Tree huggers and Athiests score another biggie

[SUBMAN1]

Shows just how intelligent they all are.

-S

The Silence of the Yams

The Dignity of Plants?


In the recent movie The Happening, plants, threatened by the growing human population, release a toxin into the air that causes people to kill themselves. A nursery owner tells the hero that plants can not only “target specific threats,” they can also communicate with each other and coordinate their “defense.”


While The Happening was panned by audiences and critics, one country appears to have taken the threat from plants seriously enough to sue for peace with the plant kingdom. That’s Switzerland.


How? By enshrining the “dignity”—their word, not mine—of plants in their constitution.


A molecular biologist at the University of Zürich recently sought permission to field test wheat that had been genetically modified to resist a particular kind of fungus. He not only had to prove that the test wouldn’t have unintended environmental consequences, he also had to “debate the finer points of plant dignity with university ethicists.” Then, he had to satisfy government officials that the trial “wouldn’t ‘disturb the vital functions or lifestyle’ of the plants.”


Dignity? Lifestyle? Of plants? Like many a farcical road, this one was paved with good intentions. In the 1990s, Switzerland amended its constitution to require that “account to be taken of the dignity of creation”—Switzerland’s word, not mine—“when handling animals, plants and other organisms.”


Then, last spring, the parliament asked a panel of “philosophers, lawyers, geneticists and theologians” to determine how this requirement applies to plants. The panel’s report concluded that people do not have “absolute ownership” over plants and that “individual plants have an inherent worth.” Therefore, they concluded, “we may not use them just as we please, even if the plant community is not in danger.”


Plant community?


As ethicist Wesley J. Smith has pointed out, phrases like “plant community” and the “dignity” of plants is evidence that our rejection of the biblical worldview “is driving us crazy.” Having rejected the “unique dignity and moral worth of human beings,” it was logical that “we would come to see fauna and flora as entitled to rights.”


More than that, this shift in worldview, Smith writes, regards “treating people differently from animals simply because they are human beings” as “invidious discrimination.”


Unfortunately, the damage from this worldview isn’t limited to making Alpine countries look silly or creating more paperwork for researchers. While some of the sought-after parity between man and the rest of creation is achieved by raising the status of animals and plants, most of it comes through lowering our status as humans.


That’s where the real danger lies. Research that could help feed countless millions is made more difficult and even impossible because of concerns over plant “dignity.” Even worse, carrying the logic to its conclusion, the sanctity of human life becomes a matter of what you can do, not who you are—that is, someone created in the image of God.


By the end of The Happening, the threat from the plants creates a renewed appreciation for human life. For once, I wish that life would imitate the movies.http://www.breakpoint.org/listingarticle.asp?ID=10515

[GoldenRivet]

after i read this i killed a fern.

idiots

[Stealth Hunter]

Atheists, tree-huggers, bears! Oh my!

[bookworm_020]

I saw the movie the other night, IQ isn't required to view it!

[Kapt Z]

This is what happens when you don't go to war with anyone for like a thousand years!

[FIREWALL]

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

[August]

Originally Posted by Kapt Z

This is what happens when you don't go to war with anyone for like a thousand years!

:rotfl:

[Hylander_1314]

Yeah when I made that sandwich for lunch, that head of lettuce and that tomato were screaming bloody murder while I hacked away at them.

Man with the intellegence level of the dribble coming out of hollywood the last ten to fifteen years it begs the question, have a whole lot of americans turned into gerbles?

[Blacklight]

Please stop bashing the Athiests. I'm an Athiest and neither I nor any of the Athiests I KNOW are ANYTHING like what you tend to bash. It kind of ticks me off. It's bad enough that the media only covers the storys about the Athiests who are idiots and they don't EVER show any of the ones who do positive stuff (not to mention that in some more religious states we're absolutely VILLIFIED !!)

I would prefer to call the people in that article IDIOTS and not lump them in with Athiests. You are beginning to VERY cross the line with me. The title alone should be grounds for killing this thread.

[Letum]

Originally Posted by Blacklight

Please stop bashing the Athiests. I'm an Athiest and neither I nor any of the Athiests I KNOW are ANYTHING like what you tend to bash. It kind of ticks me off. It's bad enough that the media only covers the storys about the Athiests who are idiots and they don't EVER show any of the ones who do positive stuff (not to mention that in some more religious states we're absolutely VILLIFIED !!)

I would prefer to call the people in that article IDIOTS and not lump them in with Athiests. You are beginning to VERY cross the line with me. The title alone should be grounds for killing this thread.

If you don't like it, perhaps you shouldn't be an atheist.











Just kidding.

Originally Posted by Kapt Z

This is what happens when you don't go to war with anyone for like a thousand years!

And that is something negative?

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by Blacklight

Please stop bashing the Athiests. I'm an Athiest and neither I nor any of the Athiests I KNOW are ANYTHING like what you tend to bash. It kind of ticks me off. It's bad enough that the media only covers the storys about the Athiests who are idiots and they don't EVER show any of the ones who do positive stuff (not to mention that in some more religious states we're absolutely VILLIFIED !!)

I would prefer to call the people in that article IDIOTS and not lump them in with Athiests. You are beginning to VERY cross the line with me. The title alone should be grounds for killing this thread.

I'm sorry, but most atheists are turning radical militant types with no tolerance of others views, and there are even some on this board.

Of course, most atheists are too short sighted to see the end result of their forced beliefs on the rest of the world. The above is an example.

-S

[Letum]

I agree!
If we don't believe in deities people will end up marrying house plants.

[MothBalls]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

I'm sorry, but most atheists are turning radical militant types with no tolerance of others views, and there are even some on this board.

Of course, most atheists are too short sighted to see the end result of their forced beliefs on the rest of the world. The above is an example.

-S

I'm sorry, but if you can't see the bigotry and prejudice in the comments you just made, there's no hope for you.

[Sea Demon]

Originally Posted by MothBalls

I'm sorry, but if you can't see the bigotry and prejudice in the comments you just made, there's no hope for you.

I see no bigotry here. That is a very overused term to the point that it is a useless charge anymore. Actually, the way I see it, ever since the major push to rid every institution of God, and the moral absolutes and guidance that come with it.....people's values and actions have become very warped, strange and lopsided. There is some real truth to this even if the example above is incredibly extreme. In the world that pushes God by the wayside, people have been lolled into believing that things that are good are evil....and things that are evil are actually good. Examples are abundant everywhere.