Posts by inrainbows

A god that DID pre-exist this Universe and that WAS independent of our space-time and that DID not have an origin would be able to prove itself and would be as supernatural. Of course, no such god has ever proved itself, hiding behind ineffability (Shaman talk for "can't answer that").

I have no problem with assigning your god the same probability of existence as a celestial tea-cup.

Ah, but what if I believe in the IDEA of 'god'? Maybe that 'god' is what 'connects' people? That is is nothing other than a consequence of sentient being aware of themselves and will have developed as an idea wherever creatures become sentient and realise that there are shadows... everywhere... and that you can't see what is in shadows but if you're a thinking creature you can IMAGINE it.

Such a defuse entity is not even an entity, it is a force, and it might not even be a measurable one outside of the mind of those that see things that way. God as a paradigm.

But as it's only possible proof is in the thoughts of the person holding such a belief, unless the person holdin such a belief is lying about having such a belief, then they have a personally provable god that is not supernatural, as the only proof required is thought. Cogito ergo theos summae - "I think therefore god is" (I think, my Latin is dreadful).

Of course, they cannot prove it to others but as the only proof needed for another person is the acceptence that someone could indeed have such an idea, a god of that description is far more provable than the normal gamut of re-hashed stone age monster skymen or modernistic illustrations of the unprovability of such old-fashioned ideas.

It's like the idea of a soul. I think this is based on dreaming. A soul is a pretty reasonable supposition to explain dreaming to early man. Therefore any sentient ctreatures that have evolved and experience any state like dreaming will have developed a similar idea to explain it.

We are the story tellers. Dolphins and chimps might be smart, but I'm not convinced they are story tellers. And having developed the ability to tell stories (probably because it wooed the ladies), and developed it (as those with the gift of the gab got laid more often), it is natural we came up with stories to explain things... even if they didn't need explaining.

Ideas of god and souls are natural concequences of creative story telling and dreams. They evolved with us. As they were never ever really anything other than ideas, of course they exist.

108

Athiest what do you believe?

by real one in

jw
friends

im just wondering because it seems like you have no hope.

please set me straight.

inrainbows

Gladioli

A posse ad esse non valet consequentia.

101

The Death Penalty? What do you think?

by Country Girl in

jw
friends

i, as most persons, think a sexual assault of a child is a very horrible thing.

like most parents, i would want to put the person to death that assaulted my child in that way, but is that just?

i'm two ways about it: i feel for the child, and the child's family; but at the same time i am wondering if it is deserving of death?

inrainbows

burn

All those are arbitrary! Human life begins at conception, of this there can be no doubt and there is none. You want to arbitrarily define when "personhood" begins and allow state-sanctioned murder before that point. So what is your line?

Simply repeating yourself does not mean you have a good point. A human life can be a fertilised gamate OR a brain-dead adult kept respirating through mechanical means. Some people think wearing a condom is wrong because they believe that fertilisation is an arbitary point. FLDS believe you should knock up a girl as soon as she menstrates as they believe anything else is an ungodly waste of fertility and potential little cultlings. So YOU have as arbitary line in the view of some people as I may have in yours. And yet I have a single valid fact; a few grams of brain a human individual with personality does not make. You have no facts, only supersticion.

You can BELIEVE that these two examples (or just one of them) should be protected the same way as a new-born baby or adult or 24 week-old fetus. This means that you personally should not switch of relative's life-support if they are brain dead or get an abortion.

But as you cannot PROVE that the first two examples are the same as the latter three examples in any of the ways that make a human life an individual person (i.e. having a brain capable of functioning and supporting a personality), you cannot in a secular society force your quasi-religiousn supersticious beliefs on others.

Prove to me the point in time it becomes a person and the point in time before which it is not murder.

It can be stated with assurance that before 16 weeks a fetus is not a person as it doesn't have the required hardware to run the software of personality. That's the entire point I am making about the size of a foetal brain at that stage of gestation. Please prove me wrong; show that a few grams of brain can sustain a human personality.

Between then and 24 weeks there is fairly rapid growth, especially after 20 weeks. For me, in a well-ordered medical system (which the US has not got) most abortions can take place before 16 weeks and are of no ethical concequence. I think the figure is between 80 and 90% in Europe. After 20 weeks for me the grey is too grey, and unless we were dealing with a baby with profound disablement that would only live with heroic modern medical measures, abortion would be wrong. I see little moral high-ground in condemning a child to short painful life over termination. Given the coice between a clean death and a long-drawn out painful death most adults choose a clean death, so why should we allow a different standard for our children?

You are driving down the road, you see a large trench coat draped on the road and an unknown mass underneath it. Is it a person under there? Or a pile of garbage? Or something else? You can't know. Would you drive over the trench coat?

That large mass might be a live adult with an individual personality. A crisp packet could conceal a 16 week-old foetus. Do you swerve for crisp packets? I don't, but I would for a trenchcoat or even a small anorak. Bad example. Next.

You are hunting, you see a bush move and rustle, you do not know what is in the bush. Is it an animal you are hunting that is in the bush? Or a human person? Is it moral to shoot into the bush without knowing?

Legally speaking it would be manslaughter (term varies in different legal systems if you shot the bush without knowing and killed a live adult with an individual personality. A 16 week-old foetus would not be walking in the woods without it mother, and it is not manslaughter to abort a 16 week-old foetus as it is not held to be equivalent to a live adult with an individual personality. Bad example, next

When in doubt, CHOOSE LIFE.

Like I say, think of that next time you advocate the destruction of a live adult with an individual personality.

Now, you'all can go on saying "I think judicial killing is okay", and refusing to think about the points made re. the US being like a totalitarian state with no respect for human rights as far as execution goes. The United Shame of America...

Why not go the next step and introduce the death bus? This is how the Chinese do it. Given the thousands of people on death row you'll need to order a fleet of them.

Vengence is not justice. Killing people is wrong. People who stay in prison don't reoffend. Countries without death penalties do not suffer massive murder rates. It's time to change. But unfortunately you'all too conditioned (just like the 78% of Germans in 1948 who opposed the abolition of the death penalty) to accept that. Will you accept that? No, or course not, no more than a Dubbie can accept they might be wrong due to their conditioning.

If you had a decent arguement for America persistenting in the death penalty someone would have made it at somepoint. Deterent; no. Cost, no. Justice, hell no. All you keep on saying is you THINK it's right.

Now, can you remember another time you THOUGHT you were right and avoided arguments that showed you weren't with facile reasoning, thought stopping and cognitive dissonance?

Turn and face the strange...

108

Athiest what do you believe?

by real one in

jw
friends

im just wondering because it seems like you have no hope.

please set me straight.

inrainbows

Caedes

If you wish to use different labels then you really ought to go on to define those labels, or perhaps we are all supposed to use our psychic powers to ascertain your meaning.

Ah, but surely you'd have to prove those psychic powers, eh?

For the sake of ~~argument~~ discusssion a 'strong' theos would be an externalised supernatural entity capable of action, with a personality and the possibility of proof.

A 'weak' theos could be anything from a non-supernatural (i.e. evolved entity) given supernatural explanation to an idea, that may or may not be externalised and/or subject to proof.

Perhaps you could give an example of the sort of nonsense a weak atheist ought to believe in.

Someone not really belieiving in Bible god but conceeding that it might exist would have to do the same to Qu'ran god, or indeed Norse pantheon gods, and having gone that far is not far removed from conceeding the possible existence of other anthropological super-natural projections. You can easily get from Bible god to the whole tooth fairy/spaghetti monster/invisable pink unicorn gamut and not actually change levels of demonstrable proof.

real one

Sorry, but to be blunt it's impossible to have a serious discussion with you. You remain blissfully ignorant (i.e., not stupid but deliberately uninformed) of the Bible's manifest factual inaccuracies and presuppose anything it says is true. At the same time you discount similar assertions with similar levels of proof in other holy books.

It is like discussing the existence of fairies with someone who bases their beliefs on 'My Big Book of Fairies', who refuses to look at other books which would show that book is a collection of stories, and who at the same time insists that the Boogieman doesn't exist even though there are other books about him.

Me; No one has ever seen a fairy.

Fairy Believer; Ah, but on page 47 MBBoF says that Peter Pan flew with the aid of fairy dust provided by Tinkerbell.

Feel happy in your beliefs by all means, but realise they are as out of step with provability as those of someone in a loin cloth and a bone through their nose worshipping a rock. Hell, no; they can prove the rock exists...

108

Athiest what do you believe?

by real one in

jw
friends

im just wondering because it seems like you have no hope.

please set me straight.

inrainbows

Atheist is a dumb label.

I can only answer it given a sufficient level of commonality between my concept of theos and that of the person asking the question.

All this ‘are you an atheist?’, ‘what do atheists believe?’ business is putting the cart before the horse.
To have a meaningful discussion defining theos is the starting point.

I am pretty sure by your definition real one, I am, but by my own I am not.

You see it’s not really a question of ‘weak atheist’ and ‘strong atheist’ (a classic but dumb division as the reasons given by ‘weak atheists’ for not being ‘strong atheists’ should normally have them believing in the possibility of all sorts of nonsense they don’t give a second thought to.

It’s a question of ‘weak theos’ or ‘strong theos’

101

The Death Penalty? What do you think?

by Country Girl in

jw
friends

i, as most persons, think a sexual assault of a child is a very horrible thing.

like most parents, i would want to put the person to death that assaulted my child in that way, but is that just?

i'm two ways about it: i feel for the child, and the child's family; but at the same time i am wondering if it is deserving of death?

inrainbows

burn

Yes. To draw a line at "rodent size brain" and say "smaller than this not human, larger than this, human" is arbitrary and artificial. The brain's development is a continuum from birth to death.

Oh, the rodent brain size thing is what's called 'an example'. A technical term I know, sorry if it's confusing. I could have chosen cats, horses, cows. None of them are 'people', except to someone with an emotional investment in them.

And yes, as my whole argument hinges around a feotal brain being yay big at a certain point and getting bigger, you stating the same is kinds superflouous. It just points out your 'magical thinking' (that an insy-weeeny dot of brain matter can be regarded the same as, say, a newly born baby) is unsustainable outside of a paradigm where someone holds emotions or quasi-religoious supersticion as equal to scientific fact.

Human life begins at conception. It is unique and individuated.

Yes, on a genetic basis, but genes do not make living human tissue something worthy of the same rights and privelges as, say, a newly born baby.

You really seem to fail to comprehend this simple fact.

Of course, you're entitled to a contray opinion. To believe that some form of magic makes a fertilised egg cell the same as a new born baby in terms of its rights. That you can approve of killing a fully developed adult for breaking laws even when you say 'To destroy a human is murder'. You are entitled to any poorly thought-out, inconsistent, unsustainable quasi-religious, judicially vindicitive argument you want.

When in doubt, CHOOSE LIFE.

Remember that next time you advocate the death penalty.

Gladioli

Omne ignotum pro magnifico est, cloaca sanis

Gregor

I love your argument of 'it's the law in our country, deal with it'. Same sort of argument enjoyed by supporters of Sharia law and Facism.

Isn't it great how all you 'yay, let's kill people and call it law' advocates don't dare go near the point I've made about how out-of-step the US is with (other?) civilised Western democracies, and how in-step they are with totalitarian reigiemes?

I know it must make you brain hurt; cognotive dissonance does that. But don't you feel the least bit embaressed not even trying to defend your country? Of ignoring an uncomfortable fact that doesn't fit in with your world view?

You got out of a cult for Pete's sake, don't stop the critical thinking now.

101

The Death Penalty? What do you think?

by Country Girl in

jw
friends

i, as most persons, think a sexual assault of a child is a very horrible thing.

like most parents, i would want to put the person to death that assaulted my child in that way, but is that just?

i'm two ways about it: i feel for the child, and the child's family; but at the same time i am wondering if it is deserving of death?

inrainbows

Burn the ships

Yes, you made a simplistic MISREPRESENTATION of what I said.

I am glad we can at least agree on half of that even if you don't have the maturity to apolgise for making a mistake and misrepresenting me.

It's okay, I forgive you.

And you are the person responsible for how you get treated, don't blame me.

Is human life tied to how much brain matter we have? Is an Einstein more human than I?

Nope, as there's not that much difference in brain matter. Both you and Einstein are individuals, i.e. you are distinct persons due to your own unique level and character of neurological complexity and upbringing (hardware and software if you like).

Once again, you say something I didn't. I said something with the same or less brain mass as a rodent can't be considered an individual.

Do you disagree with this?

I know yes and no answers to this underscore the weakness of your argument, and as an intelligent person you realise this at least on some level and will probably therefore giving a straight question a straight answer.

Is humanness an agglomeration of fat and neurons?

Paris Hilton shows this not to be true. Seriously, no, it is the 'software' that can be run by an agglomeration of fat and neurons of sufficient size to sustain that level of complexity provided it not suffered damage to cause a permanent crash in the ‘software’.

I don't need to prove the size of the brain of a foetus.

No, there's plenty of independently verifiable facts to show my point is true, you don't need to prove anything. Besides, you're argument is based on superstition even if you don't see it that way. You have a belief in some form of magic that makes a foetus with grams of brain matter the same as a baby with a brain hundreds of times larger. The weight of a foetal brain won't remove this superstitious belief.

A foetus of the gestational age I talking about does not have the hardware to run the ‘software’ to have a personality. It is a tabla rasa, albeit one smaller than a postage stamp.

That is a misdirection. A foetus is human.

Never said it wasn't old chap, so your claim of misdirection is curious given your level of evasion and misrepresentation.

To destroy it is to murder.
To destroy a human is murder.

Yes, I agree. So you advocate the murder of humans - by definition, in your own words. That was easy. Of course, your definiton of human is 'live tissue with H. sapiens DNA', whereas mine is slightly more meaningful as it requires the live tissue with H. sapiens DNA to have personality, i.e. that which makes us an individual human being.

And the fact a brain-dead woman can be used as an incubator means nothing in this discussion, however miraculous it was to the family.

Okay, so To use your brain matter argument as an ethical basis would allow me to euthanize the mentally handicapped.

Nope. Because even the mentally handicapped are massively neurologically complex and have personalities. Their brains are significantly larger than those of squirrels. Again, you misunderstand or misrepresent what I said.

If there is no person in a living hunk of human flesh, regardless of size - either due to cessation of brain activity or to brain activity of sufficient complexity to be classed in the same category as a born human never having started, then stopping the that hunk of human flesh living is not an ethical problem as you are not destroying a personality or individual in any sense of the word that has meaning.

I think what you have here Burn, is a discussion where you end up in two posts showing how poorly thought out your position is, as you show you advocate the murder of humans by the contradictions in your own argument, even in your own words. My position is actually consistent and sustainable.

Killing people is wrong because killing people is wrong.

Brain-dead humans are not people other than in the emotional standing they have in the minds of those who knew them, as what made them a person has gone. Unborn humans with such undeveloped brains that they haven't developed any capacity for a personality are not people, other than in the emotional standing they might have in the minds of some people.

Mentally handicapped people are people. Murderers and paedophiles are people.

Of course, as I said at the outset, I really don't expect you to change your mind. Even one person changing their mind on a thread like this is a miracle and a credit to them.

101

The Death Penalty? What do you think?

by Country Girl in

jw
friends

i, as most persons, think a sexual assault of a child is a very horrible thing.

like most parents, i would want to put the person to death that assaulted my child in that way, but is that just?

i'm two ways about it: i feel for the child, and the child's family; but at the same time i am wondering if it is deserving of death?

inrainbows

Burn the ships

"blahblahblahblahblahblahreligionbadblahblahblahblahblahblah"
"blahblahblahblahblahblahnoreligiongoodblahblahblahblahblahblah"

You are so articulate...

Act like a child in this discussion and be treated like one.

If I have unfairly characterised anything, please point it out.

You HAVE unfairly characterised my argument.

First of all I am not making any argument concerning belief in god.

I am breaking the link between people's various claims at having the 'right' religion (or 'right' enough to kill someone on a belief basis) and 'god'.

Surely we have all learned enough not to make foolish claims that we or our opinions can represent god?

Religion (any religion) is the claim that a set of opinions (ultimately a person's opinions even if they merely parrot those of their religion) represents god.

That claim is unprovable and the path down which madness lies

Or are people here claiming to have god's truth? If so, please prove it. Oh you can't. Yawn.

The difference between religous cultures and secular cultures is that secular cultures (as far as modern democracies go) put the right of individuals before religious beliefs, and religious cultures don't. Which is why Islamic cultures treat women like chattel and America wobbles on the verge of abolishing abortion.

(Before anyone goes down the abortion 'an unborn child is a individual too', no, an unborn child of the age that any sensible person would advocate on-demand abortion for (say 16 weeks or under), is NOT an individual, it has less brain matter than a squirrel. If you disagree start a new thread entitled 'I have proof that a 16 week onl fetus has more brain matter than a squirrel' and provide the references. If you believe it is 'ensouled', see above comments about your religious beliefs being irrelevent to a secular culture and solve the problem by not having any abortions yourself)

Second, I am not talking purely about violent crime. Nazi Germany had a low rate of crime. So does Saudi Arabia. But would you call either culture peaceful? Holocaust and Sharia law are a little violent, don't you think. Judicial execution and government sanctioned torture are a little on the violent side too.

Now, as you have misrepresented what I said or did not have the courtesy to read what I said, or misunderstood it and leaped to false conclusions, maybe you will apologise like an adult and respond to what I actually said rather than making fallacious arguments.

Or maybe you'll carry on behaving like a kid. Keep up the blahblah routine by all means, it just makes me laugh.

Obviously it goes without saying y'all can support the death penalty. But the fact you don't even deal with the reasons why most Europeans think it is barbaric says more than all the words you use.

Strapping a human to a gurney and killing him with a syringe is just as bad as burying him up to his waist and throwing rocks at him. You might feel one is civilised, and the other isn't but you are in a minority.