Richard Dawkins on Down syndrome: Immoral that such a person should live

_{Denyse O'Leary

August 20, 2014

Culture, Darwinism}

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From world’s smartest man and biggest Darwin advocate Richard Dawkins: on baby with Down Syndrome: ‘Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world’.

Look, we can’t afford to pay Dawkins to say this stuff (it costs a ton to even talk to him) so don’t blame us.

Incidentally, my closest childhood friend was a boy with Down syndrome (Johnny, 1948-1957).

He died at a time when there was no pediatric open heart surgery for children where we lived. I dedicated one of my popular science books to him.

It is really hard for me to talk about this because I don’t understand the hatred some people have for people who have Down syndrome. If Johnny had lived …

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Comments

DavidS: "Incorrect again, if evolution is true, there is no moral basis nor authority for judging something as wrong or right. It’s simply whatever animal feeling any one human being feels about a matter." What does evolution, or religion for that matter, have to do with morality? Neither (including god) are the source of morality. Morality is simply a set of man made rules for living together in a group. Religions have simply documented these rules in text. Can you even prove that morality is limited to humans? There are plenty of examples of altruism amongst animals. The larger animals in a herd will often be on the perifary of the herd, definitely not a good place for them. Dogs will often die defending their owner.Acartia_bogart_{August 21, 2014
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A-B @41. From THE DESCENT OF MAN:
CHAPTER IV In the next chapter I shall make some few remarks on the probable steps and means by which the several mental and moral faculties of man have been gradually evolved. That such evolution is at least possible, ought not to be denied, for we daily see these faculties developing in every infant; and we may trace a perfect gradation from the mind of an utter idiot, lower than that of an animal low in the scale, to the mind of a Newton.

CHAPTER V Turning now to the social and moral faculties. In order that primeval men, or the ape-like progenitors of man, should become social, they must have acquired the same instinctive feelings, which impel other animals to live in a body; and they no doubt exhibited the same general disposition. They would have felt uneasy when separated from their comrades, for whom they would have felt some degree of love; they would have warned each other of danger, and have given mutual aid in attack or defence. All this implies some degree of sympathy, fidelity, and courage. Such social qualities, the paramount importance of which to the lower animals is disputed by no one, were no doubt acquired by the progenitors of man in a similar manner, namely, through natural selection, aided by inherited habit.

CHAPTER V In the breeding of domestic animals, the elimination of those individuals, though few in number, which are in any marked manner inferior, is by no means an unimportant element towards success. This especially holds good with injurious characters which tend to reappear through reversion, such as blackness in sheep; and with mankind some of the worst dispositions, which occasionally without any assignable cause make their appearance in families, may perhaps be reversions to a savage state, from which we are not removed by very many generations. This view seems indeed recognised in the common expression that such men are the black sheep of the family.
Skipping ahead…
CHAPTER XXI The high standard of our intellectual powers and moral disposition is the greatest difficulty which presents itself, after we have been driven to this conclusion on the origin of man. But every one who admits the principle of evolution, must see that the mental powers of the higher animals, which are the same in kind with those of man, though so different in degree, are capable of advancement. Thus the interval between the mental powers of one of the higher apes and of a fish, or between those of an ant and scale-insect, is immense; yet their development does not offer any special difficulty; for with our domesticated animals, the mental faculties are certainly variable, and the variations are inherited. No one doubts that they are of the utmost importance to animals in a state of nature. Therefore the conditions are favourable for their development through natural selection. The same conclusion may be extended to man; the intellect must have been all-important to him, even at a very remote period, as enabling him to invent and use language, to make weapons, tools, traps, etc., whereby with the aid of his social habits, he long ago became the most dominant of all living creatures.
See more at Evolutionary Ethics Heartlander_{August 21, 2014
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Acartia_bogart @ 41
But please remember, many of the proponents for it were Christian.
1. ...proponents for it? What does 'it' stands for in this case? eugenics? 2. Can you name a few examples out of those many proponents who were Christians? 3. How do you know they were Christians? Because they claimed to be so? If someone states that there is no God, that person is atheist. No doubts. If someone believes God exists, that person is theist, but not necessarily Christian. But even a person claiming to be Christian does not guarantee he/she is Christian. Christianity has to do with our true repentance and submission to Christ. Anyone surrendered to Christ can't agree with eugenics. Jesus said many will come to Him claiming to be His sheep, but He will reject them. He told the Samaritan woman that we should worship God in truth and spirit. He told us to love God with all our strengths and to love our neighbors as ourselves. He said that if we love Him, then we want to obey Him. Clear message. No room for confusion. Germans who claimed to be Christians but supported the evil Nazi doctrine, did not give glory to God. Were they really Christians? It's not for me to judge others. I don't have such authority. But the core Christian message leaves no room for doubts. Christians may disagree on peripheral issues, eg. YEC vs. OEC. But the core doctrine is unambiguous.Dionisio_{August 21, 2014
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Mark Frank 35 & 37 Mark, while we disagree on some big issues, I have to say that I respect your responses. You admitted to being wrong on a particular point, which is hard to do. We're all wrong at times, but most of us are too insecure to admit it even when we realize our mistake. And you are correct that there was no need for the name calling. We can argue and disagree vigorously without resorting to ad hominem attacks.anthropic_{August 21, 2014
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A-B "Heart lander, current evolutionary theory is simply a scientific, evidence based explanation of how life on earth became so diverse. It says nothing about morality, right and wrong, or ethics." Right, Dawkins says, "The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference." A-B "Misusing evolution to justify eugenics is morally and ethically wrong. But please remember, many of the proponents for it were Christian." Actually this is not correct, if evolution is true, then there is nothing wrong with eugenics. A-B "Misusing nuclear physics to build a bomb and drop on people is also morally and ethically wrong, but I don’t hear anyone arguing that we don’t teach nuclear phisics in school. Pharmacology is misused to produce recreational drugs. But we still teach pharmacology and nobody complains." Incorrect again, if evolution is true, there is no moral basis nor authority for judging something as wrong or right. It's simply whatever animal feeling any one human being feels about a matter. A-B "The scientists’ role is to come up with the best explanations for what we observe." And the scientific consensus [those who rule the prevailing thought) say a fetus is an unviable tissue mass. This is where the religious dogma of Junk DNA and the general disrespect for the information content on the part of religiously biased atheistic scientists have molded the attitudes of a general public looking for justifications of specific lifestyles. Interestingly, The USDA sued Industrial Farm giant Tyson Foods for pulling a loophole stunt by injecting antibiotics into eggs and still labeling their chicken product as antibiotic free, the excuse was that they didn't use antibiotics while the chicken was alive or living and the US government USDA stated otherwise that life begins as an embryo. Funny how that works for animals and not humans. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O973c5PUBrU .DavidD_{August 21, 2014
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Moose Dr @ 40
“people” = “feelings” is a very poorly considered algorithm.
Their arguments are nonsense. Your examples clearly testify against them.Dionisio_{August 21, 2014
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Heart lander, current evolutionary theory is simply a scientific, evidence based explanation of how life on earth became so diverse. It says nothing about morality, right and wrong, or ethics. Any more than nuclear physics does. Misusing evolution to justify eugenics is morally and ethically wrong. But please remember, many of the proponents for it were Christian. Misusing nuclear physics to build a bomb and drop on people is also morally and ethically wrong, but I don't hear anyone arguing that we don't teach nuclear phisics in school. Pharmacology is misused to produce recreational drugs. But we still teach pharmacology and nobody complains. All of these studies have benefited mankind, and all have also been misused. The scientists' role is to come up with the best explanations for what we observe. It is the responsibility of society to make the best use of these explanations. Many ID proponents want to blame the explanation for how some people misuse it. There has been much violence carried out in the name of Christianity. Are the explanations described in the bible at fault? Or is it the responsibility of the people who misuse it? I think that the answer is obvious.Acartia_bogart_{August 21, 2014
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re: Foetuses gradually become people and at an early stage in pregnancy have no feelings and are not people. How do we determine when someone is a "people"? The algorithm stated here appears to be having "feelings". First, animals have feelings. Are they therefore "people"? Second, if I am in a coma, I likely do not have feelings. Do I then abandon my "people" status until I come out? If I am in a coma, and others wish me dead, do they have the right to blow me away without committing murder because I am not a "people"? If someone wants to kill someone else, and does so by drugging him into a state of coma, then killing him, is the person now no longer guilty of murder? "people" = "feelings" is a very poorly considered algorithm.Moose Dr_{August 21, 2014
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WJM: It isn't so much that atheists like Dawkins believe that there is no God. It's that they believe they are gods, knowing good and evil. As gods, what is subjective for them is obviously morally binding for others. Having any other God around to which they are accountable would be most inconvenient.Phinehas_{August 21, 2014
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Dawkins says:
Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice.”
It's always interesting to me that these subjective-morality guys can't even think or speak as if morality was really a subjective commodity as they claim. Under subjective morality, neither keeping a baby with Down Syndrome nor aborting would in itself be moral or immoral. Dawkins' exhortation that "it would be immoral to bring it into the world" is patently false and hypocritical wrt his own moral worldview. Under subjective morality, it is only the person who aborts or doesn't abort that can say whether or not it is, for them,, moral or immoral. Dawkins might say that keeping a Down Syndrome child would be immoral for him, but that's clearly not what he's saying. He's saying it's immoral for other people, as if he's referring to some objective moral standard.William J Murray_{August 21, 2014
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#34 Humbled
Mark, you are an ignorant sod and your thinking is downright evil. Of course babies feel in the womb. And yes they are people, human from the moment of conception. There are documented cases of babies, within a few weeks of conception, experiencing nightmares as well as “playing” with their siblings (in the case of twins etc) as well as acknowledging outside stimulus and reacting / responding to it. Your justifications will not fly here. Abortion is murder pure and simple, and incredibly painful as well.
What an outburst. I hope I am always willing to learn more about abortion but I did spend 6 months studying the ethics of stem cell research and have been rather close to a real abortion situation (I can’t give details as I use my real name). So I am not so very ignorant. A tip – if you genuinely want to persuade people of your case then don’t start off by calling them “ignorant sods” and threatening violence!
Also, your second point is also trash talk. There are many cases where parents and babies with all manner of birth defects etc live a happy, meaningful and fulfilling life. I suspect you are regurgitating the same rubbish you’ve read or heard elsewhere. Educate yourself on these issues, they are serious and disgusting.
If you read my comment you will see that I disagreed with B. Your rather low comprehension skills do not increase my faith in the examples you quote.Mark Frank_{August 21, 2014
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A-B @ 21, I bring up eugenics because that is what Dawkins is suggesting… This is why I also brought up Singer because he advocates eugenics – and if man is just another animal, why not? It happened in the past and we should learn about the cost to humanity if we continue down that road. These issues are part of the topic. It’s not like I brought up the Westboro church for no reason – or made some asinine attempt to compare gravity and physics to Darwin’s theory - as if Newton’s Principia and Darwin’s Descent of Man have the same implications regarding; ethics, psychology, or inferior races. BTW, thanks for not mentioning the crusades by mentioning the crusades – brilliant!Heartlander_{August 21, 2014
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#31 Dr JDD On your first point. You are reading an awful lot into one tweet. We really don’t know what assumptions Dawkins was making. We also don’t know why he thought it was immoral to bring it into the world. I was wrong to say that:
Anyone who has a test for Down syndrome in pregnancy is essentially sharing Dawkin’s position.
Your point is a good one. One may take the test without intending to abort – although in practice people (including apparently yourselves) do not take the test because they would not be prepared to abort. Yes I am a parent and both of ours were born late in life so were high risk. In both cases we had amnio but the results were normal so we were spared the decision. My guess is we would have decided to abort but I am not sure.Mark Frank_{August 21, 2014
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"A) Foetuses gradually become people and at an early stage in pregnancy have no feelings and are not people. B) If the pregnancy goes ahead the parents and above all the child will have a miserable life." - Mark Frank Mark, you are an ignorant sod and your thinking is downright evil. Of course babies feel in the womb. And yes they are people, human from the moment of conception. There are documented cases of babies, within a few weeks of conception, experiencing nightmares as well as "playing" with their siblings (in the case of twins etc) as well as acknowledging outside stimulus and reacting / responding to it. Your justifications will not fly here. Abortion is murder pure and simple, and incredibly painful as well. Some comments to educate you: This first one makes me sick, so much so that I feel compelled to perform the same abortion surgery on people who have abortions, those responsible, decision makers etc and all those pro-abortion lunatics. It is pure and absolute evil. It is absolutely disgraceful and if hell is a real place, there is a special place reserved in it for people like this. Having administered anesthesia for fetal surgery, I know that on occasion we need to administer anesthesia directly to the fetus, because even at these early gestational ages the fetus moves away from the pain of the stimulation,” stated David Birnbach, M.D., president of the Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology and self-described as “pro-choice,” in testimony before the U.S. Congress. “At 20 weeks, the fetal brain has the full complement of brain cells present in adulthood, ready and waiting to receive pain signals from the body, and their electrical activity can be recorded by standard electroencephalography (EEG).” — Dr. Paul Ranalli, neurologist, University of Toronto An unborn baby at 20 weeks gestation “is fully capable of experiencing pain. … Without question, [abortion] is a dreadfully painful experience for any infant subjected to such a surgical procedure.” — Robert J. White, M.D., PhD., professor of neurosurgery, Case Western University Unborn babies at 20 weeks development actually feel pain more intensely than adults. This is a “uniquely vulnerable time, since the pain system is fully established, yet the higher level pain-modifying system has barely begun to develop,” according to Dr. Ranalli. Anyone, outside of extreme circumstances, who performs abortion, and those who defend / promote it, are absolute disgraceful, heartless human trash. Look at these figures and tell me there isn't something very wrong in our world and in our thinking? http://www.numberofabortions.com/ I thought like you once, I was revolted and repulsed once I discovered the truth. Also, your second point is also trash talk. There are many cases where parents and babies with all manner of birth defects etc live a happy, meaningful and fulfilling life. I suspect you are regurgitating the same rubbish you've read or heard elsewhere. Educate yourself on these issues, they are serious and disgusting.humbled_{August 21, 2014
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PPS: Robert Lifton on a lesson of history (and notice, revealingly, how he tries so desperately to distinguish [presumably 'good' . . . ] euthanasia and Nazified "euthanasia" failing to see the issue of the utter crumbling of the value of life and how one degradation can so easily lead to another at the hands of the ruthless, who are ever lurking in the shadows . . . ):
Prior to Auschwitz and the other death camps, the Nazis established a policy of direct medical killing: that is, killing arranged within medical channels, by means of medical decisions, and carried out by doctors and their assistants. The Nazis called this program “euthanasia.” Since, for them, this term camouflaged mass murder, I have throughout this book enclosed it within quotation marks when referring to that program. The Nazis based their justification for direct medical killing on the simple concept of “ife unworthy of life” (lebensunwertes Leben). While the Nazis did not originate this concept, they carried it to its ultimate biological, racial, and “therapeutic” extreme. Of the five identifiable steps by which the Nazis carried out the principle of “life unworthy of life,” coercive sterilization was the first. There followed the killing of “impaired” children in hospitals; and then the killing of “impaired” adults, mostly collected from mental hospitals, in centers especially equipped with carbon monoxide gas. This project was extended (in the same killing centers) to “impaired” inmates of concentration and extermination camps and, finally, to mass killings, mostly of Jews, in the extermination camps themselves . . .
kairosfocus_{August 21, 2014
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News: Lebensunwertes Leben (Life, unworthy of being lived . . . the gateway to euthanasia and worse, through the undermining of societal support for the inherent and unalienable dignity and worth of the human being.) Again. (For Plato's warning regarding the amoral, might and manipulation make "right" implications of evolutionary materialism, cf here.) One of the pivotal validity tests of a worldview post Hume, is, how does it ground Morality in the face of the IS-OUGHT gap challenge. That is, it needs a foundational IS capable of bearing the weight of OUGHT. In the inadvertently revealing words of William B Provine at the U Tenn 1998 Darwin Day keynote:
Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent . . . . The first 4 implications are so obvious to modern naturalistic evolutionists that I will spend little time defending them. Human free will, however, is another matter. Even evolutionists have trouble swallowing that implication. I will argue that humans are locally determined systems that make choices. They have, however, no free will . . .
The persistent refusal by evolutionary materialists to squarely face this challenge over years at UD is revealing. (And BTW, if we are not responsibly free we have no basis for either reason or moral governance, with utterly chilling implications.) I simply note, that across centuries of debate, there has been but one serious candidate grounding IS for OUGHT. The inherently good Creator God, who is a necessary, maximally great being. The inescapable conviction that we are morally governed and under the force of ought is as good a reason to accept the reality of that foundational IS and to reject any worldview and socio-cultural agenda incompatible with it as any other. KF PS: This chilling, here and now callous dismissal of those deemed unworthy of life also reveals the utterly bankrupt cynicism in the attacks Dawkins et al were so gleefully making against Christian Philosopher, William Lane Craig.kairosfocus_{August 21, 2014
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Mark Frank you are giving far too much credit to Dawkins and as for “and this is grossly misinterpreted” regarding his views on Down’s Syndrome, this is certainly not the case. According to the article, the response Dawkins gives is to:
“I honestly don't know what I would do if I were pregnant with a kid with Down Syndrome. Real ethical dilemma,”
To which Dawkins replies:
“@InYourFaceNYer Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice.”
Now if we assume that is the correct sequence of events and that is in fact the tweet that Dawkins was alluding to in his response (I have nothing to indicate it is not) it seems quite clear that Dawkins view of all Down’s Syndrome babies can indeed be generalised to:
“It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice.”
Therefore, Dawkins disagrees with allowing a Down’s Syndrome baby to be born where there is the opportunity to choose. This is not in reply to someone saying, “I cannot afford to look after a child with special needs, what would be the best thing to do if I had a Down’s baby?”, it is a generalised view of someone with no other knowledge of her circumstances, to imply that it would be ethically wrong to not abort the baby if you had a choice. That is an astounding response (but not too astounding if you follow the logic of naturalism) and demonstrates the value that Dawkins places on life. This is the natural extension of taking materialism at face value. Now when I said the above alternative scenario that Dawkins may be more understandable in replying to, I do not agree with that approach, but morality for choosing to abort that baby is more arguable than this situation (even though it is a selfish approach). Ask any Down’s syndrome child if they would have preferred to have been aborted and see what answer you get. Further you state Mark Frank:
Anyone who has a test for Down syndrome in pregnancy is essentially sharing Dawkin’s position.
What an absolutely ridiculous statement to make. Are you a parent Mark Frank? In my case, we were given very strong odds with our first child of having a Down’s Syndrome baby (even though we were both relatively young). This was based on the measurements and the b-HCG/AFP levels largely. The next step was to have an amniocentesis or CVS but we chose not to as there was a 1:100 chance of miscarriage with these invasive tests and we were not going to abort so why risk it? So you may ask, why have the test anyway (we did not for our second child but this was a debate between my wife and myself) if you are not going to do anything about it? Well I do not know if you have been faced with that sort of prospect before or not, with high risk of something like Down’s but it gave us an opportunity to think through the implications, prepare ourselves, and be prepared and not shocked if it did happen. It was a useful experience and also made me realise that shockingly >90% of babies with Down’s are aborted in the EU/UK. So to make the statement that anyone who has the test for Down’s is sharing Dawkins position is not only offensive, but completely one dimensional in your thinking. It’s like saying “Why find out the sex of a baby ?” Well you find out to prepare, to tell potential siblings, to help settle with the idea. Do you do anything with regards to the birth of that child based on finding out the sex? No. You “prepare” yourself. Sadly, most people who do test for Down’s and get a positive will terminate that child. We play God and we shroud it with our “intelligence” as science has convinced us that an unborn fetus is not a life. It is just an extension of the mother, like removing some cancerous cells from her. That is the value our society places on life, and argues that it cannot survive outside the mother so it is not yet human. Can a baby survive on its own once it is born? Of course not – it cannot feed itself, it cannot wash, clothe and take care of itself. It is 100% dependent. Anyone who has seen a 12-week scan and can still maintain that is not a human being in there is denying cold hard facts! O/T with regards to ID (note – theological point): The God of the Old Testament destroyed the Canaanites for despicable practices such as sacrificing their babies into the fire to their gods. These days we simply relegate life in order to do the same – but we do it out of selfishness and for our convenience. We are no better than the Canaanites in reality, it is simply dressed up in pseudo-science and pseudo-advancement of society. It is no wonder then the judgement of God is really very close, as evidenced by the prophecies being currently fulfilled about the end times around us todayDr JDD_{August 21, 2014
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#27 Anthropic The tweet you refer to is about abortion. Dawkin's attitude to abortion is nothing unusual and appears to be condoned by the article itself:
He started off his conversation with followers ethically enough, highlighting the plight of women in Ireland, where abortion is illegal, in light of the recent reports of the country’s refusal to provide a safe abortion to a suicidal rape victim.
The article (and the OP) criticises him for his supposed attitude to Down syndrome people. As far as I know there is only the single tweet to support this (and this is grossly misinterpreted).Mark Frank_{August 20, 2014
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JGuy - Good one. But it will be mere water off a Darwinian Duck's back with the usual smartassism followups Anthropic ” With respect to those meanings of “human” that are relevant to the morality of abortion, any fetus is less human than an adult pig ” — Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) March 13, 2013 Another good one. Somewhere Eugen Fischer is jumping for joy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EalSRgSfJmc -DavidD_{August 20, 2014
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Note that, if Dawkins is to be taken seriously, we should have no objections to eating aborted human fetuses. After all, we eat bacon, right? And there should be no problem with chopping up fetuses to make products that perhaps make our skin look younger, or give us shinier hair. We use pigs as much as possible, so who could object? Fortunately, most materialists don't actually live according to logic of their metaphysical position. But it is educational to have that logic spelled out by such a prominent advocate as Dawkins.anthropic_{August 20, 2014
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Mark 25 A single tweet? Really? " With respect to those meanings of "human" that are relevant to the morality of abortion, any fetus is less human than an adult pig " — Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) March 13, 2013anthropic_{August 20, 2014
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUayjO_KgsQJGuy_{August 20, 2014
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What an unthinking spiteful little article from the Independent. It tries to condemn Dawkins on the basis of a single tweet – 20 words (imagine if every post or tweet you made was inspected by the press for controversial interpretation and published if it could be made to look bad). There is a clear implication that he has something against Down syndrome kids (and indeed the OP goes to imply this even more strongly) when you can draw no such conclusion. Anyone who has a test for Down syndrome in pregnancy is essentially sharing Dawkin’s position. There is no point in doing the test if you are not going to act on the result i.e. abort if the test is positive. The decision to abort is generally based on two beliefs A) Foetuses gradually become people and at an early stage in pregnancy have no feelings and are not people. B) If the pregnancy goes ahead the parents and above all the child will have a miserable life. The parents may be wrong about either but if they sincerely believe both then there is nothing wrong with their motives and they are not demonstrating any hatred towards Down syndrome children. As it happens I agree with (A) but not (B ) and I am pretty sure that Dawkin’s tweet was all about (A ) – after all that was the context for the exchange of tweets. But I am not going to judge parents who believe (B ) – I don’t have the responsibility of looking after the child for the rest of my life. Mark Frank_{August 20, 2014
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A-B "I don’t know of anyone who thinks that abortion is the preferred option. But I also don’t want to go back to the days where a teenagers only choices were to seek a back alley abortion or to “go live with her aunt” for six to eight months." Wouldn't it be nice however if morality were taught children from infancy up through teenage years ? But this is where the problem began, resentment over being told how to live life morally. This is why definitions on morality need to be fuzzied. Yet what if all youth were taught to abstain from sex until they were mature enough to marry ? Think of all the human emotional suffering that could be eliminated. But again, that goes against the reasons abortion was created and championed. It's called preserving a lifestyle. And on the subject of Downs Syndrome children, I've known many families who were happy they didn't go the abortion route. So were the Down Syndrome kids who for the most part were happy. On the other side of the Eugenics coin, what would the world have been like had Atheistic/Agnostic intellectuals such as Dawkins, Darwin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao etc never been born ? Yes I know, some other creeps would have taken their place, it would be inevitable.DavidD_{August 20, 2014
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AB 21 Oh, I'd LOVE to compare the track record of historically Christian countries with that of atheist countries, such as revolutionary France and communist regimes! Whether we're talking human rights, prosperity, technology, free speech or respect for life, it is no contest. That's the problem with atheism/materialism: some people take it seriously. That means morality is up for grabs, humans have no special inherent status, and epistemological nihilism (bad for science, that).anthropic_{August 20, 2014
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Moose Dr at 20: Yes, it is a verbal sleight of hand to refer to an existing child as being "brought into" the world when the child obviously already exists. Re people with Down syndrome: I well remember a guy (early 1980s) who visited his mother every day in a long term care home. He had Down syndrome. Born late in life, I expect. Anyway, I overheard a church visitor lecturing him for smoking: [Freddie], cigarettes are no good for you. I was rushing off somewhere but sort of also overheard [Freddie] trying to explain that he really liked cigarettes. Hey, life.News_{August 20, 2014
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Heartlandsr, Ahhh, eugenics. The poster child for anti evolution. Truman dropped two nuclear bombs on large civilian populations. Maybe we should blame physics. Robin Williams hanged himself. Maybe we should blame gravity. Do you really want to open the Pandora's box of religious caused violence? And I won't even mention the crusades.Acartia_bogart_{August 20, 2014
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Denise, I truly confirm the loveliness of most of the Down Syndrome people that I have met and come to know. Almost invariably they are loving, happy and rewarding to be around. While a Down Syndrome child can offer parents certain challenges, they offer a lot of rewards. That said, the real question brought up by Dawkins is in the statement, "It would be immoral to bring it into the world." A fetus (Latin for, um, baby) is already in the world. An embryo (Greek for, um, baby) is already in the world. By all measures of how life is defined, a pre-born child is alive. By all measures it is complete, and is homo sapien.Moose Dr_{August 20, 2014
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God help us. Mung: “There’s no such thing as a reprehensible human being.” Arcatia_bogart: "Really? Of course there is. I am not saying that anyone is ever born this way, but there are plenty that evolve to this state." Evolution now manages, somehow, to produce reprehensible human beings. Perhaps the Westboro freaks have it right after all, but are blaming the human beings themselves rather than evolution.Mung_{August 20, 2014
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Christianity is not about the Christians, but about Christ. In the late 1930s many Germans who claimed to be Christians, hence were supposed to love their neighbors as themselves, agreed to submit to the evil Nazi doctrine, which was based on the hatred towards other races, ethnic groups, nationalities, etc. Does that make Christianity wrong? Actually, it confirms what Jesus predicted about His rejection of many who will come to Him claiming to be His sheep. I may proclaim that I'm a NASA astronaut, but my self-proclamation does not change the fact that I am not, even though I wear NASA astronaut costumes, have pictures taken inside their facilities, etc. Basically, only NASA can certify my condition of NASA astronaut. Anyone can ask NASA if I'm one of their astronauts, their response will be obviously negative, after they stop laughing. Walking the walk and talking the talk. Jesus said that if we love Him, then we want to obey Him. He knows our motives. He sees our actions even when we are alone and no one else sees us. He knows our thoughts. BTW, true Christians love to be fully dependent on our King. That gives us true freedom from this world. Our identity is only in Him. We make mistakes and are forgiven, but the Spirit dwelling within us takes the 'fun' out of sinning. We rejoice when we can resist temptations that could lead us to sin. Because ultimately we want to do only things that please God and bring glory to Him.Dionisio_{August 20, 2014
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