Abortion

If I ask you what a horse is, then you would know what one was, wouldn't you?

Yet you might be thinking of a Shetland pony, an Arabian Stallion a Shire Horse or any of an awful lot of breeds of horse. Different people would instantly think of different horses, the drayman from the Dales of Yorkshire would think of the Shire Horse. The Sheik would think of his racehorse - all are horses, yet apply one in a situation designed for the other and you have disaster. A Shire horse wins no races, and the Arabian Stallion will pull beer for a very short distance.

Horses, by the way, were originally forest browsers. When the forests became plains, then horses became larger to adapt. Why aren't horses STILL getting larger? Well, to my knowledge there aren't the same ecological pressures on them that there were then.

Onto the idea that YOUR God's take on morality is somehow more definitive than anybody elses... Well, that's an OLD argument, isn't it? And it's been used by every single religion once it got into a position of power and tried to undermine competitors.

Eon
 
There's such a thing as being "right." And there IS one definite right, and that right is never wrong.
Forest browsers. When did the forests become plains? Why? Weren't forests happy as forests? What made them wanna suddenly shrink into grass? Tsk tsk. Wishy-washy forests should make up their minds! And uh, the horses just...decided to get bigger? So they umm....breeded themselves to be bigger?
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]The force of dialectics is such that the truth is what we believe it to be…
Click to expand...

To say the truth is what we believe it to be is to say truth is relative to the subject (each person). Most relativists believe relativism is true for everybody, not just them. But, this cannot be asserted if they are really relativists for a relative truth is true for me but not necessarily true from someone else. So the relativist who thinks relativism is making a self-refuting claim. However, if the relativist says it is only relatively true that relativism is true, and then relativism may be false for some or all others why then should I accept this as true? Either the claim that truth is relative is an absolute claim, in which case that statement is self-refuting (and thus logically invalid), or it is an assertion that can never have a justification, for if truth is relative, then the statement leads to an infinite regress, which is illogical (for absolutes, a priori knowledge, are required in order to ground any/all knowledge).  

Furthermore, if relativism were true the world would be full of contradictions. If you say something is true for me but false for you, then the opposite exists. If I say God does not exist, and you say he does, we both are right, then there must be and not be a God at the same time in the same sense. But if one is true the other MUST be false, since they exhaust the only possibilities one of them must be true. Furthermore, let’s suppose it’s raining outside. If truth is what we believe it to be, one could say it’s not raining outside, and another could say it’s raining outside and both would be equally true. But this is absurd, it can’t both be raining outside and not be raining outside at the same time and in the same way.

There’s a lot more that could be said, but that’s a simple critique (which I may expound upon later on). Here’s an interesting dialogue showing the contradiction of the notion that truth is relative:

Protagoras: Truth is relative. It is only a matter of opinion.

Socrates: You mean that truth is mere subjective opinion?

Protagoras: Exactly. What is true for you is true for you, and what is true for me, is true for me. Truth is subjective.

Socrates: Do you really mean that? That my opinion is true by virtue of its being my opinion?

Protagoras: Indeed I do.

Scorates: My opinion is: Truth is absolute, not opinion, and that you, Mr. Protagoras, are absolutely in error. Since this is my opinion, then you must grant that it is true according to your philosophy.

Protagoras: You are quite correct, Socrates.

Also, Eon, it seems counter-intuitive to say that Martin Luther King Jr. was immoral by ANY days standards. It seems illogical to accept any system of morality that would grant that someone who fought for and gained civil rights for many blacks was immoral. Or to grant that someone like Ghandi, or Dietrich Bonhoeffer was immoral, but ANY standards. To grant that society was justified in calling Martin Luther king Jr. immoral seems ridiculous. I would like to see how emboldened you are of such a position if you talked to any black civil rights leader in this country, or if it is merely intellectual assent to your position that couldn’t be lived out in real life. Furthermore, that was ONE aspect of my argument; you failed to address my other arguments and my MAIN argument, for whatever reason. I have critiqued your point of view, and you have failed to rebut my critique.
 
Firstly, and I'll grant that this is rather a side issue, but I said that Martin Luther was, by the standards of his day, a heretic. Not Dr. Martin Luther King. I wouldn't imagine that many black activists have a strong opinion either way about Martin Luther... ;)

Secondly, what we are arguing about is the DEFINITION of truth - which was my point about relativism. In the example you give, Socrates only prevails if he adjusts his world view to coincide with that of Protagoras however he's not telling the truth, is he? Because he doesn't ACTUALLY believe that truth is relative, therefore his victory proceeds from a fallacious argument.

If I didn't answer your MAIN argument, then I suppose it must be because I missed it. It can be difficult to keep track in all the interwoven strands of a thread like this, of one persons dialogue, let alone isolating the main point of their dialogue. Kindly post the main thrust of your argument again, and I will endeavour to respond - should time permit.

Regarding horses and forests, to the person who seemed confused. The Earth's climate is in a constant process of flux, change and upheaval. As the climate changed the giant forests became seperated by plains, especially after the evolution of grasses. This created a whole new biome, and as the previously forest dwelling animals lived there they adapted to the available food, the present predators and the environmental conditions. Living in a forest generally imposes size restrictions on animals, because the branches get in the way. On the plains things could, and did, get MUCH larger. Some of the largest land mammals the world has ever seen evolved on the plains.

Eon
 
Really? Why wouldn't they jsut die? I mean, the Ice Age came rather suddenly, and last I checked animals didn't adapt for that one. They, um, died. You can't really adapt if you're dead.
Also, the branches restrict growth? The branches are anywhere from ten to a hundred feet off the ground! Most plain animals stand six to thirty feet...how would "giant forest" branches mess with their evolution?
Also, I noticed some animals didn't evolve...they became extinct.
PLease, also, explain to me the genius science behind the reconstruction of Nebraska Man from a freaking tooth. You would not be able to draw my body from a tooth I lost when I was five. How can you draw our ancestor, figure out their mating habits, their bone mass, their lifespan, their intelligence levels, their prehistoric environments? Also, that tooth turned out to belong to a pig, an extinct pig, evolutionists said at the time, to back up what little dignity they had left, and that "extinct" pig turns out to be living quite happily and healthily down in South America!
I would call that a resounding "Phbbt" for evolution.
Also, umm, we're not seeing any evolution take place, and man's been around for how many years? Billions, evolutionists said at first? Millions, they said later. Many thousands they say now. Which is it?
Also, list some animals that evolved out on the plains, please, and what they evolved.
 
I can't explain to you the "genius science" behind that misidentification. The truth is that scientists are only human, and they make mistakes. In addition, being still human, there are those among the scientific community who are not above lying, concealing and exageratting if it be in their own self-interest.

But then the same is true of religion too, isn't it?

Eon
 
Yes, unfortunately that is sometimes the case. Which is why it would be wise to look at the roots of a person's beliefs if you're unsure about what they are saying about their religon.
As to why I believe Christianity over anything else, there are several. For one there is the Bible. There are 3 tests of an ancient manuscript.
1)Internal agreement
2)External aggreement
3)Number of ancient copies and their respective agreement with each other.
(Note: This test was developed by a nonChristian historian to judge the authenticity of several Greek works such as the Illiad)
1)
This simply looks at whether or not the work contradicts itself. The Bible does not. If you have any doubts about this I'm sure someone here can answer them.
2)
This looks at whether or not the work agrees with known historical facts. The Bible has been proven to accurately record historical events. An example would be that when archeologist dug up Jericho the walls were found to have collapsed outward. Something that is EXTREMELY unlikely in ANY event, let alone and outside attack. The Bible tells exactly what happened.
3)
There are more than 10,000 different copies of various portions of the new testament. If every single Bible in the world were destroyed today we could recreate almost the entire new testament by going back to ancient manuscripts and retranslating them. Want to know how much would be lost? 3 verses.
The second place for number of ancient manuscripts is taken by an obscure Greek myth, it has a few hundred.
We also have copies of a good portion of the old testament, though unfortunately not as many as the new.

Another good reason is eye witness accounts. 10 of the original 12 diciples were executed by the Roman government because they would not renounce their faith in Christ. These were men who supposedly stole Christ's body and hid it, and then started a worldwide evangelism effort based on His resurrection. Yet, when it came time to either stand on their faith in Him and die or renounce Him and live. Without exception they chose to stand. Why would they do that if they knew Christ's body was actually rotting in some hole somewhere? I certainly wouldn't have if I knew He hadn't really risen. But He has, and they knew this, they saw Him ascend into heaven! Compared to that what is a simple execution? It's only temporary pain compared to eternity with Him.
 
Don't forget Foxe's EXTREMELY DETAILED Book of Martyrs. He recounts oh so many disciples, followers, and Christian believers who were executed for Christ.
BUt the thing is Eon, if evolution is true, then why lie about it? I mean come on, it's perfect science. EVERYONE knows it's true. So give some logic and "science" to support the sayings of the omniscient science community. I mean, it took a sledgehammer of a blow to dignity to reveal the whole "Nebraska Man" screw-up. And Peking Man! Geez, monkeys! Monkeys with their heads bashed in? Obviously, Peking Man was extremely intelligent, having a few skeletons found around an ashpit 23 feet deep, and bashed in skulls. That meant something had happened to them, and implied intelligence, due to the large cranial capacity of those broken skulls.
Welllll, guess what happens to destroy that belief totally? In China, monkeys suck to eat. But their brains are nice and tasty. Chinese people figured out, "If the meat tastes bad, let's go for the inside. But how?" They ponder this detail. One exceptionally bright Chinese native decided that they could....BREAK the heads in and get the stuff IN the head to eat. So they set about crushing in monkey skulls and frying their brains in fire. Which would explain the firepit and the dead bodies and bashed-in skulls and eating tools.
Man, evolution has received blow after blow after blow! Why don't they just cripple, fall over, and give it up?
And if you examine evolution's "proofs" of evolution, you'll see that EVERY STINKING ONE of them have been proven wrong, or evidence has been withheld, or misidentified, or has been hoaxed.
Orce Man. The Spanish government said they had found proof of evolution in the Ore Man in 1984. Sent out invitations. LATER the Orce Man is found out by a man to having faked it. Turns out to be a four-month old donkey skull. Wowza.
Australopithecus: 300 pieces of a skull, and we evolved? Give creationists SOME credit for intelligence.
Oooo, and the proving missing link Lucy. 1975, the year the world evolved. A half-chimp, half-human thing is reconstructed by Dr. Leaky, and he goes to seminar. Talks about it, shows bones. One student asks question: HOW far apart were the bones found. EVasion occurs to the question, but is finally answered: 1.5 miles away and 300 feet deeper from the chimp parts and the human knee joint and hips. .....I would have FIGURED that the bones would be closer together, not in entirely separate strata. Tht would imply a worldwide catastrophe, now wouldn't it? Or maybe half of Lucy went and buried the other half?
And the dating on her, too! Dang. Original dating said she was over 3.5 million years. But that would be unthinkable, if indeed she was our evolutionary ancestor. So, they change her age to match the volcanic rock around her, which dates to about 3 million, and more tests show 2.6, 2.9 and 1.8 million years. Wow. Radiometric dating is so reliable. Only off by a million years or so. What's a million years in evolution, after all?
Oooo and Piltdown Man! England. Your home Eon. Shame on them! Skeleton was "found" in GRAVEL pit on the side of a road. 1912. World War I. Interesting. Dawson found this body. Only upon closer study, in 1916, at the end of World War I, a scarce four years afterwards, was it discovered that Piltdown Man was a hoax. For 40 YEARS it was kept by Britain in the museum of natural history as PROOF of transitional forms. In 1953, guess what? Proved to be wrong: it had been aged, placed together and was a total and complete fake.
Neanderthal Man...this is fun. Orthodontist Dr. Jack Cuozzo, actually, studied the larger bone mass of these great ancestors ours, and decided that perhaps, just perhaps, their bone mass was caused by 200 years of life! Now, Neanderthals have a bent-over shape. Put some clothes on them, shades, as well, and could you tell them apart from your slouching jock son? No.
Now their bent-over shape could be caused by a few things: one being a combination of rickets and scurvy. Nasty disease, those. Both are caused by a vitamin deficiency of sorts. OR, they could have an endocrine problem known as acromegaly. Acromegaly is caused when the pituitary gland provides an excess of growth hormones...which would suppor the lifespan of 200 years theory. Acromegaly also swells the hands and feet, AND alters the bone structure of the face, distending the brow and lower jaws, enlarging the nostrils, and spacing the teeth. We see acromegaly today. INteresting, ain't it?
Also, there were Neanderthals of the Middle Age, one having been found in Poland in 1908 buried alongside chain mail. Now either Neanderthals were really intelligent and trying to hide it, and lost the intelligence as evolution went on...or Neanderthals aren't evolutionary ancestors. After all, the methods of creating chain mail weren't available until...what? 1000-1200 AD? How many millions of years AFTER Neanderthals existed?
Now if you, as an evolutionist, argue that the skeleton, which matched those of Neanderthals, couldn't POSSIBLY be a Neanderthal (after all, having been found next to metal mail), then that gives creationists a leg to argue against the other sixty plus skeletons found, doesn't it now?
Ugh, and Java Man of Dubois in 1891. Skull cap, legbone and tooth pieces. Interesting that in 1940, Dubois admitted the skull cap belonged to a, umm, gibbon, and that the leg bone had been found 46 feet away from the rest of the parts in gravel.
Time and time and time and time again! I could go on and on! Evolution has got nothing. Even the dolphin bone! A guy found a dolphin rib and felt it was the collarbone of an ape-man, due to its curving structure. Wow.
And the awesome thing about creationism, is umm, we don't have to go finding skeletons to prove man's existence or creation method: evolution disproves all their own evidence for us. No need for us to anything. It's kinda funny, in a sick, ironic way...
 
Not that you guys are very keen on trying to support your position with evidence, as your position seems to be to fling as much mud as possible at evolution in the hopes that enough sticks to disprove the theory. Then you claim that if the current incarnation of evolution theory is wrong, then Christian Creationism must be correct?

Despite the huge number of unanswered questions that Creationism leaves - such as the clear evidence that this world has been around a LOT longer than 12,000 years. Such as the UNIVERSE around us - a lot of trouble to go to for one stinking planet and 12 millenia of existence, don't you think?

And I say again to you that the Bible pinpointing the position of Jericho, whilst an amazing feat, is no different than the Oddesy pinpointing the position of Troy. Now if it had pinpointed the position of Shanghai or Machu Picchu I'd be impressed, then maybe I'd feel the bible had some divine proof in it.
 
E-e-e-except the Bible wasn't, umm, about the Orient. It was a Bible for the Middle Eastern areas in the Old and parts of the New Testament, and Middle Europe, for the New Testament. God didn't talk about the Orientals, he talked about the Hebrews and their local foes, their histories, their kingdoms, prophecies, of Himself, of what He could do for us if we listen to Him...the Bible wasn't about the Chinese people.
I recommend you check out a website from people at the Creationist Institute. Ken Hamm especially.
Can you offer me some evidence that this world is far older than anywhere from 12-20 thousand years old? Despite repeated failures at attempts to prove the age of the earth by rock dating, and by fossil dating, which, ironically, tends to consist of dating the fossils to date the rock and the rock to date the fossils?
God made this universe to hold us all together. I believe He has made other worlds with other peoples in them, all distinct. Of course, I have no evidence to support this, and most certainly, neither do evolutionists, ufologists or creationists. It's just a belief I have, though MAN is the one race created in God's image. You read in Genesis 2:1 "Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished." Now, host of them, means just about everything we got. Why did God create stars and a sun and a moon (Genesis 1:14-16) for a planet twelve thousand years? Also look at it this way: God is an engineer, and an artist. What he does is way beyond us. I cannot dictate His actions.
Well, let's see here Eon, if evolution's "current incarnation" can't stand on its two feet to save its life, then yes, I would have to go with the ONE scientific belief that was held by so many pre-Chuck Darwin, and is still held by some, MAINLY the Christians. Once evolution offers some solid evidence to back up its, umm, "truths" then I'll ditch creationism. As to date, though, creationism has proven that man's chemical composition is most closer to DIRT than anything else, though our internal composition most closely resembles an oinker. Now, coincidence that it's dirt, one of the simplest forms of chemical compounds on this world, and that in Genesis 2:7? "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being."
VERY coincidental, ain't it?
Could you give me some more questions creationism leave unanswered (not that I don't doubt we do, but I would just like to hear some more)?
 
Shanghai never existed until the 1700s, Macchu Picchu existed well after Christ died. Jericho was thougth to be settled since 6000 BC (questionable), but regardless of date, it was one of the oldest cities during Joshua's time.
 
Whoa...forgot about that post. Guess no one wanted/had time to answer it. Well, I thank you for telling us all that, pieman...so exactly what IS the location of Macchu Picchu?
 
It's in Peru. IIRC, it was the center of the Inca Empire.

(note: I'm dredging up info from Gr. 7 social studies... 6 years ago, so I may be wrong.)
 
Fair enough - but how about the Xia dynasty in China? They were around at the time.

What do you mean the Jews didn't know about them? I rather thought the bible wasn't supposed to have been written by the Jews!
 
Okay question: what do you mean Columbus didn't know he was in the wrong area? I thought Spains explored it all!
Jews stayed in their general area: Jews did not go sailing across the wide seas (seeing as how the current technology was limited in sea travel, mainly in coastal regions), and seeing also how the world was thought to be flat until even the 1500s....yeah. The Jews may have written the Bible: but did you see YOUR name written it, Eon? Do you think Moses knew that some white person would be born in a kingdom of white people and he decided to write your name down?
No. If Jews didn't know the area, would they be able to comprehend it, would God even tell them of this unattainable place? Why would he? He could tell them of Babylonia, of Rome, of the Middle East, of ASia Minor, of Ethiopia, of Egypt, of Libya, of Greece: because these lands were known.
If I, an American, went to some other planet and wrote down a book citing everything I knew about my country, would I expect these other people to understand what I was talking about? No. I would expect people who know of my area, of my generation, to know what I'm talking about. We don't measure in cubits anymore: it's all about feet and the metric system.
 
Eh? The Torah IS the Jewish Bible, so how could it NOT have been written by Jewish people?

Note: Besides this, I've not read much stuff earlier, so if it doesn't make sense that's why, but this caught my eye.
 
There you go - you've just admitted what I've always thought. The Bible is a quaint tribal history which is most applicable to those of Jewish extract.

Thank you.

Eon
 
Quaint tribal history? Let's date this back a bit: it describes mankind's entire family line, straight through the New Testament! If you felt like it, and actually believed it, you could most likely trace yourself back to a Mideast family, who would then be able to trace themselves back to one of Abraham's two sons, Isaac and Ishmael, and from there, it's easy going: you go straight to Adam.
It's the world's history. Not some quaint tribal history. It even describes events that happened, that the Earth has recorded! The Flood. You don't see slight buildup of fossils...you see fossils of all sorts of "periods" mixed together in sedimentary layers...now evolution slightly says that shouldn't exist...but yet it does. What does evolution say to back it up? Slow buildup, death through the millions of years.
The Bible says all it took were a few weeks of water, and the whole world was wasted, and then came the sedimentary buildup from being floated about in all that water. Geez.
THEN there are principles of science said throughout the Bible that weren't really expounded on and proven until a few millennia later, one being that the earth is a sphere suspended in space. Hrmm...it seems to me most of the European world believed until Magellan that the world was flat...still others believed we were on the back of a, umm, turtle?
Right.
I'll just shoot out a few for you (along with the verses to back em up)
Earth is sphere suspended in space: Job 26:7.
Water cycle waters the Earth: Job 36:27-28, Ecclesiastes 1:7, Amos 1:8
Entropy- the universe is wearing out: Isaiah 51:6, Psalms 102:25-26
Ocean currents flow through the sea: (rather obscure, but read it and you will see) Psalm 8:8
Blood keeps us alive: Leviticus 17:11
The stars are very far away, and are innumerable: Job 22:12, Genesis 15:5, Genesis 22: 17, Jeremiah 33:22.
The wind makes a circulating system: Ecclesiastes 1:6
Man's body is composed of the same materials at the Earth's: Genesis 2:7, Genesis 3:19, Psalms 103:14.
Wowza. All these concepts discovered hundreds, and thousands of years after they were written. But you know, mankind knows it all. You needs some stupid Book to tell him what he'll eventually figure out? Right?
Quaint little tribal history book, my eye!
Oh yeah: might I add that it just KINDA holds the key to eternal life, right?
 
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