RE: Pro-life Anti-Christian

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RE: Pro-life Anti-Christian - 10/29/2008 12:23:55 AM

Aswad

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quote:

ORIGINAL: BitaTruble

I would think that an entity which had no apparent issues with destroying entire cities for exhibiting free will, ...

Bzzt... Strip Ezekiel and retry... please?

An entity that, according to the political history of a frequently enslaved and persecuted group, destroyed entire cities for being offensive to said entity. Certainly, if I had the power to level cities with a thought, I would rack up a world record kill count by noon. It would not be their free will that offends me, nor would I try to strip that from them. But I would not mind enacting my will. If that intimidates them into surrendering theirs, then they fail the first test of free will; Heinlein put it well: "You cannot enslave a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

I cannot comprehend any stimulus that might provoke me to attempt the former.

Not that I'm going to speak for my liege as to motives, but you may want to check the assumptions.

quote:

would flood an entire world for exhibiting free will

No. Enlil flooded the world because humanity was living beyond the means of the Earth to sustain them, and were getting rather noxious apart from that. Enki warned Unamapishtu (or whatever his name was), who then built an ark so as to save a few. Afterwards, taking advantage of the slight bit of regret (remorse?) on Enlil's part, Enki mediated a covenant wherein the human race would avoid extinction by exercising birth control, family planning and reasonable farming practices that avoid resource exhaustion. That's the short version, anyhow.

quote:

It's just God's will.

Seems to me that humanity thrives in a causal universe, and has for some reason been endowed with the capacity for rational thought.

There is probably a lesson to be drawn, but it certainly seems to escape most conventional Christians.
And 'in our image' would seem to imply human divinity of a sort.
Free will certainly seems divine to me.

Which is not remotely the same as saying there won't be clashes of wills, or that the weaker will won't lose.

Health,
al-Aswad.

_____________________________

"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.

(in reply to BitaTruble)

RE: Pro-life Anti-Christian - 10/29/2008 12:30:10 AM

Aswad

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quote:

ORIGINAL: kittinSol

Rule thinks so. And why not, after all...

Rule is not alone in that.

Christians and Jews did, until recently.

Judaism was originally polytheistic, almost certainly including a mother goddess equivalent to Ninlil, and a goddess of war that may or may not be the same goddess. The bulk of the "given names" of divine forces in Jewish mythology derive from the Babylonian exile or later. Some early Christians viewed Jesus as Helios, presumably part of a celestial pantheon, and the Gnostic flavors of the time depend strictly on the existance of more than one aeon, if memory serves. Derived faiths have generally preserved some degree of either, while some pared it down to a "two-party system."

Health,
al-Aswad.

_____________________________

"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.

(in reply to kittinSol)

RE: Pro-life Anti-Christian - 10/29/2008 12:38:22 AM

Aswad

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quote:

ORIGINAL: GreedyTop

*adores Aswad*

If we change that to worship, we will be almost a full decade ahead of schedule.

Or was that... ? Oops... never mind. Wrong kink checklist.

Health,
al-Aswad.

_____________________________

"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.

(in reply to GreedyTop)

RE: Pro-life Anti-Christian - 10/29/2008 12:45:06 AM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Aswad

quote:

ORIGINAL: rulemylife

The issue is when human life begins.

You of all people should know how meaningless that question is.

The answer is arbitrary, and can be determined by pissing in the wind and checking which way it's blowing. Life, in the regard you are presenting the question here, is an abstraction over the transition from a kind of benign neoplasm to a seperate vessel, and the abstraction is fluid. Furthermore, the viability of the postpartuitive vessel is zero without external intervention, which is exactly the same as the most commonly used criterion in defining this transition, meaning that integrity would dictate that such a ruling extend the upper limit to the point where the vessel is capable of independent life, not just to a certain week of gestation.

(Pardon the cumbersome language, as I am trying to heed Owner59's advice as regards the ToS.)

Furthermore, you also know that there is more than one issue in the debate. Consider a directed, acyclic condition graph for a moment. Each node is of the conjunctive or disjunctive type, and has an associated condition. Traversal of the graph can terminate when, and only when, the truth value of the composite predicate that it describes has been determined. Along one of the paths, you will find the issue you are raising, which itself is a non-leaf node, unless you confine the question to one of legality, which is reducible to absurdity by appealing to past policies on the matter, such as those extant under the NSDP in the 1930's and -40's.

(Pardon the cumbersome language, as I am trying to be accurate in describing the flaw in the proposed adequacy of the issue you mentioned.)

Health,
al-Aswad.

Hmmmm!

Curious how you keep begging pardon of your cumbersome language yet you keep using it.

While I am duly impressed with your knowledge of obscure vocabulary, I prefer things simple and straightforward.

I do agree that the question of when life begins is arbitrary and may never have a definitive answer. It remains the fundamental issue nonetheless.

< Message edited by rulemylife -- 10/29/2008 1:08:55 AM >

(in reply to Aswad)

RE: Pro-life Anti-Christian - 10/29/2008 12:51:25 AM

Aswad

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quote:

ORIGINAL: kittinSol

If it were simple, Aswad, it wouldn't be annoying.

Hence the qualifier "from that perspective" (i.e. mine).

Don't get me wrong, I have seen many simple perspectives, some of which are even simpler. Few that also have the elegance of avoiding an absolutist point of reference and not raising the stakes, though, which is what I think my perspective brings to the table. I have most certainly been known to err, though, so for the merit in a simple perspective, I will only appeal to the maxim that the important things in life are simple, and the simple things are hard.

Health,
al-Aswad.

_____________________________

"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.

(in reply to kittinSol)

RE: Pro-life Anti-Christian - 10/29/2008 12:59:45 AM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: MadRabbit

Well, I believe that all women on this message board should drive to my house and blow me.

Now this is a belief I can fully support. Only if it's my house, not yours.

(in reply to MadRabbit)

RE: Pro-life Anti-Christian - 10/29/2008 1:00:51 AM

Aswad

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata

How would you know, you never listen to me.

With the exception of a brief, regretted stint, I pay a lot of attention to what you say, Kirata.

In fact, you might as well be part of my conscience (if I still had a conscience in a reasonably conventional sense) as opposing views, gotchas, checks and balances, and- yes- adversarial exchanges, are the essence of what our conscience does. Certainly you have filled that role more than once, and filled it well. That makes you an excellent Satan in my book.

Anyway, consciousness being a late invention strongly supports the notion that internal forces needed to be externalized in order to be discussed back in biblical times. Satan, the adversary ("prosecutor" in modern parlance), seems a perfect fit for the role that a conscience fills. And, certainly, a human conscience can appear somewhat autonomous at times, even distinct from the mind. Thereby, it becomes an excellent candidate for externalization. I still maintain that the layers of meaning in the tale of Job include some cautionary ones, though.

Health,
al-Aswad.

_____________________________

"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.

(in reply to Kirata)

RE: Pro-life Anti-Christian - 10/29/2008 1:09:13 AM

Aswad

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quote:

ORIGINAL: rulemylife

Curious how you keep begging pardon of your cumbersome language yet you keep using it.

Not at all. I saw no recourse but to use it in expressing what I said to Rule. It was not private, so I said it in the thread. It was not particularly accessible to a general audience, so I apologized for that shortcoming, it being a fault on my part. I did not beg any pardon, either, but sincerely requested it from those my fault may have been to the detriment of.

quote:

While I am duly impressed with your knowledge of obscure vocabulary, I prefer things simple and straightforward.

I am nothing if not a simple man.

Sometimes, however, a point cannot be made with sufficient precision without employing terms that retain distinct and specific meanings. For the most part, I believe the meaning of those terms can be adequately inferred by their context when read by a native speaker. A non-native speaker, such as myself, may have to resort to a dictionary for some of them, but that is more of a boon than a burden in the long run and no worse than including native idioms.

quote:

I do agree that the question of when life begins is arbritrary and may never have a definitive answer. It remains the fundamental issue nonetheless.

It is not necessarily the fundamental issue. In fact, I would contend that it is not, and that making a practically meaningless (in the sense of undecidable) issue the fundamental one in a debate is a flawed strategy if anything other than a venting of passionately held views is desired. And in my experience, the latter generates far more heat and smoke than actual light to be shed on the matter.

Health,
al-Aswad.

_____________________________

"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.

(in reply to rulemylife)

RE: Pro-life Anti-Christian - 10/29/2008 2:14:52 AM

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General point

Abortion should be a personal choice of a woman and hopefully she would make her choice based on a rational decision of what is right for her because morals and god should have nothing to do with whether a woman decides to have an abortion or not.

Most rational people (and the vast majority of pro-choice women) concede that there becomes a point in a pregnancy when the fetus becomes an unborn child that needs protecting when it becomes ethical to protect the child that has mutated from a fetus.

Of course religious people won't agree with that but when have religious people ever tried to be rational anyway, the mere fact they are religious means they have given up on trying to be rational. Though they may have a point on one level, we can never have all the information nor have we the perception of existence to make rational decisions in the niche of life which we inhabit. It doesn''t have to stop us trying to be rational creatures however.

< Message edited by meatcleaver -- 10/29/2008 2:22:04 AM >

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(in reply to Aswad)

RE: Pro-life Anti-Christian - 10/29/2008 2:21:49 AM

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A woman has the right to choose. Every woman has the right to choose.
Why that decision should be in any way altered by a book written in the bronze age by a bunch of men who chose not to have anything to do with women is beyond me.

(in reply to philosophy)

RE: Pro-life Anti-Christian - 10/29/2008 2:23:56 AM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: tweedydaddy

A woman has the right to choose. Every woman has the right to choose.
Why that decision should be in any way altered by a book written in the bronze age by a bunch of men who chose not to have anything to do with women is beyond me.

It was written in the bronze age but its origins were in the stone age!

We like to think we are a modern sophisticated culture yet we seem to have to keep referring back to stone age superstition.

_____________________________

There are fascists who consider themselves humanitarians, like cannibals on a health kick, eating only vegetarians.

(in reply to tweedydaddy)

RE: Pro-life Anti-Christian - 10/29/2008 2:38:59 AM

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I see the argument has surfaced that men should not be allowed to "have a say" on the grounds that they cannot become pregnant.
The principle underlying this is weak in the extreme.
It follows that only murderers should judge murderers or that men should have no say in bringing up children Is that what is wanted ?

Also someone claims. that morality is subjective but justice is not.
Both are interwined and can only be subjectively decided.
Ethics as I understand it is the study of morals. So that could well be objective.

In principle I believe abortion is wrong and immoral.
In practice I would have to accept it but in nowhere near the numbers that occur now. The problem is that to decide whether any given abortion should be allowed would require an expensive intrusive bureaucracy.

Whether one side or the other of the debate is anti christian I dont really care very much.Arguments should stand or fall on their intrinsic merits and ability to sway sufficient numbers in their favour. Disagreements over time have provided sufficient reason for groups to kill one another.
I am confident that that particular sport will continue long into the future.

(in reply to StrictnSaucy)

RE: Pro-life Anti-Christian - 10/29/2008 2:52:53 AM

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Please don't forget we Episcopalians....There would be no Christian Church for me without them.
Born and raised inside the church and still attending 49 years later and I know I would have left the others a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time ago!

(in reply to GreedyTop)

RE: Pro-life Anti-Christian - 10/29/2008 6:39:33 AM

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seems a bit redundant to argue for or against abortion on principle if, where it is legal, only those with sufficient funds may access it regardless of need or other circumstances, and if, where it is illegal, it will be secured by whatever means are necessary regardless.

seems especially redundant, and not a little incongruous, to argue the point as a principle on the basis of a source which seems to make no distinction about the inherent rights and wrongs of taking life or not taking life, but rather takes a utilitarian stance on what will best benefit itself and its own in this regard.

E

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In a test against the leading brand, 9 out of 10 participants couldnt tell the difference. Dumbasses.

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RE: Pro-life Anti-Christian - 10/29/2008 9:29:16 AM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Aswad

Not at all. I saw no recourse but to use it in expressing what I said to Rule. It was not private, so I said it in the thread. It was not particularly accessible to a general audience, so I apologized for that shortcoming, it being a fault on my part. I did not beg any pardon, either, but sincerely requested it from those my fault may have been to the detriment of.

You didn't say it to Rule, you said it to me. You can scroll up and verify that. It does get confusing when we are both on the same thread with similar screen names.

quote:

It is not necessarily the fundamental issue. In fact, I would contend that it is not, and that making a practically meaningless (in the sense of undecidable) issue the fundamental one in a debate is a flawed strategy if anything other than a venting of passionately held views is desired. And in my experience, the latter generates far more heat and smoke than actual light to be shed on the matter.

Health,
al-Aswad.

Yes, as I said, there is and probably never will be a clear answer. You say that the question of when life begins is not the issue but you don't state what you believe the issue to be.

(in reply to Aswad)

RE: Pro-life Anti-Christian - 10/29/2008 11:47:00 AM

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Isn't foetus spelt foetus and thus 'feticide' should be renamed 'foeticide'

otherwise it sounds like someone is going around killing people who derive pleasure from inanimate objects.

I know it's a small point in the grand scheme of things but it needs to be considered.

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RE: Pro-life Anti-Christian - 10/29/2008 12:00:42 PM

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It is spelt foetus, unless you live in the US...they routinely lose the "o", in medical terms like foetus, hoemoglobin, haemorrhoids. etc, its the same as spelling neighbour as neighbor,flavour as flavor:) etc
Lucy

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RE: Pro-life Anti-Christian - 10/29/2008 12:02:27 PM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: SL4V3M4YB3

Isn't foetus spelt foetus

Fetus is correct in American English, alternatively foetus especially in British English.

K.

(in reply to SL4V3M4YB3)

RE: Pro-life Anti-Christian - 10/29/2008 1:02:39 PM

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Damnit you people ruin my joke.

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RE: Pro-life Anti-Christian - 10/29/2008 3:50:21 PM

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quote:

ORIGINAL: cjan

Interesting how so many who oppose abortion, of any kind and under all circumstances, just as vigorously support the death penalty.

(Just for the record...most fetuses haven't had an ongoing history of shooting a 7-11 clerk for a pack of smokes).

(in reply to cjan)

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