Pedantic...Stiff Necked

Come again?

Where in my posts , did I say that the law of man should not be applied?

I think you should re-read my post and accept it or dismiss it, not twist it according to your beliefs.

Other than that , I'm not much for flaming someone for something they did not say (or in this case wrote)

Astro wrote:


I didn't mean to 'flame you' and if I came across that way, I apologize. But don't you see? Just about every law on the books can be traced back to some Biblical principal. How do you distinguish then what is a policy on faith and what is policy based on the 'laws of man?'

Take the issues of stem cell research and abortion for instance. Those who believe humans have no soul and life begins with the first breath and ends with the last probably have little problem with partial birth abortion or cloning human beings to do stem cell research or for spare body parts or for whatever. The person of faith will often have a much different opinion about what is ethical, right, just, proper in matters like that. Are we to tell people that only the athiest view shall be considered the moral one even though the believers outnumber the athiests about 9 to 1? Or is it more proper to have a national debate and work something out that both can live with?

Even apart from issues of faith, values will be in conflict. If you believe it is immoral to drill for oil in a pristine area of Alaska and somebody else thinks it is more immoral for people to lose their livelihood or freeze to death in the winter because there isn't enough oil, who's value system should prevail?

The founders were very clear that no religious group should be able to dictate to government what government should be. Nor should government be able to dictate to the people what they must believe in matters of religion. But whether Christian or Jew or Moslem or Buddhist or athiest or whatever, all people have the same right to petition their government to pass laws or govern in the way that they want the country to be. If a Christian runs for office and his platform happens to include "Christian' principles, the people have the choice to vote for him/her or not. Same with a Marxist or socialist or environmentalist or animal rights activisit or any other 'ist'.

Just because a law is pleasing to Christians or whatever or conforms with what they believe is right and just does not necessarily make it a religious law.

Morality is a sticky issue, because everyone has a different view of what "moral" is.
I don't mind if , someone bans stem cell research because after all there is always poetic justice.
Thing is, people don't inform themselves about what science is really doing, and not what they believe it's doing , luckily for all of us , some people do, otherwise we'd still be driving around in horse buggys.
But what bothers me is that you keep referring to "the athiests" (it's atheists by the way) as this big movement that tries to negate every belief that you hold, trust me, there is none.

Every legitemate poll I have ever seen has a majority of the public favoring a woman's right to choose. Many don't let that influence their choice of candidates too much, though.
Stem cell research will go on, no matter what the conservatives do or say - if not in America, then in some nations with a more enlightened set of leaders.

I know there is no 'athiest movement' as such Astro, but it is the athiests that are demanding no Christmas carols in the schools at Christmas, are demanding that the 100-year-old creche be removed from the courthouse lawn, that the cross be taken off the L.A. county seal, etc. etc. etc. Christians especially see this as a direct assault on their rights to have things the way they would like for them to be. You talk to the Jews and they have no problem with creches or Christmas carols or a cross on the country seal so long as they can do their thing too.

Most think right-to-lifers are Christian nuts that want to deprive a woman of the right to choose. Most right-to-lifers think the woman needed to choose before she risked pregnancy, but once a baby is on the way, that is another human life and to kill it is tantamount to murder.

Those of us who have studied the science of cloning know that there were more than 400 failures before there was a "Dolly the sheep' and many of those failures involved intense suffering of the grotesque creatures that were produced before they got a good working model. Do we really want to do that with humans? At what point does stem cell research cross over into human cloning?

All these are not easy question and there are no simple answers. There should be a national debate however about all of them. And if we'd quit demonizing each other and look for answers that all can live with, we just might make progress a whole lot faster.

Oh, crap. Here come the separation of church and state argument again.

I thought that's what we've been discussing all day.

On an a2k thread, it is asked, Why do atheists have to refute Christianity so strongly? (para). Here is a perfect example why:
foxfire wrote:
I know there is no 'athiest movement' as such Astro, but it is the athiests that are demanding no Christmas carols in the schools at Christmas, are demanding that the 100-year-old creche be removed from the courthouse lawn, that the cross be taken off the L.A. county seal, etc. etc. etc. Christians especially see this as a direct assault on their rights to have things the way they would like for them to be. You talk to the Jews and they have no problem with creches or Christmas carols or a cross on the country seal so long as they can do their thing too.

Most think right-to-lifers are Christian nuts that want to deprive a woman of the right to choose. Most right-to-lifers think the woman needed to choose before she risked pregnancy, but once a baby is on the way, that is another human life and to kill it is tantamount to murder.

Those of us who have studied the science of cloning know that there were more than 400 failures before there was a "Dolly the sheep' and many of those failures involved intense suffering of the grotesque creatures that were produced before they got a good working model. Do we really want to do that with humans? At what point does stem cell research cross over into human cloning?

All these are not easy question and there are no simple answers. There should be a national debate however about all of them. And if we'd quit demonizing each other and look for answers that all can live with, we just might make progress a whole lot faster.

1. Christians think nothing of cramming their beliefs and symbols down one's throat, then play injured when atheists object.
2. It has been determined by doctors, women who make that choice, and the supreme court that aborting a fetus is not murder.
3. A brought to term human clone is not to be confused with stem cell research, unless the aim is to cloudy the issue with guilt by association tactics.