According to the RCC Jesus made the Pope, through Peter and his successors head of His church, and gave them the right to make or break laws;What you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, What you loose on earth will be loose in heaven.
If this is fact, then the Church is speaking for Christ. The teachings of Christ can be a question of what author you believe. There is no proof that Christ said or did anything except by belief in a human, it is a matter of who or what one chooses to believe.
It is not a human being yet, that is the sense of it, the argument seems to be precious human “Life” My point is the life is not yet personhood. A few cells are not a person. Once(as I see it) if it can be recognizes as a person then it has personhood. The mother has ample time before that to make her decision. That is why I believe, if a woman does not want to be pregnant, she should have access to the morning after pill. It is (in my opinion ) better to take the pill then to wait and then feel she needs an abortion, unless it is a matter of self preservation. The choice should be hers and is legal (as yet) at this time. The Pill would stop the need for an abortion later on. The cells in a petri dish are not a person.
You need not accept the fact that the sperm doesn’t contain human life, but if the sperm does not contain" life" there will be no conception! Life is a passed on thing has been going on for eons. That can be proven by our own ancestors. Would you then say a fertilised egg does not contain the life of the animal…human or not? And yes, even plants contain “Life”.
You misread my post (which probably wasn’t written precisely. I know that Catholicism accepts evolution. In fact, I was taught evolution by a nun named Sister Jane Brill.
I was using the term Fundamentalism to include people who cling to archaic religious laws and practices that no longer have meaning or sometimes directly contradict the modern world. Not a fundamentalist religion which bases its whole premise on going back to archaic religious laws and practices that no longer have meaning in the modern world (e.g. bible literalist religions). I’ve seen the term Fundamentalist used as I used it. An example is a Buddhist who insists on believing in a reincarnation-like definition of rebirth just because the Pali canon talks about buddha coming back as a fox or when he was enlightened he saw all his thousands of lives. That’s Fundamentalism to me. It’s annoying because people who cling to these things typically lose the important tenants of their faith.
Speaking of important religious tenants, the religious scholar, Karen Armstrong, made a lovely speech at TED stressing that in the modern world, compassion and, not specific rituals, should be what remains in religions. That was an important message during the Axis Age when civilizations started to get large and complicated and people no longer had tribal loyalties. It is even more important now.
http://www.ted.com/talks/karen_armstrong_makes_her_ted_prize_wish_the_charter_for_compassion.html
They may indeed contain “Life”, but there is a great big difference between existing and living. Or at least there is from the all-important human perspective.
When one is brain dead the body starts to decay,even if they administer life support. If the brain activity is not important then a person dead for 20 years is still considered as a person and should be kept propped in a chair,(like some older cultures did. senseless, of course!!
What does it say about the value of Catholicism, in any life, if those the most dedicated to following it, studying it, living and practicing it, and the sacraments, never question the ethics of shuffling around sexual predators? Never contacting civil authorities, though serious crimes have been committed? Never even bothering to warn the new parishes, enabling them to victimize yet more Catholic children. Not a single Bishop or Cardinal bothered to do what, any thinking person would know/see to be ethical, because there was no canon directing them to? That would seem to indicate that the more deeply you study, more devoutly you live, the less ethical you become.
If this is what the best and brightest, most devout, holiest, highest ranked Catholics have come to be, then this organization is a blight on Christianity, in my opinion.
I happen to believe very strongly that, sooner or later, people show you who they really are. The Catholic Church want everyone to believe that the Crusades or the Inquisition, well, that was then, and that’s not who we are now. Now they are something much worse - rotten from the top down.
I also happen to believe that when people show you who they really are it’s your job - to see. I hope that Catholics, the world over, take a good hard look at how truly corrupt and disingenuous this organization really is, because it doesn’t get much clearer, in my opinion. Anyone with half a braincell can see it, only the highest church officials are excepted. They have risen up till they are living in a world so insulated from anything resembling reality, blinded by opulence and adoration for their pretty robes, funny hats and position, they can’t even see the writing on the wall. Witness the sort of lame justifications we’ve witnessed here. “Well, we’re not doing it anymore, now that people have found out, we’ve developed a new protocol.” Just how stupid do they think Catholics are, exactly?
As a post script: Back in the 50’s I had a early miscarriage, I spent 10 days in the hospital with my feet propped up,(on medication) to hold the pregnacy, after hemorhaging for several days, the tests showed positive, so the doctor could not save the pregnacy nor do a D&C. Then the tests showed negative;the doctor showed me the clot and one could not say it was a baby. But I was very sick for a long time. I do not believe a woman would want to have an abortion if she didn’t feel she would need one, it has to be very hard on her system. I never had an abortion and never considered it, but since I do not know an other woman’s circumstance I will not judge. I do not think a woman should ever be forced to have an abortion nor should I have a say in her situation. Self defence can well be her intent.
Right. And I am equally free to say why I don’t agree with you – right? And on the issue of the definition of personhood, there is no “real world” proof of one position or the other, is there?
I mean, you can say things like, “Your model for ‘personhood’ is not as useful in the real world as mine is because of factors X, Y, and Z.” But you cannot assert that I’m wrong, any more than I can assert that you are wrong.
Granted, there is no objective evidence FOR that belief, but neither is it disprovable. The most you can say is that it’s untestable, and because it’s a claim made by someone else, he has the burden of proof, which he cannot carry… so a rational view would be to regard it as unproven and untestable.
And how are you to say that someone holding this belief has lost an important aspect of his faith? I’m not even sure if you object to the term ‘reincarnation’ because it implies a fixed entity that is reborn, or whether your objection is simply to the idea that animals can be part of the cycle of rebirth, but what’s annoying to me is your claim that these ideas are flatly disproveable or clear violations of the key elements of faith.
They are simply untestable. They cannot be proven, they cannot be disproven.
Yeah, read a few Biology books in my day. Even teach a little every Fall semester. Then again, my specialty isn’t embryology so maybe I’m missing something.
What makes a unique set of DNA special beyond the capacity, if all goes well, to develop to term? What’s the special sauce that it would be acceptable to force a pregnant woman to suffer and die for? Does DNA contain some sort of divine predestination? Does God annoint every fertilized egg such that every base pair of DNA encodes the soul? Where’s the specialness here? What if you were never born? Would you be pissed off? No! Because you were never born.
See, to me, a fertilized egg is a primitive life form with the capacity of becoming a human being or a person. I don’t know what a person is but I think using advanced brain activity as a criteria is much, much, much more reasonable than a unique arrangement of DNA base pairs within the nucleus of a single cell (fertilized egg). Why? Because it’s unlikely that one could suffer without a fairly advanced brain. Pain and suffering is highly complex and most scientists think it requires a certain brain capacity. It requires knowledge of danger and fear of consequences.
What point during gestation would you even have a complicated enough nervous system to actually suffer? Last I read, most scientists would agree that higher cerebral functions occur around week 24. Roe v. Wade only supports abortion up to about 12 weeks. Well before any level of “consciousness” is reached.
Either way, defining personhood is philosophical but going by consciousness and ability to suffer seems the most compassionate way to approach this subject. The alternative is forcing women to suffer.
Yes, there is. I mean, I suppose you could claim that if you scooped someone’s brains out of their skull and pureed them in a blender, what remained would still be a person (at least in this world), but there’d be no reason for anyone to take you seriously. Because while there may be disagreements on the beginning of personhood, there’s pretty universal agreement (aside from the rare ‘it looked like brain death but wasn’t’ cases) about what brings about its end.
You can cut off my arm or leg, you can replace my heart with a mechanical one, you can remove or replace pretty much any piece of flesh on my body or organ within it, and I’m still me. But if you take my brain and chop it into tiny bits, any remaining ‘me’ isn’t going to be in or of this world.
If you disagree with that, then I’m not sure who you’ll have left to talk to.
And it’s true that you’re free to define the beginning of personhood in whatever way you want. But in the absence of consistency with what we know about its end, it is not only strictly belief, but belief that’s inconsistent with reality.
You can say, “well, this is what Catholics believe anyway,” but to the extent that you’re defending Roman Catholicism, pointing to that belief doesn’t help you any. It doesn’t even deserve the respect accorded widely held beliefs about things that are simply unknowable, because this is an area where we DO know something.
Yes, defining personhood is philosophical, and I appreciate your willingness to frame this question in this way. But I don’t agree that whether or not suffering occurs is a useful criteria: … as long as Steve murders Elaine by a sleeping pill in her drink, an application of heavy anesthesia after she’s unconscious, and a trip to the walk-in freezer, it seems to me she never “suffered” in the sense you’re urging here.
But it’s obviously wrong to do.
True dat.
But I guess I’m suggesting that there’s a somewhat wide gulf between, “We believe he’s in a persistent vegetative state and will never recover,” and “We believe his brain was removed and processed by a Cuisinart.”
In other words, you seem eager to brush aside the “rare” cases of “it looked like brain death but wasn’t.” I’m not, because when the stakes are so high, to err on the side of utmost caution seems obvious.
But for the record, I agree with you that a once-living individual whose brain has been removed and pureed is no longer a live person.
That’s just it. To a True Believer, the church’s policy does not require justification. The problem is not with policy, but with the inability/refusal of nonbelievers to recognize the Truth of the policy. While we’re arguing logic and a broader, humanistic understanding of morality, opposing us is a tenaciously held dogma and an equally tenaciously held blind institutional loyalty. No convincing is possible, not even evidence of institutional support of child rape (!), only an enlightening personal experience can shake it and even that is not a given.
Bricker has referred to his ability to try to change church policy, but has notably failed/refused to give any examples of him, or any layman, actually doing so. And it is no mystery why.
I’m not interested in untestable things when they directly contradict testable things. In the case of the OP, there was a finite chance that the mother would suffer and die. Obviously, rational views don’t disregard unproven things. But its more than rational to undervalue unproven or rarely experienced phenomenon. It’s compassionate to make a decision based on minimizing suffering for those who you know would suffer.
I honestly don’t waste my time on metaphysics that are meaningless to living a good and productive life.
About Rebirth vs. Reincarnation. The basic tenants of Buddhism is the 4 Noble Truths. The first says what suffering is (in buddhism dukka means more than suffering as we define it). The second says that suffering is due to attachment. One of the main attachments that people have is attachment to the notion of a fixed permanent self. Or even a fixed impermanent anything. Reincarnation typically requires a fixed permanent soul which is in direct contradiction with a basic buddhist tenant (which can hold up to scrutiny). A fundamentalist buddhist will insist that’s not they mean but it’s of course what they mean. And they will cling, cling, cling to it even though in the grand scheme of buddhism it’s all together meaningless. So they become both attached to a permanent self and attached to believing in the concept of a permanent self. Double-layered attachment = dukka. Then they act up on their attachment causing dukka for themselves and others. Actions = Karma. Then you’re all fucked up.
It is interesting to mention Armstrong especially in the context of this thread. In her biography she relates her past as a Catholic nun and in her order it was expected that you beat yourself with a whip as a means of penance and spiritual enlightenment. She practiced this herself in the 1960’s and it was a perfectly moral thing to do in Catholic tradition. It was one of the things that lead her away from her vocation and the church.
As someone who doesn’t see it, could you explain the ‘clear difference’ between killing Ben then detaching him vs. detaching Ben causing him to die. And, if possible, could you explain why the difference is great enough to justify (in Tom Scud’s elaboration) favoring the ‘detach first’ approach even if it seriously increases the risk of Albert dying and produces long-term health effects for Albert compared to the ‘kill first, then detach’ approach.
And yet, you expect (or at least prefer) this policy to be applied in the real world. I’m asking how you would apply it, and you can’t answer. Big fucking shock.
You have yet to give me a better evidence for another seat of consciousness and personhood.
A fertilized embryo to be implanted in a uterus is outside the body. If location is the only criterion, why can those be disposed of without consequences? After all, they’re human and alive.
Again, not sure why you’re addressing any of this to me. None of these are things I would disagree with, except to question why birth is necessarily your criterion for #2. It seems a very arbitrary point to start treating someone as a human being, such that a baby delivered prematurely at 30 weeks could have more rights and be considered more of a person than one that’s a few days from popping out at the nine-month mark.
Why? If you truly believe these to be fundamental rights, why should you care what someone’s magical sky fairy is telling them?
This will never happen for two reasons:
1.) Catholicism is predicated on a theoretical direct line of descent of authority from Jesus. Because the Pope as the head of the faith is a central tenet of the religion, people are unable to divorce themselves from it without a fundamental shift in their entire worldview.
2.) There has been corruption–blatant, acknowledged corruption–in the Church before, all the way up to the Pope. The official Church position is that it doesn’t matter, because it will self-correct sooner or later.
Exactly. Which means they are bullshit. There is literally no difference between my claim that a dragon* lives in my garage and your claim that RCC is the one true faith, except that you’re personally invested in the latter.
*Invisible, floating, anaerobic, room-temperature, untouchable, and has no mass.
The only limit there is technology–we don’t understand the brain well enough yet to be able to diagnose with absolute, infallible accuracy. The point still stands–and you have conceded–that the brain is the seat of personhood in the body. So why you can accept that someone whose brain has been irreparably damaged is not a person, but not that someone who doesn’t yet have a functioning brain also is not a person, is beyond me.
And if a fertilized egg = an ensouled human being, what of identical twins? When the zygote splits, does only one clump of cells get a soul? Do they each get half a soul? Is killing one of a set of identical twins only half murder? If you could prove that one twin had the soul, would you be free to kill the other with impunity?
And what if they’re conjoined? If one fertilized egg = one soul, then surely killing one conjoined twin to save another isn’t murder, any more than amputating a limb is murder.
Either that or–gasp–personhood doesn’t come purely from a fertilized egg.