i was reading through the terrisfight.org site and ran across the section "how you can help".
there is a petition to sign on the site to save terri.
here is the link to it for those who want to sign it.
this is exactly why i'm working on my living will right now.
I think saying you would want to die if in that state sometimes betrays an ignorance of the quality of life that people with severe disabilities can have.
honestly, aren't we all ignorant of that fact seeing as we personally are not currently facing these circumstances? it's a personal decision and we should make our's known before the situation even rears it's head.
if john couey had been executed or imprisoned for life the first time he was convicted
I obviously was not speaking in general terms *human society*. Societies that advocate violence and government-sanctioned killing haven't fared too well in history....I guess 'cause we don't chop off hands for thievery and stone people for other offenses, we are a rung above, eh?
sorry. i guess that wasn't 'obvious' to me.
which specific society were you speaking of? it seems to me that throughout history the most heavy handed governments usually prospered the most, lastest the longest and were the most difficult to overthrow. i'm certainly not advocating dictatorships or anything like that and i do think that the death penalty should not be used even as frequently as it is now, i'm just saying that i don't agree that capital punishment dooms societies.
agree to disagree.
jw parents will do just about anything to get their kids to be baptized as jws.
do they do this with the full knowledge that they will have to shun their children if they leave the organization?
is this a tactic that parents use to trap their children in the cult, basically using baptism as an form of insurance or guarantee that their kids will stay in the cult?.
But shouldn't someone who wants to follow God want to get baptized without a gift?
right. the gift was offered because my brother clearly DIDN'T want to join the witnesses and get baptized. that didn't matter to my parents. the outward act was more important than his true 'heart condition'.
jw parents will do just about anything to get their kids to be baptized as jws.
do they do this with the full knowledge that they will have to shun their children if they leave the organization?
is this a tactic that parents use to trap their children in the cult, basically using baptism as an form of insurance or guarantee that their kids will stay in the cult?.
my older brother was offered a car if he got baptized. no kidding. can't remember my parents' justification for this but i remember i was pissed off because i had already gotten baptized. if only i had held out a little longer...
oh, i should add that my brother didn't take the bait. strongest 17 year old ever.
i have found myself saying this more frequently lately.
do you want an end to this system, or do you want proof of god?
for myself, i am just broken hearted by the state of the world.
I've been reading through this and think that the consensus of this group is that;Christains are either deluded or lazy, and pass the buck for cleaning up the world to Jesus. And that if they did not believe that someone else was going to clean it up they'd do it themselves and it'd actually get done.
Is that correct?
generalizations are never accurate, so no.
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another tradgedy ... .
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4370617.stm.
i think it's interesting that this has turned into an "OUR country is much safer than YOUR country..." thread.
it's a terrible tragedy that these kids died but this is NOT a common occurance or a new phenomenon and is NOT isolated to one nationality. this is a heartbreaking situation, and i don't mean to sound callous, but this is not the end of society as we know it. it should be a wake up call to parents, but not a sign that society as a whole is in trouble.
i have found myself saying this more frequently lately.
do you want an end to this system, or do you want proof of god?
for myself, i am just broken hearted by the state of the world.
"from the faith that you release, comes an atheist's peace." -- bad religion
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another tradgedy ... .
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4370617.stm.
Then how do you explain the fact that here in the U.S. we have a murder rate on par with countries like Columbia, instead of places like the U.K or the Netherlands? I've never heard or read about some teenager going on a shooting rampage in in western europe. The last one I heard about was a few years back in Scotland where some adult male went beszerk and killed some little kids at a kindergarden class.In the past year I can list several shoots where multiple people were shot and killed.
hmm...and yet the same videogames and movies are available in all these other countries you mentioned as well...
in fact, many of our most popular (and disturbing) horror movies originated in japan (The Ring 1 and 2 and The Grudge, to name a couple) and the japanese versions of these movies are WAY more violent and disturbing than the american versions (trust me). some aren't even brought over because they are so violent (check out The Interview...i think that's the title).
the media's responsibility in these atrocities is not as clear cut as some would like to believe.
EDITTED TO ADD: do you know where the Grand Theft Auto vidoegames were developed? that's right. western europe.
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another tradgedy ... .
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4370617.stm.
I think blaming guns for this is kind of short sighted.
yeah...and you can add blaming movies, videogames, books, even parents. it's all of these things. but to completely single out any ONE of them is missing the point completely.
movies, videogames, books and guns are not the culprit. the guilty party is an unstable little boy and the family that let him down.
if john couey had been executed or imprisoned for life the first time he was convicted
bisous-
But a society that condones governmental killing of others is a society that is doomed. Yeah that death penalty is working out real well for us ... really putting an end to crime and all, eh?
there has always been executions throughout the history of human society and we're still around. it seems that capital punishment does not 'doom' society.
obviously, since a person would have to first commit a crime before the death penalty was even brought up, the point of capital punishment is not to 'put an end to crime'. i think it's in place to punish wrongdoers and prevent further crimes from being committed by the same (perhaps sick) individual. however, i agree that capital punishment must be saved for the most extreme cases. the problem with capital punishment is our current imperfect and corrupt legal system, not the punishment itself.
