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SirRumpole said:
I would suggest that there are a lot more children from broken homes or other adverse circumstances who would benefit from adoption/fostering without creating a whole new wonderland for lawyers with ivf and surrogacy and the legal and moral issues that these so called "solutions" to perceived problems create.
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Good thinking here. If nature or lack of a partner determines the situation then that rule should not be bent.

We evolved to our current perfection on survival of the fittest and smartest. If there is a fault in the system then no result is a good result for the overall species.
 
barney said:
Our chances of experiencing 'existence/life' is like winning the lottery ...... Humbling stuff!
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Just sit amongst the bush, you can see it, smell it, hear it and feel it. Your existence and life is now.

Anything else is a version passed on or handed down with imagination then thrown in as so developed from others.
 
explod said:
Just sit amongst the bush, you can see it, smell it, hear it and feel it. Your existence and life is now.

Anything else is a version passed on or handed down with imagination then thrown in as so developed from others.
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What he is talking about is that we all have trillions of unborn brothers and sisters that could be here in our place, and the chances of us existing are very slim, infact the chances that any single individual is born is like winning the lottery everyday for a year

You are the result of a single combination of a sperm and an egg, your father produced millions of sperm, and your mother thousands of egg, each sperm meeting a different egg, would produce a different person,

So when you sit in the bush, experiencing life, know you had trillions of possible unborn siblings that could have been sitting in your place,
 
Value Collector said:
What he is talking about is that we all have trillions of unborn brothers and sisters that could be here in our place, and the chances of us existing are very slim, infact the chances that any single individual is born is like winning the lottery everyday for a year

You are the result of a single combination of a sperm and an egg, your father produced millions of sperm, and your mother thousands of egg, each sperm meeting a different egg, would produce a different person,

So when you sit in the bush, experiencing life, know you had trillions of possible unborn siblings that could have been sitting in your place,
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And yet the planet earth is populated by 6 billion 20 million to 1 shots...most of whom are morons.
 
So_Cynical said:
And yet the planet earth is populated by 6 billion 20 million to 1 shots...most of whom are morons.
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Yes the possible combinations of DNA allow for wide variation, from great intelligence to blithering indiots.

Richard Dawkins put it best when he explained that out of the millions of unborn people that could of sprung forth from your parents DNA, there would have been scientists greater than Newton and poets greater than Keats, yet here we sit, in our ordinariness.
 
Value Collector said:
Richard Dawkins put it best when he explained that out of the millions of unborn people that could of sprung forth from your parents DNA, there would have been scientists greater than Newton and poets greater than Keats, yet here we sit, in our ordinariness.
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Surely though, intelligent parents are more likely to produce intelligent offspring, and dumb parents more likely to produce dumb offspring as the genes get passed down the line ?
 
SirRumpole said:
Surely though, intelligent parents are more likely to produce intelligent offspring, and dumb parents more likely to produce dumb offspring as the genes get passed down the line ?
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Yes, but there is wide variation possible between the genes of all parents, a couple of average intelligence can easily give birth to a genius. And a couple with high intelligence isn't guaranteed to have a high intelligence child.

When we compare the intelligence of humans, there is actually quite a narrow gap between a moron and a genius, I mean even a moron is super intelligent when compared to a chimp or members of other species,
 
Christianity and the Magna Carta.

June 15th marks the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta””a document that has been called “the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot.”
As you might expect, Great Britain is pulling out all the stops to celebrate the anniversary. And as you might also expect, the celebrations are omitting an important detail: the role of Christianity in “the foundation of freedom.”

The Magna Carta, Latin for “Great Charter,” was a product of one of the most turbulent periods in English history. Forty-five years earlier, King Henry II was implicated in the murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket. And now, in 1215, rebellious barons were objecting to what they saw as King John’s infringement on their traditional rights, including unlawful imprisonment and excessive taxation.

With the disagreement threatening to turn into a civil war, the Archbishop of Canterbury, working as an intermediary between the King and the barons, helped to draft a proposed charter that would settle the dispute.
The Charter was not limited to the barons’ concerns. As historian David Carpenter has written, what made the Magna Carta beloved by the likes of our Founding Fathers and Nelson Mandela was that the Charter “asserted a fundamental principle””the rule of law. The king was beneath the law, the law the Charter itself was making. He could no longer treat his subjects in an arbitrary fashion.”

As Carpenter says, “in 1215 itself both John and his enemies would have been astonished had they known that the Charter would live on and be celebrated 800 years hence.” In 1216, they fought the war the Charter was intended to avoid. But John’s successors reaffirmed their commitment to the Magna Carta, and in 1289 made it part of the laws of England.
Since then, virtually every opponent of despotism and tyranny in the English-speaking world has drawn inspiration from the Magna Carta, which declared, “To no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay, right or justice.” When the Founding Fathers complained about “taxation without representation,” they were appealing to the Magna Carta.

Given the centrality of this document to our way of life, it behooves us to tell its story accurately and completely. Unfortunately, that is not happening. That’s why British churches have started a major campaign that focuses on the Christian influence on the charter.

The Church of England’s Synod of Bishops has stated that “It is important that the Church’s crucial role in Magna Carta and its rights is not air-brushed out in 2015””as was the role of Christians in the anti-slave trade celebrations.”

As the Bishops remind us, “The Church in England was central to the development of legal and human rights centuries before the French Revolution . . . the first parties to the charter were the bishops””led by Stephen Langton of Canterbury, who was a major drafter and mediator between the king and the barons; and its first and last clauses state that ‘the Church in England shall be free.’”

In other words, no human rights without religious freedom.
Perhaps the secular air-brushing isn’t that hard to understand, after all. The very words of the Magna Carta are a stumbling block for a culture that is eager to cast off its Christian heritage.

Reminding us of the Christian heritage that helped give birth to what we now call Western Civilization
 
Tink said:
Reminding us of the Christian heritage that helped give birth to what we now call Western Civilization[/B]
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It's funny how you cling to things you think are good and say "See, that's my religion, its good"

But you shun all the bad things that your religion has done.

The Magna Carta was simply an attempt to prevent an English civil war between the King and his supporters and some rebel Barons. It just laid out some general rules they were going to live by, when it mentions the rights of "Free Men" it is talking about nobles and land holders, it did nothing to protect the rights of serfs or slaves.

It wasn't until years later that the wording was ceased by society to try and give rights to the lower classes.

Also, the kings felt it was in their rights to abuse their power, because they had "divine rights of kings", so you could say wacky religious beliefs added to the drama.
 
Just some history, VC.

Common law means a legal system based upon the English legal system; a mixture of customary law, judge-made law and parliamentary law. At least until the early 19th century, the common law was heavily influenced by Christian philosophy. This philosophy argues that there is a divine reason for the existence of fundamental laws, and that such laws are superior to human-made legislation, thus reflecting universal and unchangeable principles by which everyone should live. This assumption was expressed, among other things, in the Magna Carta of 1215, a charter which guaranteed the basic rights and privileges to the English barons against the king. Professor Aroney explains Christianity’s ideological influence upon the Magna Carta:
From [the time of Alfred] the kings of England have traditionally recognised their submission to God. At their coronations they take an oath before the Archbishop acknowledging the Law of God as the standard of justice, and the rights of the church. They are also urged to do justice under God and to govern God’s people fairly. Magna Carta was a development of these themes.

At the time of Magna Carta (1215), a royal judge called Henry de Bracton (d. 1268) wrote a massive treatise on principles of law and justice. Bracton is broadly regarded as ‘the father of the common law’, because his book De legibus et consuetudinibus Anglia is one of the most important works on the constitution of medieval England. For Bracton, the application of law implies ‘a just sanction ordering virtue and prohibiting its opposite’, which means that the state law can never depart from God’s higher laws. As Bracton explains, jurisprudence was ‘the science of the just and unjust’. And he also declared that the state is under God and the law, ‘because the law makes the king. For there is no king where will rules rather then the law.’

The Christian faith provided to the people of England a status libertatis (state of liberty) which rested on the Christian presumption that God’s law always works for the good of society. With their conversion to Christianity, the kings of England would no longer possess an arbitrary power over the life and property of individuals, changing the basic laws of the kingdom at pleasure. Rather, they were told about God’s promise in the book Isaiah, to deal with civil authorities who enact unjust laws (Isaiah 10:1). In fact, the Bible contains many passages condemning the perversion of justice by them (Prov 17:15, 24:23; Exo 23:7; Deut 16:18; Hab 1:4; Isa 60:14; Lam 3:34).

New research suggests that Magna Carta may have been published predominantly by the church – rather than the Royal government of the day.
The revelations – announced as Britain prepares to commemorate the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta – shed remarkable new light on the politics behind the issuing of the charter.
The research suggests that early 13th century England’s King John was so reluctant to publicize the now world-famous document that the church had to step in to ensure that sufficient copies were made and distributed.

A new investigation into Magna Carta, carried out by scholars from the universities of East Anglia, Cambridge and King’s College London, has revealed, for the first time, that England’s bishops actually placed their own scribes inside the government’s civil service specifically to make copies of Magna Carta – so that every region of the country could have one.

King’s College London’s Professor of Medieval History, David Carpenter, believes that the new revelations are “exciting discoveries”.
“We now know that three of the four surviving originals of the charter went to cathedrals – Lincoln, Salisbury and Canterbury. Probably cathedrals were the destination for the great majority of the other original charters issued in 1215,” he said.
“This overturns the old view that the charters were sent to the sheriffs in charge of the counties. That would have been fatal since the sheriffs were the very people under attack in the charter. They would have quickly consigned Magna Carta to their castle furnaces.
“The church, therefore, was central to the production, preservation and proclamation of Magna Carta. The cathedrals were like a beacon from which the light of the charter shone round the country, thus beginning the process by which it became central to national life,” said Professor Carpenter.

http://billmuehlenberg.com/2015/06/16/magna-carta-the-christian-connection/
 
Tink said:
Just some history, VC.

Common law means a legal system based upon the English legal system; a mixture of customary law, judge-made law and parliamentary law.
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Can you name any good aspect of the legal system which could not have been created by a secular society?

This assumption was expressed, among other things, in the Magna Carta of 1215, a charter which guaranteed the basic rights and privileges to the English barons against the king.
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Yes, as I stated. In its originaly form and intention it was designed to protect the rights of free men, eg Barons and other nobles.

It didn't entrust rights onto serfs and other unfree labour.

Now, I know the Bible does call for slavery, So you are probably right that it was influenced by Christians, But I maintain my point, nothing good that game about because of it relied on the Christian faith, all the concepts that secular society agree are good today, can be reasoned without the need of imaginary friends.
 
Value Collector said:
Can you name any good aspect of the legal system which could not have been created by a secular society?
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How can we say ? "Secular" society had a pretty poor record when it comes to laws, the fact is that most laws on the planet have been shaped by religion, like it or not.
 
I find it funny that you even ask that question, VC, when you jump on the back of God's Laws, Christian principles, and ask if they could have made it without it.

God's Laws is one above humans.

How do you know right from wrong?
Where did it come from?

The Bible is the oldest book in History.

Agree, Rumpole, what we enjoy today, was set up by our Christian heritage.
 
SirRumpole said:
How can we say ? "Secular" society had a pretty poor record when it comes to laws, the fact is that most laws on the planet have been shaped by religion, like it or not.
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I don't believe that at all.

Which laws do you think we're shaped by religion?

I think if you really think about it, most laws that have a moral basis are not from any particular brand of religion, they come from secular ideas and concepts, this can be demonstrated by the fact that they can be found across society's from all over the world.

Eg. You may point to the laws against murder as coming from the the Ten Commandments ie Thy shall not kill.

but the fact is unrelated cultures all over the world have rules against killing each other, same with rules against stealing etc.

Do you really think that the great civilisations and even tribes etc that predate the bible could have formed if people thought it was a good idea to kill each other?

Even animals that live in social groups seem to have rules that refrain them from killing each other, it's based on evolution, the groups that like to kill each other do not survive and thrive.
 
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