Originally posted by Cow Poke
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Ireland legalizes the killing of the unborn
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The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy...returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King
I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong. Frederick Douglas
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Originally posted by Bill the Cat View PostExactly right. The biological difference between a self-contained and self-directing organism and a simple specialized part of that organism is basic Bio 101.Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
Than a fool in the eyes of God
From "Fools Gold" by Petra
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Originally posted by Starlight View PostI also went through the stages of having skin cells and fingernails too, but those are getting a lot of hating-on in this thread.
And before that 'I' was a sperm and and egg. But you guys are hating on sperm as well.
No, it certainly wasn't. What makes me ME is not the atoms that happen to currently comprise my body (they change out regularly), or the DNA I happen to have (it changes a bit over one's life, and though it contributes a lot it's not definitive), it's the person I have become through the sum total of my life experiences and choices therein, it's all my hopes and dreams, all my thoughts and fears, all my ideas and tendencies and humor and personality and memories and quirks and beliefs and hobbies and habits. That is what makes me ME, and that certainly didn't exist at all in any way at the moment of conception, and had barely begun to exist by the time I was 5 years old.
And that's the important bit: Your idea of the 'soul' which you believe in and which you think God adds at the moment of conception.
Murder and abortion robs us all.
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Originally posted by Bill the Cat View PostExactly right. The biological difference between a self-contained and self-directing organism and a simple specialized part of that organism is basic Bio 101.
You've already agreed that "life" includes bacteria and sperm cells and suchlike, so MM's argument applies to sperm cells. The characteristics of "life" (including sperm and bacteria and maybe components of complex organisms) don't necessarily overlap with the characteristics of "living things", which is where MM's argument fails.
Biology is messy, and the lines between living things and specialised parts is frequently blurred - cf symbionts, organelles, gut bacteria, parasitic males, colonial organisms, composite organisms, and of course eggs/sperm, especially with external fertilisation.
Of course the whole issue could have been avoided had MM actually listed the characteristics of "life" that he thought applied to fertilised ova, but since he doesn't know what they are or what they mean or where they apply (he thinks cells don't grow or metabolise or respond to stimuli ) - it's hardly surprising that he didn't.Jorge: Functional Complex Information is INFORMATION that is complex and functional.
MM: First of all, the Bible is a fixed document.
MM on covid-19: We're talking about an illness with a better than 99.9% rate of survival.
seer: I believe that so called 'compassion' [for starving Palestinian kids] maybe a cover for anti Semitism, ...
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Originally posted by Mountain Man View PostIt's especially hilarious when he thinks he's somehow shaming us by putting a non-controversial quote in his signature.Jorge: Functional Complex Information is INFORMATION that is complex and functional.
MM: First of all, the Bible is a fixed document.
MM on covid-19: We're talking about an illness with a better than 99.9% rate of survival.
seer: I believe that so called 'compassion' [for starving Palestinian kids] maybe a cover for anti Semitism, ...
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Originally posted by Starlight View PostWell Sparko has acknowledged this. But the anti-abortion movement does seem to mostly exist at the intersection of religious beliefs about ensoulment (a la Sparko) and utter ignorance about biology (a la MM), usually both at once.
Personally, when I was a Christian, my thought process was "God knows the future, he wouldn't stick a soul into a fetus he knew wasn't even going to survive until to birth, or at the very least he's smart enough to wait to see if it survives a decent amount of time before sticking the soul in, either way abortion isn't an issue". And a lot of Jewish views of ensoulment have it happening a lot later than conception.
Gotta protect all teh cellz!
~lightbulb~ That must have been why Samson lost his strength when his hair was cut - God was angry at the loss of hair cells!
I thought you were a scientist?
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Originally posted by Roy View PostHave you fallen for MM and LPOT's falsehood that I don't know the difference?You've already agreed that "life" includes bacteria and sperm cells and suchlike, so MM's argument applies to sperm cells. The characteristics of "life" (including sperm and bacteria and maybe components of complex organisms) don't necessarily overlap with the characteristics of "living things", which is where MM's argument fails.Biology is messy, and the lines between living things and specialised parts is frequently blurred - cf symbionts, organelles, gut bacteria, parasitic males, colonial organisms, composite organisms, and of course eggs/sperm, especially with external fertilization.Of course the whole issue could have been avoided had MM actually listed the characteristics of "life" that he thought applied to fertilised ova, but since he doesn't know what they are or what they mean or where they apply (he thinks cells don't grow or metabolise or respond to stimuli ) - it's hardly surprising that he didn't.Last edited by lilpixieofterror; 06-01-2018, 07:06 PM."The man from the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy."
GK Chesterton; Orthodoxy
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Originally posted by Roy View PostWow, you're stupid."The man from the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy."
GK Chesterton; Orthodoxy
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Originally posted by Mountain Man View PostThing is, I didn't actually get any details wrong.
I used the term "life", which scientifically speaking has a fairly well-defined meaning and is used interchangeably with the terms "life-form" and "organism".
It's also a fact that there is a clear distinction between something being "alive" and meeting the scientific definition of "life".
Your skin cells are alive, at least in their early stage,
but they are not life
since they do not have the attributes that science uses to describe life (they don't organize, adapt, self-sustain, metabolize, respond to stimuli, etc.).
A skin cell is part of an organism, but it is not an organism in and of itself."I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
"Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
"[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein
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Originally posted by Starlight View PostExcept for pretty much all of them.
This is sort of mostly true and is your most accurate statement here. There are various scientific definitions of 'life' all of which have issues and there's not a great deal of enthusiasm for them among scientists with regard to the accuracy of them. The question of whether to classify viruses as 'alive', for example, divides scientists. The most commonly used one, generally reproduced in basic biology textbooks, is just a list of characteristics, which you reproduce below. It's also not particularly important in the day to day research being done by biologists as to whether something gets labelled "alive" or not, that's purely a linguistic matter.
No. The opposite. The scientific definition of life is mostly an attempt to come up with a list that matches the things that are colloquially said to be "alive". So you can't pretend your false statements in previous posts were actually correct because you've now decided you meant the 'scientific definition' of life which you didn't know about previously.
They are alive. They can die like anything else that is alive.
Wrong again. They are life.
They do all those things, they have all those attributes. Do you not understand that is why Roy is mocking you with his signature quoting you blurting out these absurdly false statements?
It's also an organism in and of itself. As you rightly pointed out above, anything that is 'alive' is also a 'life form' / 'organism'. Skin cells are all of the above. Furthermore just to blow your mind, let me point of that cells themselves in turn contain other organisms known as mitochondria. So they are organisms living in other living organisms (the cells) which together comprise other living organisms (the humans), who in turn have trillions of other living organisms (bacteria) within them.
I wonder if the human species is a natural "organ" of Gaia, or are we the equivalent of a cancer? We reproduce without concern for the larger organism, like cancer. We consume resources and starve out other "organs," like cancer. We pollute the environment in which we live, like cancer. We function as if the entire organism exists for our benefit...like cancer.
Makes one wonder...The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy...returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King
I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong. Frederick Douglas
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Originally posted by carpedm9587 View PostThis sometimes produces some very odd results, like the chimera that results from a bone marrow transplant.
Also, in female mammals, a random one of the two copies of the X chromosome is deactivated in each cell at an early stage of development, so women's bodies will be roughly 50-50 divided between two different sets of DNA, one with the X chromosome from the mother and the other with the X chromosome from the father. This effect is most apparent in the orange-black Tortoiseshell cats, because the coloring is stored on the X chromosome, so you can visibly see which areas of the animal are using which X chromosome:
"I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
"Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
"[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein
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Originally posted by carpedm9587 View PostI wonder if the human species is a natural "organ" of Gaia, or are we the equivalent of a cancer? We reproduce without concern for the larger organism, like cancer. We consume resources and starve out other "organs," like cancer. We pollute the environment in which we live, like cancer. We function as if the entire organism exists for our benefit...like cancer.
Makes one wonder...
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Originally posted by carpedm9587 View PostSo this is something I have always found interesting about "life." The cell is comprised of individual living organizisms, some of which can live (for some time) independently, some of which can migrate to other cells, and some of them (e.g., mitochondria, and chloropolasts) have their own distinct DNA. Cells, in turn, comprise larger structures (e.g., organs), which humans have shown can survive outside the organism for some period of time, and some organs can be moved successfully from one being to another. This sometimes produces some very odd results, like the chimera that results from a bone marrow transplant. If you think about it, the higher-order beings that are a collection of organs (e.g., species of various sorts) then make up the biosphere we call earth - and some would say "Gaia." It's constituent elements can survive "outside" Gaia for some period (e.g., space travel). Ill-health in Gaia can produce ill-health in its constituent species, etc.
I wonder if the human species is a natural "organ" of Gaia, or are we the equivalent of a cancer? We reproduce without concern for the larger organism, like cancer. We consume resources and starve out other "organs," like cancer. We pollute the environment in which we live, like cancer. We function as if the entire organism exists for our benefit...like cancer.
Makes one wonder..."The man from the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy."
GK Chesterton; Orthodoxy
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Originally posted by Terraceth View PostExcept for perhaps the pollution, you have just described the behavior of every animal species on the planet. The only way humans are worse is that they're more effective at it thanks to technology. Of course, conversely, unlike every other animal species, humans seem to be the only ones who show any level of concern for the things you mentioned."The man from the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy."
GK Chesterton; Orthodoxy
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