₦airaland Forum

wiegraf: No and no.

I choose physical feeling because at that point the organism is at least able to feel pain.

And I asked you if the inability to feeling pain is justification for killing?

Depends. Then again, fetuses aren't human.

How did you come to this conclusion? Why do you think the foetus is not human?

It very, very clearly is. Even if it were a living, breathing, conscious human, it would still be a human using her own body. Her own resources. Do you understand? So what right have you to tell her what she does with it?

Is a woman allowed to kill here one month old baby too? Because at one month it will still be totally dependent on the mother.

However, the fetus remains part of her body. When it separates (or can at least live independently), it stops being part of her. Else, no, it remains (more or else) an organ.

It is funny how you can call an entirely different person an organ just to justify killing him/her. What does this "organ" do?

Really, what right do you have to tell her what she does with a potential human? Like I state in the other thread, bringing a will into this world is a huge gamble not to be taken likely. If she is not ready or it is harmful, etc, she should not be forced into turning that potential into an actual human. If she is, then please take responsibility for the child and of course any other potentially lethal consequences of the pregnancy.

perhaps at this point you should tell me at what point you think a foetus becomes human

EatmyShorts: I hope you are not laughing at me! Don't let me show you the hard-way that I'm an anointed man of god.


Jesus loves You.
Pastor MarcAnthony

Lol, Mr pastor, where did you learn about subjective morality? from your bible?

thehomer: I'm not doing that either. I'm just showing that what you said was flawed.

Lol, of course. Anything can be flawed if you can raise a good enough strawman.

That isn't the pro-choice position either.

What then is the pro-choice position in this context?

Now how do determine that the foetus is a human being?

Simple. It is a unique and different being from it's mother having it's own unique genetic code.

Now over to you. Why do you think a foetus is not a human being?

wiegraf: Those are not babies, not until when they're at least capable of feeling, let alone surviving on their own without the mothers lifeline. Not until they are fully formed.

Question: Is the foetus human? Is being human based on capacity to feel?

Do show how they have consciousness.

Does a lack of consciousness justify killing a human being?

But most importantly, it's not your body. Frankly, not your business as well.

Neither is it the mother's body

EatmyShorts: Morality is Subjective. There is no definite definition of what is Moral and what is not Moral. Your environment decides what is Moral and what is not. Therefore the morality of Abortion is subjective.

Lol, really?

@thehomer, here's a variant of your argument. Tell me if you think it is essentially the same thing as the original.

Premise 1: God exists and cares about humans.
Premise 2: God would prefer it if most or all humans go to heaven.
Premise 3: All born-again christians who die will go to heaven.
Conclusion: It would be right to kill all born-again christians so that they can go to heaven immediately. Following from this, the person who does this is the ultimate altruist.

thehomer: So you're sitting on the fence? Really? Who better than a child with a childlike mind can have childlike faith?

When Jesus urges us to have faith like little children, he is referring to that trusting nature little children have as an example of how our faith ought to be like. This does not automatically mean that all little children go to heaven because they are little children in much the same way that when Paul urges Christians to emulate the endurance of athletes doesn't automatically mean that therefore all athletes automatically go to heaven because they are athletes either.

Let me go with something even simpler. How about one year olds?

How about them?

The mere presence of God doesn't grant him authority.

If God is by definition almighty creator and sustainer, then it does.

Genocide has a certain meaning. Unless you wish to redefine it, I think we should stick to well known meaning in English. So, are you saying it isn't genocide when God commands people to commit what is defined as genocide?

Would you like to define genocide and tell me exactly why it is wrong?

And many theologians and Christians would disagree with you. Now who is ignorant about Christianity?

And the question remains "what does the bible teach?"

Again, my assessment (and that of many other Christian theologians) is that those children go to heaven. Now if you don't know, then you're not qualified to participate in the debate until you do know.

Lol, appealing to authority now are we?

By arbitrary, I mean what you mean with your examples of people just destroying whatever they create without justification basically on a whim. If he had a fixed character, then he cannot be permitting genocide on the one hand and according to you, now disallowing it on the other.

You are yet to show the genocide.

No I'm not, you seem to be when you say that since man cannot create some life, they don't have a right to destroy it. I'm not saying that either. In fact, what I said before was the opposite of that. Now, do you think man has the right to kill?

Man does not have the right to murder another man because he neither creates nor sustains the other man's life who he wishes to kill.

If men don't have that ability, then how do you know he is good? Or even all knowing? I don't have to know as much as he does to know that allowing children to die of malaria, when he can do something about it, isn't a sign of goodness.

You are assuming that there is a good separate from God. upon what is this good of yours based? How do you know that allowing children to die of malaria is objectively evil?

I don't think the government or the police works that way unless of course it is a very corrupt system. In which case, you cannot contest what they say or you too will be punished. I don't think you want to make that comparison with a corrupt system otherwise, one can simply say that it is exactly how your God is arbitrary. He claims authority because he thinks might makes right but obviously we as humans disagree.

Once again you purposely miss the point when it suits you. You know full well that the analogy was to show you that the intelligence available to the government about the activities of Mr Okon are more than that of yours as a low ranking policeman simply ordered to arrest him. As I said earlier, in order to challenge the governments judgment, you ought to at least have equal or greater knowledge of the case.
Please feel free to conveniently misunderstand the analogy again.

God commanded the Israelites to commit genocide.

Really?

In my OP, I stated that it was a variant of the Christian God. Now since you claim to be ignorant of the fate of those children, I don't think you're qualified then to participate in the argument until their fate is sorted out.

Perhaps by variant you meant you created a straw god and attacked it. Of course I'm not qualified to know the rules of your "variant". I can only tell you about the God as much as I know of Him.

thehomer: Punishing Nazis doesn't kill Jews.

Deliberately misunderstanding the analogy again are we?

No I don't.

If only Dr Gosnell had killed the baby 10 minutes earlier without bringing it out, he would have been an innocent man. That doesn't strike you as odd? Is the baby only human once it comes out of the womb?

thehomer: Not the same way but I don't think Nazis were punished for beating Jews.

In exactly the same way. In both cases the Jews die. Also you need to learn to detect analogies

Not odd just based on misinformation and a terrible ideology. You'll realize this when you consider why they were forbidden from raping their prisoners.

...and you don't think the "pro-choice" ideology is a terrible one? If Dr Gosnell had killed the baby 10 minutes earlier without bringing it out, he would have been an innocent man. That doesn't strike you as odd? Is the baby only human once it comes out of the womb?

thehomer: No I'm not. I'm just wondering how you determine that a fetus is a human being.

Why specifically 12 hours then? why not 1 month or 7 months and 4 days?

thehomer: That is an assumption wouldn't you agree?

A properly basic one

That still isn't enough justification to lay claim to a piece of property.

We are in agreement then because in the same way merely waking up into life does not give you justification to claim the life as your property.

I know that is what I've said. Is there something wrong with that?

Lol, I can as well take for granted that people ought to be dead unless you come up with a good reason for keeping them alive.

Whether or not you blame such a person is a different matter. The point is that this person has done something which has to be considered.

Considered in which way? Because if you are going to talk about the moral value of his actions then it is not a different matter from determining whether he ought to be blamed.

No he doesn't because the person can give away his car and watch someone else drive away with it but cannot give away his life and watch someone else live it.

Lol, interesting. notice that the context was "Do you believe that a person is free to lead his life in whichever way he chooses?"
Are you saying that one can only have full and unlimited ownership of a thing if and only if he can remain conscious to observe it after letting it go?

That was with respect to the choices to be made as a society. You shouldn't have stripped that response from its context. The fact that an business person would prefer to murder a competitor doesn't mean that such a society would be better than one where business people don't murder their competitors.

...and here we come back again to the question of what you mean by an objectively better society and by what universal standard you arrived at that conclusion.

Reyginus: 1. It seems you're suggesting that the figments of our imagination can exist on their own, having the qualities of humans in the real world. Let me understand you better before I conclude. Does a figment of one's imagination has a life of its own?

The real question is do our "imaginations" affect our actions?

2. I find your example of the murderer ambigous. As in, I don't really get the point of my answer it is replying.

You were arguing that because we don't know what a potential child will become, preventing it's birth isn't necessarily evil. I argued that in the same way, because we don't know what a good person will become tomorrow, killing him isn't necessarily evil. (on reading it again, it was a silly argument I made. I'll concede the point)

3. Like I opined, I'd like to point out to you how this last statement agrees with my previous statements.
I held that the cause of the demise is not evil. I quote you: 'neither is it evil that Reyginus has moved on'. This triggered the later posture Anony was conformed to take.
Secondly, the fact that Anony was never happy about the departure of his neighbour Reyginus, that he turned to sadness summarizes it for me. It directly agrees that their was evil(an effect) associated or caused by Reyginus moving on.

Being sad about something doesn't make that thing evil in a moral sense.

frosbel: Although I am very much against abortion, let us tread carefully and not take the high horse position when we have not experienced anything near these sorts of abnormal situations.

My friend, it doesn't still justify the murder of the child. What about the child's experience?

It's always easy to take the moral high ground , when we have never been put in a precarious position.

God is always on the moral high ground and we are to act in His way. Trials are not an excuse for sin.

For us who are Christians , we believe that God can rectify any situation, but what about the lost , who do they go to ?

Still doesn't justify murdering the baby.

thehomer: One can be in favour of abortion and be in support of Dr. Gosnell's conviction.

Of course in the same way you can also be in favour of gassing Jews and still be in support of punishing the Nazi soldier for beating a Jew.
In fact during the Holocoast, German soldiers were forbidden from ra[color=#000000]pi[/color]ng their Jewish prisoners but were allowed to send them to the gas chamber. Odd isn't it?

thehomer: The argument hinges on premise 2. Is the egg fertilized after 12 hours a human being? If not, then your second premise fails and with that goes your entire argument.

Lol, that's interesting. Are you therefore conceding that at 1 week, 1 month, 3months, 6 months, 9 months the baby is a human being? the only issue is for you is at 12 hours?

jayriginal: Frosbel, you asked the question and I hope you wont shirk from giving an answer yourself (I can see Anony has tried to artfully dodge the question).

That's not true

Remember, both of you have said that abortion is murder. Then there really should be no need to ask if it is ok to murder a three headed, 7 legged and one handed fetus.
The minute any of you says its ok, then it means you dont know what you are talking about because you have both earlier declared it to be murder.

I agree

By the way Anony, murder is not the "indiscriminate" killing of another human being.

ok thanks for the correction. I believe my intended meaning was passed across. perhaps the word I should have used was "unlawful"

Im waiting to see if anyone will go to such ridiculous lows as saying using a condom is murder.

I'm waiting to see if you will attempt to defend it at any level other than reductio ad absurdum

thehomer: Then what do you affirm? Where do these children go? The Bible seems to indicate that people with childlike minds get to go to heaven. Who has more childlike minds than children?

I affirm nothing. I have not come across anything in the bible about the eternal fate of babies. You mistake "childlike faith" with "childlike mind".

No I don't think they do since they're unable to exhibit the sort of judgement that would make them liable for their actions. Now can you please tell me whether or not you think they do have a will?

I think three year olds have a will because they can make choices however I don't think they know the full moral consequences of their choices. The preceding is merely what I think.

Kidnapping isn't arrest. In fact, there's an idea of the citizen's arrest. Besides, as I'm sure you'll quickly say if someone else tried to compare your God to the government, you would say God isn't like the government won't you? You're yet to answer the question I raised there. Here it is again.

and once again, you conveniently miss the point of the analogy which is about authority.

If God commands people to commit a genocide, is that fine?

It is not genocide when you destroy something that you have created and have absolute authority over.

That isn't my question. My question is: where do they go after their lives have been ended by God or at his command?

The bible doesn't say

Where do you think the Bible says they go? Unless you can actually answer this, then you're in no position to determine whether or not it is altruism.

In the same way you are in no position to determine whether or not it is altruism in the Christian worldview

Actually, it is only with the right justification that the police car can go over the speed limit. You can also go over the speed limit in your own car if you have the right justification. Declaring that God can do whatever he likes makes the God an arbitrary God. Is the Christian God an arbitrary God?

If by arbitrary you mean that God has unlimited power and authority, then yes He is. But if by arbitrary you mean God does things on a whim, then no He isn't arbitrary as He has a fixed character. Which do you mean?

So, since you didn't create the Salmonella that has infected you means that you don't have the right to take antibiotics to kill it.

Are you equating human life to that of the salmonella? Secondly, are you saying that you lack the right to defend yourself against an attacker?

Actually, you need to show that I have a poor understanding of Christian theology because there are multiple strains of it some of which are contradictory.
You've just implied that the Christian God may as well be arbitrary and if he is, then he is unworthy of worship. Now you see why you should be careful to consider the justification for an action or entity before endorsing it.

If God is all powerful and all knowing and good, then in order to contest the goodness of His decisions you must know as much or more than He does about the case case you wish to contest. As men, we don't have that ability.

I'll give you an analogy:- Assuming the the government orders you as a junior police officer to arrest a Mr Okon who is relaxing at home with his family on charges of armed robbery. From where you stand, you don't know that he is guilty, all you know is that he is a happy family man. The only way you can legitimately contest the decision of the government is if you have more information than they do about Mr Okon.

Since you've implied that God can be arbitrary (which you've done over and over again), how do you know he hasn't decided to update the Bible that is if the Bible even teaches that he no longer permits genocide?

You have not even shown that the bible teaches that God permits genocide, you have only assumed it.

I'm not saying that one who does this is a Christian, I'm saying that one who does this is an altruist in the Christian worldview because such a person has paid the ultimate price to grant others the ultimate reward.

And how do you know this without knowing what Christianity says about the matter?

wiegraf: Cool. But note, this isn't about what you think is sensible or whatever comforts you, it's about what objectively is. And this is an objective truth; morality is subjective.

No it is not. It is only your subjective opinion.

Your own logic condemns you my friend

Kay 17: Your 2nd Premise states: value judgments can only be appreciated subjectively via 1st person. That only conflicts your presupposition that value judgement are objective.

Urhm no. The color green of grass needs a person to subjectively experience it however, the grass will still be green if the person wasn't experiencing it. The same applies to good and evil.

Consequently your third premise can not stand. Since we should be able to say OBJECTiVELY if Death is good or bad.

Why should we?

My stand is: all value judgements are built on perceptions and these are differ.

In which case we can never say that anything is actually better than anything else

The apprehension could be on the horrifying unknown

A "horrifying unknown" doesn't make the unknown bad. Besides in this case we know that death is the end of consciousness. Kinda like an unending dreamless sleep.

frosbel: Answer my question first , do not prejudge my perspective on this matter

It is a simple question. If you think it is ok to kill a deformed toddler, then it is ok to kill a deformed baby in the womb.

For me, it is not ok to kill the baby regardless of the amount of deformity.

thehomer: He has it by virtue of being human. That right can be denied with justification. Based on the reasoning you're expressing, no one has any rights to anything.

Actually, you have sovereign rights over things you own such as your house, your car, your clothes, your words etc.

No it isn't because the amnesiac need better justification than simply waking up in a certain house.

but you simply woke up into life with no previous memory

Yes I've taken it for granted because unless there is a good reason, people shouldn't be killed.

All you've said here is "I've taken it for granted because I've taken it for granted"

Yet you ignore the role played by the agent causing the transition. Don't you think the role of the agent is important?

I have not ignored the role of the agent. I just don't see why I should blame him when he hasn't created a worse condition for his subject.

I see there's an equivocation here. He doesn't have something like he has a car, he has something by virtue of his own presence like having consciousness. Besides, even if the life he had were like having a car, you're once again ignoring the implication of this line of reasoning.

Lol, interesting. Do you believe that a person is free to lead his life in whichever way he chooses? If you do, then he owns his life as he owns his car. Especially since he isn't responsible to a transcendent higher power (a.k.a. God)

No, what we do is to say that a state of death is preferable to a life of torture.

how is "preferable" different from "better than"? Was it not you that said and I quote:

thehomer: But we're talking about whether or not something is better or worse than another. With the assumption that we prefer what is better.

Would you like another thread to hash this out in the context of my argument?

Happily. I'm thinking of creating such a thread too myself

frosbel: From a high level position we are in agreement, it is indeed murder.

However, what happens if it has been confirmed that a baby is to be born with 3 heads, 5 legs and 3 hands, what decision should be made in this instance ?

If I have a two year old conjoined triplet such that they are deformed in the way you describe, is it right to kill them?

Wizee: I'll be back

I'll be waiting

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/13/kermit-gosnell-found-guilty-murder

The reason for opening this thread lies in the link above. The story is about Dr Gosnell who was convicted of first degree murder for killing babies minutes after delivery.
If only he had killed them while they were yet in the womb or partially delivered, he would have been an innocent man.

I find the above story absurd. As someone put it, "It is like sentencing a Nazi soldier to prison for beating a Jew to death instead of conveniently sending him to the gas chamber as he had been trained to do.

I'm interested in your thoughts especially those who are in favor of abortion.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/13/kermit-gosnell-found-guilty-murder

The reason for opening this thread lies in the link above. The story is about Dr Gosnell who was convicted of first degree murder for killing babies minutes after delivery.
If only he had killed them while they were yet in the womb or partially delivered, he would have been an innocent man.

I find the above story absurd. As someone put it, "It is like sentencing a Nazi soldier to prison for beating a Jew to death instead of conveniently sending him to the gas chamber as he had been trained to do.

I'm interested in your thoughts especially those who are in favor of abortion.

striktlymi: Any rules?

Quite an emotional topic...

I don't like it when people get emotional over a friendly conversation...

Lol, I don't think that arguing that something is objectively morally wrong is "emotional".

Premise 1: Murder (the unlawful killing of another human being) is evil.
Premise 2: The baby in the womb is a human being.
Conclusion: Therefore killing it is evil

Does the above sound better to you?

frosbel: To make a start to this discussion, kindly tell us your stance on this very important issue.

My stance is simple. Abortion is not morally justifiable. It is murder.

I only have one question on this thread.

[size=16pt]Is abortion morally justified?[/size]

let us discuss.

striktlymi: Okay, cool!


#back to the sidelines again

Lol

thehomer: The murder victim has been unjustly denied their life.

This assumes that the victim has a right to their life. The victim didn't bring himself to life neither does he keep himself alive. Who gives him that right?
You argument is similar to a man with no previous memory waking up in a house and then claiming rights of ownership over the house just because he happened to wake up in it.

Actually they do have rights to the victim's presence unless there are good reasons for denying them that presence.

You haven't given a reason why they have any rights to the victims presence. You've only taken it for granted that they do.

You're still making a category error. Death and life aren't the sorts of things that can be better or worse than each other.

Exactly, I'm stating that they are neither better nor worse than each other.

The person causing death has unjustly denied the victim the life they already have. So, you're basically still ignoring the fact that justification is needed to cause the death of someone.

Already having something doesn't give you rights over it by default.

I'm saying you you cannot establish that one is better than the other because they're not the sorts of things that can be better or worse than each other. They're in different categories. It is an apples to whales comparison.

One can say that someone living a life without painful cancer is in a better state than someone living a life with a painful cancer. We can say someone who dies painlessly in their sleep at 106 years died better than someone who died at the age of 22 years after being tortured and sleep deprived for 5 days. But we cannot say that someone who is living a life without painful cancer is in a better state than someone who died in their sleep at 106 years.

To put it simply, we compare life to life and death to death not life to death.

Not really, actually we do compare life to death all the time. It is very easy to say that a state of death (feeling no pain and conscious of nothing) is better than a life of torture.

How do we determine what is good?

Interesting question! Usually, I'll say that the only way we can determine what is objectively good i.e. how things are supposed to be - is to grant a designer who intends his creation to function in a certain way (a.k.a. God).

Since we haven't allowed for God on this thread, we'll just have to argue over what we think is good . . . . .unless you have another way for us to determine an objective good which we must both adhere to irrespective of our personal opinions.

striktlymi: But it is really not about how you see right or wrong...what might not be wrong for you might just be right for me. The point is there is someone to have a conversation with whether it's you and I or someone else with another lucky bloke...

If we look at it in terms of what is given up and what is gained, we can't help but say that being alive is more beneficial than being dead...

If one is dead what really do we gain? Yes, NOTHING!!! because we necessarily float into non-existence. On the other hand what does coming into existence give us? SOMETHING!!! most definitely...we have experiences to share (whether good or bad), we have opportunities to better our lots if the experiences are bad...

So Anony, I think if we look at it closely, existence has a lot to offer but non-existence has nothing to offer, hence existence is a far better choice than non-existence.

Existence brings opportunities
Opportunities are good and desirable...
Hence existence is good and desirable...

At this point, I'll concede the argument to you.

Note that I could argue that existence offers bad things and non-existence offers nothing. I could also argue that opportunities are not necessarily good things. . .however to my mind, I am not even convinced by my own arguments therefore I won't push it further.

thehomer: Okay. Your statement in bold says it all.

That's is what your argument advocates.

Saying you don't know this to be true means that you think (like some Catholics did) that they maybe end up in Limbo.

Don't put words in my mouth or suggest what I have not affirmed.

It is at three because at that age at the very least, they're considered as being innocent. i.e they're unable to actually sin.

ok

Do children have a will?

Do you think that they don't?

You're saying if God does it that's fine but if people do it, it isn't. How about if God commands people to do it? Is that fine?

If the government arrests a man, that's fine. If you arrest a man by yourself (kidnapping), it isn't. How about if the Government gives you the authority to arrest the man. Is that fine?

This argument raises the question of whether he really does this since when you say you're not sure they'll get into heaven, it means that you think God may be sending them somewhere else.

Again putting words in my mouth. You are not in a position to know what I think. What I said is that God as their creator reserves the right to end a person's life irrespective of the age

Actually, such a person is an altruist since they're sending people who don't know better into paradise without caring for the fact that they'll end up in hell themselves. i.e they're helping people get the "ultimate reward" while they themselves get the "ultimate punishment". If that isn't altruism in the Christian worldview, then nothing is.

How is someone helping another person out not an altruist? Maybe you're mistaking the meaning of altruism for something else.

As I said earlier, the bible does not tell him that heaven is an automatic for three year olds. He is killing them for his own personal reasons of what he thinks the bible ought to say. That is not altruism in the Christian worldview.

Does anyone other than God have this right? How exactly does God even come to have this right? Such things must be resolved before declaring absolutely that he does have this right otherwise it simply sounds like special pleading.

That's like saying it is special pleading that the police car has the right to go over the speed limit while you don't.
In the case of God here, it is not special pleading in the sense that He created the life and sustains it. The life is his property hence God can choose to stop sustaining it whenever He so wishes.

Man neither creates the life nor sustains it and hence lacks the right to take it.

It does the job that the writers of the Old Testament didn't foresee and you've further revealed this problem by saying that killing for God isn't wrong. Saying this means that it is possible that when we hear of even a modern genocide, those people may just be doing God's work so who are you to criticize them or say otherwise?

Lol, was this what you were trying to get at all along?
The problem for you here is your poor understanding of Christian theology.
God owns and has every right to do what he wants with his creation.

Does this mean that a modern genocide is people carrying out God's work? No, the bible teaches us that God in this dispensation of grace has allowed the wicked until the last day for their judgment. He doesn't give anyone the right to carry out His judgment for Him.

No Christian led by the Holy Spirit will kill a man (whether into heaven or out of heaven) because that will be contrary to what Christ commands. It is impossible to serve God by disobeying Him.

Our commission is to preach the gospel until Jesus returns or until we die (whichever happens first).

The man who "kills for God" is not a Christian. Plain and simple.