Fine, I’ll retract the liberal statement. Though, aside from your protestations to the contrary, there is NOTHING conservative about your views — libertarian perhaps, but not conservative.
Can we agree to label you a “secular humanist-moral relativist-Darwinist-quasi-atheist”?
“Can we agree to label you a secular humanist-moral relativist-Darwinist-quasi-atheist?”
Nope. Admittedly, I am hard to quantify. I am an arch-conservative who lives by the moral standards of a devout Christian - with a few exceptions. One is that I believe people who are proven by medical science to be beyond hope should be able to choose to be euthanised when their suffering becomes too great to bear. My father was a devout Catholic, a Dr. and discovered his cancer himself. He had every treatment known to medical science at that time (1977-78) and even volunteered for the then-experimental-but-now-standard cis-platin chemotherapy drugs. He knew they would not save him - but did so in the hopes that the data would be of some use to someone else in the future. He never complained to us and was always cheerful and positive. One day I noticed that he looked sicker than usual, and soon after that he stopped whistling. And stopped being positive and cheerful. He used to go around the house happily whistling to himself all the time. He was really good at it and very musically inclined. He could hear a song once and then play it on the piano, for instance. Then one day it stopped. I knew things were not going to go well at that point. He was fortunate that the Dr.s that were treating him were his friends on the staff at the same hospital that he had worked in. Towards the end they kept him sedated with morphine and he went in his sleep. I cannot describe to you what he looked like near the end - he’d lost half his body weight and the cancer disfigured him. I have never gotten over that. I know that I would never have the courage to face what he did - nor should I have to. Nor should anyone. Any possible belief in “God’s mercy” that I could have had in life, died with my father. This does not mean that I am an amoral person, at all. I also think abortions in the 1st trimester should be allowed, but severely frowned upon. Late-term abortions (unless there is a valid medical reason for it - like health of the mother or the foetus will be severely handicapped) and partial-birth abortions make me physically ill. I hate homosexuality - that makes me sick as well. It should be obvious to any decent person that it is an abomination and a disgusting perversion. So no, I am not a moral relativist at all. I am also a big 2nd-amendment supporter and a single-issue voter on 2nd-amendment rights. My wife and I both detest the disgusting hip-hop and anything-goes culture and hate the language being used in movies and in secular fashion today, as well as the general utter lack of morality. I am not a Darwinist - that is a hate-label attributed to people that believe in the mountains of evidence in support of the theory of evolution by those that do not. Darwin’s theories are almost 170 years old - the evidence is much more complete and compelling now than then. As for the quasi-atheist part - well, not really. There is no evidence for the existence of God that is convincing, as there is no certain proof of his non-existence. I guess it would be more accurate to call me extremely skeptical on the subject of the existence of God rather than an outright atheist; atheists insist that there is no God and they have no absolute proof that this is the case. I cannot lie to myself to so I am just highly skeptical. Many people who are intrinsically amoral do espouse atheism - in order to justify their improper behaviors - communists and homosexuals for example. I am disgusted by this kind of rationalization. Being an atheist does not mean that you are morally bankrupt by any means. In terms of morality, I would guess that nearly all of the things that morally outrage you would morally outrage me. The main difference between us as I see it, is who we think is responsible for our lives. I say we are. You would say we have to bend to Gods will. Lets assume for the moment that you are right. There are over 50 different versions of the Bible which one is the actual, correct version that God wants us to follow? And how can we be sure?