There are at least two things I won't write about in this blog. One of them is family. I realize that probably limits me. I know my blog doesn't have any bells or whistles yet. It's pretty bare-bones basic, but I promise I'll add to it as it goes along.
I actually had a successful day writing fiction. This was important to me. I'm thinking I should have the short story done by Monday. I should be reading at the writers' group meeting. It'll be good to see the group again.
I got some criticism extremely helpful criticism on the beginning of my GS novel. "Ginger Snaps: The Feral Bond" from another writers' group on Tuesday, or rather, one person there. I would be the first to admit that I'm not the best at style. In fact, when I'm writing fiction and concentrating on the imagery and description, I could be very slipshod about grammar and style. I am doing my best to improve it, reading through Walsh's "Plain English Handbook." The problem is, learning the finer points of proper English is one thing, but trying to apply it on the page? That's another level of difficulty.
There is one phenomenon of getting criticism from a writers' group: unlike an established author, the readers don't trust you. When a horror-fantasy character says they can grab things off store shelves faster than the security cam can pick it up, it's not because I made an error saying they can move faster than light, it's because 1) Security cams are low on resolution; 2) The character does have super-human speed; 3) the character herself is impressed with it; 4) She's never seen herself on a security monitor; 5) she only knows she's never been caught; 6) the character as narrator is unreliable.
Now, if the reader trusts your competence to begin with, this shouldn't be a problem. They won't look at the sentence and think, "oh, this impossible, the author fucked up." Instead they'll think, "This is impossible, what is he trying to tell me?"
For the most part, though, it was splendid criticism.
I hope to have the story done by tomorrow, at least, the first draft, and polish it on Monday before the meeting.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Dear Facebook: Go Fuck Yourself!!
No, Facebook, I'm not sending you a copy of my government issued ID to correct a mistake that you made! I call it a mistake just to feel generous. If I were less generous, I'd say you were trying to extort further personal information from me.
And don't try to say I merely misunderstood you.
To explain why we have come to this parting, my browser was having issues for the last several days. It kept losing my cookies and passwords. With my irritation level already high, I went to your site and discovered I had to log in. None of that was your fault. Instead of immediately letting me in, you asked me for an alternate email address, just to "help out" with my security. That's how I understood it. So, I put that in.
Then this morning when I found an email saying that I had requested to change my email contact, and I needed to verify it or refuse it. Of course, I presumed I misunderstood you because I thought I was just putting in an alternate not changing my contact. Perhaps I read your request a little fast.
(Still, how much sense does it make to ask a user, out of the blue, if he wants to change his email contact? None. Meaning, it wasn't what you asked me to begin with.)
I was also in a hurry, and this seemed to be a simple thing to resolve. I simply refused it as per instructions. What you didn't tell me in your notice was that you would then suspend my account, "for my security."
Then I was even in more of a hurry, and it was the morning, I was drowsy, but this still seemed short and simple to correct. I followed the link and your instructions to get my account reactivated. Somehow, I got your character recognition wrong, prompting you to lock my account. This character rec seemed more difficult than most. I won't say it was designed to be, but the suspicion has crossed my mind.
So, later today, now that I'm well rested, I tried to correct this matter. To my waxing surprise, you now request a copy of my "government issued ID," and then joke that it won't help if I send it more than once. Meaning, I guess it was a problem? That people were so anxious at this point in the info-shakedown that they would give it to you multiple times? It must have been quite a joke around your office.
It'll make up for your not getting it from me. Not even once.
Here's the rational reason why: recently Nintendo had a major security breech. Nintendo is a game company. What possible business did they have gathering and keeping so much personal information just for gaming?
Three weeks before that, there was another major breech that exposed the personal information of customers of all kinds of different companies.
You offer all kinds of "help" in protecting personal information, such as asking me to set up an alternate email contact, suspending, then locking accounts on the least irregularity, and demanding major identification information to unlock them. However, the major threat to my identity and personal information is not some random phisher who tries to change my email. No, it's from companies who gather and store massive amounts of personal data on tens of millions of people, companies like Facebook.
What do I get from your site for the added risk? I'm still trying to figure out what you're offering that's worthwhile. I'm suspicious of your site and its entire concept anyway. The only reason I had an account, which I never put anything on, is because friends had them.
I won't have an account now and I won't miss one, and I'll tell everyone just what you did. I'll leave it up to them to conclude whether it was info-extortion or not.
And don't try to say I merely misunderstood you.
To explain why we have come to this parting, my browser was having issues for the last several days. It kept losing my cookies and passwords. With my irritation level already high, I went to your site and discovered I had to log in. None of that was your fault. Instead of immediately letting me in, you asked me for an alternate email address, just to "help out" with my security. That's how I understood it. So, I put that in.
Then this morning when I found an email saying that I had requested to change my email contact, and I needed to verify it or refuse it. Of course, I presumed I misunderstood you because I thought I was just putting in an alternate not changing my contact. Perhaps I read your request a little fast.
(Still, how much sense does it make to ask a user, out of the blue, if he wants to change his email contact? None. Meaning, it wasn't what you asked me to begin with.)
I was also in a hurry, and this seemed to be a simple thing to resolve. I simply refused it as per instructions. What you didn't tell me in your notice was that you would then suspend my account, "for my security."
Then I was even in more of a hurry, and it was the morning, I was drowsy, but this still seemed short and simple to correct. I followed the link and your instructions to get my account reactivated. Somehow, I got your character recognition wrong, prompting you to lock my account. This character rec seemed more difficult than most. I won't say it was designed to be, but the suspicion has crossed my mind.
So, later today, now that I'm well rested, I tried to correct this matter. To my waxing surprise, you now request a copy of my "government issued ID," and then joke that it won't help if I send it more than once. Meaning, I guess it was a problem? That people were so anxious at this point in the info-shakedown that they would give it to you multiple times? It must have been quite a joke around your office.
It'll make up for your not getting it from me. Not even once.
Here's the rational reason why: recently Nintendo had a major security breech. Nintendo is a game company. What possible business did they have gathering and keeping so much personal information just for gaming?
Three weeks before that, there was another major breech that exposed the personal information of customers of all kinds of different companies.
You offer all kinds of "help" in protecting personal information, such as asking me to set up an alternate email contact, suspending, then locking accounts on the least irregularity, and demanding major identification information to unlock them. However, the major threat to my identity and personal information is not some random phisher who tries to change my email. No, it's from companies who gather and store massive amounts of personal data on tens of millions of people, companies like Facebook.
What do I get from your site for the added risk? I'm still trying to figure out what you're offering that's worthwhile. I'm suspicious of your site and its entire concept anyway. The only reason I had an account, which I never put anything on, is because friends had them.
I won't have an account now and I won't miss one, and I'll tell everyone just what you did. I'll leave it up to them to conclude whether it was info-extortion or not.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Obama's Birth Certificate and conspiracy theories
So, Obama has finally released the "Certificate of Live Birth," that is a copy of the original form that was filed with the Department of Health when he was born in 1961. A birther might ask why he took so long. A few reasons perhaps. One reason might be that, as I've heard, Hawaii like most states has no form that you can fill out which requests this. To do so would require either a court case or an executive order. Both sound pretty expensive, especially when you couldn't phone that in, you'd have to send somebody to Hawaii to do it, which is what Obama did, at his own expense.
A second and more compelling reason: a matter of pride. Why should he have to? A lighter complected candidate and with two white parents had never been asked to, including those born in border territories, like John McCann, who had been born in the Panama Canal Zone. For all others, the usual, run-of-the-mill birth certificate a department of health issues is good enough. In fact, we have rarely asked for even that with any presidential candidate. The doubt seemed to be based on racism. Not that Birthers were going to discriminate against some ethnic group in the workplace or in public, but allowing a black man as Commander and Chief and premier role model of the country? "Wasn't letting them out of the back of the bus enough?"
It looks like an especially lunatic form of racism when they begin to question his birth announcement and make it into a fifty-year conspiracy or say he (practically saying "this mongrel") stole somebody's identity.
Or it would be, except this is standard behavior from conspiracy theorists of all stripes. A single, overwhelmingly obvious fact that makes their theory untenable is discounted, and they continue to nurse the theory as though it's happening in an alternate universe. By then, they're not conspiracy theorists but conspiracy cultists, or as I would also call them, "the faithful" or "the believers."
Conspiracies don't happen, but those we're trained to look for by pop culture generally don't. The all powerful conspiracy that could wipe out evidence at will is usually incorrect. People generally try to find order in random events, like a single gunman killing Kennedy in front of the whole nation. (If they had that good a conspiracy, why not set Air Force 1 to crash? Or hire a female assassin to kill him in bed? He did sleep with a Soviet spy.) People try to think that it normally can't happen unless there's something abnormal going on, but we live in a chaotic world.
I'm digressing too far. Usually, when we mis-perceive we do so making an error in probabilities. Such with this Birther conspiracy. You would expect that if there's a fifty-year conspiracy to put Obama in the White House that there would be a birth announcement placed in the paper, that he would have a origins stupid white people find odd, and that he would be reluctant to release all his birth information, but the arrow of inference does not go the other way. If all those facts are true, that doesn't mean that there's a conspiracy. That's a probability and logic error that people make all the time these days.
Either way, I will watch with interest what happens to the Birther movement now, that is, how many fall away and how many expand the Birther theories further into political fantasizing. I wish I could write a novel using the Birther conspiracies as a model, but nobody would buy it because it's an implausible fantasy people could believe for free.
Further comment: I don't want to give the impression that it's only the crazies who subscribe to conspiracy theories. No, subscribing to conspiracy theories is part of normal behavior and we're all susceptible to it. A good defense against falling into it is to remind yourself which way the arrow of inference should be pointing (if you haven't logic, Google "inference.") Very seldom does it point both directions.
A second and more compelling reason: a matter of pride. Why should he have to? A lighter complected candidate and with two white parents had never been asked to, including those born in border territories, like John McCann, who had been born in the Panama Canal Zone. For all others, the usual, run-of-the-mill birth certificate a department of health issues is good enough. In fact, we have rarely asked for even that with any presidential candidate. The doubt seemed to be based on racism. Not that Birthers were going to discriminate against some ethnic group in the workplace or in public, but allowing a black man as Commander and Chief and premier role model of the country? "Wasn't letting them out of the back of the bus enough?"
It looks like an especially lunatic form of racism when they begin to question his birth announcement and make it into a fifty-year conspiracy or say he (practically saying "this mongrel") stole somebody's identity.
Or it would be, except this is standard behavior from conspiracy theorists of all stripes. A single, overwhelmingly obvious fact that makes their theory untenable is discounted, and they continue to nurse the theory as though it's happening in an alternate universe. By then, they're not conspiracy theorists but conspiracy cultists, or as I would also call them, "the faithful" or "the believers."
Conspiracies don't happen, but those we're trained to look for by pop culture generally don't. The all powerful conspiracy that could wipe out evidence at will is usually incorrect. People generally try to find order in random events, like a single gunman killing Kennedy in front of the whole nation. (If they had that good a conspiracy, why not set Air Force 1 to crash? Or hire a female assassin to kill him in bed? He did sleep with a Soviet spy.) People try to think that it normally can't happen unless there's something abnormal going on, but we live in a chaotic world.
I'm digressing too far. Usually, when we mis-perceive we do so making an error in probabilities. Such with this Birther conspiracy. You would expect that if there's a fifty-year conspiracy to put Obama in the White House that there would be a birth announcement placed in the paper, that he would have a origins stupid white people find odd, and that he would be reluctant to release all his birth information, but the arrow of inference does not go the other way. If all those facts are true, that doesn't mean that there's a conspiracy. That's a probability and logic error that people make all the time these days.
Either way, I will watch with interest what happens to the Birther movement now, that is, how many fall away and how many expand the Birther theories further into political fantasizing. I wish I could write a novel using the Birther conspiracies as a model, but nobody would buy it because it's an implausible fantasy people could believe for free.
Further comment: I don't want to give the impression that it's only the crazies who subscribe to conspiracy theories. No, subscribing to conspiracy theories is part of normal behavior and we're all susceptible to it. A good defense against falling into it is to remind yourself which way the arrow of inference should be pointing (if you haven't logic, Google "inference.") Very seldom does it point both directions.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Dentist visit today and yesterday.
When I was young, believe it or not, I used to like going to the dentist. I know, that's crazy and not very childlike. Some of it, I guess, was because I never had any heavy work done, no crowns or bridges, and though I needed braces, I never got those either. I only had fillings, and as a teenager, the knocked me out to take out my wisdom teeth.
Of course, for those fillings, the needle into the nerve was always awful, and holding my mouth open was a big hassle, but nothing else was even bad. I used to look at the reflection in the doctor's glasses to watch what he was doing. The only thing I remember seeing vividly was blood. Couldn't you tell I was destined to become a horror story writer?
So, you'd expect me not to be nervous about my dental appointment today to get a filling replaced. No, oddly enough, as an adult I actually get nervous and feel none of the curiosity and adventure I did as a kid. I think about the pain and how much the needle would hurt, and I'm not interested in seeing it done, and I think of how just holding my mouth wide open going to get painful. I don't know why I changed so much.
None of my uneasiness was necessary. The worst thing about it was having to wait so long to get back there. It seems they have some better painkillers now, the shots didn't hurt very much at all, and it was short. I have almost no residual pain from it either.
I give a cheer to my doctor and to the wonders of modern medicine. In a week tops I'll be able to chew with the left side of my mouth again.
Of course, for those fillings, the needle into the nerve was always awful, and holding my mouth open was a big hassle, but nothing else was even bad. I used to look at the reflection in the doctor's glasses to watch what he was doing. The only thing I remember seeing vividly was blood. Couldn't you tell I was destined to become a horror story writer?
So, you'd expect me not to be nervous about my dental appointment today to get a filling replaced. No, oddly enough, as an adult I actually get nervous and feel none of the curiosity and adventure I did as a kid. I think about the pain and how much the needle would hurt, and I'm not interested in seeing it done, and I think of how just holding my mouth wide open going to get painful. I don't know why I changed so much.
None of my uneasiness was necessary. The worst thing about it was having to wait so long to get back there. It seems they have some better painkillers now, the shots didn't hurt very much at all, and it was short. I have almost no residual pain from it either.
I give a cheer to my doctor and to the wonders of modern medicine. In a week tops I'll be able to chew with the left side of my mouth again.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Yes, two posts in one day.
I don't believe I wasted a perfectly good afternoon debating abortion (see below). Not even abortion though, religion with somebody who I knew couldn't sway no mattyer how good the argument I made.
I tried to be patient, but I didn't succeed, especially when the good Christian lady told me the tact I had to take to have any chance to persuade them. The things she (as far as I could tell, it was a she) was telling me to do sounded more like things she thought she needed to convert me. I declined.
The funny turn came when I called Christianity a cult, just like Scientology. She asked me to give a definition for "cult." I didn't want to go there, it wasn't like I used a remote meaning, and I hate definitional arguments. Sure enough, once she saw I used it correctly she began quoting the Latin and French meaning of the word.
This has to be the silliest thing about definitional arguments, using a word in the absolutely correct way only to be told that the Romans didn't have that meaning for a similar-sounding word. No, and we also don't structure our grammar in the proper, Latin way either, fortunately. Why do 2,000-year dead people have any prescriptive say over how words are used now? They were, without a doubt, using their words wrong according to the way the Indo-Europeans spoke 2,000 years before them.
So, now I've wasted the afternoon. I go to a writers' meeting tonight. Tomorrow morning, I get a tooth fixed, and if I feel up to it, I was going to write my short story in the afternoon, and I hope, finish the draft. In the evening, I go to a different writers' group. Going now . . .
I tried to be patient, but I didn't succeed, especially when the good Christian lady told me the tact I had to take to have any chance to persuade them. The things she (as far as I could tell, it was a she) was telling me to do sounded more like things she thought she needed to convert me. I declined.
The funny turn came when I called Christianity a cult, just like Scientology. She asked me to give a definition for "cult." I didn't want to go there, it wasn't like I used a remote meaning, and I hate definitional arguments. Sure enough, once she saw I used it correctly she began quoting the Latin and French meaning of the word.
This has to be the silliest thing about definitional arguments, using a word in the absolutely correct way only to be told that the Romans didn't have that meaning for a similar-sounding word. No, and we also don't structure our grammar in the proper, Latin way either, fortunately. Why do 2,000-year dead people have any prescriptive say over how words are used now? They were, without a doubt, using their words wrong according to the way the Indo-Europeans spoke 2,000 years before them.
So, now I've wasted the afternoon. I go to a writers' meeting tonight. Tomorrow morning, I get a tooth fixed, and if I feel up to it, I was going to write my short story in the afternoon, and I hope, finish the draft. In the evening, I go to a different writers' group. Going now . . .
Abortion debate continuing
Some posts today to the ASOs. The conversation was hijacked a bit.
April 25, 2011 1:21 AM
madman fred said...
Definition 1b: "being or relating to a semiconductor in which the concentration of charge carriers is characteristic of the material itself instead of the content of any impurities it contains."
You couldn't have meant this as your definition. Just in case, "The right to life is determined by the number of charge carriers a human being can call their own . . ." Okay, end sarcasm. To the next definition.
2. a : originating or due to causes within a body, organ, or part b : originating and included wholly within an organ or part — compare EXTRINSIC 1b
So, if this is your definition you must be saying, "The right to life originates within the organs of the body, and if human life begins at conception, yet it has no organs and no body, then I'm totally mystified and don't know what I'm talking about."
Yes, I think most people would agree with you, but just because the word "intrinsic" sounds so cool, and like both of us, they really think rights are very important.
And that's the only thing I think Jefferson was saying, to paraphrase, "We take rights very seriously."
April 25, 2011 1:41 AM
madman fred said...
"For your criticism to go through, you have to maintain that it is impossible for a Christian theist to explain twinning in a consistent fashion."
No, I wasn't making any point about a "Christian theist" (waxing redundant). I was saying that twinning is inconsistent with the proposition that this would be a human individual at conception, a complete entity due to being genetically diploid, and yet turn so easily into two separate, independent individuals-- with the same set of genes you say make it a complete human being. If it can be two people after conception, it can easily be zero for sometime afterward. Of course you don't claim to know how ensoulment works, but in my opinion, if you don't have a working brain, ensoulment is your only argument. In fact, I think the rest of what you say is bullshit and ensoulment is the real reason why you insist life begins at conception. Because if God isn't involved with creating a baby in the womb, then he's really nowhere at all, but now that scientific instruments have detected nothing like God doing the work, so your left to insist on sacredness and humbleness about it, because if you look close enough to become blasphemous, God isn't there.
April 25, 2011 1:58 AM
madman fred said...
Too tired, will have to answer the rest tomorrow.
April 25, 2011 2:10 AM
Rhology said...
MMF said:
you are using intrinsic in a way inconsistent with any scientific argument for life
I'd like to ask you to consider that you are committing a category error here. Science has no access to the question of rights or value. Science deals with what IS in terms of nature, material, and energy. It can tell us nothing of what OUGHT to be, like how one ought to treat others.
If you think The Chemist hasn't defined "intrinsic", then I think you need to read his original post again, b/c he already discussed that. If you want more info, see here too.
April 25, 2011 7:33 AM
kat said...
The chemist
It is only after a single spermatozoon and a single oocyte combine that a unique individual is formed with his or her own life trajectory. This diploid cell is the first instance where that cell has a complete genetic code.
There is NO "unique individual" UNLESS the spermatozoon and a single oocyte combine.
You can defend your position on when life begins with genetic codes and DNA scenarios all you want but you have to have the spermatozoon and a single oocyte to COMBINE before you get either.
April 25, 2011 7:53 AM
Rhology said...
kat,
Has any abolitionist argued otherwise?
April 25, 2011 7:55 AM
madman fred said...
To Rhology:
What definition? Do you think I should use whatever one exempts Christianity? Or do you think it's unfair that I apply the standard of judgment on what's a cult to Christianity, too?
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims and flies like a duck, it's a duck not a bald eagle.
I guess you could argue that Christianity should be exempt from that category because it's the one true religion. There's no evidence of that outside of Christian "belief in's" which are necessary to the faith, and every other cult says that their beliefs and practices.
April 25, 2011 1:01 PM
Rhology said...
Hello mmf,
I was hoping to get the definition of "cult" that you're using.
Your "duck, eagle" comment assumes that you have a definition for "duck" and "eagle" from which you draw your identifying information beforehand.
Feel free to keep giving us your unsupported opinion if you like, but I asked a specific question and would appreciate an answer.
April 25, 2011 1:07 PM
madman fred said...
To ASO,
Sorry about the forgotten attributions. To add to my last post regarding twinning: if you don't know it's two people at conception, you can't possibly know it's one person at conception. You will be as surprised at it ending up being twins or triplets and any of those not purportedly armed with your "scientific knowledge."
The "science" is just the excuse. Your whole reason for saying life begins at conception is that it's necessary for you to believe it if you're going to keep your faith. As a Christian, your sworn and committed to doing that above all else, even if to do it you have to throw yourself into ignorance.
April 25, 2011 1:08 PM
madman fred said...
To Rhology:
In no way make a category error or any other. First, he doesn't define "intrinsic" in the article you cited. He uses the word only once and that's to say intrinsic rights aren't mentioned in the Bible. The only definition he gave was in these posts. Why do you send me to an article almost totally irrelevant to your point? I have to wonder if you read the Bible with that kind of comprehension. It must help you keep your faith.
Second, he's the one who has claimed that his arguments about whether the fetus is alive and a human being are based on science. I simply took his argument on the basis of the claim he's making.
Third, if you make a declaration that rights are intrinsic, that's practically a claim of physical or logical reality. I think that's an extremely weak premise to have if just declare it and give no evidence of it.
Fourth, two of the three definitions he gives in his answers to me are scientific or highly technical.
Fifth, I plugged all of them into his argument to see if they made sense. If it's a logical argument, then the method is scientific, and so I held him to it.
The first and only non-scientific definition, as I said, utterly reverses the arrow of inference on his argument. If rights were intrinsic to a person, then we'd be using the presence of rights to judge whether anybody's a human being, and any anatomical or behavioral traits would be secondary to that fact of them.
Conclusion: he's either deliberately misleading with that term, or he doesn't know what he's talking about.
While you're right that science doesn't decide how to treat people, it can answer questions about whether the fetus is a human being. The entire idea of rights doesn't even belong in the argument, but antichoicers have it in their heads that this is a rights issue, that some evil makes prochoicers want to deprive people of rights, not something generally consistent in the rest of our lives.
No, it's an issue of whether something that has no body and most importantly, has no brain, is actually a human being. On scientific grounds, no. It doesn't matter what you have to say about how we should treat others. There's nobody there to be treated any way.
April 25, 2011 1:43 PM
Rhology said...
Hi mmf,
I sent you to my article b/c it defines rights. It was my attempt to help you understand where we're coming from. I'd like to ask you to consider that you need to take one of two tracks here:
1) Criticise the biblical view from the inside. This will require that you properly understand and correctly represent the Bible's teaching.
2) Criticise it from the outside. This will require that you give us some reason to think that your position has any meaningful basis for human rights at all, so that you can tell us that they're not from conception but are somehow acquired somewhere else. So far I can't see you've done either, so hopefully this will guide you.
Yes, he did claim the fetus is alive. But more than that, he said the fetus is HUMAN.
Who would dispute the fetus is alive? I think you mean to dispute that the fetus is human, right? Let me ask you to be more careful and specific in the future.
You said:
if you make a declaration that rights are intrinsic, that's practically a claim of physical or logical reality.
Not physical. Far from it.
And yes, logical. The Chemist laid out his argument.
If rights were intrinsic to a person, then we'd be using the presence of rights to judge whether anybody's a human being, and any anatomical or behavioral traits would be secondary to that fact of them.
But not to the distinguishing of human-person from non-human-person. That might be the disconnect in your head right there.
he's either deliberately misleading with that term, or he doesn't know what he's talking about.
I think you've merely misunderstood.
While you're right that science doesn't decide how to treat people, it can answer questions about whether the fetus is a human being
True, and that's precisely what the Chemist is getting at. So thank you for supporting his point.
Also, science can tell you how to help people and how to kill people most efficiently, both.
The entire idea of rights doesn't even belong in the argument
I disagree, since we're talking about whether it's OK to kill fetuses, which may or may not be human.
There's nobody there to be treated any way.
thanks for your assertion. We'll be waiting for your argument.
Peace,
Rhology
April 25, 2011 1:51 PM
madman fred said...
To Rhology,
Believe it or not, I don't like definitional arguments, they are wearisome, and it doesn't look like it, but I don't have a lot of time. It's not like "cult" has any remote, technical or scientific meaning that can confuse you.
So, with great difficulty, I'm typing out the Webster's New World College Dictionary defintion:
Cult: 1 a)a system of religious worship or ritual b) a quasi-religious group, often living in a colony, with a charismatic leader who indoctrinates members with unorthodox or extremist views, practices, or beliefs 2 a) devoted attachment to, or extravagant admirition for a person, a principle, or a lifestyle, esp. when regarded as a fad b) the object of such attachment 3) a group of followers; sect.
I edited out the examples given.
I meant 1a most of all, but how many others fit? The second, 1b doesn't usually apply to Christianity now (except for examples like Jim Jones and David Koresh, and others abound), but it definitely applied to Christianity when it started.
Except for the "usually a fad part," 2a fits as much as it does for Trekkers. 2b applies, (Christ Cult). And as for 3 it applies to.
So, if you could get Christianity out of being a cult, I want you as my lawyer.
April 25, 2011 2:10 PM
madman fred said...
To Rhology,
It might not look like it, but I already know where you think you're coming from. Given the fact that Christianity is nothing but frauds and manipulations, and that a follower learns to lie to herself and then lie to others to perpetuate it, I usually don't have the patience to take a dose of it just to be polite and find out more of what I already know.
You say your trying to guide me. My version is your trying to manipulate me. I know it feels to you like you're being polite and helpful and I'm being insulting, but really, why should I be scolded and told to meet YOUR standards of proper argument? If you ask me, it's bait to try to hook and convert me into your worldview while you won't give one inch.
"'if you make a declaration that rights are intrinsic, that's practically a claim of physical or logical reality.'"
"Not physical. Far from it."
My point exactly, except the meaning of it flies right over your head.
"And yes, logical. The Chemist laid out his argument."
But you see, my point was that his logic fails because he reversed the arrow of inference. Apparently, you don't know what I'm talking about, and you're not qualified to make any logical judgments.
"'If rights were intrinsic to a person, then we'd be using the presence of rights to judge whether anybody's a human being, and any anatomical or behavioral traits would be secondary to that fact of them.'"
"But not to the distinguishing of human-person from non-human-person. That might be the disconnect in your head right there."
And you're not only utterly lost here, but you're perfectly arrogant about it. No there's absolutely no disconnect in my head, but "ignorant and proud of it" begins to look like a good description of yours.
"'he's either deliberately misleading with that term, or he doesn't know what he's talking about.'"
"I think you've merely misunderstood."
What? How could I after he gave me that definition of "intrinsic?" No, I do understand, for reasons that you missed. Though, I'll say if he's misleading, though, he's misled himself too, which means he doesn't know what he's talking about.
April 25, 2011 2:36 PM
madman fred said...
To Rhology,
"'While you're right that science doesn't decide how to treat people, it can answer questions about whether the fetus is a human being'"
"True, and that's precisely what the Chemist is getting at. So thank you for supporting his point."
Except his comprehension of science is as ignorant as yours is of logic. It's like the ignorant teaching the vegetables.
"Also, science can tell you how to help people and how to kill people most efficiently, both."
And these two points are even more irrelevant than rights. I could see you want the abortion argument even more cluttered than it already is.
"There's nobody there to be treated any way."
thanks for your assertion. We'll be waiting for your argument.
You see it as an assertion only because you did not comprehend the rest of what I wrote. So, now you want me to waste more time with an argument you'll understand even less?
You'll see me in Heaven or Hell first.
Which means "never" by the way.
April 25, 2011 2:58 PM
Rhology said...
Hi mmf,
Re: your 1a) definition of "cult", I'm sorry, but this is a very ignorant assertion on your part. This fits the classical definition of "cult", taken from the Latin. Its classical meaning is pretty close to the modern French "culte", which simply refers to a worship service. Ie, "the cult of Mary", which refers to people who venerate Mary (but who would never admit to worshiping her).
So, I'm sorry, but this "cult" discussion is groundless, and further, making "cult" = "a religious system", then calling Christianity a cult is no big deal, b/c EVERY SINGLE RELIGIOUS BELIEF SYSTEM is a "cult". Thus you drain the meaning out of the word, such that calling Branch Davidians a "cult" does nothing to set them apart from your local Methodist church.
You said:
Given the fact that Christianity is nothing but frauds and manipulations
OK, but what if I dispute that fact? I suppose that if I dispute it and have (obviously) numerous good reasons to dispute it, and can dispute it successfully, the rest of your comment vanishes, since you said "given the fact that..." and proceeded to base it on that "given". Which is not given at all.
The rest of your commentary is bloviating that fails to advance much of anything.
Then there's this one gem:
Except his comprehension of science is as ignorant as yours is of logic.
The Chemist has a PhD in chemistry and teaches at a university. What do you have besides a couple of barely-begun blogs, O anonymous commenter?
Peace,
Rhology
April 25, 2011 3:06 PM
madman fred said...
"So, I'm sorry, but this 'cult' discussion is groundless, and further, making 'cult; = 'a religious system', then calling Christianity a cult is no big deal, b/c EVERY SINGLE RELIGIOUS BELIEF SYSTEM is a 'cult'. Thus you drain the meaning out of the word, such that calling Branch Davidians a 'cult' does nothing to set them apart from your local Methodist church."
I didn't "drain the meaning" of it, an odd accusation since you can see I followed the EXACT ENGLISH definitions of "cult."
I notice you didn't dispute that. If the definition is too broad, take it up with Merriam-Webster.
So you've shown that you could deny the very meaning of the words out of a dictionary definition in front of you to keep your belief, (exactly what I'd expect in a cult-follower) and blame the sinful heathen when he cooperated but things didn't go your way, even though it was your idea.
Strange how you call this "meaningless" after you needled me for the meaning of cult, too lazy to look it up yourself. Hey, I didn't want to go there, remember? I didn't think it was that significant, remember? So, now it's my fault for making it too meaningful. The religious mind at work again.
I AM saying that every single social religious belief system IS a cult, and since you didn't notice, the Methodists are Christians, so you needn't inform me that I meant them, too.
You're doing exactly what I thought you would do if you knew: finding reasons why it's too broad if applied to Christianity, too, or finding reasons why it can't apply to Christianity. I knew this before I provided it.
Hilarious, now that the English language has utterly failed you, you're falling back on other languages for help. Don't tell me what it means in other languages unless your native tongue is Latin, Greek or French and you need an explanation about English.
None of the origin applies here. I don't care what they meant in Latin, Greek or Anatolian then, nor what the French, Russian or Gallic mean now. As interesting as the word origins are, they have no authority over the modern English language. None.
Plus, you knew what I meant when I said it, in our native tongue you just thought the dictionary wouldn't support me.
Can't you just feel insulted and leave it?
"OK, but what if I dispute that fact? I suppose that if I dispute it and have (obviously) numerous good reasons to dispute it, and can dispute it successfully, the rest of your comment vanishes, since you said "given the fact that..." and proceeded to base it on that 'given.' Which is not given at all."
Of course if you dispute the fact, but I'll tell you, like any cult member, you have to be de-programmed first. You don't really see what's wrong with it or almost all of the dirty deeds until you don't feel the obligation to believe in it anymore. I know that's not going to happen with you, especially by my arguing it. Faith is the art of enforced, selective blindness.
Which is why I simply declare my position about Christianity and don't argue it. You argue with the religious mind, it simply digs in deeper.
As for the Chemist, some scientists, including Nobel winners, have been shown to be complete ignoramuses outside their fields. That especially applies if you've damaged your thinking with Christianity. Then you have to cordon off your knowledge.
I'll remember to respect the Chemist when he writes about electron shells, ions and valence electrons. Unless he has a degree in embryology and bioscience we're on even ground there.
Whereas I have the advantage with nuclear physics.
April 25, 2011 4:43 PM
April 25, 2011 1:21 AM
madman fred said...
Definition 1b: "being or relating to a semiconductor in which the concentration of charge carriers is characteristic of the material itself instead of the content of any impurities it contains."
You couldn't have meant this as your definition. Just in case, "The right to life is determined by the number of charge carriers a human being can call their own . . ." Okay, end sarcasm. To the next definition.
2. a : originating or due to causes within a body, organ, or part b : originating and included wholly within an organ or part — compare EXTRINSIC 1b
So, if this is your definition you must be saying, "The right to life originates within the organs of the body, and if human life begins at conception, yet it has no organs and no body, then I'm totally mystified and don't know what I'm talking about."
Yes, I think most people would agree with you, but just because the word "intrinsic" sounds so cool, and like both of us, they really think rights are very important.
And that's the only thing I think Jefferson was saying, to paraphrase, "We take rights very seriously."
April 25, 2011 1:41 AM
madman fred said...
"For your criticism to go through, you have to maintain that it is impossible for a Christian theist to explain twinning in a consistent fashion."
No, I wasn't making any point about a "Christian theist" (waxing redundant). I was saying that twinning is inconsistent with the proposition that this would be a human individual at conception, a complete entity due to being genetically diploid, and yet turn so easily into two separate, independent individuals-- with the same set of genes you say make it a complete human being. If it can be two people after conception, it can easily be zero for sometime afterward. Of course you don't claim to know how ensoulment works, but in my opinion, if you don't have a working brain, ensoulment is your only argument. In fact, I think the rest of what you say is bullshit and ensoulment is the real reason why you insist life begins at conception. Because if God isn't involved with creating a baby in the womb, then he's really nowhere at all, but now that scientific instruments have detected nothing like God doing the work, so your left to insist on sacredness and humbleness about it, because if you look close enough to become blasphemous, God isn't there.
April 25, 2011 1:58 AM
madman fred said...
Too tired, will have to answer the rest tomorrow.
April 25, 2011 2:10 AM
Rhology said...
MMF said:
you are using intrinsic in a way inconsistent with any scientific argument for life
I'd like to ask you to consider that you are committing a category error here. Science has no access to the question of rights or value. Science deals with what IS in terms of nature, material, and energy. It can tell us nothing of what OUGHT to be, like how one ought to treat others.
If you think The Chemist hasn't defined "intrinsic", then I think you need to read his original post again, b/c he already discussed that. If you want more info, see here too.
April 25, 2011 7:33 AM
kat said...
The chemist
It is only after a single spermatozoon and a single oocyte combine that a unique individual is formed with his or her own life trajectory. This diploid cell is the first instance where that cell has a complete genetic code.
There is NO "unique individual" UNLESS the spermatozoon and a single oocyte combine.
You can defend your position on when life begins with genetic codes and DNA scenarios all you want but you have to have the spermatozoon and a single oocyte to COMBINE before you get either.
April 25, 2011 7:53 AM
Rhology said...
kat,
Has any abolitionist argued otherwise?
April 25, 2011 7:55 AM
madman fred said...
To Rhology:
What definition? Do you think I should use whatever one exempts Christianity? Or do you think it's unfair that I apply the standard of judgment on what's a cult to Christianity, too?
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims and flies like a duck, it's a duck not a bald eagle.
I guess you could argue that Christianity should be exempt from that category because it's the one true religion. There's no evidence of that outside of Christian "belief in's" which are necessary to the faith, and every other cult says that their beliefs and practices.
April 25, 2011 1:01 PM
Rhology said...
Hello mmf,
I was hoping to get the definition of "cult" that you're using.
Your "duck, eagle" comment assumes that you have a definition for "duck" and "eagle" from which you draw your identifying information beforehand.
Feel free to keep giving us your unsupported opinion if you like, but I asked a specific question and would appreciate an answer.
April 25, 2011 1:07 PM
madman fred said...
To ASO,
Sorry about the forgotten attributions. To add to my last post regarding twinning: if you don't know it's two people at conception, you can't possibly know it's one person at conception. You will be as surprised at it ending up being twins or triplets and any of those not purportedly armed with your "scientific knowledge."
The "science" is just the excuse. Your whole reason for saying life begins at conception is that it's necessary for you to believe it if you're going to keep your faith. As a Christian, your sworn and committed to doing that above all else, even if to do it you have to throw yourself into ignorance.
April 25, 2011 1:08 PM
madman fred said...
To Rhology:
In no way make a category error or any other. First, he doesn't define "intrinsic" in the article you cited. He uses the word only once and that's to say intrinsic rights aren't mentioned in the Bible. The only definition he gave was in these posts. Why do you send me to an article almost totally irrelevant to your point? I have to wonder if you read the Bible with that kind of comprehension. It must help you keep your faith.
Second, he's the one who has claimed that his arguments about whether the fetus is alive and a human being are based on science. I simply took his argument on the basis of the claim he's making.
Third, if you make a declaration that rights are intrinsic, that's practically a claim of physical or logical reality. I think that's an extremely weak premise to have if just declare it and give no evidence of it.
Fourth, two of the three definitions he gives in his answers to me are scientific or highly technical.
Fifth, I plugged all of them into his argument to see if they made sense. If it's a logical argument, then the method is scientific, and so I held him to it.
The first and only non-scientific definition, as I said, utterly reverses the arrow of inference on his argument. If rights were intrinsic to a person, then we'd be using the presence of rights to judge whether anybody's a human being, and any anatomical or behavioral traits would be secondary to that fact of them.
Conclusion: he's either deliberately misleading with that term, or he doesn't know what he's talking about.
While you're right that science doesn't decide how to treat people, it can answer questions about whether the fetus is a human being. The entire idea of rights doesn't even belong in the argument, but antichoicers have it in their heads that this is a rights issue, that some evil makes prochoicers want to deprive people of rights, not something generally consistent in the rest of our lives.
No, it's an issue of whether something that has no body and most importantly, has no brain, is actually a human being. On scientific grounds, no. It doesn't matter what you have to say about how we should treat others. There's nobody there to be treated any way.
April 25, 2011 1:43 PM
Rhology said...
Hi mmf,
I sent you to my article b/c it defines rights. It was my attempt to help you understand where we're coming from. I'd like to ask you to consider that you need to take one of two tracks here:
1) Criticise the biblical view from the inside. This will require that you properly understand and correctly represent the Bible's teaching.
2) Criticise it from the outside. This will require that you give us some reason to think that your position has any meaningful basis for human rights at all, so that you can tell us that they're not from conception but are somehow acquired somewhere else. So far I can't see you've done either, so hopefully this will guide you.
Yes, he did claim the fetus is alive. But more than that, he said the fetus is HUMAN.
Who would dispute the fetus is alive? I think you mean to dispute that the fetus is human, right? Let me ask you to be more careful and specific in the future.
You said:
if you make a declaration that rights are intrinsic, that's practically a claim of physical or logical reality.
Not physical. Far from it.
And yes, logical. The Chemist laid out his argument.
If rights were intrinsic to a person, then we'd be using the presence of rights to judge whether anybody's a human being, and any anatomical or behavioral traits would be secondary to that fact of them.
But not to the distinguishing of human-person from non-human-person. That might be the disconnect in your head right there.
he's either deliberately misleading with that term, or he doesn't know what he's talking about.
I think you've merely misunderstood.
While you're right that science doesn't decide how to treat people, it can answer questions about whether the fetus is a human being
True, and that's precisely what the Chemist is getting at. So thank you for supporting his point.
Also, science can tell you how to help people and how to kill people most efficiently, both.
The entire idea of rights doesn't even belong in the argument
I disagree, since we're talking about whether it's OK to kill fetuses, which may or may not be human.
There's nobody there to be treated any way.
thanks for your assertion. We'll be waiting for your argument.
Peace,
Rhology
April 25, 2011 1:51 PM
madman fred said...
To Rhology,
Believe it or not, I don't like definitional arguments, they are wearisome, and it doesn't look like it, but I don't have a lot of time. It's not like "cult" has any remote, technical or scientific meaning that can confuse you.
So, with great difficulty, I'm typing out the Webster's New World College Dictionary defintion:
Cult: 1 a)a system of religious worship or ritual b) a quasi-religious group, often living in a colony, with a charismatic leader who indoctrinates members with unorthodox or extremist views, practices, or beliefs 2 a) devoted attachment to, or extravagant admirition for a person, a principle, or a lifestyle, esp. when regarded as a fad b) the object of such attachment 3) a group of followers; sect.
I edited out the examples given.
I meant 1a most of all, but how many others fit? The second, 1b doesn't usually apply to Christianity now (except for examples like Jim Jones and David Koresh, and others abound), but it definitely applied to Christianity when it started.
Except for the "usually a fad part," 2a fits as much as it does for Trekkers. 2b applies, (Christ Cult). And as for 3 it applies to.
So, if you could get Christianity out of being a cult, I want you as my lawyer.
April 25, 2011 2:10 PM
madman fred said...
To Rhology,
It might not look like it, but I already know where you think you're coming from. Given the fact that Christianity is nothing but frauds and manipulations, and that a follower learns to lie to herself and then lie to others to perpetuate it, I usually don't have the patience to take a dose of it just to be polite and find out more of what I already know.
You say your trying to guide me. My version is your trying to manipulate me. I know it feels to you like you're being polite and helpful and I'm being insulting, but really, why should I be scolded and told to meet YOUR standards of proper argument? If you ask me, it's bait to try to hook and convert me into your worldview while you won't give one inch.
"'if you make a declaration that rights are intrinsic, that's practically a claim of physical or logical reality.'"
"Not physical. Far from it."
My point exactly, except the meaning of it flies right over your head.
"And yes, logical. The Chemist laid out his argument."
But you see, my point was that his logic fails because he reversed the arrow of inference. Apparently, you don't know what I'm talking about, and you're not qualified to make any logical judgments.
"'If rights were intrinsic to a person, then we'd be using the presence of rights to judge whether anybody's a human being, and any anatomical or behavioral traits would be secondary to that fact of them.'"
"But not to the distinguishing of human-person from non-human-person. That might be the disconnect in your head right there."
And you're not only utterly lost here, but you're perfectly arrogant about it. No there's absolutely no disconnect in my head, but "ignorant and proud of it" begins to look like a good description of yours.
"'he's either deliberately misleading with that term, or he doesn't know what he's talking about.'"
"I think you've merely misunderstood."
What? How could I after he gave me that definition of "intrinsic?" No, I do understand, for reasons that you missed. Though, I'll say if he's misleading, though, he's misled himself too, which means he doesn't know what he's talking about.
April 25, 2011 2:36 PM
madman fred said...
To Rhology,
"'While you're right that science doesn't decide how to treat people, it can answer questions about whether the fetus is a human being'"
"True, and that's precisely what the Chemist is getting at. So thank you for supporting his point."
Except his comprehension of science is as ignorant as yours is of logic. It's like the ignorant teaching the vegetables.
"Also, science can tell you how to help people and how to kill people most efficiently, both."
And these two points are even more irrelevant than rights. I could see you want the abortion argument even more cluttered than it already is.
"There's nobody there to be treated any way."
thanks for your assertion. We'll be waiting for your argument.
You see it as an assertion only because you did not comprehend the rest of what I wrote. So, now you want me to waste more time with an argument you'll understand even less?
You'll see me in Heaven or Hell first.
Which means "never" by the way.
April 25, 2011 2:58 PM
Rhology said...
Hi mmf,
Re: your 1a) definition of "cult", I'm sorry, but this is a very ignorant assertion on your part. This fits the classical definition of "cult", taken from the Latin. Its classical meaning is pretty close to the modern French "culte", which simply refers to a worship service. Ie, "the cult of Mary", which refers to people who venerate Mary (but who would never admit to worshiping her).
So, I'm sorry, but this "cult" discussion is groundless, and further, making "cult" = "a religious system", then calling Christianity a cult is no big deal, b/c EVERY SINGLE RELIGIOUS BELIEF SYSTEM is a "cult". Thus you drain the meaning out of the word, such that calling Branch Davidians a "cult" does nothing to set them apart from your local Methodist church.
You said:
Given the fact that Christianity is nothing but frauds and manipulations
OK, but what if I dispute that fact? I suppose that if I dispute it and have (obviously) numerous good reasons to dispute it, and can dispute it successfully, the rest of your comment vanishes, since you said "given the fact that..." and proceeded to base it on that "given". Which is not given at all.
The rest of your commentary is bloviating that fails to advance much of anything.
Then there's this one gem:
Except his comprehension of science is as ignorant as yours is of logic.
The Chemist has a PhD in chemistry and teaches at a university. What do you have besides a couple of barely-begun blogs, O anonymous commenter?
Peace,
Rhology
April 25, 2011 3:06 PM
madman fred said...
"So, I'm sorry, but this 'cult' discussion is groundless, and further, making 'cult; = 'a religious system', then calling Christianity a cult is no big deal, b/c EVERY SINGLE RELIGIOUS BELIEF SYSTEM is a 'cult'. Thus you drain the meaning out of the word, such that calling Branch Davidians a 'cult' does nothing to set them apart from your local Methodist church."
I didn't "drain the meaning" of it, an odd accusation since you can see I followed the EXACT ENGLISH definitions of "cult."
I notice you didn't dispute that. If the definition is too broad, take it up with Merriam-Webster.
So you've shown that you could deny the very meaning of the words out of a dictionary definition in front of you to keep your belief, (exactly what I'd expect in a cult-follower) and blame the sinful heathen when he cooperated but things didn't go your way, even though it was your idea.
Strange how you call this "meaningless" after you needled me for the meaning of cult, too lazy to look it up yourself. Hey, I didn't want to go there, remember? I didn't think it was that significant, remember? So, now it's my fault for making it too meaningful. The religious mind at work again.
I AM saying that every single social religious belief system IS a cult, and since you didn't notice, the Methodists are Christians, so you needn't inform me that I meant them, too.
You're doing exactly what I thought you would do if you knew: finding reasons why it's too broad if applied to Christianity, too, or finding reasons why it can't apply to Christianity. I knew this before I provided it.
Hilarious, now that the English language has utterly failed you, you're falling back on other languages for help. Don't tell me what it means in other languages unless your native tongue is Latin, Greek or French and you need an explanation about English.
None of the origin applies here. I don't care what they meant in Latin, Greek or Anatolian then, nor what the French, Russian or Gallic mean now. As interesting as the word origins are, they have no authority over the modern English language. None.
Plus, you knew what I meant when I said it, in our native tongue you just thought the dictionary wouldn't support me.
Can't you just feel insulted and leave it?
"OK, but what if I dispute that fact? I suppose that if I dispute it and have (obviously) numerous good reasons to dispute it, and can dispute it successfully, the rest of your comment vanishes, since you said "given the fact that..." and proceeded to base it on that 'given.' Which is not given at all."
Of course if you dispute the fact, but I'll tell you, like any cult member, you have to be de-programmed first. You don't really see what's wrong with it or almost all of the dirty deeds until you don't feel the obligation to believe in it anymore. I know that's not going to happen with you, especially by my arguing it. Faith is the art of enforced, selective blindness.
Which is why I simply declare my position about Christianity and don't argue it. You argue with the religious mind, it simply digs in deeper.
As for the Chemist, some scientists, including Nobel winners, have been shown to be complete ignoramuses outside their fields. That especially applies if you've damaged your thinking with Christianity. Then you have to cordon off your knowledge.
I'll remember to respect the Chemist when he writes about electron shells, ions and valence electrons. Unless he has a degree in embryology and bioscience we're on even ground there.
Whereas I have the advantage with nuclear physics.
April 25, 2011 4:43 PM
Sunday, April 24, 2011
The struggle with sleep
Sleep problems have continued, but I'm tired now and I'm hoping that means I'll sleep once I let myself fall into bed, and I'm not allowing that until at least 10.
I picked up the short story I've been writing again and have started doing some work on it. That has made my disposition better, on everything but anti-choice, Christian blogs. Every atheist has heard the question: if you're over religion, why do you always have to argue it, why can't you let it go?
It's for much the same reason why I can't take my mind off a fart in the elevator even if I didn't do it. I don't mind if people want to live as though there's a God, and one who cares, and if they try to reach Heaven and avoid Hell if they imagine an afterlife with those. However, it's when these decisions lead to unjust political decisions and stupid social behavior that I begin to get annoyed, and angry, and I'd have to say, yes, I could step over the line and get insulting. It's also too easy for an atheist to notice insults that Christians wouldn't find insulting to each other.
Unfortunately for the Christian religion, God in the Bible punishes nations and even genetic lines. So, Christians feel they have to be involved in stopping the nation from sinning to prevent God's wrath. This becomes a public service. So, in the abortion debate, if a woman gets a back-alley abortion due to illegality, Christians see it as her sin. If she dies, they might even see it as unfortunate even if she's sinful. However, if the nation legalizes abortion and supports the women seeking one, then the nation is sinful. They have to stop the nation from sinning so God doesn't bring back the Assyrians to conquer us. Or worse, he brings about the Rapture, and nobody from the US is taken up.
The fact is, though, they don't do it to persecute women, at least never consciously. They see the death of some women through a back alley abortions to be a necessary evil. Though some have gone so far as to say that there wouldn't be any back alley abortions if abortion were illegalized.
It's beliefs like that hovering around Christianity that indicated the religion, like almost all others, is brain damaging.
I picked up the short story I've been writing again and have started doing some work on it. That has made my disposition better, on everything but anti-choice, Christian blogs. Every atheist has heard the question: if you're over religion, why do you always have to argue it, why can't you let it go?
It's for much the same reason why I can't take my mind off a fart in the elevator even if I didn't do it. I don't mind if people want to live as though there's a God, and one who cares, and if they try to reach Heaven and avoid Hell if they imagine an afterlife with those. However, it's when these decisions lead to unjust political decisions and stupid social behavior that I begin to get annoyed, and angry, and I'd have to say, yes, I could step over the line and get insulting. It's also too easy for an atheist to notice insults that Christians wouldn't find insulting to each other.
Unfortunately for the Christian religion, God in the Bible punishes nations and even genetic lines. So, Christians feel they have to be involved in stopping the nation from sinning to prevent God's wrath. This becomes a public service. So, in the abortion debate, if a woman gets a back-alley abortion due to illegality, Christians see it as her sin. If she dies, they might even see it as unfortunate even if she's sinful. However, if the nation legalizes abortion and supports the women seeking one, then the nation is sinful. They have to stop the nation from sinning so God doesn't bring back the Assyrians to conquer us. Or worse, he brings about the Rapture, and nobody from the US is taken up.
The fact is, though, they don't do it to persecute women, at least never consciously. They see the death of some women through a back alley abortions to be a necessary evil. Though some have gone so far as to say that there wouldn't be any back alley abortions if abortion were illegalized.
It's beliefs like that hovering around Christianity that indicated the religion, like almost all others, is brain damaging.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
New Post on AbolishHumanAbortion discussion.
Abolitionist Society of Oklahoma said...
"Madman said, 'In other words, yeah, it does practices breathing to prepare for the time when it would need to.'
"So, in other words, you are telling me that I am right. Weird.
"Quick question: What is my twitter name?
"And, I'm not sure, but did you just argue that if a human has an umbilical cord they can be dismembered if somebody else chooses to kill them?
"That's not really science, philosophy, or theology.
"And, I don't know if it is a great idea to define whether a human has a right to stay alive based on whether they would stay alive if you violently or non violently extracted them from their environment. That ain't cool man.
"But you aren't serious. If a premie were born at 20 weeks today and you held him or her in your arms tomorrow, you wouldn't change any of your views. Your views are based on your desired end.
"Your comments here are text book representations of standard atheistic/agnostic rationalization techniques of rhetoric over reason.
I'm going out on a day long study date away from this blog. But I promise to deal with your vitriol sometime tonight after I get back home."
Right about what? If you consider 30% correct right. Of course, you could take it 70% further with pure bullshit and arrogance.
NormanAbolition would be your twitter name, I thought. He's the one who linked to this. Am I mistaken? Did one of your cohorts lead me here? He's either your sock, he's imitating you, or deliberately trying to confuse people.
No, I didn't give having an umbilical cord as a reason that a fetus should be aborted, or a reason why a mother should be allowed to abort it. Umbilical cords aren't that offensive. Are you just taking words I wrote, jumbling them and than grabbing for any absurd combination you can to make a counterargument? No, an umbilical cord is not a reason to kill a fetus. Sorry you wasted perfectly good moral outrage on that one.
However, a person doesn't live in a womb. If you take a fetus out of the womb, it dies, if you put a baby into the womb, it dies. The two animals inhabit utterly different environments. Unlike a frog and a tadpole, which are basically as side by side as dogs and puppies.
BTW, referring to your previous post, a tadpole doesn't have an umbilical cord either, but you need to compare frogs to frog embryos, not to tadpoles to make any kind of accurate analogy. A human being is to fetus as frog is to frog embryo, not a tadpole. That kid probably wouldn't have felt so appalled at killing frog eggs, which he could hardly see. That is, until you brought home the utter evil of it to him.
My views aren't based on desired ends you arrogant, presumptuous, asshole. As a male, I'll never need an abortion, and for medical reasons, I've never been obligated to pay for one, and there's a zero chance I'll ever impregnate anyone. So, what the hell are these "desired ends?" I guess if you can't come up with anything whatsoever, possession by Satan himself might be your fallback, but I warn you, it's idiotic.
Meanwhile, I say you're antichoice because it's an adventure in a Bible fantasy world that makes you happy, where there's good vs. evil, and you feel like a champion fighting evil. To me, that means your conclusions are based on a desired end, informed by the Bible, your favorite work of fiction, and with the social support of fellow Bible fans who are always telling you how moral and unquestionably good you are for doing it. Who could question such a motive as saving babies- -before they even exist. That's initiative.
I will say though, that not nearly every prochoice person shares my views and my philosophical underpinnings on the matter. They don't hold their opinions about discretionary abortion due to their religious views or lack of them. So, I ask you, knowing the answer will be no, don't stereotype this as "the standard atheistic/agnostic rationalization techniques. . . ." If you do, you'll be unpleasantly surprised.
My anti-religious views are not shared by most prochoicers. I just have some very negative views on cults, and Christianity is a cult as much as Scientology. Once you break from Christianity, and you've had time to de-program, the entire cult looks every bit as absurd as Scientology. If you're offended by that comparison, I think the Scientologists are, too.
Atheist Easter
Declaration: Christianity is built on phoniness and cemented with guilt, threat and force.
Same thing goes for Judaism and Islam, though Judaism doesn't have the worldwide aspirations that make the other two so pernicious.
In Classical Rome, Christianity was the Scientology of its day. It's stories of Christ were seen to be as silly as Thetans and alien ancestries are now. Christianity and Scientology are cults, but one has respectability due to having been institutionalized, the other does not.
I could make a pretty good argument that Jesus Christ and his disciples never existed. Though I wouldn't bet my house on it, I'd still I'd give the odds at 3-2. One thing for sure, because the vast majority Christians converted and stayed Christian without ever meeting Christ, His actual existence wasn't necessary for Christianity's success. So, once anybody had the story together, based on truth or not, they could spread Christianity.
Why would they come up and spread such a lie? I know: power, money, fame and pride. Now, any cultist might not desire all of those. They can swear themselves to poverty for power, fame and pride for example, but as L. Ron Hubbard and any cult leader have shown, the rewards for lying to found a cult are considerable. If you have confused or uneasy relationship with the truth anyway, why not lie about it?
How would they ever get followers to spread it? Exactly the way they do today. Once followers are inculcated with a fear for their immortal souls, and even with the fear of the souls of the rest of the world, a little lie for your Bishop here and there is really nothing compared its service for the Greater Truth. Bend words around in an Orwellian way and put in just a little threat that all your friends will become your enemies, and you can get them to lie. Then, everyone who's converted based on those lies believe those new lies. They'll be willing to tell a different set of lies. The whole thing perpetuates that way.
The best piece of evidence that Jesus never existed, as far as I'm concerned, are in the many writings of Philos Judeaus. He was in the right place at the right time and had all the right connections to have made a mention of Jesus in his writings, and he wrote about everything. He doesn't mention Jesus in any of the massive amounts of his writings that survive. Nor are any of the events in the Bible described like the darkness at Christ's crucifixion. From other non-Christian writers who were there at the time, there is also no mention of any of it. For any writing at the time of Jesus that can be verified, there's no mention of him.
Now, I realize I can't prove a negative, but what strengthens the argument is what Philos does record and describe in great detail: a cult that is all over the Roman Empire at the time called the Theraputae. In every way they look precisely like Christians, an ascetic cult with bishops and deacons. So they are institutionally, socially, morally, and ethically Christian in every way: minus Christ. Moreover, Philos describes this group existing contemporary or right before Jesus' ministry. In other words, sixty years before it should have existed.
It's quite possible, even likely, that the Theraputae doctrine might have evolved into Christianity. If they didn't, it's terribly difficult to explain what happened to them as Christianity ascended. However, an organization with bishops and deacons, instead of apostles that is institutionally just like the Christian Church at the beginning of the 2nd century would explain how the early church went from having disciples, such as in the Acts of the Apostles, to bishops, which are two extremely different things, and how it did so seemingly at breakneck speed.
Whether Jesus is total fiction or not, he is the stereotypical cult leader, and the Bible is a cult-founder's handbook, a big reason why Christianity keeps splintering is that anybody can make a slightly novel interpretation and start his own cult, especially when most people can't think of Christianity as one.
A post answered me last night on the AbolishHumanAbortion blogspot:
http://is.gd/S6uA78
Here's my answer:
You think you know what to expect from Genesis just by reading Revelations? My psychic abilities are nothing compared to your confidence in yours. You are totally wrong to assume that the rest of what I wrote was in the same vein as my summary.
Yes, summed up with my speculation, which is why I waited until the sum-up to give. It has NO BEARING on anything else I wrote and little connection to it other than being about abortion. I was just happy to have reached the end of methodically answering all the points in his entry and to be writing free rather than answering him anymore.
And, yes, as you're so astute to notice the obvious, it's speculative. My speculation I can take or leave, so I won't argue it with you further. I merely declare it.
So, you're really happy to have missed the entire point and to be answering something that had nothing to do with the rest of what I wrote? Maybe you should either throw yourself into total laziness and not say anything else, or at least read the rest.
BTW, your saying the abolitionists didn't think they'd ever succeed is rather speculative about the group of them, too. So is your confidence that true believers (and do you know how many are truly true?) don't have second thoughts when presented with the decision themselves. But then, what can I say? The Bible is your favorite speculative fiction, and you're really just a Bible fan. Just like Trekker really. The difference is that Trekkers stop short of fanaticism.
And whether God is for or against you is dependent, first on foremost, whether God exists. This has never, ever been demonstrated, and if it were demonstrated, there would be no point to "believing in" God. You don't believe in things or qualities of things that obviously exist. Faith does not indicate confidence.
So, if your so confident in the existence of God that you believe in him, you're not confident at all. What you are is committed to acting as though he exists and is on your side, hoping that it will end up being the reality, or that you will always be ignorant of how wrongheaded you've been, which is far worse than just being speculative.
Interesting that you think that women simply lie on the surveys to impugn the Catholic church. Is it that all women who seek abortions are liars? That seems rather "speculative" to me, especially when a third seem inclined to slander members of the Catholic Church. It's far more speculative to form your opinion without even numbers on a sound survey than to form them with the numbers.
So, why should you have confidence in your baseless speculations rather than mine? I also find it interesting that you would you be tempted to slander atheists if you had a chance, while those lying women seeking abortions won't. What it tells me is, you speculate on everybody else's lying by your own willingness to do so, which seems to be higher than usual. So, I'm sorry to mention the possibility you're probably a bigger liar than the women who took the survey. That, of course, is speculative, but I have higher confidence in it than anything else I've speculated.
So, don't give speeches about growing up and all those other parenting cliches you want to apply to adult women and men. A person stopping themselves from having a child they can't possibly raise is not a childish decision no matter how and why they had sex. Also, sex is hardly a childish thing, children don't and can't think in terms of it. It's a uniquely adult thing.
So, the authority that you feel God gives you as the morally righteous is null, your speech on responsibility is inappropriate and irrelevant, and the idea that "responsibility" that is, having less sex will remove the need for abortion is simply idiotic, given the odds of pregnancy without birth control and the odds that birth control will fail. Plus the fact that people will probably be less inclined to use birth control the more they trust their willpower not to have sex, as statistics on abstinence bear out.
So, now maybe you know the less speculative mode I took with the rest of my posts. I wonder if you're curious enough to read the rest now?
I haven't been sleeping well, that is, I haven't been able to settle down to sleep at a reasonable time, and my life is suffering from it. I've taken sleeping pills and it has just kept me tired during the day. My terrible sleep pattern is making my writing testier.
I'm almost afraid to look back at the AbolishHumanAbortion page. Whatever is being said there, I don't feel I have time to answer. I know, but I posted this instead. Yes, but is my blog, and as a writer, my commitment.
Same thing goes for Judaism and Islam, though Judaism doesn't have the worldwide aspirations that make the other two so pernicious.
In Classical Rome, Christianity was the Scientology of its day. It's stories of Christ were seen to be as silly as Thetans and alien ancestries are now. Christianity and Scientology are cults, but one has respectability due to having been institutionalized, the other does not.
I could make a pretty good argument that Jesus Christ and his disciples never existed. Though I wouldn't bet my house on it, I'd still I'd give the odds at 3-2. One thing for sure, because the vast majority Christians converted and stayed Christian without ever meeting Christ, His actual existence wasn't necessary for Christianity's success. So, once anybody had the story together, based on truth or not, they could spread Christianity.
Why would they come up and spread such a lie? I know: power, money, fame and pride. Now, any cultist might not desire all of those. They can swear themselves to poverty for power, fame and pride for example, but as L. Ron Hubbard and any cult leader have shown, the rewards for lying to found a cult are considerable. If you have confused or uneasy relationship with the truth anyway, why not lie about it?
How would they ever get followers to spread it? Exactly the way they do today. Once followers are inculcated with a fear for their immortal souls, and even with the fear of the souls of the rest of the world, a little lie for your Bishop here and there is really nothing compared its service for the Greater Truth. Bend words around in an Orwellian way and put in just a little threat that all your friends will become your enemies, and you can get them to lie. Then, everyone who's converted based on those lies believe those new lies. They'll be willing to tell a different set of lies. The whole thing perpetuates that way.
The best piece of evidence that Jesus never existed, as far as I'm concerned, are in the many writings of Philos Judeaus. He was in the right place at the right time and had all the right connections to have made a mention of Jesus in his writings, and he wrote about everything. He doesn't mention Jesus in any of the massive amounts of his writings that survive. Nor are any of the events in the Bible described like the darkness at Christ's crucifixion. From other non-Christian writers who were there at the time, there is also no mention of any of it. For any writing at the time of Jesus that can be verified, there's no mention of him.
Now, I realize I can't prove a negative, but what strengthens the argument is what Philos does record and describe in great detail: a cult that is all over the Roman Empire at the time called the Theraputae. In every way they look precisely like Christians, an ascetic cult with bishops and deacons. So they are institutionally, socially, morally, and ethically Christian in every way: minus Christ. Moreover, Philos describes this group existing contemporary or right before Jesus' ministry. In other words, sixty years before it should have existed.
It's quite possible, even likely, that the Theraputae doctrine might have evolved into Christianity. If they didn't, it's terribly difficult to explain what happened to them as Christianity ascended. However, an organization with bishops and deacons, instead of apostles that is institutionally just like the Christian Church at the beginning of the 2nd century would explain how the early church went from having disciples, such as in the Acts of the Apostles, to bishops, which are two extremely different things, and how it did so seemingly at breakneck speed.
Whether Jesus is total fiction or not, he is the stereotypical cult leader, and the Bible is a cult-founder's handbook, a big reason why Christianity keeps splintering is that anybody can make a slightly novel interpretation and start his own cult, especially when most people can't think of Christianity as one.
A post answered me last night on the AbolishHumanAbortion blogspot:
http://is.gd/S6uA78
roanie1012 said...
Madman,
“I'm really glad I read your last comment first, because I have no need to read anymore of your comments. Your illogical assumptions about the future make me wonder if you are a psychic who can predict what will happen if only abortion is abolished.
"'You're not going to get rid of abortion, or maybe you will for a generation and not any longer. Mostly for the same reason that 37 percent of women who receive abortions are Catholic.'
“Umm.. have you seen the name of the blog? Abolish human abortion. Abolish slavery. Do you think that slavery abolitionists thought when they were starting their abolitionist groups that they would ever abolish slavery? Humanly speaking, absolutely not, over the course of 20 years. However, John Wesley once said (not John Wesley on this blog) that "unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you?" God is for us, and we are confident in that. Please further explain "mostly for the same reason that 37 percent of women who receive abortions are Catholic." So what? I could claim to be an atheist, go get an abortion, and validate the stereotypical pro-choice atheist who has no moral reasoning and therefore no problem with an abortion. What does that prove? Absolutely nothing. People can claim to be something all day long (Baptist, Catholic, atheist, agnostic), but I am confident that Bible believing followers of Christ who have been transformed by the Gospel are seeking to abolish abortion, and in that case, the Catholic women getting abortions holds no ground. So, please clarify.
"'For the most part, no matter they say, when they have an unwanted pregnancy women will want the choice. That need is not going away. Guys, too, are not going to want to be stuck having to pay for unwanted children, not when they can easily prevent the creation of those children, and especially when their mothers don't want them either. The worse thing that could happen to the prolife movement is if they make abortion illegal.'
“Once again, this seems to be based on mere speculation. The funny thing is, we have confident Biblical hope and a consistent moral standard to base the brutality of abortion on, and WHY we are seeking to abolish it, yet your claims for being pro-choice are based on speculation of the future, and being psychic. And guys having to pay for unwanted children? Solution: grow up, be responsible for your sexual urges, and take responsibility for your actions. Abortion? An excuse for men to indulge in their selfish sexual desires and not suffer the consequences of their behavior by getting rid of the consequence (abortion). Wow, how sad. Grow up men, and you won't face unwanted children, nor will you face having to pay for them.
“All that to say, I would advise you to think about your speculations and psychic abilities, because they seem to be failing in your logical reasoning for supporting abortion.”
Here's my answer:
You think you know what to expect from Genesis just by reading Revelations? My psychic abilities are nothing compared to your confidence in yours. You are totally wrong to assume that the rest of what I wrote was in the same vein as my summary.
Yes, summed up with my speculation, which is why I waited until the sum-up to give. It has NO BEARING on anything else I wrote and little connection to it other than being about abortion. I was just happy to have reached the end of methodically answering all the points in his entry and to be writing free rather than answering him anymore.
And, yes, as you're so astute to notice the obvious, it's speculative. My speculation I can take or leave, so I won't argue it with you further. I merely declare it.
So, you're really happy to have missed the entire point and to be answering something that had nothing to do with the rest of what I wrote? Maybe you should either throw yourself into total laziness and not say anything else, or at least read the rest.
BTW, your saying the abolitionists didn't think they'd ever succeed is rather speculative about the group of them, too. So is your confidence that true believers (and do you know how many are truly true?) don't have second thoughts when presented with the decision themselves. But then, what can I say? The Bible is your favorite speculative fiction, and you're really just a Bible fan. Just like Trekker really. The difference is that Trekkers stop short of fanaticism.
And whether God is for or against you is dependent, first on foremost, whether God exists. This has never, ever been demonstrated, and if it were demonstrated, there would be no point to "believing in" God. You don't believe in things or qualities of things that obviously exist. Faith does not indicate confidence.
So, if your so confident in the existence of God that you believe in him, you're not confident at all. What you are is committed to acting as though he exists and is on your side, hoping that it will end up being the reality, or that you will always be ignorant of how wrongheaded you've been, which is far worse than just being speculative.
Interesting that you think that women simply lie on the surveys to impugn the Catholic church. Is it that all women who seek abortions are liars? That seems rather "speculative" to me, especially when a third seem inclined to slander members of the Catholic Church. It's far more speculative to form your opinion without even numbers on a sound survey than to form them with the numbers.
So, why should you have confidence in your baseless speculations rather than mine? I also find it interesting that you would you be tempted to slander atheists if you had a chance, while those lying women seeking abortions won't. What it tells me is, you speculate on everybody else's lying by your own willingness to do so, which seems to be higher than usual. So, I'm sorry to mention the possibility you're probably a bigger liar than the women who took the survey. That, of course, is speculative, but I have higher confidence in it than anything else I've speculated.
So, don't give speeches about growing up and all those other parenting cliches you want to apply to adult women and men. A person stopping themselves from having a child they can't possibly raise is not a childish decision no matter how and why they had sex. Also, sex is hardly a childish thing, children don't and can't think in terms of it. It's a uniquely adult thing.
So, the authority that you feel God gives you as the morally righteous is null, your speech on responsibility is inappropriate and irrelevant, and the idea that "responsibility" that is, having less sex will remove the need for abortion is simply idiotic, given the odds of pregnancy without birth control and the odds that birth control will fail. Plus the fact that people will probably be less inclined to use birth control the more they trust their willpower not to have sex, as statistics on abstinence bear out.
So, now maybe you know the less speculative mode I took with the rest of my posts. I wonder if you're curious enough to read the rest now?
I haven't been sleeping well, that is, I haven't been able to settle down to sleep at a reasonable time, and my life is suffering from it. I've taken sleeping pills and it has just kept me tired during the day. My terrible sleep pattern is making my writing testier.
I'm almost afraid to look back at the AbolishHumanAbortion page. Whatever is being said there, I don't feel I have time to answer. I know, but I posted this instead. Yes, but is my blog, and as a writer, my commitment.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Answer to Abolition Society of Oklahoma post 4/21
Answering an antichoicer's blog and doing it right is like repairing a computer problem. I never know how long it's going to take. This took the entire day, and I know it's sloppy and needs an edit. The worst thing, due to an error, the parts of the answer went up out of order.
So, here's "NormanAbolition's" blog entry:
http://is.gd/Gpyoxc
Here's my answer, this time with an edit and in the proper order:
A logical argument is only as valid as the premises you put in it. Your “modus ponens” structures is solid, (if inefficient) but you give your premises as facts down to the very terms in which you've presented them. The problem is, your wording isn't clear at all, and you've manipulated the rhetoric so that they can't be question without bringing the questioner under moral attack.
What do you mean by “intrinsic” and “intrinsic rights.” How can an abstract, inorganic concept such as “rights” be intrinsic to a biological organism? Not even Thomas Jefferson and, as far as I could tell, Thomas Paine said rights were intrinsic. Jefferson said “unalienable,” meaning, even if you're an atheist, that if they were were alienated, you could fight the alienators and expect allies to help you. That's exactly what happened.
If rights are intrinsic, it means if you've “alienated” them from a person, then from that act alone you've either killed them or you've made them morphologically into a different species. Either way, this expresses a belief in black magic and it can't possibly be what you mean.
Also, what is meant by “Human life begins at conception?” The sperm and egg cells are human. Since the life is human before, during and after conception, what can this possibly mean? Do you mean genetically complete? Yes, two sets of genes have just met and started to cooperate, but it doesn't have a trillionth the number of genes it needs to survive, which is why it starts reproducing and making changes as fast as possible. Then it can twin becoming two individuals, which means that a unique human life did not begin at conception.
What you've presented here is nothing but moral relativism. Your choice is on when a human being begins is not more logical than choosing any other point. You just put God's name on the choice you're pretending not to make, just as kings once did to Divine Right before Jefferson corrected them with the concept of unalienable rights. Unlike Divine Right, there's nothing Biblical to support life beginning at conception, which adds moral dishonesty to your relativism. To paraphrase you, there's no convincing reason you've given why a zygote is a human being with rights. Birth is a much more compelling argument on the facts. Neural function is a more compelling argument. Viability falls someplace in between. Conception is dead last.
You point out that opinions vary other than at conception that without agreement on conception, nobody can agree. But this is a tautology that applies to every other opinion on the subject. One could also say that if you don't agree with birth being the beginning of a human being, then nobody can agree on whether it's at conception, neuro-maturity or viability. I'll add that there probably would be consensus as to when a fetus is too close to being a person to allow abortion if so much time and energy weren't committed to fighting people like yourself who think it ought to be at conception.
As for the “slippery slope” issues, or as you put it, “those definitons are notoriously hard to contain,” there's a huge difference between a fetus and all the examples you've given from Singers work, differences big enough to trump any similarities. People who are unconscious, have had strokes, who've become old, or who are just sleeping, these are people who either exist or have existed as persons who have gained consciousness prior. There is no slippery slope to this. I'll underscore this point by saying of all the genocides, death camps and mass killings in the 20th century, none started with legalized abortion. None. In fact, the Nazis were extremely anti-abortion. Plenty of countries have legalized discretionary abortion since, and of those, none have slipped into genocidal acts or mass euthanasia programs. None. So, not only is there no logical connection, there is no practical connection. None. Yet here you are advocating the prevention of abortion, something that would have stopped no other genocide, no other act of euthanasia, and wouldn't stop it today.
You've overlooked the fact that there are other compelling reasons besides nerve function to respect rights-- once a person is in the world and is unconsciously acknowledged as human being, we put them into a totally different category than a fetus, which is why we mark their lives with a birth certificate (not a conception certificate) and a death certificate. Once a person is actually there, then his or her peers and in response, society, has a different set of human emotions and motives which are expressed in the form of “rights.”
These emotions and motives simply aren't evoked by a fetus, and so you're not going to make rights apply to fetuses. You definitely aren't going to get people to care enough to fill out conception certificates except as a fad, and that's what you would need to legally give it rights.
“Most people have no trouble recognizing that all humans have an intrinsic right to life after birth. The idea is clearly articulated in the Declaration of Independence and is the philosophical bedrock for the legal definition of murder.”
Really? Nobody was ever charged with murder before the Declaration of Independence? Or did people have a legal definition for it for ten millennium before they had a philosophical bedrock? How did Greek philosophers make such an oversight? Really, if that's the philosophical basis, how is it that people were charged for thousands of years without ever articulating individual rights? Not only that, Jefferson wasn't clear. All he said was that among the unalienable rights he was talking about were the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. He also didn't make a logical argument about it. He simply declared it, moral relativist that he was.
Also, I thought your philosophical basis against murder was that it usurps God's right to take somebody's life when He wishes. Or was that argument just inconvenient to your moral relativism then? Or maybe it's both and you can't decide?
You argue that human rights can't be simply invented because they're otherwise not guaranteed. I'll put this argument form in a different context: “If there's no Santa Claus, then I won't get any toys.” You'd have no problem seeing here that believing in Santa Claus even more isn't going to help. I'll point out that kids get toys at Christmas without Santa Claus. So, in other words, both statements in that form are invalid by form. We can do very well respecting rights whether we believe they are invented or not and do very well punishing and renouncing their violation.
If we believe rights are invented or not irrelevant to whether they are, in reality, invented. I think you'll agree with that. So, by your argument above (about rights or Santa Claus), then there are two possible conclusions: 1) either a person's belief in “intrinsic rights” means more than the reality of their actual existence, which means the reality of their existence does nothing anyway, and their existence is irrelevant; or 2) they don't exist but the self-deception will make us act like they do. I don't see how you can like the implications of either of these. I definitely don't.
Actually, we can do very well respecting rights whether we believe they are invented or not and do very well punishing and renouncing their violation, and far better when the rights aren't confused as the antichoicers have done so.
There are other entities that exists only in the minds of human beings that have an extremely stable effect on our everyday lives: nations. They have no existence outside of our minds. They are totally invented by human beings who build up whole bureaus and apparatuses around them, which themselves have no existence outside of the human mind. Despite that, we seem to have little problem judging which nation a person “belongs” in or where a certain nation exists or what its laws or customs are. If such judgments can be made about nations, your claim is blatantly false. Intrinsic rights are simply nonsense, or a way of saying you're really protective of rights, or really, really believe in them.
“Who are we to determine what another person thinks is right concerning killing another person or in some way treating them as a means rather than an end if people do not possess any rights?”
I simply don't understand this sentence. If rights are “invented” it does not mean that rights don't exist, and if human beings invent them to shape each others' social behavior, why should they take your humbleness argument, which really isn't humbleness but pure manipulation?
“This is the inevitable conclusion of the subjective morality that is driving the pro-abortion movement to define unborn babies as non-human.”
I believe you're mistaking the mental process involved in thinking about abortion and birth. One doesn't really “define” anybody into humanity, nor withdraw that definition, (for the latter not unless under duress or terror by some greater political force). At birth, people automatically begin to respond to a baby as a human being. They never respond to a fetus in such a way, otherwise, we would attach much more attention to conception and actually certify them. In the prochoice movement, we don't un-define fetuses. In actuality, your the one who's attempting to define them as human beings, as persons with rights, when it was never done before.
“However, if rights are function of some qualities defined by a culture, then it is irrational to claim American slavery is immoral for those individuals practicing and endorsing it.”
What? Can't I just say they were very immoral times and I'm glad I wasn't there? I think most people would agree with me. First, just as I could make a judgment about whether a person is a German or US citizen, I could make a judgment about whether a practice in a different time was moral or not.
“A better approach is to confer rights based on the ontology of the person. Humans are unique and deserve basic rights because God has implanted His image within them. “
First, what does theology have to do with ontology? Now you're bolstering a bunch of weak, historically misinformed arguments by pouring your righteous religion over them. Who could argue against something so holy? The only problem with this is, since God doesn't exist, it's less intrinsic than bullshit. It doesn't bolster the rest of your arguments. It weakens them in favor of affirming your faith, which is you're obligated to do as a Christian above all else. Opposition to choice is just a means of doing that.
“P1’: Humans should not be unjustifiably killed because humans are created in the image of God (Gen 1:26; 9:6).”
A zygote at conception looks like God? I thought human beings look like God, i.e. they have a face, two arms and two legs, but then again, God the Father's not supposed to have a material form, is he? Or is the image of God perfect so unchangeable but changeable? Or does he, too, have a zygote/fetal stage that he goes through regularly? How many of these contradictions can you face before you don't believe anymore?
Plus, you said the philosophical bedrock for murder was in “intrinsic rights” as mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, now your contradicting that saying that the bedrock actually has do with acting against the image of God?
If God can look like both a zygote and a middle aged man or woman and you acknowledge no contradiction with that, can't he look like a corpse, too? If it's a mystery how God can do this, how can you use it as an argument if you don't know what you're talking about? Again, you seek the scripture to disguise what's really moral relativism.
“The problem is that people don’t live like that, and we know it. People have no trouble recognizing slavery as a clear example where an entire culture endorsed the dehumanization of people purely for pigment levels in their skin.”
Well, we had this discussion. Slavery was considered moral for thousands of years everywhere, and the Bible endorsed the chosen people practicing it on “those people” (non-Jews, but in our country's context, people who were of non-European descent). I've heard humanitarians in the classical age saw slavery as the only way to prevent mass slaughter-- genocide. What has amazed historians is that suddenly in the 19th century it was considered immoral, and people even found Bible quotes purportedly against it, even though others in earlier ages read the same passages and didn't see any objection.
In other words, for slavery, it had always been like that, but the fact that it became different when “The Declaration” and “Rights of Man” were written is suggestive. Strangely enough, those documents had more effect on Europeans than Americans.
“C’: Abortion is morally wrong in most situations from the moment of fertilization.”
In most situations? How can you bend on this? I thought it was homicide. If you kill somebody to save your life, (when they are not attempting to kill you) it's still a homicide and a prosecutor will at least look at it. If you kill an inbred kid or a kid conceived from rape, that should still be homicide outside the womb even if you're concerned for them medically or for their care when you do it. How can you believe that it's a human being at conception with a right to life and possibly qualify it like this?
I'll tell you: moral relativism is how. You want to feel you're not too barbaric to women so you give this as a show of your humanitarianism.
Plus I notice you don't quote the Bible for P2 or P3, because it's bullshit that the Bible supports your view on this. It's only role is to disguise your moral relativism and bolster your faith. Except from the fact that it will demand the woman be punished for her lust, but for some reason, you chose not to make that argument. I can't think why. Many antichoicers have no problem doing that.
“Of course, some argue that the image of God is not imputed at fertilization. However, I think there is compelling scriptural support that people possess the image of God from the moment life begins. The most notable is the immaculate conception of Jesus Christ. “
The “Immaculate Conception” refers to Mary's conception, not Jesus's. Does every Christian need an atheist to teach them their religious dogma? Look it up if you don't believe me.
And wasn't the Immaculate Conception, or the Virgin Birth (of Jesus) an exception to everything? If you believe, what possible bearing could they have on a normal conception? And what is “possessing” the image of God? If I look like you, you never say “He possesses my image.”
“The Penguin Dictionary of Biology provides an excellent, concise definition of biological life:
“'[Living organisms are] complex physico-chemical systems whose two main peculiarities are (1) storage and replication of molecular information in the form of nucleic acid, and (2) the presence of (or in viruses perhaps merely the potential for) enzyme catalysis.'”
Isn't this a functional definition of life? Haven't you argued with me that function shouldn't matter in considering something a human being or not? Now you're using it at an earlier point in your own argument. Why do you claim you're above making functional definitions of human beings while yours is functional, too? Again, moral relativism, but in a good Christian cause. If you can make functional arguments over the definition of life, it's dishonest then to reject functional arguments over human life. I'm going to remind you of this whenever you complain that I'm defining a human being by function.
“This definition unequivocally places a fertilized egg as a living organism. Furthermore, the moment of fertilization is marked by the slow block to polyspermy, which is a series of biochemical processes that limit the number of sperm that may penetrate the oocyte to one. This provides a clear point in time marking the formation of a new organism with its own unique life trajectory.”
Yes, but birth is also unique and you don't need an endo-microscope pointed in the right direction to see it. So, in practice, how clear is it? There's a good reason why we certify births and not conceptions. If the basis of your argument is that this event is “unique,” the zygote still has never attained consciousness and is not ready to. Consciousness is unique. Also, the zygote has no body, no brain, no nervous system. Why are you marking this event “unique,” but unobservable event above all other unique events in pregnancy? Answer: moral relativism disguised behind piety.
“Adding additional criteria to the definition of life is a grave mistake that can lead to bizarre and absurd conclusions. For example, some pro-abortion advocates claim that a fetus requires a functioning nervous system to be alive.
This is a simple lie, a strawman. All agree that the fetus is alive. It's whether it's a human being (in the normal definition, not the expanded one) that's we dispute. At least be honest about your opponents' arguments.
“A simple argument demonstrating that humans possess a right to life from conception was presented. It was further argued that each premise is more plausible than the corresponding negation. Thus, the conclusion of argument cannot logically be avoided. Murder is the unjustified killing of an innocent human. If the argument goes through, then what else would you call an abortion? Certainly the unborn baby is innocent. Abortion is legal in the US, but that does not make abortion any less immoral. Is lawfully killing a spouse in country where such actions are legal moral for those people? Clearly not! The law is in error and must be changed.”
But you said in “most situations” abortion was wrong. Again, if you believed your conclusion, you would have never made that qualification.
You're not going to get rid of abortion, or maybe you will for a generation and not any longer. Mostly for the same reason that 37 percent of women who receive abortions are Catholic. For the most part, no matter they say, when they have an unwanted pregnancy women will want the choice. That need is not going away. Guys, too, are not going to want to be stuck having to pay for unwanted children, not when they can easily prevent the creation of those children, and especially when their mothers don't want them either.
The worse thing that could happen to the prolife movement is if they make abortion illegal. It will destroy the movement and abortion will be legal again within thirty years, and they'll never gain the numbers who want it illegalized again. It will cause hardship for twenty, thirty years and then discredit the movement for centuries.
If I don't answer your blog that often, it's not because your arguments are so perfect that I'm too awed or too cowardly. It's that I usually don't have the time to correct all the errors and marshal the all the counter-arguments to anti-choicers. You're just so wrong in so many ways. I might have stopped at 300 words, but would have been merely heckling. Anything as wrong as this blog post requires something more thorough.
So, here ends my answer to "NormanAboliton" as he's know on Twitter.
So, here's "NormanAbolition's" blog entry:
http://is.gd/Gpyoxc
Here's my answer, this time with an edit and in the proper order:
A logical argument is only as valid as the premises you put in it. Your “modus ponens” structures is solid, (if inefficient) but you give your premises as facts down to the very terms in which you've presented them. The problem is, your wording isn't clear at all, and you've manipulated the rhetoric so that they can't be question without bringing the questioner under moral attack.
What do you mean by “intrinsic” and “intrinsic rights.” How can an abstract, inorganic concept such as “rights” be intrinsic to a biological organism? Not even Thomas Jefferson and, as far as I could tell, Thomas Paine said rights were intrinsic. Jefferson said “unalienable,” meaning, even if you're an atheist, that if they were were alienated, you could fight the alienators and expect allies to help you. That's exactly what happened.
If rights are intrinsic, it means if you've “alienated” them from a person, then from that act alone you've either killed them or you've made them morphologically into a different species. Either way, this expresses a belief in black magic and it can't possibly be what you mean.
Also, what is meant by “Human life begins at conception?” The sperm and egg cells are human. Since the life is human before, during and after conception, what can this possibly mean? Do you mean genetically complete? Yes, two sets of genes have just met and started to cooperate, but it doesn't have a trillionth the number of genes it needs to survive, which is why it starts reproducing and making changes as fast as possible. Then it can twin becoming two individuals, which means that a unique human life did not begin at conception.
What you've presented here is nothing but moral relativism. Your choice is on when a human being begins is not more logical than choosing any other point. You just put God's name on the choice you're pretending not to make, just as kings once did to Divine Right before Jefferson corrected them with the concept of unalienable rights. Unlike Divine Right, there's nothing Biblical to support life beginning at conception, which adds moral dishonesty to your relativism. To paraphrase you, there's no convincing reason you've given why a zygote is a human being with rights. Birth is a much more compelling argument on the facts. Neural function is a more compelling argument. Viability falls someplace in between. Conception is dead last.
You point out that opinions vary other than at conception that without agreement on conception, nobody can agree. But this is a tautology that applies to every other opinion on the subject. One could also say that if you don't agree with birth being the beginning of a human being, then nobody can agree on whether it's at conception, neuro-maturity or viability. I'll add that there probably would be consensus as to when a fetus is too close to being a person to allow abortion if so much time and energy weren't committed to fighting people like yourself who think it ought to be at conception.
As for the “slippery slope” issues, or as you put it, “those definitons are notoriously hard to contain,” there's a huge difference between a fetus and all the examples you've given from Singers work, differences big enough to trump any similarities. People who are unconscious, have had strokes, who've become old, or who are just sleeping, these are people who either exist or have existed as persons who have gained consciousness prior. There is no slippery slope to this. I'll underscore this point by saying of all the genocides, death camps and mass killings in the 20th century, none started with legalized abortion. None. In fact, the Nazis were extremely anti-abortion. Plenty of countries have legalized discretionary abortion since, and of those, none have slipped into genocidal acts or mass euthanasia programs. None. So, not only is there no logical connection, there is no practical connection. None. Yet here you are advocating the prevention of abortion, something that would have stopped no other genocide, no other act of euthanasia, and wouldn't stop it today.
You've overlooked the fact that there are other compelling reasons besides nerve function to respect rights-- once a person is in the world and is unconsciously acknowledged as human being, we put them into a totally different category than a fetus, which is why we mark their lives with a birth certificate (not a conception certificate) and a death certificate. Once a person is actually there, then his or her peers and in response, society, has a different set of human emotions and motives which are expressed in the form of “rights.”
These emotions and motives simply aren't evoked by a fetus, and so you're not going to make rights apply to fetuses. You definitely aren't going to get people to care enough to fill out conception certificates except as a fad, and that's what you would need to legally give it rights.
“Most people have no trouble recognizing that all humans have an intrinsic right to life after birth. The idea is clearly articulated in the Declaration of Independence and is the philosophical bedrock for the legal definition of murder.”
Really? Nobody was ever charged with murder before the Declaration of Independence? Or did people have a legal definition for it for ten millennium before they had a philosophical bedrock? How did Greek philosophers make such an oversight? Really, if that's the philosophical basis, how is it that people were charged for thousands of years without ever articulating individual rights? Not only that, Jefferson wasn't clear. All he said was that among the unalienable rights he was talking about were the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. He also didn't make a logical argument about it. He simply declared it, moral relativist that he was.
Also, I thought your philosophical basis against murder was that it usurps God's right to take somebody's life when He wishes. Or was that argument just inconvenient to your moral relativism then? Or maybe it's both and you can't decide?
You argue that human rights can't be simply invented because they're otherwise not guaranteed. I'll put this argument form in a different context: “If there's no Santa Claus, then I won't get any toys.” You'd have no problem seeing here that believing in Santa Claus even more isn't going to help. I'll point out that kids get toys at Christmas without Santa Claus. So, in other words, both statements in that form are invalid by form. We can do very well respecting rights whether we believe they are invented or not and do very well punishing and renouncing their violation.
If we believe rights are invented or not irrelevant to whether they are, in reality, invented. I think you'll agree with that. So, by your argument above (about rights or Santa Claus), then there are two possible conclusions: 1) either a person's belief in “intrinsic rights” means more than the reality of their actual existence, which means the reality of their existence does nothing anyway, and their existence is irrelevant; or 2) they don't exist but the self-deception will make us act like they do. I don't see how you can like the implications of either of these. I definitely don't.
Actually, we can do very well respecting rights whether we believe they are invented or not and do very well punishing and renouncing their violation, and far better when the rights aren't confused as the antichoicers have done so.
There are other entities that exists only in the minds of human beings that have an extremely stable effect on our everyday lives: nations. They have no existence outside of our minds. They are totally invented by human beings who build up whole bureaus and apparatuses around them, which themselves have no existence outside of the human mind. Despite that, we seem to have little problem judging which nation a person “belongs” in or where a certain nation exists or what its laws or customs are. If such judgments can be made about nations, your claim is blatantly false. Intrinsic rights are simply nonsense, or a way of saying you're really protective of rights, or really, really believe in them.
“Who are we to determine what another person thinks is right concerning killing another person or in some way treating them as a means rather than an end if people do not possess any rights?”
I simply don't understand this sentence. If rights are “invented” it does not mean that rights don't exist, and if human beings invent them to shape each others' social behavior, why should they take your humbleness argument, which really isn't humbleness but pure manipulation?
“This is the inevitable conclusion of the subjective morality that is driving the pro-abortion movement to define unborn babies as non-human.”
I believe you're mistaking the mental process involved in thinking about abortion and birth. One doesn't really “define” anybody into humanity, nor withdraw that definition, (for the latter not unless under duress or terror by some greater political force). At birth, people automatically begin to respond to a baby as a human being. They never respond to a fetus in such a way, otherwise, we would attach much more attention to conception and actually certify them. In the prochoice movement, we don't un-define fetuses. In actuality, your the one who's attempting to define them as human beings, as persons with rights, when it was never done before.
“However, if rights are function of some qualities defined by a culture, then it is irrational to claim American slavery is immoral for those individuals practicing and endorsing it.”
What? Can't I just say they were very immoral times and I'm glad I wasn't there? I think most people would agree with me. First, just as I could make a judgment about whether a person is a German or US citizen, I could make a judgment about whether a practice in a different time was moral or not.
“A better approach is to confer rights based on the ontology of the person. Humans are unique and deserve basic rights because God has implanted His image within them. “
First, what does theology have to do with ontology? Now you're bolstering a bunch of weak, historically misinformed arguments by pouring your righteous religion over them. Who could argue against something so holy? The only problem with this is, since God doesn't exist, it's less intrinsic than bullshit. It doesn't bolster the rest of your arguments. It weakens them in favor of affirming your faith, which is you're obligated to do as a Christian above all else. Opposition to choice is just a means of doing that.
“P1’: Humans should not be unjustifiably killed because humans are created in the image of God (Gen 1:26; 9:6).”
A zygote at conception looks like God? I thought human beings look like God, i.e. they have a face, two arms and two legs, but then again, God the Father's not supposed to have a material form, is he? Or is the image of God perfect so unchangeable but changeable? Or does he, too, have a zygote/fetal stage that he goes through regularly? How many of these contradictions can you face before you don't believe anymore?
Plus, you said the philosophical bedrock for murder was in “intrinsic rights” as mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, now your contradicting that saying that the bedrock actually has do with acting against the image of God?
If God can look like both a zygote and a middle aged man or woman and you acknowledge no contradiction with that, can't he look like a corpse, too? If it's a mystery how God can do this, how can you use it as an argument if you don't know what you're talking about? Again, you seek the scripture to disguise what's really moral relativism.
“The problem is that people don’t live like that, and we know it. People have no trouble recognizing slavery as a clear example where an entire culture endorsed the dehumanization of people purely for pigment levels in their skin.”
Well, we had this discussion. Slavery was considered moral for thousands of years everywhere, and the Bible endorsed the chosen people practicing it on “those people” (non-Jews, but in our country's context, people who were of non-European descent). I've heard humanitarians in the classical age saw slavery as the only way to prevent mass slaughter-- genocide. What has amazed historians is that suddenly in the 19th century it was considered immoral, and people even found Bible quotes purportedly against it, even though others in earlier ages read the same passages and didn't see any objection.
In other words, for slavery, it had always been like that, but the fact that it became different when “The Declaration” and “Rights of Man” were written is suggestive. Strangely enough, those documents had more effect on Europeans than Americans.
“C’: Abortion is morally wrong in most situations from the moment of fertilization.”
In most situations? How can you bend on this? I thought it was homicide. If you kill somebody to save your life, (when they are not attempting to kill you) it's still a homicide and a prosecutor will at least look at it. If you kill an inbred kid or a kid conceived from rape, that should still be homicide outside the womb even if you're concerned for them medically or for their care when you do it. How can you believe that it's a human being at conception with a right to life and possibly qualify it like this?
I'll tell you: moral relativism is how. You want to feel you're not too barbaric to women so you give this as a show of your humanitarianism.
Plus I notice you don't quote the Bible for P2 or P3, because it's bullshit that the Bible supports your view on this. It's only role is to disguise your moral relativism and bolster your faith. Except from the fact that it will demand the woman be punished for her lust, but for some reason, you chose not to make that argument. I can't think why. Many antichoicers have no problem doing that.
“Of course, some argue that the image of God is not imputed at fertilization. However, I think there is compelling scriptural support that people possess the image of God from the moment life begins. The most notable is the immaculate conception of Jesus Christ. “
The “Immaculate Conception” refers to Mary's conception, not Jesus's. Does every Christian need an atheist to teach them their religious dogma? Look it up if you don't believe me.
And wasn't the Immaculate Conception, or the Virgin Birth (of Jesus) an exception to everything? If you believe, what possible bearing could they have on a normal conception? And what is “possessing” the image of God? If I look like you, you never say “He possesses my image.”
“The Penguin Dictionary of Biology provides an excellent, concise definition of biological life:
“'[Living organisms are] complex physico-chemical systems whose two main peculiarities are (1) storage and replication of molecular information in the form of nucleic acid, and (2) the presence of (or in viruses perhaps merely the potential for) enzyme catalysis.'”
Isn't this a functional definition of life? Haven't you argued with me that function shouldn't matter in considering something a human being or not? Now you're using it at an earlier point in your own argument. Why do you claim you're above making functional definitions of human beings while yours is functional, too? Again, moral relativism, but in a good Christian cause. If you can make functional arguments over the definition of life, it's dishonest then to reject functional arguments over human life. I'm going to remind you of this whenever you complain that I'm defining a human being by function.
“This definition unequivocally places a fertilized egg as a living organism. Furthermore, the moment of fertilization is marked by the slow block to polyspermy, which is a series of biochemical processes that limit the number of sperm that may penetrate the oocyte to one. This provides a clear point in time marking the formation of a new organism with its own unique life trajectory.”
Yes, but birth is also unique and you don't need an endo-microscope pointed in the right direction to see it. So, in practice, how clear is it? There's a good reason why we certify births and not conceptions. If the basis of your argument is that this event is “unique,” the zygote still has never attained consciousness and is not ready to. Consciousness is unique. Also, the zygote has no body, no brain, no nervous system. Why are you marking this event “unique,” but unobservable event above all other unique events in pregnancy? Answer: moral relativism disguised behind piety.
“Adding additional criteria to the definition of life is a grave mistake that can lead to bizarre and absurd conclusions. For example, some pro-abortion advocates claim that a fetus requires a functioning nervous system to be alive.
This is a simple lie, a strawman. All agree that the fetus is alive. It's whether it's a human being (in the normal definition, not the expanded one) that's we dispute. At least be honest about your opponents' arguments.
“A simple argument demonstrating that humans possess a right to life from conception was presented. It was further argued that each premise is more plausible than the corresponding negation. Thus, the conclusion of argument cannot logically be avoided. Murder is the unjustified killing of an innocent human. If the argument goes through, then what else would you call an abortion? Certainly the unborn baby is innocent. Abortion is legal in the US, but that does not make abortion any less immoral. Is lawfully killing a spouse in country where such actions are legal moral for those people? Clearly not! The law is in error and must be changed.”
But you said in “most situations” abortion was wrong. Again, if you believed your conclusion, you would have never made that qualification.
You're not going to get rid of abortion, or maybe you will for a generation and not any longer. Mostly for the same reason that 37 percent of women who receive abortions are Catholic. For the most part, no matter they say, when they have an unwanted pregnancy women will want the choice. That need is not going away. Guys, too, are not going to want to be stuck having to pay for unwanted children, not when they can easily prevent the creation of those children, and especially when their mothers don't want them either.
The worse thing that could happen to the prolife movement is if they make abortion illegal. It will destroy the movement and abortion will be legal again within thirty years, and they'll never gain the numbers who want it illegalized again. It will cause hardship for twenty, thirty years and then discredit the movement for centuries.
If I don't answer your blog that often, it's not because your arguments are so perfect that I'm too awed or too cowardly. It's that I usually don't have the time to correct all the errors and marshal the all the counter-arguments to anti-choicers. You're just so wrong in so many ways. I might have stopped at 300 words, but would have been merely heckling. Anything as wrong as this blog post requires something more thorough.
So, here ends my answer to "NormanAboliton" as he's know on Twitter.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Atheist Morality pt. 1
In Western Civilization, the concept of morality originated hand and hand with the concept of theism, with a concept of piety being central even for pagan cultures. Therefore, it is difficult to formulate an atheist concept of morality that's explicable to the religious, who presume that no morality could exist without God, or at least, the self-deception that there is a God.
They are wrong. As social animals, human beings are born with an inclination to find out what behaviors others expect of them and what behavior they should expect from others. More than that, find out what behaviors other people will cooperate to stop or punish, or reward. There are, of course, those who are deficient in morality, sociopaths and psychopaths, but for the most part, human beings are born to learn this.
To explain anything about atheist morality I first have to define it in a way that's not dependent on belief in God and show how it functions in a Godless universe. Like God, though, morality only exists in the mind of human beings. Unlike God, it's not an illusion. It's a behavior we all depend on.
A person is born to look for what behaviors are expected or prohibited from others, but also they are born with their own desired behaviors and are forming their own expectations of others. From the interplay of these two, the person will eventually form a morality.
End of part 1, I'm afraid. I'll continue tomorrow.
They are wrong. As social animals, human beings are born with an inclination to find out what behaviors others expect of them and what behavior they should expect from others. More than that, find out what behaviors other people will cooperate to stop or punish, or reward. There are, of course, those who are deficient in morality, sociopaths and psychopaths, but for the most part, human beings are born to learn this.
To explain anything about atheist morality I first have to define it in a way that's not dependent on belief in God and show how it functions in a Godless universe. Like God, though, morality only exists in the mind of human beings. Unlike God, it's not an illusion. It's a behavior we all depend on.
A person is born to look for what behaviors are expected or prohibited from others, but also they are born with their own desired behaviors and are forming their own expectations of others. From the interplay of these two, the person will eventually form a morality.
End of part 1, I'm afraid. I'll continue tomorrow.
Reading and discussions today.
I saw the movie "Sucker Punch" a few weeks ago. I liked it, but it was nothing great. I wrote a review in the IMDB about it:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0978764/usercomments-261
Since then I've been drawn into discussions about the movie on IMDB, my latest comment being here:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0978764/board/reply/181179075
I'm frankly puzzled by people who hate the movie and are watching its commercial failure with glee, even if it isn't really failing commercially. It will probably make a marginal profit within the next few years. I'm surprised at how many people post that it was the worst movie ever. No, far from it.
The movie isn't succeeding enough to spawn a sequel, though. I would call it the kind of movie that was fantastic when it was good but was too flawed to be anything but a fair movie. It reminds me of what I always used to think of Ralph Bakshi's movies in the '70s. I'm glad I saw them even if I would never own them. The plots were shapeless and even careless, but there were scenes in them I couldn't forget. The same is true of "Sucker Punch."
From here on out, I'm going to use my blog to link to my other posts around the web, since all of my writing is scattered around at various sites. I know I still haven't gotten to atheist morality. That will be for later today.
Here's another post on the IMDB just made now:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0978764/board/thread/181453367?d=181543920&p=1#181543920
Here are a few others, this one on whether SP sexualized the girls in it:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0978764/board/thread/180954575?d=181421243&p=6#181421243
And this one following up in answer to that:
By posting I've wasted a lot of time today. Need to get to things. Here's a list of what I'm reading:
"Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII," by John Cornwell
I will follow up with another book on Pope Pius XII that takes the apologist view. I was prompted to do so by an argument on youtube over whether he collaborated with Hitler's Reich in the persecution of the Jews. I was informed in a discussion that I had Pius all wrong in WW2, and it was possible that I did read atheist sources that misinformed me, so I'm checking.
"Walsh's Plain English Handbook," to improve my craft.
"The Savage Detectives," a novel by Roberto Bolano, recommended by my niece. Who btw, has a full Ph. D. scholarship to Northwestern University. In other words, I very much respect her opinion.
"On Being a Writer," by Will Blythe. Interviews with various writers on how they handled their craft. Loaned to me by my cousin, also a writer.
"The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives," by Leonard Mlodinow. I picked it up one day "at random" and I've been reading it more than any of the others.
Now I have to get important work out of the way: getting my car up to spec so I could move out, or at least finding out if I have to sell the damn thing, and then look for a new place to live.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0978764/usercomments-261
Since then I've been drawn into discussions about the movie on IMDB, my latest comment being here:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0978764/board/reply/181179075
I'm frankly puzzled by people who hate the movie and are watching its commercial failure with glee, even if it isn't really failing commercially. It will probably make a marginal profit within the next few years. I'm surprised at how many people post that it was the worst movie ever. No, far from it.
The movie isn't succeeding enough to spawn a sequel, though. I would call it the kind of movie that was fantastic when it was good but was too flawed to be anything but a fair movie. It reminds me of what I always used to think of Ralph Bakshi's movies in the '70s. I'm glad I saw them even if I would never own them. The plots were shapeless and even careless, but there were scenes in them I couldn't forget. The same is true of "Sucker Punch."
From here on out, I'm going to use my blog to link to my other posts around the web, since all of my writing is scattered around at various sites. I know I still haven't gotten to atheist morality. That will be for later today.
Here's another post on the IMDB just made now:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0978764/board/thread/181453367?d=181543920&p=1#181543920
Here are a few others, this one on whether SP sexualized the girls in it:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0978764/board/thread/180954575?d=181421243&p=6#181421243
And this one following up in answer to that:
By posting I've wasted a lot of time today. Need to get to things. Here's a list of what I'm reading:
"Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII," by John Cornwell
I will follow up with another book on Pope Pius XII that takes the apologist view. I was prompted to do so by an argument on youtube over whether he collaborated with Hitler's Reich in the persecution of the Jews. I was informed in a discussion that I had Pius all wrong in WW2, and it was possible that I did read atheist sources that misinformed me, so I'm checking.
"Walsh's Plain English Handbook," to improve my craft.
"The Savage Detectives," a novel by Roberto Bolano, recommended by my niece. Who btw, has a full Ph. D. scholarship to Northwestern University. In other words, I very much respect her opinion.
"On Being a Writer," by Will Blythe. Interviews with various writers on how they handled their craft. Loaned to me by my cousin, also a writer.
"The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives," by Leonard Mlodinow. I picked it up one day "at random" and I've been reading it more than any of the others.
Now I have to get important work out of the way: getting my car up to spec so I could move out, or at least finding out if I have to sell the damn thing, and then look for a new place to live.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
What? We have to help BP pay?
Tonight I was listening to NPR's "On Point" to a discussion about the Deepwater Horizon disaster, and I was stunned by people who called in to say that they buy from BP stations specifically so BP could pay for the clean up.
I don't like the morality expressed with that. It's almost the opposite of demanding responsibility. I'll just point out, left-winger that I am, that there are ways of paying for damages and clean up that don't involve giving the people responsible even more money in hopes that they won't weasel out of doing the right thing, as BP will struggle to do. Like how about putting BP's US assets into receivership and selling them off to competitors and then hiring the competitors to do the cleanup? That's not business unfriendly, it's very friendly to businesses that bid on BP's assets. I'm just giving that as one example of an alternative that would have done the job done without making the rich BP shareholders richer.
We would never buy more from a human being responsible for massive environmental damage. If a car salesman started a forest fire, we wouldn't buy more cars from him just so he could pay his fines and lawsuits, not unless they were already a friend. In fact, as PSA's have emphasized, we'd put the firestarter in the clink.
Has people's moral sense about corporations been so thoroughly reversed under today's pro-corporate, pro-rich, pro-business propaganda? I mean, we already gave our finance industry money for wrecking the economy, but at least people grumbled about that. Now people present a voluntary bailout of BP with a straight face as though it's an intelligent plan. It's like a person were punched in the jaw but then offered to buy drugs from the perp, who could then afford to pay the victim's dental work. Maybe the TARP bailouts were that morally damaging to people that suddenly the morally twisted ripoff sounds clever.
Frankly, I think every corporate officer with BP in the US should have been forced to resign and everyone who owns their stock should have been required to sell and not hold the stock again for a year. Then hold elections for new corporate officers with the new blood in there and see what happens.
But then again, I thought the TARP money should have gone to the homeowners who then could have then used it to pay their mortgages and not directly to the finance companies who engineered the whole fiasco. If the homeowners acted irresponsibly, then only endangered their own lives and livelihoods, while the banks endangered the entire economy through their schemes and managed to make homebuyers' errors and turn them into a global catastrophe.
Maybe I should also discuss the woman who also said that she made sure she ate seafood from the Gulf just to help people out there. Say what? I'm presuming it's because she thinks it's safe, or can't take the possibility of petrol-poisoning of the seafood seriously. She apparently didn't believe caution was called, but didn't say how she knew concluded that. If she'd eat the tainted seafood anyway, and if the object is to help people living on the Gulf Coast, can't she just send them the money and not eat the seafood? Or buy the tainted seafood and throw it out if she wants to maintain the industry?
Corporations have learned how to get people to risk their health and lives for nothing. Corporate media has training us to do things in its interests and against our own, things that merely fifteen years ago would have been recognized as dumb.
I don't like the morality expressed with that. It's almost the opposite of demanding responsibility. I'll just point out, left-winger that I am, that there are ways of paying for damages and clean up that don't involve giving the people responsible even more money in hopes that they won't weasel out of doing the right thing, as BP will struggle to do. Like how about putting BP's US assets into receivership and selling them off to competitors and then hiring the competitors to do the cleanup? That's not business unfriendly, it's very friendly to businesses that bid on BP's assets. I'm just giving that as one example of an alternative that would have done the job done without making the rich BP shareholders richer.
We would never buy more from a human being responsible for massive environmental damage. If a car salesman started a forest fire, we wouldn't buy more cars from him just so he could pay his fines and lawsuits, not unless they were already a friend. In fact, as PSA's have emphasized, we'd put the firestarter in the clink.
Has people's moral sense about corporations been so thoroughly reversed under today's pro-corporate, pro-rich, pro-business propaganda? I mean, we already gave our finance industry money for wrecking the economy, but at least people grumbled about that. Now people present a voluntary bailout of BP with a straight face as though it's an intelligent plan. It's like a person were punched in the jaw but then offered to buy drugs from the perp, who could then afford to pay the victim's dental work. Maybe the TARP bailouts were that morally damaging to people that suddenly the morally twisted ripoff sounds clever.
Frankly, I think every corporate officer with BP in the US should have been forced to resign and everyone who owns their stock should have been required to sell and not hold the stock again for a year. Then hold elections for new corporate officers with the new blood in there and see what happens.
But then again, I thought the TARP money should have gone to the homeowners who then could have then used it to pay their mortgages and not directly to the finance companies who engineered the whole fiasco. If the homeowners acted irresponsibly, then only endangered their own lives and livelihoods, while the banks endangered the entire economy through their schemes and managed to make homebuyers' errors and turn them into a global catastrophe.
Maybe I should also discuss the woman who also said that she made sure she ate seafood from the Gulf just to help people out there. Say what? I'm presuming it's because she thinks it's safe, or can't take the possibility of petrol-poisoning of the seafood seriously. She apparently didn't believe caution was called, but didn't say how she knew concluded that. If she'd eat the tainted seafood anyway, and if the object is to help people living on the Gulf Coast, can't she just send them the money and not eat the seafood? Or buy the tainted seafood and throw it out if she wants to maintain the industry?
Corporations have learned how to get people to risk their health and lives for nothing. Corporate media has training us to do things in its interests and against our own, things that merely fifteen years ago would have been recognized as dumb.
All right, blog plans.
It is embarrassing to consider yourself a writer and have a blog that you hardly seem to use. I could think of dozens of subjects that I wish to write about, but none of them seem to come to mind when I set aside the time to write on the blog. Then when I do find a subject, it always gains a depth way beyond the time I have to commit to it.
So, I've decide to simplify it and every day set aside a half hour to an hour to compose it. If it's a larger issue, such as atheism and morality, I simply have to divide it up between several days. If it's an issue that requires research, I'll simply show the results here as I find them, and make the corrections as I do.
Before I go on, I'll give a little overdue background about myself. I am now 51- years old, unemployed due to bipolar disorder. I've just been awarded disability. My life totally collapsed in 2009, not that I was doing well before that. My plans now are to make a living as a writer of fiction, scripts, poetry and non-fiction, and since my last hospitalization, I have treated writing as my full time job. My first practice novel, which is still a work in progress, was a piece of fanfiction based on the marvelous, almost unknown Canadian werewolf movie "Ginger Snaps," called "Ginger Snaps: The Feral Bond." Of course, as fanfiction, it will never be submitted for money. I meant it to be a learning experience, and something that would show me if I had the chops and discipline to be a writer. The project, though, has gone on far longer than I imagined. I'm no Asimov, not yet, and that effects me in this blog as well.
Before I started my career, I swore that I would always finish what I start. I started in November 2009. I've taken a hiatus to write a short story, just to prove that, yes, I an imagination and life beyond "Ginger Snaps" fanfiction. So, I'm working on the short story "The Light by Grandma's House."
That's been interrupted, though, because now I have to tie up some loose ends that were left when I became sick and broke, and then move. I won't describe my living situation in detail, but I need to get something better.
So, tomorrow, I'll continue with the subject and I hope get to the issue of Atheist Morality.
So, I've decide to simplify it and every day set aside a half hour to an hour to compose it. If it's a larger issue, such as atheism and morality, I simply have to divide it up between several days. If it's an issue that requires research, I'll simply show the results here as I find them, and make the corrections as I do.
Before I go on, I'll give a little overdue background about myself. I am now 51- years old, unemployed due to bipolar disorder. I've just been awarded disability. My life totally collapsed in 2009, not that I was doing well before that. My plans now are to make a living as a writer of fiction, scripts, poetry and non-fiction, and since my last hospitalization, I have treated writing as my full time job. My first practice novel, which is still a work in progress, was a piece of fanfiction based on the marvelous, almost unknown Canadian werewolf movie "Ginger Snaps," called "Ginger Snaps: The Feral Bond." Of course, as fanfiction, it will never be submitted for money. I meant it to be a learning experience, and something that would show me if I had the chops and discipline to be a writer. The project, though, has gone on far longer than I imagined. I'm no Asimov, not yet, and that effects me in this blog as well.
Before I started my career, I swore that I would always finish what I start. I started in November 2009. I've taken a hiatus to write a short story, just to prove that, yes, I an imagination and life beyond "Ginger Snaps" fanfiction. So, I'm working on the short story "The Light by Grandma's House."
That's been interrupted, though, because now I have to tie up some loose ends that were left when I became sick and broke, and then move. I won't describe my living situation in detail, but I need to get something better.
So, tomorrow, I'll continue with the subject and I hope get to the issue of Atheist Morality.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
No, I haven't abandoned this blog.
I realize that it was looking I had completely forgotten about this. No, I just left to complete the "novel." I hate to be redundant, but it has taken far longer than planned. In the meantime, I found a great writers' group here in town, Writer's Under the Arch (WUTA). They and the Writers' Meetup people made some great suggestions for the early chapter. I would have been foolish not to take them. So, I began writing the next draft (I'll call it the third one) before I was finished with the current one, (I'll call it the second one).
This has delayed the completion of the 2nd draft, and has probably driven on fanfiction.net to distraction. The good news is I know how the current one ends and know all the events leading up to it ending. I'm not going to make any estimate on the time it will take to write, but I have seven chapters and an epilogue to go.
In the meantime, I became a little burned out on the Ginger Snaps novel and decided to start a short story. I wanted to show I had a life and career away from GS. It's halfway written. I'm hoping to submit this for actual cash. Making money off writing will be different, if I can do it.
However, in the midst of all of this, I have to prepare and move now. That is to say, I have to get my car repaired, possibly for a lot of cash, catch up and pay all the bills I let slide when I was sick, find an apartment and go. So, I probably won't get a lot of work done on writing until at least the middle of next month.
I'm wondering how I could make ends meet, or even have any ends on what I'm getting from disability, but I intend to write and read with all the time that I can bear until I make a living at it. Right now, I just have to write an entire body of work and then start submitting.
I don't have a lot of time left. I probably have just twenty years at most to make an entire career of this, but I will make my best go at it.
In other news: I built a new computer this week using some money from my retroactive disability. I got tired of the delays and freeze-ups I was going through from my "spare parts" computer, and there was so much I couldn't do. I completed it yesterday. To celebrate, I'm spending the evening playing Civilization 5. I hope I'm not addicted by tomorrow.
This has delayed the completion of the 2nd draft, and has probably driven on fanfiction.net to distraction. The good news is I know how the current one ends and know all the events leading up to it ending. I'm not going to make any estimate on the time it will take to write, but I have seven chapters and an epilogue to go.
In the meantime, I became a little burned out on the Ginger Snaps novel and decided to start a short story. I wanted to show I had a life and career away from GS. It's halfway written. I'm hoping to submit this for actual cash. Making money off writing will be different, if I can do it.
However, in the midst of all of this, I have to prepare and move now. That is to say, I have to get my car repaired, possibly for a lot of cash, catch up and pay all the bills I let slide when I was sick, find an apartment and go. So, I probably won't get a lot of work done on writing until at least the middle of next month.
I'm wondering how I could make ends meet, or even have any ends on what I'm getting from disability, but I intend to write and read with all the time that I can bear until I make a living at it. Right now, I just have to write an entire body of work and then start submitting.
I don't have a lot of time left. I probably have just twenty years at most to make an entire career of this, but I will make my best go at it.
In other news: I built a new computer this week using some money from my retroactive disability. I got tired of the delays and freeze-ups I was going through from my "spare parts" computer, and there was so much I couldn't do. I completed it yesterday. To celebrate, I'm spending the evening playing Civilization 5. I hope I'm not addicted by tomorrow.
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