OT: If you believe life begins at conception...
Jim07D6
(fertilization of the ovum by the sperm), and believe that abortion
should be illegal after conception, I have a question or two for you.
First, how do we determine that conception has occurred? Conception
might not occur for up to 3 days after intercourse, if it occurs.
Existing pregnancy tests determine whether implantation has occurred,
if it occurs, which can be up to 6 days after conception.
If we can't determine whether conception has occurred, should we
assume it has occurred as soon as intercourse without a birth control
method in place, has occurred? In other words, should all measures
that would end the pregnancy be illegal, from the moment of
intercourse, so that if conception has occurred, the pregnancy will
not be intentionally terminated?
Or should we allow measures that might terminate a pregnancy, up to
the time when a pregnancy test can tell us if conception (and
implantation) has occurred? Remember that this might be up to 6 days
after conception.
--- Jim07D6
Bill
the women's body. Until the 24 week
of pregnancy it's existence is dependent on the women's body.
A women should continue to have the right to control her own body. Some
government agency should not have the right
to control a women's body.
"Jim07D6" <Jim...@nospam.net> wrote in message
news:6pd022pasoesk1qb0...@4ax.com...
Scott
You need to re-word your question, Jim. Life is continuous. An egg and a
sperm are both life. The question is about who should or should not be
entitled to personhood. Some examples:
Why should/shouldn't birth be the determiner of personhood?
Why should/shouldn't conception be the determiner of personhood?
Why should/shouldn't cognition be the determiner of personhood?
Why should/shouldn't self-awareness be the determiner of personhood?
Why should/shouldn't a rational nature be the determiner of personhood?
Scott
quibbler
@nospam.net says...
> If we can't determine whether conception has occurred, should we
> assume it has occurred as soon as intercourse without a birth control
> method in place, has occurred?
That would clearly be unreasonable, since fertilization may not succeed
or the zygote may spontaneously abort due to cellular and replication
errors.
> In other words, should all measures
> that would end the pregnancy be illegal, from the moment of
> intercourse, so that if conception has occurred, the pregnancy will
> not be intentionally terminated?
More to the point, how would this be monitored. If society must protect
all zygotes from conception on, then it requires the creation of a
police state to continuously monitor the uterus of each woman.
> Or should we allow measures that might terminate a pregnancy, up to
> the time when a pregnancy test can tell us if conception (and
> implantation) has occurred?
If it were truly alive at conception then pro-liars couldn't justify
denying it protection during this period.
Jim07D6
I was looking for replies from people who think life begins at
conception.
--- Jim07D6
Joseph Geloso
I don't understand your question. What measures might you be talking
about that might terminate a pregnancy, apart from those intended to
terminate it?
Jim07D6
For example, after intercourse, if there is an unimplanted fertilized
egg, there could be methods that might destroy it in place, prevent it
from implanting, or actually remove it (by irrigation with a wash)
from the woman's body. Should we allow such methods?
In all these cases, the same method might prevent fertilization, so it
would never be known if the method simply prevented fertilization or
actually ended the development of a fertilized egg.
--- Jim07D6
Joseph Geloso
Artificial contraception is also a sin, so the entire point is moot.
But is it illegal to put a bullet in a revolver, give the barrel a
spin, point it at someone else's head, and pull the trigger? Would that
not be attempted murder?
Frank O'Dwyer
Then go and turn yourself in for attempted murder. That's just like what you
would do to women by forcing them to give birth.
- Frank
Dutch
"Bill" <wm...@bellsouth.net> wrote
> It makes no difference. Until actual birth the fetus is part and parcel of
> the women's body. Until the 24 week
> of pregnancy it's existence is dependent on the women's body.
>
> A women should continue to have the right to control her own body. Some
> government agency should not have the right
> to control a women's body.
This kind of plain and simple reassertion of the mantra seems to account for
a large portion of pro-choice argument.
Joseph Geloso
Thanks for conceding the argument. It always comes down to this. When
you pro-aborts run out of arguments, you resort to inanity.
Matt Silberstein
<jose...@hotmail.com> in
<1142981534.8...@j33g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> wrote:
Riding a roller coaster between conception and implantation, for
example, would increase the chance of a spontaneous abortion. There
are plenty of other similar sorts of things.
--
Matt Silberstein
Do something today about the Darfur Genocide
http://www.beawitness.org
http://www.darfurgenocide.org
http://www.savedarfur.org
"Darfur: A Genocide We can Stop"
Matt Silberstein
<jose...@hotmail.com> in
<1142984143.0...@z34g2000cwc.googlegroups.com> wrote:
[snip]
>Artificial contraception is also a sin, so the entire point is moot.
How does "sin" relate to crime?
[snip]
Furious George
Jim07D6 wrote:
> If you believe life (and, therefore, pregnancy) begins at conception
> (fertilization of the ovum by the sperm), and believe that abortion
> should be illegal after conception, I have a question or two for you.
Dumbass America-hater. Life begins at ejaculation. Each and every
sperm is a living human being. When you masturbate or use a condom you
are guilty of genocide - the killing of millions of humans.
>
> First, how do we determine that conception has occurred? Conception
> might not occur for up to 3 days after intercourse, if it occurs.
> Existing pregnancy tests determine whether implantation has occurred,
> if it occurs, which can be up to 6 days after conception.
>
> If we can't determine whether conception has occurred, should we
> assume it has occurred as soon as intercourse without a birth control
> method in place, has occurred?
Yes.
> In other words, should all measures
> that would end the pregnancy be illegal, from the moment of
> intercourse, so that if conception has occurred, the pregnancy will
> not be intentionally terminated?
Yes.
>
> Or should we allow measures that might terminate a pregnancy, up to
> the time when a pregnancy test can tell us if conception (and
> implantation) has occurred? Remember that this might be up to 6 days
> after conception.
Why take a chance?
> --- Jim07D6
Frank O'Dwyer
You always go into denial and curl up like a hedgehog any time the conclusions
of your argument are drawn? I see.
The only difference between you and the situation you describe is the revolver
has more chambers and you never stop reloading. If anything you are worse since
you would keep shooting and you would always kill women.
- Frank
Jim07D6
Thanks for making that clear. Actually I am not asking what is a sin.
I am asking what should be illegal.
--- Jim07D6
Jim07D6
>On 21 Mar 2006 15:35:43 -0800, in alt.atheism , "Joseph Geloso"
><jose...@hotmail.com> in
><1142984143.0...@z34g2000cwc.googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
>[snip]
>
>>Artificial contraception is also a sin, so the entire point is moot.
>
>How does "sin" relate to crime?
>
>[snip]
I hope this question is answered.
--- Jim07D6
Jim07D6
Thanks you for defining one of the boundaries of this debate. ;-)
--- Jim07D6
Llanzlan Klazmon
news:6pd022pasoesk1qb0...@4ax.com:
> If you believe life (and, therefore, pregnancy) begins at conception
> (fertilization of the ovum by the sperm), and believe that abortion
> should be illegal after conception, I have a question or two for you.
Well I believe that life began over three billion years ago. All living
things around today are descended from those original life forms. That would
necessarily include all gametes which are living by definition. In that
sense, the formation of a zygote has nothing to do with it - it's just
another stage that some forms of life go through. On the other hand, I am pro
choice so I don't fit into the category you are looking for.
Klazmon.
Joseph Geloso
Right. Who will protect the poor, helpless, innocent women from the
malicious babies who are trying to kill them?
Joseph Geloso
Your question begs another question. I am not evading, but I am going
to try to make a point. Why do we have any laws at all?
Joseph Geloso
> On 21 Mar 2006 15:35:43 -0800, in alt.atheism , "Joseph Geloso"
> <jose...@hotmail.com> in
> <1142984143.0...@z34g2000cwc.googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> >Artificial contraception is also a sin, so the entire point is moot.
>
> How does "sin" relate to crime?
A crime is something defined as wrong and punishable by human law.
A sin is something actually wrong and deserving of punishment by God.
Thus if all crimes were sins, if something had to be a sin for it to be
a crime, then all human laws would be perfectly just.
And if all sins were crimes, if everything that offends God were
illegal, there would be more virtue in the world, because sins would
actually receive punishment in this life.
However, things being as they are, given the choice between committing
a sin or committing a crime, I would (I hope) always choose to commit
the crime. It used to be a crime to be a Christian.
In any case, it does not matter so much to me what human laws are
passed, as it does what is right vs. what is wrong. I recognize that
most people don't think like that, but I do.
On the other hand, if there are going to be human laws at all - and
there are - then it makes the most sense to me that we should strive to
design our laws such that sins and crimes are the same things. I
recognize that that is a very Christian, even a very Catholic, point of
view, and that most people don't agree. But I think that virtue is more
important than freedom, or what the majority might want.
Scott
Yes I know. but the sperm and the egg are life. I think what you're asking
is when does 'human life' begin. That could be the same as asking when
does/should personhood begin.
So, Jim, when is a human a person?
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/abortion/ab0004.html "To
understand the controversy, we must understand the general structure of
moral reasoning. A moral conclusion about the goodness or evil of a human
act is deduced from two premises: a major premise, which states a general
moral principle (e.g., "we ought to pay our debts") and a minor premise,
which sees a particular situation as coming under that principle (e.g.,
"international debts are debts"). Thus the essential pro-life argument is as
follows. The major premise is: "Thou shalt not kill" - i.e., all deliberate
killing of innocent human beings is forbidden. The minor premise is that
abortion is the deliberate killing of innocent human beings. The conclusion
is that abortion is wrong.
There are two significantly different pro-choice answers to this argument.
The more radical, or "hard," pro-choice position denies the major premise;
the less radical, or "soft," pro-choice position denies the minor. "Hard
pro-choice" denies the sanctity or inviolability of all humans; "soft
pro-choice" denies the humanity of the fetus.
I think no one in the Christian Medical and Dental Society will take the
hard pro-choice position, for Christianity clearly teaches (1) that all of
us are made in the image of God and (2) that God Himself has forbidden us to
kill, i.e., to murder innocent persons. I confine myself, therefore, to
refuting the soft pro-choice position. Is the fetus a person? Obviously it
is biologically human, genetically human, a distinct member of the species
homo sapiens. So the soft pro-choicer must distinguish between human beings
and persons, must say that fetuses are human but not persons, and say that
all persons, but not all humans, are sacred and inviolable.
Thus the crucial issue is: Are there any human beings who are not persons?
If so, killing them might be permissible, like killing warts. But who might
these human non-persons be? Jews? Blacks? Slaves? Infidels?
Counterrevolutionaries? Others have said so, and justified their genocide,
lynching, slavery, jihad, or gulag. But pro-choicers never include these
groups as non-persons. Many pro-choicers include severely retarded or
handicapped humans, or very old and sick humans, as non-persons, but this is
still morally shocking to most people, and many pro-choicers avoid that
morally shocking position by including only fetuses as members of this newly
invented class of human non-persons, or non-personal humans. I think no one
ever conceived of this category before the abortion controversy. It looks
very suspiciously like the category was invented to justify the killing, for
its only members are the humans we happen to be now killing and want to keep
killing and want to justify killing. But the only way we can prove this dark
suspicion true is to refute the category. Are there any humans who are not
persons?
Soft pro-choicers give reasons for thinking there are. Their position can be
fairly summarized, I think, in seven arguments. Each attacks a basic
pro-life syllogism by accusing it in different ways of using an ambiguous
middle term, "human being." They say a fetus is a human life but not a human
person:
First, there is the linguistic fact that we can and often do make a triple
distinction among a human life, a human being and a human person. Each cell
in our bodies has human life, and a single cell kept alive in a laboratory
could be called "a human life" but certainly not "a human being" or "a human
person." "A human being" is a biologically whole individual of the species.
Even a human being born with no brain is a human being, not an ape; but it
is not a person because it has no brain and cannot do anything distinctively
human: think, know, choose, love, feel, desire, commit, relate, aspire, know
itself, know God, know its past, know its future, know its environment, or
communicate - all of which have, in various combinations, been offered as
the marks of a person. The pro-life position seems to confuse the sanctity
of the person with the sanctity of life, which is two steps removed from it.
Thus pro-life seems to be based on a linguistic confusion. Not all human
life is sacred. Not even all human beings, individual members of the human
species, are sacred. But all human persons are sacred.
Second, pro-lifers seem to commit the intellectual sin of biologism,
idolatry of biology, by defining persons in a merely biological, genetic,
material way. Membership in a biological species is not morally relevant,
not what makes persons sacred and murder wrong. Membership in the human
species is no more morally relevant than membership in the subspecies, or
race. If racism is wrong, so is speciesism.
Third, the very young product of conception, the zygote, has no ability to
perform any of the distinctive activities that anyone associates with
personhood (reasoning, choosing, loving, communicating, etc.) - not even
feeling pain, for the zygote has no brain or nervous system. At first it is
only a single cell. How could anyone call a single cell a person?
Fourth, it seems to be an obvious mistake for the pro-lifer to claim that
personhood begins abruptly, at conception, for personhood develops
gradually, as a matter of degree. Every one of the characteristics we use to
identify personhood arises and grows gradually rather than suddenly.
Pro-lifers seem to be victims of simplistic, black-or-white thinking, but
reality is full of greys.
Fifth, pro-lifers seem to confuse potential persons with actual persons. The
fetus is potentially a person, but it must grow into an actual person.
Sixth, personhood is not a clear concept. There is not universal agreement
on it. Different philosophers, scientists, religionists, moralists, mothers,
and observers define it differently. It is a matter of opinion where the
dividing line between persons and non-persons should be located. But what is
a matter of opinion should not be decided or enforced by law. Law should
express social consensus, and there is no consensus in our society about
personhood's beginning or, consequently, about abortion. One opinion should
not be forced on all. Pro-choice is not pro-abortion but, precisely,
pro-choice.
Seventh, a fetus cannot be a person because it is part of another person,
the mother. Persons are wholes, not parts. Persons are not parts of other
persons, but the fetus is part of another person; therefore, the fetus is
not a person.
There is a common premise hidden behind all seven of these pro-choice
arguments. It is the premise of Functionalism: defining a person by his or
her functioning or behavior. A "behavioral definition" is proper and
practical for scientific purposes of prediction and experimentation, but it
is not adequate for ordinary reason and common sense, much less for good
philosophy or morality, which should be based on common sense. Why? Because
common sense distinguishes between what one is and what one does, between
being and fun functioning, thus between "being a person" and "functioning as
a person." One cannot function as a person without being a person, but one
can surely be a person without functioning as a person. In deep sleep, in
coma, and in early infancy, nearly everyone will admit there are persons,
but there are no specifically human functions such as reasoning, choice, or
language. Functioning as a person is a sign and an effect of being a person.
It is because of what we are, because of our nature or essence or being,
that we can and do function in these ways. We have human souls, and plants
do not; that's why we can know ourselves and plants can't. Functionalism
makes the elementary mistake of confusing the sign with the thing signified,
the smoke with the fire. As a Zen master would say, "The finger is fine for
pointing at the moon, but woe to him who mistakes the finger for the moon."
The Functionalist or Behaviorist would reply that he is skeptical of such
talk about natures, essences, or natural species (as distinct from
conventional, man-made class-groupings). But the Functionalist cannot use
ordinary language without contradicting himself. He says, e.g., that there
is no such thing as "river" because all rivers are different. But how then
can he call them all "rivers"? The very word "all" should be stricken from
his speech. His Nominalism makes nonsense of ordinary language.
The Functionalist claims he is being simple and commonsensical by not
speaking of essences. He says that traditional talk about essences is dated,
dispensable, mystical, muddled, and anti-scientific. But he is wrong. Talk
about essences is not dated but perennial, built into the very structure of
language, for most words are universals predictable of many individuals.
Essence-talk is not dispensable without dispensing with understanding itself
and reducing us to an animal state of mind where brute empirical fact reigns
alone. Essence-talk is not mystical but commonsensical. It is not muddled
but clear to any child. It is not anti scientific, for science seeks
universal laws, truths about the species, not quirks of the specimen.
Functionalism is not only theoretically weak, it is also practically
destructive. Modern man is increasingly reducing his being to functions. We
no longer ask "Who is he?" but "What does he do?" We think of a man as a
fireman, not as a man fighting fires; of a woman as a teacher, not as a
woman teaching.
Functionalism arises with the modern erosion of the family. Our civilization
is dying primarily because the family is dying. Half of our families commit
suicide, for divorce is the family committing suicide qua family. But the
family is the place where you learn that you are loved not because of what
you do, your function, but because of who you are. What is replacing the
family, where we are valued for our being? The workplace, where we are
valued for our functioning.
This replacement in society is mirrored by the replacement in philosophy of
the old "Sanctity of Life Ethic" by the new "Quality of Life Ethic." In this
new ethic, a human life is judged as valuable and worth living if and and
only if the judgers decide that it performs at a certain level - e.g., a
functional I.Q. of 60 or 40; or an ability to relate to other people (it
would logically follow that a severely autistic person does not have enough
"quality" in his life to deserve to live); or the prospect of a fairly
normal, healthy and pain-free life (thus active euthanasia, or assisted
suicide, is justified). If someone lacks the functional criteria of a
"quality" life, he lacks personhood and the right to life.
I find this ethic more terrifying than the ethic of the Mafia, for the Mafia
at least do not rationalize their assassinations by inventing a new ethic
which pretends that the people they want to kill are not people. I would
feel more comfortable conversing with a hired killer than with an
abortionist, for an abortionist is also a hired killer, but pretends not to
be.
The Functionalism that is the basis of the "Quality of Life Ethic" is
morally reprehensible for at least three reasons. First, it is degrading,
demeaning and destructive to human dignity; it treats persons like trained
seals. Second, it is elitist; it discriminates against less perfect
performers. Third, it takes advantage, it is power play, it is might over
right rationalized. To see this point, let us dare to ask a very naive and
simple question, a question a child might ask, especially a child like the
one in "The Emperor's New Clothes": Why do doctors kill fetuses rather than
fetuses killing doctors? Fetuses do not want to die. They struggle to live.
(I hope you have all seen "The Silent Scream" and its sequel.) The answer is
power. Doctors have power, fetuses do not. If fetuses came equipped with
suction tubes, poisons, and scalpels to use to defend themselves against
their killers, there would be no abortions.
The eventual are George Bernard Shaw's utopia of the future in which each
citizen would have to appear annually before a Central Planning Committee to
justify the social utility of his or her (or its) existence, or else be
painlessly "terminated." That is the crotch of the Functionalist camel whose
nose is already under our tent. The nose is abortion. The camel is all one
piece. Let the nose in and the rest will follow. To keep the camel out you
must hit it on the nose.
Returning to our logical analysis, let us now refute the seven pro-choice
arguments. First, the pro-choicers are correct to claim that the "person"
and "human being" are not identical, but wrong to claim that the "human
being" is the broader category and "person" the narrower subset. It is the
other way round. There are persons who are not human persons: the three
Persons of the Trinity, angels, and any rational and moral extraterrestrials
who may exist, such as the E.T., Martians, and someone who has never heard
of the Boston Red Sox. But though not all persons are human, all humans are
persons. Old humans are persons, very young humans are persons, and unborn
humans, fetal humans, are persons too.
How is a person to be defined? The crucial point for our argument is not
which acts are to count as defining a person (is it speaking, or reasoning,
or loving?) but the relation of these personal acts to the person-actor.
Is a person one who is consciously performing personal acts? If so, people
who are asleep are not people, and we may kill them. Is it one with a
present capacity to perform personal acts? That would include sleepers, but
not people in coma. How about one with a history of performing personal
acts? That would mean that a 17-year-old who was born in a coma 17 years ago
and is just now coming out of it is not a person. Also, by this definition
there can be no first personal act, no personal acts without a history of
past personal acts. What about one with a future capacity for performing
personal acts? That would mean that dying persons are not persons. Surely
the correct answer is that a person is one with a natural, inherent capacity
for performing personal acts. Why is one able to perform personal acts,
under proper conditions? Only because one is a person. One grows into the
ability to perform personal acts only because one already is the kind of
thing that grows into the ability to perform personal acts, i.e., a person.
The first argument - that some human beings are not persons - is to say that
only achievers, only successful functioners, only sufficiently intelligent
performers, qualify as persons and have a right to life. And who is to say
what "sufficient" is? The line can be drawn at will-the will of the
stronger. Nature, reason, and justice are then replaced by artifice,
prejudice, and power. When it is in the self-interest of certain people to
kill certain other people, whether fetuses, or the dying, or enemies of the
state, or Jews, or Armenians, or Cambodians, or heretics, or prophets, the
killers will simply define their victims as non-persons by pointing out that
they do not meet certain criteria. Who determines the criteria? Those in
power, of course. Whenever personhood is defined functionally, the dividing
line between persons and non-persons will be based on a decision by those in
power, a decision of will. Such a decision, given the fallenness of human
nature, will inevitably be based on self-interest. Where there is an
interest in killing persons, they will be defined as non-persons.
To the second argument, it must be said that "human being" is not a merely
biological term because the reality it designates is not a merely biological
reality, though it is a biological reality. To identify human beings and
persons is not biologism; in fact, it is just the opposite: it is the
implicit claim that persons, i.e., human beings, have a human biological
body and a human spiritual soul; that human souls inhabit human bodies.
The reason we should love, respect, and not kill human beings is because
they are persons, i.e., subjects, souls, "I's," made in the image of God Who
is I AM. We revere the person, not the functioning; the doer, not the doing.
If robots could do all that persons can do behaviorally, they would still
not be persons. Mere machines cannot be persons. They may function as
persons, but they do not understand that they do not have freedom, or free
will to choose what they do. They obey their programming without free
choice. They are artifacts, and artifacts are not persons. Persons are
natural, not artificial. They develop from within (like fetuses!); artifacts
are made from without.
The connection between the two errors of (1) reducing persons to functions
and (2) reducing "human being" to a merely biological category is obvious:
the first is the root cause of the second. Once a person is defined in terms
of functioning, then zygotes, fetuses and even normal newborns are no longer
fully persons. What are they, then? Only members of a biological species,
"human being."
This justifies abortion, of course-and infanticide. The camel is a one-piece
camel. I know of no argument justifying abortion that does not also justify
infanticide.
To the third argument: the zygote has no brain, true, but it does have what
will grow into a brain, just as an infant does not have speech but has what
will grow into speech. Within the zygote is an already fully programmed
individuality, from sex and aging to eye color and aversion to spinach. The
personhood of the person is already there, like the tuliphood of the tulip
bulb. One must actually be a human being, after all, to grow a human brain.
The fourth argument is right, of course, to say that development is
gradual-after conception. Conception is the break, the clear dividing line,
and the only one. I am the same being from conception on. Otherwise we would
not speak of the growth and development and unfolding of that being, of me.
I was once an infant. I was born. I was once in my mother's womb. My
functioning develops only gradually, but my me has a sudden beginning. Once
again, the pro-choice objection confuses being a person with functioning as
a person.
Furthermore, if personhood is only a developing, gradual thing, then we are
never fully persons, because we continue to grow, at least intellectually
and emotionally and spiritually. Albert Schweitzer said, at 70, "I still don't
know what I want to do when I grow up." But if we are only partial persons,
then murder is only partially wrong, and it is less wrong to kill younger,
lesser persons than older ones. If it is more permissible to kill a fetus
than to kill an infant because the fetus is less of a person, then it is for
exactly the same reason more permissible to kill a seven-year-old, who has
not yet developed his reproductive system or many of his educational and
communications skills, than to kill a 27-year-old. The absurd conclusion
follows from defining a person functionally.
No other line than conception can be drawn between pre-personhood and
personhood. Birth and viability are the two most frequently suggested. But
birth is only a change of place and relationship to the mother and to the
surrounding world (air and food); how could these things create personhood?
As for viability, it varies with accidental and external factors like
available technology (incubators). What I am in the womb-a person or a
non-person cannot be determined by what machines exist outside the womb! But
viability is determined by such things. Therefore personhood cannot be
determined by viability.
Fifth, if the fetus is only a potential person, it must be an actual
something in order to be a potential person. What is it? An ape?
There are no "potential persons" any more than there are potential apes. All
persons are actual, as all apes are actual. Actual apes are potential
swimmers, and actual persons are potential philosophers. The being is
actual, the functioning is potential. The objection confuses "a potential
person" with "a potentially functioning person"-Functionalism again.
Sixth, is personhood an unclear concept? If it were a matter of degree,
determined by degree of functioning, then it would indeed be unclear, and a
matter of opinion, who is a person and who is not. Refuting objection four
undercuts objection six.
Personhood is indeed unclear-for Functionalism. Such questions as the
following are not clearly answerable: Which features count as proof of
personhood? Why? How do we decide? Who decides? What gives them that right?
And how much of each feature is necessary for personhood? And who decides
that, and why? Also, all the performance-qualifications adduced for
personhood are difficult to measure objectively and with certainty. To use
the unclear, not universally accepted, hard-to-measure functionalist concept
of personhood to decide the sharply controversial issue of who is a person
and who may be killed is to try to clarify the obscure by the more obscure,
obscuram per obscurius.
Seventh, if the fetus is only a part of the mother, a hilariously absurd
consequence follows. The relation of part to whole is what logicians call a
transitive relation: If A is part of B and B is part of C, then A must be
part of C. If a wall is part of a room and the room is part of a building,
then the wall must be part of that building. If a toe is part of a foot and
a foot is part of a body, then the toe is part of the body. Now if the fetus
is a part of the mother, then the parts of the fetus must be parts of the
mother. But in that case, every pregnant woman has four eyes and four feet,
and half of all pregnant women have penises! Clearly, the absurd conclusion
came from the false premise that the fetus is only part of the mother.
I have refuted the pro-choice position (1) in general, by the basic pro-life
syllogism, (2) foundationally, by identifying and refuting Functionalism as
the root pro-choice error, and (3) specifically, by refuting each of the
seven pro-choice arguments against fetal personhood. But just suppose all of
my arguments are somehow inconclusive. Suppose I was wrong in my very first
point, that abortion is a clear evil. Suppose abortion is a difficult,
obscure, uncertain issue. Even if you take this "softest pro-choice"
position, which we can call "abortion agnosticism," you stand refuted by the
following quadrilemma.
Either the fetus is a person, or not; and either we know what it is, or not.
Thus there are four and only four possibilities:
that it is not a person and we know that, that it is a person and we know
that, that it is a person but we do not know that, and that it is not a
person and we do not know that.
Now what is abortion in each of these four cases?
In case (1), abortion is perfectly permissible. We do no wrong if we kill
what is not a person and we know it is not a person-e.g., if we fry a fish.
But no one has ever proved with certainty that a fetus is not a person. If
there exists anywhere such a proof, please show it to me and I shall convert
to pro-choice on the spot if I cannot refute it. If we do not have case (1)
we have either (2) or (3) or (4). What is abortion in each of these cases?
It is either murder, or manslaughter, or criminal negligence.
In case (2), where the fetus is a person and we know that, abortion is
murder. For killing an innocent person knowing it is an innocent person is
murder.
In case (3), abortion is manslaughter, for it is killing an innocent person
not knowing and intending the full, deliberate extent of murder. It is like
driving over a man-shaped overcoat in the street, which may be a drunk or
may only be an old coat. It is like shooting at a sudden movement in a bush
which may be your hunting companion or may be only a pheasant. It is like
fumigating an apartment building with a highly toxic chemical not knowing
whether everyone is safely evacuated. If the victim is a person, you have
committed manslaughter. And if not?
Even in case (4), even if abortion kills what is not in fact a person, but
the killer does not know for sure that it is not a person, we have criminal
negligence, as in the above three cases if there happened to be no one in
the coat, the bush, or the building, but the driver, the hunter, or the
fumigator did not know that, and nevertheless drove, shot or fumigated. Such
negligence is instinctively and universally condemned by all reasonable
individuals and societies as personally immoral and socially criminal; and
cases (2) and (3), murder and manslaughter, are of course condemned even
more strongly. We do not argue politely over whether such behavior is right
or wrong. We wholeheartedly condemn it, even when we do not know whether
there is a person there, because the killer did not know that a person was
not there. Why do we not do the same with abortion?
The answer to that question is not an easy one to admit. It is this: If we
do not see the awfulness of abortion, that is not because the facts and
arguments are unclear but because our own consciences are unclear. Mother
Teresa says, "Abortion kills twice. It kills the body of the baby and it
kills the conscience of the mother." Abortion is profoundly anti-women.
Three quarters of its victims are women: half the babies and all the
mothers.
If Mother Teresa is right, the second killing that abortion does is even
worse than the first, if souls are more important than bodies. If abortion
kills consciences, it kills souls. To the extent that conscience is killed,
repentance is killed, and without repentance and faith we simply cannot be
saved - unless Jesus was a liar or a fool when he told us that.
This is not to condemn the personal motives or integrity of all who abort.
We must distinguish the sin from the sinner and hate and judge the sin but
not the sinner. Both aborters and justifiers of abortion may be victims as
much as victimizers: victims of propaganda, prejudice and passion. Before
they victimize their babies' bodies, their own souls are victimized - their
thoughts, their consciences. But the victimization must start somewhere, the
buck stops somewhere, and not in safe abstractions like "society" but in the
choices of individuals.
All of us are implicated in some way, for "the only thing that is necessary
for the triumph of evil is that the good do nothing." What should we do? For
one thing, we must put up one hell of a stink, for abortion is, precisely,
one hell of a stink.
There is a time to be polite and scholarly and a time to tell the truth
plain and prickly. Plainly put, abortion comes from Hell and it can lead us
to Hell if not repented. Any unrepented sin can, and we all need repentance,
whether we abort or hate or lust or despair or coldly condemn. But abortion
is more likely than most sins to be unrepented because there are so many
pro-choice voices justifying it. The justification of abortion can be more
lethal than abortion itself.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Kreeft, Peter "Human Personhood Begins at Conception." Medical Ethics Policy
Monograph Stafford, Virginia: Castello Institute"
Matt Silberstein
<jose...@hotmail.com> in
<1142993363....@t31g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> wrote:
>Matt Silberstein wrote:
>> On 21 Mar 2006 15:35:43 -0800, in alt.atheism , "Joseph Geloso"
>> <jose...@hotmail.com> in
>> <1142984143.0...@z34g2000cwc.googlegroups.com> wrote:
>>
>> [snip]
>>
>> >Artificial contraception is also a sin, so the entire point is moot.
>>
>> How does "sin" relate to crime?
>
>A crime is something defined as wrong and punishable by human law.
>
>A sin is something actually wrong and deserving of punishment by God.
>
>Thus if all crimes were sins, if something had to be a sin for it to be
>a crime, then all human laws would be perfectly just.
Have you read Aristotle's _Ethics_? Having all sins governed by law
means you can't tell if you do good because it is right or because you
are afraid of the law.
>And if all sins were crimes, if everything that offends God were
>illegal, there would be more virtue in the world, because sins would
>actually receive punishment in this life.
Is there anything you see as a sin that should not be punishable? How
about taking the Lord's name in vain? Or failing to honor your father
and mother?
>However, things being as they are, given the choice between committing
>a sin or committing a crime, I would (I hope) always choose to commit
>the crime. It used to be a crime to be a Christian.
>
>In any case, it does not matter so much to me what human laws are
>passed, as it does what is right vs. what is wrong. I recognize that
>most people don't think like that, but I do.
>
>On the other hand, if there are going to be human laws at all - and
>there are - then it makes the most sense to me that we should strive to
>design our laws such that sins and crimes are the same things. I
>recognize that that is a very Christian, even a very Catholic, point of
>view, and that most people don't agree. But I think that virtue is more
>important than freedom, or what the majority might want.
Actually you think that *behavior* is more important that virtue.
There is nothing virtuous about, say, failing to steal if your only
reason is that it is illegal. There is nothing virtuous about prayer
if fear of jail pushes you to pray. Virtue can only occur in the light
of freedom.
Scott
"Bill" <wm...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:9SYTf.255$yn4...@bignews7.bellsouth.net...
> It makes no difference. Until actual birth the fetus is part and parcel of
> the women's body. Until the 24 week
> of pregnancy it's existence is dependent on the women's body.
>
> A women should continue to have the right to control her own body. Some
> government agency should not have the right
> to control a women's body.
Peter Singer feels that personhood shouldn't begin until 28 days post
pregnancy since he argues that cognition has really happened till then (or
something like that), and that the government should be allowed to force
anyone to be parent until that time. Along with this cognition argument for
infanticide he feels involuntary euthanasia should be acceptable. He's a
prof. of ethics at Princeton.
james.pr...@gmail.com
A brick, falling from the roof of a two story building, can kill you
without anyone ascribing a motive to it. In the same way, an ectopic
foetus has no conception that it is endangering the life of it's
mother, yet it can still kill the mother.
I don't understand the russian roulette revolver analogy above either.
Measures that might terminate a pregnancy 'up to the time when a
pregnancy test can tell us if conception (and implantation) has
occurred' include going for a brisk run or eating a dodgy kebab. How
are you and the rest of the Taliban going to ensure that women who have
had intercourse do not endanger the lives of their 'pre-born' children
over this 6 day period?
james.pr...@gmail.com
Matt Silberstein wrote:
> On 21 Mar 2006 18:09:23 -0800, in alt.atheism , "Joseph Geloso"
> <jose...@hotmail.com> in
> <1142993363....@t31g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
> >Matt Silberstein wrote:
> >> On 21 Mar 2006 15:35:43 -0800, in alt.atheism , "Joseph Geloso"
> >> <jose...@hotmail.com> in
> >> <1142984143.0...@z34g2000cwc.googlegroups.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> [snip]
> >>
> >> >Artificial contraception is also a sin, so the entire point is moot.
> >>
> >> How does "sin" relate to crime?
> >
> >A crime is something defined as wrong and punishable by human law.
> >
> >A sin is something actually wrong and deserving of punishment by God.
> >
> >Thus if all crimes were sins, if something had to be a sin for it to be
> >a crime, then all human laws would be perfectly just.
>
> Have you read Aristotle's _Ethics_? Having all sins governed by law
> means you can't tell if you do good because it is right or because you
> are afraid of the law.
>
> >And if all sins were crimes, if everything that offends God were
> >illegal, there would be more virtue in the world, because sins would
> >actually receive punishment in this life.
>
> Is there anything you see as a sin that should not be punishable? How
> about taking the Lord's name in vain? Or failing to honor your father
> and mother?
Or wearing mixed fabric textiles? Or accidentally touching the genitals
of someone assaulting your husband when you try and help them?
Scott
"Matt Silberstein" <RemoveThisPref...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in
message news:74i122tjuss3asi47...@4ax.com...
> On 21 Mar 2006 18:09:23 -0800, in alt.atheism , "Joseph Geloso"
> <jose...@hotmail.com> in
> <1142993363....@t31g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
>>Matt Silberstein wrote:
>>> On 21 Mar 2006 15:35:43 -0800, in alt.atheism , "Joseph Geloso"
>>> <jose...@hotmail.com> in
>>> <1142984143.0...@z34g2000cwc.googlegroups.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> [snip]
>>>
>>> >Artificial contraception is also a sin, so the entire point is moot.
>>>
>>> How does "sin" relate to crime?
>>
>>A crime is something defined as wrong and punishable by human law.
>>
>>A sin is something actually wrong and deserving of punishment by God.
>>
>>Thus if all crimes were sins, if something had to be a sin for it to be
>>a crime, then all human laws would be perfectly just.
>
> Have you read Aristotle's _Ethics_? Having all sins governed by law
> means you can't tell if you do good because it is right or because you
> are afraid of the law.
Aristotle assumes moral realism is fact. I trust you do not believe in moral
realism/truth. In moral relativism all man-made laws are morally right.
There'd be no such thing as an unjust law.
>
>>And if all sins were crimes, if everything that offends God were
>>illegal, there would be more virtue in the world, because sins would
>>actually receive punishment in this life.
>
> Is there anything you see as a sin that should not be punishable? How
> about taking the Lord's name in vain? Or failing to honor your father
> and mother?
>
>>However, things being as they are, given the choice between committing
>>a sin or committing a crime, I would (I hope) always choose to commit
>>the crime. It used to be a crime to be a Christian.
>>
>>In any case, it does not matter so much to me what human laws are
>>passed, as it does what is right vs. what is wrong. I recognize that
>>most people don't think like that, but I do.
>>
>>On the other hand, if there are going to be human laws at all - and
>>there are - then it makes the most sense to me that we should strive to
>>design our laws such that sins and crimes are the same things. I
>>recognize that that is a very Christian, even a very Catholic, point of
>>view, and that most people don't agree. But I think that virtue is more
>>important than freedom, or what the majority might want.
>
> Actually you think that *behavior* is more important that virtue.
> There is nothing virtuous about, say, failing to steal if your only
> reason is that it is illegal. There is nothing virtuous about prayer
> if fear of jail pushes you to pray. Virtue can only occur in the light
> of freedom.
There is no such thing as virtue unless moral realism is a fact. Virtue is
objective where values are subjective.
Scott
Scott
And, Jim, as we've gone around the block on this, to moral relativism the
answer to "what should be illegal" must be ultimately arbirary.
Scott
Scott
"Llanzlan Klazmon" <Kla...@llurdiaxorb.govt> wrote in message
news:Xns978E85B917587Kl...@203.97.37.6...
functionalism
Scott
"Scott" <sc...@nospam.net> wrote in message
news:VrOdnf8kTohgUL3Z...@wcc.net...
>
> "Bill" <wm...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
> news:9SYTf.255$yn4...@bignews7.bellsouth.net...
>> It makes no difference. Until actual birth the fetus is part and parcel
>> of the women's body. Until the 24 week
>> of pregnancy it's existence is dependent on the women's body.
>>
>> A women should continue to have the right to control her own body. Some
>> government agency should not have the right
>> to control a women's body.
>
> Peter Singer feels that personhood shouldn't begin until 28 days post
> pregnancy since he argues that cognition has really happened till then (or
> something like that), and that the government should
'should not'
fuckyourfakewarforoilcorporations
grow.
Dutch
> You need to re-word your question, Jim. Life is continuous. An egg and a
> sperm are both life.
You're completely missing the point Scott, sperm and ova are ordinary human
tissue, they are not "a human life". A human life is veritable dynamo of
growth and development, ordinary tissue is not.
> The question is about who should or should not be entitled to personhood.
Personhood per se will not resolve the question of abortion rights.
Joseph Geloso
> Actually you think that *behavior* is more important that virtue.
Actually that is your lie. I meant what I wrote.
Matt Silberstein
<sc...@nospam.net> in <LMGdnTX8mMe...@wcc.net> wrote:
>
>"Matt Silberstein" <RemoveThisPref...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in
>message news:74i122tjuss3asi47...@4ax.com...
>> On 21 Mar 2006 18:09:23 -0800, in alt.atheism , "Joseph Geloso"
>> <jose...@hotmail.com> in
>> <1142993363....@t31g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> wrote:
>>
>>>Matt Silberstein wrote:
>>>> On 21 Mar 2006 15:35:43 -0800, in alt.atheism , "Joseph Geloso"
>>>> <jose...@hotmail.com> in
>>>> <1142984143.0...@z34g2000cwc.googlegroups.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> [snip]
>>>>
>>>> >Artificial contraception is also a sin, so the entire point is moot.
>>>>
>>>> How does "sin" relate to crime?
>>>
>>>A crime is something defined as wrong and punishable by human law.
>>>
>>>A sin is something actually wrong and deserving of punishment by God.
>>>
>>>Thus if all crimes were sins, if something had to be a sin for it to be
>>>a crime, then all human laws would be perfectly just.
>>
>> Have you read Aristotle's _Ethics_? Having all sins governed by law
>> means you can't tell if you do good because it is right or because you
>> are afraid of the law.
>
>Aristotle assumes moral realism is fact. I trust you do not believe in moral
>realism/truth. In moral relativism all man-made laws are morally right.
>There'd be no such thing as an unjust law.
The argument I referenced, however, does not depend on moral realism.
All you need to support the argument is a view that morality does not
stem from the law.
[snip]
Eyeball Kid
<Jim...@nospam.net> wrote:
> If you believe life (and, therefore, pregnancy) begins at conception
> (fertilization of the ovum by the sperm), and believe that abortion
> should be illegal after conception, I have a question or two for you.
>
> First, how do we determine that conception has occurred? Conception
> might not occur for up to 3 days after intercourse, if it occurs.
> Existing pregnancy tests determine whether implantation has occurred,
> if it occurs, which can be up to 6 days after conception.
>
> If we can't determine whether conception has occurred, should we
> assume it has occurred as soon as intercourse without a birth control
> method in place, has occurred? In other words, should all measures
> that would end the pregnancy be illegal, from the moment of
> intercourse, so that if conception has occurred, the pregnancy will
> not be intentionally terminated?
>
> Or should we allow measures that might terminate a pregnancy, up to
> the time when a pregnancy test can tell us if conception (and
> implantation) has occurred? Remember that this might be up to 6 days
> after conception.
> --- Jim07D6
If you pro-Lifers had any guts, you would introduce legislation that
would make abortion a capital crime, punishable only by death, for
women who go ahead with one. That's right, pro-Lifers, make your
statement, and place it before the American people.
If abortion is the same as murder, then arrest the women who have them
and put them to death. Go ahead. See how that flies with the rest of
the US.
Don't pussyfoot around with abortion. If you say that it's murder from
the moment of conception, then walk the walk.
You phoneys just do nothing but whine. And then you pass up who you
believe to be the real culprits in what you believe is a capital crime.
You pass up the very women who commit to an abortion, and blame it on
doctors, on parents, on clinics, on anyone else.
Come on, you cowardly wimps. Make it plain as day. Codify the killing
of women who get an abortion. You want to play the "abortion is murder"
game? Then play it.
Fuckin pigs.
E. K.
--
"You can fool some of the people all of the time,
and those are the ones you want to concentrate on."
G.W. Bush, Gridiron Club dinner, Wash., D.C. March 2001
"I even take the position that sexual orgies eliminate social tensions and
ought to be encouraged." Antonin Scalia, September 28, 2004
"The American Way of Life is not negotiable." Dick Cheney, 2001
"The American Way of Life is heading for extinction." Eyeball Kid, 2006
Free humor. Whenever you want. http://www.psmueller.com
Matt Silberstein
<jose...@hotmail.com> in
<1143004166....@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com> wrote:
It is too bad that you were not able to respond to what wrote and had
to resort to snipping out the argument. I don't know how someone can
claim morality and yet use such dishonest methods. If you are
unwilling or unable (or both) to discuss this, fine. But remember
whose eye has the mote and whose eye has the beam.
Llanzlan Klazmon
still...@yahoo.com
Maybe...
The kind man does something,
yet something remains undone.
The just man does something,
and leaves many things to be done.
The moral man does something,
and when no one responds
he rolls up his sleeves and uses force.
When the Tao is lost, there is goodness.
When goodness is lost, there is morality.
When morality is lost, there is ritual.
Ritual is the husk of true faith,
the beginning of chaos.
Sunny
Scott
"Dutch" <n...@email.com> wrote in message
news:1221mn2...@news.supernews.com...
> "Scott" <sc...@nospam.net> wrote
>
>> You need to re-word your question, Jim. Life is continuous. An egg and a
>> sperm are both life.
>
> You're completely missing the point Scott, sperm and ova are ordinary
> human tissue, they are not "a human life".
I didn't say they were. You need to read the quoted material in my next
post, Dutch, where this is addressed.
>A human life is veritable dynamo of growth and development,
And that defines everything from conception to my 100 year old aunt. I hold
all human life as sacred.
>ordinary tissue is not.
Is it not living tissue?
The philosophical problem is when does life equal to human life equal to
human being equate to personhood.
>
>> The question is about who should or should not be entitled to personhood.
>
> Personhood per se will not resolve the question of abortion rights.
Why not? Because....<your turn>
You should also read: http://www.l4l.org/library/mythfact.html
You too, Jim.
Scott
Scott
But all law is a reflection of what is moral. There can be no unjust law
unless moral realism if true. A criminal act is merely a violation of social
mores with stronger social consequences. So using that same argument if all
immoralities are violations of social mores you can't tell if you do good
because it is right or because you are afraid of the social consequences.
Scott
Joseph Geloso
> On 21 Mar 2006 21:09:26 -0800, in alt.atheism , "Joseph Geloso"
> <jose...@hotmail.com> in
> <1143004166....@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
> >Matt Silberstein wrote:
> >
> >> Actually you think that *behavior* is more important that virtue.
> >
> >Actually that is your lie. I meant what I wrote.
>
> It is too bad that you were not able to respond to what wrote and had
> to resort to snipping out the argument.
Another lie??? Why?
> I don't know how someone can
> claim morality and yet use such dishonest methods. If you are
> unwilling or unable (or both) to discuss this, fine.
What if I am both willing and able, but not with a liar? Do you have
someone else who can discuss these things for you?
> But remember
> whose eye has the mote and whose eye has the beam.
What the hell is that supposed to mean?
There is nothing dishonest at all about snipping out what I am not
addressing. I may reply to what else you wrote, but first I would like
to clear up the issue of why you feel you need to lie about me to make
your point. Do you think you can stop that? Thanks ever so much. If
not, we are done discussing.
ShadowWolf
<snip>
>> But remember
>> whose eye has the mote and whose eye has the beam.
>
> What the hell is that supposed to mean?
"Don't point out the mote in your brothers eye when you cannot see the log
in your own" - It's something Christ is supposed to have said. It's meaning
is "Don't point out small faults in others when you have greater faults in
yourself."
I'm not actually interested in this thread, but felt you deserved a straight
answer to that question. Hope my explanation of the quote helps.
<snip>
ShadowWolf
Scott
> On 21 Mar 2006 21:09:26 -0800, in alt.atheism , "Joseph Geloso"
> <jose...@hotmail.com> in
> <1143004166....@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
>>Matt Silberstein wrote:
>>
>>> Actually you think that *behavior* is more important that virtue.
>>
>>Actually that is your lie. I meant what I wrote.
>
> It is too bad that you were not able to respond to what wrote and had
> to resort to snipping out the argument. I don't know how someone can
> claim morality and yet use such dishonest methods.
Your two argument aside.... it is a fact, matt, that if morals are only the
person's subjective values (subjectivism) it is quite correct to claim
morality using deshonest methods if that is what one bases there values
upon.
Scott
Scott
"Llanzlan Klazmon" <Kla...@llurdiaxorb.govt> wrote in message
Defining personhood based upon the how (it functions) and not the what is
functionalism.
Scott
"Eyeball Kid" <jfm...@nospam.ispwest.com> wrote in message
news:210320062115555396%jfm...@nospam.ispwest.com...
> In article <6pd022pasoesk1qb0...@4ax.com>, Jim07D6
> <Jim...@nospam.net> wrote:
>
>> If you believe life (and, therefore, pregnancy) begins at conception
>> (fertilization of the ovum by the sperm), and believe that abortion
>> should be illegal after conception, I have a question or two for you.
>>
>> First, how do we determine that conception has occurred? Conception
>> might not occur for up to 3 days after intercourse, if it occurs.
>> Existing pregnancy tests determine whether implantation has occurred,
>> if it occurs, which can be up to 6 days after conception.
>>
>> If we can't determine whether conception has occurred, should we
>> assume it has occurred as soon as intercourse without a birth control
>> method in place, has occurred? In other words, should all measures
>> that would end the pregnancy be illegal, from the moment of
>> intercourse, so that if conception has occurred, the pregnancy will
>> not be intentionally terminated?
>>
>> Or should we allow measures that might terminate a pregnancy, up to
>> the time when a pregnancy test can tell us if conception (and
>> implantation) has occurred? Remember that this might be up to 6 days
>> after conception.
>> --- Jim07D6
>
> If you pro-Lifers had any guts, you would introduce legislation that
> would make abortion a capital crime, punishable only by death, for
> women who go ahead with one. That's right, pro-Lifers, make your
> statement, and place it before the American people.
Pro-lifers in favor of taking life???
>
> If abortion is the same as murder, then arrest the women who have them
> and put them to death. Go ahead. See how that flies with the rest of
> the US.
>
> Don't pussyfoot around with abortion. If you say that it's murder from
> the moment of conception, then walk the walk.
>
> You phoneys just do nothing but whine.
Like you're not whining right now???
And then you pass up who you
> believe to be the real culprits in what you believe is a capital crime.
It was a capital crime in Nazi Germany just being Jewish.
> You pass up the very women who commit to an abortion, and blame it on
> doctors, on parents, on clinics, on anyone else.
>
> Come on, you cowardly wimps. Make it plain as day. Codify the killing
> of women who get an abortion. You want to play the "abortion is murder"
> game? Then play it.
>
> Fuckin pigs.
Fuckin whiner
Ray Fischer
[...]
>So, Jim, when is a human a person?
>
>http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/abortion/ab0004.html "To
>understand the controversy, we must understand the general structure of
>moral reasoning. A moral conclusion about the goodness or evil of a human
>act is deduced from two premises: a major premise, which states a general
>moral principle (e.g., "we ought to pay our debts") and a minor premise,
>which sees a particular situation as coming under that principle (e.g.,
>"international debts are debts"). Thus the essential pro-life argument is as
>follows. The major premise is: "Thou shalt not kill" - i.e., all deliberate
>killing of innocent human beings is forbidden. The minor premise is that
>abortion is the deliberate killing of innocent human beings. The conclusion
>is that abortion is wrong.
The major premise is contrary to most human tradition. It has long
been accepted that killing in self-defense is justifiable. Even the
Bible has many, many examples of killing that is commanded by God.
Even the killing of innocents.
The minor premise is a lie. Never has an embryo been considered to
be a human being. Even the Bible says that the life of a human begins
with the first breath.
Moral arguments that are based upon lies are not moral.
>There are two significantly different pro-choice answers to this argument.
>The more radical, or "hard," pro-choice position denies the major premise;
>the less radical, or "soft," pro-choice position denies the minor. "Hard
>pro-choice" denies the sanctity or inviolability of all humans; "soft
>pro-choice" denies the humanity of the fetus.
Demonization and lies.
When one starts by arguing a lie that an embryo is a human being then
attacking those how disagree with that lie is immoral and evil. It is
using lies as justification for making people suffer.
The argument denies the sanctitiy of all humans by justifying the
abuse and enslavement of pregnant women.
>I think no one in the Christian Medical and Dental Society will take the
>hard pro-choice position, for Christianity clearly teaches (1) that all of
Christianity eaches the lying and false witness are grave sins, and
yet here we have lies and false witness used to justify an anti-chocie
argument.
[...]
>e., to murder innocent persons. I confine myself, therefore, to
>refuting the soft pro-choice position. Is the fetus a person? Obviously it
>is biologically human, genetically human, a distinct member of the species
It is not a "distinct member of the species" until it is born. until
that happens it is a part of a pregnant woman.
> So the soft pro-choicer must distinguish between human beings
The fact that the argument is based upon lies destroys the validity of
subsequent conclusions.
[...]
>Thus the crucial issue is: Are there any human beings who are not persons?
No.
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
Ray Fischer
>You're completely missing the point Scott, sperm and ova are ordinary human
>tissue, they are not "a human life". A human life is veritable dynamo of
>growth and development, ordinary tissue is not.
'You're completely missing the point [Dutch], [fetuses] and [embryos] are ordinary
human tissue, they are not "a human life". A human life is veritable dynamo of
growth and development, ordinary tissue is not.'
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
Ray Fischer
>Artificial contraception is also a sin, so the entire point is moot.
Says who?
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
Ray Fischer
>
>Jim07D6 wrote:
>> If you believe life (and, therefore, pregnancy) begins at conception
>> (fertilization of the ovum by the sperm), and believe that abortion
>> should be illegal after conception, I have a question or two for you.
>
>sperm is a living human being. When you masturbate or use a condom you
>are guilty of genocide - the killing of millions of humans.
Satire only works if you can be more ridiculous than the real thing.
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
Joseph Geloso
> Joseph Geloso <jose...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >Artificial contraception is also a sin, so the entire point is moot.
>
> Says who?
Me, just above. See the attribution? It is correct.
Alan Ferris
wrote:
Why are they a sin? They are all open to conception, and if you
believe the quotes by some in your church, less effective than the
natural method.
So explain why they are a sin and the natural is not.
--
Alan "Ferrit" Ferris
()'.'.'()
( (T) )
( ) . ( )
(")_(")
Dutch
>
> "Dutch" <n...@email.com> wrote in message
> news:1221mn2...@news.supernews.com...
>> "Scott" <sc...@nospam.net> wrote
>>
>>> You need to re-word your question, Jim. Life is continuous. An egg and a
>>> sperm are both life.
>>
>> You're completely missing the point Scott, sperm and ova are ordinary
>> human tissue, they are not "a human life".
>
> I didn't say they were. You need to read the quoted material in my next
> post, Dutch, where this is addressed.
OK, then I don't get the point of your comments.
>>A human life is veritable dynamo of growth and development,
>
> And that defines everything from conception to my 100 year old aunt.
Pretty much, but excludes sperm and ova.
> I hold all human life as sacred.
You mean "human lives", hair follicles are "human life".
>>ordinary tissue is not.
>
> Is it not living tissue?
Yes
> The philosophical problem is when does life equal to human life equal to
> human being equate to personhood.
>
>>
>>> The question is about who should or should not be entitled to
>>> personhood.
>>
>> Personhood per se will not resolve the question of abortion rights.
>
> Why not? Because....<your turn>
Because "person" is simply a word defined as a primary subclass of humans,
it usually denotes humans who have already been born. Fetuses for example
can be "human beings" and be assigned the very same protection in law as
"people" and thus have the same basic rights yet by definition still not be
"people" according the accepted definition.
> You should also read: http://www.l4l.org/library/mythfact.html
> You too, Jim.
It's very informative reading thanks. I have it bookmarked.
Jim07D6
Yes, but while it is helpful to agree on the biology, answering this
biological question only settles the abortion questions we are
discussing, in the minds of people who already have the rest of the
important questions figured out -- those questions concerning rights.
--- Jim07D6
Jim07D6
>
>"Jim07D6" <Jim...@nospam.net> wrote in message
>news:hl712297s6404725f...@4ax.com...
>> "Joseph Geloso" <jose...@hotmail.com> said:
>>
>>>
>>>Jim07D6 wrote:
>>>> "Joseph Geloso" <jose...@hotmail.com> said:
>>>>
>>>> >
>>>> >Jim07D6 wrote:
>>>> >> If you believe life (and, therefore, pregnancy) begins at conception
>>>> >> (fertilization of the ovum by the sperm), and believe that abortion
>>>> >> should be illegal after conception, I have a question or two for you.
>>>> >>
>>>> >> First, how do we determine that conception has occurred? Conception
>>>> >> might not occur for up to 3 days after intercourse, if it occurs.
>>>> >> Existing pregnancy tests determine whether implantation has occurred,
>>>> >> if it occurs, which can be up to 6 days after conception.
>>>> >>
>>>> >> If we can't determine whether conception has occurred, should we
>>>> >> assume it has occurred as soon as intercourse without a birth control
>>>> >> method in place, has occurred? In other words, should all measures
>>>> >> that would end the pregnancy be illegal, from the moment of
>>>> >> intercourse, so that if conception has occurred, the pregnancy will
>>>> >> not be intentionally terminated?
>>>> >>
>>>> >> Or should we allow measures that might terminate a pregnancy, up to
>>>> >> the time when a pregnancy test can tell us if conception (and
>>>> >> implantation) has occurred? Remember that this might be up to 6 days
>>>> >> after conception.
>>>> >> --- Jim07D6
>>>> >
>>>> >I don't understand your question. What measures might you be talking
>>>> >about that might terminate a pregnancy, apart from those intended to
>>>> >terminate it?
>>>>
>>>> For example, after intercourse, if there is an unimplanted fertilized
>>>> egg, there could be methods that might destroy it in place, prevent it
>>>> from implanting, or actually remove it (by irrigation with a wash)
>>>> from the woman's body. Should we allow such methods?
>>>>
>>>> In all these cases, the same method might prevent fertilization, so it
>>>> would never be known if the method simply prevented fertilization or
>>>> actually ended the development of a fertilized egg.
>>>> --- Jim07D6
>>>
>>>Artificial contraception is also a sin, so the entire point is moot.
>>
>> Thanks for making that clear. Actually I am not asking what is a sin.
>> I am asking what should be illegal.
>
>And, Jim, as we've gone around the block on this, to moral relativism the
>answer to "what should be illegal" must be ultimately arbirary.
>
I am asking people to reply on the basis of their beliefs about these
things.
--- Jim07D6
Jim07D6
>Your question begs another question. I am not evading, but I am going
>to try to make a point. Why do we have any laws at all?
I am asking you to answer on the basis of your beliefs on this. Should
artificial contraception be illegal, in your opinion?
--- Jim07D6
Jim07D6
<...>
>
>On the other hand, if there are going to be human laws at all - and
>there are - then it makes the most sense to me that we should strive to
>design our laws such that sins and crimes are the same things. I
>recognize that that is a very Christian, even a very Catholic, point of
>view, and that most people don't agree. But I think that virtue is more
>important than freedom, or what the majority might want.
It's not a particularly Christian or Catholic idea. Every person of
faith who believes sins and crimes should be identical in their
content, will see the appropriate content as being his own faith's
ideas of sin, and Christians have no monopoly on this.
--- Jim07D6
DanielSan
> "Scott" <sc...@nospam.net> wrote
>
>
>>You need to re-word your question, Jim. Life is continuous. An egg and a
>>sperm are both life.
>
>
> You're completely missing the point Scott, sperm and ova are ordinary human
> tissue, they are not "a human life". A human life is veritable dynamo of
> growth and development, ordinary tissue is not.
Ah, I see. Ordinary human tissue does not grow and develop. *rolls eyes*
--
****************************************************
* DanielSan -- alt.atheism #2226 *
*--------------------------------------------------*
* "Torture has never been a reliable means of *
* extracting information.... One wonders why it *
* is still practiced." --Jean-Luc Picard *
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DanielSan
> Joseph Geloso <jose...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Artificial contraception is also a sin, so the entire point is moot.
>
>
> Says who?
>
Says Geloso.
Don Kresch
<n...@email.com> let us all know that:
>"Scott" <sc...@nospam.net> wrote
>
>> You need to re-word your question, Jim. Life is continuous. An egg and a
>> sperm are both life.
>
>You're completely missing the point Scott, sperm and ova are ordinary human
>tissue, they are not "a human life". A human life is veritable dynamo of
>growth and development, ordinary tissue is not.
Human tissue does not grow? WTF?
Don
---
aa #51, Knight of BAAWA, DNRC o-, Member of the [H]orde
Atheist Minister for St. Dogbert.
"No being is so important that he can usurp the rights of another"
Picard to Data/Graves "The Schizoid Man"
Robibnikoff
"Joseph Geloso" <jose...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1143010909....@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
It also only applies to those that believe in your particular brand of
religion.
--
Robyn
Resident Witchypoo
Atheist Bastard Extraordinaire
#1557
Matt Silberstein
Wow, it did not take long for you to drag this to your issue rather
than the topic.
>There can be no unjust law
>unless moral realism if true.
Which has nothing to do with the point Aristotle made.
>A criminal act is merely a violation of social
>mores with stronger social consequences. So using that same argument if all
>immoralities are violations of social mores you can't tell if you do good
>because it is right or because you are afraid of the social consequences.
Simple answers are not necessarily correct answers. But they are easy.
Matt Silberstein
<jose...@hotmail.com> in
<1143008107.3...@v46g2000cwv.googlegroups.com> wrote:
>Matt Silberstein wrote:
>> On 21 Mar 2006 21:09:26 -0800, in alt.atheism , "Joseph Geloso"
>> <jose...@hotmail.com> in
>> <1143004166....@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com> wrote:
>>
>> >Matt Silberstein wrote:
>> >
>> >> Actually you think that *behavior* is more important that virtue.
>> >
>> >Actually that is your lie. I meant what I wrote.
>>
>> It is too bad that you were not able to respond to what wrote and had
>> to resort to snipping out the argument.
>
>Another lie??? Why?
What lie? You snipped out my argument, you snipped out my reasoning,
and you called me a liar. Motes and beams, buddy boy.
>> I don't know how someone can
>> claim morality and yet use such dishonest methods. If you are
>> unwilling or unable (or both) to discuss this, fine.
>
>What if I am both willing and able, but not with a liar? Do you have
>someone else who can discuss these things for you?
So you make dishonest deceptive snips and accuse me of things I did
not do and then use that to justify your actions. How odd.
>> But remember
>> whose eye has the mote and whose eye has the beam.
>
>What the hell is that supposed to mean?
I am sorry, I had thought you had some knowledge of Christianity. My
error.
>There is nothing dishonest at all about snipping out what I am not
>addressing.
There is something dishonest about failing to mark the snips. And
there is something dishonest about snipping out the argument and then
calling the conclusion a lie. You treated my post as though all I
wrote was the conclusion and did not respond to the argument. That
does make your response dishonest. All we have from you, however, is
the bald assertion that I am a liar with no attempt that I have seen
to back that accusation up.
>I may reply to what else you wrote, but first I would like
>to clear up the issue of why you feel you need to lie about me to make
>your point. Do you think you can stop that? Thanks ever so much. If
>not, we are done discussing.
I did not lie about you, I read some posts and made a judgment, a
judgment I explained and backed up. You disagreed (or just disliked)
with my judgment and so have called me a liar. It is possible that you
are inerrant and so your views are inherent truth, but absent that
disagreement does not make me a liar.
Scott
Here's the argument against that position and how consiquences of taking
that position have played out
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/abortion/ab0004.html
If person is a subclass of human how do determine when the subclass is
identified? There is no scientific test for person? Any attempt to do so is
pseudo-science based upon a naturalistic fallacy, yet that is exactly what
the S Court did in Roe vs. Wade. It seems to me the court stepped outside
its constitutional jurisdiction when it defined personhood upon
pseudo-science. What they should've done is thrown the question back onto
the House where that would've been decide. If it had been we wouldn't have
this litmus test every time a new nomination is made to the Court. Congress
is a spineless bunch that doesn't want the fallout from having to set the
*marker* for personhood so they keep the question open to the possibility of
the R/W being overturned.
If person is a subclass of human being then the defining maker is arbitrary.
Could an extraterestrial traveling to this planet be defined as a person? If
so then human being, at some point, becomes a subclass of person.
Fetuses for example
> can be "human beings" and be assigned the very same protection in law as
> "people" and thus have the same basic rights yet by definition still not
> be "people" according the accepted definition.
Begs the question: What makes 'person' an accepted definition if not
arbitrary? Your argument can and has been use to apply to slaves and
ethnicity in the case of genetic cleansing.
>
>> You should also read: http://www.l4l.org/library/mythfact.html
>> You too, Jim.
>
> It's very informative reading thanks. I have it bookmarked.
your welcome
Scott
Scott
"Ray Fischer" <rfis...@sonic.net> wrote in message
news:4420f532$0$58118$742e...@news.sonic.net...
> Scott <sc...@nospam.net> wrote:
>>"Jim07D6" <Jim...@nospam.net> wrote in message
>
> [...]
>>So, Jim, when is a human a person?
>>
>>http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/abortion/ab0004.html "To
>>understand the controversy, we must understand the general structure of
>>moral reasoning. A moral conclusion about the goodness or evil of a human
>>act is deduced from two premises: a major premise, which states a general
>>moral principle (e.g., "we ought to pay our debts") and a minor premise,
>>which sees a particular situation as coming under that principle (e.g.,
>>"international debts are debts"). Thus the essential pro-life argument is
>>as
>>follows. The major premise is: "Thou shalt not kill" - i.e., all
>>deliberate
>>killing of innocent human beings is forbidden. The minor premise is that
>>abortion is the deliberate killing of innocent human beings. The
>>conclusion
>>is that abortion is wrong.
>
> The major premise is contrary to most human tradition.
Assuming that's true it doesn't make it right. Slavery and serfdom was a
practice of most human traditions. Does that make it right?
It has long
> been accepted that killing in self-defense is justifiable. Even the
> Bible has many, many examples of killing that is commanded by God.
> Even the killing of innocents.
irrelevant to the general situation. Abortion is no condemned in the case of
life threatening to the woman.
>
> The minor premise is a lie. Never has an embryo been considered to
> be a human being. Even the Bible says that the life of a human begins
> with the first breath.
>
> Moral arguments that are based upon lies are not moral.
What is your philosophical premise? Are you a theist, an atheist, a
materialist?
>
>>There are two significantly different pro-choice answers to this argument.
>>The more radical, or "hard," pro-choice position denies the major premise;
>>the less radical, or "soft," pro-choice position denies the minor. "Hard
>>pro-choice" denies the sanctity or inviolability of all humans; "soft
>>pro-choice" denies the humanity of the fetus.
>
> Demonization and lies.
>
> When one starts by arguing a lie that an embryo is a human being then
> attacking those how disagree with that lie is immoral and evil. It is
> using lies as justification for making people suffer.
http://www.l4l.org/library/mythfact.html
>
> The argument denies the sanctitiy of all humans by justifying the
> abuse and enslavement of pregnant women.
How do you justify the sanctity of all humans, on what bases?
>
>>I think no one in the Christian Medical and Dental Society will take the
>>hard pro-choice position, for Christianity clearly teaches (1) that all of
>
> Christianity eaches the lying and false witness are grave sins, and
> yet here we have lies and false witness used to justify an anti-chocie
> argument.
that depends on how you rationalize what is a person. There are no persons
in Nature <NONE> because person is not a scientific problem.
>
> [...]
>>e., to murder innocent persons. I confine myself, therefore, to
>>refuting the soft pro-choice position. Is the fetus a person? Obviously it
>>is biologically human, genetically human, a distinct member of the species
>
> It is not a "distinct member of the species" until it is born. until
> that happens it is a part of a pregnant woman.
Is it? http://www.l4l.org/library/mythfact.html
>
>> So the soft pro-choicer must distinguish between human beings
>
> The fact that the argument is based upon lies destroys the validity of
> subsequent conclusions.
You argument ONLY makes sense if, and only if, there is in *fact* a moral
truth and you know better what that moral truth is with regards to
personhood status.
>
> [...]
>>Thus the crucial issue is: Are there any human beings who are not persons?
>
> No.
Well that means either you or Dutch are wrong
Scott
Scott
Are there moral truths called 'rights'?
Scott
Scott
only a dead fetuse and embryo is not a dynamo of growth and development. At
the rate of growth of a fetus it seems to me that a fetus is more human than
you and my 100 year old aunt is less than that.
Scott
Jim07D6
The USSC has not prevented the Congress from acting. There is nothing
in the US Constitution keeping Congress from voting on a
constitutional amendment defining a "person" -- as that word is used
in the Constitution to specify various rights, etc. as being in
existence immediately upon fertilization of the human oocyte by the
human sperm cell.
>
>If person is a subclass of human being then the defining maker is arbitrary.
>Could an extraterestrial traveling to this planet be defined as a person? If
>so then human being, at some point, becomes a subclass of person.
>
Classes of people generally get recognized by politicians based on
their importance to the politicians.
>Fetuses for example
>> can be "human beings" and be assigned the very same protection in law as
>> "people" and thus have the same basic rights yet by definition still not
>> be "people" according the accepted definition.
>
>Begs the question: What makes 'person' an accepted definition if not
>arbitrary? Your argument can and has been use to apply to slaves and
>ethnicity in the case of genetic cleansing.
It's not quite "arbitrary". The definition that is accepted under law,
reflects the net results of competing interests.
But I didn't think Dutch wanted to enforce abortion-prevention by law,
so isn't your reply to him moot?
--- Jim07D6
Scott
Since the whole question is a moral one it ultimately gets to that. Why
wait?
>
>>There can be no unjust law
>>unless moral realism if true.
>
> Which has nothing to do with the point Aristotle made.
>
>>A criminal act is merely a violation of social
>>mores with stronger social consequences. So using that same argument if
>>all
>>immoralities are violations of social mores you can't tell if you do good
>>because it is right or because you are afraid of the social consequences.
>
> Simple answers are not necessarily correct answers. But they are easy.
Moral relativism is the simple and easy answer to moral theory....doesn't
necessarily make it correct, either.
Scott
Scott
Well since you believe the morals of this argument are based upon subjective
values anyway, what's the point of asking since there can be no objectively
correct conclusions?
Scott
Jim07D6
My current thought is that our survival as social beings requires that
we act as though there are moral truths including those called rights,
and the fact that we are required to act as though there are, has
resulted in our believing that there are, over the eons of genetic,
and now, cultural evolution.
There is some evidence that the propensity for language may have a
genetic basis. Morality, being similar to language in that it is
related to living among others, may be this way, too.
The principles of logic are like this, too. We can't think, without
them.
--- Jim07D6
richar...@hotmail.com
two week old infant by itself for a week, and see what happens.
- Richard Hutnik
Jim07D6
<...>
>Moral relativism is the simple and easy answer to moral theory....doesn't
>necessarily make it correct, either.
But one can be a moral absolutist and be pro-choice, right?
--- Jim07D6
Jim07D6
The point of asking is to find out what other people think. Your
objection is noted.
--- Jim07D6
marcusoh...@webtv.net
a GREAT TOPIC.
My opinion is that life begins when SOUL MEETS BODY, is joined WITH the
forming fetus, (that has no life of its own), AFTER the umbilical cord
is cut and the newborn takes it's first breath "of LIFE"...
Re: They SAY they believe the Bible...
It wasn't until God BREATHED INTO HIS NOSTRILS THE BREATH OF LIFE that
Adam became a living soul.
It doesn't read, "the breath of 'air', it reads, the breath OF LIFE.
LIFE ITSELF enters this mortal being that we are, the body part that
was forming in the womb (That had no life of it's own during this
process... and that is in possession of the mother) (and is her choice
to deliver this child or not) BEFORE it's life enters it.
She has that choice until that point, when after the
umbilcal cord of dependance on her life is severed, and it breaths in
it's own LIFE ITSELF. She does not have to deliver that baby. It
is her choice. That is the way I read it.
I am a born again Christian.
I do not believe the Bible because I was raised in a Christian
tradition, (which I was...) I was a complete atheist by the time I
was in college, but also began to seek out Eastern philosophy and
religon (in the 60's), with Yoga. I still do hatha yoga exercises,
they are very relaxing.
I am a performing pianist here in Columbus, Ohio, and it is
essential (with my increasing years) to maintain flexible relaxed arms,
wrists, etc.
I believe the Bible because of my own personal
Born-again experience, which led me to His word---- Oh sure, the Bible
that my church of upbringing said was there book.
Not unlike Martin Luther, who protested the
authority of Rome, when I read it myself--- it changed alot of things.
"Seek and Ye shall Find"... Jesus said in the New
Testament. "No man can come to Me unless my Father draw him first".
His Word is truth. Jesus IS the truth, the Way, the
Truth and the Life.
THEY put him to death--- "they" being the
political/ religious heirachy of His day, but on the third day he rose
triumphantly from the grave proving He was the son of God.
I hope your study of God's word leads you to the faith
that saves, and ENLIGHTENS you from the IGNORANCE of the traditional
misinterpretations that abound, and are in power today with this hideous
monstronsity controlling America today, so called the "Christian Right",
better called the "Anti-christ' not--- Christian.. wrong, if you ask me!
They don't have love, they have hate.
They don't have truth, they have the edicts of Rome, who
kept the world in the dark ages for over a thousand years and had
Galileo put to death, not unlike the legislation on the table today to
thwart stem cell research that would save and heal thousands.
http://community.webtv.net/marcusohreallyis/BushsSurpriseVisit
Scott
> "Scott" <sc...@nospam.net> said:
.
>>
>>Well since you believe the morals of this argument are based upon
>>subjective
>>values anyway, what's the point of asking since there can be no
>>objectively
>>correct conclusions?
>
> The point of asking is to find out what other people think. Your
> objection is noted.
Ok, my personal belief is that personhood should begin at conception. Since
most atheists/agnostics like yourself believe morals are expressions of
subjective values, the demarcation of when personhood should begin is
arbitrary. Therefore you should believe that my personal reasons (whatever
they're based upon) is as good as yours.
Scott
Scott
as referring to the individual or the act? In moral realism a person can the
wrong opinion about a moral fact. So to answer your question: Yes, a person
can be a moral absolutist and be pro-choice BUT their choice may be wrong
morally.
Scott
Joseph Geloso
Alan Ferris wrote:
> On 21 Mar 2006 23:01:49 -0800, "Joseph Geloso" <jose...@hotmail.com>
> >>
> >
> >Me, just above. See the attribution? It is correct.
>
> believe the quotes by some in your church, less effective than the
> natural method.
>
> So explain why they are a sin and the natural is not.
I will refer you to the teaching itself, "Humanae Vitae" by Pope Paul
VI:
BOB
news:0FfUf.49319$F_3....@newssvr29.news.prodigy.net:
Not really. Your personal reasons are based on myth (religion / god)
while mine are based on reason and reality.
> Scott
>
>
>
Scott
I don't see rights, as defined by our standards, as inevitable to
Naturalism. You're basically saying moral rights is a game of let's pretend
there are moral truths and that our behavior requires us to act as though
there are moral facts. We could change that to 'God'. We could change that
from the non-materialist quality to the non-materialistic being and it'd
mean the same within Christianity/Catholicism; Moral truth is God's natural
quality within this discipline. Cultural evolution? Your ideology on human
rights is culturally evolved from medieval Catholicism, an historical fact.
>
> There is some evidence that the propensity for language may have a
> genetic basis. Morality, being similar to language in that it is
> related to living among others, may be this way, too.
>
> The principles of logic are like this, too. We can't think, without
> them.
That's the same thing as saying moral relativism and therefore materialism
are not workable when put to practice...they only look good on paper.
(http://radicalacademy.com/ethicsmyth.htm)
Scott
Brian E. Clark
> > Have you read Aristotle's _Ethics_? Having all sins governed by law
> > means you can't tell if you do good because it is right or because you
> > are afraid of the law.
>
> Aristotle assumes moral realism is fact.
What a pusillanimous ploy, Scott.
First, it seems you have a whole quiver full of such arrows to
shoot -- irrelevancies which allow you kill a difficult question
without, in fact, addressing it in any way (at least when you're
dealing with people as intellectually careless as you seem to
be).
Second, and apropos to your faux-objection above: Aristotle's
argument in this case does not depend on moral realism.
--
-----------
Brian E. Clark
Brian E. Clark
> > The argument I referenced, however, does not depend on moral realism.
> > All you need to support the argument is a view that morality does not
> > stem from the law.
>
> But all law is a reflection of what is moral. There can be no unjust law
> unless moral realism if true.
Shhhhhhhhhh---fwoot! There goes another of those arrows I
mentioned above.
Scott
Yes I know. But as I said, there is something lacing in the Congresspersons
(PC)... a lack of spine.
>>
>>If person is a subclass of human being then the defining maker is
>>arbitrary.
>>Could an extraterestrial traveling to this planet be defined as a person?
>>If
>>so then human being, at some point, becomes a subclass of person.
>>
> Classes of people generally get recognized by politicians based on
> their importance to the politicians.
as Hitler put into practice with the Jews.
>
>>Fetuses for example
>>> can be "human beings" and be assigned the very same protection in law as
>>> "people" and thus have the same basic rights yet by definition still not
>>> be "people" according the accepted definition.
>>
>>Begs the question: What makes 'person' an accepted definition if not
>>arbitrary? Your argument can and has been use to apply to slaves and
>>ethnicity in the case of genetic cleansing.
>
> It's not quite "arbitrary". The definition that is accepted under law,
> reflects the net results of competing interests.
It is ultimately arbitrary as those interests are of subjective values. If
they aren't arbitrary some standard (whatever that may be) is morally
objective.
>
> But I didn't think Dutch wanted to enforce abortion-prevention by law,
> so isn't your reply to him moot?
On that probably, but I think we may differ on the question of funtionalism.
I have a problem with using functionalism as an argument for personhood.
Scott
Brian E. Clark
@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>, said...
> Bill and the existence of an infant is dependent upon what? Go leave a
> two week old infant by itself for a week, and see what happens.
You can leave the two-week-old infant with a neighbor or a
relative. Try doing that with a two-week-old fetus.
Scott
"Brian E. Clark" <re...@newsgroup.only.please> wrote in message
news:MPG.1e8b562b4...@newsgroups.comcast.net...
Shhhhhhhhhh---fwoot! The argument assumes the person believes there *is* an
objective right thing to do seperate from his subjective values and that
good is a factual quality of an act. To moral subjectivism there are no
standards at all for what makes any act moral or immoral. To moral
subjectivism a person making a moral assment is basing that only upon his
own *personal* values; So in that respect you cannot err or succeed morally
because morality is akin to personal aesthetics. What does it mean to say a
person cannot know his own aesthetical perferences?
Scott
Alan Ferris
wrote:
That does not explain it, it claims that they should be allowed as
they are open to fertilisation even more than the NFP method.
--
Alan "Ferrit" Ferris
()'.'.'()
( (T) )
( ) . ( )
(")_(")
Scott
"BOB" <s...@sd.net> wrote in message news:Xns978E60...@70.169.32.36...
To materialism, humanism is as much mythology as any religion. Were in
nature is there an *inherent* right to life, to personhood?
Scott
BOB
news:KrgUf.49329$F_3....@newssvr29.news.prodigy.net:
No, it isn't. Religion is a fantasy based purely on a person's "belief"
or "faith which can be different from person to person and cannot be
proven. Humanism is based on facts, truth and reality which cannot be
denied and can be proven.
> Were in
> nature is there an *inherent* right to life, to personhood?
>
"Nature" doesn't provide any such "rights".
> Scott
>
>
>
Joseph Geloso
> On 21 Mar 2006 22:15:07 -0800, in alt.atheism , "Joseph Geloso"
> <jose...@hotmail.com> in
> <1143008107.3...@v46g2000cwv.googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
> >Matt Silberstein wrote:
> >> On 21 Mar 2006 21:09:26 -0800, in alt.atheism , "Joseph Geloso"
> >> <jose...@hotmail.com> in
> >> <1143004166....@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> >Matt Silberstein wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> Actually you think that *behavior* is more important that virtue.
> >> >
> >> >Actually that is your lie. I meant what I wrote.
> >>
> >> It is too bad that you were not able to respond to what wrote and had
> >> to resort to snipping out the argument.
> >
> >Another lie??? Why?
>
> What lie?
1. Your assertion that I think "behavior" is more important than
virtue.
I will give you the benefit of the doubt, and believe that you really
thought you could discern what I think, and retract my accusation of
lying. But you are incorrect in your assessment of my thoughts.
2. Your assertion that I was unable to repond to what you wrote.
The fact is, it pissed me off to see an untruth written about me by
you. Often, people who do that sort of thing get no response from me
whatsoever. However, it seems to me that you are a reasonable sort, so
I will again give you the benefit of the doubt, and believe you really
thought I was incapable of responding. That is not the case: again,
your assessment was incorrect.
> You snipped out my argument, you snipped out my reasoning,
> and you called me a liar. Motes and beams, buddy boy.
I snipped out what I was not replying to, and my motive for doing so
was to make what I was responding to - the untruth about me - to stand
out, so as to make certain that my point was gotten.
>
> >> I don't know how someone can
> >> claim morality and yet use such dishonest methods. If you are
> >> unwilling or unable (or both) to discuss this, fine.
> >
> >What if I am both willing and able, but not with a liar? Do you have
> >someone else who can discuss these things for you?
>
> So you make dishonest deceptive snips and accuse me of things I did
> not do and then use that to justify your actions. How odd.
You typed two untruths about me. I am willing to believe they were not
lies, and I apologize for so quickly calling you a liar. I do not
believe my sinps were deceptive or dishonest, because anyone can see
that I snipped out the bulk of our discussion and did not address the
topic at hand at all. Dishonest snipping is when people try to make it
appear that a person said something they did not actually intend. I did
not do that to you. I snipped out everything, not just key phrases. I
thought you could plainly see that I had snipped out the whole
discussion, so I did not think it was necessary to mark where I had
snipped.
But mea culpa. I will endeavor to be more careful in the future.
>
> >> But remember
> >> whose eye has the mote and whose eye has the beam.
> >
> >What the hell is that supposed to mean?
>
> I am sorry, I had thought you had some knowledge of Christianity. My
> error.
I recognize the reference. I failed to see how it applied to this
situation. Now if you are saying I should not have accused you of
lying, O.K., I admit that. I apologize. There, now the beam is out of
my eye.
>
> >There is nothing dishonest at all about snipping out what I am not
> >addressing.
>
> There is something dishonest about failing to mark the snips. And
> there is something dishonest about snipping out the argument and then
> calling the conclusion a lie. You treated my post as though all I
> wrote was the conclusion and did not respond to the argument. That
> does make your response dishonest. All we have from you, however, is
> the bald assertion that I am a liar with no attempt that I have seen
> to back that accusation up.
>
> >I may reply to what else you wrote, but first I would like
> >to clear up the issue of why you feel you need to lie about me to make
> >your point. Do you think you can stop that? Thanks ever so much. If
> >not, we are done discussing.
>
> I did not lie about you, I read some posts and made a judgment, a
> judgment I explained and backed up. You disagreed (or just disliked)
> with my judgment and so have called me a liar. It is possible that you
> are inerrant and so your views are inherent truth, but absent that
> disagreement does not make me a liar.
Yet I do know what I myself think, and I stated so in so many words,
and you took it upon yourself to make a judgment about my thoughts. I
do know what I think, and I stated it clearly. For the record: there is
nothing at all more important than virtue.
Now I think we've beat this into the ground, don't you? I did write a
reply to your post, but Google lost it. (they suck.) So I will write it
again.
Joseph Geloso
Wow, Humanae Vitae "claims" that artifical contraception should be
allowed? That is going to come as quite a shock to anyone who's ever
read the document. Why don't you quote the passage for me?
Joseph Geloso
Robibnikoff wrote:
> "Joseph Geloso" <jose...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1143010909....@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> > Ray Fischer wrote:
> >> Joseph Geloso <jose...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >> >Artificial contraception is also a sin, so the entire point is moot.
> >>
> >> Says who?
> >
> > Me, just above. See the attribution? It is correct.
>
> religion.
Incorrect. Sin is sin, and God's Law applies to everyone, regardless of
which religion (if any) they think they are practicing.
Robibnikoff
>
> Robibnikoff wrote:
>> "Joseph Geloso" <jose...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:1143010909....@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>> > Ray Fischer wrote:
>> >> Joseph Geloso <jose...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> >> >Artificial contraception is also a sin, so the entire point is moot.
>> >>
>> >> Says who?
>> >
>> > Me, just above. See the attribution? It is correct.
>>
>> It also only applies to those that believe in your particular brand of
>> religion.
>
> Incorrect.
Wrong.
Sin is sin, and God's Law applies to everyone, regardless of
> which religion (if any) they think they are practicing.
Wrong.
Your god doesn't exist for me so its supposed "laws" don't apply to me.
--
Robyn
Resident Witchypoo
Atheist Bastard Extraordinaire
#1557
Joseph Geloso
Robibnikoff wrote:
> "Joseph Geloso" <jose...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1143053995.9...@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...
> >
> > Robibnikoff wrote:
> >> "Joseph Geloso" <jose...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> >> news:1143010909....@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> >> > Ray Fischer wrote:
> >> >> Joseph Geloso <jose...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >> >> >Artificial contraception is also a sin, so the entire point is moot.
> >> >>
> >> >> Says who?
> >> >
> >> > Me, just above. See the attribution? It is correct.
> >>
> >> It also only applies to those that believe in your particular brand of
> >> religion.
> >
> > Incorrect.
>
> Wrong.
>
> Sin is sin, and God's Law applies to everyone, regardless of
> > which religion (if any) they think they are practicing.
>
> Wrong.
>
> Your god doesn't exist for me so its supposed "laws" don't apply to me.
That is patently absurd. Either God exists or He does not exist. It's
not separate realities for individual tastes. You can say you don't
believe in God and so you don't apply His Law to yourself, but your
unbelief does not make Him or His Law go away. And you, like every
other person, will be judged according to God's Law.
Scott
"Robibnikoff" <witc...@broomstick.com> wrote in message
news:48dliiF...@individual.net...
If God does exist then his laws factually would apply to you regardless of
whether you believed in him or not.
Scott
BOB
Why don't you prove that there actually is a "god" before making foolish
statements about a mythial "god's law", Joseph Fellatio?
Jim07D6
What I am saying is quite compatible with there *actually being* moral
truths. Maybe "act as though" implies otherwise, but I didn't mean it
that way.
>You're basically saying moral rights is a game of let's pretend
>there are moral truths and that our behavior requires us to act as though
>there are moral facts.
I repeat: What I am saying is quite compatible with there *actually
being* moral truths.
>We could change that to 'God'. We could change that
>from the non-materialist quality to the non-materialistic being and it'd
>mean the same within Christianity/Catholicism; Moral truth is God's natural
>quality within this discipline. Cultural evolution? Your ideology on human
>rights is culturally evolved from medieval Catholicism, an historical fact.
Our coming to act and think as though there *actually are* moral
truths is as compatible with there *actually being* moral truths, as
our coming to act like and think that there are other kinds of truths,
is compatible with there *actually being* other kinds of truths.
>
>
>>
>> There is some evidence that the propensity for language may have a
>> genetic basis. Morality, being similar to language in that it is
>> related to living among others, may be this way, too.
>>
>> The principles of logic are like this, too. We can't think, without
>> them.
>
>That's the same thing as saying moral relativism and therefore materialism
>are not workable when put to practice...they only look good on paper.
>(http://radicalacademy.com/ethicsmyth.htm)
Some -isms don't even achieve that.
--- Jim07D6
Robibnikoff
>
> Robibnikoff wrote:
>> "Joseph Geloso" <jose...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:1143053995.9...@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...
>> >
>> > Robibnikoff wrote:
>> >> "Joseph Geloso" <jose...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>> >> news:1143010909....@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>> >> > Ray Fischer wrote:
>> >> >> Joseph Geloso <jose...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> >> >> >Artificial contraception is also a sin, so the entire point is
>> >> >> >moot.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> Says who?
>> >> >
>> >> > Me, just above. See the attribution? It is correct.
>> >>
>> >> It also only applies to those that believe in your particular brand of
>> >> religion.
>> >
>> > Incorrect.
>>
>> Wrong.
>>
>> Sin is sin, and God's Law applies to everyone, regardless of
>> > which religion (if any) they think they are practicing.
>>
>> Wrong.
>>
>> Your god doesn't exist for me so its supposed "laws" don't apply to me.
>
> That is patently absurd.
In your opinion.
>Either God exists or He does not exist.
Correct. However, as there's no evidence proving he/she/it does, I don't
believe in him/her/it. That is why its supposed laws do not apply to me.
Do the laws of another religion apply to you? I'm sure you don't think so.
You probably don't even follow the OT laws either. I bet you're wearing
mixed fibers as I type this.
It's
> not separate realities for individual tastes. You can say you don't
> believe in God and so you don't apply His Law to yourself, but your
> unbelief does not make Him or His Law go away.
First you have to prove this god exists before even considering any if
his/her/its laws.
. And you, like every
> other person, will be judged according to God's Law.
Uh huh - Prove it. Lay out some concrete, verifiable evidence. Any time
you're ready and don't forget to show all your work.
Scott
"BOB" <s...@sd.net> wrote in message news:Xns978E74...@70.169.32.36...
What constitutes a proof to you, Bob?
Scott
BOB
>
> Robibnikoff wrote:
>> "Joseph Geloso" <jose...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:1143053995.9...@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...
>> >
>> > Robibnikoff wrote:
>> >> "Joseph Geloso" <jose...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>> >> news:1143010909....@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>> >> > Ray Fischer wrote:
>> >> >> Joseph Geloso <jose...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> >> >> >Artificial contraception is also a sin, so the entire point is
>> >> >> >moot.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> Says who?
>> >> >
>> >> > Me, just above. See the attribution? It is correct.
>> >>
>> >> It also only applies to those that believe in your particular
>> >> brand of religion.
>> >
>> > Incorrect.
>>
>> Wrong.
>>
>> Sin is sin, and God's Law applies to everyone, regardless of
>> > which religion (if any) they think they are practicing.
>>
>> Wrong.
>>
>> Your god doesn't exist for me so its supposed "laws" don't apply to
>> me.
>
> That is patently absurd.
You mean your silly nonsensical remark about "god's law", Joseph Fellacio?
Yes, it is quite absurd.
> Either God exists or He does not exist.
OK, he doesn't, Joseph Fellacio.
> It's
> not separate realities for individual tastes.
Your mythical "god" isn't a reality at all, Joseph Fellacio.
> You can say you don't
> believe in God and so you don't apply His Law to yourself, but your
> unbelief does not make Him or His Law go away.
But it can't "go away" if it were never really there in the first place,
Joseph Fellacio.
> And you, like every
> other person, will be judged according to God's Law.
>
Then none of us have anything to worry about, Joseph Fellacio.
>
Joseph Geloso
I have told you the truth, and what you do with that is up to you.
We're done here.