Severian

Of course, it is very subjective. So subjective in fact that even I have changed my mind. But that is true of many things we legislate. Even sentencing is subjective. No, I don't think so. Though this of course depends on the case, and her opinion should carry a lot of weight. But I find myself disagreeing with the notion of 'individual rights' a lot, and by that I mean that we should not be individuals first, but part of a wider community. Nothing we do effects only ourselves - every action effects the wider community in which we live. I think it is society's obligation to provide a proxy for the unborn child, and to ultimately decide on the outcome. Having said that, this is my view in a 'perfect' world. Legislation is probably not the best way to go about this and I am not sure I would trust a judge to make the right decision either. So it is probably best to only legislate the boundary of the grey area (say no abortions after 12 weeks) and leave earlier abortions up to the mother. (On a side topic, I think the UK's law of 24 weeks is far too late - it must be very exceptional circumstances for a woman not to realize she is pregnant by week 12, nevermind 24.) But again I stress that I don't think it is her right to decide - it is simply that she may be in the best position to judge the impact on her life. And I still think that abortion is always immoral, even if it is not (should not) be illegal.

That is easy. Abortion is always immoral. But then, so is ruining a young girl's life by forcing her to have the baby of her rapist. Sometimes we have to chose between evils. I don't think my view on this itself has changed - only the balancing position where I think one path is worse than the other.

And putting folks in prison isn't "taking their liberty"? Hypocrite...

I don't see the difference in the value of their contribution to society and the value of their life. Surely they are the same. (At least from society's point of view.) I would agree that footballers are overpaid, but I also don't see what that has to do with the price of fish. Why? Isn't that a slippery slope argument? With violent crime there is a very definite line in the sand. Couldn't someone more "liberal" than either of us say: "To decide to incarcerate people because they don't "contribute" enough to a society, or on the basis that they are a drain in any way on a society is a very dark road to go down." Should we get rid of the legal system altogether?

That is a fair enough opinion to hold. It is a matter of how much weight you place on each disadvantageous event. I used to think that the inconvenience to the woman's life outweighed the foetus' right to life, but I have changed my mind in the last few years.

I don't think that is generally true. I have a friend who is considering home schooling and that is purely because he thinks the state provided education is crap. I am inclined to agree with him, but fortunately I am wealthy enough to send my daughter to private school.

It is more the other way around. Before I thought that the "hardship" of having a child was a large enough cost to outweigh the "rights" (in inverted commas because I don't believe in rights) of the zygote to life. Having had a kid, I now don't view it as a hardship and think that people who do are just being unreasonable. In other words, I haven't increased the value of the zygote in my mind. I have decreased the value of the parent's time and effort.

Will the US be granting paedophiles asylum next? After all, Germany persecute their way of life too.

I think it is very natural that Christianity should be influenced by the culture in which it is being worshipped. This is even true in the bible - the letters to the gentile churches are very different in character to the letters to the Jewish churches. It is unreasonable to think that the culture we live in does not effect the way we worship God, and that doesn't make any one way of worshipping better than any other.

I think the death penalty is inconsistent with my religious beliefs. By that I mean that it is always wrong to take another life. In any circumstances. That includes war, or police shooting a bad guy, or even self defence. However, I think as a society we should be taking a bigger view. Sometimes one has to do wrong things in order to better society. So taking a life can sometimes be the "lesser of two evils". For example, killing the bad guy in a hostage situation is wrong (because you are taking a life) but it may be less wrong than letting him kill the hostages. I think the death penalty is very similar. Killing the serial killer is wrong, but letting him kill more children is more wrong. I would also take this further. Killing violent criminals is wrong. But processing them via our current punishment system (high security prison as criminal training camps, followed by releasing dangerous criminals back into society to re-offend) is more wrong. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Why do you think it is better to kill "in the heat of the moment"? Surely that killing indicates a loss of control, so makes the criminal more dangerous, not less. If the killer kills for a reason, then it is more likely that they can be re-educated not to kill in the future. Governments already do this by locking people away. Are we not saying that a criminal's life is worth less by locking them away from society? In fact, isn't any society which rewards merit (with greater status or pay) inherently judging some people's lives to be worth less than others?

I think this thread actually ties in with the death penalty thread. I believe that the unborn child (even a fertilized egg) is human and a 'person' (whatever that means). But I don't believe that we each have an undeniable right to live. I think the quality of all lives need to be weighed up before making a decision. So, for example, one could argue that a severely disabled child who would have a very low quality of life and cause an emotional, physical and financial burden on the parents, could be aborted. Or a child whose gestation could pose an unreasonable risk to the mother's life. On the other hand, I think it is hard to argue that a healthy child should be aborted, at any time after fertilisation, since I don't think 9 months of pregnancy is an overly huge burden for the mother to bear. At least not enough to take someone's life. I have actually changed my mind on this. I used to think that abortion was fine until the child had developed up to a level of complexity. But I think having my own child has changed my view on how much I think we should be willing to sacrifice for our children.

My guarantee that my moral code is better than yours. (We are using my moral code to define "better", aren't we?)

I do Glasgow to London quite a lot for meetings, but I never take the train. The plane is cheaper and faster. In fact my wife has gone to work in London today, right in the city centre (near tower bridge). She caught the first plane down this morning, is in the office by 9am and I will pick her up at Glasgow Airport this evening.

I seem to be "that guy" in just about every thread I post in. If we did do this, I don't think there is any point in people voting for "who won" at the end. People just vote for the position they support, not why debated the best. And why does someone have to win anyway?

Crysis 2? It isn't out yet, is it?

Or even better, take option 2, write down the physics in a paper which you can carry on your person, then go back in time and pick option 3 instead. Then you get both option 2 and option 3 (and option 1 if you can be bothered to do it again).

I would go for #2, since ftl travel would also allow time travel.

Crysis is pretty old now. Even my heap of junk can play Crysis at max resolution and max settings with 30+ fps. I did enjoy playing Mass Effect 2 though. (! played it through twice. Once maxing paragon and once maxing renegade.)

My faith is currently around 63%. About a B-. I would like to get up to an A+ at some point, but I think that would take quite a lot of work.

Yes, that is sort of the point that I intended to make.

Yes, I do deny this, and I am quite sure this was never Jesus' intention.

No, I wouldn't subscribe to that. My the same token you could say that electromagnetism isn't a fundamental force - it is a bi-product of the U(1) gauge symmetry. Though I do think your point has merit. To be honest, I think it is simply too early to say for gravity. We need to understand it better.

I don't think anyone was suggesting that she should have sex against her will. I was simply saying that I think it is a mistake to wait for your one-true-love before having sex for the first time. Incidentally, I did wait, and I regret it.

I think that there are parts of reality that the scientific method don't work for. Indeed, I suspect that humanity will never fully understand our universe. And I don't even mean that on a mystical/religious basis. There are questions that simply can't be answered, such as what is happening quantum mechanically between observations. In fact, it is even true mathematically that we will not be able to prove everything (Gödel's incompleteness theorem).

Yes, of course.