DescentBB

flip wrote:Which then brings us back again full circle. Let's say everyone has the potential to be homosexual as you suggest, then the trigger would of course be the choice to activate that part of their DNA. Correct?

you cannot 'choose' which genes you express. That is a biochemical process, Flip.

Well it would appear designer babies are near at hand so we can design out any "abnormalities" that we want to.

woodchip wrote:Well it would appear designer babies are near at hand so we can design out any "abnormalities" that we want to.

thus far, we have very little control of such complexities as gene expression, surpression, nor the effects of redundancy in human genetic code.

Even if we were able to "design" to that level, that's kind of a whole separate issue, because in that case it's an external force (i.e. the parents/doctor) doing the "choosing." There are some very significant unresolved ethical questions around that whole concept though.

woodchip wrote:Well it would appear designer babies are near at hand so we can design out any "abnormalities" that we want to.

Actually, many women of child bearing age are starting to worry about that now, since science is starting to show that exposure to varying testosterone levels in the womb has a subtle effects on gender expression, despite the fetus' coded genes. Go onto any women's baby forums and sometimes the talk will drift to ways of how to keep testosterone from getting to high in the womb and creating a lesbian when carrying a female fetus. Drugs and other chemicals can affect the hormone balance in the womb during fetal development, so women are starting to worry about that now.

callmeslick wrote:thus far, we have very little control of such complexities as gene expression, suppression, nor the effects of redundancy in human genetic code.

Yes, we can affect the way genes express themselves. It's called "epigenetics".

http://scitechdaily.com/homosexuality-m ... c-changes/

Spidey wrote:No, it’s not a loophole…it’s called balance.

Like it or not people have a right to be bigoted jerks, and most businesses are privately owned and operated.

Just because someone earns a living inside a building with some equipment, and the government forces people to call that a “business” doesn’t remove that right.

It is the government’s job to make laws that strike a proper balance between all people’s rights

Well, I beg to disagree. Commerce is public, so any business should have to deal with the ALL the public at large, especially if they're not breaking the law or causing a disturbance in said business. And how are you going to tell someone that you don't want their business? Post a sign or something? Tell them to their face? That would mark you publicly as a business not to deal with for sure. If you want to be a bigot or an ★■◆●, then become a private business that caters only to the members that you choose, then you won't create a stink when someone you don't like walks into your business and requests service and then you refuse them that service. Doing that, I think, would be very bad for business and lead to nasty encounters. Plus, it stinks of lack of respect.

As I said before, you can’t walk into my business…my front door is locked.

Well you should take that up with your congress person, in the meantime enjoy “your” right to pick and choose who you work for.

callmeslick wrote:

woodchip wrote:Well it would appear designer babies are near at hand so we can design out any "abnormalities" that we want to.

thus far, we have very little control of such complexities as gene expression, surpression, nor the effects of redundancy in human genetic code.

"The British experiments, reported in 2008, led to headlines about the possibility someday of babies with three parents. But that's an overstatement. The DNA from the second woman amounts to less than 1% of the embryo's genes, and it isn't the sort that makes a child look like Mom or Dad. The procedure is simply a way of replacing some defective genes that sabotage the normal workings of cells."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nati ... n/1654853/

There has just been recent news of embryo's in the US being developed the same way.

Eh, there is a lot of study suggesting otherwise Slick, but since you continually choose to ignore it I'll let you bask in your indoctrination.

otherwise, how, Flip? That people can control their gene expression by mere will? Nonsense. And, to the 'scientific' matter posted by others, I was careful to say we have 'little' control over gene expression. In other words, I'll admit we are discovering some crude control mechanisms, but are far from any real control of much of the process.

Spidey wrote:As I said before, you can’t walk into my business…my front door is locked.

Well you should take that up with your congress person, in the meantime enjoy “your” right to pick and choose who you work for.

How do people do business with you then?

No, you are far from discovering the process, but at least going in the right direction. I can choose to be sad, or instantly change my mind and become happy. These are chemical responses just by changing my perspective. It has an effect on your health and mental well-being, how you choose to think. Just give it time Slick, I tell you what. We'll revisit this in a year

tunnelcat wrote:

Spidey wrote:As I said before, you can’t walk into my business…my front door is locked.

Well you should take that up with your congress person, in the meantime enjoy “your” right to pick and choose who you work for.

How do people do business with you then?

Well, most of my customers usually ring the bell, as does UPS and such.

callmeslick wrote:you cannot 'choose' which genes you express. That is a biochemical process, Flip.

In my view the whole "it's in my genes" argument fits perfectly into the doctrine of original sin. The Bible's argument is that we're all born into sin... or if you want to put it this way: we're all born with the genes that dispose us to sin. The particular flavor may differ from person to person, but the teaching is clear - we're all disposed to sin and we all act that disposition out... and it's unacceptable for all of us... hence our need for someone to live the perfect life in our places, and take our punishment in our places.

People can argue about whether [name a trait] is "nurture" or "nature"... but don't lose sight of the Bible's point that everyone's in the same "not perfect, and not okay" boat.

Spidey wrote:

tunnelcat wrote:

Spidey wrote:As I said before, you can’t walk into my business…my front door is locked.

Well you should take that up with your congress person, in the meantime enjoy “your” right to pick and choose who you work for.

How do people do business with you then?

Well, most of my customers usually ring the bell, as does UPS and such.

What do you do if you don't want to do business with that person who rings the bell, not answer it? And how do you decide, before greeting that person, that you don't want to do business with them either?

tunnelcat wrote:What do you do if you don't want to do business with that person who rings the bell, not answer it? And how do you decide, before greeting that person, that you don't want to do business with them either?

Easy... If they are wearing Giants or Mets paraphernalia you keep the door locked and flash your Eagles gear.

Lol...

Very few people ring my bell that I don’t know, because I don’t advertise, but yea, not answering it would be an option, but mostly I open the door and explain that we aren’t taking any new work at this time, and politely ask how they got my name.

My business is “business to business” and my clients generate all of the work I do. Most of them are also “business to business, clubs, organizations and schools” and don’t advertise to the general public either…mainly direct advertising, word of mouth and a lot of footwork.

When I started in business with my partner (now split) we had a store front on a very busy avenue…after we split, I also continued to advertise to the general public to build my client base, after a short time I closed my doors to the public, and never looked back.

If doing things that way makes your business work for you, then I seriously doubt you'd get someone in your store you didn't want to do business with in the first place. I guess that works for everyone.

tunnelcat wrote:If doing things that way makes your business work for you, then I seriously doubt you'd get someone in your store you didn't want to do business with in the first place. I guess that works for everyone.

also, the way he's choosing to run his business, it really wouldn't fall into the category of public accomodation laws. On the other hand, while he seems ok with it, I'm sure anyone in business school would look at such an intentionally limited business model and shudder.

My business model works for thousands of businesses, whether they have those sales people on their payroll, or have them as clients instead. (or both) Targeted sales have always worked better for my type of business, than media saturation, and walk-ins. (efficiency)

Example:

My largest client has hundreds of customers, so why should I waste energy gathering customers, when I can leave it to others better suited to do it, (my personality is not suited for sales) and use my skills for what I do best.

My business model is perfectly fine, and I saw positive growth right up to the time I got sick…what would give those business students something to “shutter” about, would probably be some of the decisions I have made after getting sick. (to downsize instead of hiring someone to do my job, for example)

Another easy example is the cost of operating where there is heavy walk-in traffic vs. operating elsewhere. My business doesn’t generate enough walk-in traffic to justify the extra costs of those types of locations.

The inevitable outcome.

http://news.yahoo.com/religious-freedom ... itics.html

TC,

I'm curious - How would you define the rules? How would you balance religious freedom with avoiding discrimination?

Here's a simple example:

My church rents out its sanctuary for weddings to non-members. If a satanist couple want to hold a satanist "wedding" there, should the church be obligated to accept them? What if the same satanist couple wanted to hold a christian wedding there (why would they, but let's just say for the sake of the argument that they want to) - does that change things?

snoopy wrote:How would you balance religious freedom with avoiding discrimination?

The bigger question is why should a religion discriminate against anyone? Also, it would show amazing character for a Christian church to allow a Satanist event.

I would say it is reasonable for a church to rent out their chapel for the specific purposes of "christian" weddings and only "christian" weddings without breaking any law but my guess is some people will say by 'renting it out to the public' they have forgone their right to exclude other religions. The same kind of people who tell a business owner that 'they didn't build that'.

vision, it isn't whether they "should" because it conflicts with your interpretation of the tenets of 'christianity', it is do they 'want to' do something 'against' their purpose.
Freedom of religion includes thinking yours is the right one and others are wrong...possibly even an affront to your beliefs, therefore you might want to keep a division between your efforts/resources/confirmation-by-association and those who are counter to your beliefs.

Should the government have the right to mandate a particular sect of a religion adopt the practices of another to accommodate citizens concerns? The Catholics need to stop promoting the Immaculate Conception as the way Jesus was conceived because it alienantes the Anglican citizens?

vision wrote:

snoopy wrote:How would you balance religious freedom with avoiding discrimination?

The bigger question is why should a religion discriminate against anyone? Also, it would show amazing character for a Christian church to allow a Satanist event.

Okay, here's another example: "Child molesters r us" wants to rent the local public high school gym to hold an orgy with kidnapped children: should the school district be required to rent the gym to them?

(Lets assume that the high school rents the gym out on a regular basis.)

(Does something being "legal or "illegal" make it magically different that ideologically matching or differing? Why, when you consider that the law is simply a representation of the ideology of the majority? Back to earlier discussions: should anyone be required to enable activity that they don't agree with?)

Child molesters are criminals because they broke a law, a law created to protect children because children are not capable of giving sexual consent to an adult, or each other for that matter, in the eyes of the law. Thus, churches and businesses don't have to accommodate molesters because they broke the law and are now criminals and would be doing criminal acts while using the church. Satanists, as repulsive as that concept is to Christians and a lot of people for that matter, are NOT criminals in the eyes of the law. So they should be afforded the same accommodations as any other group, unless the church is damaged by the activities of the Satanists. Now if that church is a private church, where the members have to join the group in order to gain entrance, then they don't have to accommodate the Satanists. But being private, they don't get the same tax status and breaks as a public church.

My only point in posting the above link was to show how broad religious freedom laws can have unintended consequences, like the discrimination of one faith against another faith. So my question is snoopy, should a Christian be allowed to discriminate against a Jew biased on religious freedom laws? Christians have one main reason to hate Jews, so why should they have to accommodate them? And religious affiliation is an ideology, not a trait. Religious freedom was widely used to justify not allowing marriage between blacks and whites in the past. Race is a trait and thus the person has no choice as to changing themselves to get around any said discrimination.

The next question is, why do we have to have accommodation laws in the first place? Why can't people just be more polite and respectful to one another, despite their differences? Why do people have to essentially tell someone they don't like them by discriminating against them or refusing to serve or do business with them?

I tried to explain this before, these laws try to strike a balance between individual rights and the rights of the public.

With these laws in place, someone can always find a place to stay or eat, without worrying about being discriminated against, on the other hand, people’s right to discriminate is preserved by restricting the scope of the laws.

Everyone happy…well except you.

Spidey wrote:I tried to explain this before, these laws try to strike a balance between individual rights and the rights of the public.

how so?

With these laws in place, someone can always find a place to stay or eat, without worrying about being discriminated against, on the other hand, people’s right to discriminate is preserved by restricting the scope of the laws.

Everyone happy…well except you.

remember the Civil Rights movement in the 60s? You know, the part that courts settled around Publc Access? These laws are UNCONSITUTIONAL. No more, no less. Thus, any state stupid enough to try and enact them, will have to pay to litigate them.....and lose for certain.

tunnelcat wrote:The next question is, why do we have to have accommodation laws in the first place? Why can't people just be more polite and respectful to one another, despite their differences?

Did I misread this? I could have sworn she was asking about the civil rights laws....

Spidey wrote:

tunnelcat wrote:The next question is, why do we have to have accommodation laws in the first place? Why can't people just be more polite and respectful to one another, despite their differences?

Did I misread this? I could have sworn she was asking about the civil rights laws....

you may be right....I read it as 'accomodation' laws of the sort we've seen cropping up like mentioned in the original post. If you are reading correctly, I'd agree with your description.

snoopy wrote:(Does something being "legal or "illegal" make it magically different that ideologically matching or differing? Why, when you consider that the law is simply a representation of the ideology of the majority? Back to earlier discussions: should anyone be required to enable activity that they don't agree with?)

I think that, at least ideally, the law should be far more than a representation of majority ideology, but instead a construct that establishes justice for all the citizenry. Indeed, laws that merely reflect the will of the majority have historically often crossed over into "tyranny of the majority," and the courts have had to step in and uphold the rights of the minority. One could rattle off a massive list of Supreme Court cases that have involved this.

As far as your last question goes, every one of us enables at least some action that they don't agree with, at least in the financial sense. My tax dollars are used to pay for any number of government actions which I'm not in full agreement with, and I'm sure that's true for all of us. But that's the price we pay for forming a society: sometimes our personal opinions are overshadowed by the collective good. If all of us were able to pick and choose where our tax money went, then it wouldn't take long for our infrastructure to collapse.

Top Gun wrote:As far as your last question goes, every one of us enables at least some action that they don't agree with, at least in the financial sense. My tax dollars are used to pay for any number of government actions which I'm not in full agreement with, and I'm sure that's true for all of us. But that's the price we pay for forming a society: sometimes our personal opinions are overshadowed by the collective good. If all of us were able to pick and choose where our tax money went, then it wouldn't take long for our infrastructure to collapse.

Exactly, but that would only go as far as “collective” activity, as needed to run a proper society…but doesn’t reach as far as individual activity.

Top Gun wrote: My tax dollars are used to pay for any number of government actions which I'm not in full agreement with, and I'm sure that's true for all of us. But that's the price we pay for forming a society: sometimes our personal opinions are overshadowed by the collective good. If all of us were able to pick and choose where our tax money went, then it wouldn't take long for our infrastructure to collapse.

well put.

callmeslick wrote:

Top Gun wrote: My tax dollars are used to pay for any number of government actions which I'm not in full agreement with, and I'm sure that's true for all of us. But that's the price we pay for forming a society: sometimes our personal opinions are overshadowed by the collective good. If all of us were able to pick and choose where our tax money went, then it wouldn't take long for our infrastructure to collapse.

well put.

except the government has no right "forming a society" that exists within the confines of a church.

Top Gun wrote:


As far as your last question goes, every one of us enables at least some action that they don't agree with, at least in the financial sense. My tax dollars are used to pay for any number of government actions which I'm not in full agreement with, and I'm sure that's true for all of us. But that's the price we pay for forming a society: sometimes our personal opinions are overshadowed by the collective good. If all of us were able to pick and choose where our tax money went, then it wouldn't take long for our infrastructure to collapse.

And our infrastructure is not collapsing? Seem slick keeps harping how it need to be repaired.
In short we have trusted govt. to handle our money and I would offer they are making a complete mess of it. As a aside, the govt has taken in a record 2 trillion in revenue yet they still have managed to spend 500 billion more than they took in. Yeah I trust our govt to spend wisely.

woodchip wrote:..Yeah I trust our govt to spend wisely.

Imagine the wife of a billionaire who has contempt for her husband but she knows she is stuck with him to keep herself in the lap of luxury so she spends as if there was no limit to his fortune.
Now imagine that billionaire has TWO wives, one named Dem and one named Rep, and their contempt for him is only out done by their contempt for each other so the spending is also a competition....

That is how our government see us and how they spend.

Spidey wrote:

tunnelcat wrote:The next question is, why do we have to have accommodation laws in the first place? Why can't people just be more polite and respectful to one another, despite their differences?

Did I misread this? I could have sworn she was asking about the civil rights laws....

I was. Oops.