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Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TheStockStalker who wrote (22051)	7/31/2005 1:55:57 AM
From: TigerPaw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

It seems to me that the largest part of being a seperate and individual human being is the ability to sense things individually from other human beings I will agree (with one caveat) that the sensing of things individually is a major requirement of being alive, but it is not by itself sufficient to be human or even human-like. A house fly can surely sense an attempted swat. The distinction for a human is not merely sensing, but being aware of what it sensed, and being aware of itself as the one doing the sensing. TP 1) The caveat is that the meaning of sense* is reasonable . Too often in this discussion people have tried to take words like life and imbue them with meaning that goes beyond normal usage. Too often slogans that are false at face value are being accepted as valid.

To: TheStockStalker who wrote (22051)	8/1/2005 1:37:17 PM
From: Solon	Respond to of 28931

"If I tap the mother's leg and the babies leg jerks then maybe we have something we can talk about." I don't think that has any relevance. What is relevant is that what happens to the mother affects the zygote and the fetus. It is true that the zygote has none of the qualities we consider when we speak of a "human person". For instance, we don't consider a piece of hair a "human person" because having human chromosomes does not get to the essence of what is meant by personhood. On the other hand--we have all heard of fetal alcohol syndrome. What the mother eats and drinks--so does the fetus. The fetus is a part of the mother. It is a parasite. It is also potentially a human person. We all started as parasites.

To: TheStockStalker who wrote (22051)	8/1/2005 1:42:08 PM
From: Solon	Respond to of 28931

"If I tap the mother's leg and the babies leg jerks then maybe we have something we can talk about." Let me put it another way. If I tap the mother's leg, her pancreas doesn't jerk, her liver doesn't dance, and her teeth don't rattle, either. And this does not address the argument of whether or not teeth, liver, and pancreas are human "persons". That is why I don't think your observation bears on the personhood of the fetus or the zygote.