What about the case of rape? What about incest? How does your rational feel about those cases? I could dig back to see if you covered those scenarios......but this thread is NOT as important as watching Uriah Hall fight on TUF right now.........TIA!
1. Experiential? In what way. The whole idea of faith is that it is not tangible. That is is not experiential. It's a leap without any rational basis. Faith is the anti-science. Faith is about what is not observable. You can not experience god because to belief in god is an act of faith in and of itself. 2. Science does not answer philosophical answers. The idea of "when life begins" is not a scientific question. I already told you this. You say conception. One can also as valid say human life begins at ejaculation. Those sperm are alive for sure, and they are human. Why should they not be considered alive by your thinking. I personally assert that human life begins when there is a brain with active electrical processes indicating thought is going on. But I do not force my ideas on the subject upon you or others. Unlike you. 3. Evolution doesn't have any holes. It only has people who create holes in order to make their religions work. The evidence for evolutions is so overwhelming that it is no longer even debated in the scientific community. It happened and is happening. Evolution has been observed in the modern day. It's fairly accepted as the reality of how life has changed in a billion years. In fact the only reason life exists is because it evolves constantly. The purpose of life is persistence. Persistence of information that is carried within DNA. Think about this. The DNA doesn't live forever. The molecules that make you your original DNA is long gone. What remains are copies made via mitosis. But merely copying DNA isn't enough to continue life. If that was all DNA could do life would have been extinct a billion years ago. No, what makes DNA still around today is that not only does it make copies of itself, it also does so imperfectly and mixes itself with other DNA to sustain variability. Variability enables natural selection which enables evolution.
Yeah, that ground has been covered before. Any conceived child is completely innocent in any of those situations but my position is to to respect the mother's right to choose in the case of rape or incest.
I suppose that some moments of living by faith can be completely non-experiential but more realistically people are "emboldened" by their faith, they have prayers answered and their faith grows "stronger." All these speak of experience that is built upon over the course of time. You are taking just the most simple understanding of faith and extrapolating it. If I have "faith" that things will work out for the best, more likely than not it is because in my life I have experienced that before. I'm not asking a philosophical question. If you can detect those brain waves, can you not detect and measure the human life force that rises up and turns that "creature" into a human being deemed to valuable to abort. Surely there must be evidence of such a quantum leap? Or are you just a slave to the trimester system for protecting babies in utero? So does a human life begin when when those electrical processes begin in a baby dolphin or a baby muskrat? Oh, really? Here is some contradiction: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080316193234AAH83R9 I don't deny evolution as a mechanism of change.
Well, I do disagree with a lot of what you have posted here.....but I am glad you hold this view in cases of Rape/Incest. Cheers bro!
So what is the experience of faith? This is non-sensical drivel dude. You haven't described anything but everyday experiences. Prayers answered? What? I thought we agreed this isn't a religious debate. Nor do I subscribed to prayers being answered. That's silly to me, mere coincidences. Yes you are. When life begins is not a scientific one. Science describes life in very different terms. A plant is living by science terms. So is a bacteria. The force that converts a zygote to a human is called thermodynamics. The basic laws of physics manifested itself into chemistry and biology. There is no life force at work here. This is your leap of faith. Nothing more. To me, there is life as in plants and such. And that is what a zygote is. Of any animal. It's not the life that matters, it's sentience. Sentience life is what is precious and valuable. And that begins when the brain turns on. Not at conception. So yeah, it's pretty cut and dry to me. I don't use faith. I do go by magical "life force" This ain't star wars dude. This is people's rights and freedoms you are playing with with your beliefs. It's very wrong to do this. Immoral in my book. That is a bunch of quote mining. In other words, total garbage. You are totally brain washed and hopeless if you believe that crap.
Everyday experiences are real, not theoretical. It's not a religious debate but I am countering your claim that spirit is just a rigid belief framework. I say it is more than that You keep dodging the bullet here. I keep asking about HUMAN life. So why is abortion not okay at any point in time? Indeed, why not just allow murder all around... whenever? Even in your gray world, you reach a point where these things are unconscionable. How can that be possible if it is all just a matter of chemistry and physics.... This is only your opinion, crafted by working backwards towards a summary statement which allows you to propose killing babies in utero and I'm the immoral one? Is it not still called the Theory of Evolution? Can you point out for us a resource that asserts that there are no holes in the TOE?
