> Well, your body was once an unfertilized egg, but that's before it was alive. It got alive when the sperm kicked in.
ERRRR. Wrong. Both the egg and the sperm are quite alive. If the egg is dead when the sperm shows up... nothing happens. Maybe you're born undead, fangs and all....
> Is the body so important to keep alive at all costs that we can cannibalize other bodies to keep it going?
Situationally dependant. Some 23 year old decent person who needs kidneys... why not? Some 85 year old scumbag who needs a new heart? Ummm...
> The body is essentially a vehicle, which the soul is currently using.
Ah. This is, essentially, the hear of the matter. At what point does the "soul" enter the person? If it is at conception... what does that imply for identical twins? Because they start as a single fertilized egg, which happily divides normally for a while, till something happens and the gamete splits. Does the soul split in two? Or does a second soul show up? And if that's the case, how about those cases where the two separate embryos merge back together? Does one soul go away? Do the two souls merge into one?
Now, if'n you're planning on legislation based on this... it's up to you to *prove* when the soul entered.
Can't have legislation based on when the soul enters, but how about when life begins? Which is inarguably at conception.
Soul enters with sperm, BTW. Twins? Two fer one. Unless fraternal.
Using donated organs from people who actually died, and were already dead when said organs were removed for reusing and recycling, is one thing. But to remove organs when the "donor" is still alive is murder, cannibalism, and barbaric.
I don't think you have it quite correct.
It is, as far as I know, impossible to "prove" when a "soul" comes into being.
I know of no scientifically valid test that could be used (and recognized) to demonstrate the point at which a "soul" comes into being an enter a human body.
I believe very strongly in the existence of souls, and I also believe that there is a triune God of the universe who is a Spirit who created and sustains the universe.
Can I offer a scientific proof for trhe existance of a God whos is three in one? I have several pieces of evidence, but I am quite sure they would not withstand the most rigorous scientific scrutiny. That is not the same things as saying that God does not exist as a triune diety. It only say that science will not prove for you.
Same thing with souls and when they enter the human body.
I would suggest, however, that it is really up to you (or, if not you, then those who support abortion-on-demand (as long as an "understanding phsyician feels that the mother's health could be in jeopardy if the pregnancy were not aborted) to show why aborting a human life (for certainly human zygotes, human embryos, and human fetuses are all human. And they are all life.
They are, from a scientific point of view, not too much different from you or me. In fact, both you and I were, at one point in our respective lives, a zygote, an embryo, a fetus, a two-year-old child, a sixteen year old, and a twenty-one-year-old.
And, if we are both lucky, you and I will someday be 80 year old human. Our eyesight, hearing, and mental capacity may not be the same at 80 as it was for each of us when were were 20, But the lack of hearing in an 80 year old does not negate his or her humanity.
Similarly, I wojuld suggest that the fact that a fetus does not have, for instance, a fully formed opposable thumb, does not render him or her something "less than human" It seems to me that one is only able to posit the situation that unborn children are not "human life" or not "human beings" if one injects into the argument a notion that "human life" or human beings" require something more than (1) having the identifiable characteristics of human, as opposed to say, feline life, and (2) being alive.