Summations Only

Well Jar, I didn't miss it. But you seem to have. The above is only a portion of the statement of yours that I responded to. Here is a quote of the statement in your message that I was replying to, as it is found within its context. The parts that I have italicized are the portions that you conveniently have omitted above, and are they that make my interpretation accurate and NOT at all a misrepresentation of you.

quote:

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If you want to make the issue one of personhood. Personhood involves several things, one is being an individual. As long as the thing under discussion is simply a growth attached to the mother, it is not a person. There is no ere on the side of safety except when considering the mother.

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Clearly in this context you stated that person hood involves several things, ONE OF WHICH IS "BEING AN INDIVIDUAL." The main topic and sentence structure of the very next line was how the thing being discussed was still attached to the mother. Since the sentence structure did not focus on "the thing" being known to only be a growth, and since the main topic was on determining when the thing becomes a person, common sense would lead anyone to interpret that you were implying connection to the mother as being the disqualifyer for personhood.

Lol. Isn't it?However in all fairness I qualified my discussion terms in post #28 to avoid such trappings.

Howevr since the opening posts was questioning when human life begins, which was framed around the abortion issue, isn't it only logical that within the context of the actual topic, abortion will need to be discussed to some degree?

I just pointed out that we can not determine this. We know that scientifically the new human individual begins to form from conception on. But where in there can we draw the line and say "This is exactly when person hood happens?" It's really impossible to pin point.Let's say for argument sake (and I'm not at all saying I agree with this) but let's just say... "No brain... No person." So even if we all went with this idea we would still be having this same debate. That's because just like the entire development process, the brain doesn't just form in an instant. It forms slowly as well. So then, the only thing that would change is, we would be arguing over how much of the brain need to have developed before it becomes a person. Or if we all agreed that person hood starts when there is measurable brain waves... Even with everyone in agreement with that concept, what happens in the future when we have more sophisticated equipment that is able to detect brain waves much earlier? Are we going to move the stage of person hood back even earlier, and then just look at all those persons we disposed of because of the older equipment, and just say... "OOPS."??My whole point here is this. We are like a bunch of sleepy bumbling idiots stumbling around in a darkened room with a loaded shot gun, ready to blast away at any noise we hear. The problem is we also have children living in the house. I just think its time for the "Shoot first and ask questions later," mentality to end. We have real lives at stake here so we better know what the hell we are shooting at!

Look!!! I get it friend. Even though your statements clearly implied that criteria for person hood should be based on attachment to the mother, you want to clarify now that you meant if it is only a growth and not a person. I agree. YES! "Something that is not a person doesn't have person hood." I have no idea why you would feel the need to state the obvious, but I agree with you.Happy now?

Actually for those of us who have faith in God and the Bible, I think this is also a fitting part of this thread. That's because in a discussion about person hood (see post #28) people of faith want to consider when does the soul enter the body? For people of faith this would be the moment that it becomes a person. However I am not aware of any scriptural basis one can use to establish when exactly the soul enters the body. The only place I know where it describes this is in Genesis 2:7 where it tells us: Some have attempted to use this passage to claim that person hood doesn't happen until the first breath is taken. However the problem with this is there are other passages in scripture that make references to persons while they are still in the womb. There is no place in scripture that tells us exactly when the soul enters the body. Or there may be another theological answer to this dilemma that you haven't considered. Within the construct of your own equation you are allowing for the possibility of an infinite, omnipotent, and omniscient God. This would mean that such a being would have the foreknowledge to know which "zygotes" He has chosen to mature to person hood and only those would receive a soul. This of course would theologically mean that only God with his omniscient knowledge would have the right to terminate a zygote before it matures.

Well in keeping true with the analogy we must at least allow for the possibility for kids to be present. But of course no analogy could be perfect here because we are talking about the development of a person. Bottom line though, there isn't any scientific way to determine personhood in a developing fetus, and therefore the notion that an absent or undeveloped brain should be the qualifier... that's only personal opinion. And nothing good ever came out of deciding fate based on that alone.

Well gee... with that kind of logic then Peterson could have justified murdering his wife and unborn child by saying that God foreknew the murder, and therefore didn't give his wife a soul either.

Listen to what you are saying here. You are trying to say you can determine when personhood begins by the presence of persona. That's like saying a corn plant becomes a corn plant when it produces corn. That's an over statement of the obvious.Of course it will be a person after there is presence of persona. But what we want to figure out is just exactly when does this take place? Can we truly define personhood this way? You can't decide personhood based upon its level of development, because whatever level you choose will ultimately only be an opinion.

What part of "We don't know cause God didn't tell us," don't you understand? We only know that somewhere between conception and birth it becomes a person with a soul. The details belong to God alone.

It doesn't bother me in the least. I have examined it quite thoroughly in the past. To answer it I must go off topic and get into a whole debate on theology and I don't think anyone wants that here. Suffice to say, an omniscient God knows the moment of every "persons" death, rather in the womb or in the retirement home and He does everything according to His will... not yours or mine.

Wow... thank you. That was well stated. I couldn't have said it any better.

Again I am not too sure that I am comfortable with linking personhood to persona and making the two synonymous. When we refer to someones "persona" we are normally referring to those qualities you mentioned that describe personality. However when we refer to person hood, we aren't describing personality so much as we are describing just the general concept of a whole human being presence. And there are plenty of cases we could cite where that presence was there when the persona was completely out to lunch (so to speak). Well here's the thing. Have you ever considered the fact that men typically don't really bond with their children like women do, until they become toddlers. I forget the term for this but it is attributed to our ability to directly interact with the child. The mother has been in a way, "interacting" prior to birth feeling it move within her etc.., where the father can't experience real interaction until better motor skills develop and they can play. (Note I'm not talking here about love. I'm talking about bonding.) And when a child is still-born, the father can feel great grief and sadness but it isn't the same as the mother is feeling because she actually had those interacting experiences that the man didn't get.The point I am driving at here is that our sense of loss is directly tied to our personal experiences and interactions we have had with a person. That's why parents will destroy an ER waiting room at the news of the death of their older child, while only morn an early miscarriage of a baby with a few tears. This "interaction" may make us feel closer to a person but it is dangerous to allow it to play a roll in deciding person-"hood." Your comment above speaks directly to this line of reasoning in that, because the components are not developed to a point where you can "feel" that empathy, you want to use that as a criteria for establishing personhood. And I will be the first to admit that I may not "feel" any empathy for a zygote that hasn't even developed a brain. However it is not scientific at all to base personhood on how I or you or anyone feels about something. Don't get me wrong here, I totally get why your knee-jerk response to this argument is to say that. I really do. And this takes me back to the story I described in post 28 with the cop that chased the armed assailant into the construction area. Probably 99% of the time that plastic port-a-potty he hid behind is empty. But when it comes to taking a shot, the cop can't just be 99% sure that there's no person in there. He has to be 100% sure. And I think on this issue we do to.

I'm sorry you feel that way but you wanted to discuss the theology of when the soul enters the body. If "theologically" the Bible doesn't tell us when that is, then the "only God knows" answer is the correct one.

And you may be right. My point is that "pretty sure" is not the same thing as "100% sure." And I don't know how you feel, but I believe that the sanctity of human life is far too precious just be "pretty sure." No I meant nothing of the sort. I was simply trying to convey how interaction promotes bonding and how bonding in other cases makes empathy possible. I can't have any meaningful interaction with a housefly because it is a creature far to foreign to me, so no bonding can ever take place. That means I have no empathy for a housefly and so I have no problem swatting it without giving the matter a seconds thought. However I don't decide a houseflies "person-hood" based on my empathy or lack there of. I decide based on the scientific fact that it is an entirely different species than me. I decide its fate because it is one that poses a health threat to me and my family. Serial killers lack the ability to empathize with their victims and therefore have no more problem with torturing and killing them then I do swatting a fly. And that was the point I was trying to make. We can't allow our lack of ability to empathize with an undeveloped fetus to cloud our decision on personhood. There is no doubt in my mind that much of the pro-life group do exactly as you say. Much of what the pro-lifers say is nothing but ridiculous rhetoric. There is a lot of peer pressure to spew that crap, and many who do, have never really sat down and thought through the issue.But I once read a very good article written by the late Dr. Carl Sagan that changed my mind. Sagan made a very good case for suggesting that personhood be decided based on brain development, and he was very considerate to acknowledge the Christian view points and address them. He was the one that made me come to the realization that the Bible is silent about when the soul enters the body.However a big case hit the media about deciding rather or not to pull the feeding tube on a woman who was incapacitated with no hope of ever getting better, that started me to thinking. I realized that the whole issue could really be boiled down to either the presence of brain function or a doctors good prognosis. Not only does brain activity matter, but also in the absence of brain activity the prognosis must come into play. This made me realize that the same must be true when defining all cases of personhood, born or unborn. What I am saying here is that I am not making decisions based on peer pressure or on "anthropomorphization," but on pure fact. And the fact is that neither religion nor science can tell us when it becomes a person.