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  • Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post
    They can be. But you can't be wrong about there being no consciousness in the fetus before it has a brain. Consciousness is in the brain. This is the real world, not Oz.
    I'll go back to ignoring your big pompous self.
    The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

    Comment


    • Originally posted by Sam View Post
      I'm pro-life and I'm pointing out matters that go directly to the constitutional limitations permissible on the issue of abortion and I definitely will not continue trying to explain important distinctions if you're going to falsely label me an "abortionist".

      --Sam
      If it looks like a duck.

      Comment


      • Originally posted by Sparko View Post
        Actually no. I never said "person" - Sam did. I said "being" and said I meant it as "organism" - a separate and distinct organism. and in this case a HUMAN organism. Member of the Human Species.

        Person is a legal term. There is talk of conferring personhood to apes.
        I'm wondering if you can stop avoiding the point and get to it. You can't murder a rock, or a fish, or a dog for that matter. You can only murder a person. If there is no person there yet, whatever you do can be wrong, but it can't be murder.
        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'm wondering if you can stop avoiding the point and get to it. You can't murder a rock, or a fish, or a dog for that matter. You can only murder a person. If there is no person there yet, whatever you do can be wrong, but it can't be murder.
          The point is, if the law defines a person as someone 5 years old or older, then legally you can't murder an infant if you kill it. PERSON is a legal term.

          Comment


          • Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
            In a previous discussion I noted that some patients in deep comas can have even less brainwave activity than an unborn baby at about 7 weeks. The former virtually flat lines though some recover. The latter continues to grow and develop.

            In contrast, electroencephalograms have been detecting brainwaves as early as 6 to 6½ weeks since back in the mid-1950s and this has been confirmed multiple times since then. As Parents Magazine succinctly puts it in their series about the development of the baby at week 6 "brain waves can now be recorded."




            Hopefully, abortions will soon go the way of slavery but I'm afraid it's going to take Christ's return to put an end to this scourge.
            you have a couple of problems there. the first is can these nascant 'brain waves' be seen as actual conscious activity. The second is that you are still 1 1/2 to 2 months in. And that doesn't change the fact that prior to the brain beginning to form, there is no rational basis on which to confer personhood, and without it being a person, it can't be murdered. It can still be wrong to kill it, to stop it from becoming, and I do believe it is wrong to do that, but the fetus isn't a person yet.
            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 Sparko View Post
              The point is, if the law defines a person as someone 5 years old or older, then legally you can't murder an infant if you kill it. PERSON is a legal term.
              (1) we don't define person in such a way that killing a 4 year old is not murder.
              (2) It is not ONLY a legal term Sparko. The point is there is no reason to define a body without a brain as any sort of person. The person is gone, or has not yet arrived.
              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 are only wrong in that what you are not really applying innocent correctly, so your premise is false.

                Innocence doesn't technically apply to that which is not conscious and has no capacity for consciousness. We can confer innocence on a rock if we want to. We can confer it on a fish too if we say being innocent just means never having done evil. But technically, it doesn't apply. Rocks and fish don't have the capacity to do wrong. Therefore they can't be innocent of wrong. Or conversely, you could reverse the logic say that the sort of innocence that applies to a zygote also applies just as well to a rock, or a fish.

                But the potential to become a human being - that doesn't exist in a rock or a fish. And THAT is why abortion is immoral, even if in the early stages it is not murder.
                I notice you didn't attempt to defend your argument and instead tried to attack mine. Since you accept "potential" as a valid quality of a human being then it can be argued that a fetus will have the potential to make moral decisions, and since it has not yet chosen to do wrong then it is innocent. For that matter, babies don't even have self-awareness until some months after birth and are incapable of making moral decisions, but wouldn't you still classify them as innocent? Why not the fetus, which is nothing less than an earlier stage of that baby's existence?
                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 oxmixmudd View Post
                  (1) we don't define person in such a way that killing a 4 year old is not murder.
                  (2) It is not ONLY a legal term Sparko. The point is there is no reason to define a body without a brain as any sort of person. The person is gone, or has not yet arrived.
                  I am more than my brain, Jim. So are you. You have set an arbitrary line in the sand and now are trying to defend it. Other than your opinion, there is nothing that says a human organism is not a human organism until it has consciousness. It is perfectly normal for an embryo to not have a brain. At that stage of development humans don't have brains yet. It doesn't mean they are not humans or not alive. What if someone wanted to say someone without the ability to think rationally and speak is not a person? After all how much different is an infant from a dog? Heck my dog can reason better than a 3 month old. So what if someone wanted to draw the line in the sand at language? They can make a good case for the infant to be nothing more than an animal at that stage.

                  But it is perfectly normal for an infant to not have his full faculties or speech yet. Just like it is perfectly normal for an embryo to not have a brain yet. Still a human being.

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post
                    They can be. But you can't be wrong about there being no consciousness in the fetus before it has a brain. Consciousness is in the brain. This is the real world, not Oz.
                    You're right, this is the real world, not the world imagined by materialists/physicalists, where if something cannot be measured or detected by scientific instruments it doesn't exist. You're arguing like someone who believes the material is all there is, and that the spiritual aspect of reality is non-existent.

                    God seems to have managed consciousness without a brain, so that's at least 1 (3?) examples where consciousness is not in the brain. And if you don't believe in soul sleep or something similar the number rises to several billion examples of consciousness not being in the brain.

                    I'm not sure consciousness is a requirement for personhood either. It might very well be that the zygote is ensouled from the very moment of conception, and the brain would then simply be the necessary interface for the soul to start interacting with and being influenced by the material world. So the soul would exist in a sort of slumberlike/unaware state prior to the brain being developed enough that it could start interacting with and receiving sensory inputs from the physical world.

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by Chrawnus View Post
                      You're right, this is the real world, not the world imagined by materialists/physicalists, where if something cannot be measured or detected by scientific instruments it doesn't exist. You're arguing like someone who believes the material is all there is, and that the spiritual aspect of reality is non-existent.

                      God seems to have managed consciousness without a brain, so that's at least 1 (3?) examples where consciousness is not in the brain. And if you don't believe in soul sleep or something similar the number rises to several billion examples of consciousness not being in the brain.

                      I'm not sure consciousness is a requirement for personhood either. It might very well be that the zygote is ensouled from the very moment of conception, and the brain would then simply be the necessary interface for the soul to start interacting with and being influenced by the material world. So the soul would exist in a sort of slumberlike/unaware state prior to the brain being developed enough that it could start interacting with and receiving sensory inputs from the physical world.
                      I'm speaking in terms of what can be determined legally and scientifically within our legal system. You cant legislate religious belief.
                      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 Sam View Post
                        As explained before, we're not talking about a "functioning brain". You're saying "fully-functioning", which is not an argument being made by Jim or anyone else. What we're discussing here is the capacity for higher-level functionality. Or "sufficiently-functional".

                        You're simply mischaracterizing what Jim and others are saying.
                        We've trod this path before. I know what Jim means. He's made the distinction many times before.

                        You're arguing that a human body, artificially animated, is a person?
                        Why not? You're arguing that a brain by itself that is artificially animated is a person.

                        You're arguing that you could do a "Face-Off" head swap with someone and your possession of their body makes you their person?
                        No. It makes their body mine, and therefore, I've stolen nothing. If the rest of the body besides the cerebrum is just window dressing, I can take whatever I please as long as I integrate it into "my" brain's housing. It's patently absurd to say the brain makes the person.

                        That's self-evidently absurd.
                        I can't help your lack of understanding.

                        You understand, like everyone else, that personhood is exhibited through consciousness, which resides in the brain.
                        That's utterly false. Personhood is exhibited through us being a self-contained and self-directed organism.

                        Animating a decapitated corpse doesn't confer the rights of personhood on that corpse and a "head in a jar", fully able to process sensation, execute higher-level brain function, and communicate to others could not be said to be less than a person. You're advocating situations that would lead to absurdities in practice.
                        You've posed the absurdity. Comparing an entire organism to an organ is self-evidently fallacious. Proposing some science fiction level nonsense as an argument is just a sad way to excuse the murder of the unborn.
                        That's what
                        - She

                        Without a clear-cut definition of sin, morality becomes a mere argument over the best way to train animals
                        - Manya the Holy Szin (The Quintara Marathon)

                        I may not be as old as dirt, but me and dirt are starting to have an awful lot in common
                        - Stephen R. Donaldson

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by Sam View Post
                          And I'll add that a blastocyst is "self contained" in the same way that a stem cell is "self contained".
                          No it isn't. That's simple biological ignorance.

                          One is being argued as being a "person" while the other is not.
                          Because one is and one isn't.

                          Therefore, the operative factor in determining personhood cannot be it's self-containment.
                          That's why I included "self-directed". Why did you leave that out?

                          And, yes, if the "power goes out", the blastocyst does indeed die.

                          --Sam
                          No it doesn't. The mother is just in the dark.
                          That's what
                          - She

                          Without a clear-cut definition of sin, morality becomes a mere argument over the best way to train animals
                          - Manya the Holy Szin (The Quintara Marathon)

                          I may not be as old as dirt, but me and dirt are starting to have an awful lot in common
                          - Stephen R. Donaldson

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post
                            I'm speaking in terms of what can be determined legally and scientifically within our legal system. You cant legislate religious belief.
                            If that's really all you're doing you need to be more careful with how you phrase your sentences, because to me they read like someone arguing well beyond what is legally and scientifically warranted, especially your insistence on how we "know" that consciousness doesn't appear/emerge in the fetus before the development of the brain. Which of course we don't "know" at all, in fact.

                            And belief in a soul wouldn't be a strictly religious issue, but one of philosophy. It's possible to believe in the existence of the soul and the non-material realm without being a theist. A person who argue that embryos/fetuses who haven't developed a brain yet should not be granted personhood are arguing from a position of presumed materialism/physicalism just as much as the person who argues that the existence of the soul confers personhood well before the brain starts developing is presuming dualism and the existence of the non-material. I see no reason what so ever why physicalism/materialism should be the default assumption in legal/political debate about the personhood of the fetus and the issue of abortion.

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                              If it looks like a duck.
                              Well, you can sit uncomfortably in your false allegation until the time comes to stand before the Throne, then.

                              This is, of course, why it's often futile to even join these discussions: any effort to even clarify the relevant terms and work through the relevant logic is anathema, as it might introduce a crack of doubt in the minds of people who clearly have not and will not put their argument to rigorous analytical test. There's no discussion, only defensive argument.

                              It's dogma, in other words, and you can't reason a man out of a position he was never reasoned into to begin with.

                              --Sam
                              "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by Chrawnus View Post
                                If that's really all you're doing you need to be more careful with how you phrase your sentences, because to me they read like someone arguing well beyond what is legally and scientifically warranted, especially your insistence on how we "know" that consciousness doesn't appear/emerge in the fetus before the development of the brain. Which of course we don't "know" at all, in fact.
                                Yeah, we do chrawnus. Consciousness as any sort of manifestation of mind in this universe for a human being doesnt appear in a fetus until after the brain forms. I dont have any problem with that as an absolute truth, nor do I see any necessary conflict with scripture in saying that.
                                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

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