This is funny! -- No worries about McCain in 2008.

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Then you better give up your narcissistic secular humanist belief system because it is nothing more than a godless religion.
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A godless religion? Are we talking about a philosophy then?

Everybody has a "map of reality" that they live by whether it is thought out and codified or just happened by experience. That is all religion is, a map to help you find your way.
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That is a very loose and strange definition of religion. I think you are talking about a philosophy instead. Many choose to accept a particular religion as their philosophy, in which case I can see your point.

However, there are drastic practical differences between a philosophy and a religious dogma. A philosophy can change as a result of objective experience. A religious dogma cannot. Just look at all the dancing Rome has been doing in the past century or so, maintaining the bible can never be wrong, just particular people's interpretation of it.

If you think science is somehow immune to the errors and leaps of faith you see in religion then you are naive indeed.
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Science is not a philosophy. It is a method of objective investigation and the resulting body of knowledge. Science grows richer, more accurate, and more powerful with experience and further investigation. If you want to know how things really work in nature, you should study scientific results.

A leap of faith in science means you try something new and risky. If it succeeds, you then figure out why it did, you prove reproducibility, prove the hypothesis etc. A leap of faith in religion requires no verification, because the very nature of belief requires no proof. Science gives you laws that work over and over again. Religion talks about "miracles" that happened centuries ago in a foreign country, with no evidence other than the retold accounts of obviously biased observers.
 
I think that I will vote for the Libertarian canidate this election. I am so :barf: of the two parties in power now that I cannot vote for them and feel like I am serving my country in the best way possible. It is time for a party that does not have power on the brain. While I tilt towards the Republicans, party members like McCain make me sick. And the Democrats. They are just pathetic.
 
I've never heard "the religious right" or any anti-abortion advocate say, "it is okay to destroy them." I've only heard them say the opposite.
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Many talk the talk, but don't walk the walk. All the televangelists, bible-thumpers, sunday racketeers, and certain compassionate presidents can band up together and pay for permanent storage of the unused eggs of from all fertility clinics in the country. Why don't they do that? It is well within their means, in fact it would be a pittance. Why then? Because deep inside themselves they know a fertilized egg is not a person yet. That is why they have done nothing to save them.

No human person should be "leftover."
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It still remains to be established that a fertilized egg is already a human being. Taking into account its inability to become a human baby without the body of the mother, it is an extremely shaky argument.
 
If secular godless schools are so positive why have they failed so miserably?
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Because education is a privilege, not an entitlement.
Because something free has no value.
Because the parents are supposed to bring up their kids, not the school teachers are.
Because egalitarianism taken to the extreme stifles achievement.
Because people are born with equal rights but not equal abilities.
Because freedom of thought is a heavy burden for most.

None of the above has anything to do with the secular nature of our schools. It has a lot to do with leftism. Foreigners outstripping native highschoolers in US colleges overwhelmingly went to elite secular schools in their old countries.
 
Hell, I've never heard the religious right have a lot of problem with fertility clinics, despite the number of fertilized eggs that are destroyed in the process of the more extreme fertility treatments.

It seems that "life begins at conception" only when it's an excuse to deny women access to things like the "morning after pill", not when zygotes are routinely killed off in the name of "fertility." And it only takes a rudimentary knowledge of Biology and a passing interest in philosophy to notice this problem.

But that said, can this be moved to a debate between the Evangelical Atheists and the Fundamentalist Christians? Because I'm sure I'm not the only one whose give-a-damn's been busted for a long time...:p
 
I've never heard the religious right have a lot of problem with fertility clinics, despite the number of fertilized eggs that are destroyed in the process of the more extreme fertility treatments.
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Then you ain't been listenin', ArmedBear.

CAnnoneer, you seem to think that you can disprove your opponents' argument by attacking their behavior. You may not have noticed it, but this is the ad hominem fallacy. By example, no matter how much dirt you can dredge up on Jerry Falwell, even if he is guilty of every charge, this does not invalidate his ideas. They must stand or fall on their own merits. Again, I don't know a lot about the man, so I can't defend him. I just use him as an example.

So if those of us who oppose abortion do a lousy job of living out our beliefs, it doesn't mean that these beliefs are wrong. On this point of freezing embryos, there is a program or programs to adopt such, and you are probably right that more should be done. The bottom line, though, is that the people who created these children are responsible to care for them. Of course the whole system is terrible; methods that produce so many orphans are simply wrong, and cannot be justified by a couple's desire to have children. However, any program to adopt or freeze embryos must compete with the poor, unwed mothers we anti-abortioners are expected to care for, and their children, the pregnant girls who need medical care, and the adoption of babies who might have been aborted but came to term. All of these are groups your side complains we should care more about, and we are trying to do so. But then we are also using our money in court battles and campaign contributions and lobbying designed to restore the human rights of the pre-born. At the same time, many of us are also contributing time and money to RKBA efforts, opposing the Patriot Act, funding third parties, etc. So, your complaint is only partially right.

Because deep inside themselves they know a fertilized egg is not a person yet.
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Wait now, should we trust in science, or in this sort of inner intuition you propose?


It still remains to be established that a fertilized egg is already a human being. Taking into account its inability to become a human baby without the body of the mother, it is an extremely shaky argument.
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No, it does not remain to be established. The offspring of two human beings is always a human being. Its helplessness, size, development - these mean nothing. Infants outside the womb will die quickly without help, are far smaller than adults, not as developed, and yet we consider them no less human. There is simply no bright line other than conception, and we have no justification to assume non-person status and kill these individuals because they don't seem human to us. That is pre-scientific thinking.
 
And I say that a fertilized egg is a fertilized egg that could become a human being. My opinion is as valid as yours.

Do you have any idea how many fertilized eggs never implant? Do you mourn each one as a human being? Do you hold a funeral for an ectopic pregnancy?

But I won't try to disprove someone's religious belief. There's no point, no matter what the belief is.
 
sorry Eleven Mike, I'm gonna have to say that a fertilized egg is simply a fertilized egg.

That fertilized egg is not going to be able to sustain itself outside the womb.
 
And I say that a fertilized egg is a fertilized egg that could become a human being. My opinion is as valid as yours.
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Not if you're wrong.

Do you have any idea how many fertilized eggs never implant? Do you mourn each one as a human being? Do you hold a funeral for an ectopic pregnancy?
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Answer to first question: How is this relevant?
Answer to second question: I wouldn't say I mourn them, but I don't mourn every adult who dies either. We generally mourn those we know or know of, or we'd be in mourning every minute of the day.
Answer to third question: What would this prove?

You have proved nothing but your own shallow thinking.

But I won't try to disprove someone's religious belief. There's no point, no matter what the belief is.
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I don't expect to sway you from your personal beliefs either.
 
"My own shallow thinking?"

LOL

As if you know anything about my thinking. Go back to church and let them tell you all about MY thinking, sharp guy.:rolleyes:

I wasn't trying to prove anything, other than the fact that, if a fertilized egg is a human being, then we are surrounded by an incredible amount of death that we don't even acknowledge. You pretend that a fertilized egg is a human being when it is convenient to an oversimplified belief system, then pretend that it is not when it would be inconvenient.

Go ahead; I don't much care, until you try to force your unfounded beliefs on me using American law. Then I care. That's one reason I have weapons. Oh, don't worry, I think the Jihadists are a greater threat than the "Christian" fundies at the moment, but we all have our limits when it comes to being forced to live under oppression, no matter whom the oppressors.

I was brainwashed by the Fundies once, a long, long time ago. Been there, done that, have the t-shirt, know all about it.
 
I'd love for you to tell me how my argument is incorrect or arbitrary, Mike.

Is the fertilized egg a human yet?
If you took it out of a woman, does it still grow into a human?
 
You pretend that a fertilized egg is a human being when it is convenient to an oversimplified belief system, then pretend that it is not when it would be inconvenient.
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Where have I pretended that it is not human? My mourning or holding funerals do not determine whether someone is human. The premature deaths of blastocysts do not change their species. The "oversimplification" here is in saying, "It doesn't seem human, so it is OK to kill it for any reason."

I wasn't trying to prove anything...
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If your post was not intended to undermine my anti-abortion position, then what was the point?

we all have our limits when it comes to being forced to live under oppression
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Laws against murder are oppressive? If you don't want other people's morality imposed upon you, then you will have to live by yourself, I'm afraid, or be a dictator. In any other case, you must live according to what others think is right. This is why have laws to protect our rights - the idea of human rights is a moral concept imposed upon those who violate them.
 
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Clean 97, I have answered your question in other posts, but the answers are yes and no, in that order. Saying your standard is abitrary is another way of saying that it makes no sense. Why is species or personhood dependent on the ability to survive in a particular environment, level of development or location? This is poor science, and worse public policy.
 
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"Lets get back on topic.

Abortion discussions get threads locked.

It is indeed strange, that on a thread entitled "Legal and Political" any issue can be discussed that is a Legal Issue, or a Political issue, except Abortion, which is one of the main party platforms, of one of the major policital parties.

Abortion, is a topic that is both a political issue, and a legal issue.

Any thoughts as to why discussion of Abortion on a "Legal and Political" issue thread, would be shut down?
 
Well, strictly speaking, abortion is not gun-related. The counter-argument goes that anything concerning civil rights and infringement thereof is ultimately gun-related, because in the final analysis when negotiations fail, it always goes down to guns and who is more willing to use them.

To make it gun-relevant, I'd say I second ArmedBear's viewpoint that the really offensive part of the fundie's behavior is trying to use American law to impose unto others what their particular dystopic fantasy happens to be. To resist the formation of a theocracy and thereby defend ones' freedoms and rights, many of us are willing, if pushed enough, to take up arms against the enemies domestic.
 
CAnnoneer, you seem to think that you can disprove your opponents' argument by attacking their behavior.
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Hehehe. Who is kidding whom? Last time I checked, one of the major tenets of fundies is that we the unbelievers are going straight to hell, as we deserve for our unrepented sins, where we will surely be subject to all sorts of inequities by devils and daemons until the end of time. We are consistently and viciously attacked as amoral, unethical, decadent, and the cause of any and all problems in the modern world. We have no "values". I guess stuffing our pockets full of people's hard-earned money in exchange for fear, lies, and false hopes is "values" we do not share.

As far as their ideas go, and their stand-alone worth, please give a historical example of a successful theocracy that did not turn into an irrational nightmare. Please explain how the same fate will be avoided by Falwel's version, especially if run by people like him.
 
Mike,
Your reasoning depends on the belief that "life" begins at conception. While the mass of dividing cells that is a blastocyst is alive, it is no different than the live skin cells on your arm.

The anti-abortion group likes to ignore that and call it alive in a legal sense when it just isn't true. That blastocyst will eventually become a human, but it isn't one yet. Its just dividing cells. Thats where viability comes in. Once the organism becomes viable outside the womb is a better determination of its status.

Personhood as you put it, has been used for many years to determine if someone lives or dies. In a more recent example, Terri Schiavo was taken off life-support because of her persistent vegitative state. The doctors acted on order of her husband (without her express consent) to end her life. This was more about quality of life and a woman's wishes, where abortion comes before such an organism becomes a living human in the legal sense.

CAnnoneer
AMEN brother. ;)
 
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