Language, is a tool for the manipulation of other people If so, than that in itself is immoral, since manipulatioin is inherently selfish.
Children do not intend to lie as a fundamental sign of evil, but rather they intend to speak what ever phrase will achieve their end Just curious, but how many children do you have? Like a dog on a couch, they know better.
Accurately delivering information, ie., the truth, is something that must be taught... while individual tend towards manipulation I think you've just helped prove my point.
Our differences are a matter of degree, not quality. That makes us quantitatively different, not fundementally different.
If there were really true, I don't think we would come to such radically different conclusions.
You're missing the point entirely.
That's not surprising, since communication can be extrodinarily hard, especially when the sides are fairly far apart.
Let me try again. The reason that I brought up sperm and eggs is not that they are genetically complete, as the kidney cell is, but that none of these will result in life without some type of trigger event. It is that trigger event, whether natural or technological, that defines the point at which human life begins and is to be protected.
Rationality requires no morality. I need to think about that. In any case, my point was that morality can be subject to rationality. Is your claim that "some ends justify some means" an axiom in your system, or is it derived from other propositions? I would be interested in the basis of what you hold to be moral. Enlighted self-interest? Survival of the fittest? Love your neighbor as yourself? Etc...
Morality is a construction of man, that differs from person to person. Well, that's only true for atheists (either philosophcally or practically. For example, a deist is an atheist who hides behind a cloak of "spirituality". But I digress). That's a dicussion for another day.
The fact that human life is vioble is written into our very laws But only because we have a notion of justice. The taking of human life by law is to punish the guilty -- not to kill the innocent to further our selfish ends.
Embryos are not sentient. They have no "self".
The "trigger" has been pulled and they are on the path to sentience. They should be allowed to travel the natural path that they are on. They have done nothing worthy of death.
You said that I shouldn't mind if you decide to kill me. Yes, because the consequences of your logic should apply to you as well as others. You claim that it is ok to kill one to (potentially) save many. If that is true, then it should be ok to kill you to save many (the embroys who would develop). Sauce, gooses, and ganders. Unless you want to posit some type of morality that doesn't apply equally to all -- in which case we're back to Orwell's "Animal Farm".
We see yet again that human life is not inviolate at all, but rather that its taking is justifiable for a number of reasons.
All of which involve some degree of guilt. What have embryos done wrong?
You're dodging my point, which is that life is just a priority among many.
I'm not dodging it, I'm attempting to point out the consequences of your position. If life is just one of many priorities, who decides who lives and who dies? A future where human life is not sacrosanct is frightening to those who have no power.
I think that if you continue to use rationality to look at the consequences of your morality, you'll find that it's quite dangerous. Not only to embryos, but to everyone.
You can only distinguish the two if you believe that people are somehow fundementally different from any other creature on earth, not in terms of capabilities,.. It is in capabilities where we are fundamentally different.
The reason people want to protect them is because they have the potential to grow into a human. On the contrary, they are humans that have the potential to grow.
...then should kidney cells be protected? Not any more than sperm or eggs.
I don't believe either that the ends justifies the means. But like Machiavelli said, certain ends to justify certain means. As written, these are self-refuting statements.
Any rational analysis suggests that saving 1000 lives is worth taking one. Rational? Using what basis of morality? And does this only apply to those who cannot defend themselves, or will you apply it to everyone?
That does not logically follow what I said. Sure it does. If you think that killing embryos is justified, by killing you we can save 1000's of them.
I'd protest not because I believe human life is invioble, but I believe in self-preservation. So would the embroys, if they but had the chance to live. But if you can justify destroying those who cannot defend themselves, I'm sure we can come up with a justification for ignoring your protestations.
It becomes just one more priority to be balanced with all the other priorities people have. And who are the elite who decide?
Since others have injected politics into the discussion (in other threads, e.g. the "if you're not with me you're against me" discussion), this is the one of the rationales used to defend embryonic stem-cell research.
I was at the beach two weeks ago. Found a Starbucks that offered one hour of access for $3 with the password printed on the receipt. Trivially easy to log in. The one hour limit kept my wife from going ballistic we me spending to much time on the net.
They even managed to sell me some coffee. It was a win-win-win situation.
I'm sure they are. I can either spend my time hunting for the documentation, or getting work done.
Once you get Linux up and running...
I've been using and programming computers for 30+ years. The thrill of digging into a new system "because it's there" lost its allure some time ago. I want my computer to enable me to do work, not to provide a playground for twiddling and tweaking.
I didn't say that I got Mac OS X to play sound on a Dell. I said that Linux couldn't play sound on a Dell. Mac OS X works just fine on my three PowerBooks, 2 iMacs, and iBook. Windows networking works on my Macs right out of the box. I'll have to spend time to figure out how to make Linux work.
And that's the problem with Linux. It's like a TR7 that a friend used to have; it's a great car if you want to spend more time working on it than driving it. He would drive from New Jersery to Virginia to see his girlfriend, and then spend all weekend working on his car so that he could get back home.
Then why can't Red Hat Fedora Core 3 play sound on my new Dell desktop? How much time (that I don't have), will I have to spend to get Linux to where it does everything Mac OS X does without any effort on my part?
It is true. Tolkein was one of several Christian influences on Lewis. That Lewis ended up in the CofE instead of Catholicism is incidental; both are Christian.
proposes that a small group of activists can and should employ rather violent means to defeat a technocratic dictatorship
Did we read the same book? The "small group of activists" basically did nothing but wait for events to unfold. The "technocratic dictatorship" was defeated by the judgement of God working through the individual Merlin.
and because the bug red button is under the control of a born again christian fundamentalist
I'm not sure I'd consider Bush a fundamentalist; nevertheless, what is the reason for your concern? Do you think you'd be safer if the "big red button" was under the control of an atheist, Jew, agnostic, or someone else? Why?
Because Christianity is the religion most likely to judge and condemn people?
Let's be clear, shall we? Christianity judges all people and says that all are condemned -- gay or straight, rich or poor, or whatever else. Because all are equally condemned, all are offered the free gift of salvation through Jesus.
It's common for people to hate something that they think singles them out, but that's hating something without first truly understanding it.
Judaism is not a proselytizing religion and never has been.
That's not true. Judaism used to be a proselytizing religion. By some estimates, up to 10% of the Roman Empire was Jewish and much of that through conversion.
Judaism stopped being a proselytizing religion after Christianity begin.
Self-replicating rapid prototypers were initially designed. We can't have scientists go around looking for life that came about except by random natural processes, can we?
while we moan about taxes, are unwilling to invest properly in education, and run up debt to fund our little consumerist paradise
Government is inherently inefficient. While it can do some things that the private sector cannot do, the more taxes it consumes, the more inefficient society becomes. Hence, moaning about taxes is actually a good thing.
Money is not the problem with education. Private and home schools have shown that they can do more with less. The problem is culture rot and no amount of money is going to fix this.
I agree with you, however, about debt.
Better start learning how to make trinkets to sell to the tourists...
The next few years are going to be interesting. First, we are rapidly approaching the point where borders will make no difference. Second, American baby boomers will retire and leave the work force at a rate greater than they can be replaced. Some pundits have said that, starting around 2007, even if we outsource every single job possible, that there still won't be enough workers. Competent, educated people, regardless of their location, could very well be at a premium.
Perhaps you're right, and egoism absed morality is still a bit flawed. Since egoism is antithetical to love, I would argue that such a basis for morality is extremely flawed.
How is god-based morality any better? An excellent question. This requires in-depth discussion, for which this isn't the best forum. Unfortunately.
In that case, you have a morality which is based entirely around the decrees of some external entity which we are not even entirely sure what he wants. This presumes that God is not able, or does not desire, to communicate His decrees to us. And that presupposes that we have some a priori knowledge of what God is like. So we either take the Deist assumption (which is just atheism in religious trappings), or we assume that God is able to communicate with us. Then we start listening.
Why should we act moral if all moral means is obeying God? Why should we act morally at all? One answer would be "because it's the right thing to do."
and that you can only get rewarded by God if you can have your sins "wiped away." In Christianity, the wiping away of sins is accompanied by an inner change from above.
Egoism based morality might not be perfect, but at least it's based in something tangible. Love is tangible, too.
My suggestion is you should NOT try to prove the Bible. Religion is faith. Proof only undermines the point.
St. Paul disagrees with you:
If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead.... And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.... If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.
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Language, is a tool for the manipulation of other people
... while individual tend towards manipulation
If so, than that in itself is immoral, since manipulatioin is inherently selfish.
Children do not intend to lie as a fundamental sign of evil, but rather they intend to speak what ever phrase will achieve their end
Just curious, but how many children do you have? Like a dog on a couch, they know better.
Accurately delivering information, ie., the truth, is something that must be taught
I think you've just helped prove my point.
No parent has ever had to teach their children to lie.
Our differences are a matter of degree, not quality. That makes us quantitatively different, not fundementally different.
If there were really true, I don't think we would come to such radically different conclusions.
You're missing the point entirely.
That's not surprising, since communication can be extrodinarily hard, especially when the sides are fairly far apart.
Let me try again. The reason that I brought up sperm and eggs is not that they are genetically complete, as the kidney cell is, but that none of these will result in life without some type of trigger event. It is that trigger event, whether natural or technological, that defines the point at which human life begins and is to be protected.
Rationality requires no morality.
I need to think about that. In any case, my point was that morality can be subject to rationality. Is your claim that "some ends justify some means" an axiom in your system, or is it derived from other propositions? I would be interested in the basis of what you hold to be moral. Enlighted self-interest? Survival of the fittest? Love your neighbor as yourself? Etc...
Morality is a construction of man, that differs from person to person.
Well, that's only true for atheists (either philosophcally or practically. For example, a deist is an atheist who hides behind a cloak of "spirituality". But I digress). That's a dicussion for another day.
The fact that human life is vioble is written into our very laws
But only because we have a notion of justice. The taking of human life by law is to punish the guilty -- not to kill the innocent to further our selfish ends.
Embryos are not sentient. They have no "self".
The "trigger" has been pulled and they are on the path to sentience. They should be allowed to travel the natural path that they are on. They have done nothing worthy of death.
You said that I shouldn't mind if you decide to kill me.
Yes, because the consequences of your logic should apply to you as well as others. You claim that it is ok to kill one to (potentially) save many. If that is true, then it should be ok to kill you to save many (the embroys who would develop). Sauce, gooses, and ganders. Unless you want to posit some type of morality that doesn't apply equally to all -- in which case we're back to Orwell's "Animal Farm".
We see yet again that human life is not inviolate at all, but rather that its taking is justifiable for a number of reasons.
All of which involve some degree of guilt. What have embryos done wrong?
You're dodging my point, which is that life is just a priority among many.
I'm not dodging it, I'm attempting to point out the consequences of your position. If life is just one of many priorities, who decides who lives and who dies? A future where human life is not sacrosanct is frightening to those who have no power.
I think that if you continue to use rationality to look at the consequences of your morality, you'll find that it's quite dangerous. Not only to embryos, but to everyone.
You can only distinguish the two if you believe that people are somehow fundementally different from any other creature on earth, not in terms of capabilities,..
...then should kidney cells be protected?
It is in capabilities where we are fundamentally different.
The reason people want to protect them is because they have the potential to grow into a human.
On the contrary, they are humans that have the potential to grow.
Not any more than sperm or eggs.
I don't believe either that the ends justifies the means. But like Machiavelli said, certain ends to justify certain means.
As written, these are self-refuting statements.
Any rational analysis suggests that saving 1000 lives is worth taking one.
Rational? Using what basis of morality? And does this only apply to those who cannot defend themselves, or will you apply it to everyone?
That does not logically follow what I said.
Sure it does. If you think that killing embryos is justified, by killing you we can save 1000's of them.
I'd protest not because I believe human life is invioble, but I believe in self-preservation.
So would the embroys, if they but had the chance to live. But if you can justify destroying those who cannot defend themselves, I'm sure we can come up with a justification for ignoring your protestations.
It becomes just one more priority to be balanced with all the other priorities people have.
And who are the elite who decide?
If the lump of cells is an embryo all it needs is time and a non-hostile environment -- the same as you, me, those "younglings" and everyone else.
Now, you cannot create any distinction between the two
Sure I can. Once is a natural process, the other requires technology to achieve.
and if you accept that an embryo is a person, so too must you accept that a kidney cell is a person.
This doesn't follow, since the unaided kidney cell isn't an embryo.
Since the latter is ridiculous, so to must be the former.
If this future technology was used to transform a kidney cell into an embyro, then that embryo should be protected.
If one baby could be killed to end the hunger of hundreds of children that starve to death every day, would you not do it?
I would not do it and I do not agree that it should be done. The end does not justify the means.
The idea that human life is inviolable is ridiculous.
Then I assume you won't mind if those of us who think you're wrong drag you to the disintegration chamber?
Proponents of stem cell research reject the very idea that embroys are children
They are genetically complete human beings. It doesn't matter what end of the timeline they are on.
Even if it was, it would be "kill a few children to save thousands"
Killing one is one too many.
Sure, kill a dozen childred to save one.
Since others have injected politics into the discussion (in other threads, e.g. the "if you're not with me you're against me" discussion), this is the one of the rationales used to defend embryonic stem-cell research.
I was at the beach two weeks ago. Found a Starbucks that offered one hour of access for $3 with the password printed on the receipt. Trivially easy to log in. The one hour limit kept my wife from going ballistic we me spending to much time on the net.
They even managed to sell me some coffee. It was a win-win-win situation.
The way to do things are documented...
I'm sure they are. I can either spend my time hunting for the documentation, or getting work done.
Once you get Linux up and running...
I've been using and programming computers for 30+ years. The thrill of digging into a new system "because it's there" lost its allure some time ago. I want my computer to enable me to do work, not to provide a playground for twiddling and tweaking.
I didn't say that I got Mac OS X to play sound on a Dell. I said that Linux couldn't play sound on a Dell. Mac OS X works just fine on my three PowerBooks, 2 iMacs, and iBook. Windows networking works on my Macs right out of the box. I'll have to spend time to figure out how to make Linux work.
And that's the problem with Linux. It's like a TR7 that a friend used to have; it's a great car if you want to spend more time working on it than driving it. He would drive from New Jersery to Virginia to see his girlfriend, and then spend all weekend working on his car so that he could get back home.
Then why can't Red Hat Fedora Core 3 play sound on my new Dell desktop? How much time (that I don't have), will I have to spend to get Linux to where it does everything Mac OS X does without any effort on my part?
Where are the mod points when I need them? A most excellent response.
It is true. Tolkein was one of several Christian influences on Lewis. That Lewis ended up in the CofE instead of Catholicism is incidental; both are Christian.
proposes that a small group of activists can and should employ rather violent means to defeat a technocratic dictatorship
Did we read the same book? The "small group of activists" basically did nothing but wait for events to unfold. The "technocratic dictatorship" was defeated by the judgement of God working through the individual Merlin.
and because the bug red button is under the control of a born again christian fundamentalist
I'm not sure I'd consider Bush a fundamentalist; nevertheless, what is the reason for your concern? Do you think you'd be safer if the "big red button" was under the control of an atheist, Jew, agnostic, or someone else? Why?
Because Christianity is the religion most likely to judge and condemn people?
Let's be clear, shall we? Christianity judges all people and says that all are condemned -- gay or straight, rich or poor, or whatever else. Because all are equally condemned, all are offered the free gift of salvation through Jesus.
It's common for people to hate something that they think singles them out, but that's hating something without first truly understanding it.
Judaism is not a proselytizing religion and never has been.
That's not true. Judaism used to be a proselytizing religion. By some estimates, up to 10% of the Roman Empire was Jewish and much of that through conversion.
Judaism stopped being a proselytizing religion after Christianity begin.
For an excellent counterexample, see Beating the Averages by Paul Graham.
Self-replicating rapid prototypers were initially designed. We can't have scientists go around looking for life that came about except by random natural processes, can we?
while we moan about taxes, are unwilling to invest properly in education, and run up debt to fund our little consumerist paradise
Government is inherently inefficient. While it can do some things that the private sector cannot do, the more taxes it consumes, the more inefficient society becomes. Hence, moaning about taxes is actually a good thing.
Money is not the problem with education. Private and home schools have shown that they can do more with less. The problem is culture rot and no amount of money is going to fix this.
I agree with you, however, about debt.
Better start learning how to make trinkets to sell to the tourists...
The next few years are going to be interesting. First, we are rapidly approaching the point where borders will make no difference. Second, American baby boomers will retire and leave the work force at a rate greater than they can be replaced. Some pundits have said that, starting around 2007, even if we outsource every single job possible, that there still won't be enough workers. Competent, educated people, regardless of their location, could very well be at a premium.
St, Paul deals with your argument in Romans, chapter 9, especially verses 18-21.
Perhaps you're right, and egoism absed morality is still a bit flawed.
Since egoism is antithetical to love, I would argue that such a basis for morality is extremely flawed.
How is god-based morality any better?
An excellent question. This requires in-depth discussion, for which this isn't the best forum. Unfortunately.
In that case, you have a morality which is based entirely around the decrees of some external entity which we are not even entirely sure what he wants.
This presumes that God is not able, or does not desire, to communicate His decrees to us. And that presupposes that we have some a priori knowledge of what God is like. So we either take the Deist assumption (which is just atheism in religious trappings), or we assume that God is able to communicate with us. Then we start listening.
Why should we act moral if all moral means is obeying God?
Why should we act morally at all? One answer would be "because it's the right thing to do."
and that you can only get rewarded by God if you can have your sins "wiped away."
In Christianity, the wiping away of sins is accompanied by an inner change from above.
Egoism based morality might not be perfect, but at least it's based in something tangible.
Love is tangible, too.
St. Paul disagrees with you: 1 Cor 15:13-19
No, that was critical historical scholars -- not just Christians.