My claim is based on science, not historical practice. Sperm + Egg is when life begins; it's not a matter of potential; it IS human life. Egg and sperm apart are potential life.
As to the barbarism of days of yore, the God of Abraham and Isaac slammed the brakes on child sacrifice. The dignity of each person and the notion of human rights are, very much, Christian principles arising from the Jewish tradition. The excellent historian Tom Holland wrote a book a few years ago (Dominion) that explores these topics. An atheist, he finds himself going to church regularly now. He is on the same path that CS Lewis and Malcolm Muggeridge took before him.
You wrote a few days earlier that the right to speak freely must be absolute; the right to life is even more important. This is not a deistic position; many atheists are pro-life--the late civil libertarian Nat Hentoff, for example. For atheist co-founder of NARAL, Bernard Nathanson, ultrasound technology led to his conversion to the pro-life cause (and eventually to Catholicism). The "it's just a clump of cells" argument was rendered nonsensical by the images of what was clearly and obviously a tiny human being. And this is at the stage when most abortions are performed.
Nietzsche wrote that, "If you give up Christian faith, you pull the right to Christian morality out from under your feet. The morality is simply not self-evident: one has to bring this point home again and again, despite English dimwits." The notion of each human having dignity and deserving respect is a religious statement. I have a grudging respect for atheists who admit that they hold human life in no special regard.
With what's going on in the world, I fear that we are going to find out that "without God, all is permissible," as Dostoevsky wrote in "The Brothers Karamazov.'
My claim is based on science, not historical practice. Sperm + Egg is when life begins; it's not a matter of potential; it IS human life. Egg and sperm apart are potential life.
As to the barbarism of days of yore, the God of Abraham and Isaac slammed the brakes on child sacrifice. The dignity of each person and the notion of human rights are, very much, Christian principles arising from the Jewish tradition. The excellent historian Tom Holland wrote a book a few years ago (Dominion) that explores these topics. An atheist, he finds himself going to church regularly now. He is on the same path that CS Lewis and Malcolm Muggeridge took before him.
this is a fully presumed conclusion and a presumed equivalence of "cell division" meaning "personhood."
why should a set of dividing cells with no consciousness be ascribed personhood and rights?
by what objective standard can it assent to a social contract?
deistic references will carry no weight with those who do not share a similar faith.
unless you propose coercive theocracy, that cannot really help us here.
Talk of "personhood" drags the discussion of from science to philosophy. The central point is that life does begin at conception: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tyler-o-neil/2019/07/13/study-95-percent-of-biologists-say-life-begins-at-conception-n67202
You wrote a few days earlier that the right to speak freely must be absolute; the right to life is even more important. This is not a deistic position; many atheists are pro-life--the late civil libertarian Nat Hentoff, for example. For atheist co-founder of NARAL, Bernard Nathanson, ultrasound technology led to his conversion to the pro-life cause (and eventually to Catholicism). The "it's just a clump of cells" argument was rendered nonsensical by the images of what was clearly and obviously a tiny human being. And this is at the stage when most abortions are performed.
Nietzsche wrote that, "If you give up Christian faith, you pull the right to Christian morality out from under your feet. The morality is simply not self-evident: one has to bring this point home again and again, despite English dimwits." The notion of each human having dignity and deserving respect is a religious statement. I have a grudging respect for atheists who admit that they hold human life in no special regard.
With what's going on in the world, I fear that we are going to find out that "without God, all is permissible," as Dostoevsky wrote in "The Brothers Karamazov.'