Not all children are biologically related to their guardians or parents. So, I suppose adoptees and such are left out of this lovely arrangement?

There is such thing as genuine sacrifice. I know the rightwingers here want to extend self-interest so broadly as to cover everything under the sun. But the fact is people do not think of everything in terms of their own individual benefit. Thank goodness for that.

I didn't say biologically your own. I said your own, only. Twisting words again and I have been so polite this thread. My wife and I are looking to adopt now that I'm back to being gainfully employed and I will see myself in that child when we do.

And I agree with you with regards to self-sacrifice.

People raise children that are not "their own", is the point. Adoption or no adoption.

I should point out that the "right-winders" (as you labeled them) include the "morale majority" religious right, who very much believe in self-sacrifice (after all, Jesus gave of himself so that none would perish but all would have everlasting life).

"right-wingers" sorry for the typo.

I think we are actually arguing the same side here. You just choose to label any one of a conservative bent "right-wingers" and attach this attribute that is patently false.

"I should point out that the "right-winders" (as you labeled them) include the "morale majority" religious right, who very much believe in self-sacrifice "

I'd disagree. Jesus is little more than their get out of hell free card. They personalized Jesus to such a degree that they recognize no churchly authority and think that the individual has a pipeline to god. Religion is adapted to meet man's needs, not the other way around. They even reinterpret the Bible to buttress their support for an economic system based on greed and exploitation.

I hope you are referring to just the extreme religious right and not all conservative believers. For instance, people like myself (Lutheran conservative-leaning independent) do not see Jesus' self-sacrifice as a get out of jail/hell free card, but as a responsibility to honor his sacrifice through our own lives on a daily basis.

Maybe, but Lutherans are not that large of a group in the US (6% of all Protestants). Baptists and Non-Denoms are much bigger. I imagine North Dakota (the capital of US Lutheranism) is conservative but not exactly the heart of the Bible belt.

"Yes, sleep deprivation and constantly waking up to mollify a small child is a dream come true."

Wow, and you accuse others of misanthropy

"Wow, and you accuse others of misanthropy"

Thanks for missing the point, as always.

Lutherans are the third largest protestant den omination and fourth largest Christian denomination. Your 6% is of the entire US population, not of the Protestant faiths.

"Draugnar wrote: "@Putin - when the child is your own and, by extension, part of you, the sleep deprivation is a small price to pay for the reward. "

There is another factor here too. The discomfort experienced by hearing the crying baby. The guilt that you are not being a good parent by letting it cry. So it is not just the carrot of of parent satisfaction, there is also a stick.

I saw numbers for 2001, not sure what they are for 2011, but I imagine there's not a major shift.

http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html

@Smiley:

"One of the better if not one of the best philosophers?"

...

Who DO you consider "the best" philosophers, Smiley, and why?

Because I can't even see Rand cracking a Top 2-0 List, let alon top spots!

1. Plato
2. Aristotle
3. Epicurus
4. Seneca (Or resident Seneca fans should be happy about that...)
5. Aquinas
6. Descartes
7. Spinoza
8. Locke
9. Hobbes
10. Kant
11. Leibniz
12. Hume
13. Rousseau
14. Kierkegaard
15. Schoepenhauer
16. Mill
17. Nietzsche
18. Marx
19. Russell
20. Wittgenstein
21. Sartre
22. Beauvoir (to show I'm not biased against those without a Y Chromosome...)
23. Rawls

And that's off the top of my head chronologically.

I HAVE given my response to Rand, and I've "done my homework," and my resonse is...well, what it has been this whole time, what Putin said, "Based on what criteria, pray tell? Plagiarizing other work? All Rand is is regurgitated Nietzsche in preachy pulp fiction form. How is this superior philosophizing?" with the added response of accusing her of copying contemporary writers such as Camus stylistically and from a purely literary point of view using cheap, shallow, undefined characters as pawns to tell a sellable, marketable, told-before love story that will both increase sales and give her a soap box on which to stand to proclaim her ideas from the pulpit...

Except, where GREAT female athours such as Jane Austen, the Bronte Sisters, and Mary Anne Evans, aka "George Eliot" used their love stories to give their original and creative takes on society, religion, life, death, and so on, and generally had characters with some depth, Rand's love stories exist solely to be love stories, rather than a story about true-feeling characters with depth that just happen to fall in love, and not only lack depth to the characters, but lack any sort of non-right wing or non-Nightmarishly-Twisted-Nietzsche message.

Smiley hasn't even bothered to answer the question about how on earth Rand meets the criteria of talking about the world "as is"? What Objectivist society is out there that we haven't heard about? But then again, he's too lazy to debate. He'll just say you and I are spouting drivel unless we give glowing reports of Rand, or read all her hidden never before seen manuscripts in which she repeats "A is A" 400 times.

@Putin - Read the page again. It clearly says estimated percent of US population I'm the header.

In not I'm.

This is going to get buried in Rand yelling, but Russell and not Popper?

I read the survey where it says people who responded with "Protestant" were asked what denomination of Protestant they were. 6% said Lutheran.

Anyway, whatever, 6% of 52% is still not a large number. The vast majority of Protestants are not Lutherans.

No, 6% of *all* respondents said they were Lutheran. Addd the numbers and you'll see they add up to 95%. You are misinterpreting the percentages.

6% of 350 million is nearly 20 million, a very large number.

And I will point out again that they are the third largest denomination of Protestantism in the US and the fourth largest Christian denomination in the US. Official number list the ELCA (the largest branch of the Lutheran church in the US) at nearly 5 million members and the LWF (the all encompassing Lutheran faith) at 67 million, more than the Baptist World Alliance at 47 million. Only the Methodist and Reformed churches have more (Protestant wise)

But, actually, this is all semantics. As I said, in many ways I think we agree. I may be more conservative, but Lutherans tend to be split politically.

Martin Luther was an antisemitic whack-job. It's too bad that he wasn't more tolerant, like me.

@ Ghost. Do you say that reiprocal altruism is coded for in your particular genetic make-up? That is why you feel able to say- ''I care for them and them (friends and family) being happy makes me happy''. Or is there some other human attribute you have in mind? If so, what is it, and can you explain its mechanism of action? In this case, as an avowed atheist, the burden of proof falls on you.

@fulhamish, yes, when I argue for an ethical system the burden of proof is on me. (This doesn't mean that there is a burden of proof to show that God doesn't exist however)

I guess companionship & other people's happiness making me happy is hard-wired in my genetic make-up. That that is its cause doesn't concern me, mind.

@ Ghost ''That that is its cause doesn't concern me, mind.''

That is very honest of you, thank you. I am afraid that I am a bit more of a reductionist than you, although of course I do respect your take on the matter. Thank you for the debate.