(February 23, 2009 at 6:17 pm)Meatball Wrote: Bozo and Adrian seem to be thinking about this from different angles.
I side with Adrian in that all human beings are fundamentally equal. Not all will make the same kind of impact, not all will accumulate and inherit the same monetary wealth or power.
Richard Dawkins and Ted Haggard are both human beings and should be afforded equal rights to life and liberty. Furthermore, Bill Gates and an African child born malnourished with AIDS are both human beings and should be afforded equal rights to life and liberty, and are equal in that sense. Some people get the short end of the stick, yes. The world isn't fair in that sense. What's important is that no human is fundamentally "better" than another.
Bozo, do you feel that Bill Gates' offspring are entitled to something that the poor couples' child is not? I'm not talking literally (obviously), but philosophically.
I am considering this from reality. Equality means zilch when your chief aim is survival. It is all well and good for Adrian to argue in the abstract, but it is no solace for the poorest people on the planet. Of course we would all agree that no person is entitled to be classed as better than any other but reality intervenes.
Of course Bill Gates' children are no more deserving than any other, but the reality is that they will want for nothing! Even worse, they will luxuriate in vast sums of inherited wealth and it won't matter if they are good, bad or indifferent individuals.
A man is born to a virgin mother, lives, dies, comes alive again and then disappears into the clouds to become his Dad. How likely is that?
