h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"We protest when there is something to protest about. Every road protest in the last two decades has been supported, and in some cases led, by druids.

We fight to save our sacred landscape, not out of some absurd fit of pique. Our Gods do not need us to waste our time protecting their 'good name' from a low rent theatre production."

Fair enough. Thanks. As I said before, I would make use of the off switch myself, as a preference to watching it. The same would go for the original.

Thanks for typing my name right, Aquamarina! Most people get a bit lost.

TRiG.

Generalizations, echomikeromeo.


"If you disaprove of gay marraige, don't marry a gay!"

God's laws have been given to me to follow. He doesn't need me as his policeman. What other people choose do with their lives is, to be perfectly frank, none of my business. I can, of course, if I wish, express an opinion.

Abortion is different. I've never understood the pro-choice lobby's position that it's the woman's own body. Surely the whole point is that it isn't the woman's own body. No?

TRiG.

"This is 2005 and not the year 1; ... in 2005 people should and ought to have a right to do what they want to do in the privacy of their own lives."

So they didn't have that right in the year 1?

TRiG.

That probably depends if they're Roman or not.

"Christians also seem bent on trying to live everyone's lives for them. They feel obliged to decide whether a woman can terminate her own pregnancy or not, whether a couple can have children or not and whether two people who love each other can share that love or not. Why can't we just leave well enough alone?"

It's not a matter of telling everyone else how to live. The matters are clearly stated in the bible. Most Christians would claim to follow the bible. So it's a matter of saying 'if you say you're a Christian, act like one!' i.e. act the way you're instructed to in the bible. If you don't want to be a christian, that's fine. (Although abortion is murder. I still can't tell you not to do it.)

(As for contraception, as I think I implied in my original post, I don't agree with the Pope's stance on the matter.)

Human rights are inviolate (whether or not they are recognized by the authorities).

TRiG.

No! In law, I think it's the woman's own body until an infants exists separately, outside it. A softer version of this would justify choice up to a certain stage in pregnancy. If something goes on in a body as the result of an attack such as rape, or in any other circumstances, then the body's owner ought to have the right to get it terminated.

I think you might have more chance arguing that it isn't just the woman's soul. That is a more difficult point to argue, as the existence of souls is debatable.

toxx

Hi Moke

"It's not a matter of telling everyone else how to live. The matters are clearly stated in the bible. Most Christians would claim to follow the bible."

Really? I don't see many stonings going on around these parts.... Personally I'm really not sure we want Christians to go around acting the way they're instructed to in the Bible. Civil war would ensue as the reasonable and secular sections of the community acted to curb the violent excesses being carried out by intolerant and intemperate Christians.

Blessings,
Matholwch /|\.

"Simply that most people don't even know the difference between a Heathen and a heretic, so best not to get worked up but keep doing your part in educating."

well, quite, bouncy.

However, there's something rather charmingly arcane about the grand capitalisation argument, isn't there? Rather like all the row about the extra 'ou' among 3rd Century Christianity.

"...(So nice and heathen of you, that.)

I am not hiding anything! If it annoys some people, I am tempted to say "tough, it's a taste of your own medicine." "

I agree with toxx. I have a couple of thoughts.

Webster's first definition of a parasite is as a synonym for sycophant, so we'll skip that one, however, Webster's second and third definitions of a parasite are "2: an organism living in or on another organism in parisitism 3: something that resembles a biological parasite in dependence on something else for existence or support without making a useful or adequate return."
Webster's definitions for parisitism are, "1: the behavior of a parasite 2: an intimate association between organisms of two or more kinds; esp: one in which a parasite obtains benefits from a host which it usu. injures."
The most premature baby ever to survive (that I can find from a reasonably reliable source) was James Elgin Gill, who was born 128 days premature and weighed 624g. The smallest birth on record, at 283g, was only six weeks premature.
A pregnancy lasts about 280 days.

If one wanted to be technical about it, by definition, a child is a parasite until it can live without its host, which, historically speaking, can happen no earlier than 152 days into the pregnancy.

Just a thought.

Murder is of course a technical term, and termination (induced abortion, because abortion happens naturally more often than not) is not included within that definition. Sorry to be a pedant, but its a charged subject where words are too often twisted.

For example, on my side people often say its only a potential human or only a potential life or its not a separate life. Clearly a foetus is genetically human, genetically different from its mother and alive. The trouble is the baggage we have associated with human life. For instance, those three statements about the foetus could also be applied to a cancerous tumour. The moral (not sure how else to put this) difference between a cancerous tumour and a foetus is that the foetus could one day become a thinking, feeling intelligent being.

So what we have is a choice between allowing the suffering of a person and the death of a human that would otherwise one day become a person.

Now the position of the pro-choice lobby I think, and certainly of myself, is that the best choice here is not an absolute, but depends on the situation. Now someone has to make that choice in each case, who should it be but the mother and the doctors? Is there anyone who it would affect more or who would be better informed?

I haven't always got it right in the past, TRiG, for which I apologise - but, you're welcome!

<>

The child herself should have a vote, and the father if he cares...

There's something really screwy about comparing an unborn child to a cancerous tumour... Having been pregnant, I can attest that an unborn child is obviously a separate person, and that can be experienced by the mother.

There is *no* reason to have an abortion to save the life of the mother. None.
The only possibility that could be put forward is in the case of uterine or cervical cancer, and the removal of a cancerous womb is not considered abortion by anyone.

*pops back in*

I am following this avidly... you all have fascinating ideas...

I have a few questions, though. First, where in the NT does it condemn homosexuality? Chapter and verse, please...

Second, ABORTION (oh, my, here we go...):

There is NO WAY this argument/debate can ever be resolved because pro-choice people are debating an ENTIRELY different subject than pro-life. Until we can come to an ACCEPTED idea of when a fetus becomes a "human," "person," or develops a "soul." Otherwise, we will continue to debate until kingdom come (or something).

<>

There may be something screwy to you, but I have ALSO been pregnant and I can guarantee you that MY unborn child never felt like a seperate person. It may be that after a certain point (second or third trimester), s/he has a seperate personality, but I never experienced it.

Hello, tasterainbows...

<>

Every pregnancy, and every person is different... My second and third felt more individual to me than my first did, and also, I was throwing up meals from a past life with the first one, I had morning-noon-and-night sickness! (Which may have had something to do with it.)

I still think that comparison seems screwy to me - it's a whole 'nother thing, pregnancy. I oppose abortion, but I don't feel I have the right to insist that all women go along with my views. I wish they would, but, for their future sakes as much as anything else.

Abortion is a tricky issue. I've always told people I am pro-LIFE AND pro-CHOICE. I am not of the mind that abortion is ever a good plan, but I think that everyone should have the right to decide that on their own. (Especially as I am a hypocrite!)

I don't know anyone who would mind if someone say s/he's anti-abortion as long as s/he qualifies that with the statement that s/he can't make that decision for everyone else.

<>

As someone who's had an abortion (recently) I can't help but wonder what you mean by for their future sakes??

Despite the high mental/emotional cost (which in my experience stems from the fact that I did not want to do it), I have had and anticipate no ill effects physically from it.

Pregnancy has also been compared with suddenly finding oneself confined to a hospital bed for nine months - connected up to another person, in order to save their life. It would be generous of you to agree to continue this, but it would hardly be your duty, although we're talking about an actual (as opposed to a 'potential') human being.

The point is, shouldn't those who feel and think differently than you do be free to act on those considerations. Why should you dictate to them what they ought to do, with the blundering force of law behind you?

toxx

Sorry I hadn't spotted that before my last message. I retract the final thought in relation to you, although it seems to apply to many 'lifers'.

toxx