Posts Made By: Paul Kammueller

The reason is really quite simple. There is a serious flaw in our moral code.

In the moral code, there are two very highly prized truths that are repeatedly voiced in one form or another:

1) One should try to make others happy, or at least, one should make an effort to do no harm.
2) Life is precious and must be valued.

Clearly where we run into a problem is where you have cases where #1 and #2 come into direct conflict with each other. When you are doing harm by prolonging life, or granting rest and relief by allowing death.

Some feel so strongly about #2 that it totally overrides the desire not to do harm. They feel that life must preserved at ALL costs, even if it means a hellish, insufferable sub-human life for the patient. It is, imho, a situation where absolutism clouds objective reasoning and rational moral thinking.

The very definition of #2 is problematic as well in modern times, of course. By most distinctly human measures, life is over if higher brain functions are longer working. What remains may be, biologically "alive" but most would not regard that as living on any meaningful personal level.

These scopes are almost identical in terms of focal length, one is just 5% 'longer' than the other. You will not see any material difference in terms of magnification with a given eyepiece, eye relief, etc.

However, there is a 25% aperture difference, which will show a material difference in performance. The 250mm will win this hands-down.

But if convenience is an issue none of this matters. An 8" scope getting used is better than a 10" sitting in the closet. At what point that trade-off becomes the decision point is a personal issue.

My wife will on rare occasion come outside to take a quick peek at whatever I'm looking at, or also when we're at her parents' cabin and I've got along my stubby little 6" mini-dob and everyone else in the family is looking too. But on a regular observing basis, 99.9% of the time she prefers sleeping.

I would say this thing we call 'religion' is not instinctual per se.

'Religion' generally could more aptly be described as a 'residual' effect -- an artifact of another trait, being: intelligence with abstract thought.

The human mind links together bits of evidence to form a picture of reality. Where there are gaps, the human mind fills them. It must, for we can hardly know everything. In those areas of reality where the gaps in our hard knowledge have historically been quite large (as in cosmogenesis, the nature of self-awareness, existence, death etc.) the 'fill-ins' for these gaps in become necessarily large and elaborate.

If a small-to-medium gap is bridged suddenly with some mix of evidence and a little unusual reasoning, the "Eureka!" of an extraordinary scientific leap may be the result. If a large gap in knowledge is bridged with some elaborate ritualistic/mythic structures, possibly in combination with some knowledge such as history, a 'religion' is born.

If a 'religion' is sufficiently appealing, or if its followers have enough power to 'convert' others, this artifact spreads to other populations and becomes entrenched in their culture as well, becoming ever-more wired into their psychological operating system as one generation passes its beliefs on to the next. It becomes part of the culture's identity until the next 'Conversion'.

So 'religions' it seems to me are the outward manifestation of the neurological equivalent of a software virus -- like a bug that arises in the programming in nearly every culture, and then spreads, it is in fact an inevitable result of our ability to use abstract thought to fill voids in knowledge.

It does have some biological advantages, particularly where relaxation techniques (i.e. prayer and meditation) enter in, but more importantly it helps the mind 'make peace' with reality without having to be distracted by 'wondering' all the time about things that it cannot know.

First real scope was an orange-tube C8 I got in 1982. I had dabbled with a 60mm department-store refractor previously, but the C8 opened up a whole new world for me and I was hooked.

Current primary scopes are a 10" f/8, a 6" f/6, and 16" f/3.75, all dobs, all scopes I've built (though the optics were purchased, I have not the patience for glass-grinding).

That's really weird -- won't be checking out the eastern orthodox churches anytime soon, I guess. What's worse is the priest's apparent indignance at being charged, he really believes that he hasn't done anything wrong in crucifying this poor woman and that this is just standard church practice.

Fortunately we don't see this much in western denominations, treating mental illness through execution on the cross. I guess the upside is that you probably can't be insane or possessed if you're dead... so, from a practical standpoint, the treatment is crude, but effective. :S

Jim Wayda said:
It seems that many members of this group are simply Trolls whose purpose is to antagonize other members of the group.

You caught the forum on a good day. You should have seen it when it was nasty.

Read the whole works, cover to cover (took an elective class on it back in college)

Rob Rich said:
Correct. But the stipulation was given that the father was loving, fair, and had an unyielding resolve toward right and wrong.

...So was the dad right in your assessment? To punish?

2 things:

1) You are then making the conclusion of your argument the starting assumption, i.e. "Father knows best, therefore dad is right." The reality of course is that this cannot be a given stipulation: this would be rather a conclusion that we would arrive at, after observing the father's behavior in response to the incident being proposed.

2) While that aspect of your argument fails due to circular reasoning, you seem to be asking a broader question of whether some form of punishment is appropriate given a certain infraction, to which the answer is yes, of course.

Rob Rich said:

Again, the issue was what can be tolerated,(Steve tossing instead of pitching), and if you disobey, you will find swift retribution for your poor actions.

Here's the crux of the matter. 'Disobeying' God. Fundamental problem with the analogy is that the dad speaks directly to the kid. God doesn't do this. We don't get God saying to us loud and clear as individuals, "Go do this" or "Don't do that". What we get are various intermediaries of different religious persuasions, writing various holy books claiming to speak on God's behalf.

In your analogy, this would be equivalent to the dad not actually being present, but rather the kid having a mischievous older brother coming out and claiming to speak for the dad, saying perhaps, "Hey Dad told me he wants you to break that window". Now the little kid must decide whether the older brother is speaking the truth, lying, speaking in error, going insane, or just making the whole thing up.

So before the question of disobedience even comes to the fore, the question of the authenticity of the older brother's message must be evaluated. See the difference?