Atheists, the death penalty and abortion...

[catfish]

@ catfudz

Are you advocating that the baptism/ naming ceremonies of the religions of this world are to be abolished because YOU decree that a clump of cells is a human BEING?

Well, you grumpy "Old C.U.N.T.", what the fuck does baptism have to do with extinguishing human life intentionally?

Have you ever looked into "human stem cells"? Have you any biology knowledge at all? Any evolution knowledge? Or as Nora suspects you are just being a troll, and an uneducated one at that?

Oh? Have I been incorrect in some scientific way?

Do you masturbate? As I have intimated... (and I am not going searching for the statistics right this minute) ejaculation releases trillions of sperm ...ALL doomed to die. So this loss of life (in potentia) will stop you from having sex or having the midnight "wet dreams"?

You obviously don't understand the human reproductive cycle.

[EGross]

Let's say that you have an embryo is it human? Does it have a soul? This is one of the religious arguments that I have often heard. So what happens when it splits in half? Do you end up with 2 souls since you have 2 "humans"? And what happens if, later the split come together (known as a Chimera), does on of those souls get tossed away, since you have gone from 2 "humans" to one "human"? This entire argument of trying to assign humanity to something that is splitting and joining and is incomplete is not scientific, and is based on dogma more than reason.

[Joel]

Let's say that you have an embryo is it human? Does it have a soul? This is one of the religious arguments that I have often heard. So what happens when it splits in half? Do you end up with 2 souls since you have 2 "humans"? And what happens if, later the split come together (known as a Chimera), does on of those souls get tossed away, since you have gone from 2 "humans" to one "human"? This entire argument of trying to assign humanity to something that is splitting and joining and is incomplete is not scientific, and is based on dogma more than reason.

If one does not believe that souls exist, could they then call them 'human'?

[catfish]

Let's say that you have an embryo is it human? Does it have a soul? This is one of the religious arguments that I have often heard. So what happens when it splits in half? Do you end up with 2 souls since you have 2 "humans"? And what happens if, later the split come together (known as a Chimera), does on of those souls get tossed away, since you have gone from 2 "humans" to one "human"? This entire argument of trying to assign humanity to something that is splitting and joining and is incomplete is not scientific, and is based on dogma more than reason.

You are seriously the most religious atheist I have ever seen...

[The Grand Nudger]

Do you masturbate? As I have intimated... (and I am not going searching for the statistics right this minute) ejaculation releases trillions of sperm ...ALL doomed to die. So this loss of life (in potentia) will stop you from having sex or having the midnight "wet dreams"?

In defense of men the world over, at the worst, a wet dream would be involuntary manslaughter. Now those dirty fornicators, another story entirely. They have a clear history and the scope and frequency of their offenses is justifiable grounds for murder in the first. Perhaps we should even create an entirely new category of crime as I doubt that Pol Pot has anything on the teenage boys of the world on that count.

[catfish]

Do you masturbate? As I have intimated... (and I am not going searching for the statistics right this minute) ejaculation releases trillions of sperm ...ALL doomed to die. So this loss of life (in potentia) will stop you from having sex or having the midnight "wet dreams"?

In defense of men the world over, at the worst, a wet dream would be involuntary manslaughter. Now those dirty fornicators, another story entirely. They have a clear history and the scope and frequency of their offenses is justifiable grounds for murder in the first. Perhaps we should even create an entirely new category of crime as I doubt that Pol Pot has anything on the teenage boys of the world on that count.

Nah, they'd be safe from prosecution. You just get one of the dumbasses around here as a defense attorney, they'll dazzle them with bullshit and convince the jury that the human sperm were in fact, tadpoles. And if there are any blind jurors, they'll convince them that sperm doesn't exist, because after all, science classifies objects by appearances alone. /sarcasm

[Esquilax]

Doesn't this mean you respect consciousness and not life itself?

I respect life plenty, but I'm also aware of the fact that there are certain forms of life that we find acceptable to take. Nobody bats an eye if I eat a steak or crush a bug, after all. Given this, the important distinction is what makes human life more important to us. And that is, as you say, the consciousness; when a person dies, we mourn the loss of that person's mind, not their body.

And not putting significance in a zygote is like saying an apple is more important than the seed the started the tree. You can't ever have a "person" without first having a zygote, this goes for everyone.

Very true. But that raises its own questions: for one, where do we draw the line on this scale of what's a potential human versus what's just cellular tissue? You've clearly put it at the zygote stage, but someone else might disagree and say that sperm count there too, and they'd have just as much of a case to make, really. Not to mention, the human body discards the ingredients to make these zygotes like crazy; think of how many sperm and eggs the average person burns through without conception. Our own biology seems like it disagrees with you, in a sense.

But there's also this question of to what extent we allow the potential for life to override the rights of a currently living person. Especially given that, in the cases where this is likely to even be a question, that potential life would be born into a setting where its parents are either unwilling or unable to properly provide for it. You start hitting a lot of crazy grey areas once you start allowing conceptual life to dictate real world issues. My question to you is, where do you draw these lines, and why?

[KichigaiNeko]

Do you masturbate? As I have intimated... (and I am not going searching for the statistics right this minute) ejaculation releases trillions of sperm ...ALL doomed to die. So this loss of life (in potentia) will stop you from having sex or having the midnight "wet dreams"?

In defense of men the world over, at the worst, a wet dream would be involuntary manslaughter. Now those dirty fornicators, another story entirely. They have a clear history and the scope and frequency of their offenses is justifiable grounds for murder in the first. Perhaps we should even create an entirely new category of crime as I doubt that Pol Pot has anything on the teenage boys of the world on that count.

Rhythm ..you have been missed. How is mum and the newest member of the tribe??

[catfish]

Doesn't this mean you respect consciousness and not life itself?

I respect life plenty, but I'm also aware of the fact that there are certain forms of life that we find acceptable to take. Nobody bats an eye if I eat a steak or crush a bug, after all. Given this, the important distinction is what makes human life more important to us. And that is, as you say, the consciousness; when a person dies, we mourn the loss of that person's mind, not their body.

That's not always true. I know people who have mourned the loss of the body as their offspring had not developed a brain.
If you could hold a live, undeveloped fetus in your hands, could you crush it if you knew what it was?

And not putting significance in a zygote is like saying an apple is more important than the seed the started the tree. You can't ever have a "person" without first having a zygote, this goes for everyone.

Very true. But that raises its own questions: for one, where do we draw the line on this scale of what's a potential human versus what's just cellular tissue? You've clearly put it at the zygote stage, but someone else might disagree and say that sperm count there too, and they'd have just as much of a case to make, really. Not to mention, the human body discards the ingredients to make these zygotes like crazy; think of how many sperm and eggs the average person burns through without conception. Our own biology seems like it disagrees with you, in a sense.

You're muddling "potential human" with "potential person" again. A zygote/fetus is an individual human, a sperm/egg is a "potential" human.

But there's also this question of to what extent we allow the potential for life to override the rights of a currently living person. Especially given that, in the cases where this is likely to even be a question, that potential life would be born into a setting where its parents are either unwilling or unable to properly provide for it. You start hitting a lot of crazy grey areas once you start allowing conceptual life to dictate real world issues. My question to you is, where do you draw these lines, and why?

Here again, you describe life as "potential life". What we are talking about is already "life". You meant the potential for personhood, correct?

There is no line for me, I respect all individual human life.

[Esquilax]

That's not always true. I know people who have mourned the loss of the body as their offspring had not developed a brain.

I did think about this too. In this case, they would indeed be mourning the potential person that fetus would have become, having mentally prepared and imagined the arrival of such a being. We humans are emotional creatures, after all.

If you could hold a live, undeveloped fetus in your hands, could you crush it if you knew what it was?

My gut instinct says no, but then I would never purposefully extinguish any life without a reason to do so, least of all to prove a point. And I can't really pin down how much of that reaction is down to squeamishness anyway. But then, this isn't a question of what I would do, now is it?

You're muddling "potential human" with "potential person" again. A zygote/fetus is an individual human, a sperm/egg is a "potential" human.

Sure, that's the way you've chosen to define it, and that's fine. I guess the question should really be whether that zygote is alive enough to have an abortion be considered killing it.

Here again, you describe life as "potential life". What we are talking about is already "life". You meant the potential for personhood, correct?

Yeah, pretty much. I just don't see a zygote as having sufficient life to justify robbing an actually living person of their rights for.