Superstition entitles people to "special rights"?

In the United States, everyone has a social security number. When the illegal immigrants get here, they can buy their own social security number cards for $10.

At the DMV now, they make you get the hair off your face so that they can scan your face into a computer which will allow you to be identified. This can be really difficult if you have bangs.

I think that the argument that being in a data base is like the mark of the beast is dumb, but I also think that the government is dumb. So, I get to sit back and watch the drama. I especially like the "embryos are people too" debate.
 
lepustimidus said:
If women can get special rights for having a vagina, why can't Christians get special rights for having a brain disorder?
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I don't think Christians are the only ones with a brain disorder. :bugeye: And haven't we always given people with brain disorders special treatment?
 
I would say you can do better than that, but why should I expect it?

Lepustimidus said:

If women can get special rights for having a vagina ....
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An untenable argument you have, thus far, utterly failed to support.

However, setting aside your moronic pretense, one answer would be that there is a difference between what people are by nature and what they choose to be.
 
that actually is a good point tiassa, what people class as "free will" really isnt even if you forget the physical and just look at the social. Take smoking for instance

Its not really a free choice
do your family smoke?
do you have a genetic predisposition to smoke?
do you work in a uncontroled and unrewarding job?(the bottom left hand corner if you have seen the chart)
ect

The same goes for obesity
all these things which we class as life style choices can be argued that social and biological factors, rather than psycological control, are the driving forces
 
I'm not talking about behaviour, Asguard, but beliefs. An individual can't choose to change their beliefs, believing is an automatic process that depends on both external (social and environmental) and internal (genetic) stimuli.
 
lepustimidus said:
An individual can't choose to change their beliefs, believing is an automatic process that depends on both external (social and environmental) and internal (genetic) stimuli.
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Oh yes they can. I was brought up in the social environment of a strict Southern Baptist home. I went to church 3 times a week, and went to a fundamental Christian school, and believed in God. I was fully indoctrinated into this belief system.

Once I began to get a little older, and could start thinking for myself, I started to doubt the belief system I was trained to believe in. My personal belief system has evolved in the last 20 years, to something completely different.
 
Nothing in your anecdotal evidence demonstrates that belief is a conscious choice, MacGyver. What it does suggest is that the formation of beliefs is an automatic process.
 
MacGyver1968 as MH is badly trying to point out was the change compleatly internal or was it influanced by social factors

In my case it was a conflict between the core values and political belifes i had been raised with and the way the church had and continues to act in combination with the intergration of a wider view point from other sources.

My parents reconciles those differences in different ways to myself but as mum has said i have always had a tendancy to go to extreems and i couldnt accept the bigotry and the hurt the church causes
 
lepustimidus said:
Nothing in your anecdotal evidence demonstrates that belief is a conscious choice, MacGyver. What it does suggest is that the formation of beliefs is an automatic process.
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I see what your saying. My original belief system was an automatic process, created by my parents. Is that what your saying? My philosophy "ain't" that good. :)
 
this isnt philosophy, its an expanded version of the biopsychosocial theory of health. hes not actually just talking about your orgional faith but the reason you stopped beliving as well.

As he said i get taught this for behavioural and illness anaylis, its the frame work for health psycology but it can be expanded to take into acount the way we think and even WHAT we think, even our core belifes (this is combinding health psycology to another subject im doing called "just health" on values)

Its easier to do this on someone else because its hard to analise whats "hard wired" into us but if we look at the reason why say people are racist. Well we would start by looking at the things there parents, friends, TV ect taught them and then possably look for a reinforcer like a robbery, or something even something as symple as someone you like as a young kid picking someone who SORT of looks like the people you are prediudest against.

This doesnt work just for "bad" traits but the good ones too, its just harder with traits that as a sociaty we want to reinforce because they apear (on symple examination) to just be hard wired
 
somewhat....I defininately dont believe in gods of established religions. I do believe there could be beings that exist outside of our perception.
 
(chortle!)

Lepustimidus said:

Prove that people choose what to believe, Tiassa.
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As opposed to what? People are conditioned one way or another to accept certain beliefs.

What, by your hypothesis, is the genetic contribution to belief? (Aside from the fact of a brain, that is?)

The fact of many of our atheists here is indicative of people's choices to believe. The fact of my father's remarkably evolving perspective on the world is indicative of his choice to believe. That people can accept new information and adjust their perspectives to functionally accommodate what they learn is as indicative of people's choices to believe as the refusal to accept new information in a desperate attempt to cling to functionally obsolete perspectives.

I was raised Lutheran, evolved through Satanism and several phases of magickal religion and superstition, became an atheist, failed to reconcile certain aspects of my outlook, and regressed back to my last religion—a form of witchcraft—although I don't practice. Would you assert that this transition is genetically predetermined?

The reality of it, Lepus, is that despite a legal agreement suspending my First Amendment rights and attempts to condition me to Christianity that lasted into adolescence, I chose to look beyond the superficiality put before me by parents, priest, and community.

You are, of course, invited to demonstrate that my choice was genetically predetermined.
 
Tiassa:
As opposed to what? People are conditioned one way or another to accept certain beliefs.
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Since apparently you missed it, I quote what I said in an earlier post:
"An individual can't choose to change their beliefs, believing is an automatic process that depends on both external (social and environmental) and internal (genetic) stimuli.

The fact of many of our atheists here is indicative of people's choices to believe.
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No. What atheists are indicative of is that people's beliefs can change over time. Try again.

You are, of course, invited to demonstrate that my choice was genetically predetermined.
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Strawman. I think you need to work on your literary comprehension. Perhaps if you spent less time writing cack, and more time actually reading your adversary's posts, you might actually post something of relevance.
 
tiassa nither of us are suggesting that genetics are involved, though to an exstent they probably are. However the social (MH when your talking about things to do with the mind its more acurate to say social rather than enviromental) conections around you influance your belifes and values. If you take two identical twins and raise one in a strongly conservitive household with only those sorts of influances and the other in a strongly liberal household then ignoring normal rebelling its stistically likly that the twins will follow there parents. The reason people go against this is because of other outside influances like friends, the media ect.

The same goes for religion
 
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