"they both have tails!
Stezza,
only the ones who turn out to be lefties. :-)"

Individual, I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Actually I'm not sure you understand what I mean either.

Thank you for the clarification, George... it allows me to express mine.

It is wrong to impute “it would have been better if you were aborted” from my words. I even led with "I am pleased you are cherishing your life..."

Had Rachael quoted or ascribed that it was her mother - even allowing for a mental age of 12 - who believed and accepted her suffering as 'God's plan' I wouldn't have even commented. But she didn't and it was Rachael's predestination theology I was satirising.

To paraphrase Anselm, if God is that than which nothing greater can be thought, then to my thinking God's plan cannot encompass evil means justifying the ends, however good.

And I was as secure in thinking this as a Christian as I am in thinking this now as an athiest.

Channeling runner for a second: to do otherwise would be a waste of my adamic nature to endure the fruits of the tree of knowledge to know right from wrong. Even when committed by God.

JP,

Peter Singer's views are very extreme. We are developing more and more respect for the cognitive abilities of new babies. From a legal point of view, I have no problems with the existing restrictions on abortion past the first trimester.

There are some serious problems with the moment of conception argument apart from the lack of sentience in the early stages of life. There is no one-to-one correspondence between surviving zygotes and people. Early embryos can split and form identical twins or triplets. Two different embryos, arising from different sperm and egg cells and possibly of different sexes, can get squeezed together in the womb and cooperate in making a single individual, with different cell lines descending from different embryos, rather than forming fraternal twins. What happens to the soul that was supposedly infused at the moment of conception in these cases?

Another problem is that reproduction is a really sloppy process. The vast majority of zygotes never end up as live babies, even if there is no deliberate interference. Most of them die or are expelled due to gross abnormalities and are lost before the woman even realises that conception has occurred. Those of us who don't accept moment of conception can just shrug our shoulders at how Nature works, but to you, they are people. If they are people, then we have an obligation to find ways to save them, not just to refrain from killing them.

As Jon J said, human cloning is not far away, and in that case countless billions of your cells are potentially sentient, not to mention all the sperm and egg cells out there that only need to be brought together. Maybe it would be better to worry about existing people who are already sentient, although my own views on abortion are like Bill Clinton's: it should be safe, legal, and rare.

Stezza – you may have decided not to murder anyone (at least thus far in your life), for whatever reason, but that is just you and your choice. If someone decided that it was in their best interests to murder you, and they were very likely to get away with it, why shouldn’t they? Would you appeal to them that they are going against the trend of genetic selection within our society? Yes, that should work.

But really, on your own terms, you have no value and they wouldn’t be doing anything wrong in murdering you. One person’s choice not to commit murder is no better or more valid than another person’s choice to commit murder.

We surely have no responsibility to abide by any apparent trends in mindless, unintentional, genetic selection.

Dear runner,

You quote me asking you to substantiate your statement and then still don't substantiate it.

It seems it's just another one of your statements which have no basis in fact.

Don't you care for truth at all?

Wm.quote..<<.,..[ITS]..Rachael's predestination theology..I was satirising...*To paraphrase Anselm,..>>

then parap-raze..it
wrong?

<<.if God is that..>>
WHAT THAt?
IF GOD IS THAT..[UNSEEN/YET GREATER THAN..the baptisER?

IF GOd is that
<<..than which nothing greater can be thought,..*then
to my thinking...God's plan cannot encompass evil..means justifying the ends, however good.>>

true/ID YOUR SAYING NOTHiong greater thaN GOD
SO PURE VILE CANT EXIST ANYWHERE NEAR..
BUT NOT CLEARLY PUT

<<>.secure in thinking this>>

if god is good is true..[anD IT IS]
THEN ALL GOOD HONOURS THE ONLY TRUE-GOOD.

<<>.Channeling runner for a second: to do otherwise would be a waste of my adamic nature to endure the fruits of the tree of knowledge to know right from wrong.>>

TOO GOOd..so FAR
BUT THEN

<<Even when committed by God>>
I know to you he dont exists..but all that lives/lives becauSE HE SUSTAINS its being..[WHERE IFE IS/THERE IS THE LLIVIng good]..regardless IF THEFRUITS OF ITS l

THE GOOD IS THAT lIFE RETURNS..GOOD OR IL] FRUIT
0ZMOSIS../from lack to plenty\THE LIGHT REVEALING THAT THE DARK MERELY HID

GOD OMNIpresent..IS IN YOU/IS IN ME..
is the change of state/as energy self realizes ALL OF ITSELF.
AND IF TRUTH BE KNOWN/..HE LIVES VIA US..meaKLY USING OUR SENSESTO KNOW THYSELF

http://www.princeton.edu/~grosen/puc/phi203/ontological.html
Anselm's ontological argument purports to be an a priori proof of God's existence. Anselm starts with premises that do not depend on experience for their justification and then proceeds by purely logical means to the conclusion that God exists.

His aim is to refute the fool who says in his heart that there is no God (Psalms 14:1). This fool has two important features.* He understands the claim that God exists.* He does not believe that God exists.

Anselm's goal is to show that this combination is unstable.
Anyone who understands what it means to say that God exists
can be led to see that God does exist. On this view, the atheist is not just mistaken: his position is internally inconsistent