Tag Archives: Ethics

Are atheists just as moral as Judeo-Christian believers?

Here’s a fine polemic from Michael Egnor, writing against radical atheistic Darwinist P.Z. Myers. (H/T ECM)

Myers’ views:

“I’m about as pro-choice as you can get…”

“…I’m even willing to say that I’m pro-abortion…”

“[I] would like to encourage more people to abort…”

And Egnor’s response: (in part)

Valerie Hudson and Andrea Den Boer, authors of the landmark book “Bare Branches: The Security Implications of Asia’s Surplus Male Population” ask:

What forces drive the deficit of females in Asian nations such as India and China? Why are their birth sex ratios so abnormal? Why are early childhood mortality rates for girls higher than those for boys? Why are most children in orphanages girls? How do we account for the disappearance of so many women — estimated conservatively at over 90 million missing women in seven Asian countries alone?

They conclude:

[T]he modern gender imbalance in Asia, as with historical gender imbalances in Asia and else-where, is largely a man-made phenomenon. Girls are being culled from the population, whether through prenatal sex identification and female sex-selective abortion, or through relative neglect compared to male offspring in early childhood (including abandonment)…

Pro-abortion population control policies are the foundation of this femicide, and Myers’ explicit embrace of abortion and implicit embrace of population control junk-science puts him in the company of thugs. Ironically, Myers’ fellow pro-abortion goons have violated women’s basic human rights — the right not to be sterilized, not to be forced to have an abortion, even the right to live until birth and the right not to be killed after birth because you’re a girl — on a scale unprecedented in human history. It’s no coincidence that the first women’s rights activists in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century were passionately pro-life and anti-abortion. Abortion and population control are primary instruments of femicide and of the worldwide degradation of women.

If a person is pro-abortion then they are necessarily pro-sex-selection-abortion.

Abortion is basically recreational sex followed by murder, in order to avoid having to deal with the demands of an innocent person who is at the mercy of the very people who freely chose to bring her into being. And yet atheists like P.Z. Myers want more abortions.

There is no place for human rights – of any kind – in an accidental universe. We are all just lumps of matter – machines made out of meat. That’s their view. We don’t even have consciousness or free will on their view. They think that we’re just animals acting out our biologically determined behaviors based on survival instincts. It’s a very low view of humans.

Here are some more famous atheists explaining what atheism is:

The idea of political or legal obligation is clear enough… Similarly, the idea of an obligation higher than this, referred to as moral obligation, is clear enough, provided reference to some lawgiver higher…than those of the state is understood. In other words, our moral obligations can…be understood as those that are imposed by God…. But what if this higher-than-human lawgiver is no longer taken into account? Does the concept of moral obligation…still make sense? …The concept of moral obligation [is] unintelligible apart from the idea of God. The words remain but their meaning is gone. (Richard Taylor, Ethics, Faith, and Reason (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1985), p. 83-84)

In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, or any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference… DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music. (Source: Richard Dawkins)

The position of the modern evolutionist is that humans have an awareness of morality because such an awareness of biological worth. Morality is a biological adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth. Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. I appreciate when someone says, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself,’ they think they are referring above and beyond themselves. Nevertheless, such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction, . . . and any deeper meaning is illusory. (Michael Ruse, “Evolutionary Theory and Christian Ethics,” in The Darwinian Paradigm (London: Routledge, 1989), pp. 262-269).

Don’t make the mistake in thinking that an atheist is just like you because he lives in the same time and place as you and seems to act according to the fashions of the day. Atheists have no objective standard of morality. They think that “ought” statements are just arbitrary customs and preferences – like cooking style and clothing style and music style. It’s all arbitrary on their view. They think that people behave well not to conform to a Designer’s plan that values self-sacrificial love but in order to have happy feelings and to be accepted and praised by others. They think the universe is an accident, and the purpose of life is to compete with other people in order to be the happiest. There is no final judgment for anything they do, on atheism.

When a Christian loves someone self-sacrificially, they neither think of themselves, nor even the other person, but instead think of their relationship with God. We act out of the desire to please someone who loves us more than anyone in the world. The good action is basically done out of a desire to respect that prior vertical relationship. We are grateful, and we show our gratitude by imitating Jesus’ example of self-sacrificial love. The demands of a child, or a friend, or a family member are more important to me, as a Christian, than my own selfish happiness. I am more concerned about how my actions will cause someone to either turn to God or away from him. I would not act in a way that turns a person away from God. Even if it made me happy, even if I could get away with it. I just don’t care that much about being happy in this life. It’s not a big deal to me.

Democrats plan to block Republicans from banning earmarks

From Fox News: Republicans support a ban on earmarks.

Excerpt:

In a remarkable turnabout, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell shifted gears from fighting a two-year moratorium on earmarks to whole-heartedly embracing it. A long time member of the Senate Appropriations Committee and defender of pet project spending, McConnell said he simply could not ignore the will of the American people any longer and said it was time for him to “lead first by example.”

The leader repeated a criticism he has lodged in recent weeks against the ban, authored in the Senate by Tea Party favorite Sen. Jim DeMint, R-SC, that it was “small or even symbolic” action, but McConnell said Monday, “There is simply no doubt that the abuse of this practice has caused Americans to view it as the symbol of the waste and out of control spending that every Republican in Washington is determined to fight.”

“Right now we’ve got over 500 congressmen and senators who are in Washington who think it’s their job to bring home the bacon. And that takes your eye off the ball. I mean, we’re not working on important national issues when we’re trying to pave a local parking lot,” DeMint told Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace.

[…]The action by McConnell avoids a major split within his party, while not conceding much, and puts the leader squarely on the side of the powerful, grassroots Tea Party movement.

[…]”With Republicans in Congress now united, it’s now up to President,” McConnell chided in a Senate floor speech. “We have said we are willing to give up discretion. Now we’ll see how he handles spending decisions. And if the president ends up with total discretion over spending, we will see more clearly where his priorities lie.”

From Fox News: Democrats oppose a ban on earmarks.

Excerpt:

Jim Manley, spokesman for Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., released a statement saying, “It is up to each Senator whether or not they will support Congressionally directed funding to their state. From delivering $100 million in military projects for Nevada to funding education and public transportation projects in the state, Sen. Reid makes no apologies for delivering for the people of Nevada. He will always fight to ensure the state’s needs are met.”

[…]Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., a senior member of the spending panel indicated Monday he would not support the ban…

The House Republicans are, of course, strongly in favor of a ban on earmarks. They are a little more conservative than the Republicans in the Senate.

How strong are Democrats on ethical issues?

Meanwhile, Democrat Charlie Rangel was convicted on 11 counts of violating ethics rules. (The Other McCain via Neil Simpson’s latest round-up)

Excerpt:

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), once one of the most powerful members of the House, was convicted Tuesday on 11 counts of violating ethics rules and now faces punishment.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the adjudicatory subcommittee and the full House ethics committee, announced the decision late Tuesday morning following an abbreviated public trial and nearly six hours of deliberations.

But Rangel, 80, is certainly not expected to lose his job…. in the lame-duck session, Democrats still hold the majority.

[…]The adjudicatory panel, which operated as a jury of his peers, found that Rangel had used House stationery and staff to solicit money for a school of public policy in his name at the City College of New York. It also concluded that he solicited donors for the center with interests before the Ways and Means Committee. Members of Congress are allowed to solicit money for nonprofit entities — even those bearing their names — as long as they do not use congressional letterhead or office resources to do so.

The ethics panel split 4-4 on a charge that Rangel violated the gift ban because the plans for the center included an office and the archiving of his personal and professional papers.

The panel also found Rangel guilty of using an apartment in Harlem zoned for residential use as his campaign office, failing to report more than $600,000 on his financial disclosure report and failing to pay taxes on rental income from a villa he owns in the Dominican Republic.

Two counts charging him with improper use of the Congress’s free franked-mail privilege were combined into one.

It’s not hard to see which party is in favor of transparency and accountability, is it?

MUST-READ: Only personally opposed to abortion?

Unborn baby scheming about International Life Chain Sunday
Unborn baby scheming about International Life Chain Sunday

The following is a guest post from commenter Mary to commemorate International Life Chain Sunday. Mary urges all of my readers to take this opportunity to stand up for the pre-born.

In my discussions with people on the topic of abortion, I frequently come across people (including many Christians) who claim to be “personally opposed” to abortion (or words to that effect), but who don’t think that it should be illegal. They believe in “a woman’s right to choose”. This all sounds very fine and magnanimous, couched as it is in the language of generosity, but an analysis of the reasoning behind it shows it to be seriously flawed.

Abortion should be illegal for the following reasons:

  1. Taking of innocent human life without morally sufficient reason should be illegal. Where the rationale comes from for believing this basic premise is another topic, but it is agreed on by all reasonable people – theists and atheists alike. (A morally sufficient reason would be something that saves another innocent human life.)
  2. The pre-born child is human. This is a scientific fact.
  3. The pre-born child is alive. This is a scientific fact.
  4. The pre-born child has committed no crime and can therefore be considered legally innocent.
  5. Taking the life of the pre-born child is to take an innocent, human life.
  6. Taking the life of a pre-born child should be illegal.

Abortion should be illegal for the same reason that murdering a newborn or a 2 year old is illegal. We don’t give women the “right to choose” to kill their newborns and for the same reason we should not give them the “right to choose” to kill their pre-born children either. The only case where we would consider it acceptable to take the life of a newborn would be where it was absolutely necessary to save the life of another innocent human being. The same should be true in the case of a pre-born child. We should give equal value to human lives and value life above the right to comfort and convenience.

Our entire legal system is based on the fact that there are certain limits to choice. If the right to choose were applied across the board we’d have to scrap every law in the books. Laws exist to limit choices that are damaging to others.

Legalized abortion is unfair discrimination of the worst kind on the basis of age and location. The right to life of the pre-born is a human right that should be fought for with passion and integrity. If we do not fight for this right we will be remembered in the same way as those who have failed to stand up for the rights of the oppressed in other areas.

Will we be like German citizens during the Nazi regime who failed to stand up for the rights of Jews, despite being “personally opposed” to Nazism? Will we be like those who failed to stand up for the right to freedom of those oppressed by slavery and Apartheid, despite being “personally opposed” to the same? Or will we be like Dietrich Bonheoffer and William Wilberforce who went beyond personal aversion, even though they weren’t members of the oppressed group, who spoke against oppression and who stood up for what was right, in the face of opposition.

I would like to end with two very apt quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King:

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter