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Faithdancer
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Most fundies will know Scripture and will easily refute the slavery comparison argument. And church tradition agrees with Scripture. It’s skeptics who twist and misinterpret Scripture.
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Faithdancer
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Any enforcement should:
Punish the provider, help the mother.
Punish the provider, help the mother.
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Faithdancer
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And if someone goes and shoots an abortion doctor–something I don’t approve of or suggest, but if they do–well that’s just their “choice,” right?
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Vera_Ljuba
Guest
The problem is that some people do not understand the difference between quantitative and qualitative differences. I will try to help them with a few questions / examples:* When they eat scrambled eggs, are they under the illusion that they just had fried chicken?* Don’t they see the fundamental difference between an acorn and an oak tree?* Do they confuse a medical student with a doctor?
The examples are endless.
Sometimes even simple quantitative difference is a valid reason to differentiate. * If a kid is less than a predetermined height, he cannot get on certain rides in Disneyland. * A child who is less than 16 years old is denied the permission to drive an car (unsupervised). * A medical student is not allowed to practice today if he will get his diploma tomorrow. * He is just as knowledgable as he will be tomorrow, but without the license he is not allowed to practice.* An unborn cannot inherit. Once he is born, he can.
Furthermore, the accumulation of quantitative changes can lead to qualitative differences. Piling up one uranium atom one at a time will lead to a critical mass, and thus - an explosion.
The zygote is qualitatively different from a newborn, and nothing will change that. And as long as abortion is legal, it is NOT murder. I know that there are many people who would love to change the law, and force pregnant women to carry the fetus to term, but fortunately there is little or no chance to introduce such legislation. Abortion is here to stay, and the only way to make it disappear would be cheap, readily available prevention.
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Vera_Ljuba
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Again, some people “forget” that in the biblical times there were two different kinds of slavery: “real” slavery and “indentured servitude”. There is difference between the two, but the difference is not significant. A master/owner can sell the offspring of the slave/servant if he so chooses. The master/owner can beat the slave/servant within a hairwidth of his life, as long as the slave/servant can get up within 3 days. These were the laws of those times, and God never said: “don’t do it on penalty of eternal torture”. That penalty was reserved for masturbating teenagers.
And the indignant assertion that Catholics are not fundamentalists lacks any credibility. Since the church never took the time and effort to separate the allegorical verses from the literal ones, the apologists have no leg to stand on, when they try to separate themselves from the fundamentalists. Anyone is permitted to interpret any verse as they see fit.
Is the story of Genesis literal with the talking snake? Did the deluge really cover the peak of Mount Everest? Did Jesus really performed those miracles, or are they just stories and allegories? Since the church never issued an authoritative list, we are all free to interpret the whole Bible either literally or allegorically, and the Catholics have no ground to separate themselves from the fundamentalists.
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WingsOfEagles
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Exodus 21:16 “Whoever kidnaps a person, whether that person has been sold or is still held in possession, shall be put to death.”
And yes, shortly after this, there is a troubling verse about the master having no punishment should the slave get up on the 3rd day. However, shortly after, it also states that any permanent damage (such as an eye or tooth) should mean that the slave is set free. However, remember this is Old Covenant…
New Covenant
Colossians 4:1 “Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, for you know that you also have a Master in heaven.”
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goout
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You might want to examine what you just said a little more closely.
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Vera_Ljuba
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If you have something to say, go ahead and say it.
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Faithdancer
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Actually, I don’t think you understand that a zygote, a fetus, and a newborn are all human. Your reduction of the fetus to something less than human is pure speculation and has no basis in either biology or natural law. Based on your spurious equation of “qualitative” differences being the result of an accumulation of “quantitative” differences, one could draw the line between “human” and “non-human” anywhere it is convenient–particularly convenient for a totalitarian regime bent on “eugenics.”
As far as abortion being “here to stay,” well, all it takes is legislation defining the fetus as a person. There’s no need to to overturn Roe v. Wade at all.
I pray that the Holy Spirit acts on your heart and mind to help you amend your deeply flawed understanding of the sanctity of innocent human life…
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Faithdancer
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And aren’t newborn humans just a bigger handful of cells, by your reasoning? Isn’t a two-year-old just an even bigger “handful of cells?” None of them, by the way, are capable of surviving on their own.
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goout
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Your examples support the Catholic position.
You used the word chicken in regard to the egg, oak tree in regard to an acorn. Noting the one is inseparable from the other.
Everything of a tree is contained in an acorn. It’s simply a stage of development.
Just like the unborn are human.
Can you at least admit the unborn are human?
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goout
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You’re making unfounded assertions that mean nothing.
In fact, in the real world, Catholicism does not interpret scripture anything like fundamentalists and atheists.
How can you have such basic gaps in knowledge of a subject you discuss at length?
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Vera_Ljuba
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All have human DNA. In other words they all are composed of human tissue. But so does a lump of cancerous cells. Is cancer a “human BEING”?
I reject the assumption that I am a member of some totalitarian regime. That is pure speculation on your part, and definitely an insulting one. If you don’t understand the difference between quantitative and qualitative changes then there is nothing to talk about.
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Vera_Ljuba
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Sure they do. They all say: “this the way how we like it, so this is the correct way to interpret it”. There is no official “catholic annotated bible”.
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Elf01
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Cancer cells have the same DNA as the sufferer. A zygote does not.
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goout
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Nonsense.
The Catholic Church does not read or interpret the bible like fundamentalists do.
Fundamentalists would agree with that.
In fact most knowledgeable atheists concede this.
So I have no idea where you are coming from, but it is not a reasoned position.
The reality is, your reading of scripture is in line with fundamentalist readings.
Atheist:
“It says here in the bible xyz, therefore God kills small children and he is not loving…”
Fundamentalist:
“It says here in the bible xyz, therefore the killing of small children was willed by God…”
Atheism and fundamentalism read the bible in the same way.
Which points out that atheists object to a false notion of God.
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Faithdancer
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Can you give us an example of any Christian church that has an “official annotated” Bible?
And by the way, the word “Catholic” as you use it here is a proper noun. In English, proper nouns are always capitalized. “Bible” is often capitalized for the same reason, and otherwise capitalized out of respect.
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Faithdancer
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First, never said you were a member of a totalitarian regime. Why do you claim my example of a group that might arbitrarily define “human” vs. " non-human" specifically applies to you?
Second, your repeated, ex cathedra assertion that no one else but you can understand the difference between quantitative and qualitative is curious, considering there are many members here with advanced degrees (including philosophy) and / or very high IQs. At any rate your applied reasoning in this regard, as others here have already shown, is easily refuted.
Finally, (though it’s a minor point), cancer cells are most definitely not genetically identical to healthy human cells. As a board certified cytotechnologist, I’d love to hear how you come to this conclusion. And reducing your argument that the human zygote equates to a lump of cancer cells to its absurd conclusion, a newborn must also be equated to a (much larger) lump of cancer cells.
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Faithdancer
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(have the same genetic makeup as the mother).
And this is absolutely true. The individual human that begins life as a zygote and develops into an embryo, a fetus, a newborn, a toddler, a fourth grader, a high schooler, a young adult, a middle aged adult, a senior…all uniquely, individually, the same human being.
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Faithdancer
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And in fact, there is general agreement about the basic components (history, prophecy, wisdom writings, Gospel, letters, apocalyptic writing, etc.) of Scripture writing in mainline Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox traditions standpoints. The “skeptic” in general often “interprets” the narrative of Genesis in the most fundamentalist manner, then uses this in some convoluted way to reject Jesus Christ.
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