I'm struggling to make sense of your position.
You seem to believe we are all meaningless meat robots.... if that's what you are, why do you have a right to live when a zygote doesn't? Do robots and machines have a right to live?
And You seem to hold that sentience is the difference between you and a zygote, but you can't pin down where it comes from and you also seem to be saying that it's an illusion?
but why? if we're meaningless, why does it matter if we die?
there's more than one drug treatment you can take to abort, and people can slip drugs to others. But it was just an example to make a point. You think of them as property, because they lack a certain quality which you say even neuroscientists can't define. But if pro-lifers also describe a quality which is beyond science -- say, a human spirit -- perhaps you would say there's no evidence of that so it doesn't matter. In which case, what evidence is there of sentience? What scientific evidence is there that your life or any human life has some transcendent value? What scientific evidence is there that any human deserves to live?
what you've said goes far beyond humility, into nihilism and degradation. you referred to loving God -- do you think a God who is love, sees his children as meat robots?
Jeremiah 1:5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations."
This verse describes God talking to Jeremiah about his spiritual life before his time in his mother's womb. Do you believe in the Bible? If so, do you think Jeremiah's mother had a right to abort him, while God was forming this consecrated man's body inside of her?
Do you think Mary had the right to abort Jesus?
We are both meaningless and meaningful. I'm not going to define it quantitatively. We make our own meaning. We are valued as much as we are valued....this is strongly subjective. "Right to live" is an interesting phrase. I don't know if robots or machines have a "right" to live. I suppose they don't until robots reach a point of consciousness. If they can feel empathy, etc,etc. Even my cats have emotion and sentience. Zygotes have none of that.
I told you there are still many great questions about consciousness that really smart people are working on. I can pin point it exactly, but I know it has to do with the brain. So, if you are defining The Holy Spirit as consciousness, I wouldn't do that or you might be in big trouble if robots/computers get to the point of having consciousness which is what the top people are predicting. I think it's pretty clear our choices are an illusion. It's a domino/butterfly effect of chain reactions. You can't predict it completely in ALL cases because of the slight random factor that I mentioned of neuron firings. But that still doesn't suggest in any way that our will is "free".
You asked, "Why does it matter if we die?". What an odd question.. It should be fairly obvious...we have an attachment to people...we care about one another. We are all in this together. We are emotionally, physically, spiritually and genetically bound with other people. It should be obvious why it matters to us when a loved one parishes. Again, even some house pets display different degrees of emotion. They get "sad" if their young die. ...I'm not sure if that was what you were asking, or if you were asking more generally "who cares if we die" well...if, I guess it doesn't matter in that sense because we all will die in our physical bodies but will live on spiritually...so, you could say there is no absolute death. I'm really baffled as far as what you're getting at with this question. Death is an unfortunate part of reality....only weirdo's would take pleasure in it... Maybe it doesn't matter because in the long run no one will remember me in 100 years or whatever, but it matters now while I'm here. I don't want my family, friends, or pets to die or more importantly to feel pain. Which is why I support euthanasia and abortion. I think pain is more serious than death. Suffering is never good. I know you could spin that phrase around and try to say that suffering "makes us grow" blah blah blah...you know what I mean. Irreparable suffering. That's cruel. If I hit an animal in my car on accident and it was dying, I'd hate it, but I'd kill it to put it out of it's misery. I love all animals and I love life.
You seem to again be equating the "human spirit' with consciousness. This is a mistake. Unless you think all animals have souls and I know some people that believe that way. But if only humans have souls, it must be something separate from consciousness. I really wasn't trying to talk about anything transcendent though. I do believe in transcendence but I wasn't really talking about that here...not sure why you brought it up. Neuroscientists can't define it? Didn't Descartes define it pretty well many many centuries ago with his quote "I think therefore I am"? We may not understand it completely but they're doing a pretty good job. It's definitely in the brain. No brain, no consciousness. There is no scientific evidence for anything "deserving" to live. Why should there be? I was only saying there is scientific evidence and most reasonable people would in fact support abortion, especially in certain circumstances like a damaged fetus I mentioned.
There is nothing nihilistic or degrading about anything I said. I don't know God see's us. I know He loves us. I love us too. The Jeremiah verse everyone always quotes clearly states knowing "BEFORE" being formed in the womb. And God didn't form anyone in the womb either... It's a metaphor. Again, it's cellular processes that perhaps God put into place, but as I said before, he wasn't building "you" as in the fetus like some kind of recipe...it's a very natural process. He's talking about knowing your spirit/soul. This quote is always taken so far out of context.
I think that anyone's mother had a right to abort them, though that too is predetermined. Clearly it was not in "God's Will" or "fate" that Jeremiah or Jesus was aborted... That would just ruin everything lol Should they have had that option? Absolutely, in a free society at least. In a closed bigoted Muslim society maybe where no one has any rights, no then it would be banned.
But I should spend one more second commenting on your mistaken charge of nihilism. There is nothing about Determinism or God's Will that is nihilistic! The fact that the meal you eat for Christmas dinner in 10 years is already decided (impossible to predict because of multifarious variables, of course) is not nihilism, it's determinism. And if you don't end up eating anything for dinner Christmas night in ten years, that too is fixed based on your genes and experiences and the input output of possibilities, variables (watching a television commercial for steak for example) We don't know what will affect that pseudo-decision at that point, but it's clear that is what's happening. Neuroscientists are already predicting a test subjects movements nearly 10 seconds before the subject is consciously aware. They've even stimulated parts of the brain (I think that's how they did it) to get a subject to wave his/her right hand at someone walking across the hall and when they questioned WHY he/she waved, the subject said they wanted to wave to the lady walking down the hall. This is very impressive and indicative of how consciousness works! We rationalize and essentially make up excuses for everything that we do that we have no control over. This person had no control whether they would wave their hand. Whoever was conducting the experiment knew exactly what was going to happen and when, but interestingly, the subject rationalized the reason/meaning behind why they did what they had no choice in doing, as if they had a freedom to choose. That shows how powerful this feeling of agency is. I don't know if we're merely "meat robots". That could be totally wrong. I borrowed that word from Professor Jerry Coyne who did a lecture...I think it was called bluntly "You Don't Have Freewill". But maybe he's totally wrong. That's fine. This is WAAAAY off topic. We were supposed to be discussing Hillary and abortion, and I know you're trying hard to trap me in logical or philosophical loopholes about "at what point is abortion acceptable", etc.. and as I said, I don't particularly LIKE killing anything. No one is celebrating with cake and party hats when someone poor girl gets an abortion. But I'll stand by my words that it is the more moral thing to do at times and so we must keep it open as an option. There are horrible cases with the baby dying a few hours post birth because it's missing a liver or something and why go through all that hardship? It's not right. If it does indeed have a soul in the womb, it will be with God anyway. Nothing good can come from allow it and the mother and father to suffer and force this baby to stay alive when the pregnancy could have just been halted waaaay at a more reasonable time. It's just insane to me. Giving birth is a hard and painful thing. You know this kid is not going to be right and it will die and suffer...why would you do that to yourself and to the kid? Again, I don't much care for using it as a birth control. But while it's growing inside the mother, yes, the mothers body and will is worth more than this unconscious growing thing that will end up being a human if allowed to, but there is no good reason to allow it to if you don't want kids... this earth is already grossly over populated anyway. Even if you do want kids, I'd suggest adopting. There are so many kids that could use a good parent. Why bring more people in this earth?
