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Robb
SFN Regular
USA
1223 Posts |
 Posted - 09/20/2005 : 05:59:37 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.
Yes. I think people like Robb simply refuse to admit that they evangelize a standard of conduct which even they cannot acheive.
No, I have posted several times that Christians are hypocryts and no better than anybody else. The bible is very clear on this. Just because we cannot achieve our goals does not mean that we should stop trying to reach them.
quote:
Which brings us to the image of the "truly faithful" as those who do, indeed, pray in secret as Jesus taught (and when someone chooses to abort their unborn child, they say, "it's all a part of God's indecipherable Plan" and go on with their own lives), with the fanatical and loud fundamentalists betraying the shallowness of their own "faith" by saying, "look at how faithful I am, everybody!" and stripping God's powers from Him through mind-bending apologetics (and even worse: through legislation).
The bible teaches that doing good, even if it is what the bible commands, is nothing if done for selfish reasons. We should not do things so people see us as religious or we think we are better then other people. But that does not mean that we should not pray in public or help people because others may find out. Its the attitude that God is looking for, not the act itself.
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Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. - George Washington |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 09/20/2005 : 09:14:12 [Permalink]
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It should be illegal to have a baby before 21. If you are considered incapable of making responsible decisions concerning alcohol use, why the fuck would we consider you capable of being responsible enough to raise children?
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 09/20/2005 : 10:05:03 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Robb
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.
Yes. I think people like Robb simply refuse to admit that they evangelize a standard of conduct which even they cannot acheive.
No, I have posted several times that Christians are hypocryts and no better than anybody else. The bible is very clear on this. Just because we cannot achieve our goals does not mean that we should stop trying to reach them.
No, but fundamentalists (as a group) should avoid saying "stop sinning or go to Hell" when they appear incapable of refraining from sin themselves.
Nobody who simply says "we should live this way" is a hypocrite just for saying that. What fundamentalists (in general) are hypocrites for is the judgemental way they go about saying it, as if they are somehow superior (superior even to other Christians).
And I brought your name into these generalizations because your comment about everyone being a hypocrite defends the holier-than-thou attitude which I was describing, and that attitude doesn't at all fit with what you wrote next:quote:
The bible teaches that doing good, even if it is what the bible commands, is nothing if done for selfish reasons. We should not do things so people see us as religious or we think we are better then other people. But that does not mean that we should not pray in public or help people because others may find out. Its the attitude that God is looking for, not the act itself.
That's fine. Perhaps you should evangelize your fellow Christians who do make a big deal of their Christianity in public. Of course, I imagine if you tried to show Fred Phelps the errors of his ways, he'd call you a God-hating fag-lover and tell you that you're going to Hell. It would surprise me greatly if you, Robb, wanted to defend such an attitude (or action), and so I would suggest that when you defend yourself and your fellows from attacks here (either real or perceived), you think about the crazed lunatics that people here are often refering to when they speak of "fundies." Do you wish to be included with them? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Robb
SFN Regular
USA
1223 Posts |
Posted - 09/20/2005 : 10:55:54 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.
No, but fundamentalists (as a group) should avoid saying "stop sinning or go to Hell" when they appear incapable of refraining from sin themselves.
Agreed.
quote:
Nobody who simply says "we should live this way" is a hypocrite just for saying that. What fundamentalists (in general) are hypocrites for is the judgemental way they go about saying it, as if they are somehow superior (superior even to other Christians).
I agree, some Christians do think this way. Actually alot of them do.
quote:
And I brought your name into these generalizations because your comment about everyone being a hypocrite defends the holier-than-thou attitude which I was describing, and that attitude doesn't at all fit with what you wrote next:
I don't understand how saying we are all hypocrites defends the holier than thou attitude. Can you explain?
quote:
That's fine. Perhaps you should evangelize your fellow Christians who do make a big deal of their Christianity in public. Of course, I imagine if you tried to show Fred Phelps the errors of his ways, he'd call you a God-hating fag-lover and tell you that you're going to Hell.
Your right of course. I have tried to talk to people like this and they eventually question your faith. You can show them bible passages from the very bible they say they are defending and they will ignore it and turn it back on you somehow. It saddens me that this is the message that so many christians put out.
quote:
It would surprise me greatly if you, Robb, wanted to defend such an attitude (or action), and so I would suggest that when you defend yourself and your fellows from attacks here (either real or perceived), you think about the crazed lunatics that people here are often refering to when they speak of "fundies." Do you wish to be included with them?
Thanks for that. I will keep in mind what a fundie means on this site. |
Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. - George Washington |
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ronnywhite
SFN Regular
501 Posts |
Posted - 09/20/2005 : 11:05:39 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dude
It should be illegal to have a baby before 21. If you are considered incapable ...
RE 21 nah, I've met 16-year-olds with a lot of maturity who'd likely make good mothers/fathers, many adults without as much of a hint of it. But yea, I agree there are far too many absolutely unsuitable parents, but some problems have no practical solutions ("A law that's widely ignored is a bad law").
By the way, RE Death Penalty, geez. They didn't even hit Kevorkian with that (well, that was Michigan... in Texas they probably would have fried or gassed him 20 [or however many] times over, or something.)
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Ron White |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 09/20/2005 : 11:50:40 [Permalink]
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Robb wrote: Also, the parent must deal with any medical or emotional issues their child may have due to the abortion also.
The concept of abortion trauma syndrome has been completely hyped up by the Religious Right. I researched it for a paper in 2001 and in legit journals of psychology and psychiatry could only find one study on the disorder. The study reported that less than 20% of all women who get abortions will suffer from it and it is not a major disorder. No women had committed suicide or harmed others or even developed serious depression that could be connected to the abortion. If you don't believe me, check out this scant article from wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_trauma_syndrome I have heard people try to blame all these physical and mental problems on abortion, but the bottom line is that there simply isn't any evidence.
But there IS evidence that Post Pardum Disorder is common. Here's the excerpt from wikipedia since I'm too lazy to put it in my own words: “Postpartum depression (aka baby blues) is very common, with approximately 85% of women suffering from it, potentially as early as 24 hours postpartum. It is usually limited in duration, lasting 36 to 48 hours. Treatment may be required if it lasts longer than 72 hours [1], or is associated with lack of interest in the infant, suicidal or homocidal thoughts, hallucinations, or psychotic behaviour. Approximately 10-20% of women will suffer the symptoms of major depression, and should be treated accordingly.”
I get the feeling here that most would think that a 16 year old having a baby would screw up their lives. I have heard it before, why would you want to have a baby when your whole life is in front of you. It will only hold you back. This puts babies(people) after life goals and diminishes the value of life.
You are making a mighty big assumption there. When people say teenage pregnancy ruins girls' lives, they aren't referring to the child being less valuable. They are referring to the ample evidence that shows that the quality of a woman and her children's lives are likely to be considerably worse if she chooses to have children while a teenager.
You know, evidence like this:
-Teen mothers are less likely to graduate from high school and more likely than their peers who delay childbearing to live in poverty and to rely on welfare (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 1998).
-The children of teenage mothers are often born at low birth weight, experience health and developmental problems, and are frequently poor, abused, and/or neglected (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 1998).
-Teenage pregnancy poses a substantial financial burden to society, estimated at $7 billion annually in lost tax revenues, public assistance, child health care, foster care, and involvement with the criminal justice system (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 1998).
-1/4 of teenage mothers have a second child within 2 years of their first. (Alan Guttmacher Institute.)
-7 in 10 teen mothers complete high school, but they are less likely than women who delay childbearing to go on to college. (Alan Guttmacher Institute.)
-1/3 of pregnant teens receive inadequate prenatal care; babies born to young mothers are more likely to be low-birth-weight, to have childhood health problems and to be hospitalized than are those born to older mothers. (Alan Guttmacher Institute.)
-Violent crime committed by poor young males age 18-25 dropped dramatically dropping all over the nation 20 years after Roe V. Wade. http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3415591a1861,00.html
Hey, I'm pro-life. Pro-quality over quantity of -life.
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"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 09/20/2005 : 12:00:49 [Permalink]
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Dude wrote: It should be illegal to have a baby before 21.
Are you fond of China's method for eliminating pregnancies that the state considers to be a burden, regardless of the privacy and freedom of the individual?
Oh, it's fun stuff, really. Check it out: http://www.tdn.com/articles/2005/08/28/nation_world/news01.txt
Chen, 34, a slender man wearing dark sunglasses, held out a digital voice recorder and listened intently. Blind since birth, he couldn't see the tears of the women forced to terminate pregnancies seven or eight months along, or the blank stares of the men who said they submitted to vasectomies to save family members from torture. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 09/20/2005 : 12:30:33 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Robb
Thanks for that. I will keep in mind what a fundie means on this site.
Admittedly, the use of "fundie" around here may not be a fair generalization, and we have had some discussions about how being a fundamentalist doesn't necessarily mean that one is a raving nutcase, but it seems as though most of the vocal, fundamentalist activists are lunatics. Hell, even Mel Gibson, a Catholic fundamentalist, is freaky.
In other words, I'm sure there are plenty of fine, upstanding fundamentalists who are paragons of virtue and not hate-filled fear mongers, but the former are largely silent and the latter make the news.
And to answer your question:quote:
quote:
And I brought your name into these generalizations because your comment about everyone being a hypocrite defends the holier-than-thou attitude which I was describing, and that attitude doesn't at all fit with what you wrote next:
I don't understand how saying we are all hypocrites defends the holier than thou attitude. Can you explain?
I hope so: just because everyone is hypocritical about something doesn't make hypocrisy okay. Especially not when the hypocrites in question are devoted to a book which goes out of its way to say that hypocrisy is a bad thing. The level of hypocrisy many of the whacko fundies demonstrate is particularly egregious.
Your comment read (to me) like, "[shrug] they're just human," which may indeed be true, but they're evangelizing about how to be godly. Holding them only to the "human" standard seemed to let them avoid practicing what they preach.
It read to me sorta the same way that "everyone violates the traffic laws" would read if written about a person who got drunk and rammed a bus full of nuns with a cement mixer. Yeah, almost everyone does violate the traffic laws, but not like that! |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 09/20/2005 : 13:36:55 [Permalink]
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My point, which some of you so obviously missed, is that we have decided that people aren't capable of making responsible decisions concerning alcohol consumption until they are 21.
Why would we consider people responsible enough to raise children before that?
I don't care about anecdotes about allegedly responsible 16 year olds. If you think you know such a creature, you have been fooled.
Since it is even more ethically shakey to try and implement some kind of test to determine a person's fitness to be a parent, (same for determining if somebody is responsible enough to consume alcohol) what is left but what we have currently (anyone who is biologically capable of reproducing may freely do so) or just implementing some arbitrary age cutoff? (as we have done with alcohol)
If we can legislate a responsibility age for one life decision, why not for the rest?
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 09/20/2005 : 14:31:47 [Permalink]
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we have decided that people aren't capable of making responsible decisions concerning alcohol consumption until they are 21.
You mean legislators decided that with a fair amount of public support. I do NOT support the drinking age being 21. If someone can sign up to be trained as a killer at 18, they certainly should be able to drink at 18. You also forget that it is not illegal to drink at home with your parent/guardian's consent. Unless a minor is actually hurt from drinking in the home, in which case the parent/guardian is responsible.
If we can legislate a responsibility age for one life decision, why not for the rest?
Because the life decisions in question are very different from each other. Drinking is an action, much like having sex is an action. The act of sex, like the act of drinking, is already regulated with consideration for age.
But being pregnant is a physical state, not an act. Neither the state or parents IMHO should have the right to decide for a teenage girl what should be done about that physical state for the same reason the state shouldn't have the right to force sterilizations. It violates the basic human right of having juristiction over one's own body.
Also, having a child, opposed to having an abortion, will involve another human being. So obviously slapping a pregnant teenager with a fine or other sentence doens't accomplish anything good and does cause harm.
Bottom line, nobody got your point about comparing drinking with pregnancy because the two are so different. You've gone way beyond comparing apples and oranges. You're comparing apples and alligators.
I noticed you ignored the China and forced abortion comment. I was trying to make a point, too. Exactly how would the state enforce a legal pregnancy age? |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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| Edited by - marfknox on 09/20/2005 14:34:13 |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 09/20/2005 : 14:42:51 [Permalink]
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quote:
Bottom line, nobody got your point about comparing drinking with pregnancy because the two are so different. You've gone way beyond comparing apples and oranges. You're comparing apples and alligators.
Are they so different? The basic issue is how responsible an individual is. Are you responsible enough to raise a child if you are not responsible enough to make sound decisions concerning alcohol?
For the record, I'm not in favor of a drinking age at all. I think it creates a taboo situation that only entices people into overindulgence when the opportunity arises.
But those who agree with me are obviously in the minority here, as there is a law in almost every state that makes the drinking age 21.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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ronnywhite
SFN Regular
501 Posts |
Posted - 09/20/2005 : 16:31:16 [Permalink]
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quote:
Are they so different?...
I agree that they aren't in the sense of "principle," but they are extremely different in terms of "enforcability." Some problems can be legislated away, some can't. Restricting stores from selling liquor to minors is an ascertainable goal, as is having cops ticket drunk drivers to discourage that- both probably are fairly effective efforts. They are admissible, applicable, and ascertainable solutions. As far as the pregnancy/ unfit parent bit, I know of no ascertainable solution in a free society (anybody can think of one, please advise) although sure, in China or any number of hypothetical contexts it could be possible. |
Ron White |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 09/20/2005 : 21:03:13 [Permalink]
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quote:
As far as the pregnancy/ unfit parent bit, I know of no ascertainable solution in a free society (anybody can think of one, please advise) although sure, in China or any number of hypothetical contexts it could be possible.
There is no way to actually enforce any such thing in a society that respects the rights of individuals, short of removal of the right to reproduce, make it a privelage. And most would see that as wrong, because then you have to decide who gets the privelage.
And anything you do to encourage people to wait to breed will also be called ethically questionable.
There is no good solution to the problem of irresponsible parenting.
Short of shifting the societal norm, and that isn't anything we can exert specific influence on.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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ronnywhite
SFN Regular
501 Posts |
Posted - 09/20/2005 : 21:26:21 [Permalink]
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quote:
There is no way to... There is no good solution to the problem of irresponsible parenting... Short of shifting the societal norm, and that isn't anything we can exert specific influence on...
I agree with all. RE attempting to change such trends, late William Shockley (physics Nobelaureate/ his team invented semiconductors) in his last years proposed such a radical solution to curtail "generational welfare" (pay people to be voluntarily sterilized so much for every 10 IQ points below normal they are, other constraints) and backed it's projected effectiveness with stats (doesn't touch the unfit parent issue, but it was an "incentive-based" reproduction pattern control idea.) Interesting concept, and it really didn't sound "racist" to me, but he was scorned and upon his death noted more for being "The latest in a long line of scientific racists" than discovering something that changed the world profoundly. Too bad. |
Ron White |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2005 : 11:46:55 [Permalink]
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quote:
Are you fond of China's method for eliminating pregnancies that the state considers to be a burden, regardless of the privacy and freedom of the individual?
Are you familliar with the concept of massive overpopulation, famine, and disease that comes with it?
Do you think it is better to just allow people to breed themselves to death?
quote:
RE attempting to change such trends, late William Shockley (physics Nobelaureate/ his team invented semiconductors) in his last years proposed such a radical solution to curtail "generational welfare" (pay people to be voluntarily sterilized so much for every 10 IQ points below normal they are, other constraints) and backed it's projected effectiveness with stats (doesn't touch the unfit parent issue, but it was an "incentive-based" reproduction pattern control idea.) Interesting concept, and it really didn't sound "racist" to me, but he was scorned and upon his death noted more for being "The latest in a long line of scientific racists" than discovering something that changed the world profoundly. Too bad.
That's the way the world works, the negative things you do will stick in the awareness of people far far longer than anything positive you do. I think it is a survival mechanism. You remember the bad shit, because it helps you avoid it in the future.
But really, there is no correlation between a person's IQ and how high the IQ of their children will be. Environmental factors are atleast as relevent (maybe moreso) than heredity. The notion that people should be sterilized based on IQ is an extremely bigoted notion.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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