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?

[Buy Oz Moses]

Thought experiment:

Human definition of the word "life"

life
līf/
noun
1.
the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death.
"the origins of life"
synonyms: existence, being, living, animation; More
antonyms: death, nonexistence
living things and their activity.

If functional activity is a key component to being alive is it possible that a fetus is considered alive when it starts to have functional activity in the brain, when it becomes "aware" that it can react to stimuli, and actually starts to react to said stimuli?

Modern science puts this "reactionary" period at after 8 weeks, when a fetus has a full brain and nervous system. Looking for a site, in case anyone is aware of the contention or something contrary, please assist.

If it cannot react to stimulus is it truly alive? Is it not, instead, just a mass that is growing? Are tumors alive? Can it dream as a mass? Can it (through proof of brain waves) think or mimic thoughts? Is it aware of anything as a mass without a nervous system and brain to process anything a living being would? Sound for instance?

And if it has no nervous system to process things like pain, can it feel? If it were erraticated as a mass without a working brain and a nervous system would it have ever known it was missing out on something? Would it recognize it was something alive and was being killed?

Or is it that we recognize what it could be...a toddler in a few years, a kid in several, a teen many and an adult at one point? And this is what motivates us to question its eradication? But is that life? What we imagine it could be, or is life the actual functional activity that is accredited to the living?

No defined answer, but food for thought. Nom nom nom!

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[dianaiad]

Peace again, and to you as well Blastcat (though I am still a - willing - slave of Christ)

Sorry to hear that you promote slavery.

Moderator Warning


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[Buy Oz Moses]

Peace again, and to you as well Blastcat (though I am still a - willing - slave of Christ)

Sorry to hear that you promote slavery.

Moderator Warning


One liners such as this are simply 'post-by' insults and do not advance the conversation.

Please review our Rules.

______________

Moderator warnings count as a strike against users. Additional violations in the future may warrant a final warning. Any challenges or replies to moderator postings should be made via Private Message to avoid derailing topics.

What's the difference between purple moderator warnings and orange moderator warnings?

And what do you think about the idea that life could be best described as the moment a fetus has brain activity and a nervous system to process those activities? (Roughly 9 weeks-ish)

[Bust Nak]

[Replying to post 271 by Buy Oz Moses]

Moderator Clarification

Orange are warnings and count as a strike.
Purple are comments and do not count as a strike.

Too many strikes will lead to future sanctions. How many is too many is up to the mod team to decide on a case by case basis.


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Moderator clarifications do not count as a strike against any posters. They serve as an acknowledgment that a post report has been received and/or are given at the discretion of a moderator when he or she feels a clarification of the rules is required.

[Blastcat]

Peace again to you all,

So when does a fertilized egg (not just an egg which is what a woman has within her) become human?

This issue is SO emotionally charged..

How about we try to see this from a more... neutral perspective and see how that goes?

Take a chicken... take a chicken egg.
Superficially, at least, they DO seem to have certain differences. The chicken seems to be a bit more.. COMPLEX than the egg.. Eggs don't have beaks and feathers and eyes and feet and reproductive systems that can produce OTHER EGGS... and so on.

Chickens don't have shells or yolks or albumen, and so on. These are differences.

WHEN is it that a chicken embryo become a CHICKEN ?

I guess you might say that a chicken embryo IS a chicken... if I understand your position?
Correct me if I'm wrong.

But isn't that like saying that an acorn IS an oak tree?

Let's get even a bit MORE removed from all of the emotions about this issue.. let's try ELECTRICITY !!

We have a great body of water dammed up. What POTENTIAL energy !!!

But IS all that water energy?
IS it electricity yet?

No... the water is only water.. the pressure is only pressure... ONCE the water goes through the turbines AND those turbines spin around big old magnets.. THEN the POTENTIAL energy of all that water pressure will TURN INTO electricity.

But water isn't electricity. Water is POTENTIALLY electricity, but water isn't electricity YET.. even when it's been stopped by an electrical dam.

So, one of the reasons why I don't view embryos as what they potentially will turn into is the same reason as why I don't consider an acorn is an oak tree or that an egg is a chicken or that dammed up water is electricity.

They are POTENTIALLY SO... but not YET SO.

Here is one last example and then I'll put my pedantry to rest for this ONE time... ( one time only, folks, take it and grab it while you can )

Take JUNIOR.. an aspiring 500 meter foot race champion.
There is Junior, standing at the starting line beside his quick opponents, waiting for the gun to go off... The tension is high.

JUNIOR.. is a potential winner of the race. In fact, Junior has every expectation that he will win this race. He has POTENTIAL....

IS Junior the winner yet?
Did Junior win the race?

WHEN does Junior win the race?
Surely, not at the starting line.. WHERE IS THAT LINE?

Well, for footraces, there IS a line in the sand.


For things that have smooth transitions from things from like zygote, blastocyst, embryo, and finally, baby, the definitions are less clearly marked.

The ZYGOTE is ONE CELL... then it starts to divide... into what is called a blastocyst, and then as it continues to grow and divide, becomes an embryo.. and THEN keeps growing into what will be EVENTUALLY called a baby.

But correct me if I'm wrong.. but you seem to say that the zygote, or the very first cell IS a baby already.

I see a cell, you see a baby.
I see a bunch of cells, you see a baby.

For you, and again, correct me if I'm wrong it's a baby as soon as the woman's egg is fertilized.

And all I see is a fertilized human egg. For me, it GETS to be a baby sometime later.
When it has arms and legs and eyes and fingers and toes and a brain and so on.

I don't HAVE a hard line in the sand the way that Junior the racer does.
So when does a fetus become a baby?

Matter of opinion so far.

Does that make sense?

[BwhoUR]

.

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?

If anything can be gained by this conversation so far, it is that Bill Maher is right!

Religion does hurt. Religion does not need context, it is prone to stubborn fixations and judgment, there is a lack of compassion so learned that even today, one of its followers, with little hesitation, would choose to kill an innocent 3 year old or flip a coin to decide whose life to save so as not to accidentally upset their god. Aren't these behaviors unique to religion?

[tam]

WE are a bunch of cells also.


Now, I am not up on my chicken biology... but the actual egg, the shell, is an incubator for the chick, yes? Not the chick, itself?


Water is not electricity, but under certain conditions PRODUCES electricity. We produce things too but no one is saying that we are what we produce.


The acorn is the seed for that particular tree. I am guessing, but I assume that an acorn is not going to grow into a different kind of tree, but only the kind of tree for which it is. Like an apple seed grows into an apple tree... not an olive tree.

Is a seed living though? Or does it at least require one other component to begin to live (like water?) It is a little like comparing apples and oranges (sorry, lol), because this is a different kind of procreation.


Sperm is potential life. An egg (ovum) is potential life. Put these two together and they produce life. Life that will become a fully developed human, unless something prevents/interrupts that.


None of the above means that I would attempt to force another person to conform to this understanding, as I have already stated that I would not, nor would I judge them or curse them, or anything like that. My position has not changed.

Woman has the womb. The choice is hers to make. That does not mean that she will make the right choice, or the wrong choice, but only that the choice is hers to make.

At the moment, the law of the land (here in the west) states that abortion is legal. My position on that is:

"Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's"

Caesar gives a woman the choice. That does not mean that she has to get an abortion, but that she can choose. As a woman, I would not want it to be any other way. I do hope that others make the choice to have the baby, but I do not have the right, nor even the desire, to force someone into making that choice. (although then it would not be a choice at all)

I can only make that choice for me, as I understand from my Lord.

**

It would be helpful if, as Hamsaka said earlier I believe, birth control/safe sex was taught. Kids are having sex. No amount of preaching is going to change that. As a child and teenager, I believed in being a virgin until married... and yet, very quickly into those teenage years I was having sex.

Making sure that your child is informed does not mean that you are giving them permission. We think, as parents, that this might put the idea in their head perhaps? Well, unless they are isolated from the rest of the world, and from their peers (and perhaps also their hormones), the idea is already in their head.


It might also be helpful if organizations - without any stigma attached - were set up to help a woman carry her pregnancy through. Granting assistance through the pregnancy and beyond, directly connected to help with whatever the reason is that the person does not want to carry the pregnancy through. I think there are some pro-life groups who do things like this.

A little more effort like that instead of the efforts to change the law might be of far more worth and help both to the mother, and the unborn.

Certainly also, any woman who has had an abortion and who is suffering - emotionally or otherwise - should receive compassion.


Peace again,
your servant and a slave of Christ,
tammy

[Hatuey]

[Replying to post 275 by tam]

A couple notes:

1. An apple seed might produce ANY apple tree within its evolutionary/genetic history. To produce a particular apple tree, growers/producers must use clones and graft them into existing trees.

2. An egg, acorn, or seed is a good analogy for a fertilized human embryo because they all have the potential to produce an adult but rely on outside conditions to do so. We would not fault the sun for not reaching through dense shade or water for not reaching a particular level in order for the seed to grow. The woman MUST supply nutrition or her embryo dies, so it is her choice. The only inequality is not allowing fathers the same right (the right to denounce fatherhood EXACTLY as the mother can).

3. All of these items at alive just like the sperm and ovum are alive. The joining of two living cells is of little consequence for morality or legality when other factors play a much greater role as we see when it comes to the example of saving a parent's four year old or saving that same parent's fifty fertilized eggs if you can only save either one.

[Blastcat]

WE are a bunch of cells also.

Yep. We are a bunch of cells. But cells are not humans.
It takes more than being a bunch of cells to be called a human baby.

Now, I am not up on my chicken biology... but the actual egg, the shell, is an incubator for the chick, yes? Not the chick, itself?

Yep, an egg is not a chick. An egg might potentially DEVELOP into a chick, if the conditions are good. Many eggs don't become chicks for one reason or another.

Water is not electricity, but under certain conditions PRODUCES electricity. We produce things too but no one is saying that we are what we produce.

Yep, water is not electricity. The way I tried to describe is that water has the POTENTIAL to become electricity, given the right circumstances. Most water doesn't become electricity for one reason or another.

The acorn is the seed for that particular tree.

Yep, acorn .. not a tree. A seed is not a plant.. not YET.. although an acorn and a seed has the POTENTIAL to become a plant.. seeds are not plants.

I am guessing, but I assume that an acorn is not going to grow into a different kind of tree, but only the kind of tree for which it is. Like an apple seed grows into an apple tree... not an olive tree.

True dat.

Is a seed living though?

Yep, I'd say that a seed is living.

Or does it at least require one other component to begin to live (like water?) It is a little like comparing apples and oranges (sorry, lol), because this is a different kind of procreation.

Yes, you're right. It IS a bit like comparing apples and oranges.. I was looking for less emotionally charged examples of one thing having the potential of changing into another thing.

Apples don't really have the potential of changing into oranges. But apple SEEDS have the potential of growing into apple TREES, given the right circumstances. Not all apple seeds become apple trees, for one reason or another.

Not too up on my biology, either, but I'd say that plants are not animals... True.. and water is not an animal either. I was using those examples to explain what I meant by a POTENTIAL as opposed to an ACTUALITY.

Sperm is potential life.

Well, sperm is also alive. But sperm alone isn't a baby. Sperm is only POTENTIALLY a baby.

An egg (ovum) is potential life.

Egg is alive as well. That's not the issue here. The issue is about if an egg is a baby.
Or a sperm is a baby... or a fertilized egg is a baby.
Or if a fetus is a baby.

I guess you might say yes to all of the above, and I would not.
Matter of opinion.

Put these two together and they produce life.

Potentially, yes. A new life. However, they are both alive.. the sperm and the egg are already alive. Being alive doesn't mean being HUMAN.. or being a BABY.

I'd say a grown man and a grown woman falling in LOVE have the potential to create a new human life. In fact, every person on earth who's reproductive organs are in good working order have the potential to be parents. But that doesn't mean that THEY are babies...

A potential for a baby ISN'T yet a baby.

You just draw the line differently than I do.
Remember Junior?

Races have HARD, objective lines.
Not so the baby.

Life that will become a fully developed human, unless something prevents/interrupts that.

Sure... like the billions of pregnancies that don't go to term for some reason or another. Just because something has the POTENTIAL to happen does NOT mean that is HAS happened.

None of the above means that I would attempt to force another person to conform to this understanding, as I have already stated that I would not, nor would I judge them or curse them, or anything like that. My position has not changed.

Oh good. We agree on pro-choice then (?) , as that's what it is. Not forcing our views on abortion on anyone else. The parents get to chose.. and more importantly, the WOMAN does.

Woman has the womb. The choice is hers to make. That does not mean that she will make the right choice, or the wrong choice, but only that the choice is hers to make.

Good.. I didn't know that was your position. Couldn't agree more.

At the moment, the law of the land (here in the west) states that abortion is legal. My position on that is:

"Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's"

Caesar gives a woman the choice. That does not mean that she has to get an abortion, but that she can choose.

This Caesar thing is a reflection of what society wants. These laws permitting freedom of choice are there because most people want them there. This is a democracy we are talking about?

IF most people in a democracy really thought that abortions were all MURDER.. you betcha.. the laws would be different. People are rather touchy about murder.

As a woman, I would not want it to be any other way.

Means that you might also vote pro choice if given the chance?

I do hope that others make the choice to have the baby, but I do not have the right, nor even the desire, to force someone into making that choice. (although then it would not be a choice at all)

Right.. you would not want to be forced one way or the other. You should have the choice. Choice MEANS that the woman decides.. and NOT the man. This is a feminist issue, right?.. So many orthodox religions DON'T give women very many rights, after all.

I can only make that choice for me, as I understand from my Lord.

You now have a choice. The pro lifers would take that choice away from you.. and to all others. This would be wrong.

IIt would be helpful if, as Hamsaka said earlier I believe, birth control/safe sex was taught. Kids are having sex. No amount of preaching is going to change that. As a child and teenager, I believed in being a virgin until married... and yet, very quickly into those teenage years I was having sex.

Sex education is a good thing. But people will continue to have sex. And unwanted pregnancies will continue to occur. We need to have a rational way to deal with those hard issues. Let's start by NOT forcing teen girls to have babies necessarily.

Make it EASY on the young girls.
They are GOING to have sex, we KNOW that... so , let's not penalize them for something that is perfectly natural. This is a feminist issue. I'm in favor of women's RIGHTS to their own bodies.

I have two daughters myself.. maybe that's why I'm so pro girl power.

Making sure that your child is informed does not mean that you are giving them permission.

Instead of permission.. when it comes to sex, I think COMPASSION is better.

We think, as parents, that this might put the idea in their head perhaps?

I don't think the parents have to put the idea of SEX into their kid's heads...

It might also be helpful if organizations - without any stigma attached - were set up to help a woman carry her pregnancy through. Granting assistance through the pregnancy and beyond, directly connected to help with whatever the reason is that the person does not want to carry the pregnancy through. I think there are some pro-life groups who do things like this.

Yeah, the pro lifers should put their money where their mouths are. If they want to encourage people to have unwanted pregnancies come to term, they should think of the cost of all of that. An abortion is cheaper by far than a woman having a child. And then bringing UP that child... Let's not pretend that economics don't come into this... kids are EXPENSIVE.. and some folks don't HAVE that kind of money.

A little more effort like that instead of the efforts to change the law might be of far more worth and help both to the mother, and the unborn.

A LOT of money goes into pro life ... I agree... maybe a bit of that money could go into charitable donations to any woman choosing to have a baby. Do you think they can pay for my two kids retroactively?... I'm estimating about a half a million bucks here.... Who do I write to?

Still, its no use to say that we will pay for a woman to carry her pregnancy through if that's not what she WANTS in the first place.

But yes, the pro lifers should pay for the expenses if they want to encourage that kind of thing. Not just moralizing and making people feel guilty or worse, preventing them from getting safe, medically sound abortions.

Certainly also, any woman who has had an abortion and who is suffering - emotionally or otherwise - should receive compassion.

Of course. We should be compassionate towards our fellow humans. But money talks. IF they need therapy.. or maybe a three room house... and a pool.. and an education fund.. and money for laundry and all that food.. not to mention XBOX.... that would help the suffering a bit. Money talks.

There are tens of millions of people trapped in various forms of slavery throughout the world today. Researchers estimate that 21 to 36 million are enslaved worldwide, generating $150 billion each year in illicit profits for traffickers.

Peace.

[Hamsaka]

[Replying to post 276 by Hatuey]

@

2. An egg, acorn, or seed is a good analogy for a fertilized human embryo because they all have the potential to produce an adult but rely on outside conditions to do so. We would not fault the sun for not reaching through dense shade or water for not reaching a particular level in order for the seed to grow. The woman MUST supply nutrition or her embryo dies, so it is her choice. The only inequality is not allowing fathers the same right (the right to denounce fatherhood EXACTLY as the mother can).

About the father's inequality; I believe you have inadvertently (or maybe not!) highlighted the least spoken of motivation behind the Religious Rights political grab for control over the pregnant body (and its contents while they remain contents). That damned powerlessness of the paternal role during a pregnancy. Aside the token females, the Religious Right is a patriarchal bunch who intend to keep it that way.

There's probably nothing more aggravating than standing by, helplessly, while a person pregnant with your offspring decided whether or not to keep carrying it, you know?. If they could just reach in there and take charge like Paul said they could . . .

That said, the male's role is tough for the reasons you said. It forces males into a quandary evolution could care less about, and works against -- once the sperm go flying, they're out of the picture, helpless bystanders. Of course, there's no problem whatsoever when children are wanted/anticipated. The problem is when they aren't.