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Sound of Trumpet wrote: Eugenics is the science of breeding, especially when applied to man. It makes perfect sense to look again at it because it was tossed aside onto the scrapheap of science simply because of its associations. There is no reason whatsoever to equate wanting to avoid breeding more cripples, misfits and idiots with a desire to exterminate anybody who is alive today any more than a desire to eliminate poverty means a desire to murder the poor. We manage to handle this way of thinking with animals quite easily, we sterilise animals with genetic conditions we do not wish to propagate and we don't then automatically go on to kill all existing animals with those traits. Farmers select breeding stock and non-breeding stock. The non-breeding stock isn't then tortured to death on the spot out of sheer malice. The point of negative eugenics is to avoid the breeding of individuals who will suffer or who cannot attain a satisfactory life. How is that satisfaction measured? That is one of the reasons for having the debate. If woolly-minded liberals insist everything has a right to propagate its own type the state could be financing the cloning of blobs of tissue with no quality of life at all but the possession of the requisite number of chromosomes (or a close approximation to that number) of an allegedly human origin. Our capacity to keep things alive has progressed much faster than our grasp of who or what is worth keeping alive and the costs of keeping some individual people alive with a very low level of satisfaction for anybody concerned exceed the surplus production of whole villages and suburban streets. Can we really say we value life to an infinite degree? Is it really worth keeping a child with the intellectual ability of a starfish alive at a cost of absorbing the tax revenue generated by two McDonalds and a Kwik-E-Mart? Who says? We cannot go into the future of genetic engineering without some ideas
about what is and is not appropriate. Simply wailing "That's eugenics
- the Nazis did that!" is not a debate. The Nazis also had autobahns,
private foreign holidays, good beer, oompah bands, efficient trains,
jet engines and long healthy walks in the country. "The Nazis did
it" is not a rational argument against anything. Much of what the
Nazis did was wrong, but it was wrong because it was wrong, not just
because they did it. Killing people is wrong. Why is not breeding people
we don't want wrong? Martin Willett http://mwillett.org/ |
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What is the fundamental religious requirement to wear a visible sign of Christian belief? There isn't one and never has been one. This woman demands that we take notice of her and see her self proclaimed status as a special and better person. This is just the same as those prostitots who tie their school ties two inches long so they don't look the same as everybody else in uniform. Nobody needs to express their religious views at all times. If somebody sees you and doesn't instantly know what unfounded superstitious beliefs you have in what way are you actually damaged? Please, I'd love to know. -- Martin Willett http://mwillett.org/ > But the same is true of Islam and for Sikhs, but accommodations are
made. > Specifically not accommodating the majority host cultural
beliefs is really a classic sign of multiculturalism. The majority does not believe you shame your god if people don't know what religion you are just by looking at you. That absurdity is peculiar to Sikhs. There is no dress code for Christianity, there never has been and it is too late to try to invent one now so you can martyr yourself for self publicity. -- Martin Willett http://mwillett.org/ > Peter Ashby wrote: She is the one trying to make an exception of herself. It is a simple rule: no jewellery. She wants to make herself an exception because of a requirement that doesn't exist and never has. She is the one saying that it isn't jewellery it is a religious symbol. *The religious symbol hasn't been banned* just the jewellery. It is right that this matter is addressed now, there is no religious requirement for a Christian to wear any form of jewellery, there never has been and, if we handle this correctly, there never will be. If she wants to wear a cross she can do so, under her uniform. It is ridiculous that any exceptions for any religions are made, however these Sikh and Muslim concessions have become normal. Let us stop before we make a new exception that opens the floodgates for crucifixes, Jedi symbols, stars of David, skulls and pentagrams to be worn above school uniforms and a million tabards, aprons and boilersuits. I don't know about Christian fundamentalists sponsoring her, I think Argos are missing a trick. -- Martin Willett http://mwillett.org/ >> It is ridiculous that any exceptions for any religions are made,
however Why does that cause you grief? Do you want majority religion to be treated
preferentially instead, all religions to be treated equally or do you hate
minorities? Martin Willett http://mwillett.org/ > Fairness and equal treatment. Those three motives, and possibly more, would have led to a similar attitude. Is it minority religions that are treated preferentially? Do we bend over backwards to accommodate Satanists, Wiccans, Hare Krishna devotees, Jehovah's Witlesses, Mormons and Moonies? Perhaps it isn't minority religions. Is it the ineradicable religions of significant minorities: those minority immigrant communities numerous enough to cause concern? If so what does that say about the true nature of our society's liberalism? Are we truly liberal and tolerant or are we simply scared of upsetting minorities who have enough numbers to cause some trouble? We don't really accommodate witchcraft, primitive African tribal religions or new age religions very well. We don't respect Mickey Mouse religions. We don't seem to fully respect any Christian cult more recent than the Methodists. The religions we do accommodate are those which are strongly resistant to conversion and which educate their children to continue in them against all challenges. I doubt that is because we actually respect their beliefs (more than we respect the beliefs of those religions we don't treat seriously) as much as the strength of belief, especially when that strength is measured in numbers of young men of military age who might be coaxed out onto the streets. Yes I am being cynical. But am I wrong? Martin Willett http://mwillett.org/ > I don't think so. WRT Sikhs the British developed a strong respect
and Good points. Sikhs are tolerant of other religions, it is a fundamental aspect of their religion, and if you let them wear their fancy dress they don't go out of their way to cause any trouble. I don't have a lot of experience of it but the only fully veiled women I
have had dealings with have excellent English and soft Oldham accents which
suggest they are well educated second or third generation British born from
Pakistani stock. Which means they are wearing Saudi Arabian garb that their
mothers and grandmothers have never felt any need to wear. They also didn't
appear to be carpets for men to walk on. Can we actually see this as a youth
counter-culture? Perhaps it is just a passing trend that we will all look
back on in a few years time and laugh at in the way we can laugh at mods
and punks. Let's hope so. Martin Willett http://mwillett.org/ > It's true that Sikhs are pretty tolerant. So are Hindus. Sikhs have a duty to tolerate other religions but it seems that does not
extend to them being tolerant when people discuss their religion. A Sikh
will defend to his death your right to pursue your religion but he'll also
fight you if he thinks you are dissing his. The way the theatre and the artistic
establishment caved in over the Behzti play was a disgrace. By all means
protest but stopping it from happening is thuggery. Martin Willett http://mwillett.org/
> Yet BA staff wear ties, or as I call them,self inflicted nooses. Clip-on ties are a great idea. My father wore one as a police officer. Now my children wear them to school. Not only are they safer than nooses but as they are pre-tied in a neat manner they cannot be de-uniform-a-tied by tying them in huge knots or with ridiculously short ends or the wrong end showing as so many "rebellious" and "non-conformist" teenagers insist on doing in order to conform. -- Martin Willett http://mwillett.org/
> I agree with you. Free speech is a good thing and protesting I found Jerry Springer Opera more dull than offensive. Without the freedom to offend there is no free speech at all. Freedom to say what everybody likes and agrees with isn't free speech any more than it is free speech to have the right to say that Big Brother is doubleplus good. Religions deserve no more protection than any other hobbies. People should be free to believe in idiotic things and to say idiotic things, and they should have the right to meet up and say idiotic things to each other, saying that they believe in those things really hard does not give them any special rights. Even if they are prepared to die for those ideas. Especially if they are prepared to kill for them. Religion is a hobby, grant people free speech and the right to pursue hobbies and that is all the religious law a country ever needs. http://www.mwillett.org/atheism/why-is-religion-special.htm -- Martin Willett http://mwillett.org/ Say Merry Christmas. There's a Holy inside the holiday anyway. Say Merry Christmas. The important thing is to make sure you keep the Christ out of Christmas just as much as you keep the Thor out of Thursday. Dead gods are harmless. http://www.mwillett.org/atheism/atheistchristmas.htm Call Christmas trees what they are, something the Christians stole from the pagans to celebrate the unhistorical birth of their mythical leader and which has now been stolen by "secular mammonism". Call them Christmas trees. Who is offended by that? Thin skinned uptight people who deserve to be offended. Christians stole Christmas from pagans and added a veneer of Christ-myth to it which has all but peeled off completely now. The pagan traditions underneath had lost their "true" significance centuries ago, all that is left is the echo of a feast, the idea of peace and goodwill, a family get-together and the most important date of the year. And that is plenty. And it is the true meaning of Christmas to the vast majority of people alive today who regard the stuff about Baby Jesus as just one more optional tradition along with dozens of others. You can still have Christmas without: snow I hope your Christmas has most of the ingredients you want and few that other people impose upon you. Isn't that the true spirit of Christmas? -- Martin Willett http://mwillett.org/
> But I like brussel sprouts They are all optional. Any one item can be removed, any twenty items can be removed. Think about a car, take the seats away and it's still a car. Take the engine away and it's still a car. Only if you take almost everything away does it stop being a car and turn into a pile of car parts. You can take away three quarters of the things on that list, and any three quarters of them at that, and still be left with a recognisable and enjoyable Christmas. -- Martin Willett http://mwillett.org/ >>> I don't care what people say or do at
the holiday season as long as it His mother thought he was the son of God, he thought she was a virgin, he
lived with her until he was thirty-odd then hung around with a dozen men,
at least one of whom was called the disciple who Jesus loved. I don't know
whether he ever heard Judy Garland sing but don't you get the idea that me
might have been a fan? Martin Willett http://mwillett.org/ >> There is nothing in antiquity linking the
mysteries of Mithras with 25 Have you a single piece of evidence to support that lie you just made up?
Typical Christian. Martin Willett http://mwillett.org/ > And what gives you or anybody else the power to determine who are real Christians? Christians make stuff up when they need it to make the points they want to make and they do so without a shred of guilt. They have been doing it for centuries. If there is one trait that you can say is typically Christian it is this. The gospels are clearly full of lies as accounts are given of events with no witnesses and stories were made up to fit "prophesies" in Jewish Scripture. The entire nativity story is a transparent fiction. Even the stories attributed to Jesus are clearly lies, parables they are called as if there is a distinction. Anybody who finds a moral within a fictional story told specifically in order to make that point and gives that moral lesson derived from a deliberate fabrication greater weight than their own direct experience is a fool. Christians have been lying from the beginning and they are so used to it
that they don't even notice themselves doing it. Martin Willett http://mwillett.org/
> When the bulk of a group decides on a definition, and one that is backed >> Christians make stuff up when they need it to make the points they
want Eusebius was a pseudo-Christian? Dante and John Bunyan were pseudo-Christians? Matthew, Mark, Luke, John(s) and Paul were pseudo-Christians? Jesus was a pseudo-Christian? Christians have been making stuff up from the very start and they regard
a good uplifting story as more important than truth. Martin Willett Making the News | Making the News 2 | Making the News 3 | Making the News 4Making the News 5 | Making the News 6 | Making the News 7 | Making the News 8 |
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