The Atheist Obsession with Insulting Christians

[Ravenshire]

Hmm... Buzz....bee icon...Catholic... Hi, Randy!

Did you see this?
Joined: 28th January 2014

He's been around a lot longer than the Randy cathy-lick.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

Hmm... Buzz....bee icon...Catholic... Hi, Randy!

Did you see this?
Joined: 28th January 2014

He's been around a lot longer than the Randy cathy-lick.

Just seemed a bit coincidental, given style of post and the details of profile.

It's almost worse if this is a different person!

[The Valkyrie]

[Esquilax]

The development of an infant within one's womb reveals the reality of the said infant developing into a fully formed human being. The future does contain people; its not an assumption, but a fact.

Certainly, but the point I was making was that our assumptions of the future don't pertain to any specific individual person, just the fact that there will be people in the future, which itself is not a certainty; we could all be wiped out tomorrow by a previously unseen meteor, after all.

What is a person? A person is simply an individual. All sentient lifeforms are individuals.

And a fetus without a brain is not sentient. Case closed.

Who cares if the unborn don't have fully functional brains?

I do, for the same reasons that I care whether a person is brain dead or not. A fetus and a brain dead human are practically the same, just approaching the same state from opposite angles; I don't care about terminating a fetus because there's no person in there to terminate, and I don't care about euthanizing a brain dead human because there's no person in there either. What I care about is consciousness, not simply the mechanical processes of keeping a body alive. You know, the valuable part of a human.

 They will develop their brains, and the other functions, in time.

So do sperm. Therefore, all sperm should be expended in a fertile womb, regardless of the consent of the women involved. Your argument leads to clearly illegal acts, and thus you're reduced to applying it inconsistently. Wrong again.

Fetuses are still fundamentally human: they have the human nature, appearance, etc. They therefore should be treated as such.

Who cares about a human appearance? Corpses have a human appearance, I don't see you valiantly fighting for their lives.

It does not matter if the fetus lacks the capacity to think (brain). We know in certainty that it has the human nature, and that it will fully develop in a matter of months, so we might as well treat it as human.

As Losty has already explained, even if you want to treat it as a human, that doesn't confer upon it the right to commandeer another human body as a host vessel to prolong its life. If any other human hooked themselves up to a woman without her consent to feed off of her organs to keep themselves alive you would consider that insane, and them criminals. You're trying to grant special rights to fetuses, and therein lies the problem.

And again, you run afoul of the fact that a sperm can also fully develop into a conscious human in a matter of months, therefore we must allow rape (aka: the use of a woman's body without her consent, which is exactly what we're talking about with abortion) to ensure that every sperm produced has that opportunity.

"If personhood is determined by one's current capacities, then someone who is unconscious or could be killed because he is not demonstrating superior intellect and skills. “But give the man time and he'll be able to function as a person.” Give the baby time and so will she."

"Current capacities," is a strawman. The issue isn't one of capacity, it's one of consciousness. A sleeping person has an established consciousness that persists even when they are unconscious, there is a real mind in there that would be terminated if you were to kill them. A fetus has no established consciousness and the fact that they might develop one in future (though this isn't assured like the pro-forced birth side wants to lie about) is irrelevant to the actual objection being made. I'm so tired of hearing this same insipid refrain from you jokers; you act like you've made some profound point but all you've demonstrated is that you either haven't been listening or have no understanding of what you're being told.

Since the fetus is a human being, it naturally has access to human rights, despite its facilitates not being fully developed.

No human right exists to force another person into medical slavery to prolong your own life. A fetus given full human rights should be extracted from the woman gestating it just as a man forcing a woman to act as a dialysis machine for him should be. Hell, we can even go more literal, because if a real grown human tried to crawl up into a strange woman's vagina against her wishes, you sure wouldn't be arguing that he has a human right to do so.

Does it bother you that literally every argument the pro-forced birth side makes is either a blatantly flawed analogy or a hugely, probably willfully misunderstood strawman of an opposing position?

[loganonekenobi]

Ah the abortion issue is always full of fun and excitement. I did some looking around and found that the catholic church does indeed do a lot for the poor children of the world.

there are a number of charities for helping the poor including impoverished children and that's good.

But i want you to remember what your Jesus said

Mark 10: 21 something about selling everything and giving to the poor.

the Catholic church has NOT done this.

http://humansarefree.com/2012/03/christi...ancial.htm

By this estimate they could end hunger altogether but the pope still sits on a golden throne.

So by this example I'm not convinced that the church is that concerned about children born or not.

I believe that you are (those common Catholics that fight abortion rights). Honestly I truly think that you are really concerned with the welfare of the unborn baby.
It's easy to win sympathy for babies and if you left the pope out of you decision to protest I might sympathies with you however.....

to the popes it's not about right or wrong it's about control.

What happens if you overturn Roe vrs Wade? The catholics say "yay! God wins".

What do you think will happen next. Pope says to his flock of over a billion "okay now that everyone is forced out of the choice of abortion now its time to work on contraceptives."

then again "yay! God wins" . "okay now that contraceptives are no longer available we can work on premarital sex." "Yay! God wins."

"Next we can take a crack at having sex at all unless its for procreation."

"yay! God wins again." "Finally my children we can strike down any position other than the missionary position in which to have sex."

"...and remember children homosexuality is an abomination since it does not reproduce so now the homo's have to go back into the closet to live miserable lives as God has intended for their punishment."


"also lets not forget how BAD masturbation is and how the God that created this vast and wonderful universe hates masturbation."

Now your genitals are in the hands of the church but hey at least YOUR genitals are of age to be handled.

[robvalue]

I'm impressed that, for the most part, this difficult issue has had a sensible discussion.

I'd like to point out that nobody (sane) thinks abortion is great and that there are no issues involved. People who are pro choice recognise that there are two options, neither of which are "good" options. Either you force a woman to give birth to a child she does not want, or you allow the pregnancy to be terminated. I doubt anyone would argue that either of these are "good" scenarios. It's about which is least bad. Personally I think allowing women control of their own bodies and making this decision themselves is the least bad option. [EDIT: I've worded this really badly but hopefully I've cleared up what I actually meant in the following posts.]

Regardless of when the thing arbitrarily starts receiving "rights", the world is already grossly overpopulated, including thousands (probably hundreds of thousands) of unwanted or orphaned children. I don't understand why people think it's important to put yet another one on the pile, while the world clearly can't cope with all the ones it already has.

I just don't agree randomly having children is always in the children's best interest. Since they haven't actually even started life yet, why not wait until there's a situation where one is wanted? If people really thought every child born was unambiguously a good thing, they would be having them constantly, and as many as possible. It's really not that simple. Also, every new person in a crowded population impacts every other person already there, to some degree.

[Losty]

I disagree that abortion is a bad option. I don't think it should be taboo or stigmatized in a way that means women who want or need one will be pressed by society to feel guilty over something they have every right to do. Something that isn't bad or wrong.

[Losty]

Pretty sure I am sane but I can't guarantee it.

[Minimalist]

All sentient lifeforms are individuals.

But not every individual is a sentient lifeform.

[robvalue]

I disagree that abortion is a bad option. I don't think it should be taboo or stigmatized in a way that means women who want or need one will be pressed by society to feel guilty over something they have every right to do. Something that isn't bad or wrong.

I'm sorry, I probably didn't word it very well. I mean from the point of view of the procedure, it's not a nice thing to happen. It's horrible for the woman. It's not something they would choose to do if it wasn't necessary. It's bad in that way, and also because of the emotional distress.

I'm totally pro choice, I don't mean to stigmatise it at all. I was trying to counter the view that pro choice people think the act of abortion itself is great. I didn't mean it's bad as in wrong.