Question about abortion.

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Originally Posted by demotivater

Argh! Jehovahs witnesses!! I wouldn't refer to that when looking for a general view on these issues from Christians.

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Aren't there more than 144,000 Jehovah witness's? They believe that only 144,000 people will go to Heaven at the end of the world (literal interpretation of Revelations).

If so, they can't all go to heaven when Armaggeddon comes.

From some posts, people are very defensive, accusing me of spreading hate which is ridiculous. I'm just pointing out ethical contradictions in your religion. And they sprout up because your religion was created before ethics was fully developed by philosophers and thinkers.

Modern ethics include the idea that group punishment is wrong, people should have personal libert, all people should be equal under the law, and that torture is evil (especially eternal torture). All of those ideas are not supported by most of the Hebrew derivied religions.

The way people reconcile this contradiction is cherry pick or spin what they want to hear from their religious texts.

BTW, I think abortion is distasteful on a personal level, though I think it should be an option in the first trimester as it is now.

My OP was more about trying to point out that the idea about Hell/Heaven itself is flawed.

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Originally Posted by capsulecorpjx

From some posts, people are very defensive, accusing me of spreading hate which is ridiculous. I'm just pointing out ethical contradictions in your religion. And they sprout up because your religion was created before ethics was fully developed by philosophers and thinkers.

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Who is "Your" and what religion are you refering to?

ethics was fully developed by philosophers and thinkers? :confused: :lol:

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Originally Posted by yrwyddfa

Well, oh Mr Enlightened one. Answer this . . .

I can hold out my hand, and look at my hand. It is a marvellous collection of cells - but on it's own it is not alive

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If I lob your hand off, I bet I could make the hand muscles expand and contract with electricity - I could even have it hooked up to IV's and a dialysis machine and keep it alive for a very long time.

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I can look at my whole body. Remarkable complextity. But chop my head off and the body will cease to exist but the cells and tissues in it are.

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That's not entirely true either. Have you ever heard the term 'running around like a headless chicken'?

Point is, you're taking a very interrelated mechanism and disrupting immensely vital parts of it. Because of the dependant relationships, you need to replace or simulate the part that you're removing - and if you could, you would have a body just as operational as when it had your mug on it.

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When YOU can tell me what makes something alive or dead and what makes a cell alive and what makes it die you will

(i) enable human beings to live forever
(ii) answer the question of humanity about unborn children.

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Can you tell me whether green is blue or yellow? Really depends on what you're looking for.

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Originally Posted by yrwyddfa

Well, oh Mr Enlightened one. Answer this . . .

I can hold out my hand, and look at my hand. It is a marvellous collection of cells - but on it's own it is not alive

I can hold out my arm, and look, and feel, smell, and touch my arms. It is a wonderfully complex part of my body (look at the myocin reaction) but on it's own it is not alive but the cells in it are

I can look at my whole body. Remarkable complextity. But chop my head off and the body will cease to exist - but the cells and tissues in it are.

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Thats a silly question. Your body dies when your head is cut-off because of that giant gapping whole that leaks your blood. Your tissues require a constant flow of blood containing oxygen and nutrients to survive. So when you get your head cutoff, the rest of the body is dying from blood-loss (or more specifically oxygen deprvation at a tissue level).

Now if you seal off where your head gets cut off. I'm not sure then, I think your heart and lungs require your brainstem to keep functioning. So if they stop, then the rest of your body again, dies from oxygen starvation.

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When YOU can tell me what makes something alive or dead and what makes a cell alive and what makes it die you will

(i) enable human beings to live forever
(ii) answer the question of humanity about unborn children.

Until then, well, you know what I'm going to say . . .

Apart from that posting a thread entirely designed to promote an argument of hate, distrust, and general apathy has no part of this forum.

(Oh and as a sidenote . . I understand your question, and I know what you really meant. But the grammer, and philosophical undertones are entirely contradictory. I would suggest you go on a 101 course before you start a thread like this again)

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A cell is alive when it's still processing matter and maintaining homeostasis.

Animal cells die because (from my genetics class), everytime your cell divides a bit of genetic material comes loose from the ends, so eventually your cell will not be able to produce the same proteins as before, therefore aging and death.

Cellular aging and death serves two purposes (my speculation):
1) Prevents cancer (uncontrollable cell division).
2) Death is a benefit to evolution. Having kids and dying (instead of living forever and taking resources from your kids) creates new, slightly modified versions of you, and change is curcial to survive evolution.


As for the humanity of unborn children, that is up to debate. I really don't know, but I'm just gonna go along with the first tri-mester thing (abortions legal in first trimester).

But think about it this way, if you take a zygote, and split it, now you have twins. In theory, you can split it infinitely at that stage, therefore have infintely many people.

So what is a zygote? One person or infinte number of people? If you do not split a zygote, are you killing their twin?

Also, accusing me of hate or distrust without giving any points to how that is, is not very constructive. Accusing me of apathy is even more ludicrous. I'm just raising questions on the morality of Hell and the ethical contradictions of old religions. You may feel its "hate" because it threatens your belief system. But Hate is if I promoted violence against people, not challenge belief systems.

That bit about the zygote is pretty good. If life begins at conception, then identical twins are a single person. If there is a soul, it must enter once the number of people has been determined, or else there would have to be multiple bodies for a single soul. That's a pretty wacky idea.

The bit about the genetic material loss sounds just a bit off, but pretty close. I think those are called teleomeres, and they do appear to shrink with each division of the cell, but I don't think that anybody has explained how this causes aging, though I seem to remember some studies that strongly suggested this to be a causitive factor.

Why organisms dies is an odd puzzle. A single bacteria can divide. After division, which of the resulting organisms is the original, and which is the copy? I suppose the original, if there is one, is the one with the molecules in the original strand of DNA. However, the new copy is a perfect clone. In the abscense of memory, if the original is eaten by an amoeba, is the organism dead?

As you get more complex, the question of what is a discrete, unique, organism becomes defined very quickly. There seems to be a good advantage to living forever, since a male, at least, would be able to reproduce for a long time. I suppose life isn't a stable state. Things fall apart, the center doesn't hold.....in the end: You were eaten by a grue!

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Originally Posted by capsulecorpjx

Aren't there more than 144,000 Jehovah witness's? They believe that only 144,000 people will go to Heaven at the end of the world (literal interpretation of Revelations).

If so, they can't all go to heaven when Armaggeddon comes.

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Yes there are over 6,500,000 and more than One million in the United States alone. And yes we do beleive that 144,000 will go to heaven to help rule over the people who will live on the earth forever.

If God never lies, and he created Adam and Eve to "fill the earth and subdue it" - then why would Satan meesing up there lives change that original purpose? That is why he sent his son Jesus to die for a ransom, to attone for Adams death, (A perfect man for a perfect man) so that we can have repentance from our sins.

So since God dosent lie and his original purpose was for the whole earth to be a paradice, it will happen...

Think about this, if Adam and Eve would not have eaten the fruit and sinned, where would they be today... ?

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Originally Posted by damasterjo

Yes there are over 6,500,000 and more than One million in the United States alone. And yes we do beleive that 144,000 will go to heaven to help rule over the people who will live on the earth forever.

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So how can you be sure that that is not what is going on right now. 144.000 people are in heaven right now. And they are ruling over the rest of us who live on earth forever?

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Originally Posted by nemaroller

That's not entirely true either. Have you ever heard the term 'running around like a headless chicken'?

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A cockroach can live a week without its head. The roach only dies because without a mouth, it can't drink water and dies of thirst.

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Originally Posted by capsulecorpjx

I'm just raising questions on the morality of Hell and the ethical contradictions of old religions. You may feel its "hate" because it threatens your belief system. But Hate is if I promoted violence against people, not challenge belief systems.

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Let's just say that Hell and religion in general were invented by the ruling minority as means of controling the poor, working majority of people. Promising them heaven if they obey, and threatning them with hell and eternal suffering if they do not.

Funny thing is - according to the door to door religon salesmens religon, the 144,000 are already chosen. Of course, they don't tell you that at the door. So, sign on the line and prepare to be damned for there are no more vacancies! LOL - Bike riding, tie wearing, brainwashed morons.

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Originally Posted by Capsulebabala

I'm just pointing out ethical contradictions in your religion.

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You'll have to back that up a bit. Start by pointing out what religon you're picking on, then produce your evidence of expertise in said religon.

While we are on the subject of religion, who here has the balls to pick on Scientology? :)

Can you belive I only heard of it a few days ago. And look at this, they have a device called "Mark Super VII Quantun E-meter" which costs almost $5.000.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-meter

What interests me is, what makes it "quantum"? Does it operate on quantum physics priciples?
Their website reffers to it as a "religious artifact" :)

Two words: Tom Cruise

The power of Scientology

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Originally Posted by demotivater

Two words: Tom Cruise

The power of Scientology

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This one has loads of interesting clips http://www.scientomogy.info/

All living thing things age and die because all living things require oxygen in some manner. As Oxygen is a corrosive it will cause deterioration of our bodies, gradually.

Not all. Maybe somewhere (or some time) there will be mutant creatures living on nuclear power and they wont require oxygen :D

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Originally Posted by baja_yu

Not all. Maybe somewhere (or some time) there will be mutant creatures living on nuclear power and they wont require oxygen :D

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Now theres a bloke with an open mind! :)

"Open mind"?
perhaps if each word was re-worded to "Empty head"

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That argument assumes that all actions taken by the mother are selfish. Certainly she shouldn't expect salvation for that act, but that's not the point. Is the act altruistic? The target benefits, at the cost of the perpetrator. By your argument, any cost to the perpetrator should dissuade them from benefitting their child.

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The original post attempts to set up a condradiction (and therefore paradox) of morality that an anti-abortion christian would be unable to answer - presumably in an attempt to debunk their belief system (eg. 'How can it be right while this contradiction exists?'). That contradiction only exists if the christian judges the balance of morality as displayed by the mother to be 'good'. I merely demostrated why, in terms of a christian outlook, the balance would not be 'good', ergo, there is no contradiction and the belief system stands up.

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Have you ever heard the term 'running around like a headless chicken'?

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The chicken only actually continues to run around while enough of the brain stem is left intact. In chickens, the brain stem extends a long way down the neck so this can often happen, however once the remaining portion dies the chick clucks it's last. If you want to read something really amusing, if a little grotesque, do a google search for 'Mike the headless chicken' - and it's not a hoax.

>>Found a link to Mike. Be warned, it is a little grotesque but I don't think anyone here will really be bothered by it.

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Originally Posted by baja_yu

A cockroach can live a week without its head. The roach only dies because without a mouth, it can't drink water and dies of thirst.

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Those damn cockroaches really like to show off...

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Originally Posted by FunkyDexter

Found a link to Mike. Be warned, it is a little grotesque but I don't think anyone here will really be bothered by it.

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I think we can all learn something from 'Mike'... I just don't know what exactly that is yet.

"He pecked for food and preened his feathers just like the rest of his barnyard buddies."

This story is complete BS. Yeah right. Pecked with what?
And the fact that it is from 1940 makes me think that even more.
And the owner was cool about it, huh? You wouldnt freak out that the chicken that you beheaded is still alive? And, one more thing, when he chopped it's head off, why did he just leave it there?

And when he chopped off its head, how come it didnt bleed to death? Maybe he was a nuclear powered chicken so he did not have blood. Or maybe, just after cutting his head of, the guy thought: "Oh my God, what have I done? I better try and save this chicken. I will start by stopping the bleeding, then tomorrow I'll try to attach its head back one, right after I finish mating my two-dicked horse with my two-vaginad cow"

Did he have any animals with 4 asses, like Mefesto in South Park :D

"he was a big fat chicken who didn't know he didn't have a head" - "he seemed as happy as any other chicken."

Know it with what? He didn't have a brain to process the thought, nor the eyes to establish that he doesn't have a head (yes, I know that it would require him to look in the mirror :) )

Weak chicken, A turkey would have made it for 28 months. :)

Did anyone actually look it up in guiness to verify it was true?

I asked somebody to do that. They first looked it up in a pint, then in a whole pitcher, then finally in a keg. When they finally came to, they were clutching the base of a porcelain font, and had a duck stuffed down their pants. They reported that they had been unable to find the fact in guiness, but were willing to try other beers.

The duck, of course, had little to say, but he was just a quack anyways.

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Originally Posted by MasterBlaster

Weak chicken, A turkey would have made it for 28 months. :)

Did anyone actually look it up in guiness to verify it was true?

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http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/...recordid=54463

I stay by my comments. The Ahole that added this to the book must have been drunk on his own beer at the time.

What's more, Mike's homepage sasy it was in 1940. The Guiness site says "On September 10, 1945", but, below the picture, under "when" it says 1947.

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I think we can all learn something from 'Mike'... I just don't know what exactly that is yet.

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How to keep an open mind :bigyello: or maybe just 'If you're a chicken, avoid farmers with axes'

If you want to look something up in guiness, do you need beer goggles?

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What's more, Mike's homepage sasy it was in 1940. The Guiness site says "On September 10, 1945", but, below the picture, under "when" it says 1947.

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I'd trust the GBWR over the home page, keep in mind that the homepage is a commercial venture someone's set up to sell TShirts and I doubt it's affiliated with Mike in any way (it was just the first link I could find). I do believe the GBWR though, it's not like it's a wikki or something so the entries are presumably well vetted (geddit, 'VETted'). I assume the photo was taken in 47, which is wholly possible if Mike lived for 18 months from September 45.

AAAaaaanyway. Back to the original topic.

I have decided to volunteer at the H5N1 decontamination group, and instead of killing all the infected birds, I'm going to bring them home an chop their heads of and see if they will survive. I'll make test groups of about 100 per species.

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Originally Posted by baja_yu

I stay by my comments. The Ahole that added this to the book must have been drunk on his own beer at the time.

What's more, Mike's homepage sasy it was in 1940. The Guiness site says "On September 10, 1945", but, below the picture, under "when" it says 1947.

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It was in Life Magazine Oct 22, 1945 issue.


http://members.aol.com/ddsquirrel/2headlessrooster.jpg

http://www.2neatmagazines.com/life/1945.html
( Do a Edit..Find on Page for 'Headless Rooster' )

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Originally Posted by baja_yu

I have decided to volunteer at the H5N1 decontamination group, and instead of killing all the infected birds, I'm going to bring them home an chop their heads of and see if they will survive. I'll make test groups of about 100 per species.

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I stand by my comments... again :D

I'm speechless......and I'll stand by that!

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Originally Posted by FunkyDexter

The original post attempts to set up a condradiction (and therefore paradox) of morality that an anti-abortion christian would be unable to answer - presumably in an attempt to debunk their belief system (eg. 'How can it be right while this contradiction exists?'). That contradiction only exists if the christian judges the balance of morality as displayed by the mother to be 'good'. I merely demostrated why, in terms of a christian outlook, the balance would not be 'good', ergo, there is no contradiction and the belief system stands up.

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But ... if a mother had the intention of sending her child to heaven thus avoiding the possibility of hell ... and knew the consequences of her action yet does it anyway. Isn't it a noble act?

A Christian (Muslim or Jew) might say that it is not up to the Mother to choose. But ... the intention is the same, the effect is the same (child goes to heaven), so wouldn't it still be noble?

Other people say that the premise that the child goes to heaven is wrong, that instead the child goes to limbo because of original Sin. Which brings another point, is it ethical for an unborn child to go to limbo? It had no control over the situation. Is Original Sin ethical?

Not to me it isn't. Original sin is part of the general christian anti-sex litany. Sex is good for everything except humans, apparently.

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Originally Posted by capsulecorpjx

But ... if a mother had the intention of sending her child to heaven thus avoiding the possibility of hell ... and knew the consequences of her action yet does it anyway. Isn't it a noble act?

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No. Read up on free will. It is up to the child to get his/herself into wherever, not the mother. Nobel? What does that have to do with anything? It's about sinner/non sinner.

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A Christian (Muslim or Jew) might say that it is not up to the Mother to choose. But ... the intention is the same, the effect is the same (child goes to heaven), so wouldn't it still be noble?

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Again, It is not up to the mother. And has nothing to do with your definition of noble.

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Other people say that the premise that the child goes to heaven is wrong, that instead the child goes to limbo because of original Sin. Which brings another point, is it ethical for an unborn child to go to limbo? It had no control over the situation. Is Original Sin ethical?

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Original sin means that humans are born, inperfect with a predisposition to sin. Mother Theresa, fictional aborted baby, and Ted Bundy were all born with original sin. Theresa followed the rules, Aborted baby didn't do a damn thing right or wrong, Teddie broke damn near every one of the rules.

Theresa and dead fetus will both end up in heavan eventually, teddie is screwed. It's that simple. Acording to those religons.

I think MasterBlaster said just about everything I would have done in response but this debate put me in mind of a psychology paper I read a while back. It basically postulated that humans NEVER commit an act which they themselves believe to be evil because we justify everything we do within our own moral frameworks before we do it. This applies to everything from mothers aborting their children on the basis that 'I could never have given it a happy life' to Dictators committing genocide on the basis that 'These people stand in the way of the greater good and therefore must be eliminated'. Of course, sometimes the moral framework is twisted enough to allow the sort of 'My benefit is more important than yours' decisions that would lead to burglary, for example, but the point is, in the perptrators mind, they have justified it to the point where they don't believe it's an evil act.

If we take that theory you could never judge an act as evil or good on the basis of the intention because the intention will never be evil. It will be, at worst, 'OK'.

I tried to go back and find the paper and a link or something but sadly couldn't so I really won't vouch for it's veracity and I'm sure I've just paraphrased over some of the key points. I think it adds something interesting to the discussion though.

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Originally Posted by FunkyDexter

I think MasterBlaster said just about everything I would have done in response but this debate put me in mind of a psychology paper I read a while back. It basically postulated that humans NEVER commit an act which they themselves believe to be evil because we justify everything we do within our own moral frameworks before we do it. This applies to everything from mothers aborting their children on the basis that 'I could never have given it a happy life' to Dictators committing genocide on the basis that 'These people stand in the way of the greater good and therefore must be eliminated'. Of course, sometimes the moral framework is twisted enough to allow the sort of 'My benefit is more important than yours' decisions that would lead to burglary, for example, but the point is, in the perptrators mind, they have justified it to the point where they don't believe it's an evil act.

If we take that theory you could never judge an act as evil or good on the basis of the intention because the intention will never be evil. It will be, at worst, 'OK'.

I tried to go back and find the paper and a link or something but sadly couldn't so I really won't vouch for it's veracity and I'm sure I've just paraphrased over some of the key points. I think it adds something interesting to the discussion though.

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That's ok, I would expect that most people understand this to be the case anyways.

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Originally Posted by FunkyDexter

I think MasterBlaster said just about everything I would have done in response but this debate put me in mind of a psychology paper I read a while back. It basically postulated that humans NEVER commit an act which they themselves believe to be evil because we justify everything we do within our own moral frameworks before we do it. This applies to everything from mothers aborting their children on the basis that 'I could never have given it a happy life' to Dictators committing genocide on the basis that 'These people stand in the way of the greater good and therefore must be eliminated'. Of course, sometimes the moral framework is twisted enough to allow the sort of 'My benefit is more important than yours' decisions that would lead to burglary, for example, but the point is, in the perptrators mind, they have justified it to the point where they don't believe it's an evil act.

If we take that theory you could never judge an act as evil or good on the basis of the intention because the intention will never be evil. It will be, at worst, 'OK'.

I tried to go back and find the paper and a link or something but sadly couldn't so I really won't vouch for it's veracity and I'm sure I've just paraphrased over some of the key points. I think it adds something interesting to the discussion though.

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Very well, a mother carries the baby to term, and gives it up for adoption because she can't afford it. But it isn't adopted to the family practicing the one true religion. The child does not accept the one true religion, therefore, when he/she dies, he/she goes to hell and is tortured for all eternity.

The mother goes to heaven, and is judged a righteous person, and believes in God's judgment.

Is this correct? This has happened.

Oh lighten up ;)

I don't know that all religions feel that non-believers are damned, but that's a major reason why I don't believe in the religions that do.

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Originally Posted by capsulecorpjx

The mother goes to heaven, and is judged a righteous person, and believes in God's judgment.

Is this correct? This has happened.

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I hereby hand over my crown, You have officially beat me in the category of posting krap that doesn't make sense. :lol:

Keep this up and you'll suffer Hitler's fate in the movie "Little Nicky". :p