What are your views on abortion?

[okinrus]

Part of my religion is that people who try and push their religion onto me ar going to hell, and should be shot to expedite the process.

That's great but I wasn't the one who made baseless bible claims, it was you; and if you want to use any other source to argue for abortion then I will attack that as well.

Then why are you unable to explain logically why a fetus is any different then a tumor? Or why it should be saved?

A fetus is different from a tumor because your tumor does not grow into an human being. If you want to know why exactly a fetus will grow into an adult human being but a sperm cell doesn't, simply look it up in your medical textbooks. I don't really have to answer these questions until medical science can tell us why tumors multiply rapidly and different cells in the human body organize themselves into organs having varied function. Also extend your analogy a little further and make the claim that my tax money should go to paying the removal of babies because otherwise your being hypocritical.

You can't be serious.... college isn't worth what it used to be.

I'm not a history major and I've only taken one semester of European history. Anyways, I believe my European history book said that historians and later greeks used the epics to find glimpse of the darkage in Greek history. If you look at this <a href="http://academic.reed.edu/humanities/110Tech/Iliad.html#Basic">timeline</a> the oral stories in the Illiad began in the Dark age of Greek civilization.

LMAO. Or it could just me made up Even 'facial fossils' would have 2 eyes (or half a skull missing)

No, there is certain type of animal whose fossil looks like a one eyed monster because of the nostril hole. You should really be more nice because even if I do make mistake, well it's just a mistake. Maybe we should make our definition of a human as one who makes mistakes because this seems to be one universal trait.
http://www.greece.gr/ENVIRONMENT/ScienceAndTechnology/cretancyclopsfound.stm

 

[Persol]

Originally posted by okinrus
A fetus is different from a tumor because your tumor does not grow into an human being.
As I stated before, they can.

If you want to know why exactly a fetus will grow into an adult human being but a sperm cell doesn't, simply look it up in your medical textbooks.
Actually, sperm cells and eggs do grow into a fetus. The fact that there is a process doesn't change that. There is a process for a fetus to turn into a baby as well.

Also extend your analogy a little further and make the claim that my tax money should go to paying the removal of babies because otherwise your being hypocritical.
Slight difference here. Tumors are caused by just about everybody, so everybody pays (except with smoking and the like... then they pay higher premiums). Fetuses are caused by 2 people. The father does have a responsibility.

If you look at this <a href="http://academic.reed.edu/humanities/110Tech/Iliad.html#Basic">timeline</a>...
Yadda yadda... regardless, they aren't the only written stories.

Maybe we should make our definition of a human as one who makes mistakes because this seems to be one universal trait.
Fine with me, unless you start to claim that a fetus without a brain somehow makes mistakes.

 

[okinrus]

As I stated before, they can.

I have never heard of a tumor growing into a human being. If you are talking about this <a href="http://fpeng.peopledaily.com.cn/200006/11/eng20000611_42731.html">article</a> I think they pretty much discovered that they were twins. There have been several other cases where the fetus was mistaken for a tumor but I'm not sure of the origen of your statement that fetus' can grow into human beings. Simply if they could, we would say that the tumor was a fetus. Maybe you are making the claim that we are all tumors that have been removed? The tumor is one type of cell that is abnormally multiplying itself, while the fetus' cells form a division of labor.

Actually, sperm cells and eggs do grow into a fetus. The fact that there is a process doesn't change that. There is a process for a fetus to turn into a baby as well.

Is life and death a process as well? The difference between a born baby and a fetus in the latter stages of pregnacy is small. In fact, doctors can induce an early pregnacy if they wanted to. Therefore whether the fetus is inside or outside of the womb should have no bearing on the rights given to the fetus.

Fine with me, unless you start to claim that a fetus without a brain somehow makes mistakes.

The fetus has a brain at least in the latter stages. Also the brain would develop by genetic determinism anyway so there's no point to giving the brain any moral basis on this. Much of the brain development occurs after birth. Object regonizition, for example, takes about two years. http://www.carmical.net/features/abortionisprolife.html

 

[Persol]

Originally posted by okinrus
I have never heard of a tumor growing into a human being. If you are talking about this...
No, i'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the fact that tumor cells can be used to create clones.

Is life and death a process as well?
Yes, everything is a 'process'.

The difference between a born baby and a fetus in the latter stages of pregnacy is small. In fact, doctors can induce an early pregnacy if they wanted to. Therefore whether the fetus is inside or outside of the womb should have no bearing on the rights given to the fetus.
Exactly. A fetus in the first trimester has no rights... in or out of the womb.

The fetus has a brain at least in the latter stages.
Perhaps you haven't been payng attention to the discussion. Nobody I saw was trying to emphasize late term abortions.

 

[okinrus]

No, i'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the fact that tumor cells can be used to create clones.

Of course this has not been observed in humans. Your more or less making infeasable arguments based upon theory. If we want to go that route, then the fetus would not need a womb or the mother(with the reservation that we wait 100 years until science catches up). Or even better yet, the fetus is a person because it will change into a person. I don't think you should accept one argument while throwing out the other one.

Is life and death a process as well?
Yes, everything is a 'process'.

Well this is your own deterministic philosophy not shared by everyone. Of course if you accept that everything that we do has been predetermined, then what's the difference between killing a fetus and killing a man? Neither have they the volition of will because it has already been predetermined. So you really have assented that a women does not really choose anyways. Pro-choice is a contradiction in terms because to be for it, you have to be against free will. What's odd about this is that many abortionist say that their morals are subjective when they are clearly not. If you, for instance, sketched a graph of what an abortionist feels is right and wrong concerning the fetus to adulthood, you'd find that from conception the moral quota is around 0(basically don't care); but right after birth it is at 1(goes against their morals).

Perhaps you haven't been payng attention to the discussion. Nobody I saw was trying to emphasize late term abortions.

Late term abortions do occur and someone who is against late term abortions is usually against all forms of abortion because it's a matter of principle. Either way, it's been my expierence taht someone who is against late term abortions is against the current laws concerning abortion. Flores is odd

 

[Jolly Rodger]

Originally posted by one_raven
What about the potential father?

most important is the female,
although i think this is interesting because if the male does not want it but the female does, the male will have to pay child support
but if the male wants it and the female she can get rid of it with out consulting him.
how is this a mans world or even equal, the women have taken over!

 

[Persol]

Originally posted by okinrus
Of course this has not been observed in humans.
ITS BEEN DONE. They just didn't implant them.

Well this is your own deterministic philosophy not shared by everyone.
No it's not. A process has nothing to do with being deterministic. A process is just a series of actions. Name one thing that doesn't fall into this category.


Pro-choice is a contradiction in terms because to be for it, you have to be against free will.
LMAO. Yeah, I'd like to hear this one.

Late term abortions do occur and someone who is against late term abortions is usually against all forms of abortion because it's a matter of principle.
You aren't this stupid. Nobody claims that late-term fetuses can not feel pain and are not be aware. Late-term abortions are not the issue here.

 

[okinrus]

Of course this has not been observed in humans.
ITS BEEN DONE. They just didn't implant them.

I don't think it's certain that it would, if implanted, grow into ordinary a human being.

No it's not. A process has nothing to do with being deterministic. A process is just a series of actions. Name one thing that doesn't fall into this category.

I thought you were inferring that this was a natural process. Anyone who believes solely in the natural world believes that everything is deterministic at some point. Otherwise you'd have to believe in the existance of an entity above the natural process and not fully constrained by nature.

 

[Persol]

Originally posted by okinrus
I don't think it's certain that it would, if implanted, grow into ordinary a human being.
No, nothing is ever certain... but there is no difference between this and the animals in which it has been done.

Anyone who believes solely in the natural world believes that everything is deterministic at some point.
Anybody who knows anything about science knows that this statement is false. Everything we know about the universe is based on probability.

Otherwise you'd have to believe in the existance of an entity above the natural process and not fully constrained by nature.
Or, like science... you accept that it is part of nature and try to examine it. No extra entity needed.

 

[okinrus]

Anybody who knows anything about science knows that this statement is false. Everything we know about the universe is based on probability.

Scientist only use probabilty because they do not have full information. Chaotic systems are practically impossible to predict the outcome of without generating another universe to test. It is only our lack of information that gives rise to our apparent free will.

 

[Persol]

Originally posted by okinrus
Scientist only use probabilty because they do not have full information.

No, sorry. Try again.

 

[okinrus]

No, sorry. Try again.

Probability implies that we set of outcomes or results out of a event set. However Quantum physics relies on probability to predict outcomes because a particles speed and possition can be verified accurately at the same time. Consequently physist use probabiltiy because of lack of information on what they are observing. Luky for me, I'm not a physicist and do not have to take Quantum physics However, in computer science, there are probabalistic algorithms and the monte carlo method is sometimes used. These are based upon lack of information, like I said before. The probabalistic algorithm is to weed out nonrandom effects in the input of the algorithm and the monte carlo method is used in the calculation of integrals.

 

[Persol]

Originally posted by okinrus
However Quantum physics relies on probability to predict outcomes
Good job!

because a particles speed and possition can be verified accurately at the same time.
You had to ruin it! While this is true, it isn't the reason.

Regarless, this is getting incredibly off-topic. I'm more interested in what

Pro-choice is a contradiction in terms because to be for it, you have to be against free will.

means.

 

[okinrus]

Pro-choice is a contradiction in terms because to be for it, you have to be against free will. means..

For someone to be pro-choice, they must believe that the fetus is nothing more than just flesh. If the fetus is just flesh then you and me are both just flesh. There is no freewill because all of our actions are controlled by our brains which are in turn controlled by the neural network within them. This neural network is believed to have been developed totally by environment and genetics. There is nothing special between the fetus before developing a brain and developing one; except in the case of the developed brain, the brain interacts with the environment soaking up information. We are therefore complete and total result of our environment and genetics. We cannot be held responsible for our actions because it was our environment or genetics that caused our actions. Thus our penal system is only to change the environment and make it on the whole influence what the majority considers good behavior. You have no self-evident rights beyond your genetics and environment. Kind of bleak.

 

[shrubby pegasus]

okinrus i do know a thing about physics and probability. i am after all working on a phd in physics. there is a nonzero probability for anything to occur in this unverse regardless of how impossible it seems.

as far as environment and genetics go, there is no way im going to deny that they have determined who i am today and every decision that i make. every choice i make is simply a culmination of my experiences and genetic limitations. if you want to argue taht i have no free will because of that, well im not going to argue against you. but if you think that free will goes beyond taht i just dont see where you can get it from. because if you bring god into the picture and say he gave us free will, well taht is just as flawed as before. by a god making us who we are he palced limits on anything we do. therefore predisposing us to certain actions. so i guess no matter how you look at we dont have free will, oh well. i guess judging someone for murder or for an abortion is meaningless as well because it is an arbitrary predetermination. so your moral system has no bearing on my predetermined life

 

[okinrus]

okinrus i do know a thing about physics and probability. i am after all working on a phd in physics. there is a nonzero probability for anything to occur in this unverse regardless of how impossible it seems.

Ok? What about a contradiction? There seems to be that somethings are impossible, otherwise we would not have any order in the universe. If everything was possible, then we would have complete chaos. Yet to say that somethings are more likely would require only the spliting up of more likely events into smaller events that are all of the same likelyhood. From the outside perspective without any real knowledge of Quantum theory, I believe like Einstein does. That God nor the Universe plays dice. I don't think that there should be any room for probabilty in a completely natural world of perfect information. Maybe it's because I believe that everything has a cause. To me, probability is only the waving up of our hands and proclaiming there is no cause. I'd rather say that everything has a cause that we cannot know than to simply say there is no cause. Of course probability could exist, but it's existance presumes the infinite(somewhere at least) since probabilty is defined through a limit.

if you want to argue taht i have no free will because of that, well im not going to argue against you. but if you think that free will goes beyond taht i just dont see where you can get it from. because if you bring god into the picture and say he gave us free will, well taht is just as flawed as before. by a god making us who we are he palced limits on anything we do.

I don't think this concerns God so much as the existance of a spiritual existance apart from the more mechanical existance.

i guess no matter how you look at we dont have free will, oh well. i guess judging someone for murder or for an abortion is meaningless as well because it is an arbitrary predetermination. so your moral system has no bearing on my predetermined life

Well don't worry about being predetermined. I don't think a predetermined being could feel alive. This debate shouldn't be about moral systems because both sides believe that murder is wrong. It's about how we define human life than simply morals. What I've found is that so many people are about finding ways that we aren't special and that we are just animals, that we will loose our uniqueness. I think abortion is the tip of the iceberg so to speak. If people realize that they are animals, whose to say that they cannot behave like animals?

 

[shrubby pegasus]

why do you have to believe we are special?

anyway, quantum mehcanics turned out to be one of einsteins biggest blunders. so going by what he said on it shouldnt be something you should do. maybe you should go by what feynman said. the universe is based on probability. there is no way around. mechanics as we know it is just quantum mechanics on larger scale and crazy things just become even less likely, but there still is a probability

 

[Persol]

Originally posted by okinrus
For someone to be pro-choice, they must believe that the fetus is nothing more than just flesh. If the fetus is just flesh then you and me are both just flesh.
Note that the claim of us being 'just flesh' is irreleveant to this discussion.

There is no freewill because all of our actions are controlled by our brains which are in turn controlled by the neural network within them.
Don't even try this. We have almost no idea how the brain actually works. Regardless of the mechanism, we do have free will... as 'free will' is defined by the choices we are able to make. What actually makes us choose one choice or another is irrelevant.

This neural network is believed to have been developed totally by environment and genetics.
You forgot the bigest factor. Chance.

The rest of you argument is just silly, as it is based on ignorant premises.

 

[okinrus]

why do you have to believe we are special?

We are special because we are capable of doing more good than all of the other animals. Notice that I said capable. We are certainly capable to do more evil than all the other animals as well. But every criminal is capable of doing good too and so is the fetus given an amount of time for his or her brain to develop.

Another definition that ties with being capable of good, is the ability to love. Sure we can love dogs and they love us but it it's not the same kind of love. If we define our indentity this way, as it is attached to such words as humane, abortion grossly contradicts the indentity of the women.

anyway, quantum mehcanics turned out to be one of einsteins biggest blunders. so going by what he said on it shouldnt be something you should do. maybe you should go by what feynman said. the universe is based on probability. there is no way around. mechanics as we know it is just quantum mechanics on larger scale and crazy things just become even less likely, but there still is a probability

I don't think the universe can be based upon probabilty unless if we admit some central controlling force with a huge random generator. Sure Quantum theory may be a valid theory and the probabalistic bounds based upon our uncertainty of events may be entirely correct, but this is, after all, based upon uncertainty. Therefore probabilty in the universe is only our in inability to know certain factors that affect the outcome or it's the result of some godlike character. And for probabilty to make any mathematical sense at all, it must be the convergence of a number of events over an infinite number of trials. The existance of an infinite number of trials for each atom is as hard to swallow as an infinite God.

This neural network is believed to have been developed totally by environment and genetics.
You forgot the bigest factor. Chance.

If the biggest factor was chance, then my thinking would be even more random than ever I really have to ask what you mean by this though. So because a fetus is not exposed to as much random interferance as we are, he or she does not deserve to live? And If the universe is just chance then our environment is simply chance.

Don't even try this. We have almost no idea how the brain actually works. Regardless of the mechanism, we do have free will... as 'free will' is defined by the choices we are able to make. What actually makes us choose one choice or another is irrelevant.

I think researchers will be able to go pretty far with knowing how the brain encodes information but they will have limits. For instance, we might be able to say a certain chemical is released by the neurons giving the sensation of pain but we won't be able to know why this chemical makes us feel pain and another chemical doesn't.

 

[Persol]

Originally posted by okinrus
I don't think the universe can be based upon probabilty unless if we admit some central controlling force with a huge random generator.[/b]
May I ask why? The only reason you'd call upon some 'random generator' is if you believe in a deterministic universe.

If the biggest factor was chance, then my thinking would be even more random than ever I really have to ask what you mean by this though.
Do some research into chaos theory. Random does not mean disorderly.

So because a fetus is not exposed to as much random interferance as we are, he or she does not deserve to live?
The fetuses we are talking about don't even have a brain to be exposed in the first place.

And If the universe is just chance then our environment is simply chance.
Bravo on the obvious.

For instance, we might be able to say a certain chemical is released by the neurons giving the sensation of pain but we won't be able to know why this chemical makes us feel pain and another chemical doesn't.
I ave no reason to believe they won't figure both of those out. I'm just saying that they haven't yet. Regardless, this is yet again irrelevant as the topic of our discussion doesn't even have a functioning brain.