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08-29-2004, 01:07 PM | #41 | |
Elf Lord
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Originally posted by brownjenkins
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so if a common drug was found to have been developed via 'unethical' means, you would refuse to use it on moral grounds?
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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08-29-2004, 01:16 PM | #42 | |
Elf Lord
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The thing is, if we accept this philosophy "ends justify means", we could fall into a deep hole. There no longer would be any restraint from keeping torture from being used by our government. Other scenarios would develop that would also be horrible. I don't buy the argument that we should look toward the future and ignore the justice or injustice of what happened in the past (or the present!). The main difficulty in my mind with this stance I'm taking is really long term issues. For example, I live in America. But America was taken by force a long time ago from its native inhabitants in ways that were often brutal. I'm benefiting now from a wrongdoing done centuries ago. I don't know where exactly the line should be drawn between my living in America and insidiously constructed good drugs.
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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08-29-2004, 01:51 PM | #43 | |
Advocatus Diaboli
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i think injustices can and should always be fought in the present... learning lessons from the past, but not carrying over blame... it adds little and tends to distract enormously so for drugs... if i was against stem-cell research (which i'm not), i would fight the process yet have no problem using the results if need be... i trust in 'humanity' to eventually take the best course of action, and if enough people did not see things my way, i'd have to seriously reconsider my position
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Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. |
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08-29-2004, 03:24 PM | #44 | |
Elf Lord
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__________________
If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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08-29-2004, 09:15 PM | #45 | |
Quasi Evil
Join Date: Jan 2003
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"People's political beliefs don't stem from the factual information they've acquired. Far more the facts people choose to believe are the product of their political beliefs." "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." |
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08-29-2004, 11:13 PM | #46 | |||||
Quasi Evil
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"People's political beliefs don't stem from the factual information they've acquired. Far more the facts people choose to believe are the product of their political beliefs." "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." |
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08-29-2004, 11:19 PM | #47 | ||||
Quasi Evil
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Location: Maryland, US
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I think this is the crux of the problem. We usually don’t see the cause and effect of genetics because its so well integrated into the machine. Just like we don’t see the pistons moving in the car engine but ultimately they cause the car to do certain things that we might otherwise attribute to some magical force if we didn’t take the time to study it a little more and investigate beyond the surface level. Always remember JUST because we have a consciousness and are aware of ourselves and can think doesn’t mean our actions aren’t influenced by deeper things. That’s always the simple way to view things. That we think therefore genetics don’t matter to us. But on the contrary. We think BECAUSE genetics allows it. Cerebral power is a great survival tool. Allows us to come up with all sorts of things to make the prospect of passing on our genes even better. Quote:
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Oh by the way speaking of repsonding to everything, might be a little slow this week with the monster replies. its gonna be a busy week for me. so if i get 7 or 8 posts behind bear with me. ill try not to get lost and lose track of what im replying to if i can help it.
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"People's political beliefs don't stem from the factual information they've acquired. Far more the facts people choose to believe are the product of their political beliefs." "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." |
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08-30-2004, 02:35 AM | #48 |
the Shrike
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Y'know, I've tried to attempt to make sense of what this thread is about, but all I see is "blah blah blah".
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"Binary solo! 0000001! 00000011! 0000001! 00000011!" ~ The Humans are Dead, Flight of the Conchords |
08-30-2004, 09:02 AM | #49 | |
Advocatus Diaboli
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Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. |
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08-30-2004, 12:24 PM | #50 |
Quasi Evil
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well its better then yada yada.
EDIT: Although I think the transfer of posts confused some people (people are easily confused here) and my argument with rian spooked others. But i think this is now about free will and genetics. so maybe that should be reflected in the title from here on out. moderator... EDIT EDIT: emm... free will and genetics and ethics in science. sorry forgot about lief and bj's conversation.
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"People's political beliefs don't stem from the factual information they've acquired. Far more the facts people choose to believe are the product of their political beliefs." "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Last edited by Insidious Rex : 08-30-2004 at 12:32 PM. |
08-30-2004, 12:44 PM | #51 |
Mootis per forum
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I agree you (you three and all you ) should keep within a topic. So, please, Lief (thread creator) choose a topic and I'll edit the title.
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Do not be hasty. That is my motto. Now we'll have a drink and go to the Entmoot. |
08-30-2004, 01:38 PM | #52 | |||||||
Elf Lord
Join Date: Dec 2000
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I heard of one tribe in the jungle of I believe Indonesia. They had a witchdoctor who was essentially leading the whole tribe. He had contact with demons. However, the Lord spoke to him in a voice that he could hear with his physical ears. The witchdoctor converted to Christianity, even though there were no missionaries whatsoever. He ordered the tribe to burn all their idols. Then he heard the Lord again, and he began to copy down what God told him. When Christians came to the village on their mission, they found that they already had copied down writings that were directly giving people, events and names from the New Testament, without ever having heard a sermon! Then there was another woman in a Muslim community. She converted to Christianity after seeing Jesus in a dream. He continued revealing things about himself to her through various means. She saw in a dream a man named John the Baptist, and she asked the missionaries she knew about him. Was there even such a man? She heard things in her sleep that the missionaries were able to show came straight out of the Bible. My own experience I've had people speak words of knowledge over me. Those are pieces of information that they gain from the spiritual realm, intimate details about my life that they could not possibly have known without God telling them. I am right now writing a book with God's help. In this book I didn't initially know that God was working through it as well. I only found out after I started reading the book of Revelation. I discovered massive numbers of parallels- too many to be possible without divine instigation, in my opinion. That discovery was one of the greatest spiritual experiences of my life. Right now I have a document about thirty pages long full of parallels between my book and the book of Revelation. Once I made a plot idea, but I was concerned because I knew it wasn't in Revelation. The Lord has told me very clearly that I'm not to worry about those parallels; those are his business- mine is just to write a good story. I was unsure of this plot idea, though it fitted magnificently with all my other plans. I was unsure because I did not want to mess up what the Lord was doing- in other words I was intruuding on his ground. Then as I was reading the Book of Daniel one day, I suddenly encountered a prophesy that gave exactly what my plot intention was. A powerful moment . Now I've cut myself off from reading the Old Testament prophecies, the book of Revelation and any other prophecies toward the End Times that exist in the Scriptures, except the ones I already know are fulfilled. I've even had other people pointing out to me parallels between things in my book and Revelation that I hadn't noticed before. Quote:
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You said in the past thread where we discussed this that you thought you'd be forced to resort to cannibalism by your genes if the circumstances were potential starvation. I am certain that is not the case. Your genes and environment might strongly push you toward taking that course of action, but in the end you have the deciding power. People have purposely starved themselves to the point of death before. See Gandhi. They certainly didn't resort to cannibalism.
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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08-30-2004, 01:43 PM | #53 | ||||
Quasi Evil
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I know you are going to ask me for sources but I remember learning a quite alarming statistic when I was an undergrad taking psych courses. They once did a genetic study of infants born in a hospital in California I think in the 1970s and they discovered that some 30% of the babies born did NOT match the DNA of the man listed as “father” on their birth certificate. We can only assume then that the mother had been impregnated by another male despite having a boyfriend or husband or someone significant enough to actually put on the birth certificate other then “unknown”. This is quite a stat if you think about it. Almost a third of women cheat?! And these were only the ones that managed to get themselves pregnant while cheating! You’ve got to assume a larger number cheat and don’t get pregnant. So yes imperfect monogamy (if you will) seems to definitely be in our genes. it seems to be the ideal way to maximize the successful spreading of our genetic information. ill look through my old psych books to try to find more on this study if you like. Quote:
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"People's political beliefs don't stem from the factual information they've acquired. Far more the facts people choose to believe are the product of their political beliefs." "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." |
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08-30-2004, 01:49 PM | #54 | |||
Quasi Evil
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So lets do a quick and dirty little numbers game. It’s the Paleolithic. Man has just evolved into his present form genetically. So lets say a person who lives a monogamous life raised 4 kids. Lets say theres a 50% chance that any one of those four kids will grow up to successfully pass on your half genes to a next generation. Now lets say you’re a Paleolithic play boy and you rove the land finding girls who are easy so you can have sex with them. Assuming for the purposes of this study that there is no birth control devices involved lets say your actions result in 25 children over the course of your mating life time. some would be likely to die pre-infancy because the mother is more likely to be less fit for motherhood or unready for motherhood then a more selective mother. Many more would die post birth but before maturity since life is generally harsh and without a guaranteed father figure the child as at a much bigger disadvantage then one with two parents to protect them and learn from. The fact that you are a whore makes it more likely that youll have some terrible sexual disease that could kill the female you mated with thus leading to no birth at all of course. And being an illegitimate offspring could lead to an ostricization of sorts that makes establishing yourself as a potential breeding adult later in life less likely (this is true in many animal species too actually. The curse of being the “bastard” is a real animal phenomenon for obvious genetic reasons). So what you end up with is maybe a 20% survival rate if you are lucky and then a much smaller successful breeding rate for the few surviving offspring perhaps bringing the viability down to single digits. now SOMETIMES the numbers work out better in this case despite all the problems. And that’s why you DO see it in nature. But more often then not the numbers go against this (numbers being success rate of your genes being passed on successfully into a second generation who themselves are in a position to breed successfully). In the end, what you find is that those males that stick closely with one mate so as to maximize the genetic strength of their primary offspring AND who successfully seduce other females (but not too many) on the side thus giving them the possibility of “bonus” offspring are most successful genetically. Quote:
If you are saying that you are sure that atheists cheat a lot more then Christians well id love to see that data. I think you would find this phenomenon consistently across the board myself. Its about the nature of humans. Sure if they are taught certain values then they are likely to exhibit the behaviors that those values reinforced. But you sure wont see the extinguishing of natural behaviors in full force just because of religion. Quote:
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"People's political beliefs don't stem from the factual information they've acquired. Far more the facts people choose to believe are the product of their political beliefs." "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Last edited by Insidious Rex : 08-30-2004 at 01:54 PM. |
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08-30-2004, 02:02 PM | #55 | |||||||||||||
Elf Lord
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Fountain Valley, CA
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Also about the Medieval monasteries. You said that that would be caused by genes because it may be better for the organism. However, in the Medieval Ages it was a massive number of people that chose this course. Was it coincidence that it was better for all of them to become monks at the same basic point in history? Quote:
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Is this correct, or wrong in several points ? Quote:
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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08-30-2004, 02:07 PM | #56 | |
Quasi Evil
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Maryland, US
Posts: 4,634
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You concede the strong influences of genetics and environment. Im aware that we are NOT mindless robots and choice IS certainly a factor in life. The difference I think is where we see that choice coming from. You propose its source is something ethereal and immeasurable. A “soul”. I propose it’s the echo of our genetic pattern interacting with our environment. So in a way you have a third factor where I have two. Shall we proceed from this point so that the message board doesn’t tip over from the weight and frequency of our mega posts?
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"People's political beliefs don't stem from the factual information they've acquired. Far more the facts people choose to believe are the product of their political beliefs." "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." |
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08-30-2004, 02:52 PM | #57 | |||||||||
Elf Lord
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It's like a monarchy. The monarch's decisions are influenced by economics, potential threats, many, many factors. However, in the final analysis it's up to him. Some monarchs make bad decisions and some make good ones. In the same way, we see genes and environment being strong powers influencing the soul (monarch). The soul makes the final decision. Quote:
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It's one of the frustrating things that still has me undecided on this abstinence-only vs. abstinence+ situation. I've researched it, and my sister immediately drew a conclusion based upon the evidence from the two or three articles that we read. I'm not satisfied, yet, and still need to hear more arguments before I make a belief on that. I have to be sure enough and knowledgable enough that I can actually argue a position before I can take the belief for myself. Quote:
That's one of the really remarkable things that happens when people come to know Christ personally. When Christ comes into people's lives, he sets about undoing the harm that was done in Eden. People change enormously for the better. Sins are slowly but surely wiped out from their lives. Drug addicts, thugs, theives, and others that come to know Christ have massive character changes happen swiftly. Sometimes it's basically an overnight change. God also has been known to sovereignly wipe out people's drug addictions. But as my grandma tells me frequently, the greatest miracle (beyond waters opening and fire from heaven) is the changed life. Quote:
Yet I won't blame demons for all these sins. The devil does work against us, but we also have sin within us. Free will is bound by sin. If we had complete freedom (a sort of cerebral detachment), I think we'd be able to avoid sinning all our lives. But we aren't free. It says in the scripture "everyone who sins is a slave to sin."
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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08-30-2004, 02:56 PM | #58 | ||
Elf Lord
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__________________
If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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08-30-2004, 03:19 PM | #59 | |||||
Elf Lord
Join Date: Dec 2000
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Agh! I really want to respond to this post of yours. Really do. Even if it's not all about the arguments about the soul.
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Anyway, our own poor example limits me severely in being able to argue your point. It's really very sad. I do believe though that religious convictions are the reason why many people abstain from having sex others. Quote:
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__________________
If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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08-30-2004, 03:21 PM | #60 | |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Fountain Valley, CA
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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