Should all religious-equivalent laws be struck down?

Discussion in 'Abortion' started by Levant, Jan 17, 2020.

  1. Levant

    Levant Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I did read what you said. Right after the Christmas holiday you continued to discuss off-topic:

    So, back on topic. Should murder laws be abolished because the Bible says thou shall not commit murder? Or can we agree that intelligent beings can discern right and wrong without religion, and therefore the opinions about right and wrong should not be dismissed simply because the holder of an opinion has a religion - or doesn't have a religion?
     
  2. Meta777

    Meta777 Moderator Staff Member

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    Starting to sound like this is more of a personal matter.
    I'd suggest that it isn't a good idea to make things about that other poster specifically rather than the general idea expressed.

    Anyways, again, I agree with LafayetteBis… at least with what was posted in that quote from the OP. Those who try to use religion as a justification for laws are wrong to do so. But again, the fact that they're wrong to justify laws like that does not mean that the laws they're trying to justify are wrong themselves. What needs to be considered is whether or not there are other justifications beyond the religious ones.

    -Meta
     
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  3. Levant

    Levant Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    And, of course, the person who I quoted in post 1 hasn't followed over here. He's unable to defend his post; it was simply lashing out because he'd lost the argument in that thread.
     
  4. Levant

    Levant Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    He didn't say that those who use a religion justification are wrong to do so. Had he said that, I would have agreed with him. He said that those who have a different opinion from him are poking religion into where it doesn't belong and used abortion as an example. Religion has nothing to do with defining what's right and what's wrong.
     
  5. Levant

    Levant Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    And it's not personal; it's a very critical point in any debate on abortion. To dismiss opinions on either side simply because of a person's religion or lack of religion is to lose the debate. If I participate in the thread you're promoting, or any other thread in this forum, I'd like to make sure we are debating on logic, ethics, science, and just plain old right-and-wrong. It has nothing to do with religion.
     
  6. Meta777

    Meta777 Moderator Staff Member

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    I only have the quote you included in the OP to go off of here, and this is what was included there:

    "...Does the woman have the right to terminate her pregnancy before a given date or not at all? Some states, genuflecting at a religious altar, say the former should be law because of the ten-commandments. Once again, religion is poking its nose where it never belonged!..."
    Again, I agree with that sentiment. Those who try to use religion as a justification for laws are wrong to do so. But again, the fact they're wrong to use those religious justifications does not mean the laws they're attempting to justify are wrong. What needs to be considered/determined is whether or not there are other justifications beyond the religious ones. Wouldn't you agree too??

    -Meta
     
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  7. Blaster3

    Blaster3 Well-Known Member

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    wrong, this entire thread is just a vehicle for you to shame someone else because they wont debate/agree with you in another thread...

    what a waste of time...
     
  8. Levant

    Levant Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I do agree.
    You're assuming intent that you cannot possibly know. My intent is to prove that people are able to discern right and wrong without religion. Even to now, I have not mentioned anything about my religious beliefs or my beliefs on abortion. Yet he tried to assign a belief that he could use to dismiss in that thread and tie it to abortion. My intent was to disprove his tie of religion to right and wrong. He chose the example, not me.
     
  9. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    The argument above FAILS because it is making the erroneous ASSUMPTION that ALL laws are based upon religious morality.
    Legislating religious morality has always been a abject FAILURE in our nation. Prohibition and DOMA are both classic examples of the failure of legislating religious morality and BOTH have been effectively rendered null and void.

    Societal morality is also a bad precedent for legislation. When our nation was founded slavery was acceptable in society while it is unacceptable today.

    Abortion was LEGAL when our nation was founded and therefore the RIGHT to an abortion was protected by the 9th Amendment. The legislation that made abortion illegal was not passed on the grounds of religious or societal morality.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10297561

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_the_United_States#Rise_of_anti-abortion_legislation

    And just to add some perspective to this the first link mentioned the connection between abortion and slavery.

    Now that we have some FACTUAL INFORMATION to base our discussion we can return to your OP question.

    Legislation as defined by the Constitution has the following primary purpose;

    This is a SECULAR BASIS upon which to pass legislation that becomes the Law of the Land with the caveat that the government of We the People cannot infringe upon Individual Rights.

    Roe vs Wade was decided on a SECULAR BASIS and made the following determination.

    Women have an absolute right to an abortion during the FIRST trimester (1 to 13 weeks).

    Women have an absolute right to an abortion during the SECOND trimester (14 to 26 weeks) and States have the right to REGULATE abortion procedures during this trimester as long as they do NOT infringe upon the rights of women.

    Women have an absolute right to an abortion during the THIRD trimester (27 weeks onwards) ONLY if there is a threat to their life and/or health caused by the pregnancy. States can CHOOSE whether or not to ban abortions in the 3rd trimester but MUST still allow them if the pregnancy poses a threat to the woman concerned.

    That is the SECULAR legislative basis that exists today. The attempts to overturn it are ALL based upon RELIGION and therefore should automatically be deemed unconstitutional.

    Hopefully that clears up any misunderstandings and any further questions or clarifications can be based upon the FACTS.

    FTR the COMPROMISE provided by @Meta777 above is one arrived at after an exhaustive thread on the topic of abortion and satisfies the majority of the concerns.
     
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  10. Blaster3

    Blaster3 Well-Known Member

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    its blatantly obvious that you're trying to prove you're right & he's wrong, by garnering support through a seperate thread. you keep mentioning that other member's view point, you're showing obsession here.

    peace out...
     
  11. tecoyah

    tecoyah Well-Known Member Past Donor

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  12. Doofenshmirtz

    Doofenshmirtz Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You are incorrect. The question was extremely broad. Murder and theft has a victim. Adultery and sodomy does not. If there is no victim, there should be no crime.

    Since you asked, yes. Adultery laws should be dropped along with many more. We already have too much of our population in prison.
     
  13. cd8ed

    cd8ed Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Except in the instances of murder and theft another person is harmed.

    They are neither invalid nor unconstitutional because of religion just as they are neither valid nor constitutional because of religion.

    Laws should stand on their own merits, not because of religious believe or lack thereof.
     
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  14. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    that was on-topic, you may not like it, but it was very on topic, it was explaining my view on how secular laws can exist even though religions people also recognize those laws, which of course is the topic

    marriage is a secular law, religions do not control secular law, so religion could not request legal marriage discriminate based on race, gender or religion
     
    Last edited: Jan 22, 2020
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  15. HonestJoe

    HonestJoe Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I think there is a flaw in your logic. Even if the opinions of religious people were dismissed, that wouldn't automatically mean the direct opposite of what they support comes to pass. We can criminalise murder for reasons other than religious ones.

    The other flaw is that it generally isn't that opinions based on religion are entirely dismissed. The problem is that some religious people present their theological opinions as more important than any others, even as definitive and unquestionable. If it says so in their religious books, it must be, for everyone everywhere. In practice, the argument is that religious people are still free to express their opinions, be they based on their faith, on their temporal knowledge and experience or some combination of the two (which I suspect is usually the case). It's just that their opinions are no more or less important than anyone else's.
     
  16. Levant

    Levant Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It's blatantly obvious that you're making assumptions about my thoughts that you can't possibly know. I haven't even mentioned him by name. It's not about him; it's about the belief by many on the left that the opinions of some people don't matter because they have religion - though they're extremely quick to defend some religions.

    My point is to take the prejudice against religion out of the argument. If a person's objection against abortion must be disregarded because his faith also teaches against abortion then the objection to all laws for which there are religious equivalents must be disregarded. And since it's obviously nonsensical to suggest that the objections of Christians to murder must be ignored because they're Christians then it is equally nonsensical to suggest that the objections of Christians to abortions must be ignored because they are Christians. The point is, abortion should be debated on science and medicine, and not religion - not for or against religion. Religion is a losing argument on both sides in the discussion of abortion.
     
  17. Levant

    Levant Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You're making my point. Christians, or people of other religious faiths, or people of no faith, can believe that abortion is wrong for reasons other than religious ones. The person I quoted, quite explicitly, implied that pro-life opinions comes from their religions.

    I agree with you that religious people are still free to express their opinions. If I were to try to convince someone that abortion is wrong because my religion says it is wrong, it is a losing battle. To win that argument I would first have to convert you to my religion so religious abortion discussions are way premature or out of line or, at the very least, ineffective. But this thread is in response to someone who said the opposite. He implied that those who are against abortion are trying to enforce their religion on others. Still, by his logic, my response is the answer. If his logic were correct then murder must be allowed. Luckily he's wrong.

    Oh, and for those who say I'm just trying to prove him wrong, it's still not personal but this is a discussion forum, right?
     
  18. Levant

    Levant Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I don't think I've seen anything, anywhere, on this forum where someone suggested marriage discrimination based on race, or religion. As for gender, are you referring to equal marriage rights for LGBTQ? There's a different forum for that so it's off-topic here. But, in the same regard, it is possible for people to have no religious beliefs and be for or against marriage among homosexuals. The discussions should be based on things other than religion, just as should the discussions about abortion.
     
  19. Levant

    Levant Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    And there are many with no religion who will argue that abortion has a victim. So the debate about whether abortion is murder is not just a religious one. It's a scientific one and, as much as murder is, a moral one.
     
  20. HonestJoe

    HonestJoe Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I don’t know the context but the argument you quoted specifically accused people of implementing laws based on religious rules. Someone is perfectly entitled to hold a personal opinion based on their religious beliefs (indeed, I don’t see how you couldn’t) and they’re perfectly entitled to campaign and vote on the basis of that but the actual establishment and implementation of the law of the land needs a stronger basis than simply what some people’s faith tells them.

    He didn’t imply, he literally stated it, with some justification. Your logic is still flawed though. Just because it would be wrong to criminalise abortion just because of religion that doesn’t mean it would be wrong to criminalise abortion because of concrete practical and logical reasons. Equally, it would be wrong to criminalise murder just because of religion but it isn’t wrong to criminalise murder for other reasons.

    Basically, this isn’t about dismissing the induvial as a whole because they’re religious, only dismissing one specific element of their argument because it has zero logical basis.
     
  21. K9Buck

    K9Buck Well-Known Member

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    I agree with your statement. Abortion terminates the life of an innocent, third-party who, if given the choice, would most assuredly choose to be born and have a life. Aborting the unborn is the same as murder in that one that's murdered has had their life terminated against their will.
     
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  22. K9Buck

    K9Buck Well-Known Member

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    I'm in agreement on everything you posted here.

    While I am a Christian, I don't believe that governance should be based on religious philosophy. For instance, I support same-sex marriage because I disagree with the concept of banning it based on religious beliefs.
     
  23. K9Buck

    K9Buck Well-Known Member

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    I believe he was trying to demonstrate how his philosophy is consistent whether it's abortion, same-sex marriage or anything else.
     
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  24. Doofenshmirtz

    Doofenshmirtz Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    True and I am against abortion. Allowing my opinion to be forced on others is not liberty, so that makes me pro choice.

    Those claiming to care about these precious little lives get quiet once the child takes a breath.
     
  25. Levant

    Levant Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    How do you figure that? Unlike the Democrat Governor in Virginia and other abortionists, I have never heard a pro-lifer, a Christian, or any conservative, say that when a baby is born we should make it comfortable, set it aside, and then talk to the mother to decide whether the baby should live or die.

    I've never heard of a pro-lifer, a Christian, or any conservative, say that when a baby is born alive after the mother tried to kill it, does not have a right to medical care while arguing that everyone else alive in the world has an absolute right to medical care.
     

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