warri0r45

I may be mistaken, but I could have sworn you said that exact same statement a few months back, minus the big bang thing. Maybe I'm just imagining things.. Probably did. Every now and then you get the same misrepresentations. Thus, you'll get the same response from me. EDIT: By the way, It's not a copy-paster in my bag of arguments, if that's where your queries were directed. Repetition is the key to memory. I probably just remember a similar verion from saying it over and over again.

The post I'm making is incredibly off-topic, but exactly! Why can't the religious people just say, "Okay that's how it works, but God made it that way and he's the one behind it all." And why don't the scientists realize that their theories, laws, and conjectures don't disprove the existance of a high power? It would make things so much easier... >.< Sir, scientists recognise quite well thier theories do in fact not disprove any supernatural notion. If they do not, they aren't aware of the FIRST thing about science and thus are not to be called scientists. What is that FIRST thing, you ask? The FIRST this is that science is limited as a naturalistic methodology. It knows nothing and speaks nothing of the supernatural. :wink:

1. Never have had that "divine right," unlike others in the debate. Notice how I've brought the Bible into this. I'm relying on moral and ethical principles here. General ones. 2. Exactly. That's the whole spirit of the debate. However, most pro-choicers I talk to believe in the "life begins at birth" and therefore spoil my opinion of the rest of you. Like you stated in number 7, it's a small group of irresponsible ones spoiling it for the rest. 3. However, the point is that zygotes only last for hours before the first division. Note that this is three-five days after intercourse, in which the parents to be had plenty of time to follow-up with birth control. The "morning-after" pill is dirt cheap, I hear. And unlike some people, I don't consider it abortion if you use it "the morning after" as the sperm has likely not reached the egg. 4. Yes, I thought so. The bads far outweigh the goods of eugenics research. 5. As someone stated before, a newborn infant does not have current views, ideas, aspirations, etc. But when an infant is smothered by it's mother, CNN crucifies her bringinig up that same point. But an embryo or fetus is different because it hasn't been born yet? I was not referring to a termination paradox, I was referring to the grandiose double-standard that exists. 6. It's her right (couple A) to do whatever she wants. But my belief is that murder is not one of them. If she does carry the baby to term, she may decide that she does indeed love this thing growing inside her. She might even decide to keep the child. 7. I believe it should. Abortion is not to be used as a form of birth control (the main thing about it that pisses me off). If someone has genuine medical need of an abortion, with a certified gynecologist providing evidence, I'm more likely to bend. But it should be strictly monitored, so every midwife in America doesn't make a killing giving out 'abortion tickets.' 1) Good to hear. 3) That's not the point at all. It's a peripheral issue. You can put the zygote in the same category as the next few divisions in which it looks and functions in the same way. On the morning after pill, I should put it out there that I'd much rather a world where everyone took the morning after pill as opposed to waiting a few weeks to get an abortion. 5) No, an embryo or fetus is different in that it has undeveloped pain perception, assuming it's far back in development. I'm not crash hot on aborting later in the pregnancy when some of those faculties are more developed. 6) Another one of those emotive words. Abortion is in fact not murder. And yes, she may decide she eventually wants to keep it. If so, great. 7) Firstly, I'd rather it not be in any way the first choice of birth control. Such a use for abortion is an abuse of the system among other things. And yes, definately; I'm in no way endorsing abortion as a throw away procedure. Taken carefully and seriously at all times or not at all.

(1) You are correct as long as that unborn child you are killing is not a human. If they are a human then they should have full protection under the law. (2) If you aren't sure then shouldn't you err on the safe side of things which according to what you just said would be conception? Ty for the compliment. If my argument carries huge emotional appeal then great but don't confuse that with an emotional argument. (3) The actual argument is cold hard logic and data. (4) To which I countered give me a suitable definition of what a person is which you haven't done yet. :P That being the case if you don't know shouldn't you be erring on the side of caution until you do know? Lives are at stake over this issue. (5) Because there isn't a point you can say "Ok, suddenly this unborn child is a person but they weren't a person five seconds before that point." That means they were either a person the entire time since conception or else they aren't a person until they are born. (6) Does a newborn baby have dreams, hopes, and aspirations? (7) If you were to kill a newborn infant that had the exact same situation then why would it all of a sudden be wrong to do it then? (1) Should a human zygote have full protection under the law in the same way as an adult should, to you? (2) Technically life does begin at conception. It's not a life of pain, emotion or awareness whatsoever but it is life. I'm not going to err on the safe side if it means a mother is duped of a choice to abort just because I don't feel right destroying an emotionless, unaware, unperceptive conglomeration of cells. (3) Why not then go the next logical step. We all know killing people is wrong. I want to hear your justification for why killing a human zygote or a human blastocyst is wrong. Why is it wrong to kill an emotionless, unreceptive, unaware conglomeration of cells? Would it not be logical to avoid ambiguity in your argument? Specify, at least to flatter me and see if your argument holds as much oomph as your current one does. We know killing people is wrong. What about killing a human zygote, for example? (4) I'm no longer arguing against your definition of what constitutes a person. I'm asking you to see if your argument against killing zygotes is as strong as your argument against killing people. (5) I wasn't talking about what constitutes a person. I was saying divide the category of 'people' and argue against a specific point in gestration to avoid ambiguity and an argument you know holds emotional weight. Try and see if your argument is as ground breaking if you choose to specify what it is you are arguing against. (6) I suppose not, but it does have pain perception and emotion, unlike a zygote or a blastocyst. (7) Because they most certainly feel pain.

Dude, light changes speed depending on what it's going through. It's been calculated that light from the center of the sun takes a rediculous amount of time to emerge at the surface (can't remember the figure -- it was in the order of thousands of years from memory). Granted, this only makes it slower, but light won't always travel at ~ 300 million ms-1. The constant 'c' is the constant. It's a measure of the speed of light in a vaccum. Broadly speaking, light will travel at 'c' the majority of the time as space is almost a proper vaccum.

Oh man. I totally agree. I feel the same about "F***ing Hostile" and "Mouth For War" among others.

That sentiment is disgusting. By that mentality, you are condoning eugenics. Why don't we just go round up all the blind and lame people in the world and shoot them in the head to put them out of their misery. I can't even begin to state how disgusting that post is. I'm sorry, but you remind me of freaking Hitler. You make it sound like killing a baby is a public service. And to Warri0r: 1. When the law applies, yes. And I will support every law initiative to consider abortion murder. Whether it's an undeveloped Zygote, or a fetus that is just becoming self-aware, it still has the right to be born. 2. I was playing devil's advocate there. In fact, it is legal in China to kill the baby just before birth as a means of population control. I was combating here the stigma that "life begins at birth," which I consider BS. 3. You got me there, I forgot my biology. Embryo would be a better term. However, you are correct that it lacks an emotional appeal. 4. I didn't mean Hitler's eugenics. There is a recent surge in eugenics research that seems to be picking up speed (ie cloning, genetic manipulation, etc) that I am sure will make normal humanity a subspecies. By saying that you are doing the baby a favor by not making it live through MS or blindness, you are pretty much making it a subspecies. Not worthy of living amongst us healthy people. 5. Hence the reason I make these statements. An embryo may not have conscious thought (the brain does not kick on until 3-5 weeks into the term) but by aborting it you are snuffing out that future fully grown human being. You snuff out it's ideas, thoughts, dreams, and aspirations. Every human deserves the right to grow up (as we hear countless times on news reports when a young child is killed). Does the embryo not deserve the same? 6. It's been my understanding that most pro-choicers are exceedingly pessimistic. Apparently, every adoption agency looks like Oliver Twist and every child born to unwanting parents is going to be blind, Deaf, lame, and be mentally challenged. When neither of these things is true. It's the minority kicking the majority's [wagon]. 7. Like I said before, it's poetic justice. All actions have consequences, all causes effect. Grow up and accept them. If 15-year olds want to have immature irresponsible sex, they should be prepared for the consequences. Should a life be snuffed out just because they don't want their parents to know? Speaking of which. When parents find out their little girl is pregnant, the anger is almost always short lived. No matter if you are dirt poor or filthy rich, your parents and grandparents would always be willing to help out and accept the baby into the family. 1) That's fine, be a lobbyist for what you believe in, just make sure you don't fall into the trap of believing you in fact have divine right to tell a mother what she can and can not do when the choice to abort is within the limits of law. 2) Yes, "life begins at birth" is BS. Life eventuates from a mechanical dividing machine into an embryo with a heartbeat and pain perception and beyond. Where to draw the line of where life begins can be a simple 'at conception' or something far more difficult to pin point. 3) Yes, I don't like the emotional appeal. I admire Ambassadar in particular for debating a human zygote as a person and bringing up many difficult philosophical issues to answer, but the argument then carries huge emotional appeal. To debate such issues and avoid an emotional bias, you need specificity in what you are debating against. Ambassadar's argument was that zygotes are people, killing people is wrong and therefore killing zygotes is wrong (feel free to correct me Ambassadar). My arguments countering Ambassadar's then evolved into a questioning of why not debate against killing a human zygote instead of lumping them in with the category of people? Hell, why not divide the whole gestation period into weeks and argue against terminating the pregnancy at a specific point? This would undoubtedly destroy emotional appeal because the connotation when saying 'killing people' is much more real and unsettling than the connotation when saying 'killing zygotes' or even 'killing blastocysts' or 'killing 1 week old embryos.' 4) Eugenics is a difficult issue and you bring up a difficult scenario. 5) Herein lies the polar opposite views of the debate. You're bringing emotion into it by comparing what you are infact not doing to what you are. In terminating an undeveloped embryo, you are not snuffing out dreams, hopes, aspirations, etc. Can you see what I'm saying? Is the mentality here that the position has less appeal when you actually look at what it is you are doing rather than what you are not? They are future possibilities, as you pointed out; you are arguing a hypothetical as if it were the current state of the embryo and people thrive on that emotion in thier arguments and disgust in abortion. They think of little children playing in fields of green grass when talking about biochemical entities who feel nothing and whose current purpose is to divide. Yes, it will likely grow up and have aspirations, dreams, hopes, etc, but it dosen't actually have those things now. People then make the connection that they are wiping out something analagous to a fully grown and concious human, which no doubt gets people worked up. If you were to kill an embryo with none of these qualitites, why are we bringing them up in the debate? A possible answer could be people like the oomph or emotional undertones of 'killing a future human with dreams and aspirations' over 'killing a conglomeration of dividing cells with no pain perception or awareness of self.' 6) I'm not saying that the adoption program is dismal like that. I don't know enough about it to do so. Your hypothetical seemed to have all pieces fit into each other nicely and as for how frequently these occurances happen in real life, I'm not sure. I think it's great when a mother can agree to go through a pregnancy and then give the child up for adoption to a truly deserving couple. The key word being 'agree.' I'm not about to say what she must or must not do with her embryo even if I am a truly deserving infertile parent. It would be seen as rather intrusive and rude of me. 7) That wasn't the question. You asked me about the rights of an embryo of irresponsible parents when I asked you if abortion should be outlawed even though those who do abort aren't always irresponsible. In other words, should the actions of those irresponsible ones determine the legality of abortion for those who genuinely need it?

(1) Unless there's something authoritative in law which states what she does with it, I'm not comfortable with every Tom [bleep] and Harry insisting they know the right thing to do. Do you feel you have the right to tell a mother what she must do with respect to abortion? (2) There are limits to abortion in law. If it still happens 1 day before pregnancy, which I understand is illegal basically everywhere, I'm not a fan. The earlier, the better, to avoid the complicated stages of neural development and pain perception. (3) Wrong terminology. A zygote is a single cell of combined sperm and egg. After first division it's no longer a zygote. You and I are human beings. A human zygote is a human zygote. As I said previously, the argument kind of lacks it's emotional appeal when you say 'killing human zygotes is wrong' opposed to 'killing people is wrong.' (4) You should be careful not to compare this to Hitler's eugenics. It in no way deserves that tag as we can quantitively define and describe a deisease. We can't do the same for 'attractive.' (5) Good thing your mother didn't choose to abort. You'll always get the exact same reaction from a fully grown human being. We all don't want to die. A zygote can't know what it wants to do or not do. It's not aware of anything. (6) And alternatives are great. Your hypothetical is great too. If only we lived in an ideal world, right? (7) Some people are very careful and still get pregnant. Should we make abortion illegal because of those irresponsible ones?

An argument insane made in response to an early post of assassin's. He told assassin to "go tell a suffering child that they were better off aborted". You responded by saying "less emotion please". The fact that you got emotional thinking about someone telling a child that they were better off aborted says nothing about the argument. It is very logical that if you truly believe that the child would be better off aborted that you should have no problem telling them that. But of course, you and I both know that it is illogical to tell someone that their experience is worse than death when we really have no idea what they're going through and what death is like. Assassin's argument is a false dilemma in that both choices from his POV are made from ignorance. He doesn't know what the child is going through, and he doesn't know what death is like. But the mother doesn't know either. The mother doesn't know what the child is going through and the mother doesn't know what death is like. Thus the mother supposedly being able to make the choice is another false dilemma. This is why suicide doesn't make any sense either. It is another false dilemma, but at least the person committing suicide understands one aspect of the choice - they know what it will take to keep living, whereas nobody else does. No; you and I both assume that there are far worse things in this world than dying. We can only assume, and that's what makes this entire abortion debate one big false dilemma. That's my entire point. I generally try and keep my emotion to myself and avoid bringing it up in arguments. If 'less emotion please' is the most emotional thing you can get out of me here, I think I'm doing alright. :wink: If an argument is designed to give you an emotional response, as I feel Insane's was, I'll probably give you a gentle comment such as 'less emotion please.' If you feel an argument I've made was an intended emotion-jerker, please feel free to pull me up too. And yes, the mother knows no better than you or me. It's not about her being able to make the choice accurately. It's about me not making it for her because it is logically hers to make and not mine.

He was talking more about what happens after you die. Any such scenario, if one exists, is an assumption and thus could be anything from non-existant up to beyond any imaginable agony or ecstacy. The assumption in relieving one from a potentially horrid life via abortion is that it's worse than what may be beyond death. It's a fair cop. But then the same could be said of those who assume they have the right of telling a mother to abort or not, which I'm not suggesting is anyone here. It's ultimately her choice and me saying it's wrong is based on my subjective belief. How and why should my subjective belief have precedent over her subjective choice? The difference is that she's the one in the predicament, not me.

Suicide doesnÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢t attest to that. The people that commit suicide are assuming that no life at all is better, and they really donÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢t know that. ItÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢s a false dilemma in that one of the ÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ãâ¦Ã¢â¬ÅchoicesÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬ÃâÃ

Chem Prac tomorrow. Do gene cross assessments and hand in at the... ... Biology prac on thursday. Have a lazy friday (wake up bright and early, wrap up at uni by 10:00am, be back home by 11:00am). Play at least 8 Tool songs on guitar on each friday, saturday and sunday. Oh, and learn some Opeth on guitar over the weekend. That's a good goal.

According to this definition a six month old baby wouldn't be a person either since it only has the potential rather than the actual ability to be bipedal until it develops further which is the exact same situation an unborn child is in. Nope, see above statement. Another way this wouldn't work is what about people that were born with brains that weren't fully developed and that would never fully develop. Even if they lived to be adults could we never consider them people? I went into brains a good bit in the post above this one btw if you haven't read it yet. Feel free to come up with a better definition than the one I suggested. The one above falls apart when you apply it to infants and people who's brain didn't completely develop. Does appearance define who is a person or not? White people used to think black people were one step up from an ape because they looked so different. Does that mean those black people weren't people? What about severely deformed people? If you took a tiny fetus out of it's mother's womb and looked at it under a microscope it would probably look a lot more human than some unfortunate [developmentally delayed] freakishly deformed person that was missing half their face and had a mangled gnarled body. Eh... never thought I would see the day when you fell back on your feelings instead of logic and science to make a point. :P After pondering your responses, I can only respond thusly: =D> It's hard to argue against much of your responses so I'll not be stubborn or hasty without giving some of these issues due thought. I'm prepared to concede you can define a zygote as a person and can clearly see you've thought about this far more than I have. The rationale in my protest was merely that I find it difficult to comprehend a lumping in of zygotes and someone such as you or I under the blanket term of 'person.' Perhaps I'll try and explain why I don't feel a zygote is a person at a later date in better terms or indeed see If I can define person in a more all inclusive way than you have. -------------------------------------------------------- At the end of the day 'person' is a term, and I think you'll agree one that you've made encompass a broad spectrum of life. Perhaps if I started talking about a horse you'd see why I'm having difficulty here. A horse, you say? Yes, the thing in the order of micrometers in size, roughly spherical, it has a cell wall made of phospholipids, a nucleus containing 64 chromosomes and a few mitochondria, among other various structures. But what about the thing with 4 legs and a mane that can gallop? Well, it looks like I'm talking about 2 different things. First is a horse zygote and the other is a fully developed adult horse. Could I not define what you would include under the term 'person' as a human zygote, differentiate it from a human and then ask is it wrong to kill a human zygote? Dosen't quite have the same oomph as asking is it wrong to kill a person. Especially seeing as the connotation you get when saying 'person' is someone like you or I where as the connotation when saying 'human zygote' is a rather mechanical cell. Can you recognise the difficulty I'm having here in recognising the disparity of killing a baby or a man to killing a cell or a group of cells? The disparity is between those which feel pain, bleed and have an emotional reaction where a cell has none of these things. There is no harm in killing a cell or bunch of cells while there is in killing a baby or a man, thus why I have no disagreement with abortion, especially in the earlier stages or with a pill, or indeed no disagreement with something such as stem cell research. Do you have any other means to argue your case of abortion being wrong from the zygote level apart from a definition of zygotes as people and then extrapolating that to killing people being wrong, therefore killing zygotes is wrong?

As killing people is wrong, killing a zygote would be wrong according to your definition of what constitutes a person. I can make a logical case, too. It's all in how i manipulate definitions: So a person must be both a human being and an individual. According to this definition of a human being, a zygote can not be a human as it is not bipedal nor does it have a developed brain. Therefore, a zygote is not a person. Is my interpretation reasonable? In everyday use of the word 'person,' would you not always refer to a bipedal animal with a developed brain? This brings me back to the idea that the word 'person' in everyday use being applied to a zygote is unfitting, just as not calling those in a coma 'people' is unfitting. Why then do we see it fit to call those in a coma 'people'? Is it because they are bipedal with a developed brain like everything else we call 'people'? Or is the term 'person' more a term of familiarity then an actual definable object? The point being is that your case is indeed logical, it's just that based on the conventional use of what we would call a 'person' compared to your definition, it's not so flash in my opinion. The thing here is that what constitutes a person is subject to huge philosophical interpretation. The best I can do to show you why we use the word 'person' in the sense that we do and not for an object such as a zygote is that when looking at someone in a coma, it's like looking into a mirror. We recognise that this thing is one of us. What we call a person seems to be no more than a subconcious acknowlegement of that which is most familiar. It's far more familiar than the term 'homo sapien' or indeed even the word 'human.' This could be why someone such as myself would hear the word 'person' being applied to a cell and scratch my head.

According to this someone that was in a coma couldn't be defined as a person. Heck someone that was knocked unconscious would cease to be a person momentarily. People that are vegetables from an accident wouldn't be a person. There are probably some people with forms of [developmentally delayed] that wouldn't be considered people as well under this. Reasons like this are why I left defining what a person was as "separate human life." Fair enough. Next step is how far back you are willing to class something as a person. To me, calling a cell or group of cells a person seems just as unfitting as not calling a person in a coma a person. Where do you personally draw the line?

I never demanded an explanation for his disbelief, I merely said that I could just as easily ask for an explanation just as he did for the other guys belief, yet it would just come out the same way, even if its with science that you try to explain existance it still comes out the same as if you were trying to explain religion, the most you can do for either is give 1) unproven theorys such as the big bang theory or 2) the Christian theory of God. 3) I'm just saying there is no way to prove or disprove religion so there is no reason to get into an unnecessary fight over it and get these discussions banned again. 1) Theories don't get proven, they explain facts and work as systems of explanation incorporating evidence. The more evidence, the more tests done on hypotheses regarding that evidence, the stronger the theory. Theories will never become facts. Based on what I know, the big bang theory is a fairly decent one, but best to ask someone more knowlegable just to be safe. 2) There's no such thing; that's not a theory. Unless, of course, you use the everyday use of the word theory, that being 'guess or conjecture.' The big bang theory is at least much more than guess or conjecture. 3) You can certainly disprove literally interpreted aspects of some religions. Once they gel into the natural world, they are up for scientific scrutiny like any other idea. But, the purpose of scientific theories is not to disprove a religion, and anyone who thinks something like the big bang theory proves there is no god, they're kidding themselves.

Ugh... warri0r, anyone else want to cover this (especially that bolded part...)? My bluntness has caused him to block out anything I say at this point. I'll just say this, in hopes that I might be heard out (hopefully the biological argument can get through better than the physics one): When animals eat things, they don't "process it into energy", they "transfer the energy into a useable source". For us humans (not sure the extent this goes to), that's ATP. What we eat has energy already in it that we can use. We don't just "create the energy for it"- all we do is make the energy within it even more useful for our bodies (trigclycerides used for long term storage, sugar for short term, ATP gotten for immediate use through cellular respiration, etc.) Understand :| ? I just don't get where you're getting the idea that the energy in our bodies just suddenly leaps out to form a soul... If everything has a soul, then what matter goes to what soul? Does every mountain have a soul, even though they're interconnected? Or does the whole mountain range have a soul? Or, since it's all just a big bump in the crust of the earth, is it just the earth that has a soul? Again, I'm having trouble thinking how one can just "draw the lines" between groups of matter to decide which ones join up to contain a soul and which don't. I'll attack the bold. Yes, we do need energy for other organisms to get energy from eating us. Energy in the form of chemical bonds. Making and breaking these chemical bonds, especially the breaking of something like ATP, which Reb mentioned, converts energy into a usable form. By the way ATP is used by all organisms, to answer your query. Neat, huh? :wink: Another little interesting fact is that ATP is basically the nitrogenous base Adenine (found in DNA as one of the four letters of the code life, of course) with extra phosphate groups and a pentose sugar attatched, probably hence why all organisms use it (as they of course all use the same genetic code).

Wikipedia: Going deeper: I'm not sure I could personally see a conglomeration of cells as having personhood, but that's just me. The difficulty here, then, is at what point in development does this mass become a person? I think there ought to be a definable limit to abortion in law, as there often is, but as to what exactly that should be based on or where personhood is attained is the difficulty. As I think all here would agree, it's likely that at no stage during development is a foetus actually aware of it's existance. Taking this into account, I'd personally think it a suitable point to draw the line when pain reception begins to come into play. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion#Fetal_pain http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_pain.htm http://www.parliament.uk/post/pn094.pdf It's still not totally clear to me at present. For the moment, I'll go with a general rule of thumb; the earlier, the better. When it gets back to in the hundreds of cells, I personally feel it should be open slather, basically the same I feel about stem cell research. All of that aside, the mother, being another human life, seperate from me and my opinions in particular, should have no sway from what I happen to personally feel about the issue. It's simply just not my choice. Though, she should have professional help in terms of guiding her through the process if she chooses to do so.

Keeping our race going is an extremely important thing, so i'd say yes, children are perhaps the most important thing anyone can do in life. The fact is, not all heterosexual people have children, but no gay people do. They're not giving back to the civilisation that they live in as far as keeping it alive. Many of the homosexual animals use surrogated mothers or fathers. Problem solved. My main problem with homosexuality is when a gay couple tries to raise children. A child raised in the ideal environment has a mother and a father. Not two mothers or two fathers. Having a mother and father figure is somthing that, ideally everyone should have. Technically, that's a point against homosexuals having children and not against homosexuality. Would you see any problem in two homosexuals not adopting children into thier family and rather just acting on thier feelings for one another in a controlled, unharmful and consenting manner?

Keeping our race going is an extremely important thing, so i'd say yes, children are perhaps the most important thing anyone can do in life. The fact is, not all heterosexual people have children, but no gay people do. They're not giving back to the civilisation that they live in as far as keeping it alive. Did you not read the bit about overpopulation? Jeez man look around you, we've got more than enough people living at the moment to "keep the population" going, it's overcrowded enough as it is, in fact I think a natural decrease in the population would be more beneficial to our species than overpopulation, because eventually there would not be enough resources and we couldn't support that kind of population. You get taught that in basic biology, we're pushing the population to its limits as it is. Frankly, you're naive if you think we must keep increasing the population to survive for the good of the species. I'm none of those. The fact is the overpopulation of the people i feel are important doesn't exist, but the multiplying of minorities is a threat to the homeland they don't even belong in. To make the gene pool better and more intelligent as possible we need more reproducing by the right people. So you're advocating social darwinism? I believe Hitler tried that... Even though our world is getting "overpopulated" our earth has room for billions more. Here in Canada we have the North West Territories, which combined is about the size of India, that has maybe 75-125,000 people living in them. About 1-2 millionm people can live in those areas COMFORTABLY, and most of you say" its to cold . " well if Global Warming is real its only going to get warmer their right? The conditions their are still livable if you have the right needs(clothes,shelter,etc). Austrailia is also another example of lots of more space. However, I do understand that about 50%+ of it is VERY hot and is hard to live in. Their is the space however, places like Russia, tons of Canada, Iceland, etc, have tons more space. So overpopulated isnt a problem->yet. I believ any household should be able to get how many kids they want, at the same time i DONT blame China for making a law on how many kids you can have. Their already billions their, and more willbe to much. I think their limit is 1...or 2. Please, count Australia out of your brave new world. Not enough water. More people = Australia dies in the bum. Oh and overpopulation is a sustainability issue, not simply an issue of there not being enough room. A key aspect in sustainability would be having water, for example. Did you know you can fit the entire worlds population in 80km squared? I've gotta say I'd much prefer we make the world a better, more stable and sustainable place before potentially screwing it up even more by opening the flood gates to 'go forth and multiply.' well, as a Canadian you know Australia better then me! But Russia, Northern Canada, Iceland, etc still stands as "empty" places, as well as many other countries. Yes, yes, I understand that fact. My post was alluding to the sustainability issues concerning overcrowiding using Australia as an example. Carrying capacity of a population isn't solely dependant on space avaliable to inhabit. The example I put foreward demonstrated this.

Keeping our race going is an extremely important thing, so i'd say yes, children are perhaps the most important thing anyone can do in life. The fact is, not all heterosexual people have children, but no gay people do. They're not giving back to the civilisation that they live in as far as keeping it alive. Did you not read the bit about overpopulation? Jeez man look around you, we've got more than enough people living at the moment to "keep the population" going, it's overcrowded enough as it is, in fact I think a natural decrease in the population would be more beneficial to our species than overpopulation, because eventually there would not be enough resources and we couldn't support that kind of population. You get taught that in basic biology, we're pushing the population to its limits as it is. Frankly, you're naive if you think we must keep increasing the population to survive for the good of the species. I'm none of those. The fact is the overpopulation of the people i feel are important doesn't exist, but the multiplying of minorities is a threat to the homeland they don't even belong in. To make the gene pool better and more intelligent as possible we need more reproducing by the right people. So you're advocating social darwinism? I believe Hitler tried that... Even though our world is getting "overpopulated" our earth has room for billions more. Here in Canada we have the North West Territories, which combined is about the size of India, that has maybe 75-125,000 people living in them. About 1-2 millionm people can live in those areas COMFORTABLY, and most of you say" its to cold . " well if Global Warming is real its only going to get warmer their right? The conditions their are still livable if you have the right needs(clothes,shelter,etc). Austrailia is also another example of lots of more space. However, I do understand that about 50%+ of it is VERY hot and is hard to live in. Their is the space however, places like Russia, tons of Canada, Iceland, etc, have tons more space. So overpopulated isnt a problem->yet. I believ any household should be able to get how many kids they want, at the same time i DONT blame China for making a law on how many kids you can have. Their already billions their, and more willbe to much. I think their limit is 1...or 2. Please, count Australia out of your brave new world. Not enough water. More people = Australia dies in the bum. Oh and overpopulation is a sustainability issue, not simply an issue of there not being enough room. A key aspect in sustainability would be having water, for example. Did you know you can fit the entire worlds population in 80km squared? I've gotta say I'd much prefer we make the world a better, more stable and sustainable place before potentially screwing it up even more by opening the flood gates to 'go forth and multiply.'

Didn't Insane explain that well enough? That being on top of what I've said previously. We all have a freedom of choice, we all get tempted, (in fact I've even heard from credible sources that male teenagers all have at least one gay thought throughout the puberty years, if not more). Its how we act on these thoughts which determine our actions. Once you let those emotions and decisions run your life its incredibly hard to turn back, just like how you've discussed about people trying to turn away from their gay tendencies. Its quite like any other person who's murdered, stolen, or had sexual immoral thoughts. Or even on the contrary someone who's made a decision not to lie, to love and not to hate and to do good to others, it becomes part of your life once you've chosen to make those decisions and turning back is hardly an option, whether it be good or bad. Choosing to be Gay can be associated with any other choice people decide to make in their lives, whether good or bad. Once you make that decision and constantly live by that choice it becomes your life and the way in which you live, and I don't need to quote sources for an intelligent person such as yourself Warrior to hopefully agree with this, assuming that Gay's aren't all born Gay (you can now flatter me and take it as the truth for this given time). :P Insane was describing that acting on homosexual urges is a choice, which I don't deny. I was arguing that the urges themselves are biologically programmed and not a choice, citing direct quotes from the American Psychological Association. I would have thought that this is a clear statement from a knowlegable and esteemed body on the matter. Contrary to this, you continue to prefer to see homosexuality as somehow chosen and now that it's just a state of mind people choose and get into then can't change because it becomes part of one's life. This then brings me back to these two questions, if you choose to believe it is a choice as you describe - 1) Why would someone who is biologically programmed to be attracted to women choose to be attracted to another man? 2) Why would someone make a concious descision to be gay if doing so would make them shunned by society, especially by those in religious circles? On that final interesting note, why would a man such as Ted Haggard (I suggest a google if you don't know him), who is fully aware of the consequences of homosexual behaviour in his faith, perform homosexual acts with a male prostitute? Why would a man of his stature go against that programmed sexual drive god so elegantly and purposefully placed in his brain? Or is it not at all possible that the poor bloke, now shunned by his own faith because of his actions, had biological homosexual tendancies? As for your claim that boys going through puberty have gay thoughts, I would like to see your credible source. Could it not be possible that they do have gay thoughts but thier underlying sexual orientation isn't going to change? It's possible for me to think gay thoughts but I'm still very much a straight male. Perhaps your source has something on the malleability of gays, which is more the issue at hand here. Unless, of course, you hold to your position that sexual orientation is chosen and then it just becomes part of the person over time and familiarity, in which case thier lack of ability to be malleable would indirectly stem from thier choice and in which case I'd need a source for that claim as it's in contradiction with what I've brought to the table. This idea then brings me back to this quote: Are these people just stubborn or have they forgotten those biological factors that do contribute to one's sexual orientation? Let me use the analogy of riding a bike when it comes to sexuality. Once you learn how it all works, or in the case of puberty when it becomes apparent to you what you're attracted to, you never forget it. Straight guys, even those married and commited to thier partner, will always have a concious reaction to a drop-dead gorgeous hot babe, even if they do not intend to act on those urges. Just say, for instance, that a straight guy did become gay through choice as you describe and then was faced with some of these more extreme conversion techniques. How has thier underlying biological urge changed? Surely it can not just have been forgotten or swept under the rug? This quote attests to the dismal failure at attempting to change one's sexual orientation. How did they forget to ride the bike, so to speak? Or is it not possible that they just happened to start out on a pink bike with a completely different underlying orientation and not on a blue one which was then swapped for a pink via choice? Aside from that, If what you were alluding to is that there is an environmental factor to sexual orientation, fair enough, I'm not disagreeing at all, but how would I choose what environment I'm raised in, for example? Can you see that this would make someone a homosexual by virtue of an uncontrolled set of predicaments rather than a set of councious actions on behalf of the homosexual? Alot of things for you to adress so please don't hesitate to take the time to let it all absorb and respond point by point. I'd like you to pick my argument apart and show me where I'm going wrong here because it seems I've not been able to get through yet.

Eelspremiers, I refer you to a previous post: Ok well since your asking for my personal opinion then I'll give it to you. Science doesn't come into it here. I'll also come from the point of view thats "its a fact they are born gay" instead of making that "lifestyle choice" during puberty years as you requested. How can it be wrong in my eyes you may ask? Well from a Christians perspective we were told to go forth and multiply and as we know homosexuality can't do this, so its against that for starters. I also believe its an unnatural act, and there's many (notice I didn't say all) perverted people who do such acts. Simple. I'm not going to answer your last 2 questions when my argument stands that its a lifestyle choice, and therefore it can't be argued upon. I don't believe its created by God, and I believe that God didn't create them like that. So I'm not going to flatter you that much. By the way from what I saw of those sites and read (apologies if you can prove me wrong), they weren't credible and even could be seen as biased. You don't like it when on the religious threads Christians post their sources of Christians sites (despite having factual sources on them) but rather sites with a more scientific connotation on the evidence. SO in this case do you have any scientific sources whereby they can conclusively prove that its biological and that a lifestyle choice has nothing to do with their homosexuality? :| Eelspremiers, if you think science dosen't come into it why should I think you'll be any more receptive if I do provide sources to your liking? In what way are the sources I provided biased? Biased towards what? What reason do they have to be biased? Anyone not a Christian can see that your sources, which claim a multitude of falsities on an issue such as evolution alone, are biased to reject anything that dosen't accept thier infalliable word. Next up, as for it being wrong because it does not produce offspring, is being infertile wrong, too? But of course, that is not a choice and therefore not wrong and homosexuality is a choice and therefore wrong, right? You're whole argument hinges on homosexuality being a choice. Tomorrow, I'll do as you demand and investigate the biased nature and credentials of the sources I provided which all claim that homosexuality or indeed any sexual mindset is anything but a concious choice. Next on the agenda, your claim of it not being a natural act. Perhaps you skimmed over the many people in this thread alluding to the fact of homosexual behaviour being observed in other animal species. If thier word is not enough for you, I'll work on coming up with a source for you being sure to watch out for bias. If you still believe it's a lifestyle choice, perhaps we should go to the next logical step of the argument to finish off for now - 1) Why would someone who is biologically programmed to be attracted to women choose to be attracted to another man? 2) Why would someone make a concious descision to be gay if doing so would make them shunned by society, especially by those in religious circles? On that final interesting note, why would a man such as Ted Haggard (I suggest a google if you don't know him), who is fully aware of the consequences of homosexual behaviour in his faith, perform homosexual acts with a male prostitute? Why would a man of his stature go against that programmed sexual drive god so elegantly and purposefully placed in his brain? Or is it not at all possible that the poor bloke, now shunned by his own faith because of his actions, had biological homosexual tendancies? On the bias issue, perhaps you could first explain how an organisation such as the American Psychological Association is biased. One of the quotes I presented: came directly from thier website. The only point I'm conveying here at the moment is that sexual orientation is far from a choice. Your feedback welcomed.

Asking someone to back up disbelief in something is a logically bankrupt task. The ususal chronology is that the claimant backs up the claim. Whether it's just as 'provable' or 'unprovable' for or against means nothing as I could just as easily ask you to back up disbelief in my assertion that exactly 1,234,223 special oranges orbit a supernatural planet made of 3 toed socks beyond the edges of the universe. But, of course, you don't need to do this because firstly, I'm the one making that assertion and believing it and if I demanded such a justified explanation for everything you disbelieve we'd be here for eternity because my imagination knows no limits. Oh and what are the 'unproven theories' you're referring to, may I ask?