Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2004 6:46 am
but as i don't believe that we are the creators...
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This is an inviable stance. The question is not what would maximise the human value of life but whether the application of abortion would devalue human life. Some one mentioned earlier that the killing of a soldier doesnt devalue human life .. but all killing does devalue human life. Every individual lost and our acceptance of that fact - results in our lessened value for life.Avatar wrote:So if the question of our value of life rests on far more than simply whether or not abortion is legal, then making it illegal is not going to suddenly engender real respect for life. As long as all the other things carry on, we are still not respecting life as you would have it.
And surely part of our respect for life is in the respect for the way that people choose to live their lives. Respecting the choices of the living is a step toward respecting their lives.
Nothing on earth is designed to protect life, except by our culture. [/qupte
not entirely sure what is meant by this statment. I would have to say that we as humans possess a biological imperative to preserve and protect life .. particularly our own and those of our kinspeople.
ooh that smacks of darwinian theory and neo-nazi propaganda LOL I am sure you dont intend it to sound that wayIn fact, protection of the weak can be considered counter-survival. Nature never intended the weak to live. We allow it, and thereby may be sowing the seeds of our eventual destruction.
Protection of the weak is not a luxury .. it is an obligation .. we as humans always protect our vulnerable offspring .. we are biologically driven to protect our young. They are arguably the weakest of the weak.Protection of the weak is a luxury that we gain only through having been strong enough to reach this point. There may be no life without conception, but that does not mean that every conception must become a life.
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The weak need protecting .. and thus we protect .. this is our humanity .. that leads our actions to preserve life .. other than our own.
To deny our humantiy .. is to deny who and what we really are imo
be back .. this is tre' interesting!!
I certainly am not advocating Neo-Nazism, but what is the problem with Darwin?Skyweir wrote:ooh that smacks of darwinian theory and neo-nazi propaganda LOL I am sure you dont intend it to sound that wayIn fact, protection of the weak can be considered counter-survival. Nature never intended the weak to live. We allow it, and thereby may be sowing the seeds of our eventual destruction.
While I don't disagree with you that perhaps the essence of humanity is exhibited when we protect the lives of others, and that the protection of our offspring is a biological imperative, but I must disagree when you say that protecting the weak isn't a luxury.Skyweir wrote:Protection of the weak is a luxury that we gain only through having been strong enough to reach this point. There may be no life without conception, but that does not mean that every conception must become a life.
Protection of the weak is not a luxury .. it is an obligation .. we as humans always protect our vulnerable offspring .. we are biologically driven to protect our young. They are arguably the weakest of the weak.
The weak need protecting .. and thus we protect .. this is our humanity .. that leads our actions to preserve life .. other than our own.
Dawinism was the inspiration and sadly, the justification used in Nazi Germany's reprehensibly ambitous genocide and euthanasia campaigns. The problem is not with Darwin but in the similar rationale drawn in Nazi philosophy - its the paralleling conceptual comparison that I find concerning.Avatar wrote: I certainly am not advocating Neo-Nazism, but what is the problem with Darwin?
But they do enter into hunman considerations avatar.Questions of humanity, of right and wrong, do not enter into the considerations of nature. Only the question of survival. And not survival of the individual either.
I am unsure, but I think this may really hinge on an arguement of semantics and if so I think we can overcome this with clarification.avatar wrote:While I don't disagree with you that perhaps the essence of humanity is exhibited when we protect the lives of others, and that the protection of our offspring is a biological imperative, but I must disagree when you say that protecting the weak isn't a luxury.
and Oxford:dictionary.com wrote:Something inessential but conducive to pleasure and comfort.
Something expensive or hard to obtain.
Sumptuous living or surroundings: lives in luxury.
I am not sure I understand the context in which you make this staement .. that "helping the weak is a luxury". How do you see this action as falling under the definition of "luxury"?Oxford wrote:self-indulgent, comfortable and expensive
Following this rationale, then, assisting any subject that is weak is acceptable and thus a necessity, if and only if, they in turn become protectors and procreators.avatar wrote:And please realise that I'm not talking about children here. Children, living children, must be protected because they in turn become protectors and procreators.
avatar wrote:I'm talking about the characteristics/behaviours which people today may have, which, while not preventing them from being alive, disincline them from, or make them inable to, contribute in any way to society.
I can not accept this rationale. Social diversity does not weaken society it in fact creates the opposite outcome .. it strengthens it.avatar wrote:It is only the fact that our predecessors were "strong" that makes us able to protect the weak now. I'm not saying we shouldn't necessarily. Only that it may weaken us in the long run.
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thats interesting and curious ..Avatar wrote:
Sorry, bit short of time here, so I'll do my best to be brief.
By luxury, I literally mean that it is something that humanity as a biological species can do without. Our survival as a species does not require that we protect, nurture or uplift those who are unable to contribute to the society which they inhabit.
This does not mean that we shouldn't, only that our survival does not depend on it. It may enrich us, it may enhance our spirits, but it does not enhance our survival.
And I don't feel we can justify an argument of "What might have been." If it never was, we would never know that it couldn't have been. And if you don't have something, and never concieved of it's existence, you can't miss it.
That social conscience is vital to our conception of humanity. Not to our survival as a species.
As a human, as somebody who wants us all to be the best species that we can, I fully support the idea of helping and caring for these people.
However, in terms of simple biology, it is something we could live without doing.
That's what I meant by it being a luxury. We have advanced to the point where we can do it. And that's good. But we don't have to.
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the mere fact that as humans we possess biological imperatives to protect our young dispells that myth.Avatar wrote:Do we as a species value life at all?
Certainly some of us do, and certainly some governments claim to, but it often seems we value human life only in terms of what it can gain for us.
Valuing life in general, and as a whole, is not "natural". It has only arisen as we "evolved" as a species.
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I'm afraid that I can't agree with you there. The biological imperative impels us to protect our own young. The continuation of our own genetic material.Skyweir wrote:the mere fact that as humans we possess biological imperatives to protect our young dispells that myth.