On 7/22/06, Gary Denton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> You can say it's not human if you like, but genetically you are just > wrong. It is distinctly human and not of any other living species. > Furthermore, it is alive. If it were not, there would be no need to > kill it. --JWR It is not a free-standing individual but is at the stage of a symbiotic parasite. My definition of live human begins at a later stage.
If there is a God, I wonder where his definition of a live human being begins, and does he feel it is morally OK for each of us to have our own personal definition that is different from his? Is there any way to find out without merely guessing or theorizing? If we place the point at which the organism is "viable," and can survive outside the womb without a mother's love and care, then we deny the label "human" to many children and even some adults. Perhaps we should just kill every human organism that is helpless and cannot sustain itself. It would certainly solve a lot of the problems with the elderly, the homeless, the handicapped, and the starving poor of Africa and North Korea. I'm not sure that even atheists and agnostics would find that morally acceptable, although I cannot imagine why not. From my perspective, God is the source of all moral law. And if there is no God, or if his will is unknowable, then all things are equally moral. And to be more precise, the concept of morality ceases to exist. Of course, that is just from my perspective. People think and believe in a marvelous variety of ways. It seems to be as much a unique quality for each individual as his face or his fingerprints. We love to think that our attitudes are all the result of reason, logic and carefully though out positions. But my observation over 61 years indicates to me that people don't even know why they feel and believe as they do. It is all determined by mental processes that take place far deeper than that part of the mind which we are aware of or have conscious control of. And happiness for each individual depends on how well we are able to live according to what we really believe on this deeper, involuntary level. People who outrage their inner most convictions, the ones we are not even aware of on a conscious level, can never be happy and often end up either suicidal or self-destructive or both. Just to be on the safe side, I personally opt for preserving all human life from a zygote to a completely senile person well over a hundred years of age. Why kill them? They are going to die anyway. Every living thing does. All we have to do is be more patient. That some are unwilling to wait for natural death seems morally risky to me. Some women who abort their children never recover emotionally but spend the rest of their lives agonizing over the choice they made. And this is undoubtedly true regardless of what stage of development the unborn child was. Not being a woman who has ever aborted an unborn child, I cannot speak from experience. But I imagine that for some women recovering from a youthful and foolish decision to get an abortion is like trying to recover from sexual child molestation. There is a sense in which all of us are children and always will be. John W. Redelfs [EMAIL PROTECTED] *************************************************************************************** Do you play World of Warcraft? Let me know. Maybe we can play together. *************************************************************************************** All my opinions are tentative pending further data. --JWR _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
