AndreusMaximus
Master
I think I'm getting more and more confused here.I don't see any bold text. It's all bold, so nothing is bold.
I'll address the absolute morals vs transient morals though. Absolute morals transcend time and culture. That's why I can use universality to treat a moral as absolute. Transient morals are localized to a given time and/or culture/society. So I'm not a moral relativist. There are absolute morals. Murder is an absolute moral. Virtually every society across time and culture has that as a moral. Even cannibals have a concept of murder. Some people you have a right to eat. Some you don't.
But, the claim that abortion is always murder depends a lot on the "at conception" belief, which as I said, I don't believe there is a non-religious rationale for. That doesn't make it bad. Like I said earlier, not every logically derived thing is good. Sometimes we need to override logic with other ways of thinking. In my view religion evolved and served a purpose, but it's unclear that we can supplant that purpose with something else and not destroy ourselves.
Before I can try to address your counterpoints, I think I need to step back and ask exactly what your position is regarding laws based on the belief of life an conception. At first I thought you were saying that laws should only ever be based on what can be logically/rationally derived without making any reference to religion or religious concepts. But that now seems at odds with your statements that "...not every logically derived thing is good." and "...it's unclear that we can supplant that purpose [of religion] with something else and not destroy ourselves."
Based on those two quotes of yours, doesn't it then logically follow that sometimes society would need laws that are based on religious thinking, and not on secular rationality alone? I'm not even sure I would make such a claim, though...