Where we've differed is that I take my view of communism from the communist manifesto. Communal property isn't really indicative of communism unless you kill the previous owner. This is communism in theory and in fact. So when someone compares a working system to communism, I tend to point out this rather significant difference.
Failed inventors don't generally kill millions of people in the process. By the way, the killing of people is the foundation of the communist state, at least according to Marx. It's not incidental, it was always the way it was to be implemented from the beginning. Try reading the communist manifesto before replying if you want to argue about it. The fact that you don't arrive at happy group hug love utopia by the route of mass murder is not surprising to most people.
How will we get paradise on earth? I know, let's kill lot's of people! How many times does this have to be tried before people realise it doesn't work? It's never worked for any philosophy/religion, and the fact that it is built in to communism guarantees that communism will never work.
Violent revolution of the working class against the capitalists: check
Abolition of private property: check
Attempted destruction of traditional concepts of marriage, family and religion: check
etc, etc.
Or perhaps you see communism as a great big hippy free love community, all singing happily together. You're right, that's never happened. There is communism the fantasy and communism the reality. You are quite correct, communism the fantasy has never happened anywhere. Any time people try to implement it, you get communism the reality. What happened in USSR and China is what communism the reality is. Deal with it, much as you would like communism to be wonderful, there is no indication that it ever has been, will be or could be. Communists have always implemented a totalitarian regime.
China is as communists as the USA is capitalist, not much.
Didn't I say spare me that? Oh well. The most obvious reason that China has discarded communism (though not totalitarianism) is because communism wasn't working. That however, is not at all the point I was making.
My point is that communism has never been demonstrated (yes, demonstrated not theorised) to give the workers more freedom. Although workers were oppressed by the capitalists, everything I've read about communism as history rather than theory has shown the workers to be poorer with less freedom under communism.
I'm not sure how you think you have discerned my understanding of industry by my post. However, your assertion that workers under communism are in the positions they are by choice flies in the face of everything I've ever heard or read about communism.
I note that you live in a former communist country. Funny how that really doesn't seem to fit with Marx's view of the inevitability of communism. As far as I am aware, every communist regime so far has required to keep people from escaping. Doesn't say much for your position that they were there by choice.
Marxist communism has never been fully implemented on a country-wide basis.
It could therefore be said to not exist, it's a fantasy. The brutal communist dictatorships (ie: all of them) are the actual reality of communism. To say that communism is some utopian ideal that doesn't include mass murder as the path to political power and brutal suppression as the method of maintaining is to live in fantasy, not reality.
The "uplifted communist worker" is stuck in his position.
Maybe, but by choice.
You don't seem to be familiar with communism. And spare us the stories of how the abusive communist regimes aren't real communism, tell it to the chinese peasants.
Families,... operate very successfully in a communistic environment.
Families operate by killing those who control the means of production and siezing control?
You may wish to read the communist manifesto since it is the document written by Marx and Engels for the purpose of "openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies" of the communist party. Among the ideas addressed in that document are the objectives of destroying the family, religion and business. Your notion that families, religions and businesses operate successfully in a communistic envirinment is absurd. To the extent that families, religions and businesses are successful, communism is not, as they are mutually exclusive. At least, according to the Communist Manifesto.
Communism is not another word for sharing. Sharing is common to many philosophies/religions. Sharing in communism is the excuse used for the communists to sieze power and become the new ruling class. The oppresive communist regimes were not an accident, that's how communism actually works.
Which god is more powerful, more awesome, more amazing?
I find it more useful to ask "what is true?", rather than "what do I prefer?" which is what your question amounts to. But if you want to ask that, then:
Which god would you prefer to follow? The one who lied about the way he made the earth and everything in it, therefore casting doubt on the reliability of everything else he said, or the one whose word is truth, who is the essence of integrity, whose word can be relied on above all else?
To think that God couldn't have explained to Moses (or whoever wrote genesis) "God took aeons to create the earth, and caused plants and animals to arise, which gradually developed and became humans." doesn't really need discussion. If you accept that evolution is true, on what basis could you believe in the resurrection of Christ, since dead people rising up is clearly against science. If evolution is true, the bible is not a revelation from god.
Creationists and atheist evolutionists agree on one thing: if evolution is true, Christianity isn't.
If I may inject a personal note, I do believe in God. But I don't believe He created an existance so simple that anything we don't understand must have His hand directly involved.
Actually, creationists believe that both everything we don't understand and everything we do understand is attributable to God. In the bible, the are lots of examples of things that have natural explanations that are still attributed to God, eg: rain, breathing, crops growing, David killing Goliath etc all have natural explanations. To a creationist, knowing how something happened on a physical level in no way indicates that God didn't do it.
I think that if animal or plant life is found on other planets will not cause a problem for long to religious/philosophers. If we did find life beyond earth:
Possible evolutionary view: That's not surprising, if it could happen here, it's logical to think it might happen on other planets.
Possible creationist view: That's not surprising, God created life here, there was no death originally. As the population grew, people were probably intended to advance technology and spread to other planets. Some of those planets were prepared by God with plant/animal life.
If we don't find life beyond earth:
Possible evolutionary view: That's not surprising, the conditions required for the generation of life are quite specific. The probability of us actually finding life beyond earth is quite small, although possible.
Possible creationist view: That's not surprising, the bible never mentions life on other planets (if heaven's not included as a planet)
Finding intelligent (above animal) life would definitly cause issues though.
The hypothesis that there is other life is the better approach because it makes you look for it.
Isn't this only better if it turns out that there actually are other life forms beyond earth? Or at least, that if they are never found, that the searching for them yields incidental but beneficial discoveries (quite likely to happen)? Otherwise it's a hypothesis that leads to a great waste of time and effort isn't it?
You're right, but on multi user systems it protects sensible users from the others. For example, I run linux, for freinds who want to use the computer, I can make a user account for them without concern/watching everything they do.
I'm not so sure there is such a thing as an excessive response against a community that actively supports an organisation that has publicly declared it's intention to commit genocide against you.
Copyright law doesn't require distribution of source code. It does give the copyright holder the right to give or withhold permission to make derivative works (modification). From the GPL:
5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.
So if software is licensed under GPL3, only by agreeing to all the terms do you have the legal right to modify the code. It's no more onerous than proprietry code. Proprietry code, you pay enough money, you will be able to get permission to modify code in some cases. The cost is money. With Free software, the cost is releasing your modifications as source under the same license. In either case, if you don't like it, can't afford it or it doesn't fit your business model, write your own code. Simple as that.
What on earth does the GPL have to do with anything? Yes, software and documents were created by humans for a purpose, but this doesn't mean that body parts, created by no one, have a purpose. They don't.
It shows that talking about purpose does not stop it being a legal discussion. You said I had switched from talking about legal responsibility to talking about purpose. Just showing you a legal document that contains the word purpose. It shows that the word purpose does not mean that I'm not talking about legality.
Function is a better word. A womb can function to keep fetuses, whilst an organ can function to keep someone alive, including in another body. Neither case do they have to function in that way - that's up to the person whose body it is. And by the way, nowhere did I say we're not allowed to use the word "purpose", I said that it doesn't apply in that context.
Function is a synonym for purpose. The fact that function is acceptable to you and purpose isn't really makes it seem like it's becoming more effort to have a sensible discussion with you than I am willing to put in right now. Your assertion that body parts don't have a function except by the choice of the owner of the body is ludicrous. For example, what function are you using your heart for? (I'm guessing pumping blood), kidney's? (you may have donated one, but I'm betting you're using at least one to filter blood), your stomach? (I'm guessing you're using it for digestion) etc etc. And by the way, I said "primary purpose" and "primary function", as in most usual purpose/function. So even if you chose to get a mechanical blood pump and use your heart for a baseball, it has no bearing on the point I was making.
As for Darwin:
"and as pollen is formed for the sole
purpose of fertilisation" pollen has purpose
"In rudimentary
organs, and in those which have been but little specialised for any
particular purpose, and perhaps in polymorphic groups, we see a nearly
parallel case;" refering to organ of animals.
Was Darwin a closet creationist, do you think? If Darwin can refer to plant parts and animal organs as having purpose, it proves it is not a creationist argument, and it does apply in the context I used it.
Firstly, I consider being forced to give resources from your body to a child for 9 months closer to being forced to give resources from your body to a fetus for 9 months, compared with a legal obligation to feed a child, where you can opt out by giving it up for adoption.
In most cases, the woman could have opted out of pregnancy beforehand. The woman chose (in most cases) actions that contributed to the production of a human being, who by it's nature is totally dependent on her for a limited time. The fact that she might not want this or might have done it accidentally doesn't give her the right to actively kill the child. No amount of favourable scenarios based on fantasy or science fiction give her the right to kill the child. More in line with your life support example: does a woman have the right to not get pregnant in the first place? Yes, sure. Not getting pregnant doesn't require the killing of a child, so it's fine.
Nothing you have said provides a reason that a woman's rights over her body make it ok to kill another human being to access said rights. As far as "thought experiments" or fantasy go: You can kill a person in your fantasy for any reason you like, once you come back to the real world, you should no longer kill people for your convenience.
So you've switched your argument from legal responsibilty to purpose.
Not at all. I'm sure we could find many legal documents that contain the word purpose if we tried. Just one example is the GPL which contains the word purpose 4 times, and is a legal document.
Not being a creationist, I don't believe body parts have a purpose. Therefore, I disagree that a woman should be forced to use her womb for incubating any fetus she conceives.
Well, try function then. It is a synonym of purpose, but you won't need to feel like a creationist. I presume you aren't going to say your body parts don't have a function. I've made the changes for you:
It would seem that the primary function of a womb is to incubate children. There is no organ in the body that has organ donation as it's primary function, therefore, it is reasonable for people to be able to use their organs for their primary function, and not reasonable to require them to donate them. As organ donation is not legally required even after death (at least in Australia, I assume this is the case in the US) this is in line with current law. I think that trying to compare using a body organ for it's usual function for 9 months to having an organ permanently removed is not helpful.
So I'm saying the normal and expected use of body parts is not to donate them but to have them function in your body. If the use of the womb for the incubation of the child was required (normal use), it would not imply a requirement to donate body parts (contrary to normal use). It is not a comment dependent on creationism or any other religious belief. In any case, I just did "grep -c purpose otoos610.txt" on Charles Darwins "The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, 6th Edition" from Project Gutenburg. The word purpose is in there 75 times. I haven't checked context, but I suspect that it's still ok to use the word purpose even if you're not a creationist. Your "Therefore" needs new thinking.
And abortion is currently legal, so that's in line with current law.
I don't dispute this. I just think it shouldn't be for the mojority of cases. It doesn't change my point that there is legal precedent to say that organ donation is not compulsory.
Certainly it has been suggested - it's a well known thought experiment to get people to think about the ethics of abortion.
I meant suggested as in suggesting that somebody in particular should do this, or that it should become common practise or the like. Not suggested as in making a philosophical point about it with no intention of bringing it to pass. No matter.
Yes, it's hypothetical, obviously, and no it isn't necessary for thought experiments to be possible - that's the whole point of them. So, I'm still curious, would you say that a mother is obliged to give treatment? If not, why does her legal responsibility no longer apply?
OK then, to satisfy your curiosity: If a child (i.e., not a fetus, but after birth) developed a condition which required the mother to be hooked up to some life support for 9 months, I don't think everyone would agree that as part of her legal responsibility, she is bound by the law to do so.... no I don't think she should be held legally responsible to do this. There are at least two reasons. First is same as the organ donation case, it is not part of normal function, unlike pregnancy. The second is that it's not currently possible, and people should not be legally required to do the impossible. It is worth noting that unlike the case of a child falling sick, by far the majority of pregnancies are a result of consensual sex. The woman is usually pregnant as a result of actions she chose to take (even if she did not intend to get pregnant, and yes, I think the father ought to be taking responsibility also, although he cannot bear the child, b
What do you think of the other examples I raised - organ donation or other kind of medical life support - are those a legal responsibility? Just as with pregnancy, there may be no other way to save the child.
The examples you gave are analogies. It would seem that the primary purpose of a womb is to incubate children. There is no organ in the body that has organ donation as it's primary purpose, therefore, it is reasonable for people to be able to use their organs for their primary purpose, and not reasonable to require them to donate them. As organ donation is not legally required even after death (at least in Australia, I assume this is the case in the US) this is in line with current law. I think that trying to compare using a body organ for it's usual purpose for 9 months to having an organ permanently removed is not helpful. Also, during pregnancy, the womb etc really provide food and shelter to the child, not medical treatment ie: a woman doesn't become pregnant in response to a medical condition of a child. So I think that example doesn't affect whether continuing a pregnancy is a reasonable level of care to expect a woman to provide her (already existing in the womb) child.
As for your other example: If a child (i.e., not a fetus, but after birth) developed a condition which required the mother to be hooked up to some life support for 9 months, I don't think everyone would agree that as part of her legal responsibility, she is bound by the law to do so. as far as I am aware, this example is not only hypothetical but there is no case of this being suggested or even possible to happen. If you know of a case, I'd be interested to see a link and then consider this situation. In discussing what laws to implement and how to do so, I think it better to discuss current known reality. Hypothetical cases are fine, but they should at least be currently possible, not science fiction.
If you make an exception for any reason, your arguments about life before birth being so important, etc. are completely negated (i.e., your position becomes wholly inconsistent and completely indefensible). So, to deal with your arguments about life before birth being so important, etc.:
Not at all. Killing some-one is illegal in most circumstances, but there are exceptions eg: self-defence, police shooting some-one firing a gun at others etc. To think that there may be circumstances when abortion should be legal even if you usually consider it murder is both logically consistent and demonstrable in principle in current laws about other issues.
The logical conclusion of this rather flawed line of reasoning (you are calling a fetus a child, putting the horse before the cart, among other things) is that women should be forcibly inseminated solely for the purpose of making children that have a right to live.
Fetuses grow into children, horses do not grow out of carts. It is well understood (but probably no longer common) usage in english to say a pregnant woman is "with child". First definition in the Australian Pocket Oxford Dictionary:
pregnant/preg-nuhnt/ adj.1 (of a woman or female animal) having a child or young developing in the uterus.
To say that the logical conclusion of believing people have a responsibility to look after children they produce is that they should be forced to produce more children only displays that you lack either the capacity or the desire to discuss this issue logically.
Btw, every year I celebrate the birth of Christ. I do not celebrate the divine insemination or fertilization or whatever you want to call it.
I find your religious beliefs and customs to be irrelevant to this discussion...
The birth is what matters -- it is where life begins in the Christian bible. So, I have to object to your arguments on religious grounds as well.
...and you will notice, if you follow the thread, that I have not brought up religious belief as a justification for any of my arguments. Nevertheless, for the sake of accuracy, I refer you to Exodus 21: 22-25 (NIV)
If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.
Just in case you missed that, if the baby is born prematurely but not injured, there is only a fine, if the baby is injured or killed, the same penalty applies as for any other person being injured or killed. The passage is not dealing with the injury to the woman, as that is dealt with sufficiently in other passages, it is dealing with injury or death caused to children still in the womb, so sorry, no banana for you, AC. If you are going to use the bible as a reference in a discussion, maybe you should read it first.
In any case, this is not a discussion about theology.
However, I'm not convinced that, even if we treated a fetus as human, it is required that the mother continues the pregnancy, and I disagree with your analogy to looking after a child. Looking after or not abusing is one thing, but providing life support via your body is another.
The 'looking after a child' is not an analogy, it's an example of how we legally see a mother's responsibility. Precedent if you will. It is generally accepted that the parent's responsibility is reduced as the childs age/capability increases. The parents could be charged with neglect for not feeding an infant. They could not be charged with neglect for not feeding a 30 year old, in normal circumstances. So, it is already established that the level of the parents responsibility is essentially determined by the requirements of the child, and tends to decrease with time. It is not set by an arbitary level of committment that we feel comfortable with. So if (for the sake of discussion) we accept that the fetus is human, the logical and consistent position would be to say that the parents responsibility is to feed and protect the child as required, and that this requirement is likely to take a higher level of care than a child needs after bith. As the only method of doing this is currently to continue the pregancy, then I believe this is required. Come up with a viable and reliable method of incubating or transplanting fetuses and you would have a solution I would accept.
Right, if you're saying we shouldn't make an exception, that's fine, I just wanted to know where you stood. Earlier I read it that you thought we could somehow make an exception for rape.
I haven't said we should or shouldn't. Even if there is not an exception for rape cases, it doesn't mean there should be no exceptions, and any exception would be difficult to implement. My point was that if it should be done, the fact that it is difficult is not a reason not to do it. If it is decided that an exception should be made but it's hard, then work hard to solve the problem instead of giving up.
For what it's worth, although rape is a terrible crime, I do not think it justifies killing the child of the rapist. We don't let a woman summarily execute the man who raped her, why would we let her kill the man's (and her) child. It really comes down to if you believe the fetus is human again. I can concieve of circumstances where there should be an exception though, so my point stands.
...but I didn't think it was a woman's responsibility to find someone willing to take it - rather, it's given up for adoption, and the state handles it?
My point is that she cannot leave it out to die, for example. It has to be given by her into appropriate care. Even if she is giving it to the state on the understanding that they will care/find a carer, it is totally different to not taking responsibility, it is delegating responsibility (in this case, to the state). The fact that during pregnancy it is currently only the mother that is capable of caring for the child does not remove this responsibility.
Yes I mean in the situation where we decide the fetus has human rights - although note that many people argue a fetus should have rights not because it is a human being, but because it will become one.
So even to your dicussion, you understand that it must first be decided if the fetus is human/has human rights. I'm not sure now why you disputed this.
How would you make an exception for rape?...
How I would make an exception for any given circumstance is not really relevant. Consider if we had decided (for discussion sake) that legally we would consider a fetus human from conception. Then let's call them pre-children. I'm not sure how many abortions are due to rape, but let's say it's 1% (for discussion sake). Let's use the example of the next million abortions. 10,000 will be due to rape in our example and we have decided that rape is an acceptable reason for a woman to have an abortion. Now, the issues you raised are real. It would be very difficult to make an exception for rape that didn't have unjust consequences. Will we allow 990,000 human pre-children to be killed (right to life violated) because it is legally difficult to protect the rights (right to pursuit of happiness and/or right to liberty) of 10,000 other people? Shouldn't we rather do some work to overcome the difficulty.
I find it incredible that so many people are prepared to permanently revoke all the right to life of a child in order to remove a largely temporary obstruction to some of the mother's right to liberty/pursuit of happiness.
The parent doesn't have to have the responsibility, as they can give the baby up to adoption; what you say only applies if they don't choose that. So that doesn't apply to before birth, since the fetus cannot be removed except by an abortion.
Adoption is a delegation of responsibility, not an abdication of responsibility. It would not be legal to hand over a child to be killed, it must be given to someone who will provide due care and protection. The responsibility to look after the child is intact but delegated. Your assertion that it doesn't apply before birth is based on the assuption that the baby either is not human or doesn't have human rights before birth. This is the contested issue, it needs to be answered.
Of course, there are circumstances like rape etc that deserver further discussion, but since most abortions are not a result of special circumstances, I will not deal with those in this post.
Of course it is still relevant to this issue, you can't avoid it, unless you are going to deny the choice to women who are raped.
No need to avoid it, it is simply not relevant if the feotus is not human, as there would be no reason to deny access to abortion on demand anyway. It only becomes relevant if we assume the fetus is human and has human rights, so that question has to be answered first. Surely you're not saying that if a fetus is not human there might still be any reason to deny access to abortion? No? In any case, many laws have exceptions, so making abortion on demand illegal would not have to mean there were no exceptions for special circumstances.
Determining when the new life is to be have it's human rights is indeed the only relevant issue at this time. It it is decided that birth is that time, there is no case to ban abortion at all, all other discussion becomes unnecessary. If it is decided that is is an earlier time, then the rights of the child, rights of the mother and responsibilities of the parents need discussion.
Slashdot Mirror
You're ignoring the millions of vegans in the Indian subconinent, who have lived that way for thousands of years.
:)
Millions of thousand+ year old Indians? How come I never heard of this?
Sorry, couldn't resist.
ok, your reply at least makes sense.
Where we've differed is that I take my view of communism from the communist manifesto. Communal property isn't really indicative of communism unless you kill the previous owner. This is communism in theory and in fact. So when someone compares a working system to communism, I tend to point out this rather significant difference.
That said, I do understand your point now.
Failed inventors don't generally kill millions of people in the process. By the way, the killing of people is the foundation of the communist state, at least according to Marx. It's not incidental, it was always the way it was to be implemented from the beginning. Try reading the communist manifesto before replying if you want to argue about it. The fact that you don't arrive at happy group hug love utopia by the route of mass murder is not surprising to most people.
How will we get paradise on earth? I know, let's kill lot's of people! How many times does this have to be tried before people realise it doesn't work? It's never worked for any philosophy/religion, and the fact that it is built in to communism guarantees that communism will never work.
So, according to you:
1) Workers under communism are there by choice.
2) Communism as such never existed in practice.
If you take into account my views of communism in theory/fantasy vs communism in reality (expressed here), I can wholeheartedly agree with you.
China has never been Communist.
Violent revolution of the working class against the capitalists: check
Abolition of private property: check
Attempted destruction of traditional concepts of marriage, family and religion: check
etc, etc.
Or perhaps you see communism as a great big hippy free love community, all singing happily together. You're right, that's never happened. There is communism the fantasy and communism the reality. You are quite correct, communism the fantasy has never happened anywhere. Any time people try to implement it, you get communism the reality. What happened in USSR and China is what communism the reality is. Deal with it, much as you would like communism to be wonderful, there is no indication that it ever has been, will be or could be. Communists have always implemented a totalitarian regime.
China is as communists as the USA is capitalist, not much.
Didn't I say spare me that? Oh well. The most obvious reason that China has discarded communism (though not totalitarianism) is because communism wasn't working. That however, is not at all the point I was making.
My point is that communism has never been demonstrated (yes, demonstrated not theorised) to give the workers more freedom. Although workers were oppressed by the capitalists, everything I've read about communism as history rather than theory has shown the workers to be poorer with less freedom under communism.
I'm not sure how you think you have discerned my understanding of industry by my post. However, your assertion that workers under communism are in the positions they are by choice flies in the face of everything I've ever heard or read about communism.
I note that you live in a former communist country. Funny how that really doesn't seem to fit with Marx's view of the inevitability of communism. As far as I am aware, every communist regime so far has required to keep people from escaping. Doesn't say much for your position that they were there by choice.
Marxist communism has never been fully implemented on a country-wide basis.
It could therefore be said to not exist, it's a fantasy. The brutal communist dictatorships (ie: all of them) are the actual reality of communism. To say that communism is some utopian ideal that doesn't include mass murder as the path to political power and brutal suppression as the method of maintaining is to live in fantasy, not reality.
You don't seem to be familiar with communism. And spare us the stories of how the abusive communist regimes aren't real communism, tell it to the chinese peasants.
Families, ... operate very successfully in a communistic environment.
Families operate by killing those who control the means of production and siezing control?
You may wish to read the communist manifesto since it is the document written by Marx and Engels for the purpose of "openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies" of the communist party. Among the ideas addressed in that document are the objectives of destroying the family, religion and business. Your notion that families, religions and businesses operate successfully in a communistic envirinment is absurd. To the extent that families, religions and businesses are successful, communism is not, as they are mutually exclusive. At least, according to the Communist Manifesto.
Communism is not another word for sharing. Sharing is common to many philosophies/religions. Sharing in communism is the excuse used for the communists to sieze power and become the new ruling class. The oppresive communist regimes were not an accident, that's how communism actually works.
Which god is more powerful, more awesome, more amazing?
I find it more useful to ask "what is true?", rather than "what do I prefer?" which is what your question amounts to. But if you want to ask that, then:
Which god would you prefer to follow? The one who lied about the way he made the earth and everything in it, therefore casting doubt on the reliability of everything else he said, or the one whose word is truth, who is the essence of integrity, whose word can be relied on above all else?
To think that God couldn't have explained to Moses (or whoever wrote genesis) "God took aeons to create the earth, and caused plants and animals to arise, which gradually developed and became humans." doesn't really need discussion. If you accept that evolution is true, on what basis could you believe in the resurrection of Christ, since dead people rising up is clearly against science. If evolution is true, the bible is not a revelation from god.
Creationists and atheist evolutionists agree on one thing: if evolution is true, Christianity isn't.
If I may inject a personal note, I do believe in God. But I don't believe He created an existance so simple that anything we don't understand must have His hand directly involved.
Actually, creationists believe that both everything we don't understand and everything we do understand is attributable to God. In the bible, the are lots of examples of things that have natural explanations that are still attributed to God, eg: rain, breathing, crops growing, David killing Goliath etc all have natural explanations. To a creationist, knowing how something happened on a physical level in no way indicates that God didn't do it.
I think that if animal or plant life is found on other planets will not cause a problem for long to religious/philosophers. If we did find life beyond earth:
Possible evolutionary view: That's not surprising, if it could happen here, it's logical to think it might happen on other planets.
Possible creationist view: That's not surprising, God created life here, there was no death originally. As the population grew, people were probably intended to advance technology and spread to other planets. Some of those planets were prepared by God with plant/animal life.
If we don't find life beyond earth:
Possible evolutionary view: That's not surprising, the conditions required for the generation of life are quite specific. The probability of us actually finding life beyond earth is quite small, although possible.
Possible creationist view: That's not surprising, the bible never mentions life on other planets (if heaven's not included as a planet)
Finding intelligent (above animal) life would definitly cause issues though.
The hypothesis that there is other life is the better approach because it makes you look for it.
Isn't this only better if it turns out that there actually are other life forms beyond earth? Or at least, that if they are never found, that the searching for them yields incidental but beneficial discoveries (quite likely to happen)? Otherwise it's a hypothesis that leads to a great waste of time and effort isn't it?
Once we find signs of life...
If we find signs of life...
You're right, but on multi user systems it protects sensible users from the others. For example, I run linux, for freinds who want to use the computer, I can make a user account for them without concern/watching everything they do.
If I understand correctly, Hezbollah is very much integrated into the Lebanese community and has one of it's primary goals the destruction of the state of Israel. I found this statement on wikipedia "It is an open war until the elimination of Israel and until the death of the last Jew on earth."
I'm not so sure there is such a thing as an excessive response against a community that actively supports an organisation that has publicly declared it's intention to commit genocide against you.
Copyright law doesn't require distribution of source code. It does give the copyright holder the right to give or withhold permission to make derivative works (modification). From the GPL:
5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.
So if software is licensed under GPL3, only by agreeing to all the terms do you have the legal right to modify the code. It's no more onerous than proprietry code. Proprietry code, you pay enough money, you will be able to get permission to modify code in some cases. The cost is money. With Free software, the cost is releasing your modifications as source under the same license. In either case, if you don't like it, can't afford it or it doesn't fit your business model, write your own code. Simple as that.
What on earth does the GPL have to do with anything? Yes, software and documents were created by humans for a purpose, but this doesn't mean that body parts, created by no one, have a purpose. They don't.
It shows that talking about purpose does not stop it being a legal discussion. You said I had switched from talking about legal responsibility to talking about purpose. Just showing you a legal document that contains the word purpose. It shows that the word purpose does not mean that I'm not talking about legality.
Function is a better word. A womb can function to keep fetuses, whilst an organ can function to keep someone alive, including in another body. Neither case do they have to function in that way - that's up to the person whose body it is. And by the way, nowhere did I say we're not allowed to use the word "purpose", I said that it doesn't apply in that context.
Function is a synonym for purpose. The fact that function is acceptable to you and purpose isn't really makes it seem like it's becoming more effort to have a sensible discussion with you than I am willing to put in right now. Your assertion that body parts don't have a function except by the choice of the owner of the body is ludicrous. For example, what function are you using your heart for? (I'm guessing pumping blood), kidney's? (you may have donated one, but I'm betting you're using at least one to filter blood), your stomach? (I'm guessing you're using it for digestion) etc etc. And by the way, I said "primary purpose" and "primary function", as in most usual purpose/function. So even if you chose to get a mechanical blood pump and use your heart for a baseball, it has no bearing on the point I was making.
As for Darwin:
"and as pollen is formed for the sole purpose of fertilisation" pollen has purpose
"In rudimentary organs, and in those which have been but little specialised for any particular purpose, and perhaps in polymorphic groups, we see a nearly parallel case;" refering to organ of animals.
Was Darwin a closet creationist, do you think? If Darwin can refer to plant parts and animal organs as having purpose, it proves it is not a creationist argument, and it does apply in the context I used it.
Firstly, I consider being forced to give resources from your body to a child for 9 months closer to being forced to give resources from your body to a fetus for 9 months, compared with a legal obligation to feed a child, where you can opt out by giving it up for adoption.
In most cases, the woman could have opted out of pregnancy beforehand. The woman chose (in most cases) actions that contributed to the production of a human being, who by it's nature is totally dependent on her for a limited time. The fact that she might not want this or might have done it accidentally doesn't give her the right to actively kill the child. No amount of favourable scenarios based on fantasy or science fiction give her the right to kill the child. More in line with your life support example: does a woman have the right to not get pregnant in the first place? Yes, sure. Not getting pregnant doesn't require the killing of a child, so it's fine.
Nothing you have said provides a reason that a woman's rights over her body make it ok to kill another human being to access said rights. As far as "thought experiments" or fantasy go: You can kill a person in your fantasy for any reason you like, once you come back to the real world, you should no longer kill people for your convenience.
Not at all. I'm sure we could find many legal documents that contain the word purpose if we tried. Just one example is the GPL which contains the word purpose 4 times, and is a legal document.
Not being a creationist, I don't believe body parts have a purpose. Therefore, I disagree that a woman should be forced to use her womb for incubating any fetus she conceives.
Well, try function then. It is a synonym of purpose, but you won't need to feel like a creationist. I presume you aren't going to say your body parts don't have a function. I've made the changes for you:
So I'm saying the normal and expected use of body parts is not to donate them but to have them function in your body. If the use of the womb for the incubation of the child was required (normal use), it would not imply a requirement to donate body parts (contrary to normal use). It is not a comment dependent on creationism or any other religious belief. In any case, I just did "grep -c purpose otoos610.txt" on Charles Darwins "The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, 6th Edition" from Project Gutenburg. The word purpose is in there 75 times. I haven't checked context, but I suspect that it's still ok to use the word purpose even if you're not a creationist. Your "Therefore" needs new thinking.
... no I don't think she should be held legally responsible to do this. There are at least two reasons. First is same as the organ donation case, it is not part of normal function, unlike pregnancy. The second is that it's not currently possible, and people should not be legally required to do the impossible. It is worth noting that unlike the case of a child falling sick, by far the majority of pregnancies are a result of consensual sex. The woman is usually pregnant as a result of actions she chose to take (even if she did not intend to get pregnant, and yes, I think the father ought to be taking responsibility also, although he cannot bear the child, b
And abortion is currently legal, so that's in line with current law.
I don't dispute this. I just think it shouldn't be for the mojority of cases. It doesn't change my point that there is legal precedent to say that organ donation is not compulsory.
Certainly it has been suggested - it's a well known thought experiment to get people to think about the ethics of abortion.
I meant suggested as in suggesting that somebody in particular should do this, or that it should become common practise or the like. Not suggested as in making a philosophical point about it with no intention of bringing it to pass. No matter.
Yes, it's hypothetical, obviously, and no it isn't necessary for thought experiments to be possible - that's the whole point of them. So, I'm still curious, would you say that a mother is obliged to give treatment? If not, why does her legal responsibility no longer apply?
OK then, to satisfy your curiosity: If a child (i.e., not a fetus, but after birth) developed a condition which required the mother to be hooked up to some life support for 9 months, I don't think everyone would agree that as part of her legal responsibility, she is bound by the law to do so.
What do you think of the other examples I raised - organ donation or other kind of medical life support - are those a legal responsibility? Just as with pregnancy, there may be no other way to save the child.
The examples you gave are analogies. It would seem that the primary purpose of a womb is to incubate children. There is no organ in the body that has organ donation as it's primary purpose, therefore, it is reasonable for people to be able to use their organs for their primary purpose, and not reasonable to require them to donate them. As organ donation is not legally required even after death (at least in Australia, I assume this is the case in the US) this is in line with current law. I think that trying to compare using a body organ for it's usual purpose for 9 months to having an organ permanently removed is not helpful. Also, during pregnancy, the womb etc really provide food and shelter to the child, not medical treatment ie: a woman doesn't become pregnant in response to a medical condition of a child. So I think that example doesn't affect whether continuing a pregnancy is a reasonable level of care to expect a woman to provide her (already existing in the womb) child.
As for your other example: If a child (i.e., not a fetus, but after birth) developed a condition which required the mother to be hooked up to some life support for 9 months, I don't think everyone would agree that as part of her legal responsibility, she is bound by the law to do so.
as far as I am aware, this example is not only hypothetical but there is no case of this being suggested or even possible to happen. If you know of a case, I'd be interested to see a link and then consider this situation. In discussing what laws to implement and how to do so, I think it better to discuss current known reality. Hypothetical cases are fine, but they should at least be currently possible, not science fiction.
If you make an exception for any reason, your arguments about life before birth being so important, etc. are completely negated (i.e., your position becomes wholly inconsistent and completely indefensible). So, to deal with your arguments about life before birth being so important, etc.:
/preg-nuhnt/ adj. 1 (of a woman or female animal) having a child or young developing in the uterus.
...and you will notice, if you follow the thread, that I have not brought up religious belief as a justification for any of my arguments. Nevertheless, for the sake of accuracy, I refer you to Exodus 21: 22-25 (NIV)
Not at all. Killing some-one is illegal in most circumstances, but there are exceptions eg: self-defence, police shooting some-one firing a gun at others etc. To think that there may be circumstances when abortion should be legal even if you usually consider it murder is both logically consistent and demonstrable in principle in current laws about other issues.
The logical conclusion of this rather flawed line of reasoning (you are calling a fetus a child, putting the horse before the cart, among other things) is that women should be forcibly inseminated solely for the purpose of making children that have a right to live.
Fetuses grow into children, horses do not grow out of carts. It is well understood (but probably no longer common) usage in english to say a pregnant woman is "with child". First definition in the Australian Pocket Oxford Dictionary:
pregnant
To say that the logical conclusion of believing people have a responsibility to look after children they produce is that they should be forced to produce more children only displays that you lack either the capacity or the desire to discuss this issue logically.
Btw, every year I celebrate the birth of Christ. I do not celebrate the divine insemination or fertilization or whatever you want to call it.
I find your religious beliefs and customs to be irrelevant to this discussion...
The birth is what matters -- it is where life begins in the Christian bible. So, I have to object to your arguments on religious grounds as well.
If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.
Just in case you missed that, if the baby is born prematurely but not injured, there is only a fine, if the baby is injured or killed, the same penalty applies as for any other person being injured or killed. The passage is not dealing with the injury to the woman, as that is dealt with sufficiently in other passages, it is dealing with injury or death caused to children still in the womb, so sorry, no banana for you, AC. If you are going to use the bible as a reference in a discussion, maybe you should read it first.
In any case, this is not a discussion about theology.
However, I'm not convinced that, even if we treated a fetus as human, it is required that the mother continues the pregnancy, and I disagree with your analogy to looking after a child. Looking after or not abusing is one thing, but providing life support via your body is another.
The 'looking after a child' is not an analogy, it's an example of how we legally see a mother's responsibility. Precedent if you will. It is generally accepted that the parent's responsibility is reduced as the childs age/capability increases. The parents could be charged with neglect for not feeding an infant. They could not be charged with neglect for not feeding a 30 year old, in normal circumstances. So, it is already established that the level of the parents responsibility is essentially determined by the requirements of the child, and tends to decrease with time. It is not set by an arbitary level of committment that we feel comfortable with. So if (for the sake of discussion) we accept that the fetus is human, the logical and consistent position would be to say that the parents responsibility is to feed and protect the child as required, and that this requirement is likely to take a higher level of care than a child needs after bith. As the only method of doing this is currently to continue the pregancy, then I believe this is required. Come up with a viable and reliable method of incubating or transplanting fetuses and you would have a solution I would accept.
Right, if you're saying we shouldn't make an exception, that's fine, I just wanted to know where you stood. Earlier I read it that you thought we could somehow make an exception for rape.
I haven't said we should or shouldn't. Even if there is not an exception for rape cases, it doesn't mean there should be no exceptions, and any exception would be difficult to implement. My point was that if it should be done, the fact that it is difficult is not a reason not to do it. If it is decided that an exception should be made but it's hard, then work hard to solve the problem instead of giving up.
For what it's worth, although rape is a terrible crime, I do not think it justifies killing the child of the rapist. We don't let a woman summarily execute the man who raped her, why would we let her kill the man's (and her) child. It really comes down to if you believe the fetus is human again. I can concieve of circumstances where there should be an exception though, so my point stands.
...but I didn't think it was a woman's responsibility to find someone willing to take it - rather, it's given up for adoption, and the state handles it?
...
My point is that she cannot leave it out to die, for example. It has to be given by her into appropriate care. Even if she is giving it to the state on the understanding that they will care/find a carer, it is totally different to not taking responsibility, it is delegating responsibility (in this case, to the state). The fact that during pregnancy it is currently only the mother that is capable of caring for the child does not remove this responsibility.
Yes I mean in the situation where we decide the fetus has human rights - although note that many people argue a fetus should have rights not because it is a human being, but because it will become one.
So even to your dicussion, you understand that it must first be decided if the fetus is human/has human rights. I'm not sure now why you disputed this.
How would you make an exception for rape?
How I would make an exception for any given circumstance is not really relevant. Consider if we had decided (for discussion sake) that legally we would consider a fetus human from conception. Then let's call them pre-children. I'm not sure how many abortions are due to rape, but let's say it's 1% (for discussion sake). Let's use the example of the next million abortions. 10,000 will be due to rape in our example and we have decided that rape is an acceptable reason for a woman to have an abortion. Now, the issues you raised are real. It would be very difficult to make an exception for rape that didn't have unjust consequences. Will we allow 990,000 human pre-children to be killed (right to life violated) because it is legally difficult to protect the rights (right to pursuit of happiness and/or right to liberty) of 10,000 other people? Shouldn't we rather do some work to overcome the difficulty.
I find it incredible that so many people are prepared to permanently revoke all the right to life of a child in order to remove a largely temporary obstruction to some of the mother's right to liberty/pursuit of happiness.
It's not a discussion, it's a joke.
Adoption is a delegation of responsibility, not an abdication of responsibility. It would not be legal to hand over a child to be killed, it must be given to someone who will provide due care and protection. The responsibility to look after the child is intact but delegated. Your assertion that it doesn't apply before birth is based on the assuption that the baby either is not human or doesn't have human rights before birth. This is the contested issue, it needs to be answered.
No need to avoid it, it is simply not relevant if the feotus is not human, as there would be no reason to deny access to abortion on demand anyway. It only becomes relevant if we assume the fetus is human and has human rights, so that question has to be answered first. Surely you're not saying that if a fetus is not human there might still be any reason to deny access to abortion? No? In any case, many laws have exceptions, so making abortion on demand illegal would not have to mean there were no exceptions for special circumstances.
Determining when the new life is to be have it's human rights is indeed the only relevant issue at this time. It it is decided that birth is that time, there is no case to ban abortion at all, all other discussion becomes unnecessary. If it is decided that is is an earlier time, then the rights of the child, rights of the mother and responsibilities of the parents need discussion.