[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
I chose not to decide, therefore I still have made a choice.
[/quote]
Did you mean to quote Rush’s Freewill?
Yep. Great song too. I am a Rush nerd.[/quote]
Tickets go on sale tomorrow for their Seattle show. 
[quote]confusion wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
The question is whether the destruction of the one is morally equivalent to the destruction of the other. If yes, then you shouldn’t be able to choose. If no, then you should. That’s it: nobody is suggesting that you make one choice over another.
[/quote]
I guess, but I don’t know.
I mean the question is putting people in an unwinnable position re: morals. You can’t actually answer the question and have any moral standing at all. So I’m not sure I take it as a decider of moral equivalents at all.
I guess is because I’m looking at it from a “realistic” rather than “principled” point of view. Life is full of a lot of things that put people in a “shades of gray” situation. [/quote]
I wonder if anyone “figures it out” using these types of thought experiments?
[/quote]
Depends what “figures it out” means. They help you think about it. But if they are approached realistically, rather than conceptually – as Beans touched on above – they only muddy the argument. So forget the thought experiment and think on the direct question, if that helps: Are the destruction of a one-minute-old embryo and a five-year-old girl morally equivalent?
^ And the question isn’t meant to lead: I think the answer is '“no,” but I don’t think “yes” is wrong. I’m think the answer is arrived at by way of intuition rather than reason, though reason can inform intuition.
I am no expert on morality,but I will say no. I will go another step and say,if someone really believed that aborting an embreyo or whatever would be equivalent to killing a 5 year old girl,they would NEVER allow it to happen. Does this mean that pro life people really DON’T believe abortion is murder? Probably. If people were being killed on the streets,and a law allowed it,we wouldn’t wait for the law to change. We would protect the lives of the threatened. This is the same sort of approach I use to people believing in god etc… if we really BELIEVED this stuff,we would live differently. Confusion
^^ Or, for that matter, whether destruction at 2 minutes is morally equivalent to that at 3 months. Again I say no.
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
^^ Or, for that matter, whether destruction at 2 minutes is morally equivalent to that at 3 months. Again I say no.[/quote]
How about 35 years or 75 years? Lol
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
^^ Or, for that matter, whether destruction at 2 minutes is morally equivalent to that at 3 months. Again I say no.[/quote]
In your mind what is the earliest age that it is morally equivalent?
Two minutes before birth?
Two minutes after?
In the 35th week of gestation?
When?[/quote]
I don’t know. I know it’s rare for someone to say they don’t know something in an abortion discussion, but there you have it. Before anybody tries to tell me I can’t not know, or that I’m copping out, understand that there are very complicated (and very old: see Aristotle, Plutarch, the scholastics) philosophical questions relating to identity and change, and that my not knowing is not a function of apathy or incuriosity. Understand further that my not knowing or not being able to identify the precise moment whereat A becomes B does not entail that A was always B.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
^^ Or, for that matter, whether destruction at 2 minutes is morally equivalent to that at 3 months. Again I say no.[/quote]
In your mind what is the earliest age that it is morally equivalent?
Two minutes before birth?
Two minutes after?
In the 35th week of gestation?
When?[/quote]
is.this murder?
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
^^ Or, for that matter, whether destruction at 2 minutes is morally equivalent to that at 3 months. Again I say no.[/quote]
In your mind what is the earliest age that it is morally equivalent?
Two minutes before birth?
Two minutes after?
In the 35th week of gestation?
When?[/quote]
Is it murder? What are.you doing to prevent it? Posting online? Grtting out on the streets and stopping it? Wbat do you think is.the answer?
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]smh_23 wrote:
^^ Or, for that matter, whether destruction at 2 minutes is morally equivalent to that at 3 months. Again I say no.[/quote]
In your mind what is the earliest age that it is morally equivalent?
Two minutes before birth?
Two minutes after?
In the 35th week of gestation?
When?[/quote]
I don’t know. I know it’s rare for someone to say they don’t know something in an abortion discussion, but there you have it. Before anybody tries to tell me I can’t not know, or that I’m copping out, understand that there are very complicated (and very old: see Aristotle, Plutarch, the scholastics) philosophical questions relating to identity and change, and that my not knowing is not a function of apathy or incuriosity. Understand further that my not knowing or not being able to identify the precise moment whereat A becomes B does not entail that A was always B.[/quote]
I agree with you for the most part. That’s the reason to be “better safe than sorry.”[/quote]
Mostly, in turn, agreed – which is exactly why I said I’d rather you set the policy than the staff of Salon (or the NYT, for that matter).
(She’s from out of town, guys. Really.)
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
I’m not sure if this is varq’s comment or kneedragger’s, but I wanted to point out that much of Mosaic law is not about “morality” as is generally understood today but rather ritual observance. For example, someone mentioned the hand washing stuff and described it as a “hygienic” practice. Whilst it may certainly have hygienic results it was intended as a “spiritual” cleaning as opposed to a physical cleaning.
Edited to fix quotes[/quote]
It was Varq’s.
The Mosaic law and the Levitical law are not exactly the same. You are correct though – the LL concerned much of itself with ceremony and civil matters and not necessarily morals.[/quote]
Good to know.
I’m sure that the male homosexual community will be thrilled to learn that the Levitical prohibition on “lying with a man as with a woman” was a ritual and ceremonial rule that only ever applied to ancient Israelites. Please let Fred Phelps know.
Not to mention the witches. I’m sure that misunderstanding about the “do not suffer a witch to live” thing was a bit of a concern. [/quote]
It’s condemned in the NT also. That doesn’t make Fred Phelps right, he’s an supreme asshole, who’s behavior is also condemned. I consider him an anti-Christian. He damages Christianity with his behavior. He leads his people down a dark path centralized on hatred and arrogance. He is a despicable creature worthy only of complete condemnation.
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
I’m not sure if this is varq’s comment or kneedragger’s, but I wanted to point out that much of Mosaic law is not about “morality” as is generally understood today but rather ritual observance. For example, someone mentioned the hand washing stuff and described it as a “hygienic” practice. Whilst it may certainly have hygienic results it was intended as a “spiritual” cleaning as opposed to a physical cleaning.
Edited to fix quotes[/quote]
It was Varq’s.
The Mosaic law and the Levitical law are not exactly the same. You are correct though – the LL concerned much of itself with ceremony and civil matters and not necessarily morals.[/quote]
Good to know.
I’m sure that the male homosexual community will be thrilled to learn that the Levitical prohibition on “lying with a man as with a woman” was a ritual and ceremonial rule that only ever applied to ancient Israelites. Please let Fred Phelps know.
Not to mention the witches. I’m sure that misunderstanding about the “do not suffer a witch to live” thing was a bit of a concern. [/quote]
It’s condemned in the NT also. That doesn’t make Fred Phelps right, he’s an supreme asshole, who’s behavior is also condemned. I consider him an anti-Christian. He damages Christianity with his behavior. He leads his people down a dark path centralized on hatred and arrogance. He is a despicable creature worthy only of complete condemnation.[/quote]
you know the dude died,right? Not to worry anymore
Fred Phelps was just a clown. His wasn’t even a pseudo-religion it was a sideshow circus desperately seeking media attention.
To help clarify this conversation, are you guys talking about biological life? Biological life happens the moment the sperm enters the egg. A person that has never before, and will never again exist is in the history of the world is embodied in that zygote.
What four traits define a human being? There are four traits that I will focus on. We all change size throughout the day. You are a different size after reading this sentence too. Our level of awareness changes as well. When we sleep, drive or we are tired, our awareness changes. We could be standing in the same room and our environments would all be different. As we go through life, we all depend on others and that will change throughout life. Use the acronym SLED to help you remember the four traits of Size, Level of awareness, Environment and Degree of dependency. Do you know the absolute best part? We ALL share those [i]exact same[/i] differences with the unborn.
As for the discussion about a soul, no test exists that would find the presence of a soul. At this moment how can you prove that there is a soul in any person? It cannot be tested for. However would it not be better to err on the side of caution and protect the unborn who contain the same exact traits as we do?
[quote]confusion wrote:
you know the dude died,right? Not to worry anymore[/quote]
Nope didn’t know that. I don’t pay that much attention to them. But now that I know, I don’t care. Fuck him and the Westboro’s. They are assholes.
[quote]kneedragger79 wrote:
To help clarify this conversation, are you guys talking about biological life? Biological life happens the moment the sperm enters the egg. A person that has never before, and will never again exist is in the history of the world is embodied in that zygote.
What four traits define a human being? There are four traits that I will focus on. We all change size throughout the day. You are a different size after reading this sentence too. Our level of awareness changes as well. When we sleep, drive or we are tired, our awareness changes. We could be standing in the same room and our environments would all be different. As we go through life, we all depend on others and that will change throughout life. Use the acronym SLED to help you remember the four traits of Size, Level of awareness, Environment and Degree of dependency. Do you know the absolute best part? We ALL share those [i]exact same[/i] differences with the unborn.
As for the discussion about a soul, no test exists that would find the presence of a soul. At this moment how can you prove that there is a soul in any person? It cannot be tested for. However would it not be better to err on the side of caution and protect the unborn who contain the same exact traits as we do?
[/quote]
The discussion of soul shouldn’t even really be a part of the conversation. It’s outside the point anyway.