Yes, I am using a more binary form of logic. But I think it is applicable in this circumstance. Again, an embryo is the beginning of the human life-cycle. A seed is the begging of a plant's life cycle. If you destroy either one, you have destroyed it's life. What you propose to do is place yourself in God's position. You would like to propose when life begins based on when you feel there is a resemblance to the human form (most normally refer to sentience as being the point that an embryo/fetus should be considered human). This relates directly to racism.
Racism is the opinion that someone because of skin color, or ethnicity, is less than yourself (not referring to you in particular) and others of your kind. Now what most in the pro-legalized abortion crowd would like us to believe is that the child in the mother's womb is worth less than a human being outside of the womb (although babies that are born alive during an abortion are sometimes still considered to have less value than the rest of us - i.e. they do not try to save them from death). So yes, the pro-legalized abortion crowd is promoting the same kind of injustice as racism. They are defining at what point you should receive basic human rights. We all know that the human embryo will grow to become a human baby --> toddler --> adolescent --> adult. Those are the stages of the human life-cycle and the embryo kicks it all off. Without the embryo the human race ceases to exist. You can have all the sperm and the eggs you want to, but if they don't combine to form the human embryo then human life ceases to exist. By deciding when human life matters we are being developmentalist (yeah, I just made it up - not real catchy, but you get the drift). We're deciding at what point in that human's life they actually deserve our respect.
On genetics use in this argument. My using genetics to define an embryo as human, does not invite people to do things they have not already done. I've asked that we respect life from the beginning and do not place ourselves in God's seat when deciding when an individual has value. Ethnic cleansing, racism, and abortion have to assume that they have more value than whomever's life they are taking, otherwise they would have a hard time living with what they are doing (some do have a really hard time with what they have done).
I am against capital punishment and I think a quote from Gandalf explains this quite well. "Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends." -Gandalf (Lord of the Rings)
I feel that war is a different ball game. All wars are not good, but some are. None can argue that we should not have fought against the Nazis, yet some would have us believe that wars should never be fought. If you placed these same individuals in a room with someone else who intended to kill them, I think most, if not all, would fight to the death, so that they may live. Killing is permissible when there is justification (e.g. War with Nazi Germany or killing a man who is about to kill an innocent person).
I've you've put down on paper that you do not want to be resuscitated then you have made that decision. The doctor is not making any judgements, instead he is just following your command. Therefore he cannot be charged with manslaughter, or should not be viewed as being immoral.
As far as the person in the vegetative state goes. This is a gray area. It depends a lot on the circumstances and is always a judgement call for those involved.
Now onto the real meat and potatoes. Your decision is much like the rest of the worlds decisions on the value of blacks during slavery. They found something that they could use to define the person (i.e. skin color) and then went on to equate that with a persons worth. Now I agree, a human embryo has yet to form many of the things that we consider to be necessary to live, but this does not change the fact that this is a human being in it's earliest stage of development. If you can prove me wrong on that I would like to see what you've got. Since we know that it is a human being and know that, precluding some unforeseen event, it will develop into an adult human being, then we should not destroy that human being's life because we've established that it does not have all of the qualifications of what some of us consider to be a human being. Your establishing a stage of development as a point at which you become a human being is quite similar to the Dred Scott decision deciding that skin color should determine your worth. If we use your line of reasoning then at some point in time someone else might decide that that line should be moved a little further. Perhaps too 30 days after birth. If you don't like the baby you received you have the right to kill it (philosopher Peter Singer argues for this). A quote from wikipedia "Singer argues that newborns similarly lack the essential characteristics of personhood â" "rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness"[28] â" and therefore "killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living."
So by using your reasoning we can move the line around as we see fit. If we decide that a particular stage of human development determines when your life has value, then who knows where we can go from there. Okay wait, Nazi Germany, the KKK, and Nero all know where it goes from there. By reducing the value of any human life, whether it be for development, skin color, religion, or ethnicity, we are destroying what is most precious, the human life. If we do not respect all human life then we should expect a further decline in respect for human life in general (this can be seen in society already).
An egg is not capable of growing into an adult human and neither is a sperm. Therefore a period and ejaculation do not a killer make (the Catholic church does teach against the use of contraception and masturbation for the particular reason you suggest. You are taking your life giving potential out of the mix when you use contraception or masturbate.
God gave us free will. Now we wouldn't be free if we were forced to live in a specific way. And if you read the New Testament you would find that all the answers to are problems are right there. Unfortunately our society has become more me, me, me, over the years and become less about helping out your sisters and brothers (note-This includes everyone, not just your family).
Your human arm and tumor cannot and will not ever grow into a mature adult if allowed to grow. That is the major difference between a human embryo and your two examples. And no neither can a human sperm and a human egg grow into a human. They must join to become an egg.
I'm against capital punishment.
Not all wars are right.
Torture is wrong, but you must define what torture is (most fraternities and soldiers would be guilty of torture, depending on your definition).
Last time I checked nobody is ever denied care in an emergency room (yes our health care system could be improved-but not sure if our government has the right ideas).
We give tons of foreign aid and where does it get the world. Unfortunately it goes to the wrong people, because as you and I know, most of the poorer nations have a lot of corrupt people in power. The money never makes it to the people who need it most. That and we're just throwing money down the drain unless we can jump start their economy in some way. The old saying applies here. âoeGive a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.â
What about those in a coma? Can we go ahead and kill them? Or how about somebody who was just knocked unconscious? Do we have the right to kill them too?
It seems that it is all to easy for those of us outside of the womb to classify others as having no rights. Anyone ever hear of the Dred Scott decision, or perhaps, ever read anying about Nazi Germany. It is so easy to take the rights from someone when you make them less than you.
Ahhh... So if someone finds you completely disgusting to look at and decides they want to kill you, then that is okay? So either, you're joking, which I didn't catch on, or you haven't thought this premise all of the way through.
Okay, so let's take your "murder" argument here and go with it. I'll make a philosophical argument that abortion is wrong, without appealing to a religion in any way.
We've got four options to look at when dealing with whether abortion is right or wrong.
1.) The embryo is human and we know it is human.
2.) The embryo is human and we don't know it is human.
3.) The embryo is not human and we know it.
4.) The embryo is not human and we don't know it.
-In option one we have committed murder if we abort the human embryo.
-In option two we've committed manslaughter if the human embryo is aborted. Someone may ask why this would be. If you were hunting in the woods and you saw something move, but you weren't sure if it was a human, or an animal, and you shot anyway and killed a human, then you would be charged with manslaughter. You weren't sure if it was human, or not, but you shot anyway.
-In option three we must ask, then what is the embryo. Is it a cat, dog, or possibly another mammal? Biology has proven that we are dealing with a human and I don't know of anyone who has proven otherwise.
-In option four we're looking at criminal negligence or at least a morally reprehensible act. Why is this criminal negligence or at a minimum, morally reprehensible. Let's imagine that a drug company released a drug to the population without first testing it. Now, they didn't know it wouldn't cause any harm, but the fact that they didn't do testing first means that they should be guilty of criminal negligence, or at a minimum they have performed a morally reprehensible act. Putting people's lives in danger because they decided they didn't want to test something is wrong and could be a punishable act.
Well, there you have it. Just about any way you slice it, you're dealing with a criminal act, or at a minimum, a morally reprehensible one. The one other option being that the embryo is not human, but science has proven otherwise in that case, so unless someone has some evidence to the contrary, option 3 is not an option at all.
Hmmm... Well I recommend you lop off a few skin cells and try implanting them into a woman's womb. In 9 months if you have a baby then I would say you've got a point. But I think we both know that that set of cells would not form into anything. So unless you can prove to me that that "mass of undifferentiated cells" (i.e. the human embryo) does not 100% of the time form a child if placed in a mother's womb and allowed to grow, then I think you've got it all wrong. The human embryo is the beginning of a human life. Just as a seed is the beginning of a plant's life. Destroy the seed and you destroy the plant. Destroy the embryo and you destroy the human.
By the way, all of my cells, and yours, contain human DNA (except for the sperm and egg which only contain half of the human genome), but neither of us are capable of forming another human being from our cells. A human embryo is a set of cells, with unique human dna, that will grow to maturity if not destroyed first. Thus, it is a human being and not just a "mass of undifferentiated cells".
Ahhh... A moral relativist. Well to that I must say that everyone should be able to decide what is right and wrong on their own terms and that we should throw out all of the laws that have been created because we are telling people what is right and wrong by handing out punishment for those things that are deemed to be against the law.
Just as I must discipline my child by providing just punishment for things he has done wrong, we also do the same with the laws that are created. Basically the whole system we live under is based on the premise of being a self-righteous ass.
The problem with any of this is that the embryo is a human being in it's earliest stage of life. So we are deciding to destroy the life of an individual so that we can make our lives better. Don't see how this can ever be considered a good thing.
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Yes, I am using a more binary form of logic. But I think it is applicable in this circumstance. Again, an embryo is the beginning of the human life-cycle. A seed is the begging of a plant's life cycle. If you destroy either one, you have destroyed it's life. What you propose to do is place yourself in God's position. You would like to propose when life begins based on when you feel there is a resemblance to the human form (most normally refer to sentience as being the point that an embryo/fetus should be considered human). This relates directly to racism.
Racism is the opinion that someone because of skin color, or ethnicity, is less than yourself (not referring to you in particular) and others of your kind. Now what most in the pro-legalized abortion crowd would like us to believe is that the child in the mother's womb is worth less than a human being outside of the womb (although babies that are born alive during an abortion are sometimes still considered to have less value than the rest of us - i.e. they do not try to save them from death). So yes, the pro-legalized abortion crowd is promoting the same kind of injustice as racism. They are defining at what point you should receive basic human rights. We all know that the human embryo will grow to become a human baby --> toddler --> adolescent --> adult. Those are the stages of the human life-cycle and the embryo kicks it all off. Without the embryo the human race ceases to exist. You can have all the sperm and the eggs you want to, but if they don't combine to form the human embryo then human life ceases to exist. By deciding when human life matters we are being developmentalist (yeah, I just made it up - not real catchy, but you get the drift). We're deciding at what point in that human's life they actually deserve our respect.
On genetics use in this argument. My using genetics to define an embryo as human, does not invite people to do things they have not already done. I've asked that we respect life from the beginning and do not place ourselves in God's seat when deciding when an individual has value. Ethnic cleansing, racism, and abortion have to assume that they have more value than whomever's life they are taking, otherwise they would have a hard time living with what they are doing (some do have a really hard time with what they have done).
I am against capital punishment and I think a quote from Gandalf explains this quite well. "Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends." -Gandalf (Lord of the Rings)
I feel that war is a different ball game. All wars are not good, but some are. None can argue that we should not have fought against the Nazis, yet some would have us believe that wars should never be fought. If you placed these same individuals in a room with someone else who intended to kill them, I think most, if not all, would fight to the death, so that they may live. Killing is permissible when there is justification (e.g. War with Nazi Germany or killing a man who is about to kill an innocent person).
I'll answer your questions on manslaughter first.
I've you've put down on paper that you do not want to be resuscitated then you have made that decision. The doctor is not making any judgements, instead he is just following your command. Therefore he cannot be charged with manslaughter, or should not be viewed as being immoral.
As far as the person in the vegetative state goes. This is a gray area. It depends a lot on the circumstances and is always a judgement call for those involved.
Now onto the real meat and potatoes. Your decision is much like the rest of the worlds decisions on the value of blacks during slavery. They found something that they could use to define the person (i.e. skin color) and then went on to equate that with a persons worth. Now I agree, a human embryo has yet to form many of the things that we consider to be necessary to live, but this does not change the fact that this is a human being in it's earliest stage of development. If you can prove me wrong on that I would like to see what you've got. Since we know that it is a human being and know that, precluding some unforeseen event, it will develop into an adult human being, then we should not destroy that human being's life because we've established that it does not have all of the qualifications of what some of us consider to be a human being. Your establishing a stage of development as a point at which you become a human being is quite similar to the Dred Scott decision deciding that skin color should determine your worth. If we use your line of reasoning then at some point in time someone else might decide that that line should be moved a little further. Perhaps too 30 days after birth. If you don't like the baby you received you have the right to kill it (philosopher Peter Singer argues for this). A quote from wikipedia "Singer argues that newborns similarly lack the essential characteristics of personhood â" "rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness"[28] â" and therefore "killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living."
So by using your reasoning we can move the line around as we see fit. If we decide that a particular stage of human development determines when your life has value, then who knows where we can go from there. Okay wait, Nazi Germany, the KKK, and Nero all know where it goes from there. By reducing the value of any human life, whether it be for development, skin color, religion, or ethnicity, we are destroying what is most precious, the human life. If we do not respect all human life then we should expect a further decline in respect for human life in general (this can be seen in society already).
An egg is not capable of growing into an adult human and neither is a sperm. Therefore a period and ejaculation do not a killer make (the Catholic church does teach against the use of contraception and masturbation for the particular reason you suggest. You are taking your life giving potential out of the mix when you use contraception or masturbate.
God gave us free will. Now we wouldn't be free if we were forced to live in a specific way. And if you read the New Testament you would find that all the answers to are problems are right there. Unfortunately our society has become more me, me, me, over the years and become less about helping out your sisters and brothers (note-This includes everyone, not just your family).
Your human arm and tumor cannot and will not ever grow into a mature adult if allowed to grow. That is the major difference between a human embryo and your two examples. And no neither can a human sperm and a human egg grow into a human. They must join to become an egg.
I'm against capital punishment.
Not all wars are right.
Torture is wrong, but you must define what torture is (most fraternities and soldiers would be guilty of torture, depending on your definition).
Last time I checked nobody is ever denied care in an emergency room (yes our health care system could be improved-but not sure if our government has the right ideas).
We give tons of foreign aid and where does it get the world. Unfortunately it goes to the wrong people, because as you and I know, most of the poorer nations have a lot of corrupt people in power. The money never makes it to the people who need it most. That and we're just throwing money down the drain unless we can jump start their economy in some way. The old saying applies here. âoeGive a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.â
It seems that it is all to easy for those of us outside of the womb to classify others as having no rights. Anyone ever hear of the Dred Scott decision, or perhaps, ever read anying about Nazi Germany. It is so easy to take the rights from someone when you make them less than you.
Ahhh... So if someone finds you completely disgusting to look at and decides they want to kill you, then that is okay? So either, you're joking, which I didn't catch on, or you haven't thought this premise all of the way through.
Okay, so let's take your "murder" argument here and go with it. I'll make a philosophical argument that abortion is wrong, without appealing to a religion in any way.
We've got four options to look at when dealing with whether abortion is right or wrong.
1.) The embryo is human and we know it is human.
2.) The embryo is human and we don't know it is human.
3.) The embryo is not human and we know it.
4.) The embryo is not human and we don't know it.
-In option one we have committed murder if we abort the human embryo.
-In option two we've committed manslaughter if the human embryo is aborted. Someone may ask why this would be. If you were hunting in the woods and you saw something move, but you weren't sure if it was a human, or an animal, and you shot anyway and killed a human, then you would be charged with manslaughter. You weren't sure if it was human, or not, but you shot anyway.
-In option three we must ask, then what is the embryo. Is it a cat, dog, or possibly another mammal? Biology has proven that we are dealing with a human and I don't know of anyone who has proven otherwise.
-In option four we're looking at criminal negligence or at least a morally reprehensible act. Why is this criminal negligence or at a minimum, morally reprehensible. Let's imagine that a drug company released a drug to the population without first testing it. Now, they didn't know it wouldn't cause any harm, but the fact that they didn't do testing first means that they should be guilty of criminal negligence, or at a minimum they have performed a morally reprehensible act. Putting people's lives in danger because they decided they didn't want to test something is wrong and could be a punishable act.
Well, there you have it. Just about any way you slice it, you're dealing with a criminal act, or at a minimum, a morally reprehensible one. The one other option being that the embryo is not human, but science has proven otherwise in that case, so unless someone has some evidence to the contrary, option 3 is not an option at all.
Please let me know what you think.
Hmmm... Well I recommend you lop off a few skin cells and try implanting them into a woman's womb. In 9 months if you have a baby then I would say you've got a point. But I think we both know that that set of cells would not form into anything. So unless you can prove to me that that "mass of undifferentiated cells" (i.e. the human embryo) does not 100% of the time form a child if placed in a mother's womb and allowed to grow, then I think you've got it all wrong. The human embryo is the beginning of a human life. Just as a seed is the beginning of a plant's life. Destroy the seed and you destroy the plant. Destroy the embryo and you destroy the human. By the way, all of my cells, and yours, contain human DNA (except for the sperm and egg which only contain half of the human genome), but neither of us are capable of forming another human being from our cells. A human embryo is a set of cells, with unique human dna, that will grow to maturity if not destroyed first. Thus, it is a human being and not just a "mass of undifferentiated cells".
Ahhh... A moral relativist. Well to that I must say that everyone should be able to decide what is right and wrong on their own terms and that we should throw out all of the laws that have been created because we are telling people what is right and wrong by handing out punishment for those things that are deemed to be against the law. Just as I must discipline my child by providing just punishment for things he has done wrong, we also do the same with the laws that are created. Basically the whole system we live under is based on the premise of being a self-righteous ass.
The problem with any of this is that the embryo is a human being in it's earliest stage of life. So we are deciding to destroy the life of an individual so that we can make our lives better. Don't see how this can ever be considered a good thing.