Whew! I was stocking up on matches. Thanks.…well, you know the old saying…where IS my mind? Your soul isn’t and never was in a place yet IS you with your body. Your body is and always was in a place and IS you with a soul.
Any point other than fertilization would be arbitrarily chosen - like “quickening” - for which there is no scientific justification. The question of when life begins has been answered; it is a question science no longer debates. The only question left is whether human life in its early forms may legitimately be destroyed and, while a lot of people support abortion when presented in vague terms and with the focus totally on the mother, they tend to squirm a bit when faced with the reality of what is being destroyed.
Are you playing with us? You are usually on the other side of this debate.I can’t cite any scientific paper, but, I can cite a bunch of posts in this thread.
jd
Yep. I was trying to be flip. Oh well.Are you playing with us? You are usually on the other side of this debate.
The “quickening” is defined as that time when the mother actually feels the baby move for the first time. Apparently, in olden times, many believed that’s when God ensouled the baby - “breathered the soul into the baby’s nostrils.”
When a mom feels her baby move his totally subjective, having to do with mother’s weight, if she’s been pregnant before, the location of the placenta and other factors. Some moms feel it early others feel it late.
There are a few folks about who say it is not human, but I don’t think that argument holds, and for the reason you stated. Even after death it’s still human, because we define human today using science.
You are saying that when the sperm and egg are completely joined, a soul is now present? So are you basing ensoulment on scientific knowledge?
I can’t help any of that. All I know is that that’s when the soul was, in times past, thought to be absolutely in the baby.
The issue of abortion is utterly independent of the question of the soul and it is not only easy to separate them there is no reason whatever to join them. We can see by how this thread has gone: the question about when ensoulment occurs is a constant distraction from the real issue of what is being destroyed in an abortion. Are we killing human beings? The answer to that question has nothing whatever to do with when a human gains his soul or whether a soul even exists. Those who oppose abortion would do well to stay focused and not get drawn into debates that allow attention to shift away from the nature of the embryo (fetus, blastula, …). I’m pretty sure that no one is going to admit that we are indeed killing humans but that it’s ok to do it because they have not yet received a soul.
One of the major points of the discussion, and I think one on which we all agree, is that being human doesn’t equate with being a human.
Scientifically, sperm and egg join, then a new organism begins life.(I think we agree?) I believe the soul is created then, that would be my religious belief. (I think we disagree?)
Hypothesizing a difference between a human life form and a human being is indeed the only argument left to those who support abortion given that, scientifically, human life begins at fertilization.
I have made no religious argument whatever, not even the claim that human life is sacred. My arguments have been entirely scientific. You are the one trying to make a distinction between human life and a human being and addressing this point is why I have objected to any discussion about a soul as a distraction.
No. I am simply explaining that, scientifically, neither a sperm nor an egg is a unique human life but that a fertilized egg is. Let’s leave “sacred” out of it.
Being human does not equate with being *a *human, which is a point you are unwilling to concede because it leaves open the possibility that the single human cell at fertilization is not a human.
Then you would have no problem believing we have no soul?
Why would I concede the point when you haven’t presented an argument as to why your position should be accepted? You simply assert that it is true. I’ll ask again: make a case as to why anyone should accept your assertion as valid.
I don’t know how to be more clear: I explained very specifically in my last post that my position has been based entirely on the science involved. I keep saying “Let’s discuss this scientifically!”; how does that make me a religious ideologue?
From a scientific point of view, belief in a soul is “optional”. The life of a new organism begins at conception. So a puppy started its life at conception, a kitten at its conception, a human at its conception. All of these organisms are alive. I don’t know if dogs and cats have souls. I believe that humans have souls.