runner,

You should stop parading around here as if you're a personal spokesman for "God".

Frankly, you do a terrible job at representing Christ's ethics - displaying for the most part, exactly those qualities which he pleaded against.

@david
thks for the comments
are you a christian?
do you believe in a divine sovereign God of all creation?

what i post here are what i learn from the Bible
i didnt say God speak to me as in an audible voice, of course He can if He wanted to

i am just telling you my convictions, and yes, rather strong convictions

but i will not push it down your throat

@josephus
i certainly hope you are not the josephus of old
i have a copy of "The Works of Josephus" which i refers to constantly

"Do we believe in the sanctity of human life?"

No.

Why should we?

What's sacred about a biological organism?

If one organism is holy - then why not another?
What about ants, germs and apple-trees?

We can still voice our opinions for and against abortion, but not base them on the above ridiculous premise!

Dear platypus 1900,

I am not a Christian and never was. I do not believe in a God or any sort of supernatural beings. Many religious people do not believe in a God either. Buddhists are an example.

At some time in history Christianity like all other religions was invented. There is no reason to think that people were any worse or better before the different religions were invented.

If you were alive 2,000 years ago you might have believed in Odin, Zeus or any of the other gods in fashion at that time. Now it is the fashion for people to believe in the biblical god, Allah, the Hindu gods or one or more of the other gods fashionable at this time. You apparently believe in what it is fashionable to believe in at this time. However, you can no more justify your belief in the biblical god than an ancient Greek could justify a belief in Zeus.

There is no evidence for the belief in Zeus or the biblical God. Belief takes a leap of faith or a lack of questioning. Many if not most people who are born to parents with a particular religious belief merely accept the belief of their parents. That’s possibly the way you became a Christian. I was brought up to believe in god but can no longer do so. Apparently throughout history some people have chosen not to believe in the religion or religions around at the time.

I think almost everybody wants to do what is right and live a moral life. However, the fact that one doesn’t have any religious belief doesn’t mean one is amoral.

I think it is moral to be kind, to act so the world is maybe better for me being here and to question. I think questioning and doubt is a motivation for learning and asking if we are doing the right thing. In general I don’t think faith is a good thing since it can lead us to accept things that aren’t good.

That’s the limit of my posts for the day.

The conflicting value judgements about abortion stem from
the fundamental ambiguity in the status of the fetus.
The status of the fetus is inherently ambiguous: it's
neither self-evidently a human being nor self-evidently
just tissue. If these matters were self evident, there
would be little disagreement about abortion.

On the one hand, the fetus is not a human being in the usual
sense, for it is generally not viable. Indeed, no society
treats the fetus as human. For example, if the mother
miscarries, the fetus is not given a funeral, it is simply
disposed of like any other tissue. On the other hand, the
fetus is not like just any other tissue, such as
discarded nail or hair clippings. The fetus is potentially
a human being, one that might become as alive an unique
as you and me.

The conflicting value judgements about abortion stem from
this fundamental ambiguity in the status of the fetus.

The question is compounded by a related issue, the right of a
woman to control her own body.

Many women feel that a decision about abortion should be
a strictly personal one, and they deeply resent other
people insisting that they should bear a child they do not want
to have.

But here too there are ambigueties. Half the genes in the
fetus were contributed by the father, and although the
woman must bear the child, society may make the father
responsible for the child's support for nearly two decades
thereafter. If the father waives his responsibilities - for
example, by deserting the mother - then of course he has no
further rights in the matter. But if he accepts his
responsibilities and wants the child born - what are his
rights in relation to the mother's right to control her
body?

And, for those who believe that the fetus is human, there's
a third party present: the mother is controlling not only
her own body, but somebody else's potential body and life.

These legal, ethical, and medical complexities, as I stated
earlier will not abate any time soon.

Dear Lexi,

<<it's neither self-evidently a human being nor self-evidently just tissue.>>

But why should it matter? a human being IS a tissue!

Considering one tissue disposable and another sacred is totally irrational. A tissue has no cares or feelings and all tissues, whether we sanctify them or not, end up the same, as star-dust.

The reason we should not murder has nothing to do with tissues, but with the fact that someone else does care (albeit irrationally) about a particular piece of tissue which they call 'their body', thus if we injured that tissue we would cause that other grief, of a kind that we wouldn't want to cause ourselves.

Going a step further, the reason we don't want to cause another grief of a kind that we wouldn't want to bring on ourselves, is that in truth we and that other are the same, we are not different, we are both God, therefore treating another different than how we would like to be treated ourselves draws us further away from God: murder draws us away from God - ultimately there is no other reason for not doing it.