From Jeremy P. Shapiro, a psychologist at Case Western Reserve University, at Raw Story:
Yet many science deniers do cite empirical evidence. The problem is that they do so in invalid, misleading ways. Psychological research illuminates these ways.
…
As a psychotherapist, I see a striking parallel between a type of thinking involved in many mental health disturbances and the reasoning behind science denial. As I explain in my book “Psychotherapeutic Diagrams,” dichotomous thinking, also called black-and-white and all-or-none thinking, is a factor in depression, anxiety, aggression and, especially, borderline personality disorder.
…
This same type of thinking can be seen among creationists. They seem to misinterpret any limitation or flux in evolutionary theory to mean that the validity of this body of research is fundamentally in doubt. For example, the biologist James Shapiro (no relation) discovered a cellular mechanism of genomic change that Darwin did not know about. Shapiro views his research as adding to evolutionary theory, not upending it. Nonetheless, his discovery and others like it, refracted through the lens of dichotomous thinking, result in articles with titles like, “Scientists Confirm: Darwinism Is Broken” by Paul Nelson and David Klinghoffer of the Discovery Institute, which promotes the theory of “intelligent design.” Shapiro insists that his research provides no support for intelligent design, but proponents of this pseudoscience repeatedly cite his work as if it does.More.
Dr. Jeremy Shapiro apparently does not realize that the second rule of medicine* is, “First, who’s the patient?” One does not diagnose a crowd of people one has never met, whose personal histories one does not know.
He is also obviously unfamiliar with the mass of material coming back that confirms evolution as a history but does not confirm the standard, classic Darwinian interpretation thereof. There would be many fewer dissenters otherwise.
But then, why let inconvenient facts get in the way of a good theory? Tenured Darwinians defend their theory regardless. Those who would defend them do the same, it seems.
Jeremy Shapiro assumes that James Shapiro’s work cannot provide support for a view that Shapiro himseslf does not endorse. That’s an error. Such situations are quite common because no one “owns” basic facts.
My diagnosis of a crowd of people who might vaguely remind one of Jeremy Shapiro: Those who cannot deal with a fact base often build an elaborate drama around why it doesn’t really exist or else doesn’t mean what it means, conscripting key players into unfamiliar roles and generalizing about the rest.
The item linked above was originally published at The Conversation.
Note 1: The first rule of medicine is, “First, do no harm.” primum non nocere
Note 2:Re RawStory’s boast on a banner at the page: “Don’t let Silicon Valley control what you see. Get more stories like this in your inbox, every day.” Relax, guys. In this case, I probably wouldn’t know the difference between you and SV. I represent the muffled voice of careful, personal observation over decades. You others can fight it out among yourselves.
See also: Some thoughts on James Shapiro’s valuable work: Natural genetic engineering? Natural popcorn? Or something more important?
as to:
Hmm, interesting claim. If his claim is true then one wonders why, mentally, atheists suffer much more than Christians do
If I might offer a little common sense street psychology to the good Doctor of Psychiatry. It is very simple why atheists mentally suffer more than Christians do.
Their materialistic worldview is, besides being thoroughly unscientific, simply put, delusional through and through.
Thus, although the Darwinist firmly believes he is on the terra firma of science (in his appeal, even demand, for methodological naturalism), the fact of the matter is that, when examining the details of his materialistic/naturalistic worldview, it is found that Darwinists/Atheists are adrift in an ocean of fantasy and imagination with no discernible anchor for reality to grab on to.
It would be hard to fathom a worldview more antagonistic to modern science than Atheistic materialism and/or methodological naturalism have turned out to be.
Bottom line, if God is not real then nothing can be real.
Other than all that the good Doctor might of had a point! 🙂
If only my education cast my ad hominem as authoritative rather than leaving me to thrash about in the pit of banal details that comprises the actual subject matter.
But, LocalMinimum at 3, you are not a psychotherapist. Maybe you deal in the real world, which is fact-driven and messy.
The old “anyone who disagrees with me is ignorant, stupid, insane or evil” line was sad and tired when Dawkins trotted it out years ago.
That this person thinks he’s saying something novel and interesting is sufficient evidence of his insufficiency.
News, does our psychologist here offer any empirical, directly observed basis for the claim that functionally specific, complex organisation and associated information does actually come about by blind chance and/or mechanical necessity? I safely bet, no. Where, by contrast it is shown on a trillion observation basis that it is routinely brought about by intelligently directed configuration. We further can readily show that the needle in haystack blind search challenge in relevant configuration spaces [3.27*10^150 – 1.07*10^301 and sharply up] reduces feasible search on the scope of the observed cosmos to almost no search. In short, there is empirically and analytically founded warrant for the design inference, rising to the level of a reliable inference on sign. In that context, he is indulging in ill-tempered ad hominems (and yes, it is: disagree with US and you are ignorant, stupid, INSANE or wicked, etc . . . ) backed up by abuse of his credentials. This does not speak well of what he has done. KF
Like almost all materialists and Darwinists, Jeremy P. Shapiro suffers from CDS or Christianity derangement syndrome. They can’t talk about science without mentioning Christianity over and over again. It’s a peculiar form of OCD.
I don’t think that IDists, theists, materialists, evolutionist or atheists are delusional, insane or suffer mental illness. They just have different viewpoints. However, I will make one claim. Anyone who repeatedly claims that any of these groups suffer from one or more of these maladies is either delusional, insane, suffers from mental illness, or is just compulsively dishonest. I suspect the latter, but that is just my opinion.
per AK at 7,
Anyone claiming that this,,,
and this,,,
and this,,,
,,, can be an accident has, by definition, lost their mind!
And that is not even getting into the insanity that is inherent in the claim from leading Atheistic materialists who say that they are not real persons but are instead “neuronal illusions”:
Moreover, even many leading atheists themselves openly admit that it is impossible for them to live as if their materialistic worldview were actually true:
Even Richard Dawkins himself admitted that it would be ‘intolerable’ for him to live his life as if atheistic materialism were actually true
In what should be needless to say, if it is impossible for you to live as if your worldview were actually true then your worldview cannot possibly reflect reality as it really is but your worldview must instead be based on a delusion.
i.e. Since Atheistic materialism does not reflect reality as it really is, then Atheistic materialism is, by definition, delusional thinking!
AK,
BA77,
I rest my case.
Allan Keith, you have no case. You made up a straw man standard to protect your insane worldview.
Atheistic materialists believe that material precedes mind. Whereas Theists believe that Mind precedes material.
Since those positions are diametrically opposed, one of those positions, by necessity, must be a false view of reality. i.e. Must be a delusion!
The proof that Atheistic materialism is a delusion comes from the fact that believing that matter precedes mind, as atheists do, leads to catastrophic epistemological failure, i.e. to complete delusional thinking.
Whereas believing mind precedes matter. as Theists do, is shown to be a far more psychologically stable position:
Further proof that Atheistic materialism is a delusion comes from the fact that it is impossible for atheists themselves to live as if their worldview were actually true (see bottom of post 8).
Whereas, believing that Mind precedes matter, as Theists do, reflects reality as it is really lived by people in that it is consistent with how people actually live their lives, i.e. reflects the fact that there really are real persons in the world (not neuronal illusions), with free will, with real meaning and purposes to their lives, and that there are objective moral standards for everyone to live by, etc.. etc..
Moreover, as if that was not already more than enough to prove that Atheistic materialism is a delusional worldview that is completely out of touch with reality as it is really lived, Quantum Mechanics itself has repeatedly confirmed that key and defining aspects of mind, (i.e.”the now of the mind” and free will), precede the existence of material reality itself.
Verse:
FourFaces @ 6 – As Denyse wrote in the OP, “One does not diagnose a crowd of people one has never met, whose personal histories one does not know.”
Evolutionists do that on a daily basis.
Anyone who says that natural selection, drift or any other blind and mindless process produced the diversity of life is lying. Anyone who says that those processes produced IC structures is lying.
Textbooks on “Evolution” are full of those lies.
So what is there to diagnose?
Jeremy Shapiro:
What rich irony that Mr. Shapiro has done exactly what he claims others are doing. What has he done? He has “[divided] the spectrum of possibilities into two unequal parts: perfect certainty [i.e., scientists] and inconclusives controversy [i.e., science denialists]”
Where Mr. Shapiro goes wrong is by not fully understanding where this lack of acceptance of scientific thinking arises. It arises because certain first principles are violated.
In the case of global warming, we all know that the primary sources of energy in our biosphere come from two places: the sun (nuclear fusion) and the core of the earth (nuclear fission). We know that the orbit of the earth and its precession around its axis also affect temperature–the Milankovitch Cycle, e.g. We know that water vapor is a much more powerful contributor to ‘warming’ than CO2, whose only ‘affect’ is indirectly through its supposed affect in producing additional water vapor.
Why should anyone mindlessly accept what becomes ‘consensus’ thinking when their scientific questions remain insufficiently answered?
Look at HIV. The preeminent scholar of viruses in the US, Peter Duesberg, says that the HIV theory of AIDS causation does not conform to long accepted criteria for what constitutes viral infection and what does not. He’s pushed aside. Now the man responsible for this possible fraud [if HIV is an active, infective virus, a true virus and not a passenger virus, then why hasn’t an HIV vaccine been produced in almost 35 years?], Robert Gallo, is down under in Australia “discovering” a “cousin” of HIV, which is everwhere to be found. How much money stands to be made if anti-viral drugs get shipped to Australia? Will Gallo be dutifully rewarded? How many people might die, or live sickly lives, because of these anti-viral drugs?
No, Shapiro thinks in “dischotomous” terms: there are those who believe in science, and those who don’t. And ALL of us ought to believe in ‘science.’
It’s very rich irony as I said.
BA77,
Nonsense. One of these views must be wrong. This does not make the person delusional.
A youtube video and your non peer-reviewed musings are not proof. Proof would be incontrovertible evidence of the mind existing without a physical brain. Since this is not possible, all we have is ‘we do not understand how consciousness works’. Not understanding is not proof of something else. It is just the lack of understanding. However, given the speed and magnitude with which previously unknown things become known, and the fact that they have all done so without having to resort to supernatural forces, I would not be placing any money on the supernatural being the answer.
The fact that people who have faith are more “stable” is not proof that the faith is based on reality. Studies have also shown that the entire Santa Clause belief (then non belief) is psychologically positive for children. Even though Santa Clause is not real.
Nonsense. I live as if it were true. However, I would also not be upset if it were proven not to be true.
Golly gee whiz, imagine that,, offer a definition of delusion,,,
and the person with the irrational and delusional worldview immediately denies that he is delusional for believing that worldview, only that he is wrong.
Denialism only makes your situation with your delusional worldview worse AK.
Get help. You are much sicker than you realize! And are getting sicker!
as to:
Actually there is far more proof that consciousness is able to exist without the material brain than there is evidence for Darwinian evolution. They are called Near Death Experiences.
AK you then appeal to scientific progress to support atheistic materialism and/or naturalism. Once again, unsurprisingly, you are completely wrong. First off, Modern Science was born out of Christian presuppositions, and secondly, the more science has progressed the more the foundational materialistic presuppositons have been falsified:
You say, without citation, that children believing in Santa Clause is beneficial to children even though Santa Clause is imaginary. Yet, I hold, if your claim is true, that children are not holding onto a complete fabrication but are holding onto “hope” for a good future. Only God possesses that “hope” for a good future.
Atheism, with its nihilism, offers no such hope for a good future.
Moreover, having “hope” in a good future, (i.e. Near Death Experience therapy), has been shown to dramatically help chronically depressed people.
You claim to live consistently within your worldview.
That claim is laughably absurd!
Not only do you NOT live consistently within your worldview, it is IMPOSSIBLE FOR ANYONE to live consistently within atheistic materialism.
As mentioned previously in post 1, your worldview is completely insane through and through. A worldview that even makes Alice in Wonderland look rational!
Thus, although the Darwinist firmly believes he is on the terra firma of science (in his appeal, even demand, for methodological naturalism), the fact of the matter is that, when examining the details of his materialistic/naturalistic worldview, it is found that Darwinists/Atheists are adrift in an ocean of fantasy and imagination with no discernible anchor for reality to grab on to.
It would be hard to fathom a worldview more antagonistic to modern science than Atheistic materialism and/or methodological naturalism have turned out to be.
Bottom line, if God is not real then nothing can be real.
AK @ 7: For something to be a delusion it has to contradict empirical evidence. An example would be transgender identification. A man who thinks he is a woman suffers from an obvious delusion unless we redefine the terms man and woman, which is what post-modern society is doing.
TWSYF,
That is not the common definition of delusion. Here is the one that is most commonly used:
Two people with different opinions does not mean that one of them must be delusional. A mind independent of the physical brain has not been demonstrated with anything approaching compelling evidence. That BA77 would invoke the term delusion and mental disorder simply because I disagree with him is simply a dishonest rhetorical tactic, and says more about him than it does about me. I prefer not to play these childish games.
I don’t think that it is as simple as that. Studies have found structural differences in transgendered people as compared to those of people who identify with their genital sex. Whether this is the cause of transgender or is caused by it, I don’t know. But if we assume that these structural differences are responsible for transgender, can we really call these people delusional? Personally I don’t care. If I have to make some minor accommodations to allow them to function in society and be happy, who is it harming?
as to:
“That BA77 would invoke the term delusion and mental disorder simply because I disagree with him is simply a dishonest rhetorical tactic, and says more about him than it does about me. I prefer not to play these childish games.”
No, I call your worldview exactly as I have seen it. Your worldview is completely barking mad insane. It is not a rhetorical trick nor is it me playing childish games with you. I am deadly serious with you since the implications of you living out your insane worldview are far worse than you can possibly imagine right now. (i.e. separation from God for eternity! i.e. Hell!)
That you would not accept the clear insanity that is readily apparent in your chosen worldview is in fact another mental disorder that is known as denialism, Denialism is the chief cause for the worsening progression of underlying mental disorders and/or addictions.,, Since the underlying disorder and/or addiction is never honestly addressed.
As to your claim that brain structure establishes gender identity. ,,, Another proof that we have a immaterial mind that is not reducible to brain states is the fact that the focused attention of the immaterial mind has now been shown to be able to alter the structure of the brain. This is known as ‘brain plasticity’:
As to your claim that:
“A mind independent of the physical brain has not been demonstrated with anything approaching compelling evidence.”
Actually, the evidence from Near Death Experiences is, besides compelling, overwhelming. For instance:
Whereas on the other hand, without any empirical evidence whatsoever, nor falsification criteria, you defend Darwinian evolution as if your life depended on it.
Your completely unjust and biased standard for evaluating evidence is called hypocrisy.:
BA77,
Obviously you are incapable of having an honest, constructive and civil discussion with anyone who disagrees with you. I will leave you to your own absolute certainties and limit my interactions to those who are interested in having discussions with those that they may disagree with.
Allan, that you refuse to accept the reality of an all loving God is proof enough that you are delusional and that nobody should take you seriously. You are probably pro abortion, in favour of radical sex education and in favour of the redefinition of marriage. It is people like you who are leading to the downfall of our civilization.
@Truth Will Set You Free, author of #16: Thank you for enunciating the plain and simple truth that transgenders are simply experiencing some sort of denial of plain reality.
@bornagain77, author of #15: Excellent quotes and videos! Spot on! It’s plain that the atheist worldview is inconsistent.
@Allen Keith, author of #7. I agree with the general sentiment of this statement: “I don’t think that IDists, theists, materialists, evolutionist or atheists are delusional, insane or suffer mental illness. They just have different viewpoints.” However, if you go by the definition of “delusion” as “a mistaken or unfounded opinion or idea”, then I would say, yes, atheists are suffering from a delusion, in that atheism is a mistaken and completely unfounded opinion. However, I agree with you that we shouldn’t call those who oppose our viewpoint as “delusional” since that seems to blanket them with harmful name-calling. I oppose all attempts at painting other groups (IDists, Creationists, Neo-Darwinists, atheists, humanists) with labels (such as “delusional”, “insane”, “mentally ill”) as wrong and harmful.
@AK who said: “Two people with different opinions does not mean that one of them must be delusional.” – I agree.
@AK who said “If I have to make some minor accommodations to allow them to function in society and be happy, who is it harming?” – Letting an adult believe in a fantasy is not helpful. Who is it harming? Mostly of all, it’s harming the transgender person, that’s who. I think that perpetuating a denial of plain reality harms people — knowing the truth about reality, and living by it, is *always* better than living a lie, which is what one sadly does to themselves when choosing to become a different gender than the one plainly expressed in their bodies (Note, I’m leaving aside discussions of the intersex for now — the transgender movement is not about intersex, I would say it’s probably disingenuous to assert that the transgender movement is about intersex).
Allan Keith:
Irony meters are exploding
No, but two people, one with facts and science for support, the other with nothing but personal bias, means that one of them may be delusional.
Re 20 and others: to quote Inigo Montoya:
It does a disservice to people with genuine mental illness who experience delusions to use the word in such a colloquial way. It’s hard to take your comments seriously when they are so hyperbolic, and misrepresent a serious mental health condition.
Folks, there is another relevant sense of delusion, tied to ideologies, worldviews and cultural agendas that may be entrenched. In effect, if the light in you is darkness, how great is your darkness. Such grand, Plato’s Cave delusion leads to a life or an institution or a community increasingly out of touch with and resistant to reality: because I tell the truth you are unable to acknowledge the things I say. For instance, evolutionary materialism radically undermines responsible rational freedom and through its inherent amorality and radical relativisation of morals, knowledge, logic and more it injects inescapable, deep self-referential incoherence. This destabilises our whole civilisation and is leading to ever-increasing disconnect from reality. In turn that triggers institutionalised cognitive dissonance and defences that fend off corrective truth. Where, because of that might and manipulation make ‘right’ ‘rights’ ‘truth’ ‘knowledge’ ‘logic’ ‘science’ and much more, we have many fellow-travellers who end up enabling. And, he who would dare say stop, stop, danger seems to be an uncouth fool, standing there in the wilderness in a silly camel’s hair coat and saying what does not carry the imprimatur of today’s new magisterium. If we do not wake up from such grand delusion-driven marches of folly, the crumbling cliff-edge underfoot may well give way without further warning. With nukes in play, God help us. It seems our psychologist friend needs to look a lot closer to home if he would use his technical knowledge to the good. KF
as to AK:
“Obviously you are incapable of having an honest, constructive and civil discussion with anyone who disagrees with you.”
Says the man who holds onto a worldview that denies free will.
i.e. Atheistic Materialism itself renders atheists themselves “incapable of having an honest, constructive and civil discussion.”
Atheistic Materialism is a delusional worldview and those who expose it whilst claiming to be trying to have a ‘reasonable’ discussion are, by definition, delusional., since their worldview rules reasonable discussion out right off the bat.
And as CS Lewis ‘predicted’, reason is found to precede nature in that free will is now found to be integral to quantum mechanics:
,,, Although Einstein denied he had free will, quantum mechanics itself falsifies Einstein’s contention that he had no free will.
As Steven Weinberg states in the following article, (in quantum mechanics) humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level.,,, the instrumentalist approach (in quantum mechanics) turns its back on a vision that became possible after Darwin, of a world governed by impersonal physical laws that control human behavior along with everything else.,,, In quantum mechanics these probabilities do not exist until people choose what to measure,,, Unlike the case of classical physics, a choice must be made,,,
And as leading experimental physicist Anton Zeilinger states in the following video, what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure. Which is a very, very, deep message about the nature of reality and our part in the whole universe. We are not just passive observers.”
Thus, despite Einstein’s denial of his own free will, the fact of the matter is that experimental evidence from quantum mechanics, once again, refutes Einstein.
Verse:
Jdk,
I couldn’t agree more. It calls into question why this immature childish tactic is repeatedly being used. My thought is that it is easier to do so rather than try to raise an intelligent, logical and rational response. But, as I have said, it says more about those that use this tactic, and not in a good way, than it does about those it is used against.
I precisely defined my use of the word delusion before I used it.
And have amply demonstrated that, using that definition, Atheistic materialism is indeed a delusional worldview, and therefore, those who defend it are, by my precise definition, suffering from delusion.
For jdk to dishonestly try to redefine delusional, from what I precisely laid out. and how I have subsequently used it, to include extreme psychosis, is, as is usual with debating internet atheists, extremely disingenuous and dishonest.
Moreover, even if I were talking about extreme psychosis, instead of just someone believing a blatantly false picture of reality, a person who held onto atheistic materialism would still be at a significant disadvantage compared to Theism in terms of recovery from that severe mental disorder:
AK & JDK (Attn BA 77), I draw attention to this perspective, noting how as a civilisation we have managed to sustain a holocaust of 800+ millions of our living posterity over the past 40+ years, currently rising at another million per week, while the dominant institutions manage to make it seem to be an issue of a right to “choose” . . . neatly omitting, choose to kill. That makes the following highly relevant as a perspective on delusion:
Sobering. KF
I find it somewhat amusing that kf would quote himself, without attribution, from a post just four posts ago.
JDK, it is perhaps predictable that rather than speak to a substantial issue you dragged a red herring across the track. Sadly, this only underscores the force of the point:
And BTW, much of the structure of the argument pivots on key allusions to classical sources.
KF
PS: Let me make one allusion explicit:
And now, let us notice an echo in the all-time most famous sermon, once given on a mountain in Galilee:
Kairusfocus,
I was wondering how KF was going to bring abortion into a discussion about atheists being delusional. Ahh, abortions are the result of being delusional. Given that 69% of Americans are Christian, many of them getting abortions, I guess us atheists aren’t alone in the delusional department. At least we will have plenty of help in cutting through that branch.
AK, about 3/4’s of Americans have a basic Christian affinity sufficient to show up in surveys. That does not prevent a very large fraction from being deluded about a massive evil that is backed up by every means of manipulation and intimidation imaginable, multiplied by entrenched corruption of culture-shaping institutions. Where, ever so many of said institutions reflect a reversed demographic, where easily 2/3 – 9/10 or more of leadership will be radically secularist humanists, evolutionary materialist scientism advocates or activists and/or enabling fellow travellers. It is manifest that our civilisation is in drastic need of repentance, renewal and reformation, and the fact of ongoing holocaust is the most glaring sign of that circumstance. Your own unresponsiveness to mass slaughter of the most innocent at a current rate of a million per week per Guttmacher-UN figures, speaks sad volumes. Life, sir, is the first right, without which there are no other rights. KF
I take comfort in the fact that the abortion rates in states and countries that have abortion on demand, comprehensive early sex education and unrestricted access to contraceptives are the lowest they have been since abortion was legalized, per Guttmacher.
Very important point by AK. If one wants to reduce abortion, one should support both the things Allan mentions.
AK & JDK: One does not seek to “reduce [the rate of]” a holocaust. That you think and argue in such terms is inadvertently very revealing. KF
Hmmm. I don’t think there was anything inadvertent about what I “revealed”. I said what I meant, and meant what I said, as they say.
From a practical point of view, abortions take place throughout the world by people who don’t agree with you about that being totally morally unacceptable. I know your preference would be for everyone to consider it morally unacceptable to have an abortion, but that is not the case.
So do you have any ideas about how to change their attitudes? And even if you, or other like-minded people, might have some ideas about that, what are the chances you can have a significant impact?
Therefore, why not try to reduce the number of abortions through some practical means that have been shown to make a difference? In fact, it is likely, or at least possible, that through education and empowerment of women, you might make some progress in changing people’s attitudes about the morality of abortions.
Also, I think there are some significant differences between the German holocaust and the world-wide use of abortion. In the German holocaust, a centralized political entity was responsible, and we were able to bring the holocaust to an end through physical force. Abortions are extremely decentralized, with millions of women (in conjunction with men, sometimes), making the decision to have an abortion. Thus for those of you consider abortion as morally evil as the German holocaust, there is no centralized body to attack with military or other violent means.
Because of these differences, thinking about ways to solve the problem for people like you perhaps should include ways to reduce the number of abortions as you work on the larger (and likely less succesful) goal of changing attitudes on a large scale.
KairosFocus,
Israel has named over 24,000 people as “Righteos Among the Nations” for attempting to do just that.
It is hypocritical to support and condone people who protests at the doors of abortion clinics with no evidence that it reduces abortions, yet refuse to adopt practices that have a proven track record of significantly reducing the rate of abortion.
AK & JDK, I repeat. We have institutionalised mass slaughter of our living posterity under false colour of law and rights. When, the heart of the matter is that a million times per WEEK, globally, living posterity is deliberately robbed of the first, foundational right: life. To sustain such, honourable professions, law, law enforcement, courts, parliaments, the media and more have been systematically corrupted. Over 40+ years, the cumulative toll has been 800+ million, likely a LOT more. This is the worst holocaust in history, exceeding even the toll of Communist regimes. If you think that trying to rescue who one can from murder in the 1940’s is the same as comforting oneself with the notion of slowing the rate of a holocaust, something is deeply wrong — especially as, we are not dealing with the Gestapo and SS etc. The above therefore speaks for itself, on the sort of utter breakdown of our civilisation that is now in progress. KF
PS: Kindly, also stop setting up and knocking over strawmen. I have said, hitherto, nil about abortion protests. We have a much bigger, prior problem in hand. Let me borrow the motto of the antislavery society, coming from Paul’s epistle to Philemon: am I not a man and a brother? Or, am I not a woman and a sister? Posterity in the womb has a right to the same true answer: yes, yes. Immediately, the right to life obtains and those who would rob of recognition of fundamental humanity in order to advance an agenda of the mass death of innocents as a “solution” to problems are irretrievably exposed. Game over.
We know you feel that way, kf. Millions of people don’t.
What can you do to solve the problem from your perspective? Do you have any practical ideas that people might implement?
That is the question. You can’t declare war against everyone that is OK with abortions under current law, as we did with Germany. So what do you do other than express your outrage?
I think that to have a productive discussion we have to see where people stand on the issues. I will start:
1) I believe that we should allow abortion on demand in the first three months.
2) I believe that we should require comprehensive and non Judgmental sex education starting at an early age.
3) I believe that contraceptives should be made available with no restrictions other than factual health based information.
We already know where KF stands on number one. But I would be interested in his opinion on two and three. And why.
AK & JDK, again, it comes down to the motto: am I not a man/woman and a brother/sister? The answer is self-evident, given what we all once were. Those who promote or enable holocaust of living posterity simply cannot afford to let us focus on that question. Which speaks for itself. KF
PS: Secondary issues are secondary. The issue is dehumanising posterity in the womb vs facing what we have become as a civilisation. And hypersexualising — and too often, desensitising or grooming — young children while undermining their consciences will not solve the core problem. Nor will imagining that we are dealing with protective equipment for a body contact sport.
For people having sex (which many people do) and not wanting to get pregnant (which is often reasonable), access to contraceptives is not a “secondary issue.” Also, I doubt that most loving married couples, just to focus on them, wanting to have some control over when they have children, are likely to think of their sexual relationship as “a body contact sport.”
And P.S., just because something is secondary doesn’t mean it’s important.
Are you in favor of easy access to contraceptives, at least for married couples?
KF, so can I take this as you being opposed to comprehensive sex education at an early age? And being opposed to unrestricted access to contraceptives? The two things that have a proven track record of reducing unwanted pregnancies and abortion.
You can vent and fume and clutch pearls all you want about sexualization of children and normalizing sex before marriage, but teens have always had sex and will always have sex. Nothing you say will change this so none of your righteous indignation will change the fact that sex for pleasure, contraceptives and abortions are here to stay. As they have been for all of recorded history. Not realizing this, and pretending that we can somehow change this, is the height of delusional thinking. What we can do is make sure that our kids are properly equipped to deal with these realities. Something, obviously, you don’t want to allow them.
I had sex as a teen. I had sex with more than one woman before I was married. And I had sex with my wife before we were married. Many times. And in many different positions. And I don’t regret any of this. Why should I as long as it was mutually consensual and mutually respectful? And, I might add, that there was never an abortion involved because we had good sex education and ready access to contraceptives.
AK, again, you refuse to address first things first, a diagnostic sign. It may be advisable for you to note baselines, too, before assuming that attempted technological solutions to moral and familial problems work. Relative to sky-high rates of illegitimacy, contraceptives may offer some reduction in certain statistics. Relative to family and individual stability and soundness, not so much. Relative to benumbing the conscience, breaking the heart and rendering especially girls into far less than they could and should be, we are failing the primary challenge. Relative, to the damaging effects on marriages of premarital sexual activities, not so much. Relative, to addressing the primary question on enabling the ongoing worst holocaust in history: am I not a man/woman and a brother/sister, even less so. Duly noted. KF
PS: Just maybe, it would help you to draw fewer loaded inferences to learn that my mom worked with the bureau in my homeland that provided family life education as part of health education, including her being lead author of contraceptive promotion literature. I simply refuse to ignore the root issues.
JDK, note the just above also. Enough on the tactic of successive tangents. I again highlight:
You have inadvertently provided an illustration of these concerns over the past day or so. And of course, such a context readily explains the sort of abuse of professional status to project tendentious diagnoses to ID supporters, while refusing to address cogently the evidence that abundantly warrants inference to design on FSCO/I as sign that we see in the OP.
KF
Not again!!!
Good for your mother, but why won’t you answer a simple question about your own beliefs rather than quoting, for the 4th time, something you wrote about the dire state of the world?
JDK, you have enough of an answer. Obviously, my mother had to manage a bad situation, but my point is that we need to move to a good one, which requires reform. Availability of contraceptives is not in itself an evil [depending on the contraceptive, e.g. some cause diseases and some in effect induce a quiet abortion] but that should not become an excuse to turn something so profound as our sexuality, family life and growing individuality into chaos and further harm or even ruin to our civilisation. In particular, a central issue is the civilising of each generation of boys as they become men, so that they do not bring ruin. That requires stable families and fatherhood. Which what is going on increasingly, clearly undermines. KF
Kairosfocus,
There is no “may” about it. Sex education and unrestricted access to contraceptives has a significant impact on abortion rates.
Do you have the confirmed data to back that up? Because these are the numbers that I found for divorce rates in the US:
Jews 30%
Born-again Christians 27%
Other Christians 24%
Atheists, Agnostics 21%
I found it interesting that Atheists and agnostics have a lower divorce rate than religious people.
Yet women have never had more opportunity than they do today. Their numbers in upper management are increasing, their numbers in science, engineering and medicine are increasing, they now have job protection rights for maternity leave. In short, they have choices now that they have never had in the past. I don’t see how you can claim that the path society is taking is making girls less than what they can be. The facts simply do not support your claim. Maybe it would be clearer if you could tell us what your idea of a girl being “all they can be” means.
Please refer to the divorce statistics above.
Yet you are not prepared to enable people with the tools to prevent the pregnancy in the first place. Your stance just does not make any logical sense. And is not supported by any data.
Good for your mom. She sounds like a woman you should be very proud of.
AK, you obviously wish to drag off on tangents. I simply note that extramarital and pre-marital sexual behaviour tends to undermine marriage. But then, many do not see the values involved as significant, given the general undermining of morality in our time. KF
Kairosfocus,
Who said anything about extra-marital sex? Of course extra-marital sex undermines marriage. Lying to your wife tends to do that. We were talking about pre-marital sex. Whether or not there is a link between this and the risk of divorce is inconclusive.
I don’t see any undermining of morals in our time. The only thing that societal changes have done is undermine your opinion of what morals should be. So the big question is, what makes your morals better or more important than mine?
AK:
may well be the operative words.
KF
Kairosfocus,
So, you obviously don’t have an answer to my question. Fair enough.
AK, more than enough has been said. I am simply pointing out the core problem with a radically relativist and/or subjectivist scheme, starting with its self-referentiality and linked regress of “caves.” I gotta go now, dealing with three layers of RW headaches. KF