As to claims of right, each of us look and make decisions about what works for our ethical framework. I don’t like your ethical framework, I’m happy to tell you so. I’m what is called pro-choice for women, you on the other hand are arbitrarily telling other people how to live their lives in situations that you have no right to be involved in.

I don’t agree with Peter Singer. I don’t agree with murder of babies once they are born. I’d call that drawing a line in the sand. Just like late term abortion has a line in the sand or a contract for sale of a house has a line in the sand.

I haven’t fallen into any traps, you insist on telling me what it is I agree or disagree with, and you’re just plain and simply wrong.

You may have noticed that Peter Singer says these things but gets little support and the only people really picking up on it are right-wing christians who make the mistake of believing Singer is somehow representative of the way atheists in general think.

That’d be a trap you’ve fallen into.

Professor Singer said that life begins a month after birth or that the person is not declared human till a month after birth. He was attacked for supporting infanticide. His response was that people who believed in abortion had no right to criticize him because they supported something similar a bit earlier in the piece. This led to his party being ostracized by the Australian Democrats who gave preferences the Christian Democratic Party. The pro-life movement said that basically Singer was right here in so far as he says that there is no real difference between abortion and infanticide.

But whereas Singer believed in both the pro-life movement believed in neither. Singer was very consistent just as the pro-life movement was very consistent. This is the trap you fall into when you argue that abortion is OK but infanticide is not OK. You cannot draw a line in the sand and say this far and no further. If infanticide is not OK then neither is abortion.

Life starts at birth. It’s as arbitrary as suggesting it starts at conception and makes much more sense.

You and your distinguished scientists can define human life where you wish. It’s of no matter to me whether you are right or wrong.

Still paramount to me is the right of a woman to decide, not a bunch of middle aged men.

Thanks so much for dropping in again. As usual there is so much in your comments that is just not right, but you already know that.

Let me just pick you up on a few things. Your knowing god is just wishful thinking, as is any idea that he has left evidence. Historical documents like the Dead Sea Scrolls are written by humans.

Life is not futile and without purpose. I love my life and I love the lives of those around me. We have a purpose. To suggest that because I don’t believe in crazy supernatural things means I have no purpose is really just plain and simply ignorant on your part.

An Australian flag is a bit of cloth that is symbolic, I am not traumatise by it’s burning. A proper medical procedure to abort a baby should be the right of any woman and what I think of that is not relevant.

Thanks again for your summary of my personality, way off the mark, but thanks again.

And yes, I’m extremely well and off to have a futile Friday night dinner with my family that has no purpose.

I thought I’d seen the last of this thread long ago but I find new emails popping into my inbox.
You seem to have brushed some dust of the cobwebs here and I didn’t want you to feel alone with Bruce.
Greg, You and I are confident that God exists because we have taken the time to know Him. I’m sure you will also have experienced wonders that human reason can’t explain when praying to God who does.
He has left many historical documents to support what you and I understand (like the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls) and even the mounting physical evidence that has been recovered from around Jerusalem but sadly, Bruce can’t see things from a perspective that he refuses to explore. He will reject your challenges to experience the reality of life for himself, because it’s easier to comment and accuse from the sidelines. He states that life is precious but that it is futile and without purpose.
He will say that your views are senseless, because his reference point is himself. If Bruce doesn’t believe it, it can’t be true. On the issue of ethics, I suspect he would be more traumatised by the burning of the Australian flag than seeing unborn babies flushed down the toilet or scraped off wombs like bugs, just because they aren’t well enough developed to know they have value and be able to articulate that. Intervention is not the act of challenging abortion, but abortion itself. It’s totally unnatural to poke stuff into our bodies and use chemicals to interrupt a process that is imperative for human life to continue. We can’t just argue that things are right or wrong because government law dictates, but I’m not saying anything you don’t already know. Bruce has already admitted that he would have to think long and hard about how he will act when the law is rising against any convictions he may develop. He has the luxury of an underdeveloped conscience, which results in few issues for him. The complexities of life can then be reduced to one statement…. Everything is ok if it’s within the law of the land and not hurting anyone who’s already been born, but don’t oppose people if you honour something greater than your own opinion.
Bruce accuses Christians of being delusional and stereotypes them at every opportunity. How can you take his rhetoric seriously or even expect him to add weight to a debate if he values personal preference and opinion over life itself. Of course his label of “delusion” for us has no more accuracy than his statement of God not existing, which is based on ignorance. Anyone with reasonable observation skills will be aware that faith is not related to intelligence and I’ve had this discussion with him already, yet he still ridicules people of greater and lesser intellect than he for their personal experience and understanding. I also note that a portion of the pro-life movement are not religious and that some Christians do not appear greatly convicted on this matter, but Bruce fails to address this in his unfounded, slanderous attacks. You’re time will most likely spent elsewhere talking to people of real influence in our world.

All this aside, hope you’re well Bruce. Not much seems to have changed around here.

Duane