We should probably try to stay "closer to home" as far as the topic is concerned. There's always the opportunity to start new threads.... Some of your questions about social pressure are interesting, Pinski.

EH - Redefining every word that is a puzzle to us doesn't ever resolve anything. If someone throws acid in my face and scars and blinds me for life, you can call that act "evil," "illness" or "potatoes," but changing the name will change neither the act nor its consequences.
AP - I believe it will change.
For usually,
people change words
when they want to change meaning.
Think about it.
When you hear, "Evil" you feel fear
(without going too deep),
when you hear, "Illness",
you feel compassion.

EH - There are many dictionary definitions for evil, but the one that most fits my personal viewpoint is: "That which is destructive, corruptive or fallible, whether from natural circumstances, or by human ignorance, error, or design."
AP - But what are those reasons
which provoke, "destructive, corruptive or fallible, whether from natural circumstances, or by human ignorance, error, or design"?
Do you think
that somehow
they may be connected
to that Negative Germ
which causes Human Illness
which expresses itself
in destructive to Self
and people around Illness?

EH - As a general rule, "illness" is taken to mean sickness of either body or mind.
AP - Exactly. See, I have not said anything new. So, lets try to not forget that "general rue". To me, it makes perfect sense.

EH - Now, in my view this definition does not cover the "fallible" definition of "evil," although illness is often an evil by my definition. BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY, "illness" is not a matter of design.
AP - How about,
"Illness" is a scientific name for "Evil"?
Thus, we can turn Evil
from a Scary, Disgusting Monster
to a Sick, Starving for cure Patient,
from Hate to Love.

EH - For you to claim that everything evil is an illness thus excuses deliberate evil.
AP - But don't you think
that those "excuses",
are a demonstration of Illness themselves
right from the very moment
when they were attempted to play any role in Objective Reality of Life?
Manipulation is illness
and this sick desire to manipulate
comes directly from Untamed Ego.

EH -We should never punish the rapist, the gangster making millions selling drugs to children, the thief who steals an old woman's purse. No, they are not evil, they are ill, and we should send them to a nice hospital where we can cure them of their illness.

AP - Yes, you are absolutely right.
We "should", you say,
I will say, "We must not punish,
we have to stop exercising even an Idea of Punishment.
It is good time
for some of us
to start withdrawal of this adapted by human ignorance idea of "punishment".
Good time, indeed, to start.
Yes, put them in the nicest hospitals possible,
show them that we do care for them,
that they are here not to be punished,
but to be cured
and trust me,
we will see a huge difference in the crime rate.
I am confident.
Punishment, fear, hate violance... violence breeds violence... and nothing ever change toward the better?
Come on, EH, think "humanism".

EH - Believe me, I will never accept that the drug dealer is acting from illness.
AP - you never know
till you are on another side,
with them,
in the cages,
waiting for letters of love....
I have been there, EH,
that is another reason,
why it is easier for me
to jump in their shoes.

EH - He acts from a desire to get as much money as he can, without regard to the consequences on others.
AP - Uncontrollable Primitive Instinct of Instant Gratification,
abnormal for normal mind,
don't you think?

Cold hearts cannot possibly feel for others feelings.
And why are those hearts cold?
Is it normal to make
even conscious choice
to suppress life of your feelings
in order to hurt another order of life?

EH - And I will never accept that the person who attempts to force a moral choice on another person is acting from illness, either.
AP - "Force",
how do you define this word, my brother?
I want to make sure we are talking about the same thing here.
For I believe,
it is very easy to confuse
Force of Passion with Force of Pushing,
especially,
when it is comfortable to do so for blind defenders of "Old Morals".

to be continued,

A.P.

Ask.

A.P.

Angeleyes, everything is connected to the topic, I must assure you. Eventually, it will come to culmination. ;-)
Thank you for your interest, my sister. I'm glad.

A.P.

Ask what?

Something like that,
"Pinski, my friend,
could you please explain
what you meant
when you said it.

I am just trying to make any sense
of the words I've heard.
I know,
you are trying to say something,
and you believe it is important.
So, let me listen to you more attentively
and then
I might be able to help you,
brother,
to express yourself better."

A.P.

this has to be one of the ....left me speechless posts ....you have stated that which makes perfect sense to many now...but still to others they will read and reread..well truth be probably not even fully get through...that alone reread...it is yet again why shareing that we are all in our own spot moving forward ....is i think a good thing...I dont feel anyone has anything another does not....Funny thing..my brother has tried to tell me that since we were small...had nothing to do with religion...spent life seeing a vast difference we start with a circle he facing one direction and I the other and we go out into the world and live ...and meet back ...to only see no matter our way of travel..our personl perspective ...it is but a individual path one no greater or lesser ...and in this circle...one might see the line accross it as we traveld and touched base of the notes of the different life lived......the circle is huge...really... ...hope we have yet a long way to go......another one of those where does this stuff come from mornings....pinski..hehe..its your fault...no...if that made you laugh it was worth saying...anyway...your post i can only hope it could make this distance between thinking for many a little more understandable ....i dont think we have to so much understand things when there out of our thought process and coming in new...but when we learn to not be so huffy with judgement and breeeaaattthhhh....and see it will be ok..no matter the prsonal thought...the stepping back and not always meeting everything we dont get or think is far out there or just seems over the top....breath and ask our self..why would we allow just the vission or the statement or what ever it might be to get us in such a pickel......dont bash me here with situations that call for imidiate action...this is general talk...all situations are indvidual...imo we all to often more then not make mountain out of mole hills...anyway...i need to go do something else...again..thanks for the post....

i once heard someone say that pro-life and pro-choice are not on opposite sides. pro-choice means youre pro-life... you just also happen to be for abortion.

anyways... im neither "for" of "against" as well. IMO, it's a situational thing. and ughhh...... hey guys! long time no see!

-rhem

__________________
[belief is NOT the same as TRUTH]

EH - You are just throwing in a red herring, an extreme case which will prove nothing.
AP – Every case related to
saving or destroying Human Life
is extreme.

Illness is the reality,
which surrounds
and absorbs into Mind of a woman
who considers aborting New Growing Life.

EH - It is universally accepted among humans that when a person is incapable, for reasons of physical or mental illness, or insufficient age, that others may sometimes have to make choices for them. We normally assign this right to immediate family members, or to those who have been given power of attorney, or eventually to the courts.
AP – What if some of those creatures calling themselves “humans”
are not developed enough to see Purpose in Life?
Do you think
they still can be trusted
to make any choices
related to Life?

EH - But for normal, adult, competent individuals…
AP – It is abnormal to think, plan and execute that plan to kill Life.

EH - I maintain that they have the right to make their own moral choices, unencumbered by anything you or I might desire to the contrary.
AP – Before they exercise “the right to make their own moral choices”,
they have to figure out
what is moral and what is not.
It is immoral “to think, plan and execute that plan to kill Life”.

EH - If we consider abortion, I think we will agree that the pro-life side sees a “fully human person” in the fetus, the embryo, the blast cyst, and even the newly fertilized egg.
AP –I do not belong to any religions.
I do not go to churches, my Body and Mind is my Temple.
Wherever I put my foot down, it becomes a sacred place.

I don’t know much about “the movements” and arguments between the movements.
I express strictly my personal beliefs on the matter,
beliefs, which are, based on my life understandings
which come mostly from my individual life experiences
full of many interactions with all type of people.

I agree with those, who see Life in “the newly fertilized egg”.

EH - (I think Catholics might go even further back – remember Monty Python and “Every sperm is sacred...”)
AP – “Every sperm is sacred.” I like it. It is not funny and makes total sense.

EH - The pro-choice side, on the other hand, sees the right of a woman to have control over her own body…
AP – Yes, let woman to have control over her own body.
I have nothing against it, but lets be sure that she is in a healthy state of mind.
Do you let your fellow human to mutilate his/her body?
Why not?
Let it be.
It is his/her body, not yours.
Why even bother?
Would you,
“Evangelical Humanist”,
be a passive observer,
if before your eyes someone were trying to commit suicide?
Or you would call it an extreme example,
getting away from an answer,
forgetting,
that Life itself is Extreme.

EH - in which they include the fetus, which is completely dependent on her.
AP – Whoever thinks this way, probably is not aware,
that a mother’s well being is completely depends on “fetus”, too.

EH - So the disagreement is not over whether it is right or wrong to “kill the baby,” but rather about when it is, in fact, a baby. I think both sides probably agree that from the point they recognize it as a baby rather than a thing, it is wrong to terminate it (although sometimes justified, perhaps). We agree on the morality, but not the facts that inform the morality.
AP – But Asimov said, “It does not matter”. Why don’t you argue it?

EH - For the record, I agree completely that a fetus which has the potential to survive outside the mother’s womb is a human person, and therefore deserving of protection.
AP – It is very nice to know that you are half way above Asimov’s head.
But you are still, stack in “the middle”. And this is not good.

Human brother and sister,
I beg you, for your own sake,
Don’t believe in the middle.
There is no middle.
There are only Health or Illness,
All or Nothing.
Don’t believe in Not Having a Solid Opinion,
You have to have a clear position in your life.
So, Walk in Life without any hesitation in its Purpose,
Which is very simple,
To Support Life.

A.P.

Abortion is a woman's choice that I don't believe government nor religion will ever be able to "solve." It's an individual choice...I wouldn't want the government to have control over my body.

__________________
was that my life
looking back now
so fast we run
that we forget
to stop and dance
RFV