The context really matters here. If my boss sent me a quick e-mail saying, "Hey, I found a NULL pointer dereference in your device driver!" then I would thank him and fix it.
If same boss organized a conference and allowed SOMEONE ELSE to purposely expose my NULL pointer dereference by demonstrating that the mouse locks up or causes a seg fault or whatever, then I would feel that my boss was making a point: I'm an employee who is worth publicly humiliating.
I'm not a fan of Aquinas's 5 Ways. But I agree that "What created God" is a silly question posing as profundity.
Aquinas is attempting to demonstrate that there must be an Unmoved Mover, or an Uncaused Causer. His arguments then lay out the case that either there is an infinitely long chain of causation extending into an infinite past, or else there was a first cause which itself was uncaused. He then labels the Uncaused Cause as "This we all understand to be God."
Asking what caused the Uncaused Cause is simply failing to understand the argument.
If, on the other hand, one wishes to simply deny the existence of anything uncaused, then it would probably be best to state it directly...
It sounds nice, but cite your sources. I find nothing in the church fathers to back up the claim that original Christianity thought of the Bible as "a moral argument expressed allegorically."
Instead, most saw the Bible as a story of God creating and saving His people. That story left room for allegorical elements, more for some of the early patristics (e.g., Origen) and less for others (e.g., John Chrysostem).
But NONE of them taught that the Bible was simply allegorical. I can't accept the claim that the "older, more enlightened conception of Christianity" saw the Bible as entirely allegorical. Do you have sources to back it up?
So is religion, to an extent. The major point of the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura (i.e., that all doctrine is to be based upon Scripture alone) was to break the lock that Church tradition had on Biblical interpretation. The result was that anyone with a Bible could read for (gender-neutral) himself and and compare the church teachings to the original Biblical data.
Hence, Protestantism is an open-source religion, so to speak... which explains why it has so many forks.
Fair 'nuff. But it's worth noting that the impetus for freedom of religion as outlined in the 1st Amendment was an outgrowth of both secular forces (embodied in Thomas Jefferson) and religious forces (embodied in John Adams). The Puritan experience of being under the thumb of "Bloody Mary" (Google for Fox's Book of Martyrs for graphic detail -- your friends would actually bring gunpowder to your burning, so that you could burn faster) contributed to the wording of the 1st Amendment.
My point is that it is too easy these days to say "religious BAD, secular GOOD", as if religion were the problem.
People are the problem. They want power, and they use any pretext to get it, including religion.
The reason that it matters is this: sometimes secular oppressive governments will come to power by flagellating religion as the evil power to be overthrown. This is precisely what happened in France during the Revolution, and it was part of what happened in the Bolshevik revolution as well.
It is really important that we keep our eye on the ball: Constitutionally guaranteed freedoms are the ticket to a just society. "Religion" and "Fundamentalism" are the red herrings du jour.
BTW, Prohibition and religious education in public schools were primarily a function of liberal Protestants. Conservative Protestants such as J. Gresham Machen opposed them.
I agree with the direction of your post; I don't like the PATRIOT act any more than you do.
But I think you should leave the Puritans out of this.
For one thing, they were 17th century, not 15th... which meant that they were removed from a lot of the judicial excesses of the Middle Ages. You want to talk about disproportionate punishments? Try trial by combat. That was mainstream justice in the Middle Ages
For another thing, the Puritans had nothing on the Anglicans for harsh penalties. How about the death penalty for theft? It was common practice in
Elizabethan England.
For another, the Witch Trials in Salem were chump change compared to the witch craze in Europe. The Salem Puritans hanged 17 for witchcraft, from Feb. 1692 till Jan. 1693, until the governor with the support of a prominent pastor (Increase Mather) put a stop to it. In Europe, between 15,000 and 60,000 women were BURNED AT THE STAKE for witchcraft. The Puritans were creatures of their times, but certainly no worse and probably a lot better.
No, grandparent is correct in making the distinction. It is exceedingly important to find substances and processes which are energy sources relative to us.
Relative to us, an energy storage device is something to which we supply energy in order to release it later. Batteries, fuel cells, capacitors all fall in this category.
Energy sources, OTOH, give out more energy than we put in. Gasoline, nuclear fission, and solar radiation fall in that category. Without sources, our lovely storage devices are worthless.
Relative to nature, of course, the distinction is meaningless; everything is simply a transfer of energy from one form to another.
Your point about chimeras is not your strongest. A chimera is a single organism.
The RCC is not presented as a proxy for most people; it is clearly labeled as an example of a lot of people. Other examples exist.
A 23-week preemie has none of the characteristics we associate with people: it can't survive without nutrients taken directly from a host's body (or imitation thereof, administered by a host), it can't communicate any thoughts or feelings, and from the medical evidence, there's no reason to believe it can even have thoughts or feelings. None of the freedoms listed in the Bill of Rights, for example, even make sense when applied to a 23-week preemie. Calling a 23-week preemie a person dilutes the concept of personhood to the point where it's almost meaningless.
So let's give the poor parents the benefit of the doubt and allow them to kill it.
I'm not going to go through the demonstration that the other definitions you propose are subject to observer bias. The dilligent student can supply the details, and can also link the mentioned vested interests to the types of bias that can be created.
The woman's right to kick occupiers out of her body is legit. But it isn't absolute. Why should it be? My right to free speech is legit -- but bounded by the rights of others not to be trampled when I yell "Fire!" The woman's body stops where the baby's body begins.
1) I found a lot of secondary sources about the Pearson foundation, but no primary source. That kind of info is pretty much worthless. And as I pointed out earlier, the Pearson Foundation is not representative of most CPCs. Moving on...
2) One of the problems in this debate is sorting out data from assertions.
For example, Googling on "Post Abortion Trauma" pulls up links with claims that range from "92% of women who abort experience PAT" (which I seriously doubt) to "there is no discernable evidence of PAT except in Catholic women, who had a lower self-esteem to begin with" (which is both a stupid claim and a cheap shot).
Here is the most recent study I could find. Note that one of the co-authors is Dr. David Reardon, who is a known pro-lifer. Nevertheless, it presents field data and draws a conclusion, which is as "close to the metal" as I am able to come. A second study by a different group (which included Reardon) studied Psych admissions in California for women who had not had previous psych admissions, controlling for age and other factors. The study found significant increase in adjustment reactions and recurrent depressive psychoses. The study was published in the Canadian Med. Assn. Journal (May 2003) -- my wife has online access through WebMD, but the link doesn't work without a login.
By contrast, the widely-cited 1992 study "Abortion, childbearing, and women's well-being" by Russo, a known pro-choicer, found self-esteem went *up* among women who had exactly one abortion. I couldn't find the text of the study online.
Here's the point: on this issue, the lines were drawn before the studies were done. I don't know that genuine science is possible in that climate. As a result, discerning "information" from "propaganda" becomes very difficult -- we will trust the sources that "feel" right to us, which is precisely the opposite of the scientific method. Bah.
This is why I faulted the NARAL page for giving incomplete information. It completely glosses the issue of PAT as if it didn't exist. It does not provide the mother with sufficient information about the risks. Is the risk minimal? Fine: mention it, cite a percentage derived from some study, and move on. That's standard disclosure practice for ALL OTHER MEDICAL PROCEDURES, even outpatient ones. But NARAL sticks its head in the sand and pretends the risk isn't there.
3) How do I justify jumping from a single web page to "most abortion providers"? I'm not; it's an example. In my judgment, that page is representative of most abortion providers. I deliberately chose one which was not out of the mainstream. If you think my judgment was wrong, I invite you to survey the abortion provider materials and show instances of ones which discuss the risks in a non-dismissive way.
4) I agree that the "For men" section at rpcp.org was dumb. I was looking at their information on abortion for women. (and yes, we do have stairs in our house; and yes, my wife makes 1.5x my income).
5) It is important that you not put all pro-lifers in the same bin. There are idiots who are "pro-life", and there are chauvinists who are "pro-life"... but there are also well-educated people who genuinely see babies as people, regardless of their location with respect to a womb.
They would be delighted to solve all problem pregnancies with adoption, or the ultimate science-fiction solution, fetal transplants, if such could be performed. In fact, my own circle of friends has been involved with 8 adoptions, with more likely.
We have no interest in forcing women to be pregnant; we simply believe that the mother's body stops where the baby's body begins. To us, an unwanted pregnancy is identical to an unwanted born child. The parents still have rights and interests, but those rights and interests cannot be pursued to the extent of killing the child.
I have no knowledge of the Pearson Foundation. If identical to www.pearson.com, it looks like a commercial interest, which is unrepresentative of most pro-life organizations.
I have no wish to deny that all crisis pregnancy centers exist in order to provide alternatives to abortion. That's why they were created. Give a reason why that should be considered wicked.
I *do* deny that crisis pregnancy centers spread misinformation. The site I linked to above gave no examples of supposed misinformation. It did represent some unsubstantiated claims of women being "forced" to watch antiabortion videos (what, they were chained to the chairs?!), but no actual instances of misinformation. I can categorically say, from first-hand experience, that crisis pregnancy centers DO give medically accurate information about contraceptives. I've helped assemble some of those brochures, and they contained information about condoms, sponges, IUDs (this was in the 1980's), etc.
Look at these links: here and here and tell me where the misinformation is.
By contrast, most abortion clinics have a well-documented habit of providing misinformation. Here are some examples:
1) Most abortion providers deny or minimize the medical risks of abortion: potential sterility, death from infection, etc.
2) Abortion providers have loudly fought against having to provide information about alternatives to abortion.
3) Abortion providers deny or minimize the problem of post-abortion depression.
4) Abortion providers have fought in the courts to disallow crisis pregnancy centers the right to use ultrasound machines to show women their babies.
1) A chimera -- and most mothers have been shown to carry small amounts of genetic material from their children -- is a single organism. It is genetically human. It is also genetically distinct. Therefore, it counts as one person.
2) Even if true, it would not matter that most people would consider something crazy. As it turns out, however, most people do *not* consider it crazy. For example, the official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church is that a fertilized egg is in fact a person. Though not Catholic, I agree with them on that limited point. It is measurable, scientifically based, and unbiased with respect to the wishes of others.
Can you give a good reason not to accept that definition?
3) Vested interests aren't sinister and shadowy at all. They are simply interests that are non-negotiable and therefore distort the question at hand. They are interests which create bias in an ethical decision.
In this instance, a mother might decide that her baby is "not a person" not because she has a well-thought-through understanding of what it means to be a person, but because she has an absolute understanding of her "right to choose." An abortion provider might decide that fetuses are not people, not because of some objective measure of personhood, but because it is in his financial interest to so decide.
In other words, I'm appealing for a definition of person that is not subject to observer bias.
So what's the prize here? Clearly medieval scholars were split on the question of a round earth -- after all, Columbus thought he had found India. And, clearly the Bible itself admits of non-flat-earth explanations. And, clearly all people today (except for a vanishing minority of John Birch types) believe in a round(ish) earth.
So where's the argument? That because others in the past misinterpreted the Bible to fit preconceived notions that they picked up from the Greeks, that therefore... what? I don't get it.
What do you gain by telling Christians that they believe something that they don't actually believe?
As a teacher of high school students, I have to agree with most of your points.
However, because you submitted your post anonymously, you won't receive credit for it. If you wish to receive credit, please redo the assignment and place your name at the top right-hand corner as the the class guidelines require. Furthermore, you need to provide adequate footnotes and a bibliography, or you will be penalized for plagarism. In addition, you misspelled "supercede"...Blah, blah...
See above. I had Klinefelter's Syndrome in mind. And yes, I did choose an outrageous example on purpose. It hasn't been that long since being, for example, gay was considered to be a life not worth living. What if some similarly outrageous standard were applied to you?
Then you might want to check out the work done by volunteers, supported by donations, at places like crisis pregnancy centers. There's a lot of good work being done to support parents at every level of child-raising.
The interesting thing is that the money is out there, and the good will exists to help parents. Yet "pro-choice" organizations still produce counterfactual FUD like this. Why is that, do you think?
So this leads to the obvious and age-old questions:
1) Why should I be allowed to kill the child while in the womb, but forbidden to kill the child when out of the womb? What is the difference between a 23-week-old in the womb and a 23-week-old preemie such that the first is an appropriate target for D&C and the second is legally entitled to life support and hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical care? Somehow, the notion of "trying again" seems to stop once the baby is born -- but on no discernable gounds.
2) Why should the parents perspective be the only one that matters? The baby doesn't get to try again!
A) You're probably correct; I was thinking of Klinefelter syndrome (XXY) and giving it a common name. My bad.
C) The problem with the Blackjack analogy is that the value of the hand is the value that it gives to the holder. By contrast, the value of a human is assessed as his value to others (in this case, his parents), but rather his value as an autonomous agent -- his value to himself. People (defined: gentically human, genetically distinct, functioning organisms) are not cards to be held and played for our own advantage.
No, no; you miss the point of the argument. The argument is designed to expose the fallacy behind the claim that "this life is not worth living."
Suppose my wife and I have a medical test result which gives X% of a chance to have a child with autism -- no, that's too hard, since autism is a spectrum disease. Let's make it something genetically definite, like hermaphrodism -- are we then justified in deciding that "this life is not worth living", and killing off the baby?
To do so places us in the position of arguing from the probability of a problem to a definite, terminal solution: kill the baby. But other possibilities exist, even if the problem is as severe as projected.
The "would you have allowed (X person) to be born?" argument simply exposes the fallacy of arguing from a probability of lower quality of life to a definite conclusion: "terminate" the life.
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The context really matters here. If my boss sent me a quick e-mail saying, "Hey, I found a NULL pointer dereference in your device driver!" then I would thank him and fix it.
If same boss organized a conference and allowed SOMEONE ELSE to purposely expose my NULL pointer dereference by demonstrating that the mouse locks up or causes a seg fault or whatever, then I would feel that my boss was making a point: I'm an employee who is worth publicly humiliating.
I would find a new job.
Well, yes, she will. And her insurance company will pay the tab.
...and the machines run without administrator privileges. THAT's the real problem with security; a lot of users insist on running as Admin.
I'm not a fan of Aquinas's 5 Ways. But I agree that "What created God" is a silly question posing as profundity.
...
Aquinas is attempting to demonstrate that there must be an Unmoved Mover, or an Uncaused Causer. His arguments then lay out the case that either there is an infinitely long chain of causation extending into an infinite past, or else there was a first cause which itself was uncaused. He then labels the Uncaused Cause as "This we all understand to be God."
Asking what caused the Uncaused Cause is simply failing to understand the argument.
If, on the other hand, one wishes to simply deny the existence of anything uncaused, then it would probably be best to state it directly
Explain what you mean. I haven't noticed a huge style change between Gen. 1 - 12 and the other chapters, but I'm open to persuasion.
It sounds nice, but cite your sources. I find nothing in the church fathers to back up the claim that original Christianity thought of the Bible as "a moral argument expressed allegorically."
Instead, most saw the Bible as a story of God creating and saving His people. That story left room for allegorical elements, more for some of the early patristics (e.g., Origen) and less for others (e.g., John Chrysostem).
But NONE of them taught that the Bible was simply allegorical. I can't accept the claim that the "older, more enlightened conception of Christianity" saw the Bible as entirely allegorical. Do you have sources to back it up?
But of course, the point of TFA is that science *also* changes in response to someone's agenda...
So is religion, to an extent. The major point of the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura (i.e., that all doctrine is to be based upon Scripture alone) was to break the lock that Church tradition had on Biblical interpretation. The result was that anyone with a Bible could read for (gender-neutral) himself and and compare the church teachings to the original Biblical data.
... which explains why it has so many forks.
Hence, Protestantism is an open-source religion, so to speak
Fair 'nuff. But it's worth noting that the impetus for freedom of religion as outlined in the 1st Amendment was an outgrowth of both secular forces (embodied in Thomas Jefferson) and religious forces (embodied in John Adams). The Puritan experience of being under the thumb of "Bloody Mary" (Google for Fox's Book of Martyrs for graphic detail -- your friends would actually bring gunpowder to your burning, so that you could burn faster) contributed to the wording of the 1st Amendment.
My point is that it is too easy these days to say "religious BAD, secular GOOD", as if religion were the problem.
People are the problem. They want power, and they use any pretext to get it, including religion.
The reason that it matters is this: sometimes secular oppressive governments will come to power by flagellating religion as the evil power to be overthrown. This is precisely what happened in France during the Revolution, and it was part of what happened in the Bolshevik revolution as well.
It is really important that we keep our eye on the ball: Constitutionally guaranteed freedoms are the ticket to a just society. "Religion" and "Fundamentalism" are the red herrings du jour.
BTW, Prohibition and religious education in public schools were primarily a function of liberal Protestants. Conservative Protestants such as J. Gresham Machen opposed them.
Regards,
Jeff Cagle
I agree with the direction of your post; I don't like the PATRIOT act any more than you do.
... which meant that they were removed from a lot of the judicial excesses of the Middle Ages. You want to talk about disproportionate punishments? Try trial by combat. That was mainstream justice in the Middle Ages
But I think you should leave the Puritans out of this.
For one thing, they were 17th century, not 15th
For another thing, the Puritans had nothing on the Anglicans for harsh penalties. How about the death penalty for theft? It was common practice in Elizabethan England.
For another, the Witch Trials in Salem were chump change compared to the witch craze in Europe. The Salem Puritans hanged 17 for witchcraft, from Feb. 1692 till Jan. 1693, until the governor with the support of a prominent pastor (Increase Mather) put a stop to it. In Europe, between 15,000 and 60,000 women were BURNED AT THE STAKE for witchcraft. The Puritans were creatures of their times, but certainly no worse and probably a lot better.
No, grandparent is correct in making the distinction. It is exceedingly important to find substances and processes which are energy sources relative to us.
Relative to us, an energy storage device is something to which we supply energy in order to release it later. Batteries, fuel cells, capacitors all fall in this category.
Energy sources, OTOH, give out more energy than we put in. Gasoline, nuclear fission, and solar radiation fall in that category. Without sources, our lovely storage devices are worthless.
Relative to nature, of course, the distinction is meaningless; everything is simply a transfer of energy from one form to another.
Your point about chimeras is not your strongest. A chimera is a single organism.
The RCC is not presented as a proxy for most people; it is clearly labeled as an example of a lot of people. Other examples exist.
A 23-week preemie has none of the characteristics we associate with people: it can't survive without nutrients taken directly from a host's body (or imitation thereof, administered by a host), it can't communicate any thoughts or feelings, and from the medical evidence, there's no reason to believe it can even have thoughts or feelings. None of the freedoms listed in the Bill of Rights, for example, even make sense when applied to a 23-week preemie. Calling a 23-week preemie a person dilutes the concept of personhood to the point where it's almost meaningless.
So let's give the poor parents the benefit of the doubt and allow them to kill it.
I'm not going to go through the demonstration that the other definitions you propose are subject to observer bias. The dilligent student can supply the details, and can also link the mentioned vested interests to the types of bias that can be created.
The woman's right to kick occupiers out of her body is legit. But it isn't absolute. Why should it be? My right to free speech is legit -- but bounded by the rights of others not to be trampled when I yell "Fire!" The woman's body stops where the baby's body begins.
1) I found a lot of secondary sources about the Pearson foundation, but no primary source. That kind of info is pretty much worthless. And as I pointed out earlier, the Pearson Foundation is not representative of most CPCs. Moving on...
... but there are also well-educated people who genuinely see babies as people, regardless of their location with respect to a womb.
2) One of the problems in this debate is sorting out data from assertions.
For example, Googling on "Post Abortion Trauma" pulls up links with claims that range from "92% of women who abort experience PAT" (which I seriously doubt) to "there is no discernable evidence of PAT except in Catholic women, who had a lower self-esteem to begin with" (which is both a stupid claim and a cheap shot).
Here is the most recent study I could find. Note that one of the co-authors is Dr. David Reardon, who is a known pro-lifer. Nevertheless, it presents field data and draws a conclusion, which is as "close to the metal" as I am able to come. A second study by a different group (which included Reardon) studied Psych admissions in California for women who had not had previous psych admissions, controlling for age and other factors. The study found significant increase in adjustment reactions and recurrent depressive psychoses. The study was published in the Canadian Med. Assn. Journal (May 2003) -- my wife has online access through WebMD, but the link doesn't work without a login.
By contrast, the widely-cited 1992 study "Abortion, childbearing, and women's well-being" by Russo, a known pro-choicer, found self-esteem went *up* among women who had exactly one abortion. I couldn't find the text of the study online.
Here's the point: on this issue, the lines were drawn before the studies were done. I don't know that genuine science is possible in that climate. As a result, discerning "information" from "propaganda" becomes very difficult -- we will trust the sources that "feel" right to us, which is precisely the opposite of the scientific method. Bah.
This is why I faulted the NARAL page for giving incomplete information. It completely glosses the issue of PAT as if it didn't exist. It does not provide the mother with sufficient information about the risks. Is the risk minimal? Fine: mention it, cite a percentage derived from some study, and move on. That's standard disclosure practice for ALL OTHER MEDICAL PROCEDURES, even outpatient ones. But NARAL sticks its head in the sand and pretends the risk isn't there.
3) How do I justify jumping from a single web page to "most abortion providers"? I'm not; it's an example. In my judgment, that page is representative of most abortion providers. I deliberately chose one which was not out of the mainstream. If you think my judgment was wrong, I invite you to survey the abortion provider materials and show instances of ones which discuss the risks in a non-dismissive way.
4) I agree that the "For men" section at rpcp.org was dumb. I was looking at their information on abortion for women. (and yes, we do have stairs in our house; and yes, my wife makes 1.5x my income).
5) It is important that you not put all pro-lifers in the same bin. There are idiots who are "pro-life", and there are chauvinists who are "pro-life"
They would be delighted to solve all problem pregnancies with adoption, or the ultimate science-fiction solution, fetal transplants, if such could be performed. In fact, my own circle of friends has been involved with 8 adoptions, with more likely.
We have no interest in forcing women to be pregnant; we simply believe that the mother's body stops where the baby's body begins. To us, an unwanted pregnancy is identical to an unwanted born child. The parents still have rights and interests, but those rights and interests cannot be pursued to the extent of killing the child.
This issue is also very personal for me.
I have no knowledge of the Pearson Foundation. If identical to www.pearson.com, it looks like a commercial interest, which is unrepresentative of most pro-life organizations.
I have no wish to deny that all crisis pregnancy centers exist in order to provide alternatives to abortion. That's why they were created. Give a reason why that should be considered wicked.
I *do* deny that crisis pregnancy centers spread misinformation. The site I linked to above gave no examples of supposed misinformation. It did represent some unsubstantiated claims of women being "forced" to watch antiabortion videos (what, they were chained to the chairs?!), but no actual instances of misinformation. I can categorically say, from first-hand experience, that crisis pregnancy centers DO give medically accurate information about contraceptives. I've helped assemble some of those brochures, and they contained information about condoms, sponges, IUDs (this was in the 1980's), etc.
Look at these links: here and here and tell me where the misinformation is.
By contrast, most abortion clinics have a well-documented habit of providing misinformation. Here are some examples:
1) Most abortion providers deny or minimize the medical risks of abortion: potential sterility, death from infection, etc.
2) Abortion providers have loudly fought against having to provide information about alternatives to abortion.
3) Abortion providers deny or minimize the problem of post-abortion depression.
4) Abortion providers have fought in the courts to disallow crisis pregnancy centers the right to use ultrasound machines to show women their babies.
In short, abortion providers don't want information to be available.
Can you deny it?
1) A chimera -- and most mothers have been shown to carry small amounts of genetic material from their children -- is a single organism. It is genetically human. It is also genetically distinct. Therefore, it counts as one person.
2) Even if true, it would not matter that most people would consider something crazy. As it turns out, however, most people do *not* consider it crazy. For example, the official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church is that a fertilized egg is in fact a person. Though not Catholic, I agree with them on that limited point. It is measurable, scientifically based, and unbiased with respect to the wishes of others.
Can you give a good reason not to accept that definition?
3) Vested interests aren't sinister and shadowy at all. They are simply interests that are non-negotiable and therefore distort the question at hand. They are interests which create bias in an ethical decision.
In this instance, a mother might decide that her baby is "not a person" not because she has a well-thought-through understanding of what it means to be a person, but because she has an absolute understanding of her "right to choose." An abortion provider might decide that fetuses are not people, not because of some objective measure of personhood, but because it is in his financial interest to so decide.
In other words, I'm appealing for a definition of person that is not subject to observer bias.
So what's the prize here? Clearly medieval scholars were split on the question of a round earth -- after all, Columbus thought he had found India. And, clearly the Bible itself admits of non-flat-earth explanations. And, clearly all people today (except for a vanishing minority of John Birch types) believe in a round(ish) earth.
... what? I don't get it.
So where's the argument? That because others in the past misinterpreted the Bible to fit preconceived notions that they picked up from the Greeks, that therefore
What do you gain by telling Christians that they believe something that they don't actually believe?
The line that is least arbitrary and subject to abuse is this: a person is a genetically distinct, genetically human, functioning organism.
Any other definition is subject to abuse of power by those who have vested interests.
By the time you have the ability to test, the deed is done: the person has already been created.
As a teacher of high school students, I have to agree with most of your points.
...
However, because you submitted your post anonymously, you won't receive credit for it. If you wish to receive credit, please redo the assignment and place your name at the top right-hand corner as the the class guidelines require. Furthermore, you need to provide adequate footnotes and a bibliography, or you will be penalized for plagarism. In addition, you misspelled "supercede"...Blah, blah
Whimsically,
Jeff Cagle
See above. I had Klinefelter's Syndrome in mind. And yes, I did choose an outrageous example on purpose. It hasn't been that long since being, for example, gay was considered to be a life not worth living. What if some similarly outrageous standard were applied to you?
Then you might want to check out the work done by volunteers, supported by donations, at places like crisis pregnancy centers. There's a lot of good work being done to support parents at every level of child-raising.
The interesting thing is that the money is out there, and the good will exists to help parents. Yet "pro-choice" organizations still produce counterfactual FUD like this. Why is that, do you think?
So this leads to the obvious and age-old questions:
1) Why should I be allowed to kill the child while in the womb, but forbidden to kill the child when out of the womb? What is the difference between a 23-week-old in the womb and a 23-week-old preemie such that the first is an appropriate target for D&C and the second is legally entitled to life support and hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical care? Somehow, the notion of "trying again" seems to stop once the baby is born -- but on no discernable gounds.
2) Why should the parents perspective be the only one that matters? The baby doesn't get to try again!
A) You're probably correct; I was thinking of Klinefelter syndrome (XXY) and giving it a common name. My bad.
C) The problem with the Blackjack analogy is that the value of the hand is the value that it gives to the holder. By contrast, the value of a human is assessed as his value to others (in this case, his parents), but rather his value as an autonomous agent -- his value to himself. People (defined: gentically human, genetically distinct, functioning organisms) are not cards to be held and played for our own advantage.
Regards,
Jeff Cagle
Source?
No, no; you miss the point of the argument. The argument is designed to expose the fallacy behind the claim that "this life is not worth living."
Suppose my wife and I have a medical test result which gives X% of a chance to have a child with autism -- no, that's too hard, since autism is a spectrum disease. Let's make it something genetically definite, like hermaphrodism -- are we then justified in deciding that "this life is not worth living", and killing off the baby?
To do so places us in the position of arguing from the probability of a problem to a definite, terminal solution: kill the baby. But other possibilities exist, even if the problem is as severe as projected.
The "would you have allowed (X person) to be born?" argument simply exposes the fallacy of arguing from a probability of lower quality of life to a definite conclusion: "terminate" the life.