justaman said:
Become an atheist already and you can take me on re. nihilism like David and Zoot. Both have failed
(though don't tell them I said that!)
I might jump in on the thread later, since I think your theory is ridiculous.
And then, maybe when I'm an atheist, we can go to atheist youth group together, and go to atheist bingo tournaments, and then we'll go kill ourselves because life is so undesirable.
justaman said:
This is different. The blueberry does not, in combination with other elements, spawn anything. The blueberry remains a blueberry and is not a catalyst for a subsequent chain of events.
Your missing the point:
You have blue berries and an unbaked pie. (sperm and egg) If you were to put them together, you'd have an unbaked blueberry pie. But the berries, alone, do not become a baked blue berry pie, unless there is a pie that they are put into, and an oven that they are cooked in. The blue berry, alone, does not have the potential to become (itself) a "blue berry pie". There are elements added to it in order for it to be a baked blue berry pie.
Human choice puts the blue berries in the pie. Human choice puts the unbaked bb pie in the oven. Now, the oven and the unbaked pie represent an isolatable process that does not require human choice in order to complete its processes. If the human stops the process, he has prevented a baked blue berry pie.
What I am saying is, you can make a blue berry pie (a zygote), and put it in the oven so as to start it's development into a baked pie. But if you remove that pie prematurely, and destroy it, you do the following:
1.) You destroy an unbaked pie.
(You do not destroy a baked pie.)
2.) You prevent a baked pie.
Add together, both the destruction and the prevention, and you have the blame. "Not making" something is not the same destroying something.
justaman said:
Who cares about intention. I'm talking about prevention. If you consider a zygote to be equivalent in moral terms to a newborn - which you say you do - then we must morally fight as hard to save a zygote as a new-born. If a newborn is lying on the floor and is not attended to, it will die. If zygotes are not attended to, the majority of them would die.
I don't think that this is very relevant. I'm sure any caring parent would fight to keep their zygote alive. But a zygote that dies, does so outside of the parent's intention. The parent did not
murder it.
justaman said:
Due to your definitions, women are doing the equivalent of 'killing' (more than according to seebs) 65% of new borns that they produce.
But not
murdering. Which is what I argue abortion is.
justaman said:
This is the problem with the 'potential human' argument. It fails practical standards because the line you have drawn requires all zygotes to be treated as humans and we are morally obliged to save their lives as any other life of a human. We don't for a very good reason: it's silly.
We may be morally obligated to save their lives, and I do not doubt that there is progress in the medical feild. But, what is in our ability now, is our moral obligation to
not take their lives.
justaman said:
A zygote is very definitely a potential human being. But so is every egg and sperm wasted. I feel equally guiltless about all.
What you mean to say, is an egg
and a sperm is a potential human. You have to say that. And that is the same thing as a zygote.
If you feel guiltless, then that is your problem.
justaman said:
To kill someone, they must first exist.
Which is why I said, "Why won't you kill my body in my sleep?" I do not exist, when I am asleep.
You said, "Because you
have existed (in that body). And you will most likely return to it again".
Through these requirements, you will:
1.) Kill the body of an unconscious individual on life support (they will not return to consciousness) {I agree with you here, btw.}
2.) Kill the body of an unborn child (they have not yet had consciousness)
But where is the justification for having to have
both previous and future experience of consciousness, in order to not kill a person?
I believe only the future consciousness is the only thing that matters. Just like the first situation with the individual on life support, and why you shouldn't kill my body in my sleep. And this is why we shouldn't destroy the zygote.
You intentionally destroy the body, and prevent consciousness when you kill me in my sleep. You intentionally destroy the body, and prevent consiousness when you abort a child.
One cannot destroy consciousness when the consciousness is not present. The consciousness is litterally destroyed everytime I go to sleep. So you cannot say that you are detroying consciousness when you kill my body on the bed. The consciousness has already been destroyed, and is now, non-existent. You destroy my body, and prevent any further conscious experiences my body might have. Effectively killing Michali.
It is the same way with abortion.
justaman said:
One more thing, I'll use your crazy Dr Who analogy back on you. Say there's someone's thumb been left over from a nasty crash. Now you could clone that thumb and get any number of potential humans. So if you destroy that thumb, are you not destroying all of those poor unfortunate potential humans along with it??
No. Because I am not destroying any agent (isolatable process) that can be considered a body for their consciousness.
Good example, though for this reason:
The thumb is alike to that of the gamete. It, itself, is not a process that gives rise to consciousness. Now, if you were to begin the clone, and then destroyed the clone, you would be killing that person. It would have given rise to consciousness, and you prevented it through it's destruction.
