I just wanted to address a couple of things in this thread that caught my fancy.
QUOTE(ghetosmurph @ Jun 12 2005, 4:26 PM)
Oh and on the morality issue......
Ok then you believe everybody has the right to decide what is morally acceptable for him or her and noone should have another's morals pushed upon him correct?? OK then answer me this question: Was it morally acceptable for the Alqueda people to fly the 747's into the twin towers??? They believed that according to thier sacred laws they were commiting the highest act of giving one's life for religion.... they believed they were doing the will of Allah, therefore, do we have her right to try to stop them??? According to your statement, we don't.
On morality, while the sacred text may state that it is honnorable to die for one's religion, I doubt it says it's acceptable to kill innocents the name of one's religion. In fact, the very same sacred text says "it is forbidden to attack noncombattants, even if they belong to the attacking countries". Those who did the evil deed twisted the words of the Prophet Muhammad who said 'a criminal will be punished only for his own deeds'. What crime did those in the towers commit? The hijackers were not following the morality of their religion, they were following an evil. If they believe evil to be moral, then we, as a moral society, must find ways to destroy them else more evil will befall us. And so, to answer your question, we very much have a right to stop them.
QUOTE(ghetosmurph @ Jun 12 2005, 4:26 PM)
Why should they bow to our set of morals, they should have the right to decide for themselves..... if they want to kill innocent lives we don't have the right to tell them it's not right and keep them from doing it..... You may not like it, and wouldn't do it yourself and that's fine....... They should be able to make thier own set of choices...... right???
They have a right to decide for themselves, but they were also deciding to end the lives of those who wished to live. In that, they obviously committed the very crime they accuse innocents of. Which makes them... hypocrites. Cowardly hypocrites who can't even face the opponent but harm the innocent bystanders. Is that moral? Maybe to them, but to those of us who are sane, we know better... I hope.
I believe that it is acceptable to impose our way of life upon another IF AND ONLY IF we are sanctioned by
love and the hope that our ways can improve lives, not destroy them.
On the subject of stem-cell research, my stand is pro. I wouldn't want to carry 11 babies. If I could put them to a better use than being thrown away, in this case to help advance science for the betterment of mankind, I will do so.
QUOTE(gotblog4me? @ Jun 12 2005, 4:44 PM)
as for that, don;t you see, he's not saying you
deliberately said you considered those life, but that you end up contradicting yourself when first you say, these embryos have no potential to live (they are not alive, they cannot live, etc, anyway you want to put it) but in saying that "So one fertilized egg is implanted into the woman's uterus to develop into a baby" you disprove your your first statement, by showing that the embryo
does have the potential to live! and henceforth is alive.
Just because something cannot survive, outside of a certain environment, doesnt mean it isn't living... that's like saying, "oh, there's a baby crying in a trash can, it cant survive there, so it must not be living anymore"
Having the potential to live doesn't mean something is alive. The two are different. Having the potential means there could be a chance it could live, and being alive means it's already living. The potential to live doesn't equate life.
If a baby is crying in a trash can, he/she is alive and needs to be saved. Though they baby cannot live in that environment he/she IS already living.
However, saying that something is alive because it has the potential to live is ridiculous. In your words, "that's like saying" a boiled egg had the potential to live so it's living. Hopefully, you and I could agree that it is not.