Atheists who want to be liked by other atheists cite Richard Dawkins. Atheists who want to be treated as intellectually sophisticated do not. Liberals who want to be liked by other liberals site Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Liberals who want to be treated as intellectually sophisticated do not or at least, should not.
Dawkins is best known for wandering outside of his area of expertise and loudly and confidently pontificating about things he is unqualified to speak on. He does this by presenting age old objections to religion and acting like they are some novel concept that he and his fellow men of science in all of their brilliance, have discovered. More damning than being ignorant is being willfully ignorant and Dawkins shows this when he proves he has no idea what is theistic counterparts actually believe (Exhibit A: the flying spaghetti monster).
Now, Sotomayor. Despite being emerged in a world of argument and debate, she revealed herself on Wednesday to be a completely unserious person, saying this:
There are several things wrong here. First is that every law has proponents who can give some religious reason for their support. Whether they choose to admit this or not is another matter. If it is a religious idea that life begins at conception that is no basis for striking down Mississippi’s pro-life law.
Second, there are good philosophical and etymological reasons to believe life begins at conception. As I wrote in September, “Begin, etymologically speaking, means to originate or to come into existence.” When blue interacts with yellow, a new thing called “green” comes into existence that is separate from the “parents.” When sperm meets egg, a new being is created. You do not have to be all that religious to know this.
What is a fetus? People on the left seem to think that if you call the unborn a fetus instead of a baby, you have out-scienced the opposition. But, this would be like saying a male is not a male until he reaches puberty because part of maleness is the ability to grow facial hair. Zygote, embryo, fetus, baby, toddler, teen, adult, elder, are all just descriptive terms used to describe the same being at different points in time.
Sotomayor accuses pro-lifers of assuming the fetal stage of development is part of life, but she is assuming it is not, which is her opinion (and not a very well informed one). Whether their opinions are religious or not, justices are supposed to keep their opinions at home. The question before Sotomayor is whether or not Roe v. Wade was correctly decided. She should leave the pseudo-science and strawman burning to others.