Stand up

Who are you? It has been said men shouldn't discuss three things, politics, religion and their wives. In discussing these things men become enemies. I agree that if alcohol is involved and either party is intoxicated, then yes, this rule should be followed. But otherwise we should engage (except for wives). I am writing this because I often try to discuss the subject of abortion and notice people often shy away from my rather strong view that it should be illegal. If you are against abortion, let people know. If you are pro choice then don't be afraid to defend it. Put your fist on the table and demand that people know why they should be allowed to kill. Don't hide under the guise of choice. Pro choicers should have the burden of proving this is not murder. It shouldn't be pro- lifers having the burden of proving it is murder. That's easy, if you stops someone's heart from beating its murder.
Who are you? What do you stand for? If you want to say I stand for freedom, and a woman's right to choose, that's OK. Why cant this extend to her 3 month old baby? Why would you remove the woman's right to end the life of her 3 month old baby. That is what its all about right, freedom, right to choose.
Here is Websters definition of murder :The unlawful killing of one human by another, especially with premeditated malice.
Baby's that are not born yet are still classified as human. As well as an abortion is done with premeditated malice, isn't it? So by definition, abortion is murder. Unless you can say that an unborn baby is not alive yet. Do you pro-choicers believe that? A infant living in her moms uterus is thinking, dreaming, moving, breathing embryonic fluid, even going the bathroom, but is not yet alive? The few people I meet that will defend abortion say things like "its more complicated than that" or "what if a person was raped".
I will admit there can be issues where it can be complicated, Missing chromosomes and you know the fetus will die and other special instances. But abortion of a healthy baby is by definition murder. What do you want to stand for? Freedom to murder for all woman? Put your fist on the table and explain why. Stand up for what you believe. Don't look the other way. People think that this issue is coming back to the news and politics because right wing wacko's are somehow super powerful and can achieve unjust things. I believe that it is because the 30 or so years since abortion had been legal is enough time for all the woman who have had abortions to age and become wiser, and now look back with regret. I don't believe in people standing outside an abortion clinic and yelling murderer at the poor girl walking out after she had an abortion, because she will feel regret for her own decision for the rest of her life. But I think if there aren't any abortion clinics in the first place we will reduce the number of woman getting abortions. And even if it doesn't, laws should reflect what is wrong or right. Laws against heroine don't seem to limit its use, but making it legal is not the correct answer. Stand up! Explain why you are correct in what you believe. Make an argument for your case and lets have dialog. Perhaps you haven't even reasoned the whole thing out yet so your not sure? Then do it! Stand for something!

The faucet keeps running

Cassini space craft is back in the news this weeks with claims of discovering geysers that erupt spewing water. You can check out the latest images http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/main/index.html
Something doesn't appear quite right with these images, for some reason the moons gravity doesn't curl any of the water vapor back to the moon. The water vapor just seems to float right out into space. I am not making any claims here. For all I know this is perhaps exactly how a geyser on Enceladus should behave. Its Just, when you look at the volcano's on Jupiters moon IO the material spewed returns to the moon (granted it is sulfurous material rather than water vapor) after being spewed 500 kilometers. It seems we are obsessed with finding water in our solar system so we can say it might have life. It was the stated purpose of sending the two rovers to mars. I am afraid we have a serious bias to discovering water. When water could have nothing to do with extra-terrestrial life.
These pictures are obviously some meaningful discovery, I am just not sure they are as simple as water geysers. But I know J.P.L. can analyze the light spectrum to get info on chemical make up, so if they say its a geyser spewing water then it must be. Just seems to float awfully far into space as if the moon has no gravity.
Anyway if you check out the Cassini web site look at some of the radar images from Titan. They show all types of different typography, from what could be oceans with shore lines to sand dunes. Some pretty cool stuff. The hazey atmosphere of Titan makes it impossible to see, but their radar images are in such high resolution that it almost looks like a photo image.
The Cassini space craft has been flying (or orbiting for better term) around the Saturn system since the middle of 2004 (launched in 1997) , and will keep on doing so for years to come.

Intelligent Nature

If God created life, Did life come about naturally? The actual definition of natural as it relates to biology is "Not produced or changed artificially". So I guess we would have to answer the question is only human interference considered artificial? Or is Gods interference also considered artificial.
I have recently been debating Dr. Pigliucci (and friends) on the subject of evolution
http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=15005476&postID=114118185759772703
I have been on the fence for some time as whether I believe in evolution or Intelligent Design. For the sake of this debate I was neither, just taking an anti-evolution stance to play devils advocate. As I was conducting thought experiments in my head trying to picture macro evolution. It hit me. This never happened. I feel now beyond a doubt that macro evolution (at least the way science says it happened, didn't. I will explain why in a minute.
I am no biologist. Have a minimal understanding of genes and how most micro biological processes work. Neither did Darwin. Darwin did not know what a gene was. So to understand the most important part of evolutionary theory you must be a good physical and mechanical thinker (not that genes don't play an important role) I have learned evolution quite well from a physical prospective. The main process responsible for evolution is purely physical. Yet when I debate evolutionists. They insists I need to have my doctorate in microbiology and so on. I ask the simple question of "How does macro evolution produce complex features" ? Such as a human foot, or all the body parts required for reproduction. I always get referred to some book or article. The person understands it fully but doesn't have the time to tell me, but if I just read such and such I will find the answer. This is no better than saying creation is true because the bible says so.
Along these debates it occurred to me that in order for macro evolution to produce a mechanical features (where there wasn't one before) then gross macro mutations would have to cover the species that developed it. If it happens by chance random mutations, then it requires thousands of bad mutations to get one good one that would be part of a bigger macro mutations. These mutations would be visible everywhere in nature, but they are not.
If your interested, post a comment and I will get into detail with you.
Which leads me back to the original question. I think many people don't like intelligent Design because it somehow leaves the scientific realm of explaining how something happened, and goes into the supernatural realm of explanations, thus making it unnatural. That's why I think if somehow I.D. could somehow be put into naturalistic terms, more people would accept it. The movement can't be driven by religion as it currently is. It must be driven by people like myself that don't have a problem with evolution because of religion (I would have no issue being a Christian and believing in evolution). I just don't think evolution works. We need to move Intelligent design forward by leaving church behind.