Fahrenheit 9/11
- Thread starter it290
- Start date
If you look at the examples Jesus gives in the passage, they primarily involve swearing on something greater/of higher authority than the person making the oath. In essence, their dishonesty made it so their 'yes' was not enough to convince others of their truthfulness. The pledge of allegiance isn't much more than a promise of allegiance (and God himself makes many promises).
In contrast, taking an oath as a witness in a court trial would technically fall under this since in essence you are promising to be more honest than you normally would because you said the magic words. However, since this is more a legal formality I don't see any real problem with it.
This is not to say I'm a big fan of the pledge. I think most people just recite it out of habit without really thinking about it. I know I did back when I was in elementary school.
<!--QuoteBegin-MTXBlau
But I your view is founded ultimately on the religious, that life begins at conception. I don't, because among other things, life would connote ability to live, which a 2nd trimester fetus can't (as much as you'd wish it would).[/quote]
I think it's a bit fuzzier than you make it out to be. A newborn child can't live (at least not for very long) independent of another person. Granted it doesn't have to be physically connected to someone anymore, but it's not a huge distinction.
Also, self-sustaining life isn't inherently protectable in our society. A common housefly can sustain life, but few people think twice about swatting them. The question of when a fetus becomes a legitimate person does not have a clear-cut answer (outside of religion anyway). The sustainability of the child outside of the womb was chosen as a criteria because it was the closest aproximation that did have a relatively clear-cut answer.
For the record, I do plan on adopting a child (maybe even 2) once I'm married and am actually in a position to support one. I may even become a foster parent. There are 2 couples in my church who take in foster children and it's amazing the difference I've seen in some of them after they've been there for a while. It's a shame there are so many people in the foster care system for the wrong reasons.
Fair enough. I may have been taking it too literally.
As I recall, most courts will accept an "affirmation" rather than an oath, because there are some smaller sects that are particularly adamant about it. Apparently they don't mind being required to make a statement of truthfulness, as long as they are not ascribing it to an authority, which fits with what you said.
Yeah, knowing what I know now, the sound of a class full of kids reciting the pledge in that apathetic near-monotone is nothing less than creepy.
Pearl Jammzz
Established Member
The pledge of aligance? We had it at my school after we got attacked...but not before. They told everyone to do it, but I dun think anyone was "forced"
Economically and socially, animals that aren't humans aren't really given any value that equals human life. Sad fact, but true. Cattle and chickens are a resource, not mammals and birds respectively in our construct.
I think you're drawing a parallel between dependence and living. Obviously there's dependence between the birth giver and the given; very few animals have a system where the progeny is left on its own to fend for itself.
Life, as I mean it, is essentially the organs and the faculties to be self sufficient enough to sustain living outside the womb, that is, developed lungs, heart, etc.
The trimester system has been modified, of course. Since it's by state decision, and the SC didn't make any specific guidlines, the so it's whatever is viable outside the womb with the help of science. There it's muddled, though.
---
As ExCyber said, the person didn't have standing. Actually, one faction of the court said he didn't have standing (O'Connor, et al) and one faction said he did have standing (Rehnquist). Very convoluted decision. The issue is that even if there's an opportunity to abstain from saying the pledge, it's not enough; there's precedent where even if there's an alternate option, making oneself a minority is enough to be 'damaged' (for lack of a better word).
Actually, I thought he was extremely eloquent. He may be a bit eccentric, but you almost have to be to bring this type of case to the Supreme Court. I felt he actually out-argued the Court on many points; it's too bad his case was dismissed on a technicality (although valid).
Not to mention the fact that a small child can hardly be expected to abstain from the pledge of her own volition. I certainly did after I heard about the previous decision, but I was in third grade by that point.
I believe in a higher notion of life. That is, I believe that a living being is somehow more than the sum of its parts, at least insofar as we've been able to tell. However, I do not believe that this somehow applies exclusively to human beings, nor do I believe in the concept of an eternal soul (at least where we're concerned).
Whether you regard that as 'evidence' is irrelevant; the fact is it's not science and has no place in a science classroom.
No, there's a difference between teaching something as theory and preaching it as fact. It's all you were taught? That's because it's the only viable scientific theory. IMHO, even if you are a creationist, it's somewhat silly to not concede at least some notion of evolution. If you're not willing to do that, you might as well swear off the use of vaccines, stop eating all GM crops, and so on, because those things are all byproducts of the theory of evolution.
I got into this discussion, evolution vs. creationism, with a kid I work with. This kid, while he doesn't believe in organized religion either, is a complete bible beater. He'll even just stop in the middle of work and pull his bible out of his back pocket to read for a bit, letting parts pile up and forcing me to do two people's work until he's out of that mood. Anyway, he refuses to believe that evolution is possible, and has a response for any argument I try to give him. I ask him, "So how long is a day for god? He created everything in six days, who is to say that six days god-time isn't sixty billion years our time?" "No, the bible says that a day to god is as a thousand years. The earth was only six thousand years old when man was put on it." "How did those writing the bible know a thousand years, when the calendar system wasn't developed untill a few centuries after Jesus's time?" "They knew, it's what god told them to write." I pressed him on the issue there, and he eventualy decided that it must have orignaly said a thousand of whatever seasons they were counting back then (you know how they'd say the number of summers or winters that had passed by), then it was translated to years, because that's what we counted during the time King James had it translated to english. There was no budging him. I didn't want him to deny creationism, only acknowledge that both creationism and evolution could exist together. I tried to get him to read Inherit the Wind, but other than the bible and crazy bible-themed stuff off the internet, he refuses to read any books.
the "day to God is as a thousand years" verse in context is saying that time is basically not an issue to God. According to the Bible, God has no beginning and no end -- He is eternal. Time is only a concept that is used by us on earth. That's what that verse is saying.
Even in Christian circles the 6-days thing is sometimes up for debate, but I personally believe the earth was created in 6 actual days as we know them. There isn't a real reason that I see as to why it would mean something other than literal days.
The whole earth-aging thing (the Earth is a billion years old) doesn't necessarily contradict the Bible. God could have made the earth pre-aged as He did (by my beliefs) with Adam and Eve. He didn't make them as newborns -- he created them as full-grown adults. I image He did the same thing with the animals and plantlife.
And BTW, VertigoXX, just because someone reads the Bible doesn't mean they ae knowledgable on the subject.
Even in Christian circles the 6-days thing is sometimes up for debate, but I personally believe the earth was created in 6 actual days as we know them. There isn't a real reason that I see as to why it would mean something other than literal days.
The whole earth-aging thing (the Earth is a billion years old) doesn't necessarily contradict the Bible. God could have made the earth pre-aged as He did (by my beliefs) with Adam and Eve. He didn't make them as newborns -- he created them as full-grown adults. I image He did the same thing with the animals and plantlife.
And BTW, VertigoXX, just because someone reads the Bible doesn't mean they ae knowledgable on the subject.
By the same token, how could a being complex enough to create said universe arise out of nothingness, or be around eternally if you prefer to put it that way? If you're going to stick with the human conception of time, you have to start somewhere. Even if you're not, neither theory begins to explain the complexity of the universe. Do you believe in the Big Bang?
Personally, as I see it, the complexity of the universe is an argument FOR evolution. With so much matter in so many different configurations, it was only a matter of time before life emerged. I don't argue that it was 'by chance' per se, but that explanation makes as much sense to me as the idea of some all-powerful, invisible Creator. Besides, even if you do believe in a Creator, that could mean anything. You take the Bible as the word of god, but there could have been multiple Creators, or the Creator could be dead by now, etc... anyway, sorry for going off on a tangent; these arguments tend to end up pointless anyway.
Because he's God and is beyond our feeble minds.
Believing that we as humans understand everyhing is fairly arogant.
And BTW, I mentioned the concept of time before -- for God, there is eternity -- no beginning or end. It's beyond our comprehension as I'm sure there are many other concept beyond our comprehension that we aren't even aware of.
:bow GOD
Especially if they're never told that they have that option. Children are conditioned to consider teachers to be authority figures, and even if they are just expected to do something and not actively forced it is still effectively coercion, because they know that the teacher has the power to punish them for failing to meet expectations.
Actually, I agree completely. I was talking about the public reaction to the case, which is rather heavily flavored by Newdow's eccentricities.
Chance is only one factor in evolution. Evolutionists generally believe in natural laws too - that it is something more concrete than chance that leads to carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen atoms sticking together in certain ways, or to the fact that passing an electrical current through some of these compounds can convert them into organic compounds. Some people believe that these laws embody the hand of God...
This is precisely why I put little stock in earthly religious doctrines regarding the nature and desires of God.
Similar threads
