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A very stupid thread about beliefs
Fencingsax
It is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered User regular
It is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered User regular
If the entire foundation of your argument is a belief, it is a bad argument.
Simple. If you accept that I believe it to be a baby, how hard is it to understand that I feel the same even if it's not my baby that's aborted? I have a child, and I still feel sick when other people hurt theirs, even if I'm great to my son. That's why, because it's hard for me to accept someone killing a baby.
oh come on. If everyone accepted your beliefs then we wouldn't have this debate. If you're going to debate in an arguement, you really need to do more then just spout off beliefs. I can tell people that I don't believe humans need oxygen to live. Just because I believe something doesn't make me right or give me the authority to force everyone else to go along with me.
I didn't say you have to accept it as your belief, just that you have to accept that it's mine. By skipping past the entire foundation of my argument, there's no way a debate can occur. If you disagree that it's a baby, argue your side.
The difference between your oxygen example and this one is that it's a known fact we need oxygen. It's not a fact that it's not a baby until it's born, that's a belief. Of course, I get shit for my beliefs because they differ from a majority in this forum, but it doesn't change the fact that it's their belief that a fetus is not a person that drives their argument.
Fencingsax on
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I've tried making this argument. Several times. Doesn't even make a dent.
thank you, thats what I was trying to get across.
Fix'd.
Wrong, dumbfuck. You get shit not for your belief, you get shit because you wish to enforce that belief through government intervention. That makes you authoritarian, and that's a fact.
I find this to be absurd.
You believe what you believe, and you also believe that those beliefs should be enforced by the government. Your beliefs are unsubstantiated, as you've freely admitted and therefore they are simply "preferences" in other words. You "prefer" to "err on the side of caution" and think of any fetus as an unborn baby and attach a life value to that.
Jack Thompson believes that violent video games are "murder simulators" and that they should be regulated by the federal government and/or banned entirely. Those are his beliefs and they're just as substantive as your own. How do you feel about him making those choices for you?
-Robert E. Howard
Tower of the Elephant
Here's what troubles me.
Anyone here who is pro - life, can you agree that America is a country in which civil liberties and freedom should be supported above any one specific morality?
And as an aside, enough of the goddamned "it's the same as murder!" argument. Objectively speaking, and regardless of any moral standpoint you happen to have on the topic of killing people, the act of murder has greater potential to unrest our ability to function as a society. Abortion simply does not. They aren't the same.
Until the bombs start going off anyway.
Nice to see that you're in full support of the so called 'morning after' pill.
Everyone tries to enforce their beliefs through government intervention. If you've ever voted you've done so. That isn't authoritarian, that is being a normal person.
Um, NO.
See, I might believe that someone should really give me a pony. But I don't think the government should enforce that belief. Now, I do believe torture is really, REALLY bad, and I have the facts to defend such a stance. In that case, I do believe that the government should not support torture - not because I believe torture to be bad, but because the facts show that torture is really bad.
Ryuprecht believes that a fetus is a baby. He has presented no fact to defend this belief. Yet he thinks that the government should enforce his belief. That is indeed authoritarian.
It's a belief because it's something that cannot be proven. You cannot prove life begins at exactly the moment the baby is born. It is your belief that prior to that it's not life.
You cannot prove that the baby is less important than the mother. It is a belief.
You cannot prove that the baby would have a bad life if it were carried to term and then adopted. It is your belief that it's better to kill the baby.
This is all about belief. AngelHedgie, Wonder_Hippie, and everyone else can feel good about winning points by pretending to be factual, but you can't ignore that abortion, almost entirely alone of major topics, is a belief based argument at its core up to the point where there is incontrovertable proof of the point of life. When you can say "1 second before this happens, it's not a baby, but 1 second after, it is" and all reasonable people can agree, it will always be about belief.
And there's no room in the law for belief.
Get that through your thick skull.
The flow of stupid just doesn't end from your ignorant ass.
Look, the way you're posing your beliefs, other people don't have the right to their own beliefs. The way it should be, in which abortion is a legal activity, you still get to hold your belief that it's not right.
To clarify, you want to remove other people's rights, regardless of what they believe. I want other people to have the right to choose. If you choose to be against, abortion, bully for you, but you don't get to choose for other people.
What the fuck is so hard about this?
Except of course, prohibition was about alcohol, not the life of an unborn child.
Why can't it be both?
You see, I believe that gin is a person.
You realize that now we must do battle.
Boys, lets settle this in a civilized manner. Let me introduce my friend Vodka Martini.
Vodka and gin are persons.
and delicious
You're so fucking annoying I have to reply. I've gone through pages of your bullshit tripe without replying because you're useless when it comes to debate.
Law is all about beliefs. Let's start with the 1st Amendment. It's based on the belief that freedom of speech is important.
Let's talk about the 5th Amendment. It's based on the belief that you should not have to perjure yourself.
Now, scientifically prove to me that freedom of speech is important. Show your work.
Next, prove that you should not have to perjure yourself. Don't use a calculator.
Then, shut the fuck up and enjoy reasonable debate without being a dick.
You know what the difference is? The examples you cite are about expanding personal liberties. Giving people choices. That's what this country is about, most of the time: giving people more freedom than we take away.
You want to take away freedom. You want to use beliefs as a stepping stone to reduce civil liberties. We reduce civil liberties only when they infringe upon the civil liberties of others, IE, murder, rape, and the like. Abortion does not infringe upon the liberties of anyone or anything which can without debate be called a living, breathing, intelligent person.
Actually, these fall not under the field of science, but rather logic, which consists mainly of two parts: observation, and extrapolation.
For example, we can observe that, historically speaking, the lack of freedom of speech, et all, has a strong tendency to lead to authoritative, tyrannical governments. It has also been observed that governments with freedom of speech, et all, have a far lesser tendency to lead to authoritative, tyrannical governments. From these observations, we can extrapolate that having freedom of speech, et all, is in the best interests of a nation that does not wish to become authoritative or tyrannical.
Please explain your logic for your belief that a baby is more important than the mother, and that the majority of babies left for adoption tend to have good, healthy lives. Show your work.
You're an arrogant prick.
Why is the freedom of speech enshrined in the First Amendment? Open a fucking history book. The story of civilization is filled of examples of how the control of speech is used to further the gains of despots. Why do we have a law saying that you have the right to not incriminate yourself? Because when the justice system is allowed to force a confession from you, innocent people get railroaded. Freedom of speech and the right not to incriminate oneself are not in the law because we believe them to be good things, but because there is empirical evidence throughout history that you sort of NEED them to have a fair, just, and open society. They didn't become law because people believed them to be right - they became law because they're key to maintaining the sort of societal structure in the US.
When you can provide evidence to support your belief, then we'll take you seriously. Until then, you seek to make your whims law - you seek to be a tyrant.
Respond to the substance you piece of shit. Do it, I fucking dare you, everybody else has pointed out exactly why you're a moron, so fucking respond.
These choices were made because people believedthem to be a necessary part of establishing the society they wished, which they believed to be superior to all other forms of governance.
Were there examples of how this was true? Yes. Just as there are examples that a 10 week old fetus is alive and worth saving. But you see, you need a little bit of belief to make that next logical jump in both cases, because there are examples of free nations without freedom of speech, which means belief most certainly can have a place in law. Laws are made by societies, and societies are filled with beliefs. Don't like that? Go back to Vulcan and live where only logic and science rule.
yeah you're missing that part
but I guess I mean they're beliefs so who cares m i rite?
Those beliefs are based on history.
Your beliefs are based on fantasy.
There's a big difference there.
Where are these free nations without freedom of speech?
What? How can he be useless at debate if you don't respond?
He may be useless at getting you to debate, but that's a whole different matter.
He says that because I a) fight back, and b) call it as I see it.
I see. So you failed to a) change your mind, and b) call it as he sees it.
Clearly you owe him an apology.
Ryu, it is possible - some might even say prudent - to craft a free society based not on morality, but on utilitarianism. We ban murder not because it's wrong, but because a society in which murder is allowed cannot function. We ban theft not because it's wrong, but because a society in which property rights don't exist cannot function. Where issues of fundamental rights are concerned, we err on the side of live-and-let-live, up to the point where society begins to break down.
Whatever your position on abortion, it's pretty clear that legalizing it has not resulted in the collapse of society. I feel safe in saying this, because I'm currently sitting in the comfort of my house yammering on an internet forum instead of, say, driving around a nightmarish futurescape fighting off post-apocalyptic mutants in my relentless hunt for gasoline.
If we base our society on the notion that people should be free to do what they please to the extent that civilization doesn't asplode, then legalizing abortion is the sensical position to take. Pro-lifers may, in this situation, work to minimize abortion by attacking the root causes that lead to abortion, such as poverty, lack of education, ignorance about birth control, and so on. People who hate guns can work towards minimizing crime and preventing criminals from obtaining weapons. People who don't like hate speech can go around giving everyone big hugs. And so on.
Also, this thread is walking a very thin line, and if it becomes Abortion Thread v2.0, I will shove a syphon into its metaphorical skull, suck out the stupid, and then chuck into the Trashcan.
Because I know I need some sense smacked into me.
"Oh Jeff, you virile man."
Snicker.
*hugs*
You made my day!
― Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You'll Go!