From: graham@venus.iucf.indiana.edu (JIM GRAHAM)
Subject: Re: Lifestyle Choices and Secular Reasoning
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.3-4   
Reply-To: graham@venus.iucf.indiana.edu
Organization: Indiana University Cyclotron Facility, Bloomington, Indiana
Distribution: usa
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1993 03:41:11 GMT

In article <1993Jan2.230323.29355@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>, lfoard@Turing.ORG (Lawrence C. Foard) writes...
>In article <C07oBz.F74@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> kellmeye@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (kellmeyer steven l) writes:
>>ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) writes:
>>
>>Hillary Clinton et.al. have reasoned, secularly, that children should be
>>given the same legal rights and representation as adults, including the
>>right to divorce their parents.  
> 
>I totally agree with her, children are not slaves or property, parents are
>there to provide for and protect children. 

And hopefully to teach them their values.

> 
>>Or if the "child" no longer exists, legally, because that
>>child has been ruled an adult by the courts?
>>
>>Why is incest wrong, by secular reasoning? 
> 
>Because it produces genetic diseases. 

Promiscuity propogates all kinds of diseases, many of them fatal.

What's your point?

> 
> 
>>If a woman can decide
>>to have an abortion for purely personal economic reasons, then her decision
>>to have a child must also be based on purely personal economic reasons, and
>>there is no secularly logical way she can coerce an involuntary tax out 
>>of the man for a decision she makes unilaterally about her own economic 
>>future.
> 
>Strange I thought men chose to have sex?

So do women who choose abortion, even if the father decides that he
_wants_ the child.

And suppose the man is unwilling to be a father?  Why must he be legally
bound to provide for a child he doesn't want, when the mother is perfectly
free to decide to have a child that he doesn't want, when she can
decide to terminate the life of a child he may decide that he wants?

Understand his point now?

> 
>>That's what secular reasoning gets you.  Sorry, but I don't see how
>>secular reasoning is superior to religiously based reasoning.
> 
>Ever hear of a strawman?

Yeah.  Those nasty secular humanists use it all the time. :-)

> 
>>Especially now that the AZT-resistant strains are obviously being spread
>>by precisely these people?  According to secular reasoning, a drunk driver
>>and a sexually active AIDS carrier are no different.  
> 
>No according to religious reasoning they are no different.
>In secular reasoning the idea of consent plays a role. An HIV+ rapist is a
>murderer if someone dies as a result. A person who chooses to have sex with
>someone who is HIV+ and dies as a result was not murdered.

But, if an HIV+ partner deliberately lies or fails to inform even a willing
sex partner that he or she is infected, and the uninformed, albeit willing
partner contracts aids and dies, then yes, it most certainly should be
at least "manslaughter".

No amount of "secular reasoning" can weasel out of this simple _fact_
unless the reasoning is based on lies.

> 
>-- 
>------          Join the Pythagorean Reform Church!               .
>\    /        Repent of your evil irrational numbers             . .
> \  /   and bean eating ways. Accept 10 into your heart!        . . .
>  \/   Call the Pythagorean Reform Church BBS at 508-793-9568  . . . .

Jim Graham 

        -> ->Disclaimer: I do not speak for my company. <- <-
                          Neither do they speak for me.
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