The meaning of life and other ill sh!t

[Prozac]

4 hours ago, lloyd christmas said:

The level of intellectual dishonesty shown by the pro-abortion crowd is astounding.  It’s the most frustrating part of the whole argument.  You all know damn well that life begins at conception.  After conception, life is just a series of periods of growth and development followed by decline and death.  It’s a simple circle of life.  You just won’t say you understand that out loud.  Instead, you all come up with endless endless endless arguments about why you are for abortion as a distraction from the truth.  Just admit that you’re pro-self and that a baby will interrupt your life, finances, work, goals, etc.  I’d have a whole lot more respect for you and your argument if you were just truthful about your reasoning.  

The inability to understand that not everybody thinks the same way you do is a real problem in this country.  You are absolutely entitled to your opinion and I respect your position even if I disagree.  But that's the thing.  There are hundreds of millions of Americans who disagree with you and saying that we "all know damn well" when life begins is presumptuous at best and dangerous at worst.  Americans come from wildly varied backgrounds and have equally varied life experiences.  I don't presume to know what's going on in your head because I haven't experienced your life.  Please don't presume to know what the rest of us think or believe.  

[lloyd christmas]

3 hours ago, Demonrat said:

The most sick, twisted, and evil thing in the world are conservative Christians looking to force their hypocritical ideology into the fabric of American government.

You need to get out more.

2 hours ago, hockeydork said:

Sure, I 100 percent don't want a kid right now. But do you want a pro-self/unable person raising a kid they don't want, or are unable to properly provide for? 

I’d rather see that child put up for adoption, raised by extended family or see the parents make the necessary sacrifices to raise the child.  I would also like to see the adoption process in this country made to work more in the favor of families that are looking to adopt.   It’s too expensive and too complicated for many couples to adopt.

“I ended up sticking needles in my arm behind the 7/11”

Hyperbole 

My mom miscarried before me BTW, so the other one died and I lived, we have a magnolia tree planted in the yard for him/her. Fair? No, but neither is life. 

I am truly sorry to hear that.  Miscarriages are incredibly hard on families.

Actually, every time you make a parent raise a kid they aren't ready for, you're killing the other kid who they would have had later in life and been able to provide for of his or her life. Kids generally don't do so hot when they aren't loved.

Seriously?  Every single time?

Your turn. Just admit you're either really upset/disturbed by the idea of an innocent mini human being ended (me too, this world is as ugly as it is beautiful) and you cannot emotionally process that sight even if it is for the greater good, or your following some cult like religious guidance. 

An innocent mini human being ended?  Interesting choice of words.  And accurate.  

I honestly don’t think killing our children is “for the greater good”   

We are all products of our life’s experiences.  

My personal views are shaped by a few things.  I did get my daughter’s mom pregnant when we were dating.  She considered getting an abortion.  I was living through the worst part of my life when that happened.  Raising her was really hard in the beginning and it took a lot of sacrifices.  We got through it.  She’s 23 and is the light of my life.

I dated a girl once who had an abortion before she met me.  She was emotionally ruined by the experience.  She regretted that decision to her core.  

My buddy and his wife had their daughter at 24 weeks.  His wife had preeclampsia.  Their daughter turns 7 this weekend.  She’s a happy and healthy child.  The medical community is making incredible progress towards helping women with medical issues while they are pregnant.   

There are answers to problems we encounter in life whether they are self induced or not.  I don’t believe killing our children is the answer.  

Edited May 7, 2022 by lloyd christmas

[lloyd christmas]

2 minutes ago, Prozac said:

The inability to understand that not everybody thinks the same way you do is a real problem in this country.  You are absolutely entitled to your opinion and I respect your position even if I disagree.  But that's the thing.  There are hundreds of millions of Americans who disagree with you and saying that we "all know damn well" when life begins is presumptuous at best and dangerous at worst.  Americans come from wildly varied backgrounds and have equally varied life experiences.  I don't presume to know what's going on in your head because I haven't experienced your life.  Please don't presume to know what the rest of us think or believe.  

When does life begin?

[Guardian]

When the sperm hits the egg and starts to duplicate.

[Lord Ratner]

7 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

It's almost like the country is divided on the topic and localizing the issue allows for a more flexible and tailored solution.

[Lord Ratner]

3 hours ago, pawnman said:

They support abortion, but not without any limits.

And in fact when you put extreme limits on it, as done in Texas, the outrage fizzles pretty fast.

[Hunter Rose]

4 hours ago, Hunter Rose said:

Nah, I just had to eat lunch and trying to disengage from an internet argument on abortion where neither one of us will convince the others.

I don't see the abortion issue as black and white like you do. I do't think abortion is murder as you do.

For the equivalency you've drawn between a person on life support and a zygote, not sure what point exactly you're asking? Absent a living will, the law allows the spouse/next of kin to take the person off life support and "destroy" or "murder" them as you put it. I don't have an issue with it. If I were a vegetable for 9 months I'd prefer someone take me off life support.

For the rest of that post, I found it laughable you tried to dismiss my arguments as illogical and completely emotional at the end, while in the same post arguing "How would I feel if my rape victim mother aborted me?" and "But think of the Elon Musks and Einsteins we might have missed out on because they were aborted."  

Both were silly and nonsensical to me. The first, I could care less if my hypothetical rape victim mother aborted me, because I would have never been conscious or self aware to care about it. The second point about Elon Musk and Einstein I also felt silly. Who knows, and who cares? The flip side of that argument was maybe some of those abortions were the next Hitler, Stalin, Mao, other random criminal, murderer? Maybe the next Madeline Albright, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, or Madame Curie was prevented from acheiving their full potential because they were forced to have a baby as a teenager and drop out of school to care for it? Both seemed like emotional "think of the children" arguments to me that I usually see in the gun ban debates.

Ultimately, we disagree.  From what I can tell, you see the issue as completely black and white. Abortion = murder. All pregnancies must be carried to term regardless of the consequences (rape/incest/threat to the health of the murder). 

My personal views on abortion are that I think it's an extraordinary complicated issue. I think it's an extremely difficult and extremely personal decision. I usually think extremely difficult, complicated, and personal decisions are best left to the individual to make, not for the government to mandate. I think in the early stages of the pregnancy where it's a zygote that is not conscious or self aware the the mother should be able to choose to terminate the pregnancy (especially in case of rape/incest/health threat to the mother/ extreme genetic deformity, etc.), and her decision to get an abortion would not be murder to me.  I oppose late term abortions, and think we as a society were probably pretty close with the best policy for all being abortions are legal until around the 8-12 week period.

 

 

So Guardian, I'll take your silence on the topic  to mean you have no other comments or issues with anything else I said in the above post.

Edited May 7, 2022 by Hunter Rose

[Guardian]

So the person unconscious and on life-support still has brain activity and can live. Just like the fetus. I think you might have missed my point.

So you’re saying your life is worthless?

And if you would not have lived it would’ve been no big deal? You’re right it is an emotional argument that I’m making but I’m trying to make it personal to you instead of ambiguous towards just anyone.

Not sure I understand your gun ban debate. Apples and oranges.

You’re right. We disagree. I see the overwhelming majority of cases as black and white. As for those that aren’t, then that should be discussed. And why in the last 20-30 years has the abortion discussion moved from safe, legal, and rare moved to it should be allowed at any convenience. Convenience is a large majority of what abortions are today.

You’re right. It is complicated as well. Have you looked into planned parenthood’s origins and it’s dealings in racism and eugenics which aren’t altogether gone today?

[LimaLowdown]

I just gotta say, if you are applying to squadrons and you are online debating abortions in the same place you ask for advice and give away a lot of personal information, that's probably a losing tactic...

[BFM this]

Possibly one of the most compelling, but more importantly balanced treatments on the subject that I've ever come across.

 

 

[Prosuper]

Have two kids in their 20's now, we lost another two to miscarriage, when we were dating, we had a surprise, she told me and told her not to worry. I had already made up my mind that she was the one before that happened. When I deployed later, she aborted it, don't feel right calling it an it. She told me that she didn't want it to be the reason I married her. What I felt the most was guilt, my actions of carnal lust caused her to be put her into a position to make such a choice. Later in life I watched this news story about a little boy who fell through ice, they got him out but was declared dead. But later he later he showed life and fully recovered. He was talking to his parents about when he was dead he met his grandfather who died before he was born, he also talked about his sister who died in miscarriage before he was conceived. She told him her name and her soul will grow with age as if she was born and matured. His parents never told him before the accident about her so he had no knowledge before. That would make a believer out of me but it gave me hope, maybe when it's my time the first one plus the other two miscarriages will be there and I can beg for forgiveness for being selfish in my actions. 

I judge this whole argument on my feelings as one affected by it, just like suicide it is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. When women do this don't tell me it doesn't effect them mentally unless they are total sociopath . I believe most fathers are not even told. Everyone is different but I can't get around the guilt I feel, I wonder what have could have been good or bad.

 

Edited May 9, 2022 by Prosuper
content

[Lord Ratner]

1 hour ago, BFM this said:

Possibly one of the most compelling, but more importantly balanced treatments on the subject that I've ever come across.

 

 

Love her podcast. Their "Friday special" covered the ruling, and they were very fair about the realities of the division and the point of having States decide.

[ClearedHot]

[Guardian]

Looks like unfertilized eggs. Could be wrong though.

[TreeA10]

4 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

Bullshit.  Unless you are a ornithologist, how would you know???

[FLEA]

41 minutes ago, TreeA10 said:

Bullshit.  Unless you are a ornithologist, how would you know???

Makes me think of this.... Ever been to the Philippines.... 🤮

 

[DirkDiggler]

[busdriver]

5 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

picture of runny eggs

Gross.  Scrambled or omelet.....    or wait until you can batter and fry them.

[Lawman]

Makes me think of this.... Ever been to the Philippines....
 

First damn question in every Phil military interaction…

“Have you had the Balut yet!?!”


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Pooter]

Guys I think I figured it out. Here's how you get consensus on the abortion issue. 

Conservatives ask yourself two questions:

Q1: who predominantly is getting abortions?

Answer: liberals

Q2: what political affiliation would that baby  likely have grown up to be?

Answer: liberal

So basically just pitch abortion as a super early stage voter suppression scheme. #abortthelibs

 

 

[Guardian]

I’d rather have the extra liberal voters than them not be here.

Even if it meant we would have less percentage of republicans.

[dream big]

9 hours ago, Pooter said:

Guys I think I figured it out. Here's how you get consensus on the abortion issue. 

Conservatives ask yourself two questions:

Q1: who predominantly is getting abortions?

Answer: liberals

Q2: what political affiliation would that baby  likely have grown up to be?

Answer: liberal

So basically just pitch abortion as a super early stage voter suppression scheme. #abortthelibs

 

 

You joke, but let’s not forget that planned parenthood initially started out as a means to keep the birth rate of African American babies low (utterly inhumane).  China and India both use abortion to limit female offsprings for various reasons (India culturally due to dowry burdens). 

[busdriver]

It's probably worth bringing up here, even if I think I've mentioned it elsewhere.  Jonathan Haidt (and his colleagues at U of VA) wrote a series of papers starting in 2004 (one of them) that explore the psychological underpinnings of liberal and conservative thought processes.  Follow on work added libertarian studies (one example).  He also wrote a handful of really good books. Also a TED talk (link)

The gist of Haidt's work/story is that he is/was a liberal that didn't think the prevailing Liberal idea that something was wrong with Conservatives rang true.  So he looked into it from a psychology perspective, building on his PhD research.  His basic starting premise is that people have an intuition (emotion) base of decision making rather than rational.  The rational part evolved later, and barring outside inputs (from peers as an example) our rationality mainly functions to rationalize our intuition.  Which he calls the elephant and the rider.  

So mapping what concerns drive liberals/conservatives/libertarians onto that model, it makes a lot of sense why political factions just don't understand one another.  It also makes it pretty clear why each "sect" has massive blind spots in various directions.

For the short Liberal vs Conservative look at page 8 of the first link I dropped.  Figure 1 in the second link is probably the best libertarian comparison to add to the mix.  

 

[Prozac]

On 5/8/2022 at 4:09 AM, lloyd christmas said:

We are all products of our life’s experiences.

Thanks for sharing yours. Honestly. I’m glad that the path you chose worked out for you and your family. The part of your post that I quoted is important and absolutely correct. There are a great many people who have had vastly different life experiences and for myriad reasons, might’ve found your approach unworkable. I respect your position. On a personal level, believe it or not, I agree with you. But I’ve met and spoken with enough people who do not agree that I don’t believe abortion is an option that we should flatly deny to people. Obviously, the fact I take that position means we disagree on the fundamental question of when a fertilized egg becomes a human being. I don’t expect you to be swayed on that one, but know that there really are millions of Americans who don’t see it like you. 

[Swizzle]

19 hours ago, TreeA10 said:

Bullshit.  Unless you are a ornithologist, how would you know???

The Ornithologist would in-turn say...I'm not an Oologist! Who they may in-turn say they're not a Chef!

 

 

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/oology

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oology

 

Edited May 10, 2022 by Swizzle
Bam