I have no idea which side you're on anymore, so let's do this one by one.
Any side I may have is irrelevant, this is very important to me, an argument should not be dismissed or accepted simply because of its origin, this is one of the problems I have with god. If I were to choose a side I would choose the side of the truth, which I admit I can never be certain I possess. I am seeking compelling arguments for the nature of spiritual existence.
Semantics. Master has an entirely different connotation than boss, depending on how it's used. There is an emotional undercurrent.
Master is an entirely acceptable term for people in modern times. To address someone as
your master is somewhat exceptional, but does occur outside of slavery and similar circumstances. Master implies responsibility and boss implies dictation, but you should not allow one without the other. The thing is that god demands absolute loyalty, absolute loyalty cannot co-exist with other loyalties without one or the other being compromised.
If you join a military that expects you to obey orders without hesitation then you really can't do so honestly without undermining your efforts to choose a religiously valid existence, as you give up the opportunity to choose.
Your country's military wants you to obey orders without hesitation? Okay, let's gun down some innocent civilians! Or hey, let's gas some prisoners of war. That's not even within the realm of religious conviction anymore, that's just conscience. Conscience is universal, unlike what you seem to think.
Where did I imply anything about conscience? Other than to say that to follow a god is to place that god's teachings above your own conscience. I never said it wasn't universal, not that it is, it 'might' be universally distributed but not in absolute concentration. Not that it matters, human conscience is almost as arbitrary as religious conscience and almost as corrupted...
I admit that I lack sufficient experience of military organisations to make such assumptions without being insulting. But bear in mind that if an authority has made a decision then it is can be assumed that they have already considered the circumstances. If a soldier refuses to destroy a target with innocent hostages in it then they had better have a
very good reason...
The innocent civilians were reported to be carrying bombs, this time it was bad intelligence, the last couple of times it saved dozens more innocent civilians and considerable property damage.
You don't have the food to feed the POWs, if you do nothing, they starve to death and so do your soldiers, if you release them, they go back to your enemies, looting on the way, and then start killing your soldiers, or they starve to death and you are still guilty of war crimes. Someone with authority made the decision, a soldier isn't in a position to know the whole situation, they should follow orders unless they have reason to believe that someone has made a mistake.
Nothing, it is an extreme case that I was using to make a clearer example. The fact is that to a christian their god's will overrides any intention to do good deeds and any argument to the contrary is just silly.
Yes, that's called building a strawman. It's a logical fallacy that involves changing the other side's position so you can attack it more easily.
So you are giving it a name, that doesn't make it invalid, the fact remains that if your god's teachings differ in any way from the well being of others that you will fail your religion should you question its teachings. And I didn't change your position at all, I simply took it to one of its extremes, your only problem with the example I gave is that it implied that god might ever want anything other than what you decide is nice...
Is that so? What possible verification could you have as to the nature of that which you worship? Is your love conditional? Because that is enough for your infinitely forgiving god to cast you into oblivion... The christian god is not reasonable!
You ask him how he knows the nature of what he worships, then you go around telling him its nature? A little odd of you, don't you think?
This is meaninglessly argumentative, the nature question is mostly rhetorical, but I am genuinely interested in any answers available. And I was commenting on the nature of the christian god which is derived from many sources, one's personal worship may be entirely different... but mostly I was being overly emotional, but I don't see anything about my previous statements that seem false.
Ever hear of IVF? It is that thing where they generate a bunch of human embryos, pick their favourite, and throw away the rest, this is where we currently get embryonic stem cells from. If there is no such thing then where do they come from?
"Baby farms" is a misleading term used to spark feelings of revulsion and outrage.
IVF is In Vitro Fertilization. That involves fertilizing an egg cell outside the womb, with a sperm cell. Said egg is then transferred to a womb. So I'm pretty sure you don't know what you're talking about.
(and we get embryonic stem cells from embryos. Where else would we get them?)
They make spares and throw away the ones they don't use. Human embryos come from humans. 'Baby farm' is not my term, and it is clearly silly, farms deal with species, baby is an age. Farms are self sustaining, IVF requires new materials from external sources. Hunting, fishing, or manufacturing would be more appropriate terms but such terms are emotional and easily manipulated by either side of the debate, the simple fact of the matter is that human tissue is harvested for the purposes of embryonic stem cell research, embryonic stem cell industries would require the same thing. Ideally the circumstances resulting in embryonic stem cells would not occur, creating an industry requiring them promotes their creating in both legal and illegal ways...
