atheist

From here:

Doesn't that just make your head want to explode?!

DougP

I didnt see a source cited in that at all. He (she?) just states it as fact, but I didnt see any source with any statistics.

-Doug

Karalora

I, too, would be interested to know where these numbers are coming from. I suspect, however, that every aborted entity, from the second-old zygote to the day-from-term fetus, is being counted as a "baby".

I also suspect that the lowest estimate of Inquisition deaths, in the tens of thousands, is being referenced.

But any way you look at it, making embryos and fetuses the moral equivalents of women and men is nothing short of disgusting and betrays a total lack of proportion.

long winded fool

What gives men and women moral value? Is it personal empathy? I didn't know anyone who died during the inquisition, and I don't know any of the fetuses that are aborted every day. What makes placing value on one life that I have had no contact with equal to another life that I have had no contact with morally disproportionate? Wouldn't placing more value on one or the other display a lack of proportion? If not, how does one decide which destroyed life deserves more empathy? Age? Gender? Disposition? Are truly evil and horrible humans who were victims of the inquisition exceptions to this empathy? Why?

Is it possible to empathize with humans that you have never met and know nothing about, besides the fact that they were killed by other humans? Is this good empathy? Is some empathy better than others? If my empahty for one human offends someone else's sensibilities, should my empathy for the human who takes offense supercede my empathy for the human who that person killed? If it does not, am I being morally irresponsible? Am I displaying a lack of moral priorities? Why?

Shouldn't we be thinking about the inquisitor's feelings? If we don't, are we being disgusting and irresponsible? Or are they simply unworhty of empathy? If so, who decided this? If the inquisitors called us morally depraved because we empathize with their victims, would we still be sure that we are in the right? Why?

Triple Six

But the Inquisition really wasn't that bad at all, or so catholic apologists tell us. So by that token abortion isn't too bad.

atheist

What got me the most was that, here the guy is going on about the Inquisition, when all of a sudden, WHAM, he pulls out this abortion thing.

He's like, "Yeah, the Inquisition.... BUT PEOPLE HAVE ABORTIONS!" I'm like, "What the fuck?"

Columbus

This is what the article actually said:
Notice the word "atrocities".


Yes. No-one has ever shown me a logical reason for differentiating a zygote from an older human. Everybody begins their journey of life as a zygote. Abortion may kill very young and small humans, but they are still humans and abortion is still murder. More people have died from abortion than in all of WW II, including the Holocaust. I'm not defending the Catholic Church, but the Inquisition really was small potatoes as mass murders go.

Tom

Dark Knight Bob

You won't find a differentiation. Becuase it is not a discrete scale it is a continuous one.

A zygote is as alive as a bacterium. It all depends on what you choose to define as a concious being. If intelligence truely is emergent then a newly concieved human life form will not posess any ability to think or feel beyond that of a bacterium. And you have no trouble killing millions of them everytime you wash your hands.

Family Man

Even if we accept the figure of 6000 (and I suspect some parsing is going on here, though I don't know the exact figures) the real atrocity of the Inquisition was not the number killed but the numbers tortured, imprisoned, exiled and oppressed. Those count in the millions, not thousands.

Secondly, the only difference between a zygote and a fully formed human being is that both contain 46 chromosomes. To say you can't differentiate them makes me question the rest of your position. And while I agree that there is a moral dilemma with abortion, I also note that the world is overpopulated and that population control is needed. I fully agree that abortion should be rare, but to compare abortion to the murder of even a single human being, much less the minimum 6000 figure, is simply morally bankrupt.

maurile

When trying to place values on different forms of life, I think there are a few relevant factors one should consider.

1. Is the life-form mean or nice? Zygotes and teenagers probably score roughly the same grade here, so let's move on.

2. What is the life-form's capacity to enjoy life? A teen might get a kick out of playing Halo 2. A zygote's immediate capacity is nil; but it does have future potential, which should count. I'd give the edge to the teen on this one, but I won't argue with someone who calls it a draw.

3. What sort of investment do others have in this life-form's existence? Here I think a born human has a big edge over your average zygote. If Sarah O'Brady -- financial adviser, Scrabble enthusiast, and mother of three -- is terminated, it will cause severe emotional pain to her family and friends. Contrariwise, an aborted zygote, unwanted by it's mother, will not be missed. (This is related to a factor I'll coldly call "cost of replacement." A significant fraction of all zygotes are naturally and spontaneously aborted; but nobody sheds a tear because, hey, there's more where they came from. A grown human, on the other hand, is not so easy to replace. The birthing event is itself quite a production, and then there's a decade's worth of food, clothing, and schooling to be provided . . .) Huge advantage: teen.

There are many other factors to consider as well, but the point is that zygotes, embryos, fetuses, infants, toddlers, teens, young urban professionals, middle-aged grandparents, and octogenarian retirees are all different life-forms. To lump them all together as being human and then conclude that thier lives must therefore be valued equally is an equivocation fallacy. Fetuses and Congresspersons are both human, and therefore have the same value is no more logically sound than Grandma and Rover are both mammals, and therefore have the same value.