Vladd is right:
Vladd44 wrote:For there to be absolutes, you would need to have a uniform set of instruction code hardwired into every individual.
A uniform set of instructions is not possible, since brain wiring depends upon genetics and epigenetic cell-cell interactions during embryogenesis. It is therefore variable. No amount of declaiming otherwise, even "supported" by biblical faith in God's commandments, will eliminate the genetic variability that God has built into humans.
As for the realism of condom use
vs abstinence and the continued spread of STDs, there are facts that we must acknowledge. In my city, there has been an effort to find out how many 7th and 8th graders are having sex, by means of a simple, anonymous questionnaire. Parents refused to allow it. They would rather not know--which means they cannot help their children. The kids are having sex, but parents don't want to know how many, and they don't want to know how to talk to the kids knowledgeably. They'd rather pretend that their message of "abstinence" is working.
Has abstinence-only education really prevented the increase in AIDs in Africa? The data actually indicate otherwise. Indeed, it is believed among many Africans that sex with a virgin is the cure for AIDS--just as Victorian Englanders believed that sex with a virgin was the cure for syphylis. The fact that Bush has removed from the CDC website the information about the effectiveness of condoms does not make abstinence more effective. It makes more people become infected.
Al, you may not care about the folks in the inner cities, but they are forced by our society to live in conditions that are not yours. Many are deeply religious, but the fact remains that, in the absence of viable economic alternatives, sex is one of the few "payments" that can be used. Do any of us like this? Do the women involved like it? No. But, whether we like it or not, it's how the world works.
In these conditions, parents are often abusive. Families are rarely stable. Indeed, friends of mine have noted that they have to have kids before their "man" will marry them--you know, to see if they are good mothers. This is a very different culture than the one we would like to see. We all would prefer that abstinence be the norm prior to marriage, that everyone get married and form a stable family, but this is not the reality of the world.
I agree with both Al and micatala that using abortion as a means of birth control is abhorrent. We should work to make sure that abortions are not needed. But, we cannot do this simply by jumping up and down and saying that abstinence is the only way. Maybe it's the best way, in an ideal world. Unfortunately, our world is not ideal.
It may be, micatala, that you are right that restricting abortion will not lead to back-alley, unsafe and illegal abortions. But the data suggest otherwise. When abortion has been illegal, women have attempted self-induced or other forms of abortion, frequently resulting in their own death as well as that of the fetus. I can think of no reason that desperate women will not resort to this approach if we take away the alternatives.
AlAyeti wrote:"Children are actually given more bibles than condoms, in my experience. They are equally free to throw both of them away. The condom, however, has been proven to prevent transmission of AIDS."
That's either a grossly disingenuous, an educationally ignorant statement, or has far more culpability in it. But it also shows your true self. There should be no way to find insult in someone telling you what you really are. Especially when you agree with their assessment.
..There is something ulterior to that statement. It is framed in insulting undertones.
It shows my true self? I guess so--I've observed what goes on here at my school. We are often flooded with Christians giving out bibles. Only once have I seen anyone giving out condoms--and that was a student AIDS-awareness group giving condoms to other students.
I wonder why it is an insulting statement, or "ulterior," or educationally ignorant. It is merely a report of what I have observed. As noted above, we don't necessarily like the way the world is, but it is the world we have, and we would do well to look at it accurately.
AlAyeti wrote:But it is interesting that an educator or educated person would feel anyone is "free" to indulge themselves at the dire consequences posed to the innocent and moral numbers of innocent people that make better choices.
I don't think I follow you here. Who is stating that anyone is free to indulge themselves regardless of the consequences? Not I. I advocate educating people so that they know what the consequences are, and so that they know what the alternatives are. I also realize that there is no way that I can force people to do what I say when they are behind closed doors. As I have said before, education is the key. I will offer a direct quote from a high school student: "I don't know why I'm pregnant! I never let him kiss me." This was abstinence, all right, but in the absence of knowledge about what causes pregnancy or how to avoid pregnancy.
AlAyeti wrote:But the somehow educated elites seem to redefine even marriage. Chaos must take its proper role in bringing health to society through the inevitable cleansing process. And the clean will take back center stage.
Do I read this correctly, that you advocate a "cleansing" process? Is it your ideal that educated people be wiped out through some chaotic process, so that the Religiously Pure can inherit the earth? I find this really scary.
It is especially scary since the Scientific Facts indicate that environmental degradation will wipe us out more surely than the definition of marriage, or the self-proclamation of "cleanliness." As Jared Diamond says, societies collapse as a consequence of various environmental factors
when their response to environmental change is to ignore it. If we are so focused on gay marriage and abortion that we fail to do anything about our despoiling of the environment that we require to survive, then we will be in real trouble.
The Babtist Church (getting back to the topic of the thread here) claims to care about our future. Yet, they kick out Democrats because their party believes in environmental awareness. As you would have it, Al, they would kick out scientists, teachers, professors, and anyone else who would not only vote Democratic, but also report the Facts accurately. Perhaps, if God really is going to rapture away the few True Believers within the next couple of decades, then those few need not worry about the looming energy crisis--which will hit us soon since demand for oil has overtaken the ability to increase the supply, and the Bushies have done nothing to help conservation or alternative energy sources. But if these True Believers are wrong, and there is no rapture, then they will be among the sufferers.
There are only two options if this is the case (as I believe it to be). One is to wake up and listen to the so-called educated elite, and try to learn very quickly about the ecological and biological interactions in the world, complete with an understanding of geology and the evolutionary underpinnings of Life on Earth, and
why there is no more oil, and
why the so-called hydrogen economy and corn-based ethanol fuels simply cannot work.
The other is to go forward blindly into the "cleansing" of which you speak. It won't be a Godly cleansing, but a riotous breakdown of societal structure. It will be difficult when the price of oil exceeds the budgets of transportation companies, and we can't truck food to New York, or--as has happened already this year in our town--the ambulances, fire departments, and trash-removal services can't buy gas because their budgets have been spent. People will get mad.
So, again, I wonder why it is so important to squabble over these minor philosophical issues, like "the definition of marriage," and pretending that teaching the facts is "unchecked licentious hedonism," when there are Real Problems looming on the horizon. Excluding Democrats from the church demonstrates a serious lack of understanding of what's happening in the world. But then, people always like to shoot the messenger, rather than listen to the message.
