You need to find someone who agrees with you, not someone who will do what you say.
Last thing she needs coming out of a controlling cult is a controlling life partner; you'd both be miserable.
Abaddon
JoinedPosts by Abaddon
-
23
Dating a Disfellowshipped Chick
by SonoftheTrinity ini'm this orthodox christian dating a disfellowshipped jw chick.
my priest says there's hope because she's been disfellowshipped and to give it 6 months.
one minute says she wants to become a citizen, the next minute i tell her that if she does that as an american i would expect her to salute the flag and especially vote if she naturalizes, and then she talks about going back to her own country!!.
-
-
-
9
How sinister is this? If you thought you knew how bad GM food was...
by Mr Ben inscary, very scary.
http://www.mercola.com/future-of-food.
.
-
-
Abaddon
This guy takes 50% fact and 50% unproven speculation and weaves it into a deceptive mix that is utterly convincing to most people without a science education.
So, yes, that is sinister. He could quite probably persuade people to do something really stupid, but only those who wouldn't realise they were doing something really stupid because they were deceived by his smooth patter; let's not forget that he is also making money out of sick people.
He distrusts vaccination (remind you of the JW's) and advocatesm people who believe in 'healing angels' describing one as a 'master energy therapist of energy psychology'.
I stopped listning to segment one of the video after two major deceptive or contradictory arguments were used in it.
Oh. I personally believe anyone moaning about GM food who owns a dog like a Peke that has been so distorted by 'genetic modification' it isn't fit to survive should be chained to a lampost and laughed at,
-
58
TRAGEDY ; YOUNG JW MOTHER DIES AFTER GIVING BIRTH
by stay young and beautiful inhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/shropshire/7078455.stm .
a young mother has died after giving birth to twins, following claims that she had refused a blood transfusion because of her faith.
jehovah's witness, emma gough, 22, from telford, shropshire, gave birth on 25 october.
-
-
Abaddon
tijkmo
how is this different from non jws who are prepared to sacrifice their lives for other causes they believe in...like their families or their country
Sometimes those (non-JW) people make an informed choice giving their life up. Because a JW is in a high control group, they cannot be said to have informed choice.
and if we choose to believe evolution then surely someone dying young only serves to reinforce the concept that he/she wasn't fit to survive.
If she were making a free choice then, yes, the level of stupid in the gene pool would decrease. But she was not making a free choice so she is not involved in anyform of selection, natural or otherwise.
Why do we care? Because we have compassion, for her, for the peope in Darfur, for Indian kids working in sweatshops making GAP clothes. We can imagine what it might be like to be in their shoes and wish they weren't either.
i'm still not convinced that blood saves any better than good medicine and blind luck.
Well, it would seem your medical knowledge is at the same level as your knowledge of evolutionary biology, so you not being convinced about it means nothing for a given value of nothing. It's like a carpenter saying he's not convinced about the value of GPS in marine navigation.
You're asking questions that have really obvious ommisions of reasoning or answers. Either you don't realise this or you're building up to making some hopefully clever point by being delibertely obtuse and emotive. If you really think you're not being emotive you need to think about the reaction your pattern of questions will cause; it's an emotive reaction. You see I don't think you're as dumb as you're making out... what's your point?
-
109
Pro-life arguments
by Skimmer ina thoughtful series of twenty six pro-life arguments specifically against abortion can be found at: .
http://www.all.org/article.php?id=10229 .
through (following down the links the left side of each page) .
-
-
Abaddon
BA
Your questions are easily answered:
Actually you didn't answer one of my questions; I even numbered them to make it easy (past experience ). So, if they're easy to answer, why not answer them BA?
As you seem so happy having a conversation with yourself I see no reason why you shouldn't continue, but hell, it's lunch time so having pointed out your failure to answer any of the questions asked I'll react to some of your post.
I stated that this debate is impossible to reach agreement on as it involves two different paradigms, and you prove this nicely.
You seem to suggest that the Bible prohibits abortion. As previously stated this is false. Please prove the Bible prohibts abortion or stop making this false claim.
You also totally fail to prove why your faith-based beliefs should be forced on other people against their will.
You also obviously feel that YOUR interpretation of what god wants is by definiton correct; remember, some people would condemn others for restricting the freedom of spermatozoa! Like I asked (and you ignored), why are you right and they wrong?
Religious totalitarianism as seen in Iran, as behind the Taliban, and as expressed by some people from comparatively civilised countries, wherein they hold their beliefs worthy of imposition on others, is somehing that cannot be tolerated in secular society.
If you want to live in a state where religous totalitarianism guides the legislature I suggest Iran or the Vatican City. At a streach, Kansas
Otherwise embrace the tolerance with which your beliefs are tolerated. No one will EVER force you to have an abortion! Extend others the same tolerance
Abaddon- who thinks signature lines like BA uses are pompous beyond belief
Emy
Emy, do I really have to define personality for you? Or are you just being argumentative? To make it clear (although I believe it is) I am not using personality as in the phrase 'he has no personality' when applied to a dull or uninteresting person. I am using it to mean an intelligent individual.
Remember, I am defending your right to an opinion, I am cherishing your right to express that opinion, and am merely asking that you do the same.
The whole point is that unless you can prove my opinion is based on false facts, I am as entitled to it as you are to yours. We are each entilted to our own opinion, we have to share facts.
Glad you pointed out that "It's a gift" I wouldn't have recognized it otherwise.
Well, yes, take a joke the wrong way, by all means. You use 'baby' to describe something with less brains than a rabbit, so playing with words is very tempting for everyone involved, eh?
BTW, "moral equivalency" is a term used to indicate that there is no right or wrong. They have become interchangable. Convicted killers are deserving of death, unborn babies deserve a chance to live. Right and wrong is clear and it is not interchangable. Gifted semantics is not needed.
To you, something with less neurons that a sparrow is equivalent to a new born baby, because it has human DNA and might (and I am just talking about the high chnces of early term pregnancies not reaching full term) one day be born.
I think new born babies and late term fetuses are worth far more than something with a nervous system smaller than what you get in your tissue when you blow your nose. I have to put it in such graphic terms to deal with the 'babification' of embryos and blastocysts. I see assigning human equivalancy to early term pregnancies is not supported by the facts, in fact believe it is only supportabe by sentimetalism and supersticion, neither of hich are a goodbasis for deciding what is right or wrong.
If potential is so important, what about the lost potential of babies who are actually born in disadvantaged situatuions?
You're prefectly entitled to be inconsistent, and to hold an pinion that I think is invalid, but why should I adopt your opinion when you've not shown the facts mine are based on are false and when yours is inconsistently applied?
Mary
5go and Sixofnine got there first, but you are right, there is such scripture (Exodus 21:22), but that's NOT an abortion, nor is the Hebrew or Aramaic word for 'abortion' used any where in the Bible (although there is one and abortion was practised in antiquity). The law is about compensating a husband for a fight causing his wife to give birth prematurely or punishing the fighters for killing or injuring a wanted child inutero. It's about property.
Abortion WAS known, and there is NO mention of any protection for UNWANTED 'children' inutero.
If there was a law like "And if a woman of the House of Israel falls pregnant but causes her pregnancy to end you are to take life for life, and if her pregnacy is brought to an end by another at the woman's instigation, then both must die." then you could reasonably laim the Bible prohibited abortion.
It doesn't so no on can.
Paralipomenon
You mention black and white;
If they do not wish to get pregnant, there are a host of methods to avoid getting pregnant.
.. and it ISN'T that black or white. Loads of people using the pill or condoms get pregnant every year. Realise that 97% effective is 3% useless, and that even 99.3% effective is still 0.7% useless and that of a thousand couples using a 99.3% effective contraceptive, seven will get pregnant. I was with a girl where both a condom and the morning after pill failed.
Now, should she change her entire life, leave University, because of a pregnancy so early on there is no personality extinguished when it is terminated? If she wouldn't do it for a rabbit, why should she do it for an 8-week embryo?
But for me contraceptive dilegence is not the point (although people who use abortion as a alternative to contraception are uneducated idiots). The point is that claims of equivalancy of an early term fetus to a adult human or new born are not supported by any secular or scientific argument in any meaningful fashion other than gross genetic inheritance.
-
18
Just spoke w/ Elders Pls Help
by thepackage ini just got a call from an elder from my old kh, i have not been to meeitngs since april 2007. i recently took my daughter to thier first b-day party, (their cousin), anyways, they want to ask if i celebrate b-day now.
i told them i'd speak with them later.
so, since i ahve been inactive since april can they df me?????
-
-
Abaddon
Buried in a WT somewhere there is some rubbish about you not being able to call yourself a 'Witness' if you'd not been in service for a year. I used that but April's not a year. I also used 'I'm sorry, I was wrong, I repent' approach, which means they should let you off, and then just carry on not going afterwards. Which I also used. Or lie, and say you hadn't been told it was a BD party but how you didn't want to cause a scene and no birthday gifts were given or cake eaten.
I had reasons to fade (family). If you don't you could always just tell them to go copulate themselves.
-
109
Pro-life arguments
by Skimmer ina thoughtful series of twenty six pro-life arguments specifically against abortion can be found at: .
http://www.all.org/article.php?id=10229 .
through (following down the links the left side of each page) .
-
-
Abaddon
BA
Abortion is murder, the taking of a human life. Worse yet, it is the taking of an innocent human life. It is a perversion of morailty and judgement to claim otherwise.
Simply restating an opinion that other people have pointed out (with reasoning) is not one they agree with is something you can do all you like but it means nothing more than it already did (or did not) mean.
It is still just your personal belief, not a fact. And it's one whose true meaning (if any) in lost in semantic obfuscation due to how you state it.
Quite why I should adopt your personal belief, especially when couched in vauge terms and when indistinguishable from an unprovable religious belief, I don't know. You certainly don't answer the question of why my actions or those of others should be influenced by such beliefs or show me that the facts I base my opinion on are false.
Please answer the following questions; you don't have to, but further response to you is of little worth unless you do. Without these answers you give me little or no reason to take your beliefs as any more important than those of people who believe (to quote Monty Python) "every sperm is sacred". I have numbered them for ease of reference and to make keeping track of those that do or do not get answered easier.
1/ What do you mean by life exactly?
2/ Do you distinguish between 'a human life' and 'part of a human organism'? Yes or no.
2a/ If 'yes', then 'a human life' normally comes with a personality. Do you support the same rights for humans with personalities as for those without personalities? Yes or no?
2b/ If 'yes', why? Is protecting collections of human DNA devoid of intellegence or personality somehow holy or important?
3/ As previously mentioned, some anti-choicers see spermatozoa and ovum as a human life, and would hold you in the same moral odium as you hold someone using abortion to terminate a pregnancy. Why are they wrong and you right?
4/ Where do you personally draw the line of something being a human life? Gamate? Zygote? Blastocyst? Embryo? 1st trimester Fetus? 2nd trimester Fetus? 3rd trimester Fetus? Convicted child murderer? Explain your choice.
5/ If taking innocent human life is wrong, then the death penalty as utilised by Saudi Arabia, Iran, China aund the USA is also wrong, as undoutedly innocent people get killed by judicial execution in these countries. How do you manage to support one form of innocent murder and condemn another? Is it okay to murder an innocent human (if one see defines both an embryo and an adult as human) if twelve people and/or a judicial system (or an iman) make a mistake but not okay if a condom breaks? Obviously you might not be able to explain this apparent contradiction in your stance (at least to your satisfaction), or this might not bother you, but if you cannot supply me with an opinion that doesn't contradict itself why should I consider that opinion worthy of support?
6/ As it seems you support the rights of organisms with less brain tissue and less advanced neurologial development than a rabbit, do you also object to animal experimentation and follow a vegan or fruitarian diet? If not why not? As with my question over the death penalty, to be against killing a fetus with less than a gram of nerve tissue and for the killing of others organisms which are far more sensate and neurologically developed seems contradictory to me, and I need to understand why I should pay attention to your beliefs if they are contradictory or illogical.
I think it is possible you are merely a sentimental speciesist, which you have every right to be. But you do not have a right in a secular society to impose beliefs of no greater validity than a typical religiously predicated belief (even if you are an atheist) on others.
It is up to you to show your repetative insistence (that abortion of a human zygote, blastocyst, embryo or fetus, (you draw the line) is equivalent to murder of a human being with intelligence and a personality) is anything more than a supersticious pseudo religious belief.
You don't have to but why you think someone should change their mind if you don't or are not capable of doing that is another thing all together
-
15
Photos of Big Foot on Associated Press Just Days Ago!!!!!
by Lady Liberty indear friends, "happy tuesday",.
just found this article and photo that was taken from a hunter just days ago.
certainly doesn't look like any bear i have ever seen!!.
-
-
Abaddon
marmot
Nicely done :-)
-
65
what song best describes your sex life
by karter insound of silence.. as my wife is a j.w all along the watchtower!
!.
-
-
Abaddon
Tenacious D's €uck Her Gently?
Princes's Bambi?
-
109
Pro-life arguments
by Skimmer ina thoughtful series of twenty six pro-life arguments specifically against abortion can be found at: .
http://www.all.org/article.php?id=10229 .
through (following down the links the left side of each page) .
-
-
Abaddon
veradico
I've been thinking about why ancient cultures such as the Hebrews did not include condemnations of abortion in their sacred laws.
Thank goodness you're not claiming it is prohibited in the Bible! I'm amazed some people have the gall to make such an unsupported claim.
I think it's because they were far less sentimental.
Yes, that's why I make the point about 'if fetuses looked like lizards this wouldn't be an issue'. Being against the abortion of early-term fetuses is either a religious or sentimentally motivated belief. As such it's fine for people to apply to themselves but not to others.
They were (and, in some parts of the world, still are) willing to expose sickly or unwanted infants, kill the disabled, or send the elderly off on icebergs. I don't agree with any of these notions (but I do think people have a right to suicide, and I could support euthanasia of infants and humans whose quality of life is terrible but who cannot express their desire for suicide).
All those are different to aborting an early term fetus for the reasons I have outlined. But I do agree euthanasia is a decent reaction to someone in terrible intractable suffering with no hope of recovery and no ability to communicate.
However, as I think Skimmer pointed out, a fetus is an independent organism made up of human genetic material. Skimmer wants to privilege human life in a way that I don't.
I'd more describe it as wanting to DEFINE human life in a different way to the way it is relevant to everyday life. In this discussion being a 'person' and being 'human' can be seen as equivalents from some points of view. One can take an absolutist approach and say anything with human DNA is human, but then that means you can watch the woman you love die of an ectopic pregnancy that is doomed to die itself. That absolutist approach ignores the fact that the brain dead and early-term fetuses are not people in any meaningful sense of the word. And just as someone can be described as 'inhuman' because of what they do, an early term fetus is not yet human because of 'what they do not do' ; they do not yet have the qualities that actually make us human in a relevant sense; sentience, personality, etc.
-
109
Pro-life arguments
by Skimmer ina thoughtful series of twenty six pro-life arguments specifically against abortion can be found at: .
http://www.all.org/article.php?id=10229 .
through (following down the links the left side of each page) .
-
-
Abaddon
Skimmer
Thanks for a more decent reply, although you just ask questions as distinct from making any attempt to tell me why your belief should be imposed on me or others against their will it is better than the tide of c&p you doing. You could actually try responding to the points I made you know, but then I do realise my arguments are as irrelvent to you as yours are to me.
If you are so damned sure that a human fetus "with low active neurological complexity" is unworthy of life due to being a temporary inconvenience to another, then please tell me the point in time when a human fetus becomes a human person that is worthy of life.
Read my posts, the answers are there. I refer to 'early term' pregnancy and I think also 'first trimester'. I also use the phrase 'well regulated medical system' or something like that. Identification of an unwanted pregnancy in a 'well regulated medical system' normally takes place so a termination can take place within the first trimester; in the UK for example 87% of abortions were carried out before 13 weeks (when the fetus weigh under one ounce), including 55% under 10 weeks (when the fetus weight 1/6th of an ounce), with only 2% taking place over 20 weeks and 1% over 22 weeks (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/4720143.stm, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4636991.stm). If we assume a higher % of brain to body mass (than at birth) of 20% then we have a brain weight of 5 grams at 13 weeks which is less than a opossum but more than a guinea pig (http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/facts.html). At ten weeks the brain weight is about that of a sparrow, if not less. I personally feel that one can abort a fetus at 13 weeks without any real qualms as I feel there is no evidence such an early term fetus is in any meaningful way equivalent to an adult human or new born with a normally functioning brain. In a decent medical system abortion for social reasons after 16 weeks shouldn't be necessary. But I would choose my fiance over a 36 week fetus in the blink of an eye if I had to; I'd save her first if she were incapacitated in a house fire, why should it be different in hospital?
Now, if you want to BELIEVE that something that in total weighs less than an ounce and has considerably less brain tissue than a rabbit (13g) or a cat (30g) is the same as an adult or a new born, fine. But you still fail to PROVE to me that an early-term fetus should be treated the same as an adult or a new born. By claiming a 'person' can be crammed into such a small brain you are making what is essentially a superstitious paranormal claim. Even if it isn't religiously predicated it performs as well as most religious beliefs as far as its provability goes. It ranks up there with throwing salt over your shoulder if you spill salt, believing breaking mirrors brings seven year bad luck, or that the bread and wine turn into bits of Jesus in the Eucharist. I am still waiting for you or someone else who is claiming the Bible prohibits abortion to back-up this false claim.