At 12/2/10 10:21 AM, The-General-Public wrote: That doesn't mean rights don't exist, learn to read. I'm not saying you're a liar, I'm saying you're not smart enough to actually look up the word "right" in the dictionary. Rights don't have to be inalienable to be rights, they can and have been given and taken away by societies at different times throughout history.

So you're an imbecile who is agreeing that everything I said is absolute fact but arguing with me over the name I give it? Oh good grief.

So society gives you something, and can take it away. How can you claim a right tothat? You can't. By your own admission, you're a moron.

Taking control of someone else's body for your own moral reasons is an extreme view in our society. Maybe if you lived 500 years ago it wouldn't be extreme, but it is now.

Um, it's not today either. Have you not watched the news? I'm pretty sure drugs are illegal. Selling your organs is illegal. Etc. Sorry, bud, you can't make a legal claim here. You're simply not correct.

Well, I don't claim that Al Gore talks to me and tells me to make pregnant women have babies, so yeah, it actually is.

No, actually, it's not. Sorry, I'd debate further, but I see no reason in wasting characters on someone who refuses to admit clear error on the most basic of things.

Just because your argument is idiotic, incorrect, poorly-informed, and guaranteed to make people miserable doesn't mean it's necessarily "wrong". It just means it's idiotic, poorly-informed, and guaranteed to make people miserable. My position that a fetus isn't a person is neither inferior nor superior to your position that a fetus is, it's just not retarded and guaranteed to make people suffer.

Oh, sweet Jesus. Yes, if someone's opinion is idiotic, it's wrong.

Of course, your opinion meets your own criteria, but you won't admit that.

Yeah exactly, for somebody who believes that rights are inalienable and given by God, you don't seem to have a problem admitting that they've only actually existed for .0001 percent of human history. Your God sucks at protecting people's rights. If you had any intellectual rigor, you should actually be claiming that rights don't exist period.

....

Fuck, you really are an imbecile aren't you.

It really takes a conceited little twat to reiterate what someone has REPEATEDLY said, (and discredited when they didn't like it) to prove them wrong.

I'm going to try this once more, very slowly, cause you're a retard. Small sentences when I can.

People suck. They often hurt each other. Slavery, genocide, rape, murder. People will do these left to their own devices. If society defines what is right, then these are all right. As long as society is ok with them. So, you have only what society wants to give you. If society decides your daughter is cute and want her, they can have her. If they decide your house rocks, they can take it.

And you have no position to argue otherwise.

As I've said before, crap happens. And without an objective sense of morality, you have no frame to argue morality. You're done.

At 12/5/10 08:59 PM, The-General-Public wrote: Actually, all I ever said prior to that post was that your logic was unconvincing. Which, as a matter of fact, it was. Your entire argument rested on the strange assumption that when people do things you don't agree with, they should be legally prevented from trying to fix their mistakes. Do you think that people who walk around barefoot outside and get hookworm should be legally prohibited from getting treatment as well?

When someone is so stupid as to claim that "removal of a fetus" is an abortion, then they have no room to mock anyone else on their logic ever again.

So shut up.

I guess I'm a totally heartless animal, but abortions are not only useful for research, but are also bettering mankind!

With the useful stem-cells collected from each fetus we can reverse ailments of all types!, possible aids and cancer treatments even!
And with the planet as populated and at peak resource capacity one less human will do the world a lot of good, especially if that person is from America, certain African countries, China, Japan, India, Brazil or the United Kingdom all could benefit from preventing life, possibly Australia could benefit as well with water crises.

Of course, I find nothing ethically wrong, as long as the baby isn't too far into development and if the situation calls for it. (Rape, accidental pregnancy, severe disorders, save the mother's life)

And please!, If someone just had an abortion they probably feel terrible about it, there's no need to throw stuff at them and call them bad names! You don't even know why they had the abortion! It could be to save the mother's life even!

At 12/7/10 08:55 AM, WolvenBear wrote: As I've said before, crap happens. And without an objective sense of morality, you have no frame to argue morality. You're done.

Labeling your particular brand of morality objective doesn't make it objective, and neither does deferring authorship to God.

There's a big difference between being objective and being absolutist.

At 12/7/10 08:55 AM, WolvenBear wrote: So society gives you something, and can take it away. How can you claim a right tothat? You can't. By your own admission, you're a moron.

Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory.

Um, it's not today either. Have you not watched the news? I'm pretty sure drugs are illegal. Selling your organs is illegal. Etc. Sorry, bud, you can't make a legal claim here. You're simply not correct.

Terrible examples. Neither of those involve taking control of somebody's body for personal moral reasons.

No, actually, it's not. Sorry, I'd debate further, but I see no reason in wasting characters on someone who refuses to admit clear error on the most basic of things.

So you admit that you don't have any reason to believe what you do, ok.

Oh, sweet Jesus. Yes, if someone's opinion is idiotic, it's wrong.

No it isn't. I could believe the earth is round because I think aliens told me. Just as there's an insanely unlikely chance that abortion kills a being that is capable of feeling, and that a God exists who is against that. It wouldn't change the fact that you've argued for those two things spectacularly poorly.

People suck. They often hurt each other. Slavery, genocide, rape, murder. People will do these left to their own devices. If society defines what is right, then these are all right.

bzzt, wrong. Slavery, rape, genocide, and murder were illegal in the US last I checked.

As long as society is ok with them. So, you have only what society wants to give you. If society decides your daughter is cute and want her, they can have her. If they decide your house rocks, they can take it.

Yes, and that's happened many times throughout history. And it's generally been pretty miserable.

And you have no position to argue otherwise.

As a member of the society I'm part of, I disagree.

As I've said before, crap happens. And without an objective sense of morality, you have no frame to argue morality. You're done.

No, I have my sense of morality, and you have yours, you just pretend that yours is divinely sanctiond and "better" in some metaphysical way than mine. It's not.

At 12/7/10 09:37 AM, Bacchanalian wrote: Labeling your particular brand of morality objective doesn't make it objective, and neither does deferring authorship to God.

Labelling my brand of morality objective means that I acknowledge that rights come from outside me. Things annoy me all the time that I still defend the right of people to do. For example: We have a lot of people who have no clue what they are talking about bashing Christianity. But that is their God given right, as free will and free speech are God given characteristics.

There's a big difference between being objective and being absolutist.

It's fun to make statements we don't understand what they mean!

At 12/7/10 11:55 AM, The-General-Public wrote: Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory.

But laws change. Social precepts change. And as I have REPEATEDLY pointed out, what is socially acceptable today will not be tomorrow. And what was acceptable yesterday isn't today. Unfortunately, under the "society rules" clause, slavery just isn't immoral. Nor is rape, genocide, etc. All were once hallmarks of our culture, and all were abandoned because it made us feel warm and fuzzy inside. With the "majority rules" banner, it is simply impossible to say what happened before was wrong because...well...majority ruled. This is what you don't get. And this is why, no matter how many times you simply claim "right's just are", I'll continue to point out that you're absolutely wrong.

Terrible examples. Neither of those involve taking control of somebody's body for personal moral reasons.

Buzzer sound. Wrong answer.

Explain to me, without morality, why drugs are bad. Take all day, I'll read a book while I wait. Cause you can't do it. Justify to me, in rational terms, why 40% of the people we put in jail every year are pot smokers.

See, that's an impossible task. Moreover:

Why can't I sell my kidney to you. You are dying. You need one. I have no desire to part with it for free, but I will for money. So this benefits us both. I get money, you get to live. OOOOHHHHH! Feds think it's immoral. The horrors.

You. Do. Not. Have. A. Case.

No it isn't. I could believe the earth is round because I think aliens told me. Just as there's an insanely unlikely chance that abortion kills a being that is capable of feeling, and that a God exists who is against that. It wouldn't change the fact that you've argued for those two things spectacularly poorly.

I've argued my case insanely well thank you. Which is why you fools keep bringing up points I made pages ago to try and trip me up...and then are surprised when I say "No Shit Sherlock. Just figured that out didja? I pointed that out two weeks ago!" You, quite simply, have no idea why I believe what I believe. You're just an idiot who assumed "hey, he thinks abortion is wrong, and he knows what the bible says....he MUST be a bible thumper!" So, to be brutal, you are the fool who is assuming everything, and is REPEATEDLY proved wrong. Pardon me if I erase idiocy on your part that I have addressed more than a dozen times...

As a member of the society I'm part of, I disagree.

And now I stop being nice. No one gives a fuck about what you think. You are certainly less important than any of the Asians (many of which had no Japanese connection) that we shipped off to camps. I doubt you are any more useful than any Jew that was put in an oven or a gas chamber. You certainly have less to offer the world than those on the Trail of Tears.

People suck and kill each other all the time. Without setting a right and wrong standard that transcends people, rights do not exist. Period. End of discussion. And there's not a person alive smart enough to argue otherwise.

No, I have my sense of morality, and you have yours, you just pretend that yours is divinely sanctiond and "better" in some metaphysical way than mine. It's not.

And when some dude comes to rip your face off, ry and explain to him why your morality is better than his.

My morality is superior to yours. My morality acknowledges right and wrong, and yours doesn't. As such, mine is better.

At 12/5/10 08:21 PM, LaForge wrote:

At 12/5/10 07:15 PM, The-General-Public wrote: Getting flamed and spat at are the consequences of public espousing idiotic beliefs, and nobody should be able to dodge them.

This post encapsulates my point. There's never been a gentlemanly, respectful argument in Politics. It always goes like this:

Tony: I believe in God.
Matthew: You're a fucking gullible asshole.
Tony: Why?
Matthew: Because there's no proof that god exists, dipshit
Tony: Lack of evidence doesn't discredit a theory
Matthew: Lol, you're a lower life form than me because of your beliefs.

The existence of a creator, or an intelligible form that created the universe is a more justifiable hypothesis than to claim there wasn't one.

At 12/7/10 01:25 PM, WolvenBear wrote: My morality is superior to yours. My morality acknowledges right and wrong, and yours doesn't. As such, mine is better.

And how do you know the concepts of 'right and wrong' exists? Can you point out that right and wrong exist objectively in the world? When you see a baby being stamped on, do you point. Look out! Over there! Its badness! Because I don't.

And to claim your morality is superior, is a statement which infers that moral beliefs are subjective, and in doing so you then are irrational to infer that your morality > anybody else's morality, if there is no objective moral truth in the first place for you to attach moral 'values' too. It becomes nothing more than an self-opinionated claim based on little to no justification other than the subjective beliefs that you have arrived at given the sense data (things that affect the way you infer moral truth) around your personal being.

At 12/7/10 01:37 PM, ArmouredGRIFFON wrote:

At 12/7/10 01:25 PM, WolvenBear wrote: My morality is superior to yours. My morality acknowledges right and wrong, and yours doesn't. As such, mine is better.

And how do you know the concepts of 'right and wrong' exists? Can you point out that right and wrong exist objectively in the world? When you see a baby being stamped on, do you point. Look out! Over there! Its badness! Because I don't.

And to claim your morality is superior, is a statement which infers that moral beliefs are subjective, and in doing so you then are irrational to infer that your morality > anybody else's morality, if there is no objective moral truth in the first place for you to attach moral 'values' too. It becomes nothing more than an self-opinionated claim based on little to no justification other than the subjective beliefs that you have arrived at given the sense data (things that affect the way you infer moral truth) around your personal being.

And then we arrive at a question. Is it somehow better to have moral values? And if so are you merely making an intuitive decision to universalise a principle, based on the knowledge you have arrived at merely within your lifespan; which is a weak justifiable (inductive) prejudice to start making rational decisions from given your insignificant amount of time spent on this planet across the whole of human history.

Explain to me, without morality, why drugs are bad.

Why can't I sell my kidney to you. You are dying. You need one. I have no desire to part with it for free, but I will for money. So this benefits us both. I get money, you get to live. OOOOHHHHH! Feds think it's immoral. The horrors.

It's not immoral, just risky and unsafe. It's immoral in the sense that not having a stoplight at an intersection is immoral.

I've argued my case insanely well thank you. Which is why you fools keep bringing up points I made pages ago to try and trip me up...and then are surprised when I say "No Shit Sherlock. Just figured that out didja? I pointed that out two weeks ago!"

Well seeing as you still believe in an objective morality, not quite.

And now I stop being nice. No one gives a fuck about what you think.

Well seeing as abortion is still legal, I'd say the same of your opinions.

You are certainly less important than any of the Asians (many of which had no Japanese connection) that we shipped off to camps. I doubt you are any more useful than any Jew that was put in an oven or a gas chamber. You certainly have less to offer the world than those on the Trail of Tears.

You're funny when you lose your temper.

People suck and kill each other all the time. Without setting a right and wrong standard that transcends people, rights do not exist.

Keep saying it, it's bound to come true eventually if you say it enough

And when some dude comes to rip your face off, ry and explain to him why your morality is better than his.

That's silly.

My morality is superior to yours. My morality acknowledges right and wrong, and yours doesn't. As such, mine is better.

My morality acknowledges the fallibility of human knowledge, is skeptical of authoritative claims about right and wrong based on no evidence, and tries to improve the condition of all society. I'm happy with my morality.

At 12/7/10 01:25 PM, WolvenBear wrote: Labelling my brand of morality objective means that I acknowledge that rights come from outside me.

That doesn't actually render your brand of morality objective though.

I can source my preference for tanned skin. That would be objective. But my preference for tanned skin? Still subjective.

Additionally, the source you're identifying is merely alleged.

And by your own admission, what rights we have at any given time is subject to the whim of our social environment.

And regardless of whether there is some divine authority, the implementation still undeniably falls to the zeitgeist.

And even if it's God decreeing what's right and wrong, those values are still normative.

Things annoy me all the time that I still defend the right of people to do.

That's noble of you, but, what does that have to do with morality being objective?

It's fun to make statements we don't understand what they mean!

Objectivity, by virtue of its falsifiability, is not absolutist.

A statement alleged to be true regardless of falsifiability, is in practice absolutist.

At 12/4/10 09:46 AM, Bacchanalian wrote: And if the woman is open to suggestion you can persuade her not to abort.

If you persuade her she will not abort but it's uncertain you'll succeed.

At 12/8/10 01:42 AM, satanbrain wrote: If you persuade her she will not abort but it's uncertain you'll succeed.

Yawn. If our hero puts the child somewhere safe or deceives the shooter with a fake doll the child will survive but it's uncertain he'll succeed.

Your really beginning not to make any sense. If I succeed it's uncertain I'll succeed!

So, do you consider capability and moral imperative one in the same - i.e. that if you can then you should? Is there a reason you're ignoring this question? Do you find it unfair? Incorrect to ask? Irrelevant? What?

At 12/8/10 09:33 AM, Bacchanalian wrote: If I succeed it's uncertain I'll succeed!

Edit: That's an incorrect assessment. I'll try again...

I may succeed but it's uncertain I will.

At 12/4/10 09:43 PM, The-General-Public wrote:

At 12/4/10 09:09 PM, LaForge wrote:

At 12/4/10 08:42 PM, The-General-Public wrote: I did. Medical peril is sometimes a result of underage sex. Your logic is unimpressive

Your logic is non-existent. "In the case of medical peril" encases anything that puts a person at risk, even if under age.

Like pregnancy

Pregnancy, especially at a young age can be dangerous.

However, in most cases it isn't dangerous, only inconvenient. And there's a heap of technology to save women and foetuses from sudden death.

Medical peril is a valid reason for terminating pregnancies in case the doctors state that there is peril. This does not imply that pregnancies should be terminated just to avoid dangers.

But I say this to oppose the justification of medical peril/parasitism for abortion. If a woman wants to have an abortion, she can have one as far as I'm concerned.

At 12/4/10 05:43 PM, The-General-Public wrote: bias n: a particular tendency or inclination, esp. one that prevents unprejudiced consideration of a question; prejudice.

learn what bias means

you don't know what "esp." is supposed to mean do you?
we have an inclination against elective surgery (plastic surgery and abortion aren't esp. risky but they sure as hell aren't recommended) and the preservation of "life". how would you create something neutral and free of social mores?

At 12/8/10 12:41 PM, SolInvictus wrote: how would you create something neutral and free of social mores?

Pretty easily

At 12/8/10 05:37 PM, The-General-Public wrote:

At 12/8/10 12:41 PM, SolInvictus wrote: how would you create something neutral and free of social mores?

Pretty easily

Okay, do it. I dare you to create something completely independent of the social, even only hypothetically.

And how much do you want to bet that I can find the social connection to it?

At 12/8/10 06:34 PM, Ravariel wrote:

At 12/8/10 05:37 PM, The-General-Public wrote:

At 12/8/10 12:41 PM, SolInvictus wrote:

Okay, do it. I dare you to create something completely independent of the social, even only hypothetically.

In any right triangle, the area of the square whose side is the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) is equal to the sum of the areas of the squares whose sides are the two legs (the two sides that meet at a right angle).

And how much do you want to bet that I can find the social connection to it?

I bet you'll find something stupid and claim that it's a social connection.

Pro choice. my sronges argument is probably the most comonly herad. what if...rape, what if a doctor tells you that you might or will die if you give birth. then there is the argument that goes either way...you and your baby will be perfectly healthy, but you dead beat boyfriend jumps ship, you weresigned up for college next fall and you have a min. wage job...now, would having a baby be good for you or he baby, youd live a life of poverty. so i am pro choice...and a republican.

At 12/8/10 09:33 AM, Bacchanalian wrote: Yawn. If our hero puts the child somewhere safe or deceives the shooter with a fake doll the child will survive but it's uncertain he'll succeed.

There is more significant chance that he'll succeed than that you will succeed to convice women not to abort.

So, do you consider capability and moral imperative one in the same - i.e. that if you can then you should? Is there a reason you're ignoring this question? Do you find it unfair? Incorrect to ask? Irrelevant? What?

No.

Wolvenbear reminds me a lot of the goofball caller in this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq7-GuiLG Z8

At 12/8/10 07:49 PM, The-General-Public wrote: In any right triangle, the area of the square whose side is the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) is equal to the sum of the areas of the squares whose sides are the two legs (the two sides that meet at a right angle).

It's ok to be "off topic" now? Alright... Addressing your claim that using mouthwash is logically incompatible with being pro-life...

While { classifying the use of mouthwash as immoral } would be a logical implication of some potential pro-life rationales, those rationales are not required to be pro-life.

If this sounds mildly familiar it's adapted, as a point, from the following thing you said: "while I guess that believing those things would be a logical implication of my personal beliefs about abortion/fetal rights, they're not required to be pro-choice."

At 12/9/10 09:30 AM, satanbrain wrote: There is more significant chance that he'll succeed than that you will succeed to convice women not to abort.

You said, "If someone doesn't want a baby to die he'll always be able to take care of it, otherwise he's a hypocrite."

Do you acknowledge a chance of failure (significant enough to call it chance) or not?

No.

I can't read your mind. There are several questions there. Here are your options... since we know the answer is "no" to one of them...

A. No, capability and moral imperative are not one in the same. I disagree with the notion that, "If you can, then you should."

B. No, there is no reason I am ignoring your question.

C. No, I do not find it unfair.

D. No, I do not find it incorrect to ask.

E. No, I do not find it irrelevant.

Hell, pick all that apply.

At 12/9/10 05:58 PM, Bacchanalian wrote:

At 12/8/10 07:49 PM, The-General-Public wrote: In any right triangle, the area of the square whose side is the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) is equal to the sum of the areas of the squares whose sides are the two legs (the two sides that meet at a right angle).

It's ok to be "off topic" now? Alright... Addressing your claim that using mouthwash is logically incompatible with being pro-life...

While { classifying the use of mouthwash as immoral } would be a logical implication of some potential pro-life rationales, those rationales are not required to be pro-life.

I thought we'd settled this discussion pages ago by deciding that you were paranoid and read things into my posts that I never said.

At 12/9/10 10:40 PM, The-General-Public wrote: I thought we'd settled this discussion pages ago by deciding that you were paranoid and read things into my posts that I never said.

Verbatim...

You: So why does a human fetus deserve more care than another living creature?

Me: Fine! You've made your point! I'll stop using mouth wash!

You: Well, your philosophy will be logically coherent at least then.

Before I go assuming anything, how about you show me where you leave off and my paranoia picks up between the above exchange and my recent post to you. Show me what's being read that isn't there.

At 12/8/10 05:37 PM, The-General-Public wrote:

At 12/8/10 12:41 PM, SolInvictus wrote: how would you create something neutral and free of social mores?

Pretty easily

... so this whole "women's have a right to their own bodies" is not social?

At 12/8/10 07:49 PM, The-General-Public wrote: I bet you'll find something stupid and claim that it's a social connection.

You mean like the history of the Pythagoreans that they discovered irrational numbers, but kept the discovery secret because they believed that all is number, and the idea that sqrt 2 is not a distance that can be measured by a ruler divided into fractional parts was so disturbing to them that they put one of their own members to death when he tried to make the discovery public.

Not only that, but the ancient egyptians first discovered the ratio 4000 years ago, well before pythagoras, and so the entirety of egyptian social culture around mathematics can be brought into play.

The idea of an objective truth separate from culture is meaningless. Math doesn't actually exist, integers don't exist, they are a cultural creation that allows us to do complex things, but "natural" bodies don't do math, planets don't sketch out equations to determine their orbits. Math is descriptive, not proscriptive, and description requires cognition which requires social interaction between a mind and the physical world.

Math is actually one of the most cultural things in the universe.

At 12/9/10 11:23 PM, Ravariel wrote: social interaction between a mind and the physical world.

That's an awfully funny use of the word "social."

At 12/9/10 11:35 PM, Bacchanalian wrote:

At 12/9/10 11:23 PM, Ravariel wrote: social interaction between a mind and the physical world.

That's an awfully funny use of the word "social."

I know.

At 12/9/10 11:23 PM, Ravariel wrote: Not only that, but the ancient egyptians first discovered the ratio 4000 years ago, well before pythagoras, and so the entirety of egyptian social culture around mathematics can be brought into play.

So Pythagoras discovered it after the Egyptians without knowing that they had discovered it previously?

Math is actually one of the most cultural things in the universe.

Hahaha, oh wow.