New Posting to Old Thread

[Doug1066]

35 minutes ago, Nuclear Wessel said:

I think it would be interesting to see @Doug1066's thoughts on this, being that he has had an extensive career in forestry.

Most forests reseed within a year or two.  But now it's a seedling forest whereas it used to have much larger trees.

Doug

[Coil]

19 hours ago, Doug1066 said:

Actually, I have eaten eggs for breakfast nearly every morning of my life.  I was raised on a farm where we grew our own chickens, gathered and sold eggs.  How many of these eggs were fertile (and able to become embryos), I have no idea, but I'd bet there were quite a few.  So the original story stands:  Am I a bad person for eating an egg that could have become a chicken?

Well, you eat eggs, not embryos, and besides, raising poultry contributes to their mass reproduction, and for animals it is important
an increase in the population as they also evolve and become closer to humans. For this they and the pigs pay with their lives, but nature agrees to this.

 

Quote

I take it you oppose the death penalty.  I do too, but not for religious reasons.  We, the public, are supposed to be better than the people we are thinking of executing.  So how can we make ourselves better than them by becoming just like them?

Yes, that's right, if we killed the killers we would be on their level.
There are times when it is impossible to avoid murder, for example, in a war.

Quote

As far as plants are concerned, herbivory is total war.  Plants use every trick you ever thought of to protect themselves, especially poisons and thorns.

Nature has given all creatures the ability to survive: a man has a mind, a snake has poison, a roe has legs, etc. so that no one is deprived of the necessary abilities. Even zebras, eating grass, move from place to place so that the grass grows on the eaten place.

 

Quote

I'm an e-forester, so I likely see things differently than you.  You can cut a forest without destroying it.  Basically, that is accomplished by selectively cutting parts of it and allowing it to regrow.  By the time you cut the entire area, the first stands have regrown.

This is the correct approach, but under the guise of cutting dead wood, whole forests are cut down and transported to Europe.
Rarely will they go and cut down individual trees, since the collection of trees is rational when they are cut down in a continuous stream.

We had strong deforestation and the president signed a law to plant 1 billion trees but so far only 35.44 million trees have been planted(3,53%,)

Quote

 

How do you obtain the products we use every day without cutting trees?

Doug

 

Instead of wooden furniture, you can use metal. People have replaced wooden frames with metal-plastic windows, office chairs made of metal-plastic, and wooden houses are being replaced with brick, foam blocks, etc. So, if you wish, you can replace everything in the house with metal.
If forests are cut down, then you can oblige the same company to plant tree seedlings by signing a binding agreement and so on all over the planet.

[Hawken]

On 12/5/2021 at 9:08 PM, simplybill said:

The same arguments could be made about abortion itself:

We’re approaching 70,000,000 abortions since the Roe v. Wade decision. How many potentially brilliant scientists and medical researchers were aborted that may have discovered the cure for diabetes? A means of repairing damaged tissue? A cure for cancer? The question can’t be answered. But any of these would have saved thousands of lives.

I'm surprised democrats champion abortion. That could also be potential future democrat voters. Just like they hope by allowing illegal immigration.

[Grim Reaper 6]

On 12/7/2021 at 4:49 AM, Crazy Horse said:

And what about the rights, and the life, being taken away from the unborn child?

This isn't even about whether one is religious or not, its about being pro-life.

 

 If you honestly believe this is not about religious beliefs and about how those beliefs are being forced upon a Nation you need to drink a gallon of Coffee to help you wake up!!

[simplybill]

11 hours ago, Manwon Lender said:

 If you honestly believe this is not about religious beliefs and about how those beliefs are being forced upon a Nation you need to drink a gallon of Coffee to help you wake up!!

Manwon-

Even in the absence of religious beliefs, abortion is an un-natural behavior for all living creatures. What mother in the animal kingdom doesn’t ferociously defend her offspring? We ‘educated animals’ are actually teaching our children that infanticide is normal, and that our potential offspring are an inconvenience rather than something worthy of protection. That’s the attitude that we pro-lifers strive to change.

 

Edited December 8, 2021 by simplybill

[Grim Reaper 6]

1 minute ago, simplybill said:

Manwon-

Even in the absence of religious beliefs, abortion is an un-natural behavior for all living creatures. What mother in the animal kingdom doesn’t ferociously defend her offspring? We educated animals are actually teaching our children that infanticide is normal, and that our potential offspring are an inconvenience rather than something worthy of protection. That’s the attitude that we pro-lifers strive to change.

Well Bill there’s the real problem if the Religious beliefs were taken out of the equation there would not be a debate here, so it’s impossible to discuss this issue without speaking about Religion. It not a question of what animal in the animal kingdom, because there are many, it’s a question of what reason a women makes that discussion in the first, animals don’t think they only act on preprogrammed  instincts. The abortion issue from its very conception has been driven by religious beliefs, and you can’t honestly say your convictions on the subject are also not based upon your religious beliefs. 
 

Being pro-life is fine as long as those that are not members of your religious community are not forced to follow your belief system as expressed within the biblical scripture you believe in. In the United States people have freedom and unalienable rights, to take those rights away because of religious beliefs is wrong and it will stop nothing, it will only force American Citizens to leave their own county to do what they choose to, and it could cause safety issues for the mother.

Bill on this subject we will have to agree to disagree.

[Will Due]

 

[simplybill]

@Manwon Lender

I avoided using religious viewpoints, because that conversation always ends in a stalemate here on UM. The natural-vs.-un-natural viewpoint may be more palatable to those who prefer a scientific approach free of moral arguments.

From an evolutionary standpoint, the acceptance of abortion as normal behavior requires humans to defy millions of years of natural evolution that led to the formation of a gender that’s uniquely designed to love and nurture. The social behavior of the rest of the animal kingdom has never wavered from the evolutionary design. We educated animals, on the other hand, have asked the nurturing gender to behave un-naturally and ignore their natural instincts. 

[+Liquid Gardens]

3 hours ago, simplybill said:

We ‘educated animals’ are actually teaching our children that infanticide is normal, and that our potential offspring are an inconvenience rather than something worthy of protection. That’s the attitude that we pro-lifers strive to change.

That's quite an extreme perspective of your opponents, it's like my saying pro-lifers are teaching our girls and women that their primary purpose and value is as baby factories.  At least with that statement I have centuries of evidence from history to support the harm caused by this attitude towards the role of women as it has been, and unfortunately in some places still is, a very common attitude towards them for most of history.

I really don't think you want to make appeals to 'nature' and 'evolution', and definitely not 'natural instincts', you're being extremely selective here.  The primary thing that makes us human is our ability to override evolutionary impulses, and I assume you are aware of how nature and evolution many times deals with things like runts.  It's seen as good and moral in many cases that we behave 'unnaturally'.  

[aztek]

This is an idiotic title,  the religion does not harm, certain people practicing it their way does.it is not limited by religion.   How about harm done by science?  i bet  Mengele thought he was doing very important medical experiments in the name of science.  he believed few sacrifices are worth it, but then our gvmnt thinks the same way too, Mengele did not kill as many as Cuomo with his poorly though policies, difference is one did it with a scalpel, other with a pen.

what about our climate science that does nothing to prevent deforestation and pollution, who cares what papers they write, and what discoveries that make, for the last 100 years we destroying our planet and they are totally powerless to do anything about it. so what are they good for??

Edited December 8, 2021 by aztek

[aztek]

On 12/5/2021 at 10:08 PM, simplybill said:

The same arguments could be made about abortion itself:

We’re approaching 70,000,000 abortions since the Roe v. Wade decision. How many potentially brilliant scientists and medical researchers were aborted that may have discovered the cure for diabetes? A means of repairing damaged tissue? A cure for cancer? The question can’t be answered. But any of these would have saved thousands of lives.

pretty much 0.   medical science is being controlled by political and financial interests.   

Edited December 8, 2021 by aztek

[Doug1066]

20 hours ago, Coil said:

There are times when it is impossible to avoid murder, for example, in a war.

From what I have seen of wars, most of them are unnecessary and immoral.  How do you justify murdering children, even in a war?  By denying food to your enemy you starve his kids - armies take what they want by force.  So how does murdering children differ from abortion?

15 hours ago, Manwon Lender said:

 If you honestly believe this is not about religious beliefs and about how those beliefs are being forced upon a Nation you need to drink a gallon of Coffee to help you wake up!!

So what gives the religious right the right to dictate religion to the left?  Clean up your own act first:  oppose the death penalty and unnecessary wars which are major killers of children.  Then I'll believe you mean what you say.

20 hours ago, Coil said:

Well, you eat eggs, not embryos, and besides, raising poultry contributes to their mass reproduction, and for animals it is important
an increase in the population as they also evolve and become closer to humans. For this they and the pigs pay with their lives, but nature agrees to this.

A certain proportion of eggs have been fertilized and are, thus, embryos.

Have you ever seen how they kill chickens?  They hang the bird by its legs on a line that then carries the bird into the teeth of a circle saw, cutting its head off.  Brutality in the extreme.

20 hours ago, Coil said:

This is the correct approach, but under the guise of cutting dead wood, whole forests are cut down and transported to Europe.
Rarely will they go and cut down individual trees, since the collection of trees is rational when they are cut down in a continuous stream.

Dead trees are usually cracked and unusable for lumber.  Also, dead trees occur randomly in live forests.  It takes about 2000 board feet of wood for a sale to be commercial.  It is not economical to cut dead trees only.  When there is a disaster, like the blowdown on the Routt about 25 years ago, the entire area may be salvaged.  AND:  some trees, like Douglas-fir and yellow-poplar cannot grow in the shade.  Those stands must be clearcut and reestablished by seeding or planting.

20 hours ago, Coil said:

We had strong deforestation and the president signed a law to plant 1 billion trees but so far only 35.44 million trees have been planted(3,53%,)

Instead of wooden furniture, you can use metal. People have replaced wooden frames with metal-plastic windows, office chairs made of metal-plastic, and wooden houses are being replaced with brick, foam blocks, etc. So, if you wish, you can replace everything in the house with metal.
If forests are cut down, then you can oblige the same company to plant tree seedlings by signing a binding agreement and so on all over the planet.

That was George H. Bush.  Do you know how he got the money for his tree-planting project?  He defunded other tree planting projects and used the money for his own.  So the results are even more dismal than you say.

I take it you would rather replace forests with strip mines.

Natural seeding is by far the best way to reproduce a forest.  I published a paper last year in which I found that the 25 year survival for ponderosa pine was only 50%.  We soent about $6.00 per seedling to do the planting, so that meant a $12 per tree cost at 25 years.  Forcing companies to plant trees is expensive and unnecessary.  Weyerhauser, Potlatch, Crown-Z and some others have tree planting programs on their own lands.  There are a few companies that pay to plant trees on other people's lands.

The damage done by logging in the US is mostly on private lands where the owners do not enforce cutting standards.  Some states have stepped in and by law exempted certain trees from cutting.  But these laws were written by lawyers in a one-size-fits-nobody way.  Actual, effective forestry laws would be quite complex, but worth doing.

 

[simplybill]

7 hours ago, Liquid Gardens said:

The primary thing that makes us human is our ability to override evolutionary impulses…

That’s the point, and that’s where the secular and the religious part ways. Western society has placed the burden of abortion squarely on the shoulders of women, who are taught to believe that their evolutionary instincts are easily dismissed, and that their nurturing abilities can be suppressed, while men are free to continue without restraint in the evolutionary instincts they share with the rest of the animal kingdom: continue your bloodline with as many partners as possible. It’s another form of male-imposed subjugation over women, that women are expected to pay the price for men’s lack of restraint. 

[+Liquid Gardens]

7 minutes ago, simplybill said:

 while men are free to continue without restraint in the evolutionary instincts they share with the rest of the animal kingdom: continue your bloodline with as many partners as possible. It’s another form of male-imposed subjugation over women, that women are expected to pay the price for men’s lack of restraint. 

I don't disagree, but that is a fantastic argument for being pro-choice.  Not that we're really off-topic but to try and loop it back more closely to the OP, I don't understand what you mean by 'that's where the secular and religious part ways'.  Both the secular and religious emphasize what you quoted from me, overriding evolutionary impulses.

[simplybill]

50 minutes ago, Liquid Gardens said:

Their solutions for overriding evolutionary impulses differ. The nuclear family (man, woman, children) in a committed monogamous marriage is the ideal foundation for a healthy society. Restraint is an expected behavior in healthy religious practices.

Abortion offers an easy out for men who place no value on restraint. A trip to the abortion clinic eliminates their responsibility to a spouse and a family, and eliminates 18 years of child support. Women’s evolutionary instincts don’t prosper under a one-night-stand society like they do in a monogamous, nuclear family society. If you were to ask me to prove that assertion, I’d point to the neighborhoods where the practice of abortion-as-contraception is relatively high. The devaluing of human life has long-term negative effects.

[+joc]

So, you decided to bump a thread that has already been 'closed' by 're-opening' it?

Seriously?! 

Don't you have anything better to do?  Seriously?

[Grim Reaper 6]

12 hours ago, simplybill said:

@Manwon Lender

I avoided using religious viewpoints, because that conversation always ends in a stalemate here on UM. The natural-vs.-un-natural viewpoint may be more palatable to those who prefer a scientific approach free of moral arguments.

From an evolutionary standpoint, the acceptance of abortion as normal behavior requires humans to defy millions of years of natural evolution that led to the formation of a gender that’s uniquely designed to love and nurture. The social behavior of the rest of the animal kingdom has never wavered from the evolutionary design. We educated animals, on the other hand, have asked the nurturing gender to behave un-naturally and ignore their natural instincts. 

Bill as always even though we don’t agree I still respect your opinion. But it’s not an unnatural act for a women to consider and choose to have an abortion. There are many reasons for a women to choose to have an abortion, your comments above I quote:

“”We educated animals, on the other hand, have asked the nurturing gender to behave un-naturally and ignore their natural instincts.””

No one is forcing women to act in an un-natural way, and to call it an un-natural act is an insult to women worldwide.

This is just another form of religious control and that is the major issue with the Abortion situation. No religious organization or group of organizations has the right to try and bend an entire population to its beliefs. Most importantly though even if Abortion is again made illegal it will not stop Abortion from happening. It will still continue outside the US and in hidden clinics. 
 

 

[+Liquid Gardens]

49 minutes ago, simplybill said:

Abortion offers an easy out for men who place no value on restraint. A trip to the abortion clinic eliminates their responsibility to a spouse and a family, and eliminates 18 years of child support. Women’s evolutionary instincts don’t prosper under a one-night-stand society like they do in a monogamous, nuclear family society.

Another difference between secular and religious viewpoints it seems is that I don't pretend to know what is best for billions of women, the tiny subset I know are all pretty darned different.  I don't know if it was you but someone earlier made some comment about how many great achievements may have been lost because the person who might have cured cancer, great artists, etc, might have been aborted.  Leaving aside that we likely also lost some Charles Mansons also, how many women who might have gone on to cure cancer instead were unable to because of pressures to have a baby, as long as we're concerned about lost potentials?

And you are still kinda equivocating on 'evolutionary instincts'.  You think it's important I believe that women follow their 'evolutionary instincts', but only sometimes and only some of them, and men should follow probably even fewer of their evolutionary instincts.  So I don't know what point you are making by mentioning evolutionary instincts since that is often not a good thing.  And I'm not clear in your religious viewpoint how we account for the fact that women have different evolutionary instincts.

49 minutes ago, simplybill said:

The nuclear family (man, woman, children) in a committed monogamous marriage is the ideal foundation for a healthy society.

More than once I've seen studies, not sure how scientific they are, that show that children of lesbian couples have the best outcomes.  The only thing unhealthy about such couples are the hostile reactions of others, many which come from those in the nuclear family compositions you describe.

49 minutes ago, simplybill said:

If you were to ask me to prove that assertion, I’d point to the neighborhoods where the practice of abortion-as-contraception is relatively high. The devaluing of human life has long-term negative effects.

The devaluing of human life has always existed.  The only time I'm aware of that the US was dominated by a monogamous, usually religious, nuclear family coincided with, even best case historically, commonplace, constant, sometimes deadly, devaluing of the lives of minorities and gay people.  And for gay people, sorry, a lot of it came from or was reinforced by religion, which is a harm (ahhh, the sweet peace of definitely being on-topic again).  You don't have to go that much further back to add women to that mix, but the garbage they have to endure never really seems to cease.  And doug's criticism earlier apply here; it is not the devaluing of human life, it's if anything the devaluing of the unborn (to use the term loosely, it implies too much when it refers to a zygote).

Edited December 9, 2021 by Liquid Gardens

[simplybill]

@Liquid Gardens @Manwon Lender

Guys - I’ve enjoyed the conversation, but I think we’ve reached an impasse. My belief that abortion is the wrong solution to a preventable problem won’t change. I believe the reason abortion has become an accepted practice is because we men have failed in our responsibilities to women and children. 
Thanks for the conversation, and I’m going to bow out now. 

[Grim Reaper 6]

6 minutes ago, simplybill said:

@Liquid Gardens @Manwon Lender

Guys - I’ve enjoyed the conversation, but I think we’ve reached an impasse. My belief that abortion is the wrong solution to a preventable problem won’t change. I believe the reason abortion has become an accepted practice is because we men have failed in our responsibilities to women and children. 
Thanks for the conversation, and I’m going to bow out now. 

Thanks Bill and I think you right doing this, because this is certainly an issue most of us will never agree on. But in closing I will say, I don’t agree that men have failed in our responsibilities to women and children. However, I do agree that in some cases that is certainly possible, for instance if a women becomes pregnant and the man responsible abandons her. But statistically I don’t know how often that is the case, however when that occurs I certainly do not support any man who would do 5hzt.

In closing I believe that in all cases women should have the choice to make the decision how to proceed and I strongly disagree that any religious organization should ever have a voice in this issue.

Take care Bill

[Coil]

On 12/8/2021 at 7:23 PM, Doug1066 said:

From what I have seen of wars, most of them are unnecessary and immoral.  How do you justify murdering children, even in a war?  By denying food to your enemy you starve his kids - armies take what they want by force.  So how does murdering children differ from abortion?

 

 

I meant enemies in war, not children.

Quote

 

A certain proportion of eggs have been fertilized and are, thus, embryos.

Have you ever seen how they kill chickens?  They hang the bird by its legs on a line that then carries the bird into the teeth of a circle saw, cutting its head off.  Brutality in the extreme.

 

Fertilization is not yet a growing embryo, you need a temperature in order for the embryos to grow, you know this.

So far, we cannot do without eating domestic animals as long as we remain biological beings. When we go into an energetic state, then no one will eat each other. There will be a state as it was in the original paradise where everyone lives in bliss and harmony with nature.

[Doug1066]

3 hours ago, Coil said:

I meant enemies in war, not children.

Wars kill children.  If you meant war, you meant killing children.

3 hours ago, Coil said:

Fertilization is not yet a growing embryo, you need a temperature in order for the embryos to grow, you know this.

A fertilized egg can survive a temperature range of 98.5 to 99.5 F.  It can survive outside this range for a few hours.  And once fertilized, it is an embryo.

And because of the large number of eggs most people consume and the fact that some eggs go through the candling process and are labelled incorrectly, the odds are that you have eaten a number of embryos.

3 hours ago, Coil said:

So far, we cannot do without eating domestic animals as long as we remain biological beings.

Here in America, we eat a lot more meat than we evolved to.  That surplus meat is a luxury, not a necessity.

Doug

[Doug1066]

22 hours ago, joc said:

So, you decided to bump a thread that has already been 'closed' by 're-opening' it?

Seriously?! 

Don't you have anything better to do?  Seriously?

It was my thread.

Doug

[Doug1066]

20 hours ago, Manwon Lender said:

Thanks Bill and I think you right doing this, because this is certainly an issue most of us will never agree on. But in closing I will say, I don’t agree that men have failed in our responsibilities to women and children. However, I do agree that in some cases that is certainly possible, for instance if a women becomes pregnant and the man responsible abandons her. But statistically I don’t know how often that is the case, however when that occurs I certainly do not support any man who would do 5hzt.

In closing I believe that in all cases women should have the choice to make the decision how to proceed and I strongly disagree that any religious organization should ever have a voice in this issue.

Take care Bill

I think ML is right.  We're never going to resolve the abortion issue on this thread.  Which is exactly my point.  This religious idea has so thoroughly taken over thinking of the radical right that they can't see any other options.  And the arbitrary defining of stem cells as fully human denies the benefits of science to all of us.

Doug

[Doug1066]

If there were a god, we would expect to find that:

1.  Evolution is false.  That is to say, our scientific understanding of the diversity of life would have to be irrefutably demolished.  The problem is not science vs. religion.  Those who say that science and personal faith are compatible have not come to terms with a few facts:  A.  We are an accident, an infinitesimal whimper in a four billion year chain of events.  When compressed into a single year, man emerges in the final 15 minutes.  If we are truly God's chosen, why did he spend so much time on "unsouled" microbes?

2.  God would appear to me or make its presence known to me.  Jesus made a lot of post-mortem appearances.  A god concerned about our affairs could appear to every one of us, leaving no doubt as to the truth.

3.  We were not made out of "star stuff."  If the human race were composed of material utterly foreign to the cosmos.  Such a radical discontinuity would argue that there was a god.  But, alas, we are the same as everything else.

4.  If a natural disaster were stopped in its tracks.  Something like the Boxer Day Tsunami.  A hurricaqne that mysteriously changed direction or an approaching asteroid that veered away at the last instant, might be evidence of god, if they happened.

5.  If the eficacy of prqayer could be demonstrated.  To date, there have been several well-controlled double-blind studies of this.  So far, the null hypothesis has been confirmed in every case (American Heart Journal, April 2006).

6.  If we were to observe a mdeical miracle:  qualifying miracles include regrowing an amputed limb or some other thing outside our genetic capacity.

7.  If miracles like those in the Bible occurred during the era of video cameras.  Or is god really dead?

8.  If we found two cultures that independently received asn identical revelation. 

9.  If divine messages were embedded in our physical laws.  An example:  the unending chain of numbers in the constsant pi might code for a Hindu or Buddhist script.  Suppose the pattern exactly match the one on our oldest biblical scripts.

10.  If there were not 10,000+ genetic disorders.  The wrong DNA in the wrong place can prove fatal to the unlucky individual who possesses it.  That's 411 babies every day that the all-powerful god choses not to rescue.  

11.  If the infant mortality rate dropped faster than could be explained by scientific advances.  Were the rate of improvement to experience a sudden sharp drop, this would be evidence for god.

12.  If people of one religion experinced notably less suffering than others.  Before you finish reading this, several dozen children will die in misery and hunger while the "saved" in America pray for parking spots.

13.  Consider the record of extinctions:  peraps as many as four trillion species have gone extinct.  We humans have come close several times.  At our low-point we were several thousand casualties away from joining that four trillion species.

14.  If the Bible were free of error and internally consistent.  This has been addressed on UM many times before, so I will not repeat it here.

15.  If the Bible or other Holyu test contained prescient moral and scientific truths.  We would expect the Bible to exhibit an ethical blueprint that ranscends cultural evolution.

16.  If biblical texts were purelu preserved.  We have not one original copy of any part of the Bible (I'll plead asn exception for the 104th Psalm).  If this book comes from God, why didn't he take better care of it?

17.  If Christianity were not so divided and had not repeatedly found itself on the wrong side of history while citing divine revelation.

18,  Would God need us to tell him how to reach us?

The foregoing is really irrelevant.  An all-knowing God would know exactly what it would take to convince each of us.

Doug