A pro-life atheist

[Whateverman]

Ah you enlightened scientific types--always wanting to quantify everything.

Love is not quantifiable either. Not everything can be quantified by material standards.

Essence is an abstraction; not something you can put under a microscope.

Once again, you enlightened scientific types wanting to reduce all of reality down to electrons, protons, and how they are arranged etc.

Such narrow minds.

How many protons and neutrons are in your idea of protons and neutrons? Quantify that for me please.

You avoided addressing everything I said, which is disappointing.

On the plus side, you effectively confirmed what I said: the "essence" which supposedly unites an acorn and an oak is whatever you want it to be. You can neither identify it as an objectively real thing, nor can you articulate it as something other people should believe exists.

Congratulations. You've implicitly supported the idea that a fetus is not a person.

 

[romishpopishorganist]

You avoided addressing everything I said, which is disappointing.

On the plus side, you effectively confirmed what I said: the "essence" which supposedly unites an acorn and an oak is whatever you want it to be. You can neither identify it as an objectively real thing, nor can you articulate it as something other people should believe exists.

Congratulations. You've implicitly supported the idea that a fetus is not a person.

I have done no such thing.

Do you believe love exists? Quantify it.

Do you have an idea of an oak tree vs. an acorn? Quantify it. Show it to me. By "Show it to me" I do not mean mean "Produce a representation" I mean "Show me the idea."

O, right, you can't. Well shucks, I am disappointed. That must mean ideas don't exist.

 

[Whateverman]

Essence is an abstraction; not something you can put under a microscope.

If the thing which unites two things is nothing more than an abstraction, then nothing unites them.

Abstractions unite fetuses and Ford F-150s; should we craft laws based on this?

 

[Electric Skeptic]

Those are all attributes. You are confusing physical attributes with essence.

No, I'm not. You are confusing essence with actually meaning something significant in this discussion.

But is is oak in essence. I am not asserting it is a fully developed tree, I am asserting that it is oak in essence.

Which is meaningless.

Very good. You cannot point to when a child becomes and adolescent, but the child and the adolescent---are the same person. The adolescent is the same as the child--
just more developed.

Which is irrelevant to the issue.

The oak tree is the same in essence as the acorn--just more developed.

Manifestly false. An acorn is not an oak tree.

 

[puddleglum]

That is entirely the issue. It is claimed that from the stage where it is two cells, the fetus is a person. No evidence has been given in support of that claim. I was definitely not a person when I was two cells.

At some point in the past a sperm cell from your father united with an egg cell from your mother. At that time you became a person with a unique DNA. You then began to grow until you became the person you are now. The first nine months required that you be in your mother's womb so she could supply you with the nutrients you needed to grow. By that time you had reached a stage in your development where your body could ingest food and breathe air so you were born. Your life from the moment of fertilization until now was an unbroken line of development. Fortunately for you your mother never chose to abort you, or you wouldn't be here now denying that you were a person for the first nine months of your existence.

 

[Electric Skeptic]

At some point in the past a sperm cell from your father united with an egg cell from your mother. At that time you became a person with a unique DNA.

Your last sentence above is where you depart from the realm of science into the realm of philosophy or perhaps morality. That the two cells that begin the fetus are a person is not in evidence and, IMO, absurd.

You then began to grow until you became the person you are now. The first nine months required that you be in your mother's womb so she could supply you with the nutrients you needed to grow. By that time you had reached a stage in your development where your body could ingest food and breathe air so you were born. Your life from the moment of fertilization until now was an unbroken line of development. Fortunately for you your mother never chose to abort you, or you wouldn't be here now denying that you were a person for the first nine months of your existence.

None of which is relevant.

 

[BMS]

You avoided addressing everything I said, which is disappointing.

On the plus side, you effectively confirmed what I said: the "essence" which supposedly unites an acorn and an oak is whatever you want it to be. You can neither identify it as an objectively real thing, nor can you articulate it as something other people should believe exists.

Congratulations. You've implicitly supported the idea that a fetus is not a person.

One can watch the person mature from zygote through to embryo, foetus, baby, infant, child, adolescent and adult. This is the reality.
You guys seem to be saying otherwise which is why we cant go anywhere with this issue.

 

[BMS]

Your last sentence above is where you depart from the realm of science into the realm of philosophy or perhaps morality. That the two cells that begin the fetus are a person is not in evidence and, IMO, absurd.

None of which is relevant.

The word for the developmental stage of the person at two cells is not fetus. The foetal developmental stage of the person is at about 8 weeks.
Your opinion is you imagining something that isnt true.

 

[Eightcrackers]

Many pro-abortionists claim that the only motivation for opposing abortion is religion.

A weasel word.

 

[Eightcrackers]

The truth of that statement is demonstrated every time a foetus is allowed to be born. There was a time when you were a foetus in your mother's womb. Weren't you a person then?

Depends how far along the pregnancy was - the idea that I was a person at the zygote stage is laughable, to me.

 

[BMS]

Depends how far along the pregnancy was - the idea that I was a person at the zygote stage is laughable, to me.

Depends what you mean by person and by zygote. Zygote is a stage of a person's life.

 

[BMS]

A weasel word.

Like stoat then. A stoat is like a weasel.