Most scientists would agree that no one is being killed in stem cell research.
Then you pose the most magnificent straw man argument which manages to entirely miss the distinction between implementation of research and research it's self.
Finally you end with what can best be described as an utterly non sensical question and a rather weak insult.
Conciousness is my defining characteristic for living and you have already put your finger on why that would not lead to senile people being killed off or people with a lower mental capacity being shot, because we as a society have decided that is an unethical course of action.
I am not sure of a lot of things but unless you can prove that something is the case it's pointless taking it into account or letting it influence your decision making one way or another.
Human life is valuable to other humans, we are all valued members of a human society and it's down to every member of that society to decide how it wants the society as whole to act.
The fact that human society is still a functioning and effective system after hundreds of thousands of years of evolution is a good indication to how successful this policy has been.
At the moment of conception and for a good period afterwards there is no conciousness and nothing which is recognisably human, the fact that it will develop into a human at a later date is as irrelevant as taking special precautions with sperm would be.
Certainly when something is recognisably human it should be treated as a human but not until that point.
I think Life began a few billion years ago, it seems to me the main reason any one would believe that life began at conception is if they believed in something like a soul.
I think science is fairly sure that conciousness, which is really what we are talking about here, is unlikely to begin until the brain has developed which doesn't happen until well after conception takes place.
No seriously, half a dozen people I know are looking after various Windows installation backup disks for me, in return I am looking after some of their game backups for them.
I'm not so sure that that would actually stand up, if I have bought the software I am pretty sure I can legally install it on as many PC's as I like provided that it's only on one of them at a time.
This is going to a pain in the neck for a lot of people. First of all almost everyone I know has either an OEM version of Windows or when they want to upgrade a pirated version.
When I am asked to fix my friends PC's there is no way I am going to be phoning up MS to ask permission and there is very little chance they are going to be doing that either which leaves us with the following choices:
1) Actually try and find out what the problem is rather then just re-installing everything 2) Don't do anything and leave their computer broken 3) Install something else 4) Install a version of windows for them which doesn't need all this hassle.
Number 1 is usually a waste of time with Windows and so I am guessing that most people will opt for number 4 or if that's not available number 3.
Read some of Richards Dawkins essays and books, he has quite a lot to say about Creationism versus Evolution and he doesn't really mince his words too much.
Please see my post further down for my views on documented historical evidence. In addition to that the idea that anyone witnessed "the coming of the messiah" or "witnessed him after he had died" is so far from being a fact that it's ridiculous.
Please don't think of this as a particulary anti christian rant since it applies equally to any religion or religious belief.
I assume you have some good reasons to deny the existence of all the other gods such as Thor, Odin, Mars, Baal, Loki, Zeus, All powerful lizard creatures etc etc etc ?
There are two aspects to Christianity, it's history and it's beliefs.
I agree there is a lot of historical evidence suggesting that Jesus was a real person, that the apostles were real people and the bible was written by Christians.
However I am able to agree that this history is quite probably genuine and disassociate it from claims that Jesus was the son of god, that he performed miracles, that there is a god and that he sends prophets to Earth.
There is no credible evidence at all for these claims and no reason why anyone should take anything based on these claims even remotely seriously, after all Christianity has had 2000 years to prove their claims scientifically but hasn't come up with anything so far.
Taking your example; why should they pay someone else if they have done an equal amount of research and development and made their new and exciting product independantly. It seems very harsh to penalise them because the original inventors didn't publise their work widely enough.
Just because evolution may not have an instant answer to a particular scenario does not by any means increase the likelyhood that intelligent design or creationism must be able to explain it either.
Evolution is an evolving scientific excercise based on evidence and observations whilst Intelligent Design or Creationism are based on no substantial foundations whatsoever and have absolutley nothing useful to say about anything.
I think you will have to admit you are also an aethist before you go accusing other people of being close minded and prejudiced.
The problem with Christianity and all other religious beliefs is that they have no basis in any kind of facts or evidence and are therefore perfectly capable of changing to suit any situation.
We should listen to what Christian Theology has to say about life elsewhere with exactly the same weight as listening to the trilling of nightingales to tell us about life elsewhere since both are equally meaningless.
Maybe you weren't idiots to start with but embracing any kind of religious fundamentalism ( or religion in general ) certainly signals your intention to act like one.
Since the speed of sound is much less than the speed of light it's not surprising that we can see it before it has had a chance to do God's bidding.
This could form the basis for an interesting experiment, if we could correlate the locations and times of various bits of Gods universe being lit up we could deduce his location and maybe set off on a journey to meet up with him.
I can understand you are annoyed at not getting any money despite the fact people are listening to your work.
However your music is available in Russia where it is legal to set up sites like allofmp3.com, there is a framework in Russia to facilitate this but obviously it's governed by Russian law.
It's obviously not ideal that Russia is unwilling to address the issues you are complaining about but it's also fairly typical of most countries to care more about their own citizens rather than listening to foreigners telling them to fix things.
Businesses are also going to make the most of the legislative framework in which they exist, note US companies using the DMCA, so it's perhaps not surprising that they are unwilling to pay out money if they are fairly sure they are not going to get into any trouble for not doing so.
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I think you are missing a lot of points here.
Most scientists would agree that no one is being killed in stem cell research.
Then you pose the most magnificent straw man argument which manages to entirely miss the distinction between implementation of research and research it's self.
Finally you end with what can best be described as an utterly non sensical question and a rather weak insult.
Yeah because I never have any problem at all with device drivers unders window, no sir, none at all.
Conciousness is my defining characteristic for living and you have already put your finger on why that would not lead to senile people being killed off or people with a lower mental capacity being shot, because we as a society have decided that is an unethical course of action.
I am not sure of a lot of things but unless you can prove that something is the case it's pointless taking it into account or letting it influence your decision making one way or another.
Human life is valuable to other humans, we are all valued members of a human society and it's down to every member of that society to decide how it wants the society as whole to act.
The fact that human society is still a functioning and effective system after hundreds of thousands of years of evolution is a good indication to how successful this policy has been.
At the moment of conception and for a good period afterwards there is no conciousness and nothing which is recognisably human, the fact that it will develop into a human at a later date is as irrelevant as taking special precautions with sperm would be.
Certainly when something is recognisably human it should be treated as a human but not until that point.
It's good to decide that research is not necessary.
Discuss.
I think Life began a few billion years ago, it seems to me the main reason any one would believe that life began at conception is if they believed in something like a soul.
I think science is fairly sure that conciousness, which is really what we are talking about here, is unlikely to begin until the brain has developed which doesn't happen until well after conception takes place.
No seriously, half a dozen people I know are looking after various Windows installation backup disks for me, in return I am looking after some of their game backups for them.
Uh, I make copies of my software and usually keep the copies at various friends or colleagues houses to protect against fire or catastrophe at home.
I'm not so sure that that would actually stand up, if I have bought the software I am pretty sure I can legally install it on as many PC's as I like provided that it's only on one of them at a time.
This is going to a pain in the neck for a lot of people. First of all almost everyone I know has either an OEM version of Windows or when they want to upgrade a pirated version.
When I am asked to fix my friends PC's there is no way I am going to be phoning up MS to ask permission and there is very little chance they are going to be doing that either which leaves us with the following choices:
1) Actually try and find out what the problem is rather then just re-installing everything
2) Don't do anything and leave their computer broken
3) Install something else
4) Install a version of windows for them which doesn't need all this hassle.
Number 1 is usually a waste of time with Windows and so I am guessing that most people will opt for number 4 or if that's not available number 3.
Read some of Richards Dawkins essays and books, he has quite a lot to say about Creationism versus Evolution and he doesn't really mince his words too much.
Please see my post further down for my views on documented historical evidence. In addition to that the idea that anyone witnessed "the coming of the messiah" or "witnessed him after he had died" is so far from being a fact that it's ridiculous.
Please don't think of this as a particulary anti christian rant since it applies equally to any religion or religious belief.
I assume you have some good reasons to deny the existence of all the other gods such as Thor, Odin, Mars, Baal, Loki, Zeus, All powerful lizard creatures etc etc etc ?
There are two aspects to Christianity, it's history and it's beliefs.
I agree there is a lot of historical evidence suggesting that Jesus was a real person, that the apostles were real people and the bible was written by Christians.
However I am able to agree that this history is quite probably genuine and disassociate it from claims that Jesus was the son of god, that he performed miracles, that there is a god and that he sends prophets to Earth.
There is no credible evidence at all for these claims and no reason why anyone should take anything based on these claims even remotely seriously, after all Christianity has had 2000 years to prove their claims scientifically but hasn't come up with anything so far.
Who will be the first person to spoof these alerts then I wonder ?
Agreed, it strikes me that some software patents are similar to people taking patents on doing hand brake turns in cars.
Taking your example; why should they pay someone else if they have done an equal amount of research and development and made their new and exciting product independantly. It seems very harsh to penalise them because the original inventors didn't publise their work widely enough.
Just because evolution may not have an instant answer to a particular scenario does not by any means increase the likelyhood that intelligent design or creationism must be able to explain it either.
Evolution is an evolving scientific excercise based on evidence and observations whilst Intelligent Design or Creationism are based on no substantial foundations whatsoever and have absolutley nothing useful to say about anything.
I think you will have to admit you are also an aethist before you go accusing other people of being close minded and prejudiced.
The problem with Christianity and all other religious beliefs is that they have no basis in any kind of facts or evidence and are therefore perfectly capable of changing to suit any situation.
We should listen to what Christian Theology has to say about life elsewhere with exactly the same weight as listening to the trilling of nightingales to tell us about life elsewhere since both are equally meaningless.
"Not all fundies are ignorant idiots"
Maybe you weren't idiots to start with but embracing any kind of religious fundamentalism ( or religion in general ) certainly signals your intention to act like one.
Since the speed of sound is much less than the speed of light it's not surprising that we can see it before it has had a chance to do God's bidding.
This could form the basis for an interesting experiment, if we could correlate the locations and times of various bits of Gods universe being lit up we could deduce his location and maybe set off on a journey to meet up with him.
I can understand you are annoyed at not getting any money despite the fact people are listening to your work.
However your music is available in Russia where it is legal to set up sites like allofmp3.com, there is a framework in Russia to facilitate this but obviously it's governed by Russian law.
It's obviously not ideal that Russia is unwilling to address the issues you are complaining about but it's also fairly typical of most countries to care more about their own citizens rather than listening to foreigners telling them to fix things.
Businesses are also going to make the most of the legislative framework in which they exist, note US companies using the DMCA, so it's perhaps not surprising that they are unwilling to pay out money if they are fairly sure they are not going to get into any trouble for not doing so.
So there is a mechanism for you to get some money from this but they haven't replied to your e-mails. Have you tried phoning or writing to them ?
I imagine it's not unheard of for artists or performers to experience much worse problems getting any money out of Western record companies.
I have given them my credit card number something like a year ago and have not been the victim of any fraud or anyother unsavoury activity.
And my point is why isn't it this easy for everyone to offer a similary effective and useful service ?
Well apparently it does, this is based on the operation of the licence which they have bought.
If you have any evidence at all to the contrary we would be pleased to hear it.
There is no "Portishead - Pearl" on there now.
This is why it's a good idea to only use stolen credit cards online.