Grundy Disagrees #4

My latest disagreement spawned from a Two Catholic Men and a Blog post on the so-called "availability" of God and/or the Holy Spirit. I pointed out that the knowledge of the God's word is not universally available, rather it is asymmetrically available. Some people are born into areas where Catholicism hasn't spread or at least isn't mainstream, some people die before hearing about Jesus, and others are so indoctrinated into competing religions that a near insurmountable boundary is present. Basically, if the Catholic God exists, it is unfair for his word to come so easily to some and not at all to others. Further more, this God is unjust to judge symmetrically given the circumstance he put in place.

Joe, one of the two guys, disagreed.

Here are excerpts of the exchange:

Joe: We must do our part and God will provide the rest. We who are indwelt are called to bring God's love to the whole world. It is OUR fault if some do not hear of God when they are accessible to believers.

You put the fault on God who "makes it so much harder." Again, it is not God who does this. We who imagine and teach the competing worldview are to blame.

God is not a genie in the sky who is expected to wave a hand and fix our troubles. Part of our salvation comes from working to solve just these issues.

Lastly, God judges how God will. He has revealed to believers how he will judge, but God can always save who he will without consulting anyone. Maybe many will be saved in spite of their ignorance. We don't know.

You may say, "perhaps it is better for them to remain ignorant." Maybe. Maybe not. We do know God is just and fair. The question is then, "why bet on ignorance when sure knowledge is available?"

Me: You seem to be trying the justify the lack of availability from the perspective of the believer, but from the perspective of those who don't know about Jesus or have been conditioned to believe otherwise, it's surely not their fault they are in the situation they are in. That's what I'm saying, and it makes God, if he exists, neither just nor fair.

Joe: God does not reveal to us the ultimate fate of non-believer. He only reveals to us our responsibility towards them. Whatever their fate, we as believers are held responsible for our own actions (or non-action) towards them. 

As God is both just AND fair, the fact that someone is the situation they are in when it is not their fault would certainly work in their favor. You are certainly correct in pointing out that circumstances reduce an individual's culpability. 

The Catholic Church has NEVER said that anyone is in Hell. Not even Judas. We hope that Hell is empty. 

Do you see the difference?

Me: I see the difference in regards to hell, but denying some heaven while giving others that reward when asymmetrical circumstances make it so much harder for some to be aware and to believe is the definition of unfair. So, I'll ask you the same question I asked Ben: Do non-Christians go to heaven? Can they?

If the answer is no, God is unfair. If you don't know, then the fairness of God is also unknown and I don't think availability is the best topic to blog about.

Joe: Would you be considered unfair to give a gift to someone but not to another? I would think you would say no.

In the same way, human life is given as gift. If you were in the position of God to create matter from nothing and then bring a non-living being to life, say a clay figure, (see my Clay Man post) you would be perfectly in your rights to do whatever you wish with that Clay figure. You can take away its life without moral impact. It's YOUR stuff. You gave it life and can take it away again.

This is a very hard teaching to accept (as clay men). If you do not accept it, then we have different ideas as to what's "fair" and I'd beware of people who ask you for money since you'd be unfair or unjust not to give money to each and every person who asks.

If God gives life (and eternal life) as gift, it's not mysterious, but it IS up to him. If he wants to explain some of his rationale to us so we can have a chance of obtaining it, even THAT is gift. We are fortunate to listen to it!

Me: I don't accept that teaching and neither do you. Take a child who wouldn't be alive without you. According to this teaching, it is perfectly acceptable for you and your mate to abort the fetus, after all, it's YOUR stuff. I know you don't feel this way because I see you are pro-life. Further, once the kid is born anything from incestual pedophilia to murder one is fine when committed by the parent, right?

Wrong. You and I are both right in not accepting this teaching.

It goes on. Check the comments or weigh in yourself here.

What's the Harm in "Morning After" Abortions?

I've see no secular reason why very early term abortions should be prohibited. To explore this further, I went to Google+ and spoke with Catholic Apologist, Paul Schlenker.

Me: What's the harm in painlessly killing something that is not only unaware and unconscious; but incapable of pain, awareness and consciousness if not for some assumption of a soul?

Paul: The harm is that by killing an embryo that is unaware, unconscious, and incapable of experiencing pain is that you prevent that innocent human being from developing further, being born, and living the life it has a right as a human being to live.

Me: So, outside of preserving the embryo's potential, the only negative affect is the emotional reaction you and others who are uncomfortable with abortion experience, right? The potential argument is problematic now that any instance of DNA can be said to have the same potential when you consider cloning, not to mention the potential of a sperm and egg. To say everything with human potential must be realized in our modern world would result in overpopulation and the waste of human hair and tissue a felony. (Yes, this highlights advancements of science into an argument about otherwise natural development, but without taking into account modern science we couldn't know a women is pregnant early enough for this debate to be relevant.)

Paul: Human hair and human tissue are human life, but they aren't human beings. A fetus is a human being. Human hair and human tissue are part of a human being, but they aren't, in and of themselves, human beings.

Many pro-choice people say that abortion is justified because a fetus is only a "potential life", not an actual life. I think that's rubbish. A fetus is an actual human being from the moment of fertilization, and it is fully alive. If a fetus is only a "potential life", at what point does it become an actual life? The only logical and reasonable point at which a fetus becomes an actual life is at the moment of fertilization. 

Me: The point was obviously missed in regards to hair and tissue. You must acknowledge that no harm is done from the point of view of the embryo, because the embryo has no point of view. If not for potential, I don't understand your argument that there is harm done.

Paul: Do you think it should be permissible to kill a person in a coma?

Me: No, I don't think it should be permissible to kill a person in a coma if they are likely to come out of it. If they certainly won't, then it is fine. The difference is that an agreement to kill coma victims sets a precedent that could directly affect me, people I care about, or people others care about. I don't want them killed if and when they are in a recoverable coma, therefore I don't want any coma victims killed. Do unto others, as they say. Also, even though neither the coma victim nor the embryo want to die--(because they can't want anything) family members and friends almost certainly want the coma victim to reach the potential of regained consciousness while the parents of the embryo obviously don't want the embryo to reach consciousness because otherwise the question of abortion would be moot.

I edited this conversation to make it easier to read and filter out the peanut gallery. The entire thread can be read here. Abortion is one of the few topics involving religion in which I haven't completely made up my mind. Maybe your input will help me with that.

An Abortion of a Post

A Catholic apologist I follow recently said that “religion isn’t required to show that an unborn child is a human being.” The particular phrasing of this statement makes it obvious. A child of a human is a human. No need for debate there. The less clear question is this: is an unborn zygote or fetus a child? For the sake of argument, let’s say yes, but that still isn’t entirely the point. After all, the corpse of a human is still a human. The morality of abortion must take into account more than black and white definitions.

Killing cells isn’t a morally wrong act by anyone’s standard. If it was, everything from sun tans to common medical procedures would be stigmatized or illegal. A fertilized egg is a very active collection of cells. In my opinion, the main distinction between human cells and human people is consciousness. While the moral argument of aborting a mind cannot be made until the brain develops, the moral argument for aborting a soul can be made at conception...providing one accepts that the spiritual enters the material during orgasmic climax or shortly thereafter. I know breeders tend to say “on my God” in bed, but I’m not sure that’s exactly what they mean. It’s magical thinking, and it’s the foundation for religious pro-life reasoning.

This post is probably painting me as a bleeding heart pro-choice advocate. I don’t consider myself as such--my view is more nuanced. Unlike religious pro-life reasoning, there is valid secular pro-life reasoning that takes into account the terms of the pregnancy as well as other factors. When the brain and nervous system develop and the unborn child begins to think and feel, I am far less comfortable with abortion. Watching the ultrasounds of my twins, I learned that this development happens surprisingly early. It’s hard to say exactly when my feelings on the subject change. As a rule, I am pro-choice for the first trimester and pro-life for the third, with my opinion during the second trimester contingent largely on the situation--but still leaning pro-life. I think this is a common take on the moral dilemma of the issue. The religious pro-lifers tend to defend their position with images of near-fully developed kids cut out of women’s bodies. This is always gruesome and, at least in my case, a straw man pictorial. In a way, it’s also misrepresenting their own position, considering Catholics focus the lion’s share of their propaganda  on late term abortions while they feel the exact same way about morning after pills.*

*This may be a generalization, but it’s a well informed one. I’m representing the Catholic Church’s position and very few Catholics defect from the Church’s position on anything much less a hallmark like abortion.

Soul Abortion

Politics and religion, the two subjects that should not be discussed at the dinner table. Each have their share of hot button topics, none more so than those that overlap between the two. Today I’m talking about one such topic, the morning after pill.

You may wonder why I don’t cover the broader issue of abortion. It’s because I have no clear stance on the matter. I’m pro-choice for first trimester abortions and pro-life for third trimester abortions. Any demarcation as to when exactly my stance changes is largely arbitrary, so I vaguely point to the second trimester. My feeling is that there are valid, secular reasons not to abort an unwanted fetus, but only religious reasons to oppose aborting an unwanted embryo. Plan B provides the perfect example of religion fueled opposition and is the safest for me to discuss without hesitation.

Emergency contraceptive pills (ECPs), such as Plan B, are intended to disrupt ovulation and/or fertilization. They are basically just a higher dose of standard birth control and likely don’t abort anything. Even so, the rivals of the pills claim that they could be an abortion, and any chance of this is a chance of killing another person.

When they say "person" or "baby" or "human-being," remember whatever terminology a theist uses for that thing in mamma's belly, they really mean a “soul.” In their eyes, a person begins at fertilization because a divine entity has delivered a soul to a collection of cells. I don’t buy the angelic stork hypothesis. It won’t be some immortal essence that brings conciousness to the unborn child. It will be it’s brain...and it doesn’t have one yet.

So if you are opposed to abortion and you are opposed to the morning after pill, I’m going to write off your opinions as magical thinking. If you are opposed to abortion and you support ECPs, then we can talk. My opinion remains flaky until the theoretical question of “would you have an abortion?” becomes practical...and seeing how I’m not a woman, I doubt it ever will.