…gently down the stream…
Just wanted to post this video in case people haven’t seen it, from a passionate, self-described “propagandist.” As Amanpour described the talk: “hugely instructive.” I learned a few things.
1 Like
Interestingly it would seem he’s an Activist/Evangelist regardless of his ideology du jour. I get that CNN needs their Romney’s, Cheney’s, Kinzinger’s, and now reformed Evangelical to continue their narratives of division for clicks, views, ad sales. Also an example of why we want church and state separate.
Here’s an interesting take on why most conservatives are not proponents of a unified Church and State.
Did the DOJ ever investigate VP Harris’ campaign video tours at churches?
New tactic - Abortion is a Religious Freedom
Interesting Pre/Trans conundrum. Same might be said for Gender Change for children as compared to regions based genital mutilation.
I dont see this as a conundrum. It is something we need to take seriously. Pulling in scientific understandings into our amber activated beliefs will help us navigate critical differences between things like gender change and gender mutilations, just like it can help with the difference between sexual orientations towards same sex and child attractions. Abortion can also be helped by scientific understandings; it is not murder. If we continue to classify this pre/trans process as a fallacy, insisting that development is only linear and locked into time we are undercutting the true process and misunderstanding the way evolution actually works.
What science brings down to amber beliefs is the understanding of what is helpful to a society and what is harmful. Supporting trans children is showing to be helpful, as is supporting same sex attraction, as is starting families when one is ready. Genital mutilation, child molestation, and forced births are psychologically destructive. Forcing this just because it’s what was believed prior to physiological understanding cannot ever support healthy social development.
Allowing this understanding to rework old amber beliefs that are harming society IS evolution. Just because we are utilizing more stages of development to evolve earlier stages does not make this a fallacy or a regression. Everyone starts at stage one and most dont make it past the amber/orange stage. One generation may go through an amber development that contains certain beliefs, but the next generation will go through the same stage that can hold new beliefs. The idea that amber IS Christianity, or any organized religion is the fallacy.
“Scientific religion” does need to be transcended and included but I for one see it’s development as a positive not a negative. I would rather be transcending an amber that holds scientific reality as it’s basis. If we dont do this, then we continue to run up against the deep division of traditional religious amber and scientific reality that shows us clearly what is better for a society and what is not. Same sex marriage is not the same thing as molesting children. Supporting trans children is not the same thing as genital mutilation. Abortion is not murder. We need amber beliefs that have included this understanding in order to move forward. Yes, amber is annoying, but it’s also reality.
As a parent, this is 100% how I am raising my daughter. To suggest that I need to teach her traditional religious beliefs, then teach her that they are wrong once she is old enough is crazy. I teach her that same sex marriage is healthy, and she holds that at her amber stage as “the rule” to live by. Once she develops into orange, she sees science supports this belief and this makes that transcending and including healthier, easier. She can now activate this belief from a higher consciousness without conflict. This is where so many conservatives are lost. Christianity refused to “correct” these errors so there is no choice in evolutionary terms but to develop a scientific religion because amber must be passed through. To suggest I teach my child when she is 7 that marriage is only about procreation then change my teaching when she is 14 is bonkers. Amber must change. I wish Christianity had evolved; I really do. I think we have lost something by is stubborn resistance, but it is what it is. To think there will ever be a time where those of us who are beyond amber will teach our children that abortion is murder, or same sex marriage is equivalent to molesting children or supporting trans humans is the same as genital mutilation is the fallacy.
1 Like
I think it depends on which science you want to hang your hat on.
Biological Sciences see a unique and distinct human being instantiated when a male’s sperm combines with a female’s egg creating a new, never seen before in the universe combination. This is common throughout the entirety of the animal and much of the plant kingdoms. This isn’t up for debate.
Viability outside of the mother’s womb or life circumstances are the realms of Social, Psychological, Gender “sciences” domains.
Viability is quite an interesting discussion. Viability in 1,000 BC was very very different than now. Now we can conceive and raise humans to viability in laboratories. We could argue viability starts “at conception” or viability starts when a infant survives “without any medical intervention”.
The situational aspects - economic, educational, career, incest, rape, etc - in no way negate essential reproductive biology nor viability.
I can see where it would be straight forward to apply Integral Theory to a religious sacrifice as Red/Amber where as “consciously choosing” an abortion could be claimed to be a higher altitude. It’s interesting that if the Physio-sphere external quadrant actions and results are EXACTLY the same, is it really “better, more evolved”?
I am not sure I agree with this summary. I don’t think the biological sciences see a “unique and distinct human being when a male’s sperm combines with a female’s egg”. I think they see a zygote, which, if the conditions are favorable, has the potential to become an embryo, which then has the potential to become a fetus if those conditions remain viable. Biological sciences would likely not say “an acorn is the same as an oak tree”, but they would agree that an acorn is a necessary developmental stage on the way to becoming an oak tree. They would also agree that an acorn needs to grow through several different stages of its own differentiation and integration before it becomes an oak tree.
Same with “Viability outside of the mother’s womb or life circumstances are the realms of Social, Psychological, Gender ‘sciences’ domains.” I am trying to figure out how social, psychological, or gender sciences factor in here. Viability simply means “does it have enough biological autonomy to run its biological processes unassisted”, which is purely a biological question. And yes, evolving technologies do in fact shift the window of viability, which is something our abortion laws need to consider, I think.
But of course, for many engaged in this battle, the primary questions are not biological, but metaphysical. I think abortion is actually one of the very last metaphysical conflicts we have in our society, and the vast majority of our moral responses come from whatever metaphysical underpinnings we might have. Do you believe that zygotes are “ensouled” from the moment of conception? Then your moral reasoning will follow from that assumption. Do you believe that we are only material beings in an uncaring material universe? Then your moral reasoning will follow from those assumptions. Do you have a “post-metaphysical” metaphysics that associates interior depth-of-soul with exterior complexity-of-biology? Then your moral reasoning will follow from those assumptions. When we strip away the emotions from the issue (which, granted, is very difficult to do), the abortion question is absolutely fascinating, because we are often unknowingly enacting the question through the lens of our own (often unexamined) existential line of development — our perception of the mysteries and value of existence itself — with all the metaphysical underpinnings that come with it.
Which is why I (and Ken) continue to consider Roe as the most ideal compromise possible for our society’s current center of gravity, as it makes the most room for everyone’s morality and metaphysics. Safe access to abortion in the first trimester, strictly regulated access in the third trimester (e.g. exceptions for medical emergencies), and an ongoing and shifting dialogue when it comes to “viability” in the second trimester.
1 Like
Good point here. Would an acorn that has sprouted be considered simple a nut or a young tree?
That’s the least favorable interpretation for the fetus. If we were to simply extrapolate forward this rationale, a small child or even teenager isnt viable without “assistance”. Some cultures left children out to die if deformed or female or a strain on resources or inconvenient. Would this be considered 2nd Tier if done with rationale to avert climate change?
Excellent outline. So right now the Leftist “outrage” has been in opposition to post 15 week abortion bans, 12 weeks in Texas right? That’s 1st trimester only, right?
Meanwhile Colorado, NY, and several other states support much later abortions.
Would an acorn that has sprouted be considered simple a nut or a young tree?
I think that would be a young tree, and represents a critical mass of “viability” where the previous-acorn is now capable of extracting and metabolizing its own resources in order to survive. Which means that, biologically, it’s “tree-ness” begins well after fertilization. Perhaps the best analogy here is, when the sprout pokes out above the soil for the first time, that is its Biblical “first breath”, and is when the tree is “born”.
That’s the least favorable interpretation for the fetus. If we were to simply extrapolate forward this rationale, a small child or even teenager isnt viable without “assistance”. Some cultures left children out to die if deformed or female or a strain on resources or inconvenient. Would this be considered 2nd Tier if done with rationale to avert climate change?
No, I don’t think any worldcentric-plus moral code would see that as acceptable. We are talking about a somewhat narrow window of biological viability here — can the organism’s organs function independently without the mother’s body? It’s a useful objective metric for this stuff, because from an integral point of view, we might agree that by the time a fetus has achieved the biological complexity required for its physical autonomy, its interior development is probably sufficiently advanced for us to extend more of our moral care. It’s like the thought experiment I suggested earlier — if you are in a burning building, and can save either one six-month old baby, or a tray of 100 embryos, which do you save? I’m guessing most of us would instinctively go for the six-month old baby, even if our metaphysics tells us that those 100 embryos were “fully human”.
Excellent outline. So right now the Leftist “outrage” has been in opposition to post 15 week abortion bans, 12 weeks in Texas right? That’s 1st trimester only, right?
Aren’t many other states ready to ban abortion altogether once Roe is dismantled? And doesn’t Texas have a six-week ban? (And of course, that six-week countdown begins with a woman’s last menstrual cycle, which is typically two weeks before they become impregnated, which means that abortions are being banned at just about the time many/most women finds out they are pregnant in the first place. A six week ban is basically giving a woman a single week or two, if that, to both make the decision and to make an appointment with an abortion provider.)
There are certainly some on the left who push the argument too far, and want women to have full bodily autonomy for the entire period. Which is an interesting ethical question, and a fair challenge from healthy green — do we expect women’s bodily autonomy to be conditional, while men’s bodily autonomy should be seen as absolute? My sense is that, from an integral point of view, we would have to agree that, yes, there are some conditions and constraints on our notions of bodily autonomy that we should pay attention to, because eventually the fetus reaches a sufficiently complex status (it achieves its own “wholeness” that is no longer “part” of the mother’s body) where it deserves its own bodily autonomy.
[In fact, who knows, maybe this requires us to extend our very notion of citizenship into the womb, which is currently defined in the Constitution by “birth” and not by “conception”. Otherwise, if we define personhood from the moment of conception, women are carrying around a bunch of illegal immigrants in their bellies, and abortion can then be framed as an anti-immigration policy 
Plus, if personhood begins with conception, if someone vacations here from another country and gets knocked up, that zygote is officially an American citizen, with all the rights and privileges that come with it!]
But really I see the Left reacting more to the idea of outright abortion bans (including six week limits, which are effectively banning abortions), as well as forcing rape and incest victims (as well as young adolescent girls) to bear children. They are also suspicious of any system that would allow women who suffer a miscarriage (10-20% of all pregnancies) to be suspected of abortions.
The majority of the left wants abortion to be “safe, legal, and rare”, which is why they promote access to abortion for women who need it, as well as robust sex education for both adolescents and adults, as well as easy access to contraceptives, both of which have been proven to reduce the total number of unwanted pregnancies and, therefore, fewer abortions. Many on the left remember a time not long ago when women used to die from complications — either in the back alley from receiving an unsafe abortion, or on the operating table when laws prevented surgeons from performing them.
That said, I’ve been on record for years saying that the left should “throw a bone” to the right, to respect their sanctity by agreeing to make late-term abortions illegal except in cases of medical emergency. It’s not really giving up very much ground, since the vast, vast majority of those abortions are already due to medical emergencies. However, these things require compromise from both sides of the argument, and for both parties to step toward each other. I think the left is concerned that if they take a step forward, the right will take a step back, and then say “why aren’t you meeting me in the middle?” (And to be fair, it’s possible the right has a similar perception of the left, though less earned, from where I am sitting.)
Had to look it up since there is soooo much disinformation on the topic. “Ban” seems to equate to any restrictions. “No Cut-off” seems to equate to any time before the umbilical cord is severed.
Yes, Texas has the 6 week restriction which I agree is essentially a full ban. Oklahoma has a full ban (recently in the news). Everyone else appears somewhat “reasonable” at typically 24 weeks = no 3rd trimester abortions. This may change after Roe is invalidated - I don’t know.
https://fullerproject.org/story/how-major-abortion-laws-compare-state-by-state-map/
Do you ever find odd when you find yourself Championing removal of a fetus’ which if left alone would have grown into a unique never seen before in history little bundle of joy?
If we were to simply extrapolate forward this rationale, a small child or even teenager isnt viable without “assistance”
I am raising a child (now teenager) without any assistance from the birth mother. So yes, a small child and a teenager is “viable” without birth mother assistance.
But this does start to pull in other quadrants. What are the social ramifications of forced births of children that cannot be cared for? The lie the right tells is there are no children to adopt or that is takes a long time to adopt. None of this is real. Caring for the life of a child from conception to birth, but then not caring after is ignoring the left quadrants. An integral approach must include all four quadrants for the mother, father and child.
That’s very sentimental and all, but no, i can see how deeply personal and complex these moral, metaphysical, and existential questions are, and therefore choose not to impose my own subjective morality and metaphysics onto others. I can also see that somewhere between 60 and 70% of the country supports the status quo established by Roe, so I can respect how the compromise reflects our collective moral center of gravity. So no, I do not find it odd to allow women to make these decisions for themselves, alongside their doctors. Forcing a 12 year old rape victim to raise their rapist’s child does not seem like the kind or compassionate thing to do.
How about you? Are you saying you would rescue the tray of 100 embryos before you’d save the six month old baby? If not, how many embryos would balance the scales? Personally, I think I’d let a million embryos burn before a single six month old baby. How about you?
Also, do you think an IUD, which prevents a fertilized egg from implanting into the uterus, is also the equivalent of killing a unique never before seen in history bundle of joy?
I don’t think you can take the question of “abortion as murder” (whether late-term or earlier) out of the context of killing in general, and it’s a bit troubling to me that we do. I think our world is totally confused and self-contradictory if not hypocritical on these issues of life and death, and totally ignorant about such matters as soul.
The state sanctions murder through war and police action and capital punishment, the rationale being that the lives being terminated are “guilty” of illegal acts/crimes, or, in the case of war, are “enemies,” and therefore these acts are justified as being in service to the lawful order of society and the “greater good.” “Innocents” (children, women, the elderly, etc.) are regularly killed in war, and some innocent people are legally put to death through capital punishment, and some police killings of innocent people go unpunished by our justice system because the officer believed he/she was acting in self-defense, murder in the name of self-defense being justified.
The unborn fetus is presumed innocent. While that may be true in the sense of it not having bodily committed any crimes, who knows the quality of the soul that joins with that body? And what of the souls of the above-referenced “innocents”? We know so little about these things, about nature/nurture, etc.
These are huge issues which we are not grappling with. Those 26 kids at Sandy Hook that were murdered were presumably innocent, as well as so many others in mass shootings, and yet we still are not dealing effectively with preventing those kinds of killings. We’re so dumb.
1 Like
I don’t have all the answers, but I’m not a nihilistic relativist willing to argue taking innocent lives simply for convenience.
But also not an Idealogical Absolutist. As others have said previously ideally taking of human like would be rare and exceptional, just as I feel regarding the use of deadly force or execution.
To create an “average of adequacy” 1st trimester only, no government funding, no compulsory participation would be “adequate” in my opinion.
But, as we’ve seen, and you’ve ignored just now, “common sense” restrictions (positioned as bans) limiting to 1st trimester are “outrageous and clear violation of bodily control”. Even the restriction (of course dog whistled as ban) of only 1st and 2nd trimester abortions was of course egregious.
Does the Left EVER acknowledge compromise? Or is it simply another victory on the march to complete egoistic Nihilism?
And another thing…why are the voices of virtual assistants (Siri, Alexa, Cortana) female voices? Because there is a desire to humanize machines and evolving AI, and research has shown that both men and women perceive females as displaying more positive human qualities than males, and as being better communicators, warmer, more feeling-oriented, more service-oriented, and more trustworthy. Sounds like some pretty good reasons to in general trust women to make decisions around abortion, which isn’t to say there can’t be or shouldn’t be compromises.
It’s funny, because not only did I not ignore this, I specifically mentioned it, as well as the most ideal compromise (which already existed as the previous status quo), and how to further reinforce that compromise (by the left backing off of last-trimester abortions).
Here is what I said:
There are certainly some on the left who push the argument too far, and want women to have full bodily autonomy for the entire period. Which is an interesting ethical question, and a fair challenge from healthy green — do we expect women’s bodily autonomy to be conditional, while men’s bodily autonomy should be seen as absolute? My sense is that, from an integral point of view, we would have to agree that, yes, there are some conditions and constraints on our notions of bodily autonomy that we should pay attention to, because eventually the fetus reaches a sufficiently complex status (it achieves its own “wholeness” that is no longer “part” of the mother’s body) where it deserves its own bodily autonomy.
That said, I’ve been on record for years saying that the left should “throw a bone” to the right, to respect their sanctity by agreeing to make late-term abortions illegal except in cases of medical emergency. It’s not really giving up very much ground, since the vast, vast majority of those abortions are already due to medical emergencies. However, these things require compromise from both sides of the argument, and for both parties to step toward each other. I think the left is concerned that if they take a step forward, the right will take a step back, and then say “why aren’t you meeting me in the middle?” (And to be fair, it’s possible the right has a similar perception of the left, though less earned, from where I am sitting.)
Guess it’s best to “nip them in the bud”. Serious 1984 Minority stuff here. Not big on the divine nature?
We can’t escape our Integral Rainbow can we. When it comes down to kill or be kill, sacrifice a loved one to the whim of another, allow or enable destruction of the culture that nurtured you, what will we do?
I get the sense you are backing into the Self Loathing Victim hood Shame frame, but of course could be completely wrong. If so I think a topic outside of aborting fetuses. Might actual be useful in Marxer’s “why Ukraine” thread. I think her raises a really good question WTF is Integral so enamored with Ukraine, right?
Sorry Corey. I’m on the tiny phone. Maybe I’ve got Lastworditius, or maybe we both have it? Lol
I would simply ask that you actually read my responses to you, which I try to write thoughtfully and carefully, before accusing me of “ignoring” something I clearly didn’t ignore 
And I’d love for you to answer the 100 embryos vs. one infant question, as I think this kind of “lifeboat practice” can help us better understand the value we place on different kinds of life, and different degrees of sentience that we recognize and extend care to. It’s not a “gotcha” question, it is a sincere ethical thought-experiment/practice that can help yield greater clarity around our own moral and metaphysical presuppositions.
And it probably shows us that, in the end, we all have a bit of relativism baked into our moral algorithms, or else we wouldn’t have these gradations of care hardwired into us (which is why I feel more “guilty” if I accidentally kick a puppy than I do if I step on a worm.)
Yes, you are, completely wrong.
You did make me laugh though, as I unexpectedly thought of Ronald Reagan and his quip “there you go again.” I recall saying to you in another post some time ago that I don’t trust I can interact with you without you trying somehow to demean me. So yes, “there you go again.” Trying, but not succeeding; maybe you want to give it up?
I think you missed the point of my post.