Hey FrGamble!

Quote: FrGamble

No, but it sounds scary.

Lifeboat ethics is an emphasis on the real world, on dollars, on immediate threats.

Normally people in a life raft would not push a survivor into the sea to his death. However, if one person drank salt water and went overboard while mentally deranged taking two other survivors with him, the various survivors try to rescue the two victims. As they are pulling one man back into the life boat a shark comes along and takes off one of his feet. Immediately those in the life boat stop pulling and instantly start pushing. They do this without hesitation or debate. He will not be allowed to have his blood loss endanger the others. He is pushed back into the water and the waiting sharks.

This principle holds true even when it is simply a matter of finances and allocation of resources. If society is willing to spend X dollars on some problem then stewardship over those funds may result in actions that would not be taken if more money were available. Its a matter of triage. One has to consider resources and ultimate effects. You give pain killers to the dying but only if the pain killers are cheap and plentiful. Otherwise the dying suffer.

Quote: FrGamble

B.

But I don't default to the negative, I simply stay open.

I think it shows a great deal of faith in EB that you don't default to the negative. If you went to EB's house, would you specifically stay out of his backyard, just to err on the safe side?

Nope, when I say open I just mean I wouldn't come to any conclusions before there was some evidence. I would be indifferent and happy to play in the backyard.

Quote: FrGamble

Nope, when I say open I just mean I wouldn't come to any conclusions before there was some evidence. I would be indifferent and happy to play in the backyard.

If you would happily play in EB's backyard, then despite what you must say for debate purposes, in your heart you deferred to the negative.

Belief in God?
Just remember Benjamin Franklin: Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.

Quote: Fleastiff

Belief in God?
Just remember Benjamin Franklin: Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.

Love it.

Quote: FrGamble

Love it.

Yeah, its sort of really funny. Of course Benjamin Franklin and most of the other Founding Fathers were merely sensible enough not to be atheists in public and generally went around using a non-committal term such as 'Providence', so I doubt invoking his name as some sort of definitively authoritative source makes much sense. And someone could make the same assertion about peanut butter or even mosquitoes, it would be no more relevant and would certainly not be funny.

However, if someone is going thru this 'do you believe in a God routine' I guess its as good a levity break in the debate as any other and popping the tab on a old one never really hurts anything even if it doesn't quite advance the strength of one's argument all that much.

With all the headlines about liver related mortality and morbidity, I've begun to focus on beer consumption. In terms of volume of beer we used to have six times as much beer as we do now. The trouble is that ancient beers were generally quite weak so that brings the 6x down to about 3x right there if you consider not beer volume but alcohol content. And of course there is the very troubling problem of accounting for beer being spilled or discarded as having spoiled. So mere production statistics do not truly correlate with beer consumption statistics.

I'm not going to ask either you or EvenBob to remember my beer quandary in your prayers, so just let me say that I'm confident you will keep the beer question in your thoughts.

Quote: Fleastiff

With all the headlines about liver related mortality and morbidity, I've begun to focus on beer consumption.

I gave up beer in the 80's.
It rots your liver faster than
any form of alcohol. Too many
impurities. I gave up wine.
I gave up whiskey 25 years
ago, again, it's all impurities.

Learned to love vodka. I tried
them all and settled on Heaven
Hill. It's cheap, and damned
if I can tell the difference from
a $30 bottle of Goose. My local
stores run out of the half gallon
HH all the time; us vodka drinkers
know why.

I like the name.

Quote: FrGamble

I like the name.

You are biased, Padre. You work for what for the longest time was the largest purveyor of beer in the world. Do you have any idea as to just when church attendees in Europe and the UK stopped receiving free beer after Wednesday and Sunday services?

Beer and wine have health benefits and it is difficult to compare the two.
Real booze is probably not beneficial and is certainly beyond both my current finances and my health status.

Anyway, FrGamble I hope you've enjoyed this beer-soaked diversion.