# Fuck the Motherfucking Pope **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 20, 2010, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182 "2010-05-20T21:15:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 31
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2010, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/601 "2010-05-26T12:18:51Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > “Obviously” to a person unwilling to read or unerstand? > So the Church is wrong if she aborts an wrong if she doesn’t? > Nice to see that your level of argument is simply “Catholics R teh sheeple” because it lets me bother less with your posts. Same question I posed to **Bricker** : What would it take for you to just give up and leave the church? _His_ response was [QUOTE=Bricker] If the leadership announced, “Actually, we’re making it official: we exist to rape and abuse children, and that’s part and parcel of our doctrine from now on.” [/QUOTE] What is yours? ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2010, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/602 "2010-05-26T13:00:36Z")
> [@Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](#): > > To be fair, “person” is a philosophical, sociological term that is a lot mushier than differentiating between human and frog cells. > > And it is true that a fertilized egg is substantially different from either an unfertilized egg or a sperm. Suddenly there is all the information and potential for a unique human life in there, and usually if left undisturbed it would become an individual human being. > > Some people feel that this is included in the definition of “person.” I can respect that, kind of. > > So let’s say there’s (magically) a fully independent adult living in a woman’s fallopian tube. He’s there through no fault of his own, and the only way to get him out is to kill him. But if he stays, both he and the woman would die. What is the moral thing to do? To people who believe a zygote is a person, this is the relevant hypothetical. > > I happen to think it’s OK to kill him. So I support abortion on two grounds - I don’t think a fetus before about 20 weeks could possibly qualify as a person, and even if it did, it is OK to kill them in some circumstances. Then you and I are realy on the same page. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2010, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/603 "2010-05-26T13:04:29Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > It has a full and unique set of human genes. > It’s either a human being or it isn’t. It has human life,just as sperm have human life but is not yet a person. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2010, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/604 "2010-05-26T13:06:43Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > A) How is this relevant? > B) Did the Buddha even care about the survival of the species? He taught that our ultimate goal should be nibbana, the cessation of rebirth, did he not? It is sort of like the Abrahamistic religions the want people to live for an after life, not so much for now! ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2010, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/605 "2010-05-26T13:19:59Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > Apparently you haven’t read any of my posts and the repeated mentioning of what should have occured. > There’s also enough mentioned about the excommunication and how that would be remedied. > ha, ha, ha…because Catholics don’t think, dude, so ingenious. > > I imagined that purely religious concept were not going to cinvinced you, I used biological ones and now it’s MY fault that I don’t use arguments you want to dismiss. > I never used the word designed. Also, 100% of people die. Women don’t cause those abortion voluntarily. What’s next? Saying that cars are designed to kill people? > It is obvious that biological mechanisms are a mystery to you. Humans (and nature) are imperfect, mistakes happen. Some mistakes have deadly consequences, ergo the spontaneous abortion. > “A blueprint” is a very interesting choice of words because it’s a self reading and self-executing blueprint. Maybe the concept of blueprint escapes you too? > Abortions are not wrong because they end pregnancies. They are wrong because they kill. > Can you quote one of those encyclicals? > There is no such “die nobly” requierement. > I won0’t go into your desperate-sounding headless guy expample. If I answer it, it’s going to be turtles all the way ("…but what if there are two finger and 30$ of the pancreas?) > > “Obviously” to a person unwilling to read or unerstand? > So the Church is wrong if she aborts an wrong if she doesn’t? > Nice to see that your level of argument is simply “Catholics R teh sheeple” because it lets me bother less with your posts. How does one kill a fertile egg? Does one kill a apple if they take the blossom off the tree? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2010, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/606 "2010-05-26T13:27:50Z")
Do you hold a funeral for every used tampon? Why not? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2010, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/607 "2010-05-26T13:35:26Z")
> [@Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](#): > > So let’s say there’s (magically) a fully independent adult living in a woman’s fallopian tube. He’s there through no fault of his own, and the only way to get him out is to kill him. But if he stays, both he and the woman would die. What is the moral thing to do? To people who believe a zygote is a person, this is the relevant hypothetical. > > I happen to think it’s OK to kill him. But what if he could be detached from the woman’s body without killing him? Now, admittedly, he will almost certainly die anyway, because in this magical hypothetical we have to add the fact he can’t live apart from this close contact with her. But you don’t see a difference between actually reaching out and killing him, and simply detaching him without directly injuring him? Perhaps less magical: imagine a set of conjoined twins, Albert and Ben. Albert and Ben are joined in such a away that detaching them will cause Ben to die; he won’t have enough internal organs/etc to live. Albert can live on his own if Ben is detached, but if left joined, they will both die. Do you not see a difference between killing Ben and detaching Ben? Yes, either way, Ben will die. But, at least to me, there is a clear difference. ---
**Author:** ![heatmiserfl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/df705f/32.png) [@heatmiserfl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/heatmiserfl)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2010, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/608 "2010-05-26T13:53:23Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > I’m fixated on biological truth. > Don’t try to teach me biology, please; I know enough for this debate. Viability may be important for others things, not for rights. Natural actions are morally neutral, so to non-omplantation of a fertlised egg (i.e. a person) results in its death. > The care afforded is analogous to giving the accused all sorts of rights instead of getting the guy in prison first and checking 20 years later. This often leads to pain and suffering for others people, yet we still do it. > > There is no killing, so the riddle is wrong from the beginning. You apparently still don’t get the difference (and importance) between killing and being incapable to save a life. If we had artificial wombs we should use them. > “She’s only a woman” is your phrase. > > Caring for the defenceless, for the dieing, for those who would not survive is only cruelty in your eyes. > > Once more so you can understand, there is no biological reason for your statements. EP is a baby, unless personhood depends on the “geographical” position. Two centimetres to the left and your are not a person. > HMs are more complicated than my knowlege of Canon Law allows me to give answer, but staying with the general principle, if it is clearly a group of cells that’s no developing into what it should but something more akin to a tumour, then personhood/humanity would not be an issue. > > Unless you’re batised, there would be no Anointment of the Sick. I’d guess death would happen too quickly unless baptism could be done immediately (it could). > There is a provision in canon law > The short answer is yes. They are not common, however. WTF is ‘biological truth’? You clearly can’t tell the difference between scientific findings and your religious ‘truths’. I hate it when fundamentalists try to bring in science to support their philosophies because the more they do it, the more they have to warp science to justify their ideals. Next minute you know, they spread misinformation and/or start demonizing scientists and we get stuck with people thinking a fetus has a fully functional brain at 7 weeks or Jesus riding a dinosaur or climate science is a big librul conspiracy. Can you please, please, please just use science only when you can make rational arguments based on nature not metaphysics? Otherwise, can you keep it out? Or here’s a compromise, can you at least not talk about ‘biological truths’ and allow for a little uncertainty in your statements. Pretty please? I’m crying over here! ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2010, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/609 "2010-05-26T14:05:16Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Perhaps less magical: imagine a set of conjoined twins, Albert and Ben. Albert and Ben are joined in such a away that detaching them will cause Ben to die; he won’t have enough internal organs/etc to live. Albert can live on his own if Ben is detached, but if left joined, they will both die. > > Do you not see a difference between killing Ben and detaching Ben? Yes, either way, Ben will die. But, at least to me, there is a clear difference. But what if killing Ben makes it 100% certain that Albert will live, while detaching him gives Albert only a 90% chance of living, and he’ll walk with a limp his whole life. I don’t honestly see a difference between putting a bullet through Ben’s brain and cutting him off from the blood that keeps him alive (in either case you’re taking an action whose direct consequence is the death of Ben), and there’s a big difference to Albert which approach you take. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2010, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/610 "2010-05-26T14:39:51Z")
Here is a possible scenario. What about the very rare but occurring condition of an absorbed twin. Sometimes with twins one is completely absorbed into the body of the other becoming one. Often this “twin” continues to grow in some fashion into a limb or eye or some other body part. This “twin” can cause problems in the fully grown person like an eye plus it’s nerves pressing on a critical artery that my cause an embolism. So if a person was seeking treatment for such a condition would the removal of “The Eye Cluster” that was once the other twin and according to Catholic Doctrine a person be considered an abortion? Would treatment be allowed or must the fully grown person take his chances even though it was determined death might be a result without it’s removal? So if I understand the doctrine this eye cluster twin thing would have the same moral standing as the fully grown person. Correct? Hence no treatment. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2010, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/611 "2010-05-26T14:44:38Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > But on what basis do you declare that brain activity is a _sine qua non_ of personhood? Because that’s where all of the functions that delineate our humanity come from. Or do you think with your pancreas? (I suspect \*you \*might.) People can lose control over every single part of their bodies but one and still be alive–consider someone like **blinkie**. But if the rest of the body is functioning perfectly and the brain is destroyed, it’s no longer a person, and with consent from the next of kin, we harvest the organs that remain. > [@monavis](#): > > It has human life,just as sperm have human life but is not yet a person. That doesn’t make any sense. A sperm only has half the genetic material of a human being. > [@Bricker](#): > > Perhaps less magical: imagine a set of conjoined twins, Albert and Ben. Albert and Ben are joined in such a away that detaching them will cause Ben to die; he won’t have enough internal organs/etc to live. Albert can live on his own if Ben is detached, but if left joined, they will both die. > > Do you not see a difference between killing Ben and detaching Ben? Yes, either way, Ben will die. But, at least to me, there is a clear difference. Your analogy blows. If you just kill Ben without detatching him, Albert will die as Ben’s half of the body rots. So let’s make this magical and a better analogy: If you kill Ben, his part of the body will wither up and fall off, like an umbilical cord, with no damage to Albert. But if you cut them apart, Albert will be undergoing a dangerous surgery that will leave him scarred and crippled, and may even kill him. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2010, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/612 "2010-05-26T15:00:32Z")
> [@heatmiserfl](#): > > Oh, no. I don’t play your little games. You get the scorn because you’re the one who said LavenderBlue was ‘wrong’ for not believing that a fertilized egg is a person. She’s only wrong from a Catholic or other Fundamentalist Christian viewpoint. She’s not wrong from a reasoned viewpoint derived from current scientific evidence. But she didn’t claim she was ‘right’ either. > > Then she told you to look up things like aneuploidy for a specific reason. To show that the majority of fertilized eggs end up with a fucked up genome. So then what do you call it? Instead of bothering to learn about aneuploidy during early development, you find a rare example of aneuploidy that ends up in Down’s syndrome and then proceed to try to throw it back at her by saying this, “Surely you’re not saying that, medically, a Down’s syndrome sufferer is not a person?” Yeah, lots of scorn for you. > > No need to reply to this post like you are obsessively doing with other posts because I’m not interested in these types of meaningless manipulations. Well, I was going to accede to your request, but I see you’re still chirping away in this debate, so I have no idea why you think you should be able to throw posts up here and demand that they go unanswered. My entire point in the discussion of ‘personhood’ is to highlight the fact that, unlike medical terms, there is no universally-accepted definition of a human being that excludes an embryo, as much as you obviously wish there were. I am well aware that the vast majority of missing or extra chromosone cases end up with a dead embryo. But what of it? There are plenty of diseases that can lead to fetal death, to infant death, to toddler death, and to teen death. How is that remotely relevant to the question of whether the sufferer of a particular disease or condition is, or is not, a person? Look, I am not saying that the personhood of an embryo is a fact that you must accept as true. Obviously I believe it; equally obviously, people of reasonable outlook may reach different conclusions and disagree. I assert it as an absolute only to respond to those who assert the contrary as an absolute: as my high school debate teacher was find of reminding us over and over, “A gratuitous assertion may be equally gratuitously denied.” In short: whether an embryo is a person cannot be flatly denied any more than it may be flatly asserted. OK? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2010, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/613 "2010-05-26T15:07:20Z")
Your gratuitous assertion was indeed gratuitously denied. Yet you continue to argue as if it weren’t gratuitous at all, in fact it’s the very basis for your argument. The personhood of an embryo is the entire grounds of the religious dogma regarding abortion that you have been so ardently defending here. If you now accept that your argument is gratuitous, then you can back off just a bit, can’t you? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2010, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/614 "2010-05-26T15:08:54Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > Because that’s where all of the functions that delineate our humanity come from. Or do you think with your pancreas? (I suspect \*you \*might.) People can lose control over every single part of their bodies but one and still be alive–consider someone like **blinkie**. But if the rest of the body is functioning perfectly and the brain is destroyed, it’s no longer a person, and with consent from the next of kin, we harvest the organs that remain. That’s interesting… “if the brain is destroyed.” By ‘destroyed,’ I assume you mean it won’t simply heal with time, right? That is, we’ll give a coma victim time to heal up and not simply start on his liver the morning after the accident - right? We wouldn’t say, for instance, “Let’s get the liver and corneas now, while he’s not a person! If we wait a month or two, his brain could heal and then he’d be off limits!” But an embryo that will, in a month or two, most assuredly have brain activity, is fair game? > [@](#): > > That doesn’t make any sense. A sperm only has half the genetic material of a human being. Thanks. Mark of a debater interested in a fair exchange, right there. I am truly appreciative of these kinds of gestures. > [@](#): > > Your analogy blows. If you just kill Ben without detatching him, Albert will die as Ben’s half of the body rots. So let’s make this magical and a better analogy: If you kill Ben, his part of the body will wither up and fall off, like an umbilical cord, with no damage to Albert. But if you cut them apart, Albert will be undergoing a dangerous surgery that will leave him scarred and crippled, and may even kill him. That’s a better analogy, I agree. And I still say there’s a wrongness in killing Ben. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2010, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/615 "2010-05-26T15:31:11Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > By ‘destroyed,’ I assume you mean it won’t simply heal with time, right? That is, we’ll give a coma victim time to heal up and not simply start on his liver the morning after the accident - right? We wouldn’t say, for instance, “Let’s get the liver and corneas now, while he’s not a person! If we wait a month or two, his brain could heal and then he’d be off limits!” > > But an embryo that will, in a month or two, most assuredly have brain activity, is fair game? The person with a \*damaged \*brain has something to regain. There is memory stored there that just can’t currently be accessed. The fetus has never had a brain, so it has nothing to lose except potential. Potential personhood is not personhood. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2010, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/616 "2010-05-26T16:15:03Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > The person with a \*damaged \*brain has something to regain. There is memory stored there that just can’t currently be accessed. The fetus has never had a brain, so it has nothing to lose except potential. Potential personhood is not personhood. Sure it is. I’m just as certain as you are. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2010, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/617 "2010-05-26T16:20:24Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Same question I posed to **Bricker** : What would it take for you to just give up and leave the church? > > What is yours? That I stoppped beleiving in God or that an action taken by the Church would make me stop beleiving. I cannot conceive of beleiving in God and not being a Catholic. [Thisa is the end of my answer. I wikll not elaborate more, at least in this thread.] > [@monavis](#): > > It has human life,just as sperm have human life but is not yet a person. I do not accept that a single cell of a multi-celled organism contains the life of that individual. If I cut a corner of a $20 bill it is still paper, but it isn’t worth anything. > [@monavis](#): > > How does one kill a fertile egg? Does one kill a apple if they take the blossom off the tree? A fertile egg can be killed very simply. Apples are not living creatures. > [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Do you hold a funeral for every used tampon? Why not? If you think that qustion is clever is only because it displays your ignorance or very simple biological facts. > [@heatmiserfl](#): > > WTF is ‘biological truth’? You clearly can’t tell the difference between scientific findings and your religious ‘truths’. > > I hate it when fundamentalists try to bring in science to support their philosophies because the more they do it, the more they have to warp science to justify their ideals. Next minute you know, they spread misinformation and/or start demonizing scientists and we get stuck with people thinking a fetus has a fully functional brain at 7 weeks or Jesus riding a dinosaur or climate science is a big librul conspiracy. > > Can you please, please, please just use science only when you can make rational arguments based on nature not metaphysics? Otherwise, can you keep it out? Or here’s a compromise, can you at least not talk about ‘biological truths’ and allow for a little uncertainty in your statements. Pretty please? I’m crying over here! ☹ You don’t know what biological truth is? Take up a Biology book and read it; it’ll be chokeful of it. I specifically try to use only biology and you complain? Why? Because you can simply answer “I don’t care about no pope”? Could you point to something I said that is scientifically wrong? By 6 weeks there’s a beating heart. Or is that also my fundamentalist-popish-misogynist warping of science? I’ll counter science with science and metaphysics with metaphysics. Of course, you DO understand that human knowledge is not neatkly compartamentalized and ther is always overlap, e.g. if we talk about human rights (metaphysical) we need to define human (biology). Don’t cry, just come up with good answer and stop complainig that I make sense. ---
**Author:** ![raindog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@raindog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raindog)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2010, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/618 "2010-05-26T16:21:37Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > The person with a \*damaged \*brain has something to regain. There is memory stored there that just can’t currently be accessed. The fetus has never had a brain, so it has nothing to lose except potential. Potential personhood is not personhood. Fetuses don’t have brains? Did you mean to type that? ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2010, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/619 "2010-05-26T16:21:45Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Sure it is. > > I’m just as certain as you are. I have science. You have faith. I have brain activity (or a brain, period). You have a mystical soul that cannot be in any way proven to exist. Pretty sure I win. But if you can get your god to unequivocably strike me down where I sit, I’ll concede the point. ETA: **raindog** , if you can please point to the brain on a zygote, I’d be much obliged. ---
**Author:** ![raindog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@raindog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raindog)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2010, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182/620 "2010-05-26T16:28:25Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > I have science. You have faith. I have brain activity (or a brain, period). You have a mystical soul that cannot be in any way proven to exist. > > Pretty sure I win. But if you can get your god to unequivocably strike me down where I sit, I’ll concede the point. > > ETA: > > **raindog** , if you can please point to the brain on a zygote, I’d be much obliged. You said _Fetus._ How about if I show you not only a brain, but the capacity to learn with that brain, while still in the womb. So, is my answer that you didn’t mean to type 'fetus" but rather, zygote? Do I have that right? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182.md?page=30) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-the-motherfucking-pope/540182.md?page=32)