Summations Only

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.

Those who "know" anything at all about souls know it in the complete absence of evidence. And they disagree wildly about what it is that they "know."

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

Not exactly. A persona is a personality, i.e. a sense of humor, a way of thinking about yourself and the rest of the world. So again, that would seem to require the ability to think, to feel, and to sense the outside world. Again, requiring a brain. We may not be able to determine exactly when a persona, or personhood, develops, but if we can determine a necessary component, then we can reasonably say that any point before that component exists there is no person, can we not?Your argument seems to be, we can't know exactly when it happens so we have to go all the way to the beginning, which is nonsense. If someone says that the treasure is buried somewhere between Chicago and LA, we can pretty much rule out looking to the east of Chicago, right? Just because you don't know the exact point doesn't mean you can't determine points at which it definitely isn't.

It's fine to hold that position personally(which I don't mind), but how can I hold a meaningful discussion with you if you simply reply ''only God knows''. That's rather a discussion killer, while you not really have provided any logical answers to what life is, and what is the soul's part in the process?

Maybe ont this topic, but a new topic on this would be interesting to me, at least, and very much at home on this forum. So he doesn't give out souls only to those who will develop a dn be born? That would imply that he's imbuing zygotes with souls, too. If not, then whatever reason he uses for not giving a soul to a miscarried zygote applies equally well to any zygote or embryo that is aborted, too. Otherwise god is inconsistent. Assuming he exists, this is obvious, since things are definitely not how I would want them to be. What I'm trying to do is determine the logical extension of an argument. If the conclusion I reach is wrong, there are three possibilities, the premise is wrong, the conclusion doesn't follow, or god is not logical.I ignored the third option, because an illogical god would seem counter to most theologies. I then asserted that it must be the first option. If you disagree, you'd need to show the second option is true, or assert the third.

Sorry but to asserted the existence of some soul has nothing to do with the topic and bring up a soul is just him trying to create another attractive rabbit hole in the hope that people don't notice he already conceded that as long as there is just a growth attached to the mother there is no person.Edited by jar, : fix wordingEdited by jar, : spallin appalin

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.

Yes. A human zygote is HUMAN and the zygote is alive. So technically it qualifies as HUMAN LIFE. Strictly biologically speaking, A plant cell qualifies as PLANT LIFE. If you do not agree fine, but you would have to show how this is not the case.A red blood cell would qualify as human life. Strictly in the technical sense just as a Plant cell qualifies as Plant life.The defining of Human life as when "personhood" develops
is exactly the reason for all the discussion. Beginning of human personhood - Wikipedia
There seems to be no consensus.Much of humanity does not hold a human red blood cell in the same regard as a human zygote for a variety of reason be they moral, religious or cultural, a red blood cell will always be a red blood cell. A human zygote can develop into a human.I feel that yes there is contradiction but only in the sense that my own sense of morality and beliefs influence where I draw that line. The line is not there, it is fabricated by our own sense of humanity in my opinion.

Like in a coma? You could be right here, but I'm still pretty sure that personhood is linked to brain activity. My wife is pregnant right now and it's nearing the end of the first trimester. She's feeling odd and has some sickness at nights, but she doesn't "feel" the baby inside at all yet. Does that mean we can draw the line at the point at which she is "interacting" with it? If so, that time seems to be pretty close to the same time as brain development. But this is what I'm trying to remove from the equation. My argument is that the people who disagree with abortion before brain development, within the first few weeks or so, are letting their emotions and anthropomorphization take over. They "see" a baby inside the womb when there isn't one, there's just a small cluster of cells.I'm basing personhood on science and logic. You can't have a person without a brain. If you can, show me any example (outside of your belief in a fetus' personhood) where a person existed without a brain. But I think we are being 100% sure. I think personhood is tied to brain activity, but in deference to the fact that we may not be able to detect the first brain activity, I have moved the line back to the beginning of brain development because, logically, you can't have brain activity without a brain, right?In your cop and criminal exercise, it would be akin to not shooting through the port-a-potty because there might be a person inside, but allowing the cop to dive behind the pile of boards and shoot from there because there can't be a person inside a board.Edited by Perdition, : No reason given.

I am sure we can all praise your consistency as to when human life begins.....Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

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.

I don't need to pinpoint when personhood begins to identify you or me as persons. Likewise I don't need to pinpoint when personhood begins to state that things lacking brains are incapable of personhood.Do I?

I'm as sure about brain activity driving personhood as I am sure that I'm actually a human being and that I'm not in a "Matrix" style virtual world.I tend to emphasize tentativity in order to reinforce to myself not to be dogmatic in thought. But is it the species thing, or is the fact that it doesn't think and feel as you do, that it isn't self-aware as far as we can tell?I mean, assuming there is intelligent life in the universe somewhere, would you conclude that E.T. isn't a person because he is a different species than you? Or, because it feels emotions, is self-aware and has hopes and dreams, would you overlook his species and consider him a person? Nor can we go too far to the other side and let our empathy cloud our decision either. We need to dig down and decide what we mean when we say personhood. I've shown you what I value in being a person and in the other beings I consider to be persons. It also informs me in how I deal with non-human species. I don't condone the killing of dolphins, whales, chimps, etc...animals that have shown self-awareness and the ability to reason. I'm not sure what case you're refering to, but in my experience, if there's no brain activity, there usually isn't a prognosis, it's more of a declaration,as in, "I'm sorry, he's gone" or some such. But this is only because some people don't take the time or don't even know how to determine what personhood means, and so fall into the fallacy of the OP in assigning anything that has "human life" as a person.I honestly don't see how you can have a person without brain activity. Brain activity is the essence of what elevates humans above most animals, it's what makes us more than merely biological automatons. You can lose your limbs and some organs and still be a person, but I fail to see how you could lose your brain or your self-awareness, your thoughts, and still be a person. You would then become that which we use personhood to divide us from...an animal or an automaton.Edited by Perdition, : typo