The religious life

Every so often you hear about one of these "right to life" bills or "personhood amendments" being proposed in some state or other.  Every so often I write about it.  They are something that really annoys me.  Basically, these folks believe for some twisted reason that a human is a human from the moment that the sperm penetrates the egg.  You know conception.  It is a silly notion for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that many eggs never implant.  They believe this because they think that this moment is when the soul is ever so gently inserted by god.  Anyhow, I would like to look today at another reason why I think that these bills based on the teachings of a certain religion are a bad idea.

Let's imagine I have decided to form a new religion.  There are many mysteries that we could delve into.  We could talk about how it has been know to make grown men weep and yada yada yada.  But the core of the religion, I shall call it Identificationalism or IDism for short, is that your soul comes from your name.  In fact, you don't just have one soul.  You have many souls.  For instance, if you are a computer programmer, the title "head computer programmer" would be one of your souls.  If you are a gamer, your gamer tags and what not would be other souls.  All the titles and names and nicknames that you receive become souls, and all of these souls add up to one bigger soul that is your given name.  But there is more!  Your family also shares one, let's say, oversoul that is your family name.  This is the soul that is immortal.  There is an even bigger soul/name as well that belongs to and is shared by the church as a whole.  That soul is god.  You can imagine that apostasy would not be very smiled upon, as removing a name from the church rolls would have a direct negative effect on god (assuming there is only one in IDism).

In IDism, let's imagine that there is a strict rule about naming children before they are born.  They believe that if a child is named before it is born and for some reason it does not make it to term, then that soul will be damned forever.  The tradition is that the child is named exactly one month after it is born.  They see this as a way to make sure that the body fully enters the world before the soul is implanted, just to avoid any accidental damnation (incidentally, Google spell check has just informed me that damnation is uncountable.  The things you learn!).  Thus, on the day of the child's, we'll say, monthday there is a big ceremony with the family and the priests and the church members.  It is considered a very happy occasion.

You can probably see where I am going with this.  Basically, the believers of IDism would believe that life begins at monthday.  They are taught from early childhood that until babies are given a name, they are only hollow shells made to look like people.  In short, they are not human until given a name.  If IDists were in the majority and laws were based on their religion, not only would all abortions be legal, but infanticide as well.

This is a pretty extreme example, but I see no reason that, if IDists existed, we should not give any less consideration to their idea that souls are implanted when children are named, than we do to Christians who believe that souls are implanted at conception.  This is trouble with souls.  They are are 100% undetectable.  The truth is, even if souls existed, and I would be very surprised to learn that they did, we would have no idea when they enter a body.  The Christians could be right, the IDists could be right, or some other religion that believes souls enter a person before conception could be right.  This is yet another reason why I think that this subject should be determined outside the authority of any religion.

How is your state doing?

I was perusing through some articles (as usual over at NPR) and I came across this article, which did not make me happy at all.  I read through it and it looks like last year was a great year to be anti-choice.  The thing about the heartbeat really went off the deep end.  I mean, what does the heart have to do with personhood (and I don't even want to talk about personhood amendments now)?  Why not elbows?  Or nostrils?  But none of this is new, and most of it wasn't even news to me.  What did catch my eye was the American's United for Life Life List.  It is a list ranking states in how much they restrict women's reproductive freedom.  Those that restrict it the most, as you can see, are labeled: Best States.  Those that restrict it least: Worst States.  No qualification to that at all, just best and worst.  Screw that.  My home state of Indiana sadly scored a "Most Improved Over 2011".  *Sigh*

Baby factory

Today I read about an article on Project Reason.  I say I read about it because the Wall Street Journal requires a subscription to read some content, and I try to avoid giving News Corp. money whenever I can.  The excerpts I read (one at PR the other at WSJ) suggested that some conservative lawmakers are trying to make the issue of gay marriage an issue of religious freedom.  Anyhow, as I mentioned, I couldn't read the whole article so I can't say too much about it, but it did get me thinking about a couple of things. 

The main thing I started thinking about was the definition of marriage as an institution designed to produce and raise babies.  Let me be clear, if that is what you think marriage is about, or that is what your marriage is about, I am not saying that you are wrong.  That is often a religious point of view, but it doesn't have to be.  I am not criticizing people who think that way.  I am criticizing people who expect other people to think the same way.  Providing a good environment to raise children is a definition of marriage, but it is not the only definition of marriage.  Even if somehow you could go back a hundred thousand years (or so) and prove definitively that the first man and the first woman walking the plains of Africa got married and the only reason for it was so that they could more effectively raise children, to suggest that in modern society we must stick exclusively and strictly to that ancient definition would be asinine.  People get married for many different reasons, and I think it is quite presumptuous to tell any married couple what their relationship is about.  What if they don't want children?  What if they are infertile?  What if they are elderly?  Should we deny the right to marry to them as well?  In this case, it seems strange and dishonest to say that a woman and a sterile man who love each other can get married, but two men or two women who love each other cannot.

I am tired of this subject.  It is a silly waste of time that one day we will look back on and uncomfortably explain to future generations.  *sigh*

Incidentally, I wanted to learn a little more about some Christian ideas about marriage and I found some interesting links, which I have included here:

Biblical Definition of Marriage

Christian Marriage

and an L.A. Times article by a "liberal"

That passage from Romans 13 was especially revealing.  Enjoy!