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Vaccinations and Religious Exemptions

ecco

Veteran Member
You can't figure out what religious morals are? They are morals you get as a result of training in a particular religion, i.e. Buddhism or Islam, etc.

There is nothing that needs to be "figured out". One just has to read the Bible or the Koran.

Commit adultry? Get buried with just your head sticking up and get stoned to death (if you're a women).

Wanna have incest? It's OK. Lotsa people in the bible did.





No, the abolitionist movement was formed and run by Christians, and is based on the Judeo-Christian ethic of the dignity of all individuals (that all are made in the image of God).
Yes, there were Christian abolishionists. However, all slaveowners believed it was their right to own slaves. The Bible clearly approves of slavery.


So what good is it if it both approves and disavows slavery?



As far as Roe v. Wade goes, a good start would be seeing it actually enforced, such as seeing children who can survive outside the womb being given rights.

You still didn't bother to read it to understand the effort that was made to include religious views.


Right now a woman can be given an elective abortion right up to the time she is in labor in the state of New York.

Are you referring to this or something else...
Within the first 24 weeks or after 24 weeks if necessary to preserve the mother's health or if the fetus isn't viable.
If this is what you are referring to, then I see nothing wrong.
 

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
My point is your distinction is jist as arbitrary. I certainly would not argue that an 80 year old, an 8 year old, a fetus, a zygote, or a sperm is any less human than the other. Indeed they are all undeniably human. They all possess potential as well.

My argument is simply that the law mist have limits. How and why we decide to draw these limits is the only real discussion.
Well the law has to decide what is murder, what shall be illegal on other grounds, and what shall be perfectly legal. I'm not saying a zygote should have all the same rights as a nine month old fetus. But the system we have right now in the USA is broken -- a woman can go in during her third trimester, when the fetus can survive outside the womb (when, btw, even Roe v Wade says the state has a right to step in and protect the fetus) and she can get an elective abortion. That is scandalous.
 

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
That is simply not true. You are quite capable. You choose not to do so. I assume because it is clear where such a decision leads.

We either dispose of freedom or we draw the limits.
Not at all. It's because I realize that some decisions are so close, that we truly don't know what we'll decide until we are actually in that position. That I've said it's very close, is as good an answer as you are going to get. Leave it be.
 

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
That is a fair challenge, but it would take us pretty far off course from the topic. That doesn't mean I'm wrong about it. I base my thoughts on images from the walls of ancient synagogues and other relics but which I can't produce on the internet. In addition your scriptures refer to Israel as a plant, to its members as plants such as Psalm 1. Plants everywhere and cuttings, and there are warnings of being 'Cut off' from Israel. I don't know how anyone could miss it. The descriptions of the tabernacle contain images of pomegranates, and pomegranates are the essence of the sacrum. The ark contains a staph of almond, and the ark itself is parallel to the tree of knowledge and tree of life, the tabernacle being laid out and aligned like it was the garden of Eden. I have lots of reasons to think it. It doesn't make me an expert.
Needless to say, these arguments do nothing to convince me, but then you haven't really given your evidence. We'll leave it for now since, as you say, it truly is off topic.
 

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
And if the brain activity in the comotose patient is below a certain level, we say they have died.

How about this? We use brain-death to determine when someone has died. That is the point where they lose all sorts of rights.

Why not use brain-life as the corresponding point when fetuses gain some rights? So, the question is when the brain of a developing fetus starts showing characteristics that are generally accepted as a 'functioning' brain. That requires enough connections and neural pathways as well as, say, basic brainstem activity.

Care to guess when that happens during development?
I have no problem with using complete lack of brain activity as the standard for determining death. Indeed I finding alarming that we still harvest organs from individuals whose hearts have stopped but still have brain activity.

But for THIS thread, we are not talking about that. We are talking about individuals who are comatose, meaning they have brain activity but are not conscious. They are still a human being. Consciousness is not the standard for determining who is a human being.
 

IndigoChild5559

Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
There is nothing that needs to be "figured out". One just has to read the Bible or the Koran.

Commit adultry? Get buried with just your head sticking up and get stoned to death (if you're a women).

Wanna have incest? It's OK. Lotsa people in the bible did.
People committed all sorts of sexual immorality in the Bible. It's an x-rated book. That's why the Bible goes out of it's way to state point blank what is and is not allowed sexually. It's very clear that i.e. adultery and incest are serious offenses.






Yes, there were Christian abolishionists. However, all slaveowners believed it was their right to own slaves. The Bible clearly approves of slavery.
There are people who like to quote the Bible out of context, attempting to cherry pick and then keep the letter of the law while violating its principles. The slave owners would be an example of this. Slavery violates the ethic that all of humanity is made in the image of God and thus all individuals have dignity.

What the Bible does allow is prisoners of war and indentured servitude. Indentured servitude is a common way cultures have of paying back loans when one goes broke.




Are you referring to this or something else...
Within the first 24 weeks or after 24 weeks if necessary to preserve the mother's health or if the fetus isn't viable.
If this is what you are referring to, then I see nothing wrong.
Yes, that is exactly what I'm referring to. I'd like to see it actually enforced. Right now it is run over roughshod. And due to advances in Medical Science, I would change 24 to 22.
 

RESOLUTION

Active Member
I'd like to see a discussion about vaccinations and exemptions, mostly the religious ones, but also exemptions on any grounds. I've placed this in the Science and Religion section, but remember that the overwhelming majority of religious people such as myself vaccinate.

The stakes are high. Measles is back, and every time there is measles, there are always some deaths. Same with the flu. Here in the Los Angeles area, believe it or not, we are actually having a typhus epidemic. Typhus is a disease that spreads where ever there is trash, because rats eat the trash and the fleas on the rats spread the disease. In other words it's a disease of pre-modern eras before cities had garbage pickups and vaccinations. Tthe shame on Los Angeles for its treatment of the homeless is fodder for another thread. But at any rate, the fleas have spread to places such as police offices and even city hall. Fleas that bite those that are infected and then spread the disease to others.

When people are not vaccinated they obviously put not only themselves at risk, and put all others who are not vaccinated at risk, but they put a small percentage of the vaccinated public at risk, because no vaccination is 100% effective. My daughter had all her vaccinations, including TDaP, and yet as an adult she still caught whooping cough (pertussis) and nearly died. In generations past, when nearly everyone was vaccinated, we had what was known as a herd protection, where those whose vaccinations had failed were still protected because no one was really getting the disease, but that has now ended because of the growing prevalence of anti-vaccinators.

So weigh in with your comments, pro and con.

I'm pretty extreme. I see this as a public health issue and a child neglect issue. I do not think there should be any exceptions for vaccines except allergies to the vaccines themselves. Those who don't want to vaccinate should be forced to 1. for the health of the community (their right to throw a punch ends where my face begins) and 2. for the general welfare of their kids. If they continue to refuse, they should be fined, a child welfare case opened, and their kids taken and vaccinated against their will. Yeap, I'm serious about this stuff. I have no patience with those who are too stupid to recognize paranoid conspiracy theories.

I read online an certain interchange. A woman who was anti-vaccination was asking what she could do to protect her children. The answers were harsh and to the point. One in particular was right on the mark. It said take your kids to the edge of the flat earth where the earth was fresher.

We had our children vaccinated from the child hood diseases. It had nothing to do with religion. The heading for this subject really interested me. I believe that if our days are registered before any of them began as the psalm 139 states..16 Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. The days of our lives are all allotted before they start. I have taken that to mean as 1 day is the same as a thousand years to God and the book of life written before the beginning of time, that having the vaccinations or not were all known before the days started too. I therefore can only conclude that if God gave you a watch, would you honour him more by using the watch to tell the time or asking him? We have ways to stop sickness before they begin. Why not use what God has given us and prevent becoming sick in the first instance. As sickness is not Gods will for us, I see no religious reason for not accepting and using prevention which he has blessed all nations with whether religious or not.
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
I have no problem with using complete lack of brain activity as the standard for determining death. Indeed I finding alarming that we still harvest organs from individuals whose hearts have stopped but still have brain activity.

But for THIS thread, we are not talking about that. We are talking about individuals who are comatose, meaning they have brain activity but are not conscious. They are still a human being. Consciousness is not the standard for determining who is a human being.

But what I am proposing is using the same criterion for fetuses. When they develop the brain activity even a comatose patient, we say they start getting rights.

Sound good?
 

Brickjectivity

Turned to Stone. Now I stretch daily.
Staff member
Premium Member
Needless to say, these arguments do nothing to convince me, but then you haven't really given your evidence. We'll leave it for now since, as you say, it truly is off topic.
You are a merciful debater. That's very important and keeps conversations going. I don't have to worry about getting my head bitten off.
 

Curious George

Veteran Member
Well the law has to decide what is murder, what shall be illegal on other grounds, and what shall be perfectly legal. I'm not saying a zygote should have all the same rights as a nine month old fetus. But the system we have right now in the USA is broken -- a woman can go in during her third trimester, when the fetus can survive outside the womb (when, btw, even Roe v Wade says the state has a right to step in and protect the fetus) and she can get an elective abortion. That is scandalous.
I wonder if you are using the phrase, the law decides, metaphorically. I ask this because the law deciding is in theory the people deciding. I bring this up because I am not sure you are following me here.

We must first decide at what point we have the authority to intervene, then we can discuss whether we ought to intervene. Yes, we have the authority to intervene when a mother kills her 8 year old child. Yes, we ought to intervene.
 

A Vestigial Mote

Well-Known Member
It's not a human right. It's presently a legal right. And that legal right may soon be taken away. No one has the human right to threaten the lives and health of other people.
With this you are saying that people have the right to force a foreign biological substance directly into another person's bloodstream. Which is what will have to be accepted before vaccinations can become forced by law. On top of this, in the case of vaccines it is necessarily always a biological agent which has not been fully sterilized. It can't be... lest the virus itself be destroyed. Just think about that.

Do we really want the allow precedence to be set that it is lawful for the government (or anyone) to force biological agents directly into a person's bloodstream against their will?
 
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A Vestigial Mote

Well-Known Member
It's NOT just your body..

Even more problems with your stance that I'd like to point out. Denying a vaccine injection cannot be equated with consciously and willfully taking action to harm others. You'd have a very hard time arguing otherwise - because it is sort of analogous to the idea of "thought crime."

In "thought crime", you convict someone based on their thoughts, before they have even put them into action. This is wrong in the extreme.

And your stance on people denying vaccines is even worse than that... it has you basically convicting people of intent to harm when they have no such intent, and it too (like thought-crime) is harm that you are only predicting they may cause. You have no idea whether or not they will, and even then, without a display of intent, how can any of us be held liable for the actions of naturally occurring viruses?

The best you might be able to pull out of your butt is charging someone with "negligence" of some form. And then here again... I'd like to point out that your preferred "solution" to the potential problem is that people be forced to accept foreign biological substances directly into their blood-stream.
 

ecco

Veteran Member
People committed all sorts of sexual immorality in the Bible. It's an x-rated book. That's why the Bible goes out of it's way to state point blank what is and is not allowed sexually. It's very clear that i.e. adultery and incest are serious offenses.
Adam & Eve & Abel committed adultery and incest. Noah and family committed adultery and incest. Those are clear examples that the Bible is not against adultery and incest.

That's the problem with trying to use the Bible as a guide for morals - mixed messages.
 

Kangaroo Feathers

Yea, it is written in the Book of Cyril...
With this you are saying that people have the right to force a foreign biological substance directly into another person's bloodstream. Which is what will have to be accepted before vaccinations can become forced by law. On top of this, in the case of vaccines it is necessarily always a biological agent which has not been fully sterilized. It can't be... lest the virus itself be destroyed. Just think about that.

Do we really want the allow precedence to be set that it is lawful for the government (or anyone) to force biological agents directly into a person's bloodstream against their will?
For myself, I will never countenance medical treatment without consent. That said, I see no reason to coddle people making wrongheaded decisions based on flawed data that is likely to cause actual harm to others. No one should be forced to undergo medical treatment against their will. That doesn't mean that refusing that medical treatme t should be consequence free. For example, if you refuse to vaccinate your kids, that's your right. I don't see that you have any grounds to complain when those same kids are excluded from activities and opportunities, or the parent is excluded from family tax incentives or similar.
 

ecco

Veteran Member
There are people who like to quote the Bible out of context, attempting to cherry pick and then keep the letter of the law while violating its principles. The slave owners would be an example of this. Slavery violates the ethic that all of humanity is made in the image of God and thus all individuals have dignity.

It seems that you are the one doing the cherry picking. You choose to ignore that the Bible clearly states that slavery is acceptable and even specifies the punishment an owner can bestow on a slave.

What the Bible does allow is prisoners of war and indentured servitude. Indentured servitude is a common way cultures have of paying back loans when one goes broke.
Again, you cherry pick by ignoring that it was permissible to kill the male children of fallen enemies and that it was permissible to take the young virgin females.

If I'm not mistaken, it wasn't just permissible, God stated it.

Also, in the above where I wrote "take", we all know that meant it was OK to rape them.

The Bible is not a good source for morality.
 

ecco

Veteran Member
ecco
Are you referring to this or something else...
Within the first 24 weeks or after 24 weeks if necessary to preserve the mother's health or if the fetus isn't viable.
If this is what you are referring to, then I see nothing wrong.​

Yes, that is exactly what I'm referring to. I'd like to see it actually enforced. Right now it is run over roughshod. And due to advances in Medical Science, I would change 24 to 22.

How is it "run over roughshod"?
 

A Vestigial Mote

Well-Known Member
For myself, I will never countenance medical treatment without consent. That said, I see no reason to coddle people making wrongheaded decisions based on flawed data that is likely to cause actual harm to others. No one should be forced to undergo medical treatment against their will. That doesn't mean that refusing that medical treatme t should be consequence free. For example, if you refuse to vaccinate your kids, that's your right. I don't see that you have any grounds to complain when those same kids are excluded from activities and opportunities, or the parent is excluded from family tax incentives or similar.
Make consequences all you like. Still doesn't change the fact that we're talking about exactly what I stated. The potential enforcement that unsterilized, foreign biological agents be placed directly into people's bloodstreams.

Just as you say there is no reason to cry about the consequences one might face by denying vaccinations, there is no reason to try and dress up what a vaccine is for the sake of making it more palatable in the face of resistance. Admit to what it is, then worry about trying to sell each individual on the idea that the benefits to themselves and others outweigh any risks in-the-moment.

By the way, I'm fully vaccinated. I just know there is evidence and even admittance of risk in some vaccines, and I too would never, ever advocate that any medical procedure be forced on anyone against their consent. Not to mention the idea that vaccinating versus things like flu are mostly superfluous, and in my opinion point to a growing trend in society of people willing to take the easy way out, not let their natural strengths be exercised, and then complain about everything in the world that is "out to get them". May as well just start manufacturing plastic bubbles for everyone. You'd probably make a fortune.
 

ecco

Veteran Member
The potential enforcement that unsterilized, foreign biological agents be placed directly into people's bloodstreams.

Gee, Mr. Mote, when you put it that way it wounds worse than dihydrogen monoxide is a dangerous chemical that should be banned.


Kinda brings to mind the old:
It ain't whatcha say, it's the way thatcha say it.
 
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