Not sure how I missed all this as religion and spirituality are two of my favorite topics.

I went through a fundamental phase in my life as well igordesu- learn from those experiences and remember them next time you are talking to someone who IS a fundamentalist. You know where they are coming from, you know how they feel, and that means you know when it's a lost cause to argue.

One of the best quotes I ever heard from a preacher was at Urbana 2003 (wow! just realized the next one is in 2 months!) when he said, "If your image of God does not allow YOU to respect ME, then you don't know Him."

Wow. That's a great way of putting it. Thanks, captal It's good to know there are others like me out there...

I could never 'see it'. I was never religious but I did respect many things within religion for example, I always used to fast during Ramadan simply because I loved doing it, the concept of it, how calm it'd make you during the day and what not, but apart from that... I don't know, I never really saw it. From when I was young till late high school, I used to appreciate the beauty of maths and the world and what not and respond with a

"There is too much beauty here for it all to be a 'mere random occurrence', there must be a God"

similar to what your Maxwell, or Einstein or other scientist would say, but fortunately we live in a time where logic prevails over 2000 year old myths like any other myth.

Is it ok to abort the baby when the brain hasn't finished forming? If that is murder then would sex be genocide with the billions of sperms dieing?

Also: Does the soul of a baby or small child go to hell if they don't know about Jesus and die from abortion/sickness ect.? Or do they get to heaven for free? If the first choice is correct then God must be pretty cruel, but if the second choice is correct why would we not abort babies? They wouldn't have to suffer in this life and get a free ticket to paradise.

Haha, I definitely don't wanna start a debate, but my opinion (and purely opinion, totally open to criticism) on abortion is....respect for human life. Though the baby/fetus at all stages before birth is still connected to the mother, it is clear that, from the point of conception where the sperm joins the egg, the "baby/fetus" has its own DNA. You know? That's why...except in perhaps extreme cases, maybe it's a bad idea.

if a baby dies before it is born i believe they get a free ticket to heaven card... i think it is at the "age of awareness" that someone has to make the choice between Jesus or another way...

Hmmmm. It seems an abortion would be the most compassionate thing a mother could do. Automatic ticket to heaven!

Compassionate? I don't know about that. I was just yesterday talking to my friend about the price of human life. she came to the conclusion that human life was priceless which seems so obvious am i right? I wonder why we still debate about abortion. Couldn't people consider adoption?

liosama Wrote:I could never 'see it'. I was never religious but I did respect many things within religion for example, I always used to fast during Ramadan simply because I loved doing it, the concept of it, how calm it'd make you during the day and what not, but apart from that... I don't know, I never really saw it. From when I was young till late high school, I used to appreciate the beauty of maths and the world and what not and respond with a

"There is too much beauty here for it all to be a 'mere random occurrence', there must be a God"

similar to what your Maxwell, or Einstein or other scientist would say, but fortunately we live in a time where logic prevails over 2000 year old myths like any other myth.

I don't want to get into this discussion, only link this
http://www.skeptically.org/thinkersonreligion/id8.html
Einstein didn't believe in God the way I think you mean, by his own words "If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." Whether you want to interpret him differently, that's up to you.

Surreal Wrote:

liosama Wrote:I could never 'see it'. I was never religious but I did respect many things within religion for example, I always used to fast during Ramadan simply because I loved doing it, the concept of it, how calm it'd make you during the day and what not, but apart from that... I don't know, I never really saw it. From when I was young till late high school, I used to appreciate the beauty of maths and the world and what not and respond with a

"There is too much beauty here for it all to be a 'mere random occurrence', there must be a God"

similar to what your Maxwell, or Einstein or other scientist would say, but fortunately we live in a time where logic prevails over 2000 year old myths like any other myth.

I don't want to get into this discussion, only link this
http://www.skeptically.org/thinkersonreligion/id8.html
Einstein didn't believe in God the way I think you mean, by his own words "If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." Whether you want to interpret him differently, that's up to you.

Here is your Einstein quote with the line that preceded it, it leaves no room for doubt.

It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.

konakona50 Wrote:Compassionate? I don't know about that. I was just yesterday talking to my friend about the price of human life. she came to the conclusion that human life was priceless which seems so obvious am i right? I wonder why we still debate about abortion. Couldn't people consider adoption?

i fail to see why it would be obvious. what's intrinsically valuable about human life? the world would probably be better off without humans (we are, after all, destroying the planet, are we not?)...
i, for one, support the "voluntary human extinction movement". abortion and contraception are good for the planet.

Who say that abortion is OK, I recommend them to watch the J-drama: 14 sai no haha!

Uh oh...I can see this going in the direction of a debate. I think we'd all better stop talking about this now, lol...

Quote:i, for one, support the "voluntary human extinction movement". abortion and contraception are good for the planet.

Sorry, I think the people behind this movement are smart, but they are not smart enough.

There something better than phasing out the human race to save earth's biosphere.

It's going back to the middle ages and living like the Amish in the US or muslims in Afghanistan.

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenatal_de...ent#Week_6
ALIENS!

igordesu Wrote:Uh oh...I can see this going in the direction of a debate. I think we'd all better stop talking about this now, lol...

Why dude? All philosophical/religious/moral questions can be solved if only enough online forums talk about them.

dbh2ppa Wrote:i, for one, support the "voluntary human extinction movement". abortion and contraception are good for the planet.

whoa! voluntary human extinction lol! first time i've ever heard of such a thing. But whats so great about a world with no humans? there would be no one to acknowledge the planet's exceptional state.

konakona50 Wrote:

dbh2ppa Wrote:i, for one, support the "voluntary human extinction movement". abortion and contraception are good for the planet.

whoa! voluntary human extinction lol! first time i've ever heard of such a thing. But whats so great about a world with no humans? there would be no one to acknowledge the planet's exceptional state.

でも、終わりの風景を見たいのですが。。。

I think the voluntary human extinction movement is a step in the right direction, but one doesn't need to go as far as extinction. Merely reducing the population is good enough. To do that, people need to have fewer kids. You don't even need to be childless to make it happen. Having 1 kid reduces the population, having 2 kids keeps the population even, having more increases the population. Unfortunately the poorest countries have the largest family sizes, making them even poorer, while many rich western countries (ex Japan) are facing extreme depopulation in the future.

China's one child per family law may be draconian, but when people are too stupid to manage their reproduction themselves (having more children than they can provide for), the government needs to step in for the good of everyone.

hanzaisha Wrote:

igordesu Wrote:Uh oh...I can see this going in the direction of a debate. I think we'd all better stop talking about this now, lol...

Why dude? All philosophical/religious/moral questions can be solved if only enough online forums talk about them.

That's what we all said last time, and look what happened. We really shouldn't be getting so off-topic.

Pray tell what kind of life human-haters live O.o Humans have the right to live on this planet just like any other creature.

Jarvik7 Wrote:Merely reducing the population is good enough. To do that, people need to have fewer kids.

From the website:

"Q: If we only produce two children, doesn't that just replace ourselves?

"Stop at two" may have been a radical proclamation when Zero Population Growth* was founded in 1968, but it was barely adequate even then. So-called replacement level fertility of 2.1 offspring per couple wouldn't bring about true zero population growth until the middle of this century, due to momentum.

Today the message is only slightly revised: "Consider having none or one, and be sure to stop after two."

The notion that producing two descendants simply replaces a couple and creates no increased impact is specious. We aren't salmon - we don't spawn and die. Most of us will be around to see our progeny beget, and those begotten beget to boot.

When a couple of us "replaces" ourselves, our environmental impact doubles - assuming our offsprings' lifestyles are as environmentally friendly as ours, and that they won't reproduce themselves.

The "stop at two" message actually encourages reproduction by "qualified" couples. Although a wanted child is better than unwanted, intelligent (whatever that is) better than stupid, and well-cared-for better than neglected, each of us in the over-industrialized world has a huge impact on Nature, regardless of these factors.

For example, in terms of energy consumption, when a North American couple stops at two it's about the same as an average East Indian couple stopping at 30, or a Bangaledesh couple stopping at 97. Per capita energy consumption by country.

Two is better than four, and one is twice as good as two, but to purposely set out to create even one more of us today is the moral equivalent of selling berths on a sinking ship.

Regardless of how many progeny we have or haven't produced, rather than stop at two, we must stop at once."

Birds' nests, skyscrapers, rivers and springs and toxic waste, it's all the same to me. ;p

Hashiriya Wrote:if a baby dies before it is born i believe they get a free ticket to heaven card... i think it is at the "age of awareness" that someone has to make the choice between Jesus or another way...

Unfortunately you are wrong. The bible does not say that. According to the bible every single person before christ went to hell. Some crap like that.


And sorry to the people talking about Einstein I meant great scientists. I'm sure maxwell had some sort of a quote, and there were many of the renaissance scientists who said similar things.

And as with fabricating quotes, I can assure you I'm used to it. The zionist agenda has ruined both Einstein and Martin Luther King to name a few, with fabricated quotes affirming political zionism.

For the record, the "baby goes to heaven" is pre-reformation Catholic doctrine, but developed after the bible was canonized.

Man, and I'm not even Christian... damn Jesuit education.

Oh God. I tried to "come out" to my Dad just a little bit today about my rejection of fundamentalism and he freaked out. Honest debating with these people is useless. Now I know why you guys were so frustrated with me earlier this year