49 million Americans held hostage by power-crazed idiot savant

[Joe Wordsworth]

Originally posted by shereads
God protect us all from insecure white men.

...and the stupid white women.

(and any number of other racist-ly and sexist-ly subcategoried groups of people)

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Collen Thomas....

You said...in part...:

"I don't know when human life begins. That's an admision I can make and am willing to do so. Are you a big enough person to admit you don't know either?"

Several months ago...I came on this forum with a straightforward attempt to demonstrate that man can 'know' certain things about his existence and his nature.

My effort was stonewalled as all the secular humanists here delared in loud voice that man can know nothing, that nothing is absolute, that all is relative.

As long as they and you claim that you cannot 'know' with absolute certainty, anything concerning human ethics and morality, if it is to remain always ambiguous or situational to you, then you will never find and ethical moral course to pursue in your life and you will never reach the peace of mind of knowing that you are right about any issue.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pure...you said...in part:

"Humans ('men') apart from society (which always has a governing mechanism ) do not bear rights, any more than do eagles or alley cats...."

"Humans do not bear rights...."

From your perspective that only society can grant rights, I suppose any discussion of the innate or inherent rights of man would have no bearing on you.

Thus what would be the point? Rest well in your world of no values, no rights, no purpose, no ethics and no morality save whatever feels good.

Life exists for its own purpose...each and every individual life, that purose is to sustain life by exercising the right and the power to funtion, i.e. eat, drink and make Mary, and Mary Lou, if she is willing...

amicus...

Of course you can't admit you don't know. Which is fine. The world is filled with things you can know, you can prove, you can assert with certainty. There are a lot of things that will never be known. But you can't admit that. To do so would be to jeapardize your world view. It's all black and white, with no shades of gray.

I'm not a secular humanist. I'm not a liberal. I'm a conservative who has trained my self to be able to be objective when the need arises. I can and often do think rationally, putting my personal biase aside.

Nothing you have said here stands up to the test of reason. It's all circular arguments that come back to having to accept your world view to work, much like Rand's theories all come back to having to accept her world view.

You have made the naked assertion that human life begins at conception. When challenged you have not provided any emperical data, but have made the broad statement science supports your assertion. When I attacked that assertion you moved in to the realm of philosophy, that man can and must know certain cosmic truths.

Canibalism, istitutionalized incest, rape and homosexuality are all exhibited in human cultures around the world. There is not a single thing you can point to as a universal human truth that all people know, that I can not find an example that is the exception to it. In the presence of such exception, the statement that it is universal becomes patently false. Since your philosophical support to your position is no stronger than your scientific claims, where shall we go next? I will assume religion is out, being that you are a self proclaimed atheist.

-Colly

 

[amicus]

Joe Wordsworth...


". Of course, if you could show how pregnant women are the only creatures party to ethical and axiological knowledge... I'd be delighted to hear that...."

I appreciate your understanding....

thank you....


amicus...

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Originally posted by amicus
Joe Wordsworth...


". Of course, if you could show how pregnant women are the only creatures party to ethical and axiological knowledge... I'd be delighted to hear that...."

I appreciate your understanding....

thank you....


amicus...

Just to make it clear, I don't agree with the haphazard justification of your general position... but you're potentially wrong for reasons that don't include emotive appeals that bear little rational weight like "you don't know what its like being [someone else]".

 

[amicus]

Colleen...

"...You have made the naked assertion that human life begins at conception. When challenged you have not provided any emperical data, but have made the broad statement science supports your assertion. When I attacked that assertion you moved in to the realm of philosophy, that man can and must know certain cosmic truths...."


Knowledge does not consist only of 'emperical date' as both you and Shereads assert.

A human egg and a human sperm combine and a third entity comes into existence. What is it? And don't evade the answer by saying embryo...what kind of embyro...oh, gee, human...

Axioms...self evident truths...require no science, merely logic and logic is both science and philosophy...

amicus...

 

[amicus]

Don't worry Joe...your reputation here will not be besmirched as I rue the day any of my 'haphazard' presentations will ever sway your devotion to minutia...

amicus...

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Colleen...

"...You have made the naked assertion that human life begins at conception. When challenged you have not provided any emperical data, but have made the broad statement science supports your assertion. When I attacked that assertion you moved in to the realm of philosophy, that man can and must know certain cosmic truths...."


Knowledge does not consist only of 'emperical date' as both you and Shereads assert.

A human egg and a human sperm combine and a third entity comes into existence. What is it? And don't evade the answer by saying embryo...what kind of embyro...oh, gee, human...

Axioms...self evident truths...require no science, merely logic and logic is both science and philosophy...

amicus...

Nope. Not going to buy it. What does it create? Life. Life on the cellular level. The same life both the egg and the sperm had before congress. Cellular respiration is present, which is all you ned to claim life. It isn't sentient that you can prove. In the abscense of such proof, it is not imbibed with rights, anymore than your sperm are or my eggs are.

There is no logic to your staement. Logic requires at a minimum stements of fact, that may be manipulated to allow deductive reasoning. You have provided no fact here, save that sperm and ovum can combine, you have not even proven thatt heir combination forms something else (I'll help you, it's a zygote I believe). These facts are irrelevant to your assertion because you are talking about human life and the only life you can PROVE exists in any, sperm, egg or zygote is cellular life.

An axiom, by the way is a self evident truth. For your statement to be one, it is required, by definition that no one disagrees with it. Since that's patently false, your statement can in no way be compared to an Axiom. That's a little logic demonstartion for you.

-Colly

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Originally posted by Colleen Thomas
Nope. Not going to buy it. What does it create? Life. Life on the cellular level. The same life both the egg and the sperm had before congress. Cellular respiration is present, which is all you ned to claim life. It isn't sentient that you can prove. In the abscense of such proof, it is not imbibed with rights, anymore than your sperm are or my eggs are.

There is no logic to your staement. Logic requires at a minimum stements of fact, that may be manipulated to allow deductive reasoning. You have provided no fact here, save that sperm and ovum can combine, you have not even proven thatt heir combination forms something else (I'll help you, it's a zygote I believe). These facts are irrelevant to your assertion because you are talking about human life and the only life you can PROVE exists in any, sperm, egg or zygote is cellular life.

An axiom, by the way is a self evident truth. For your statement to be one, it is required, by definition that no one disagrees with it. Since that's patently false, your statement can in no way be compared to an Axiom. That's a little logic demonstartion for you.

-Colly

To be fair, that's not necessarily the most accurate way to talk about axioms as they relate to logic. Most accurate would be that people can disagree with them, but those people are wrong--as they're merely uttering falsity in that they're not agreeing with something that is universal and basic as principles go.

 

[amicus]

Colleen Thomas....

I am for one, amazed at the miracle of life, the method the means the transferral of genetic code and nine months later the emergence of a small human bearing the traits of both mother and father.

I have no doubts as to how it came into being and no doubts as to the supreme importance of its existence from instant one.

It troubles me so so many do not have that reverence for human life, it troubles me that so many discard that life as inconsequential when so many are unable to bear children.

There is no question in my mind at all about the 'rightness' of carrying a child to full term.

And I personally do not care what one or a hundred women do with their reproductive rights. What I do care about is the increasingly callous attitude towards life that in my mind, springs from the 30 million or so aborted fetuses that are used for profit by the stem cell research on fetal material.

I also care that this cavalier attitude by feminists has corrupted the youth, so that young girls are basically led to believe that sexual promiscuity is accepted by their peers and by those role models in society that advocate abortion as a means of birth control. You...all of you...know the arguments, on both sides.

I will state once again for all who seek to discover a rational, ethical foundation to support your anti abortion position, that foundation exists. You need only search your mind.

amicus...

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Colleen Thomas....

I am for one, amazed at the miracle of life, the method the means the transferral of genetic code and nine months later the emergence of a small human bearing the traits of both mother and father.

I have no doubts as to how it came into being and no doubts as to the supreme importance of its existence from instant one.

It troubles me so so many do not have that reverence for human life, it troubles me that so many discard that life as inconsequential when so many are unable to bear children.

There is no question in my mind at all about the 'rightness' of carrying a child to full term.

And I personally do not care what one or a hundred women do with their reproductive rights. What I do care about is the increasingly callous attitude towards life that in my mind, springs from the 30 million or so aborted fetuses that are used for profit by the stem cell research on fetal material.

I also care that this cavalier attitude by feminists has corrupted the youth, so that young girls are basically led to believe that sexual promiscuity is accepted by their peers and by those role models in society that advocate abortion as a means of birth control. You...all of you...know the arguments, on both sides.

I will state once again for all who seek to discover a rational, ethical foundation to support your anti abortion position, that foundation exists. You need only search your mind.

amicus...

OMG!

Amicus is acting feminine! Having his butt stomped at a rational argument he has *gasp* resoprted to emotivce appeals! What is the world coming too?

The miracle of life. How sweet. And shame on me for not having a respect for human life. Gosh, that's so...rational Not at all an attempt to paint me in a bad light with an emotive appeal since you can't support your premise.

Don't ever tell me women can't argue rationally. Don't ever state men aren't emotional creatures. And don't try to piss down my back and tell me it's raining.

What a night. Gotta love it.

-Colly

 

[shereads]

OMG!

Amicus is acting feminine! Having his butt stomped at a rational argument he has *gasp* resoprted to emotivce appeals! What is the world coming too?

The miracle of life. How sweet. And shame on me for not having a respect for human life. Gosh, that's so...rational Not at all an attempt to paint me in a bad light with an emotive appeal since you can't support your premise.

Don't ever tell me women can't argue rationally. Don't ever state men aren't emotional creatures. And don't try to piss down my back and tell me it's raining.

What a night. Gotta love it.

-Colly

Colly, how can you make light of the miracle that constitutes a woman's reason for being? What are you, an athiest?

 

[amicus]

Ah, bones would love you as he stood amazed in the Knowledge that Spock has a human side...

You do not disappoint me in the consistency of the fair sex to bare tooth and claw at the drop of an axiom...


smiles...have a good...whatever time of the day it is for you ...


amicus....

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

For my part, I know of no argument that is logically sound and valid that supports or refutes anything about human life at all... really, logic isn't designed to make "judgements" like that, only conclusions.

Time being, its inconclusive. Science can tell us when things happen, but not when "life" begins (philosophical "life", meaningful "life", not just "biological action").

An interesting position I once heard was "Is it a crime to turn a deaf man's radio off?" Which is to say, before we can call something a crime, ought we not first have a victim? And then, doesn't that victim need to actually be significant (within the bounds of the situation)? Is a fetus a significant victim for the case of murder?

Tough one.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Ah, bones would love you as he stood amazed in the Knowledge that Spock has a human side...

You do not disappoint me in the consistency of the fair sex to bare tooth and claw at the drop of an axiom...


smiles...have a good...whatever time of the day it is for you ...


amicus....

Your best bet now, Brother Amicus, is to disappear for a while. You have done exactly what you berate women and liberals for doing. When presented with a logical argument, you have fallen to emotive appeals to support your position.

I have not yet begun to bear my claws. I have simply taken your statement and forced you to defend it. I have done so with reasoned arguments and logic. You may of course choose the Joe method and look for a semantic way to wiggle off the hook, but anyone who reads this is going to see you falling to the level of those you sneer at.

For a man who puts such faith in logic and reason, and raises them to the pinacle of man's achievement, you would be well advised in the future to make statemets you can support with them. you do not neccessarily have to base your entire belief system on them, but those tennets of your system which cannot be proven should not be trumpeted.

Trying to present your opinion as an axiom so as to avoid defending it, is infantile. Anything that at least half the general population dosen't accept cannot be an axiom. It is an opinion, nothing more, nothing less. An opinion based on an assumption that is unprovabale, I.E. that human life begins at coception.

-Colly

 

[shereads]

For my part, I know of no argument that is logically sound and valid that supports or refutes anything about human life at all... really, logic isn't designed to make "judgements" like that, only conclusions.

Time being, its inconclusive. Science can tell us when things happen, but not when "life" begins (philosophical "life", meaningful "life", not just "biological action").

An interesting position I once heard was "Is it a crime to turn a deaf man's radio off?" Which is to say, before we can call something a crime, ought we not first have a victim? And then, doesn't that victim need to actually be significant (within the bounds of the situation)? Is a fetus a significant victim for the case of murder?

Tough one.

This is where I think Sagan's reasoning comes in. A pre-third-trimester fetus has the "mind," if you will, of a 'brain-dead' person who can legally be disconnected from life support. The difference between the fetus and the 'brain-dead' person is a matter of potential, not its current state of being. Until it reaches the stage of brain development that makes it as human as the woman who concieved it, it is a living organism that contains human DNA. So was the sperm. So was the egg.

The idea that a potential human being has rights that supercede those of a pregnant woman makes a lot of women wonder if what really motivates a lot of pro-lifers isn't the belief that women who fornicate should expect some serious consequences. In one case, here in this forum, the worst was confirmed when a pro-life poster blurted out, "The woman had her chance. Now it's time to give an innocent child a chance."

 

[amicus]

Dear Colleen...I regret you see things as you do...

Seeing that you could not follow either Joe W's or my logic concerning self evident truths, axioms, universals...concepts, abstractions....I decided to be gentle with you and try a different tack...not necessarily emotional as you implied, but more anecdotal....

Anyone following this thread knows exactly where you ceased to follow the discussion and went off on an emotional tangent.

It does not matter that you do not accept that the moment of conception is the beginning of human life. It is clear, simply by definition, that it can be nothing else. There is no science needed to ascertain that fact, it simply is, your agreement or a majority agreement is inconsequential.

If you did see that life begins at conception, that, then would require you to place a value on that life...and then to compare with the the value of a woman's right to choose...and of course, that being another logical progression of hierarchical value choice, the outcome is known before one begins.

Thus you would have no choice, being logical, but to accept the inevitable and acknowledge that human life at any level supercedes the shallow feminist viewpoint of reproductive choice.

regards...


amicus...

 

[amicus]

Shereads....it is not the 'stage' of life, or the ability to sustain life outside the womb that is in question.

It is human life itself.....

It is human life at the instant of conception and requires nurturing just as a new born infant requires nurturing or it too will perish.

The only supportable argument for pro abortion advocates is to admit that they accept the taking of a human life as a moral act a woman has a right to choose.

At least that would be an honest argument.


amicus...

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Dear Colleen...I regret you see things as you do...

Seeing that you could not follow either Joe W's or my logic concerning self evident truths, axioms, universals...concepts, abstractions....I decided to be gentle with you and try a different tack...not necessarily emotional as you implied, but more anecdotal....

Anyone following this thread knows exactly where you ceased to follow the discussion and went off on an emotional tangent.

It does not matter that you do not accept that the moment of conception is the beginning of human life. It is clear, simply by definition, that it can be nothing else. There is no science needed to ascertain that fact, it simply is, your agreement or a majority agreement is inconsequential.

If you did see that life begins at conception, that, then would require you to place a value on that life...and then to compare with the the value of a woman's right to choose...and of course, that being another logical progression of hierarchical value choice, the outcome is known before one begins.

Thus you would have no choice, being logical, but to accept the inevitable and acknowledge that human life at any level supercedes the shallow feminist viewpoint of reproductive choice.

regards...


amicus...

Tell ya what hotshot. What say we post a poll and let readers vote on which of us went off topic and which of use started using emotive defenses of their argument?

I'll add another of your psuedo prototuypical femine traits, whining when you loose.

Geeze.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Originally posted by shereads
This is where I think Sagan's reasoning comes in. A pre-third-trimester fetus has the "mind," if you will, of a 'brain-dead' person who can legally be disconnected from life support. The difference between the fetus and the 'brain-dead' person is a matter of potential, not its current state of being. Until it reaches the stage of brain development that makes it as human as the woman who concieved it, it is a living organism that contains human DNA. So was the sperm. So was the egg.

The idea that a potential human being has rights that supercede those of a pregnant woman makes a lot of women wonder if what really motivates a lot of pro-lifers isn't the belief that women who fornicate should expect some serious consequences. In one case, here in this forum, the worst was confirmed when a pro-life poster blurted out, "The woman had her chance. Now it's time to give an innocent child a chance."

I would say that the right to potential life and the right to not undergo pain in labor would have to be weighed to get that part of the question answered. Unless there is something making that part more complicated (I don't think "potential for delivery to be lethal" is significant enough in this day and age, for instance), I would say potential life is more important than not undergoing pain in labor.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Originally posted by Colleen Thomas
Tell ya what hotshot. What say we post a poll and let readers vote on which of us went off topic and which of use started using emotive defenses of their argument?

I'll add another of your psuedo prototuypical femine traits, whining when you loose.

Geeze.

Polls aren't really necessary... Logic is like Math, you're either doing it right or you're not. It isn't a matter of popular opinion.

(and if you get a poll, I'm going to be jealous... I've needed one for months)

 

[Guest]

Colly, you just finished a 50K word novel, and now you're wiping the board with Amicus. Yes, I have him on ignore, I do not even read his quoted words; I only have to read what you say to know how incapable he is compared to you. You're such a heroine to me, and a fucking smart, sweet woman.

Perdita

 

[Somme]

Colly, you just finished a 50K word novel, and now you're wiping the board with Amicus. Yes, I have him on ignore, I do not even read his quoted words; I only have to read what you say to know how incapable he is compared to you. You're such a heroine to me, and a fucking smart, sweet woman.

Perdita

...and has her heart in the 'right' place, if I may add....

 

[matriarch]

Colly, you just finished a 50K word novel, and now you're wiping the board with Amicus. Yes, I have him on ignore, I do not even read his quoted words; I only have to read what you say to know how incapable he is compared to you. You're such a heroine to me, and a fucking smart, sweet woman.

Perdita

*Lining up with Perdita*. What she said. Double.
Thanks Perdy, you saved me the trouble.

 

[amicus]

Shereads began this thread with...:

" 49 million Americans held hostage by power-crazed idiot savant
Send help.


__________________
After all the whining and moaning by distraught Liberals not just on this forum, but all over the news....I thought perhaps to give you an easy target to regain your composure.

It worked.

Goodnight all...


amicus...

 

[matriarch]

*laughing*...........you have to admit people...........Amicus certainly has a way with escape posts. Tactical retreat has nothing on this one.

He lives..........to fight another day.

"Bye"........*waving*........."Y'all come back and see us again, y'hear."