What is the meaning of life for the atheist
in [Physics]
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From: Otto Bahn on 5 Aug 2010 18:21 "Excognito" <stuartbruff(a)gmail.com> wrote > The question > is when does a fetus become a human being. > ANSWER THAT or shut up. At the moment it is born, according to the law and the Constitution says that all person's born in the US are citizens of the US. It makes no mention of the pre-born, nor post living. he US. It > makes no mention of the pre-born, nor post living. Incorrect. Several states have laws on fetal homicide, some of which define it as murder, some others as manslaughter; I haven't looked in detail, but at least one explicitly contains an exemption for legal abortion. See http://www.ncsl.org/default.aspx?tabid=14386 (link posted previously in this thread) ---- Yeah, some states have laws saying killing a pregnant woman is a double homicide. Regardless, he's point is silly. The Constitution is just defining US born babies as citizens, not people. The distinction between citizen and non-citizen is what is being made, not people verses non-people. --oTTo--
From: SkyEyes on 5 Aug 2010 20:12 On Aug 1, 8:22 pm, "Dr. HotSalt" <alien8...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On Jul 31, 11:17 am, SkyEyes <skyey...(a)cox.net> wrote: > > > On Jul 30, 4:55 am, "n...(a)bid.nes" <alien8...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > > I am anti-abortion. For me it's not about spirituality. > > > > Abortion is not only murder (causing the death of an innocent) by > > > human law, it is a crime against the species. > > > And slavery *isn't*? Because, face it, that's what forcing a woman to > > have a child she does not want amounts to. > > Nowadays we know what causes pregnancy. There is little excuse for > "I didn't know". You *are* aware, I trust, that birth control (even when used religiously) sometimes fails? > Also, doesn't "I don't want" sound just the least bit > selfish? With the population of the planet currently at 7 billion (we hit number back in April), how is *not* wanting to contribute another human "selfish"? It seems to me that the selfish ones are the ones who insist on having children - not just one, but three, six, nine, or ever 19 (the Duggars, anyone?). That's the cultural pressure I was talking about: "You're selfish if you don't want children!" Rather absurd, given the population. And nobody ever says that to men, only to women. It's the last great prejudice. > Do you define facing the consequences of one's actions > "slavery"? > > > In addition, a State that controls human reproduction is, by > > definition, a large, intrusive government. > > I can't recall saying anything about The State. You didn't. I was just pointing it out for the peanut gallery. > So happens I'm an > Anarchist. The mere concept of government is, by your definition, > slavery. To you, perhaps. I'm sure there's somewhere on earth you can go where you can live by yourself. > > I'm not even going to go into the fact that the earth is already > > overpopulated > > The whole planet? By whose metric? Only a certain percentage of the planet is fit for human habitation, in case you haven't noticed. It would negate the problem, if we could all breathe in salt water, or live for any length of time above 16,000 feet, or we could do without water indefinitely and inhabit the Sahara and the Gobi and other such places. Unfortunately, we cannot. And for every human, a certain amount of infrastructure is required. (Unless, that is, you propose that we all go back to hunting and gathering as a lifestyle.) The infrastructure requires land. So it's not the absolute number of people who exist that's the problem, it's the number of people and the infrastructure required to keep them alive and in some kind of lifestyle most of us would accept as minimal. You think they're making a big fuss over oil? Wait until the wars for water really get going. It's already started: access to resources, especially water and tillable land, is the primary driving force for the conflict in Darfur. Out here here where I live, on the Sonoran Desert, we've used up all the ground water - and instead of rationing water, they've voted a "toilet to tap" system into being. > > and that if every unwanted fetus were to be born > > We can quibble "bit of tissue" terminology all day, but I notice you > haven't said "it isn't murder". Abortion is *not* murder. There, happy now? Would you like me to say it again, louder, maybe? > > it would simply hasten the times that Thomas Malthus described so > > vividly. There is no law or mechanism that makes humans immune from > > those horrors. > > Sure there is; we just need to quit screwing around with idiocies > like Social Programs that don't (and as set up and implemented, can't) > work, Oh, jeez, I'm dealin' with a Rightard. <Sigh> Social programs can, and *do*, work just fine, bucko. One of the most successful in the U.S. is the Head Start program. And if you'd like to see more, I'd direct you to examine the Scandinavian countries, all of whom have comprehensive social programs *and* thriving economies. > organized warfare, organized religion You'll get no argument from me there. > (despite appearances, > they're not quite the same thing) and figure out how to get the hell > off the planet. Malthus works in a closed system, just like > thermodynamics and for similar reasons. Open the system and he's > irrelevant. Indeed, you are correct. However, that "get off the planet" thing isn't going to happen any time soon - certainly not in our lifetimes. (Unless, of course, your age is around 12, something I very much doubt.) Brenda Nelson, A.A.#34 BAAWA Knight EAC Professor of Feline Thermometrics and Cat-Herding skyeyes nine at cox dot net
From: SkyEyes on 5 Aug 2010 20:18 On Aug 2, 6:24 am, Excognito <stuartbr...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On Aug 2, 1:45 pm, Jimbo <ckdbig...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > > On Aug 1, 11:22 pm, "Dr. HotSalt" <alien8...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > > On Jul 31, 11:17 am, SkyEyes <skyey...(a)cox.net> wrote: > > > > > On Jul 30, 4:55 am, "n...(a)bid.nes" <alien8...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > I am anti-abortion. For me it's not about spirituality. > > > > > > Abortion is not only murder (causing the death of an innocent) by > > > > > human law, it is a crime against the species. > > > > > And slavery *isn't*? Because, face it, that's what forcing a woman to > > > > have a child she does not want amounts to. > > > > Nowadays we know what causes pregnancy. > > > Not even remotely the point. > > I think you'll find it's closely related (taxi!). I may be wrong, > but I suspect the implication is that if one knows what leads to > pregnancy then it should be possible to interfere with the process of > becoming pregnant in the first place, hence leading to abortion being > (in general) a moot point for the large class of people who currently > find it 'necessary'. As I pointed out to "Dr HotSalt" upthread, all current forms of birth control sometimes fail - even when used properly. I was using not one, but *two* forms of birth control (The Pill and the verkakten Dalkon Shield) in 1973, and they both failed at the same time. Trust me, I did *not* "forget" to take my pill. We'll give up abortion rights when (1) birth control works 100% of the time with no side effects; (2) birth control is provided free to any woman or man who wants it; (3) when no woman (who may otherwise not be sexually active) is *ever* raped and when no underage girl is *ever* molested. Until then, we'll fight to keep our rights. Brenda Nelson, A.A.#34 BAAWA Knight EAC Professor of Feline Thermometrics and Cat-Herding skyeyes nine at cox dot net
From: Excognito on 5 Aug 2010 20:25 On 5 Aug, 23:21, "Otto Bahn" <Ladybrr...(a)GroinToHell.com> wrote: > "Excognito" <stuartbr...(a)gmail.com> wrote > > > The question > > is when does a fetus become a human being. > > ANSWER THAT or shut up. > > At the moment it is born, according to the law and the Constitution > says that all person's born in the US are citizens of the US. It > makes no mention of the pre-born, nor post living. he US. It > > > makes no mention of the pre-born, nor post living. > > Incorrect. Several states have laws on fetal homicide, some of which > define it as murder, some others as manslaughter; I haven't looked in > detail, but at least one explicitly contains an exemption for legal > abortion. Seehttp://www.ncsl.org/default.aspx?tabid=14386 (link > posted previously in this thread) > > ---- > > Yeah, some states have laws saying killing a pregnant woman > is a double homicide. > > Regardless, he's point is silly. The Constitution is just defining > US born babies as citizens, not people. The distinction between > citizen and non-citizen is what is being made, not people verses > non-people. > > --oTTo-- I agree with this position, based upon my particular religious, scientific and experiential background. However, not everybody does and I also believe it necessary to try to understand the various positions to both challenge my own beliefs and to counter arguments I disagree with (intuition (gut-feel) *may* be right but may also be wrong and needs to be backed up by more objective reasoning). The extreme positions are that the unborn entity is not legally or morally human until it is delivered, or that it is human from the moment of conception. The middle ground attempts to define humanity as beginning at some developmental stage (based on, say, viability probability or brain maturity). This subject really does need sorting out as there are a number of human rights issues that are stalled due to (legitimate) fears of both sides of the pro-life and pro-choice argument. The definition of what distinguishes a human being worthy of protection by law impinges upon many 'freedoms' the mother-in-potential has. For example, there is no law (*) against drinking to excess in the privacy of your home, but extending legal protection to a 2nd or 3rd trimester child could see the woman charged with some felony and even jailed for the physical protection of her unborn child. Now there are those who would say 'too damn right' and those who would howl the houses down about infringement of personal liberty. And that's just for 'normal' development, once one introduces other cultural factors it gets even more complicated - should gender selection by abortion be countenanced, do 'severely' handicapped unborn children have different rights to life, can one carry out genetic 'enhancement', etc? However, getting back to the point about where we become human, ... It's not this simple and the analogy's not that tight, but consider the following. A law is passed protecting a certain species of butterfly and a certain amphibian. Would it be a legitimate defence to claim that it was OK to stamp on the associated larvae as they weren't, technically, butterflies or newts? What if it were a species of bird and somebody crushed the eggs? What if it were a species of mammal and somebody dropped a 'day after' pill in its food? I'm afraid I have this nagging feeling that the pro-choice attempts to define humanity are driven by self-serving needs rather than an impartial attempt to answer the question; ie, an attempt to get the 'right' answer through not having to accept that abortion involves the destruction of a human life. (*) By this, I mean in general in UK, US and European law - the fact that missisillybilly, the middle shegrooms islands or the canton of moronovia have by-laws against touching beer bottles on Wednesday is not significant to the thrust of the argument.
From: SkyEyes on 5 Aug 2010 20:25
On Aug 5, 9:45 am, "Otto Bahn" <Ladybrr...(a)GroinToHell.com> wrote: > Competing rights?! Murder is murder. It's either a human being or > it isn't. A first-trimester fetus is *not* a human "being," although it is human tissue. It doesn't even have a functioning nervous system. > Killing a human being is the worst thing you can do. Actually, try wrapping your pointy little head around the fact that there are way, *waaaaaay* worse things than merely not existing, especially if you're just a blob of tissue that's never yet come close to consciousness or sentience. > The question > is when does a fetus become a human being. Up until the beginning of the third trimester, fetii do not even have functioning nervous systems. Without a nervous system, they are not human "beings," they're merely human *tissue*. Brenda Nelson, A.A.#34 BAAWA Knight EAC Professor of Feline Thermometrics and Cat-Herding skyeyes nine at cox dot net |