UN Human Rights Committee oversteps its authority

Remove all ads!

toughluck, no, sorry. Won't buy this. You seem to like the idea that any woman not "protected" by a male might be attacked and has to face "serious consequences". Her own fault if she got raped, hm? She better had worn her burka. uke:
Don't you spot what's wrong with that attitude?

As to your wedding night: surely you realize the difference between the sentences

a) Unprotected Sex might lead to an infection with HIV depending, and
b) Unprotected Sex will lead to an infection with HIV regardless.

You stayed clean of filthy sex. Good on yer. Now stop playing silly bugger and trying to outwit perfectly sensible arguments.

The moral system question is dumb just as well. It's not like anyone having the idea right first is getting all the cookies. The question is rather if a godly being is necessary for the foundation of a moral system. Well, it's not.

 

They already have started making such requests and they have already started achieving some of their goals. Like sometimes paedophilia (as an "orientation") isn't enough to get a teacher fired or something. You need to show when and where and how he has already molested children.

How the HRC presents abortion shows that they count abortion amongst the acceptable methods of family planning, although maybe not as a rule (i.e. no contraception and killing all foeti as they come), but still within the acceptable.

Come on, honour killings in Poland? Please tell me it was an accident...

Hanging themselves over unwanted children... Well, how about people hanging themselves over unwanted neighbours?

The UN is all about human rights. Human rights, children rights, even animal rights.

Since when is the child an assailant? What crime has he committed or is he attempting to commit?

Wrong! Toughluck was specifically replying to Ragusa's argument. And yeah, having sex only with your lawfully wedded spouse starting from the point of virginity is a good way to avoid STDs and a couple other traumatic things. You know, sometimes it pays to conduct yourself well.

Can't murder of child, as well? "Mothers are killing their own children because they don't want them. What will happen to me when the state deems me inconvenient?". Plus the usual trauma that comes from witnessing a murder.

I admit, my statement ("A murder of an adult happening on my eyes doesn't have a single effect on me, either.") was kind of a bait.

Mine is based on that abortion is murder and therefore it cannot possibly be considered a strictly personal matter.

Like any other murder, abortion concerns the couple, the child and the society.

As above.

 

@Darkthrone - I believe that "normal, unprotected sex" is happening only between non-betraying couples. Based on this assumption, it is unacceptable for me to consider ****ing left and right normal. It has at least some deviancy in it.

Now on to the moral system. I start off - Catholic. Do attack me, but do it via PM, I'll try to fend off your arguments. I will use all the assumptions Catholic belief presupposes, and you can discuss the points.

What's to stop you from doing exceptions to the rules and moral relativity because there is no divine providence of the moral law? What or who is the warrant of what is moral and what is not, and how does such a system guarantee its permanence. If it cannot guarantee either of these, it is not a system per se, because it has those exceptions to the rule - there is nothing to the average person which they would find believable in such system. If there is no permanence, and moral principles will change as wind blows, there is no way to call it a moral system - by principle. If the state is a warrant, what happens if the state is conquered? Do people still have reasons to abide by the moral system, or not? If there is no object in believing in a moral system, what is the point of abiding by it? If there is no concept of transcending reward and punishment, there is no reason to abide. If somebody committed something wrong and was rewarded for it, how fast does the system dwindle?

 

Divine-based moral systems also have no "permanence", unless you can find a religious moral code that has existed unchanged for the last 2 million years (or however long you believe human consciousness to have existed).

 

Harbourboy - if we were to find any system that remained unchanged for the last 2 million years, we would end up with nothing. If we are to have a meaningful conversation here (and I believe you want to), we must be limited to systems that have been unchanged since their introduction. Starting of with Christianity and then Catholicism, my point stands valid. And I can think of no laic moral system that has remained unchanged since its beginning.

 

Are you seriously suggesting that Christianity as a whole and Catholicism in particular have remained unchanged since their introduction?

 

1) I echo Amaster's question. I would be very interested in evidence of a religion that had remined completely unchanged since it's introduction.

2) If a lay moral code was introduced recently then it would have a huge chance of remaining unchanged so far.

 

How exactly does 'divine providence' ensure that I don't 'do exceptions to the rules'?

 

@AMaster & HB:
1. If I would be pressed to then yes, I do think that Christianity (Catholicism in particular) have kept unchanged principles and major beliefs.
2. What worth would the code have?

It is ensured because people, even if faced with injustice here on Earth, believe that justice (in whatever way God deems it) will be dealt in eternity. God is as impartial as anyone can get.

@dmc:
How solid is your moral system? If you wound up in a situation where it would be challenged and you would benefit from making adjustments to it, would you do so? Of course, unless the major principle is egoism, you couldn't do so and keep integrity.

 

I fear you have opened a real can of off-topic worms here. If God is so impartial, why doesn't everyone get to go to heaven then? I would suggest that God is perhaps the LEAST impartial entity there is, as he/she is infinitely biased in favour of his/her followers.

Back on topic (I think), I agree with dmc. My moral code is every bit as strong as one based on fear of divine retribution, for all the same reasons he has mentioned.

 

Shh... if a judge in court were impartial, should he acquit everyone or sentence everyone to chair or lifetime? Similarly, if a judge in a competition were truly impartial, should we have only ties? Should all football matches have the result of null to null? No, and that's because people some people hit it and others miss it. Is this unfair? Such is the game. Life isn't easy.

In Christian theology, though I can't speak for all denomination, it isn't actually God who condemns a person to hell per se. The moment the individual believes he is beyond salvation and beyond God's mercy and consequently rejects that mercy, then condemnation comes in. That's how free will works. Sure, God could have programmed N million infallible good-doing machines but what would the point of that be? Your will is free, you get it the way you want. Can it get any more impartial?

But let's get back to the topic.

[ December 10, 2004, 01:27: Message edited by: chevalier ]

 

Ah, but a normal judge does not act as giver of life, creator of plagues, rulemaker, judge, jury, and executioner / smiter.

God has his/her fingers in too many pies to be considered truly independent and impartial. It would be like an accountant auditing his own books.

I fear this discussion is fated to descend into the same never ending cycle that into which it always descends.

Anyway, Chev, he's still biased towards all those people who believe in the concept of mercy which you described. All those people who do not believe it, misinterpret it, do not understand it, or who have never heard of it are therefore doomed right off the bat. That's not impartial, that's prejudicially partial.

Apologies for knowingly aiding in this off-topic divergence. I'll stop now.

 

Why not? It wouldn't be reasonable to trust all accountants with the audit by default, but you could surely find some who could audit their own books. Similarly, among lawyers you could find judges who would rule justly even if one party were their own relative or friend. You could even find ones able to rule against themselves. Not being your own judge or simply being accountable has no inherent value of its own, the matter is honesty and to what extent your own judgement is reliable.

It's not that simple. Not knowing about God is hardly a transgression if there is no choice and thus no possible fault. If you don't believe it, reasons may be different, but it's your risk. If you misinterpret it, the risk is yours. You aren't doomed off the bat for not being a believer or not understanding something at some point in the life. But what is there to misinterpret in the belief that you can be forgiven and you can change your ways? Of course, you can believe that your transgressions are so grave that they debar you from redemption... and it becomes thus. That's the point here.

But I'm getting off-topic myself now, as well.

 

Back to the UN. What gives them the right to try to proiscribe religeous doctorine? Do the words Freedom of Religeon mean anything anymore?

 

Gnarff, not to people so indoctrinated that they can't look over the rim of their plate anymore ... for someone thoroughly partisan someone impartial is suspicious at least for having no convictions , if not a traitor ...

No Sir, a simple infectious desease is too simple an explanation! Ever considered that AIDS is perhaps *not* a smackdown on homos and drug users by the Almighty? Ever considered that in parts of Africa AIDS is spread through ... birth, needle infections in hospitals, blood transfusions, or rape? And besides, it has happened in the west that way as well.

 

I'm not completely sure to whom you're talking here. Can't be me. AIDS is an infectious disease. Simple? Hardly. Yes, there are needles and transfusions, but I reckon this problem is not as big as it used to be a decade ago. Don't have statistics, though.

Birth is a result of sex, even in a world where reality beats satire. Sex, in any form, voluntarily conducted or not, is what spreads the disease. And yes, that's the problem. African males infecting themselves and forcing their wives to use no condoms. For Example! I was just blurting out the statement you quoted because of toughluck's oversimplification in extrapolating him and his spouse to the whole world.

And me in the camp of da homo bashers? Yeah, right pal, smash them perverted bastards is what I say!

In a nutshell:

... is exactly my point. The biggest part of AIDS is sociology.

 

They aren't doing anything to restrict what people can and can't worship.

 

Ragusa - you stated that by having normal unprotected sex, me and my wife will contribute to the spread of AIDS. I ask of you how is that possible. Here is the direct quote:

Would you care to explain that? Now, back to the point.

@Ragusa - considering the many changes that happened in the West, I am surprised at somebody mentioning needle injections as a method of spreading AIDS. All usage of needles in hospitals has been relegated to single use needles and they are burned afterwards. Similarly by birth - even though there is blood contact, doctors are practicing in gloves only. Blood transfusions? By now, all blood has been tested and all infected blood has been destroyed.

Advocating and promoting the use of condoms in South East Asia, China, India and Africa has not helped to prevent the spread of AIDS. Particularly in Africa - only a small portion of the general population is Christian, and a very small minority is of a denomination that rejects the use of contraceptives (ie. Catholicism). People there have no qualms about using condoms and they are using them. Why hasn't the tide been stopped?

As for HIV - even as it is becoming contained (and it can be seen it is), there are far more dangerous viri that do not cause such overt and obvious diseases. The already mentioned HPV, which is the only cause of cervical cancer, is far more proliferated, and doesn't spread by direct sexual contact only, but also by direct contact of pubic areas. There is no way to prevent the spread of it except for sexual abstinence and absolute fidelity. Furthermore, unlike HIV, it is almost certain that HPV will infect the child (HIV only about 40-50%), and that might render the child (especially a girl) infertile, not to mention the future danger of cervical cancer.
What's there to add? HPV costs several times more to diagnose for, it is almost for certain spread via sexual contact (there is a much lower risk of HIV contagion), and is the direct and only cause of cervical cancer (as opposed to HIV - it doesn't kill you directly, AIDS (the disease it causes) only makes your immunological system much less resistant to diseases).

And HIV? As I said, even using a condom does not help to lessen the risk of it spreading. If even a correctly used condom has PI of 5-20, how can't a virus go through the rubber if it's by two orders of magnitude smaller than a single sperm cell? Then there is scientific research. A work by a Cracow Jagiellonian University researcher shows that regardless of whether condoms were or were not used, after two years, risk is 100%.
Is there need for more to add?