(02-24-2014 10:27 PM)stinkfist Wrote:  I like goodowl, but yeah....that's where we're headed whether people like it or not....

There is no way you will get anything other than 50/50 on abortion at any level....

...but they should be scared when it comes to cloning....

it's funny how people refuse to talk about things in REAL terms.....

very good point.....

And I like stinkfist, but here is where I digress. Just because you can do something does not necessarily mean that you should.

The reality you assume is that people always have to choose the evil pathway.

In the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews, your position would then have been, "Well, it is inevitable, so why fight it or speak up?"

If a person comes to your home, stinkfist, and shoots you, the defense you have laid out for them is that they have an absolute right to since these things are inevitable, and you have absolutely no recourse against them because these things are inevitable.

In the world you accept, there is no need for courts to decide right and wrong, since you admit wrong is inevitable and will always eventually triumph.

In the world you accept, therefore, there is no society. For the fundamental rule in order to have a society of more than one is this: I agree not to kill you, and you agree not to kill me. From there we can divide labor, trade bread, build without fear of being destroyed.

In the world you accept we are all utterly alone and hopeless. I choose to have hope. I choose to see the good in man and woman. I choose to keep trying to light a candle no matter how dark the room.

If there is no God, in my world, life is still worth living. Trust between people can be established and relied upon.
If there is no God in your world, life is constant fear of death and depravity. There is never any trust. Suspicion and paranoia rule.

I choose to live in hope, not in fear. That is the fundamental difference in the positions. It is also how the Nazi were able to proclaim and convince so many of their argument. When it is asked "How were so many able to kill so many against their wills?" The answer is complacency, apathy and hopelessness.

Martin Niemöller: "First they came for the Socialists..."

Martin Niemöller, a prominent Protestant pastor who opposed the Nazi regime. He spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps. Germany, 1937.

Martin Niemöller (1892-1984) was a prominent Protestant pastor who emerged as an outspoken public foe of Adolf Hitler and spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps.

Niemöller is perhaps best remembered for the quotation:

"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me."

The quotation stems from Niemöller's lectures during the early postwar period. Different versions of the quotation exist. These can be attributed to the fact that Niemöller spoke extemporaneously and in a number of settings. Much controversy surrounds the content of the poem as it has been printed in varying forms, referring to diverse groups such as Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, Jews, Trade Unionists, or Communists depending upon the version. Nonetheless his point was that Germans--in particular, he believed, the leaders of the Protestant churches--had been complicit through their silence in the Nazi imprisonment, persecution, and murder of millions of people.

Only in 1963, in a West German television interview, did Niemöller acknowledge and make a statement of regret about his own antisemitism (see Gerlach, 2000, p. 47). Nonetheless, Martin Niemöller was one of the earliest Germans to talk publicly about broader complicity in the Holocaust and guilt for what had happened to the Jews. In his book Über die deutsche Schuld, Not und Hoffnung (published in English as Of Guilt and Hope)--which appeared in January 1946--Niemöller wrote: "Thus, whenever I chance to meet a Jew known to me before, then, as a Christian, I cannot but tell him: 'Dear Friend, I stand in front of you, but we can not get together, for there is guilt between us. I have sinned and my people has sinned against thy people and against thyself.'"

Further Reading

James Bentley, Martin Niemöller: 1892-1984 (NY: Macmillan Free Press,1984)

(02-24-2014 11:02 PM)smn1256 Wrote:  If you mean it can survive with all the help it can get then we're in agreement.

Just for the record, since you're fairly new, I'm pro choice but not for the reasons you'd think. I think it's unconscionable that someone thinks they have the right to tell someone they don't know what to do with their body. But being pro choice doesn't exclude someone from making the right choice.

Just for the record, I am pro-choice as well. I, too agree that it is unconscionable that someone thinks they have the right to tell someone they don't know what to do with their body.

I differ only in when that choice is made:

The choice by the person who may become a mother or father is made at the moment they use their free will to have sex. After that, they have exercised their choice and the consequences are their responsibility, but also, the choice to end those consequences is no longer theirs, for:

I believe it is unconscionable that someone, having already made a choice, thinks they have the right to tell someone they don't know what to do with their body- namely that the other person must kill their body (die) because the first person has chosen to tell them to do so. The second person has the right to choose to live. The first person already had a choice and exercised it.

If a person goes into a casino and plays a game of blackjack against the house, freely places their money down and bets and wins the hand, they walk away a winner and keep their money.

If a person goes into a casino and plays a game of blackjack against the house, freely places their money down and bets and loses the hand, they walk away a loser and do not get their money back from the house.

It does not matter that the money they bet was money they needed and could not afford to lose. It does not matter that they regretted the bet afterwards. It does not matter that they can no longer afford to live, become a burden on society, costing it money and resources. The house keeps their money. They bet and lost. Almost everyone can understand that.

But replace a few words and look at the logic again:

If a person chooses a partner and has sexual relations, freely has sex with the possibility that a pregnancy might in fact result and there is not pregnancy, they walk away a winner.

If a person chooses a partner and has sexual relations, freely has sex with the possibility that a pregnancy might in fact result and there is a pregnancy, they walk away a loser and do not have the right to kill the person created, who has the right to live their life as created.

It does not matter that the first person could not afford to become pregnant. It does not matter that they regretted creating a life and do not desire it. It does not matter that they can no longer afford to live, become a burden on society, costing it money and resources. The house keeps their money. They bet and lost. Almost everyone can understand that.

For the people who use "overpopulation" as their argument for abortion: why are you not standing outside casinos shooting those who lose their bets as well?

(02-25-2014 12:12 AM)mathenis89 Wrote:  That is entirely dependent on when you feel life begins. If the fetus can not survive outside the womb, I don't consider it to be alive.

If you choose to believe life begins at conception, why do we not name our cancer growths? They are replicating cells that live inside of you.

your Q: Why do we not name our cancer growths? They are replicating cells that live inside of you.

A: Because replicating cancer cells do not grow to become separate living beings and have no potential to do so. Your argument here is truly puerile.

I skimmed the 124 comments posted so far. The usual.

Q: Has anyone ever changed their mind about an issue like abortion because of something they read on a message-board?

(02-25-2014 04:52 AM)GoodOwl Wrote:  

(02-24-2014 10:27 PM)stinkfist Wrote:  I like goodowl, but yeah....that's where we're headed whether people like it or not....

There is no way you will get anything other than 50/50 on abortion at any level....

...but they should be scared when it comes to cloning....

it's funny how people refuse to talk about things in REAL terms.....

very good point.....

And I like stinkfist, but here is where I digress. Just because you can do something does not necessarily mean that you should.

The reality you assume is that people always have to choose the evil pathway.

In the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews, your position would then have been, "Well, it is inevitable, so why fight it or speak up?"

If a person comes to your home, stinkfist, and shoots you, the defense you have laid out for them is that they have an absolute right to since these things are inevitable, and you have absolutely no recourse against them because these things are inevitable.

In the world you accept, there is no need for courts to decide right and wrong, since you admit wrong is inevitable and will always eventually triumph.

In the world you accept, therefore, there is no society. For the fundamental rule in order to have a society of more than one is this: I agree not to kill you, and you agree not to kill me. From there we can divide labor, trade bread, build without fear of being destroyed.

In the world you accept we are all utterly alone and hopeless. I choose to have hope. I choose to see the good in man and woman. I choose to keep trying to light a candle no matter how dark the room.

If there is no God, in my world, life is still worth living. Trust between people can be established and relied upon.
If there is no God in your world, life is constant fear of death and depravity. There is never any trust. Suspicion and paranoia rule.

I choose to live in hope, not in fear. That is the fundamental difference in the positions. It is also how the Nazi were able to proclaim and convince so many of their argument. When it is asked "How were so many able to kill so many against their wills?" The answer is complacency, apathy and hopelessness.

good dude....you misinterpreted my intent, but also recognized the overall reason for my post

In no way do I promote murder, flogging, rape, incest, or any other evil conceivable action....

However and IMO, abortion will ALWAYS be a 50/50 prop to the masses regardless of the argument...that was really the main point....

...all of us make assumptions (ALWAYS being the assumption in the next however many centuries) and hopefully reflect upon how that thinking has evolved to enable that....

and I totally agree that life is worth living....once I gave up that guilt (the god thingy), it become better for me....and me is all that matters to me in how I feel....would never try to change one's mind about their faith....

I only respond, and sometimes harshly, when 'those' that get on the pulpit are trying to steer to one side or the other....have always believed the individual is responsible for their thinking and actions.....I am lucky to be living during a time where I can think that way and live that way.

...there are many that don't realize they have a choice

every morning I wake up I look up, forward, and down and give thanks....wouldn't have guessed that about me, eh?