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[biologist]

Your previous "apology" was so full of little digs that I didn't take it to be genuine.  The one above seems more so, even if it is preceded and followed by the information that I am immature, hateful, full of animosity, and a bigot, and that you believe others would side with you regarding the intellectual insult that you had just retracted.  I therefore will follow your lead now and apologize to you for the rude personal attack that I previously acknowledged.  But you missed my point when you "corrected" your slur:  I said that the first version was BETTER, because it was more likely to slip undetected into the consciousness of the viewer and harder for the target to rebut.  In making it a crude declarative sentence, you make it less effective.  You seemed to assume that I was being sarcastic, whereas I was serious; your low opinions of me are so far off the mark that I do not find them threatening, so it mostly just amuses me when you rail at me.

Honestly, with all this talk about Star Trek, I am starting to wonder what you really think of me and where you are drawing it from.  I have said nothing that should make you pretend to believe that I do not know or comprehend what a hypothetical example is.  My biggest objection to yours was not that it was ludicrous but that it seems to me to support the pro-choice side, because I can't imagine how any normal human being could restrain himself from becoming violent toward the fat housebreaker.  You are even suggesting that, if necessary, one should allow one's own innocent family to suffer and risk death rather than inflict it on the invasive stranger.  I don't think doing so on principle "protects my self-interest," since I am quite confident I will never be the person who is trying to steal someone else's home.  I also don't think I need Christ all that much if he'd make me easily victimized but still mean.

Like you, I think we've spent about enough time on this.

[y]

>The question then is "when does it start to count as a person"? At what >point does the collection of cells become a "person" in your book? This is not >baiting; I just want to know. I find the question difficult and fascinating.

From a philosophical point of view this question is unanswerable. Mainly becasue the premise of the question is bound up with misguided notions of dualism (body/soul).

From a legal point of view not even a baby is a full person (isn't allowed to drive, vote, buy alcohol). We implicitly recognize that we are dealing with a coninuum of development but in a a society governed by laws we need to make clear distinction even when we know them to be arbitrary (plenty of 15 year olds are much more mature than many adults, but they still can't vote/buy drinks/etc.). I think we have to accept a similar approach when it comes to pregnancy. where exactly we draw the line 20 weeks? 24 weeks? 30 weeks? we have to debate this separetly.

Essentially our biological knowledge progressed faster than our moral adjustments.

One last thing to consider is this: suppose you consider harming a fetus equivalent to murder. How much restrictions are you going to put on women? For instance, if researchers find that women who work during pregnancy have an increased risk of aborting (naturally aborting not induced). Does that mean that working women could be charged with mansloughter? or reckless behaviour?

[biologist]

Before quitting this thread, I feel the need to emphasize for other Christians on this board that my last remark was a sarcastic poke at Cicero alone and not intended to insult them or their faith.  Contrary to his confident belief that I am one of those millions of hateful anti-Christian bigots that supposedly populate America, I have many Christian and other monotheist friends, including some of my own relatives.  Not one of them has a combination of worldview and attitude that is anywhere near as weird as Cicero's, so I don't believe for a second that it really is his religion that makes him think that way, any more than it is my lack of his religion that makes me sometimes slow to apologize when I ought to.

[Cicero]

Good grief, man.  What is the deal here?  Are you obessed with me or something?  Get over it.  Someone plays a little rough, and you start bawling like a baby.  I think you are wrong.  Big deal.  Try to move on.

[Cicero]

Oops, I wasn’t finished.

And I don't see what's "weird" about anything I've said.  I have been entirely reasonable.  Perhaps a little too irritable, but entirely reasonable.  Not only did you (seemingly willfully) misread everything I wrote, but now you are reinventing the whole conversation after the fact.  

You are going to say this is mean, but I’m just being honest.  It is impossible to talk to you.  That I am not the only one who has said this ought to make you ponder if there is perhaps a grain of truth to it.  

“TF” has been reasonable.  “Y” has been reasonable.  “Another biologist” has been very reasonable.  Other posters on your side of the position have been reasonable, and I would wager that they don’t find me to be nearly the maniacal fruitcake you seem to think I am.

 My only fault here has been letting your irrationality rile me up.  You came into this conversation looking for a fight, pushing my buttons from the start so that you can then turn around and say “see, look how mean he is.”  In fact, at this point, you have somehow managed to make the conversation all about my supposed “meaness” rather than the issue.   I don’t know, maybe that’s just your “good but not excellent” use of rhetoric, avoiding the logical flaws in your position.  

So here is some more mean for you:  grow up.  Sometimes public discourse gets heated.  No blows have been exchanged here, only words.  Did your mother never tell you about “sticks and stones”?