Abortion

[Dawkinsrocks]

Palerider accepted that a corpse is a human being.

I think that human being is being used disingenuously here as it really just means 'homo sapien' but that is less emotive.

A corpse and a foetus can both be homo sapien but neither is a person.

 

[palerider]

I believe you meant 'was' a human being. You are contradicting the definition of 'being'.

The definition of being is to exist in reality. Dead people do exist in reality. They exist as dead people, but the do exist.

When we dig up their bones, we state that the bones are of a human being as opposed to some other species. They don't become something "else" just because they are dead. They are what they are even though they are dead.

 

[palerider]

A dead person is a human being and when you put that into your arguments they fall apart.

Elaborate. I would be interested to see how acknowledging that dead human beings are dead human beings tears my argument down.

This should be good.

Your arguments also fall apart when you apply your pro-life rhetoric to war and to capital punishment which you support.

Clearly you don't know, or understand what a red herring fallacy is. Perhaps it is something you should learn.

So I don't need to cite the mountain of information that justifies abortion.

Of course you don't. Predictable. Since there is no such mountain, it was imperative for you to come up with some reason, no matter how idiotic, to avoid producing it.

Do be a good lad though and explain how dead people tear down my argument.

 

[Dawkinsrocks]

You are a pro-death hypocrite.

 

[palerider]

Palerider accepted that a corpse is a human being.

I think that human being is being used disingenuously here as it really just means 'homo sapien' but that is less emotive.

Have you ever opened a dictionary and looked up the definition of human being? You will find that human being is defined as a member of speices homo sapiens sapiens. Human being is nothing more than the mundane (that means common) term for any member of the species.

A corpse and a foetus can both be homo sapien but neither is a person.

Do explain what being a person is. When you explain this, do be sure that your explantion does not exclude people that the law presently recognizes as persons.

 

[palerider]

You are a pro-death hypocrite.

And you obviously can't debate your way through a wet tissue. Rarely have I encountered someone with such poor debating skills. How old are you by the way? 8?

 

[Dawkinsrocks]

Your argument relise on the difficulty of stating when one phase of something changes into another.

Like night and day

Or foetues and baby.

But that does not stop the distinctions existing clearly away from the margin.

Give me a definition of person that encompasses a few cells with no brain.

 

[Dawkinsrocks]

It is interesting that you are so passionate about a few cells with no brain but so blase about the execution of an innocent actual person.

This really does make taking you seriously very difficult

I meant impossible

 

[Mr. Carpenter]

Give me a definition of person that encompasses a few cells with no brain.

Dawlinsrocks: noun: a mass of cells with no perceptible brain or intelligence.

 

[Mr. Carpenter]

It is interesting that you are so passionate about a few cells with no brain but so blase about the execution of an innocent actual person.

Which "innocent" persons have been executed? List them.

 

[palerider]

Your argument relise on the difficulty of stating when one phase of something changes into another.

What you seem to not be able to understand is that the words fetus and baby are nouns that we use to describe the same thing. Just like embryo, toddler, child, blastocyst, adult, zygote, teenager, and old geezer. All are words that we use to describe a human being at one stage of his life or another. A fetus isn't a different sort of creature than a baby. They are both accurately described as a child.

Give me a definition of person that encompasses a few cells with no brain.

Person is a legal term. If you refer to Black's Legal Dictionary. The very dictionary that the justices on the Supreme Court use, you will find that person is defined as "a human being". That's it. All human beings, in the eyes of the law are persons.

I know this is going to be over your head, but I will say it anyway. Person is a matter of kind, and not degree. That is, person is the sort of creature you are rather than a result of the degree to which you manifest your potential. There are all sorts of things you can do to make yourself a better or worse person, but nothing at all that you can do to make yourself more of or less of a person.

If being a person were a matter of degree, that is if personhood were a product of the degree to which you manifest your potential, then anyone who is smarter, stronger, bigger, better looking, etc than you would be more of a person than you. That isn't the case. You are exactly as much a person as anyone else in the world because you are exactly as much a human being as anyone else in the world, and unborns, at any stage of development are exactly as much a human being as you. Immature, but human beings none the less.

The fact that you can't seem to wrap your mind around that biological fact speaks to your own intellectual shortcomings and doesn't alter the facts at all.

 

[palerider]

It is interesting that you are so passionate about a few cells with no brain but so blase about the execution of an innocent actual person.

This really does make taking you seriously very difficult

I meant impossible

Still waiting for you to bring such a quote from me forward. You don't because no such quote exists. In short, you are not only a terrible debater, but a liar as well.

 

[palerider]

Which "innocent" persons have been executed? List them.

Now there you go asking for facts again when everyone knows that dawkins isnt the sort that can produce facts of any sort to back up his claims.

 

[numinus]

The definition of being is to exist in reality. Dead people do exist in reality. They exist as dead people, but the do exist.

When we dig up their bones, we state that the bones are of a human being as opposed to some other species. They don't become something "else" just because they are dead. They are what they are even though they are dead.

Nonsense. You are defining the verb 'to be', which is, to exist in reality. What I refer to as a 'human being', and which is relevant to this argument, is the essence of a human being. The difference becomes obvious in view of the platonic ideas of forms and substance.

A living human person has both the form and substance of a human being. A dead person, on the other hand, merely has its substance. Clearly, any topic concerning an inalienable right to live refers to a human being in both form and substance.

I'm sure your legal dictionary does not expound on the difference, which makes your mistake understandable.

 

[numinus]

Palerider accepted that a corpse is a human being.

What palerider accepted is that the corpse is OF a human being, not that the corpse IS a human being.

The point in all this is if one can logically refer to a body part as a human being. Clearly, one may not refer to your severed appendage as a human being, and consequently confer on it the inalienable rights due a human person.

That is not the case with a fetus. The fetus is a DISTINCT human being, however dependent on the mother it may be.

I think that human being is being used disingenuously here as it really just means 'homo sapien' but that is less emotive.

A corpse and a foetus can both be homo sapien but neither is a person.

Not at all. The idea of the inalienable rights of man is very clear. It is the fundamental idea underlying the whole of western civilization. It is the purpose of government to protect these inalienable rights in WHATEVER FORM they manifest.