Bay 12 Games Forum

You know, I just realized that I don't really understand what the philosophical justification Christians are drawing from in their crusade to outlaw abortion. Does the bible mention something about a zygote, embryo or fetus being considered a full-fledged human being? Life begins at conception? I hear that latter term a lot but I don't belief it's in the Bible, is it? Does it just contradict the "be fruitful and multiply" guidance? Do they want to ban it just because it's an icky medical procedure to think about?

I think conceptually it comes from a few directions; yes, the be-fruitful is one. The anti-masturbation thing (Onan, iirc) is also part of it, as that's seen as wasting the seed of life (Nevermind that sperm dies by the millions naturally even without any form of ejaculation); an abortion would be condemned along similar grounds -- and yes, the logical progression of that is that menstruation is a sin (because the woman's not pregnant and is thus wasting a potential life). Which is perfectly in line with the scare-quote "Christian" (note: Jesus, the man of peace, would bitchslap them, yes) outlook of women as little more than baby making machines, yes. Quick E before nap: And yes, yes, most Christians aren't that bad, but both the church and the holy texts are definitely very strongly patriarchal-in-the-negative-sense.

The sacredness of life -- which I definitely couldn't quote and likely isn't explicitly stated in the biblical text, but is a long term implicit and sometimes explicit (if oft violated) axiom of christian ethical theory -- taken to the standard of hilarious extreme comes in, too. All life is created by God (Actually is God, really, but that's something else) and is thus sacred and humankind in all its forms is particularly sacred (Remember, even though angels were created by God as well, they must bow to humans). To do anything to prevent the spread of that ultimate good can be seen as sin.

Although it still hinges on if there is a soul generated at the moment of conception or not. Is this about original sin? If an unborn embryo dies before being baptized it goes to hell right? So if an zygote has a soul and there is a miscarriage or abortion it goes to hell before it can be born and, then I can see that being something they'd want to avoid, although it happens naturally.

Yeah, original sin isn't really biblical, per se. S'church doctrine, especially catholic, but it's only really there because people still have their head stuck up Augustine's ass (Which, to be fair to Augustine, is a pretty impressive ass. Dude was pretty eloquent.). So can blame Augustine for that, iirc. Either him or Aquinas. Technically the original sin (Of Adam/Eve) was absolved, along with all other sin at the time/in perpetuity by Jesus's sacrifice. Can probably blame hoosface... Dante. Dante, yeah. Divine Comedy dude. For the whole unborn children going to hell thing (First circle, though, which isn't all that bad comparatively.), though he was probably was drawing from something else.

But no, most of it's not directly from biblical text, from what I understand. If there's anything in the bible that specifically states that "Thou shalt not abort thine fetus" I haven't noticed anyone quoting it. If there's anything specific, though, it's probably in the torah/old testament stuff. Might be something in that huge list of Judaic laws I've forgotten the name of.

I'm not sure how it is hard to understand the prospective at least. I mean, the idea is that these things have souls, and thus killing them is wrong. You don't need a bible to tell you killing things with souls is wrong and you don't even need a bible to know that these things have souls. You just need belief. I don't understand the idea that that is hard to understand.

Nah, that's pretty easy to understand, but a helluva lot harder to actually accept; you don't need a reason, you just need belief. "And should believe... why, exactly?" That's the response. The concept of soul isn't exactly axiomatic to all belief systems or individuals, after all~

Mont was also asking for philosophical justification, which that isn't, heh "Just 'cuz" gets you (in the general sense, not you specifically, cript) hit with the unjustified hammer of great justice in philosophical discussions.

Ngh, yeah, our class redid the crucible as a musical, iirc. I think I nabbed a narrator part, because like hell I was singing. Friend of mine still has the script somewhere, last time I checked.

You're saying that a human life isn't valuable and that only death is important. Death isn't bad just because. It's bad because it's the end of life. Ending billions of lives to stop people from dying is missing the entire point of trying to save people.

Mm, for the full on genocide, yes.

For the other bit, culling of the poor, etc, or chopping off full out slices of the human population, it's exactly the point you made. We can kill a lesser number to allow a greater number to live. One dies or ten, and we could save the ten by killing the one. By th'point you made, the more moral choice -- and thus the choice that should be made -- is to kill the one.

There's easy places to start, like with the terminally ill -- kill them now, use the resources they were consuming to cure the not-yet-terminally ill. Both have the train coming, but there's larger numbers of one, so kill the smaller number.

But yeah, the old Kantian train dilemma breaks down pretty easily once you take it away from the traintrack. That's really my only point.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, after all...

At least insofar as morality goes, one of the more common points against this is the concept of agency, or individual choice. The needs of the many may outweigh the needs of the few, but what gives the many the right to force the few to sacrifice themselves -- or rather, to sacrifice the few for their own needs? Or the right for any particular individual to decide that some other individual or small group's needs are 'okay' to sacrifice?

And who decides which needs justify the sacrifice?

If the needs of the many truly outweigh the needs of the few, the story goes, the only moral action is for the few to give themselves willingly. All other options are immoral; they steal the choice from the few. And it's very, very difficult to build a workable system that doesn't very strongly emphasize personal agency.

Now, mind you, that doesn't mean that the other way around is somehow better, and that individual agency is always and forever sacrosanct and leads to good and/or moral ends necessarily -- the needs of the many really do outweigh the needs of the few, if for no other reason than the few is ultimately a subset of the many. Problem is deciding where the line's drawn in a world where the situation is very, very, rarely as simple as 'kill this person, ensure cure for cancer' and where morality of the majority has very rarely (more like never, really) actually turned out well.

Didn't someone manage to get up enough signatures to put an amendment on a state ballot banning dihydrogen monoxide once, or something along those lines? Or is that just one of the urban legend type things?

I'd probably go in fifty/fifty on it... integrity is one thing, but knowing when to shut the hell up or stay quiet is kind of important when you're dealing with a non-homogeneous ideological base (read: All of them). Santorum in particular is just a really shitty politician -- and I mean this in the higher sense of good social leader, not just someone that wins elections -- and the fact that he's running for what he is, with the positions that he holds, just makes that really bloody obvious.

I can respect ideological integrity, but willful ignorance, stupidity, or insanity -- and it's one or more of the three in Santorum's case -- pretty easily counters what little respect that sort of integrity garners. Sticking to your guns doesn't excuse incompetence or having your head stuck up the ass of a centuries-to-millennium outdated ideological foundation

But it's all rather irrelevant, really. The chances of the man getting elected president this time around is still basically zero.

I know prayer is still allowed in cases such as Muslims getting breaks for their prayers each day and student organized prayers at sporting events/etc.

And there's not and never have been, yanno', strictures against letting a little one go of your own volition, so long as it's not class disrupting.

That'd be the personally annoying bit about the whole thing, that insinuation that the lack of official support is somehow an attempt to censor personal speech (beyond what it's already censored as per regular school operation). It's viciously disingenuous and overtly misrepresentative of what's actually happening, played off as some kind of attack on personal spirituality (or rather Christianity in particular, but these tend to be the same people that are probably pissed off about Muslims getting a break their kids don't.), which it isn't and never has been.

S'just kinda' annoying.