jryan

What I'm saying is that chimeras are a single individual made from two different zygotes. I'm glad you agree. But, if you say each zygote is an individual person, where did one of those persons go? This of course is no problem for me since I don't consider the zygotes to be people, so I don't have a disappearing people problem.

It doesn't go anywhere. If Suzy got Jane's heart and lungs I would still call her Suzy.

Sure, the skin cell is for the most part indistinguishable from a zygote, although granted it is smaller and has a different set of genes active and won't grow up to become a person later on. Of course those aren't differences that seem to have any relevance to personhood. My skin cell is alive, and it can be removed from my body and kept alive separately, just like a zygote. I never called it a being though, nor an organism.

You've mad a rather clumsy argument there on several fronts. First "for the most part" is meaningless and an admission that they are different. Second, that zygote is considered an organism, and your skin cell is not.

So you have admitted that your skin cell is not a zygote, and that your skin cell is not a person. You have not explained why the zygotic organism has no relevance to personhood, however, beyond "because in may be more than one person" which I do not find in the least bit compelling.

How strongly do you believe in the Abrahamic God?

 

How much do you believe in some form of Life after Death?

 

It really is in how you ask the question. Most people will prefer to answer quantitatively if you let them. Binary commitments are much more difficult, imo.

Neither answers are quantifiable, and you couldn't find a person who to tell you why they chose what they did over some other answer.

Again, it is my experience that such answers will translate into specifically binary behavior.

I really have know idea how to answer your afterlife question and I believe in an afterlife!

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So basically, belief of a more than 50% probability of something being true is faith? But why do you put the 50% as the cutoff point when the cutoff point could be anywhere?

No, I don't believe there is an way to adequately assign a percentage other than the simple 50/50.

What is the actual difference between 50% Faith and 55% Faith, without using percentages in your answer? How would you measure that beyond arbitrary declaration?

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Just because you pose a question to beg a binary form, doesn't mean the answer is necessarily binary.

 

example: Is your favorite color green?

I have already stated why I find such equivalences meaningless. You have simply inserted something that has real and verifiable and testable variance. You still haven't shown me where such real and testable variance exists within faith beyond arbitrary assignment.

I didn't see a list of investments in the Rockefeller fund link, just a blanket diversification strategy statement, and a summary from an annual statement which states

 

The plan assets are currently invested in mutual funds with an

allocation of 70 percent equity and 30 percent debt securities

 

Debt securities. Doesn't look to me like they are investing in companies benefitting from AGW. But you've stated in no uncertain terms that they invest in these companies to fund their research grants, so I'd like to know where you have gotten that information and share it.

Here is an RBF paper from 15 years ago that sums up one aspect of their interdependence nicely: Selling Solar

In this document they detail their various cooperative investment efforts with the solar industry to bring solar energy to the third world. In this case, RBF's stated goal is to bring renewable energy to 3rd world people, but it is dependent of the success on the solar companies involved and continued investment of capital in the program.

As such, RBF has a vested interest in both the solar industry, and the carbon reduction schemes as a whole as they feed the solar energy market in large amounts now.

That is inaccurate. Neither bill will fund abortions with tax-payer dollars (at best, a subsidy would be provided a low income person who purchases a plan on the private market which just happens to cover abortion), which makes most of the rest of what you said irrelevant.

No it doesn't iNow. It is a very real discussion going on between Nancy Pelosi and pro-life Democrats.

http://electoral-vote.com/evp2010/Senate/Maps/Mar12-s.html

You and Slate are splitting hairs as nobody worries about abortion funding for people who don't choose abortions or abortion coverage. The problem is with providing money to people to spend on abortions or abortion coverage.

That may be a small thing for you and the Slate author, but you can not take the fact you could care less and project that on Bob Stupak or other pro-life Democrats.

If the bill were to include money to buy health insurance from religious organizations what would your stance be?

The simple fact of the matter is that you are wrong, or at least on your own, legally, morally, ethically, and etymologically speaking. No one considers certain types of chimeras two people, not if there is only one brain. Nor do people consider a recipient of a blood transfusion or an organ transplant to be two different people. Sorry.

 

Edit: Also there are no known cases of fraternal (dizygotic) conjoined twins. http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/mole00/mole00359.htm

First thanks for the info on conjoined twins, I didn't know that.

Second, I have stated that chimera should be considered one individual even thought hey are made up of two individuals genetic code.. I also made that argument earlier that an organism can be differentiated by genetics or environment. Identical twins share genetic code but experience two separate environments, chimera have two of more genetic codes but share one external environment.

But are you saying that a chimera is not an individual? I am still not understanding how it is you think a chimera supports your definition of an individual.

Now feel free to start elaborating on your skin-cell-as-individual-living-being argument, now.

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Chimeras are generally indistinguishable from non-chimeras without genetic testing. The phenomenon wasn't even known about before the advent of blood typing, when it was discovered that some people have more than one blood type. I don't think any reasonable person could call them two people, just because they developed from two zygotes.

I didn't call them two people.

From my previous post:

"What about the "pesty chimeras"? Why should I consider the natural joining of one child any different than a conjoined twin? It is a natural occurance, so as explained before, I have no problem with it. The fact that a person is a chimera also doesn't invalidate their individuality."

Absolutely, but that doesn't preclude it being accurate for faith, does it?

Well, that's my sticking point. I think it does. If there is already a characteristic that can be used to define amplitude of a person's reaction then there is no reason to duplicate that in an expanded meaning of the word Faith. Not as I see it, anyway.

It would be, for me, like suddenly using "apple" to define "sweetness".. you may be able to properly rationalize the difference between the statement "Maple Syrup is too apple" and "this apple is more apple than that apple" in context, but I think it just confuses the language and makes discussion less precise... and as such makes it less right than using "sweet".

But the smoker is more analogous to someone with faith who does works that reflect that faith. It still doesn't show that one either has faith or does not.

Well no. Not as I couched it, anyway. In the example the smoker is acting in direct opposition to their stated belief... but that doesn't mean they don't believe it.

Examples have been given of people who have, or profess to have, or seem to have, varying degrees of faith. If you google "How strong is your faith?", it will show you many religious sites that provide some kind of metric for judging the strength of faith. Apparently, one can show doubt but still have faith, so wouldn't a person with absolutely no doubt have a stronger faith than someone who occasionally doubts?

I'll go check them out... but I am going to guess in advance that any such test of faith will consist of a number of questions, many yes-no, to evaluate you on farious aspects of faith. Also all of them will be wrong.

Can you give any similar examples of a binary form of faith that shows a uniformity of intensity?

Do you believe in God?(absent the myriad characteristics and acts of God that exist in various religious scripture)

Do you believe in Life after Death?

Do you believe Jesus ever existed?

Do you believe in one apostolic church?

Do you believe in the resurrection of Jesus?

Do you believe in Reincarnation?

Do you believe in past lives?

and so on.

I pay with an HSA, which is a plus to me both because I get the money tax free and because contributions are matched by my employer.

 

That said, I use said HSA to buy 3 medications with no generic alternative (the only medications I can buy generically are now all available OTC, namely Prilosec and Claritin D)

 

Refilling my prescriptions runs me about $500 a pop.

 

Were I to buy the same prescriptions from a Canadian pharmacy, it'd cost me approximately $75.

 

I'm buying my prescriptions through a Kroger-owned pharmacy. I guess your next suggested step would be to try Wal-Mart?

 

All that said, sorry, I'm not buying it. American pharma will charge you an arm and a leg to get the drugs you need, because they expect your insurance is paying for it, and if it's not, you're screwed.

 

All your myopic and unsubstantiated free market BS isn't going to convince me otherwise.

I got you beat there. A months supply of Enbrel can cost as much as $4,500 (16 syringes taken every other day). I pay $20.00, but if I didn't have insurance and went through an online bulk reseller I could get it for $1700, but Canada (last I checked) still had it around $6,800.

Granted, debilitating arthritis and psoriasis are not life threatening, and therefor treated far differently in socialized systems, but I sure am glad to have it... and the use of my hands back.

By the way, when I was originally prescribed Enbrel I was immediately given an application at the doctors office from those money grubbing Big Pharma bastards at Amgen to apply to get Enbrel free of charge if I could not get it through my insurance and could not afford it otherwise.

Those bastards.

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On a separate note, I read an interesting article today about the ongoing reconciliation process that made a very interesting point: Abortion is the only real sticking point in getting this reconciliation passed.

The problem is that the Senate bill includes abortion, and the House bill doesn't... but since reconciliation can only deal with financial, and not legal, aspects of a bill the reconciliation can not remove abortion from the final bill.

This makes for a hard road as the house has a lot of pro-life democrats from heavily pro-life districts who have stated that they can not vote to reconcile the Senate bill as the abortion laws remain.

This has lead to a lot of round table bargaining that has so far gone nowhere since the only way to placate the pro-life group in the house is to promise them a new bill after the fact that will eliminate the abortion wording from the law. This is a hard sell as pro-life Democrats know that there is no way the House and Senate in it's current form would pass such a bill before November, and even less of a chance that Obama would sign it into law.

Here is something I think is worth mentioning on this topic:

In August 2007 Reto Rudy and James Hansen tell Doyle Rice of USAToday in an email that they don't use their own GISSTemp records to evaluate their own models. (pdf) GISS uses NCDC and HADCrut.

Perhaps the "strength" of faith is really "how hard would it be to change the believer's mind?"

 

For example, one who has had a religious experience is far less likely to give up their faith, because they believe they have great reasons for their faith. One who has had no religious experiences whatsoever could easily give up faith.

 

The question is then, does that represent the "level" of faith or some other thing?

But that could be a measure of bravery or conviction as much as faith.

As I tried to illustrate with the smoker example, there is a lot at play in a persons dedication to something that has nothing to do with belief or faith.

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But there are over 9000 sects of Christianity alone, and each believes something slightly different. Your definition #1 would require each practitioner of a particular religion to have an equal amount of faith in their sect and its tenets for it to be a binary condition. And for definition #2 to be binary, again, everyone has to believe in the same thing in the same way with the same intensity. The evidence doesn't support that.

Well, since the last percentage argument carried out the faith on the individual used as an example to six decimal points, they left room for ... ummm... 100,000,000 individual binary faith memes? I think that would be enough to properly dissect all human religions into finite yes-no propositions.

I can point to many testimonies of the faithful from many religions who claimed to have faith at one point in their lives, only to have it grow due to some religious experience, or diminish due to a secular one. Paul admonished the Corinthians for not growing their faith, telling them he needed to feed them milk since they weren't ready for solid food.

Again, I am seeing that differently than you, I guess. The unwillingness to act on a belief is an indication of no faith rather than little faith, and the willingness to act is a indication of faith.

If you break down religion into Dawkins' memes I think you could argue that the verve with with one tackles the tenets of a faith is a measure of how many of that religions memes that that person has faith in, not how much faith one has in a single tenet.

And in many cases I would argue that the verve has as much to do with influences beyond the religion itself.

Faith can't be binary if it grows through teachings and experience. And if faith has a quantifiable scale, then that scale has a low end and a high end, the extremes of any quantifiable condition. And if more faith is better than less faith, I'd like to know where too much faith can be considered extreme.

As I said, I think we are talking about two different -- but still accepted -- definitions of faith. Faith in a religion could possibly be quantified, but faith in an indivisible idea can only be binary. But faith is an indivisible idea and faith in a packaged series of ideas are both still called faith.

The argument has nothing to do with the truthiness of God, but the fact that the language used can tell us something about the definition of faith... and who better to tell us the definition of faith than people who invented the concept??

 

You're both missing the point and avoiding the argument.

I am simply trying to get someone that believes in variability of faith to explain what is actually variable in someone's faith. The percentage argument is insufficient for me as there is no way to differentiate 37% faith from 99% faith without accepting some simple agreement that 51% is "faithful" and 49% is faithless, or some other essentially binary set of resulting classification.

To be honest, for all the Bible quotes in the world I do not see where faith, as applied in any sermon or parable within, equates to anything other than my postulated binary definition of faith. People have it or they don't.

But for the sake of argument, let me do your job of defining variable faith for you and you can make of it what you will (but it is at least something the give this sclerotic argument some life):

I propose that there are two definitions of faith at play here:

1) The belief in a given religion and it's tenets

2) The the belief in a thing (God, after life, etc.)

Definition #1 can be a variable definition as it can be broken down into pieces and quatified that way, definition #2 can not be subdivided and is therefor binary.

For example, we can break down simple Christianity into the components Jesus, God, Holy Spirit, Afterlife and Resurrection (again, simplified for the sake of argument) you can have someone that believes in God and Jesus and the After life but does not believe in the holy spirit or the resurrection.... so you could say their faith in Christianity is 60%.

I don't however, believe that you can say "I have a 60% belief in God" without first breaking down the argument as I did with Christianity... except no matter how you break down your thought of God into pieces and you will always be left with A, B, C, D ..... and God.

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At the moment, I'm trying to determine if faith is a binary condition, or if it has degrees of strength. It makes no sense to me that everyone who claims to have faith in the existence of God (or in the various claims of their religion) has it to the same degree, nor does it seem like any religious texts hold them to such a claim.

Thank you. Hopefully I have clarified my point a bit more as well.

I'm not an atheist. I was raised in a Christian family and went to churches ranging from the suffocating Nazarene to the more open-minded Unitarians. I'm completely open to the possibility of the concept of a higher being, I'm just trying to define it in ways that aren't completely contradictory.

What is the contradiction that you are trying to clear up, then? That may help us with a meeting of the minds on a definition of faith, at least.

Except of course those pesty chimeras that you keep forgetting about. So wrong wrong wrong, sorry try again.

What about the "pesty chimeras"? Why should I consider the natural joining of one child any different than a conjoined twin? It is a natural occurance, so as explained before, I have no problem with it. The fact that a person is a chimera also doesn't invalidate their individuality.

Are you arguing that a chimera shouldn't be considered an individual.

Wrong wrong wrong. In science we assume things to be true if it provides predictive values, until there is even a single counterexample.

Well, first I am saving that quote for use later because I doubt you allow much room for counterexamples in other debates on this site. Second, if the answer to "how many individuals?" has the answer of "at least one" I am all for protecting the individual or individuals in question.

Secondly, based on the definition of organism I discussed, the zygote is a single biological human before separation, and two individuals after separation. They share genetic code, space and environment before separation.. therefor it is an individual, in a strictly secular meaning.

Arguing from the position of a soul is a bit different because we are then talking about God and spirit and omniscience where anything is possible.

No, I don't consider something undefinable just because someone proposes a silly definition that happens to be wrong. And if a definition applies to only 99.6% of cases, I consider it wrong wrong wrong. A definition has to apply to 100% of the cases; that is the whole point of a definition. Definitions are one of the few things that we can be certain of.

If you want to take it that route I am perfectly fine with that as well. The zygote is an individual until such time that it is two or more individuals, biologically speaking. At some point in the future we may have stronger predictive abilities to know when a zygote, through genetics or environment, will split, and how many times it will split, at which point we could define a zygote as more than one individual... but right now we go with the definition we know.

Again though, how does that make my cells not alive? They are not an organism any more than an egg is, I'll grant you that. But, you had said they are not alive, and now you change that to organism. Incidentally, cells can be grown in a culture outside of the organism they belong to.

I'm not saying that cells aren't "alive" I am saying the are not a life. THese are two separate concepts, and when we are talking about individuals and human rights we are talking about "a human life".. that is to say an individual organism that is human.

If you mean this link, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life

And I showed that a skin cell meets the qualifications. Which specific qualification did you say was lacking? Oh right, you didn't.

No it doesn't, because your skin cell doesn't meet the qualification as an organism. So which classification of organism is your skin cell? Is it a member of the prokaryotes, protists, fungi, plants, or animals? And why.

I would also suggest you read the definitions of each class before making your final decision.

And you also ignored chimeras again. Feel free to tell me how a chimera is two people any time now, or how your definition of person is wrong wrong wrong.

Chimeras should be treated no differently than conjoined twins because that is what they are. They are, however, a more complete joining of the two individuals. So how do conjoined twins work into your argument?

This is why I find the debate on the definition of faith interesting. There are now two atheists arguing vehemently that there is a quantifiable faith for something they do not believe actually exists... and using the Christian Bible to prove it.

You may yet sway me, but ironically you don't believe your own argument.

This is a strawman. My definition of faith is not what is the probability that god exists? But it is what do you think is the probability that god exists?

I assumed you were making adding a quantifiable that is something other than wholly arbitrary. If you can't establish what "37% certain" is then "99% certain" has no actual meaning.

The first is about the Truth of God's existence, which is unknowable. The second is about how individuals gauge their own perceptions. People that have a high level of faith in God must also have high estimates of the probability of his existence. An athiest might be very low or none. Casually religious people might have some medium percentage estimate that God exists, but a lower estimate that a specific version of their bible is true.

The number they choose is arbitrary, and is not a matter of faith, but rather conviction.

Do you see where I'm going with this?

Yes, I see where you are going with this but I don't think you are quantifying faith. I think you are just quantifying an arbitrary self evaluation about the existence in God and calling that faith.

Again, I'm talking about people's perceptions of their own certainty here. Which is different, I think, than what you think I'm talking about.

No, I think that is exactly what you are talking about. I don't think what you are talking about is a quantifiable measure of faith.

Certainly it's impossible to have 100% certainty (reference), but there are plenty of religious fanatics that, if asked, would tell you that they have approaching that.

I'm not sure the relevance of such a statement as you must first assume that your measure is a valid measure of faith. I don't believe that, so your anecdote about religious fanatics is meaningless.

You can certainly ask a person on the street "do you have faith in God," the answer could be yes or no. However, the only reason why you would expect a binary answer is if you phrased the question in this way.

Or, as I am arguing, it could be the only wayto ask the question with any real meaning in the answer.

"Faith is the confident belief or trust in the truth or trustworthiness of a person, concept or thing"

 

This fits in well with the gauging of confidence about your perceived probability of the existence of God.

No it doesn't. You have simply transposed the "conviction versus faith" argument with a new "confidence versus confident" debate.

Ok... if you're confident that God exists, just how confident are you? Technically anywhere from 51% to 99.999% could be called confident, but somebody with a 51% confidence is going to have a very different attitude than someone at the top of the scale.

 

Their level of faith, and what they tell you about their faith, will be very different.

No, you are redefining the word "faith". Your question, just like the "Yes No" version inserts a presumed qualification that the observer would not necessarily pick up on... or they would accept your definition of "faith" as quantifiable (whether you are correct or not). The mere fact that someone gives you an answer doesn't mean the the question was right.

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Let's take Christianity. Luke 12:27-28 says, "Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith." Little faith, implying that they should have more.

"Little faith" even in your next biblical quote is synonymous with "faithless", or absent any faith whatsoever.

See here:

And Matthew 17:14-20 says, "14 And when they came to the crowd, a man came up to him and, kneeling before him, 15 said, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and he suffers terribly. For often he falls into the fire, and often into the water. 16 And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him.” 17 And Jesus answered, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me.” 18 And Jesus rebuked the demon, [1] and it [2] came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly. [3] 19 Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” 20 He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” So Jesus himself allows that faith is quantifiable, and that more faith makes more possible.

 

I offer the words of Jesus that faith is not a binary condition. And if faith can be weak or strong, it can be stronger, possibly strongest of all. And if there is a strongest of all faith, couldn't that be termed extreme?

When you read the entire biblical quote in context Jesus makes it clear clear that "little faith" is "faithless", and that "faith the size of a mustard seed" is "faith"... for with "faith the size of a mustard seed" nothing is impossible.

He is telling the apostles that they had no faith in their ability to cast out the demon, so therefor the demon was not cast out.

isn't that what he was doing by bringing up convictions of a belief?

Conviction was brought up as a variable used to define faith. That doesn't bestow "faith" with variability.

To try and explain my thought on this, I'll use another analogy since direct statement of thought may be fruitless due to varying biases in those discussing this.

A smoker can have believe that smoking will one day kill them. The fact that they continue smoking is not necessarily a measure of whether they believe... and the amount that they smoke aslo doesn't introduce a variability of belief., the amount they smoke is determined by other factors.

Strong conviction versus weak conviction. I really don't see what your issue with this is.

Weak conviction is not faith so variability in conviction is irrelevant in discussion of variability of faith, or doesn't logically flow between the two.

What is your conviction that the world will end tomorrow, versus your conviction that the sun will rise?

Your not speaking of faith.

Surely you're probability estimates of these things will differ. That's related directly to one's convictions.

Sure, but if they have weak conviction in the probability then they could not be described and having faith in it.

The question is still useful, because we've defined apples as a class of fruit. Yes, no two apples are technically the same, but if you couldn't generalize, conversing about objects abstractly would be very difficult.

I have no problem with speaking about things abstractly, but what we are talking baout here is answering "yes or no" to a question who's wording is not yet agreed on. As such a "Yes or No" is utterly pointless.

Let's say faith is defined by your probability estimate that god exists. Let's say you are devoutly religious, and you estimate is 99.999999% certain that God exists.

I'm obviously not being clear. I am asking for a quantifiable for Faith that is also faithful to the definition of faith. Once you define faith as a probability that God exists you have changed the definition of faith.

"Conviction" isn't it since as defined "Faith" is a descriptive for a level of conviction... like "milk" and "full" are not the same thing, but a quantity of milk and a capacity of a receptacle can be used to determine if the criteria of "full" is met.

If having faith is binary, as you seem to suggest, that means a person who is only 99% certain has no faith that god exists?

You can't be 99% certain in anything that is unprovable. To assign a percentage you have to accept that there is a quantifiable scale from which to draw a percentage... at which point you assume provability which denies faith.

It seems to me that you are restricting your scale.

No, I'm not, really. Faith is just a tricky thing when discussing religion.. especially among varying beliefs. In an unprovable context faith can only be binary. Loyalty can vary from person to person without budging the existence of their faith.

I'm not trying to answer for Phi here, but it seems to me that you can't really quantify faith in the you are demanding. However, I think my probability of god existing estimates is a good starting place.

Well, as I stated, I don't find that it does, as it is arbitrary as doesn't (and I assert it can't) define the commodity upon which a percentage can be logically derived.

More strawman. I specifically said, where everyone can see it, that your definition of faith talked about strong convictions.

You used the fact that the definition used the term "strong conviction" to show that faith has levels, didn't you? You argued:

"Now take the "strong conviction" part. Would you agree that some conviction can be stronger than others?"

Which is not arguing faith at all, but the variability of conviction. You can't immediately assume that conviction varies therefore faith varies. When you can provide even a loose quantifiable notion of faith then you can move forward.

Again, I specifically asked you, for the purpose of my second paragraph, to forget about answering anything about extremism and focus on whether faith, as defined by strong convictions, could have a range of strength.

"Strong Conviction" is a subjective term for which you have provided no relative qualification. So I can't agree or disagree with your question without first understand the term as you understand it anymore than my answer would be at all informative to you.

"Do you like apples, yes or no?" could be answered "Yes" but that would be meaningless unless we knew that we were both thinking aboout the same two fruit.

But to answer your question as I understand it, Faith is a thing that you have or you don't. How you go about living with or defending that faith is not a measure of faith but of other characteristics of the given person.

Rewriting the question is another form of strawman. I'm only asking if faith is quantifiable.

No more so than your current tack of ignoring the question all together.

I'll make it even simpler, jryan. Please answer just this one question, no equivocation, no rewrites, no strawmen. And I don't mean to treat you like a hostile witness on the stand in a courtroom, but you should be able to answer this with a "yes" or a "no". Do some some people have more faith than others?

You haven't establish the criteria for "more faith" and you want ME to define the criteria in order to answer the leading question. I'm not interested in playing that game.

Now is your turn to reciprocate by explaining how you would define "more faith" as opposed to "less faith" in a way that it is differentiated from other contributing characteristics.

Anyone else reading, feel free to answer as well.

You need to provide more for your own argument as you are not demonstrating faith in your definition of faith as a quantifiable thing.

Investors can always find investments. They don't produce a product where their business will suffer if the research turns out a particular way. If AGW were wrong, there would still be plenty of environmental issues to pursue.

Indeed, and as I have said before, I am an environmentalist, I just think that focusing so much effort on carbon dioxide is counterproductive to the environmental issues as a whole. I am also more moderate than, say, Greenpeace when it comes to actual environmentalism -- as an example, I disagree with the idea of "geographical extinction" that is so prevalent in environmentalism today. Too often it ends up overriding the natural process of selection in the environment in favor of an untenable status quo.

But that is for another thread.

In the case of The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, their investments directly affect their ability to carry out their philanthropic work as they are the source of the funds income (they simply channel investment profit into philanthropy to maintain the tax exempt status). So channeling money into AGW research has a direct return on investment, and a direct impact on their philanthropic endeavors.

In a way it could be argued that a philanthropic organization that invests solely in anti-AGW industry and spends money solely on anti-AGW programs is not in a conflict of interest since if AGW is shown to be false then the loss of money would not impact the philanthropy since the target of the philanthropic endeavors would also vanish in the ether.

But that isn't the case with RBF or Greenpeace of he Sierra club etc. etc. .. hence they have a vested interest in AGW being true as their investment helps fund all of their other projects.

In a way I should be heavily invested in AGW as well because I think that if this theory falls apart it will set back ALL environmentalism in the process.

...

this differs from a fertilized egg because the egg can be extracted and survive on its own? I'm not sure I follow this example

To the fertilized egg the womb IS the external environment because the egg does not share the genetic code of the surrounding organ. It is therefor a separate organism.

So if the dictionary definition isn't exactly the same, the two can't be equated?

 

This sounds like a bs semantic argument to me.

That is because the original question posted in a question of semantics.

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It seems like you're trying to refute my hypothesis by not listening to anybody who disagrees with you and not answering questions put to you. I never said the definition of faith you provided was a definition of extremism, so let's call that a strawman argument that isn't valid. You also keep going back to my original question without taking in anything that's been said since, so that's just sticking your fingers in your ears. Let's stop that and start fresh. If you still want to argue this paragraph, make sure it's kept separate from your response to this second paragraph.

No, your initial posed question was whether extremism is the default for faith. I have shown that extremism has no applicable "default" definition as it requires external evaluations before the term can even be applied, furthermore I showed that your definition of faith does not match up well with the actual definition of faith so on both grounds the answer to your postulate is "No" or "unknowable" depending on which definitions you choose to use.

Let's focus on defining faith, and leave extremism out of it for now.

How can we do that and discuss your question? I think the proper answer is that faith is extremism for you when compared to your beliefs if we first assume that your beliefs are the societal norm. But in reality the truth could just as easily be your beliefs are extremism depending of the society you live in. If you live in France then faith would be extremism (a society that is majority atheist), and in the US you would be the extremist (majority have faith).

[2nd paragraph] In the definition of faith you provided, it mentions strong convictions. Do you agree that some convictions can be stronger than others? And if faith is quantifiable (the how doesn't matter; if some people have more faith than others, then faith might be measurable in some way), doesn't that mean that more faith in God is better than less faith in God, from a religious perspective? Or do you think faith is binary, you either have it or you don't?

Well, no, there is a problem in your argument of faith in that convictions are also not faith, by that definition. Weak conviction is not faith.

But again, we can not escape "extremism" in your question as it is part and parcel to the question itself. Mybe you could argue that "Is strong conviction the default for Faith" to which I would answer "Yes". But strong conviction is also not extremism unless it's in a society with weak conviction.

Again, what person? I never said killing more people is better than killing one, I said that it is not a person because it is not an individual. Kind of like 2.0001 is not an even number because close as it may be to 2 it is not divisible by 2 and so does not fit the definition. An individual is no more, no less than 1, not something that may or may not be any positive number of individuals.

No, it IS and individual up until the rare point that it is not... at which point it is two or more. Isn't that the standard method of developing knowledge in science? We KNOW that that egg is an individual until it demonstrates itself to be otherwise. Is there any other situation you can think of where you determine something to be undefinable because the standard definition only has only has a 99.6% chance of being true?

I think you'll find that my cells, excluding skin and hair cells, are both living and human, just like a fertilized egg. If you think my cells don't meet the definition of life it is because you got the definition wrong. Feel free to drink a poison that presumably kills cells if you think that your cells aren't alive (so can't be killed). But tell me, what criterion do my cells not meet? They are self-contained, maintain homeostasis, metabolize, catabolize, reproduce, grow, respond to their environment. So how do you figure they are not alive?

No, none of your cells perform all functions necessary to be considered a life. They only appear to on a cursory glance and by dredefining the structure of an organism by defining the actual organism separate from it;s internal environment.

They are not seperable, however... cells and internal environment are part of a larger organism that biology organizes this way:

(taken from here)

There is a differentiation between organisms because at the basic level all cells in your body share the same genetic code while all facing the same external environment. In the case of the identical twins their differentiation is reversed... they share the same genetic code and exist in different external environments.

Please, stop inventing private definitions that no one else uses. Use actual definitions, or at least share your own.

I'm not using a private definition, I have linked you to the sources of my definition. You can feel free to post your hypothesis that a skin cell is a life in the biology forum and see what biologists say.

Indeed, and now you perhaps can see why I keep asking how many persons a fertilized egg is supposed to be. An individual is exactly 1, no more and no less. Is an egg exactly 1 person, or not? If not, then it by your definition cannot be a person, since it is not an individual. As for #6, that is not so much a definition as deferring to the legal system instead, and could be completely arbitrary (eg a corporation).

No, I don't see, because nowhere else can you show me that an act that will kill one person but MAY kill more than one is legal simply because we just don't know how many will be killed.

But, each of my cells also have the "nature" portion completed, and just need the "nurture" component. Yet I don't consider my cells to each be individual persons, whereas you seem to think they would.

The reason for this rests in the biological definition of Life. Your individual cells, once differentiated, no longer meet the definition of Life individually.

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I'd just like to point out that this is the reason that everyone was making a fuss about how many lives a fertilized egg (or more ambiguously, a blastula) represents. A person is not only a human, but also an individual. If the human is not individual, they are not a person. At the point of fertilization, the egg has the potential to grow into any indeterminate amount of human beings and cannot, therefore, by your own semantic argument, be a person.

No, we can be certain it is at least one person, so the potential for being more than one is inconsequential. The simple fact that that one celled human continues to remain and individual 99.6% of the time is also worth considering when you try to make the "not an individual" argument.

And beside that point, groups of people do not have less rights than an individual, so regardless of the minuscule potential of that individual becoming a pair of individuals, or even smaller chance three or four does not effect the rights that should be granted to the one that is known.

On that same topic: By the "don't know how many" argument provided, would those that ascribe to that argument then consider adult lives forfeit in the advent of cloning? With cloning now being possible every individual is potentially more than one person... so does that mean they aren't a person anymore as the term "individual" no longer applies?

I'm not sure what you mean by "soul," but if you're talking about a supernatural entity, then what does that have to do with anything? Would not a soul also be a product of what it is "to begin with," and the sum of its experiences?

Well, no, a "soul" would exist without a mortal bond, so the death of the body doesn't effect the existence of the soul. The fate of that soul differs from religion to religion from an after-life to reincarnation. As such, a religious belief in a soul would lesson the blow of a loss of a body.

Absent a soul, however, each unique person created is lost forever. For some reason that is supposed to make the waste of such persons more acceptable. Unfortunately, that rationale tends to be grossly dehumanizing in it's rationale to both the born and the unborn.

I suppose you could say that, if "nature portion" refers solely to a particular string of A's, G's, C's, and T's and not what that string will come to represent.

Biologically, "what that string will come to represent" is present at conception. The "nature" is fulfilled at that point. The rest of that person is developed over the ensuing years, and never ceases until death.

Begging the question. Pre-defines person as existing from conception (to death, but that's not pertinent). But in fact what anything is is determined by its nature and what happens to it, even inanimate objects. And further, events that occured long before my parents were born still have an effect on who I am.

I never said it didn't. Though everything after conception would be considered "nurture" as your genetic baseline if established at that point. Genetic damage or change through smoking or drinking are organ or tissue specific.. I don't know of anything that can change a persons genome as present in all of their cells... though genetic change in germline cells would be "inheritable" but not in the true definition of the word.

A genetic disorder introduced to sperm and eggs would be "passed" to an offspring, but the actual disorder would not be present in the parent per se... so it isn't a direct inheritance.

Really? How so? I don't accept your premises, but if I did, the logic would seem to conclude that it isn't a person, just one of the components of a person (while the other develops over time).

At what point do you start counting the nurture? Children can learn in-utero, and diet of the implanted egg and environmental conditions even at conception effect the development of the person. They are developing from conception to death, there is no end point to development. Drawing a line anywhere along that path of development is strictly arbitrary.

I disagree. The abortion debate is not based on the Merriam-Webster dictionary, and I don't consider it to be a moral, legal, or scientific authority.

Who would you have define the terms? And how do they define them?

Yes, you assert it.

Sure I do, and I find it to be self evident, but feel free to explain why you see it differently than me.

Rather a strawman. Pro-choicers are not pro-choice because of legal precedent. If we have to play this game (and we don't), then I guess definition 5 most closely represents the issue. But it does so poorly.

No, 5 is an aspect of what is lost in an abortion, but it is not a legal grounds for outlawing abortion.

Actually, you have that exactly backwards. That's precisely what pro-life advocates want: the government defining a specific point when a person begins. Pro-choice, by definition, puts the moral decision in individual hands. (Up to a point, obviously, but the difference is one of limited individual discretion vs. no individual discretion.)

That is an illogical assertion on your part as the pro-lifers want to draw the definition from conception, which encapsulates 100% of the life cycle. At no point do they promote death. They draw the line right at the bginning of life, which is not arbitrary.

The rest later.

How do these groups have a vested interest in the outcome of research?

In the Rockefeller Brothers Fund example they are not just a philanthropic organization but an actual investment firm to fund the philanthropic goals. As such they invest heavily in the same green technology that they endorse through their fund.

Also heavy hitters in the green promotion arena like Geroge Soros invest in green technology as well.

I am not saying that there is anything wrong with this, nor am I saying that the oil investments are wrong either. I am simply pointing out that when it comes to global warming it is hard to find anyone one either side that doesn't have skin in the game.

Doesn't morality have to have a rational transition into society through laws? Without going completely into the political spectrum, I've never understood how "life begins at conception" proponents expect this morality to be enforced. The police would have to investigate every miscarriage as a possible murder. The resulting litigation would reduce the personal freedom of pregnant women horribly. Slip and fall potentially becomes criminally negligent manslaughter.

 

I know this sounds like a slippery slope argument, but we are talking about the legal system and lawyers, after all. It's bound to come up.

Pro-choice is a relatively new law and before it there was not a murder investigation for every miscarriage. Unless there is reason to suspect foul play there isn't default murder investigation for adults who die either.

But that's entirely arbitrary as well; they are all potential people.

This is a statement based soley on your definition of people.

If you believe, for example, that there is no soul and that a "person" soley the product of nature and nurture then it is only logical to conclude that that fertilized egg has already has already completed the nature portion of it's person and begun it's nurture development... that second stage in person never stops from conception to death.

So by logical conclusion, at fertilization the zygote is a individual and unique person.

Also, to work on definiton of words, let's look at the definition of "person" (Merriam-Websters):

1 : human, individual —sometimes used in combination especially by those who prefer to avoid man in compounds applicable to both sexes <chairperson> <spokesperson>

2 : a character or part in or as if in a play : guise

3 a : one of the three modes of being in the Trinitarian Godhead as understood by Christians b : the unitary personality of Christ that unites the divine and human natures

4 a archaic : bodily appearance b : the body of a human being; also : the body and clothing <unlawful search of the person>

5 : the personality of a human being : self

6 : one (as a human being, a partnership, or a corporation) that is recognized by law as the subject of rights and duties

7 : reference of a segment of discourse to the speaker, to one spoken to, or to one spoken of as indicated by means of certain pronouns or in many languages by verb inflection

I have highlighted the two definitions that I believe play a part in the abortion debate.

In this case I assert that conception meets the criteria for #1, and #6 would be where a pro-choice person would hang their hat. #6 is troubling to me, and to other pro-life advocates, specifically because it puts the choice of who is and is not a person into the hands of the government. It is also a rather distressing definition to base a moral certitude on because it is precisely this kind of definition that allowed for slaves to be considered non-persons. If you have no rights then you are not a person... that's not a great way for a democracy to protect individual freedom.