Who is mastering who

In these times of pandemic lots of youngsters say their youth is taken away. Others complain that the government has taken control over their life and has limited their freedom. Some have become afraid that governments want to change their person and even go so far by manipulating their DNA.  There are really people who think it would be possible that governments could make robots of their citizens.

R.H. (Rusty) Foerger wrote already in 2015

Conscience and Ethics:

It is odd, isn’t it, that science needs to be reminded that it is a root in the word conscience; and that there is a need for morality in this field of study that gives rise to the Robot. There is even a discipline known as Roboethics, in which machines of artificial intelligence are also considered artificial moral agents (AMA’s).

The issue of morality and technology has been beckoning ever more forcefully since the Industrial Revolution began (if you are morality-phobic, then consider the notion of ethics). From Nobel’s Dynamite, to Oppenheimer’s Nuclear Bomb, to today’s misnomer: the smart bomb, there is a pricked conscience behind each failure of improved (?) technology. Thus Alan E. Lewis writes:

Modern science, judged by the fruit it bears, has thrown into sharp relief humanity’s fateful determination not to remain as creatures, conjoined in mutuality with all creation, but to be our own masterful creators…

… there is a cosmic wedge between… facts and values, allowing society to analyze, exploit, and control nature and its resources without reference to the spiritual meaning and moral consequences of its rapacity and heteronomy. {Artificial Intelligence: Conscience and Consciousness}

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Of further interest

The Theology of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence; the good or the bad?

What Everyone Must Know About Artifical Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence Vs Machine Learning Vs Deep Learning: What exactly is the difference ?

Heteronomy or Autonomy, You Choose

Unlived Life

Darkest sides of the artifical intelligence

Too much of a good thing can be a very bad thing: Technology’s Future>Why we must act now

Solve the Right Problem

To remember

• Define problem right = you’re halfway to a solution.
• Define problem wrong = you’ll probably never solve it => You’ll waste all your time looking for a solution that doesn’t exist.
• Flip side of defining the problem wrong = what computer programmers call GIGO: “Garbage in, garbage out.” >>> If assumptions are wrong = if your logic is flawless =your conclusions will be wrong.
• social problems < base assumptions on optimism rather than realism => go straight from errors in their premises to errors in their conclusions.
• When you start with incorrect information but make mistakes in thinking, then you might get the correct answer just by blind luck. (it does happen)
• Why are the great monotheistic faiths – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – chronically unable to fulfill their own self-professed goal of creating individuals infused with moral sensitivity and societies governed by the highest ethical standards? = seems to define problem incorrectly, based on an incorrect assumption about what religion can accomplish.
• Judaism taught world about universal moral law under God, improving societies and people from ancient times to the present day.
• Christianity added emphasis on individual conscience + individual rights, helping to develop Western ideals of freedom and personal dignity.
• Islam = great improvement on earlier practices in the region where it developed, giving at least some rights to women + , in the medieval era, fostering a high civilization to which Jews contributed.
• << cannot do = make all individuals + societies ethical all the time, + can’t do it because it’s impossible.
• => limitation imposed by human nature, + fact people are not all alike
• problem > message must be simple, clear, consistent, + realistic + achievable + allow occasional failures, providing a way to recover from them and get back on the right track.
• solution = to talk to majority in the middle

The Thousand-Year View

My latest blog post for The Jewish Journal:

Define the problem right, and you’re halfway to a solution.

Define the problem wrong, and you’ll probably never solve it. You’ll waste all your time looking for a solution that doesn’t exist. That applies in every area of life, such as religion, relationships, science, and social problems. The best movie mystery of 2008 turned on mis-identifying the problem to be solved.

The flip side of defining the problem wrong is what computer programmers call GIGO: “Garbage in, garbage out.” If your assumptions are wrong, then even if your logic is flawless, your conclusions will be wrong. Garbage in, garbage out.

Ironically, it’s the best and brightest people who are most susceptible to GIGO errors when they think about social problems.

Their kind hearts make them want to believe the most optimistic things, so they often base their assumptions on optimism rather…

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Freedom and amendments, firearms and abortions

In certain countries the debate about abortion and birth control is being enforced with the influx of refugees and having more people to get so poor that they can not afford a family any more.

In the United States lots of people react negatively on any form of giving help for women with questions about having children or in avoiding having children. In the U.S.A. it is harder for a woman to get an abortion than it is for someone to buy an AK-47. Atpoklop with her “we all need feminism” hits the nail on the head and should bring much more American Christians thinking.

Lots of those Pro-Life and Anti-abortion groups have very big words and shout a lot from the roofs, telling the whole world we should protect life and that nobody has the right to take the life from the unborn child. Though they do not seem to have any problem with carrying weapons and are defending the right to shoot at some one even to kill him or her. Suddenly the act of forbidden killing does not count any more.

Many people do seem to forget that the centres for parental planning have a good reason to be there and have a good reason to keep existing, proving a lot of necessary education to avoid the worse and mostly also to avoid people to be placed in front of the awful question to abort or not to have an abortion.

People holding signs at a Planned Parenthood Rally, NYC 2011.

In the States Planned Parenthood has 35 percent of its total activities, like similar organisations in many other countries, revolving around sex education and providing contraception.

Instead what (so-called ‘pro-life’ policies have) succeeded in doing is compromising the health of thousands of women, all while the number of abortions increase. {Bobby Jindal’s Anti-Women Policies in Louisiana: A Case Study}

Lots of people forget a government has to protect its citizens, the one which are already there, but also the unborn or the ones which could come to being. It has to create directives, rules and regulations and provide laws to be a guidance and for being able to react justified when something goes wrong or when there is discussion about a certain event.

Having certain things put in laws does not mean that those laws are providing for moral justice.

To be blunt, the legality of an act is not enough to make it moral. One clear example of this would be antebellum slavery, which was legal for quite some time in the United States. Would those who want to assert that legality is enough to make an act morally permissible agree that slavery, at that time, was moral? If so, that is a tough pill to swallow. {“But it’s Legal” – Does the legality of an act make it moral?}

In history we see that several groups of people tried to find ways to provide their own society only with ‘justified’ beings, totally according their ‘wants’.

About what happened in Germany student member of the Evangelical Philosophical Society and the Evangelical Theological Society J.W. Wartick writes:

By willingly participating in and carrying out genocide and other atrocities, despite having orders to do so and acting within the laws of their land, the Nazis had still violated a higher law, which held them to a moral standard. There remains much debate over the legal basis for the convictions and executions of those who carried out the atrocities, but it seems that if one ultimately wants to argue that the law is all it requires to make something moral, they must side with the Nazis and agree that they should not have been held accountable for their acts. {“But it’s Legal” – Does the legality of an act make it moral?}

Who can be accounted for their acts?

Who is going to decide who is wrong, when was wrong, who is right, when was right?

We can therefore see that the mere appeal to a law to argue something is moral is not enough. Anyone who disagrees must assert that slavery, as it was being conducted in the United States, was at least morally ambiguous if not a moral good, because it was legal. Similarly, they must assert that the genocide the Nazis carried out was itself at least morally ambiguous if not a moral good, because it was legal and they did it under orders. The absurdity of these two conclusions should lead any reasonable person to agree that the legality of an act is not enough to establish its morality. {“But it’s Legal” – Does the legality of an act make it moral?}

Thus, the simple legality of an act does not make it moral. An appeal to an acts legality does not mean it should be dismissed from moral scrutiny. Planned Parenthood should justly remain under intense scrutiny. {“But it’s Legal” – Does the legality of an act make it moral?}

For sure every act, every law, every organisation, people should question and look under the loop to see if it is in accordance to what they belief is ‘just’ or ‘right’. But they must be careful by judging and sincerely look into the matter, balance the pro’s and con’s and compare with other possibilities.

In case there are no centres provided by the state to help girls, young women, young men, to help them in questions those youngsters do not dare to come with by their own parents, is it not better to have professionals guiding them? Is it not better that those who have doubts about carrying a child have some safe haven where they can sincerely discuss all different possibilities and can come in contact with others who had to make such not easy choices.

We may not forget that life is not just black and white but is a very complex matter, where people do have to find solutions which are ‘human-worhty’.

A Catholic family man, raised in a healthy Protestant family, posted a graphic that depicted the number of human deaths from some of the biggest contributors since the American Civil war in a pie chart. The contrast between the human deaths from abortion versus all of the major American wars is dramatic when displayed in a chart like this.

According to him

abortion has taken more lives than all of the other wars in which America has fought. {Abortion and crime rates}

But I wonder where he got those figures from and if he sincerely knows the historical figures of American citizens killed in fights all over the world, let withstand only those finding an end of their life in weapon violence.

Another thought that can be presented in the pro-choice position is to find statistics, which with considerable explanation, attempt to tie a correlation between an increase in abortion, and a drop in crime as being a causal relationship. This is also an irrational untenable position, as seen with just a little rationality applied. {Abortion and crime rates}

It is true that

No one is weaker than a newborn infant, except an unborn infant. An unborn human is different from a born human only in stage of development and location. {Abortion and crime rates}

But that does not justify the carrying of guns when older than three and having the right to shoot one down when an adult or adolescent.

Hypothetically speaking, if you could prove that the crime rate among Jews was lowered during the holocaust, would that justify the death of six million Jews? Absolutely, positively, with all emphasis – no, it would not even be considered. The level of ridiculousness that this proposal achieves is morally less than the justification of killing 50 million humans because it arguably lowers the crime rate. Combating the evil of adult murder by killing a weaker, more vulnerable human population is entirely ridiculous. “Evil” cannot be vanquished by committing another “evil.” {Abortion and crime rates}

When going into a debate about pro-life or pro-abortion people do have to look at both sides of the medal.

And people may not forget abortion in the first instance is not at all about reducing crime rate or avoiding that criminals would come into the making. It is all about figuring out how the person with child can be helped to make the right choice for herself and for what she is carrying.

About the politicians who have to make the choice to allow something to exist, people forget they themselves are also responsible for them being there. In most democratic countries everybody has the right to vote and can have their say about the politics of that country. It is up to each citizen to let hear his or her voice. but they also do have to know that they cannot expect all other citizens to have the same opinion and/or the same faith as they. They too have to respect the freedom of the other person to make other decisions than he or she would take.

For many Americans the government may not touch the freedom to carry a weapon. They are convinced they should have the right to have the easy facility

as simple as point and shoot {Don’t Just Stick to Your Guns. Lock and Load.}

Voice out world which want to create an avenue for people, especially the youths, to speak out against everything around that is morally wrong, also to express your opinions and thoughts, writes

The never-ending debate on racial act of terrorism will not go away neither will the wayward use of fire arms by some citizens of the US. Every time a shooting occurs and people die or get injured the gun control issue comes up just for a little while until another shooting occurs again. This is a cycle that should be stopped.{Charleston shooting: The observation of an onlooker}

But is it not strange that the country which is so afraid of terrorism and spends billions of dollars against religious fundamentalists who not yet present one tenth of the amount of people killed by weapon-violence in the States of America? Whilst such violence seems worth to be protected for the right of mankind. And what about the rights of women who have to live with something or who do not want to live with something?

The fire-arms lobby in the United States is mightier than the president and has lots of so called Christians a smoke screen in front of their eyes. Those who defend the right to carry a weapon and who think they have the right to shoot at some one for sure do not have any right to condemn those females who have to make a terrible life-decision. Those pro-fire-arm people have for sure no say in the abortion matter, wishing the pro-abortion people to hell. They should look at their own heart first.

That is also what Jesus asks his followers. Before judging an other, please do look in your own bosom. How can you know the difficulties an other person is having to make a certain choice? How can we decide over some one else life and over some else his or her choices?

It is true that

“Moral principles do not depend on a majority vote.” {Archbishop Fulton Sheen}

but it is not always to see what is right. Often after words the ‘right’ is on the victor’s site. What is considered wrong by one person can be looked at the right thing to do by an other person, and the opposite. But all created in the image of God have an inborn feeling, a gut-feeling that can tell us what is wrong and what is right. More people should listen carefully to that gut-feeling.

All judging in the end will be up to Jesus and to no other man.

In our society what is important is that we should give a good education on all sort of matters and learn people how to behave. Because we have more people not being aware any more what is written in the Bible more people should make work of it to let others know.

When more people would become aware what is demanded from them by the Creator already less problems would occur. By knowing what is written in the Bible a person has their view of life and death and ethics reoriented back to the way God designed us to see things.

When people would get to know more the Biblical truth and come to love that above human sayings there can grow a life that will be not falling so easily for the traps of worldly life. Out of faith in Jesus people will find fulfilment and purpose, identity and dignity in living in harmony with God, and no longer shall depend on having a drive to find those things within oneself or in the systems of this world.

A true follower of Jesus shall love the master his teachings and shall try to live accordingly. He or she shall also try to be like him, in seeking to live first for God and for others, not for themselves, being aware of the values of life and respecting them.

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Please do find also to read:

Republicans’ Love Hate Relationship With Waiting Periods

GOP Takes One Hell of a Swing at Planned Parenthood—and Misses

Bobby Jindal’s Anti-Women Policies in Louisiana: A Case Study

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Preceding articles:

Whoopi Goldberg commandments and abortion

My Choice (by Jezabel Jonson)

The Real ‘Choice’

“They Told Me What I Wanted To Hear” – Real Abortion Stories

The Things We Carry, by Penny

Hillary Clinton Says Religious Beliefs About Abortion Have to be Changed

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Further reading:

1. Christian values and voting not just a game
2. The trigger of Aurora shooting
3. High time to review the right to keep and bear arms
4. American Senate ignoring many voices and tears of their own people
5. Outreach to rednecks
6. Speciesism and racism
7. Maker of most popular weapon asks for repentance
8. Newsweek asks: How ignorant are you?
9. Built on or Belonging to Jewish tradition #4 Mozaic and Noachide laws
10. Roman Catholic Church in the United States of America at war
11. Demonizing families in poverty and misleading actions
12. Last Events of Old Testament – Right of Wrong?
13. Forms of slavery, human trafficking and disrespectful attitude to creation to be changed
14. Time for all to act against free military-style assault weapons
15. Subcutaneous power for humanity 3 Facing changing attitudes
16. A look at the Failing man
17. Inner feeling, morality and Inter-connection with creation
18. Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering #3
19. Failing Man to make free choice
20. May reading the Bible provoke us into action to set our feet on the narrow way
21. We should use the Bible every day
22. Feed Your Faith Daily

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On other websites:

1. Don’t Just Stick to Your Guns. Lock and Load.
2. Peter Kinder for Missouri Governor!
3. Charleston shooting: The observation of an onlooker
4. The Empty Hand in the world of Firearm
5. VA Sends Veterans’ Medical Info To FBI To Get Their Guns Taken Away
6. Safety Around Firearms Challenge
7. Great Moments In American Politics: Pulling a Gun While Being Drunk in the Senate
8. Owners of billboard featuring ar-toting Santa defy critics
9. UN Gun Treaty to Take Effect?
10. How Diehl Stopped Second Amendment Preservation Act in the House
11. Abortion objectifies both women and children
12. If the baby is part of the woman’s body…
13. Morning Motivation
14. Baptist convention’s ‘Outreach to Rednecks’ includes gun give-away: Holy or holy crap?
15. Ky. Baptists lure new worshippers with gun giveaway
16. “All it takes is one good man with a gun….’ – The ‘Jesus Wants Me Packing This I Know’ Edition – ‘Kentucky Churches Giving Away Guns To Help People Discover Jesus’
17. “All it takes is one good guy with a gun……..” – ‘The Facebook Post Taking The Gun Debate By Storm: Gun Laws Should Be Like Abortion Laws’
18. God’s And The Republican’s Will -‘Huckabee Supports Denying Abortion To 10-Year-Old Rape Victim’
19. Personhood – The Republican Religious Right War On Women – ‘Huckabee Floats Plan To Deploy U.S. Troops To Stop Women From Getting Abortions’
20. ‘California Lawmaker: Abortion, Liberal Politicians May Have Caused Drought’
21. The Republican War On Women – Because….You Know…..Abortions – ‘Pro-Life’ Texas Legislature Bans Planned Parenthood from Cancer Screening Program’
22. Living In A Republican World – The Republican War On Women – ‘Republican Filibusters Abortion Ban Because Of Rape And Incest Exceptions’
23. Lock and Load for the Lord
24. Pat Robertson, born March 22, 1930 – a bad year for botched abortions
25. ‘Biblically Correct’ Independent Candidate Susan-Anne White Is Back With More Anti-Gay Rantings
26. The End? (from “Forward”)
27. Who is with me?
28. Meat On Our Bones: The Next Four Years
29. Texas Defunds Planned Parenthood
30. Texas cuts off Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood
31. If we value life, we don’t get to choose which lives we value
32. Disclaimer: Strong Opinions
33. I stand with Planned Parenthood.
34. The Child I Didn’t Plan For
35. A False ChoiceThe Stance of Planned Parenthood: Why is this debate important?
36. Shared Post: On Foster Care and Social Workers
37. What If Planned Parenthood Is Sincere?Where to find miracles
38. “They Told Me What I Wanted To Hear” – Real Abortion Stories
39. Devaluing Life
40. A Conversation With “Safe,” “Legal,” and “Rare
41. ”Changing Camps- How I Became “Pro-Life”Contributor Spotlight at Catholic Mom
42. I propose we save the baby
43. Pro-Life and Pro-Choice
44. David Seymour’s End of Life Choice Bill
45. For This Cause I Was Born
46. SJT – Redemption (Midwife Openings)
47. Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Daydying right: a recommendation
48. An insider’s perspective of Planned Parenthood
49. For Those Who Haven’t Lost
50. Planned Parenthood quietly drops a bombshell on day of Democratic debate
51. Federal lawsuit filed in San Diego to stop California pregnancy care center
52. “Bully” law AB 775 that coerces conscience violating speech.
53. “Blessing” an Abortion
54. Human Trafficking
55. The Real ‘Choice’
56. Planned Parenthood and the Future
57. ‘Pro-Life’ issues and human rights
58. Standing Up for Life
59. ICYMI: Would Defunding Planned Parenthood Violate the Constitution?
60. The Byproduct Of Idolatry
61. Michigan Bills Would Ban Second-Trimester Abortion Procedure
62. Random Headlines — 10/16/15
63. Abortion Advocacy Is Extremisim
64. Planned Parenthood changes fetal-tissue reimbursement policy
65. Kelsey Grammer’s Wife Shares Photo of Him Wearing Anti-Abortion Shirt
66. Anti-abortion campaigner denied visa to travel to Australia
67. Why I’m Pro-Abortion
68. The #StandWithPP Roundup: Shutdown Narrowly Averted
69. Utah State University students claim censorship over anti-abortion chalk art on campus
70. sticky situations

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Related articles

• Planned Parenthood takes Alabama to court over Medicaid
• Ohio Senate bill would stop government payments to Planned Parenthood
• New Ohio bill would end Planned Parenthood funds
• Planned Parenthood Takes Alabama to Court over Medicaid
• Planned Parenthood takes Alabama to court over Medicaid
• Planned Parenthood takes Alabama to court over Medicaid
• Women embrace, criticize #ShoutYourAbortion
• House Votes to Defund Planned Parenthood
• Cecile Richards to Testify Before Congress
• BREAKING: Senate Dems Block Bill Banning Late-Term Abortions…

as we live

There are people in the world who have to face daily horrors nobody would like to encounter.
Everyday we should question the morals which we allow to guide our life.

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Related articles

• Are There Moral Imperatives: A Response to Philippa Foot
• Operation Naked King: Secret DEA Sting in Bolivia Confirms Evo Morales’ Fears About US Meddling
• Cheerleaders ‘raise’ the athletes’…morale (sexy pics)
• Capitalism is moral, and it works: Catholic priest

sheetal sharma

as the clouds part ways for the sunshine
the legions of my heart are bleeding
letter drops wrapped in the fragrance of winter
I am retrieving things I will lose one day
for I am shaped by the morality
the longing that the wind swept away
like a scholar in exile
Even if at times,the road looks to far
I hope it carries my feelings to you
Even if tears fall..until every thing becomes a past
beyond the dreams of history
sleepwalk..for it was like a mid summer night’s dream

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