Does he have a valid point?

[Zzyzx]

.

Bill Maher:
"When I hear from people that religion doesn't hurt anything, I say really? Well besides wars, the crusades, the inquisitions, 9-11, ethnic cleansing, the suppression of women, the suppression of homosexuals, fatwas, honor killings, suicide bombings, arranged marriages to minors, human sacrifice, burning witches, and systematic sex with children, I have a few little quibbles. And I forgot blowing up girl schools in Afghanistan."

Some say "The good outweighs the bad." If so what is that weighty good?

Many say "That is just the other religions." Is that true?

[Hatuey]

[
Lying can be unintentional, though the common usage is that of intentionally stating falsehood. Try again.

Oh you mean your UNCOMMON usage of the word.. you should have SAID... now it all makes MUCH more sense.

Paprika wants to use whatever word he wants, then when proven absolutely wrong claim that he meant it the way some aborigine three thousand years ago meant it with a different pronunciation and that you should have realized that's what he intended. It's a strange way to argue, but I have to support it because it works against him. It means you can never be sure what he really means....it might turn out that he meant exactly the opposite of what he wrote...by the common usages of the terms.

So much for rational debate.

[Hatuey]

[Replying to post 198 by Clownboat]

Fact: God is the most prolific abortionist. He values born children FAR MORE than embryos, even implanted ones, even in Christian women who have wanted a baby for decades and pray to have a child. Chances are, God gonna kill it.

I completely disagree with God. I think abortions are RARELY the right decision. I also woul honor the free will of rape and murder victims over the free will of the rapers and murderers, but God believes in "Might makes right." (As miscarriages and the flood demonstrate.. He is the mightiest and therefore mass murder in the flood or miscarriages are right when HE does them).

[Clownboat]

[Replying to post 198 by Clownboat]

Fact: God is the most prolific abortionist. He values born children FAR MORE than embryos, even implanted ones, even in Christian women who have wanted a baby for decades and pray to have a child. Chances are, God gonna kill it.

I completely disagree with God. I think abortions are RARELY the right decision. I also woul honor the free will of rape and murder victims over the free will of the rapers and murderers, but God believes in "Might makes right." (As miscarriages and the flood demonstrate.. He is the mightiest and therefore mass murder in the flood or miscarriages are right when HE does them).

It has always amazed me the effort people will put in to not allow a women to decide to carry her fetus to term or not, all the while 75% of conceptions end in a miscarriage.

Women abort an unwanted fetus (exceptions of course), and people fight to stop such a decision.
Most of the 75% of conceptions would be a fetus that is wanted. Let's fight to save the wanted fetuses I suggest. Their effort is misplaced IMO.

For fear of being called a pro-abortionist (from an anti women's choice activist tehe), I would like to clarify:
I don't like the idea of abortions.
I don't ever want one of my daughters to have an abortion.
However, if they ever decided that an abortion would be best for them, I would not appreciate people like Paprika who might fight to take that decision away from them.

This does not mean I want to kill babies as I assume most readers would understand.

[Hamsaka]

Correction. It MAY be a child. Not all embryos survive (see Hamsaka's earlier reply for stats).

Correction: it is the child, offspring of father and mother .

Correction: Arguing that your preferred definition of 'child' is the truth gets no one anywhere. This is just repetitive bleating and insisting, a matter of personal preference.

Correction: that it is the child, offspring of father and mother, is vital to grasp.

Why?

The reason I can see to make this vital 'grasp' is because it's the only way to salvage your position. It is hopelessly circular, past this point.

Am I being silly or is that why there is an emotional attachment to one and not the other?

One plausible reason is that most people don't interact with embryos and therefore don't have the chance to emotionally attach to them while the opposite is the case for children.

You’re proving my point here.

Hardly, rather that emotional attachment (or lack of it) is partially due to distance and that it is therefore not necessarily linked only to value.

And that 'distance' is very important. It is a distance filled with the birth of a welcomed child, and the nuture, the growing attachment, the 'getting to know you', the rearranging of parental and extended familial lives around this child. All that falls into this 'distance', you would call that irrelevant?

It's not relevant to whether the fetus is a child or not.

This is grotesque. Just, wow. Thankfully, the 'logic' your position relies upon defeats it, and no one in their right mind, you included, would carry it to it's logical conclusion.

Can you link to any articles or studies that show the general, say American consensus at one time was that a conceptus, embryo or fetus was just always regarded as a child, and then changed to a sentiment that it is otherwise?

The reason I ask is that it is now possible to charge a murderer for both the mother's and her unborn's life. It was not this way before. You are attempting to claim that 'society' was just bug eyed in love with every gestation from the git-go, and now those hideous pro-choice people have poisoned all our minds.

I am not making that claim, and your request must go unfulfilled.

Your claim, as quoted from post 181:

Not at all: my suggestion is that one reason people don't have attachment to embryos is because much effort has been spent to dehumanise it - which doesn't assume that everone equates fetus with human being.

In your above 'suggestion' (stated as a claim), you attribute pro-choice endeavors to dehumanize embryos to explain why we (no longer? nowadays?) regard the unborn as equal to 'a child'. Please provide support, even if it is a line of reasoning, to support society's 'shift' toward dehumanizing the unborn. That is all I ask. I gave you an example of how I observe that we have INCREASED the value of unborn offspring in a court of law. What is your example?

The point is all we have are points, and no consensus. You may have reached what you believe should be a consensus, but that does not mean a proper, useful consensus has been reached.

I assume you have a point besides stating the obvious that people disagree on this topic.[/quote]

As long as we have that cleared up . . .

Whether it makes it to birth is not relevant to whether it is a child, offspring of father and mother.

That is merely your personal preference, and perhaps that of your fellow believers. It is another example of forgetting that one's preferred definition does not dictate reality.

It is hardly mere preference. Is it not the offspring of mother and father? Is it not yet a mature adult? It is a child.

I've changed my mind. It's worse than a 'personal preference'; this position has many shared characteristics of a pogrom, the forced imposition of an ideology religionists have determined is 'truth' upon everyone else. This position disregards huge swathes of human experience (namely the value of a child already born, nurtured and loved), so that it is conceivable to such a person that it is more ethical to save a number of blastocysts (embryos, by definition, are already implanted) over a single 3 year old child. I'm nontheist, but God help us, anyway.

and the progressive trend to normalise killing one's children is problematic, to say the least.

No one here (that I am aware of) is advocating abortion as a means of contraception. The fact that seems inescapable to me, is that there is a disagreement about where life begins. No one has the cornerstone on that truth. And therefore, it should be left up to the individual to determine that truth.

There is a disagreement about whether certain humans should be killed...and I think you know how this train of thought ends.

That train of thought could 'go that way', toward your unstated, vaguely threatening 'hint' at, I dunno, eugenics or something. But not necessarily. If that train of thought does NOT 'go that way' (the way you are using as a vaguely threatening 'hint'), then you would be wrong. This is not prophecy, in spite of the chill or thrill thinking it causes within you. I disagree, as we have come a long, long way ethically and morally, as our superstitious fears diminish in the face of human progress.

The train of thought is to highlight the absurdity of the principle invoked: if there is a disagreement, if no one has the cornerstone on that truth, then it should be left to the individual to determine that truth. So, not everyone agrees about whether many people should be killed...so do we let the individual decide?

Until you provide evidence (not emotionalism or sentimentalism) supporting the unborn as a person of equal capacity and agency as that of a person once born, your principle is absurd, and it's outcome is . . . well, unspeakable.

[Lion IRC]

[Replying to post 160 by Hatuey]

There's nothing despicable about saving lives.
Please retract your accusation about my motives.
...an apology would be appreciated.

[Hatuey]

[Replying to post 203 by Lion IRC]

None given. Embryos are not "lives."

[Zzyzx]

.
Moderator Intervention

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Debate the issues NOT the person and not your emotions.

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______________

Moderator interventions do not count as a strike against any posters. They are given at the discretion of a moderator when he or she feels that some sort of intervention is required.

[KenRU]

[Replying to post 160 by Hatuey]

There's nothing despicable about saving lives.
Please retract your accusation about my motives.
...an apology would be appreciated.

Given that statistically most embryos never come to term, isn't it more accurate to call them "potential life"?

-all the best

[Clownboat]

[Replying to post 160 by Hatuey]

There's nothing despicable about saving lives.
Please retract your accusation about my motives.
...an apology would be appreciated.

Given that statistically most embryos never come to term, isn't it more accurate to call them "potential life"?

-all the best

I fear his argument will not allow him to answer this simple 'yes' or 'no' question.
Here is to hoping though.

[H.sapiens]

[Replying to post 160 by Hatuey]

There's nothing despicable about saving lives.
Please retract your accusation about my motives.
...an apology would be appreciated.

Given that statistically most embryos never come to term, isn't it more accurate to call them "potential life"?

-all the best

I'd say "possible life" is a more accurate description.