Reflections From a Murky Pond

We’ve all seen the recent crop of up-scale Liberals with their demands for “Fair Trade,” “Organic,” and “Reduced Cruelty” products. Mostly they’re coastal elites with plenty of wealth and enough time on their hands to crowd up the Starbucks and Whole Foods of the country.

While their smug moral superiority mixed with strident calls for all of us to be forced into their choices can be more than a little annoying, I can’t really fault the ethical stance of their personal shopping choices. In fact, I’ve made many of the same ones myself.

The Liberals’ Fair Trade Failure – Their Ethics Go Up In Smoke

It’s rather ironic though that all these Liberal “hipsters'” ethical consumerism goes up in smoke as it were when it comes to toking up. 😉

But hey, I suppose that they have to draw the line somewhere…

~*~

With a grateful H/T  to In2theFray for the image.

Back on Friday, April 24th, 2009, I made a post, A Moral Atheist, which detailed my view that an atheist, while perfectly capable of being ethical, cannot be moral since an atheist inherently lacks an absolute sense of- or source for morality. The post generated – and continues to generate – some discussion and debate.

One of the prevailing arguments that atheists could, in fact, be moral was that morality can stem from a culture and/or society instead of from a Divine source. This is certainly a seductive argument; who, after all, doesn’t think their society is source of what is Right and Good?

There is a serious problem with that belief though as the philosopher and theologian, Francis A. Schaeffer so very eloquently pointed out:

Here is one simple but profound rule: If there is no absolute by which to judge society, society is absolute.

— Francis A. Schaeffer
How Should We Then Live? p. 224

Think on that for a moment for it is certainly true. In the absence of an absolute – inherently external – source for- and code of morality, a society is absolute in and of itself and the morality of its doctrines, policies, and actions could not be judged.

Of course, the truth of the matter is that this argument of morality stemming from society is a fantasy with no grounding in reality and it never could have any grounding in reality as long as mankind is made up of separate and heterogeneous cultures and societies.

What is sad and more than a little dangerous is that there are apparently a sizable number who either believe this or, at least, are willing to use the idea to rationalize their positions on morality.

Did anyone think that the abortionists would go gently into the long night where they belong? No; I didn’t think so. Like all genocidal mass murderers, they will continue their slaughter, by any and all means until they themselves are exterminated.

Note please that I’m Anti-Abortion as opposed to Pro-Life. I have no moral qualms about exterminating vermin in order to protect the innocent – and who is more innocent than the unborn?

The baby killers on the Left have already taken steps to ensure that, even if some version Stupak’s amendment is included in the monstrosity of ObamaCare’s Health Insurance Reconstruction, the public funding of infanticide will proceed according to their plans.

President Obama’s pet Infanticide, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, Kathleen “Kill All You Want; We’ll Fund More” Sebelius, was proud to explain the abortion funding loophole in the current Senate bill.

HHS Sec., Kathleen Sebelius Explains ObamaCare Infanticide Loophole

During an interview on December 21, 2009, with the Feminists at Blogher, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius tried to quell their fears that they might have to pay out their own money in order to have their unborn children scalded within their wombs, scraped out, and tossed onto the trash heap.

Sebelius explained to the representative from Blogher that the bill, irrespective of any Stupak or Hyde Amendment that might be applied to it, would force everyone who enrolls in the new Insurance Exchange created by ObamaCare to contribute part of their premiums to a “special set aside fund” by way of a special “accounting procedure.”

The separate, special fund to be created by this “accounting procedure” would then be used by the government to subsidize or pay for abortions without technically using any Public Funds, i.e.,  Americans’ tax dollars.

This is certainly an egregious loophole since it does bypass the Hyde Amendment and therefor any variant  of the Stupak Amendment as well.

While public funds aren’t used, we are not isolating, discriminating against or invading the privacy rights of women. There would be an accounting procedure, but everybody in the exchange would do the same thing. Whether you’re male or female, whether you’re 75 or 25, you would all set aside a portion of your premium that would go into a fund, and it would not be earmarked for anything, it would be a separate account that everyone in the exchange would pay.

— HHS Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius
December 21,2009, Blogher Interview

So now public funds would be used to pay for abortions. Instead part of the money payed by every American who purchased a health insurance policy from ObamaCare’s health insurance exchange would be required by federal law to be set aside for that subhuman, nefarious purpose.

Since the Liberals reign for the moment, ObamaCare will likely be forced upon American and, with it both the health insurance exchanges and Sebelius’ favorite infanticidal loophole. This is all but a certainty since they’ll do anything to achieve it.

This places Americans in a very difficult position. Since it’s not actual tax dollars being used to fund infanticide / abortion, it is technically a voluntary contribution to that Hell-born cause. Yet, if one chooses to, or is forced to, purchase health insurance from the ObamaCare exchange, one is de facto choosing to fund the deaths of 100’s of thousands of babies per year.

Would you buy health insurance the ObamaCare exchange knowing that by fiat part of your premiums will go towards the deaths of unborn children? What if you’re one of the 100+ million Americans who will be forced due to economic pressures upon their employers to either purchase health insurance the ObamaCare exchange or do without?

On September 11, 2001, 19 Muslim terrorists hijacked four airliners. They crashed two into the World Trade Center and one into the Pentagon. The fourth was crashed into a field near Shanksville, PA when the American passengers on board counterattacked the terrorists and stormed the plane’s cockpit.

In total 2974 people – and the 19 Muslim terrorists – died in the vicious terrorist attacks upon America that day.

Always Remember; Never forget; Never Forgive

Remember our dead, mostly civilians murdered by foul vermin who hated America and whose misborn brethren still walk upon this Earth in a cruel mockery of mankind. We must wreak a final vengeance upon their murderers’ ilk. But, even more, we must ensure that our children and our children’s children will not have to fear a similar slaughtering.

Remember the brave Americans who, not targeted directly in the attacks, through themselves in harms way to save as many victims as they could. We must always honor those firemen, police officers, and un-uniformed civilians who cast caution to the winds for sake of the country and countrymen.

Remember our men and women in the military. They were and are both our sword of vengeance and our shield against the Muslim terrorists and Islamic regimes that support them. Putting their lives on the line, they to this day do the horrid, bloody work of eradicating the menace that we face so that we can go about our lives in relative peace and safety.

Remember those nations who lent aid to us in our time of catastrophe and those who, through generosity and human solidarity, who joined with America to bring retribution to our common foes and purge their stain from the planet. These foreign nations, not all longtime allies of America, came together with us in a righteous cause and should be honored in our thoughts and prayers.

May the Gods bless America with Vision to find those who have wronged us and murdered among us, with the strength of Arm to chastise them and bring them before the Gods for judgment, and the Will to use our Vision and our the strength of our Arm wreak our retribution upon our enemies and bring them low and into dust.

But remember also those who live within our country and enjoy its benefits who blamed America for these terrorist attacks. Remember those who said this was our fault and that we should be damned and burned for our supposed evil. Remember always that they lent their support to those who would murder our children with animalistic glee. They should not be free from our retribution; they deserve our wrath even more than the creatures who attacked us.

But remember also those who in our country who have more in common with the Muslim terrorists than they do with the people of America who not only stayed silent, refusing to condemn their brethren’s villainy, but used the crisis and its aftermath to further their own agenda within America. These things deserve no tolerance and no compassion; they are the enemies of mankind and should be exterminated lest they, through “paper terrorism” and propaganda do what their compatriots couldn’t do by violent action.

Always remember; never forget, neither the good nor the evil; never ever forgive.

Is there such a thing as a moral Atheist? The short answer is no, there truly isn’t nor can there be a truly moral Atheist. The phrase “Moral Atheist” is inherently wrong and impossible at its core.

The term is incorrect, but – despite the rantings of some theist “hardliners” – it is not an oxymoron. It is not an inherently self-contradictory term.

“Moral Atheist” is not linguistically similar to “Jumbo Shrimp,” “Unbiased Opinion,” “Idiot Savant,” or “Civil War.” It would require that Atheists be inherently immoral – a direct contradiction – for the phrase “Moral Atheist” to be an oxymoron. Such is not categorically the case with Atheists.

Atheists can be quite ethical; their behaviors may even fall into line with those set forth by moral codes. But such things do not make the Atheist a moral individual. Ethics stem from within the individual and, lacking any religion or belief in a higher authority than Man, Atheists lack the capacity for morality though at times their actions and beliefs can, and very often do, coincide with those of moral people. Any intersection between Atheists’ ethics and morality is largely either coincidental or based upon purely pragmatic concerns.

Please note that the above statement does not hold true for Buddhists. They have faith in a divine cosmos with Right and Wrong, but do not believe in a manifest Divine Presence.

Aside from the Buddhists though, if you show me an Atheist is believes in Right & Wrong beyond personal preference or cultural dictates, I’ll show you a person who – in the stillness of the night with no sounds save the beating of their pulse into their pillow – is an Agnostic. 😉

Atheists can only derive sanction or prohibition for their actions from within themselves and/or from the dictates of the society and culture that they live within. That – despite the ranting of Atheist and Anti-Theist “hardliners” – is not morality, not in any true or absolute sense of the word.

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