Digital Watches
Smash Ace
I recently had an interesting conversation in which I had a thought:
I'm fairly certain that arguments for faith healing and against abortion contradict each other. (I don't mean to stereotype, but I'm almost certain that the majority of faith-healing advocates would be against abortion, given the politics both issues tend to fall into.)
For those who don't know (of which I'm sure there are few, given the media hype), faith-healing is a catch-all term for religious faith as medicine, from anything as minor as praying for the ill to outright refusing medical assistance in favor of faith-based cures for diseases.
The latter end of the spectrum is what's usually contended, and, more to the point, most controversy in the political sense arises from situations wherein a child is ill, and the parents are able to refuse medical treatment on their behalf, effectively killing said child in cases of potentially terminal illnesses. I and many other like-minded individuals would argue this way not only for lack of faith in such treatments, but also because, well, frankly, you just don't see them work that often (Show me the double-blind study with placebo control groups, anyone who disagrees.) I personally am one of many who would like this ability not to be afforded to parents of seriously ill dependent minors.
But my dissenters would assert that this is a violation of their religious freedom. They contend that they are unquestionably afforded the right to practice their religion, even to the extent of, for all medical purposes, killing their own offspring, by way of the establishment clause of the first amendment of the constitution of the United States (or similar international equivalents to said law). They argue that their choices as pertain to the health and lives of their children are no business of the state.
Anyway, your opinion on this issue aside, it's difficult not to see parallels with the Abortion issue if you accept the right-wing position that a fetus should be considered a child and have rights (Not accepting this conclusion is the reason this parallel doesn't really apply to the other sides of the two debates.) It is often asserted that the decision of whether a fetus lives or dies should not be left up to the parent, because said fetus is a human being with rights.
Surely you can see where I'm going with this.
Anyway, this was a lot of typing to start a discussion, but my main point here is the folly of partisan politics. Reading a list of positions in columns of "liberal" and "conservative" or whatever contrasting perspectives you care to apply to the question will inevitably create non-sequitur or, much like the aforementioned case, entirely incompatible.
I guess the question I want to ask with this thread is this: Does anyone else find this annoying? Especially in the United States, where issues are so often simplified to a "left" and "right" position, this sort of grouping is just absurd, and yet it controls the votes of so many in a... well, vaguely democratic republic system, wherein influence plays a very large part.
Can anyone else find blatant contradictions like the above?
Does anyone else think that partisanship is inherently corrupt and absurd?
Does anyone else think that pro-faith healing and anti-abortion are opposed to each other inherently?
Or am I just crazy?
I'm fairly certain that arguments for faith healing and against abortion contradict each other. (I don't mean to stereotype, but I'm almost certain that the majority of faith-healing advocates would be against abortion, given the politics both issues tend to fall into.)
For those who don't know (of which I'm sure there are few, given the media hype), faith-healing is a catch-all term for religious faith as medicine, from anything as minor as praying for the ill to outright refusing medical assistance in favor of faith-based cures for diseases.
The latter end of the spectrum is what's usually contended, and, more to the point, most controversy in the political sense arises from situations wherein a child is ill, and the parents are able to refuse medical treatment on their behalf, effectively killing said child in cases of potentially terminal illnesses. I and many other like-minded individuals would argue this way not only for lack of faith in such treatments, but also because, well, frankly, you just don't see them work that often (Show me the double-blind study with placebo control groups, anyone who disagrees.) I personally am one of many who would like this ability not to be afforded to parents of seriously ill dependent minors.
But my dissenters would assert that this is a violation of their religious freedom. They contend that they are unquestionably afforded the right to practice their religion, even to the extent of, for all medical purposes, killing their own offspring, by way of the establishment clause of the first amendment of the constitution of the United States (or similar international equivalents to said law). They argue that their choices as pertain to the health and lives of their children are no business of the state.
Anyway, your opinion on this issue aside, it's difficult not to see parallels with the Abortion issue if you accept the right-wing position that a fetus should be considered a child and have rights (Not accepting this conclusion is the reason this parallel doesn't really apply to the other sides of the two debates.) It is often asserted that the decision of whether a fetus lives or dies should not be left up to the parent, because said fetus is a human being with rights.
Surely you can see where I'm going with this.
Anyway, this was a lot of typing to start a discussion, but my main point here is the folly of partisan politics. Reading a list of positions in columns of "liberal" and "conservative" or whatever contrasting perspectives you care to apply to the question will inevitably create non-sequitur or, much like the aforementioned case, entirely incompatible.
I guess the question I want to ask with this thread is this: Does anyone else find this annoying? Especially in the United States, where issues are so often simplified to a "left" and "right" position, this sort of grouping is just absurd, and yet it controls the votes of so many in a... well, vaguely democratic republic system, wherein influence plays a very large part.
Can anyone else find blatant contradictions like the above?
Does anyone else think that partisanship is inherently corrupt and absurd?
Does anyone else think that pro-faith healing and anti-abortion are opposed to each other inherently?
Or am I just crazy?
