18 Nov 03
Originally posted by ivanhoeHmmm.. if the US had decided on Peace back in the 1940's and Hitler takes over Europe I would guess "Peace" just caused a lot of people their lives...
You just did ... I hope you're all right, Phlabby .... The thread is about peace ... that hasn't hurt anyone yet .......
I don't remember the name of it, but it is a great Star Trek episode.
I'd type more, but it's not easy to do so with a 13 foot pole.
😉
18 Nov 03
Originally posted by PhlabibitWTF is that about a 13-foot-pole?
Hmmm.. if the US had decided on Peace back in the 1940's and Hitler takes over Europe I would guess "Peace" just caused a lot of people their lives...
I don't remember the name of it, but it is a great Star Trek episode.
I'd type more, but it's not easy to do so with a 13 foot pole.
😉
19 Nov 03
2 edits
Originally posted by PhlabibitI'm happy that the US and their allies, the UK, Russia, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Poland and many others decided to end the war Hitler and Japan started. You say there was "peace" in Europe when The US and allies decided to invade Europe in 1940. In fact the war started in 1933 when Hitler seized power in Germany. He prosecuted and killed the opposition in his own country first in order to realise the "Anschluss" from Austria and to occupy the Elzas Lotharingen and the Sudetenland. He made a lot of victims even before the "official" war started with the invasion of Poland in 1939. When the US and allies decided to invade Nazi occupied territory, Hitler and his henchmen allready occupied most of Europe. So the US and allies intervened to END this war. You cannot call the situation in Europe in 1940 peace at all, not even "peace". It was a total war against everything Hitler hated and Hitler hated a lot of things. First he began prosecuting and killing the political opposition in his own countries,Germany and Austria and in his own National Socialist Party. When the war started he prosecuted the resistance in the occupied countries, the people he considered to be inferior, the Jewish people, the Roma people, the homosexual people, the disabled people. He advised his own people to choose the "Gnadentod", euthanasia whenever they saw fit and at the end of the war he sent everybody to the battlefield, including children. He did not want to surrender to the allies, instead he ordered the "Verbrannte Erde" tactic in order to destroy all of Europe and Germany. As the "highlight" of his "Heroic Culture of Death" ideology he and Eva Braun committed suicide as a last message to us of how they hated people and life itself ...
Hmmm.. if the US had decided on Peace back in the 1940's and Hitler takes over Europe I would guess "Peace" just caused a lot of people their lives...
I don't remember the name of it, but it is a great Star Trek episode.
I'd type more, but it's not easy to do so with a 13 foot pole.
😉
As I said I'm still gratefull the US and their allies decided to stop this madman and his followers and in this way ended the war in Europe and thus brought us liberation and peace ...
19 Nov 03
1 edit
Originally posted by ivanhoeI'll finish reading in a second...
I'm happy that the US and their allies, the UK, Russia, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Poland and many others decided to end the war Hitler and Japan started. You say there was "peace" in Europe when The US and allies decided t ...[text shortened]... d the war in Europe and thus brought us liberation and peace ...
Just want to say....
I did not say there was peace in Europe... There was peace in the US.
And the US was actually in Asia in about 1938 or so...
Gots to go finish reading what you posted....
Cya!
T
Edit! Nothing to add after reading your post... I was talking about peace in the US.
19 Nov 03
Originally posted by ivanhoeYes, that answer my qquestion. I still don't agree that your answer is satisfactory though. You have drawn a line a conception and back that line by saying that afterwards nature will run it's course. But we are always trying to stop nature taking it's course. Contraception stops nature taking it's course. Social standards on sexual realtionships stop nature taking it's course. I won't deny that you may have a point, but you have not substantially shown that the line you have drawn is better than another persons (such as 'the age at which a foetus could survive as a separate enitity' or 'when cell differentiation starts, turning an embro into a feotus, from a ball of cells into an organism'😉
The Church draws the line at conception. Yes, the proces has begun that will result in a full grown human being. That's why the line is drawn there. Before the conception there is no such proces, there is no such being, therefore there cannot be an abortion.
The Roman Catholic view on contraception is widely misunderstood. The Church considers natural ...[text shortened]... ers your question about whether it is OK to halt "natural processes" and not others.
If we bring God into the argument then we stop right now. No one can say to speak for him directly, and no one can prove that he exists or exactly what he/she/it is. So because these fundamental points can't be agreed upon, once a deity's will is brought into the discussion it is doomed.
(not saying that your beliefs shouldn't be a part of you feelings towards abortion, but it kills the discussion from moving anywhere)
19 Nov 03
Yes, I've understood that part. But there is another thing that I do not understand and it's also about life, respecting life itself and ending life:
How can you be an opponent of death penalty and at the same time be an advocate of abortion and euthanasia. Wouldn't it be more consistent if you want to respect life to be an opponent of all three topics or to be an advocate of all three ?
20 Nov 03
1 edit
Originally posted by ivanhoeI don't think I ever said that I respect life. I said that I don't believe in the death penalty because it is ineffective, costly and irreversable.
Yes, I've understood that part. But there is another thing that I do not understand and it's also about life, respecting life itself and ending life:
How can you be an opponent of death penalty and at the same time be an advocate o ...[text shortened]... opponent of all three topics or to be an advocate of all three ?
It confuses me as to what people mean when they say they respect "life" - what do you mean by this? (Keeping religion out of it if you can, for the reasons stated earlier).
I hold quality of life in much higher regard. I believe in euthinasia (to some extent) because I believe that someone who's life is constant pain, mental or physical, shouldn't be forced to continue. What is the point of forcing someone to hold onto life if every moment of it is missery?
An easy (if extreme) example: would you wish for a person who had been doused in petrol & set alight to live for 5 seconds or 5 minutes inside the flames? I'd say 5 seconds, and therefore I am wishing them to die sooner. What if they would burn for years without dying? It wouldn't happen of course, but what if they had equal levels of pain from a source that wouldn't kill them? Just because they wouldn't die "naturally" we should leave them in pain?
It all gets trickier when you have less clear cut cases. How about someone who will be in 'burning alive' pain for 1 year, but will then have the rest of their lives pain free? What about someone who's pain isn't at the level of 'burning alive', but at the level of 'painful but managable' for the rest of their lives, which means they can function day to day but will be pretty miserable all the time? What I advocate is not having blanket rules which take away personal choice from individual cases. Choices made by the individuals themselves and based on quality of the life, not holding all life as sacred regardless off circumstance.
I don't think that I said I was pro abortion - I have thought hard about most issues, but abortion and religion are 2 that I have yet to (and may never) come to a decision. Again, abortion has too many factors assosiated with it to make general rules that dictate to th eindividual. I would want to support individual choice, but agree that society can't allow the individual to do everything that suits their needs. I saw an excellent movie on the passing of the abortion laws in the US, and the supreme court that had to pass the rulings. It showed powerful arguments from both sides, so much so that my opinion changed several times during the hour. I'd recomend that anyone who wanted to investigate the subject watch it but unfortunatly, I stumbled upon the film by accident after it had started & I have no idea of it's name 🙁
If you want to hold the argument that 'life' should be respected, it might be a starting point to see if we can agree on a defenition of what 'life' is. You appear (but please correct me if I'm wrong) to classify 'life' as a group of self propogation and self sustaining cells. I would look at life as being a less rigid physical defenition, being variable depending on what the life itself experiences.
21 Nov 03
3 edits
Originally posted by belgianfreakWell, I do not think that definitions will get us anywhere. The whole issue is about choice. What do you choose ? Do you choose the ways of war or do you choose the ways of peace ?
I don't think I ever said that I respect life. I said that I don't believe in the death penalty because it is ineffective, costly and irreversable.
It confuses me as to what people mean when they say they respect "life" - what do ...[text shortened]... on, being variable depending on what the life itself experiences.
I once heard a doctor stating that it is irrational to help people in third world countries when there was a famine. Helping them would only prolongue suffering because the next famine would kill them anyway. They did not have any quality of life, so it was irrational to help by sending food and medical help. Giving them false hope was not the right thing to do ....... Do you agree with that doctor ?
Maybe you would need a few definitions to reach a conclusion ? ... Well, I certainly don't ...
In my opinion we should choose the ways of pain relief and helping people instead of telling them dropping dead is a very respectable alternative.
We have the duty to increase the quality of life, yes, however that does not mean that if we cannot remove all the suffering that the ways of war should be chosen and that is to destruct life because it does not hold the qualities desired by a pleasure seeking, shallow, materialistic ideology, that is inclined to look for the easy solutions. In many cases this means that we are not willing to persue the means of peace but we'd rather choose the ways of war.
In the situation you described it would be our duty to put out the flames, take care of the persons wounds, physical, psychological and spiritual and give him love, care, friendship and thus hope. Success is not garanteed but I think it is worth a try. Many people will change their minds about whether they want to live yes or no if they receive such a treatment. Personal neglect and neglect of their suffering in various shapes and formes often are the reasons why people want to commit suicide. To say to these people that it is all right to kill themselves and that choosing death is a respectable alternative is the highest form of cynicism I've ever encountered ... but it is always disguised as goodness and compassion ..... and besides that, in the case of choosing killing, "success" is garanteed ...
In my opinion to bring into this discussion the free will of people is a huge red herring. It is another cynical way of hiding our indifference and carelessness. It silences our conscience, it silences the demands of love and lets the demands of "reason" rule .......
The question is: What do you choose ?
24 Nov 03
Originally posted by ivanhoeThose that earnestly want to live in peace and seek peace at all costs. Are the first to be attacked .. Most often because they are the easiest targets!! -by me -BBG
"Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice."
-Baruch Spinoza
24 Nov 03
"That man can destroy life is just as miraculous a feat as that he can create it, for life is the miracle, the inexplicable. In the act of destruction, man sets himself above life; he transcends himself as a creature. Thus, the ultimate choice for a man, inasmuch as he is driven to transcend himself, is to create or to destroy, to love or to hate."
-Erich Fromm, The Sane Society
24 Nov 03
Originally posted by ivanhoe
Well, I do not think that definitions will get us anywhere. The whole issue is about choice. What do you choose ? Do you choose the ways of war or do you choose the ways of peace ?
I once heard a doctor stating that it is irrational to help people in third world countries when there was a famine. Helping them would only prolongue suffering because the ne ...[text shortened]... ve and lets the demands of "reason" rule .......
The question is: What do you choose ?
What do you choose Belgianfreak ?