Ptichka,
on the soul that changed it’s mind.
Hi, Gezando. The Book of Job!
Satan, whence comest thou?
"From going to and fro in the earth and walking up and down in it."
Man that is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. He comes forth like a flower and is cut down. He flees like a shadow and continues not.
Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, saying,
Who is this that darkens our counsel by words without knowledge?
Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Have you mapped out its dimensions and stretched a measuring cord across it?
Were you there when I laid the foundations of the universe and set its cornerstone,
on that mighty day when the morning stars sang together, and all the angels of heaven shouted for joy?
Does that pretty much sum up the hopes and fears of the human condition, or what!
I guess what I think about when life begins is this. I do not believe that questions of this type have a definitive answer based on scientific investigation alone. I think that any attempt we make to analyze the evidence dispassionately will be trumped by our gut feelings, by our cultural values, and by our belief system.
The reason I think this is because when we say, “What is life,” we are talking not about facts but about the definition of a word. The facts are well-known and not in dispute. Everybody knows about the birds and the bees. But we define words more or less by consensus and convenience of usage.
Some scientists feel that viruses, for instance, have enough going for them that they qualify as being “alive.” Others prefer to regard them more as a chemical recipe for rearranging organic material, rather than as a living being. Again, there is no dispute about the facts. We all agree on what a virus is, what it does, etc. The disagreement is not about viruses, it is about what we choose the word “life” to mean.
Some people do not believe that a fetus should be regarded as an independent living being until it reaches the stage of development where it can survive on its own. This is not a scientific question about fetal development, it is a belief about what the words “living being” ought to mean.
Anyway, that’s what I think. About abortion, I further believe that the consequence of not being able to turn this question over to the scientists, thus washing our hands of it, is this: the only people who are willing to voice an opinion are those who somehow or other think they have seen the light, on one side or the other. All of us poor benighted people in the middle are mostly silent because we don’t know what to say.
JMO
Mathman
