human being at seven weeks (abortion pro-life)

priestsforlife ^ | 2001 | Professor Andrzej Skawina,Dr. Antoni Marsinek, MD Zrodlo Foundation

[SpookBrat]

I don’t find debating atheist particularly refreshing. In fact, it’s quite a drag.

You know, I find it funny that atheist’s hang out on every thread a Christian would find interesting. I prioritize my thread visitation by what I have time for and what’s important to me. Why are you on this thread? You seem to make plenty of time to visit threads where Christians hang out. You must have an interest in God, and deny it. Are you pro-life? What have you said that was positive about this original article or supportive of it? Do you care about how Christians feel when you put THE God in the same category as Bill Clinton (or any human) or call him a “booga booga deity”? Sure you can be pro-life and a moral atheist, but I’m wondering why you find it so thrillingly necessary to insult your “friends” at FR (who are fighting for the same things you believe in), by insulting their Lord and Savior. Is it really necessary? OK, so you don’t believe in THE God…fine. Suit yourself. But why say nasty things about Him? Does it make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside?

Thank you so very much for explaining to me what I thought in my heart and mind so many years ago. Rather arrogant of you I would say. You don’t know me. I won’t “debate” my life with a stranger…duh! That’s dumb. I was there…..you weren’t. I just happened to have a very outspoken agnostic father and an atheist step mother, who had a lot of influence in my life. And actually, for your information, my life was great when I started doubting in a supreme being. I decided there was no such thing, bordering on, “OK, maybe”. THEN my life got “SUCKO”.

”God's an easy target”. Yes He most certainly is isn’t He? Especially for you, and are you acknowledging him in this sentence? I also see that you “Thank God you are not one of the Godly” or something to that effect. Why would you thank God when there isn’t one?

”Show me good, irrefutable evidence, and I might believe”. No you wouldn’t. There are 1,000’s and 1,000’s of excellent posts here at FR by lovely, Godly, Christian, patriotic Freepers that you have read and you still don’t believe. I can’t show you anything and neither can they really. Only God can. All I can do is pray for you. If you really want to believe, pray and ask God to help you believe. Read your Bible. Do you own one? I have many, and would be more than happy to mail you one. I’ll even cover the shipping.

Show me that you have deep feelings on that matter, show me righteous indignation, show me splutter... and you've shown me nothing remotely convincing. I’m sorry, but you want me to show you deep feelings on what matter? I don’t understand. Show you righteous indignation for you, for atheism, for abortion, what? I wasn’t aware that “splutter” had a remote possibility of convincing you there is a God. I suppose if you want splutter, and it would help the cause, I could give it a try.

I wasn’t really trying to convince you of anything. I would just very much appreciate it if you would tone down your God bashing. If someone says something about an atheist which you don’t like, take it up with that person. Don’t beat up on the rest of the Christians here and certainly don’t call THE God a “booga booga deity”.

Good night and good bye. I have nothing further to say to you, unless you need to confess your sins, confess that Jesus Christ was THE Son of God, and that he died for you. I’ll be happy to talk to you then. :) Take care!

[SpookBrat]

Thank you for the beautiful picture again. I printed it out and I'll put it in my children's infant scrapbooks. :)

[toenail]

[This is excerpted from the above booklet (click to order a free copy), by Mark Crutcher, of Life Dynamics, pp 7,8]

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As for the church, the reason why the vast majority of churches are not involved in the fight against abortion is actually quite simple. It takes courage and character they simply don't have.

Trading moral authority for comfort, convenience, and popularity has become a tradition of the modern clergy. When Africans were being captured, bought, sold and brutalized, church leaders conveniently decided that slavery was none of their business and looked the other way. And when the Nazis began to slaughter millions of innocent human beings, also claiming that their victims were not fully human, the church again decided it was none of their business and looked the other way.

So now that another group of "Not fully humans" are being legally butchered by the millions, we should not be surprised that spineless priests and spineless pastors are choosing to look the other way.

Some pro-lifers say that if we will just educate the clergy about abortion, they will get on board. That is nonsense. These guys may not know all the repugnant details about abortion, but every pastor and priest in America knows that it is the deliberate killing of an innocent and defenseless baby. They also know that they have an obligation to fight against it. So don't be misled. The missing ingredient here is not education, but courage.

Now you may think I am being overly harsh on the church. But if you are going to believe anything I've written in this book, believe that the silent and dormant church is the abortion industry's single greatest ally. The abortion holocaust would end overnight if just a fraction of this nation's 600,000 churches became active in the battle.

Instead, we have church leaders who look us right in the face and say, "I know that abortion is murder, but I've got people sitting in my pews who feel differently, and I'm not going to offend them." Of course, if someone was killing off tithers instead of unborn children, you can be certain that these old boys would be speaking out loud and clear, and they wouldn't care who felt differently or who might be offended.

We've also got people sitting in the pews who say that their silence and inaction only means they are not taking a position one way or the other. That is a lie. There is no such thing as not taking a position on abortion. When a man sees helpless children being slaughtered and does nothing to stop it, he is taking a stand. His failure to intervene is tacit approval for the killings to proceed.

Then you've got Christians who say that abortion is simply not any of the church's business. That too is a lie. If the killing of God's most precious creation is none of the church's business, then we may as well turn every church in America into a bowling alley.

I have been asked many times what I think the church should do in the abortion battle. At Life Dynamics, we maintain a list of specific actions the church can take, but basically they are the same as those available to the pro-life community at large. The greatest thing would be for the church to fight abortion exactly like it would fight the government if they tried to take away the church's tax-exempt status. Compared to that, World War II would look like a third-grade food fight.

After almost thirty years of effort, no one can rightly claim that the pro-life movement has not done everything humanly possible to make America's clergy and politicians do the right thing. But it is increasingly obvious that our resolve is no match for their cowardice.

The fact is, the pro-life effort is going to succeed whether they are on board or not, and every ounce of energy we squander trying to get them to do the right thing is an ounce we don't have for the battle against abortion.

Before we leave this subject, I want to predict that a time will come when every preacher, every priest, and every politician in America will be pushing and shoving to get to the front lines of the pro-life effort. I can even tell you when that seemingly unlikely event will occur.

On the day it becomes obvious to them that victory over the abortion holocaust is at hand, these guys will come running out from behind their mammas' skirts, grinning from ear to ear, giving high-fives to everyone they can get in front of, and slapping every back in sight. Then, with their arms draped over our shoulders, they'll start crowing about how they were with us all along.

Of course, in the spirit of the prodigal son, God will expect us to bite our tongues and accept them as our brothers and sisters in Christ.

I tell you all this now so you can start practicing in front of a mirror. It's not going to be easy.

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[susiemaggie]

I don't know how old you are meandog but if that photo was shown to a little child they would definitely say it's a "baby" (human)

[susiemaggie]

I have to agree with you about the churches reluctance to speak out in defense of the lives of the developing human life in utero. In order to keep the pews and the collection plate filled and not offend anyone who may subscribe to the prochoice view or perhaps may have even been through the abortion experience they remain as quiet as "church mice"!

[susiemaggie]

The nervous system of the is fully functioning at 7wks.LMP. It has been proven that the cerebral cortex need not be fully functioning since the thalamus is receptive to feeling, pain, and responding to life in utero.

[CyberAnt]

"a tadpole"

With eyes, a nose, arms and legs, hands and fingers already formed. You better look again.

[Dimensio]

The nervous system of the is fully functioning at 7wks.LMP. It has been proven that the cerebral cortex need not be fully functioning since the thalamus is receptive to feeling, pain, and responding to life in utero.

7wks > 40 days. I'd heard that Orthodox Judaism held that God implanted a soul into an unborn embryo (and as such it became a "human being" at that point) at 40 days, and IIRC, St. Thomas Aquinas held a similar view.

My opinions are based on reasons other than a "soul" belief, mind you, but I share the 40 days mentality -- I do believe that it's a human before it's born, but I cannot bring myself to believe that it suddenly attains "personhood" the moment the sperm hits the egg (especially since 50% of them get discarded naturally because they're not viable or simply not "lucky".)

[2nd_Amendment_Defender]

Nice picture.

[MHGinTN]

...I do believe that it's a human before it's born, but I cannot bring myself to believe that it suddenly attains "personhood"... No, it doesn't suddenly 'attain' personhood, it is an individual human life from minutes after sperm meets egg. To contrive arguments in order to be an apologist for wholesale serial killing is disgusting.

[Dimensio]

To contrive arguments in order to be an apologist for wholesale serial killing is disgusting.

Why yes, that's just what I'm really trying to do: find excuses to justify the first-degree slaughter of a clump of undifferentiated cells with NO BRAIN TISSUE!

Once again, I cannot bring myself to consider something, even with human DNA, to be a "human being" unless there is the possibility of brain activity, and that cannot occur without neural tissue (which, from what I've heard, ususally appears 40 days after conception). Once there's even the possibility of brain activity, I still can't say for certain that it has any self-awareness or sentience, but preferring to err on the side of caution I will agree that it should be protected as a human life. Until there is brain activity -- as in, before there is any possibility of sentience or awareness -- I cannot see what is so special about it, even though it "could" eventually become a self-aware being. Forgive my shortsightedness.

However, if you still want to insist that life begins at conception (or minutes thereafter), you can see a message I posted here where I detailed possible solutions for protecting the sanctity of these minutes-old "human begins" given that 50% or more of them aren't successfully implanted (and thus discarded and "killed") without any deliberate or even accidental involvement from the host mother.

[MHGinTN]

"To contrive arguments in order to be an apologist for wholesale serial killing is disgusting."MHG

Why yes, that's just what I'm really trying to do:Dimensio

Nice admission. Just when did your individual human life begin?

[Dimensio]

Thank you for your lovely out of context quote to hide any traces of sarcasm from your posting. I always admire such honesty.

As for my human rights, legally they began at my birth. Whether I should have had human rights before my birth is irrelevant -- I think that such rights should apply, but there is no legal prescedent for such (yet).

[patriot31u]

It has been shown in studies that electrical impulses from the brain begin by the 43rd day of pregnancy. BTW I once knew a man who claimed to be an atheist. He said that the only thing he believed in was logic. Do you feel the same way?

[patriot31u]

Alright meandog, you have been getting beat up on this thread and I for one would like to hear your response before I flame away. So how about it?

[jwalsh07]

If "its" not alive, why do you have to kill "it"?

[Dimensio]

It has been shown in studies that electrical impulses from the brain begin by the 43rd day of pregnancy.

And if you'd read anything that I'd posted earlier you'd know that I am aware of when the electrical impulses are first recorded. Had you done a little more digging (and I don't blame you for not going that far), you would have seen where I pointed out that, IIRC, orthodox Jews believe that the "soul" is planted 40 days after conception and believed that the zygote was a "human being" at that point -- and I stated that I agreed with the human being part, though for reasons other than the presence of a hypothetical soul.

BTW I once knew a man who claimed to be an atheist. He said that the only thing he believed in was logic. Do you feel the same way?

Logic is simply an abstract construct. The universe is made of particles and energy, not logic.

If "its" not alive, why do you have to kill "it"?

To what is this "it" that you refer and where did I advocate killing "it"?

[patriot31u]

WHOOHH big fella, don't you come off to me like you have with the others on this thread. In your post #67 you made comment that you did not know for sure when brain activity begun. I was simply giving you information. If you meant that statement in another context then I did not see that. I am not, nor was I trying to attack you or start a debate with you. If you are an atheist then that is your buisness. I am not one, but do not hold it against those who are. So to clarify my second question. The man I knew believed in logical ways as opposed to God's way for man's creation and all events that Christians attribute to God's work. Not as to what makes up the universe, just the way it was made. Do you believe this? Simply a question.