Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
If God exists and he makes babies abort, he is a murderer. Period.
To rational people, those who believe in God or don't, a miscarriage is an evolutionary process, as is the death of anyone of any age due to merely no longer being viable.
Any other early termination of life committed by another person without the killed one's consent is murder. That's exactly why there are laws against murder which include fetal homicide.
The cited article alleges that Oregon just passed legislation that will allow for the starvation and dehydration of incompetent people. I'd like to see confirmation from an unbiased source, sounds a little too hyperbolic to me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mahayana
We are not animals, but have a divine spirit or buddha nature within us. Self murder or suicide will cause our next rebirth to have great suffering.
That's belief, not established fact. You're certainly free to believe what you do but your or anyone else's belief should not be forced on others.
Location: By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea
68,299 posts, read 54,205,437 times
Reputation: 40623
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mahayana
So it is to you an established fact that humans are only animals, not a belief?
A definition I find for 'animal' is "a living organism that feeds on organic matter, typically having specialized sense organs and nervous system and able to respond rapidly to stimuli."
If NOT animals, WHAT are we?
And " have a divine spirit or buddha nature within us. Self murder or suicide will cause our next rebirth to have great suffering." have certainly never been established as anything but belief.
A definition I find for 'animal' is "a living organism that feeds on organic matter, typically having specialized sense organs and nervous system and able to respond rapidly to stimuli."
If NOT animals, WHAT are we?
And " have a divine spirit or buddha nature within us. Self murder or suicide will cause our next rebirth to have great suffering." have certainly never been established as anything but belief.
The first clue is we are the only creature that uses spoken and written languages. Another clue is only humans have a unique creative ability, for purposes sublime - music & poetry to horrid - bombs; to silly - Mr Potato-head.
What may surprise you even more than humans being souls or spirits who use animal bodies, is the fact that there are those who do know the mysteries of life and beyond death.
Some are known to history like Buddha, Krishna, Jesus, Rishi Vasistha etc. some are not well known at all.
We are not animals, but have a divine spirit or buddha nature within us. Self murder or suicide will cause our next rebirth to have great suffering.
Why would any benevolent god want us to do the irrational thing and continue suffering through life when we have a way out? To me, that sounds like quite an unkind god...a god who punishes people for making what appears to them to be the right choice.
Now...perhaps god is malevolent. I could understand good reasons for just obeying a malevolent god in order to not be punished, but I'd still need a good reason to believe in that god, because of the whole "a bird in the bag is worth two in the bush" idea. I know focusing on this life will be a good thing now. Obeying a god only might be a good thing because I don't know the god exists.
People talk about Pascal's wager, and similar ideas relating to longer term afterlife rewards than current life rewards...but that has several flaws I don't see a point in going into in the politics forum.
However, at least you're telling people things they might not know yet...so that's a contribution. I learned something.
To rational people, those who believe in God or don't, a miscarriage is an evolutionary process, as is the death of anyone of any age due to merely no longer being viable.
Any other early termination of life committed by another person without the killed one's consent is murder. That's exactly why there are laws against murder which include fetal homicide.
That's not a logical statement. Here's why:
#1. Things can't sensibly be labeled right or wrong based on whether or not they're evolutionary processes, because there is nothing inherently good or bad about things being or not being evolutionary processes.
#2. We describe murder as wrong, and illegal, because it causes harm to people, generally speaking...not because it's a form of killing. We kill all the time, and sometimes it doesn't even cause the type of harm that organisms can feel. If we kill microbes, for example, I don't know a huge amount about microbes but I'm pretty confident they don't feel pain. insects might not feel pain either.
Why murder is describe as wrong is mostly because it's non-consensual. I don't think we can say abortion is non-consensual, because the developing fetus or embryo doesn't have enough of a conscious thought process to make a decision about it. Therefore adults with developed brains will be better at making a decision about whether a fetus lives or dies than the fetus will be, because we can think rationally and it cannot. It's forced to exist by default. It doesn't get the option of an off switch. Whether the developing organism is allowed to live or not, either way it's being forced in some way by adults, and there's no escape from that. The best that can be done is to make a good decision about whether or not the developing being will live or not...but there are no scenarios in which adults are not controlling the fate of the developing being.
and that's without factoring in the fact that it's the woman's body, which is also relevant.
Cognitive scientist and philosopher Daniel Dennett made a video about something he'd like invented. He thought euthanasia isn't enough. He doesn't like the idea of people sitting around thinking "Am I ready to die yet?" to him that sounds extremely unpleasant, so he talked about what would be great would be some type of pill someone could take if they wanted at a certain point in their lives. It'd be a euthanasia pill, but not one that kills you instantly. It'd give you some random amount of time to live, some number of months or years. Then it would give you a half hour or so long warning before you die so you'd have time to get out of traffic, and then you'd die without having to constantly find yourself pondering "Am I ready to die yet?"
I think that relates to one reason why people don't like the idea of physician assisted euthanasia. If we don't have to think about the possibility that we might be at a point when we'd be better off no longer living, it gives us a simpler, less unpleasant goal: just live on and try to make your life as good as possible. Having the option on the table that maybe we shouldn't live might make us consider that option more often, and drags everything into being more depressing because of it...because of all that considering that upsetting prospect.
But, we lack Dennett's magical pill, and we won't get it anytime soon, if that would even be a good thing to have around....but what we do have are people who the choice probably already appears pretty clear too, who can't legally make the choice they want to make without making it in a very unpleasant way, for both them and the relatives.
Sounds like John McCain isn't long for this world.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
