Personally I can believe there is some all powerful force in the Universe, a god if you need a name for it. Lets be honest we havn't a clue whats going on.

Organised religion is the perfect con, give me your money and we will book your passage to a better place, dont and your off to hell. Its an attractive product to purchase

If you can truly believe in a religion, I can see where it may give you inner peace, I've no problem with that. As long as it does no harm to others its ok by me.

The only everlasting life I'm expecting is from the elements within to be recycled again and again.

Okay, here's one. When a true believer hears someone from another religion answering all queries from out of that religion's dogma, legend and superstition ... they see what is happening. However, when they do the same thing from their own religion ... they don't quite see what is happening so well.

It's like being all-in, your opponent turns up a royal flush and gives you a chance to reconsider ... and you say, "Nope, it's my final answer. I'm committed."

While my under-the-influence-of-Ambien post above wasn't as bad as it could've been, it still wasn't what I would have said otherwise (so I'm going to do my best not to do so again, insomnia be damned).
We could pretend all I wrote was the final part, which was in response to this:

Because I'm still not no closer to understanding where you think there will be a problem.

I like your definition of immoral, BF.

Since killing an unborn baby is obviously "causing unnecessary harm or suffering to another person", then I assume that you and I are at least in agreement that abortion is immoral.

1. This doesn't answer my question "What problem are you expecting?"

2. Not 'obviously', though. But regardless, if you managed to convince me that abortion was immoral, then it would still be the least immoral option if the other option is to force someone to be pregnant against their will.

Many people are unable and/or unwilling to provide valid argument for their moral convictions. (Even the normally rational and rigorous Original Position was unable to do so a few months ago.)

Unless the woman was a victim of rape or incest, she became pregnant voluntarily. Killing the baby because she later regrets the consequences of her free-will choice shouldn't be an option.

Only a small percentage of abortions are motivated by the woman having been a victim of rape or incest anyway. Most of the "reasons" given for abortion are of the, "I wanna start college this Fall, and if I carry the baby until its born then I can't start college until Spring" variety.

I should add that many women have severe mental and physical problems as a result of their abortions. Many women, after an abortion, can't give birth later in life because of physical damage to their reproductive system that resulted from the abortion.

Also, many women experience life-long guilt and regret for having had their baby killed. There are countless stories of women who have had an abortion, who when they see a young child several years later, they (in tears) think to themselves, "My baby would have been that child's age if I hadn't had the abortion." Heartbreaking, and so unnecessary.

Ironically, it is men who benefit the most from women having easy access to abortion. If they don't want to support the child after he finds out that his girlfriend is pregnant, he threatens to leave her if she doesn't have an abortion.

And the moral argument against abortion: "One of the thousands of invisible gods is against it, according to my very imaginative interpretation of the Great Invisible One's words."

fyp

I mentioned "weasel words" in a recent comment elsewhere. I don't know if you're familiar with the term or not:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_word

Your recent replies ITT (one in particular) were riddled with them:

"Many people are unable and/or unwilling"
"many women have severe mental and physical problems"
"Many women, after an abortion, can't give birth later in life"
"many women experience life-long guilt and regret"

To be charitable, I'll assume you weren't being vague by intent. But it's a bad look nevertheless. Also being charitable, I'm going to assume you want to improve your arguments, and you'll read and consider criticisms.

Anyway, on to your comments...


Perhaps you should take another look at Original Position's reply since you appear to have forgotten the details. You demanded "a persuasive deductive argument", a task which would likely not be possible regardless of being theist or atheist.

Then, he outlined his moral framework.

So, I'm still wondering "What problem were you expecting?". I think my reply was about as standard as you'd expect.

I'm curious why cases of rape or incest are treated differently in your position?

The first item on the list is based upon my personal experience, while the latter three are not the least bit controversial and would be common knowledge to anyone who has studied the subject. If you'd like, I can provide references for any of those claims that you believe are controversial.

I'm always eager to learn.

I already indicated that your response was not only not problematic, but I applauded your definition of immoral. Not sure why you still don't know what problem I was expecting, since you addressed it your previous paragraph above.

I wouldn't necessarily treat them differently. Please note what I was responding to for context of why I brought it up.

Can you please produce what you consider to be a persuasive deductive argument that has as its conclusion: "Killing human babies for fun is always morally wrong?"

Yeah ... the "true god" card. Every religion, or at least god claim, in history has played it. It's a blindly dogmatic admission that one is indoctrinated and refuses to gain a wider perspective that includes a reality other than the true believer all-in move. Sorry.

Consider that the Flat Earth Society is all-in on their TRUE shape of the earth idea. "True" in these belief systems is completely unfounded and just means "ideas I don't want to let go of."

Agree about an ultimate force but no need to arbitrarily say it's all-powerful. Agree about religion, its motive, its use, etc. Agree also that afterlife question needs to be reframed. It's really commonly more like, "Will my sense-of-self continue on?" A human being is trillions of cells in various states of life and death, and trillions more of parasites. There is the scientific question about what is dead/dying/still-alive ... and the ill-formed primitive question, "Will I take this body to heaven and the streets of gold with me and live forever?"

Sure.
But please note, "weasel words" is in reference to the vagueness of claims being made, not controversy.

Just because someone answered it 'satisfactorily' doesn't mean you're not expecting a problem in general.

It seems to me that you'd repeatedly ask a question of atheists if you expected the atheist to have some specific difficulty in doing so - otherwise, it's just a quiz question that some people can / will answer and others can't / won't.

As a counter-example, some atheists will repeatedly ask Fundamentalist-type Christians about slavery in the Bible because they expect them to have difficulty in responding to it. It's a motivated question, as yours appears to be, but to me at least, it's not clear as to why.

I'll leave it there.

Well, you treated them differently categorically which I thought was interesting, and so I'm asking why.

No it isn't.

[QUOTE=BeaucoupFish;56997344]
The woman being impregnated against her will (which is ALWAYS the case with rape, and ALMOST ALWAYS with incest), would remove any anti-abortion argument based on the free-will choice of the woman making her morally co-responsible for the pregnancy.

I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to identify the logical fallacy exemplified in the above post.

Deadline for posting your answer in this thread is 18:00 PDT, April 6, 2021.

(PM me if you're stumped and can't wait until then for the answer, and I will PM you back with the correct answer.)

I'll have you know that the Flat Earth Society has members all over the globe!

(Sorry, d2_e4, I know you've seen me share this joke about four times already.)

Sorry, I have to keep some trade secrets to myself.

Premise One: A person has acted immorally if that action results in another person being harmed unnecessarily.

Premise Two: If a person kills a human baby for fun, then another person has been harmed unnecessarily.

Conclusion: If a person kills a human baby for fun, then that person has acted immorally.

P: h --> i

P: k --> h

C: k --> i


If I have properly rendered my argument in propositional form, then my argument is a substitution instance of Hypothetical Syllogism, which is a valid an argument form.

I myself find the premisses persuasive.

Given that my argument is logically valid, the only rational reason for the reader to not find my argument persuasive would be because the reader finds at least one of the premisses in the argument problematic for some reason or other.

What is your persuasive deductive argument that has as its conclusion "A person has acted immorally if that action results in another person being harmed unnecessarily?"

FWIW, I don't agree with that claim.

Premiss #1 is a stipulative definition, which BF proposed and I didn't find objectionable for the purposes of my discussion with him.. A stipulative definition doesn't require an "argument", since stipulative definitions aren't truth claims.

I didn't think that the definition would be controversal.

I will seek a new definition.

While I do that, do you agree with the conclusion of my argument?

Thanks.

Here is the argument that is most persuasive for me personally:

P1: All actions in which a person violates a command of God is immoral.*
P2: The act of killing a baby for fun violates a command of God. **
Co: The act of killing a baby for fun is immoral.

*The biblical word for an immoral act would be sin. The Bible defines sin as the transgression of the law. (1 John 3:8,9)

**Of course, killing a baby for fun violates many of God's commands.