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warpspeedpetey
Guest
if people dont have souls, then they would be nothing more than deterministic meat-bots.
if thats the case, than what is the moral problem, with aborting any human at any stage of life for any reason?
Question for Religious Anti-Choicers: “When Does Human Life End?”
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if thats the case, than what is the moral problem, with aborting any human at any stage of life for any reason?
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CHRISTINE77
Guest
I agree. What is the purpose of our lives if we don’t have souls?
This is where the liberal atheists are going with this (including this new administration) - they want to kill the old people before their time and abort the unborn. They are amoral (or immoral actually). It’s disgusting.
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cpayne
Guest
Okay. But I’d stand by my earlier assertion, that the CC holds to the scientific view more than those who discuss “personhood” as a criterion of humanity.
Let’s put it this way:
Philosophical argument: The zygote does not change ontologically at all throughout its development through birth into a mature human.
Scientific argument: The zygote does not change genetically at all throughout its development through birth into a mature human.
Therefore, based on both philosophical and scientific facts, the zygote should be protected. You could jettison either argument; the other one would still hold.
As for whether or not the zygote is a person: Historically there are two prominent views of personhood, at least within the Western tradition. One comes from Boethius and is quoted by Aquinas and others even later: a person is “an individual substance of rational nature.” The much later view is taken from Locke (who himself deeply opposed abortion and even thought it was “self-evidently” wrong); Locke in discussing personhood starts discussing other criteria (self-consciousness, rational thinking ability, etc.). This is the view that modern liberals hold; in fact, folks like Peter Singer and Jeffrey Reiman extend these criteria even into babyhood and argue that infanticide is not actually murder because the killer is not killing a “person” (given these criteria).
The older Boethian / Thomistic view is that a baby has a “rational nature” as a human being, even if that rational nature is not and cannot be actualized as of yet. Therefore, the baby is a person.
Nowadays we have more scientific knowledge than Boethius and Aquinas had, but the philosophical principle still holds. Where is the ontological change into having a “rational nature”? Answer: There isn’t one, unless one counts conception as an ontological change. (I guess, come to think about it, it IS an ontological change.) Therefore, the zygote is a person, just as much as I am. The difference is that my rational nature is at least partially actualized and the zygote’s is not. But that doesn’t make enough of a difference that I should be able to kill the zygote just because of that.
One can argue, holding to the contemporary liberal view, that personhood involves functional criteria. But if so, I don’t see how one can avoid the Peter Singer route and apply the same criteria to babies, old people, the handicapped, and so on. Of course, I think Singer is wrong—but at least he has guts and the logic to carry his premises to their conclusion.
So when it comes to parents killing their born babies: Are you an “anti-choicer”? Why? Just because the baby is now out of the womb? Is that what makes him or her a person?
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cpayne
Guest
By the way, be careful. You are dangerously close to Aquinas’s view here.
In the hylomorphic union, the soul and the soul’s embodiment, taken together, constitute the human person.
Like the zygote: alive (hence ensouled), embodied (hence its endowment of a unique DNA code), and growing into a mature Homo sapiens (hence a human person).
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Leela
Guest
What is the purpose of life if we do have supernatural souls? Do you think that if you stopped believing in the supernatural that you’d love your family any less?
I agree. What is the purpose of our lives if we don’t have
This is where the liberal atheists are going with this (including this new administration) - they want to kill the old people before their time and abort the unborn. They are amoral (or immoral actually). It’s disgusting.
The new administration wants to kill old people and abort the unborn? News to me.
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ricmat
Guest
No, we’d love our families the same. But you set up the wrong example. Just because we don’t believe in God does not mean that God does not exist. The fact that we continue to love our families (one “purpose”) actually points to the existence of Natural Law, and hence divine law, and God.
There’s a good blog click here that covers euthanasia at the layman level. Killing old people or disabled people, or depressed people, seems to be more the rage in Europe than in the US. [But also scroll down a few entries in the blog above, and you’ll see what’s happening in Idaho]. And at the abortion end of the spectrum, FOCA, which candidate Obama promised to sign if made president, removes all restrictions on abortion, including partial birth abortion.
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Janet_S
Guest
Human life ends when blood flow ceases at the cellular level, whether through cardiopulmonary arrest, cardiopulmonary insufficiency, shock, blood loss, etc. At this point, the cells are no longer supplied with blood and metabolic acidosis ensues. This process sometimes may be reversed by reestablishing ventilation and circulation through CPR. But if the process has gone on to the point that there is extensive ischemia and necrosis, it is irreversible, and there is physiological death. That is the point when human life ends. From the Catholic point of view, the soul remains part of the body until physiological death.
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Janet_S
Guest
Question for pro-kill-unborn-children choicers:
Do you really concern yourselves with the question of when life begins, or is it simply important for you to keep abortion available as an expedient option?
I’m just asking because most abortions are done many weeks after fertilization when there’s a brain, nervous system, and a beating heart. Actually every year in the US we abort thousands of children older than 21 weeks gestational age, and we know that children this age have survived outside the womb. So it’s not a matter of whether life has begun, especially in the late-term abortion cases. We know it has without question after the 21-week mark, and still the pro-kill-unborn-children choicers won’t do anything to protect them.
That’s the pro-choice position. It is neither scientific nor logical.
Do you really concern yourselves with the question of when life begins, or is it simply important for you to keep abortion available as an expedient option?
I’m just asking because most abortions are done many weeks after fertilization when there’s a brain, nervous system, and a beating heart. Actually every year in the US we abort thousands of children older than 21 weeks gestational age, and we know that children this age have survived outside the womb. So it’s not a matter of whether life has begun, especially in the late-term abortion cases. We know it has without question after the 21-week mark, and still the pro-kill-unborn-children choicers won’t do anything to protect them.
That’s the pro-choice position. It is neither scientific nor logical.
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Janet_S
Guest
vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25031995_evangelium-vitae_en.html
If you’re really interested in the Christian mindset, you should read this:
Ioannes Paulus PP. II
Evangelium vitae
To the Bishops
Priests and Deacons
Men and Women religious
lay Faithful
and all People of Good Will
on the Value and Inviolability
of Human Life
1995.03.25
If you’re really interested in the Christian mindset, you should read this:
Ioannes Paulus PP. II
Evangelium vitae
To the Bishops
Priests and Deacons
Men and Women religious
lay Faithful
and all People of Good Will
on the Value and Inviolability
of Human Life
1995.03.25
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crowonsnow
Guest
I thought Catholic belief was that the soul is the animating force in the body, that the soul is the life itself, more important and valuable than the body. Are you saying it’s just a tag-along?
I guess I should also ask about the egg and sperm. These constituent parts already have souls because they come from bodies that have a soul. Yet they become part of a new body. Do they undergo some kind of soul transfer? Or is it something Catholics just don’t consider?
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cpayne
Guest
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Ender
Guest
Neither. This is what the Church teaches about the body and soul (from the Catechism):
362 *The human person, created in the image of God, is a being at once corporeal and spiritual. *
363 In Sacred Scripture the term “soul” often refers to human life or the entire human person. But “soul” also refers to the innermost aspect of man, that which is of greatest value in him, that by which he is most especially in God’s image: “soul” signifies the spiritual principle in man.
364 *The human body shares in the dignity of “the image of God”: it is a human body precisely because it is animated by a spiritual soul, and it is the whole human person that is intended to become, in the body of Christ, a temple of the Spirit:**Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity. Through his very bodily condition he sums up in himself the elements of the material world. Through him they are thus brought to their highest perfection and can raise their voice in praise freely given to the Creator. For this reason man may not despise his bodily life. Rather he is obliged to regard his body as good and to hold it in honour since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day *
365 The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the “form” of the body: i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.
366 The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God - it is not “produced” by the parents - and also that it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection
Ender
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crowonsnow
Guest
I’m not yanking anyone’s chain. I’m actually getting back to your post #42 in which you stated that to be alive is to be ensouled. I’m simply observing that the egg and sperm are already alive. They are already “ensouled.”Okay, at this point, I know you’re just yanking our chain.
I’ll check back in later, maybe.
I do think Ender was right in saying it’s best to avoid the entire “soul” issue, but I’m finding that that is not possible.
And I also asked if it’s just something Catholics don’t think about. So if it’s that, that’s fine. I’ll leave it at that.
There’s obviously a larger issue being missed or grossly understated here and that is our use of the word “life.” And I don’t mean in the singular sense. Maybe “life” is an emergent property. We are after all, a chemical process, and a pretty cool one at that. So maybe if we thought of “life” this way it would help the discussion.
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Henry_Green
Guest
Your question is bizarre, insulting and deliberately misrepresenitive .
Anti-choicer’s are those who don’t respect the choice of God and murder the unborn.
What choice did the child have? de-ensoulment? Please be serious. Physical death is not a contested or religious issue and to suggest it is is insulting.
As far as when life begins an atheist said it as well as I can. It is not a question of when life begins, life is a continuous process, life begets life. One cannot restart life , one passes it on. The question is when does a new person begin and the only possible answer is at conception.
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Contarini
Guest
You’re making some fallacious assumptions here: first of all that a “single-celled person” is in fact an absurdity. That depends on your definition of “person.” If you have a functional definition then it is absurd. If you have an ontological definition then it may not be.
Secondly, you seem to think that the prolife case collapses if there is no clear beginning and/or end point to life. But this genuinely *does *seem absurd to me. The reverse is true. You can only *dismiss *the claims of the unborn to protection (and thus reduce the question to one of “choice”) if you can draw a clear point before which the unborn fetus/embryo clearly is *not *a human person.
Parallel: I suspect we would agree that if we can make even a somewhat plausible case that a certain animal is sentient in something like the way humans are (chimps, for instance), then the protection of that animal (beyond the broader issues of ecological diversity and avoidance of cruelty) becomes a matter of serious moral concern. The fact that someone else might say that all primates deserve such protection, and someone else might say all mammals, and someone else might say all animals, isn’t a reason for dismissing the claims of chimps. Quite the reverse. It’s a reason for asking ourselves whether killing any animal is ever right.
In other words, it seems morally self-evident that in any question about the limits within which life should be protected, the benefit of the doubt always goes to the protection of life. Any fuzziness about boundaries is not a reason for charging ahead ruthlessly and eliminating beings who can’t make a clear claim for protection. It is a reason for reverence and restraint.
Edwin
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Janet_S
Guest
The sperm and egg are not considered as distinct persons with souls any more than a strand of hair, a clipped toenail, a tooth, or a leg that is amputated.
Life begins at fertilization and ends at physiological death, and the soul is there all along. Recall that Catholics celebrate Mary’s Immaculate Conception, not her Immaculate Ensoulment. We have no reason to believe there is ever a time when a living body has no soul.
You might be familiar with the discussions about ensoulment by Thomas Aquinas and Augustine and others. These are discussions based on the common knowledge of biology at the time. These theories and ideas are taken from Greek philosophers about when man gets a rational soul–usually 30 to 40 days post fertilization. Since our knowledge of biology has changed, I’m not aware of any modern theologian who engages in “delayed ensoulment” debates anymore.
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Contarini
Guest
The human person is made up of both body and soul. Yes, the soul is the animating force, but that implies that it is not itself the person.
That doesn’t make any sense. By that logic my finger also has a soul.
The embryo has a soul because it is a new individual. The sperm and egg are part of the respective parent’s bodies.
Edwin
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JDaniel
Guest
My two-cents is: not at all, it’s not a “tag-along.” It is, within the process of coming-to-be, the animating and determining factor. As we mature, it becomes more and more pronounced - in other words, we become more and more different from one another. Also, we become more and more alive. Our senses become more acute. Our drives become more and more intense. Our bodies become stronger and stronger. But, in time, all of this takes its toll. We become more and more alive, but, due to the fact that we are not infinite or perfect, we ultimately begin to wind down.
It is true that they have souls, but, their souls are like the souls of animals. They are not the souls of a human being, in the ontological sense. Male cells have 23 paired chromosomes and a pattern, or form, for replication of itself-as-a-cell. The male gamete cell, has one strand or chromosomes - not paired. It has no pattern for self-replication, so, in a few days, it just dies.
The addition of a second set of 23 unpaired chromosomes holds the key, so to speak, that unlocks the door for form (soul). There is a period of time, from the initial penetration of the sperm through the cell membrane of the ovum, and before the separate chromosome strands unite, that, so far as I know, has not been specifically addressed by the Church. That duration of time is very small, although it is my best guess that the Church will include that period of time within the statement that a human being starts at conception.
Actually, they complete the requisite for the fusion of form to matter, thus creating a new boy or girl, IOW, a new soul. The old, animal-level souls are cast out, or die, by natural causes.
jd
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cpayne
Guest
I’d put this a slightly different way: the derivative life of the sperm and egg are supervened upon by the life of the zygote, which is now ontologically its own entity.
Same meaning, different terms.
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Benadam
Guest
The soul doesn’t leave the body. The body suffers corruption and turns to dust leaving the soul. When the body can no longer be animated by the soul the human is dead.
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