Dear Quarto, abortion is legal in our country, and has been for a long time.
Why do you bother saying this? Evil will always be evil - no matter if it's legal, and no matter how long it's been legal.
The thing that bothers me the most about abortion is that of all the people who defend it, not one could actually be subjected to it. It's reasonable to discuss the pros and cons of the death penalty, because it is implicit that everyone in favour of the death penalty acknowledge that, if they committed murder, they would also be subjected to it. But with abortion - not one of the people in favour of abortion could ever be aborted, obviously. It's safe for you to talk about how in this or that situation abortion could be justifiable - because you know it doesn't apply to you.
In truth, I doubt that there are really any people out there who are, totally and honestly, in favour of abortion as a principle. When they talk about the goodness of killing someone for their own good (try saying that out loud, by the way. "I want to murder you for your own good." When you say it out loud, it might finally occur to you how ridiculous it is to combine "murder you" and "for your own good" in one sentence)... when they talk about killing children "for their own good", they're not arguing on a theoretical basis that would apply to everyone. They're arguing on a practical basis that would apply to only those who have no say in the matter, for the convenience of those who do have a say.
Would I like to be an unwanted kid, you ask - did you even think about that question for a split second? Did you seriously consider that the alternative is being a dead kid? I don't think I need to even bother explaining which option I personally find preferable. And if you think about it for at least a moment, I'm sure you'll realise that anyone who has yet to be born, if only they had a say in the matter, would prefer to be born and draw their own conclusions about whether life is worth living.
As you can see, I'm trying to argue with logic here, without bothering to lecture you about my beliefs. What would be the point of me yammering on about the sanctity of life and the fact that nobody has the right to kill anyone else? I know that wouldn't convince you. But I also don't think I need to convince you - because deep down, you do believe in the sanctity of life [your life], and you do believe that nobody has the right to kill [you]. So, all I need to say is that if you apply this principle to yourself, but you refuse to apply it to others, especially those who aren't even capable of defending themselves - then I'm allowed to refuse to respect this principle in your regard. From a logical point of view, you're granting me the right to kill you - for your own good, of course
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...And this is, of course, exactly what happened with euthanasia. It started off with people who wanted to commit suicide. That's normal, there's always a few people like that. But then, the next stage was granting people the right to help others commit suicide - and the result was only too predictable. If putting people out of their misery is a presented as a good and noble deed, it's not in the least surprising that some doctors went a step further, and decided to be... you know, altruist. If killing suffering people is actually doing them a favour, then clearly, it doesn't matter if they requested it or not. If anything, killing someone who didn't request it is actually an even nobler deed - because you know you're doing it out of the sheer goodness of your heart, rather than for money or gratitude. You talk about this "angel of death" as an abnormality in an otherwise decent system - but it's not an abnormality. It's the natural and logical conclusion.
Here's some more reading materials for you -
one page,
another page. There's all kinds of interesting statistics out there - for example, that most euthanasia cases are actually not reported as euthanasia (so much for procedures, eh?), and that 80 infants are euthanised each year. That is, of course, patently illegal, and as such it must be murder - but as the Prins case (mentioned on the Remmelink page) showed, your courts are perfectly willing to ignore the law, refusing to punish someone found guilty of murder. Again - how do you think a society that praises "altruist" murderers can develop further down the line?
As for your reference to important people and the Catholic Church's educational system, if you know your history, you know there was a procedure called "Christianization", that basicly enforced that religion on others against their will. In trade they offered education and shelter to those people who were willing to covert.
Ah. So, they "enforced" religion "against their will" on people who were... "willing to convert"? Great logic
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...But seriously. I'm a Catholic - I believe in the Original Sin. I believe that all humans are flawed, sinful creatures. I believe that without God, we have no chance of being good. So, I will certainly not disagree with you about Christians doing wrong things at times - Christians are humans, it's in our nature to sin. No disagreement there.
However - for every bad thing that Christians did, I can point out thousands of good things. Atheism, meanwhile, brings nothing good onto the table. When atheism finally started playing a role in society, in the 20th century, the result was carnage unparallelled at any time in history. There were, on the other hand, no benefits. Look at your own society - can you possibly not see that as long as the Netherlands were religious, your society grew and prospered... and now as more and more Dutch abandon religion, your society is declining?
This(the idea of opposing your basic beliefs to be considered a crime), is what in my opinion holds people back.
But that's precisely what atheist society is doing. My basic beliefs, as a Catholic,
are considered a crime. We had a case in Poland recently where the court ruled that even if Catholics consider abortion to be murder, they do not have the right to refer to someone who committed abortion as a murderer - because that's offensive. In other words,
you are allowed to murder children, but I'm not allowed to say what I think about that, because you might feel offended.
And you are correct in christian schools being the best teachers, but that does not conclude the fact that religious schools are good, While Cristian, and hindu schools are good, correct and driven, muslim schools suck.. badly, even compared to public schools.
I don't know what Muslim schools are like today. I don't know what Hindu schools are like today (though medieval Islamic universities contributed a
lot to science and philosophy!). It doesn't matter. What I do know is that it's thanks to Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Confucian and whatever-else schools that society has developed to where it is today.
Let's be very, very clear about this - humans have always been religious. Our oldest archaological findings confirm that. The human race didn't build its civilisations in spite of those evil religious fanatics - it did it thanks to them. In this context, atheism is basically a cancer that destroys healthy society, without contributing anything positive of its own. It only takes a brief look at history to realise that "atheist civilisation" is an oxymoron - something that cannot exist, because rather than being the crowning achievement of philosphical thought that atheists claim it to be, atheism is in fact a disease that brings civilisation to a halt.
As for you being a religous fanatic, I do not consider someone who goes to church and prays a fanatic more likely an enthousiast, Fanatic I mean the guys like Bin Laden, The killer of Theo van Gogh, and the guys who threaten Southpark and Danish Cartoonists.
Well, that's tough. I obviously can't claim to be a fanatic when your definition of a fanatic seems to be "Muslim terrorist". Are there any Christians you consider fanatics? I need to know what I should be aiming for
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