I never post anything that I have not vetted as to accuracy and reliability. As a professional, I often go to Wikipedia, because I know that there is a high chance that someone has already found the relevant references, saving me a lot of work. I like Wikipedia, because it generally is written so that laypeople can understand what are often very technical topics. I could link medical journals, but don't because they typically are written so that only subject matter experts can understand them.
The reason I keep bringing up Catholicism is that it is the only prominent faith I know about that proscribes the use of contraceptives. It is mind-boggling to me, given that preventing pregnancy is the best way to decrease the abortion rate, and Catholic official doctrine supposedly is against abortion. If there is another prominent faith (Christian or not) that proscribes the use of contraceptives, I will happily include it in these discussions.
What I am responding to here is the attempt to dishonestly twist science around so as to justify the philosophically driven proscription of contraceptives. If you want to say that you believe a human soul forms at conception, fine--but DON'T try to justify it with muddled science. There are some serious philosophical issues with that belief, but in general, I don't discuss philosophy since it is the art of making claims that can't be seen, touched, measured, or otherwise verified in a concrete manner.
The use of 'undifferentiated', your dismissal of alive embryonic humans as merely clumps of cells ...
Oh, my goodness. So I dismiss a formless clump of cells that have absolutely no physical structures associated with awareness or thought as being a clump of formless cells. Oh, horrors. How absolutely awful of me to promote the concept that legal protection should be extended to those who actually have human form and function, and then go on to explain when that form and function is actually observable.
BTW, did you spend any time perusing that journal, Reproductive Medicine Online, which is full of experts relating their hands-on everyday observations of early pre-implantation embryos, to see how *they* describe them? And when *they* consider pregnancy to start?
I'm afraid your attempts to insult me for doggedly sticking to scientifically verifiable facts are not going to turn me against the use of contraceptives. I will, as I always have done, stick strictly to the scientific facts and describe them. To do otherwise would be dishonest and untrue to myself.
Keep in mind that if God did want people like me to exist--literal, absolutely focused on the physical world, no patience with philosophical thought--we wouldn't exist.
That lie is as old as the Genesis story. It sifts down to saying that God must be responsible for Evil else it would not exist in the Universe He has created. You are a dead soul, a liar, and a servant of the father of dead souls ... and that is not God The Father Almighty.
And still you cannot define what consciousness actually is or how it comes to be in the gestating new human being, or even a gestating dog. Your mind is so twisted in worship of your little god science that you are unable to think clearly. And your continuing lie over the developing embryo, claiming it is an undifferentiated mass of cells until well after implantation, even as that new life seeks implantation to support its will to live, is evidence of your bankrupt soul. There are three distinct levels to human consciousness, but since you do not discuss philosophical issues, we can assume you would not read or acknowledge them if offered for your contemplation, so bye bye, enjoy your 'science driven life' as you lie your way into eternity. Wouldn't want to be you ...
Vetted by who, Lucifer?
A formless clump of cells isn’t formless, for literal Christ’s sake.