Texas bans abortion.

[smartcooky]

I guess that this means that you "support some restrictions - especially in the later stages of pregnancy - for non religious reasons".

That is a reasonable position to take.

This has always been my stated position (as per Roe v Wade). If you have only just realised this, then you haven't been paying attention.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

I support unfettered abortion rights because it's none of anyone's business why a woman wants to terminate her pregnancy unless she wants to defer some of that power to another person. It is her medical condition and no one else.

I agree that a woman should have the right - for the simple reason that I don't see who could possibly have a legitimate legal proxy for the unborn other than the woman.
But I also think that there is something wrong with waiting until the third trimester to make such a decision.

 

[lionking]

The line values faith, but values it over reality? don't know.



I think faith is more than just sticking a flag in the ground and declaring I believe this. But I agree it does mean believing even if contradicted by the preponderance of the evidence.






I am not sure how to describe it to you. I think faith is believing with the heart, rather than the head.



I don't "peddle" religion. I don't think religion is something to be peddled like salesperson would peddle whatever he/she is selling. Yes, it can and has been used as a reason to believe is something that is not provable and that can be shown to be false. Of just because something is unprovable and unfalsifiable, not does not automatically make that something, untrue.



I suppose one could use faith to justify believing in something false. It could also be used to justify believing is something that is true even when the preponderance of the evidence says otherwise. Sometimes the preponderance of the evidence can add up to the wrong conclusion.



but I was not using the line to justify believing in Santa.



Yes, much of what the the Baptist Churches teach are too extreme for me, especially the ones that believe in Kink James Onlyism(that only the King James Version of the Bible is the true word of God)





I am more a New Testament guy myself. But think there is more true things in the OT than you do. It mentions countries/leaders/events that historians agree are true




Can you prove that there is no God, that God did not create the universe. I agree if you look at it from a purely logical and scientific perspective, one would not conclude that God existed, not that God created the universe. But If I can not prove that there is no God, that God did not create the universe, then there is that possibility that it is true and that is were faith can come it. I agree it is neither logical or scientific, but there it is.




What about the ten commandments? surely rules like:

Thou shalt not kill.

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Thou shalt not steal.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.






There more than just true locations mentioned in the OT, it also mentions historic leaders and nations and events that occurred. I can certainly understand how one might see Noah and the Ark and Jonah and the Whale as absurd. They may well not be literally true.



does the archeological evidence prove there was no Moses and no parting of the Red Sea?


And sometimes stories passed down around around campfires can be true, or exaggerated with some truth in them however small, and sometimes they can be wrong. But, if you talking about events that occurred before a people could write things down, stores passed from one person telling another is the best you have.


You have the right to base your believes on what you choose to. I choose to base some of my beliefs on my faith.




Yes, it might well be difficult to base a claim that abortion is sin or murder on the bible. I try not to do that.

I am not trolling. What does believing with the heart, an organ that pumps blood around the body, even mean? I suppose it is better than believing with the soul, but not by much. What’s wrong with believing the brain, the only thing where beliefs can reside?

 

[psionl0]

What does believing with the heart, an organ that pumps blood around the body, even mean?

Words like these are not easy to define accurately. Nevertheless, if somebody is described as "heartless" you would have a pretty good idea what that means - and it is not that the person doesn't have an organ pumping blood around their body.

That said (and without bothering to do too much research on it), I understand that in ancient times it was believed that it was the heart region where all thought (or at least all emotion) came from. Didn't the ancient Egyptians used to scoop all that useless gunk out of the skull before embalming?

 

[psionl0]

This has always been my stated position (as per Roe v Wade). If you have only just realised this, then you haven't been paying attention.

You have spent a lot time claiming that I believe in the exact opposite of unfettered abortion (and accusing me of being "dishonest" about it) and I haven't seen you argue against unfettered abortion until recently.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Words like these are not easy to define accurately. Nevertheless, if somebody is described as "heartless" you would have a pretty good idea what that means - and it is not that the person doesn't have an organ pumping blood around their body.

That said (and without bothering to do too much research on it), I understand that in ancient times it was believed that it was the heart region where all thought (or at least all emotion) came from. Didn't the ancient Egyptians used to scoop all that useless gunk out of the skull before embalming?

The Egyptians didn't think the brain was useless; they scooped out several things as part of the mummification process, and preserved them separately in lovely jars precisely because they believed those things were important. The ancients' ideas of the brain were necessarily less informed than the moderns, but they weren't complete idiots: they saw what happened when people got knocked in the head and were goofy afterwards.

As for Aristotle famously claiming the brain existed to cool the blood, I for one believe a good deal of his preserved writings were sarcasm and trolling. And who knows how much of what's attributed to him actually was him, it's not like anybody was monitoring change control on documents that early. For all we know some eighth-century Arab with a grudge against safety helmets put that in. It's all just more reason to not believe things just because somebody wrote them down a long time ago.

 

[Darat]

...snip...


What about the ten commandments? surely rules like:
...snip...

You stated you are Methodist so you use a different set than the Roman and Orthodox catholic churches, so which are the correct ones? You even use a different bible, which is the correct one?

 

[Fast Eddie B]

Well if you're insisting on hypotheticals, then hypothetically speaking, it's still none of your damn business, nor any of mine.

I know it’s risky, but…

If that argument holds right up until the cutting of the umbilical, how exactly does it become our business at exactly that moment?

 

[Fast Eddie B]

Setting aside the fact that it's still a nonsentient lump of tissue…

How do you know it’s nonsentient at 40 weeks?

I can see the “lump of tissue” description being applied at the very earliest stages of pregnancy, but at 40 weeks? Given the level of development of virtually all of the fetus’s systems at this point, it seems like a very poor description of what’s really going on.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

Can you prove that there is no God, that God did not create the universe. I agree if you look at it from a purely logical and scientific perspective, one would not conclude that God existed, not that God created the universe. But If I can not prove that there is no God, that God did not create the universe, then there is that possibility that it is true and that is were faith can come it. I agree it is neither logical or scientific, but there it is.

You really need to take these arguments about religion to a more appropriate thread, or start your own. It’s a huge derail from this thread’s topic.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Yeah nobody is shocked that the people who are arguing against women having control over their bodies are religious, we all guessed that.

If we could have one abortion debate where the pro-life side doesn't spend the first half of the debate assuring us it's not a totally religious argument and then spend the second half of the debate doing a one-man stage production of a Jack Chick comic, that would just be super.

Again it's a soul argument. It's always been a soul argument. And souls don't exist.

 

[JoeMorgue]

- I don't care if the fetus/zygote/whatever is sentient or viable and have given my arguments as to why. The pro-life side has yet to address this.

- This is all still one huge lump of dishonest lying because restrictive abortions laws don't reduce abortions, so the "poor widdle unbown baybies" aren't being saved anyway. The pro-life side has yet to address this.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

How do you know it’s nonsentient at 40 weeks?

I can see the “lump of tissue” description being applied at the very earliest stages of pregnancy, but at 40 weeks? Given the level of development of virtually all of the fetus’s systems at this point, it seems like a very poor description of what’s really going on.

We can test for sentience. The most famous is the mirror test, where you put a mark on the subject's face and show them a mirror, and see if they react by reaching for the mark on the mirror or on their own face. Elephants, dolphins, orcas, and a number of great apes pass the test, along with magpies because of course those jerks would figure out some way to screw things up.

Humans start passing the mirror test and other tests for sentience about a year after birth. I am confident in saying there are no sentient fetuses whatsoever. Birth is a good transition to set a cutoff at, since it's an unmistakable occurrence happening long before any ambiguity sets in.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

I don’t generally favor “Argumentum ad Dictionarium”, but it’s important to agree on meanings.

First dictionary hit I get for sentient is “Able to perceive or feel things”.

Your “mirror test”, which I’m familiar with, tests for something well beyond that.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

I don’t generally favor “Argumentum ad Dictionarium”, but it’s important to agree on meanings.

First dictionary hit I get for sentient is “Able to perceive or feel things”.

Your “mirror test”, which I’m familiar with, tests for something well beyond that.

Unfortunately you're not going to find a word that works perfectly, because this is an area where people muddy the semantic waters to support their own prejudices even farther than with abortion. Call it sentience, sapience, self-awareness, consciousness, whatever you feel like, it's when an animal stops being an animal and starts being a person.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

I don’t generally favor “Argumentum ad Dictionarium”, but it’s important to agree on meanings.

First dictionary hit I get for sentient is “Able to perceive or feel things”.

Your “mirror test”, which I’m familiar with, tests for something well beyond that.

He means sapience. I tried to anticipate this nitpick a few pages back. He means sapience. We share sentience with far more animals that we do elements of sapience. It is sapience that gives us the elements that make us capable of becoming persons. You know he means sapience now since it is what he described. So carry on knowing that he meant sapience.

 

[JoeMorgue]

"The conversation can't start until we agree on the wording and the only wording I will agree is one the defines me as correct before we start."

In actual real honest discourse people can make points without using specific words and simping for the dictionary.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

He mans sapience. I tried to anticipate this nitpick a few pages back. He means sapience. We share sentience with far more animals that we do elements of sapience. It is sapience that gives us the elements that make us capable of becoming persons.

If sapience works better for you, go for it.

"The conversation can't start until we agree on the wording and the only wording I will agree is one the defines me as correct before we start."

In actual real honest discourse people can make points without using specific words and simping for the dictionary.

To be fair it's a real semantic tarpit. We've come up with dozens of ways to special-plead distinctions between the human experience and that of lower life forms, anything to keep from admitting to ourselves that chimps and elephants and dolphins and such are basically people too.

 

[Darat]

Yeah nobody is shocked that the people who are arguing against women having control over their bodies are religious, we all guessed that.

If we could have one abortion debate where the pro-life side doesn't spend the first half of the debate assuring us it's not a totally religious argument and then spend the second half of the debate doing a one-man stage production of a Jack Chick comic, that would just be super.

Again it's a soul argument. It's always been a soul argument. And souls don't exist.

What would convince me that they do believe in the "sanctity of life" would be as well as passing legislation to make abortions illegal as part of the legislation they pass a whole raft of laws that fund nurseries, home services for the babies, therapy for those born to drug addicted parents, additional spending on child protection and so on.

To be so concerned about the life of a foetus yet not of the resultant child is to me repugnant.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Yeah it's fairly transparent how "I care about 'preserving life' but by a magic convenient coincident only in places it lets me control women's bodies and shame them for being sluts and literally no other place." is where they are at.