Salmon of Doubt

Well you said that if God is content to let those zygotes perish in miscarriages, so are you. I say that if God is content to let those zygotes perish, he must also be content to let the aborted ones perish, as he's not actually stopping the abortion.

If you claim to be able to tell what God minds from his action, or inaction over miscarriages, he must also not mind about abortions, otherwise logically he'd do something to stop them. Sorry if I'm a bit confusing in what I write!

yguy

It doesn't matter. Consciousness is not understood well enough for anyone to state with authority whether a zygote has conscoiusness or not. Personally, I doubt that it does, but it could easily come before development of a central nervous system, IMO.

The last time I was unconscoius, I had no sensory input, and no thoughts - but I knew I was there. Intelligence is not consciousness.

Knowing a piece of trivial information is not comparable to knowing you exist.

When you can answer that, maybe you will have more authority to make assertions about the consciousness of zygotes.

Even if that's true, it hardly follows ineluctably that zygotes lack consciousness because they lack what we call a brain. We are dealing with radically different physiological mechanisms in a zygote.

Sure. Why couldn't He, since He granted it to begin with?

yguy

Of course, you could say the same for any murder, disease, or other misfortune which is the lot of humankind, which would take us into an area best left to another thread. I lay the responsibility miscarriages and such in general on God's shoulders because I see nowhere else to put it. Not so with elective abortions.

Dominus Paradoxum

"Sure. Why couldn't He, since He granted it to begin with?"

See how you're begging the question again? Even assuming that he did "grant" them their humanity or personhood, *why* should he have the 'right' to take it away? And you can't say: "Because he granted it!" because why he should have that right simply because he granted it is the very point at issue.If someone donates one of their kidneys, do they the 'right' to take it back, even if that other person would die, simply because "they granted it"?

To quote Bertrand Russell:
Kant, as I say, invented a new moral argument for the existence of God, and that in varying forms was extremely popular during the nineteenth century. It has all sorts of forms. One form is to say there would be no right or wrong unless God existed. I am not for the moment concerned with whether there is a difference between right and wrong, or whether there is not: that is another question. The point I am concerned with is that, if you are quite sure there is a difference between right and wrong, then you are in this situation: Is that difference due to God's fiat[His *willing* it to be so] or is it not? If it is due to God's fiat, then for God himself there is no difference between right and wrong, and it is no longer a significant statement to say that God is good. If you are going to say, as theologians do, that God is good, you must then say that right and wrong have some meaning which is independent of God's fiat, because God's fiats are good and not bad independently of the mere fact that he made them. If you are going to say that, you will then have to say that it is not only through God that right and wrong came into being, but that they are in their essence logically anterior to God.

openeyes

There is a lot of information concerning what makes us conscious. Try reading "A Universe of Consciousness" by Gerald Edelman. It's not a easy read, but a terribly interesting one.

He and his colleagues do nothing but study the brain and what make us conscious. It cannot come before the development of a central nervous system, for your information.

Not in my definition of "the world".

yguy

If the recipient uses his new lease on life to murder somebody, or sets about drinking the rest of his life away, he certainly has that right, in my view, although the law likely doesn't agree. IOW, both God and the donor can do it for just cause - and God never does anything without just cause, for He is Justice.

Non sequitur.

Russell seems to have the idea that a thing is objectively right or wrong indepently of God, who then wills it to be the opposite of what it was; it's a subtle from of circular reasoning, IMO.

Dr Rick

Ignoring for the moment the biggest problem with this concept (making "inalienable rights" contingent upon a non-existent entity), the internal contradiction in it (if something can be taken away, even if only by a deity, it isn't really "inalienable"), and the incorrectness of the last sentence (We can take life away; maybe you meant shouldn't?), there are some serious issues with the whole proposition. For instance, there are numerous occasions when God readily justifies and commands men to take away life; He's quite explict about it when it comes to witches, non-virginal maidens, and disobedient children, for instance, so it's not just something He alone wants to do. Furthermore, if humans shouldn't "take away" life, then killing in self-defense is never justifiable. Finally, there's the problem of other inalienable rights such as freedom from slavery, fair representation, freedom of religion, and freedom of expression; none of these come from the Christian God. In fact, with "the Inalienablenable rights from God" thing, about the only inalienable right that's really left is a fetus's "right-to-life"; ironic since that's an "inalienable right" that doesn't exist except in the minds of some pro-lifers.

Rick

yguy

And you know this how?

Don't tell me to read the book, because that will only tell me how Edelman supposedly knows. I want to know how YOU know.

Are you in the world? Yes. Is your liver in the world? Yes?

That being the case, a fetus in utero is not in the world because...?

yguy

You assume a fact not in evidence.

True enough; only from a human perspective are they inalienable.

Who said humans should never take away life? Have I not said before that murderers forfeit their right to life?

Again, you assume facts not in evidence. You don't have any idea where those rights came from. You may be able to pinpoint a time at which they were first codified, but they necessarily existed for some time before that, whether it was 5 seconds or 5000 years; and there is no way to factually determine how long before.

Dr Rick

The burden of proof is upon the one that would assert His existence; I could argue that rights come from unicorns, but you would be correct in reminding me that first I must show that unicorns exist.

I thought you did when you posted: Did you mean something other than that, and if so, what?

Which is why it's so puzzling that you also asserted that: Sure I do; I learned about where they came from beginning in grade school; and not once did God come into the discussion. If you assert that freedom of religion and freedom from slavery come from God, the burden of proof is upon you to show us how. Otherwise, there is no reason for us to accept the proposition that they did, nor does anyone have to prove where else they came from to reject the concept that they came from God.

Rick