When will a linux version be released? Is this something the original developers intend to do or should the community step up to port it now that we have the source?
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At my blog, you'll find that sarcasm is but one of the many services I provide free of charge.
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Not to be too pedantic about it, but...
on
Ubuntu Hacks
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· Score: 1, Insightful
...this is a book summary, not a book review.
I'm not saying it isn't useful, nor that it doesn't have a place on/., but it most certainly is not a book review. It's a reasonably helpful summary of contents.
How about a Firefox plugin that e-mails the Firefox foundation everytime you start Firefox?
Or how about being grateful for the free use of the software they are giving you? Or how about gettinmg involved in the solution rather than coming up with newer ways to spam the programmers who volunteer their time to make you a better browser?
I get your frustration. I'm a web developer, and deviation from standards causes me a great deal of pain and trouble, but when it's all said and done, I haven't contributed one line of code to the Firefox project, so anything they give me is a gift.
the TV is upsampling the signal to use all of the pixels on the display, right? So why is this a feature on the player? How does it improve image quality? Is it using a blingy-er algorithm than the TV would be using? Marketing fluff?
Actually, that is precisely correct. Full motion image rescaling is a nontrivial task. The TV is rarely (though there are notable exceptions!) the best choice to do the scaling. You want the video to be rescaled before it hits the TV by something a bit more beefy and slickery than what the TV will through at it.
The claim here is that the player's scaler is going to be better than the TV's, but probably not as good as a dedicated scaler. I'm sure you can turn the player's scaler off if you want that done by other equipment.
Is their claim truthful? Who knows? Most likely is is better than the TV, but I've seen some good TV-based scaling.
I know this is a good thing, and it is needed, but I just can't bring myself to submit bug reports to Microsoft. Here's why:
Microsoft is stingy with their knowledge. They release only what they want on their terms in their own way as they please. I can't, in good conscience, participate in that sort of relationship---one where I give everything I have to help them make a better product and they in turn give back just enough to justify charging me for the 'right' to lease (because software ownership is apparently so 90's) their software back. If I'm lucky, the software I've leased back from them may possibly have a fix to the problem I reported or it may not. Depending on the problem, I may never know. It's not like I am privy to their code or even their coding methodology. I will give to Microsoft to the extent that they give to me. And for the record Microsoft never 'gave' me anything. I have no investment in seeing them succeed under their current model.
In contrast, when I submit a bug report to a Free software project, I get the name of a guy assigned to the bug, I can log in and see the bug tracking discussion, the fix is there for me to review, the new version with fix included is given back to me free of charge and free of stipulations. I feel like a real participant in the process. I feel like Gnome's success or Evolution's success is both partly to do with me and directly beneficial to me.
Submitting bugs to Microsoft feel the same to me as submitting CD track info to CDDB. I give them info, they charge me to get it back.
It's what I intended to convey. If you get not get that from my statement, then hopefully I've now made my position more clear. I'm not interested in engaging you in a he-said-she-said sort of debate. I have only been replying thus far, because the questions seemed legitimate and serious. I admot that I'm starting to worry that I'm being ambushed in this subthread, however.
The first condition makes no sense (it adds nothing to the argument: you can't make things right and wrong by "authority" and still have them BE right and wrong: they are simply in line with or not line with commands at that point)
If an author writes a text, and that text conveys a specific setting or mood, then it simply is the setting or mood for that work. Likewise if the author of the universe embues the uiniverse with an ethic, then that is simple what the ethic is. It is no more a command than the author commands his setting. It is how it was written. And yes, I understand the Free Will implications of the analogy.
This analysis relies on an incredibly simplified and lacking understanding of Judaic law and history.
My degree is in Religious Studies. I am quite familiar with Judiac law and history, as well as its intersection with Christianity. I'm also quite able to discuss them in comparison to other world faiths, such as Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, to name the other top choices. You should be very careful about accusing someone you don't know of a lack of understanding. It comes off a bit mean-spirited at best and argument ad hominim at worst. I've been polite, I thought. I have not corrected any of the simple factual errors I've seen in this thread, because I don't think this is the time or place to play that sort of game. It's a (friendly?) discussion about morality in the religious context.
No, it is the claim of some of the sects of various faiths in that tradition, not all.
It is the overwhelming viewpoint of that family of faiths. To say otherwise is to unduly amplify a margin opinion for the sake of argument. Book after book after book will confirm this for you. I didn't just make it up, man, I swear. lol!
Good is synonymous with whatever God does, and therefore there is nothing laudable in anything God does: nothing that God rises to achieves or perfects. All there is is power, nothing more.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but what gave you the imporession that God was someone to be lauded? He doesn't ask for laudation. His only claim is to have our best interest at heart and to be ultimately powerful. Good and Evil in the sense you are describing is an extra-biblical concept. don't beleive me? Ask Job.;)
It wasn't merely extraordinary: it was in direct contradiction to Judiac Scripture, a failure of nearly every test of prophecy and behavior that the Jews had.
Most scholars I've studied on the subject---to include many Jewish ones---would strongly disagree with you. Indeed, most of the Gospel of Matthew is spent listing the various prophesies he is fulfilling as he does so, almost to a fault. Whether or not he actually did those things is a matter of faith, but that those things would fulfill the (sometimes contradictory) Jewish prophesies is not really a debated question in academic circles.
I wrote a paper on the development and evolution of the messianic figure in the Old Testament a while back. Rather than rehash all the arguments I made there, I'll just link to it:
It's math.... We just differ in the degree of importance we assign each one.... This math is relative; the value changes given the situation.
I think our disagreement here is one of definition, then. When I hear 'quantitative analysis' and 'math' I think of an objective standard and answers that are provably of a given value. It sounds like you are giving more leeway in this context than that, which is all I was saying should be done anyway. Your 'quantitative' is very similar to my 'qualitative'.:)
It may sound cold, but if I had to choose to sacrifice a brain dead person to give their organs to a dozen other people and save their lives, I would. I don't view their values as being the same. I hope that if someday I am pronounced brain dead, someone will use my organs to help others who need them.
It doesn't sound cold. It sounds pragmatic. I don't fault anyone for pragmatism. I don't agree with your assessment, but I understand the logic behind it. My alternative view (which you probalby already know now) is that I'd not kill anyone to save another. My assessment of individual value is non-existent. I don't think of others as having differing degrees of value. For me (drawn from my Christian background, of course), to assign value to treat others as means to an end, whereas I view each person as an end in and of themselves, regardless of their use to me or others.
Just so as to make sure I'm clear about this, it is for this and many other reasons that I am firmly against the death penalty, abortion, embryonic stem cell research, IVF, and even extreme cases of triage. I would never judge someone else for making an informed decision that led them to do something I am against, but I neither would I pretend I thought it was the only option. I find there are alternatives to even the most extreme cases.
I think you undersell yourself. We are all judged and judge everyday. Our friends, lovers, employers and even family (who have an insanely high threshold) constantly evaluate our worth. Try becoming a homeless heroin addict and see if everyone still treats you the same.
True enough. I volunteer in a homeless shelter and I can tell you that these people are most definately not accustomed to being treated as equals, or even human. It's sad, really, that we push them aside like so much human refuse.
We easily enough decided that the value of making a democratic Iraq was worth thousands of our lives, tens-of-thousands of theirs, and billions of dollars.
I do not support the war. Not for the obvious political reasons, but rather becuase this war is a senseless waste of human life. There are wars I would support (though I'd say very damn few!), but even then, I'd never support sending someone off who didn't volunteer to go. I'd never say we should kill off a few thousand non-volunteers at random to trade for peace in the Middle East. From the perspective of someone who views the embryos as people, this is functionally equivalent.
So as to not be accused of losing my grip on reality, I am not saying that the measure of human suffering is the same as killing a few thousand functioning adults, but the level of human tragedy is. I'm only gratful that there is no suffering to accompany the loss. I am firmly against it, but I understand the scope of the loss in terms of suffering in the community is less. That doesn't change my stance, but it is at the heart of why I don't think it's right for people to take arms against peope who perform these sorts of tests of do abortions or whatever. That would be adding suffering to tragedy, and it would be stupid to boot (taking life of someone who doesn't respect life as you do? wtf?)
I shut off my wow account a couple weeks ago. It's unbelievable how much time I have now
There are lots of perfectly valid society-based reasons. Top of the list being I don't want someone to kill me. I don't not kill people only because I've been told it's wrong. I didn't wait until marraige to have sex, even though I was told that was wrong. My equation realised that one was a big deal, the other wasn't.
I agree with all that, but those aren't quantifications, they are clarifications and reasons. There is no underlying math. That is why I object to the term "quantify". in this context. Math, though it provided verifiable credulity to those things it can describe (hence why Science likes it), it's an application language when we talk about murder. There are reasons, but those reasons are not absolute, they are contextual. I don't like this, so I won't to it to someone else. I want a world where X is true, so I do what it takes to make X true. These are contextually valid, but not quantifiable in that sense. That's all I mean.
I swear I am not trying to dance around the question.:-) Just trying to get us on the same page in our terminology so our discussion is more productive.
What happens at conception that makes it more valuable than a sperm, more valuable than a fully grown animal, and more valuable than a fully grown human?
Nothing makes it more valuable than a fully grown human, but it is equally valuable. What happens to make it equally valuable, theologically, is that that is when the person begins to enter a relationship with the human community and with God.
Which cannot happen if you want to blanket assume that our feelings on what conception is are untouchable.
Nothing about us is untouchable, in my opinion. We are disecctable and understandable to the limits of our abilty. Relationships, however, cannto be dissected in the same way. They can be studied, and commented on, but not really quantified in that sense. What is the numerical 'value' of a person? That's a good (but ultimately unanswerable) question. If value is derived from a relationship with God (the religious claim, then though we still can't put a number on the value, we can say the values---at least according to the Hebraistic tradition---are equal among those with that relationship.
Many of us can't see the argument that you are a whole human at conception. It just doesn't make sense to us. We define the things that make us human being our minds (IQ), not necessarily the way we look. Embryos are a cell. Embryos have no braincells, no nervous system, no sense of self. Why can't I use those cells to help a fully functional adult?
Quite true. This is perhaps a serious difference of opinion between science and religion. Science looks to ability to differentiate value, whereas religion views all humans as equally valuable, whether elderly, crippled, blind, infantile, retarded, fetal, or adult. IQ is a perfectly good way to differentiate a person's value to a given task, it is not a good way to determine a person's existential worth.
Sometimes one life is actually more important than another. If sacrificing one person could save a million, that might be worth it. Maybe we should worry more about the death and murder that happens to adults every day, as opposed to the cells we never allowed to become infants.
Utilitarianism is certainly a valid argument in many ways (though it does suffer from some notable flaws that greater thinker than I have pointed out), but it's underlying assumption is that morality is a complex calculus rather than a relational motive.
In a situation where this person will definitely die if we don't use a stem cell, why is an artificially fertilized and cultivated cell more valuable than the man sitting before me?
Remember that he is not more valuable, but ratehr equally valuable, exis
Again, don't purport to speak for religions everywhere. Many many theologians reject moral command theology in favor of the idea that morals are simple eternal principles basic to the ability to feel and have value, and that what God does is illuminate them for us, not create them.
My claim is that religions everywhere present the idea that morality is absolute. That's what I was saying.
If what is good and what is bad is merely the decision of a particular sort of being, then they are not really universal at all: they are merely conditional. Nor are they abstractable: they are situational and relative.
...Unless that being in question is by definition absolute inauthority and not capricious in nature. Assuming a being with absolute authority, the idea of that being also being the determiner of absolute morality is not a far stretch at all. This is the claim of the Judeo-Islamic-Christian faiths.
Principles that require a value for life may not convince a sociopath, but then again we never expected them to do so.
They will also not convince anyone who chooses not to beleive them. Without appeal to an absolute authority and in absense of a moral calculus that can prove out the moral claim, the only morality is consensual.
If good is defined by God, then there is no way God could not be good, and hence the term "good" has no real meaning at all.
Actually, linguisitically that isn't precisely true. What it means is the God is a superset of Good. The terms become uni-directionally synonymous. Like I said, it's not a popular position to take (most for it's Free Will implications, I think) but it's a defensible position, as it is the one the Christian church has taken since the great Augustine/Pelagius debate. You won't find too many denominations fo Christianity that side with Pelagius on that one. Likewise, you won't find many liaty that are even aware of the debate or its details, and so only side with the one presented best by the questioner.
This of course is why so few Jews bought into Christianity. The idea that god would turn around and change morality, from suddenly declaring things that were abominations to be ok, to endorsing human sacrifice and so on, to them the message of Jesus wasn't much different than someone today saying that adultery was really ok after all as long as you did it with your eyes closed.
I have to strongly disagree here. This is a more academic point, but the biggest reason that Jesus wasn't popular with the Jewish people had nothing to do with his general theology (as he was quite similar to the ruling Pharisees in outlook on many issues) but because of his underlying claim of divinity. Jesus claimed to be the Messiah prophesied in the Jewish texts for thousands of years. It's easy to have faith that something will happen, it's quite another to have faith that something prophecied did happen. It was an extraordinary claim. Not everyone was convinced. This is understandable. It's akin to someone showing up now and saying they are Jesus. Some interpretations of the New Testament suggest he will show up, but if someone told me he was the expected Christ, I have to admit the BS-ometer is gonna get pegged. It is human nature to be skeptical of such claims.
As for the theological changes Jesus suggested to Judiasm, those changes were already underway in other parts of the jewish world. Those changes are by-and-large a part of modern Judaism. The general trend of jewish morality was one that saw the people of Isreal move from barbarism and its commensurate morality (revenge served cold) to moral enlightenment (from only an eye for an eye to turn the other cheek).
I don't see most of Jesus theology being a challenge to the jewish people. His claim of divinity, however...THAT'S a big deal!
I apologise if it comes off this way. I'm just trying to discuss it. No harm intended.
No problem. I didnt' take offense.
If you can't quantify and explain it, it has no place being turned to law.
I agree. Laws shouls be as clear as they can be, where they are unclear, solid case law should be established to add clarity. I think, though, that I can explain my position. The issue isn't one of explanation, it's one of agreement. We both make certain assumptions and if those assumptions are too different our conclusions will differ wildly. At it's core, my assumption is that rights should be granted at conception, whereas other people have different assumptions. I can explain what I want clearly, but I am doubtful that anyone could offer a calculus that would answer the question of granted rights.
When someone throws a ball at you, you don't consciously mathmatically work out the velocity of the ball, factor in gravity, and determine where the ball will be when it reaches you.... The equations are back there, your brain is just doing what it does best, estimating.
True enough, but there are laws of physics at work that we can dissect and quantify with a thrown object, not so with the morality of murder. We can debate the liability of the murderer but we cannot quatnify the underlying morality of the act. We can only work under assumptions and guesses. My starting assumption is that murder is wrong. I think you have the same assumption, but neither of us could venture a credible quantification of why it's wrong.
The difference between us in this argument I really believe is the way we weighted the individual variables and decisions up to and including this point. Both are valid as our life experiences have moved them. If we begin to acknowledge that feelings aren't unchangeable sacred things, but just differences of opinion, it seems we could work things out rationally.
I agree. Rational discourse is all we have when it comes to settling disagreement within a civilized context. At its core, rational discourse assumes that both parties are entering honestly and willing to concede to evidence presented.
But then what defines what is or isn't human? That still doesn't really answer the question of what or where this concept of special human beings is based on. How do we know it when we see it, given that we can see any number of different things?
Humanity is defined, in a religious sense, by our relationship with God. How do I know it when I see it? Sometimes I don't. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I might get it wrong. In the end, the reason I draw the line where I do with respect to embryos and such is that we see a clearly living being who is growing towards a role in the community. Not everyone draws the line there. Some draw it later, often at birth or the third trimester.
When it comes to issues of morality, quantifiability is elusive at best and non-existent at worst. We are left with something closer to blind groping. I wish that weren't so, but it is.
It also seems a bit frightening that a concept of morality would be based purely on the unexplained commands of a being only some claim to know and report the commands of, rather than compassion or empathy or something more directly relevant to the beings themselves that need the protection and concern and so on.... Morality has always seemed to me to have to be a lot more stable and inherent than that.
The absolute morality you are talking about requires an absolute authority. this is the claim of religions everywhere. In absence of such a granting authority, we are left with relative morality. That is to say, without some authority to draw the universal line you may dislike murder, but that doesn't make it wrong for me (illegal, but not morally wrong). There is no way to start with copmpassion and empathy and derive a universal ethic that has any meaning outside of the context of the person or people who derived it. I'm not saying this is an invalid method for determining morality (it's essentially morality by consensus) but it is not the method I use and it is not universal, it's consensual morality. This is, in short, what our legal system is supposed to be. It can work well enough to progress as a species, but I prefer a differetn methodology.
The underlying question you seem to be asking is "Is Good Good because Good is Good or is Good Good because God said Good is Good?" If you can follow that logic.:) The short answer I have is that we don't know an answer to that and within most relgions that is a debate that has raged from the beginning. It's not popular, and I understand why, but I tend to side with the camp that says Good is Good becuase God said Good is Good. I lean that way for theological reasons, despite the despotic overtones it might suggest to the average cynic.:)
How does and embryo that is not an individual have a life to take?
I don't mean to say it doesn't have an individuality, just that my reasoning doesn't really address it's individualness one way or that other. Rather, it addresses the embryo's part within the community. I know it's a bit hair-splitting to make that sort of distinction, but it's an important one to make, religiously speaking. Individuality is a non-issue, but being a part of the community it. Your arm will itself never be a part of the human community, your child will.
I would say that at whatever point in its development the embryo becomes equal in God's eyes to you and I, the only coherent way I can think about that is to correspond to when the embryo becomes an individual, is granted a soul, whatever language you want to use.
Well, despite what you may have heard to the contrary, God (at least according to the bible) has little to no interest in personal relationships with each of us individually. His concern thoughout the text is with the community. It is of note that whenever an individual stands out in the bible, it's usually due to a crisis of community. I'm not trying to devalue individualness---nor, I think, do the writer's of the books of the bible---rather I'm trying to establish the perspective from which a religious person will view another to determine "humanness".
Remember, also, that there exists in the bible no distinction between body, mind, and soul---no moment when God embues a body with a soul to make a human whole. The distincton between them is a Greek, not a Hebrew, concept. Once the person begins to grow at all, theologically speaking his 'soul' is part and parcel of that development.
The Bible acknowledges that Isaac to be different from Abraham:-).
:) Yeah, but the story of Abraham is really the story of the Jewish people moving from earlier faiths to faith in Yahweh. Abraham isn't important. Isaac isn't important. The community of beleivers are. This is one of the two main points driven home in story after story in the bible.
Now if you mean that being human in God's eyes does not depend on you somehow exhibiting some set of phenomena that constitutes "individuality", that's fine, but again, we come back to the problem of motivating when something becomes a person, with a life to lose, in God's eyes.
Agreed. Am I right to say as I do above that "Once the person begins to grow at all, theologically speaking his 'soul' is part and parcel of that development." I think I am. On that one point, the bible seems remarkably consistent. Could I be misunderstanding things as written? Sure. Could the bible be wrong on that point? Yep. That brings us to faith. In the end, whether you say human rights are granted at conception or at birth or at the age of 21, you are making a small leap of faith in the hopes that you are right. You describe it above as a "problem". I don't disagree with that assessment at all. Making decisions without all the evidence in hand is always problematic.
How is this even possible if we can't count on God to give us observable clues that something is human. Because, for better or for worse, we are starting to create things which don't have a clear "human-ness" status.
I'm not sure that we need observable clues to humanness in the sense you mean it here. I think reasoned discourse will allow the community to come to a consensus as to what is and is not human. Sometimes we will make mistakes and (hopefully) most the time we will get it right.
by human, I assume you mean of course a human individual.
Not really, no. Individuality is a pychological concept, not a religious one. I'm not arguing that we aren't individuals, just that our individuallity is not what makes grants us rights or makes us special (in the religious sense). Religiously, community is the keyword, rather than individuality.
How do you know you are not just anthropomorphizing the embryo?
I don't really care that the embryo seems or doesn't seem human. My only concern is a religious one. The embryo, from the Judeo-Islamic-Christian perspective, is equal in God's eyes.
I have a good Catholic friend whose reponse would be that she just likes to "play it safe" then, and assume that personhood beings at conception, which seems to be the standard reply, but this has never been satisfying for me
It seems a good enough reply, but it isn't an answer, I agree.
It looks like your argument simply slipped from "Rights of Man" (your capitals) to an economic argument ("the price is too high"). Economic in the sense of means and ends, not merely financial.
I just wanted to address the differing concerns of different people. My reason is simply that all people have a set of basic rights and I argue that those right extend to all forms of human life (i.e., embryonic, fetal, infantile, adult, etc...).
Both have the same right to live, according to you, but at least one of them will die
Maybe so, but I won't kill either of them. I hope you catch the gist of what I'm getting at. I'm not saying it isn't a tragedy. I'm not being cavalier about anyone's death. Anything I can do to help, short of killing someone else, I will do. But I won't take a human life to save one. That's the line I'm drawing. Others draw the line elsewhere. It's a hard call to make.
You argue, correct me if I am wrong, that it is inappropriate to assign less significance to an embryo than a more developed person because it is not our place to determine who's life is more worth living.
Not exactly, no. I argue that it is inappropriate to assign less significance to an embryo than a more developed person because it is not our place to assign such significance. Who's life is more worth living is a seperate question and not related to me argument.
Therefore, whether the life were well-lived (whatever that means) or not, they are equally valuable.
And yes, this does mean I am not for IVF. But that's a whole different discussion.:)
Struggling to weigh the good against the bad is how I have created my moral code. In any given topic I can quantify the benefits and drawbacks and explain how weighted each one is.
I understand your perspective. I'm not trying to devalue it, either. I have a great deal of respect for Atheist Humanist thinkers like Paul Kurtz. You should read his work "The New Skepticism" for a great discussion of this perspective. He says a lot of what you are here. He makes a credible argument that shouldn't be ignored. I happen to disagree with it, but that by no means makes the argument invalid (or even wrong!).
Rather than debate, they quote the Bible and try to claim the moral high ground.
There are people who will do this. I agree.
If there was never a serious discussion in the Bible about it, how are there passages that confirm any point of view? Given any book I could find quotes out of context to support my views.
My only claim is that there are supportive passages in the bible. I agree that their aren't any passages that discuss embryonic stem cell research, but you and I both already knew that going into the discussion.;)
So rather than quoting bible passages, holding rallies, and trying to pass laws why don't you just say that?
I didn't quote any bible passages, even when you asked me to. I don't hold rallies. I only explain my perspective when asked. As for laws, I let me representitive know my opinion on all subjects that matter to me. I think we all should do that. If the majority of Americans disagree with me and pass laws I disagree with, I'll obey those laws (within reason, obviously). This, by the way, is half the problem with the abortion debate now. No law was passed. The decision was not made by our representitives, but rather in the courts. This is one of those things that really should be a representitive led decision. But that's a different debate. I should add that I am under no illusion that I'll be on the winning side either. It is my beleif that I am in the minority here. If it comes to a vote, I suspect my side would lose. I can accept the Will of the People.
Consider maybe your view is wrong. I'll consider that maybe mine is.
I think you are levying against me some resentment you have about fundamentalists. I'm OK with that, as I understand your frustration, but to be absolutely clear, I've never said I was certain that I was right. I always assume I could be wrong. All the facts aren't in evidence, firstly, and secondly, some of my claims are faith-based and cannot be proved or disproved. Speaking with certainty about anything sans the full evidence list is foolish. I do my best not to be foolish.
We quantify morality every day. Murder, rape, incest, fraud are all moral issues. We weigh the benefits against the cost and draw up rules for what is ok and what is not. We then quantify the penalty for those crimes based on how negative we view the cost.
I think you may be overestimating the calculus that goes into the design of laws. The real quntification occurs with determining liabilty, not morality. Indeed, the claim of law is not a claim of morality at all, but ratehr a claim of authority for a just and equitable society. I like justice and equity, but they are not the same as morality or ethic.
You need to draw a line somewhere. Leaving it vague just serves to fuel the controversy.
I agree. When it come sto law, the rules must be clear. This is normally done with case law, but I prefer the clarity be more front-loaded when possible. But I though I was clear on this: From conception On, I argue that the embryo/fetus/etc is human and should be accorded the basic human rights like a Right to Life. Sans further evidence
I don't see why we can, eg, use a condom, which also interferes with the reproductive process. For me, this is problematic. I would be interested in your perspective.
Indeed, the Catholic church does take a stand against that. I'm not Catholic, and I disagree with their stance on this, but I understand their perspective. To be clear, they come to this stance from a different route.
Regarding the rest of your examples, there are many cases that are and will be difficult to adjudicate. Is a group of stem cells a person? If not, does it become a person if placed in a lab for the purpose of cloning a new person? I dunno. I won't venture a guess, since such things are better left to a case-by-case decision. In the case of an embryo, I think the "Is it a human" line has clearly been crossed. The "is it a person" line is a different one, and it's one that asks socialogical and psychological questions, not religious ones. Religiously, a human is a person. Hence, once we consider it human (embryo, fetus, etc...) then it gets accorded the "specialness" of personhood, like the Right to Life.
Thanks. You may be surprised to know that most Christians are, even on these issues. The media, however, has more fun televising the extremists. As Christians, we don't do enough to make that widely known. We should do more.
What does your religion actually say about this? I'm assuming you are christian. I've never heard anyone quote anything from the Bible on this topic. So doesn't that mean that the religious groups just made up a gut-reaction and started touting that as the "moral" one?... If the Bible doesn't say anything, then someone recently just made this up.... it seems pretty arrogant to make up new rules as you go and spout that as the word of god.
This is an excellent line of questions. The confusion is the fault of Christianity for not making this clearer. Mainstream Christianity, unlike mainstream Islam, for instance, does not make the claim that its holy text is the literal Word of God. Indeed, within Christian circles when we refer to the "Word of God" we are talking about Jesus Christ, not the bible. The bible makes this clear, but too many fundamentalists confuse the claim by assuming the bible to be a work of perfection and thus the literal Word of God. This is, historically, not a Christian claim. The bible, like the works of theologians throughout history are guideposts---a map of sorts. The bible is an excellent guide, when read in an educated and clear-headed manner. It is not, however, the final word on all things religious, or even all things Christian.
To be clear, there are quotes from the bible that support the anti-abortion rights movement and similar movements but that is not why we argue against them. It is only one small piece of the answer. Firstly, nothing in the bible directly addresses the issues here because the idea of embryonic research would have been like alien magic to the writers of those texts. They cannot directly address anything they cannot directly envision.
The short answer is that from the Judeo-Christian-Islamic perspective there is little more significant in God's creation than humankind. In effect, everything is God's work, but we are His special work. Genesis makes this relationship between God and man clear (once you stop reading it as a literal description of the creation story...for which it was never intended!). Within this context, the arguement is that all human life is sacred and is distinguished in nature only by its relationship to God. In other words, regardless of intelligence, ability, morality, beliefs, race, or sex, humans are all equally special in God's eyes. Thus, despite the lack of IQ or the ability to be self sustaining, any form of human life is accorded the same basic rights to life.
Do we know we are right? Of course not, but we think we are. We hope we are. That's all we can do. We act on our beleifs and our ethic in the hopes that over time doing so will create a better world. So far, so good. We (Humanity, not just Christianity) have more successes than failures. We are moving forward. This gives me hope.
How do you feel about animal testing? Or killing animals to extract medical benefits? They are alive. Does morality only kick in based on an IQ? I mean really that's the primary seperation between you, and say, a cow. If that's the case then we should be clear on the embryos. They have no IQ yet.
Animal testing is unfortunate, overused, and often too cruel. It is also sometimes done right with minimal cruelty for the betterment of mankind. In the biblical sense (since you asked about that earlier), just as Genesis makes clear God's relationship to Man, it also makes clear Man's relationship to the rest of creation (as a steward). No, for religious reasons, I do not consider a cow as significant as a human, in any state of being. I
Why does the life of an embryo with no family, or home, or even gurantee of survival, outweigh the life of someone who is already established in society; who loves and is loved, who has built up a life, and who would be sorely missed by many people?
What you've done is base your reasoning on an emotional plea rather than a logical framework. It is a tragedy when someone so firmly entrenched in the human community passes from us---of that there can be no debate, and that depth of tragedy does not exist in cases of abortion, IVF, and other examples of the destruction of human embryos. We will all miss the guy with the family more than the embryo we never knew.
But that was never the claim of those with a religious objection to the act. Religious and moral objections center around the question of the Rights of Man and at what stage in life those rights are accorded to us (Embryonic? Fetal? Infant? Puberty? Adulthood? etc...). The religious arguement is that those rights are accorded to each individual as soon as that individual comes into being. In short, "God bless everyone...no exceptions". Others argue that those rights are prematurely granted and shouldn't be accorded until birth. The law takes a graduated approach, saying that rights are accorded piecemeal as we move through the stages of life, and the most basic of rights (the Right to Life) is granted (conditionally) sometime around the third trimester of pregnancy.
Nowhere in the discussion do the religious folk claim that the people who would be saved don't deserve to be saved, just that the price is too high.
That argument in an (WAY) oversimplified nutshell: You and four others are in a hot air balloon and the balloon begiuns to sink into a volcano (too much weight!). Some quick calulations reveal that if just one of you jumped overboard the rest would survive. Do you toss someone overboard? If so, how do you determine who? Destruction of the embryo to save other lives is akin, in this argument, to saying that you determine the person to toss overboard by evaluating their life and determining which one has the fewest friends and family who will miss them, or alternatively by which is least capable of fending off the forced toss.
There are, of course, arguements on boths sides and such implausible scenarios can always be gamed in logical debates like this, so don't carry it too far. I'm not trying to get into a tit-for-tat over the specifics of the fantasy example, but rather just trying to show you the gist of the argument.
This is a pretty clear-cut moral decision.
Many people would vehemently disagree with you. There are quite few "clear cut" moral decisions in life. If there were, we wouldn't need to argue so much about them.
Disclaimer: I am against the destruction of embryos in this context for religious and moral reasons. I am not approaching this from an unbiased perspective (like anyone does!). Your mileage may vary. Do not stare at happy fun ball, etc....:)
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When will a linux version be released? Is this something the original developers intend to do or should the community step up to port it now that we have the source?
Just curious.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/
If my blog interests you, perhaps you'd also like to sign up for my Tom.DigitalElite.Com newsletter.
I also have Tom.DigitalElite.Com coffee mugs and t-shirts for the serious fan.
For the more sedate sophisticate such as yourself, I offer a Tom.DigitalElite.Com roasted java bean blend---smooth, satisfying, and oh so mmmmm, just like my blog.
At my blog, you'll find that sarcasm is but one of the many services I provide free of charge.
Act now, I'll throw in a free Tom.DigitalElite.Com "Lonely Fornication" baseball cap.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/
...this is a book summary, not a book review.
/., but it most certainly is not a book review. It's a reasonably helpful summary of contents.
I'm not saying it isn't useful, nor that it doesn't have a place on
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/
Or how about being grateful for the free use of the software they are giving you? Or how about gettinmg involved in the solution rather than coming up with newer ways to spam the programmers who volunteer their time to make you a better browser?
I get your frustration. I'm a web developer, and deviation from standards causes me a great deal of pain and trouble, but when it's all said and done, I haven't contributed one line of code to the Firefox project, so anything they give me is a gift.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/
Do you ever have to choke down the urge to punch Bill Gates straight in the mouth for what he's done to your creation?
I mean, I know I do, and CSS isn't my baby.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ (why yes, it is a CSS-based 3-column layout!)
I know what "ultra" means. Do they? I believe the phrase they are looking for is Semi Portable, not Ultra Portable.
That's like saying Windows is Ultra Stable or Linux is Ultra Simple!
Tom "Ultra Brilliant" Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/
Actually, that is precisely correct. Full motion image rescaling is a nontrivial task. The TV is rarely (though there are notable exceptions!) the best choice to do the scaling. You want the video to be rescaled before it hits the TV by something a bit more beefy and slickery than what the TV will through at it.
The claim here is that the player's scaler is going to be better than the TV's, but probably not as good as a dedicated scaler. I'm sure you can turn the player's scaler off if you want that done by other equipment.
Is their claim truthful? Who knows? Most likely is is better than the TV, but I've seen some good TV-based scaling.
My home theater setup? http://tom.digitalelite.com/caudroplex.html
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/
I know this is a good thing, and it is needed, but I just can't bring myself to submit bug reports to Microsoft. Here's why:
Microsoft is stingy with their knowledge. They release only what they want on their terms in their own way as they please. I can't, in good conscience, participate in that sort of relationship---one where I give everything I have to help them make a better product and they in turn give back just enough to justify charging me for the 'right' to lease (because software ownership is apparently so 90's) their software back. If I'm lucky, the software I've leased back from them may possibly have a fix to the problem I reported or it may not. Depending on the problem, I may never know. It's not like I am privy to their code or even their coding methodology. I will give to Microsoft to the extent that they give to me. And for the record Microsoft never 'gave' me anything. I have no investment in seeing them succeed under their current model.
In contrast, when I submit a bug report to a Free software project, I get the name of a guy assigned to the bug, I can log in and see the bug tracking discussion, the fix is there for me to review, the new version with fix included is given back to me free of charge and free of stipulations. I feel like a real participant in the process. I feel like Gnome's success or Evolution's success is both partly to do with me and directly beneficial to me.
Submitting bugs to Microsoft feel the same to me as submitting CD track info to CDDB. I give them info, they charge me to get it back.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/
...when do we get our Pr0n optimized mouse?
I want something with a zooming wheel, snap-to-naughty-bits software, and maybe a navigation straw so I can use it hands-free!
Hot grits, I'm a genius! Why don't these people hire me?
This has been another embarrassing post by,
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/
It's what I intended to convey. If you get not get that from my statement, then hopefully I've now made my position more clear. I'm not interested in engaging you in a he-said-she-said sort of debate. I have only been replying thus far, because the questions seemed legitimate and serious. I admot that I'm starting to worry that I'm being ambushed in this subthread, however.
If an author writes a text, and that text conveys a specific setting or mood, then it simply is the setting or mood for that work. Likewise if the author of the universe embues the uiniverse with an ethic, then that is simple what the ethic is. It is no more a command than the author commands his setting. It is how it was written. And yes, I understand the Free Will implications of the analogy.
My degree is in Religious Studies. I am quite familiar with Judiac law and history, as well as its intersection with Christianity. I'm also quite able to discuss them in comparison to other world faiths, such as Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, to name the other top choices. You should be very careful about accusing someone you don't know of a lack of understanding. It comes off a bit mean-spirited at best and argument ad hominim at worst. I've been polite, I thought. I have not corrected any of the simple factual errors I've seen in this thread, because I don't think this is the time or place to play that sort of game. It's a (friendly?) discussion about morality in the religious context.
It is the overwhelming viewpoint of that family of faiths. To say otherwise is to unduly amplify a margin opinion for the sake of argument. Book after book after book will confirm this for you. I didn't just make it up, man, I swear. lol!
Not to put too fine a point on it, but what gave you the imporession that God was someone to be lauded? He doesn't ask for laudation. His only claim is to have our best interest at heart and to be ultimately powerful. Good and Evil in the sense you are describing is an extra-biblical concept. don't beleive me? Ask Job.
Most scholars I've studied on the subject---to include many Jewish ones---would strongly disagree with you. Indeed, most of the Gospel of Matthew is spent listing the various prophesies he is fulfilling as he does so, almost to a fault. Whether or not he actually did those things is a matter of faith, but that those things would fulfill the (sometimes contradictory) Jewish prophesies is not really a debated question in academic circles.
I wrote a paper on the development and evolution of the messianic figure in the Old Testament a while back. Rather than rehash all the arguments I made there, I'll just link to it:
http://tom.digitalelite.com/2004_03_07_08_02_00.h
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/
I think our disagreement here is one of definition, then. When I hear 'quantitative analysis' and 'math' I think of an objective standard and answers that are provably of a given value. It sounds like you are giving more leeway in this context than that, which is all I was saying should be done anyway. Your 'quantitative' is very similar to my 'qualitative'. :)
It doesn't sound cold. It sounds pragmatic. I don't fault anyone for pragmatism. I don't agree with your assessment, but I understand the logic behind it. My alternative view (which you probalby already know now) is that I'd not kill anyone to save another. My assessment of individual value is non-existent. I don't think of others as having differing degrees of value. For me (drawn from my Christian background, of course), to assign value to treat others as means to an end, whereas I view each person as an end in and of themselves, regardless of their use to me or others.
Just so as to make sure I'm clear about this, it is for this and many other reasons that I am firmly against the death penalty, abortion, embryonic stem cell research, IVF, and even extreme cases of triage. I would never judge someone else for making an informed decision that led them to do something I am against, but I neither would I pretend I thought it was the only option. I find there are alternatives to even the most extreme cases.
True enough. I volunteer in a homeless shelter and I can tell you that these people are most definately not accustomed to being treated as equals, or even human. It's sad, really, that we push them aside like so much human refuse.
I do not support the war. Not for the obvious political reasons, but rather becuase this war is a senseless waste of human life. There are wars I would support (though I'd say very damn few!), but even then, I'd never support sending someone off who didn't volunteer to go. I'd never say we should kill off a few thousand non-volunteers at random to trade for peace in the Middle East. From the perspective of someone who views the embryos as people, this is functionally equivalent.
So as to not be accused of losing my grip on reality, I am not saying that the measure of human suffering is the same as killing a few thousand functioning adults, but the level of human tragedy is. I'm only gratful that there is no suffering to accompany the loss. I am firmly against it, but I understand the scope of the loss in terms of suffering in the community is less. That doesn't change my stance, but it is at the heart of why I don't think it's right for people to take arms against peope who perform these sorts of tests of do abortions or whatever. That would be adding suffering to tragedy, and it would be stupid to boot (taking life of someone who doesn't respect life as you do? wtf?)
I agree with all that, but those aren't quantifications, they are clarifications and reasons. There is no underlying math. That is why I object to the term "quantify". in this context. Math, though it provided verifiable credulity to those things it can describe (hence why Science likes it), it's an application language when we talk about murder. There are reasons, but those reasons are not absolute, they are contextual. I don't like this, so I won't to it to someone else. I want a world where X is true, so I do what it takes to make X true. These are contextually valid, but not quantifiable in that sense. That's all I mean.
:-) Just trying to get us on the same page in our terminology so our discussion is more productive.
I swear I am not trying to dance around the question.
Nothing makes it more valuable than a fully grown human, but it is equally valuable. What happens to make it equally valuable, theologically, is that that is when the person begins to enter a relationship with the human community and with God.
Nothing about us is untouchable, in my opinion. We are disecctable and understandable to the limits of our abilty. Relationships, however, cannto be dissected in the same way. They can be studied, and commented on, but not really quantified in that sense. What is the numerical 'value' of a person? That's a good (but ultimately unanswerable) question. If value is derived from a relationship with God (the religious claim, then though we still can't put a number on the value, we can say the values---at least according to the Hebraistic tradition---are equal among those with that relationship.
Quite true. This is perhaps a serious difference of opinion between science and religion. Science looks to ability to differentiate value, whereas religion views all humans as equally valuable, whether elderly, crippled, blind, infantile, retarded, fetal, or adult. IQ is a perfectly good way to differentiate a person's value to a given task, it is not a good way to determine a person's existential worth.
Utilitarianism is certainly a valid argument in many ways (though it does suffer from some notable flaws that greater thinker than I have pointed out), but it's underlying assumption is that morality is a complex calculus rather than a relational motive.
Remember that he is not more valuable, but ratehr equally valuable, exis
My claim is that religions everywhere present the idea that morality is absolute. That's what I was saying.
They will also not convince anyone who chooses not to beleive them. Without appeal to an absolute authority and in absense of a moral calculus that can prove out the moral claim, the only morality is consensual.
Actually, linguisitically that isn't precisely true. What it means is the God is a superset of Good. The terms become uni-directionally synonymous. Like I said, it's not a popular position to take (most for it's Free Will implications, I think) but it's a defensible position, as it is the one the Christian church has taken since the great Augustine/Pelagius debate. You won't find too many denominations fo Christianity that side with Pelagius on that one. Likewise, you won't find many liaty that are even aware of the debate or its details, and so only side with the one presented best by the questioner.
I have to strongly disagree here. This is a more academic point, but the biggest reason that Jesus wasn't popular with the Jewish people had nothing to do with his general theology (as he was quite similar to the ruling Pharisees in outlook on many issues) but because of his underlying claim of divinity. Jesus claimed to be the Messiah prophesied in the Jewish texts for thousands of years. It's easy to have faith that something will happen, it's quite another to have faith that something prophecied did happen. It was an extraordinary claim. Not everyone was convinced. This is understandable. It's akin to someone showing up now and saying they are Jesus. Some interpretations of the New Testament suggest he will show up, but if someone told me he was the expected Christ, I have to admit the BS-ometer is gonna get pegged. It is human nature to be skeptical of such claims.
As for the theological changes Jesus suggested to Judiasm, those changes were already underway in other parts of the jewish world. Those changes are by-and-large a part of modern Judaism. The general trend of jewish morality was one that saw the people of Isreal move from barbarism and its commensurate morality (revenge served cold) to moral enlightenment (from only an eye for an eye to turn the other cheek).
I don't see most of Jesus theology being a challenge to the jewish people. His claim of divinity, however...THAT'S a big deal!
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/
No problem. I didnt' take offense.
I agree. Laws shouls be as clear as they can be, where they are unclear, solid case law should be established to add clarity. I think, though, that I can explain my position. The issue isn't one of explanation, it's one of agreement. We both make certain assumptions and if those assumptions are too different our conclusions will differ wildly. At it's core, my assumption is that rights should be granted at conception, whereas other people have different assumptions. I can explain what I want clearly, but I am doubtful that anyone could offer a calculus that would answer the question of granted rights.
True enough, but there are laws of physics at work that we can dissect and quantify with a thrown object, not so with the morality of murder. We can debate the liability of the murderer but we cannot quatnify the underlying morality of the act. We can only work under assumptions and guesses. My starting assumption is that murder is wrong. I think you have the same assumption, but neither of us could venture a credible quantification of why it's wrong.
I agree. Rational discourse is all we have when it comes to settling disagreement within a civilized context. At its core, rational discourse assumes that both parties are entering honestly and willing to concede to evidence presented.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/
Humanity is defined, in a religious sense, by our relationship with God. How do I know it when I see it? Sometimes I don't. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I might get it wrong. In the end, the reason I draw the line where I do with respect to embryos and such is that we see a clearly living being who is growing towards a role in the community. Not everyone draws the line there. Some draw it later, often at birth or the third trimester.
When it comes to issues of morality, quantifiability is elusive at best and non-existent at worst. We are left with something closer to blind groping. I wish that weren't so, but it is.
The absolute morality you are talking about requires an absolute authority. this is the claim of religions everywhere. In absence of such a granting authority, we are left with relative morality. That is to say, without some authority to draw the universal line you may dislike murder, but that doesn't make it wrong for me (illegal, but not morally wrong). There is no way to start with copmpassion and empathy and derive a universal ethic that has any meaning outside of the context of the person or people who derived it. I'm not saying this is an invalid method for determining morality (it's essentially morality by consensus) but it is not the method I use and it is not universal, it's consensual morality. This is, in short, what our legal system is supposed to be. It can work well enough to progress as a species, but I prefer a differetn methodology.
The underlying question you seem to be asking is "Is Good Good because Good is Good or is Good Good because God said Good is Good?" If you can follow that logic.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/
I don't mean to say it doesn't have an individuality, just that my reasoning doesn't really address it's individualness one way or that other. Rather, it addresses the embryo's part within the community. I know it's a bit hair-splitting to make that sort of distinction, but it's an important one to make, religiously speaking. Individuality is a non-issue, but being a part of the community it. Your arm will itself never be a part of the human community, your child will.
Well, despite what you may have heard to the contrary, God (at least according to the bible) has little to no interest in personal relationships with each of us individually. His concern thoughout the text is with the community. It is of note that whenever an individual stands out in the bible, it's usually due to a crisis of community. I'm not trying to devalue individualness---nor, I think, do the writer's of the books of the bible---rather I'm trying to establish the perspective from which a religious person will view another to determine "humanness".
Remember, also, that there exists in the bible no distinction between body, mind, and soul---no moment when God embues a body with a soul to make a human whole. The distincton between them is a Greek, not a Hebrew, concept. Once the person begins to grow at all, theologically speaking his 'soul' is part and parcel of that development.
Agreed. Am I right to say as I do above that "Once the person begins to grow at all, theologically speaking his 'soul' is part and parcel of that development." I think I am. On that one point, the bible seems remarkably consistent. Could I be misunderstanding things as written? Sure. Could the bible be wrong on that point? Yep. That brings us to faith. In the end, whether you say human rights are granted at conception or at birth or at the age of 21, you are making a small leap of faith in the hopes that you are right. You describe it above as a "problem". I don't disagree with that assessment at all. Making decisions without all the evidence in hand is always problematic.
I'm not sure that we need observable clues to humanness in the sense you mean it here. I think reasoned discourse will allow the community to come to a consensus as to what is and is not human. Sometimes we will make mistakes and (hopefully) most the time we will get it right.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/
Not really, no. Individuality is a pychological concept, not a religious one. I'm not arguing that we aren't individuals, just that our individuallity is not what makes grants us rights or makes us special (in the religious sense). Religiously, community is the keyword, rather than individuality.
I don't really care that the embryo seems or doesn't seem human. My only concern is a religious one. The embryo, from the Judeo-Islamic-Christian perspective, is equal in God's eyes.
It seems a good enough reply, but it isn't an answer, I agree.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/
I just wanted to address the differing concerns of different people. My reason is simply that all people have a set of basic rights and I argue that those right extend to all forms of human life (i.e., embryonic, fetal, infantile, adult, etc...).
Maybe so, but I won't kill either of them. I hope you catch the gist of what I'm getting at. I'm not saying it isn't a tragedy. I'm not being cavalier about anyone's death. Anything I can do to help, short of killing someone else, I will do. But I won't take a human life to save one. That's the line I'm drawing. Others draw the line elsewhere. It's a hard call to make.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/
Not exactly, no. I argue that it is inappropriate to assign less significance to an embryo than a more developed person because it is not our place to assign such significance. Who's life is more worth living is a seperate question and not related to me argument.
Therefore, whether the life were well-lived (whatever that means) or not, they are equally valuable.
And yes, this does mean I am not for IVF. But that's a whole different discussion.
-Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/
I stand by my first statement:
God bless everyone...no exceptions
I understand your perspective. I'm not trying to devalue it, either. I have a great deal of respect for Atheist Humanist thinkers like Paul Kurtz. You should read his work "The New Skepticism" for a great discussion of this perspective. He says a lot of what you are here. He makes a credible argument that shouldn't be ignored. I happen to disagree with it, but that by no means makes the argument invalid (or even wrong!).
There are people who will do this. I agree.
My only claim is that there are supportive passages in the bible. I agree that their aren't any passages that discuss embryonic stem cell research, but you and I both already knew that going into the discussion. ;)
I didn't quote any bible passages, even when you asked me to. I don't hold rallies. I only explain my perspective when asked. As for laws, I let me representitive know my opinion on all subjects that matter to me. I think we all should do that. If the majority of Americans disagree with me and pass laws I disagree with, I'll obey those laws (within reason, obviously). This, by the way, is half the problem with the abortion debate now. No law was passed. The decision was not made by our representitives, but rather in the courts. This is one of those things that really should be a representitive led decision. But that's a different debate. I should add that I am under no illusion that I'll be on the winning side either. It is my beleif that I am in the minority here. If it comes to a vote, I suspect my side would lose. I can accept the Will of the People.
I think you are levying against me some resentment you have about fundamentalists. I'm OK with that, as I understand your frustration, but to be absolutely clear, I've never said I was certain that I was right. I always assume I could be wrong. All the facts aren't in evidence, firstly, and secondly, some of my claims are faith-based and cannot be proved or disproved. Speaking with certainty about anything sans the full evidence list is foolish. I do my best not to be foolish.
I think you may be overestimating the calculus that goes into the design of laws. The real quntification occurs with determining liabilty, not morality. Indeed, the claim of law is not a claim of morality at all, but ratehr a claim of authority for a just and equitable society. I like justice and equity, but they are not the same as morality or ethic.
I agree. When it come sto law, the rules must be clear. This is normally done with case law, but I prefer the clarity be more front-loaded when possible. But I though I was clear on this: From conception On, I argue that the embryo/fetus/etc is human and should be accorded the basic human rights like a Right to Life. Sans further evidence
Indeed, the Catholic church does take a stand against that. I'm not Catholic, and I disagree with their stance on this, but I understand their perspective. To be clear, they come to this stance from a different route.
Regarding the rest of your examples, there are many cases that are and will be difficult to adjudicate. Is a group of stem cells a person? If not, does it become a person if placed in a lab for the purpose of cloning a new person? I dunno. I won't venture a guess, since such things are better left to a case-by-case decision. In the case of an embryo, I think the "Is it a human" line has clearly been crossed. The "is it a person" line is a different one, and it's one that asks socialogical and psychological questions, not religious ones. Religiously, a human is a person. Hence, once we consider it human (embryo, fetus, etc...) then it gets accorded the "specialness" of personhood, like the Right to Life.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/
Thanks. You may be surprised to know that most Christians are, even on these issues. The media, however, has more fun televising the extremists. As Christians, we don't do enough to make that widely known. We should do more.
This is an excellent line of questions. The confusion is the fault of Christianity for not making this clearer. Mainstream Christianity, unlike mainstream Islam, for instance, does not make the claim that its holy text is the literal Word of God. Indeed, within Christian circles when we refer to the "Word of God" we are talking about Jesus Christ, not the bible. The bible makes this clear, but too many fundamentalists confuse the claim by assuming the bible to be a work of perfection and thus the literal Word of God. This is, historically, not a Christian claim. The bible, like the works of theologians throughout history are guideposts---a map of sorts. The bible is an excellent guide, when read in an educated and clear-headed manner. It is not, however, the final word on all things religious, or even all things Christian.
To be clear, there are quotes from the bible that support the anti-abortion rights movement and similar movements but that is not why we argue against them. It is only one small piece of the answer. Firstly, nothing in the bible directly addresses the issues here because the idea of embryonic research would have been like alien magic to the writers of those texts. They cannot directly address anything they cannot directly envision.
The short answer is that from the Judeo-Christian-Islamic perspective there is little more significant in God's creation than humankind. In effect, everything is God's work, but we are His special work. Genesis makes this relationship between God and man clear (once you stop reading it as a literal description of the creation story...for which it was never intended!). Within this context, the arguement is that all human life is sacred and is distinguished in nature only by its relationship to God. In other words, regardless of intelligence, ability, morality, beliefs, race, or sex, humans are all equally special in God's eyes. Thus, despite the lack of IQ or the ability to be self sustaining, any form of human life is accorded the same basic rights to life.
Do we know we are right? Of course not, but we think we are. We hope we are. That's all we can do. We act on our beleifs and our ethic in the hopes that over time doing so will create a better world. So far, so good. We (Humanity, not just Christianity) have more successes than failures. We are moving forward. This gives me hope.
Animal testing is unfortunate, overused, and often too cruel. It is also sometimes done right with minimal cruelty for the betterment of mankind. In the biblical sense (since you asked about that earlier), just as Genesis makes clear God's relationship to Man, it also makes clear Man's relationship to the rest of creation (as a steward). No, for religious reasons, I do not consider a cow as significant as a human, in any state of being. I
What you've done is base your reasoning on an emotional plea rather than a logical framework. It is a tragedy when someone so firmly entrenched in the human community passes from us---of that there can be no debate, and that depth of tragedy does not exist in cases of abortion, IVF, and other examples of the destruction of human embryos. We will all miss the guy with the family more than the embryo we never knew.
But that was never the claim of those with a religious objection to the act. Religious and moral objections center around the question of the Rights of Man and at what stage in life those rights are accorded to us (Embryonic? Fetal? Infant? Puberty? Adulthood? etc...). The religious arguement is that those rights are accorded to each individual as soon as that individual comes into being. In short, "God bless everyone...no exceptions". Others argue that those rights are prematurely granted and shouldn't be accorded until birth. The law takes a graduated approach, saying that rights are accorded piecemeal as we move through the stages of life, and the most basic of rights (the Right to Life) is granted (conditionally) sometime around the third trimester of pregnancy.
Nowhere in the discussion do the religious folk claim that the people who would be saved don't deserve to be saved, just that the price is too high.
That argument in an (WAY) oversimplified nutshell: You and four others are in a hot air balloon and the balloon begiuns to sink into a volcano (too much weight!). Some quick calulations reveal that if just one of you jumped overboard the rest would survive. Do you toss someone overboard? If so, how do you determine who? Destruction of the embryo to save other lives is akin, in this argument, to saying that you determine the person to toss overboard by evaluating their life and determining which one has the fewest friends and family who will miss them, or alternatively by which is least capable of fending off the forced toss.
There are, of course, arguements on boths sides and such implausible scenarios can always be gamed in logical debates like this, so don't carry it too far. I'm not trying to get into a tit-for-tat over the specifics of the fantasy example, but rather just trying to show you the gist of the argument.
Many people would vehemently disagree with you. There are quite few "clear cut" moral decisions in life. If there were, we wouldn't need to argue so much about them.
Disclaimer: I am against the destruction of embryos in this context for religious and moral reasons. I am not approaching this from an unbiased perspective (like anyone does!). Your mileage may vary. Do not stare at happy fun ball, etc....
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/
...make email a pull instead of a push system.
If you make it a pull system:
1) there is no spoofing issue (you always have the real IP address of te sender, becuase you have to connect to get the message contents).
2) spam costs move from the receiver to the sender, becuase the spam sender now has to bear the brunt of the bandwidth traffic hit.
3) finally, recalling a mail message would work.
There are more benefits to that "small" switch, but I'm far too lazy to lay them all out here.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/