The Terrible Sweal

It strikes me as odd that, when debating the existence of God, you are happy to pull out the testimony of science, but when talking of the humanity of the unborn, scientific testimony is suddenly irrelevant. Can you explain this contradiction? You perceive a contradiction because you are mistaken that I resort to science when debating the existence of God. But there would be no inherent contradiction implied anyway. The decision to outlaw abortion is a political/legal one. The question of God's existence is much more 'natural' and so science is even more relevant there. That's a mistaken grasp of the use of expert testimony. It does not decide a question, it informs the decisionmaker who must decide according to the law. Apparently I have not been clear enough. The question is how our society should handle abortion. In our society it has been determined and set out in the constitution that women shall be free, equal individuals. Accordingly, to discuss the preservation of a fetus against the wishes of the woman bearing it in our society, you must, it seems to me, posit some quality or status in the fetus which overrides the rights our society provides to women. I have defined "human being" as a unique individual that belongs to the species homo sapiens. If you do not want to accept that, please tell me why. No no no. We are examining the logic YOU claim to have on your side. You have defined a 'human being' as such and such. (1) Why? (2) Given that definition, what flows from it and why?

To be both effective in the goal and fair to childless citizens, the government should provide the benefits directly to children rather than indirectly through discriminatory tax practices. Policies such as comprehensive health insurance up to age 18, universal paid tuition (up to four years max), high quality schools and personal development opportunities...

Actually, the point we were discussing was your claim that secularism is more rational than religion, and my response that secularism has to make a blind faith claim at the same fundamental points that it complains of religion doing this. Regarding the particular portion of our discussion involved, I believe you are mistaken abou the point and suggest you re-read, if it really matters. I am well aware that is your argument. I have addressed your argument to the satisfaction of any sane neutral observer. Science does not rely on 'blind faith' no matter how often you may say so. Science doesn't know how where the universe came from. That is not blind faith, that is an admission of ignorance. Recite all you wish, it isn't 'blind faith'. Furthermore, you persist in ignoring the point that deficiencies of scientific knowledge provide no support for the posits of religion. ... the authority for this is the authority for my beliefs, the Bible. While you may not like it, it is the base for my religious views. ... The Bible tells us that God assigns guilt to us for sin on the basis of a covenant made with the first man, ...Adam represented us in much the same way the PM or perhaps better, the Governor General represents us. ...binding on all of us. ...we all share the benefits or costs. It’s our treaty, whether or not we like it. God appointed Adam as the federal head of all mankind, and made a covenant ... requiring perfect obedience on condition of death, ... God also appointed his Son as a surety ... The Son agreed that if Adam failed, he would stand in Adam’s place ... Adam failed. ...God the Son took on our human flesh, to fulfil his commitment on our behalf. As true man he gave the obedience we owe, for us (being God as well, he was not indebted on his own behalf). As true man he died for us. Because he is also God, his death was of such weight that he could in one blow pay completely for all the sins of all who would follow him. ...Now note. You may not like the arrangement. But it is clear, consistent, and explains exactly how Jesus can pay for our sins. He can pay because he is our covenant representative in the covenant under which those sins are condemned. Thank you again for taking the time to delineate your views in such detail. This has indeed taken us away from the forum's political focus. Nevertheless, acknowledging your preface to this passage, I would nevertheless comment as follows: You have provided a certain amount of explicative content around Jesus role as saviour, but from whence does it come? Who extruded this extensive legalistic relationship from the simplicity of the Bible? What is their authority for these claims? From an ethical point of view, I must say I don't find the structure presented to be proper, praiseworthy or sensible. And it makes even less sense if you posit an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God. What gives God the authority to appoint Adam to represent us? What ethical basis is their to punish us for the deeds of a representative we did not select, or indeed for the deeds of a representative at all. God says we are 'federated' to Adam-the-God-Made-Loser, so forever more we must be? A Being that would impose such a system wouldn't be worship-worthy. I hoped it would be taken as a provocation rather than an outright insult, but certainly, consider it withdrawn. Oh, I read it. And I found it to be utter, unadorned nonsense, just like that. I'm sorry, but whenever you resort to the 'Whatever I say the Bible says is True' routine you are no longer in the mode of a meaningful exchange. Where is there an appeal to the mob in anything I wrote? Or even to the authority of the book, without first showing that there were grounds for granting its authority? 'Mob' was my shorthand for everyone who you cited as authorities. I'll defend that usage if you really challenge it. As to the latter, everywhere you mention the Bible you appeal to its authority without showing grounds for granting it. I'm sorry, but I don't recall such evidence. Last I heard, the New Testament was not recorded until well after Jesus left. No, certainly not. That would be Paul (and a conga line of frauds after him). There are other choices. One is to dispute the authority of the Gospels. I really do think I've read what you've written, and I really don't recall you proving they record anything with certainty. That is a blind faith assumption if I ever heard one. Certainly not blind faith. I'm open to your disputing it. Which part ... that humans were involved in the creation of the Bible or that humans are fallible? I love it. How would the Bible know??? But seriously, this is the same 'all-powerful' deity that demands covenants with people who don't exist and enforces them thru bloody psychodramas rather than simply snap it's celestial fingers? Sorry. I just can't get over the inherent implausibility of these doctrines. I don't know who you mean by 'secularists'. But even if true, that puts them equal with religion on this level. Again, we see you reciting rather than discussing. You fault science for attempting to explain how something can come of nothing, but you don't hold religion to the same standard. Where did 'God' spring from? How is a self-creating God more logical than a self-creating universe? Even if science hasn't got an answer, why should we accept the answers of religion? Which religion and why?

That's cultural. In China, you are considered one year old when born, not zero. What you have argued is an opinion and the Chinese make up a large enough chunk of humanity that you can say it's not even an overwhelmingly popular one. Exactly. You say that it's important what biologists define as 'human'. I say it's important what the Chinese define as 'human'. TaDa! We can both play at rhetorical sophistry. That's just begging the question. You haven't yet got over the hurdle of establishing your asserted meaning of 'human being', let alone addressing why such an entity's interests should be allowed to supervene a woman's. Define "quality". Are the mentally handicapped not of the same "quality"? How about the congenitally deformed? Criminals? Gays? Ugly people? Where are you drawing your line that divides humanity? We are examining the logic of your position, remember. Constitutionally, women have a defined quality in terms of their rights; i.e. free, equal individuals. Women are of a known quality in this sense. You, it seems to me, must argue that fetuses are at least of equal quality in this sense. So, go ahead.

Then aren't you evidence of real progress in the human heart? Albeit, God-assisted in your view.

Good point. My personal policy solution would be for the goverment to cease defining 'marriage' at all and simply define a civil union that any two adult people could sign up for, for home economics reasons, basically. (Say a daughter lives with her eldery mother. Neither sees any prospect of marriage. Why shouldn't they be able to access the tax advantages provided to married people?) Various churches could conduct whatever rituals they specify for 'marriage', and then those 'married' people could simply register with the government for a civil union. Basically, the government should be neutral as to whichever two people decide to participate in the statutory-domestic-partnering regime.

That's a cop-out if ever I saw one. No, they are the opinions of four internationally recognised experts in the field of embryology. And I have many more including the Senate testimonies I mentioned earlier. If you don't believe me, I'll post them, but you should know by now that if I tell you I can provide proof, I can. Absolutely correct. Science held and holds that Jews, women and blacks were equal human beings. "Political choices", for a long time in a number of states, denied that fact. If your argument is that fetuses are not fully formed and so cannot be citizens with the accorded rights, then you have just stripped those born missing limbs or organs of their citizenship and their right to live. Congratulations. Your answer to my second point belied your dismissal of my first point. You can cite me all the embryologists you want, they after we have heard their facts, the politcal/ethical issue still remains to be considered. Neither does your vile rhetoric advance your arguments. If a fetus is not a person of the same qualtiy as a grown woman, then your position is indefensible. So, we must consider, what makes a person? All people I know have had a birthday. Fetus's haven't. There's one strike against them...

The courts decided the change the legal definition of marriage. Unfortunate that we're losing the separation of powers here don't ya think? It seems to me that the separation of powers is functioning in good balance.

The 5 Republican-appointed justices of the USSC stopped the recounts that you place such reliance on. Why aren't YOU bitter then? In any event, I have no shame in saying I'm pissed at what the court did. It's the right way to feel about such an affront. I don't remember Bush saying that God told him to attack Iraq. On Iraq and other issues, he has left a different impression with me. Sorry, did you garble that? I don't understand. The constitution didn't come from religion, I consider anyone who decides things based on pre-fabricated certainties to be operating at a substantial disadvantage versus someone who is unencumbered by such perspectives. Did he really attribute causation to Bush's mad economics? I can't believe it. I can't speak for the left, but I hope they stop soon. I also hope the right stops undermining the capability of governments to address problems society would do well to solve. That's me, a classical liberal.

The courts have supervision of the interpretation of the laws of the country. Obviously this includes the LEGAL definintion of marriage. Or they have decided that your definition of sacred can't infringe upon the law. How would that be so much better, really? What's in a word? The court would have no business concerning itself with the interpretations religions happen to put on words the law also uses. You are positing a false dichotomy/category selection. The right for two persons of the same sex to paticipate in an institution government provides for two persons of opposite sexs is not so easily equated with multiple partners.

But is it bull? I know right now it seems absurd, however we have constantly been pushing the moral envelope. 50 years ago homosexuality was something detestable and wrong and now its almost completely accepted. Who´s to say that bestiality won´t become something that people push to accept a few years down the road? When does the moral decay of our society stop???? Probably when social conservatives develop a sense of intellectual integrity ... i.e. when hell freezes over (so to speak). I have rarely heard such utter bumf as has accumulated on this thread. There a blindingly obvious ethical and public policy differences between same sex marriage and bestiality, polygamy, and other horrors some fertile imaginations seem so quick to conjure.

Bradley M. Patten, Human Embryology. Keith L. Moore, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology. E.L. Potter, J. M. Craig, Pathology of the Fetus and the Infant ... Suffice it to say that the scientific community is unanimous that the product of conception, the zygote, is alive and a unique individual. Now, is it human? What is required to be "human" is genetic membership in the species homo sapiens, and all unborn, from conception onwards, have that membership. To say that the unborn is not human means it is something else, because living organisms have to be members of some species. So if the unborn is not human, you are arguing it is something else: a fish, a chimpanzee perhaps, which it plainly is not. So, scientifically, it is an established fact that the unborn are living, individual human beings. The opinions of Mssrs. Patten, Moore, Craig and Potter: -appear to speak chiefly to biological rather than political viewpoints, and so don't seem to respond very directly to the point in issue; and -are merely the opinions of four people who happen to support your preferences. The don't provide logical support to your argument, the merely provide popular support to your cause. The remainder of your argument suffers from the former deficiency as well. To say a fetus is a 'human being' because it isn't some other species commits a fallacy of misplaced relevance. Definitions adopted by biological science are not the determinants of political choices. You say science says that fetus's are of the human species. I say, so what? How does that affect the argument that a woman is a fully formed citizen and a human fetus is not?

The courts have certainly not decided that anyone can marry anyone or anything. Are social conservatives still peddling this old chestnut? The courts said that same gender did not count as a basis to prevent two people from marrying. That, quite specifically,l was it. Now, the question whether on the same arguments other relationships can be acceptable in matrimony has not been considered by the courts. Personally, I think the government could easily defend marriage as a thing between two rather than more people if it wanted to.

So why worship his Creator?

This story raises an interesting question. To what extent can society allow 'religious freedom' to mean freedom for some people to oppress their co-religionists? Is it okay to allow some children to be raised ignorant to preserve the religious freedom of the parents? Indeed, is religious freedom of children compatible with being raised in any one faith?

Alright, I'll take you up on it. I'll pick an argument ... the fetus is not a human, not a citizen, and therefore does not qualify for any particular 'rights', ergo the state has no legitimate basis to over-ride a woman's choice on behalf of such a mere proto-being. What's your answer to that one?

The principle takeanumber is arguing would stand irrespective of any enhanced interest in 'security'. If a Church can provide sanctuary, and I can proclaim myself a church with just a few hundred bucks, basically, what's to stop me setting up a sanctuary industry? Well, the government is. That's the point. If conscienciously a church wishes to disobey the law, as they have thru history, let them, and let these campaigns work out when good is on their side. But policy cannot allow the government to concede that churches have the right to ultimately defy them on immigration questions.

The former, yes, unreservedly. The latter, perhaps another time.

Excellent. You have no doubt heard the various arguments against your position: birth control failure, changes in circumstances after pregancy begins, health or developmental problems with the fetus or the mother during pregancy, the concept that the concept of liberty requires that women be free to choose even after sex whether they wish to bear a child, the concept that equality requires that one sex no be put in intimate service in a way the other will not be, the point that a fetus is not a fully formed fellow citizen and cannot be counted as a citizen while a woman is, etc. A couple of questions... First, are there any of those you accept or concede? Next, may I ask, do you draw upon religious beliefs or authority as a central element in support of your position?

Richly deserved!

Well there's a clear answer, and I think an almost honest one. My term, 'pro-forced-childbirth movement' is obviously correct about what 'pro-lifer's' are really about. I will, however just point out one slight obfuscation. When you say: -"women who voluntarily got themselves pregnant" by that you mean: -'any woman who consented to sex and is pregnant', Right?

But things with truly high relevancy get time made for them.

All the evidence of day to day experience suggests that the past flows causationally into the future. If you throw a frisbee onto the roof one day, it will likely still be there the next when you borrow the ladder to retrieve it. And your neighbor will eventually come asking after the ladder if you don't return it. However, most historical analyses are, because of the nature and limitations of human endevour, incomplete in the sense of capturing all the elements of causation in even any single historical event, let alone a trend or movement. Worse yet, some analyses are driven not by the desire for discovery, but rather to persuade.

Being neither a member of a visible minority, nor economically disadvantaged, I will refrain from commenting on the fairness of Cosby's criticisms, other than to note that he fits into only one of those categories as well.

The chief's conduct was utterly unprofessional. He didn't make his comment in the heat of the moment, at the time of arrest, or under intense questioning by the press. He quite deliberately called a press conference, and then some time later openned it with a pronouncement on the guilt of an accused. If the accuse should turn out to be innocent (that does happen, as we know all too well in Canada), then the taxpayer will be forking over for the chief's stupidity.