Abortion

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Expand view Topic review: Abortion

Shutting Down Billy

by Bob Butler » Sun Oct 29, 2023 8:47 pm

Higgenbotham wrote:
Sun Oct 29, 2023 7:40 pm
You had mentioned that you watched the Billy Graham sermon. That surprised me, as I didn't think you would want to stomach it, which is why I linked directly to his use of the phrase "gods of materialism," figuring you might note the use of the phrase and shut it off. I only watched maybe 10 minutes of it, but it seemed more relevant than when I last watched Billy Graham previous to that, at least 40 years ago. However, there wasn't anything in it that substantially changed my opinion, so it mostly amounted to entertainment and nostalgia.
I must confess I got only about 10 minutes in too. To me, the sermon was more about the church, less about love. His priorities seemed off.

Re: Principia Mathematica and the Bible

by Higgenbotham » Sun Oct 29, 2023 7:40 pm

Bob Butler wrote:
Sun Oct 29, 2023 6:59 pm
Is that what you are looking for?
With regard to abortion or religion, there is not too much that I am looking for.

You had mentioned that you watched the Billy Graham sermon. That surprised me, as I didn't think you would want to stomach it, which is why I linked directly to his use of the phrase "gods of materialism," figuring you might note the use of the phrase and shut it off. I only watched maybe 10 minutes of it, but it seemed more relevant than when I last watched Billy Graham previous to that, at least 40 years ago. However, there wasn't anything in it that substantially changed my opinion, so it mostly amounted to entertainment and nostalgia.

Your response was about what I expected, though. So I will put on my knee high rubber boots and trudge back to the Dark Age Hovel.

Principia Mathematica and the Bible

by Bob Butler » Sun Oct 29, 2023 6:59 pm

Bob Butler wrote:
Sat Oct 28, 2023 3:48 pm
One interesting thing in recent posts. You have a poll showing most Americans believe in or favor a lot of traditional religious aspects. And yet, most are willing to vote for abortions. Do people believe they can go to heaven after they had an abortion? The logic of it would of course vary, but would be interesting.
The interesting thing is the combination of opposing polls. One says most Americans believe in many aspects of the supernatural, including God and Heaven. The other says most Americans believe abortions should be safe and available. In a lot of examples they add rare.

Before addressing this contradiction, let me say that I’m not the right person to say how a religious person thinks. My relationship with God ended up being decided through quantum physics and parapsychology. These might be more determined by Principia Mathematica than the Bible. This is not how most people would resolve it, not how most people think.

Among religious people, some believe in a loving forgiving God. Others believe in harsh judgement, that He will torture people through eternity for disobeying His laws. This difference in how one believes God acts would be part of it. Those that believe in a loving forgiving God might be more apt to have an abortion. Those who believe in a wrathful commanding God might choose otherwise. As a single male agnostic, there is not much more I can say about it.

I can’t also forget the two contradictory instincts. One is to love one’s neighbor, to help a friend out. The other is to hate, oppress and kill one who is different. This might tie in with the above paragraph. Religious believers, especially Christians, tend to love thy neighbor. Others might hate, oppress and kill the different. If one follows God’s example, how you perceive God is important.

In my youth, the Catholic nuns occasionally preached that judgement is God’s. It is not man’s place to stand in judgement over his fellow man. Let God handle judgement. It would seem not all follow that principle.

For me, there are two aspects of thought, embodied in Principia Mathematica and the Bible. As an engineer, Principia has primacy of place. One who doesn’t follow the principles outlined there can find himself in big trouble. Yet, moral questions often cannot be answered through experiment and observation. I grew up with preaching of the nuns. I have kept the most basic moral principles from my youth. Most important is ‘love thy neighbor’. I suspect the others could be derived from that one statement.

What is not called for is controlling, harassing, hating and killing one’s neighbor.

My balancing thought is that one should emphasize love, and minimize judgement and control. I should add, don’t plan a near future vacation in Gaza. A lesser variation would be avoiding the slum sections of cities. Love may have something going for it, but you can’t forget prudence.

Is that what you are looking for?

Re: Doublethink or Nothing

by Higgenbotham » Sun Oct 29, 2023 4:09 pm

Higgenbotham wrote:
Fri Oct 27, 2023 10:50 am
Bob Butler wrote:
Wed Oct 25, 2023 9:08 am
Medieval superstition dealt with concepts like gods, souls, sin and sacrifice.
Before going back to the Dark Age Hovel, though, I want to elaborate on my objection to your use of the phrase you have coined to describe how Christians think about abortion - "medieval superstitions", which was my real reason for starting this back and forth we have been having these past few days. I can now do so because you have sort of defined what you mean by that. When you use the word "medieval" a reasonable assumption would be that it refers to things that were primarily of the medieval world and are not of the present world. So let's look at the 4 items you listed - gods, souls, sin and sacrifice. If the plurality of Americans still believe in gods, souls, and sin, and those concepts it would stand to reason that this plurality would believe that there is a hell. Astonishingly, to me at least, they do as a majority, and they do across race, age, and every other affiliation besides religious or lack thereof. So to call beliefs in gods, souls, and sin medieval superstitions when these beliefs are very much present in this world I don't think is accurate.

Image

There are some aspects of sacrifice such as animal sacrifice to appease or gain favor from the gods that could be considered medieval superstitions since they are no longer practiced in the present world. I discussed that in a previous post.
Bob Butler wrote:
Sat Oct 28, 2023 3:48 pm
One interesting thing in recent posts. You have a poll showing most Americans believe in or favor a lot of traditional religious aspects.
Is this your best attempt to respond to this? Do you have anything more to say about it besides burying it in your usual attempts to create irrelevant diversions?

If you answer, yes, this was my best attempt and, no, I don't have anything more to say about it directly, then I'm ready to return (on foot) to the Dark Age Hovel.

Or I suppose a non-response is equivalent to saying you have nothing more.

Christian Coincidence

by Bob Butler » Sun Oct 29, 2023 3:50 pm

No problem. As I said, I don’t take the insults seriously.

Generational Dynamics proclaims an instinct to hate, oppress and kill those that are different. The tendency to fall into insults when one has lost an argument is apt to involve this instinct, A liberal is different, therefor you wallow in negative attributes which have no basis in reality. It would be generally better to say that liberals want to change the culture to remove flaws than to say they are sexual deviants. Lots more evidence of the former.

The religious tradition of abortion as a sin did occur in medieval times and did involve elements of superstition. The description is accurate, if not the most flattering one possible. You might want to get used to it.

A semi relevant incident.

In my late college days, I was with the Society of Creative Anachronism, smashing my fellows with full weight swords and armor. One of the largest events the society put on involved the East Kingdom (basically, the East Coast of the US) waging the annual Pensic War against the Mid Kingdom (the Mississippi valley). The looser had to keep Pittsburg. One year a battle was fought within sight of an interstate highway. They managed to bring the highway to a full stop just gawking.

But one of our members fashioned himself a soothsayer. Before the major battles started one year, he made his prophecy. “There will be an apparent injury. It will at first seem serious, but it will turn out not to be.” It, of course, turned out to be true. An idiot jumped out of a tree and hurt himself. A pretty predictable minor prophecy. Not evidence of much. But…

In the Christian Fellowship we used to call such incidents “Christian coincidence.” Prayers were common. They may have come true a bit more than expected. None were so out there that you could raise a flag and say “Look at this!” Similar events happened with the Neo pagans. I just noted them and moved on. Minor miracles happened regularly, seemingly without regard to which tradition was followed, Catholic, Born Again, Neo Pagan, Witchcraft or eventually Parapsychology.

The difference with Parapsychology was that lots of incidents were carefully recorded. You had to flip a coin a whole bunch of times, count on an average 50% hit rate, before you could make a statistically significant claim that the hit rate was significant.

Were these people gullible and therefore different? Should one start building up hate, oppression and murder? Let them be. They believed in their magic, and some of them tried to prove it. Those immersed in the European traditions often do not accept the probability shifts, or respect magic cast in other traditions. They would invoke unsupported suspicions of demons involved, or some other such rubbish.

But if religion is about the laws of nature being influence by the mind, you have to go beyond faith. You have to deal with real probability shifts. I chased them. I may have a little less patience than usual with the off the wall assumptions of those who have not.

Re: Insults?

by Higgenbotham » Sun Oct 29, 2023 2:16 pm

Bob Butler wrote:
Sun Oct 29, 2023 1:56 pm
I may have an unusual attitude towards personal attacks. If someone switches from issues, facts and logic to personal attacks, he has lost the argument. God forbid one acknowledge the loss. Instead of caring about the insults, I generally feel a touch of glee. One carves a figurative notch in of one’s keyboard.

Some posters who switch to personal attacks at the drop of the hat I consider worthy of contempt.

I do note, however, that Higgenbotham has proclaimed himself an expert in the practice of deviant homosexuality and perversion. How did he acquire that expertise?
Bob, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get your panties in a wad to the point that you start making wild accusations.

My comments were based on long association with liberals such as yourself. Rather than speak in generalities, we need you here as a poster child to demonstrate first hand how how stupid "know it all" liberals are, you know, demonstrations of things like "of course global warming". Yes, of course!

"Of course abortion" fill in the blank straight from the gods of materialism to your empty skull. Yes, of course! Of course, these are "medieval superstitions". Yes, of course!

Insults?

by Bob Butler » Sun Oct 29, 2023 1:56 pm

I may have an unusual attitude towards personal attacks. If someone switches from issues, facts and logic to personal attacks, he has lost the argument. God forbid one acknowledge the loss. Instead of caring about the insults, I generally feel a touch of glee. One carves a figurative notch in of one’s keyboard.

Some posters who switch to personal attacks at the drop of the hat I consider worthy of contempt.

I do note, however, that Higgenbotham has proclaimed himself an expert in the practice of deviant homosexuality and perversion. How did he acquire that expertise?

Re: Abortion

by John » Sun Oct 29, 2023 1:53 pm

Of course global warming. Hilarious!

Collapse

by Bob Butler » Sun Oct 29, 2023 1:45 pm

Guest wrote:
Sun Oct 29, 2023 7:17 am
P.S. Europe is heading for a massive social explosion. Mass immigration is about to bare its bitterest fruit. Europe is weeks, perhaps even days away, from civil war. I'm sure America will follow.

Something will emerge from the ruins. A piece of the Westerners that survive, and bits and pieces for the third world migrants to starve in.
It seems a lot of people here are predicting collapse, including me. Different collapses. Putin has military problems. Xi has economic problems. Trump has legal problems. You can see that all three are heading in the wrong direction. Autocratic leaders tend toward strange decisions, corruption, surrounding themselves with yes men and believing themselves above everything. Sorry, no.

Gaza is the new one. I am looking at recent history and seeing what has happened when various Arab groups have tried to take on Israel. They generally lose land to Israel every time. Why? Their territories of origin are different. In the Middle East deserts dominate and horse archers were the most common military arm. The common wisdom is that if you are getting into trouble, retreat. With speed and range, it is easy and prudent to get in that habit. In Europe you had forests and well armored infantry with melee weapons. You bore down grimly and fought. It isn’t about which group has the superior DNA, but about how their cultures were shaped by history.

I expect these cultural tendencies to repeat. Hamas will try to hide in their tunnels. They will give Israel the initiative and ability to concentrate. Israel will talk about saving hostages, but the priority will be diminishing Hamas. It will still be ugly for a while, but the result will be the usual.

The problem of mass immigration is real. Aside from people wishing to leave the autocratic Middle East, the cause of it is of course global warming. Conservative insistence on staying the same, depending on fossil fuels, has been too dominant. Sure, ignore the science if convenient. Recently we have had an abundance of fires, hurricanes, droughts, mudslides, etc…. Still, it did not become a crisis issue. It will therefore get worse. Not addressed firmly this crisis, lurking for the next one, the question is whether we will have an awakening as active as the 1960s. Is an active awakening part of the Information Age pattern? Will the various problems be severe enough that we will do something about it immediately, not just propose new values to be implemented later? Will the S&H pattern of turnings be accelerated?

I’m not saying the various problems aren’t pretty serious. Things are heading for collapse all around. However it is the conservative stay the same factions that are heading that way. Beyond that, you can see the traditional new birth of freedom.

Beyond that, though, is the next problem.

Re: Abortion

by Another guest » Sun Oct 29, 2023 10:48 am

I miss the 90s. They were my glittering zenith.

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