Simon Paynton

Unseen wrote:
Introducing facts and rationality into an emotional issue

To pro-life people, it’s a “fact” that the foetus is a human being.  To pro-choice people, more accurately in my opinion, it’s a proto-human being, not yet a human being.  However, it has rights under the law, not to be killed in an assault.  It’s one big grey area, and th…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
You use facts to justify your position but no fact will prove your position.

What do you mean by “prove”?  The fact is, in some matters, there’s an ethical dilemma.  Each side has a good case.  But what the anti-abortion people are not stating, is that it’s also a patriarchal attempt to control women’s bodies and reproduction.  Is…[Read more]

I’m actually pro-choice.

All these attitudes are fact-driven.  It’s how people interpret the facts – what value they place on various facts – that makes the difference.

Davis wrote:
Yes Simon and if you drop an acorn into a fire it “dies”. So what. Was the acorn “alive”?

If an acorn is separated from a tree, it is in a dormant state.  If you drop it into a fire, it goes from dormant to dead.

When the foetus is pulled out, it dies.

I think if we can’t resolve – i.e., agree about – ethical arguments, it’s because each side has different values.  If they had the same values, there would be no disagreement.

It’s not that the facts are irrelevant – it’s that they’re interpreted differently.  Everyone knows that a foetus is alive, and is a tiny human.  It’s just that “pro-life” people place very little importance on the life of the mother, while “pro-choice” people place comparatively little importance on the life of the foetus.

Interpretations are u…[Read more]

I’ve heard it said that people with heavily fractured childhoods become swingers as adults.  I’m not sure why this is.  There’s something intimate and distant about it at the same time, as if people are interchangeable.

I’m very particular about who I go with: that person has to be “safe” with good morals, as a number 1 requirement.

As it is, I…[Read more]

I think that to say that human beings only need the basics is to deny our spiritual needs, asking questions such as “where do I come from?”, “where am I going?”, “what is my purpose?”  etc.

jakelafort wrote:
Simon how is it a legitimate question when it assumes a fact not in evidence.

Wacky, unconventional or idiosyncratic are not the stuff of sustenance of the masses.

Religion appears to sustain some people, and royally fuck with the heads of others.

“Man cannot live by bread alone”, and it’s true, we need more than just the…[Read more]

I think it’s a valid question.  I just came across this meme:  “Doomer”.  Who hasn’t been like this, or knows someone like this?

We all need things to sustain us.  What sustains me is researching about morality for my book, hoping it will get published, friends, family, getting high on weed and listening to questionable music, etc.  It’s not…[Read more]

Yes, but what sustains you, as an alternative to religion?

Does religion lead people off the track?  It does for some and not others.  Why, and in what ways?

There are huge logical holes in, for example, Christianity.  Jesus died for our sins, which means that all our sins can be forgiven by God, except that God doesn’t forgive all sins.  Oh yeah, it only works if you accept Jesus.  If you don’t, you…[Read more]

There’s that song, Hope cos’ I’ve learned to cope.

Yes, but “God” can be a way of getting there, like the Buddhists’ finger pointing at the moon.

I take Johan seriously in his assertion to have been “born again in God”, for all its florid celestial poetical abundance.  I think it can be summed up in the Trainspotting catch-phrase:  “choose life”.  This can be applicable to all of us.

@johanabrahams, what does it mean to be born again?  How does it affect your life?