Quote:
Originally Posted by tisonlyi
Latenter:Ok, so, before you even look at the evidence, you presuppose the existence of souls and that at some unseen and unexplained point, through some unseen and unexplained means, these unseen and unexplained souls are imparted upon a freshly fused set of gametes, and it's this unseen and unexplained soul imparting at this particular point that you've chosen in the absence of observation, measurement and means that justifies your special pleading for the cluster of cells that current society says it's perfectly fine to dispose of.
To sum up, your argument goes like this:
There is something material with things happening that obey the laws of nature, THEN A MIRACLE HAPPENS THAT YOU CAN'T SEE OR MEASURE, and then we have a new entity that must be treated in accordance with my set of baseless beliefs, simply because I assert that the miracle happened and other people think the same way.
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So, to the point of honesty. If you want to use supernatural/religious beliefs (the existence of souls is a religious belief) to justify a position, then use the language of the supernatural/religion to do that. If you want to use materialist/scientific/empirical arguments to justify a position, then keep unseen, ill-defined, immeasureable ideas out of your thinking and reasoning.
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That position, where foetuses start to gain rights, judging from my look at the evidence, starts at around 24-26 weeks. Up to that point, the woman has 100% rights to do whatever she wants.
You don't like me attacking your position? Tough luck.
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GAH! This post is the same as your last. I think you skimmed mine again. I'M NOT ARGUING ABOUT SOULS! Yes, as a human being, I am biased toward humans. I don't claim not to be. The same way that I would be biased in favor of my favorite sports team, or my company in a negotiation, or my country in a war. You can claim to follow cold hard materialism, throw out all the rules, reevaluate everything society has decided. Fine. That's your stance. Not everyone agrees.
You mention sentience. How is that defined, exactly? Is there a pass/fail test for people who are near that line? If someone's suffered brain damage, but is still partially awake, could a man who can eat and look around maybe even recognize people be classified as non-sentient for otherwise lacking certain characteristics? It's a concept, not a definition.
I haven't mentioned religion once. I mentioned souls as a way to describe an innate value of human life that we don't apply to animals. You can disagree, but it's disagreement with the value I put on life, not that I'm a psycho-moonie-crazy person.
I'm fine with you attacking my argument, but you're not. You're creating a straw man and saying that's my argument. You've made your point, I've made mine, neither of us is changing our minds based on what the other has said. I think I'm done debating these points.