"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
A long time favourite of this blog, Msgr. Pope, recently published an article looking at morality from an atheistic perspective. The list of questions at the end of the article are particularly good material to chew over.
I also recently saw this video on the same subject:
Have you ever been speaking about abortion and heard someone who’s pro-choice exasperatingly exclaim “Stop imposing your religion on me!”? Well, today’s entry in this abortion series addresses that very issue…
Last year, I posted on Facebook that I was at the March For Life in Washington DC. This raised the interest of some of my pro-choice friends, so I explained to them why I’m against abortion and why I’m pro-life.
In response to my explanation, I was told again and again that Christians should stop imposing their religion on others. I found the objection rather odd. Why? Well, I found it strange because I hadn’t mentioned religion once in any of my arguments. Neither had any of my friends when they contributed to the thread. All the arguments against abortion which were presented did not rely at all on a theistic worldview.
Interestingly, the people who first brought religion into our discussion were those who were pro-choice. Again and again they returned to the idea that we were arguing against abortion on religious grounds. However, we never mentioned God, nor did we cite any religious text or authority. Funnily enough, something very similar happened on Brandon Vogt’s blog around the same time…
Unfortunately, rather than responding to our (non-theistic) arguments, some retorted with cheap shots against the Christian faith. Not only that, we were repeatedly treated to my own personal pet peeve, the armchair interpretation of Bible by non-Christians, which naturally included the classic misinterpretation of “Judge not lest you be judged”.
I’ve said many times bore that, even if I were not a Christian, I’d still be pro-life. The arguments against abortion don’t require a belief in God. The pro-life arguments are scientifically, philosophically and psychologically robust. If I were an atheist I might perhaps have some difficulty explaining why human life has intrinsic value, but it’s an instinct that I don’t think I could deny, even if I wanted to.
“No one can pick up the Scriptures without reading a devastating criticism of social moral standards, as when the Divine Savior puts a harlot above a Pharisee, a penitent robber above a religious leader, a prodigal son above his exemplary elder brother.
“Many a tree as it stands in the forest looks fair, fine, solid and valuable, but when it is cut down and sawed for use reveals rottenness, cross grain and knots. Social conformity to low standards may give the appearance of goodness, but in the judgment of God the true character is revealed” – Archbishop Fulton Sheen