Author Topic: What the West Needs to Know About Islam  (Read 21825 times)

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Amianthus

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Re: What the West Needs to Know About Islam
« Reply #75 on: August 22, 2007, 11:52:53 AM »
hence the partial ban on stem-cell research,

What part of the research has been banned?

the continuing push to ban women's free choice on abortion

I thought they were fighting for the right of the child to live.
Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. (Benjamin Franklin)

Michael Tee

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Re: What the West Needs to Know About Islam
« Reply #76 on: August 22, 2007, 12:17:36 PM »
<<What part of the [stem-cell] research has been banned?>>

the part that would have gone ahead had federal funding been available

<<Quote from: Michael Tee on August 16, 2007, 09:54:16 AM
<<"the continuing push to ban women's free choice on abortion""

<<I thought they were fighting for the right of the child to live.>>

Kinda hard to think of a lump of cells hooked up to an amniotic sac as a "child" but I guess if you're a conservative it's as easy to torture the language as it is to torture a prisoner.

Amianthus

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Re: What the West Needs to Know About Islam
« Reply #77 on: August 22, 2007, 12:57:42 PM »
the part that would have gone ahead had federal funding been available

So, it was not banned, but just not funded by the government? In that how they "ban" things in Canada? Didn't the research go on? Seems to me I read a number of stories posted by Lanya about that "banned" research which continued...

Kinda hard to think of a lump of cells hooked up to an amniotic sac as a "child" but I guess if you're a conservative it's as easy to torture the language as it is to torture a prisoner.

Then one wonders why killing a pregnant woman usually results in two charges of murder - if it's not a child?

As soon as I found out my wife was pregnant, I considered it my child. I wept over the miscarriages as well.

So, exactly what point does it stop being a "lump of cells" and become a child?
Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. (Benjamin Franklin)

Michael Tee

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Re: What the West Needs to Know About Islam
« Reply #78 on: August 22, 2007, 01:57:29 PM »
<<So, it was not banned, but just not funded by the government? In that how they "ban" things in Canada? Didn't the research go on? Seems to me I read a number of stories posted by Lanya about that "banned" research which continued...>>

You're right, de-funding isn't the same as banning.  My mistake.  However, de-funding or refusing funding to otherwise valid research projects on religious grounds is just plain nuts.  It's giving the loudest crackpots in the asylum a potential veto over scientific progress.  Anytime religion interferes with good science is a bad day for science.  Science has to conform to ethcal and humanitarian limits on what it can do, but religious limits?  Gimme a break!

<<Then one wonders why killing a pregnant woman usually results in two charges of murder - if it's not a child?>>

I don't think it does in Canada or England.  Only in America.  And the answer to your question is because you are allowing the religious fruitcakes to interfere in your legal system as much as they do in your educational and scientific systems.  Just another sign of America's decline in the world.  Get a grip or in few generations you'll have a Taliban-like society to go along with your Third World status.

<<As soon as I found out my wife was pregnant, I considered it my child. I wept over the miscarriages as well.>>

With all due respect, weeping over something doesn't make it human.  I wept when MY wife miscarried and that was after about four years of trying to conceive.  I believe the weeping is for the loss of what might have been.  That "lump of cells" had the potential to become a real child.  That potential died with the miscarriage.

<<So, exactly what point does it stop being a "lump of cells" and become a child?>>

When you can hold the little guy in your arms and give him or her a kiss.

Amianthus

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Re: What the West Needs to Know About Islam
« Reply #79 on: August 22, 2007, 02:30:35 PM »
When you can hold the little guy in your arms and give him or her a kiss.

So, a premature baby that cannot be handled because of possible infection is not human?
Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. (Benjamin Franklin)

Michael Tee

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Re: What the West Needs to Know About Islam
« Reply #80 on: August 22, 2007, 05:44:05 PM »
Who says you can't handle a premature baby AND avoid infection?  They keep the baby in a sterile incubator and the parents reach in with rubber gloves that are a part of the apparatus.  I've done it.  Even Americans can, if they've got insurance.

Amianthus

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Re: What the West Needs to Know About Islam
« Reply #81 on: August 22, 2007, 05:46:03 PM »
And kiss the top of the incubator?
Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. (Benjamin Franklin)

Michael Tee

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Re: What the West Needs to Know About Islam
« Reply #82 on: August 22, 2007, 05:49:23 PM »
Well, they met half of my criteria, so maybe you'd like to make them half-human?  I like to keep things simple, and an either-or classification seems to work for me.  But feel free to classify them any way you like.

Amianthus

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Re: What the West Needs to Know About Islam
« Reply #83 on: August 23, 2007, 10:57:52 AM »
I like to keep things simple, and an either-or classification seems to work for me.  But feel free to classify them any way you like.

I have. And I consider conception to be the beginning of life. It's a simple either-or classification, and unlike yours, is not arbitrary.
Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. (Benjamin Franklin)

Xavier_Onassis

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Re: What the West Needs to Know About Islam
« Reply #84 on: August 23, 2007, 11:29:13 AM »
If the eternal goal of Islam has always been to spread itself throughout the world by force, then how is it that it has not even succeeded in vanquishing an idolatrous society like that of Hindo India in a period of over a thousand years?

The US cannot defeat Islam, just as no one can destroy Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism or any other religion. Declaring war on a world religion will only produce martyrs, and is even dumber than declaring war on an abstract npoun such as terror or drugs.

The main thing that this clown refuses to recognize is that Al Qaeda and the so-called Islamic fundamentalists are on the defensive. Islam today is about in the same position as Catholicism was in the early 1500's: the fanaticism and intolerance is seriously threatened and inevitably doomed, not by the ersatz "war on terror", but by modern technology. There can and will be no economic development in the Islamic world - at least the part of it that is not oozing oil money, like Qatar, the UAE and Brunei, without an abandonment of the restriction against investing money at interest, and eventually inconveniences like prayers five times per day and banning women from the workplace.

Al Qaeda has accomplished relatively nothing while on the offensive: 3000 people killed in 9-11, several hundred more in bombings here and there are nowhere near normal traffic fatalities, even though they have provided a lot of ammo for the deprivation of the rights of hundreds of millions in the US and other countries and the utterly silly and mismanaged war in Iraq.

The only thing greater in incompetence than Osama in destroying the West is Juniorbush's bungling the only war that had a raison d'etre: the one in Afghanistan, which COULD and SHOULD have been  won years ago, save for the toitla incompetence of Juniorbush and Cheney.

Most Moslems simply want progress and to be left the Hell alone to achieve it on their own terms. Intervention is counter productive.
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Michael Tee

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Re: What the West Needs to Know About Islam
« Reply #85 on: August 23, 2007, 11:31:36 AM »
<<And I consider conception to be the beginning of life. It's a simple either-or classification, and unlike yours, is not arbitrary.>>

No doubt conception is the beginning of life, but I thought the issue was when does cell life become human life?  Because in the real world, no woman is going to sacrifice what she sees as her future for a single cell or a collection of cells, whereas a mother will sacrifice everything for her child.

Simple is good.  Simplistic, not so good.  Your argument is simplistic, not simple.

Amianthus

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Re: What the West Needs to Know About Islam
« Reply #86 on: August 23, 2007, 12:57:09 PM »
No doubt conception is the beginning of life, but I thought the issue was when does cell life become human life?  Because in the real world, no woman is going to sacrifice what she sees as her future for a single cell or a collection of cells, whereas a mother will sacrifice everything for her child.

Simple is good.  Simplistic, not so good.  Your argument is simplistic, not simple.

Would you like some references to situations where mothers sacrificed lots - in some cases their lives - so that their unborn child (aka "collection of cells") could live?

Perhaps it's not as simplistic as you suggest?
Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. (Benjamin Franklin)

Xavier_Onassis

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Re: What the West Needs to Know About Islam
« Reply #87 on: August 23, 2007, 02:42:17 PM »
I would say that for the purposes of discussing abortion, we can say that the fetus becomes human when the mother thinks it is, provided that it is between the moment of conception and a minute or so before birth. It is none of anyone else's business when it takes place, and no woman should have to have a child unless she wishes to.

Any other opinion is an intrusion upon the rights of the mother.

What exactly do you anti-abortionists plan to do in the event of an "illegal" abortion, anyway? Arrest the would-be mother? Arrest the doctor? Perhaps both?

What punishment do you purpose for a doctor and a woman who disagree with you about that child that is not yours and never will be? Why is it important for you gaboons to deprive a woman of her opinion and her rights, anyway?

It's real simple: if you don't believe in abortion, do not have one.
It is none of your business if it isn't going to be your kid.
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Amianthus

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Re: What the West Needs to Know About Islam
« Reply #88 on: August 23, 2007, 02:59:11 PM »
Why is it important for you gaboons to deprive a woman of her opinion and her rights, anyway?

Perhaps the "gaboon" is the person that assumes anyone that is pro-life is also trying to outlaw abortion.

It is none of your business if it isn't going to be your kid.

One of the problems many people have is that the current law also deprives the father of his rights regarding his offspring.
Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. (Benjamin Franklin)

Xavier_Onassis

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Re: What the West Needs to Know About Islam
« Reply #89 on: August 23, 2007, 03:05:01 PM »
Okay, so if you outlaw aboortions, WHAT IS THE PENALTY?

Suppose a fifteen year old girl gets knocked up and her parents get her an abortion.

Would you try all of them and the doctor for murder? Is there a death penalty proposed here, or would a life sentence for the four of them be okay for the "murder" of an unborn "child"?

If not, what do you propose?

"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."