BlueTear

... what's an X-Factor and where do I loot one?

So how does the bill look in it's not-insulting-to-americans contexted form then?

But you - most likely - don't go fishing for food. You go fishing because you want to experience the fishing bit. Catching a fish, harming it and then releasing - for your enjoyment - is more morally reprehensible than catching a fish - for your enjoyment - killing it and then eating it according to the way some of the arguments presented in this thread goes. Really people? If I used a staple gun on your face - a random location with various degrees of handicapping injury - for entertainment, which one would you chose? A) I staple you, I let you live, but the staple hurts like [cabbage] B) I staple you, I kill you - not that I really need the nutrition - and then go on to talk about how I spared you the possibly handicapping injury of being stapled in the face and the pain of the same. Survival is a deeply rooted instinct in most animals. For that reason, we're going to presume that most animals would go for the option meaning survival (we're ignoring evolutionary factors that means survival of the individual isn't always beneficial to the species). So which option favours survival? (And quite frankly, depending on the fish your catching, I sincerely doubt you can do it cheaper per kg than a professional fisherman equipped with either trawler, a fish farm, or both. In fact, I'm fairly sure most people who fish ends up paying more than buying the same or similar fish would have costed, in a western nation where the fishing industry is just that; Industrialized.) In essence; If you're catching a fish primarily for nutrition purposes you've got your moral bases covered (grossly simplified) IMHO. If you catch a fish primarily for fun but gain nutrition from it as a sort of side effect by killing it, you look mighty silly throwing rocks after the people who catch fish for fun but let the fish live. Snaring a rabbit for fun, stapling it in the face, and letting it live, is more morally reprehinsible than snaring the rabbit for fun, stapling it in the face, and then killing it and eating it if you don't need the nutrition. I have no qualms with snaring the rabbit for scientific purposes and stapling it in the face with a GPS device. But if you're doing the same action for fun, then saying that killing it and eating it is not as bad as hurting it and letting it live is just... Out of whack. I fail to see how killing it and eating it makes my fun at the expense of another being more justified than hurting the being and letting it live, for fun. So yes, I agree with sport fishing being bad, but when I define sport fishing, I include any fishing that isn't neccesary for nutrition.

So... If I hunt or fish something, and then kill it, and eat it, what I'm doing is not only defendable, but it's morally right. (I'm pressuming that by extension, if I were to kill it, and then feed my cat with it, that would also be moreally right?). Even though, strictly speaking, I don't really need to go fishing or hunting in order to provide myself with nutrition. However, if I were to be catching fish or hunting something, and - in the case of fish - not killing it, but letting it back in, I'm a cruel human being torturing animals. I still don't need the fish for nutrition, nor do I kill the fish, but good grief, I'm so evil! ... if the two cases we're comparing is between sport and starvation, I'd buy it. But it isn't. I sincerely doubt any of you who's sitting behind computer with internet access - most in western nations - go fishing because you need the fish for nutrition value. Just like any fisher-for-sport you do it because of the experience, and for the fun of it. Patting yourself on the back because your being oh-so-natural eating what you've killed for fun is ridicolous.

... what's a CostCo and where do I loot one? Anyway, I thought we were to stay away from the exceptions, and focus on the rules =P

There's no such thing as a free lunch.

... you know that without trying it?

There's a book by Isaac Asimov called The End of Eternity. Basic plotoutline is an organization, the Eternals, who perform changes throughout time to minimize suffering for the human race. Basically, they screw everything over hard by doing that, hampering the development of the human race, causing it to die with the solar system. The book ends by rearranging time to make the two main characters Adam and Eve and setting them down in a universe where there are no alien sentient species in the galaxy, thus creating the setting for the entire Foundation series. (I think that was how it ended anyway. It's been years since I read it). The two main characters set out to ensure the destruction of the Eternals because of the hampering effect their suffering minimization has on human civilization. And that's besides the othe mind boogling concepts; What if the way the second world war happened is a minimized casaulty version? What if the existance of Hitler and his genocidal plans was the only way to save the entire human civilization's existance, by preventing an even more cataclysmic war? In short, proves nothing: Time travel could still be happening and be performing reality changes as we speak...

This embryo does not have a potential for life. It is going to be discarded. QFE. It's been said a fair few times, but people just don't seem to be getting it.

Unless you were concieved in vitro at a fertility clinic, there has never been any danger. And even then, the options ranged stem cell research to biological waste disposal, where they have about as much a chance as your removed appendix to develop into a separate life.

Where as the originial quotes you posted were oh-so-taken in their own context? He's showing you the same thing I did; You can't take the verses liteally because for everyone you manage to make literal sense of, there'll be three nonsensical ones. The fact that you argue it by saying pretty much what I said to you is just amusing. Space-time. It can't be infinite without really bending the theory of relativity into a pretzel. Ask your physics teacher instead, 'cause that astronomy teacher seems suspect.

Additional verses to show that if that verse is to be taken literally, the previous verse - taken literally - speaks complete nonsense is not context? Oh, okay. In a really short version: You cannot pick a random verse in the Bible and use it's literal meaning as scientific evidence because you will find verses with literal meanings that are completely nonsensical - in my opinion, the one with the stars fullfilled that criteria on it's own, as did the one with the ends of the earth.

No approved medical treatment isn't quite the same thing as no scientifically significant results. And secondly, you'll find that the population of earth has not skyrocketed as a result of improved medical treatment, but as a result of improved agriculturual treatment. Medical treatment has played a part, certainly, but nowhere near as much as industry and agriculture. After all, why do you think the biggest population increases occur in countries where a wide range of medical treatments are out of the reach of it's inhabitants? Nor would it skyrocket because comparatively wealthy nations figure out how to fix alzheimers in it's senior citizens or cancer in seven year old Johnny.

How is becoming techno-organic related to our destruction? If we figure out how to interface directly with computers, allowing us to internalize a lot more information, if we flood our bloodstream with nanobots that perform repairs on the level of the individual cell... Where's the devastation?

Ghost, you're making such open ended interpretations of those pieces of the scripture that they could mean just about anything. Using them "as signs of Biblical knowledge" by taking distinct sections grossly out of context and having an interpration is conjecture, nothing more.

It's a cluster of 150 cells or less that were left over at fertility clinics after in vitro fertilization. If it is not used for stem cell research it is discarded. The potential of a cell cluster in a petridish after a mother has been succesfully fertilized is exactly zero. There is no potential to rob it of.

Does embryonical stem cell research actually involvs aborting fetuses? Someone hit me with a source?

Err... No? An hour of subjective time for him would be two hours on Earth. Time dilation.

*waves* Welcome! As someone mentioned, most of the regular's havn't touched RS in ages, we just hang around. /shameless plug: I'd recommend looking around at RS and see what you think of it more as an introduction to the MMORPG genre of games, and then hooking yourself up with a free trial to one of the bigger games of the genre.

My warlock has more than 36 different buttons on different keys counting spells and ignoring special macro's and most of the items. Your average six year old is not going to be able to utilize these to the max, period. The same goes for WarCraft III (Yes, VII was used to indiciate the future =P I once joked with my dad that when he got old enough to retire he'd beg me to play WarCraft VII with him); Your average six year old will not be able to understand it to play it fully, nor will he or she be able to understand the complexity of chess, but they'll get the basics just fine. But, for the sake of argument, if I were to teach my child to play chess online, or against a computer, would that be worth less than using real pieces? What I'm getting at, health issues aside, is that there's a kneejerk "computers are bad and for nerds" reaction going on. The average american watches TV 28 hours a week. If you add the average time an MMORPG gamer spends on his MMORPG and the time the average MMORPG gamer spends on watching TV togheter, you land somewhere around - oddly enough - 28 hours. The first thing your average MMORPG gamer cuts down on is TV time, not social time. (I'm using MMORPG's as an example because let's face it, most people who stay online a lot are playing one. If you manage to pull 40 hours online a week with just MSN and something like MySpace, you plain scare me, but it's easy enough to argue that it's the social aspect that's appealing) But watching TV for 28 hours a week is "normal" where as playing an online game for 20 hours a week is "dangerous", or an "indication of lacking social skills". We're not discussing how watching that much TV is going to have negative effects on prospective children, it's the internet and being online that's going to be negative. Why is that? Summing the first part up; There's a value - "less" - ascribed to the internet and related activites that isn't based on facts, but on preconcepts and lack of understanding. Second of all , online gaming does not exclude being able to teach things like riding a bike. I have a bike, I've taken it to school everyday for the past 7 years, in sunshine, in rain, in snow. The implication that it does is what I'd call another example of downright prejudices; You have a view of online gaming and that's that, whether that view is factual or not. And even then, strictly speaking, why would it be more useful to teach your kids how to lure fish than how to search on google? One is useful in todays modern society, one is not. That being said, I'm not denying that there are health issues, nor that there are people who are downright addicted, but describing it as a culture-wide problem is plain inaccurate. (And really... Talk about missing the mark on evolution there GhostRanger =P Evolution is what, biology classes for 15 year olds?)

Lamarck, you mean.

How is teaching your kid WarCraft VII, or how to navigate a low level character through World of Warcraft III, somehow "less" than teaching the kid to play chess?

See, here's where those of us who like the whole concept of democracy start objecting. Private schools, in the manner they work in most of your respective countries, provide education not based on the intelligence, willingness to learn nor ambition of the student. They provide education based on how much money your parents have to spend on it. Which sort of throws the whole "all men are born equal" out of the window. I have no problem with spending extra money on students that benefit from it, whether it's because they have a handicap that makes regular schooling difficult for them or because regular schooling isn't challenging enough for because they're plain smarter or more ambitious. But when the level of funds going into your education is decided by accident of birth... As Mad put it, it's a form of classism. That being said, I have no fundamental problem with schools in the regime of someone other than the state, as long there's a rigorous quality control to ensure the level of education is on par with what the elected politicans have decided should be taught, and a system in which the wealth of your parents isn't the factor that decides whether you get to go there.

Somehow, I sincerely doubt he killed his parents over a marijuana addiction. It's not heroin, it's not crack, and it certainly isn't ecstacy. It is, if you look on the effects, less dangerous than alcohol. I see no reason of why it should be illegal, but then again, nor do I see a reason why my tax money should be used to pay healthcare for people with alcohol related health issues.