Announcement

Collapse

Civics 101 Guidelines

Want to argue about politics? Healthcare reform? Taxes? Governments? You've come to the right place!

Try to keep it civil though. The rules still apply here.
See more
See less

Alabama Abortion Ban:

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
    The appropriate tweb response ought to have been "yes"
    Or bacon

    I'm always still in trouble again

    "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
    "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
    "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

    Comment


    • Originally posted by Mountain Man View Post
      You don't seem to realize that if you're correct, then you have no valid reason for objecting to abortion for any reason prior to the nebulous point of "personhood".
      Given Augustine and other church Fathers that excepted the Septuagint translation not only didnt think so, they argued strongly against it, I honestly think you are mistaken in that assessment.

      Jim
      My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. James 2:1

      If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not  bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless James 1:26

      This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; James 1:19

      Comment


      • Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post
        Given Augustine and other church Fathers that excepted the Septuagint translation not only didnt think so, they argued strongly against it, I honestly think you are mistaken in that assessment.

        Jim
        Don't tell me who argued for it, tell me what their arguments actually were, because I can't see any way around the implications without special pleading.
        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

        Comment


        • Originally posted by Mountain Man View Post
          Don't tell me who argued for it, tell me what their arguments actually were, because I can't see any way around the implications without special pleading.
          You can look them up if you are interested. I will not argue any point from a position that is based on its usefulness as a tool in some other argument. The truth is what matters.

          The one thing I can say is that if we truly value human life, then the fact the fetus at sometime can be stated to be a potential human life should only make the smallest difference in our estimation of its value and our attempts to preserve its development.

          That is, in fact, why rape induced pregnancy and threat to the life of the mother are the only legitimate exceptions.


          Jim
          Last edited by oxmixmudd; 05-20-2019, 09:37 PM.
          My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. James 2:1

          If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not  bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless James 1:26

          This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; James 1:19

          Comment


          • Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post
            You can look them up if you are interested. I will not argue any point from a position that is based on its usefulness as a tool in some other argument.
            The point at which someone can't be bothered to defend his own arguments is the point at which I stop caring what he has to say.

            Unfortunately for you, the reasons you've given for carving out an exception for rape depend entirely on special pleading and appeal to emotion which leaves a big hole in your argument.

            I'll leave it at that.
            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

            Comment


            • Originally posted by Mountain Man View Post
              The point at which someone can't be bothered to defend his own arguments is the point at which I stop caring what he has to say.

              Unfortunately for you, the reasons you've given for carving out an exception for rape depend entirely on special pleading and appeal to emotion which leaves a big hole in your argument.

              I'll leave it at that.
              You are good at twisting other's words into something negative to use against them, i'll give you that.

              I gave you a summary of my own arguments in the part of my post you cut out.

              And unfortunately there are only one or two participating in this discussion that have even the slightest interest in what the support for my position is, and you are not one of them - so no great loss there.



              Jim
              Last edited by oxmixmudd; 05-20-2019, 11:23 PM.
              My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. James 2:1

              If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not  bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless James 1:26

              This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; James 1:19

              Comment


              • You have repeatedly ignored some very pointed questions that I've asked. Adrift even drew your attention to one of my posts, and you still failed to answer. So please, spare us your usual brand of self-righteous blather.
                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

                Comment


                • Originally posted by Mountain Man View Post
                  You have repeatedly ignored some very pointed questions that I've asked. Adrift even drew your attention to one of my posts, and you still failed to answer. So please, spare us your usual brand of self-righteous blather.
                  Off in the weeds again. I answered adrift there, even complimented you. I also asked which questions id not answered that you wanted answered. But no, i have no obligation to respond to someone throwing a temper tantrum because i didnt dance to his tune exactly like he wanted me to.

                  Jim
                  My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. James 2:1

                  If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not  bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless James 1:26

                  This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; James 1:19

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post
                    I don't get the point. Why would that matter? I'm not proposing the soul is not independent of the body, at least at death, though I don't think it makes sense to assume it preexists the body. The fact someone that doesn't believe in God would think the observed interaction between personality and the brain means there is no soul is irrelevant. There are a lot of people that think the evolution of the body implies there is no soul and even no God. That doesn't drive my own believe about God nor does it mean they are correct.
                    My point was simply that you shouldn't really be surprised that someone would think you're arguing that the mind (or in your case, the soul) is dependent on the brain for it's existence (or for it's emergence) when the arguments you're using in favor of your position are the exact same arguments* that are used by proponents of the belief that the mind is dependent on the brain for it's existence.



                    Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post
                    I don't believe there is any means of proving much of anything about the soul. The Bible implies we have existence beyond death but very little if any information about how it comes to be. However, there is nothing that even hints at the idea that any of us exist in any form prior to our life here on earth. So I think the soul as an emergent or created phenomenon is the only possible Scriptural belief about it. And I also believe that since the procedure outlined in the creation of Adam did not involve the creation of body and soul as separate things, but rather the formation of the body and then God breathing life into that body, it is reasonable to conclude that the soul is in some manner emergent. If we then line that up with how, as I understand it, OT law in fact treats the unformed fetus differently that the formed fetus in the event men fighting kill the unborn baby, it seems reasonable to conclude that the personhood or soul of the child is not present early on in the process. Since scientifically the creation of neurons well precedes any possible ANE observation the fetus is 'formed', I think using neural activity as the first possible moment the fetus could be classified a 'person' is generous, and it has the added advantage of being a useful and objective criteria for both the beginning and the ending of personhood in a day and age when the life of the body and the life of the person can in fact be quite diifferent - especially at death (e.g. brain dead person on life support).
                    Well, no, there's nothing that hints at the idea that we exist prior to our life here on earth. So the question then becomes when exactly the soul emerges, or is created and imparted into the body.

                    In my opinion people should be very careful about basing any assumption on how the soul and body are related on the story about the creation of Adam, because the manner in which Adam was created is a unique one-time event that have too many dissimilarities with the normal human development process in the womb, so we should be reticent in speculating too much based on that passage. Not to mention, even if I did accept that the creation story of Adam could be used to base beliefs about the relationship between the soul and the body, I could just as readily argue that what God did in the story of creating Adam was not simply "breathing life" into the lifeless body, but actually "breathing" the soul into it, which would run counter to your claim that the story lends support for the notion that the soul is emergent.

                    As for the case of the men fighting and accidentally killing an unborn baby, I think there's two ways to look at this, that doesn't necessitate believing that the fetus is not it's own person. I'm sure you've already heard of these arguments (I'm suspecting Adrift has presented one or both of them already in this thread) but I'll repeat them here in any case.

                    Option one is to take the view that what is described is not a miscarriage induced by violence, or killing of the unborn baby, but rather that the fighting causes a premature birth, a view that the translators of the NET bible takes, with the following justification:

                    Scripture Verse: Exodus 21:22 NET Bible

                    22 “If men fight and hit a pregnant woman and her child is born prematurely,51 but there is no serious injury, he will surely be punished in accordance with what the woman’s husband demands of him, and he will pay what the court decides.52

                    © Copyright Original Source



                    Source: NET Bible notes

                    51tn This line has occasioned a good deal of discussion. It may indicate that the child was killed, as in a miscarriage; or it may mean that there was a premature birth. The latter view is taken here because of the way the whole section is written: (1) “her children come out” reflects a birth and not the loss of children, (2) there is no serious damage, and (3) payment is to be set for any remuneration. The word אָסוֹן (ʾason) is translated “serious damage.” The word was taken in Mekilta to mean “death.” U. Cassuto says the point of the phrase is that neither the woman or the children that are born die (Exodus, 275). But see among the literature on this: M. G. Kline, “Lex Talionis and the Human Fetus,” JETS 20 (1977): 193-201; W. House, “Miscarriage or Premature Birth: Additional Thoughts on Exodus 21:22-25,” WTJ 41 (1978): 108-23; S. E. Loewenstamm, “Exodus XXI 22-25,” VT 27 (1977): 352-60.

                    © Copyright Original Source



                    https://netbible.org/bible/Exodus+21

                    The other option would be to argue that even if the passage does speak of the unborn baby dying, the reason for why the punishment is not as harsh as in other circumstances when a person is killed is not because baby is not seen as a full person, but because the manner of death was accidental, and not deliberate. The OT is pretty consistent in meting out far more lenient judgement if the reason for the damage is thoughtlessness/carelessness rather than deliberate intention to destroy. And if we read verses 20-21 about a man striking his slave/servant it would seem to lend some support for this view, since it seems to differentiate between deliberately causing grievious injury to your servant up to the point of death, and doing so accidentally, with the punishment being adjusted accordingly.

                    In fact, one could argue that the person who accidentally causes a woman to miscarry is punished harsher than the person who accidentally kills his servant, which would mean that using the logic that Exodus 21:22 shows that the unborn baby is not a full person, shows, by the same logic, that the servant in verse 21 is even less of a person than the unborn baby, which would be absurd.


                    Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post
                    It is hard to argue much of anything about the soul in a convincing manner unless one already believes in it and the authority of scripture, and even then, almost no information is given to us about it's formation. So I'm not surprised that if you are already against the concept of a rape exception based on the personal assumption the soul is placed in the zygote when it forms that you would find ANY argument for any alternate view unconvincing. Ideas that are not based on evidence or scripture can't be argued. They are axioms which can be neither proven nor disproven.

                    Jim
                    The problem is not that I find your arguments in post #187 (and it is specifically those arguments I'm speaking about when I said that nothing you wrote should sway someone even slightly towards your position, I'm not speaking about any other arguments and reasons you might have, or will present in the discussion) unconvincing, the problem is that they don't even work as arguments for your position. Nothing of what you wrote in post #187 functions as a valid argument in favor of your position, because nothing of what you presented in that post is more readily explained by your position than by the position(s) that the soul is placed in the zygote when it forms, or that it emerges from the zygote when it forms.



                    * Specifically the arguments you were using in post #187.

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                      Or bacon
                      Are you arguing with yourself again?
                      Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by seer View Post
                        Are you arguing with yourself again?
                        the various voices in my head are holding a conference.

                        I'm always still in trouble again

                        "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                        "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                        "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post
                          Not really. The way to change my view on this would be to offer a clear rebuttal of the passage in Exodus concerning the way the accidental death of a fetus is dealt with. To date, most of what I've heard there is to effectively dismiss the elements that lead me to my conclusion. The problem there is that when I first read it, My opinion on abortion was your opinion. I read it in the NASV, and it seemed clear as day there was a difference. That God did not require life for a life if the fetus was not fully formed. Other translations as well. Only the more modern translations try to 'clarify it' in a way that is more in line with the more modern sense that it is from conception. Adding to that the way the Septuagint is translated makes it quite clear that to the Hellenistic Jew at least the original Hebrew was even clearer. And that my perception of what the text is saying is justified. There are also quotes from Josephus and Augustine that indicate this was also the view then (Augustine accepts the distinction, but much as I do, argued that distinction did NOT justify abortion as a means of birth control). So the problem here is that my view was changed from the more restrictive form you hold to its current form as a result of reading scripture and study, and so I don't think I'm making a wager of any sort. The first brain activity in the fetus occurs long before any ANE observer would have considered the baby fully formed.

                          Jim
                          You are still trying to just rationalize the view you want to hold. There is no way you can know for sure that God approves of abortion under any circumstance or age of the fetus. You can't know when the soul is created. The only logical and safe view is that a new human life with a soul begins at conception and that from that point forward you would be murdering an innocent life. Anything else is rationalization on your part.

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post
                            You can look them up if you are interested. I will not argue any point from a position that is based on its usefulness as a tool in some other argument. The truth is what matters.

                            The one thing I can say is that if we truly value human life, then the fact the fetus at sometime can be stated to be a potential human life should only make the smallest difference in our estimation of its value and our attempts to preserve its development.

                            That is, in fact, why rape induced pregnancy and threat to the life of the mother are the only legitimate exceptions.


                            Jim
                            That, sir, is a dodge worthy of JimL.


                            To me that is a tacit acknowledgment that I and MM are right. You have no way to claim that it is OK for a rape victim to abort her baby but not any other woman, if you are basing your argument on your reading of Exodus.

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post
                              I did read through them. I've not yet had time to fully follow up on them.



                              Maybe. But not if they are biased in such a way as to ignore the evidence that shows there is a problem with their conclusions.

                              The problem is that most modern scholars tend to dismiss the Septuagint's translation of that passage as a mistake, I believe in part because of the church's historical teaching that abortion is wrong. It is hard to accept that is the correct rendering if one is expecting to see the text support the idea that the fetus at all phases is a human person, and it is much easier to argue against abortion if the text does not mean what the Hellenistic Jews translated it to mean (Yet many of the early church fathers did just that). But more importantly why, given the degree to which Jewish Priests and scribes revere and cherish the Torah, could such an egregious mistake (as it is viewed today) EVER become fixed into something as widely used as the Septuagint (keeping in mind THAT is the text we often find quoted in the NT)? One answer is it simply was not a mistake.

                              As I see it, the awkwardness of the existing text, the fact it retains a sense that the death of the fetus is not treated as murder, the Septuagint's seemingly 'wrong' translation relative to the text as we know it today, and the general acceptance of that 'mistake' both by Jewish rabbis and Christian patriarchs from the time point to the Hebrew text of the passage as we know it today being the textual entity that is in error.

                              The evidence supporting that conclusion is presented in detail here. I have given the link before, but you may not have seen it.


                              Jim
                              No, I had not seen your link previously. However, after reading it, my previous post (the one that I linked initially, and that MM linked again yesterday) covers even the point made in that article concerning unformed/formed miscarriage (by the way, the usual debate over that passage and the LXX, is that the LXX stipulates that death occurs to the child, and not the mother, whereas the MT and the Vulgate specify the mother over the child). Early Jewish attitudes on the subject was concerned with legal distinctions, and were separate from moral distinctions.

                              Here's the link to my post on this subject again, http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...l=1#post506802

                              Assuming you're uninterested in reading that post, here is Gorman's summary from Abortion and the Early Church: Christian, Jewish and Pagan Attitudes in the Greco-Roman World

                              Source: Abortion and the Early Church: Christian, Jewish and Pagan Attitudes in the Greco-Roman World by Michael Gorman

                              It is generally accepted that the two Jewish views on abortion existed, the Alexandrian and the Palestinian. According to the most scholars, the strict Alexandrian view required punishment for damage to a fetus according to its stage of development, whereas the more lenient Palestinian view, holding that the fetus was not a person, required punishment only for harm to the mother. This analysis, though prevalent, is not entirely accurate.

                              In the first place, both Alexandrian and Palestinian schools discussed the personhood of the fetus from a legal, not an ethical standpoint. Differing legal interpretations may or may not represent differing moral judgments. Second, both schools confined their discussion to accidental or therapeutic abortions. Neither considered the possibility of induced abortion for less than life-threatening reasons. Third, the Palestinian view was not itself unified. The minority view, which had a sizable following, joined with the Alexandrians in granting legal personhood to the fetus. Fourth, and most important. Jews of both regions united on the subject of deliberate abortion. Alexandrians and Palestinians of both the majority and minority legal opinions condemned deliberate abortion as disrespect for life and as bloodshed.

                              In the Jewish mind a clear distinction was continually maintained between accidental/therapeutic and deliberate abortions. The former case was an issue open to debate; the latter, a settled matter. Clearly the division in Judaism was not between a strict (Alexandrian) and a lenient (Palestinian) approach to deliberate abortion. The division of opinion was rather over the severity of the penalty to be exacted in cases of accidental or therapeutic abortion. This interpretation alone reconciles the otherwise contradictory statements of Josephus discussed above.

                              The Jewish abhorrence of deliberate bloodshed and its respect for life, including that of the unborn, formed a natural foundation for the Christian writings on abortion.

                              © Copyright Original Source



                              With that in mind, your link points out that the penalty for the destruction of the unformed fetus is in reference to accidental miscarriage, not to intentional abortion, as well, your link seems to agree with Joe Sprinkle (note 19) that an unformed fetus is simply one that is "not yet viable independently of the mother", which, if you're being consistent, and were to use this article to give leeway to abortion for rape victims, gives you way late into the pregnancy to allow for that abortion. But of course your article doesn't suggest anything about a difference between a pregnant woman who became pregnant because of rape or because of consensual sex, so the point is moot.
                              Last edited by Adrift; 05-21-2019, 09:55 AM.

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by Chrawnus View Post
                                The OT is pretty consistent in meting out far more lenient judgement if the reason for the damage is thoughtlessness/carelessness rather than deliberate intention to destroy. And if we read verses 20-21 about a man striking his slave/servant it would seem to lend some support for this view, since it seems to differentiate between deliberately causing grievious injury to your servant up to the point of death, and doing so accidentally, with the punishment being adjusted accordingly.

                                In fact, one could argue that the person who accidentally causes a woman to miscarry is punished harsher than the person who accidentally kills his servant, which would mean that using the logic that Exodus 21:22 shows that the unborn baby is not a full person, shows, by the same logic, that the servant in verse 21 is even less of a person than the unborn baby, which would be absurd.
                                The paper he linked actually has a note on this (though it's not clear to me if the paper's author agrees with it, or is simply noting it):
                                Note that Russell Fuller (1994: 174, 179, 180) argued as follows for the personhood of every fetus:
                                Consistent with the culture and society of the ancient Near East, the Exodus covenant code also refutes the argument that differences in punishments imply differences in personhood by showing various legal statuses, the parade example being the slave. . . . Hence whereas Exod 21:22 does not directly address the personhood of the fetus, the passage does intimate, by using yeled instead of golem or nepel, that the fetus is more than just parental property. It is a yeled, a human being, a child, a fetus with personhood. . . . Various Biblical passages and Exod 21:22, by specifying the fetus as a yeled, clearly suggest the personhood of the fetus. . . . . Exodus 21:22 does not indicate that the Bible values the fetus as less than human or as non-human.

                                Comment

                                Related Threads

                                Collapse

                                Topics Statistics Last Post
                                Started by whag, Yesterday, 05:11 PM
                                0 responses
                                20 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post whag
                                by whag
                                 
                                Started by Cow Poke, Yesterday, 11:25 AM
                                32 responses
                                219 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post oxmixmudd  
                                Started by whag, 03-17-2024, 01:48 PM
                                24 responses
                                104 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post whag
                                by whag
                                 
                                Started by CivilDiscourse, 03-17-2024, 11:56 AM
                                52 responses
                                294 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post seer
                                by seer
                                 
                                Started by Hypatia_Alexandria, 03-16-2024, 07:40 AM
                                77 responses
                                387 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post Hypatia_Alexandria  
                                Working...
                                X