TimeChaser

Currently listening to [B]Id, Ego And Superego[/B] by [B]Transmission[/B]. Nice epic song (15:50) with a lot of transitions and changes, enhanced with guest vocals by Michael Sadler (former frontman of Saga).

[quote name='Crimson Spider']It suffers in the same way that it has had its rights and its freedom to become human, and to live removed.[/QUOTE] I'm talking about suffering in terms of living with extreme pain. It doesn't suffer that like someone living day after day in constant pain. Anyway, since we can't (and probably never will) come to a consensus on the rape/incest issue, I thought of another scenario I'd like to know what people think of. What if a pregnancy goes wrong, turns toxic or something, threatening the mother's physical or mental health or her life? I've mentioned it a page or two ago but I'll bring up this example again: My grandmother's mother had a toxic pregnancy, and an abortion could have helped her, but she was not allowed to have one. The baby died, and her mental state was reduced to that of a child, forcing my grandmother to take care of her own mother as well as her other siblings from the age of 8.

[quote name='Crimson Spider']Personally, I don't think that molestation is a good enough reason to abort the baby. Calypso says it eloquently: "When you really think about it, it's not really the baby's fault the woman got raped. So why have the baby suffer for it?", though I chose the offensive method and argued that the reasons for why you abort the child weren't good enough.[/QUOTE] Ah, but, if it is aborted early enough, does it really suffer, in the same way, say, someone dying of a ravaging disease suffers? But anyway, I think this issue is not one anyone from either side can cover with blanket statements. It's a case by case thing, really. The important thing is that the choice not be taken away entirely, while we can hopefully improve the deficiencies in our society so that it is hardly ever needed.

[quote name='Allamorph'][FONT=Arial]Great song by my current FAVORITE band Porcupine Tree, echoing my sentiments about popular music. [URL="http://www.imeem.com/people/YQhb9n/music/R_At3Wne/porcupine_tree_the_sound_of_muzak/"][COLOR="Blue"]The Sound Of Muzak[/COLOR][/URL]. For you music nerds out there who'll understand this comment, I really enjoy the intro (which is not in seven, but a two-bar three-and-a-half pattern :animesmil), especially the way the guitar is voiced; and the vocal pedal point in the second chorus. ♥[/FONT][/QUOTE] If I respect you for nothing else Alla, I respect your taste in music. PT rules. :animesmil Right now, I'm listening to [B]Numena[/B] by [B]Cosmosquad[/B]. Nice heavy jazz fusion with a bit of an Eastern vibe in this song.

[quote name='SunfallE'][COLOR="RoyalBlue"][FONT="Lucida Sans Unicode"]I have to wonder how many who support this stance even understand or have experienced being raped. I can't speak for incest but rape, no one will ever convince me that it's acceptable to force someone to carry a child to term if that should happen. EVER. Anyway, I should copy and paste Nathan's post since that fits what I think. I am not religious, I do not see abortion as a sin. What I see as wrong is a system that doesn't provide enough support and education to help prevent unwanted pregnancies and offer solutions such as adoptions. What I don't accept is blanket attempts to remove the process and make it illegal. But requiring comprehensive counseling before one can get an abortion, that's something I'd be interested in seeing. Ah, before I forget, there is one concession, no late abortions, if it takes you forever to make up your mind, just have the child and give it up. The longer one waits, the harder and riskier the procedure is. [/FONT][/COLOR][/QUOTE] Thank you. I think people should really talk to those who have been through a rape before they pass a blanket judgment And yes, the systems we have need a dramatic change: - Sex education needs to be comprehensive. - The adoption/foster care system needs a major overhaul - The ability for someone to have an abortion should not be taken away completely, but should also be carefully regulated. I'm not religious either, and of course that is really the main issue in the overall debate on abortion. Even if some people believe it is a "sin", they should not force their beliefs on others by trying to cement them in law.

[quote name='Nerdsy'][color=deeppink]Why, exactly, is it not human? And why should I believe that it's not over "human life begins at conception?"[/color][/QUOTE] If you can give me a scientific basis for when a mass of cells becomes a human being, then I will take it under consideration. The fact is, at the moment of conception and for some time after that, it is a simple mass of cells, it is not definable as a human being. Saying life begins at conception usually comes with a religious view that the soul enters at that point. This is just a metaphysical argument with no supporting evidence.

Well, Sangome is my mother and Shinmaru is my brother, apparently. [URL="http://otakufamiligia.tribalpages.com/tribe/browse?userid=otakufamiligia&pid=16&bpid=16&bview=6&view=6&ccpid=40&rand=498572153"][U]Someone did the family tree to prove it.[/U][/URL]

[quote name='Nerdsy'][color=deeppink]This doesn't mean anything. Comparing humans, even at the intitial stages of development, to a fly just doesn't work. No matter how many cells a fly's brain has, whether it be more or fewer than a human at any stage in it's development, it is still not human. And killing something not human is not the same as killing a human.[/color][/QUOTE] But the point is that it's just a clump of cells, even though it's from a human. It has no brain, no neurons, it cannot suffer like a fully developed human being. It isn't a human being at that stage and won't be for several months at least.

[quote name='Drizzt Do'urden']Cons: 1) The baby is technically alive once the sperm joins the egg and mitosis starts... So I guess my main point is even if you're a rape victim. Why couldn't you carry the baby and just give it up? Would you be more apt to thinking you could if the government would pay for all your medical expenses?[/QUOTE] It's a collection of cells. It's not a baby, it's a blastocyst. A fly is aslo alive and has far more cells than a brand new embryo, but we kill flies all the time. As to the last part, think a moment about what you're saying: a woman is raped, she's been violated, a physically and psychologically traumatic experience. It's been forced on her, not of her choosing. If that happened to you, would you really want to endure 9 months of pregnancy and then labor? Some women may actually feel that the baby's origin is not important, but I'm willing to bet the majority under that circumstance would want an abortion as soon as possible if they discover the rape has left them pregnant, and because it was the result of a violent crime, they should have the right to that option.

[quote name='Raiha'][COLOR="DarkOrchid"][FONT="Times New Roman"]That's ridiculous. These spontaneous abortions as a result of the female's body rejecting a foreign "not self" are not the result of a conscious decision. The body acting on its own without the input of the mind, or any logical thought process doesn't even fit the definition of murder.[/FONT][/COLOR][/QUOTE] Exactly my point. But a lot of the people who are the most vehemently anti-abortion fail to understand there is no consistency in their literalist argument. They might say, "Abortion is an abomination in the eyes of God," but these are also people who believe God made human beings. Therefore, he built in this design component of spontaneous abortion. And what about the soul entering at the moment of conception idea? Consistency, see? Anyway, I won't harp on this any further, because it drags the thread a bit off track.

Obviously, abortion is an unpleasant thing, and if we could solve a lot of the problems in society that lead to it, that would go a long way to reducing the need for it. I do believe, however, that in cases such as rape or incest, it should be an available option, also in cases if the woman's health/life are in serious jeopardy due to the pregnancy or the delivery. My grandmother has told me many times about how her mother lost her mind due to a toxic pregnancy that she was not able to abort due to the taboo against such a proceedure. She had to take care of her younger siblings and her own mother (who now was more like a child) from the age of 8. Late-term abortions are the real sticking point in this whole debate, but early term ones should not present us with as much of a moral quandry. I'll reiterate what I said in the 'Sex Education' thread: A 3-day-old embryo is a collection of 150 cells called a blastocyst. By comparison, there are 100,000 cells in the brain of a fly; if we were going strictly by cell count, killing flies should disturb people much more. It is doubtful that embryos in early stages can even feel the kind of suffering we ascribe to them when they are aborted. You might argue that that embryo is worthy of special consideration because of it's potential to become a human being, but with our advances in genetic engineering, any cell in your body can be a potential person, so every time you scratch your skin you are killing potential people. There is also the fact that half of all pregnancies end in spontaneous abortion anyway, usually without the woman ever realizing she was pregnant. What are people who believe life begins at conception to think then? Should every spontaneously aborted embryo be considered a murder?

Right now: [URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT86_ShMKHU&feature=related"][U]The Mundane & the Magic[/U][/URL] by Dark Tranquillity. A slightly mellower song for this melodic death metal band, switching between coarse and clean vocals. Some nice piano in here too and some guest female vocals.

[quote name='Retribution'][font=Arial]I will cast my vote for Obama. I cannot fathom four more years of neo-conservatism. They've had their chance for the past eight years, and they've done a great job at the helm. Time to let lucid, meditative, insightful leadership have a chance.[/font][/QUOTE] I'm with you. I don't care if the Republicans had a hissy fit when Pelosi made that speech about their failed policies, because it is true. The ideal of "less goverment" led to the abolishing of many regulatory systems that we needed to keep things from spiraling out of control, like they have.

[quote name='Clurr'][FONT="Arial"]I get very angry whenever I hear someone say "that's so gay," or call someone a "***." It's common in high schools, I'm assuming everywhere. I don't understand how that could be funny. It's just ignorant and disrespectful. What else is new. But people IN MY FAMILY'S CHURCH say things like that often. That infuriates me even more than the church does already. The sunday school teachers are always going on and on about "taming the tongue," but do absolutely nothing when some kid calls another gay. What the hell.[/FONT][/QUOTE] I have a friend, kind of like a younger brother to me, and he would say that a lot, and if we were in public I'd ask him not to say it, because he might inadvertently offend someone. Have you mentioned to the people in your church how angry it makes you? Perhaps it's worth a try to talk about it, hopefully they will listen. [URL="http://www.365gay.com/blog/ruby-sachs-thats-so-gay/"][U]Article I just found that should interest you.[/U][/URL]

[quote name='Andrew'][size=1]So, after a conversation in work today I got really curious. [B]When a guy decides he's gay/bi/whatever, is it a conscious decision to start talking/walking like a woman or something that develops naturally?[/B] Seriously..[/size][/QUOTE] A lot of people, mostly those who are anti-gay, say it's a choice. GLBT people will tell you that's the way they were born, and I'm inclined to agree with them. Many have even said, why would anyone [I]choose[/I] to live a life that other people so demonize? If it was a simple matter of choice, we wouldn't be having the arguments we have over this.

Can't say I've ever really heard of the Jonas Brothers or heard any of their music, but I had enough of Disney-created groups back in the 90s when my sister listened to The Party. Anyone old enough to remember those guys? It was a band made of a few members of the New Mickey Mouse Club. Oh, the horror...

Currently listening to [B]The Lost Art of Time Travel[/B] by [B]Presto Ballet[/B]. These guys have a nice classic hard rock vibe that harkens back to Kansas.

[quote name='ChibiHorsewoman'][color=#9933ff]Here's the deal: Homosexuality is going to happen whether you like it or not. Some people just experiment and move on. Others decide it's for them and logic and procreation be dammed. I say live and let live. Yes not my most thought out reply, but maybe one of my best.[/color][/QUOTE] I still accept that that's the way some people are born. We don't know everything about genetics yet, although we know quite a lot. There is a possibility that something happens in the genetics and they are born with same-sex attraction. I think we're also skirting the issue in this thread that there is more than just "straight" and "gay". There's bisexual, transsexual, and other ones I can't think of the names off the top of my head. Humanity is so diverse, it refuses to conform to this need to compartmentalize and strictly classify things as one way or another,

I voted Indifferent. :) I am not a total fan of the 80s (and have been known to deride it, just ask certain people), but I will admit there are some things from that decade I really do enjoy, like early Queensryche, 80s-era Rush, Saga, Marillion, and some Billy Joel.

Here's something that needs to be said that goes right to the crux of the Evolution vs. ID argument. Science doesn't know everything, and doesn't claim to know everything. For all scientists know, perhaps God (if God exists) does or did have some influence over the process of life. The point is, science deals with observable phenomena occurring in the natural world. Anything going of into a supernatural explanation is therefore outside the realm of science. Many ID proponents use what is called the "argument from ignorance", meaning that they point to gaps in the theory as automatic proof of Intelligent Design. In Darwin's day, the gaps in knowledge were much larger than they are now. We have closed many gaps in the fossil record, and we have discovered genetic processes by which change and evolution happen, the information Darwin lacked at the time to fully explain Natural Selection. Scientists still debate some of the details, but none of them are in doubt that evolution happens, because that is what the data has confirmed over and over again. Yes, there are still gaps, but science continues to progress and fill in those gaps. It is arrogant to automatically assume with 100% certainly based on no other evidence that gaps prove Intelligent Design. [quote name='Sabre']The scientific discovery of the water cycle is not at odds with the Bible either. In Job 36:27-28 it details the nature of evaporation, condensation and rain as being the work of God, thousands of years before such a discovery was made.[/quote] I was not aware of that. However, that was someone explaining the concept in a divine term, which was the only viewpoint they knew. We know now it has nothing to do with God, but is a natural process of heat and the nature/composition of water and the atmosphere. It was only a matter of human understanding advancing far enough to explain the process in natural, scientific terms.

Weighing in on this argument, I believe comprehensive sex education is important. I am offended when the abstinence-only community lie or twist the truth about the effectiveness of birth control. I don't think teaching kids about how to stay safe when they have sex will encourage them to go out and have it, but I do think that when they do, it will serve them much better than if we didn't teach them anything at all about protection and contraception. By misrepresenting the benefits of safe sex practices, this is guaranteeing the further spread of STDs and teen pregnancy. Abstinence-only comes out of this puritan desire to strictly regulate people's private sexual lives, and cares nothing for the suffering of others. [quote name='Raiha'][COLOR="DarkOrchid"][FONT="Times New Roman"]I believe that human life starts at conception[/FONT][/COLOR][/QUOTE] Sorry, I just had to bring this up because I have recently become aquainted with some scientific facts that clearly refute this. You say you believe life begins at [I]conception[/I]. A [I]three-day-old[/I] embryo is a collection of 150 cells (a blastocyst). By comparison, a [I]fly's brain[/I] has over 100,000 cells.

[quote name='Crimson Spider']Women's rights is a red herring and a straw-man... The biggest thing that should be done is a cultural shift, away from free-consequenceless sex, and towards one that reserves sex for marriage and orders it towards procreation. Though unlikely to occur, a cultural shift would bring with it the resolutions to many of the problems we face today. Will there always be stragglers, violations, and individuals who go against the norm? Of course there will. However, it will no longer be popular, encouraged, or an industry with more value than the sports industry.[/QUOTE] I find that attitude frankly disrespectful, to blithely dismiss rights, and I'm sure most people would agree with me. And what is "the norm"? Laws are made to keep us safe, yes, but not to restrict everyone's freedom. You can't order people to have sex only as a means of having children. This isn't the dark ages where things like that can be policed by a puritanical and absolutist system. I can see that you're someone who will never be satisfied unless we are all under that kind of oppression, so I don't think it's any use to argue with you any further. To express myself with less pique, what I mean is that a system that is absolutist in the direction you suggest is hardly a solution, and is taking us back to the kind of oppression humanity has slaved under for centuries.

[quote name='tsundere mecha']Everyone has their own opinions, and here is mine: [B]ID and evolution are both theories[/B], and I am for both. Evolution is a plausible theory when it comes to organisms evolving over time, but how could a one celled organism appear out of thin air? ID is a good theory in giving us an answer for everything on earth, but how could some kind of being (or deity for that matter) also appear out of thin air? I do believe in God, but the truth is that we may never know until afterlife.[/QUOTE] I've done this before, and this probably won't be the last time, but this is something most people aren't aware of that can put things in better perspective. The word theory means something different to science than it does in our everyday vernacular: [B]Many people learned in elementary school that a theory falls in the middle of a hierarchy of certainty--above a mere hypothesis but below a law. Scientists do not use the terms that way, however. According to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), a scientific theory is "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses." No amount of validation changes a theory into a law, which is a descriptive generalization about nature. So when scientists talk about the theory of evolution--or the atomic theory or the theory of relativity, for that matter--they are not expressing reservations about its truth.[/B] Scientists admit they don't have a clear answer for how life began, but they have plausible ideas: [B]The origin of life remains very much a mystery, but biochemists have learned about how primitive nucleic acids, amino acids and other building blocks of life could have formed and organized themselves into self-replicating, self-sustaining units, laying the foundation for cellular biochemistry. Astrochemical analyses hint that quantities of these compounds might have originated in space and fallen to earth in comets, a scenario that may solve the problem of how those constituents arose under the conditions that prevailed when our planet was young.[/B] [B]Creationists sometimes try to invalidate all of evolution by pointing to science's current inability to explain the origin of life. But even if life on earth turned out to have a nonevolutionary origin (for instance, if aliens introduced the first cells billions of years ago), evolution since then would be robustly confirmed by countless microevolutionary and macroevolutionary studies.[/B] And you hit close to one of the arguments against an intelligent designer in your last point: who designed the designer? If it takes one to create something as complex as life and the entire universe, then that designer is even more complex, and must have been designed too. [URL="http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=15-answers-to-creationist"][U]Link to the article I quoted from.[/U] [/URL]

[quote name='Calypso'][COLOR="Sienna"]To Indi: You are right, terribly sorry. I just thought Columbus came here under Christianity, gotta brush up on my history.........:animeswea So to all of you guys, what would you say this nation is based on? Christianity mixed with something else?[/COLOR][/QUOTE] I wouldn't use Columbus as a good example. The people who followed him not only came here to satisfy greed, but also spread Christianity to people they deemed "savages" by any means necessary, usually unpleasant means. The intent of the Founding Fathers was a country of religious freedom and tolerance. Everyone has the right to believe what they want, but any one view doesn't have political justification over the others. Religion and the passing of law are meant to be separate, unlike England which was a Church State where government and religion were intertwined.

[quote name='Clurr'][FONT="Arial"] Ah, thanks. At least in some places the existence is same-sex marriage is merely a matter of semantics. I'll admit, I have no desire to ever get married myself. This hinders my ability to understand why anyone else would want to. But if they want to, then there is not one good reason why they shouldn't be able to.[/FONT][/QUOTE] I'm not positive if it's all the rights or not, so there is still that margin that marriage provides all the rights while civil unions only provide some. Someone want to check me on that? :animeswea