be cured by solving poverty or better integrating Muslims into the economy, you're just wrong. And we have seen, over and over again, that people from all social classes - affluent like some of the 9/11 terrorists; privileged like the Tsarnaev brothers; middle class like some of the Paris attackers - feel the pull of radical Islam. As of September of 2014, something like an estimated 3,000 European Muslims voluntarily left their wealthy, European countries to go murder infidels in a godforsaken desert backwater and try to establish the caliphate. If you think you can solve this equation without explicitly factoring in radical Islam, you are mistaken. 

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

From the things I have read, I don't think Islamic theology is any less barbaric than Catholic or Protestant theology. They are all branches of the Abrahamic faith, after all, steeped in the same history of the region, and then diverged from each other based on cultural practices. The biggest difference I can detect is that there are more Christians and Jews who are willing to deviate from the scriptural/religious dictates than there are Muslims willing to do the same. This then creates a pressure for the religious doctrines in the Judaio-Christian faiths to evolve and catch up with the believers lest the faiths became irrelevant (as a side note: this, more than anything else, is evidence that religions are manifestations of human will in the guise of serving the divine, not a set of guidelines revealed by a divine source to aid human behavior). We certainly have religions that do not evolve with time that still exist, like some sects in the Orthodox Jewish community and some groups within the Catholic church. We also have convergent development in some fringe Fundamentalist and/or evangelical Protestant sects that attempt to live by the old traditions. But these groups remain the numerical minority in their respective faith communities.

So, yes, faith and religion affect people's behavior. But so do other things. Economic development, globalization, and advancement of accessible public education all reduce the hold of religions on their followers. This is why some countries, like Iran, ban these cultural exports from the Western world. Just like communism in China and Russia was not ended by gun fires and canons, but by gradual erosion of ideological rigidity through trade and global interactions, it is my belief that the proper tool to combat extremist Islamic sects is through inclusion, dialogue, and embracing the greater Muslim population into the global community. In the arena of competing ideologies, the ones that champion self-determination, individual choices, and personal responsibilities tend to win out over doctrinally rigid views of morality and ethics. With this, we might see the modern Islamic branches undergo the same cultural transformation that Christianity and Judaism underwent decades ago.

This view does mean that the onus is on the Muslims to change their behavior such that there is a pressure on their faith leaders to change the religious views, the same way that divorce became mainstream in Protestant faiths. Change the culture, and the way that people want to lead their lives, and their religions will follow, or those religions will dwindle into irrelevance.

Terra,

It's not clear to me who exactly you are responding to - if you're responding to anyone at all. But I don't really disagree with anything you've said here. I think it's absolutely critical that we pull moderate and nominal Muslims tighter into our social fabric and let them know they are welcomed and appreciated. It's very important that a space be created and popularized within Islam that offers Muslims the same interpretive space that most Christians and Jews utilize freely to simply disregard the parts of the Torah and the Bible that are incompatible with modern liberal society. 

[Wise Fool]

I really do admire your persistent failure to recognize that accusing someone of bigotry is not an actual argument. 

The unfortunate reality is that devout Islamists DON'T care about little plots of land to call their own, good schools for their children, or a little bit of leisure time to enjoy the company of their friends. What they seem to care the most about is gang raping infidel women, beheading Coptic Christians, murdering innocent people at concerts and strapping suicide vests on to their children.

How do we know this? Because that's what they do. 

How do they know that they do this because of their faith? Because they spare no opportunity to tell us so. They profess their faith before detonating their suicide vests. They profess their faith before opening fire on people in restaurants. They profess their faith before they carve into the necks of hooded captives, kneeling before them. 

If you haven't gotten the message, it's only because you aren't listening. 

Sam Harris was talking about "devout Muslims," not "ISIS fighters," and so was I - it is disingenuous to now suggest I was now trying to excuse terrorists or even talking about them.

I call bigotry what it is - particularly when the person (in this case) was making the argument that it is not bigotry. Addressing whether it's bigotry or not would seem to a quite valid point in this discussion. Harris says it's not bigotry to think "devout Muslims" are not motivated by any human psychology. I disagree. If you don't want to talk about that you shouldn't have brought it up.

But you're right, ISIS fighters say "Allahu Akbar," when they get the chance. Professing their "faith." More like an excuse. They blame religion, and blame God. God and religion, of course, must be responsible, because "they tell us so." Sort of like how a rapist might say his victim was asking for it. Since that's what the rapist said it must be true, right? Why is it that "we are glorious fighters defending Islam" somehow doesn't seem like propaganda to you, while, presumably, "we are righteous patriots defending Germany" does? (Does it? Or do you blame patriotism for the Holocaust?)

[Biglose]

But you're right, ISIS fighters say "Allahu Akbar," when they get the chance. Professing their "faith." More like an excuse. They blame religion, and blame God. God and religion, of course, must be responsible, because "they tell us so." Sort of like how a rapist might say his victim was asking for it. Since that's what the rapist said it

must

be true, right? Why is it that "we are glorious fighters defending Islam" somehow doesn't seem like propaganda to you, while, presumably, "we are righteous patriots defending Germany" does? (Does it? Or do you blame patriotism for the Holocaust?)

Really, you choose the example which lead to the point where everything they were claiming to stand for got a real bad name? Yes, even patriotism in germany. (Not that they were going by that line, they were more on the line of we are the forfront of a new order jadada...

Really, by that standart you would end up with the demand that close every muslim should change their faith. I mean that what happened to the ideology the nazis used not long after...Why do people always point to the nazis and in most cases their example is just so fucking backfiring. (I mean the same thing right now with the refugee situation....)

I mean it is like is it really about, nobody would go there because they are afraid of beeing seen defending the nazis by attack my stupid comparison.

[Wise Fool]

Really, you choose the example which lead to the point where everything they were claiming to stand for got a real bad name? Yes, even patriotism in germany. (Not that they were going by that line, they were more on the line of we are the forfront of a new order jadada...

Really, by that standart you would end up with the demand that close every muslim should change their faith. I mean that what happened to the ideology the nazis used not long after...Why do people always point to the nazis and in most cases their example is just so fucking backfiring. (I mean the same thing right now with the refugee situation....)

I mean it is like is it really about, nobody would go there because they are afraid of beeing seen defending the nazis by attack my stupid comparison.

Yes, everything good or neutral that bad people "stand for" they give a bad name. They taint things like truth, goodness, compassion, respect, love, honor, faith, by their actions. Even while many of them - Nazis and Terrorists for example - claim to be standing up for and defending such concepts. The notion that we should just accept the rationales of monsters as the actual causes of their actions is repugnant, because it IS an excuse; a lie that makes good propaganda both internal and external. Evaluating ISIS as exemplary "devout Muslims" is like evaluating the WBC's funeral protests as exemplary "Christian devotion."  Misleading at best. Symptomatic of underlying, probably unrecognized, simplistic bigotries.

[Lord Mord]

Nestor, 

 

To be clear, the single most important reason that we need to recognize, explicitly, the fact that we are currently engaged in a struggle with radical, political Islam is not practical - it's philosophical. We should recognize it explicitly because it's TRUE and it is an act of intellectual dishonesty and moral cowardice to deny it or shy away from it. I reject, I think as most people do, the idea of Socrates' Noble Lie - that the maintenance of some social order is more important than the actual truth.  The primary reward of being correct is simply that - being correct. 

Thankfully, I think it's also true that practical benefits flow from this. The reality is that you can't fix a problem, or even really attempt to fix a problem, unless you understand it. If you think that the problem of Islamist violence can be cured by solving poverty or better integrating Muslims into the economy, you're just wrong. And we have seen, over and over again, that people from all social classes - affluent like some of the 9/11 terrorists; privileged like the Tsarnaev brothers; middle class like some of the Paris attackers - feel the pull of radical Islam. As of September of 2014, something like an estimated 3,000 European Muslims voluntarily left their wealthy, European countries to go murder infidels in a godforsaken desert backwater and try to establish the caliphate. If you think you can solve this equation without explicitly factoring in radical Islam, you are mistaken. 

I don't think anyone disagrees with you in regards to the importance of speaking the truth.

I just don't understand what "explicitly factoring in radical Islam" means, either in philosophical or policy terms.  Is it as simple as making sure the word "Islam" appears next to every evil thing done in its name?

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

Sam Harris was talking about "devout Muslims," not "ISIS fighters," and so was I - it is disingenuous to now suggest I was now trying to excuse terrorists or even talking about them.

I call bigotry what it is - particularly when the person (in this case) was making the argument that it is not bigotry. Addressing whether it's bigotry or not would seem to a quite valid point in this discussion. Harris says it's not bigotry to think "devout Muslims" are not motivated by any human psychology. I disagree. If you don't want to talk about that you shouldn't have brought it up.

But you're right, ISIS fighters say "Allahu Akbar," when they get the chance. Professing their "faith." More like an excuse. They blame religion, and blame God. God and religion, of course, must be responsible, because "they tell us so." Sort of like how a rapist might say his victim was asking for it. Since that's what the rapist said it must be true, right? Why is it that "we are glorious fighters defending Islam" somehow doesn't seem like propaganda to you, while, presumably, "we are righteous patriots defending Germany" does? (Does it? Or do you blame patriotism for the Holocaust?)

I have no idea where you came up with the baffling notion that being motivated by religious belief is somehow outside the realm of human psychology. As near as I can tell, your adherence to this position is motivated by nothing more than your perverse attempt to reinvent Harris' argument as some limp attempt to "Otherize" radical Islamists, rather than what it actually is, which is simply having the decency to take the actual stated motivations of radical Islamists seriously. 

I'm genuinely curious - on what basis have you concluded that radical Islamists - people willing to blow themselves up in service to Allah - are LYING when they explain that their religious faith motivates their actions?

Based on the frequency with which you purport to be able to divine the hidden motivations - both of other posters on the board, and hundreds of radical Islamist terrorists that you've never even met - I'm inclined to believe you must be in possession of some kind of psychic powers. 

Or you just make shit up. One of the two. 

 

[Biglose]

Yes, everything good or neutral that bad people "stand for" they give a bad name. They taint things like truth, goodness, compassion, respect, love, honor, faith, by their actions. Even while many of them - Nazis and Terrorists for example - claim to be standing up for and defending such concepts. The notion that we should just accept the rationales of monsters as the actual causes of their actions is repugnant, because it IS an excuse; a lie that makes good propaganda both internal and external. Evaluating ISIS as exemplary "devout Muslims" is like evaluating the WBC's funeral protests as exemplary "Christian devotion."  Misleading at best. Symptomatic of underlying, probably unrecognized, simplistic bigotries.

Are you lobbying for the restoration of the good name of fascism? Sure good things are tainted if bad people use them, but to be honest most of them were not really good to begin with or bad people could not have used them. My country good or bad patriotism is not a truely good thing in the end. The only point you actually have is, that muslim is too broad of a term. Calling them radical Wahhabi would probably be more fitting. It is the same with the WBC. Christian is too broad of a term. They are clearly not catholic because the pope would disapprove. But yeah, their bigottery is tied with their religious believes. Nobody goes there because he/she hates gays even if he/she believes in thor.

[Stubby]

Are you lobbying for the restoration of the good name of fashism? Sure good things are tainted if bad people use them, but to be honest most of them were not really good to begin with or bad people could not have used them. My country good or bad patriotism is not a truely good thing in the end. The only point you actually have is, that muslim is too broad of a term. Calling them radical Wahhabi would probably be more fitting. It is the same with the WBC. Christian is too broad of a term. They are clearly not catholic because the pope would disapprove. But yeah, their bigottery is tied with their religious believes. Nobody goes there because he/she hates gays even if he/she believes in thor.

Is that like where someone declares that no-one is allowed to wear white tube socks or crocs or legwarmers on pain of death?

[Jo498]

The bolded part is simply a very limited view of how science and religion interact in the modern world.

Do you not think that religion and science clash in other ways?  Like these for example:

Abortion

Refusal of Blood Transfusions

Refusal of Autopsies

Preaching about the evil of condoms on a continent devastated by the AIDS virus

Opposition to genetic research

Declaring certain (non-harmful) foods as forbidden, in a world with mass hunger issues

Refusal of c-sections

Opposition to voluntary euthanasia

The reliance by some people on "faith healing" at the expense of modern medicine.

I could go on, but it is enough to note that you have made some impressive philosophical points in your post.  Unfortunately you have clearly overlooked many real-world examples.

what you apparently refuse to understand is that science (in the usual sense, i.e. biology, physics etc.)  does not offer answers to such ethical questions. It only seems to do that for you because you take the main ethical or moral issue (e.g. abortion or contraception) already as settled. This really is a deeper problem because you and others tag the label "scientific" onto positions in ethics that have nothing to do with science because science cannot settle questions that are at the core moral questions, e.g. if suicide is morally problematic or not. So a conflict gets labeled as between (iron age) religions and (space age) science when it is actually a conflict in moral questions (with far less clear cut moral stances leading to them)

What I do not at all deny is that some of your points are often in dispute among the religious and the non-religious. But most of them are conflicts within ethics that have nothing to do with science. (As opposed to Y-E-creationism vs. scientific cosmology)

And e.g. abortion, some kinds of genetic research, organ donation and euthanasia are in dispute also among secular ethicists. Refusal of blood transfusions only concerns a few non-mainstream sects (like Jehova's witnesses), similar things hold for faith healings (with refusal of medical treatment) and refusal of autopsies or c-sections. I have also never heard of Jews starving because they refused to eat pork. Would you call veganism also an unscientific pseudo-religion (it might well be one!)? Homeopathy (and similar things popular among some secular people) unscientific quasi-religions?

[Jo498]

To be clear, the single most important reason that we need to recognize, explicitly, the fact that we are currently engaged in a struggle with radical, political Islam is not practical - it's philosophical. We should recognize it explicitly because it's TRUE and it is an act of intellectual dishonesty and moral cowardice to deny it or shy away from it.

Thankfully, I think it's also true that practical benefits flow from this. The reality is that you can't fix a problem, or even really attempt to fix a problem, unless you understand it. If you think that the problem of Islamist violence can be cured by solving poverty or better integrating Muslims into the economy, you're just wrong. And we have seen, over and over again, that people from all social classes - affluent like some of the 9/11 terrorists; privileged like the Tsarnaev brothers; middle class like some of the Paris attackers - feel the pull of radical Islam. As of September of 2014, something like an estimated 3,000 European Muslims voluntarily left their wealthy, European countries to go murder infidels in a godforsaken desert backwater and try to establish the caliphate. If you think you can solve this equation without explicitly factoring in radical Islam, you are mistaken. 

this is probably all true but this does not contradict the fact that poverty, failed states and the impression of the West (or the US) trying to dominate near/middle Eastern countries are also all factors.

As for the attraction of radicalism for comparably affluent (many of them might still be from "no-future" ghetto-like banlieues and similar quarters) western-born people, I do not think we will ever be able to understand that as long as we take for granted that western liberalism is without any reasonable doubt the best political system and the best philosophy/way of live ever.

I recommend reading some of Rod Dreher's blog articles to get at least a glimpse (from a somewhat traditional christian perspective) what these people could "miss" in our best of all possible worlds. If we do not confront the "holes" or the shallowness of western consumerism and the hypocrisy of "meritocratic" capitalism, we will not get any further, I think.

It would probably also add some perspective to study the radicalization of affluent western students in the 1920s/30s and 1960/70s who "fell for" the lure of communism. One can probably overdo the analogy but when I realized that hundreds of young people born in France, Germany or Belgium left for the middle Eastern wars I was reminded of the international troops in the Spanish civil war in the 1930s. (Don't get me wrong, I am not in favor of Franco-fascism, it's just about the similarity of extremist youth fighting in a foreign country.)

[Stubby]

what you apparently refuse to understand is that science (in the usual sense, i.e. biology, physics etc.)  does not offer answers to such ethical questions. It only seems to do that for you because you take the main ethical or moral issue (e.g. abortion or contraception) already as settled. This really is a deeper problem because you and others tag the label "scientific" onto positions in ethics that have nothing to do with science because science cannot settle questions that are at the core moral questions, e.g. if suicide is morally problematic or not. So a conflict gets labeled as between (iron age) religions and (space age) science when it is actually a conflict in moral questions (with far less clear cut moral stances leading to them)

What I do not at all deny is that some of your points are often in dispute among the religious and the non-religious. But most of them are conflicts within ethics that have nothing to do with science. (As opposed to Y-E-creationism vs. scientific cosmology)

And e.g. abortion, some kinds of genetic research, organ donation and euthanasia are in dispute also among secular ethicists. Refusal of blood transfusions only concerns a few non-mainstream sects (like Jehova's witnesses), similar things hold for faith healings (with refusal of medical treatment) and refusal of autopsies or c-sections. I have also never heard of Jews starving because they refused to eat pork. Would you call veganism also an unscientific pseudo-religion (it might well be one!)? Homeopathy (and similar things popular among some secular people) unscientific quasi-religions?

Are you seriously suggesting that medicine is not a science?

Do you honestly say that there is no such thing as ethics boards in medicine, genetic research, pharmacology, etc?

Your whole final paragraph is a direct contradiction of your earlier point.  Let me remind you of your earlier assertion:

One problem with the "new atheists" is that they take religion mainly as competing with science. This is fundamentally wrongheaded and justified almost only wrt a (historically) recent strain of (mostly American) fundamentalism.

Maybe ( and only maybe) you meant to say that religion and ethics have some issues?  No argument from me on that point.  Funny you should focus on ethics, when you made a totally unsupported assertion about the issue being "fundamentally wrongheaded" and "justified almost only".  Further, creationism is a worldwide problem, not just in the USA.  All of the things you mentioned in the final paragraph are based on religion (yes, even homeopathy - which is just as bunk as religion).

Your entire position is false.

Admitting you didn't think it through might be an ethical place to start.

[Jo498]

I will not continue this debate if you keep insulting me and refuse to address my points. apparently I am still unclear, so again: Medicine might be a science, but this is not the point. How should medicine decide with the tools of medicine whether e.g. suicide or abortion are morally wrong or not? Medicine can show how to perform an abortion or a painless suicide, but it can IN PRINCIPLE not decide whether these actions are morally wrong or not. If doctors sit in an ethical board they will either give medical background to ethical problems or they will engage in ethical questions for ethical reasons. They cannot get out a syringe to treat an ethical question medically.

You either refuse to distinguish between ethical and scientific questions or you do not even see a difference. This is very confusing and I don't know what else to say until this distinction is recognized. I cannot deny that I have the impression that you are trying to use the reputation of Science to shortcut ethical questions because you apparently fail to recognize that there is a fundamental difference between scientific knowledge and what is right or wrong in ethics.

And I have explicitly acknowledged that the points you listed are in dispute between (some) religious and non-religious people. But these are conflicts in ethics not in questions of scientific knowledge. Those who refuse blood transfusions do, as far as I know, not disagree with the biochemistry of blood. They might refuse out of strange or stupid religious reasons (that could be refuted) but not because they suggest an alternative religion-based biochemistry. (BTW from a secular pov: if someone is free to commit suicide why should it be ethically problematic to refuse certain treatments that would lead to one's death?)

[TrueMetis]

I will not continue this debate if you keep insulting me and refuse to address my points. apparently I am still unclear, so again: Medicine might be a science, but this is not the point. How should medicine decide with the tools of medicine whether e.g. suicide or abortion are morally wrong or not? Medicine can show how to perform an abortion or a painless suicide, but it can IN PRINCIPLE not decide whether these actions are morally wrong or not. If doctors sit in an ethical board they will either give medical background to ethical problems or they will engage in ethical questions for ethical reasons. They cannot get out a syringe to treat an ethical question medically.

Well medicine can be used to help determine which option leads to the least amount of unnecessary suffering, which seems to me to be rather important in determining morality.

[A wilding]

Medicine might be a science, but this is not the point. How should medicine decide with the tools of medicine whether e.g. suicide or abortion are morally wrong or not? Medicine can show how to perform an abortion or a painless suicide, but it can IN PRINCIPLE not decide whether these actions are morally wrong or not. If doctors sit in an ethical board they will either give medical background to ethical problems or they will engage in ethical questions for ethical reasons. They cannot get out a syringe to treat an ethical question medically.

While it may be technically correct to say that questions of ethics lie outside science, what science can do is inform that debate.

This is more than just doing something like "give medical background". It can provide detailed assessments of the impact on a society and its people of, for example making contraception and/or abortion unavailable. If that is too dry, they can delve in deeper to produce illustrative representative examples of the effect on individual people's lives. To my mind this information is often enough to make the correct answer a no brainer.

Now religion may have something to say about ethics as well, but all too often it seems to be an appeal from authority argument, such as "a nineteenth century religious leader declared that it was wrong".

 

 

 But these are conflicts in ethics not in questions of scientific knowledge. Those who refuse blood transfusions do, as far as I know, not disagree with the biochemistry of blood. They might refuse out of strange or stupid religious reasons (that could be refuted) but not because they suggest an alternative religion-based biochemistry.

I think that most people would say that someone should be able to make their own choices, even when they seem peverse. This is very different from seeking to impose those choices on other people.

[Stubby]

 

 

I will not continue this debate if you keep insulting me and refuse to address my points.

Please point out the personal insult or report the post if you think I have insulted you.

…apparently I am still unclear…

Your point was never clear.

…so again: Medicine might be a science, but this is not the point…

This is entirely the point.  You said: “One problem with the "new atheists" is that they take religion mainly as competing with science. This is fundamentally wrongheaded and justified almost only wrt a (historically) recent strain of (mostly American) fundamentalism”

Medicine is a science.  Genetics is a science.  I listed a whole bunch of ways that science is in conflict with religions.  Your point was incorrect and false.  I pointed it out and all of a sudden I am insulting you.

How should medicine decide with the tools of medicine whether e.g. suicide or abortion are morally wrong or not?

Funnily enough, although you alleged at the start of this post that I did not address your points, I told you how.  Ethics boards.  You seem to acknowledge this when you refer to ethics boards in your next comment.  But now I’m not addressing your points?

 

Medicine can show how to perform an abortion or a painless suicide, but it can IN PRINCIPLE not decide whether these actions are morally wrong or not. If doctors sit in an ethical board they will either give medical background to ethical problems or they will engage in ethical questions for ethical reasons. They cannot get out a syringe to treat an ethical question medically.

I suppose in your world they have to ask for guidance from religion on this point do they?  Or perhaps bring in an actual ethicist?  Maybe, and this is probably unscientific or something, they would comply with a National requirement about how the research is conducted.  Something like this, perhaps?

You either refuse to distinguish between ethical and scientific questions or you do not even see a difference.

Nope.  I see a difference and I know exactly what each discipline does.  You do not appear to do so, as you said it was fundamentally wrongheaded to suggest that science has almost no conflicts with religions.  When I pointed this error out to you, you relied solely on your religion and thought that was enough.  With all due respect, mate, you need to realise that all religions interact with science and all religions – based as they are on beliefs – come up short on some scientific issue or another.

This is very confusing and I don't know what else to say until this distinction is recognized. I cannot deny that I have the impression that you are trying to use the reputation of Science to shortcut ethical questions because you apparently fail to recognize that there is a fundamental difference between scientific knowledge and what is right or wrong in ethics.

I have no idea how you came to that conclusion. Perhaps you could the passage in any of my posts where I suggested that before you brought it up?.

And I have explicitly acknowledged that the points you listed are in dispute between (some) religious and non-religious people. But these are conflicts in ethics not in questions of scientific knowledge. Those who refuse blood transfusions do, as far as I know, not disagree with the biochemistry of blood. They might refuse out of strange or stupid religious reasons (that could be refuted) but not because they suggest an alternative religion-based biochemistry. (BTW from a secular pov: if someone is free to commit suicide why should it be ethically problematic to refuse certain treatments that would lead to one's death?)

This is confirmation that you do not understand the entire discussion between us.  That discussion is that I called you out for making the suggestion that it is “fundamentally wrongheaded” to declare that science “mostly only” conflicts with religion on creationism cosmological grounds.

I will use the blood transfusion example in isolation, but note that I can present a case for all of the conflicting intersections between science and religion that I listed above (and several more that I haven’t yet listed)

1.     Is the Jehovah’s Witnesses “sect” (as you put it) a religion?

2.     Is one of the precepts of that faith to refuse blood transfusions?

3.     Has it been scientifically proven that blood transfusions save lives?

4.     Have we (humanity) known that fact for over 100 years now?

When you honestly realise that the only correct answer to all of these questions is “yes”, you must concede that you were wrong to describe atheists as “fundamentally wrongheaded” in the way they discuss science and religion.

Finally, if you think I have not addressed any of your points, please use the quote function when replying and point pout where I did not.  Alternatively, if you are not going to participate in the discussion any more – which is your choice of course) readers will see where your claim was incorrect.

 

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Jo,

Correct me if I'm wrong is your point that the ethics of an action are seperate from the science behind an action?  That simply because something can be done it does not necessarily follow that it should be done.  That the broader ethical implications, that may or may not involve issues of religious belief, should be considered when discussing the ethics of science/medical research?

With regard to abortion I think Medical Ethicist Peter Singer has a challenging and difficult to avoid point about the broader implications of, in particular, late term abortions:

Singer holds that the right to life is essentially tied to a being's capacity to hold preferences, which in turn is essentially tied to a being's capacity to feel pain and pleasure.

In Practical Ethics, Singer argues in favour of abortion on the grounds that fetuses are neither rational nor self-aware, and can therefore hold no preferences. As a result, he argues that the preference of a mother to have an abortion automatically takes precedence. In sum, Singer argues that a fetus lacks personhood.

 

Similar to his argument for abortion, Singer argues that newborns lack the essential characteristics of personhood—"rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness"^[20]—and therefore "killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living."^[21]

^{Factually, Singer is correct.  Physically there is no difference between a late fetus and a newborn baby beyond location.  As such treating them differently legally and ethically is perfectly arbitrary.  While I strenuously disagree that infanticide should be legal it is difficult to offer an none arbirtary reason to reject Singer's analysis and keep abortion legal as well which is a tad disturbing when you are talking about a human life.}

Here's a link to Singer's explict argument about abortion:

http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/1995----03.htm

from the link:

The central argument against abortion may be put like this:

 It is wrong to kill an innocent human being. 
 A human foetus is an innocent human being. 
 Therefore it is wrong to kill a human foetus.

Defenders of abortion usually deny the second premiss of this argument. The dispute about abortion then becomes a dispute about whether a foetus is a human being, or, in other words, when a human life begins. Opponents of abortion challenge others to point to any stage in the gradual process of human development that marks a morally significant dividing-line. Unless there is such a line, they say, we must either upgrade the status of the earliest embryo to that of the child, or downgrade the status of the child to that of the foetus; and no one advocates the latter course.

The most commonly suggested dividing-lines between the fertilized egg and the child are birth and viability. Both are open to objection. A prematurely born infant may well be less developed in these respects than a foetus nearing the end of its normal term, and it seems peculiar to hold that we may not kill the premature infant, but may kill the more developed foetus. The point of viability varies according to the state of medical technology, and, again, it is odd to hold that a foetus has a right to life if the pregnant woman lives in London, but not if she lives in New Guinea.

Those who wish to deny the foetus a right to life may be on stronger ground if they challenge the first, rather than the second, premiss of the argument set out above. To describe a being as 'human' is to use a term that straddles two distinct notions: membership of the species Homo sapiens, and being a person, in the sense of a rational or self-conscious being. If 'human' is taken as equivalent to 'person', the second premiss of the argument, which asserts that the foetus is a human being, is clearly false; for one cannot plausibly argue that a foetus is either rational or self-conscious. If, on the other hand, 'human' is taken to mean no more than 'member of the species Homo sapiens', then it needs to be shown why mere membership of a given biological species should be a sufficient basis for a right to life. Rather, the defender of abortion may wish to argue, we should look at the foetus for what it is - the actual characteristics it possesses - and value its life accordingly.

No religious discussion and quite logically consistent.  Philosophy has a role to play in discussions of science.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

The new quote function on the board does not work terribly well.

Apologies. The last paragraph in my post above is me not Dr. Singer.  And my primary point.