Life

[low tech]

When does life begin?

This is a question that has puzzled even modern scientists and abortion protesters. When a baby is in the womb, when could it be considered "alive?" Is it when the fetus first develops a heartbeat or when the egg is first fertilized?
I'd like to hear your opinions on this topic.

[Inactive Cargo]

"Life" per se begins instantaneously. The sperm is autonomous, the egg is biological at least, so when it's fertilized it's as alive as an amoeba. The baby doesn't care if it dies or not until it's at least mature enough to begin to understand such concepts.

If you're asking when a baby has a soul, the answer is obviously never. And just in case you are about to accuse me of using superflous adjectives, I threw obviously in there because God isn't real.

[low tech]

If you're asking when a baby has a soul, the answer is obviously never.
Would you rather have me use "life force?"
Well I did mean souls in a sense. Souls are contagious. You can create a human in a lab, but that makes it no more alive than my keyboard.

[Slevin57]

To me, Life begins with the act. As soon as the first cell of a new baby divides, life has begun.

I don't support aborition. I think its like plucking your eyes out to spite your face. Abortion should not be the easy, viable alternative. If you shouldn't have a kid, DONT.

[EmeraldFalcon89]

By having an abortion, people are accepting that they are preventing a human life from coming to fruition. That's the truth.

[Hacky]

If you shouldn't have a kid, DONT.

That's not always a possiblity.

Example: Rape.

Even more likely example: "date" rape (It's different, yet the same).

A woman has no choice in the baby, she didn't decide to have sex, and yet she's still going to be the one punished for it.

I don't support Abortion as the easy alternative, it is definately a last choice, but it's still a choice nontheless. It should be something that is carefully done, and should have an extensive screening process before the doctor does it.

If we illegalize it completely then certain women will do home aborations, having somebody kick them in the stomach, etc, which is far more dangerous to mother and child.

But like a sex change operation, it isn't something that should be done without screening and careful consideration of both doctor and patient.

[KillHour]

A woman has no choice in the baby, she didn't decide to have sex, and yet she's still going to be the one punished for it.

Having a baby isn't exactly a punishment. A large percentage of women that have abortions regret it later. Some even commit suicide out of guilt. If that's not punishment, I don't know what is.

[Hacky]

Having a baby isn't exactly a punishment. A large percentage of women that have abortions regret it later. Some even commit suicide out of guilt. If that's not punishment, I don't know what is.

Where's your evidence? Scientific studies that say that? I've seen claims of the exact opposite saying women who have abortions more often than not feel better.

You see, the vast majority of women who have abortions want abortions, and only a minute portion of them don't want the abortion but are forced into it by parents, etc. The studies that say women regret it later are studies on the women who were forced into it.

You see, you can survey only a selection of people to get statistics to say absolutely anything you want.



Moving on, how is having a baby, who's father raped the mother, not punishment? They have to care for a child 24/7 for the rest of their lives, all becuase they were raped? Yeah, that's not punishment at all.

[EmeraldFalcon89]

Then set it up where if they report the rape within 36 hours or so, they'll be issued a permit to have the procedure done if it results in pregnancy. It's not like it's a difficult procedure.

[Inactive Cargo]

Would you rather have me use "life force?"
Well I did mean souls in a sense. Souls are contagious. You can create a human in a lab, but that makes it no more alive than my keyboard.Your keyboard isn't a biological entity. Step away from the Bible.
Abortion should not be the easy, viable alternative. If you shouldn't have a kid, DONT.Brilliant logic, but you can't walk into an abortion clinic and just have an abortion. There's counselling involved, and some states require parental consent. As Hacky's already pointed out, there's numerous reasons where abortions are justified:

Rape
This is fairly self explanitory. It should be a woman's right to choose when to have a child, and pregnancy from rape clearly circumvents this. This is more justified when a child is raped, because if you have a 12 or 13 year old having a baby then there's a lot of trauma for them associated with it, and younger girls general have C-Sections for delivery, which in itself is invasive surgery.

Risk to the Child
Although this isn't the most common justification, it's still a valid one. If by giving birth to the child, you're putting it in undue risk of living an abnormal life, then it's reasonable grounds for abortion. Hydrocephalus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrocephalus) is the best example of this, where delivering a baby that's hydrocephalic will usually injure the mother. The baby is only expected to live a few weeks at most.

Risk to the Mother
Generally this is coupled with one of the two above. If a mother will suffer a risk to her health by delivering a baby, then it is again grounds for abortion.
Then set it up where if they report the rape within 36 hours or so, they'll be issued a permit to have the procedure done if it results in pregnancy. It's not like it's a difficult procedure.Although it's not necessarily uncompromisingly complicated surgery, it's not necessarily safe.

[KageOni]

Kage's 2 cent.

I'm not pro abortion, but its not mine or any one else's place to tell some one else what they can do. So, if your pro live, stick a cock in your mouth and shut up because its none of your business.

As for when life begins, it doesn't matter really. In my opinion killing a fetus is the same as killing a person and as killing a cow. Life is life.

[MasterGlitch]

Life begins at conception. It's pretty simple.

By the way, you all need to use the correct terminology. The soul of a person is basically just their conscious mind and personality and such. It's what makes them human and who they are. However, the spirit of a person is a religious idea.
So a person has a soul once they are able to think consciously and have a unique personality. But when or if a person gets or has a spirit is what is debatable.

[KillHour]

The question usually debated is not when life begins, but when that life becomes human. Humans are a species (from a strictly athiest point of view... which I'm not BTW). Species are determined by their DNA. A fetus's DNA is finalized at conception, so it obviously follows that a fetus could be regarded as a human in a purely biological sense. Some people would counter that by saying that your blood cells have human DNA, but are obviously not human. That may be true, but your blood cells have YOUR DNA. A fetus does not have the same DNA as you, so it obviously can't be classified as a part of you.

[Napalm]

It's simple. If you don't want birth, punch her in the cunt, pull out the fetus and eat it.

[KillHour]

That was one of the most disturbing things I've ever heard...

[Inactive Cargo]

The question usually debated is not when life begins, but when that life becomes human. Humans are a species (from a strictly athiest point of view... which I'm not BTW). Species are determined by their DNA. A fetus's DNA is finalized at conception, so it obviously follows that a fetus could be regarded as a human in a purely biological sense. Some people would counter that by saying that your blood cells have human DNA, but are obviously not human. That may be true, but your blood cells have YOUR DNA. A fetus does not have the same DNA as you, so it obviously can't be classified as a part of you.DNA doesn't make something sentient. Human DNA does somewhere down the track, though. It's a human from 8 weeks, however, because it's beginning to grow to be an infant, and then a child, then an adult. Just because it busts out doesn't make it any more human than it was before.

The one thing it doesn't have when it's a foetus is a conscience (or a soul, or spirit, on any of that crap because God isn't real). So there's nothing wrong with knocking it off for one of the reason's I've listed above.

[KillHour]

saying "because God isn't real" isn't a valid argument. The idea behind a good argument is that you take something that everyone involved knows to be true, and extrapolate the proof from that.

[Inactive Cargo]

saying "because God isn't real" isn't a valid argument. The idea behind a good argument is that you take something that everyone involved knows to be true, and extrapolate the proof from that.Unfortunately, it is, because He isn't. Poke through Bible Talk (http://www.1337.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6357) and EmeraldFalcon89's plane crash of an attempt to undermine atheism (http://www.1337.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8055), and see if you can disagree with my assertion the Bible's plagarised (http://www.1337.com/forums/showpost.php?p=236235&postcount=35), and we all know how real God would be if he was plagarised from a pantheistic society.

[KillHour]

the point is, you're not making a proper argument. In a proper argument, the valid facts that you can use for your argument have to be agreed to before hand. By blatently saying that your proof is based on something that is not agreed on by all parties, just makes your argument weaker. Trust me, just saying "I'm right, you're wrong" isnt going to sway any votes (or make you any friends).

[Inactive Cargo]

Welcome to the internets.

[KillHour]

Wow, that's the first time I've ever seen anyone reply to the assertion that their argument is flawed by alluding to the fact that everyone else does it.

In fact, Im going to +rep that, because it's so friggen funny

[low tech]

Your keyboard isn't a biological entity.
True, but neither is an artificial human created in a laboratory. Without some kind of life force, it would be just flesh and bones.



...the spirit of a person is a religious idea...when or if a person gets or has a spirit is what is debatable.I often use words like spirit/soul and car/truck interchangibly, forgive me. That is what I originally tried to come across for a debate in this thread but I sorta like the direction it's headed in.


"Life" per se begins instantaneously. The sperm is autonomous, the egg is biological at least, so when it's fertilized it's as alive as an amoeba. Yet another question I wanted to propose, but it slipped my mind.

[Inactive Cargo]

True, but neither is an artificial human created in a laboratory. Without some kind of life force, it would be just flesh and bones.Woah woah woah, slow down there. If something's "biological", it's alive. An artificial human is "alive" in the biological sense, the same way that a naturally conceived baby is "alive" in the biological sense, but your keyboard is "dead" in the biological sense. An artificial human doesn't have a "soul/spirit", but like I keep saying, God isn't real, so there's no problem there.

[Rab]

I think IC got owned, less big words nxttymeplz¬!!!

[KillHour]

by "artificial human" do you mean android, perhaps?

because regardless of whether it was made in a laboratory or not, any living thing with cells is defined as a biological entity. Whether it's conscious is another matter. Currently, the closest that's been done is clones, and that's really just a modification of a natural process. Life has never been created from scratch in a laboratory (Mainly because scientists have no clue what it even is that makes you alive)

And would you PLEASE stop using "God isnt real" as an argument? you just make youself look incompitent.

[Inactive Cargo]

Life has never been created from scratch in a laboratoryWe've made progress towards it. The Miller-Urey (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller-Urey_experiment) experiment proved you could get the basic building blocks of life from the Earth's early atmosphere, and furthermore Joan Oró found that you could produce the building blocks of life from Hydrogen Cyanide and Ammonia in a water solution. There was a lot more water on this planet than there was land, and considering that life presumably started in the oceans we've got a fairly good hypothesis that doesn't envolve God of how life started.

(Mainly because scientists have no clue what it even is that makes you alive)Define "alive". If by "alive" you mean alive in the bioligical sense, then no, we do know what causes us to be alive. If by "alive" you mean "spiritually alive", then I can think of one statement that explains why we haven't been able to collect any empirical evidence to back this up...


And would you PLEASE stop using "God isnt real" as an argument? you just make youself look incompitent.I assume that you've read through the threads I've highlighted, as well as conclusively rebuked my assertion that the Bible is partially plagarised from a pantheistic civilisation's myths that existed a good 1000 years before it, pulled apart evolution and Big Bang theory and collected evidence to the contrary and evidence that God is real?

[KillHour]

1. Yes, we've made progress. We still aren't there yet, and that's the point I was trying to make.

2. I meant in the biological sense.

3. I'm not going to get into a "Is God real?" debate. It is beyond the scope of the topic, and completely irrelevant since my argument does not mention God at all, and would still be rock solid even if you conclusively proved that God can't possibly exist.

4. How can you be sure that God doesn't exist anyways?

[Inactive Cargo]

4. How can you be sure that God doesn't exist anyways?1. How can you be sure that God does exist, anyways?

Absence of Proof != Proof of Existence, Absence of Proof == Evidence for Unexistence

[KillHour]

1. How can you be sure that God does exist, anyways?

I was actually hoping you'd say that.... Just goes to show how predictable you are.

I don't know that God exists, nor have I ever said he does.

I could easily be an athiest playing "Devil's Advocate".

While that is not the case, you had no proof of it before I told you.

I believe that God exists, and that's good enough for a personal conviction, but not good enough to use in an argument. Hence why I haven't used it as such.

Now please, let us get back to the subject at hand. Bringing God into arguments can reduce brilliant men to mere animals.

[Inactive Cargo]

I was actually hoping you'd say that.... Just goes to show how predictable you are.I was going to say all the overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary...
I could easily be an athiest playing "Devil's Advocate".No you couldn't, you say just above that you're not an atheist, and you already said "from a strictly athiest point of view... which I'm not BTW". If you didn't say the first part I wouldn't have sniped at your posts with all my assertions.
Now please, let us get back to the subject at hand. Bringing God into arguments can reduce brilliant men to mere animals.And being a God believer, you would understand just how easily it reduces men into mere animals, with Christianity degenerating one into bad behaviour (http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html) and stupidity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiousness_and_intelligence).

[KillHour]

1. evidence != proof (no matter how overwhelming)
2. I was making the point that had I not stated that I believed in God, you would have no reason to suspect I did - furthering my point that my reasoning has nothing to do with God, and that you are attacking a wall that doesn't even exist (or quite possibly, trying to change the topic altogether).


If you didn't say the first part I wouldn't have sniped at your posts with all my assertions.

So, had I not told you that I believed in God, and stated my arguments exactly the same, you would have been more accepting of my point of view? Sounds rather discriminatory to me...


And being a God believer, you would understand just how easily it reduces men into mere animals, with Christianity degenerating one into bad behaviour (http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html) and stupidity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiousness_and_intelligence).

Who said I was a Christian?

[Destagow]

IC honestly, from reading your post your less about pro atheism than anti christian.

Edit: By the way I am agonsitc as of a few months ago. So I belive I have a neutral view of this.