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To: realpatriot71
Is a human being simply "sum of its parts?"

While the sustained absence of brain waves indicates death, does this prove that the beginning of brain waves or even brain cells indicates the beginning of a person?

What is it that shows that a person exists? If those things are not noticed, yet can you be certain that the person does not exist, where he is certainly growing?

No mystery in what I'm saying. It's in the Bible. It's also outside the realm of known, natural sciences. It is not ours to draw lines, where we run out of drawing materials. (Or, there is a God, and neither you nor I are Him.)

What if you were assigned a blastocyst, but "its" life was terminated? (Or, we know enough by the scientific method to know that it is foolish to deny the existence of spirits.)

Does that which a scientist does not know by the scientific method not exist?
141 posted on 02/02/2003 12:50:20 PM PST by unspun (Psalm 8)
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To: unspun
While the sustained absence of brain waves indicates death, does this prove that the beginning of brain waves or even brain cells indicates the beginning of a person?

I believe so

What is it that shows that a person exists? If those things are not noticed, yet can you be certain that the person does not exist, where he is certainly growing?

The matter, the substance of a person shows that one exists, and can quite objectively seen - for example, I exist because I'm here. However, it is the understanding that one exists - the "knowing" that one exists - as the determination of personhood. If I do not know I exist, if I cannot feel, or love or hate or experience life, then I am no longer a person. Perhaps, I would be technically, biologically alive, but I would no longer be a person.

No mystery in what I'm saying. It's in the Bible. It's also outside the realm of known, natural sciences. It is not ours to draw lines, where we run out of drawing materials.

I'm still unclear as to what you mean here. Perhaps you could give me an expansion of this thought?

What if you were assigned a blastocyst, but "its" life was terminated?

I don't think people are "assigned"

Does that which a scientist does not know by the scientific method not exist?

A rationalist scientist would probably say no, but I would disagree

144 posted on 02/02/2003 2:20:48 PM PST by realpatriot71 (legalize freedom!)
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