"Are you actually trying to be funny now?"

Not at all.  I'm glad you took it as humor.  I thought you were going to take it as an insult.  It isn't either of those things.  It's an observation.  You have more than once admitted that you have not read the Scriptures.  In fact, you're proud of it.  How could I possibly answer so that you'd understand what I'm talking about?

"In fact, I challenge you to give your opinion of homosexuality, masturbation and stem cell research in less than one hundred words."

See what I mean?  First you ask what 'Christians' say but you'd treat it as my opinion and nothing more.  As far as I can tell, there is no way that I can 'win' with you on such a matter.

"Prove me wrong, SJ."

Again? 

"PS - I'm ignoring your ridiculous obsession with Stalin and Pol Pot, SJ's Typical Examples of What Will Happen to the World If We Don't Follow The One True Lord,"

Again, you show your impressive abilities to miss the point and shift the argument rather than deal with the substance.   In this case, I use Stalin and Pol Pot as my  'typical examples' because they are aspects of human history- members of the human species, to use your language, that show that suggesting an appeal of 'do not harm members of your own species' is nothing more than your own personal preference and a preference that has not been shared by a great deal of other humans.  Yet you atheists, imbued with the hope that is secular humanism, think you can deal with these examples by ignoring them.

You ignore them at our peril.

At any rate, I reiterate my challenge to you:  I'll let you stand in judgment over the Christian Scriptures, dismissing this or that within it as condoning 'bad behavior' when you give me some suitable basis- ie, an objective moral code- for truly determining what is in fact 'bad.'

Like bemoaning the 'shambles' that religion is taking us to... how is that bad?  Just your personal opinion.  Nothing more.  If you want it to be something more than invective you have to appeal to something objective.  My mystic prediction is that you're going to continue to act as though there is an objective morality but deny it... because of the obvious implications.

"It is not about "winning", SJ."

I put it in quotes for a reason?

"I am trying to show that self righteous hypocrites like yourself claim the moral high ground while regarding homosexuals as disgusting perverts..."

Oh, you mean you have had an agenda behind your questions?  Why, I had no idea. 

"Your "objective morality" is based on a subjective interpretation of the Bible, which you always present as a fact - even in the last post regarding slavery and the Bible:"

You can't escape subjective interpretation- of anything.  Think about it Stath.  Give me just one thing that is outside your subjective interpretatory self.  Just one.   Since everything we do is laced with 'subjective interpretation' we can cancel that out as a common denominator and deal with the rest of the data.  Which again returns to your willful and deliberate ignorance of the data:

""The texts do not support that justification.""
"In your opinion, SJ, that is all."

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.  You'll never know because you have never read the texts for yourself and its looking like you never will.

"If you use the Bible as a truly objective moral standard, God help us - if you'll forgive the expression."

Though I feel you are dancing around a legitimate set of questions, your unwillingness to lift a finger and invest the necessary time and energy to keep up with answers (come on, Stath, do you really think that this is the first generation these questions have been raised?) and the obvious agenda to try to reinforce a caricature of your own making prompts me to decline to answer.

Ooh, such name calling!

Despite the fact that your link to the article is actually to a message board and I can't find the original article (which is actually an analysis of other people's studies, not original research, and is wide open to criticism because of the difficulties in equating different types of study) on PubMed, you are misquoting the data even if it is accurate. For some malignancies, 2% of the people who survive five years can be attributed to chemo (I see you omitted that over 40% of five year survivors from testicular cancer were attributed to chemo)- that is because these types of malignancy are usually treated surgically or with radiation. Patients with these tumors who are treated with chemo have very advanced disease and no chance at all of survival. Are you saying that doctors should withold chemo in these cases?

You seem to have completely misinterpreted this meta-analysis as showing that the 5year survival with chemo is 2%, which is not the case. 2% of five year survivors are attributable to chemo, and given that perhaps 20% of the original patients were treated with chemo this may mean a 10% five year survival or perhaps better - much better than 0%, and pretty impressive given the advanced stage of the malignancy and the lack of other treatment options. And believe me, if you've got cancer, 10% survival seems pretty d--n sweet compared to certain death.

I believe I have read it is responsible for more than 60,000 dead

I believe I need a little bit more than your hearsay, as I have suggested. As for the plants, of course doctors are ready to use plants (digoxin and aspirin spring to mind) when they are proven to be effective. Not herbal remedies which have either not been tested or have been shown to be ineffective.

I still don't know what the bottom line of your criticism of conventional medicine is. In my experience, doctors are just doing their best for their patients with no ulterior motive. You seem unusually paranoid about conventional medicine to a dangerous extent and you are intellectually unable to analyze the information available. This is a truly frightening combination.

Ooh, such name calling!

Despite the fact that your link to the article is actually to a message board and I can't find the original article (which is actually an analysis of other people's studies, not original research, and is wide open to criticism because of the difficulties in equating different types of study) on PubMed, you are misquoting the data even if it is accurate. For some malignancies, 2% of the people who survive five years can be attributed to chemo (I see you omitted that over 40% of five year survivors from testicular cancer were attributed to chemo)- that is because these types of malignancy are usually treated surgically or with radiation. Patients with these tumors who are treated with chemo have very advanced disease and no chance at all of survival. Are you saying that doctors should withold chemo in these cases?

You seem to have completely misinterpreted this meta-analysis as showing that the 5year survival with chemo is 2%, which is not the case. 2% of five year survivors are attributable to chemo, and given that perhaps 20% of the original patients were treated with chemo this may mean a 10% five year survival or perhaps better - much better than 0%, and pretty impressive given the advanced stage of the malignancy and the lack of other treatment options. And believe me, if you've got cancer, 10% survival seems pretty d--n sweet compared to certain death.

If you'll reread my last post you'll clearly see that I actually conceded a survival rate of not 10, but 16 percent after 5 years. But if you know someone with cancer, as I do, 16 percent doesn't sound too d#%n sweet when you're looking death in the face, so you can tone down the rhetoric, cowboy...

I believe I have read it is responsible for more than 60,000 dead

I believe I need a little bit more than your hearsay, as I have suggested. As for the plants, of course doctors are ready to use plants (digoxin and aspirin spring to mind) when they are proven to be effective. Not herbal remedies which have either not been tested or have been shown to be ineffective.

 Aspirin to treat cancer, Stat? Is that what you thnk you read? Now who's misunderstanding? Besides, painkillers like aspirin, Vioxx and Celebrex only suppress pain, they don't actually treat or correct the problem. Get the difference? Big $$$ , but  no cure.

I still don't know what the bottom line of your criticism of conventional medicine is. In my experience, doctors are just doing their best for their patients with no ulterior motive. You seem unusually paranoid about conventional medicine to a dangerous extent and you are intellectually unable to analyze the information available. This is a truly frightening combination.

I couldnt agree more, Stat. The garden variety M.D. is not the bad guy in all of this; he is simply caught in the middle. On one side, he has the patient who is expecting an instant cure-all for his problem; on the other side, the pharmaceutical people pushing all kinds of new Wonderdrugs at him. What's a doctor to do?
The bottom line is this: It's less about curing people, and more about making lots of money off of our  illnesses.

You think I'm frightening?
http://www.washintonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16546-2004Oct7.html