How many Christians are here?

I am a Christian. However, I don't attend church, because I'm not very social. On the other hand I keep God close to my heart. I am a sinner, and my heart is full of regrets. I feel that every day I find a new way to spit on all I have been given and I just can't turn back some things. So I feel the need for salvation. I believe Jesus came to earth to show us the dangers of ``amor sui', and is our savior. I certainly accept him as my savior.

Is anyone else here a Christian? I imagine most of you are atheists, agnostics or of other religions. This is ok with me, as I understand it is what is fashionable amongst young people these days. However, I'm always happy when I meet a fellow Christian in an unexpected place :)

>>38
That seems like a built-in appeal to authority, which makes me even more wary of it. Is there a different message you believe it contains? Additionally: I paraphrased directly from the primary Taoist source to support my assertion. Is there evidence I was wrong?

>>39
Yes, that's right, I live in Canada. I know adopted people going to med school, (well, one, anyway), and leading happy lives. I understand our conditions are better than most places, but I suspect that few people anywhere would choose death over their lives: if they do choose death, they are always able to kill themselves. I don't believe killing someone to spare them the potential moral responsibility for suicide is a healthy parenting choice.

>>40
The issue for me is that their existential value as humans (as opposed to economic value, which is not by my belief system a morally correct measure to apply to human life) is still quite high. Again, I'm referring to the developed world, but the chance of a foetus making it to term without killing its mother is extremely high - miscarriages occur in about 1/4 of pregnancies, and maternal mortality is very rare - so by that standard a newly-conceived foetus has about 75% the humanity of a newborn baby. Using years of human life as a unit of measure, the math on the "parasitism" argument is now easy to do, given a conservative average lifespan of 75 years:

0.75 * 75y - 0.75y = 55.5y

So using years of human life as a measure of value, even assuming the 9 months are "lost" for the mother, the human race is vastly ahead. I'm disregarding child-rearing years, because I can safely assume in my country that the unaborted child has at least equal odds to a "normal" child of finding a family whose parents will consider its presence to be a benefit.

I will disregard your description of the age and physical characteristics of the foetus because I do not perceive their relevance. Please correct me if they are in fact relevant to the question.

Note that in a region with a saturated human population, this argument is not so clear. In such a case, I would still prefer use of contraception or even sterilization over murder in order to control the population. And if we are to resort to murder, why should it be babies getting murdered? Why not old people, who are economically useless? Why not the sick or disabled? The chronically unemployed? These are not choices I think we should force ourselves to make by refusing contraception.

The underlying assumptions of these arguments are that human life is precious and that it is of equal value between individuals. That's where the Christian faith comes in - these are two statements strongly affirmed in the bible. I believe it to be valuable because it provides general assumptions that make a difficult issue like the abortion debate easily soluble by rational analysis. Of course in practice the world functions more selfishly, but here we are discussing an ideal system ;)

>>16

"We will never know" is accepting the legacy of a few niggers

*African-Americans

>>41

using years of human life as a measure of value

So if killing a 2 year old baby would extend the life of 2 people by 100 years, we should do so? Just because you're not using dollars doesn't mean you aren't being utilitarian in your thinking.

I'm disregarding child-rearing years, because I can safely assume in my country that the unaborted child has at least equal odds to a "normal" child of finding a family whose parents will consider its presence to be a benefit.

Until all the families who want children become saturated. What then?

I will disregard your description of the age and physical characteristics of the foetus because I do not perceive their relevance. Please correct me if they are in fact relevant to the question.

It is relevant in that the foetus in question (at 6 weeks, giving ample time to the mother to become aware that she is pregnant and to take a decision regarding it) is unable to think or feel (since the brain is not only undeveloped, but also just a few millimetres in length), nor has it ever thought or felt in the past, nor does it hold any experiences and memories (relevant to information-theoretic death). It is as alive as a person whose entire brain has been obliterated by an some accident; biologically alive, but doesn't qualify as "human life".

To see my point, what if we managed to make animal muscle tissue in labs (for the purpose of replacing meat taken from traditionally farmed animals)? Sure, the muscle tissue is `biologically alive', but you can't say that the animal itself is alive. What if now we also produce animal livers and hearts in the same manner, would that change anything? What if we produce the entire animal [i]except[/i] for the brain, would you call it `alive'?

Note that in a region with a saturated human population, this argument is not so clear.

Such as the entire planet?

And if we are to resort to murder, why should it be babies getting murdered? Why not old people, who are economically useless? Why not the sick or disabled? The chronically unemployed?

Because old people, the ``economically useless'', the sick, the disabled, and the chronically unemployed are proud owners of functioning human brains, are able to think/feel, and hold experiences and memories of their past lives. 6 week old foetuses aren't.

The underlying assumptions of these arguments are that human life is precious and that it is of equal value between individuals.

Oh, I absolutely agree with you, it's just that we don't define human life in the same way. :)

Also people seem to never consider non-penetrative sex among the `solutions' to the no-babies problem, I wonder why that is.

Also people seem to never consider non-penetrative sex among the `solutions' to the no-babies problem, I wonder why that is.

Like mutual masturbation? Of course people do, why do you think otherwise?

>>43
Australia can fit another 300 million or so people.

>>36

Christianity is a religion of love. Judaism consists of the tribal beliefs that have been discussed here already

Then why did your beloved Jesus believe in tribal things?

Shalom!

>>38

it mentions that becoming a "sage", i.e., one who truly understands the Tao is a very difficult thing to achieve.

mailto:sage

>>40
Pretty much everyone would contract millions of STDs because of birth control consisting in discarding the egg. Women would also shit from their vaginas. Well, maybe.

I wish I were a bird.

I just like how there is a variety of people here who all share one common thing.... autism

god says: nuke canada

>>41
Am I wrong, or do you support the birth of a child who was the byproduct of unprotected sex between a dudebro and a slutty cheerleader?

You don't seem to consider the scenario where the parents had sex not with the purpose of procreation. Is ``fixing'' an ``accident'' really considered a sin?

I will disregard your description of the age and physical characteristics of the foetus because I do not perceive their relevance. Please correct me if they are in fact relevant to the question.

Not the guy you're replying to, but last time I checked babies didn't have the ability of making conscious decisions. Without delving balls deep into a pointless discussion of ``when does life really start'', newborn animals are full responsibility of their parents and they can decide what the fuck they want to do with the soggy piece of flesh that came out of her vagina inseminated by his penis.

I know this sounds really immature, but the "everyone should be given a chance" shit shouldn't be taken so far. Hell, I'm gonna go full edgy and say babies are completely worthless (and only considered a valuable object by their parents) until they show some survival instincts.

Sorry but I'm fed up with this liberal Jew world.

>>41

I would still prefer use of contraception or even sterilization over murder in order to control the population.

Why don't you tell that to the hordes of horny niggers fucking without a rubber? For fuck's sake, if life and population control were that easy.

>>41

And if we are to resort to murder, why should it be babies getting murdered?

See >>51.

Why not old people, who are economically useless?

Retirement centers are sources of employment.

True, they might be leeches to the government, but everyone was a leech to their parents when they were young. Killing all children because they're leeches would mean eradicating the human race and that doesn't make much sense. If you were to do that, this argument should end right here, we should all kill ourselves and we would be done with this shit. Since that doesn't make sense and we're not killing children, why kill old people?

Why not the sick or disabled?

Same, hospitals and rehabilitation centers are sources of employment. Sick and disabled people can still contribute to society with stuff that doesn't require you to use your body. For example, you could have terminal autism and be a Javashit ninja rockstar making $300k from home.

The chronically unemployed?

I... don't know. Saying they are potential 3.0 ninja rockstars is too far-fetched and not really an argument, but whatever.

These are not choices I think we should force ourselves to make by refusing contraception.

Now if people actually used contraception this would be a better world.

A question for you: do the microscopic frogs living in your balls count as living beings? Because masturbation would be abortion. If you don't, then you're setting a starting point for life. Are you killing someone if you remove a fertilized ovule out of an uterus? What if it's a 5 days old ovule? How about 20 days old? When does it start being murder?

Atheists confirming themselves to be psychopathic pseudo-intellectual nutcases.
Lock them all up.

>>54
I doubt they would leave their favorite subreddit just to kill people.
Calm your tits.

>>54
The majority of comments have been civil, which is somewhat surprising. I don't think I've ever seen such a polite discussion of abortion. Of course a few people will advocate genocide, but this is to be expected on progrider.

>>53
The difference between sperm and a fertilized ovum is that the latter's individuality is set. An individual is created at the moment of conception, or at least, the biggest single collapse in possible outcomes occurs then: at that point, destroying the fertilized cell means you are not destroying one of millions of possible people (or halves-of-people), but a specific person who most likely will be born.

A side point: I don't have any frogs in my testes. If you do, I strongly urge you to seek medical attention. :)

>>51
You've hit upon a major difficulty I have. I think the child shouldn't be blamed because it will probably be an idiot like its parents, but my real problem is that I can't help feeling contempt for those people. I ought to love them but I just can't. My (probably inadequate) solution to this is to live as if these people did not exist, unless of course I can't ignore them due to some imminent threat, which is not usually a practical concern. So for example, some club-type losers (who I happen to know make about a third of what I do) made fun of my $9 shoes in an elevator in an office building. Naturally I felt like punching their stupid faces into a nice red mess, but instead I just ignored them, as if I were alone in an elevator. It was difficult not to make fun of them, and would have been easy to make them feel bad, but I felt it was neither morally right nor necessary, as they did not pose an imminent threat. I looked like a huge loser for doing this, but that's what the high road sometimes looks like. Fuck it.

The other thing you said that I found interesting had to do with accidents vs. deliberate conception. I don't think the parents' motives are relevant as a rule when deciding whether a child should live or die. The exception might be rape, particularly since the tendency to rape can be congenital; not aborting a rapist's child might mean more rape in future, and that seems like a good thing to breed out. But I'm not sure of whether it's morally defensible in that case.

>>43
Your first question is interesting. It becomes easy to answer if the other two people are also two years old, so since all human lives are equal, I think the answer in that (thank God hypothetical) situation is that yes, it would be morally correct. Of course, if someone were to kill another person in order to prolong their own life by, say, twice the expected lifespan of the deceased, the issue should clearly be decided in the other direction - that individual should be imprisoned and stopped from murdering anybody else. So I guess there are some actions that do reduce your value as a human being.

Also, non-penetrative sex is a great idea. I think I'll buy space on a billboard and write out "Help make a better future - give somebody a blowjob TODAY!"

I really have to overcome the impulse to answer every post I see.

>>49
Yes, it's wonderful, isn't it?

The Helenic peoples used to put unsustainable babies into pottery and then take them to the wilderness.

The idea is you give them a chance of survival.

I find this much more humane than just murdering an unborn baby.

>>58
Nobody cares what a bunch of nutty ancient people did.

And medieval eurotrash defecated out of windows

>>58

The Hellenics also liked man-boy sex

>>59
>>60
Why did you both feel the need to comment on the ``Helenic peoples'' aspect instead of everything else. I could have just as easily said ``The Martian peoples...''. It wasn't an argument from authority, just an example.

>>61

keep using those faggot quotes, fag.

The difference between sperm and a fertilized ovum is that the latter's individuality is set. An individual is created at the moment of conception, or at least, the biggest single collapse in possible outcomes occurs then: at that point, destroying the fertilized cell means you are not destroying one of millions of possible people (or halves-of-people), but a specific person who most likely will be born.

Genetic make up (assuming nothing else fucks with it after that) is the only thing that is determined after fertilization. How do you define individuality? Also, what if every human male, or human female, collectively abstained from intercourse, causing the end of humanity. Would this be murder of the next generation, or does the next generation simply not exist?

>>62
``OK''

>>58-60
The Spartans were so proud of how great they were that you could never become a Spartan. You had to be one already. So eventually, since they also required that one risk one's life before reproducing, they became hopelessly inbred. They weren't such hot shit on the battlefield after that, now, were they. Sic vanitas remunerat est.

And remember
Latinam ad profundum notiones vulgares altum elevat

>>58
A life of suffering and nothing else, with no chance of survival is not humane. This is subjective, but would argue it's more humane to give it a clean death (or elimination of existence before it became sentient) than to give it a brief glimpse of the worst parts of life and nothing else.

>>64
``Tee hee''

>>63
That is my favorite question yet because it is so unlikely. Although I would not myself define that as murder, I think it would be a bad idea. I also disagree with monks and nuns who abstain from sex. I think they are harming the world when they do that. I think God would be pleased with them if they took a wife or a husband.

I tried to head off that individuality question with the hastily written bit about "collapse in possible outcomes." I mean that a whole lot gets decided when genes are set. Environment and free will lead to many changes, but I would guess that the biggest one, with the possible exception of events that lead to your death, is the one that more or less cements your genetic makeup. That's not to say there aren't others that are significant, but I think it's probably the biggest.

>>66
Have you not heard of Moses? Romulus and Remus?

Although the ideal case would be to give it a chance at life, whatever its life may turn out to be. But this isn't possible as the amount of newborns surpasses the amount of parents accepting children.

But there are other points in the abortion debate.

What about the choice of a woman? If a women doesn't want to have a child, and the state forces the women to have a child, she no longer has a right to her own body. Some consider this rape.

What if the pregnancy was a result of rape?

What about consequences of making abortion illegal? It wont got away just because it's against the law. But it will be performed by less qualified individuals, or by the woman herself, in less sanitary conditions, and the woman will have a much higher risk. You know the imgery, a women dead in a room, slumped over in a small pool of blood, with a bloody coat hanger nearby. That's the result of making it illegal.

>>65
The only greatness of any worth is the greatness of a great individual. e.g alexander the great

Why is God a he and not a she or an ``it''?

>>68
I'm not getting the reference, but if you link to it I'll read it. I don't use stories from the bible to shape my morality. I draw from personal experience mostly.

>>71
*rolls eyes*

>>73
There is a christian church that refers to G-d as Her. I forget what it was called.

>>72
Moses was cast away as a baby but survived and led the Israelites out of Egypt.

Romulus and Remus (not Abrahamic myth) were raised by a female wolf, then they became bandits, then they founded Rome.

Moral of the story is if you kill the baby, it's dead for sure and that's murder. If you don't, who knows. It might grow up.

All is fair in nature. My cat kills a rabbit. The sun sets.

>>69
This is more the sort of argument I expected: an attempt to induce hysteria rather than to explore the issue rationally. There are a lot of problems with your arguments, but the one worth mentioning is that they're so bad they're not even wrong.

>>75
Those are nice stories, and while I agree with the message that those that appear doomed may still prevail in a more abstract context, I don't think you should take this as literal evidence supporting a baby's ability to survive in the wild. If you did an empirical study and left 500 babies in the wilderness, I'm pretty sure 200 of them would drown face down in the mud or face up in the rain, 200 would be eaten by wolves and then the 100 that weren't found by wolves during the first night and didn't drown would die from hypothermia before morning. And if there were instruments to quantify their pain during their excruciating remainder of their lives, I'm pretty sure they would be feeling just about the maximum amount possible. I'm assuming we are talking about newborns here, rather than 2-year olds. If you don't have basic motor control yet, and you're in the wild, you are essentially a piece of a meat that expires slower than a corpse.

>>77
The typical christian approach to the issue of abortion is purely in morality. Because it is immoral, it should be illegal. I think it is consistent if they said it is immoral and therefore should not be done. But making it illegal does not make not be done. It makes it done under much more dangerous circumstances. That's the core of what I'm saying if you can't handle the details of the dangerous circumstances. This point does not consider the ethics of abortion, but the consequences of it being illegal.

I'm assuming the hysterical one was women dying from crude abortions. This used to be a common thing. A women's sovereignty of her body as a right is another practical issue created by abortion being illegal. You can respond if you want to, or ignore it, but don't create an excuse to ignore it. Is there really a hysterical question?

sorry, I didn't mean to uncivil this thread. It was going nicely for a while even if I took offence to a lot of the responses those are your beliefs and I respect that I would be fukin pissed off as fuck if those beliefs materialized into policy though. My advice to christians on abortion is to accomplish the goal the right way, teach your morality to the public so people choose to not have an abortion done. That's the only scenario where there are no abortions, neither in hospitals, nor on the streets. Although safe sex practices would solve it obviously.