darth_ender

walkingdork said:

darth_ender said:

I don't think the comparison to the Holocaust is an invalid one. 

Oh no, it's invald...as well as crazy.

Oh!  You got me there!  My point crumbles at your logic! ;)

Please quote me fully, and make sure you understand my meaning.  His statement was not that killing a fetus is equivalent to killing a Jew.  His statement is that both are murder, though both are/were legal.  It's a matter of definition.  He may feel the two are equal, but that's not what he was saying in this instance.  He is saying that both were legal killings, but that one can still argue that they are murder in spite of not fitting the official definition.

 Warbler's argument is not deflated simply because his usage involves what he and I believe is the violation of a higher law than that here on earth.

This is why I'm completely fine with people wanting to discourage people from having abortions. However, higher laws should have no bearing on "earth laws."

Again, I'm discussing definitions.  Bingowings made a couple of teasing statements about how unfortunate it is when words don't mean what we want them to mean.   I am pointing out that just because he got the word wrong, that does not invalidate his point.  I seem to recall you using the word zygote incorrectly recently.  While I drew attention to that incorrect usage, I wasn't trying to throw out your whole argument based on that little error.  I'm defending Warbler's word usage yet again.  My mention of the higher law is simply to defend the usage of the term 'murder,' though it is technically incorrect.  In his and my mind, it opposes God's law, and is thus 'illegal' in that sense.  But I am not trying to argue that solely based on my interpretation of moral and heavenly law should it be outlawed on earth.  I've enumerated quite a number of philosophical reasons and parallel examples of why it should be illegal.  While to me Heaven's law trumps all other reasons, I understand that when debating with others regarding earthly law, my argument must appeal to other trains of thought.

walkingdork said:

Warbler said:

CP3S said:

And yes, Bingo has said many times that this is his belief system and has been saying it for years, so I see no reason to doubt he is being earnest.

well, it is sometimes hard for me to know when he is being serious and when he is joking.     He often butts into a serious conversation and posts jokes and nonsense or meanless pics.   He will also often respond with jokes and nonsense and/or meaningless pics when I am posting something serious to him.   So, it is hard for me to take him serious sometimes.

That's why I like Bingo. This isn't a private conversation, it's a public thread on a public forum. Frink's and Bingo's side comments keep the rest of us from taking this conversation so we aren't screaming MURDER!! in an abortion thread.

 

Yes, I too appreciate the distractions and humor.  Sometimes I find it quite beneficial to jump into their jokes rather than taking the topic too seriously, even if it is something I feel quite passionate about.

I don't think the comparison to the Holocaust is an invalid one.  While it is often unwise to make comparisons to Nazis, Hitler, the Holocaust, and such, Warbler's point was not about the morality of it per se.  His argument appears to have to do with the definition of murder.  In other words, since murder is illegally killing, and since killing Jews in the Third Reich was legal, does that mean it wasn't murder?  It's a fair question, again dealing with semantic differences.  I know C3PS doesn't want to talk about the definition anymore, but clearly Warbler's intention is that just because killing someone is legal doesn't make it right.

And also to be clear, regardless of any improper word choices, the intent of his argument is not invalidated just because his interpretation of the word 'murder' is not necessarily the legal definition.  We use many words improperly.  Warbler's argument is not deflated simply because his usage involves what he and I believe is the violation of a higher law than that here on earth.

I agree that this does sound interesting in spite of my dislike of the character.  Like SpilkaBilka said, as a kids movie in the same vein as the Ewok films, this would actually serve its purpose well.  I'm insterested to see how this turns out.  I also agree that his voice is a big thing that ruins it for me.  He could still be silly, knowing the movie was oriented for kids, but if his voice is different, I could appreciate it as a kid's film.

Since this film could be called a sleeper hit at best, many are unaware that there actually is a sequal.  I can't remember the name...something like The Empire Strikes Oil, or something like that.

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILER HERE:

Remember how Obi-Wan said Vader killed Luke's father.  Well, Vader actually is Luke's father.  He tells him at the end after chopping off his hand.  It was sooooooo cool; I made a face like this:

A couple of semantic differences:

According to CP3S and reportedly the dictionary definition (too lazy to look it up, but I believe him), murder is killing someone illegally.

According to Warbler, murder is killing someone innocent.

My personal definition would be knowingly and with malintent killing someone innocent.  It doesn't fit the dictionary defintion, but it fits my moral sensibilities.

And while it's clear I disagree with you, CP3S, on a number of issues in this topic, I will let Warbler address your comments directed at him.  As for jerk churches, the Westboro Baptist Church protest a number of things, such as gays, war, various religions (i.e. Catholicism, Islam, Judaism, and often protest at the funerals of gays and military personnel.  As a Mormon, I feel somewhat left out ;)  We haven't gotten a whole lot of attention from them, it seems.  So indeed, these are the jerks you were referring to.

So the Spielberg movie Lincoln comes out today.  I'm very interested.

I like the part where Luke blows up the Death Star with an accurate shot of proton torpedoes while guided by the Force! ;)

Well that does it!  You were right all along! Arg! Don't you hate it when you argue with yourself and prove yourself wrong on a technical detail?! ;)

I think he bases it on the fact that there is only one human, a Scotsman to be precise, and that every other proxy is in fact that Scot.  If you identify him as having a soul, then logically all of his appendage bodies have souls as well.

Y?

FOR GREAT JUSTICE.

Did I ever say "every single moral"?  I know I've written a lot on the topic, but if you look carefully at previous posts yesterday and today I did point out that based on the common moral that we should protect the rights of minorities, we do impose laws that protect their rights.  But again, those laws are based on what?  A moral that the majority of our society holds to.  There are societies that do not hold that same moral belief in general, and thus do not have laws in place to protect those minorites (i.e. Saudi Arabia).  I agree, these things seem self-evident to us.  I do believe we should protect minorities.  But a minority believes that survival of the fittest means we should eliminate"social undesirables."  We can protect some of the rights of that minority, including their right to believe whatever idiotic crap they subscribe to.  But we don't allow them to actually live out their version of right and wrong.

It amazes me that I, among the most openly religious on this site, am the one arguing for the subjectivity of morality, while CP3S and Bingowings and others seem stuck on the idea that we don't impose morals on others, yet are clinging to their own presumptive interpretation of morality themselves.

Can't wait to see what happens to this thread when the entire thing is quoted.

Bingowings said:

darth_ender said:

Where did I ever say anything about a universally-held moral precept?  I believe I have stated several times in this thread and in the politics thread that morals are what a society determines, either based on a belief that a Divine Being has deemed them as such, or because of the idea that it is "functional to society" or "not functional to society."  The concept of "Thou shalt not kill" has become a universal law in all nations, with exceptions that differ based on the various societies' understandings.  Nevertheless, it is based on a moral.  But if we truly believe that life should be preserved as often as possible, then we should not limit that belief simply because of another person's "right to choose."  Every other exception is based on a much more extreme and rare set of circumstances.

What is functional to society is clearly too loose a rule to devise a legal system.  A society could conceivably function with almost no laws at all, though drastically changing to such a society would be destabilizing.  But because of morals that much (not necessarily all) of that society holds, we devise laws to protect them.  Societies we see today as terribly immoral were once quite stable.  But as we see certain other things as right, we choose to reject their systems and devise our own based on our own principles.  A majority of my society feels that abortion is wrong in some or all cases.  But in the name of "not imposing morality on others," a minority gets to kill literally millions of children every year.

And ultimately what is the reasoning? in literally over 90% of the cases, it is a reason easily bundled under the heading "INCONVENIENCE."

If you are claiming that laws are morals they have to be based on universal precepts or they wouldn't get through the selection process, someone would throw them out or throw the people throwing them in out (probably from a high window).

Once you drop the word "universal" from both this and your last quote, you may actually begin to understand what I'm talking about.  I'm not saying anything, not a single solitary thing about any sort of universal moral determining our laws.  I am saying that our laws are based on a general consensus of a particular society, meaning that in that society there are those who disagree, and other societies define their morals differently.  Our laws are based upon our society's general consensus.

As for a society functioning without almost no laws...er... how?

Anarchists believe that self-rule is the only law we need.  Many societies have had few laws in place.  I wish I could find you a specific example, but at the moment I can't, but in any case there is a sort of tribal government in Africa where the only law is judgment on an individual basis, with no firm laws in place.  The more complex the society, the more complex the needed law system.  But many societies have functioned without law in the past.

A society is defined by rules, no rules no club to join.

What societies do we see as immoral and formally stable, show your workings?

Immoral according to our standards, first off.  Let's see.  Well, the British Empire and the United States of America, for starters, with their involvement in the slave trade (I bring those up because of our citizenship in each, not to excuse the many other guilty nations).  Ancient empires such as China, Rome, Ottoman, Inca, Aztec, where they would conquer peoples, kill all the men, rape the women.  In some cases they would sacrifice them and eat their flesh.  Each felt they had the right to rule over as much land and as many people as possible.  European feudalism has thrived at the great expense of lower classes of people.  The caste system of India, deeply intertwined with their religion prevailed for years and years, and though now officially abolished, it remains present in the minds of many.  Many modern Islamic societies involve the oppression of women, the execution of heretics and homosexuals, the suppression of free information.  All these societies have demonstrating stability in spite of their disagreement with us on morality.

Functionally it would be insane to make abortion illegal.

You would have a black market for them which would be as safe as the black market for hard drugs and dangerous sex.

So because people are prone to do something wrong, we should simply legalize it in all cases?  I still am opposed to illegal drug use, no matter how difficult the fight.  Regardless of the extent of illegal immigration, I oppose it.  Even if there is a massive black market for illegal weapons, I still support legislation against it.  Even if abortions still go forward, they would be reduced, the guilty more responsible for their choices, and the nation as a whole would be fighting to preserve life.  The fight for right is always hard, but that doesn't make it not worth fighting in my mind.

You would have a boom in the parent-less child share of the population which would have to be paid for and you would have to relax the standards for adoption to reduce the burden on the state.

Adoption is a ridiculously expensive and difficult process, as my older sister can attest (I'm really full of familial references in this topic).  The standards might not need to be relaxed, but I'm confident the process can be greatly streamlined and the cost lowered.  There are literally hundreds of thousands of families in this country alone, eager to adopt, but struggling to obtain a child.

The state make lousy parents and the extra abandoned children will be proportionally less functional than the people that made them and children cost money, meaning that even with extra children born to stable family units there will be less free capital in society to pay for improvements to the general standard of living.

People don't stop having sex when you legislate around the act.

Somehow people forget the benefit of education at reducing pregnancies.  If we more effectively educated people about how to avoid pregnancy, this might not be such a problem.  Furthermore, if people were held to a greater level of responsibility (the future mothers and fathers), they might make wiser decisions when it came to sex.  As you kindly demonstrated yesterday, stricter abortion laws than I'm advocating exist in Ireland.  Yet Ireland has been voted the best or among the best countries throughout the past several years.  How strange!  Their economy has clearly not been shattered by their strict abortion laws.

Thousands of years of laws about homosexuality proves this.

Your moral concern boils down to the same sort of focus of empathy that I have walking past McDonalds.

I can't prove my feelings of empathy with animals, I can't stop Warb gleefully killing mice. I can't prevent a massive multi-billion dollar meat industry from chewing up the world's resources for the sake of consumerism.

If you feel something is morally right, I encourage you to advocate for it.  Many, many people stand up for ethical treatment of animals.  They have successfully lobbied for the passage of several laws regarding their treatment, and ultimately would like to see more, I'm sure.  However, society as a whole has not adopted their level of morality, and thus McDonald's still slaughters cows and chickens for the enjoyment of millions.  But if you managed to convince the majority of the country (yours or mine) that such should not be the case, I say in all seriousness, "More power to you."  You have the right to impose that moral on those who disagree, as long as most of society does agree.

You can't prove a fetus is a human being with a soul.

But you can see that forcing society to face the full consequences of unprotected sex of some of it's members when we are an industrialised technological society is not going to be an easy sell, right?

A tough sell?  Obviously.  Is my fight pointless?  I am convinced it is not.

Bottom line: morals are not universal.  They are generally held and thus imposed in law in various societies.  I have every right to advocate for the rights of over 1,000,000 American children per year (not to mention the other 40,000,000 children elsewhere in the world).  

Great.  Juuuust great.  Now I'm resorting to block quoting with you.  Arg! ;)

Where did I ever say anything about a universally-held moral precept?  I believe I have stated several times in this thread and in the politics thread that morals are what a society determines, either based on a belief that a Divine Being has deemed them as such, or because of the idea that it is "functional to society" or "not functional to society."  The concept of "Thou shalt not kill" has become a universal law in all nations, with exceptions that differ based on the various societies' understandings.  Nevertheless, it is based on a moral.  But if we truly believe that life should be preserved as often as possible, then we should not limit that belief simply because of another person's "right to choose."  Every other exception is based on a much more extreme and rare set of circumstances.

What is functional to society is clearly too loose a rule to devise a legal system.  A society could conceivably function with almost no laws at all, though drastically changing to such a society would be destabilizing.  But because of morals that much (not necessarily all) of that society holds, we devise laws to protect them.  Societies we see today as terribly immoral were once quite stable.  But as we see certain other things as right, we choose to reject their systems and devise our own based on our own principles.  A majority of my society feels that abortion is wrong in some or all cases.  But in the name of "not imposing morality on others," a minority gets to kill literally millions of children every year.

And ultimately what is the reasoning? in literally over 90% of the cases, it is a reason easily bundled under the heading "INCONVENIENCE."

You find me a law that is not rooted in a moral/ethical belief, and I'll consider buying into your point.

I still don't understand your distinction between ethics and morals.  The two terms are often used interchangeably, and the only distinction I've heard is when it comes to an establishment, such as the workplace, with a defined code of conduct which in itself is based upon some moral intent, such as the Hippocratic oath for doctors, an ethical code of conduct that doctors swear to which may at times may disagree with their personal convictions, but nevertheless guides their behavior when wearing their professional hat.

Look, even the laws that provide protection for minority-held beliefs stem from the moral concept that a majority should not impose its moral viewpoint on a minority.

Couldn't you say the same for every moral conviction.  But we must impose or morals on others at times.  That's what laws are.

"If you are so against slavery, don't buy a slave."

You see, it's not so simple as that either.

As for vasectomies and such, I am perfectly happy to allow someone to choose any method to avoid pregnancy rather than terminating the actual life that has since been created.  I am completely for the father being required to take far more responsibility with regards to the child after birth.  I am okay with more options being provided for mothers and the adoption process becoming more streamlined.

And I'm married and get laid plenty.  If we get pregnant now, it would economically be very difficult for us.  But neither of us would consider our lives ruined, and certainly wouldn't consider ruining the child's life an option to ease our lot.

@CP3S...No worries.  Frankly, I enjoy debating you as long as we haven't gotten on each other's nerves too much.  You argue well, and it takes a lot of thought to try to rebut your ideas :)  But I do feel that the philosophy and practicality of this situation is so intertwined that to separate them would oversimplify a supremely important issue.  Human life is at stake, so I consider all the moral implications.

If I may take you on a personal anecdotal tangent, I remember years ago when I was still in high school (putting it between '96 and 2000--I can't remember when exactly), I was speaking with my older brother on this very topic, but from a much more simplistic angle.  He told me, "You know darth (that's my real name, of course ;), I have a professor that told me, 'You don't really know how right something is until you've tried argued for the opposite point of view.'"  I have taken that to heart and as my morals, sensibilities, and debating skills have grown, I've really done that with virtually all my moral views.  This is why I grew up in a home with a very conservative home and in a dogmatic church, yet I have developed a moral compass I'm very proud to call my own, with moderately conservative views, but often leaning liberal on a number of topics.  Virtually everything taken to one extreme or the other is dangerous and does not consider all variables.  I try to give a listening ear to different viewpoints and I try to be open to when I am wrong, even here.  I have considered all my views and argued with myself from an opposite perspective, and interestingly I discovered that while I have moderated nearly all my views, I simply find it unacceptable to do so with abortion.

Bingowings said:

Yeah but in this case the hospital staff were reading life from the unborn fetus and hadn't correctly accessed the risk to the mother.

They thought the child might live and the mother wouldn't die.

In the end they both died, the mother in pain.

That's not how I understand it, thought I could be wrong.  The hospital staff were required to keep the child alive if the fetus's heart is still beating, regardless of risk to the mother.  The policy is that the mother and child have an equal right to life.  Because they failed to take into account the health of the mother, both died.

Warbler addressed many of the same issues in the same way I would have, but I'll have my go at it as well.

CP3S said:

Warbler said:

CP3S said:

 

If everyone would just mind their own business on matters like this, life would be so much more enjoyable.

that's right, lets mind are own business . . . and pay no attention to that doctor murdering a child behind that curtain.

The definition of "murder" is technically an unlawful killing. Abortion is legal, this is not murder.

Exactly as Warbler said: just because it is permitted by law does not make it right.  I still don't define it as murder because I believe ignorantly killing someone to be different from doing so knowingly.  That does not make it less wrong to me, but rather makes the killer less culpable.

What does it hurt you, living in New Jersey, if some woman in California decides to terminate her pregnancy? The answer: not at all whatsoever. You are entirely unaffected, 100%.

If someone were to kill you, living in Tennessee (is that right?), what would it affect me, living in AZ?  I'd wonder why you never came around the site, but I wouldn't shed a single tear for your passing.  I wouldn't even know.

Allowing things like murder and rape to go without punishment or consequences would create anarchy. Obviously, I don't want to have to worry about being picked off by someone every time I step out my door because he might think my car is nice or that the girl I am with is pretty and he wants them for himself. Nobody does. It'd make life miserable and society would crumble.

If anarchy is the only motive for preserving life, then lets take things to an opposite extreme, as you chose to do so later in your quote.  According to atheistic thought, humans are merely an anomalous byproduct of billions of years of this universe's existence and infinite cycles of previous universes.  What do we care if we snuff ourselves out?  We have proven to be nothing more than a destructive force of nature.  Ultimately our universe will end anyway.  What does it matter if we all kill each other sooner or later?

And rape was not such a strange thing in past centuries.  The women of conquered peoples were raped all the time.  Women were often in danger of being raped even by their own peoples, and if they were, it was not a crime against the woman but rather against her man.  And yet ancient cultures who ascribed to these views and laws were not in a state of anarchy.

My point to this is that even these things that we see as awful by our modern lenses were not always seen as such or may not always be seen as such.  All morals are either purely subjective (if you believe that humans are the ultimate intelligence) or dependent on a higher being.

Again, what does some aborted fetus that you never even knew existed do to harm you or society or anyone else in this country other than the two people who conceived it? Again, nada. All those abortion that took place this very day, this week, and the past month, they had nothing to do with you and they didn't harm you. They don't effect your life in anyway.

According to WikiAnswers, 150,000 people died today.  Not one of them affected my life in any way.  Clearly it does me no harm.  Sure, maybe they hurt others, but is a person's life's value measured by how many others are hurt by his/her death?  Then Kim Jong-Il was a far more valuable person than you or I.  Then the poor old man who died in his home a few years back and was not even discovered for over a year was no better than a bunch of unformed cells with human DNA.

Or.....

The value of human life is not dependent on how much that life affects me.

It is a little sad a potential person was snuffed out, they could have gone onto be someone awesome, so it goes. But if you are going to use that argument, I suppose you could take it just a modicum farther and say that it is truly a shame about all those potential pregnancies that would go on to produce potential people if it weren't for condoms and other forms of birth control.

Well, I'm glad it's a little sad.  But there is clearly a great deal of difference between an unfertilized ovum or a million sperm dying in a condom.  An embryo is genetically human.  It is self-replicating.  It is human life.  It will continue to develop.  On its present course it will continue to develop into a an adult, continuing to contribute to the human gene pool, become a member of society, and live a full individual life.  It has not yet gained sentience, but then, neither has a month-old child.  It has not yet accrued memories, but then, do memories grant human rights?  Many have lost memories or are long-term comas and cannot produce new memories?  Are their lives forfeit?

It is all about morality and forcing that morality on others. You think abortion is wrong, and therefore you don't want anybody to be able to do it... Well, that is unless it is done in away that you approve of, of course, such as in the instances of rape. It is totally the wrongful murder of an innocent baby, unless his daddy was a rapist, then it's cool if you want to kill the little tike. 

As I've argued in the politics thread and I repeat here, any law we hold, any societal norm, heck, even your statement that we should not impose our morals on others is, in fact, a real or attempted imposition of someone's morals on others, including those who may not agree.  Take many Muslims in the Middle East who in fact feel morally obligated to 'share' their moral view with the rest of the world.  And just look at any law.  With perhaps rare exceptions, most of those laws were put in place because a sizable portion of society determined that something was immoral, and because others who either did not find it immoral or else did not think that moral applied to them, a law was created to make illegal the violation of that societal moral.  Forgery is morally wrong, so we created a law to protect others, even though some people don't see it as wrong or personally applicable.  Identity theft is wrong.  Killing is wrong.  This is why we set up these laws.

Half of our society think abortion should only be legal in some circumstances and another 5th in no circumstances.  Yet the minority (one third) has in fact imposed their view that we must accept all abortions if the pregnant mother sees fit instead of protecting a defenseless life.

Whichever way we choose to go, pro-life or pro-choice, someone is imposing their morality on someone else.  The societal morals that we are potentially infringing upon are either "consciously and prematurely ending a human life" or "imposing your moral viewpoint on someone else."  All societies have determined one to be wrong in most cases.  All societies have determined the other to be necessary every time they formulate new laws.  Guess which side I joined with.

 

so you believe that the fetus is human life, yet you are willing to allow women to decide to kill them?

Yup.

Hey!  I'm pro-choice too.  I believe everyone has the right to choose to have sex, which is inherently and inseparably tied to reproduction.  Thus, they have made the choice to take a risk at getting pregnant.  They made a choice that affected their body.  But I don't believe they have to choice to destroy another body, even if that body is forming inside their own.

CP3S said:

snuffing that out should not be something taken lightly.

Sadly, under a pro-choice banner, it usually is.

Just like many argued that slavery was in fact not immoral because slaves were not full-fledged humans in their eyes (obviously the Secession thread is springing up in my thought processes), and just because the Northerners were not affected by the abuse of slaves in the South, and just because slave owners felt that they had the right to choose to do whatever they wished with the sub-human lives over which they had control, that did not make the fight of the abolitionists, many of whom had probably never even seen a black person in all their life, from fighting for the rights of a people who were powerless to do anything about their plight on their own.

Even if an abortion affects no one else, it does in fact affect one person at a minimum.  Sadly, that someone will never live to an age where he/she can complain about it, and because you never hear that complaint, "it doesn't affect [anyone]."  Like an abolitionist, I will fight for the rights of the powerless, silent victims that I've never met.

With Obama being elected, our plans were set back...for the moment!  But our secret meetings and behind the curtain string-pulling will ultimately lead to WORLD DOMINATION!!!!!   HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

^Exactly.  I again admit I am somewhat ignorant on the topic, but those who claim it was only this or purely that are oversimplifying the issue--a very human trait that we do with nearly everything.  It is easily explainable by both issues.  A great deal of tension existed between the North and the South.  Much of this revolved around slavery, but it also revolved around the understanding of loyalty to the federal or state governments.  Prior to the Civil War, most citizens' loyalties was greater to their state than their nation.  Considering the tensions, and considering that the South wanted to practice a lifestyle they felt was hindered by the North, they withdrew.  I heard the analogy of being part of a club.  If you found that your interests were not served by the club, you withdraw.  That was seen as acceptable.  Lincoln fought the Civil War to preserve the Union, and opportunely justified to the whole country the evils of slavery and illegalized it completely.

Again, slavery led to secession.  The war was fought to preserve.  With the war came the end of slavery for all states.  And as was pointed out before, it was also an economic issue, because slaves were indeed an important economic commodity, and the end of slavery devastated the Southern economy--imagine the loss of all that free labor, the drastic changes in the trade when a resource became illegal.  I don't mean to demean those of African decent by referring to them as "commodities" and such, but My point is that indeed, to those who saw them as less than human, it was a hard thing to give up.  The War was not just about one thing or another.  It was a complex issue with slavery and unity at the heart of it.

Tyrphanax said:

Why did you destroy CP3S' childhood, D_E?

Why?

I didn't do it alone.  We're a worldwide conspiracy...didn't ya hear? ;)

Bingowings said:

More horror to zap your will to live.

Which is why I do believe that it is the mother's choice when her life is at risk.  This woman's life was at risk.  She should have had the choice.  And you'll notice that the child died too, meaning that in this case, as is usually the case when allowing the mother to live, you are choosing between the loss of one life and the loss of two.  Obviously you will save the one if you can.

Wonderful news!  I recently developed my interest in this project.  Best of luck!