Christianity could be a higher order way of organizing lives

[MadMojoMonkey]

Really....we're gonna do this??

I'm not "doing" anything but pointing out some definitions, and answering your questions.

You don't encounter many rhetorical questions in your profession, do you?

Talk less trash and you'll be more comfortable with being taken seriously.

So? Is there an even slightly credible one that says a plant is alive and a fetus isn't?

I'm not even remotely pretending that you're interested in my answer, so I'll just remind you that Google is your friend.

Then you just don't understand my position. I believe there is a building near me where people regular murder babies and I don't fucking care. If people are making practical decisions about how and when to grow their family, that's a good thing. And they shouldn't be stopped because some other people think it might offend some imaginary bearded guy floating on a cloud.

Your use of the word murder in this context is hyperbole. It obfuscates your position, by an appeal to visceral emotions.
Unless, that is, if you're OK with murder in general, and the fact that some people murder babies is a moot point.

That's funny, but you really don't have to choose. It can be both

No. You can insist that killing and murder are synonyms, but that doesn't make it true.

[spoonitnow]

Glad to know I could do all of this with one sentence.

Not glad to see MMM's main argument is that "abortion isn't illegal everywhere."

[OngBonga]

Glad to know I could do all of this with one sentence.

Fuck you, it was my sentence that did it.

Arguing that muder is a legal definition is certainly not pedantry. It's like saying "are we gonna play this game" when I accuse someone of perjury because they lied to me (rather than lying under oath). It would be dumb for me to accuse a liar of perjury, just like it's dumb to accuse a lawful killer of murder.

It's literally a legal definition, you can't then argue that it shouldn't be taken by its literal legal meaning because otherwise it has no meaning.

Find a better word instead of misusing other words.

[OngBonga]

Of course, you can't say "abortion is killing" because that's stating the obvious and has no moral weight behind it.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Not glad to see MMM's main argument is that "abortion isn't illegal everywhere."

I never said that. I can't even find what I said that you interpreted to be that.

[wufwugy]

Is murder commonly used to denote concept of wrongful killing regardless of law?

[OngBonga]

Well obviously, but the problem there is morality is subjective, while law is objective.

"Abortion is murder" is a statement of fact. Better would be "I think abortion is immoral" and you don't come across as a judgemental tosspot who just uses the most powerful language one can imagine in an effort to obtain moral high ground.

[spoonitnow]

Well obviously, but the problem there is morality is subjective, while law is objective.

"Abortion is murder" is a statement of fact. Better would be "I think abortion is immoral" and you don't come across as a judgemental tosspot who just uses the most powerful language one can imagine in an effort to obtain moral high ground.

You don't have to think abortion is immoral for it to be murder, ie: you don't have to think murder is immoral.

[OngBonga]

You don't have to think abortion is immoral for it to be murder, ie: you don't have to think murder is immoral.

No but we moved on to morality in an effort to justify the use of the word "murder". You have to think abortion is immoral to think abortion is murder, otherwise you're claiming you think abortion is illegal... unless of course abortion is illegal, in which case it is murder because then it fits the definition.

If you don't think murder is immoral, fine. But you can't pretend to think murder is legal.

[spoonitnow]

No but we moved on to morality in an effort to justify the use of the word "murder". You have to think abortion is immoral to think abortion is murder, otherwise you're claiming you think abortion is illegal... unless of course abortion is illegal, in which case it is murder because then it fits the definition.

If you don't think murder is immoral, fine. But you can't pretend to think murder is legal.

The bold is not true. Moreover, you're continuing on the "let's argue about what murder means" path that no one else is on.

[OngBonga]

The bold is not true. Moreover, you're continuing on the "let's argue about what murder means" path that no one else is on.

Right, because I'm the only person who realise it's actually pretty important.

What the fuck do you mean when you say "abortion is murder"? If you're saying neither "it's immoral killing" nor "it's unlawful killing", then what are you saying? Are you all using a different meaning of the word "murder"? Perhaps it's like a bunch of fucking crows, yeah abortion is murder because it's plural.

Forigve me for not knowing what it is you're saying when you're using alternate defintions that only I seem to be unaware of.

[boost]

Hey, things got a bit hairy in the most recent posts, but just wanted to point out that Banana is making some solid posts that contribute to the discussion beyond just opening doors that otherwise wouldn't have been. Banana, I hope you don't read this as patronizing, but I think it's worth pointing out, so I'm going to risk being patronizing.

I don't think the "murder has a meaning and you're misusing it" crowd is being pedantic. I think the most charitable concession that can be made here is what wuf suggested, murder is being used colloquially to mean unjustified killing regardless of legality. But even here, it's hard for me to wrap my head around someone thinking abortion is an unjustified killing and that they are ok with it. Being in support of unjustified killing must be a clear signal that the person(s) in question are less than psychologically well.

Banana, your "if a plant is alive, a fetus must also be, by the same criteria, alive." declaration is hard to find fault with, except for the fact that we now need to define what it is that is alive. Of course we find no issue, by and large, killing a plant, so why doesn't this transfer to a fetus? This leads to an interesting ontological discussion about what exactly constitutes a human.

You may say a human is a human at the moment of conception, and reasonably so, it's often the position of hardliners and appears to offer a much needed definitive boundary. But here's a thought experiment that may challenge that intuition. Say there are two fertile monkeys in a enclosure, one a male and one a female. Sooner or later there will be a baby monkey in the enclosure as well. Perhaps it's not a lock, but the odds are only ever so slightly worse than they would be had the female just been impregnated. Now, if we interfere, have we aborted a monkey?

[BananaStand]

Banana is making some solid posts

Fuck yeah I am. what else is new?

But even here, it's hard for me to wrap my head around someone thinking abortion is an unjustified killing and that they are ok with it. Being in support of unjustified killing must be a clear signal that the person(s) in question are less than psychologically well.

Are you referring to me here? even if not, I'm not sure where the term "unjustified" came from. The killing is justified. A person justifies it by saying "I'm gonna kill this baby because if I don't it will de-rail my life plans, forever attach me to some awful man, doom me to a lifetime of financial hardship, or some combination of those three" That's the justification. Some people think that's inadequate. But they should mind their own fucking business.

Banana, your "if a plant is alive, a fetus must also be, by the same criteria, alive." declaration is hard to find fault with, except for the fact that we now need to define what it is that is alive. Of course we find no issue, by and large, killing a plant, so why doesn't this transfer to a fetus? This leads to an interesting ontological discussion about what exactly constitutes a human.

Why?? None of this is relevant. Even if we accept the extreme evangelical position that life begins at the instant of conception, and a single cell constitutes a human being the moment the sperm breaches the egg.....I still say it's fine to kill that human being. If you define it as "murder", accurately or otherwise, it doesn't change my opinion. Don't want the baby??? Kill it, see if I blink.

Abortion isn't a question of murder/non-murder. It's not a question of when life begins. It's not a question of what constitutes a human being. Those questions don't matter because the larger issue is bodily autonomy. A person could be dying right in front of you and the only thing that would save them is your kidney. you totally have the right to say "no, go ahead die fuck-face, you can't use my kidney".

Why can't a woman say the same thing about her womb?

You may say a human is a human at the moment of conception, and reasonably so, it's often the position of hardliners and appears to offer a much needed definitive boundary.

They're wrong

the only "definitive boundary" I might get behind is one that says "you can't get an abortion after X weeks". And I'll leave it to the medical community to reach a consensus on what X is. But basically, there comes a point where it becomes increasingly likely that a fetus removed from the womb could survive on it's own. Partial birth abortion is a gruesome. And by allowing the practice, I see massive potential for living breathing human beings to be murdered, outside of the womb. Rather than deal with the dicey-ness of trying to implement government regulations over late-term abortions, it seems more practical for the government to simply say "Make up your mind before X weeks, thank you".

[boost]

Banana, I think I generally (if not completley.. it's kinda hard to tell) agree with you with regards to policy here. But I disagree that all these things don't matter. I am glad to have you with me on this, and I don't begrudge you for coming to the conclusions you have, however you have-- but just because you have come to these conclusions does not make them self evident. All of this does matter-- maybe not to you personally, but nonetheless, it does.

[BananaStand]

All of this does matter-- maybe not to you personally, but nonetheless, it does.

No, it really doesn't. By "all of this" I assume you mean the murder/non-murder question. It doesn't matter because it's not a factor that affects policy. People who think it's murder are merely expressing an opinion. It's no more meaningful than me saying "ninja turtles are cool"

Abortion policy, at least presently, hinges on the question of bodily autonomy. Does the baby have a right to use a woman's uterus without the woman's permission? Bodily autonomy is something codified into law. The notion that life begins at conception is not. Debates over the former influence policy. Debates over the latter are just arguments of clashing opinions. One matters. One doesn't.

I feel like we're gonna down a rabbit-hole of "what's the definition of 'matters'?" I really don't wanna do that. I just hope it's obvious that discussions surrounding the implementing of laws "matter". Discussions about which Batman was best, who shot JR, or how to bend the definition of words don't.

[spoonitnow]

If the government made it legal to walk up and shoot black people in the head whenever you wanted, it's still murder.

Abortion is the number one killer of black people in America.

[oskar]

Can always count on spoon to drag whatever discussion down to a kindergartners level.

[spoonitnow]

Can always count on spoon to drag whatever discussion down to a kindergartners level.

Abortion is very much a race-related issue in the United States, and there's no way to untie the two. Data from the Centers for Disease and Prevention (CDC) in the United States shows that 35 percent of aborted babies in the U.S. in 2013 were black, but black people only make up about 13 percent of the population.

Also according to the CDC, in 2011 there were:

• 90,888 black deaths from heart disease
• 66,158 black deaths from cancer
• 12,299 accidental black deaths
• 12,771 diabetes black deaths
• 6,100 black homicides from firearms
• 4,138 black deaths from HIV
• 286,797 black deaths from all other causes combined
• 317,567 black deaths from abortion

It's de facto eugenics targeting black people. I'm all for the availability of abortions, but let's call it what it is.

For comparison, there were 76 unarmed black people killed by police from 1999 to 2014. That's about five per year. That's not even a blip on the radar to what can easily be seen as government-funded eugenics through Planned Parenthood.

[oskar]

...

You shoehorn abortion into this thread so you can turn the subject to socioeconomics. There are already 5 threads dedicated to this. This is what I take an issue with. I don't care about black people and their fetuses. I have no horse in that race.

[boost]

I don't care about black people and their fetuses. I have no horse in that race.

This is poetry.

[spoonitnow]

I don't care about black people and their fetuses.

Most people don't. That's why so many of them are killed in the womb.

[MadMojoMonkey]

government-funded eugenics through Planned Parenthood.

Exactly $0 of the government's funding for Planned Parenthood is allowed to be used for abortion services, by law.
My lady does marketing for Planned Parenthood in St Louis. There are multiple business entities under the umbrella of Planned Parenthood, and the wing that does ER services (including abortions) is financially distinct from all other aspects of Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood does so much more than merely abortions. They cover all kinds of sexual health needs, including checkups and classes for men.
Who'd have thunk it.

I have a brother because my mom was considering abortion, and went to Planned Parenthood and learned about all of the support services that were available to her.

[BananaStand]

Exactly $0 of the government's funding for Planned Parenthood is allowed to be used for abortion services, by law.

Source? I'm extremely skeptical of this. If this were actually the case, it's hard to believe that national political discourse would include a controversy over the funding of planned parenthood.

Though if this is true, PP would be extremely well-served by taking my advice and changing the name to "Uncle Sam's Vagina Wash"

[spoonitnow]

Exactly $0 of the government's funding for Planned Parenthood is allowed to be used for abortion services, by law.
My lady does marketing for Planned Parenthood in St Louis. There are multiple business entities under the umbrella of Planned Parenthood, and the wing that does ER services (including abortions) is financially distinct from all other aspects of Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood does so much more than merely abortions. They cover all kinds of sexual health needs, including checkups and classes for men.
Who'd have thunk it.

I have a brother because my mom was considering abortion, and went to Planned Parenthood and learned about all of the support services that were available to her.

Thank you for paraphrasing all of the left's talking points on Planned Parenthood. None of them refute that Planned Parenthood is government-funded eugenics.

For clarity: I am not against Planned Parenthood or anything they do. I am against them receiving tax dollars.

Also, and I mean this genuinely and not a knock on you, but you may want to consider using a different phrasing than "my lady" since that sounds autistic as fuck, no offense. I just see you do it often, and I cringe every time. That's the type of small thing that can help you to make better impressions in work, social life, etc. and make your life go smoother.

To tie this back into Christianity, killing babies is wrong.

[wufwugy]

Exactly $0 of the government's funding for Planned Parenthood is allowed to be used for abortion services, by law.

Any government funding for PP means that some of it is probably going to abortion even if the line of sight isn't direct. This is because all spending decisions are marginal and come from the same pool of possible spending decisions. The pool of resources to cover the possible spending decisions are allocated first to the spending with the greatest marginal benefit, second to those with the second greatest marginal benefit, etc..

If PP has a budget of $10, where funding consists of $2 from government and $8 elsewhere, without restrictions, the two funding sources are essentially merged and put to pay for the $10 of services. If the budget is deconstructed to pap smears ($5) and abortions ($5) and the law says no government funding can go to abortion, PP then pays for the pap smears with the $2 from government and $3 from elsewhere, and pays for the abortions with the remaining $5 from elsewhere. As we see, a change in the law regarding allocation didn't change the funding for abortions. If, however, the government stopped funding PP altogether, PP would have only $8 and would have to cut its spending. It would do so based on the marginal assessment characterized above. Unless abortions are valued more highly than pap smears such that PP would rather lose $2 of pap smears to keep all $5 of abortions, abortions would decline.

The only way to make it so that no taxes go to abortions is to make it so that institutions that produce abortions get $0 funding from the government. Furthermore, that means that consumers of abortions also need to get $0 funding from the government.

[BananaStand]

The only way to make it so that no taxes go to abortions is to make it so that institutions that produce abortions get $0 funding from the government. Furthermore, that means that consumers of abortions also need to get $0 funding from the government.

This also creates a hole in the market. There will be a demand for subsidization of the stuff that PP does.

Charities are really good at fixing problems like this. Governments, not so much.

[boost]

Any government funding for PP means that some of it is probably going to abortion even if the line of sight isn't direct. This is because all spending decisions are marginal and come from the same pool of possible spending decisions. The pool of resources to cover the possible spending decisions are allocated first to the spending with the greatest marginal benefit, second to those with the second greatest marginal benefit, etc..

If PP has a budget of $10, where funding consists of $2 from government and $8 elsewhere, without restrictions, the two funding sources are essentially merged and put to pay for the $10 of services. If the budget is deconstructed to pap smears ($5) and abortions ($5) and the law says no government funding can go to abortion, PP then pays for the pap smears with the $2 from government and $3 from elsewhere, and pays for the abortions with the remaining $5 from elsewhere. As we see, a change in the law regarding allocation didn't change the funding for abortions. If, however, the government stopped funding PP altogether, PP would have only $8 and would have to cut its spending. It would do so based on the marginal assessment characterized above. Unless abortions are valued more highly than pap smears such that PP would rather lose $2 of pap smears to keep all $5 of abortions, abortions would decline.

The only way to make it so that no taxes go to abortions is to make it so that institutions that produce abortions get $0 funding from the government. Furthermore, that means that consumers of abortions also need to get $0 funding from the government.

This is a simplistic way of understanding organizational structure and accounting. It can be true, but it is not necessarily so. There is legal precedent on this. Different parts of an organization can be financially segregated to a degree to which this is a non issue.

Absolute financial segregation is a myth. I don't just mean within a legally recognized corporate organization, I mean in the absolute sense. If abortion is legal, any funding given to any entity will eventually fund abortion. As illustration, take a strip mall that holds an abortion clinic as a tenant. The other tenants rents are being suppressed due to a decrease in vacancy.

I do appreciate that you ended with an acknowledgement of how absurd your reading of the law is. A woman that gets an abortion should not be eligible for public scholarships, her children should not be admitted to public school, she should not be allowed to ride public transit, etc. Do we get to apply this logic to similar cases? The government should not be funding religious institutions, therefore it follows that a priest should be shunned in the same way as the woman whose had an abortion.

Also, when does the ban from government funding happen? Does it last for a set period of time? Her whole life? Wouldn't it make more sense for her to owe the government for all of the assistance she's received so far in life which allowed her the financial flexibility to chose abortion?

[boost]

The numbers don't lie, your outlandish leap to conclusions on the other hand..

It could be a concerted effort to eradicate black Americans-- or it could be an earnest effort to reduce the number of unwanted babies, which for myriad reasons (not least of which, higher rates of poverty and lower rates of marriage) happen to be black American babies at a greater rate than black American's representation in the population.

This chart is fun:

[spoonitnow]

The numbers don't lie, your outlandish leap to conclusions on the other hand..

It could be a concerted effort to eradicate black Americans-- or it could be an earnest effort to reduce the number of unwanted babies, which for myriad reasons (not least of which, higher rates of poverty and lower rates of marriage) happen to be black American babies at a greater rate than black American's representation in the population.

This chart is fun:

@bold, I never said it was concerted but that it was de facto. For the rest, I just parroted MLK's niece since that's always fun.

Marriage is a yuuuuuge issue in the black community. This has been covered relatively recently in other threads. Not having a father is the number one or number two predictor of virtually every bad thing that can happen to you in life across all demographics.

[boost]

@bold, I never said it was concerted but that it was de facto. For the rest, I just parroted MLK's niece since that's always fun.

But it's not if it is strengthening black communities. See below.

Marriage is a yuuuuuge issue in the black community. This has been covered relatively recently in other threads. Not having a father is the number one or number two predictor of virtually every bad thing that can happen to you in life across all demographics.

Right, and if you want strong families (black ones included) abortions in the case of unwanted pregnancies in which the father is absent or likely to be absent would help towards this goal. If that subset of pregnancies skews black, that speaks to issues further upstream and is not an argument against abortion or its implementation.

[wufwugy]

Right, and if you want strong families (black ones included) abortions in the case of unwanted pregnancies in which the father is absent or likely to be absent would help towards this goal. If that subset of pregnancies skews black, that speaks to issues further upstream and is not an argument against abortion or its implementation.

Sometimes I wonder if having kids makes people better people (on average). Derivative from this idea is another idea that it could be the case that a population that doesn't have enough kids causes its own devolution.

[boost]

Sometimes I wonder if having kids makes people better people (on average). Derivative from this idea is another idea that it could be the case that a population that doesn't have enough kids causes its own devolution.

Oh, yeah, I like this. Not because I'm convinced, but because I love the dichotomy it sets up. Have more kids for the betterment of the whole at the expense of the proposed kids, or save the potential kids from the suffering of growing up in sufficiently sub-ideal circumstances.

[spoonitnow]

But it's not if it is strengthening black communities. See below.



Right, and if you want strong families (black ones included) abortions in the case of unwanted pregnancies in which the father is absent or likely to be absent would help towards this goal. If that subset of pregnancies skews black, that speaks to issues further upstream and is not an argument against abortion or its implementation.

Let's just use government funding to kill off all black kids that don't come from married parents. It'll help to create more strong black families, according to the logic above.

[boost]

Let's just use government funding to kill off all black kids that don't come from married parents. It'll help to create more strong black families, according to the logic above.

It will help ensure the families we do have are strong. I don't see black Americans dropping below replacement birth rates as a desirable outcome, I don't see it as undesirable. I am curious why you are so preoccupied with race here. It's not that I don't think it can be an issue, but I think you are forcing it to be one here.

If there are underlying issues that cause unwanted outcomes from an otherwise good action, the action is not to blame and the relief should be sought in addressing the underlying issues. But as oskar has so eloquently pointed out, this probably isn't the place for that, as it probably isn't even the place for this.

[OngBonga]

I just put another log on the fire. I guess I murdered it.

[boost]

Spoon, you're wrong wrt your use of murder and it's kinda sad to see you not be able to let go of this single small point. I think there are some interesting points of disagreement, but this is not one of them. The fact that you are clinging to this makes it impossible for people to believe you'll discuss any other points in good faith.

I don't really disagree about the "My lady" thing. I wouldn't have thought to mention it, but yeah, sure, it's a tad odd. But your insistence on this being an appropriate use of "murder" puts you squarely on the spectrum. "Abortion is murder" is your "My lady."

[spoonitnow]

Spoon, you're wrong wrt your use of murder and it's kinda sad to see you not be able to let go of this single small point. I think there are some interesting points of disagreement, but this is not one of them. The fact that you are clinging to this makes it impossible for people to believe you'll discuss any other points in good faith.

I don't really disagree about the "My lady" thing. I wouldn't have thought to mention it, but yeah, sure, it's a tad odd. But your insistence on this being an appropriate use of "murder" puts you squarely on the spectrum. "Abortion is murder" is your "My lady."

Abortion is murder. It's illegal. Do you want to move on, or do you want to keep repeating various permutations of the definition of abortion and "Aha!" over and over again?

[boost]

Abortion is murder. It's illegal. Do you want to move on, or do you want to keep repeating various permutations of the definition of abortion and "Aha!" over and over again?

This is a sad side of you. Attack troll spoon is at least entertaining to watch. Defense troll spoon is just pure cringepity.

[spoonitnow]

This is a sad side of you. Attack troll spoon is at least entertaining to watch. Defense troll spoon is just pure cringepity.

Could you then explain how abortion is not murder instead of going into ad hominem attacks? Here's a definition:

the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another.

Unlawful? Check. It's unlawful in plenty of places.
Premeditated? Check.
Killing? Check.
Of one human being? Check.
By another? Check.

Edit: Fixed a bracket.

[BananaStand]

Unlawful? Check. It's unlawful in plenty of places.

C'mon man....you know better

[boost]

Could you then explain how abortion is not murder instead of going into ad hominem attacks? Here's a definition:

I have. As for the bold, well, sorry, but you don't get to play this card when you have gone to such great lengths (or was it you being careless?) to obfuscate the difference between serious spoon and troll spoon and the insult is "you're being a troll and a shitty one at that."

[OngBonga]

He knows he's wrong, that's why he slapped me down instead of using words effectively.

[wufwugy]

So I'm reading up on this Kenya experiment. It is definitely not an experiment about UBI. It's doing very different things than makes up UBI.