thordaddy
Posts: 486
Joined: Jan. 2006
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Hey Faid, let's see how "logical" Nike's arguments are?
| Quote | | First, though, we need some definitions. On the face of it, this question does not make much sense. What do we mean by "life" or "human life"? |
You and I and everything we were from the time of conception. Human life. Or, are you doubting yourself?
| Quote | | Because, life obviously does not begin at conception, but long before! |
Yes, "obviously!" That's why WE call it conception and without you are non-existent.
| Quote | | The fertilized zygote is a mating of two separate living gametes. Those gametes came from other living cells, through our parents, grandparents, and so on, all the way back through humans, other hominids, early mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish, etc., and eventually to the very first living forms that arose billions of years ago. |
Then that life has not died and you only have the illusion of independence. You are a mere conscious outgrowth of one very large and very old SINGLE ENTITY.
| Quote | | That is when life began; all life existing today has split from the original stock, including human life. |
This is when YOUR LIFE began? You are billions of years old and just look how perfectly time unraveled for you.
| Quote | | That is to say, there is no beginning of life when a sperm enters an ovum; the ovum changes into a zygote, but does not change from non-life to life. |
Yes, but sperm and egg are like tires and car. Unless they come together, what's the point?
| Quote | | The ovum was already alive, as was the sperm. The unfertilized ovum was already human, as was the sperm, although each contained only half the genetic material that adult human cells contain. |
Ok...what does this have to do with YOUR CONCEPTION? Were you really a human and alive before your conception?
| Quote | | Perhaps what the asker meant was, when does life become an individual human being, separate from its mother? But that merely begs the question, what is a human being? And one can define the term to fit whatever answer one wants. So if one wants to claim that life begins at conception, one might simply define a human being as the product of an ovum fertilized by a sperm. |
And the question is... Why wouldn't human life be defined by conception? I see no reason to believe that MY LIFE started anywhere other than AT MY CONCEPTION. Do you have strong evidence for deciding against YOUR LIFE beginning AT YOUR CONCEPTION?
| Quote | Some religious people believe that a human being begins when a soul comes down from heaven and implants into the ovum at the same moment as the sperm. The problem with this is that the soul cannot be observed, so this is purely a religious belief, which cannot be proven or disproven. There are, however, some logical problems with this belief.
It has long been known that two separate individual human beings can come from a single zygote. These are called identical twins. This raises the question of what happens to the soul? Does it also split? Or does a new soul come down from heaven? Or does one of the twins get the soul, and the other be soulless? For hundreds of years, it was commonly believed that the soul does not enter the body until later, so it is ironic that so many now insist that it happens at a particular moment before the zygote splits.
But now we also know that, not only can one zygote split into two, but two separate zygotes, each the product of an separate ovum and sperm with different DNA, can merge together and grow into a single individual, called a chimera, with different DNA in different parts of its body. This raises the question of what happens to both souls? Does the individual have two souls? Does one die? Does the soul not enter the body until later, as earlier thinkers believed? Or is there no such thing at all? |
What's up with the religious arguments?
| Quote | | While a case may be made for fetuses which have beating hearts and developed nervous systems to have some sort of rights, the same argument does not hold for undifferentiated clumps of cells, as zygotes are in the first couple weeks of pregnancy. |
What arbitrary bullcockey. That "undifferentiated clump of cells" was actually you at one time. If you didn't deserve "rights" then... then why do you deserve "rights" now? This is pure opinion based on nothing substantive.
| Quote | | The primary argument against terminating them is the religious one, that they have some invisible thing called a soul that means that they cannot be killed. (Unlike all those men, women and children we drop bombs on, etc.) Because of this dogma, we have opposition to "morning after" pills, therapeutic cloning, embryonic stem cell research, embryo reduction, in vitro reproduction, etc. |
The primary reason against killing YOUR ZYGOTE is that YOU WOULD BE DEAD. You seem perversely at ease with this?
| Quote | | The true answer to when an individual human being begins, is that it does not happen at any particular moment, but the embryo develops gradually into a person over time, with no clear demarcation, and it is really arbitrary when it gets labelled as a human being. |
Yes, and those who find justifications for abortion are all too content at keeping this sort of mindset. A mindset that says, "Ignorance is bliss."
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. There is perhaps evidence of a low-degree of consciousness? But this consciousness was ALREADY developing before birth and most likely started at conception. There is NO evidence to suggest ootherwise. Is there?
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