Path: news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Peter Fairbrother <peter@tsto.co.uk>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: 25 Classic Books That Have Been Banned
Date: Sat, 31 May 2025 04:07:26 +0100
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On 31/05/2025 02:43, Richard Heathfield wrote:
> On 31/05/2025 02:06, Peter Fairbrother wrote:
>> On 30/05/2025 17:05, Paul S Person wrote:
>>
>>> "Freedom from religion" is a dogma of one or another of the religions
>>> that deny their own nature.
>>
>> I don't really understand that, but I think it's freedom _of_ 
>> religion, in the Constitution.  However, at least to some extent, one 
>> implies the other.
>>
>> Take the Supreme Court decision on abortion as an example. Perhaps 
>> those judges with strong religious views in the subject should have 
>> recused themselves.
> 
> That's a door we probably didn't want opened, but maybe if we tread 
> lightly...?
> 
>>
>> The rest of us * now have to comply with their religion. Is that not 
>> forced participation?
> 
> Is it your contention that all atheists are in favour of abortion?

Goodness no, not at all.

As an aside, I don't consider myself an atheist, more an agnostic - I 
don't believe in any of the  established religions, afaict they are 
mostly about controlling people rather than a search for truth.

When I was younger I thought even being an agnostic rather than an 
atheist was crapping out - but as I get older I wonder, why is there 
something - cogito ergo sum - rather than nothing?

As a physicist (I am not mainly a physicist, but) I can see that the 
universe could arise from nothing - but then why should physics, or 
mathematics, or philosophy, be that way?

Or is it just turtles all the way down?  :)



Anywhoo, as to abortion. In the 60's it became a practical method of 
birth control, though it had been possible earlier.

An ex-girlfriend had an abortion - not mine - and she still thinks about 
it from time to time, 50 years later. At the time it was probably the 
right decision for her. People die, people kill each other - but is a 
fetus a people? I don't know.

What I do know is that many or most women want the freedom to have an 
abortion, whether it is the right decision or not. And while the 
freedoms in the Constitution do not specifically mention that, the fact 
that there are supposed to be those sorts of freedoms is .. important.

So if a Supreme Court Judge, while smoking a cigar and drinking brandy 
at a dinner afterwards (it happened), says he decided against that 
freedom on the basis of his religious belief that a fetus is a people, I 
can't agree with that.

If he believes that for other reasons, ok, But for religious reasons, 
no. That is forcing his religious beliefs on everyone else.


Peter Fairbrother