Thread: The Human Soul and Abortion Morality
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Old 10-12-2007, 08:56 AM   #5 (permalink)
Katczinsky
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mytmouse57 View Post
My religion teaches that the soul identifies with a particular human life and potential personality at the time of conception.
That's wonderful, but what does your reason tell you?

Quote:
Furthermore, the soul is not a material thing, and therefore, has no material qualities or limitations.

Therefore, asking "where" the sould might reside -- where it is.. how we could detect or measure it.. is a bit like saying:

"Hey Fred, I think the apples on the ceiling are gettting rotten, could you please get me a Corvette so I can adjust the screws on my mother's weasle?"
Agreed, and saying that the immaterial somehow interacts with (or even is relevant to) the material is a bit like asking your grandmother to pass the ketchup using telekinesis.

If the mind is immaterial and has no location, then it has absolutely nothing to do with our physical experiences. Therefore, how could anything physical happening to a certain object with a certain location in space-time (abortion) affect something that is allegedly transcendental of that very space-time?

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The soul identifies with or is manifested through its attributes in the body. In other words, think of a beam of light reflecting off a mirror. The mirror might relfect the attributes of the light, but the light is not "in" the mirror and the mirror does not cause the light's existance. The mirror is simply the vehicle by which the light appears in that particular context.
That's a poor allegory because 1) the photon is something measurable in the physical world and 2) the light doesn't affect the mirror (unlike the soul supposedly interacting with the body).

Quote:
Anyway, this is why I think abortion is a grave and serious matter. I get weary of these rationalizaions, such as "well, such and such doesn't appear until this or that stage of pregnancy."

To me, that sounds like an elaborate excuse. Almost like a four-year old who gets caught eating cookie dogh and then says, "but mommy... I didn't really spoil my supper with COOKIES.. it was just dough... and dough isn't really cookies.. it's just potential cookies... and who is to say the dough would have become cookies...a natural occourance could have prevented the cookies from ever coming out of the oven.. so, Mommy, how can you really say I spoiled my dinner with cookies?"

Yeah, right, whatever.

I'm not opposed to abortion being legal. I'm just saying that if we can admit the actual wieght of the action -- that it is, indeed, the destruction of human life -- then maybe we can finally be honest with ourselves and one another about this subject.
Funny how I don't have to rationalize myself in ridiculous religious conceptions such as the soul in order to agree with you on this point.
"If you want to achieve peace of mind and happiness, then have faith; if you want to be a disciple of truth, then search" -- Friedrich Nietzsche

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Last edited by Katczinsky; 10-12-2007 at 08:58 AM.