Help with a Catholic

[Kayenneh]

This made me think of something. How come Catholics don't baptize zygotes? After all, if they are human, then they will go to hell if the woman has a miscarriage.

Not to mention every time she menstruates. Every egg cell has the POTENTIAL to become a human being, so why not baptize those lost too? Ah, sinful, wicked women, throwing babies away like that..

[Faith No More]

This made me think of something. How come Catholics don't baptize zygotes? After all, if they are human, then they will go to hell if the woman has a miscarriage.

Not to mention every time she menstruates. Every egg cell has the POTENTIAL to become a human being, so why not baptize those lost too? Ah, sinful, wicked women, throwing babies away like that..

That's nothing compared to us men. We waste millions of potential babies every time we get our rocks off.

[Kayenneh]

That's nothing compared to us men. We waste millions of potential babies every time we get our rocks off.

Yup. But it's always easier to blame women, isn't it?

[Faith No More]

Yup. But it's always easier to blame women, isn't it?

Isn't that why we have religion, to blame all of the world's problems on women?

[Anymouse]

On baptising foetuses: there were Catholics in the USA when a mother was in danger of losing a foetus to spontaneous abortion, who would actually do in utero baptisms, until the Church put a stop to it.

Rather than him coming after you to justify your position, turn the table and make him justify his. He is the one with the extraordinary claim (a deity) therefore he is the one who has to make the justification.

The best defence the atheist, agnostic, or pagan has against the Christian fundamentalist position is knowing the Bible better than they do. First, if you don't have one, get a New American Bible (the Catholic one as opposed to the abridged Protestant version), and get familiar with it.

Then on the question of morality: leave questions like abortion out of the issue. There are many non-Christians and non-religious that are opposed to abortion, too. Abortion is not a religious issue, it is a political one. Christians are just trying to claim the moral high ground.

If slavery is immoral, from whence comes the Book of Philemon? Paul had a real chance when setting down his epistles to eradicate the inequality between slaves and freemen, and men and women. Instead, he told women to be quiet in church and returned Philemon's slave. Ask him to justify this as moral. And keep asking the same question until he fails in defeat and admits it.

Is he a pro-death penalty person? God is quite clear in Exodus: You shall not kill. That is the justification for opposing abortion, it should also be the justification for opposing the death penalty. If he cannot justify both (if he supports the death penalty), you have shown him to be a hypocrite to his own holy book, and make sure he knows it. (This won't work if he is opposed to the death penalty as well as abortion.)

Rather than letting him batter you from his religious position, take control of the conversation, and make him justify his position. If the Bible is his justification, the more of it you throw at him, the more flummoxed he will become.

Many Christians have not actually read all the Bible, they just know what they've been told about the Bible. They love going through it tossing out quotes like John 3:14 as if the Bible is a telephone directory, looking up their favourite passages and only reading those.

But if the Bible is in fact the Scripture of their faith, then -all- of it is scripture. If he stands firm on one passage (abortion=murder due to "you shall not kill,") then either all of it is scripture, or he must explain to you why he is qualified to take what he says is God's final word and determine for himself what applies and what doesn't.

The best defence is a good offence, so they say. Take the fight to him, and make him justify his positions. As an atheist one does not have to justify the position of non-belief. You cannot really justify a lack of something anyway.

There are two good sources for information: forums like this one, and the Skeptic's Annotated Bible. http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/ It is broken out by verses, and also by subject matter (women, prayer, &c.). It also deals with the Koran and the Book of Mormon.

Hope this helps,
James.

[Hurny]

Hey thanks for these on topic replies! Regarding the sperm and eggs and potential humans deal, from what I have seen the whole case against abortion is more based on the fact that the sperm or egg by itself has the 23 (I think) chromosomes of the father or mother but at the time of conception the being that comes into existence has 46 chromosomes, half from each, and at that point its own unique genetic code distinct from the mother. So it is a whole different status then a sperm or egg on its own. I've been kind of thinking this over as I've been discussing it with him and while they say the point of conception is when the soul is created we at least would believe that at conception all the materials that this being is are brought together to make up that being. From the point of conception to the time of death the being doesn't receive anything new, it just develops more. So the only difference we can really point at is a difference of maturity. On this point at least I think I would have to agree with him, he had a pretty big list of supporting resources from medical science to back it up, for ex: "It is incorrect to say that biological data cannot be decisive...It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception." - Professor Micheline Matthews-Roth Harvard University Medical School.

As far as the different justifications go for abortions a few of his responses to me were, would you kill a born child in that situation? So would a mother kill a born child to help alleviate poverty or something?

Yeah the fetus is dependent upon the mother, it is dependent after birth too. He gave this example of people in an airplane. He says what if the pilot were to decide he didn't want passangers on his plane any more and just decided to crash the plane or order them to be shot. They depend on the pilot for safety but that gives him more responsibility he says not less.
He also used the recent example of the Chile miners, he says they were traped underground, relied on support from outside sources, had to be fed through a tube and had to be extracted through a tube, but we would never think of abandoning them much less killing them. It seemed a rather close comparison to abortion. Anyway I had some other thoughts on objective morality too but I'll have to get to those later I'm pretty short for time as of recent I've had a lot of extra work.

[The Grand Nudger]

Equating "soul" and a scientific definition on the moment that human life begins is hilarious. You have emotional responses to all situations described above, so does everyone else. The two of you should join a pro life lobby.

(I'm pro life and pro choice, chew on that fundy puppet.)

[Minimalist]

Judge tells Kansas to go fuck itself.

http://apnews.excite.com/article/2011080...FBGG0.html

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) - A federal judge ruled Monday that Planned Parenthood would likely succeed in overturning a new Kansas law that would deny the group access to federal family planning funding, saying he believes the law is unconstitutional and was intended to punish Planned Parenthood for advocating for abortion rights.

U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten granted Planned Parenthood of Kansas' request for a temporary injunction blocking the law, which would require the state to allocate federal family planning dollars first to public health departments and hospitals, and leave no money for Planned Parenthood or similar groups.