With respect to God and religion [and the relationship between them before and after the grave], my frame of mind always revolves around this: the extent to which whatever you profess to believe is true in your head is that which you believe in turn that all rational men and women are obligated to believe. Why? Because you are able to demonstrate this to them in some capacity.
Thus one can argue that all rational men and women are obligated to believe that Pope Francis is the 266th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church. That he is 80 years old, was born in Argentina, resides in the Vatican etc.
These are all facts. At least to the extent that they can be demonstrated as facts.
But if one shifts the conversation to the moral narrative of this man and his church, what here can be demonstrated to in fact be true? What here are all rational men and women obligated to believe?
So, basically, from my frame of mind, you have taken an existential leap to a particular political prejudice. And this is rooted in dasein.
Now, are you arguing that if others believe abortion should be available on demand that they are necessarily wrong? Are you insisting that the “good” that you embrace here necessarily outweighs the “good” that the pro-choice folks embrace?
If so, how do you go about demonstrating it?
In other words, pertaining to abortion, what is your own rendition of this:
1] I was raised in the belly of the working class beast. My family/community were very conservative. Abortion was a sin.
2] I was drafted into the Army and while on my “tour of duty” in Vietnam I happened upon politically radical folks who reconfigured my thinking about abortion. And God and lots of other things.
3] after I left the Army, I enrolled in college and became further involved in left wing politics. It was all the rage back then. I became a feminist. I married a feminist. I wholeheartedly embraced a woman’s right to choose.
4] then came the calamity with Mary and John. I loved them both but their engagement was foundering on the rocks that was Mary’s choice to abort their unborn baby.
5] back and forth we all went. I supported Mary but I could understand the points that John was making. I could understand the arguments being made on both sides. John was right from his side and Mary was right from hers.
6] I read William Barrett’s Irrational Man and came upon his conjectures regarding “rival goods”.
7] Then, over time, I abandoned an objectivist frame of mind that revolved around Marxism/feminism. Instead, I became more and more embedded in existentialism. And then as more years passed I became an advocate for moral nihilism.
Or, in other words, what philosophical argument can you make such that all reasonable/rational, moral/virtuous men and women would be obligated to believe that all abortions ought to be made illegal.
Bingo.
In other words, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of folks just like you exist. They all make the same claim regarding moral and political values that are, well, hopelessly conflicted and contradictory.
And, whatever they might choose to do, they are going to come into conflict “out in the world”. Then what? Well, then they all dump their own particular theological, philosophical, moral, political assumptions on you and ask you to choose: Are you one of us or one of them?
But: either to each other or to me they insist that they and only they have pinned Human Reality here to the mat.
Which I then subsume psychologically in this:
[b]1] For one reason or another [rooted largely in dasein], you are taught or come into contact with [through your upbringing, a friend, a book, an experience etc.] a worldview, a philosophy of life.
2] Over time, you become convinced that this perspective expresses and encompasses the most rational and objective truth. This truth then becomes increasingly more vital, more essential to you as a foundation, a justification, a celebration of all that is moral as opposed to immoral, rational as opposed to irrational.
3] Eventually, for some, they begin to bump into others who feel the same way; they may even begin to actively seek out folks similarly inclined to view the world in a particular way.
4] Some begin to share this philosophy with family, friends, colleagues, associates, Internet denizens; increasingly it becomes more and more a part of their life. It becomes, in other words, more intertwined in their personal relationships with others…it begins to bind them emotionally and psychologically.
5] As yet more time passes, they start to feel increasingly compelled not only to share their Truth with others but, in turn, to vigorously defend it against any and all detractors as well.
6] For some, it can reach the point where they are no longer able to realistically construe an argument that disputes their own as merely a difference of opinion; they see it instead as, for all intents and purposes, an attack on their intellectual integrity…on their very Self.
7] Finally, a stage is reached [again for some] where the original philosophical quest for truth, for wisdom has become so profoundly integrated into their self-identity [professionally, socially, psychologically, emotionally] defending it has less and less to do with philosophy at all. And certainly less and less to do with “logic”.[/b]
How then [pertaining to abortion] is this not applicable to you?
Clearly. But how is “what they work for” any less subsumed in the manner in which I describe the “psychology of objectivism” above. It is in fact having something to work towards that drives the objectivists. In my view, what it is – denominationally, ideologically, deontologically etc. – is of less importance than that they do believe it does exist “in their head”; and that they are in sync with it in being one of the “good people”.
And I sincerely believe that you sincerely believe this. But I am also sincere in suggesting that you have in no way, shape or form succeeded in actually demonstrating [empirically, phenomenally, existentially] that all reasonably folks ought to believe it too.
But…
In that case [from my frame of mind] you are acknowledging that you are right from your side while others are right from their side. You all make assumptions about what is true regarding human interactions [before and after the grave] and if these premises are true then the conclusions necessarily follow.
As though this in an of itself makes it so.
Bottom line [mine]: I really don’t see how you have been any more successful than all the others in demonstrating that what you believe [here and now] is that which all other reasonable men and women are obligated to believe.
Instead, as with them [in my view], you have created this sense of reality in your head [an intellectual contraption, a world of words] such that you are able to ground “I” in it; such that it gives you a foundation enabling you to feel comforted and consoled in the face of what really may well be an essentially absurd and meaningless world.