BS: Religious freedom, or murder?

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 15 Apr 08 - 07:06 PM

Um - you can't use "what comes naturally" as an excuse for bad behavior - that is the price of civilization. Or socialization, if you prefer. Only babies get to do what comes naturally, unfortunately...

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: M.Ted
Date: 14 Apr 08 - 09:39 PM

Well, close enough, Riginslinger--and if you've got a conviction, you've got to do the time;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 14 Apr 08 - 07:56 PM

Religious Freedom is not murder, Religious Conviction is murder, or can be, and that's the problem.

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: M.Ted
Date: 14 Apr 08 - 07:24 PM

I'm surprised that no one gone the short step to say that "Religious Freedom is Murder"--

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Slag
Date: 14 Apr 08 - 07:13 PM

Ahoy there! We're listing about 6 degrees of the Isles of Langerhans! (with all due apologies to Harlan Ellison).

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: M.Ted
Date: 13 Apr 08 - 09:38 PM

It didn't drift--it started out there.

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Slag
Date: 13 Apr 08 - 09:24 PM

Thread drift, dear Ted. Any conversation can go astray. It does not mean that anyone is making light of the tragedy. Ease up a bit.

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: M.Ted
Date: 13 Apr 08 - 08:12 PM

The loss of a child is the most pain that a parent can feel. Some of you are so completely full of yourselves that you are oblivious to the human truths.

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Slag
Date: 13 Apr 08 - 04:20 PM

Doncha just love this?

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Ebbie
Date: 13 Apr 08 - 02:44 PM

"A materialist would argue that if you must posit a God that did not come from anywhere, and was simply a primal Cause uncaused, ..."

I do belive in evolution (duh!) but that statement, Amos, is v e r y close to what science says about the universe. If I understand it correctly, they say: It (the void with its suns and planets, et al) was always there. (huh?)

Having matter -that has always been there - deteriorate and combine and then regrow into higher entities doesn't take a lot less faith than creationism.

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 12 Apr 08 - 10:47 PM

"...we are hereby absolved of all responsibility for our actions. I mean, I'm only doing what comes naturally!"


                         But how does that play in Peoria?

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Slag
Date: 12 Apr 08 - 06:17 PM

Well, praise The Big Bang, Mrrzy, Amos! It was IT that determined our anthropomorphic existence and the natures we enjoy- or suffer, depending on your point of view. Either way, we are hereby absolved of all responsibility for our actions. I mean, I'm only doing what comes naturally!

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 12 Apr 08 - 02:08 PM

"What they did to their daughter, either through ignorance or pride or stupidity is inexcusable. They have to be made aware of this."


                The really sad part of it is, there is probably no way in the world to actually make them aware of it. They are most likely too far gone. You might have been able to save the daughter, if she'd lived, but...

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 Apr 08 - 01:33 PM

Love it, Amos - no *earthly* reason, indeed!

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Slag
Date: 12 Apr 08 - 01:59 AM

Yes Amos, your argument has much more the force of logic. I hate to tell Greg B the E=mc2 is NOT immutable and is certainly not the finally answer in physics (hyper expansion at 10^-34) not to mention the broken symmetries.

Some folks cannot conceive of their God knowing anything beyond their own ken and when they get out of their league in things scientific they feel threatened in their faith. I would question whether their faith was really in God or in their own ability to understand! I love the sciences. It gives me insight into just how really powerful and beyond us God is! It is not WHAT you know. It's WHO you know!

Yup, big time thread drift. I looked back (again) to discover the point of departure from the topic. Somewhere around Mrrzy and Guest Charlie Chicken. I guess that it was inevitable that this would come up but it has been done to death in other threads. These people do not have a theological leg to stand on. They do not have a legal leg to stand on. What they did to their daughter, either through ignorance or pride or stupidity is inexcusable. They have to be made aware of this.

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Amos
Date: 11 Apr 08 - 03:29 PM

The problem with a creation myth is that it is superfluous. A materialist would argue that if you must posit a God that did not come from anywhere, and was simply a primal Cause uncaused, there is no earthly reason the Big Bang could not serve just as well as the primary Cause uncaused.

I don't wholly buy this, but the logic is pretty straightforwad.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Greg B
Date: 11 Apr 08 - 03:21 PM

But that's just an extension of the dozens of other creation myths, now isn't it Slag?

It's anthropologically arguable that virtually every society has
sought to extend the limits of their knowledge of their origins with
some sort of creation myth. Whether it's Yahweh saying "Let there be
light" or some great cosmic hippopotamus sneezing out a glob of
hippo-snot that became the world, the creation myths have always begun
where empirical or scientific knowledge has left off.

In latter days, Christianity (et al) have sought to prop up their
creation myths by shutting down science.

Other more enlightened spirtualists and theologians have sought either
to rationalize or or to mesh their creation myths with newly-acquired
scientific knowledge. Thus there continues to be a creator, but now
it's the one that set E=mc**2 as an immutable rule. Meanwhile, such
as Stephen Hawking continue to push the point where scientific
knowledge ends and creation myth begins further and further back
in time and space (which turn out to be two sides of the same
cosmic coin, after all).

The interesting thing is that the keepers of the creation myths, no
matter how absurd, have done pretty well for themselves in society.
Arguably by making it up as they go along. Which is a lot less work
than finding neutrinos.

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Slag
Date: 11 Apr 08 - 01:59 AM

Gee, I wonder where it came from?

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: katlaughing
Date: 10 Apr 08 - 10:25 PM

Though the key scientist in THIS, is not happy with it being dubbed the "God particle," scientists believe they may be able to now prove the existence of a force which gives mass to the universe and makes life possible.

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Bob Pacquin
Date: 10 Apr 08 - 09:52 PM

Old Bob can't say for sure what happened here--but he does think that one ought to read up on a subject *before* coming to a conclusion about it. Link to News Stories about Kara Neumann

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 10 Apr 08 - 07:38 PM

Amazing, ain't it?

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Amos
Date: 10 Apr 08 - 05:49 PM

http://www.livescience.com//health/080410-bad-prayer-kills.html is of interest.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 Apr 08 - 01:22 PM

Well, Plato, Buddha, etc., didn't have fMRI, now, did they (LOL!)?

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: GUEST,Chicken Charlie
Date: 07 Apr 08 - 12:15 PM

Mrrzy--

I hear you.

Plato, Plotinus, Buddha and Lao Tzu would, however, disagree with the "What you see is what you get" approach. Oh, well. I guess that's why there are philosophy professors in the world. I think I'll go back to something demonstrable, like the strings on several of my instruments being worn out and in need of replacing. I hold THAT truth to be self-evident, so I guess that's a start.

Best wishes,
Chicken Charlie

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 Apr 08 - 10:27 AM

I need you to 'splain about how you demonstrate the reality of God not existing -- or existing, for that matter. I wish it could be demonstrated, but it seems to me that the believer can always say, "Of course I can't demonstrate God; He/She/It is a spirit and I just have to have faith in Him/Her/It," while the materialist has the hard task of proving the negative.
One cannot demonstrate the reality of no-gods. However, one *can* demonstrate that pretty much anything the faithful believe is god-based, isn't. And the point of faith is just what you said - it has no proof, needs no proof, you just gotta believe. Reality, in contrast, can be demonstrated, so there is no need of faith when you believe in the demonstrable.
The burden of extraordinary proof, furthermore, is on the people making the *supernatural* and thus extraordinary claims, not on the rest of us.

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 10:25 AM

There is no proof in the post above, period!

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Slag
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 01:59 AM

"an evil and adulterous generation that seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it but the sign of the prophet Jonas: for as Jonas was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." (Mt 12:39,40)

"Then he said, 'I pray thee therefore father (the rich man in Hell to father Abraham) that thou wouldst send him (Lazarus the Beggar) to my father's house: for I have five brethren; that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.' Abraham saith unto him, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.' And he said, 'Nay father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.' And he said unto him, 'If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.'" (Lk 16: 27-31)

The proof has been given. It is up to you to either accept it or reject it.

However, in the case of this little child, it is hubris for the parents not to acknowledge that their faith was not sufficient and to have not availed themselves of proven medical procedure was criminal neglect. To quote another "A man's got to know his limitations." (Clint Eastwood as 'Dirty Harry')

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: GUEST,Chicken Charlie
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 01:14 AM

Mrrzy--

I need you to 'splain about how you demonstrate the reality of God not existing -- or existing, for that matter. I wish it could be demonstrated, but it seems to me that the believer can always say, "Of course I can't demonstrate God; He/She/It is a spirit and I just have to have faith in Him/Her/It," while the materialist has the hard task of proving the negative.

Any number of Third World rebels have said, "We can take our country back! Just believe and the White Man's bullets can't kill you. So they attacked the forces of the colonizing power, whichever one it was that day, and were shot dead. When their friends complained to the guru/witch doctor/mullah/medicine man/leopard priest, he just said, "You didn't believe hard enough."

I really, really want to come up with a foolproof way to DEMONSTRATE that there is no higher power playing April Fool jokes like that, but how do you do it???? You can't just say, "I don't believe it" cause then you walk right into the dude's trap. Whaaaa?


CC

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 06 Apr 08 - 12:39 AM

Mrrzy - It all seems like the same thing to me. People hopelessly addicted to some superstition or another doing something that--if they were straight, they would know to be wrong--and in the process hurting children.

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 09:10 PM

Um - if the gubmint can take little girls away from their families to protect them (these children) from being married off to married old men [not a typo], shouldn't they (the gubmint) be protecting them (children in general) from death? Or is that another thread, rather than a refresh of this one?

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 03 Apr 08 - 09:02 PM

Bush proves that every silver lining has a dark cloud in the middle!

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: GUEST,Neil D
Date: 03 Apr 08 - 03:48 PM

Murder.

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 03 Apr 08 - 03:14 PM

ooops I was redoing that paragraph. I meant to say in those 40 states, it is a crime to allow a child to die by not taking them to a doctor when they get sick. Unless you can say that your god wanted you to, and then suddenly it's OK with the law.

I think it's time to take that allowance away to protect children from the stupidity -or, if you porefer, credulousness, of their parents. The OTHER 10 states seem reasonable to me: this is child neglect, and neglectful homicide.

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 03 Apr 08 - 03:12 PM

Little Hawk - reality is demonstrable. You can have your own version, but if it doesn't jibe with what is demonstrable, then you are wrong, whether you want to believe it or not.

And I certainly feel - and in reality AM- threatened by the credulously superstitious, and so are you, whether you wish to believe it or not. The war of Islamic terrorists on the rest of the world has been going on for decades; the war of Christianity against reason in the US is kind of new, but none the less threatening.

Believing Christians may not blow up embassies or airliners, yet, but they murder doctors, deny reality (not what they believe, but what actually IS), they are having a very good run at stifling reason when it contradicts their faith (their word for what I would call their dangerous and stupid superstitions), and (just to get back to the thread), this couple of them actually murdered, in many people's hearts, their child, by stupidly refusing to believe that she could possibly die if all they did for her as she got sicker and sicker and sicker was pray. The really sad thing is that in 40 states, if you allow a child to die because of your religion, that is legal, whereas if you let them die IN THE EXACT SAME NEGLECTFUL WAY

The believers in prayer are not living in their own reality. They are living in a delusion that is real to them. The same could be said of many mad people... except that there are no priests to say The voices you hear are the word of God, nowadays. Small favors.

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 03 Apr 08 - 01:59 PM

LH - I think people who are addicted to one thing or another definately have their own versions of reality.
                      People who are addicted to ancient superstitions do things like start wars, pervert society, and fly airplanes into buildings.

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 03 Apr 08 - 01:17 PM

Everyone deals with what they think of as "reality", Riginslinger. They do. Without exception. They deal with their version of "reality". They deal with it quite consciously, every single day of their lives. Again, you object specifically to people whose version of "reality" is noticeably different from yours in certain specific respects (of a religious sort).

Why not just get on happily with your own reality instead? Do you feel threatened by those who believe differently, Riginslinger? I think you must feel threatened, otherwise you would not keep bellyaching constantly on this forum about people who happen to believe in some things you don't believe in.

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: GUEST,Chicken Charlie
Date: 03 Apr 08 - 11:10 AM

Oh, and Slag, I forgot to say that I reject your concept of mince pie. I have no idea what that concept is, but I reject it. At least I have SEEN a mince pie.

CC

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: GUEST,Chicken Charlie
Date: 03 Apr 08 - 11:08 AM

Katlaughing--You actually READ this stuff?? ;^D

CC

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 03 Apr 08 - 09:24 AM

Yes, but diabetes develops in childhood, before you reproduce. Usually. It CAN appear in adulthood, but that wasn't the case in the child here.

And things that affect PARENTING in an altricial species such as our own can still affect the evolution, since the point is to become an ancestor, not just a parent.

And I thought I had broken it up into paragraphs, I see now that they were WAY too big, sorry!

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Slag
Date: 03 Apr 08 - 03:51 AM

Strictly speaking anything that happens to an organism AFTER it has produced offspring is of no great consequence to evolution. So, if you get diabetes or cancer after you reproduce it's a big "So what?" However, in the case of humans and certain other "higher" order creatures, continued care and nurturing of offspring are of vital consequence and so a longer lifespan IS necessary to the continuation of the specie.

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 04:12 PM

Mrrzy - That's an interesting point you make about autism and dyslexia and other abnormalities. People very who were afflicted with these things very well might not have survived in a tribal/pre-tribal society, but today they might very well hold fellowships at places like MIT.

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: katlaughing
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 03:31 PM

Just a reminder: if you are going to post long messages, please break it up into paragraphs. It saves the eyes and encourages reading.:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 03:28 PM

For those in the Darwin-and-intelligence aside, I'd like to toss in the finding that yes, with eyeglasses, dentistry, wheelchairs, epilepsy-warning dogs, we as a species ARE trashing our gene pool. That is the price of civilization, and one we pay willingly. Wesley S, it isn't that the world -or even the human species- would be "better off" if we let all the individuals who were sub-average on ANY scale die off instead of caring and loving them. But it is an undeniable reality that if we did, we would not be nearly as genetically prone to things like bad eyesight - when did you last see an open-ground predator of ungulates, like great cats and humans, who hunted by near-sightedness? Compare that to, When did you last meet an adult who didn't need glasses, contact lenses, or Lasik? We would be genetically stronger, or prone to other things less minor and treatable, but we'd be the kind of people I wouldn't want to be, and not the kind of people we ARE, who HAVE evolved not only the ability, but the DESIRE to care for and about people with diabetes and other treatable conditions that, in most futuristic (read: realistic, in many eyes, to the issue of population control) writings, are banned from reproducing.
Meanwhile, on the tower {anybody recognize that reference?}, it is also being discovered that being a CARRIER (of more and more things that are a bad thing to have) is often a good thing to be. Carriers of sickle-cell anemia, for instance, are resistant to malaria (which is why only peoples from malaria-ridden areas developed the gene which, when expressed as sickle-cell anemia, is a terrible thing to have - OR everybody had it but everybody ELSE lost it when we came out of Africa). But that is a simple one-allele thing; others are more complex and include more genes, so "carrier" becomes shorthand for "someone who has this in their family tree but doesn't suffer from it themselves" - not to imply that there is A gene for anything that follows:
Carriers of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, which last is becoming associated with older *fathers*, and of other disorders including autism, are showing up as remarkably intelligent and/or creative. Kind of like the math geniuses who are so much more likely to be left-handed or stutter or both. So our caring for our subaverages may actually be HELPING us in weird, unintended and unimagined ways. And in fact the evolution OF disorders like bipolarity, schizophrenia, autism, dyslexia may actually signal interesting turning points in the evolution of our intelligence and emotional capabilities.
But again, just because someone acknowledges that many genetic deficits do exist in our society and are not only tolerated but cherished, does NOT mean that a) they think society would be a better place without those individuals, or that b) they are actually serious when they use the genetic metaphor for meme-disabilities like believing in fairy tales when you're a grown-up, or other religious lunacies.
Now, we don't know if carriers of diabetes, which is all the little girl had in the original thread, are stronger in some way - and I doubt it, diabetes is not a human disease, it's a mammal disease, sugar metabolism is an old and complex cycle that is multiple-y disruptable. So these people were, to quote a current writer, either dangerously stupid or equally if not more dangerously insane. Sure, they had a *reason* to believe that if they made mouth movements of a certain kind, the physical laws of the universe would be suspended in their case: they had been told so by a priest. Or by *their* parents, who'd been told so by a priest. Now, is that OK with anybody who isn't an American?

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: GUEST,Chicken Charlie
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 02:36 PM

Calm down, Slag. My concept of God is not in play here. That's because it has nothing to do with the subject being debated. I have not volunteered "my" concept of God. You are premature in rejecting it because you don't yet know what it is.

What I did was to give my understanding of a common 'American' understanding of religion, which is that "a little religion is a good thing," but if someone actually takes it seriously and wants to apply their literal understanding of not just Christianity but any religion, then they are likely to be perceived as a kook, or in your terms, as a psychopath.

You are assuming that the preservation of physical life should be a priority. The parents were assuming that the preservation of spiritual life, perhaps involving admission to some future life is the priority. We (you, me and them) won't know who's right until one of us dies. (After you, Alphonse.)

In the meantime, there is indeed a connection between what you said about God giving us dominion (again, I'm not giving you 'my' interpretation, I'm commenting on someone else's) and the idea that the parents could have exercised a lot more discretion. I would venture to suggest that that connection was not as clearly established in your post as you might think it was, but it's there, yes, you get points for that.

Just let me try to make my point again about how there are Biblical admonitions about fearing not those who can kill the body, but rather fearing those who can destroy both body and soul in hell. Regardless of whether or not I believe that, the statement is there, and it would seem to be pretty cut and dried from the standpoint of somebody who lacks your fine sense of discrimination.

As I said, It's not that the parents didn't learn. It's that they weren't taught.

Now, how 'bout dialing back on the preachiness and not trying to bite my ankles any more until you figure out where I'm coming from?? :)

CC

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 01:31 PM

Wesley, that is not a nice April Fool. Riginslinger has never posted anything that would imply, let alone state, that the world would be better without wetbacks or autistic kids.

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 11:41 AM

Wesley - I think you are jumping to conclusions, unsupported.

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Wesley S
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 11:16 AM

No I understand completly. You feel the world would be a better place without the religious nuts, Mexican wetbacks and the autistic kids. You've made yourself very clear with your history of posts here.

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 10:56 AM

Absolutely not, Wesley. The only point I was making was this: if we are to look at human intelligence in a scientific forum, it would only make sense to look at it in its entirety.

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Wesley S
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 10:26 AM

"In modern societies, we keep pre-born infants alive, knowing they'll have problems as adults, and continue to try to treat children with all kinds of problems. One can't help but wonder if these practices would trend overall intelligence the other way."

Yeah - Better we should just leave them by the side of the road so we don't mess up the quality of the gene pool.Right?

Subject: RE: BS: Religious freedom, or murder?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 10:20 AM

The other side of the coin might be this: in a primordial society, a child with a problem like extreme anxiety or autism probably wouldn't survive. The more intelligent people would probably prosper the most, so intelligence, over time, would increase.
                In modern societies, we keep pre-born infants alive, knowing they'll have problems as adults, and continue to try to treat children with all kinds of problems. One can't help but wonder if these practices would trend overall intelligence the other way.