One-Issue Voters Make Me Sick

[Ben Kenobi]

Nothing, so long as the state doesn't take policy dictations from the Pope/Church, and doesn't provide special exemptions for Catholic Churchs, etc., etc.

Any establishment of Catholicism, provides, by definition, special privileges to the Catholic church, and to the pope.

[Nubclear]

I love how BK tap danced around my question.
Most amusing

[Ben Kenobi]

You aren't persecuting anyone by forcing them to not enforce their religious beliefs on others any more than you persecute someone by not allowing them to stone their children for disobedience. Religious freedom doesn't extend to enforcing your beliefs on others, through force or the mechanism of the state.

The removal of religion from the state constrains the expression of believers. Why are they going to speak in favour of what they believe, when the state actively opposes such influence upon their policy?

[Kuciwalker]

Which believers?

[David Floyd]

And you answer your own question. The president can veto laws passed by congress. He makes the appointments to the Supreme court that must be considered by the Congress. He can propose bills for the approval of the Congress.

As for the Supreme Court, even the current Court isn't gonna overturn Roe - even many of the "conservatives" on the Court wouldn't do so. It takes more than a conservative appointee to overturn precedent like that.

As for Congress, yes, the President can propose and veto bills. However, a bill can get proposed without the President, and vetos can be overturned.

I don't deny that the President has influence, I just think that matters that are more fully under his control are more important.

Congress must approve of all wars, DF.

Oh, Congress can declare war, but the President is certainly able to de facto create a war, by sending in troops, or bombing.

Scientific opinion has established that human life begins at conception.

Links, Ben, links. Back that up. If the majority of doctors believed you, then I don't think they would perform on demand abortions.

Who do these frozen embryos rely upon for their support? Their biological mother, or their adopted mother? Who has more right to the child, the woman who does not want them, or the woman who is willing to raise them and care for them? Who is the true mother to these children?

A right to the child? I thought that it wasn't property?

Do they overwhelmingly support or oppose abortion? Of course, the researchers who are involved in embryonic stem cell research will have vested interest in preserving their funding.

Maybe, but doctors and scientists don't have the same vested interest in preserving abortion on demand.

How so? How can you say that it is only the conservatives who have a political agenda? That makes no sense to me. The liberals have a political agenda that must also be considered.

Yes, and I agree with you, yet at the same time, I can see no reason a doctor would support abortion for political reasons when he "knows" that an abortion is killing a living, breathing human who is the same as one of us. That would violate his oath, and I don't think that if the majority of doctors really believed that, that they would so violate their oath.

[Ben Kenobi]

Any believers, be they Buddhist, Hindu, Moslem, Zoroasterian, etc.

[Kuciwalker]

Life obviously begins at conception - or actually, the cell is alive even before fertilization. Whether being "alive" in such a manner has any meaning morally is the question. The cell is really not all that different from a bacterium.

[David Floyd]

Any establishment of Catholicism, provides, by definition, special privileges to the Catholic church, and to the pope.

Then if that's the definition of Catholicism, then I do not think a Catholic state would be a positive thing.

The removal of religion from the state constrains the expression of believers. Why are they going to speak in favour of what they believe, when the state actively opposes such influence upon their policy?

Why are believers going to speak in favor of what they believe? Well, to start with, Jesus commanded it. The point of witnessing to others isn't to promote public policy, but to save the person to whom you are speaking.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Any believers, be they Buddhist, Hindu, Moslem, Zoroasterian, etc.

So which should get control of the government

[Ben Kenobi]

While what makes someone happy might vary from person to person (and this can be found out, though it is harder), how satisfied someone is with their life, how much they enjoy it, other such factors can be fairly accurately judged by asking them to grade such factors on a 1-10 scale.

So why would the happiness of someone who rates a 2, be the same as someone else who rates a 10? This is not an empirical measure, as it is reliant upon individual opinion.

Unhappiness is much, much easier to measure. Depression and other mental illnesses, poverty, difficulty with affording basic needs, high levels of stress are all things that are much easier to spot.

Okay. Given these conditions, what evidence do you have that believers disproportionately suffer from these blights of unhappiness?

More improvements to such measurements would come by understanding the brain better.

Why does happiness have anything to do with the brain?

[David Floyd]

The removal of religion from the state constrains the expression of believers. Why are they going to speak in favour of what they believe, when the state actively opposes such influence upon their policy?

Furthermore, how does this constrain anything? Believers are still free to speak in public about their beliefs. The fact that their beliefs won't become public policy doesn't restrict their free speech - it just means their ideas won't be applied. The free speech of communists in the US isn't constrained simply because their speech won't result in a communist US state, right?

[Ben Kenobi]

As for the Supreme Court, even the current Court isn't gonna overturn Roe - even many of the "conservatives" on the Court wouldn't do so. It takes more than a conservative appointee to overturn precedent like that.

True. Given Stephens and O'Connors resignation, that tips the scales, particularly if Rehnquist also has another prolife replacement.

As for Congress, yes, the President can propose and veto bills. However, a bill can get proposed without the President, and vetos can be overturned.

Not without a 60 percent support in the house, which means, given the current partisanship for such measures, all prolife bills could be killed by a pro abortion president.

Oh, Congress can declare war, but the President is certainly able to de facto create a war, by sending in troops, or bombing.

Which is a violation of the separation of powers supposedly enforced by the constitution.

Links, Ben, links. Back that up. If the majority of doctors believed you, then I don't think they would perform on demand abortions.

Do the majority of doctors provide abortion on demand?

I'll get the links in a moment, I'm trying to tread water with all the others in the thread.

A right to the child? I thought that it wasn't property?

I'm taking your argument, and running with it to make other conclusions.

Maybe, but doctors and scientists don't have the same vested interest in preserving abortion on demand.

Not as a whole, but there is a substantial component that are funded by abortion industries, because the two complement each other.

If abortion provides the needed fetal tissue for research purposes, than the researchers dependent upon such tissue, will also have a vested interest in preserving their supply.

The same is true of the abortion industry, if these 'surplus' children, can be used for a better purpose, then they justify their own actions.

Yes, and I agree with you, yet at the same time, I can see no reason a doctor would support abortion for political reasons when he "knows" that an abortion is killing a living, breathing human who is the same as one of us. That would violate his oath, and I don't think that if the majority of doctors really believed that, that they would so violate their oath.

True, if they understood what they were doing, then they would not be involved.

But just because the doctors who perform the abortions, insist that abortion kills a blob of tissue, does not mean that scientifically, the unborn child is just a blob of tissue.

[Arrian]

The failure of the government to agree with you =! government oppression of your beliefs.

That is not a difficult thing to understand, Ben.

-Arrian

[Ben Kenobi]

Then if that's the definition of Catholicism, then I do not think a Catholic state would be a positive thing.

Neither do I. But in my situation, I would be better off in a Catholic state, than I would be in an atheist one.

Why are believers going to speak in favor of what they believe? Well, to start with, Jesus commanded it. The point of witnessing to others isn't to promote public policy, but to save the person to whom you are speaking.

True, but a believe in a position to influence public policy, can reach many more people than they would be able to do otherwise. It's the whole principle behind the idea, of having a Christian leader being a benefit to both the church and state.

Interestingly, it's not an ideal of Mennonites, particularly, since the Mennonites saw some of the inherent conflicts between the goals of the state and the goals of religion, and have instead chosen to keep themselves apart from the state. Many chose not to vote, in order to maintain their conscientious objector status, rather than submit themselves to the dictates of the state.

So it's two very different approaches, yet both of them have justification along Christian principles.

[Ben Kenobi]

The failure of the government to agree with you =! government oppression of your beliefs.

That is not a difficult thing to understand, Ben.

True. However, Removal of all religious influence upon government = oppression of believers.