Originally posted by lilpixieofterror
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Christianity Today Op Ed
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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
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Originally posted by JimL View PostDoes that equation effect your view of the death penalty? Just wondering."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 oxmixmudd View PostLife does begin at conception. Consciousness, the mind, however, does not."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 oxmixmudd View PostAlways the sarcasm. No, that is not it either MM. I know blue is blue, and I know the green is green. Likewise I can know when there is no consciousness, and I can know when there is. As long as the cutoff is before consciousness can arrive, there is no guesswork.
And for that matter, what if early consciousness exists in a way that is not detectable with current technology? It's only relatively recently that we've been able to detect and monitor brain activity, and our ability to do so is still relatively crude. 100-years ago, you would have been arguing that a fetus was less "valuable" at a much later point in the human life cycle simply because of the limited knowledge at the time. What will your argument look like 100-years from now?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 lilpixieofterror View PostJimmy, what is the punishment for murder, in the Bible?The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.
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Originally posted by Mountain Man View PostFor the sake of argument, suppose you can definitively say, "At this point, no consciousness; at this point, consciousness," but what about the massive vague area in between? If a fetus doesn't have consciousness at moment X, what about X+1 millisecond? X+5 milliseconds? X+24 hours? X+one week? If a fetus develops consciousness at moment Y then what about Y-1 millisecond? Minus 10-minutes? Minus 2-weeks? What's the cutoff? And how do know for certain you're correct?...The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.
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Originally posted by Chrawnus View PostIt's not at all clear that the passage is speaking of miscarriage. NET Bible translates the passage in this fashion:
And gives the following translation note for the phrase "born prematurely":
https://netbible.org/bible/Exodus+21 (note 51)
Some parts of Jewish Tradition has influenced Christian faith. Something being part of "Jewish Tradition" is no reason for a Christian to uncritically accept it, especially seeing as "Jewish Tradition" would have you condemn Jesus as a messianic pretender and practiticioner of sorcery.
Did any of them argue that the brain was essential to this process of ensoulment, or did they believe God would have been capable of ensouling the human embryo/fetus at any stage of the development process? Did God have to infuse the soul at a specific stage of development, or could He have chosen to do so at any point what so ever?
Did Pope Gregory XIV base his judgement on when ensoulment took place on whether the fetus had developed a brain or not?
Done. Nothing changed.
What you wrote above in post #1385 was not an instance of science informing our understanding of scripture. It was a just-so story about the necessity of the brain in the development of human consciousness, completely ignoring the spiritual aspect of existence, written in such a way that even the most hard-line materialist and proponent of scientism could have enthusiastically agreed with pretty much 100% of it.
As a preface, look over the many translations of the pertinent verse referenced here
As you can see there is a good deal of variation, with many modern translations opting for a rendering that can be read to imply the baby has not died. There are significant issues with that, which I'll try to address in my longer reply.Last edited by oxmixmudd; 01-23-2020, 11:01 AM.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
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Originally posted by simplicio View PostI haven't followed this discussion closely, only skimmed it periodically. But value, in the context of this topic, usually is used in the sense of human dignity.
Whether value is used synonymously for dignity, or the value is based in inherent dignity, the merit of the fetus is predicated on the assumption of worth, value, or dignity.Originally posted by Mountain Man View PostIf human life has no inherent value, then killing it becomes a morally neutral act.
Both of these posts suffer from imprecision -- understandable, given the philosophical complexity of the topic.
It's one category of thing to say a fetus has value and another to say it has dignity. The first is an assessment of worth and is not a declaration of inalienable/inherent rights. The second (dignity) is a far more complex category that emerges from being. To say a fetus has dignity, in other words, is to assert the conclusion that a fetus is a being. Maybe that's true but it is a conclusion requiring justification, not one that can be simply asserted.
"Human life" here is similarly being used as equivalent with "human being" ... which is, again, asserting the conclusion. Unhooking a brain-dead patient from life support is a "morally neutral act", despite it being a "human life". The relevant question is whether that patient still obtains the property of personhood that makes them a "human being" or whether it lacks that property and the associated inalienable rights.
--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"
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Originally posted by Mountain Man View PostFor the sake of argument, suppose you can definitively say, "At this point, no consciousness; at this point, consciousness," but what about the massive vague area in between? If a fetus doesn't have consciousness at moment X, what about X+1 millisecond? X+5 milliseconds? X+24 hours? X+one week? If a fetus develops consciousness at moment Y then what about Y-1 millisecond? Minus 10-minutes? Minus 2-weeks? What's the cutoff? And how do know for certain you're correct?
And for that matter, what if early consciousness exists in a way that is not detectable with current technology? It's only relatively recently that we've been able to detect and monitor brain activity, and our ability to do so is still relatively crude. 100-years ago, you would have been arguing that a fetus was less "valuable" at a much later point in the human life cycle simply because of the limited knowledge at the time. What will your argument look like 100-years from now?
We'll learn more as time goes on but there will never be a scientific point where we determine consciousness emerges in the first or even early second trimester.
--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"
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Originally posted by Mountain Man View PostFor the sake of argument, suppose you can definitively say, "At this point, no consciousness; at this point, consciousness," but what about the massive vague area in between? If a fetus doesn't have consciousness at moment X, what about X+1 millisecond? X+5 milliseconds? X+24 hours? X+one week? If a fetus develops consciousness at moment Y then what about Y-1 millisecond? Minus 10-minutes? Minus 2-weeks? What's the cutoff? And how do know for certain you're correct?
And for that matter, what if early consciousness exists in a way that is not detectable with current technology? It's only relatively recently that we've been able to detect and monitor brain activity, and our ability to do so is still relatively crude. 100-years ago, you would have been arguing that a fetus was less "valuable" at a much later point in the human life cycle simply because of the limited knowledge at the time. What will your argument look like 100-years from now?
I disagree, again,with you use of the term 'valuable'. Not that the fetus does not have value. Indeed, the fetus has great value from conception because it is a new human life that can become a new human being. The distinction we are looking at here is when does an abortion constitute the crime of murder. To be murder, the fetus must have a consciousness, it must be a person. We know consciousness appears over time in the fetus, and we know that early on there is not consciousness present.
What your last question is asking, in more fundamental terms, is 'does consciousness exist apart from the brain.' We Christians typically believe it does, but not in a physical sense. Watching my mom change (she has alzheimers) brings home how much who we are is tied to that brain. And in a way, also how much who we are is not necessarily tied to the brain. There is no simple way to assess that element. But in the scientific (and legal) sense, when the brain stops functioning, the old person is gone from this physical world. Likewise, symmetrically, scientifically when the brain starts to function, the new person has arrived in this physical world.Last edited by oxmixmudd; 01-23-2020, 11:00 AM.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
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Originally posted by Cow Poke View PostAnd, on top of that, not all babies develop on exactly the same time table.
So in terms of gestation, we can know when consciousness is not there. simplistically, it simply can't be there before there is a brain. You can do a sonogram or measure brainwave activity if you need to know if that period has passed if you like. But before then, consciousness doesn't exist because the brain doesn't exist. IOW, there is a period of certainty for which we can know no human fetus has a brain, no matter how abnormal the development of that specific fetus. And there are ways to test as well. And so there are ways to define this, or measure this, so that one can know if the period of certainty about the absence of a consciousness has passed.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
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Originally posted by Bill the Cat View Post
Actually, yes. If anyone is kept artificially alive in ANY state, they lose the right to self-determination and are at the discretion of the doctor and next-of-kin. A brain can not communicate its desires or decisions.
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Originally posted by Sam View PostBoth have the potential to develop into a "human being" and neither are actual "human beings". Your distinction is not one that has a meaningful difference when it comes to potentiality.
Yes, law is a subset of philosophy -- law depends entirely on philosophical foundations. What we call "human rights" are legal protection that by definition rely on philosophical understanding of what constitutes "human" and what we mean when we use the word.
--Sam
A zygote has a full distinct DNA, different from the mother or father. It is a separate organism. It is alive and growing. A gamete isn't. It might be a "potential" human being (very bad odds of that) but a zygote is an actual human being.
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Originally posted by Sparko View Postagain wrong. A zygote IS a human being. I was one once, and so were you. A zygote is a distinct stage of a human being's life cycle. Just like "infant," "teenager," and "adult"
A zygote has a full distinct DNA, different from the mother or father. It is a separate organism. It is alive and growing. A gamete isn't. It might be a "potential" human being (very bad odds of that) but a zygote is an actual human being.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
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Originally posted by oxmixmudd View PostBut in the scientific (and legal) sense, when the brain stops functioning, the old person is gone from this physical world. Likewise, symmetrically, scientifically when the brain starts to function, the new person has arrived in this physical world.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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