Adventures in atheism

As much of the intelligentsia become increasingly anti-Christian, we see the outworking of atheism in its increasingly brutal, vicious consequences.

https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/the-ahuman-manifesto-9781350081116/

The Ahuman Manifesto

Activism for the End of the Anthropocene

By: Patricia MacCormack

About The Ahuman Manifesto

We are in the midst of a growing ecological crisis. Developing technologies and cultural interventions are throwing the status of “human” into question. 

It is against this context that Patricia McCormack delivers her expert justification for the “ahuman”. An alternative to “posthuman” thought, the term paves the way for thinking that doesn't dissolve into nihilism and despair, but actively embraces issues like human extinction, vegan abolition, atheist occultism, death studies, a refusal of identity politics, deep ecology, and the apocalypse as an optimistic beginning.

In order to suggest vitalistic, perhaps even optimistic, ways to negotiate some of the difficulties in thinking and acting in the world, this book explores five key contemporary themes:

· Identity

· Spirituality

· Art

· Death

· The apocalypse

Collapsing activism, artistic practice and affirmative ethics, while introducing some radical contemporary ideas and addressing specifically modern phenomena like death cults, intersectional identity politics and capitalist enslavement of human and nonhuman organisms to the point of 'zombiedom', The Ahuman Manifesto navigates the ways in which we must compose the human differently, specifically beyond nihilism and post- and trans-humanism and outside human privilege. This is so that we can actively think and live viscerally, with connectivity (actual not virtual), and with passion and grace, toward a new world.

Reviews

“Patricia MacCormack goes relentessly beyond ”just” deconstructing anthropocentrism and dismantling multispecies extinction caused by human dominance in the Anthropocene. The manifesto is not only theorizing, but com/passionately calling for direct abolitionist action for the other at the expense of the (human) self. Trembling with joyful energy and critically affirmative insights, this manifesto encourages us to engage in ahuman arts&activist practices, inspired by queer feminist (secular) spirituality), and death activism.” –  Nina Lykke, Professor of Gender Studies, Linköping University, Sweden

“This beautiful book is both a passionate, insightful meditation on the world we actually live in, and a radical call to action. Is it even possible for us to stop being human, to let multiple beings flourish without reducing them to means for our own selfish ends? Reading this book, thinking with it and about it, and responding openly to it, is absolutely essential.” –  Steven Shaviro, DeRoy Professor of English, Wayne State University, USA

“This book is a delightful provocation and invitation: to imagine a world without humans and to think of what we can do to get there. It is an urgent call for action. A joyful, lucid, fiercely intelligent call to readers to hope and work for a future not for themselves, but for the thriving of all nonhuman life. Engaging with this book will be a transformative experience. One cannot see the world or oneself in the same way after reading it.” –  Christine Daigle, Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Posthumanism Research Institute, Brock University, Canada

“Patricia MacCormack's splendid refusal to nuance her intent in The Ahuman Manifesto will both intrigue and infuriate. As a vegan abolitionist/extinctionist, she provides an unrelenting and exacting take down of the violent self-interest of the human species, and offers a call to ethical action best described as eating the Anthropocene.” –  Margrit Shildrick, Guest Professor of Gender and Knowledge Production, Stockholm University, Sweden

Infinite resignation

Here is an interview with Eugene Thacker.

Thacker is an anti-human and nihilist philosopher. He originally comes from a comparative literature background.

Moreover his work In the Dust of this Planet has influenced the writers for the television series True Detective, a series about a pair of detectives chasing a serial killer across many years, a series which is itself awash in nihilism, especially Matthew McConaughey's character. In this respect, Thacker is kindred spirit to David Benatar (Better to Have Never Been?) and Jim Crawford (Confessions of an Antinatalist).

Curse God and die!

I'd like to talk a little bit about Buddhism in this post.

1. When I say Buddhism I mean Theravada Buddhism because (to my knowledge) it's the most conservative and oldest form of Buddhism. The original Buddhism.

   I regard Mahayana Buddhism more like Buddhism if Buddhism were Catholic. Mahayana Buddhism strayed far from any semblance to primitive Buddhism. It's an ostentatious corruption of Buddhism. Like a simple house turned into Elvis' Graceland.

   In fairness, it’s worth dealing with all forms of Buddhism, inasmuch as all have adherents trapped in falsehood, so it’s worth explaining their falsehoods to them so that they might know the truth. However I’ll focus on Theravada Buddhism here.

2. It seems to me Buddhism is anti-natalist in the sense that anti-natalism is its ultimate goal.

   That's not to say Buddhists are against humans having children and giving birth, per se. That's because Buddhists believe the non-self (anatta) - despite its logical inconsistencies - could be reborn into something besides the human form (e.g. lower animals), which, if so, would perpetuate its suffering. In fact, its suffering may be arguably worse than if it existed in the human form. Nevertheless human birth is a means to a goal in Buddhism.

   The endgame for the Buddhist is to reach nirvana. To reach nirvana is to reach non-being, to extinguish oneself, to annihilate oneself. And therefore to end all rebirths. That's anti-natalistic in the end.

3. All this plays out in a larger context. Buddhism recognizes evil and suffering, but in order to escape evil and suffering, Buddhism denies desires like joy, love, pleasure. Buddhism denies self. Buddhism denies life. Buddhism denies God. Buddhism escapes evil and suffering by denying everything.

4. By contrast, Christianity regards God, creation, and the self as good, but we are fallen creatures inhabiting a fallen world. Like a beautiful cathedral fallen into a terrible state of disrepair. Christianity's message is that God the architect has come to redeem and repair this once majestic cathedral in order to rebuild it better than ever.

   However Buddhism's message is the architect will destroy the cathedral, burn it down to dust and ashes, to be swept away by the howling winds, and finally the architect himself will commit suicide. As Ripley said in Aliens: "Nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."

   Both Christianity and Buddhism see life under the curse, but Christianity turns the curse into a blessing, good from evil, whereas the counsel of Buddhism (like Job's wife) is to "curse God and die!" (Job 2:9).

5. It might be instructive to know Siddhārtha Gautama aka the Buddha called his one and only son Rāhula which is related to a "fetter" or an "impediment". The Buddha considered his son an impediment to reaching nirvana, for his own son would fetter him to love, which in turn would open him to continued evil and suffering. Hence the Buddha dare not love his own son if he is to reach nirvana, non-being, self-obliteration.

   However, in Christianity:

   She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel" (which means, God with us). (Mt 1:21-23)

   and

   Behold, a voice from heaven said, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased!" (Mt 3:17)

Birth strikers

From antinatalism, through feminism and "white privilege"  to transgenderism, it's morbidly fascinating to see atheists adopt a suicidal, self-hating ideology:

https://nationalpost.com/news/world/no-children-please-were-birth-strikers-new-growing-trend-against-starting-a-family-gives

The ethics of having kids in a warming world

Just a reminder that every human being alive today exists because their ancestors had children under conditions -- pestilence, famine, war -- that would beggar the modern imagination.https://t.co/pjGyVgGqtD

— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) March 12, 2019

A "Christian" argument for antinatalism

https://randalrauser.com/2019/03/a-christian-argument-for-antinatalism/

To begin with, this isn't an original argument. Antinatalists have been using variations on that argument as a pressure point against Christians. 

Let's consider the first premise:

(1) The belief that there is a reasonable chance (e.g. more than 20%) that your future child would be born with a horrifying and untreatable disease like Stevens-Johnson syndrome would provide a good reason to avoid having children.

i) Really? That's hardly self-evident. That consideration must be counterbalanced by the good of having other children. To avoid having a child with Stevens-Johnson syndrome by avoiding procreation in toto deprives other future children of the opportunity to have a good life. So this is not a question that can be answered in isolation to what may be countervailing considerations. Acting for the sake of more than one party. Rauser oversimplifies the issue.

ii) In addition, this life is not all there is. This life is just a nanosecond in relation to everlasting life. So the real choice would be between the nonexistence of a child with Stevens-Johnson syndrome or the existence of a child who temporarily suffers from that disease, but may have the opportunity to enjoy eternal happiness. Suffering at the front end is the only way to find happiness at the back end. So, once more, Rauser oversimplifies the issue. 

Since Rauser isn't stupid, he's probably aware of the fact that his formulation is devious. He deliberately suppresses relevant factors. Moving along:

(3) Therefore, if the belief that there is a reasonable chance that your future child would be born with Stevens-Johnson syndrome would provide a good reason to avoid having children, then the belief that there is a reasonable chance that your future child would ultimately experience eternal conscious torment provides a good reason to avoid having children.

In addition to building on a false premise (see above), this seems to operate from the general principle that no one should be allowed to be happy unless everyone is happy. No one should go to heaven if anyone goes to hell. Better for no one to exist than for some to be happy if anyone is miserable. 

But why should we accept that principle? And it's not as if the happy group are happy at the expense of the miserable group. Rauser acts like the wicked should be able to deny everyone else a joyful existence. Why should the wicked by granted ultimate power over the fate of everyone else? What kind of perverted logic is Rauser appealing to?

Varieties of nihilism

There are different kinds of nihilism. Not coincidentally, these are all associated with atheism (or naturalism, to be pedantic). 

Don't imagine this is a merely academic discussion. These ideas catch on. They translate into law and public policy, when secular progressives become politically dominant. 

I'll be quoting verbatim from scholarly resources. In some cases the writer may disagree with the position he summarizes.  But these are philosophical definitions. It's not something I made up. 

Moral nihilism

A broader definition of “nihilism” would be “the view that there are no moral facts.” “Moral nihilism” is also often associated—though somewhat vaguely—with thoughts about how we should act in the more everyday sphere: as advocating a policy of “anything goes,” as holding that with the removal of the moral framework restrictions on our behavior are lifted. It is true that if the error theorist is correct then there are no moral restrictions on our behavior...Camus writes: “If one believes in nothing, if nothing makes sense, if we can assert no value whatsoever, everything is permissible and nothing is important.” And Sartre declared that “everything is permissible if God does not exist, and as a result man is forlorn, because neither within him nor without does he find anything to cling to” (1945/1973). Richard Joyce, “Nihilism,” International Encyclopedia of Ethics (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013) 

Existential nihilism

This nihilism is associated with the idea that “life has no meaning or purpose”—a realization that may sometimes lead to a loss of motivation and even depression and despair. Existential nihilism crystallized as an intellectual movement in France in the post-war period, associated especially with the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. For Camus, the absurdity of the human predicament emerges from the tension between our realization that we live in a purposeless and indifferent universe and our ceaseless propensity to continue as if our lives and decisions were meaningful. Richard Joyce, “Nihilism,” International Encyclopedia of Ethics (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013).

One straightforward rationale for nihilism is the combination of supernaturalism about what makes life meaningful and atheism about whether God exists. If you believe that God or a soul is necessary for meaning in life, and if you believe that neither exists, then you are a nihilist, someone who denies that life has meaning. Albert Camus is famous for expressing this kind of perspective, suggesting that the lack of an afterlife and of a rational, divinely ordered universe undercuts the possibility of meaning (Camus 1955; cf. Ecclesiastes).

We have a presumptive duty to desist from bringing into existence new members of species that cause vast amounts of harm. Extensive evidence is provided to show that human nature has a dark side that leads humans to cause vast amounts of pain, suffering, and death to other humans and to non-human animals. Some of this harm is mediated by destruction of the environment. The resultant presumptive duty we have not to create new humans is very rarely if ever defeated. Not all misanthropy is about humans’ moral failings. David Benatar, "The Misanthropic Argument for Anti-natalism," S. Hannan, S. Brennan, & R. Vernon, eds. Permissible Progeny?: The Morality of Procreation and Parenting (Oxford 2015), chap. 1. 

Another fresh argument for nihilism is forthcoming from certain defenses of anti-natalism, the view that it is immoral to bring new people into existence because doing so would be a harm to them. There are now a variety of rationales for anti-natalism, but most relevant to debates about whether life is meaningful is probably the following argument from David Benatar (2006, 18–59). 

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/life-meaning/#Nih

As an evaluative view in the philosophy of life, nihilism maintains that no lives are, all things considered, worth living. Prominent defenders of the view hold that, even so, it can be all-things-considered better for us to continue living than for us to cease living, thus endorsing a ‘soft’ nihilism that appears more palatable than its ‘hard’ counterpart. In support of an intuitive assumption about what nihilism implies, I argue that soft nihilism is incoherent. David Matheson, "The incoherence of soft nihilism," Think 16 (47):127-135 (2017).

Epistemic nihilism

Epistemic antirealism/nihilism, as it is termed, is committed to the claim that there are no epistemic facts. Terence Cuneo, The Normative Web: An Argument for Moral Realism (Oxford 2007), chap. 4. Cf. Allan Hazlett "Anti-Realism about Epistemic Normativity," A Luxury of the Understanding: On the Value of True Belief (Oxford 2013), chap. 9; Alvin Plantinga, "The Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism," Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism (Oxford 2011), chap. 10. 

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism/

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/#SKE

Does life matter?

Does life matter? Surely there's no more important question in ethics. 

1. According to nihilism, including antinatalism (which is a paradigm version of nihilism), it's better not to exist in the first place. And that's not just a hypothetical position to fill out the logical continuum of possible views, but a live option. Nihilism regards human existence is irredeemably tragic. 

2. According to Epicureanism, existence and nonexistence are equivalent. Prenatal and postmortem nonexistence are interchangeable. Although nominally heathen, the Epicurean view of life and death, as well as the nihilist, are essentially atheistic. We're on our own. 

It would be interesting to see a debate between an Epicurean and a Christian annihilationist! An Epicurean doesn't think oblivion is bad. 

There are some people who say postmortem nonexistence is significant in a way that prenatal nonexistence is not. They only agree with one side of the Epicurean comparison. 

3. Here's one way to view the issue: Suppose you're the proud father of a teenage son. I offer you $10 million to step into a time machine and contracept his existence. If you take the offer, you will travel back to point shortly before he was conceived, and do something to preempt his conception. 

I doubt most fathers would accept the offer. For one thing, they couldn't stand to lose their son. But over and above that, they couldn't bring themselves to do that to their own son. To deprive him of existence. 

Yet on the time-travel scenario, by taking that preemptive and retroactive action, the father made it the case that his son had no existence to begin with, for the new timeline replaces the original timeline. It's as if he never existed. He has no counterpart in the new timeline. And the father may or may not remember the original timeline (depending on how we detail the thought-experiment).

On Epicurean grounds, his nonexistence is insignificant. Yet I expect most fathers would balk at the prospect. 

And that's germane to the question of whether God, if there is a God, ought to intervene more often to prevent evil. Is that a reasonable expectation? 

Problem is, whenever God intervenes, that's analogous to a time-traveler who changes the past to change the future. Which doesn't mean that God never intervenes. But there are tradeoffs. When people imagine a better world, an improvement over the status quo, they men

First Reformed

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/movie-review-first-reformed-explores-left-wing-religious-extremism/

Existence is a curse

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/the-case-for-not-being-born

Best not to be born

Although atheism is ultimately self-refuting, a few hardy atheists make an effort to take their position to a logical extreme. Case in point:

https://blog.oup.com/2017/04/david-benatar-interview/

The label for Benatar's position is existential nihilism. And that dovetails with Steiner's definition of absolute tragedy:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/23924502

Paris accords

Several issues on the Paris accords:

i) Trump can't "withdraw" from the Paris accords since that treaty wasn't ratified in the first place. Obama never had the legal authority to unilaterally commit the USA to a treaty which wasn't ratified. 

Democrats have developed a bad habit of circumventing the Constitutional process. When they lack popular support to get a law passed, they simply ascribe the force of law to something that lacks legal authority. In this instance, they want the benefits of a treaty without ratification.

This isn't just a technicality. Ratification by the people's elected representatives is a way of making public policy more accountable to…the public! 

So this is yet another example of liberal totalitarianism. Cultural elites believe they are wiser than the general public, and so they feel justified in subverting the democratic process to get their way. 

On the substantive issue:

ii) Global warming "science" is highly politicized. Many environmentalists regard humans as a blight on the planet. They reject human exceptionalism. They subscribe to antinatalism. 

They use global warming as pretext to leverage their green policies. They think green policies are a good idea even if global warming didn't pose a threat. So, for them, this is the noble lie. 

In addition, Democrats like intrusive, expansive gov't. They can never have too much social control. Green policies give them another excuse to socially engineer the lives of the proletariat, to achieve their utopian goals. 

iii) That isn't conspiracy mongering on my part. To the contrary, we've seen them cooking the books. For instance:

http://bedejournal.blogspot.com/2010/02/collapse-of-good-faith-in-science.html

http://bedejournal.blogspot.com/2010/11/update-on-climategate.html

http://blog.drwile.com/when-it-comes-to-temperature-you-might-not-be-able-to-trust-the-data/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/globalwarming/11395516/The-fiddling-with-temperature-data-is-the-biggest-science-scandal-ever.html

https://academic.oup.com/ajae/article-abstract/96/3/851/55557/Information-Manipulation-and-Climate-Agreements

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/06/04/federal-scientists-say-there-never-was-any-global-warming-slowdown/?utm_term=.32a45e4f0374

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4192182/World-leaders-duped-manipulated-global-warming-data.html

iv) Here's a more balanced take on "climate change"

http://bedejournal.blogspot.com/2012/09/lukewarmism.html

Fur babies

https://thefederalist.com/2017/05/09/pets-instead-kids-considered-psychiatric-disorder/

Pets aren't your kids

http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/10/pets-are-not-children-so-stop-calling-them-that.html?mid=fb-share-thecut

White guilt antinatalism

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-michael/i-sometimes-dont-want-to-be-white-either_b_7595852.html

Fecundophobia

http://thefederalist.com/2013/10/22/fecundophobia-growing-fear-children-fertile-women/

Epicureanism about Death and Immortality

http://www.andrewmbailey.com/jmf/Epicureanism_Death_Immortality.pdf

HT: James Anderson

From abortion to antinatalism

It’s striking to note that both abortionists and antinatalists deploy the same core argument. Therefore, everyone who supports abortion should become an antinatalist.

Consensual gestation

Prochoice feminist exponents like Harrison and Petchesky claim that the value of fetal life is contingent upon a woman’s free consent and subjective acceptance….If a woman does not consent to invest her pregnancy with meaning or value, then the merely biological process can be freely terminated. Prior to her own free choice and conscious investment, a woman cannot be described as a “mother”…

 

Moreover, in cases of voluntary pregnancy, a woman can withdraw consent if fetal genetic defects or some other problem emerges at any time before birth.

http://tinyurl.com/6bkrdxd

McDonagh reframes the abortion debate by locating the missing piece of the puzzle…as McDonagh’s book explains, abortion rights flow inevitably from women's more established right to consent to what another agent does to their body. Specifically, women have a right to resist an unwanted intrusion by a fetus as well as to receive help from the state to stop such an intrusion.

 

Moving abortion rights from choice to consent has broad legal and cultural ramifications tapping into the very cornerstone of the American political system: consent. McDonagh unravels the consequences of extending to pregnant women the same guarantees of bodily integrity and liberty possessed by others in our society. Specifically, she shows why a woman who does not consent to be made pregnant by a fetus, not only has a right to terminate pregnancy, but why the state violates constitutional due process and equal protection guarantees when it fails to provide her with the same protections against nonconsensual intrusions by a fetus as it provides against nonconsensual intrusions by other parties.

http://tinyurl.com/69q5vfu

Consensual existence

Consent to be Born is Impossible. Suffering, individual death, species extinction, profound disagreement with "the rules of the game", and even human nature itself: All these hardships might be acceptable for all were we, in our pre-conceived state, able to make a fully informed and rational choice about whether to be born, plus have the power to exercise our free choice about the matter. However, this is impossible even in theory; which brings us to the next core reason to not have children: Consent versus Consequences. In this case, it's the lack of consent weighed against substantively plausible consequences.  Given that consent is a central part of civil liberties and human rights, I find it irresponsible to handwave away this core reason.

 

If it were possible to ask this preexistent spirit whether he or she would like to be born, that “pre-person” might well refuse on the grounds that they don’t want to put up with this life’s inevitable bad points, even its most minor discomforts.  Even if they don't mind the "toughness" of our kind of life, they may still find the rules of the game of our kind of life too objectionable to want to participate in this game. They may also be disgusted with the way humans, even fairly decent ones, treat each other at least some of the time This could well cause them to loathe membership in such a species, especially if they realize they themselves are bound to act that way sooner or later despite listening to “the better angels of their nature”.  They may also find existence pointless because we all go back into nonexistence anyway.  If non-existence contains no suffering or wanting, then it’s better to stay in non-existence than to take the chance on existing through what could well be an unsatisfactory life.  They know they will miss out on our life’s pleasures, but they won’t be hurt by life’s miseries either.

 

 

Unfortunately, the above scenario is impossible in reality, even in theory. After all, our hypothetical pre-existing spirit is actually nonexistent. This means the pre-conceived can neither know the rules for living in our world nor the consequences of living in this world.  Neither can they refuse to play the game in the first place agree. In fact, it’s utterly impossible to know beforehand if a potential person would think the Game of Life worth playing given its rules.

 

All this makes giving birth to people tantamount to forcing them into a type of existence they profoundly object to.  Unlike already existing people who do have duties to others, nor can the non-existent cannot harm others by dereliction of those duties; as discussed earlier. If this is the case, then one can argue that forcing a person to exist merely because humanity as a whole wishes to continue its existence amounts to exploitation at best and outright torture at worst; all done in the name of whatever motivation caused the parents to create that child. This remains true even when humanity's survival depends on it.

 

From all this, one can draw two analogies to bringing someone into existence without their consent: forcing someone into a signing a business or other legal contract under duress, and a financial planner investing a client's money into a company the client they objects to.  Few, if any, people will justify either of these actions even if the signer or client did benefit from it.  What makes such actions wrong even if a real benefit comes from it is consent, a vital part of the legal doctrine of "the meeting of the minds"; without which few, if any, legal agreements can be valid.  It doesn't matter if we neither understand nor even know their reasons for opposing entering such an agreement or investing their money in such a company. The fact remains that, for whatever reason, they don't want to do so; which by itself is enough of a reason not to force them into such actions or agreements. So it is with forcing someone into a realm of existence when they, had they been able to do so, refused to come into existence.

http://why-im-sold-on-antinatalism.blogspot.com/2010/09/personal-reasons.html

Freewill theism and antinatalism

As I’ve noted on more than one occasion, antinatalism is the reductio ad absurdum of atheism. But there’s a sense in which antinatalism is also the reductio ad absurdum of freewill theism.

One of the major arguments for antinatalism is that it’s wrong to bring someone into existence without his consent. And that generates a dilemma: you can’t obtain the prior consent of a nonentity. But once you’ve brought him into being, it’s too late for him to withhold consent. Hence, it’s always wrong to bring anyone into existence.

But, of course, that’s the price of admission for contingent beings like you and me. If we are to live at all, then our will depend on factors outside ourselves, on forces beyond our control. That’s the only mode of subsistence available to a creature. It’s either that or nonexistence.

The antinatalist can’t stand the idea of being a creature. Can’t stand the inherent limitations. To be utterly dependent on something else or someone else–like a baby in a crib. He says he’d rather not exist than have to exist on such demeaning terms. If you can’t be God, be nothing.

And isn’t that freewill theism, taken to a logical extreme?  

Crawfishing

Antinatalist Jim Crawford has posted yet another final(?) final response.

http://antinatalism.blogspot.com/2011/04/triablogue-my-final-word.html

Actually, a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ pretty much covers what I was looking for, with perhaps the added codicil in place (which I also posted)-

It may well cover everything he was asking for. However, Crawford acts as though he wrested a fatal concession from our lips. As if that’s sufficient to dispatch Christianity and establish antinatalism.

That’s because ‘normative’ in the context of the reply falls short of ‘objective’ or ‘universal’, a fact I expanded on by saying “ If your personal standard is that a child is better off being tortured for eternity originating in your decision to procreate, then any of my arguments simply don’t apply to you.” It was always a question of personal standards; thus, no equivocation. Normative simply describes a moral position that (I believe) most people subscribe too, a position that I feel stands against the desire to procreate.

i) To say the damned are “tortured” is another key assumption of Crawford’s position. That’s why procreation is too risky. The stakes are too high.

But Crawford needs to justify his assumption that hell is equivalent to “torture.” Where’s the grammatico-historical exegesis?

ii) “Normative” moral standards don’t typically mean person-variable standards. And if Crawford is going to redefine “normative” in such relativistic terms, then he forfeits the right to be judgmental about damnation.

Imaginary people don’t require empathy. Isn’t that rather obvious?

No, it’s not. The speciously obvious appearance is a rhetorical trick. Use a word like “imaginary,” with its fictitious connotations, to make the idea seem ridiculous. But potential kids are hardly equivalent to imaginary people like, let us say, Aurora in Sleeping Beauty.