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Excommunication of politicians who support abortion


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I think most of us presume that a religious person will govern according to his or her conscience, which is certainly part and parcel of their religious beliefs. To suggest an observant Muslim elected to office would NOT oppose abortion, SSM and such is painfully naive. The NDP recruited Maher Arar's wife due to her name value - and quickly found that a woman who wears a burkha was not about to support same sex marriage or gay rights. There is a Mormon running for president in the US. Does anyone seriously think his religious beliefs are irrelevent to how he'll govern? Yes, charalatans like Chretien and Martin, who pretend to be religious but don't care about anything but votes, power and money, simply ignore Church teachings. But anyone who is clearly religious will judge issues with that as a base of judgement.

Should I assume then that any Catholic politician elected with immediately move to ban birth control?

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I guess it depends upon your definition of religion. As I said, my definition includes any belief system including atheism. If yours does not, so be it.

Atheism is not a belief system. Religion is a belief system and atheism is the rejection of that belief system, agnostic or otherwise.

Actually I don't recalling saying with solid certainty that there was no God. Can you show me where I did?

Personally I woud classify myself as agnostic.

I wasn't making any claim about your beliefs, I was just further clarifying atheism as not necessarily saying there is no God. Anyone who makes the claim that there is no God is just as off base as those who claim that there is. That doesn't mean those two sides are equal. We can say that it's most improbable that God exists when we analyze the evidence given by believers.

It's simply not a yes or no question, as many believers would have you think. If it was a scale from 1 to 10, 1 says there absolutely is not a God and 10 saying there without a doubt is a God, are atheists only the 1s? If you fall around 2 or 3 on that scale are you still an agnostic?

I'd say I'm a 2 on that scale and I would classify myself as an atheist rather than an agnostic because I highly doubt there is a God, but I may be wrong. Hopefully, if I am wrong, somebody some day will be able to show me some kind of evidence to prove God's existence.

What are you saying, that we should ban religions?

I don't think that would help. People would practice underground. I think people need to be educated and we need to raise society's consciousness to what religion is really saying.

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Atheism is not a belief system. Religion is a belief system and atheism is the rejection of that belief system, agnostic or otherwise.
If you choose to not to decide you _still_ have made a choice.

Altheism is a dogmatic belief system like any traditional religion.

If you accept the possibility that there could be a God then you are an Agnostic.

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Atheism is not a belief system. Religion is a belief system and atheism is the rejection of that belief system, agnostic or otherwise.
If you choose to not to decide you _still_ have made a choice.

Altheism is a dogmatic belief system like any traditional religion.

If you accept the possibility that there could be a God then you are an Agnostic.

The only reason the possibility of a God has to be accepted is because we cannot positively disprove anything. God can't be disproved just as Thor and Apollo can't be disproved.

So, do you believe in Thor and Apollo? Or would you say you're an atheist when it comes to those Gods?

There's no way of proving they don't exist, but most people would say it's very unlikely that they do. So unlikely, in fact, that people just concede that they don't exist.

Although by definition, we're all agnostic in this regard (anyone who is not agnostic is making a leap of faith), most who think it's highly improbable that there's a God consider themselves atheists because they live without belief in it.

In this sense, atheism is not at all dogmatic. What are the tenets of atheism? It's not a faith, it doesn't demand devotion or belief in anything. Atheism is nothing more than a conclusion based on the evidence that has been presented by beliefs. There is no group of "atheists" and there are often huge disagreements between different people who consider them atheists.

We never label people by what they don't believe, except when it comes to theism. Since this label of "atheist" has been created, it makes the religious think that atheism is the same as theism. It's not, theism is the unproven belief in something, anyone who is atheist finds belief in the unproven incredibly idiotic.

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By the way, back on topic, I should mention that this type of thing has happened in Canada as well.

Since I lived in Windsor, the one that came to mind was NDP MP Joe Comartin. Here's a blurb I found online about the incident:

2005-JUL-06: Second NDP MP denied participation in Roman Catholic Church: Joe Comartin, a New Democratic Party MP for Windsor-Tecumseh in southwestern Ontario, has played an active role as a volunteer in his parish. He has: "... been an altar server, administered the eucharist [sic], and taken part in fundraising projects for the church." He has also joined with his wife and taught marriage preparation courses. However, on JUL-06, Bishop Ronald Fabbro of the Diocese of London admonished Comartin in a letter that he sent to the priests in the diocese. The letter said: "a person who does not accept Catholic teaching on fundamental matters is disqualified from acting on behalf of the church in a public capacity." Comartin will not be allowed to volunteer effort for the parish until he has "a change of mind" about using the term "marriage" to refer to same-sex unions. Comartin had said in Parliament that he hoped that the Catholic Church would eventually recognize same-sex marriages. He explained that the issue is about love and about treating all couples equally.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/hommarbrcc.htm

There are other incidents cited on that page as well.

Mr. Comartin was not excommunicated as is the topic of this thread, but he was slapped on the wrist by the Church.

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What are the tenets of atheism? It's not a faith, it doesn't demand devotion or belief in anything.
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source

a·the·ism

–noun

1. the doctrine or belief that there is no God.

2. disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Origin: 1580–90; < Gk áthe(os) godless + -ism]

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)

Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

Altheism is just another type of religion. We don't want an atheistic state anymore than we want an christian state. We want an agnostic state (i.e. a state that has no opinion on the existance of a deity).
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I'd say that first definition is incorrect and we're splitting hairs over the second one since it could be considered a definition for agnosticism.

The aspect of their belief that all atheists have in common is ther belief that there is no god. So the first definition is very much inline with the commoly held definition of atheisism, even if your own definition is different.

I agree with RW, it is just as dangerous to dictate policy based upon atheisism as it would be if it were based upon any organized religion.

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I am against abortion. Having said that, if the baby causes a major threat to the mother OR we are dealing with a rape case, I feel that abortion is "acceptable." So I guess I have to say that I am pro-choice, don't I? To those couples who use abortion because they are too GD lazy to think about birth control until after the fact...you people are worse then scum. To those that have a birth control failure, the morning after pill is available. USE IT! SEX IS NOT JUST FOR PROCREATION, IT IS ALSO FOR RECREATION (if that sounds cold hearted, so be it.)

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