Atheism has no brakes

The 7th Planned Parenthood sting video has been released. Here's a summary:

https://stream.org/new-planned-parenthood-video-aborted-babys-heart-still-beating/

https://stream.org/7th-planned-parenthood-video-shows-baby-born-alive-no-defense-left/

Thus far I haven't posted much about the PP scandal. That's in part because it's a developing story, and–relatedly–people get tired of the story if you talk about it too often. Their eyes begin to glaze over and they turn the page. 

i) In a way, it's hard to know what's left to say about evil when it reaches a certain nadir. The video depicts the vivisection of a premature baby born alive. This is straight out of human experimentation by Nazis on Jews and Japanese on POWs. It's not coincidental that after Josef Mengele skipped the country, he made his living as an abortionist in South America. 

ii) In attempting to reason with people on moral issues, there are various strategies. We use analogies. But PP is already a worst-case scenario. If some people are too morally hardened to see the problem, what can you say? It's like trying to appeal to Ted Bundy's conscience. There's nothing there to work with. You have no moral leverage. The lever is broken. 

We compare certain modern atrocities to the Nazis. But, of course, some people were Nazis. Devoted Nazis. So that comparison wouldn't work for them.

Imagine the outcry if PP vivisected puppies for spare parts? But many people have already crossed that line. By that I mean, many people care more about puppies than babies. When you describe the video, they just shrug.

We appeal to a sense of empathy. How would you like it if someone did that to you? And, indeed, they wouldn't like it if someone did it to them. But that's only because it happened to them instead of somebody else. In their philosophy, nothing is good or bad in general; it is only good or bad for me. 

You might reply that if everybody, or even most folks, had the same attitude, that would not be good for me. But they shrug. That's hypothetical. They don't respond to abstractions. Unless and until it hurts them, they just don't care. 

They say the "fetus" is "just a clump of cells." You counter that by that logic, an adult is "just a clump of cells." A bigger clump of cells. 

How do they respond? They shrug. Yes, I'm a clump of cells and you're a clump of cells, but the clump of cells you are isn't the clump of cells I am, and I only care about me. I care about a clump of cells if, and only if, that happens to be me. If that happens to be you, then you're out of luck!

In their minds, if not their actions, many Americans have already crossed the same line as the PP employees. How can people commit or countenance such evil? 

i) Some people have no conscience. Never did. What they do or refrain from doing is based on what they think they can get away with as well as the approval or disapproval of their peer group. 

ii) Some people are initially disturbed, but they get use to it. They become callous. Morally and emotionally inured. 

iii) Some people believe the propaganda, just like some Nazis really did view themselves as the master race. 

iv) Ultimately I think many Americans have internalized the secular outlook. There is no afterlife. No heaven or hell. So it comes down to getting as much as I can while the getting is good. There is no right and wrong, just winning and losing. 

Atheism is a car on a hilltop without a parking brake. The only thing that keeps it from rolling down the hill is the wheel chock of Christian culture. Remove that, and watch what happens. Atheism has no moral brakes. Remove the Christian wheel chock, and unstoppable nihilism ensues.