Why haven't cesareans been perfected to the point where they are safer and less painful than vaginal births?
Humans are neither omnipotent or omniscient. What I mean is that we're not all powerful and all knowing enough to make everything perfect and easy. In the case of childbirth nature's way is still superior to our artificial way. A normal vaginal birth is much less traumatic than a normal C-section. Of course there are complications and even deaths with both, but when they both go perfectly it is less traumatic to give birth naturally than to have your abdomen cut open. Therefore, the natural way is preferred. I have never heard the risks of vaginal birth understated. Its a fact that it is, in general, LESS risky than a c-section. However, I was always made aware of all of the risks you mentioned by my doctor, by books I read, and by internet sites I researched. I'm not sure who you are hearing these risks understated from because I think that most people are aware of them. The simple fact of the matter is that your body was designed to push a baby through your vagina and to recover from that trauma gradually. Your body was not designed to have your abdomen and uterus cut open and your baby pulled out of you. That's why recovery from a vaginal birth is (usually) easier than recovery from a c-section. C-sections are great in that they save the lives of so many mothers and babies who would have died trying to have natural birth. That's why infant mortality rates have decreased greatly in the past several hundred years. But ultimately if a mother is capable of giving birth naturally that is what is easiest on her body.
How has political conservatism in the US specifically impacted your life, if at all?The U.S. brand of political conservative philosophy influenced me throughout my life. It made sense to me when I was younger and I bought into the narrative the thinkers of the American right developed to explain the weaknesses in modernity, how our strengths as a society were slowly eroding as a matter of consequence. A U.S. conservative from my generation is prone to whining because he has become accustomed to losing: losing at the ballot box, even the box office. The world is a hostile place full of ever-multiplying “others” who are all hell-bent on wrecking the carefully thought out Constitutional Perfectionism of the Wealthy White Man. The natural ally to these stalwart protectors of the Federalist Papers are those who have benefited most from dividend trading and 40 years of unrestricted capitalism. Somehow these titans of bullshit have managed to destroy nearly all the ways in which the government kept the markets fair while simultaneously pretending they were being choked out by the same forces which made abortion legal and gave gays the right to get married.The U.S. conservative philosophy as I know it is dead. In its place is a mixture of Ayn Rand’s discredited ideas and Hilary Clinton conspiracy theories.
Why are democracies more peaceful in their relations with each other than with states which are nondemocracies
In the case of the United States of America it's because capitalism hides behind .....and is actually mistaken for democracy, by conservatives .....resulting in our our foreign policy being written by multinational corporations...literally.........and our corporations want to enslave all work forces and plunder all natural resources That's why we fought communism so hard. There was never any real threat of communists attacking America But communist countries threatened our corporate masters, by denying them access to their work forces and natural resources. There are hundreds of examples to prove the point...Iraq being the most current....Hussein was no threat, but we pretended he was, our corporations, the corporate owned government, and the corporate owned media created a false threat....so they could get their greedy little murdering fingers on all that precise oil. It's there...but they cover it up well...and the conservatives simply aren't interested in truth....more interested in phony patriotism...so the lies have a buyer.....white christian conservatives Often the democracies set up by the United States in the 3rd world are nothing more that puppet doormen put in place by the CIA to allow our corporations to plunder and pillage...and call it democracy.....and why do we get along with these governments....well, we run them.
Mainline Christians: In what ways do your religious beliefs differ from Evangelicals' (fundamentalists')?
Well the big differences are this: We celebrate the Eucharist, the last supper, which our Lord gave us, and believe that it is the Body and Blood of Christ that we are in communion with. In this way we are placed INTO the one true sacrifice our Lord made on our behalf. We belief that you must make a full confession to get pardon of grave sins, and that this must be done through the sacrament of reconciliation which our Lord gave to us. We belief that Baptism is a requirement, and not just a simple act or a symbol, but that it removes the Original Sin of Adam from our soul so that we can be ready to follow in Jesus' path, about which is confirmed in scripture. We believe that Jesus built a church, an apostolic church, which he gave authority to both here on earth and in the heavens, and that the church is the pillar of truth. We believe that a person is not automatically 'saved' just because he has faith alone in Jesus, but that a person has to maintain a state of grace, follow in the steps of Jesus (through the sacraments he gave us), obey His every command, lead a moral life, and do good works of charity in order to show love towards God and our fellow man (all of which is taught in scripture). But probably the biggest difference is, that we don't have to rely on our own interpretations, and we certainly don't get to pick and choose which parts of the scripture applies to us in order to satisfy our own worldly desires.