: :: Odd things? Who are you to call other people's religions odd.: Stuart Gort. Your free to call me odd if you please. I'm just not so sentitive that I have go into a tizzy if someone does.
Hello? I don't BELIEVE in calling other religions odd. I thought i made taht clear.
: :: i have nothing but respect for the Catholic Chruch and other, similar progressive minded religions. (Jesus was a communist after all.)
: And Marx was a priest, I guess.
Christianity was allied with some version of communism or socialism in Nicaragua, Brazil, Taiping China, Puritan Massachusetts, etc.
: :: But your narrow interpretation of Christianity seems to sanction capitalism, anti-homosexuality, and similar atrocities 9judging by what you post). Don't tell other people about strange religions.
: Actually, what is quite narrow and shallow is wrenching one or two scriptural references out of context to support one's ideology. If you care to provide those biblical references which you feel support your viewpoint then please do. But the deck becomes stacked against me here. If I proceed to refute your assertions biblically, McSpotlight gets testy and hints at censorship. So you win. Make ridiculous claims that Jesus was a communist and have fun doing it. I'll respond to your scriptural references if at the end of every one of your posts McSpotlight says it's OK for me to answer in kind.
I already supplied two quotes, the one about the camel entering through the eye of the needle, and the one about doing God's will on earth as well as in heaven, which clearly justifies trying to improve the world.
Also, Jesus said something to a rich man about giving all his wqealth away, and the Book of Acts shows that teh disciples were communists....
: Kevin said: "In short, eating meat is not wrong."
: I said "That wasn't your viewpoint a while ago but thanks for that. It's all I ever wanted to hear you say 100 posts back."
: :: Why did you want him to say it? So that you can feel justified after eating meat?
: I'm so far from feeling guilty about eating meat Nikhil. That was lame.
So then why did you want him to say it? If it's not to amke yourself more comfortable emotionally, then perhaps it setms from caitalist authoritarianism?
: :: So that you don't have to face up to the fact that you are harming a sentient being?
: That's giving chickens a little too much credit, I think. Did you know turkeys can drown by looking up in a rainstorm? Nature made them too stupid to keep water out of their beaks.
1. Chickens are sentient, if not extremely so. Chickens have a brain, though not a very good one.
2. the sory about turkeys is an urban legend. natural selection would select against suvch an obvious maladaptation. Oh, sorry, you don't believe in evolution. Sorry for offending your worldview.
: :: What makes what 'you want to hear" so important? I want to hear you say that homosexuality is OK. But I know you don't have an inclination to. that's OK, you have the right to your own opinion. What's wrong with allowing Kevin teh same right?
: Kevin said meat eating was immoral a while ago. I disagree with that and cite nearly every historical and contemporaneous culture as proof that morality can not be raised as a reason to be vegan.
1. Plenty of cultures sanctioned slavery, does that make it OK?
2. No culture, with a handful fo exceptions, has ever eaten the amount of meat we do today.
3. the vast majority of the world's people today eat an essentially vegetarian diet.
4. At least three religions, totalling somewhere between 1.5-2 billion people, consider the eating of meat to be a moral shortcoming. if tehy occasionally do it, tehy still agree they are committing a sin. This hardly constitutes an overhwelming majority in favor of eating meat.
:Every other reason to be vegan other than the morality claim leaves the subject a personal choice and offers no moral judgment of meat eaters.
"A non-morality-vbased arguemnt has no moral force."
brilliant tautology, there Stu. I would never have understood that if you hadn't deigned to point it out.
: I'm offended that a small faction of idealists
I am an idealist. What are you? a cynic?
:should make a moral judgment of what can be considered normal dietary practice when history,
no historical culture has used teh agribusiness practices thatw e use or has eaten meat on a scale like ours.
: simple observation,
I observe a lot of murder going on, too.
: the animal kingdom,
This is ridicu;lous. You see lions eating meat. I see cows eating a vegetarian diet. If you can use that as a justification to eat meat, I can use the cows as a justification to eat only vegetables.
: and the lack of prohibition in the vast majority of world religions all serve to condone meat eating.
What is teh vast majority, Stu? How many religions are there., and how many prohibit eating meat? Supply numbers. But that woudl be impossible, because neither of us knows exactly how manytribal religions there are in Africa. So we can't really have an informed discussion on this topic.
: I said, "Plenty of historical and contemporaneous cultures had to exist almost soley on meat."
: :: Utter nonsense. Any culture surviving mostly on meat would immediately go extinct due to nutritional deficiencies, mainly a severe carbohydrate deficit. Your brain can't burn protein, it needs sugar.
: Every North American native tribe existed almost soley on dried meats in the winter months. They had to. Were they immoral too? Are you going to go on record and suggest that every hunting and gathering tribe of antiquity was immoral also? That would be utter nonsense.
No, I didn't say it was 'immoral", I said iot's a sp[iritual shortcoming....so maybe mildly undesirable. I don't ahve a problem with anyone eating meat. i eat chicken and fish regulalry myself, i don't eat cows or pigs fro religious reasons. But I at least recognize that this involves the killing of a sentient being. My own view is taht this is sometimes unavoidable, so it's not a terrible sin. Others disagree, i respect their logical consistency and moral strength.
: ::Only one culture in the world, the Inuits of the Arctic, survived mainly off non-vegetarian sources, and they relied on FISH, not meat; eating fish is both healthier, environmentally more sound, and morally more acceptable than eating meat. (E.g. many hindus and Buddhists sanction eating fish but not mammalian meat).
: I guess chickens are sentient and fish aren't, eh Nikhil?
No, but fish have less brain function than birds, and a better nervous system.
: :: Stuy, are you even aware that chimpanzees and monkeys have been observed to use medicinal plants and herbs to cure disease? Are you aware that myriad life forms have been far better at colonizing hostile environments than we have (e.g. tardigrades)? The two examples you used to suggest human superiority fall flat on their face, because in both fields you ahve animals doing exactly teh same thing- sometimes better.
: Niky, if you wish to be thick about this be my guest but I'm not buying any of this.
Leave bhind teh insults and you might have a tenable argument, though i disagree with it. there is certainly a difference in degree between the chimpanzees and man's ability to produce medicines,a lthough right nwo tehre's a whole field of science dedicated to learningthe secrets of the chimpanzees so as to cure human illnesses. But teh difference is again one of degree and not of kind.
:If you wish to compare a monkey rubbing leaves on himself (biological adaptation) to the cognitive prowess of those who cured polio your argument is lost anyway.
I amcomparing them, and I already said taht oen went beyond the other. Your arguments don't scrae me. i will go oen comparing thinsg in any way I see fit.
:Which mechanical science did the tardigrade apply to his problem to solve it? Of course man is superior to animals - by any reasonable definition of the word.
Supply a definition, please. I could say that peace is teh highest value in the world, therefore bonobo chimpanzees are superior. I could say that the capacity to produce music is the greatest value, and thsu conclude that whales are superior. (They sing and memorize complex songs taht go on for 30 minutes without repeating, try that at home.) I could say that sexual restraint is teh highest value 9which By the way I don't believe) and thus conclude that some bird species which is fully monogamous is the highest. (Incidentally, teh vast majority of human societeies are polygamous, and humans are teh most promiscuous ape species in the world.)
You think monogamy is a sign of moral strength, right, Stu? then according to your logic humans should eb the lowest of the primates. Yous ee teh pitfall? Superiority is an inherently subjective term. that is why we should not use it.
: :: A while back you said "define superiority or stop using it." Not being a despotic capitalist, I won't use words like that. But may I make a humble plea that you define superiority so that Kevin and I know what the hell you're talking about?
: Read a dictionary. That's what I do because I like it when words actually mean the same thing from day to day. You guys probably have your own.
Dictionaries certainly vary, and anyway, the complexpart come in applying and interpreting the definition.
: More on homosexuality,
: :: Well, I thank God that my religion prohibits neither. Hindus believe in tolerance, Stu. So did Jesus, incidentally, but some people seem to have forgotten that..... Everything i claim is divinely inspired can also be defended on rational grounds, without reference to God.
: So talk about this god. It sounds like it's you.
As I'bve said before, I am 9kind of) a Hindu, but I do not believe taht soem aspects of the modern hidnu practice were divinely inspired, so i erject them witha vengeance. E.g. I cannot believe taht a moral God would samnction social inequality, so I deny that social inequality was divinely inspired- as do most liberal Hidnus.
: :: This is as it should be, because my God is a rational God. Where's teh rational grounds for opposing homosexuality? And please, no references to natural law. That's been dead a long time.
: Not because you wish it so Nik. So far, nobody here has reconciled animals eating meat and animals attempting sex with their same sex.
: You guys (and Karen) can't have it both ways. If it is not immoral
: for humans to have sex with their same sex, it is neither immoral for them to eat meat unless you can find better arguments than the example of the animal kingdom.
again, I'll repeat:
Homosexuality being natural does not make it right. But it does take the burden of proof off those who would say it is not wrong.If A says homosexuality is wrong, and B says it is not, A can say one of two things. he can say it's a bizzarre human perversion, not foudn in nature, in which case the onus of proof is on B to show that it is not, in fact, immoral in spite of being unnatural. But if thsi premise is false, then A must now show why homosexuality is immoral, in spite of being natural. you ahve made a substantive claim taht homoseuality has a definite (negative) moral value, and therefore thsi deserves evidence. And as I saids, I want teh biblical argument and something more as well. Becasue 1) tehre are many Christians whho deny that teh Biblical commandment has been properly interpreted or taht it was divinely inspired, and 2) if the commandment really comes from a Rational God, it ought to be defensible on secular, rational grounds as well.
You ahve persistenly chosen not to respond to my Rational God argument. Why? I'm intereteted to knwo where the flaws in it are, if any.
: :: Salvation lies in the fact that I cannot attain to heaven or God. Jesus is God coming here to fix this problem for me. This love is not exclusive to me Kevin.
: :: I did (smoke marijuana) every day for many years of my early adulthood.
: :: Good for you. Why'd you stop?
: Good for me? How old are you boy?
19.
: :: Why is smoking weed morally wrong? I've got news fro you Stu, the Hindu religion says that alcohol is wrong but marijuana is OK. Guess what? I don't drink but i do smoke weed (very) occasionally. what are you going to do about it?
:
: Nothing. But smoke enough of it and teach it to your children and my children will rule over yours.
No, we will never consent to be ruled by teh capitalists. we will do away with class hierarchies. Anyway, thsi sounds suspiciously like clan loyalties. Wjhat's wrong witha ll of us just egtting along?
: :: better to have your motivation sapped than to start a business and screw the poor. Better to have it sapped than to go off and bomb peasants in Viet Nam. better to be sueless to society than to serve a twisted society that exists by for and of the rich. We need more stoned hippies and fewer capitalists and warmongers. Society would be a lot better off if we all took a long collective drag.
: Oh brother!
Can you make a substantive response? was the war in Viet Nam moral, Stu? Wouldn't we have been better off moraly if we smoked weed instead of killing children?
: :: This argument's been dead for three decades, Stu. Give it up. Marijuana is not physically adictoive nor very harmful. more peopel die from etaing dried fruits (sulfite allergeis) than from smoking weed.
: Actually, my friends have been dead for two decades. I wonder what their parents would think of you.
They are certainly entitled to their own opinions. the medical facts won't change. I know people who are dead from eating fried foods. Does that make them immoral? Marijuana is not lethal, nor is it immora;l. My view is based on facts, reason and religion and it will not change.
: :: The ideology of teh left is based on the same moral principles taht underly every great religion.
: Equality: Steal from the productive and redistribute to the unproductive.
labor produces everything, capoital produces nothing. Maybe you think that the current system, which rewards parasitic capitalists, is better than distributing goods fairly>
: Nonviolence: Be a sitting duck for the next depraved tyrant.
I happen to think nonviolence is better than murdering innocent civilians in Nicaragua, Southeast Asia, Uruguay, Indonesia, guatemala, and plenty of other places....all done by US backed forces.
: Human brotherhood: Be responsible for people you do not know and will never meet.
yes,, Stu. That's what teh Christian 'agape" is all about, at elast according to my (conservative Episcopalian) high school headmaster, the Reverend Jarvis.
: Freedom: Unless you wish to own a gun, eat meat, run a business, talk about Jesus in school, smoke cigarettes...
Talk about Jesus all you want. I'll atlk about him, too. I think Jesus needs more coverage, not less. We need to present teh real, communsit jesus and not give the right wing a chance to foist tehir twisted interpretation of Christianity on youth.
: Love: Same sex, of course.
I'm not gay, Stu, but I'm not selfish enough to believe my way si the only way. that is where we differ.
None.
