---Naturally, most evolutionist do not believe in God so he is pushed out of the debate rendering the debate useless.---
Actually no. Strict creationists are a minority in Christianity: the majority of Christians agree that evolution occured to produce the life we see today. They simply happen to believe that it was "gods" method of creation, that god ensouled man at some point, etc.
---So when a evolutionist says, "But what about...." or "But how can..." the creationist answer can and will always be God.---
In other words, it's an unfalisiable hypothesis. But anyone could play that game if they were willing to stoop that low. Once someone starts playing the "anything I say is possible to fit or save my theory is possible" game, it isn't just the end of scientific discussion, it's the end of a rational and honest discussion.
---Are there any unbiased opinions about this issue? A Christian (Jew, Muslim, or anybody else believing in divine beings, I suppose) is most likely to be biased against evolution.---
Wrong. The majority of Christians and Jews believe in evolution too. I don't know about Muslims for sure, so I won't make claims I can't support.
---There are some who propose that maybe God directs evolution but I'll ignore them for now.---
And in doing so, you're ignoring the MAJORITY. Creationism is actually largely a phenomenon of American fundamentalism.
--- If God does not exist, then things had to simply happen. If God does not exist, then evolution must be true. Therefore the question is not evolution vs creation as much as it is whether or not God exists.---
It's ridiculous to draw a logical conclusion with universal scope when you just got through saying you'd ignore the majority of people who would disprove this false dilemna. Like it or not, the question of whether god exists, and whether evolution happens, are two separate questions.
But unfortunately, I'm not sure that number of wisdom teeth is strictly genetic. One of my old high scool teachers was a twin: he had no wisdom teeth, while his brother had all of them. I think the formation of the teeth might have more to do with chance variations in embrology than a strict coding for "number of teeth."
The term "evolution" can indeed be misleading, if "evolution" implies to you some sort of goal. But it's NOT incorrect in the sense you mean it here.
---The truth is that 'evolution' is entirely random.---
No. The production of variation is not produced by "evolution." Evolution works in part BECAUSE of random variation, but evolution itself is not "random" in the sense that it could go in any direction. Quite the opposite: evolution is all about the fact that the environment shapes the particular direction by "selection."
So why would you make such a gross error in your very statement of what evolution is all about?...oh wait, then I saw your post title, and my question was answered.
You also don't seem to understand how mutation works, in conjunction with embryology. DNA is NOT a blueprint for an organism: it is more like a recipe. Changing some code is not akin to directly changing the physical construction of a creature.
--- 99.9% of the time it produces unviable offspring.---
Hunh? Says who? It seems to me as if the vast majority (even more than 99%) of human offspring is viable.
1) Does demonstrating that some people who have thought about evolution are racists in any way support the idea that evolution (an empirical, not judgemental, theory) is racist?
2) Does your post provide any argument against the evidence for evolution itself?
3) Do a few quotes demonstrate that even the majority of evolutionary theorists, even in the periods you quote from (mostly pre 20th century, with the only even close to present one being someone quoting from the Bible, not Darwin!) were straight racists?
4) Does it in any way support the idea that people today who agree evolution happening (including the majoity of Christians) are racist?
5) Does the fact that I could easily quote any number of racist statements from Christians supporting racism with biblical quotes prove that "Christianity is racism's best friend?"
I would submit that the answer to all these questions is no, and as such, your post is nothing more than ideological rhetoric. You have 1) no evidence against the theory of evolution, and 2) no evidence that evolution is an inherently racist theory, or that studying it leads to racism. So your only alternative for selling your views is to try and attack it ad hominem. Sorry, no deal.
And, back in reality: before Darwin came along, the only two viable theories of Creation pertaining to race were this: either god had created stupid black people seperately from white people, or God created people in general, and black people are what happens when white civilization decays and degrades over time. Does that sound better to you? Two unquestionably racist theories?
Now, was Darwin racist? Yep. So was virtually everyone else in the world at the time, black and white, in including every prominent civil rights leader. But his theory of evolution came along, and after endless millenia of the human history of thinking racial "types" were real, some real evolutionary science was done on the matter, and racism finally crumbled. So far from being the cause of racism, evolution was the harbinger of its doom.
Were the Nazis racist? Oh boy yes. Did they use evolutionary arguments? Yes. But they also used religious ones, especially favoring the writings of Martin Luther. Does that mean that there is no god? No.
More likely, they misapplied and mangled things. They operated under theories that we now know to be very wrong. How do we know? Not from reading scripture! We know it from actually STUDYING it with the tools and insights given to us by evolutionary theory!
---[Note: The same essential chemical elements are found in humans that are in the soil.]---
Really? Just as evolution would predict? You would think that, to make sure we understood that he had created us, God would have made us out of a substance more otherworldly. Instead, we have bodies which not only contain only elements from the environment around us, but also closely resemble all other life on the planet...
---Or to be more precise, evolution for the better is over.---
For the "better" what? One of the insights of evolution is there isn't an inherently an objective "better"- it just adapts to what's there to adapt to. If we can correct diseases, what's any longer so bad about them existing?
---It's not a meme. That's like saying 1+2=3 is a meme.---
But it is: it's just not likely one likely to catch on in an environment dominated by higher-level memes that select for rationality, or dislike triviality.
Yep: evolution is utterly blind to the future of a given environment. It's not on it's way anywhere, at least in the sense of thoughtfully preparing for it. Dinosaurs represented an incredible dominant strategy... until the climate changed. Suddenly whole lines of reptiles were unfit to survive, leaving room in their niches for mammals.
But even this doesn't mean that mammals were "less" fit before they started to dominate the globe: they got on fine in their respective niches even with the dinosaurs.
---The problem with a guy like Jones is that when people start to base strategies or policies on such delusions, we all lose out. Do you think we are losing no great artistic or scientific minds in the African tragedy of AIDS? ---
Sure, but we are probably losing just as many not so talented people as well. Selection in things like AIDS is not going to be based on talent, it's going to be based on the pressures of the disease. At worst, a pressure like AIDS is going to select for those who are either biologically immune, or are less likely to contract the disease sexually.
So while you're right that this article is out of whack, there is SOME validity to the idea that modern society severely reduces the operation scope of natural selection, and spreads its effects much more generally. In human society, being "successful" (reproducing into the future) can come with a VAST number of different strategies, abilites, etc.
And it can even come with NO strategy/ability: just lying around watching Tv in a trailer park is just as evolutionarily successful as being a scientist... maybe even MORE successful, because scientists tend to breed less.
I assume you're talking about B12, in which case you're wrong. It IS available in some forms of seaweed (hjiki, I believe, is one). Even better, you really only need a tiny bit of B12 once and awhile: your liver stores it quite efficiently, and doesn't requir very much to begin with.
This article, at least, wasn't about security alert: it was about outrage that there still is no legal push against things like this. Don't think that just because Windows and windows users have crappy security instincts that means that this is not an important issue. Corporations are not knowking down *NIX doors because they simply don't care as much about that still minor share of more informed (and thus harder and more costly to bother) computer users. But as other operating systems gain share and importance in the minds of advertisers, corporations will turn their tactics to them as well. The problem is not the level of security: it's the legal issue of them feeling they have to right to be so tricky at all, or that they have any right to gather personal data without paying for it.
Actually, if you read VX2's privacy statement, that's exactly what they say. Everything they do is for "your convienience" and you are never informed "so as not to bother you."
If I split those cells, I can get two, or even three humans! Or, if they do not successfully implant in a womb (which naturally happens much of the time) they simply will not grow any further. I can see an argument for respecting a fetus, but a blob of jelly with genetic code, and no nervous system to speak of? How do you justify giving that moral status?
The fact that those cells COULD grow into a functioning human being does not change the fact that they HAVE NOT, and NEED NOT: and detroying them cannot possibly be equated with destroying a functioning human being. I simply don't see why you think this word-parsing over "complete human" should be in the least convincing.
---The New Testament did away with all those outdated laws.---
That's not entirely true, and certainly very debateable. The New Testament is more cryptic, but Christians who dislike homosexuality have had no trouble finding passages that support their views.
But it does raise an interesting question for debate: is the Christian god a moral reletavist. How else can what is moral one day be immoral the next, and vice-versa?
To be fair, the second half has many of the same moral atrocities of the first. Jesus not only condones the stoning of unruly children, he scolds the Pharisees for NOT doing it. And who invented the concept of eternal torment again?
But to be fair to you, this guy's a moron. You aren't playing into his straw man conception of Christianity, and he's actually got the nerve to YELL AT YOU for it, as if your failure to be an easy target was something you should feel guilty about! Maybe someday he'll grow up and realize that Christianity is an incredibly diverse grouping of beliefs. They may almost always stem out of the Bible, but that doesn't even remotely mean that it is used or thought of in the same way by everyone.
But if he was an aborted baby, he wouldn't have the capacity to care, or "realize" anything about anything. And wouldn't be here talking to us, so the point is moot.
While I would agree that one can be on either side of the debate no matter what their religious convictions or lack thereof are, I wouldn't say that religion is, in practice, entirely irrelevant. One of the strongest arguments (indeed, the only real argument I can see) against killing embryos is that they have a tiny soul inside. While I don't believe this, many people do, and it forms the core of their convictions. Most people have no interest in the esoteric word games that the atheistic arguments against the research require.
---Yeah, it's pretty closed minded to not want to experiment on human embryos (AKA pre-born babies).---
What's so special about JUST being human, per se? A human embryo is even less aware and has less capacities in any sense, than a brine shrimp, which most people feel no compunction about killing for completely trivial reasons. Why is the fact that it is "human" genetically particularly important far BEFORE it has developed into a being with capacities far beyond any animal? We might as well argue that a computer disk with my genetic code on it is a living being that deserves human rights.
Those cells are essentially recipies for creating a functioning human being (most people think that they are "blueprints" but this is just not so). However, if they are not placed in the right environment, they will never even have a chance at becoming a human being.
So while I agree that there's no arbitrary line at which one can say "now it is worthy of human rights!" I really can't see how you could possibly think that it is at that stage. It is a blob of jelly with chemical polymers. The fact that those polymers could be used to grow a human being is irrelevant: the point is that they have not YET done so. I can't see how not allowing them to develop further is any worse than simply not concieving them at all.
---I already defined moral relativism for you, I'm not going to do it again.---
Somehow, that you've spared me a retread of your straw man doesn't make me feel any better.
---You just keep insisting that people have good intentions and therefore don't meet some magical yardstick of moral relativism.---
What did I say about "good intentions"? I merely refuted your attempt to use a rhetorical trick: i.e. uninformed psychoanalysis of opponents, where you simply invented their bad intentions to condemn them with. And there is no "magical yardstick." But people don't fit the definition of moral "relatavist" just because you happen to not like them.
---Anybody who claims that violence is never permissible and never solves a problem is being EXTREMELY dishonest. Had the US not been willing to enter World War II on the basis of pacifism, the world would have been engulfed by Nazism and fascism.---
First of all, how can one be "dishonest" about what they feel is or is not morally permissible? Hunh?
Second, that's NOT what any pacifists I've heard are saying. They simply believe that more can be acheived by non-violent means. This may be misguided, but it is hardly "dishonest." And it certainly is not a view that justifies your next attempt to lie about the positions of others:
---If you believe this is a better outcome, that's your privilege,---
Name me one pacifist who thinks that "the world... engulfed by Nazism and fascism" is "the better outcome." You're again simply inventing the positions of others to make them easier to attack. This is a dishonest (i.e. logically fallacious) way to argue with someone's position.
---b) a moral relativist, too weak and lazy to admit that some moral systems are good and some are bad.---
This is what I mean about dishonest rhetoric. You claim to be interested only in logical justification, and yet when it comes down to the wire, you resort to ad hominem attacks about people's character. Worse, you beg the question when you claim that they can't "admit that some moral systems are good and some are bad." Can't ADMIT that they are wrong?
---You are not winning this argument by way of ad hominem attacks on my person, or by repeatedly calling me dishonest.---
When I call you dishonest, I provide explict documentation for my claims. They are not meant as "ad hominem" attacks, but rather expose of the sort of tactics you are using to bypass rational debate.
---They certainly may THINK they are being moral, but they are failing to apply consistently and logically a system of morals that maximizes utility.---
Even though I am a utilitarian, I'm not so unfair as to claim that it is the ONLY meaningful moral standard, or that I am aware of a meta-ethic that compells one to hold utility as a moral value. Pacifists simply believe that violence is morally wrong: that no end justifies it's use. If you can demonstrate the "incoherence," or even the "relativism," in such a position, go right ahead. I don't see it, and you've provided nothing but insulting bluster. As for me, I simply don't see any reason to think that violence is never justified. Sometimes, it's more than worth it. But that's because my values are utilitarian in nature.
You really seem more interested in attacking straw men than anyone's actual opinion. You make the same goofy mistakes as before. To wit:
---A pacifist is somebody who denies that force is ever permissible.---
Yes. But that is almost always a MORAL assertion itself!
--- This is either somebody who a) believes there is no right and wrong (a moral relativist)---
Wrong again. That description is of a moral nihilist or amoralist. A moral relativist simply doesn't think there is any way to demonstrate that one system of morality is more right than another. This doesn't mean that they are unwilling to act on their own system!
---b) somebody who believes there is a right and a wrong but that putting the world into a more morally upright position is not their responsibility, too much work, or too dangerous. I would characterize this second group of people as either _evil_, and I mean that quite literally - they see wrong and fail to act to prevent it for reasons other than fear (laziness, lack of responsibility to other human beings, selfishness) or _cowardly_ - they see wrong and fail to act to prevent it out of fear.---
Well, that was incredibly dishonest. If you are allowed to read mind and tell people what they believe and why (surprise! if they are against you, then it turns out, in your telling, that their fictional motives are awful), you can easily slander anyone. Most pacifists simply think that violence is never a good way to solve a problem, or is not worth it. Maybe they're wrong, but it is flat-out dishonest of you to characterize the position as one of laziness or selfishness. Famous pacifists have almost always been people that dedicate their entire lives to helping others and solving problems via non-violent means. It's perfectly legitimate to say to them "hey, sometimes violence IS worth it." But it's nothing but spin to try and demonize their position so as to make them easy targets.
---The only other possibility would be that they are irrational, and interpret the words in a book (the Christian Bible) as overriding their moral obligations to humanity and themselves.---
I'm no Christian, but I'm not prepared to go that far. Most Christian pacifists have roughly the same reasons as others: they believe that violence begets violence, and more can be accomplished via love. You may disagree with that assesment, but this is not a question on which you can just jump up and down and go "you're crazy! you use blind faith!"
---Most of the folks out there in the world who are pacifist, if you dig right down into it, turn out to be moral relativists.---
Since you don't seem to even know what a "moral relavitist" is, why should I take this assesment seriously?
---They are NOT making a moral criticism of the US, however, since they fail to apply the same standard to other countries.---
In general, I would guess that this is because they are Americans. Hence, they feel that America is the "actor" with which they are connected and should have moral interest in policing the behavior of. Dealing with the moral evils of others is secondary to first acting on what you see as being moral.
---A moral relativist technically is somebody who equates morality with cultural standards and denies the existance of an absolute right and wrong.---
No, they deny the existence of absolute standard to determine WHICH absolute view is right or wrong. Essentially, they are argue that there is no valid META-ethic, not that there is no valid ETHIC.
---Anybody who is an apologist for terrorists is most likely a moral relativist, or a pacifist, which is essentially the same thing.---
If this statement isn't a dishonest rhetorical attack, I don't know what is. First of all, not all people who dislike the U.S. are apologists
for terrorists. Not all of those people are moral relatavists. And pacifists are almost always NOT moral relatavists.
---If force has EVER been justified, this is the time (post September 11th).---
Hey, I agree, but that doesn't make your attack on all these disparate groups any more legitimate. Sure force may be justified, but it is not illegitimate to ask: what sort of force? Against who? With what objective?
---And if you deny that there is anything worth fighting and dying for, you are not applying a consistent moral framework to the world around you. Thus you are a moral relativist.---
No, pacifism is not moral relativism. For instance, many pacifists are Christians who take the command to "turn the other cheek" litterally: indeed "pacifism" as a political philosophy was first developed by people with very strong moral and religious beliefs: hardly relatavists in any sense.
Slashdot Mirror
---Male mammae - serve as an erogenous zone in many males.---
Dr. Pangloss, I presume?
---Naturally, most evolutionist do not believe in God so he is pushed out of the debate rendering the debate useless.---
...." or "But how can ..." the creationist answer can and will always be God.---
Actually no. Strict creationists are a minority in Christianity: the majority of Christians agree that evolution occured to produce the life we see today. They simply happen to believe that it was "gods" method of creation, that god ensouled man at some point, etc.
---So when a evolutionist says, "But what about
In other words, it's an unfalisiable hypothesis. But anyone could play that game if they were willing to stoop that low. Once someone starts playing the "anything I say is possible to fit or save my theory is possible" game, it isn't just the end of scientific discussion, it's the end of a rational and honest discussion.
---Are there any unbiased opinions about this issue? A Christian (Jew, Muslim, or anybody else believing in divine beings, I suppose) is most likely to be biased against evolution.---
Wrong. The majority of Christians and Jews believe in evolution too. I don't know about Muslims for sure, so I won't make claims I can't support.
---There are some who propose that maybe God directs evolution but I'll ignore them for now.---
And in doing so, you're ignoring the MAJORITY. Creationism is actually largely a phenomenon of American fundamentalism.
--- If God does not exist, then things had to simply happen. If God does not exist, then evolution must be true. Therefore the question is not evolution vs creation as much as it is whether or not God exists.---
It's ridiculous to draw a logical conclusion with universal scope when you just got through saying you'd ignore the majority of people who would disprove this false dilemna. Like it or not, the question of whether god exists, and whether evolution happens, are two separate questions.
---Have any antibacterial soap in your house? Get rid of it. It helps to select the 0.0001% of bacteria that are not affected by it.---
Which would be bad... why? Hopefully, no doctor is ever going to treat my TB infection with bleach and lye.
Hey, I didn't have them either! Ha ha: we rule!
But unfortunately, I'm not sure that number of wisdom teeth is strictly genetic. One of my old high scool teachers was a twin: he had no wisdom teeth, while his brother had all of them. I think the formation of the teeth might have more to do with chance variations in embrology than a strict coding for "number of teeth."
The term "evolution" can indeed be misleading, if "evolution" implies to you some sort of goal. But it's NOT incorrect in the sense you mean it here.
...oh wait, then I saw your post title, and my question was answered.
---The truth is that 'evolution' is entirely random.---
No. The production of variation is not produced by "evolution." Evolution works in part BECAUSE of random variation, but evolution itself is not "random" in the sense that it could go in any direction. Quite the opposite: evolution is all about the fact that the environment shapes the particular direction by "selection."
So why would you make such a gross error in your very statement of what evolution is all about?
You also don't seem to understand how mutation works, in conjunction with embryology. DNA is NOT a blueprint for an organism: it is more like a recipe. Changing some code is not akin to directly changing the physical construction of a creature.
--- 99.9% of the time it produces unviable offspring.---
Hunh? Says who? It seems to me as if the vast majority (even more than 99%) of human offspring is viable.
Let ask a few simple questions:
1) Does demonstrating that some people who have thought about evolution are racists in any way support the idea that evolution (an empirical, not judgemental, theory) is racist?
2) Does your post provide any argument against the evidence for evolution itself?
3) Do a few quotes demonstrate that even the majority of evolutionary theorists, even in the periods you quote from (mostly pre 20th century, with the only even close to present one being someone quoting from the Bible, not Darwin!) were straight racists?
4) Does it in any way support the idea that people today who agree evolution happening (including the majoity of Christians) are racist?
5) Does the fact that I could easily quote any number of racist statements from Christians supporting racism with biblical quotes prove that "Christianity is racism's best friend?"
I would submit that the answer to all these questions is no, and as such, your post is nothing more than ideological rhetoric. You have 1) no evidence against the theory of evolution, and 2) no evidence that evolution is an inherently racist theory, or that studying it leads to racism.
So your only alternative for selling your views is to try and attack it ad hominem. Sorry, no deal.
And, back in reality: before Darwin came along, the only two viable theories of Creation pertaining to race were this: either god had created stupid black people seperately from white people, or God created people in general, and black people are what happens when white civilization decays and degrades over time. Does that sound better to you? Two unquestionably racist theories?
Now, was Darwin racist? Yep. So was virtually everyone else in the world at the time, black and white, in including every prominent civil rights leader. But his theory of evolution came along, and after endless millenia of the human history of thinking racial "types" were real, some real evolutionary science was done on the matter, and racism finally crumbled. So far from being the cause of racism, evolution was the harbinger of its doom.
Were the Nazis racist? Oh boy yes. Did they use evolutionary arguments? Yes. But they also used religious ones, especially favoring the writings of Martin Luther. Does that mean that there is no god? No.
More likely, they misapplied and mangled things. They operated under theories that we now know to be very wrong. How do we know? Not from reading scripture! We know it from actually STUDYING it with the tools and insights given to us by evolutionary theory!
---[Note: The same essential chemical elements are found in humans that are in the soil.]---
Really? Just as evolution would predict?
You would think that, to make sure we understood that he had created us, God would have made us out of a substance more otherworldly. Instead, we have bodies which not only contain only elements from the environment around us, but also closely resemble all other life on the planet...
---Or to be more precise, evolution for the better is over.---
For the "better" what? One of the insights of evolution is there isn't an inherently an objective "better"- it just adapts to what's there to adapt to. If we can correct diseases, what's any longer so bad about them existing?
---It's not a meme. That's like saying 1+2=3 is a meme.---
But it is: it's just not likely one likely to catch on in an environment dominated by higher-level memes that select for rationality, or dislike triviality.
Yep: evolution is utterly blind to the future of a given environment. It's not on it's way anywhere, at least in the sense of thoughtfully preparing for it.
Dinosaurs represented an incredible dominant strategy... until the climate changed. Suddenly whole lines of reptiles were unfit to survive, leaving room in their niches for mammals.
But even this doesn't mean that mammals were "less" fit before they started to dominate the globe: they got on fine in their respective niches even with the dinosaurs.
---The problem with a guy like Jones is that when people start to base strategies or policies on such delusions, we all lose out. Do you think we are losing no great artistic or scientific minds in the African tragedy of AIDS? ---
Sure, but we are probably losing just as many not so talented people as well. Selection in things like AIDS is not going to be based on talent, it's going to be based on the pressures of the disease. At worst, a pressure like AIDS is going to select for those who are either biologically immune, or are less likely to contract the disease sexually.
So while you're right that this article is out of whack, there is SOME validity to the idea that modern society severely reduces the operation scope of natural selection, and spreads its effects much more generally. In human society, being "successful" (reproducing into the future) can come with a VAST number of different strategies, abilites, etc.
And it can even come with NO strategy/ability: just lying around watching Tv in a trailer park is just as evolutionarily successful as being a scientist... maybe even MORE successful, because scientists tend to breed less.
I assume you're talking about B12, in which case you're wrong. It IS available in some forms of seaweed (hjiki, I believe, is one). Even better, you really only need a tiny bit of B12 once and awhile: your liver stores it quite efficiently, and doesn't requir very much to begin with.
This article, at least, wasn't about security alert: it was about outrage that there still is no legal push against things like this. Don't think that just because Windows and windows users have crappy security instincts that means that this is not an important issue. Corporations are not knowking down *NIX doors because they simply don't care as much about that still minor share of more informed (and thus harder and more costly to bother) computer users. But as other operating systems gain share and importance in the minds of advertisers, corporations will turn their tactics to them as well. The problem is not the level of security: it's the legal issue of them feeling they have to right to be so tricky at all, or that they have any right to gather personal data without paying for it.
Actually, if you read VX2's privacy statement, that's exactly what they say. Everything they do is for "your convienience" and you are never informed "so as not to bother you."
Definately do not miss this hilarious piece of corporate doublespeak..
If I split those cells, I can get two, or even three humans! Or, if they do not successfully implant in a womb (which naturally happens much of the time) they simply will not grow any further. I can see an argument for respecting a fetus, but a blob of jelly with genetic code, and no nervous system to speak of? How do you justify giving that moral status?
The fact that those cells COULD grow into a functioning human being does not change the fact that they HAVE NOT, and NEED NOT: and detroying them cannot possibly be equated with destroying a functioning human being. I simply don't see why you think this word-parsing over "complete human" should be in the least convincing.
---The New Testament did away with all those outdated laws.---
That's not entirely true, and certainly very debateable. The New Testament is more cryptic, but Christians who dislike homosexuality have had no trouble finding passages that support their views.
But it does raise an interesting question for debate: is the Christian god a moral reletavist. How else can what is moral one day be immoral the next, and vice-versa?
To be fair, the second half has many of the same moral atrocities of the first. Jesus not only condones the stoning of unruly children, he scolds the Pharisees for NOT doing it. And who invented the concept of eternal torment again?
But to be fair to you, this guy's a moron. You aren't playing into his straw man conception of Christianity, and he's actually got the nerve to YELL AT YOU for it, as if your failure to be an easy target was something you should feel guilty about! Maybe someday he'll grow up and realize that Christianity is an incredibly diverse grouping of beliefs. They may almost always stem out of the Bible, but that doesn't even remotely mean that it is used or thought of in the same way by everyone.
But if he was an aborted baby, he wouldn't have the capacity to care, or "realize" anything about anything. And wouldn't be here talking to us, so the point is moot.
While I would agree that one can be on either side of the debate no matter what their religious convictions or lack thereof are, I wouldn't say that religion is, in practice, entirely irrelevant. One of the strongest arguments (indeed, the only real argument I can see) against killing embryos is that they have a tiny soul inside. While I don't believe this, many people do, and it forms the core of their convictions. Most people have no interest in the esoteric word games that the atheistic arguments against the research require.
---Yeah, it's pretty closed minded to not want to experiment on human embryos (AKA pre-born babies).---
What's so special about JUST being human, per se? A human embryo is even less aware and has less capacities in any sense, than a brine shrimp, which most people feel no compunction about killing for completely trivial reasons. Why is the fact that it is "human" genetically particularly important far BEFORE it has developed into a being with capacities far beyond any animal? We might as well argue that a computer disk with my genetic code on it is a living being that deserves human rights.
Whoever marked this post as "flamebait" has no respect for nuanced debate. Can't people express an unpopular opinion without getting modded down?
Those cells are essentially recipies for creating a functioning human being (most people think that they are "blueprints" but this is just not so). However, if they are not placed in the right environment, they will never even have a chance at becoming a human being.
So while I agree that there's no arbitrary line at which one can say "now it is worthy of human rights!" I really can't see how you could possibly think that it is at that stage. It is a blob of jelly with chemical polymers. The fact that those polymers could be used to grow a human being is irrelevant: the point is that they have not YET done so. I can't see how not allowing them to develop further is any worse than simply not concieving them at all.
---I already defined moral relativism for you, I'm not going to do it again.---
Somehow, that you've spared me a retread of your straw man doesn't make me feel any better.
---You just keep insisting that people have good intentions and therefore don't meet some magical yardstick of moral relativism.---
What did I say about "good intentions"? I merely refuted your attempt to use a rhetorical trick: i.e. uninformed psychoanalysis of opponents, where you simply invented their bad intentions to condemn them with. And there is no "magical yardstick." But people don't fit the definition of moral "relatavist" just because you happen to not like them.
---Anybody who claims that violence is never permissible and never solves a problem is being EXTREMELY dishonest. Had the US not been willing to enter World War II on the basis of pacifism, the world would have been engulfed by Nazism and fascism.---
First of all, how can one be "dishonest" about what they feel is or is not morally permissible? Hunh? Second, that's NOT what any pacifists I've heard are saying. They simply believe that more can be acheived by non-violent means. This may be misguided, but it is hardly "dishonest." And it certainly is not a view that justifies your next attempt to lie about the positions of others:
---If you believe this is a better outcome, that's your privilege,---
Name me one pacifist who thinks that "the world... engulfed by Nazism and fascism" is "the better outcome." You're again simply inventing the positions of others to make them easier to attack. This is a dishonest (i.e. logically fallacious) way to argue with someone's position.
---b) a moral relativist, too weak and lazy to admit that some moral systems are good and some are bad.---
This is what I mean about dishonest rhetoric. You claim to be interested only in logical justification, and yet when it comes down to the wire, you resort to ad hominem attacks about people's character. Worse, you beg the question when you claim that they can't "admit that some moral systems are good and some are bad." Can't ADMIT that they are wrong?
---You are not winning this argument by way of ad hominem attacks on my person, or by repeatedly calling me dishonest.---
When I call you dishonest, I provide explict documentation for my claims. They are not meant as "ad hominem" attacks, but rather expose of the sort of tactics you are using to bypass rational debate.
---They certainly may THINK they are being moral, but they are failing to apply consistently and logically a system of morals that maximizes utility.---
Even though I am a utilitarian, I'm not so unfair as to claim that it is the ONLY meaningful moral standard, or that I am aware of a meta-ethic that compells one to hold utility as a moral value.
Pacifists simply believe that violence is morally wrong: that no end justifies it's use. If you can demonstrate the "incoherence," or even the "relativism," in such a position, go right ahead. I don't see it, and you've provided nothing but insulting bluster.
As for me, I simply don't see any reason to think that violence is never justified. Sometimes, it's more than worth it. But that's because my values are utilitarian in nature.
You really seem more interested in attacking straw men than anyone's actual opinion. You make the same goofy mistakes as before. To wit:
---A pacifist is somebody who denies that force is ever permissible.---
Yes. But that is almost always a MORAL assertion itself!
--- This is either somebody who a) believes there is no right and wrong (a moral relativist)---
Wrong again. That description is of a moral nihilist or amoralist. A moral relativist simply doesn't think there is any way to demonstrate that one system of morality is more right than another. This doesn't mean that they are unwilling to act on their own system!
---b) somebody who believes there is a right and a wrong but that putting the world into a more morally upright position is not their responsibility, too much work, or too dangerous. I would characterize this second group of people as either _evil_, and I mean that quite literally - they see wrong and fail to act to prevent it for reasons other than fear (laziness, lack of responsibility to other human beings, selfishness) or _cowardly_ - they see wrong and fail to act to prevent it out of fear.---
Well, that was incredibly dishonest. If you are allowed to read mind and tell people what they believe and why (surprise! if they are against you, then it turns out, in your telling, that their fictional motives are awful), you can easily slander anyone. Most pacifists simply think that violence is never a good way to solve a problem, or is not worth it. Maybe they're wrong, but it is flat-out dishonest of you to characterize the position as one of laziness or selfishness. Famous pacifists have almost always been people that dedicate their entire lives to helping others and solving problems via non-violent means. It's perfectly legitimate to say to them "hey, sometimes violence IS worth it." But it's nothing but spin to try and demonize their position so as to make them easy targets.
---The only other possibility would be that they are irrational, and interpret the words in a book (the Christian Bible) as overriding their moral obligations to humanity and themselves.---
I'm no Christian, but I'm not prepared to go that far. Most Christian pacifists have roughly the same reasons as others: they believe that violence begets violence, and more can be accomplished via love. You may disagree with that assesment, but this is not a question on which you can just jump up and down and go "you're crazy! you use blind faith!"
---Most of the folks out there in the world who are pacifist, if you dig right down into it, turn out to be moral relativists.---
Since you don't seem to even know what a "moral relavitist" is, why should I take this assesment seriously?
---They are NOT making a moral criticism of the US, however, since they fail to apply the same standard to other countries.---
In general, I would guess that this is because they are Americans. Hence, they feel that America is the "actor" with which they are connected and should have moral interest in policing the behavior of. Dealing with the moral evils of others is secondary to first acting on what you see as being moral.
---A moral relativist technically is somebody who equates morality with cultural standards and denies the existance of an absolute right and wrong.---
No, they deny the existence of absolute standard to determine WHICH absolute view is right or wrong. Essentially, they are argue that there is no valid META-ethic, not that there is no valid ETHIC.
---Anybody who is an apologist for terrorists is most likely a moral relativist, or a pacifist, which is essentially the same thing.---
If this statement isn't a dishonest rhetorical attack, I don't know what is. First of all, not all people who dislike the U.S. are apologists for terrorists. Not all of those people are moral relatavists. And pacifists are almost always NOT moral relatavists.
---If force has EVER been justified, this is the time (post September 11th).---
Hey, I agree, but that doesn't make your attack on all these disparate groups any more legitimate.
Sure force may be justified, but it is not illegitimate to ask: what sort of force? Against who? With what objective?
---And if you deny that there is anything worth fighting and dying for, you are not applying a consistent moral framework to the world around you. Thus you are a moral relativist.---
No, pacifism is not moral relativism. For instance, many pacifists are Christians who take the command to "turn the other cheek" litterally: indeed "pacifism" as a political philosophy was first developed by people with very strong moral and religious beliefs: hardly relatavists in any sense.
That would be logically impossible as things now stand. The Brak show always comes on BEFORE Sealab does.