Good or bad? [split-off from "Bloody pirates"]

[Ningey]

"The strong prey on the weak"

Thinking sociologically, isn't by positions of strength that anything gets done? I mean you look to the "Survival of the Fittest" mentality. It's quite obvious, both in the animal world and human world, that those who manage to get themselves in the positions of strength, at least stronger than their fellow being, do tend to survive, no?

Of course, the definition of who is the strongest is ever changing. Think about currently, the "1%" as many people like to call them are in a position of strength, but the protester, whom claim to be the down trodden, would need to rise up to a position of strength greater than or equal to that of the "1%" to bring them down, or at least get their way. So in essence, doesn't that show how it really boils down to being what your cause for doing things is? And the purity of that cause, that definition of purity being purely in the eyes of the beholder.

Think about the movie, humanity is literally at a breaking point. Resources on  the planet are all but used up, and despite having moved to other planets in the solar system, they are still hurting extremely bad for survival. This new material that's been located can and is acting as the savior of the Human race. It takes what little resources they have, and increases their efficiency exponentially. The humans of this time see this thing as a must have, a something that will fix their issues and cause them to continue to be. Yes, one can look a the corporate greed undertones that are evident in the movie, but really this is their "cause", and they believe in the purity of it. So to achieve this goal, they place themselves in the great positions of strength to bring it about.

So the question is presented. Nevertheless, Purity of cause will always remain in the eyes of the beholder. And the victors, more often than not, write the history books, and the opinions therein.

Well, it's easy for anyone to call himself the good guy. Nevertheless, humankind has seen far too many people who said so about themselves, but upon closer scrutiny you found them to be ayvrrtep.
{EDIT}
Furthermore, it may be true that the victor writes history - the only problem is that things are usually altered in such a fashion that the victor appears to be the good guy and the loser was to blame for his fate, a case of historical misrepresentation. The only problem is: It really doesn't make the deed any better, but merely lampshades it.
{/EDIT}

Sure, the strong are the ones who get things done, but there are different modes of operation...
The point is, it depends on the impact a deed has on others for it if it should be considered good or bad. One can be strong and benevolent; in this case the strong guy is acting in the interest of those he is in charge for. Nothing wrong with that.
But as soon as he puts his own interests above others things he is well on the road to malevolence.
Why? Because he uses whatever means to further his own ends - and if that means taking from others (especially those who are weaker than him) he will do so - but in that moment he also invites trouble.

That's just the point made in the movie: The RDA takes the unobtainium at the expense of the Na'vi, who in the eyes of the CEOs of the RDA had two options: Adopt the human way of life or perish. Sorry, I don't see where it makes that good. The contrary would be true here.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Yet that is being single minded in whom it is impacting. Yes, the mining may have originally impacted the Na'vi negatively, but the positive impact it caused on humans, and by nature the only one's humans really care about, its outweighing the negatives. You'll never do anything in life where you won't have to give a little to get some. There will always be a weighing of the consequences, and while recognizing the bad, you will have to sacrifice to do some good. Yet the perception of what is bad and good lies purely in the hands of the one who's making the judgement.

The goal of the Human corporation, besides making money, is to ensure the survival of the human race. They didn't necessarily begin their meeting by forcing the locals to adapt or get overrun. I'm pretty sure that in the beginning they probably did things a lot more diplomatically. If we are to continue to assume the parallel that James Cameron is making with the Na'vi and the indigenous populations that he is referencing, the initial meetings were something of a learning experience for both sides. Trading, bartering, learning each other's positions of strength, and both sides making large assumptions. Each side is committing acts, that dependent on the onlooker, are both bad and good. It's all extremely perception based.

You speak of Historical Misrepresentation, but the thing about history is that its both based largely on opinion, and perception. It is extremely hard to base anything historical on facts, and a lot of history as we know it is based upon assumptions. History, as perception based as it is changes heavily on the changing perceptions of the society at the time. Today's perceptions on what happened in the past are no more truer than the perception that were once held of the past.

In the movie we're led to believe the "Noble Savage" mentality regarding the Na'vi. But just like history, the Na'vi were not innocent in all they did. They attacked human convoys and personnel, they war'd with each other, and each tribe more or less furthered their own goals too. Of course many can say they were pushed to do such things, but weren't the humans pushed to reach Pandora and take the unobtanium because of their situations?

[Ningey]

Yet that is being single minded in whom it is impacting. Yes, the mining may have originally impacted the Na'vi negatively, but the positive impact it caused on humans, and by nature the only one's humans really care about, its outweighing the negatives. You'll never do anything in life where you won't have to give a little to get some. There will always be a weighing of the consequences, and while recognizing the bad, you will have to sacrifice to do some good. Yet the perception of what is bad and good lies purely in the hands of the one who's making the judgement.

And exactly that's the problem: Far too many people seem to be aware of themselves (and maybe relatives and close friends - but occasionally not even that), and the rest they don't seem to care about.
At least that is the experience I have made so far. Few persons manage to see the overall picture, with the next question being what they make of it. From what I see, little good seems to have come about (yes, you may call me biased in this, but that's what experience has taught me so far).
Anyway, here we got that question going again: What is it that makes a good judge?
By my reckon, a good judge has to be neutral at all times, taking into account every single fact in his decision, with the ideal outcome to be one that gets the greatest positive effect with minimum negative impact. However, that requires that the judge get all information necessary to make that decision, and that's the point that causes the most trouble: Things are far from ideal, and with crucial information withheld or even skewed, the judge can merely make a decision based on whatever information he has got so far, and finding out whether some pieces of the overall picture are missing can become a real pain (if you don't have any reason to suspect that something is amiss, you can't do anything about it).

The goal of the Human corporation, besides making money, is to ensure the survival of the human race. They didn't necessarily begin their meeting by forcing the locals to adapt or get overrun. I'm pretty sure that in the beginning they probably did things a lot more diplomatically. If we are to continue to assume the parallel that James Cameron is making with the Na'vi and the indigenous populations that he is referencing, the initial meetings were something of a learning experience for both sides. Trading, bartering, learning each other's positions of strength, and both sides making large assumptions. Each side is committing acts, that dependent on the onlooker, are both bad and good. It's all extremely perception based.

Welllllllllllll... that's in for a little objection, though. I guess you remember the scene in which Grace Augustine and Parker Selfridge are arguing about the Na'vi and how Jake comes into play.
Sure, there is research on the Na'vi going on, and there have been contacts between the humans and the Na'vi. Yet the thing that startles me is the way Selfridge is talking about the entire issue, the gist of which being that he blames the Na'vi for what has been done in the past without taking into account what may have caused their actions. Furthermore, he merely cares about how much profit the RDA can draw from the mining of the unobtainium. No word about the survival of the human race (although we can assume that that has been the primary reason for launching the whole operation). The remark Selfridge makes a few scenes later about the shareholders perfectly fits into this equation - and again no word about the survival of humanity is heard.
Furthermore, let me flip your vantage point around: Let's assume some extraterrestrial people land on Earth and let's also assume that an initial contact was indeed friendly (I want to keep those paranoids who see a threat in everyone and everything foreign out of this line of thinking for a reason), but then this people starts mining for resources they possibly could not find on their homeworld but instead have detected on Earth...
Can you imagine the uproar that would cause among the peoples on Earth?

You speak of Historical Misrepresentation, but the thing about history is that its both based largely on opinion, and perception. It is extremely hard to base anything historical on facts, and a lot of history as we know it is based upon assumptions. History, as perception based as it is changes heavily on the changing perceptions of the society at the time. Today's perceptions on what happened in the past are no more truer than the perception that were once held of the past.

Sure. As long as you correct your findings once new clues (or better yet hard evidence) are discovered, nothing is wrong with that. However, you will also find that these new findings sometimes are either silently ignored or dismissed as erroneous or even faked up when they don't fit into one's own perception about something (you are going to find this not only in history, but virtually everywhere). If the facts won't fit the theory, the prerequisites are altered until they produce the desired outcome, not vice versa.

In the movie we're led to believe the "Noble Savage" mentality regarding the Na'vi. But just like history, the Na'vi were not innocent in all they did. They attacked human convoys and personnel, they war'd with each other, and each tribe more or less furthered their own goals too. Of course many can say they were pushed to do such things, but weren't the humans pushed to reach Pandora and take the unobtanium because of their situations?

You could see it that way, sure. However, did anyone ask the question why the Na'vi started their attacks on human personnel and equipment? I guess not, and furthermore I think that no-one ever cared about explaining the whys of the whole operation to them, either (which would account for some severe communications breakdown).
The result of this is a people who sees itself threatened by what the aliens are doing, and in order to protect their home, they eventually retaliate when they realize that admonitions won't help. Let me quote Grace Augustine here (the scene with her, Norm, and Jake in the now-defunct school): "The Omatikaya got to know as much about us as they needed to." I guess that one speaks volumes.

As far as the in-fighting between the different clans of the Na'vi is concerned, that would be a parallel to human history (however, I've already taken that into account), yet the Na'vi seem to be the ones who have learned from their past. Nevertheless the Na'vi actually do care about their world (could be due to the special relationship they have to it, especially as Eywa is concerned) whereas the humans have destroyed theirs.
Talking about circumstances that pushed the humans to do what they were doing, then they themselves are the ones to blame. By plundering their own world, they have evoked this problem in the first place, and now they blame the Na'vi for defending their home against the human intruders (who on top of that behave exactly the same way as they did on Earth) instead of pointing fingers at themselves.
An interesting notion, this application of double standards...

[Seze Mune]

Post transferred from Bloody Pirates

To avoid confusion: Selfhood (or self-awareness?) is not necessarily congruent with selfishness (although the two can join forces, although often enough they don't).

You are right.  The two are not congruent, imo. One describes a state of being and the other describes actions taken with regard to one's relationship with oneself and others. 

But regardless of the action taken, it is always taken with respect to the benefit to oneself.  If you give a starving man a loaf of bread, you do this because of your personal value for doing so.  It gives you satisfaction to do that...because you have acted within your own value system in a positive manner.  If it did NOT have a positive value for you, then you would NOT have done it because either (1) you would feel that it breached some other value of yours (e.g. you don't believe in 'enabling' begging behavior) , or (2) it had no value for you at all, and therefore there was no reason for doing it.

To call someone selfish one should scrutinize the motives behind a certain deed: What side effects (if any) does it have?
Doing something to improve oneself doesn't necessarily make one selfish. You may be improving your situation, but leave anyone else unharmed, so there's nothing negative with it.

I agree. The only person who can improve you is you...and any incremental improvement in you, personally, improves the race as a whole in that respect.

As for any action you may take for improvement and its possible negative effect...we cannot possibly know all the effects of any of our actions in their entirety.  Actions taken centuries ago are still reverberating with effects today (e.g. the effects of the Roman invasions of Europe millenia ago).  Any action of ours has a trajectory which we can follow only so far...so we cannot really say that it had no bad effect.  For example, your decision to buy a particular car may seem innocuous, but what if that forced someone else who might have bought that car to buy a car with an unknown defect which later caused his death?  You would never know, but you would have been definitely involved in a 'bad' effect from what seemed like a harmless decision on your part.

Better off would be someone who thinks about the greater good (thus improving the overall situation). If the situation improves for him, too, so much the better. In case it doesn't... Occasionally (though rarely) someone wouldn't care about that, either.
However, things do start to become problematic once they are done at the expense of others (if you didn't consider well enough, you would merely be careless, but done out of ignorance or for outright malicious reasons you're inviting trouble).

You may call me a skxawng, but piracy really isn't an act of benevolence but rather the exact opposite - and since it is done at the expense of others, this is selfishness in its pure form.

I would never call you a skxawng, ma Ningey.    I am never sure what the 'greater good' is.  There is always someone or something for whom your chosen 'greater good' is a greater harm.  If you see overpopulation as a great harm, is forced population control 'for the greater good'?  If you want to make sure your child doesn't inherit a genetic disease, then would you consider aborting any fetus which was proven to be a carrier? Which is the greater harm, and to whom?  To the child, to your family, or to the human genetic bank? These are rhetorical questions and I don't expect you or anyone to really answer them, I'm just using them as examples.

Yes, if one wants to accurately judge an action one should assess the motivation behind it.  Then again, you are judging that in terms of your personal values often without any idea of the context in which the action happened.  In some Arab countries, thievery is so heinous that the thief's right hand can be amputated for the offense.  We find that terrible.  How much more terrible when the thief is a 6 year old boy who only wanted to provide bread for his bedridden mother and younger sister?  But is IS thievery...so should the action be judged in absence of the context, as an absolute moral transgression?  So...what if the movie is being pirated because someone can sell it to provide medicine which will cure his son of blindness?  Would Cameron or anyone begrudge this?  I'm not saying that is happening in the majority of cases, but then again how do we know?

Or how about this one: "The strong prey on the weak."
Just consider the bar scene in the second extended cut of the movie (the one that starts on 'Rrta) in which Jake Sully is quoted thus. That would be yet another example for a malicious act (that guy in the bar bullying the blonde girl for whatever reason there may be), but when Jake intervenes, not the bad guy is tossed out of the bar, but Jake is instead. Sadly, that's just another mirror image of life as it happens in reality. And so is the thing with piracy: Consider the RDA taking Pandora's riches (and that just doesn't mean the unobtainium but also anything else on that moon). Have they asked the Na'vi - or better yet Eywa - for permission?  I guess not. And how about the songs from the Na'vi or any stories they have related? Although nothing of this is seen in the movie, wouldn't it still be a possibility that someone made money of those on 'Rrta?
That would be correlated (since this goes down the exact same alley) to music, movie, or whatever piracy you would come up with - and just because the Na'vi don't know what could be going on over four light years away from their home world, this doesn't make the deed any better...

You are talking about social Darwinism here.  While there is that dynamic in many instances in the world, if that were the true underlying mechanism for humanity as a whole we would not have survived thus far.  We would have killed one another off long ago.  Our belief in social Darwinism makes us blind to what really happens in the world.

It brings up the old question...if there was a worldwide catastrophe and only pockets of humanity remained alive, who would survive: the bands with the most weapons and ammunition (the 'strong') or the groups who worked cooperatively for survival (the 'weak', in some eyes).  Most anthropologists will probably tell you that those who were able to band together to ensure survival were the ones who were the most viable.

[Ningey]

Post transferred from Bloody Pirates

To avoid confusion: Selfhood (or self-awareness?) is not necessarily congruent with selfishness (although the two can join forces, although often enough they don't).

You are right.  The two are not congruent, imo. One describes a state of being and the other describes actions taken with regard to one's relationship with oneself and others. 

But regardless of the action taken, it is always taken with respect to the benefit to oneself.  If you give a starving man a loaf of bread, you do this because of your personal value for doing so.  It gives you satisfaction to do that...because you have acted within your own value system in a positive manner.  If it did NOT have a positive value for you, then you would NOT have done it because either (1) you would feel that it breached some other value of yours (e.g. you don't believe in 'enabling' begging behavior) , or (2) it had no value for you at all, and therefore there was no reason for doing it.

Agreed. If something has a positive, negative or no value at all for you things are normally rather straightforward. You are going to act on what you believe is right or wrong, and that's it. Things are becoming interesting when there's a conflict once multiple considerations come into play for the same thing: Then you somehow have to do a tradeoff between different personal values (like the example with the starving man: Are you going to help or not, and what is the reason for your decision?), up to the point that your deed achieves the exact opposite of what you intended to do. Your intention may be one side of the equation - the actual outcome is the other one, and sometimes a good intention can come up with a bad result or vice versa. And that's yet another interesting part: How are you going to react when confronted with an unexpected outcome?

To call someone selfish one should scrutinize the motives behind a certain deed: What side effects (if any) does it have?
Doing something to improve oneself doesn't necessarily make one selfish. You may be improving your situation, but leave anyone else unharmed, so there's nothing negative with it.

I agree. The only person who can improve you is you...and any incremental improvement in you, personally, improves the race as a whole in that respect.

As for any action you may take for improvement and its possible negative effect...we cannot possibly know all the effects of any of our actions in their entirety.  Actions taken centuries ago are still reverberating with effects today (e.g. the effects of the Roman invasions of Europe millenia ago).  Any action of ours has a trajectory which we can follow only so far...so we cannot really say that it had no bad effect.  For example, your decision to buy a particular car may seem innocuous, but what if that forced someone else who might have bought that car to buy a car with an unknown defect which later caused his death?  You would never know, but you would have been definitely involved in a 'bad' effect from what seemed like a harmless decision on your part.

Also agreed. However, there are subtle differences between the two. With a people directly interfering with the affairs of another one some reaction has to be expected and is usually taken into account. However, the other thing gives you no chance to notice that something isn't right and so causes you to unwittingly put someone else in danger.
This in turn takes us to the next question: Can you be held liable for anything that you are not aware of and which you didn't have a chance to notice beforehand. I would say no.
However, things look entirely different should you have known that something was wrong and then didn't do anything about it (like alerting anyone to the problem) and so took the following into account against your better knowledge.

Better off would be someone who thinks about the greater good (thus improving the overall situation). If the situation improves for him, too, so much the better. In case it doesn't... Occasionally (though rarely) someone wouldn't care about that, either.
However, things do start to become problematic once they are done at the expense of others (if you didn't consider well enough, you would merely be careless, but done out of ignorance or for outright malicious reasons you're inviting trouble).

You may call me a skxawng, but piracy really isn't an act of benevolence but rather the exact opposite - and since it is done at the expense of others, this is selfishness in its pure form.

I would never call you a skxawng, ma Ningey.    I am never sure what the 'greater good' is.  There is always someone or something for whom your chosen 'greater good' is a greater harm.  If you see overpopulation as a great harm, is forced population control 'for the greater good'?  If you want to make sure your child doesn't inherit a genetic disease, then would you consider aborting any fetus which was proven to be a carrier? Which is the greater harm, and to whom?  To the child, to your family, or to the human genetic bank? These are rhetorical questions and I don't expect you or anyone to really answer them, I'm just using them as examples.

Again, there's a question of tradeoffs. Furthermore, the definition of a 'greater good' seems to be somewhat vague and has been abused all too often to hide some wrongs. So there we need some definition of what would make up such a greater good. As a first approach I would have this to offer: It would cause the maximum benefit for as many people as possible whilst reducing the ramifications as much as possible and even the number of people affected. So where birth control would be something acceptable (no harm is done to anyone, and life that hasn't been conceived yet cannot be killed) actually does something good - it can help to stave off an overpopulation that would cause a lot more misery if left uncontrolled - however, it's of paramount importance that it is enforced justly, without preferring or disadvantaging anyone and also by taking into account a possibility for disaster. Children aren't immune to mishaps, and deaths can occur.
As far as the other questions are concerned, even if I wanted to answer them, I could not. That tradeoff I would have to make would be tantamount to a Devil's Alternative: No matter what you do, you are guaranteed to do the wrong thing (Beware! Extremely hot potato ahead!). Furthermore, there have been far too many occasions in which such decisions have been made in the past. That's why the term euthanasia has become a victim of the euphemism treadmill, plus it poses the question what life should be considered "livable" and what not. I definitely cannot - and will not - answer it. Anyone who attempts to do so is in for trouble, one way or another.
To break out of this quandary, other options have to be found (like treating the genetic defect or whatever at its root, thereby avoiding the problem in the first place and allowing healthy children to be conceived).

Yes, if one wants to accurately judge an action one should assess the motivation behind it.  Then again, you are judging that in terms of your personal values often without any idea of the context in which the action happened.  In some Arab countries, thievery is so heinous that the thief's right hand can be amputated for the offense.  We find that terrible.  How much more terrible when the thief is a 6 year old boy who only wanted to provide bread for his bedridden mother and younger sister?  But is IS thievery...so should the action be judged in absence of the context, as an absolute moral transgression?  So...what if the movie is being pirated because someone can sell it to provide medicine which will cure his son of blindness?  Would Cameron or anyone begrudge this?  I'm not saying that is happening in the majority of cases, but then again how do we know?

And that's where things become tricky: In order to find out the motivation behind any one deed, you will have to research it. However, you also have to account for an error margin in this as well as information being omitted, altered or entirely faked up (whether done deliberately or not would decide if it should be considered to be of malicious intent) as well as any emergency situations someone might be in.
Although here the thievery would not be considered good by itself, the motivation behind it could opt for leniency (here there's no malicious intent to be seen but rather the desire to help).
All those things make judging actions extremely difficult - and if something has been done for malicious reasons, the perpetrator most likely isn't going to admit that, but instead you need to find sufficient evidence for that. Again, it also requires some more clarification of piracy: When would such a deed be considered piracy and when not? Again I would say if things are done for selfish or outright malicious reasons, then we should talk about piracy. In other cases it still remains thievery, but they could - as your examples show - very well have been invoked by some state of emergency. And any sensible law provides policies for exactly these situations to allow either for a reduced penalty, or better yet a complete waiver.

Or how about this one: "The strong prey on the weak."
Just consider the bar scene in the second extended cut of the movie (the one that starts on 'Rrta) in which Jake Sully is quoted thus. That would be yet another example for a malicious act (that guy in the bar bullying the blonde girl for whatever reason there may be), but when Jake intervenes, not the bad guy is tossed out of the bar, but Jake is instead. Sadly, that's just another mirror image of life as it happens in reality. And so is the thing with piracy: Consider the RDA taking Pandora's riches (and that just doesn't mean the unobtainium but also anything else on that moon). Have they asked the Na'vi - or better yet Eywa - for permission?  I guess not. And how about the songs from the Na'vi or any stories they have related? Although nothing of this is seen in the movie, wouldn't it still be a possibility that someone made money of those on 'Rrta?
That would be correlated (since this goes down the exact same alley) to music, movie, or whatever piracy you would come up with - and just because the Na'vi don't know what could be going on over four light years away from their home world, this doesn't make the deed any better...

You are talking about social Darwinism here.  While there is that dynamic in many instances in the world, if that were the true underlying mechanism for humanity as a whole we would not have survived thus far.  We would have killed one another off long ago.  Our belief in social Darwinism makes us blind to what really happens in the world.

It brings up the old question...if there was a worldwide catastrophe and only pockets of humanity remained alive, who would survive: the bands with the most weapons and ammunition (the 'strong') or the groups who worked cooperatively for survival (the 'weak', in some eyes).  Most anthropologists will probably tell you that those who were able to band together to ensure survival were the ones who were the most viable.

Not necessarily. What I'm talking about is maliciousness.
"Survival of the fittest" is not per se negative, though, and as the definition is rather vague, it provides for many vantage points. To be considered to be the "fittest" there are a great deal of criteria. Someone may have highly developed physical strength and mental prowess, allowing for better chances of survival. On the other hand banding together can also be of an advantage since it allows to cancel out the lack of ability to a certain extent.
However, highly skilled individuals who band together (thereby combining both) have good chances to eventually win over the other factions unless the others eventually react and develop counterstrategies.
However, this can be turned into something negative providing sufficiently malicious intent is present. In that instance the Social Darwinism can be abused to "justify" whatever misdeeds someone might come up with, like preying on those he considers to be inferior to himself or discriminating against them by whatever means possible. History has seen far too much of that, too (also in recent times).
As you already said: "Our belief in social Darwinism makes us blind to what really happens in the world."
*SIGN!*

[Seze Mune]

Wou, ma Ningey, we are getting long and involved are we not?   I love it!  It will take me awhile to ponder your responses enough to know whether I even have a response to them!    

[Ningey]

Why? Where's the problem?
I love productive discussions, because that way we can find out more about a topic, and since this is also a topic I tend to catch on to, you are going to get me involved (in fact, maliciousness, injustice and the likes tend to make me furious).
Anyway, take your time - there is no need to be in a hurry. Accuracy times speed is capped, anyway...

[ExLibrisMortis]

Well speed is the difference between making a post that was relevant, and not a post that's been responded to already.

[Seze Mune]

Well speed is the difference between making a post that was relevant, and not a post that's been responded to already.

I see no problem there.  Just because someone else has responded doesn't make my response less legitimate, even if it's only an echo of agreement.   

[ExLibrisMortis]

Well in some cases it is, and most the other it isn't.

[Seze Mune]

Your intention may be one side of the equation - the actual outcome is the other one, and sometimes a good intention can come up with a bad result or vice versa. And that's yet another interesting part: How are you going to react when confronted with an unexpected outcome?

Surprised.    It's an interesting subject, ma Ningey.  It's easy for people to misconstrue one's intent, particularly in written form because there is no body language to temper one's interpretation.  That's what emoticons are for, but they are a poor substitute for a comment made with a raised eyebrow and a grin, for example, which might give "What else could I expect from you," a comical rather than a hurtful connotation.  I think in this case it's important to realize that the person doing the misconstruing is giving you important clues to themselves and their own thought processes when this happens.

Also agreed. However, there are subtle differences between the two. With a people directly interfering with the affairs of another one some reaction has to be expected and is usually taken into account. However, the other thing gives you no chance to notice that something isn't right and so causes you to unwittingly put someone else in danger.

This in turn takes us to the next question: Can you be held liable for anything that you are not aware of and which you didn't have a chance to notice beforehand. I would say no.

I would agree with you here, although I note that people have won court cases arguing that you should have known something when in fact you didn't, and therefore you are culpable under the law.  

However, things look entirely different should you have known that something was wrong and then didn't do anything about it (like alerting anyone to the problem) and so took the following into account against your better knowledge.

Take the case of Christian Scientist parents who are convinced that prayer will cure their dying child and that if they take the child to the doctor instead, they are faithless and sinning in the eyes of their church.  So when their child dies, are they to be considered evil?  Irresponsible?  Should they be punished?

Again, there's a question of tradeoffs. Furthermore, the definition of a 'greater good' seems to be somewhat vague and has been abused all too often to hide some wrongs. So there we need some definition of what would make up such a greater good. As a first approach I would have this to offer: It would cause the maximum benefit for as many people as possible whilst reducing the ramifications as much as possible and even the number of people affected. So where birth control would be something acceptable (no harm is done to anyone, and life that hasn't been conceived yet cannot be killed) actually does something good - it can help to stave off an overpopulation that would cause a lot more misery if left uncontrolled - however, it's of paramount importance that it is enforced justly, without preferring or disadvantaging anyone and also by taking into account a possibility for disaster. Children aren't immune to mishaps, and deaths can occur.

As far as the other questions are concerned, even if I wanted to answer them, I could not. That tradeoff I would have to make would be tantamount to a Devil's Alternative: No matter what you do, you are guaranteed to do the wrong thing (Beware! Extremely hot potato ahead!). Furthermore, there have been far too many occasions in which such decisions have been made in the past. That's why the term euthanasia has become a victim of the euphemism treadmill, plus it poses the question what life should be considered "livable" and what not. I definitely cannot - and will not - answer it. Anyone who attempts to do so is in for trouble, one way or another.

To break out of this quandary, other options have to be found (like treating the genetic defect or whatever at its root, thereby avoiding the problem in the first place and allowing healthy children to be conceived).

That would seem to be a reasonable solution.  However, some genetic defects may just be the way the race protects itself.  Take sickle cell anemia.  In areas where there is high malaria, the trait allows individuals to survive long enough to maintain continuance of the race because malaria itself cannot survive this trait.  I'm sure there are other cases where genetic abnormalities actually functioned protectively under certain conditions.  

One of the problems we have with today's food production is that there is less genetic diversity.  That means a plant disease can decimate the majority of a nation's crop because too many growers are growing genetically similar seeds.  That's why Ireland lost about 2 million people from starvation and emigration during the Great Potato Famine...most farmers grew the same kind of potato so when the blight hit, it wiped out the entire nation's crop for about 7 years. Genetic diversity would have helped mitigate that disaster, and I think it works the same for people.  There are, for instance, people with genetic mutations which make them resistant to the HIV virus.

And that's where things become tricky: In order to find out the motivation behind any one deed, you will have to research it. However, you also have to account for an error margin in this as well as information being omitted, altered or entirely faked up (whether done deliberately or not would decide if it should be considered to be of malicious intent) as well as any emergency situations someone might be in.
Although here the thievery would not be considered good by itself, the motivation behind it could opt for leniency (here there's no malicious intent to be seen but rather the desire to help).

All those things make judging actions extremely difficult - and if something has been done for malicious reasons, the perpetrator most likely isn't going to admit that, but instead you need to find sufficient evidence for that. Again, it also requires some more clarification of piracy: When would such a deed be considered piracy and when not? Again I would say if things are done for selfish or outright malicious reasons, then we should talk about piracy. In other cases it still remains thievery, but they could - as your examples show - very well have been invoked by some state of emergency. And any sensible law provides policies for exactly these situations to allow either for a reduced penalty, or better yet a complete waiver.

Agreed

Or how about this one: "The strong prey on the weak."
Just consider the bar scene in the second extended cut of the movie (the one that starts on 'Rrta) in which Jake Sully is quoted thus. That would be yet another example for a malicious act (that guy in the bar bullying the blonde girl for whatever reason there may be), but when Jake intervenes, not the bad guy is tossed out of the bar, but Jake is instead. Sadly, that's just another mirror image of life as it happens in reality. And so is the thing with piracy: Consider the RDA taking Pandora's riches (and that just doesn't mean the unobtainium but also anything else on that moon). Have they asked the Na'vi - or better yet Eywa - for permission?  I guess not. And how about the songs from the Na'vi or any stories they have related? Although nothing of this is seen in the movie, wouldn't it still be a possibility that someone made money of those on 'Rrta?

That would be correlated (since this goes down the exact same alley) to music, movie, or whatever piracy you would come up with - and just because the Na'vi don't know what could be going on over four light years away from their home world, this doesn't make the deed any better...

Reminds me: I don't think anyone on 'Rrta has asked God or Eywa or Jehovah or the Supreme Identity for permission to drill for oil, mine for gold, even farm the land.  Should we do those things?

Not necessarily. What I'm talking about is maliciousness.
"Survival of the fittest" is not per se negative, though, and as the definition is rather vague, it provides for many vantage points. To be considered to be the "fittest" there are a great deal of criteria. Someone may have highly developed physical strength and mental prowess, allowing for better chances of survival. On the other hand banding together can also be of an advantage since it allows to cancel out the lack of ability to a certain extent.

In First Nation tribes, elders were revered and honored.  They would not be 'the fittest' of the group, but they would be repositories of knowledge which would guide the tribe in times of need.  The younger members would defend these elders.  Survival of the fittest becomes a cooperative venture.

However, highly skilled individuals who band together (thereby combining both) have good chances to eventually win over the other factions unless the others eventually react and develop counterstrategies.

However, this can be turned into something negative providing sufficiently malicious intent is present. In that instance the Social Darwinism can be abused to "justify" whatever misdeeds someone might come up with, like preying on those he considers to be inferior to himself or discriminating against them by whatever means possible. History has seen far too much of that, too (also in recent times).
As you already said: "Our belief in social Darwinism makes us blind to what really happens in the world."
*SIGN!*

"Sign"?  

[Ningey]

Your intention may be one side of the equation - the actual outcome is the other one, and sometimes a good intention can come up with a bad result or vice versa. And that's yet another interesting part: How are you going to react when confronted with an unexpected outcome?

Surprised.    It's an interesting subject, ma Ningey.  It's easy for people to misconstrue one's intent, particularly in written form because there is no body language to temper one's interpretation.  That's what emoticons are for, but they are a poor substitute for a comment made with a raised eyebrow and a grin, for example, which might give "What else could I expect from you," a comical rather than a hurtful connotation.  I think in this case it's important to realize that the person doing the misconstruing is giving you important clues to themselves and their own thought processes when this happens.

That may be true, though, but somehow I cannot establish the connection to the topic at hand...

Also agreed. However, there are subtle differences between the two. With a people directly interfering with the affairs of another one some reaction has to be expected and is usually taken into account. However, the other thing gives you no chance to notice that something isn't right and so causes you to unwittingly put someone else in danger.

This in turn takes us to the next question: Can you be held liable for anything that you are not aware of and which you didn't have a chance to notice beforehand. I would say no.

I would agree with you here, although I note that people have won court cases arguing that you should have known something when in fact you didn't, and therefore you are culpable under the law.

... which in turn tells me that something must be awfully wrong with some of the decisions. This may hold true as far as the laws themselves are concerned (you normally have ample opportunity to inform yourself on what regulations are in effect), but when it comes down to some state of affairs that you didn't even have a chance to be aware of (to stay with the above example let's again take that defective car) or you had to go to unreasonable lengths to figure that out things become different here.
Should the one who absolutely had no chance of noticing that something has been amiss is still convicted that tells me enough in that moment (and is most likely to make me furious).

However, things look entirely different should you have known that something was wrong and then didn't do anything about it (like alerting anyone to the problem) and so took the following into account against your better knowledge.

Take the case of Christian Scientist parents who are convinced that prayer will cure their dying child and that if they take the child to the doctor instead, they are faithless and sinning in the eyes of their church.  So when their child dies, are they to be considered evil?  Irresponsible?  Should they be punished?

I guess I've heard about that line of thinking before (I have my own opinions thereon so I'll let it rest at that), but anyway...
Here we have to deal with yet another quandary: Pray instead of going to the doctor's and you are going to be subject to prosecution by applicable law (failure to render assistance - e. g. in Germany that's punishable by law under the rulings of §323c StGB) or visit the doctor's instead, thereby saving your child, but risk getting banned by your church community...
Speaking for myself only, I would know instantly what I would have to do under such cirumstances, and that would be saving my child.

[quote a

uthor=Ningey link=topic=20248.msg504449#msg504449 date=1318963174]

Again, there's a question of tradeoffs. Furthermore, the definition of a 'greater good' seems to be somewhat vague and has been abused all too often to hide some wrongs. So there we need some definition of what would make up such a greater good. As a first approach I would have this to offer: It would cause the maximum benefit for as many people as possible whilst reducing the ramifications as much as possible and even the number of people affected. So where birth control would be something acceptable (no harm is done to anyone, and life that hasn't been conceived yet cannot be killed) actually does something good - it can help to stave off an overpopulation that would cause a lot more misery if left uncontrolled - however, it's of paramount importance that it is enforced justly, without preferring or disadvantaging anyone and also by taking into account a possibility for disaster. Children aren't immune to mishaps, and deaths can occur.

As far as the other questions are concerned, even if I wanted to answer them, I could not. That tradeoff I would have to make would be tantamount to a Devil's Alternative: No matter what you do, you are guaranteed to do the wrong thing (Beware! Extremely hot potato ahead!). Furthermore, there have been far too many occasions in which such decisions have been made in the past. That's why the term euthanasia has become a victim of the euphemism treadmill, plus it poses the question what life should be considered "livable" and what not. I definitely cannot - and will not - answer it. Anyone who attempts to do so is in for trouble, one way or another.

To break out of this quandary, other options have to be found (like treating the genetic defect or whatever at its root, thereby avoiding the problem in the first place and allowing healthy children to be conceived).

That would seem to be a reasonable solution.  However, some genetic defects may just be the way the race protects itself.  Take sickle cell anemia.  In areas where there is high malaria, the trait allows individuals to survive long enough to maintain continuance of the race because malaria itself cannot survive this trait.  I'm sure there are other cases where genetic abnormalities actually functioned protectively under certain conditions.  

One of the problems we have with today's food production is that there is less genetic diversity.  That means a plant disease can decimate the majority of a nation's crop because too many growers are growing genetically similar seeds.  That's why Ireland lost about 2 million people from starvation and emigration during the Great Potato Famine...most farmers grew the same kind of potato so when the blight hit, it wiped out the entire nation's crop for about 7 years. Genetic diversity would have helped mitigate that disaster, and I think it works the same for people.  There are, for instance, people with genetic mutations which make them resistant to the HIV virus.
[/quote]
If such a trait gives you an advantage, there's no need of tampering with that one (like sickle cell anemia - since those individuals are a dead end for malaria, they are definitely at an advantage), in fact, undoing it would be counterproductive.

As far as the problem with the lack of genetic diversity is concerned, that's just another homemade problem, so I agree with that one.
As far as the mutation that makes people resistant to HIV, that's yet another advantage that is worth keeping (I have read something about the origins for this, but I cannot find it at the moment - if I detected it somewhere, I would be happy to provide further details), however, the origins of this trait have been rather interesting. Some scientists suspect that this occurred during the Great Plague that had hit Europe during the Middle Ages, thereby causing the mutation (which would make some kind of virus a suspect in propagating the mutation or some bacteria that contains a cofactor - which somehow got grafted into the gene pool of humans).

[...]

Or how about this one: "The strong prey on the weak."
Just consider the bar scene in the second extended cut of the movie (the one that starts on 'Rrta) in which Jake Sully is quoted thus. That would be yet another example for a malicious act (that guy in the bar bullying the blonde girl for whatever reason there may be), but when Jake intervenes, not the bad guy is tossed out of the bar, but Jake is instead. Sadly, that's just another mirror image of life as it happens in reality. And so is the thing with piracy: Consider the RDA taking Pandora's riches (and that just doesn't mean the unobtainium but also anything else on that moon). Have they asked the Na'vi - or better yet Eywa - for permission?  I guess not. And how about the songs from the Na'vi or any stories they have related? Although nothing of this is seen in the movie, wouldn't it still be a possibility that someone made money of those on 'Rrta?

That would be correlated (since this goes down the exact same alley) to music, movie, or whatever piracy you would come up with - and just because the Na'vi don't know what could be going on over four light years away from their home world, this doesn't make the deed any better...

Reminds me: I don't think anyone on 'Rrta has asked God or Eywa or Jehovah or the Supreme Identity for permission to drill for oil, mine for gold, even farm the land.  Should we do those things?

It all depends on how things are done. When done sensibly (by just taking whatever is absolutely needed and then recycle that which is not used any more) there shouldn't be a problem with it. However, most of the times things are done at least carelessly (if not outright viciously), and that's inviting trouble one way or another.
If it's not pollution or the likes, it's warfare or some other malefaction.

Not necessarily. What I'm talking about is maliciousness.
"Survival of the fittest" is not per se negative, though, and as the definition is rather vague, it provides for many vantage points. To be considered to be the "fittest" there are a great deal of criteria. Someone may have highly developed physical strength and mental prowess, allowing for better chances of survival. On the other hand banding together can also be of an advantage since it allows to cancel out the lack of ability to a certain extent.

In First Nation tribes, elders were revered and honored.  They would not be 'the fittest' of the group, but they would be repositories of knowledge which would guide the tribe in times of need.  The younger members would defend these elders.  Survival of the fittest becomes a cooperative venture.

In my opinion that would be the optimum. The young ones who are physically and mentally active are the ones to get things done (and even keep harm away from one's family, clan, tribe, or whatever) while in parallel relying on the experience and expertise of the older members.
That's a state both sides benefit from: The offspring by being able to tap into the knowledge the elders have, and the elders by possibly experiencing an extended lifetime.
But alas, as things turn out, in some of the so-called civilized countries elderly people seem to get pushed aside from society (there are individuals who consider them to be a nuisance or worse, and quite often they are put into a nursery home. Out of sight, out of mind...  ).

However, highly skilled individuals who band together (thereby combining both) have good chances to eventually win over the other factions unless the others eventually react and develop counterstrategies.

However, this can be turned into something negative providing sufficiently malicious intent is present. In that instance the Social Darwinism can be abused to "justify" whatever misdeeds someone might come up with, like preying on those he considers to be inferior to himself or discriminating against them by whatever means possible. History has seen far too much of that, too (also in recent times).
As you already said: "Our belief in social Darwinism makes us blind to what really happens in the world."
*SIGN!*

"Sign"?  

That means that what I've quoted from you I would readily put my signature underneath...

[Seze Mune]

Your intention may be one side of the equation - the actual outcome is the other one, and sometimes a good intention can come up with a bad result or vice versa. And that's yet another interesting part: How are you going to react when confronted with an unexpected outcome?

Surprised.    It's an interesting subject, ma Ningey.  It's easy for people to misconstrue one's intent, particularly in written form because there is no body language to temper one's interpretation.  That's what emoticons are for, but they are a poor substitute for a comment made with a raised eyebrow and a grin, for example, which might give "What else could I expect from you," a comical rather than a hurtful connotation.  I think in this case it's important to realize that the person doing the misconstruing is giving you important clues to themselves and their own thought processes when this happens.

That may be true, though, but somehow I cannot establish the connection to the topic at hand...

Ah, well, what is good or what is bad depends entirely on who is doing the judging.  If a person thinks his intent is good, but it is perceived as bad, then the outcome will be unexpected.  Then what does one do?  One evaluates what happened.  One way to do that is to understand that the person who misperceived your intent is actually giving you clues on two things, (1) how he 'went off the tracks' in understanding your intent, and (2) how to correct the misperception of the original intent.  Sorry if I was obtuse in my previous comment.  I hope I was able to clarify a little.

Also agreed. However, there are subtle differences between the two. With a people directly interfering with the affairs of another one some reaction has to be expected and is usually taken into account. However, the other thing gives you no chance to notice that something isn't right and so causes you to unwittingly put someone else in danger.

This in turn takes us to the next question: Can you be held liable for anything that you are not aware of and which you didn't have a chance to notice beforehand. I would say no.

I would agree with you here, although I note that people have won court cases arguing that you should have known something when in fact you didn't, and therefore you are culpable under the law.

... which in turn tells me that something must be awfully wrong with some of the decisions. This may hold true as far as the laws themselves are concerned (you normally have ample opportunity to inform yourself on what regulations are in effect), but when it comes down to some state of affairs that you didn't even have a chance to be aware of (to stay with the above example let's again take that defective car) or you had to go to unreasonable lengths to figure that out things become different here.
Should the one who absolutely had no chance of noticing that something has been amiss is still convicted that tells me enough in that moment (and is most likely to make me furious).
[/quote]

I agree that you probably wouldn't be convicted in the event of the car situation. You had no idea that you were dealing with multiple probabilities and that any choice you made would have a domino effect with everyone else around you.  Ditto for any choice they made.
Most people don't take probabilities into consideration in their daily lives because there is no way for the human egoic consciousness to follow the entire trajectories of these events.  It doesn't mean that probabilities don't exist but at our level of evolution we can't grok it.

However, things look entirely different should you have known that something was wrong and then didn't do anything about it (like alerting anyone to the problem) and so took the following into account against your better knowledge.

Take the case of Christian Scientist parents who are convinced that prayer will cure their dying child and that if they take the child to the doctor instead, they are faithless and sinning in the eyes of their church.  So when their child dies, are they to be considered evil?  Irresponsible?  Should they be punished?

I guess I've heard about that line of thinking before (I have my own opinions thereon so I'll let it rest at that), but anyway...
Here we have to deal with yet another quandary: Pray instead of going to the doctor's and you are going to be subject to prosecution by applicable law (failure to render assistance - e. g. in Germany that's punishable by law under the rulings of §323c StGB) or visit the doctor's instead, thereby saving your child, but risk getting banned by your church community...
Speaking for myself only, I would know instantly what I would have to do under such cirumstances, and that would be saving my child.
[/quote]
I feel the same, but here again we have a case of good intent gone awry. 

[quote a

uthor=Ningey link=topic=20248.msg504449#msg504449 date=1318963174]

Again, there's a question of tradeoffs. Furthermore, the definition of a 'greater good' seems to be somewhat vague and has been abused all too often to hide some wrongs. So there we need some definition of what would make up such a greater good. As a first approach I would have this to offer: It would cause the maximum benefit for as many people as possible whilst reducing the ramifications as much as possible and even the number of people affected. So where birth control would be something acceptable (no harm is done to anyone, and life that hasn't been conceived yet cannot be killed) actually does something good - it can help to stave off an overpopulation that would cause a lot more misery if left uncontrolled - however, it's of paramount importance that it is enforced justly, without preferring or disadvantaging anyone and also by taking into account a possibility for disaster. Children aren't immune to mishaps, and deaths can occur.

As far as the other questions are concerned, even if I wanted to answer them, I could not. That tradeoff I would have to make would be tantamount to a Devil's Alternative: No matter what you do, you are guaranteed to do the wrong thing (Beware! Extremely hot potato ahead!). Furthermore, there have been far too many occasions in which such decisions have been made in the past. That's why the term euthanasia has become a victim of the euphemism treadmill, plus it poses the question what life should be considered "livable" and what not. I definitely cannot - and will not - answer it. Anyone who attempts to do so is in for trouble, one way or another.

To break out of this quandary, other options have to be found (like treating the genetic defect or whatever at its root, thereby avoiding the problem in the first place and allowing healthy children to be conceived).

That would seem to be a reasonable solution.  However, some genetic defects may just be the way the race protects itself.  Take sickle cell anemia.  In areas where there is high malaria, the trait allows individuals to survive long enough to maintain continuance of the race because malaria itself cannot survive this trait.  I'm sure there are other cases where genetic abnormalities actually functioned protectively under certain conditions.  

One of the problems we have with today's food production is that there is less genetic diversity.  That means a plant disease can decimate the majority of a nation's crop because too many growers are growing genetically similar seeds.  That's why Ireland lost about 2 million people from starvation and emigration during the Great Potato Famine...most farmers grew the same kind of potato so when the blight hit, it wiped out the entire nation's crop for about 7 years. Genetic diversity would have helped mitigate that disaster, and I think it works the same for people.  There are, for instance, people with genetic mutations which make them resistant to the HIV virus.
[/quote]
If such a trait gives you an advantage, there's no need of tampering with that one (like sickle cell anemia - since those individuals are a dead end for malaria, they are definitely at an advantage), in fact, undoing it would be counterproductive.

As far as the problem with the lack of genetic diversity is concerned, that's just another homemade problem, so I agree with that one.
As far as the mutation that makes people resistant to HIV, that's yet another advantage that is worth keeping (I have read something about the origins for this, but I cannot find it at the moment - if I detected it somewhere, I would be happy to provide further details), however, the origins of this trait have been rather interesting. Some scientists suspect that this occurred during the Great Plague that had hit Europe during the Middle Ages, thereby causing the mutation (which would make some kind of virus a suspect in propagating the mutation or some bacteria that contains a cofactor - which somehow got grafted into the gene pool of humans).
[/quote]

What about other genetic mutations though?  Like the cats which glow in the dark because they've been bred with jellyfish DNA?  Or what about genetically modified grains?  Are these good things or are they bad things?

[Ningey]

Ah, well, what is good or what is bad depends entirely on who is doing the judging.  If a person thinks his intent is good, but it is perceived as bad, then the outcome will be unexpected.  Then what does one do?  One evaluates what happened.  One way to do that is to understand that the person who misperceived your intent is actually giving you clues on two things, (1) how he 'went off the tracks' in understanding your intent, and (2) how to correct the misperception of the original intent.  Sorry if I was obtuse in my previous comment.  I hope I was able to clarify a little.

O.k., that would make you being a little obtuse meeting me who possibly had his wires crossed - that would make it a double fault...
Anyway, such things are sure becoming interesting and give some insight into your counterpart's mind (did I ever mention that I like setting up psychographs? And no, I'm neither a psychologist nor a psychiatrist). However, without such a feedback you wouldn't have a chance to correct your counterpart's misconceptions (providing he gives you any feedback on what you just said instead of keeping his thoughts to himself) plus a hint on how to avoid further confusions in the future.
However, the danger here is that such knowledge could also be abused. A demagogue of any sort could trim his words in such a fashion that he achieves the results he desires, possibly making other people the pawns of whatever he may have concocted. We've had that several times in recent history, though...

I agree that you probably wouldn't be convicted in the event of the car situation. You had no idea that you were dealing with multiple probabilities and that any choice you made would have a domino effect with everyone else around you.  Ditto for any choice they made.
Most people don't take probabilities into consideration in their daily lives because there is no way for the human egoic consciousness to follow the entire trajectories of these events.  It doesn't mean that probabilities don't exist but at our level of evolution we can't grok it.

In many cases I would sign that one, but occasionally you may still encounter a fellow or another who makes up his mind and considers several avenues of what may happen in an attempt to choose the best - but as with any other heuristic you have an error margin, especially if you are miscalculating the importance of any given piece of information. That's where errors actually come from.
However, there are also events that too much information can be bad as well as it tends to bog you down considering everything, although you only would have needed a small fraction of it.
I've read a report about this phenomenon, but I would have to find it for further details...
Also there's yet another question that arises, and that's about what you can expect in a given situation. When you buy a car, then you expect it to function properly and not have any faults. That's what could obscure the probabilities that there are actually any faults present - the best course of events would be that the defective item is recalled. However, once Murphy's Law comes into play...

I feel the same, but here again we have a case of good intent gone awry. 

Exactly. And as it turns out, it's a Devil's Alternative on top of that: No matter how you do it, you're doing it the wrong way.

What about other genetic mutations though?  Like the cats which glow in the dark because they've been bred with jellyfish DNA?  Or what about genetically modified grains?  Are these good things or are they bad things?

To be honest, that somehow reminds me of Dr. Frankenstein's lab - there's no telling what you could concoct this way, and certain things that have been done turn out to have ramifications, though (like fruits or grain, etc. that produces its own pesticide or the likes). As it turns out, many such creations have nasty side effects.
However, many things that are done are completely in the eye of the beholder, and if something good eventually comes out depends highly on the person doing the job. Genetic engineering can be beneficial if done right, however, it can also be used for some really nasty ends.
By the way: Have you ever watched the movie "Gattaca"?

[ExLibrisMortis]

However, things look entirely different should you have known that something was wrong and then didn't do anything about it (like alerting anyone to the problem) and so took the following into account against your better knowledge.

Take the case of Christian Scientist parents who are convinced that prayer will cure their dying child and that if they take the child to the doctor instead, they are faithless and sinning in the eyes of their church.  So when their child dies, are they to be considered evil?  Irresponsible?  Should they be punished?

I guess I've heard about that line of thinking before (I have my own opinions thereon so I'll let it rest at that), but anyway...
Here we have to deal with yet another quandary: Pray instead of going to the doctor's and you are going to be subject to prosecution by applicable law (failure to render assistance - e. g. in Germany that's punishable by law under the rulings of §323c StGB) or visit the doctor's instead, thereby saving your child, but risk getting banned by your church community...
Speaking for myself only, I would know instantly what I would have to do under such cirumstances, and that would be saving my child.
[/quote]


My question purely is why is there the concept that if a person believe in God, why must they not believe also in science? Science does not conflict God, as science is purely the understanding of what is happening around us. Thus, there should be no reason or punishment to anyone who utilizesthe accomplishments of man to better themselves, for one could simply argue that science is nothing more than understanding how the "magic" of God works.