zapatos

I think our respective positions represent an essential philosophical difference in the values of socially structuring people's lives. Structural education, like structural economics, and other forms of organizing people into relatively artificial social situations bothers me some. There's something eerie about a school or other situation where people are organized according to cohorts segregated on multiple levels according to age, ability-level, interest, etc.

I don't find that organizing people into structured education where people of varied backgrounds are all sharing the common goal of higher education, is all that different than organizing people into structured work where people of varied backgrounds are all sharing the common goal of marketing a product.

In both cases you have people of varied backgrounds and intelligence, organized under an umbrella organization, and further broken down into specialties and sub-specialties based on thing such as abilities and interests. You also find sponsored social events in both types of institutions.

The two seem very similar to me except maybe at the level of complexity.

You don't think young adults can benefit from interactions with more experienced adults? I tend to think more diversity is always better, although that's really too general to possibly be universally valid. Big universities that concentrate young adults and supply them with lots of institutionalized interactions may protect them and give them more of an opportunity to compare experiences with others in a similar situation, but it also prevents them from broadening their horizons somewhat too, don't you think?

I've always felt that the transitions from elementary school, to high school, to college, to the start of your career were big steps, but ones that the previous step had prepared you for. By going away to college you get to learn in an environment where you are competing with your equals. While more experienced adults may be good for you I don't really believe that most of your co-workers are going to be thinking of what is best for you. People tend to interact most with peers, and if I'm a relatively immature 18 year old, I don't know that those older and more experienced adults will really be looking out for me.

If I move from high school to college to work, I think I'll be better prepared on the job than if I move from high school to work, while pursuing my education independently. It's not that it can't be done; it's done all the time. I just feel the extra step for traditional education makes for smoother transitions.

As far as limiting the broadending of their horizons, I'd agree to a point. College will certainly broaden your horizons to some extent, but it only delays, not eliminates, the bigger step you're talking about.

But why couldn't such a student move away from home to someplace where they really wanted to live/work and then pursue education online? Online schooling could open up a lot of possibilities for combining life-experiences that could not be combined if physical presence was required for all aspects of a person's life.

I completely agree with the benefits you describe. The examples you give however sound to me like they would be more applicable to someone who is more mature than your typical 18 year old, which is what I was suggesting when I described them as someone going to college right out of high school.

By going away to college as an 18 year old, you are often experiencing your first independence (without really losing the support your parents provide), and learning to pay bills, manage your time by yourself, and be responsible for all the many things that will turn you into a mature adult. And you get to do it with a whole group of people your age who are sharing those same experiences with you. Oh, and you get an academic education too.

I think someone with more life skills and maturity would be more capable of, and benefit the most from, being able to separate their education from their life experiences as you described.

A lot also depends on the type of student. I believe almost any student going to college right out of high school would be better off moving away from home to attend a traditional school. Much of what you learn does not come from the courses you take.

The church use to sell indulgences. This is you could pre-purchace the right to sin. So the church has allowed people to knowlingly sin (and made a profit from it too). SO this argument is clearly false.

(My bold)

False.

"Those who attack the Church for its use of indulgences rely upon—and take advantage of—the ignorance of both Catholics and non-Catholics.

The Church has always taught that indulgences do not apply to sins not yet committed. The Catholic Encyclopedia notes, "[An indulgence] is not a permission to commit sin, nor a pardon of future sin; neither could be granted by any power." "

http://www.catholic.com/library/Myths_About_Indulgences.asp

The church likes to trot out reasons for banning contraception, like it encourages sex out side of marriage...

 

In countries with contraception and less stigma attached to it, family sizes are smaller.

 

In countried where the church has lied about contraception (that it encourages infedelity, that it increases the risk of deseases, etc) family sizes are much larger and the populations are poorer because if it

Can you please give examples and sources? I don't ever seem to recall hearing that the Catholic church said contraception encourages sex outside of marriage, that it encourages infidelity, or that it increases the risk of diseases.

I'm also curious about studies that have shown larger family sizes causing poorer populations, and in which countries the church has lied about contraception with the result being much larger family sizes.

And of course I'd like to know where it has been shown that "less stigma" with contraception causes smaller family sizes.

I am not an expert on cosmology, so I might have used some terms wrong, and I might have some timescales wrong. But I'm fairly confident that you don't need a variable cosmological constant to have galaxies tear apart. The cosmological constant means that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. That tells me that the expansion will become significant at the galactic scale sooner or later. But perhaps I'm wrong...

I'm a rookie on these topics so please excuse me if I am out of place here, but as Spyman pointed out in another thread:

"Yes, it is normally considered that the expansion of space only happens on very very large scales.

But, as I have tried to explain, on smaller scales, things like galaxies, solar systems, molecules and atoms are bound systems, they are held together by forces much stronger than the expansion. The force from Dark energy is not able to continue to expand them, instead bound systems only expands until they reach a slightly larger size where the forces that holds them together counter and stop the expansion.

So bound systems don't continue to expand but they are a tiny bit larger due to Dark energy, this tiny bit is so teeny-weeny that it is not measureable and esteemed unimportant.

The reasoning is not my personal idea, it's a valid scientific conclusion and even mentioned on Wikipedia:"

"A cosmological constant has the effect of a repulsive force between objects which is proportional (not inversely proportional) to distance. Unlike inertia it actively "pulls" on objects which have clumped together under the influence of gravity, and even on individual atoms. However this does not cause the objects to grow steadily or to disintegrate; unless they are very weakly bound, they will simply settle into an equilibrium state which is slightly (undetectably) larger than it would otherwise have been."

http://en.wikipedia....ansion_of_space

So far no one has presented any reason fro the Prohibition of birth control inside of marriage that makes any sense at all.

No one has presented any reason for the Prohibition of birth control inside of marriage that makes any sense at all to you.

But you were presented with the reason that the church gives, and it does makes sense to many. And realistically, is any explanation for prohibiting birth control inside of marriage going to make sense to you?

I understand that the church is against sex outside of marriage, but why is birth control inside marriage wrong as well? I can't imagine being limited to abstinence in my marriage to avoid pregnancy, talk about a bummer, sex only a few days a month at most and still the danger of pregnancy? That would not just suck personally but it would harm the bonding and emotional comfort sex brings between couples...

Moon, we already discussed in this thread why birth control inside marriage is wrong in the Catholic church. And if you are not Catholic, then this doesn't apply to you. I don't understand why it bothers you if others choose to join this group and live by its rules (or even ignore its rules).

I don't like the rule of having to wear a helmet, but since I am not on a football team it really doesn't apply to me. And when you eliminate the days taken by menstruation and ovulation you should still have more than "only a few days a month at most" to have sex.

zapatos; I'm sure there are still some very large slum areas in Mumbai, just as there are in any metropolitan area, even in the US, also relative to the National Economy. Then beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder and of course what your comparing it to, is important.

 

Here is one tourist opinion and some pictures...

 

As for right to move and moving; As what's going on in China today, people living in poverty probably have moved from rural areas for various reasons, where in all likelihood things were in fact worse.

Ok, I'm confused. I thought you were saying that living in high density Mumbai is pleasant (or at least acceptable) and the people living there must be happy, otherwise they would move. Did I misunderstand you? Because what you are conveying in this post is that the tourists are having a grand time, travelling around the city, eating in nice restaurants, doing some sightseeing. I assume they went home to something other than a tin roof four feet over a dirt floor.

In your first link, picture #14, you have a nice picture of a slum in Mumbai. And according to your statistics nearly 6 million people live like that, almost half the population of the city. Also according to you, this is likely a step up for them from what they experienced in rural areas.

From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharavi (I edited out some references and other non-critical information - my bolding)

"Dharavi is a slum and administrative ward, over parts of Sion, Bandra, Kurla and Kalina suburbs of Mumbai, India. It is sandwiched between Mahim in the west and Sion in the east, and spread over an area of 175 hectares, or 0.67 square miles. In 1986, the population was estimated at 530,225, but modern Dharavi has a population of between 600,000 and over 1 million people, Dharavi is one of the largest slums in Asia."

"Dharavi has severe problems with public health, due to the scarcity of toilet facilities, compounded by the flooding during the monsoon season. As of November 2006 there was only one toilet per 1,440 residents in Dharavi. Mahim Creek, a local river, is widely used by local residents for urination and defecation, leading to the spread of contagious disease. The area also suffers from problems with inadequate water supply."

And ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_India

"The World Bank estimates that 456 million Indians (41.6% of the total Indian population) now live under the global poverty line of US$ 1.25 per day (PPP)."

"Despite significant economic progress, one quarter of the nation's population earns less than the government-specified poverty threshold of 12 rupees per day (approximately US$ 0.25). As per the 2001 census, 35.5% of Indian households availed of banking services, 35.1% owned a radio or transistor, 31.6% a television, 9.1% a phone, 43.7% a bicycle, 11.7% a scooter, motorcycle or a moped, and 2.5% a car, jeep or van; 34.5% of the households had none of these assets."

As far as moving if you are not happy there, you are probably not going to move far if you are making $0.25 per day.

Anyone in the public eye who starts out with "“I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot... But..." has got to know he is asking for trouble. Pretty minor from my perspective but these are the times we are in, and Juan should know it.

On another note, do you think when he said: “But when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they’re identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.", that he really meant it? I'm sure he flies all the time, he knows what airport security is like, he even reports on this kind of stuff. I guess I'm just wondering if he said it to give Bill O'Reilly some support for Bill's comments on The View.

Since India is a reasonably free country, those folks are not forced to live there and must be happy.

Um, could you add a few steps to this line of reasoning?

I spent a little time in Mumbai, and the vast majority of people I saw were living in 10x10 shacks made of whatever it was they could find in the pile of trash and garbage they were living next to, taking baths in puddles of muddy water, and squatting in the streets to defecate. I'm not sure where they did their grocery shopping although I did see quite a few women competing with dogs for the best of what was in the garbage pile.

I guess I should have thought to ask if they were happy but I failed to do so. I'm sure if they were unhappy they would have just jumped on the internet, pulled out their American Express cards, and booked thier move to someplace in the mountains. Maybe Switzerland!

Then again, maybe the people generating the garbage piles were the happy ones.

While science is bemoaning the "unsustainable" birth rate on earth, it is also rushing headlong into cloning. For what purpose? Superior humans? A master race? If you ever pray, pray that this does not occur, as both you and I will be eliminated from their world as "deficient".

I never understand the great fear associated with cloning of humans. Why do people assume the worst?

Let's say my wife and I have tried unsuccessfully for years to have a child. Turns out it's my problem. My boys won't swim. So we go to the doctor who gives us an option; we can either take my wife's egg and add some stranger's sperm to it to have a child, or we can use cloning and have a child that comes from my wife's cells only. That would be an easy choice for me. All we are really doing is getting cells to do what they are capable of doing anyway. It's not playing God. It's not creating Frankenstein. It's not creating a master race. To me these are just scare tactics. Same kinds of things we heard before Louise Brown was born

Oh, but my argument is from the Bible... The Bible mentions both the bonding and pleasure aspects of sex (becoming one flesh, for example). I'm using the Bible to argue against the Pope, who is just a fallible human and not God.

Ah, ok. So the pope is picking and choosing what to take a stand on based on his interpretation? Like 'do not mess with procreation' is more important than 'do not mess with bonding'. So that is just his opinion, and may change with the next Pope. Good point.

Ah yes, purgatory, i had forgotten about that one. So even if you are forgiven you have spend time in purgatory but you can pay money to get out or stay out? If you don't you get a disease or you suffer in purgatory? Sounds like a racket to me. No purgatory in Protestantism either. Or neo-paganism for that matter.

 

 

But i think the Evangelicals have a similar system where you give them huge amounts of money and or property to make sure god hears you or something like that, love offerings they are called. I had an uncle that was a popular preacher, he got rolex watches and expensive cars from his congregation.

I don't know if there is any way to buy an indulgence these days. The rules are always changing in the Catholic church. I remember when I was a kid in school, they would pass around the plate to collect money for pagen babies. The idea there was that for $5, they would have enough money to fund the missionary work necessary to find and baptize one more baby. And it was important because if a baby was not baptized before death, they would go to limbo, where they would neither be punished nor find eternal happiness with God. I remember as a kid having these visions of a buch of babies all sitting around in a room with a cloudy mist on the floor. I laugh every time I think about it. I think limbo is no longer part of Catholic teaching, but I do wonder what happened to all those babies I was unable to keep out of limbo before they finally shut it down. Maybe spending eternity dancing the limbo!

"While i have no basis for feeling this way, i do feel that charging people to forgive their sins is less than straight forward and basically dishonest. The ease by which it was perverted seems to confirm this. Of course i was raised protestant, we do not have to ask anyone but god to forgive us and he does it for free..."

You don't pay to have your sins forgiven. You must be forgiven first, and that is free in the Catholic church too, although you must use a priest as an intermediary between you and God. You pay so that you are not punished either on earth or in purgatory. The idea is that if you do something like pay some money to fund a church (or spend your time building a church), you will have cleansed your soul the same as if you had spent some nasty time in purgatory, or with some newly acquired disease.

No not stupid, less than honest maybe when it comes to sin but calling those people unscrupulous is disingenuous at best. At the time it was not only condoned it was part of the main stream church not a few unscrupulous members doing something bad.

 

I'd keep one if I had it too...

Indulgences became increasingly popular in the Middle Ages as a reward for displaying piety and doing good deeds. The faithful asked that indulgences be given for saying their favourite prayers, doing acts of devotion, attending places of worship, and going on pilgrimage; confraternities wanted indulgences for putting on performances and processions; associations demanded that their meetings be rewarded with indulgences. Money raised by indulgences was used for many righteous causes, both religious and civil; building projects funded by indulgences include churches, hospitals, leper colonies, schools, roads, and bridges.[31]

However, the later Middle Ages saw the growth of considerable abuses. Greedy commissaries sought to extract the maximum amount of money for each indulgence.[33] Professional "pardoners"[4] (quaestores in Latin) - who were sent to collect alms for a specific project - practiced the unrestricted sale of indulgences. Many of these quaestores unfortunately exceeded Church teachings, whether in avarice or ignorant zeal, and promised impossible rewards like salvation from eternal damnation in return for money.[31] With the permission of the Church, indulgences also became a way for Catholic rulers to fund expensive projects, such as Crusades and cathedrals, by keeping a significant portion of the money raised from indulgences in their lands.[31] There was a tendency to forge documents declaring that indulgences had been granted.[31] Indulgences grew to extraordinary magnitude, in terms of longevity and breadth of forgiveness.

Engraving of the Mass of Saint Gregory by Israhel van Meckenem, 1490s, with an unauthorized indulgence at the bottom[34]The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) suppressed some abuses connected with indulgences, spelling out, for example, that only a one-year indulgence would be granted for the consecration of churches and no more than a 40-days indulgence for other occasions. The Council also stated that "Catholics who have girded themselves with the cross for the extermination of the heretics, shall enjoy the indulgences and privileges granted to those who go in defense of the Holy Land."[35]

But very soon these limits were widely exceeded. False documents were circulated with indulgences surpassing all bounds: indulgences of hundreds or even thousands of years.[31] In 1392, more than a century before Martin Luther published the 95 Theses, Pope Boniface IX wrote to the Bishop of Ferrara condemning the practice of certain members of religious orders who falsely claimed that they were authorized by the pope to forgive all sorts of sins, and exacted money from the simple-minded among the faithful by promising them perpetual happiness in this world and eternal glory in the next.[36]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence (my bolding)

Sounds to me like the misuse was not condoned. Unless of course you are saying that indulgences in general are wrong. And note, the purpose of the indulgence was to take away the punishment for sins that you asked forgiveness for, and received absolution for. You could not just wantonly sin and expect a get out hell card. If you weren't truly sorry, you were not forgiven.

I find that a poor argument though, since there are other purposes for sex, such as pleasure and bonding. There is no need for the financial/personal burdens of procreation to interfere with bonding. The argument also suffers because it tries to make an "ought" out of an "is". A similar argument would be that they should not see doctors, as disease is used by God to punish people and people shouldn't interfere with that purpose.

But here is the problem. Believers and non-believers are using two different sets of rules in their arguments. You are using logic, science, etc. and trying to refute what the church believes. But they believe God said it. From their perspective God easily trumps logic and science.

So, just like a believer will never be able to use the bible to convince you that evolution is false (because you have logic and science on your side), you will never be able to convince them the bible (and the beliefs it inspires) is false (because they have God on their side).

So while I love watching and learning from the arguments given when believers and non-believers square off, I know no one is actually going to win. It's like one side thinking they won because they scored the most goals, while the other side thinks they won because they ran the fastest.

The church use to sell indulgences. This is you could pre-purchace the right to sin. So the church has allowed people to knowlingly sin (and made a profit from it too). SO this argument is clearly false.

What argument is clearly false? Are you saying that the church IS stupid because of what some unscrupulous members of the church did during the middle ages?

BTW, my aunt had a plenary indulgence she used to keep framed on her wall. She received it after confessing and receiving absolution for past sins.

Zapatos, you have demonstrated to me that religion is evil, it restricts love between even dedicated partners. It attempts to control humans from birth to death by restricting activities that are a big part of being human simply to control them, no other reason. The immorality of sex and the control on the population by causing guilt and strife over something that should be freely given between humans in love flies in the face of the idea of a loving god and gets us back to the cruel and spiteful god. Religion if believed and followed above reality is the most dangerous thing to humanity on this earth.

 

Sex is a great thing, between people in love it's wonderful, to restrict that loving relationship by saying sex must result in procreation is evil. It steals a big part of what being a fulfilled human being means.

Evil sounds a bit strong to me. I don't believe their intent is to cause harm. I would say their intent is to build a framework that will help people achieve high moral standards and a fulfilling life, and to do good in the world. I can't see how you can look at all the good works of the church and say they are evil.

You say sex "should be freely given". That is simply your opinion, just as the opposite is simply the opinion of the church. I can't see where your or their opinion should reign supreme.

I had 12 years of Catholic school, and sent my kids to 12 years of Catholic school. I also told them there is no excuse for not using a condom during premarital sex. While I have plenty to disagree with in the church, I feel that my kids and I are better off for the high morals and character the church helped develop in us.

Yes, religion restricts love between dedicated partners, but it is because they believe that is what God asks, and for an ultimately greater reward. And it is not simply to control them. You may not agree with their position, but I don't understand why you think the church is full of hand wringing evil doers.

I agree there is much harm caused in this world by the Catholic church, but not because of their intent to do harm. It is much the same as the harm caused in this world by government. Not by intent but because of the byproduct of people trying to do good. I doubt it was GWBush's evil plan to kill so many innocent Iraqis. It was just the result of him doing what he thought was right, and if some are harmed in the process, so be it.

I fall somewhere between agnostic and atheist, but my experience with the church tells me it wants to do good, whether that is the end result or not. And they believe in what they say because GOD told them. Just like they are wasting my time using the bible to prove to me evolution is not true, I think I'd be wasting my time trying to prove to them the Bible is wrong and condoms are really a good thing in the world.

Why does the catholic church consider birth control to be a sin even with married couples? This policy not only results in unwanted children that cannot be cared for and are a burden on society it also results in Aids being spread due to the anti condom fetish of the church.

"Contraception is wrong because it’s a deliberate violation of the design God built into the human race, often referred to as "natural law." The natural law purpose of sex is procreation. The pleasure that sexual intercourse provides is an additional blessing from God, intended to offer the possibility of new life while strengthening the bond of intimacy, respect, and love between husband and wife. The loving environment this bond creates is the perfect setting for nurturing children.

But sexual pleasure within marriage becomes unnatural, and even harmful to the spouses, when it is used in a way that deliberately excludes the basic purpose of sex, which is procreation. God’s gift of the sex act, along with its pleasure and intimacy, must not be abused by deliberately frustrating its natural end—procreation"

http://www.catholic.com/library/Birth_Control.asp

This is what the Catholic Church believes. This came from God. I think it is unreasonable to ask the church to condone birth control (a sin) in teenagers, when if they wouldn't be having premarital sex (also a sin) in the first place, they wouldn't need birth control. And while not perfect, Natural Family Planning can be 95% effective, especially if used in a Catholic inspired marriage. If you use this method religiously (no pun intended) you have a reasonable chance of having the family size you desire (more or less).

It seems to me that the Church has taken a stand on what is right and what is wrong, and if you follow what they teach there will be no out of wedlock children and there will not be an AIDS epidemic. It doesn't seem fair to ask them to preapprove one sin (condoms) because someone is planning to go ahead with another sin (premarital sex).

And the Church is not stupid. They know some Catholics will sin anyway. But the solution is for them to quit sinning, not for the Church to allow it.

The government has laws against murder, but they don't go ahead and allow it since they know people will commit murder anyway.

Seems to me like a well thought out and logical plan. And if you want to be a Catholic then you have to accept that these are the rules. I have no problem with the Church setting high standards and working to achieve them.

I simply have a problem trying to placate a situation that our government should never have let happen in the first place.

It bothers me that when some people have a situation they don't like, their solution is to expand the oversight of government. The last thing I need is to have the government come in and tell me how to set up my phone system to communicate with my customers!

Zapatos- Actually I believe you are making reference to an earlier comment of mine. What I actually said was "At the moment of conception the fertilised egg contained all the information.....". In other words in your analogy it would be once the oven had been switched on, not just before it is switched on. I feel that "just before the oven is switched on" there are probably a million or so recipes waiting to have a chance of life. However once one of the "recipes" gets under way the "cake" is forming in response to that particular recipe. All the other "recipes" are discarded.

Yes, you're right of course. But I was actually only going after your words "contained all the information" because then I could use the analogy like it was. If I had to create an analogy for the whole of your perfectly reasonable observation, then my analogy wouldn't have been (in my warped sense of humor) nearly as funny. I was snickering when I was writing it, and I of course intended in no way to disparage your comments.

in the scenario with the recipe and the cake, the recipe for human reproduction is a sperm and an egg which are both present and in place by the time zapatos and his wife come out of the room. however, in the cake analogy he come out of the room with nothing in place, just a list of things that need to be put in place. its not the same at all.

 

its not a horrible analogy but he failed to identify the fertilized egg as the cake already in the oven!

If you look at the original post you will see that the analogy was to refute an implication that life begins once all the information necessary for a fully formed human is gathered together. And a cake recipe does have all the information necessary to create the cake. I said:

"I have a difficult time with the idea that the starting point for human existence begins at the point that all of the information necessary for a fully formed person is gathered together. It seems if this concept worked for persons, then it should also work for other things."

While it may not be a perfect analogy to human reproduction (which it wasn't intended to be), I think it worked quite well for the purpose it was intended.

BTW, since you do not have a particular milestone for when a human embryo becomes a human person, why not consider it to be the moment of conception? Philosophically speaking, it's as valid a notion as any other time.

I can't just pick any moment and pretend I believe that. And if I did pick the moment of conception then I would have to consider all those who have abortions as murderers. That's fine if I really believe it, but I don't. I'm just not sure. So while I consider the fertilized egg to be a significant form of life, I find the needs of a conflicted and tortured young girl to be more significant. And I think the fertilized egg is more significant than my needs, if I was just too lazy to put on a condom and now find that having another kid is going to be financially challenging. And of course once the fertilized egg becomes a human person, then the needs of the conflicted and tortured young girl can no longer reign supreme.