Why do christians believe that a fetus is a person?
- Thread starter Nasor
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Lawdog said:
The sperm and the egg are both alive separately, yet most christians don't consider them to be a person. Indeed, if you put a sperm and an egg together in a piece of lab glassware there is a good chance (but it is not certain) that the sperm will swim into the egg and eventually developed into a human child. So it seems to me that claiming something constitutes a human simply because it is alive and has the potential to develope into a person is not very good reasoning.
I don't follow you. Why is it that a separate sperm and egg are only potentially an individual, but suddenly become an individual after they join together? Neither a sperm and egg floating separately in a test tube nor an embryo floating in a test tube is recognizably human. Both are alive and have the potential to eventually develop into a human child, but Christians say that one constitutes a human being and the other doesn't. That's what I'm trying to understand.Lawdog said:
I have one word: Ensoulment.
Wilmet said:In my opinion, an embryo should not be considered to be human... unless, of course, it is a human embryo.
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M*W: Well, it wouldn't be "considered" human unless it "was" human! Actually, I've been approved for cardiac stem cell transplantation from my own bone marrow, so I'll get back to you on this one.
Christians believe a fetus is human because the bible says so. David makes this clear.
Besides that it can be logically deduced for a person that believes in God: If God is omnipotent then He knew who I was before I was born. He also knew how my whole life would unfold before I was born. Today, He knows how my life will end. All are quite logical conclusions based on the assumption that God exists.
Besides that it can be logically deduced for a person that believes in God: If God is omnipotent then He knew who I was before I was born. He also knew how my whole life would unfold before I was born. Today, He knows how my life will end. All are quite logical conclusions based on the assumption that God exists.
I believe the argument stems from recognizing a person's individual right to live, even if they aren't "recognizably human". That would depend too much on who does the recognizing. The so-called "elephant man" was barely recognizable as human, too... As for sperm and eggs, I think nature demonstrates quite convincingly that they're not "individuals", and are expendible in a way that viable embryos aren't. They both seem suicidally intent on becoming a viable embryo, and so we look where they're pointing.Nasor said:
But nature also eventually takes everybody's life, and we don't allow that to decide the worth of an adult's life - why an embyo? The intention is as far as we are able (and especially in recognition of our ignorance and personal biases) not to devalue something that God values.
But I see a lot of hypocrisy about the issue. Some who are up in arms about pro-life issues won't hesitate to devalue anyone who disagrees with them. And to a Christian, character assasination should fall under the same category as murder (Matt. 5:21-26). I don't know how or why someone could pretend to respect life that they're not even sure exists, if they can't even respect life that they're sure exists.
absolutely nothing can be logically deduced, regarding god/religion, logic and god/religion are mutually exclusive.
At the time of writing each one of those books were current, so that's irrelevant to the belief in something greater. What makes a religion "organized" is that it has a logical and therefore broadly recognized/recognizable structure, ordered around a unifying source.KennyJC said:
That we can't detect God by the means we'd like or at the times convenient to us, hardly makes Him undetectable per se. He will make himself detectable how, when and where He wants to. But we've had this discussion before regarding evidence.
It's analogous to the belief in evolution. The "evidence" essentially consists of mute dry bones. They don't say anything, they require study and interpretation. But there is no living, universally apparent evidence of evolution - unless you presuppose the theory. And the theory (like organized religion) logically connects the authoritive interpretations of each separate piece of evidence, liberally strewn throughout history. The fact that fossils are ancient and sometimes incomplete doesn't invalidate them. On the contrary, that's why they're considered evidence. Their age is what makes them part of history, and their (often cryptic) (dis-)composition is consistent with it. Only when a theory that accounts for the evidence is accepted and life is interpreted accordingly, humans become "apparent" as living, breathing evidence. The Bible might be called a "fossil record" of people and events that testified to God at the time.
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So the formation is logical in the sense of how they persue their illusion. But since it is an illusion it is not logical. This means that the methods employed for Astrology are logical, but does not mean the belief in Astrology is logical.
Interesting that you call this invisible entity a 'he'. Plus, in what way is he detectable? Santa clause is therefor detectable if I simply believe in him.
Interesting again - I am not aware of a single religious person on here that accepts the evidence for evolution. Saying that evolution depends on dry bones is a bit like saying Einstein relied on a few equations.
Also interesting that religious moderates/apologists like yourself seem to always try to compare theists and atheists using vague analogies. Whilst the fundamentalists wants nothing to do with atheists, moderates seem to want to be like atheists by trying to steal their use of rational logic... while of course failing, like you have done. Your attempt to parallel organised religion and science was laughably pathetic.