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I hear this a lot, but even as an atheist I think you're making a bad argument. Murder is a sin in most (all?) religions. It's also against the law. It's not

I hear this a lot, but even as an atheist I think you're making a bad argument. Murder is a sin in most (all?) religions. It's also against the law. It's not against the law because it's a sin. It's against the law because it violates another person's rights. Some people view abortion in the same light. They think you're killing a person and they think that should be illegal. And, yes, even lots of atheists like me get increasingly uncomfortable with abortions after the first trimester. And it's not because of any religious doctrine. I think your argument was much better suited for an issue like gay marriage where -- no matter how you look at it -- nobody's rights were being violated, and it was entirely based on religious doctrine and tradition.

whatshisface 4y ago
There are plenty of people who think that sin should be illegal. They just don't post on HN.
- jandrese 4y ago
  It is probably good that they don't, because the entire concept is surprisingly problematic. If you don't think about the implications it seems like a no-brainer, but in fact it causes loads of problems. Making sin illegal is just importing the set of rules from a religion into your existing law. If you believe these rules are the direct word from an infallible deity then it calls into question the need for mortal laws at all. If however you think that sins are idiosyncratic to each religion and often even to sects within a religion then you have to allow for the fact that they may have been created by fallible mortal means. If you allow for this, then you have just imported a mortal law in an effort to improve your mortal law. Even worse, religions can have sins like "you are not allowed to worship any other religion", which directly contradicts your existing law and would be extremely divisive regardless. Imagine if the government made sin illegal, but chose Buddhism for the list of sins? Would you feel ok with this? Or maybe Shinto? How about Satanism? Or even if they did choose Christianity, but settled on Seventh Day Adventists? Separation of church and state is essential for a stable and diverse democracy.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - wickedsickeune 4y ago
    The parent said "that sin" (specifically) not anything categorised as a sin.
tsimionescu 4y ago
> Some people view abortion in the same light. They think you're killing a person and they think that should be illegal. > And, yes, even lots of atheists like me get increasingly uncomfortable with abortions after the first trimester. And it's not because of any religious doctrine. I did say that I think abortions after the early stages of pregnancy are a more complicated question. However, legal personhood and religious personhood are and should remain separate concepts. Even more, the legal question of abortion is not settled even if we accepted that legal personhood begins at fertilization - the interests of the mother, and of society, can still outweigh the rights of that legal person. And as a religious person, you should be able to separate your personal belief that someone is committing a sin when having an abortion, and ending a life, from the rights and needs of that person. Just like we expect people who hold cows as sacred animals not to seek to stop us from killing and eating cows.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
fundad 4y ago
People who want a national no-excuse ban like in Louisiana believe bad health outcomes are God's will, so getting their desired outcome leaves suffering people for dead. We'll hear about how the casualties were "no angels" just like we hear in other situations now. The desired outcome is to change the culture by making it too dangerous to wait to raise kids or reproduce at all without the resources to medevac to treat a complication.
panda-giddiness 4y ago
I think this is beside the point. Most religious folk don't possess some special moral wisdom. When a Christian equates abortion with murder, they're typically parroting a belief they've accepted dogmatically from their preacher or faith community, not stating some organic belief emerging from some lengthy Socratic process. So yes, most (but not all) pro-life folk are imposing their religious beliefs on others. Of course, one could argue that pro-choice folk are equally susceptible to dogma, but it's not as though they're forcing pro-life folk to have abortions.
- adamrezich 4y ago
  this strawman argument is not only untrue but incredibly unfair to the point of being overtly offensive
  - panda-giddiness 4y ago
    Disagree. According to Pew polling, pro-life folk are more likely to be religious, more likely to be more certain about their belief in God, and are more likely to attend religious services. Furthermore, more than 50% of pro-life folk identify religion as their greatest source of guidance for deciding right from wrong (compare with less than 20% for pro-choice folk). [1] So yes, most pro-lifers are driven by their religious beliefs. --- [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/views-about-abortion/ https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-stu...
    - adamrezich 4y ago
      please, continue to explain why a large group people other than yourself UNIFORMLY think the way they do, based upon self-reported poll results, as though that's a valid means of discerning complex human motivations for a broad group of people (that, once again, does not even include yourself). it must be really nice to be content in your own complex thoughts and motivations while boiling those of a large swath of others down to some chart data.
      - 4y ago
hotpotamus 4y ago
I don't think many Christians have problems with killing (I've been told many a time that the whole "thall shall not" thing is problematic when it comes to translation, which sure... the word of god is pretty ambiguous I suppose). So maybe god said not to kill or not to murder. Ok, the killing thing seems pretty simple, but the Catholic supermajority of the Supreme Court has no problems with the state killing someone, but they won't let a mother do it to her baby, so maybe in that case they think it's a murder, which is almost definitely against Christian doctrine, at least that part of the Old Testament. I figured since it was so confusing, I'd just ask Jesus since he's God's messenger and he's got a facebook page where I can contact him. He's actually big on the first breath thing - they can just recycle the soul into another host body up until then anyway, but every once in awhile they fuck it up and put a male soul into a female body or vice versa and then that's a whole thing and The Republicans have a problem with that too.

whatshisface 4y ago

There are plenty of people who think that sin should be illegal. They just don't post on HN.

jandrese 4y ago
It is probably good that they don't, because the entire concept is surprisingly problematic. If you don't think about the implications it seems like a no-brainer, but in fact it causes loads of problems. Making sin illegal is just importing the set of rules from a religion into your existing law. If you believe these rules are the direct word from an infallible deity then it calls into question the need for mortal laws at all. If however you think that sins are idiosyncratic to each religion and often even to sects within a religion then you have to allow for the fact that they may have been created by fallible mortal means. If you allow for this, then you have just imported a mortal law in an effort to improve your mortal law. Even worse, religions can have sins like "you are not allowed to worship any other religion", which directly contradicts your existing law and would be extremely divisive regardless. Imagine if the government made sin illegal, but chose Buddhism for the list of sins? Would you feel ok with this? Or maybe Shinto? How about Satanism? Or even if they did choose Christianity, but settled on Seventh Day Adventists? Separation of church and state is essential for a stable and diverse democracy.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- wickedsickeune 4y ago
  The parent said "that sin" (specifically) not anything categorised as a sin.

tsimionescu 4y ago

> Some people view abortion in the same light. They think you're killing a person and they think that should be illegal. > And, yes, even lots of atheists like me get increasingly uncomfortable with abortions after the first trimester. And it's not because of any religious doctrine. I did say that I think abortions after the early stages of pregnancy are a more complicated question. However, legal personhood and religious personhood are and should remain separate concepts. Even more, the legal question of abortion is not settled even if we accepted that legal personhood begins at fertilization - the interests of the mother, and of society, can still outweigh the rights of that legal person. And as a religious person, you should be able to separate your personal belief that someone is committing a sin when having an abortion, and ending a life, from the rights and needs of that person. Just like we expect people who hold cows as sacred animals not to seek to stop us from killing and eating cows.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

fundad 4y ago

People who want a national no-excuse ban like in Louisiana believe bad health outcomes are God's will, so getting their desired outcome leaves suffering people for dead. We'll hear about how the casualties were "no angels" just like we hear in other situations now. The desired outcome is to change the culture by making it too dangerous to wait to raise kids or reproduce at all without the resources to medevac to treat a complication.

panda-giddiness 4y ago

I think this is beside the point. Most religious folk don't possess some special moral wisdom. When a Christian equates abortion with murder, they're typically parroting a belief they've accepted dogmatically from their preacher or faith community, not stating some organic belief emerging from some lengthy Socratic process. So yes, most (but not all) pro-life folk are imposing their religious beliefs on others. Of course, one could argue that pro-choice folk are equally susceptible to dogma, but it's not as though they're forcing pro-life folk to have abortions.

adamrezich 4y ago
this strawman argument is not only untrue but incredibly unfair to the point of being overtly offensive
- panda-giddiness 4y ago
  Disagree. According to Pew polling, pro-life folk are more likely to be religious, more likely to be more certain about their belief in God, and are more likely to attend religious services. Furthermore, more than 50% of pro-life folk identify religion as their greatest source of guidance for deciding right from wrong (compare with less than 20% for pro-choice folk). [1] So yes, most pro-lifers are driven by their religious beliefs. --- [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/views-about-abortion/ https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-stu...
  - adamrezich 4y ago
    please, continue to explain why a large group people other than yourself UNIFORMLY think the way they do, based upon self-reported poll results, as though that's a valid means of discerning complex human motivations for a broad group of people (that, once again, does not even include yourself). it must be really nice to be content in your own complex thoughts and motivations while boiling those of a large swath of others down to some chart data.
    - 4y ago

hotpotamus 4y ago

I don't think many Christians have problems with killing (I've been told many a time that the whole "thall shall not" thing is problematic when it comes to translation, which sure... the word of god is pretty ambiguous I suppose). So maybe god said not to kill or not to murder. Ok, the killing thing seems pretty simple, but the Catholic supermajority of the Supreme Court has no problems with the state killing someone, but they won't let a mother do it to her baby, so maybe in that case they think it's a murder, which is almost definitely against Christian doctrine, at least that part of the Old Testament. I figured since it was so confusing, I'd just ask Jesus since he's God's messenger and he's got a facebook page where I can contact him. He's actually big on the first breath thing - they can just recycle the soul into another host body up until then anyway, but every once in awhile they fuck it up and put a male soul into a female body or vice versa and then that's a whole thing and The Republicans have a problem with that too.