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Article 5701 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: ramsay@unixg.ubc.ca (Keith Ramsay)
Subject: Religions value life? (was Re: N(atural) I(ntelligence) failure)
Message-ID: <1992May16.215942.22420@unixg.ubc.ca>
Followup-To: talk.religion.misc
Summary: Pindor needs to do some more careful history.
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References: <1992May12.170823.23059@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> <77807@netnews.upenn.edu> <1992May13.155329.21787@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca>
Date: Sat, 16 May 1992 21:59:42 GMT

I think this discussion belongs in talk.religion.misc. Follow-up is
set to talk.religion.misc.

In article <1992May12.170823.23059@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca>, pindor@gpu 
(Andrzej Pindor) writes:
|>Most religions think there is value in (human) life. Whether it can be
|
|For most religions this only applies to the life of the faithfull, the ones
|which are really God-fearing.

I find this to be quite an extreme statement. *Only* the faithful? To
*none* of the unfaithful at all?

We should also keep in mind here that in Judaism, for example, there
is a concept of a righteous non-Jew. So "faithful" is not always
identical to "one of us".

Unless I'm grossly mistaken, the prohibition against murder described
in the old testament extended to visiting travelers. In Christianity,
we have the statement, in the sacred text, allegedly made by God
himself, that "he who is not against us, is for us". In Islam, the
principle has been enunciated, at one time at least, that other
monotheists were to be treated mercifully. During the so-called
`golden age' of Islam, adherents of other religions were permitted to
coexist with Muslims. You yourself mentioned Buddhism, a rather large
religion, which doesn't fit your description.

I don't claim to have firmly established the falsity of this claim of
yours, but I think this is enough evidence to lay the burden of proof
on you, something you seem reluctant to take up.

In article <77807@netnews.upenn.edu> weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu 
(Matthew P Wiener) writes:
|Most religions?  I'm really not sure what metric you are using here, but
|in the one I consider standard English (discrete), I'd say your evaluation
|is utter rubbish.

I think Matthew Wiener is just being careful here, bringing up the
issue of "metric". Please, don't hide behind it, and try to say it is
up to others to assign the metric. Just justify your claim, if you can.

pindor@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor) writes:
|Firstly, it seems that you lead a very isolated life.

I think this is needlessly impolite. Enough said.

|Secondly, although it is true that in the last (very roughly) hundred years or
|so, the notion of intrinsic value of (any) human life has been gaining promi-
|nence in western (i.e. christian) religions, you can not treat this as 
|representative of these religions because their existence spans an order of
|magnitude longer period of time and this tendency looks more like an
|aberation. 

Now I think you are shifting your ground. There is a middle ground
between believing in the "intrinsic value of any human life" and
believing in the value *only* of the lives of the faithful.

There are relatively few pacifists. Among cases I'm aware of, there
seem to be at *least* as large a proportion of pacifists among the
religious as among the non-religious. Everyone else condones killing
people under *some* circumstances. Unless you want to reduce your
claim to triviality, you can't take condoning some kinds of warfare as
proof of "not valuing human life". 

Most societies and major systems of belief have, at one time or
another, been associated with what I, personally, would regard as
unjustified killing, but this is not to say that they only value the
lives of the "in" group.

Can we say, for example, that our U.S. government values the lives of
non-Americans, in spite of some of its tactics, like mining the harbor
in Nicaragua? Or must we say that it *only* values American lives?

|Do you realize, by the way, that German soldiers going into battle during WWII
|were given God's blessing (by catholic priests) to do a good job of killing
|French/Belgian/Polish soldiers, and these in turn were blessed by other
|catholic priests to do a good job of killing Germans?

More than isolated anecdotal evidence would be required to
substantiate your claim. Can you claim that the Catholic church
doesn't value human life, in general?
-- 
Keith Ramsay
ramsay@raven.math.ubc.ca


