Tuesday 25 November 2008
My answers to questions that were asked. Part III
People from around the world ask questions they want answers for on a website called Answerbag. What follows is another ten of my answers that I gave them.
I read somewhere that genetic disorders and diseases were old family curses passed down through generations, is this true or do you believe this?
Answered on Nov 25, 2008
It is absolutely utter nonsense. Disorders are often genetic and are passed down through generations. Diseases such as cancer are for the most part, acquired as we grow older. For example, clogged arteries which can cause heart problems is caused by too much cholesterol in our bodies. You can't blame that on some supposed curse that someone may have uttered generations or centuries ago. We can only blame it on ourselves.
I am a brown man married to a white woman for two years who thinks we will have ugly kids because they will not be white. So she does want to have any kids while I do. I never thought she felt this way till I started talking about kids. What should I do?
Answered on Nov 6, 2008
Divorce the woman. Your wife doesn't give a hoot about you whatsoever. Her stance that she won't have any of your children because she believes that any children of racially-mixed marriages will be ugly is so stupid; words escape me in trying to define my contempt for such a person. My wife is Oriental and I am Caucasian and our children are beautiful children. I have seen many beautiful children of mixed marriages. I have also seen ugly children where both parents are white. As an aside, you should have discussed this with her before you married this witch.
What did you usually spend your allowance on when you were growing up?
Answered on Nov 5, 2008
I remember when I was living in a boy's residential school in Vancouver when I was 15 years of age. I am now 75 so you have some idea as to just how long ago that was. My mother gave me 25 cents a week. Believe me; that was all I needed. Every Saturday, I would go downtown to see a movie. Our school was several miles south of downtown so here is how I spent my 25 cents. First of all, I thumbed a ride downtown. Even though I was 15, I looked like I was ten so I always got a ride. Then I walked on Granville Street and looked at the marquis of four theatres within two blocks. Then I picked the one I wanted. Since I looked small, I got in the movie for 15 cents. That left me 10 cents. I spent 5 cents for candy and 5 cents for the bus ride back to the school. I can't think of anything nowadays that I can get for 25 cents except to make a phone call on the payphone.
I purchased a used vehicle from dealer and I signed a contract with the dealer and was told that we were done. I took possession of the vehicle. 7 days later, the dealer called me saying that Toyota Credit wants 1K for customer participation or I am to return the vehicle - They said if it is not returned, it will be report stolen.
Answered on Nov 25, 2008
Once the contract was signed by both the customer and the dealership and the customer has legal possession of the vehicle, it is too late for Toyota credit to make further demands upon the customer. If Toyota reports the vehicle stolen, the customer has a good civil case for wrongful prosecution.
Does a vegetarian restaurant discriminate against meat eaters by not serving meat dishes?
Answered on Nov 25, 2008
In all likelihood, the restaurant has a sign in front of the establishment advising potential customers that they cater only to vegetarians. If so, it would be improper for a customer to demand a meat dish. It is not discriminatory to deny service to someone who demands a meat dish in such an establishment any more than it is discriminatory to deny service in a restaurant to someone who walks in the restaurant with no clothes on.
Do I have any legal rights to request information about a robbery at a large company which resulted in one of my belongings, which was in their care, being stolen?
Answered on Nov 25, 2008
Bring to the police proof that you own the property that was stolen. The proof can be a bill of sale or if you can't find it, then put in writing a description of your property and sign it and give it to the police. Once you have done this, you will be classed as a victim of the robbery and as such, you have the right to know the status of the crime, such as to whether or not the robbers have been captured and whether or not your property has been recovered.
My ex-landlord will not let me get my property from her house. What can I do as she has change the locks?
Answered on Nov 25, 2008
In Ontario, Canada, it is illegal for a landlord to prevent a former tenant to remove the tenant's belongings from his or her apartment or room. If the landlord does this, he or she will be given a very heavy fine, generally $10,000. Even if the tenant owes rent money to the landlord, he or she cannot interfere with the rights of the tenant to move his or her property. If the police are satisfied that the former tenant has property still in the house or building, they will help the tenant recover the property by warning the landlord that if he or she interferes, he or she can be arrested.
What is the age of legal consent for sex in Oklahoma?
Answered on Nov 25, 2008
It is a felony in Oklahoma for any person to knowingly and intentionally:
1. Make any oral, written or electronically or computer-generated lewd or indecent proposal to any child under sixteen (16) years of age, or other individual the person believes to be a child under sixteen (16) years of age, for the child to have unlawful sexual relations or sexual intercourse with any person; or
2. Look upon, touch, maul, or feel the body or private parts of any child under sixteen (16) years of age in any lewd or lascivious manner by any acts against public decency and morality, as defined by law; or
3. Ask, invite, entice, or persuade any child under sixteen (16) years of age, or other individual the person believes to be a child under sixteen (16) years of age, to go alone with any person to a secluded, remote, or secret place, with the unlawful and willful intent and purpose then and there to commit any crime against public decency and morality, as defined by law, with the child;
This kind of law is also applicable in all of Canada
In Colorado, a new amendment (#48), is now active that states that a fertilized egg will have the same rights as you and me as US citizens. This could ban birth control pills, and many other basic reproductive rights to women. What do you think?
Answered on Nov 25, 2008
Colorado won't become the first state that hopes to bring in legislation to amend its constitution by giving fertilized eggs the same rights as human beings. The measure would grant constitutional rights to a fertilized egg - including due process and inalienable rights. It didn’t pass because the voters soundly rejected Amendment 48. The so-called Personhood Amendment failed by a 3-to-1 ratio, and co-author Kristi Burton laid a lot of the blame for its demise at the feet of high-profile officials who even had strong anti-abortion credentials but refused to endorse it. To have made such an amendment into law would in effect, deny women the right to have an abortion. In Oklahoma, women still have that right.
The current judicial interpretation of the U.S. Constitution regarding abortion in the United States, following the Supreme Court of the United States’ 1973 landmark decision in Roe v. Wade, and subsequent companion decisions, is that abortion is legal but may be restricted by the states to varying degrees. States have passed laws to restrict late term abortions, require parental notification for minors, and mandate the disclosure of abortion risk information to patients prior to the procedure.
When someone dies in their sleep, do you think they will recall the dream when they wake up?
Answered on Nov 25, 2008
That is a very interesting question, however I presume that the real question is, "If someone dreams that they have died, will they wake up?" I have never heard of anyone dreaming that they have died. It is conceivable however that someone could dream that they are dying and wake up and recall that dream. They might even dream that they are in heaven and such a dream would imply that they have died. They can wake up and recall that dream also. But to dream that they are dead and the dream ends at that point, I don't see how such a dream could happen and at the same time, the dreamer wakes up and recalls the dream. The reason is there is no way that someone could describe their death since the only way death can be described is if they are conscious of it. For example, if you are dying, you can relate later the feeling of dying but if you are dead, how can you relate to anyone, let alone to yourself what it is like to be dead? To be dead, means you have no conscious concept of being dead.
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4 comments:
In regard to the Colo. Personhood Amendment, you wrote: "To have made such an amendment into law would in effect, deny women the right to have an abortion. In Oklahoma, women still have that right."
Murder of innocent preborn children is something no woman or man should have a "right" to. The Amendment in Colo. failed because the citizens lack the vision to see that protecting innocent life is the right thing to do.
Hi, Angela:
Objection! You wrote, "The Amendment in Colo. failed because the citizens lack the vision to see that protecting innocent life is the right thing to do." May I suggest before you, a professing Christian of the reformed persuasion (http://www.blogger.com/profile/12426446810188972972), begin correcting those with whom you fundamentally disagree, you read your Bible with greater care, particularly the first few chapters of Paul's Letter to the Romans. Paul would describe the Colorado citizens not as merely lacking vision, but as lacking heart and will, a charge much, much more serious. The distinction is not one of semantics nor of nomenclature: the entire edifice of justice, both divine and human, rests squarely on the question whether the human subject is conscious of having committed a crime, or on the other hand merely needs stronger lenses to correct a misguided vision. The former rightly lends itself to swift compunction and remorse (cf. Shakespeare's Macbeth) and equitable punishment (cf. the reaction of the Goldman family to OJ Simpson's recent jail sentence), the latter very dangerously to a most insidious rehabilitation.
I'm not sure I would describe myself as a reformed Christian, but I know a few, and they are, though human like you and I, for the most part honourable people committed to their Bible and to their fellow man, and they would be deeply hurt to know the Reformed doctrine of man was thus aborted (i.e., cut short).
Incidentally, I agree that abortion should be treated in most cases as a very serious crime; and I submit as proof the blatant hypocrisy of the pro-abortionist who weeps and is broken-hearted when a so-called 'wanted' child dies prematurely in the womb of a loved one - or perhaps in their very own.
I hope to unpack my thoughts a little further by way of blogging, but on condition we can first curtail a spirit of loquacity which often strikes while in front of a computer.
No hard feelings!
Kind regards,
Hendrickus Brokking
Dear Hendrickus,
You are entitled to your opinion as much as I am... If you are interested in my theology, let's take this discussion to my blog "Reformed Christian Studies." Thank you.
Hi, Angela:
Thanks for the prompt reply, the gracious offer - and the soft answer, "which turneth away wrath".
Please accept my sincerest apologies for berating - bludgeoning? - you. I responded to your comment at the end of a long day studded with frustrations and reverses. The day concluded with an afternoon shift in a setting decidedly less than glamourous, during which time I had occasion to reflect on both the superficiality, fallacies, and excesses of modern health care, which subject always gets me nearly inebriated with justifiable rage, and some percolating religious and philosophical enigmas. It would not be an embellishment to say I was learning war for 8 hours in my place of employment. And when I came home and noticed you broached a subject which opens up so many difficult moral questions, I immediately initiated an exchange which, were it not for your tact in extinguishing it, could have developed into something most inflammatory.
All human actions performed which have moral implications, and all decisions rendered which likewise have moral consequences, are in my opinion either right or wrong, in all places, and at all times. That you supported the Amendment suggests to me that you object to all forms of abortion (cf. your entry "Is John McCain Really Pro-Life?") on fixed moral grounds. In the main I agree, though I do not yet see myself clear on some of the very exceptional cases which might realistically be encountered. The trouble arises when one attempts to assign guilt in those abortive cases which it might be argued furnish the moral philosopher with some grave difficulties (e.g., lady diagnosed with aggressive MS early in the pregnancy rendering a successful pregnancy impossible). I understand that you would in such cases also regard an abortion as murder. But if murder, are the parties involved merely "lacking vision", in light of the passages ordinarily appealed to by the Reformed Christian when challenged to posit a doctrine of man and a doctrine of sin? It would appear to me that Paul, at least, makes no concessions: a murder is the reflex action of a bad, a heartless person, i.e., a person whose heart must be tenderized and softened, or, in the language some are most conversant with, "made new". I was therefore rather surprised to read that an active anti-abortionist as yourself would deem the Amendment critics as simply lacking the vision requisite to see that voting in favour of the Amendment would be the right thing to do. For this reason it was stated your perspective was cut short of the whole and complete answer I would expect from a professing Reformed Christian.
As for me, I remain persuaded that so long as Christians, whether Protestants or Catholics, Reformed or Charismatic, recline in the submissive couch of laziness and negligence, all those normally understood to be culpable for abortion murder (e.g., the mother, the consenting father, the doctor, the pro-abortionists) and so many other moral wrongs chronicled in the Bible and stamped more-or-less on the human conscience, are in fact sharing responsibility with those who know more plainly the good, but refuse to declare and enforce it with zeal, firmness, love, and constancy (you are plainly and refreshingly exempt). Nothing is so harmful to the advance of Christianity than the notion nowhere explicitly supported by the Bible, but so frequently proclaimed and implied by Christians, that but few will see heaven, that those who have never darkened a church door, or have never had the Gospel presented to them in its purity and seconded by consistent practice, that those who often fall into deep moral wrongs but rise again to fight valiantly against them while privately invoking remitting grace, will be doomed: it contradicts both the life and words of Jesus and the sense of justice God Himself, in whose image we are made, has inscribed as with a point of diamond on the human heart, and it fills the prospective corporate worshipper with horror and distaste, and compells him or her to spend Sunday morning at home, and to avoid the sincere but misguided Christian as one would the rack.
I would be happy to read a response to this comment at a site you suggest, but cannot promise an immediate reply.
An unseen friend,
Hendrickus.
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