[geeks] Socialized medicine

[Patrick Giagnocavo]

Arno Kletzander wrote:

>> If it's merely the capacity to develop that self-awareness that
>> grants human rights, onanism should be a capital crime.
> 
> And the Jewish and Christian religions regard it as such or at least
> did until very recently. This came from the medieval belief that the
> male semen is "human seed" which grows in the womb like plant seeds
> grow in the ground. If you look at it from a modern point of view and
> count in the female contribution, it becomes even worse: it would be
> morally wrong to "waste" an egg by not having it fertilized! (It is
> flushed out with the next menstrual cycle then.)
> 
> So long, Arno


Um, you are off by quite a number of years.

Onan, from whom the word onanism was derived, was a character in the Old 
Testament and thus would have lived in the Middle East at least 400 
years before the birth of Jesus. That is, you are off by at least 1600 
years.

--Patrick