Excommunicate a Nun Today!

[orion]

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:

[quote]weby wrote:
radical christians?, i think the best thing is not to believe in religion[/quote]

let me know how that works out for you in the end . . .[/quote]

I will end for him the same way it ends for everyone else, without the desperate attempt to believe in fairy tales?

Death awaits us all, but some may choose no to wait on their knees praying to a God that does either does not listen or does not exist?

Man up, you are a hairless monkey on a piece of rock orbiting a ball of gas, make the best of it.

[MikeTheBear]

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:

Is it human? Depends on the age of the fetus…[/quote]

Ah, so close. You must claim it to be human. You’ve already acknowledged it is an organism (life), has it’s own genome (individual, distinguishable from both parents), but you’ve tripped up on the easiest part. Having accepted that it is an organism you must now accept that it is human, or you’ve trapped yourself into defending the idea that one organism sponataenously changes into another unique organism. A cat into a dog. A fish into a frog. A rabbit into a human. Of course the genome would tell it was no rabbit. The only answer is that the fetus is but one stage of development of the SAME individual human life/organism. The organism in question is human.[/quote]

Again you are basing your argument solely on the appearance of the body. As I explained in my post, my definition of what it means to be human transcends mere genetics and biology. Of course the genes that make up the human body will not create the body of a dog or cat. But until that human body develops the capacity to reason, all you have is a human body.

Why is this distinction so difficult for you? I’ve done a lot of estate planning documents and when it came time to make end of life decisions, every single one of my clients, without exception, chose the option of pulling the plug if they were ever in a vegetative state. Why do you suppose that is? Because they understood that without their higher brain functions, they were essentially dead regardless of whether their heart and lungs could still function on their own. I don’t understand why the Catholic Church has such a hard time distinguishing between higher and lower brain functions.

[MikeTheBear]

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:

[quote]weby wrote:
radical christians?, i think the best thing is not to believe in religion[/quote]

let me know how that works out for you in the end . . .[/quote]

I will end for him the same way it ends for everyone else, without the desperate attempt to believe in fairy tales?

Death awaits us all, but some may choose no to wait on their knees praying to a God that does either does not listen or does not exist?

Man up, you are a hairless monkey on a piece of rock orbiting a ball of gas, make the best of it.

[/quote]

Sir, I take offense to being called a monkey. I do not possess a tail. Therefore, I am more like an ape. Hairless ape, not hairless monkey, is the correct classification.

Everything else is correct.

[Sloth]

[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:

Is it human? Depends on the age of the fetus…[/quote]

Ah, so close. You must claim it to be human. You’ve already acknowledged it is an organism (life), has it’s own genome (individual, distinguishable from both parents), but you’ve tripped up on the easiest part. Having accepted that it is an organism you must now accept that it is human, or you’ve trapped yourself into defending the idea that one organism sponataenously changes into another unique organism. A cat into a dog. A fish into a frog. A rabbit into a human. Of course the genome would tell it was no rabbit. The only answer is that the fetus is but one stage of development of the SAME individual human life/organism. The organism in question is human.[/quote]

Again you are basing your argument solely on the appearance of the body. As I explained in my post, my definition of what it means to be human transcends mere genetics and biology. Of course the genes that make up the human body will not create the body of a dog or cat. But until that human body develops the capacity to reason, all you have is a human body.

Why is this distinction so difficult for you? I’ve done a lot of estate planning documents and when it came time to make end of life decisions, every single one of my clients, without exception, chose the option of pulling the plug if they were ever in a vegetative state. Why do you suppose that is? Because they understood that without their higher brain functions, they were essentially dead regardless of whether their heart and lungs could still function on their own. I don’t understand why the Catholic Church has such a hard time distinguishing between higher and lower brain functions.
[/quote]

Do you dispute that the organism in question is human? If the answer is yes, you do dispute it, will you provide the species?

[MikeTheBear]

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:

Is it human? Depends on the age of the fetus…[/quote]

Ah, so close. You must claim it to be human. You’ve already acknowledged it is an organism (life), has it’s own genome (individual, distinguishable from both parents), but you’ve tripped up on the easiest part. Having accepted that it is an organism you must now accept that it is human, or you’ve trapped yourself into defending the idea that one organism sponataenously changes into another unique organism. A cat into a dog. A fish into a frog. A rabbit into a human. Of course the genome would tell it was no rabbit. The only answer is that the fetus is but one stage of development of the SAME individual human life/organism. The organism in question is human.[/quote]

Again you are basing your argument solely on the appearance of the body. As I explained in my post, my definition of what it means to be human transcends mere genetics and biology. Of course the genes that make up the human body will not create the body of a dog or cat. But until that human body develops the capacity to reason, all you have is a human body.

Why is this distinction so difficult for you? I’ve done a lot of estate planning documents and when it came time to make end of life decisions, every single one of my clients, without exception, chose the option of pulling the plug if they were ever in a vegetative state. Why do you suppose that is? Because they understood that without their higher brain functions, they were essentially dead regardless of whether their heart and lungs could still function on their own. I don’t understand why the Catholic Church has such a hard time distinguishing between higher and lower brain functions.
[/quote]

Do you dispute that the organism in question is human? If the answer is yes, you do dispute it, will you provide the species?[/quote]

Okay I’ll play along. The organism in question is definitely of the specie homo sapien, which we call human. Next question.

[Sloth]

Puttting it all together, we’ve arrived on the same page! Abortion is the deliberate taking of an innocent and individual human life. We’ve come to an agreement!

[Sloth]

[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
Is it a life? Yes, no question that a fetus is living.[/quote]

Is it innocent? Yes.

The organism in question is definitely of the specie homo sapien, which we call human.

[MikeTheBear]

[quote]Sloth wrote:
Puttting it all together, we’ve arrived on the same page! Abortion is the deliberate taking of an innocent and individual human life. We’ve come to an agreement![/quote]

According to your concept of what makes an organism a human, pulling the plug on someone who is brain dead is also murder. Then again, the Catholics get all flustered about end of life decisions as well, so this is no surprise.

According to your concept, if someone suffering a hallucination comes after me with a knife, I half to be very careful as to how I defend myself so as not to cause the person’s death, even if that means I may die in the process. After all, assuming the person truly is hallucinating, he is “innocent” in that his intent to do me harm is not based on an evil thought but a mental illness. And if the guy happened to be 6’6" and 350 lbs., then I guess I’m out of luck. I just need to die.

[Sloth]

[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
According to your concept of what makes an organism a human…[/quote]

Before continuing, just to be clear, you’re no longer disputing the species of the organism found in the womb of the organism that is human, am I correct? You agree, it is human?

[MikeTheBear]

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
According to your concept of what makes an organism a human…[/quote]

Before continuing, just to be clear, you’re no longer disputing the species of the organism found in the womb of the organism that is human, am I correct? You agree, it is human?[/quote]

The species was never in dispute.

But again, if that’s all we’re going on, consider a child born with anencephaly. Here is a link to a Wikipedia entry, but I warn you, the pictures are depressing: Anencephaly - Wikipedia

Here is a summary of the condition:

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) describes the presentation of this condition as follows:
A baby born with anencephaly is usually blind, deaf, unconscious, and unable to feel pain. Although some individuals with anencephaly may be born with a main brain stem, the lack of a functioning cerebrum permanently rules out the possibility of ever gaining consciousness. Reflex actions such as breathing and responses to sound or touch occur.

What species is a child born with anencephaly? Clearly the child is human; it could not be anything else.

It also meets your other criteria: it is a unique individual, and it is innocent.

Based on this logic, anencephalic children must be kept alive at all costs. The fact that it lacks a neocortex is irrelevant. It is in the species homo sapien, therefore, it must be kept alive, regardless of costs or whether it is taking up space in the NICU that could go to another child who could gain consciousness.

[Sloth]

The child must not be deliberately killed and should be treated with human dignity (antiquated these days?) until it’s life has run it’s course. You could throw example after clinical example at me, but it’d just waste both of our time. You know the answer.

[Brother_Chris]

[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
You arrived at your decision because of emotion, it is not our fault that you thought of killing your daughter.[/quote]

I’m not sure where you took this from because I never EVER thought of killing my unborn child. However, if the pregnancy had come to that, whether or not we would have chosen to continue or to terminate, that decision would have been ours and ours alone. Not the government’s, not yours, not Sloth’s, not the Pope’s, and not the College of Cardinals. That’s my point. I disagree with the Catholic teaching that abortion is wrong even if the mother’s life is in danger. I do not believe the Pope is infallible, I do not believe that the Catholic Church is the final word on moral issues. If you want to follow the Catholic teaching that’s fine. But you have no right telling me what to do. I have left the Church and I no longer consider myself a Catholic. I am not bound by the Pope’s dictates.
[/quote]

So, what you are saying is, instead of giving the baby even a small chance by having a c-section, you would rather just kill the baby? You disagree with that?

Who said the Pope is infallible? I have not right to defend the innocent? That sounds a little absurd coming from someone who aligns himself with the libertarian movement.

Brother Chris wrote:And to assume Sloth, or me do not have families is ridiculous, how does being emotionally and biologically attached to someone change right from wrong?

You may be right. But here’s the thing and I already mentioned this - if my daughter were going through a life-threatening pregnancy and wanted to terminate the pregnancy to save her life, I think she should have every right to do so. It may be based on emotion, it may not be the right moral thing to do, but I really don’t care. I love my daughter more than anything and I would give up my own life to save hers. I think God, if there is one, would cut me some slack on this one.

Yes, at least you admit you base your argument on emotion, so there is no reason for me to continue this because emotion trumps logic in persuading someone. However, the generality of life-threatening pregnancy does not work very well, because there are several types so pick the one you wish to hear the humane way to deal with it instead of the all blanketing solution of killing an unborn child.

Your example of priests are void, go talk to the Anglican Rite and the Eastern Rite of the Catholic Church, almost all those priests are married. All hold the same views, they do not hold some different view on it. I doubt you understand the teachings of the Church since they are far more advanced than secular teachings, and not barbaric as you portray them.

I’ve read many of the Church’s teachings. I think they were written by a bunch of celibate old men sitting in an ivory tower. I do not think that they are grounded in reality.

What? A side of ad hominem please, for the “ivory tower” people. So, what does being celibate, old, masculine or sitting in an ivory tower have to do with making a logical statement about killing an unborn child? And the arguments I have presented in this thread do not come from the Catholic Church, I however am Catholic. Me being Catholic has nothing to do with my seeing abortion as wrong, I have seen how it was wrong since I was 6 years old.

Yes, I do have a family, yes I have dealt with difficult pregnancies, I have dealt with over three hundred, I have dealt with a few of my own, what is your point?

Are you married and do you have kids? If yes, then fine, we can talk. If not, the conversation stops here. Friends, brothers, sisters, nieces, and nephews don’t count. All I know is that something happened to me when I became a father. Unless you are a father yourself, you cannot comprehend this.

Ad Hominem. Doesn’t matter if I am a father or not, a good argument is a good argument.

[Brother_Chris]

[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:

Is it human? Depends on the age of the fetus…[/quote]

Ah, so close. You must claim it to be human. You’ve already acknowledged it is an organism (life), has it’s own genome (individual, distinguishable from both parents), but you’ve tripped up on the easiest part. Having accepted that it is an organism you must now accept that it is human, or you’ve trapped yourself into defending the idea that one organism sponataenously changes into another unique organism. A cat into a dog. A fish into a frog. A rabbit into a human. Of course the genome would tell it was no rabbit. The only answer is that the fetus is but one stage of development of the SAME individual human life/organism. The organism in question is human.[/quote]

Again you are basing your argument solely on the appearance of the body. As I explained in my post, my definition of what it means to be human transcends mere genetics and biology. Of course the genes that make up the human body will not create the body of a dog or cat. But until that human body develops the capacity to reason, all you have is a human body.
[/quote]

No your definition is not what a human is. I have met a few mentally handicap people who lack the ability to reason or lack the ability to show evidence they have the ability to reason, so they are just a human body and it would be okay to kill them right? When is it apparent someone has the ability to reason? Maybe 2-3 years? So, because a baby out of the womb shows no sign of the ability to reason and a 9 year old who has the basics of reason down the new born is okay to be killed, but not the 9 year old?

[/quote]
Why is this distinction so difficult for you? I’ve done a lot of estate planning documents and when it came time to make end of life decisions, every single one of my clients, without exception, chose the option of pulling the plug if they were ever in a vegetative state. Why do you suppose that is? Because they understood that without their higher brain functions, they were essentially dead regardless of whether their heart and lungs could still function on their own. I don’t understand why the Catholic Church has such a hard time distinguishing between higher and lower brain functions.
[/quote]

Why is the distinction difficult for you to understand, those people that ask for the plug to be pulled have a voice, a new born baby does not. See the difference, one chooses to not be resuscitated, the other one hasn’t been given the chance.

[Makavali]

[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
According to your concept of what makes an organism a human…[/quote]

Before continuing, just to be clear, you’re no longer disputing the species of the organism found in the womb of the organism that is human, am I correct? You agree, it is human?[/quote]

The species was never in dispute.

But again, if that’s all we’re going on, consider a child born with anencephaly. Here is a link to a Wikipedia entry, but I warn you, the pictures are depressing: Anencephaly - Wikipedia

Here is a summary of the condition:

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) describes the presentation of this condition as follows:
A baby born with anencephaly is usually blind, deaf, unconscious, and unable to feel pain. Although some individuals with anencephaly may be born with a main brain stem, the lack of a functioning cerebrum permanently rules out the possibility of ever gaining consciousness. Reflex actions such as breathing and responses to sound or touch occur.

What species is a child born with anencephaly? Clearly the child is human; it could not be anything else.

It also meets your other criteria: it is a unique individual, and it is innocent.

Based on this logic, anencephalic children must be kept alive at all costs. The fact that it lacks a neocortex is irrelevant. It is in the species homo sapien, therefore, it must be kept alive, regardless of costs or whether it is taking up space in the NICU that could go to another child who could gain consciousness.[/quote]

What Sloth is doing is drawing you into his fairy tale world where there are unlimited resources and we can afford to keep a creature with no brain or semblance of consciousness alive without doing it at the expense of those who actually have a chance.

Oh, inb4 ad hominem about abortion being used as contraception. We all know Sloth is dying to say it.

[Sloth]

[quote]Makavali wrote:
What Sloth is doing is drawing you into his fairy tale world where there are unlimited resources and we can afford to keep a creature with no brain or semblance of consciousness alive without doing it at the expense of those who actually have a chance.
[/quote]

Outside of warmth, nourishment, and cleanliness what are you talking about? These children usually die within days, sometimes mere hours. Most are still-born. What, are you imagining babies backed up in the halls waiting for the “creature” to die?

What of those born today, Mak? Shall we have you waiting in the back alley behind the hospital, standing before a mound of tiny corpses, dressed in bloody apron and mask, gory ball peen hammer in hand, ready–for the sake of our resources–to speed things up a bit? Look at what you’ve just suggested, and you dare criticize my faith? “…to keep a creature…” Ah, how far we’ve fallen.

[Makavali]

[quote]Sloth wrote:
“…to keep a creature…”[/quote]

What did you think a human was?

[Sloth]

On a broader note, concerning the topic of abortion…

“…The Department of Health figures for 2009 show that, for the first time, more than a third (34 per cent) of abortions were performed on women who had already ended one or more pregnancies…”

“…The statistics follow controversy last month about Britain’s first television advertisement for abortion services…”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/women_shealth/7823317/Dozens-of-teenage-girls-have-had-three-abortions-or-more.html

[IrishSteel]

[quote]Makavali wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:
“…to keep a creature…”[/quote]

What did you think a human was?[/quote]

do you need help with the basics still?

[Makavali]

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:

[quote]Makavali wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:
“…to keep a creature…”[/quote]

What did you think a human was?[/quote]

do you need help with the basics still?[/quote]

A creature is a living organism. The term is derived from the widespread historical belief that all such things were created, as by a deity or deities, but scientific evidence supports all living creatures are related. The word is generally used to refer to non-human animals but does include humans.

Yawn.

[Sloth]

[quote]Makavali wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:
“…to keep a creature…”[/quote]

What did you think a human was?[/quote]

Something we don’t suggest should be killed due to some gobbledy-gook argument (unlimited resources!). Creature also has a negative connotation associated with it, and within the context of your response…