ON ABORTION

At four months a fetus is about 8cm long with an undeveloped brain the size of a walnut. It has no memories, no concept of self, it is not aware of its' own existence. I think in words and pictures. A fetus doesn't know any words and it hasn't seen any images. Granted, it does have the potential of developing into a conscious self aware being, but the well being of a conscious real person with a fully developed brain must take precedence over a potential person with a brain the size of a walnut.

Pro-life
Pro-life is much more about religious doctrine than about morality. Doctrines based on the bible,(Off site) an old book of myths written by ignorant primitives over a thousand years ago.
Pro-lifers arrogantly think that they have the right to force their particular religious doctrine onto the general populus. Pro-lifers are megalomaniacal fascists who think that they have the right to tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her own body and womb. It's about forcing people who do not want to breed, to breed. It is nazi-like fascism to force a woman who does not want to breed, to breed. Imagine if Jehovah's Witnesses tried to force their religious doctrines onto the general public and outlawed blood transfusions.
The facts of life
If you ban abortion, the rate of illegal backstreet abortions increases drastically. In countries where abortion is illegal thousands of women die every year due to complications caused by illegal backstreet abortions.

"Morality becomes hypocrisy if it means accepting mothers suffering or dying in connection with unwanted pregnancies and illegal abortions--and unwanted children living in misery." [Gro Harlem Brundtland, at the Cairo population conference]

Pro-choice
Pro-choice is about the freedom to choose. Pro-choice is not about forcing people who do not want to have abortions to have abortions. If people belonging to some religious groups do not want to have abortions that's their right, but an atheist must be allowed to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. There is definitely no shortage of human beings on this planet. We do not believe it is morally wrong to have an abortion, in fact we believe it is morally wrong to bring an unwanted child into this already overcrowded planet.

I enjoy sex, but I do not want to breed under any circumstances and because no form of contraceptive is 100% fail-safe, abortion is needed as a backup measure. If there was a possibility of pregnancy that could not be terminated, I would have to give up sex. In fact only people who were in a financial position to support a child and who really wanted a child could have sex.

In a pro-choice environment, pro-lifers will still be free not to have abortions, no one is going to force them to have abortions.
Pro-lifers want an environment where their will, their religious doctrines, are forced on the rest of society. This is fascism!

Generally it’s futile discussing or debating abortion with pro-lifers because they do not understand basic concepts like logic and rational reason, so the normal parameters of discussion and debate do not apply. The debate becomes illogical, irrational, absurd and totally pointless. They do not base their decisions on scientific fact, logic and rational reason, but on religious superstition and dogma. They fail to understand simple scientific facts, like all human thinking is done in and by the brain. They don’t understand that brains are responsible for thinking, intelligence, memory, personality and consciousness, so they do not see the link between brain size and intelligence and consciousness. To them, thinking, intelligence and consciousness is a function of ‘soul’ and not brains, so aborting a fetus with a undeveloped brain the size of a walnut and murdering a grown conscious person with a fully developed brain hundreds of times larger is the same. To them the brain is just another spleen like organ with unknown functions. They believe a fetus is sacred because it contains that mythical, magical entity they call ‘soul’, which was constructed by their god. This means their god must watch the fallopian tubes of all the females having sex and at the moment he sees a sperm enter the egg he places a soul in that egg. (touched by God at conception)

This completely irrational thinking results in the deeply twisted logic of those who invoke the right to kill in the name of protecting the right to life.

There is no doubt in my mind that the average I.Q of pro-choice supporters is higher than that of pro-lifers. I can justify this statement by referring to various studies done on the I.Q. difference between creationists and evolutionists, and by the assumption that there are far more creationists in the pro life movements than in the pro-choice movements.
Imagine if intelligence was given some weight as a factor when trying to settle disputes between opposing groups. This would lead to more intelligent decisions being made.
An independent polling company could be used to work out the average IQ of, for instance, pro-choice and pro-life supporters.

Any pro-lifer that has not adopted at least one street child, should not be taken seriously. And if they are against aborting deformed fetuses they should adopt a handicapped child.
Calling a fetus an unborn baby is as ridiculous as calling a baby a born fetus.
If you accuse a woman of murder because she had an abortion, you should accuse your god of murder everytime a woman has a miscarriage. Every miscarriage is an abortion performed by God.

On using fetuses to reduce suffering.
"Doctors in the United States, England, and Sweden have implanted fetal brain cells in the brains of about 100 Parkinson's disease patients, to replace the dopamine that is no longer made by the brain. Many of the patients have shown some improvement, and some have gotten dramatically better. However, because the brain cells are taken from aborted fetuses, this treatment is controversial." (Grolier Encyclopedia)
It really scares me that some christians are trying to prevent this.
If it turns out that fetal brain cells improve the condition of patients suffering from Parkinson's or any other degenerative disease, then it would be insanely cruel not to supply those cells.
Conscious life should always take precedent over non conscious life. It's absolutely insane not to supply fetal cells to reduce the horrific suffering of a real, conscious being.

CNN.com - If you believe embryos are humans... - June 25, 2001

Right to die
This is my life and it is my choice and my choice only, to live or to die. This is a fundamental right. That someone else should even assume that they or their organization or state can take that right away is absurd. If a person has a painful terminal illness or severe debilitating injuries they must have the right to choose to die and it must be legal for someone to assist them. To force someone to die a slow and painful death is totally macabre.

CHRISTIAN MORALITY
Christian morality's aim has more to do with following the christian doctrine than to reduce suffering on this planet. Many christians (and other religious groups) seem to think that morals are exclusive to their religion.
a fear based morality
Christians (and many other religious groups) are threatened with extreme punishment by their god if they behave immorally. Yet is it really moral to behave morally for fear of extreme punishment?
Christian sex
Sex is too central in christian morality. When christians talk of immoral behavior they are normaly talking about promiscuous sexual behavior, rather than violent or dishonest behavior. In christian countries it is often acceptable to portray extreme slow motion violence in films, yet it is forbidden to show explicit sex. Morality should be about not harming others, not about consentual sex between adults.

THE END

Absolute mortality
This is it, no afterlife, no heaven, no nirvana, just the life you are now living and then death. Absolute mortality.
People just cannot accept the finality of death.
Only people who do not understand the concept of infinity can believe in Immortality. The idea of being conscious for an infinite amount of time is a truly absurd concept. A billion billion billion billion years and still infinity to go.

Conclusion
A brain that has processed the information available to it in a modern civilization and come to theistic conclusions is inferior to a brain that comes to atheistic conclusions.
The debate dilemma
Discussing or debating with religious people is ultimately futile because to come to the conclusion that there is a god or gods is illogical and therefore irrational and any debate or discussion with someone who is illogical ultimately becomes irrational and totally pointless and absurd.

The final say
Atheism will never be big because it does not offer a reward for belief or a punishment for non belief. Atheists face reality and know that there is no escape. Atheists do not knock on your door or stand on street corners handing out pamphlets.(although they do have websites)
Atheism will never be big because the level of intelligence of humankind is to low, and it is getting lower as stupid people out-breed intelligent people.

Recommended atheist websites
The Internet Infidels Secular Web.
American Atheist
The Net Atheists
Victims of christian faith

Recommended reading
Timescales. Nigel Calden.
Cosmos. Carl Sagan
The Naked Ape. Desmond Morris
The Selfish Gene. Richard Dawkins
A Brief History of Time. Stephen Hawking
In Search of Schroedinger's Cat. John Gribbin
Consciousness Explained. Daniel C.Dennett
The Mind's I. Douglas R. Hofstadter and Daniel C.Dennett
Anything by the above authors.

SOME QUOTES TAKEN FROM THE ATHEIST QUOTES SITE ON THE SECULAR WEB:

"Believing is easier than thinking. Hence so many more believers than thinkers." [Bruce Calvert]

"Faith is deciding to allow yourself to believe something your intellect would otherwise cause you to reject -- otherwise there's no need for faith."

"Faith is to the human what sand is to the ostrich"

Humanity's first sin was faith; the first virtue was doubt.

"The world holds two classes of men -- intelligent men without religion, and religious men without intelligence." [Abu'l-Ala-Al-Ma'arri (973-1057; Syrian poet)]

"Had I been present at the creation of the world, I would have proposed some improvements." [Alfonso X (Alfonso the Wise; 1226-1284; King of Castile)]

"Everything has a natural explanation. The moon is not a god but a great rock and the sun a hot rock." [Anaxagorus, ca. 475 BC]

Evolution is both fact and theory. Creationism is neither.

Power corrupts;
Absolute power corrupts absolutely;
God is all-powerful.
Draw your own conclusions

Theists think all gods but theirs are false.
Atheists simply don't make an exception for the last one.

It seems odd that those who scoff at sun worshippers are apt to worship a vacuum.

Christian Fundamentalism: The doctrine that there is an aboslutely powerful, infinitely knowledgeable, universe spanning entity that is deeply and personally concerned about my sex life.
[Andrew Lias]

Carlin elaborately described and defended his non-belief in a ``man in the sky'' who tells you ``where you shouldn't put your hands.'' -CR

It's your god.
They're your rules.
*You* go to hell.

If Jesus loves me, why doesn't he ever send me flowers?

I once believed in god. I got better.

"If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss Bank." [Woody Allen]

Garbage In -- Gospel Out

"There are ten church members by inheritance for every one by conviction." [Anonymous]

"If the Bible is mistaken in telling us where we came from, how can we trust it to tell us where we're going?"[Anonymous]

"To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today." [Isaac Asimov]

"Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centures since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly and warn the people of Canada..."
[Isaac Asimov, Canadian Atheists Newsletter, 1994]

"To rebel against a powerful political, economic, religious, or social establishment is very dangerous and very few people do it, except, perhaps, as part of a mob. To rebel against the "scientific" establishment, however, is the easiest thing in the world, and anyone can do it and feel enormously brave, without risking as much as a hangnail. Thus, the vast majority, who believe in astrology and think that the planets have nothing better to do than form a code that will tell them whether tomorrow is a good day to close a business deal or not, become all the more excited and enthusiastic about the bilge when a group of astronomers denounces it."
[Isaac Asimov]

"...if I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul."
[Isaac Asimov, _I. Asimov: A Memoir_]

------

Thomas Jefferson, American president, author, scientist, architect, educator, and diplomat (1743-1826). Deist, avidseparationist.
"Question boldly even the existence of God."
"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature."
"Religions are all alike - founded upon fables and mythologies."
"To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, God, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no God, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise." [letter to John Adams, August 11, 1820] (Jefferson goes on to say that he believes in God as a sort of thin and whispy matter!)
"Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined, and imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites." [Notes on Virginia]
"History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose." [1813]
"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His father, in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." [Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823]

Thomas Edison, American inventor (1847-1931).
"Religion is all bunk."
"I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious ideas of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God."

Gene Roddenberry, Creator of Star Trek (1921-1991).
"I condemn false prophets, I condemn the effort to take away the power of rational decision, to drain people of their free will--and a hell of a lot of money in the bargain. Religions vary in their degree of idiocy, but I reject them all. For most people, religion is nothing more than a substitute for a malfunctioning brain."

"Another meme of the religious meme complex is called faith. It means blind trust, in the absence of evidence, even in the teeth of evidence. The story of Doubting Thomas is told, not so that we shall admire Thomas, but so that we can admire the other apostles in comparison. Thomas demanded evidence. Nothing is more lethal for certain kinds of meme than a tendency to look for evidence. The other apostles, whose faith was so strong that they did not need evidence, are held up to us as worthy of imitation. The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry."
[Richard Dawkins, "The Selfish Gene"]

"Blind faith can justify anything. If a man believes in a different god, or even if he uses a different ritual for worshipping the same god, blind faith can decree that he should die - on the cross, at the stake, skewered on a Crusader's sword, shot in a Beirut street, or blown up in a bar in Belfast. Memes for blind faith have their own ruthless ways of propagating themselves. This is true of patriotic and political as well as religious blind faith."
[Richard Dawkins, "The Selfish Gene"]