EB,

You get so aggrevated about how I'm so confident that this issue is easier and less complicated than you think, but there is a reason for my attitude - it truly is this easy and uncomplicated.

Oh well, if you just repeat yourself with emphasis then i'm completely convinced.

The fact that the difference between life and death are kind of dependant on certain body parts functioning correctly.

Body parts which a zygote does not have.  In their absence, the zygote is sustained by the support of its mother's body,... not completely unlike the way that a brain-dead individual will be sustained by ventilators and various infusions designed to regulate those bodily functions which the brain would normally take care of.

This is where your criteria utterly fall apart, although you have yet to acknowledge it.  There are various organs whose function is necessary for life to continue, but which can be replicated by various medical machinery.  Someones kidneys fail, we put them on dialysis.  Someones lungs fail, we ventilate them.  In both cases you would not consider them to be dead because they are still displaying the signs of consciousness which you claim not to consider important, however much your reasoning shows that you do.

There is no way to reconcile the "non-personhood" of a brain-dead individual with the personhood of a zygote in your stated terms, no matter how hard you try to fool yourself to the contrary.  SJ has the grace to admit that this is a problem.  Do you?

I honestly don't know how you can seriously say a brain-dead human being is indeed dead and maintain this materialistic redunctionist attitude.

It's easy - their brain is dead.  Without their brain, they cannot achieve the criteria i mentioned earlier as being definitive of personhood (in the same way that an embryo cannot).  No brain = no personhood.

Under your vie\w one can simply chop the body up into pieces and as long as electrical signals are sent (because that's all the brain materialisticly does) to each piece the person should be as alive as you and me.

   Hmm, your logic is not like our Earth logic.  In my view the mind ultimately reduces to the brain alone, so you are incorrect.

Because a brain-dead human is dead with it's parts still being sustained.

Then so is a zygote.

The zygote is still very much a living thing that does not require aid beyond the aid all living things need.

Honestly, do you think that just saying it's a living thing is any kind of argument?  And the idea that a zygote "does not require aid beyond the aid all living things need" amounts to total self-delusion.  i guess you think if we take a zygote out of its mother and put it out in the sunshine that it'll do better than a brain-dead adult who gets taken off life support.

"Hum.  So one of identical twins will always be the 'original' according to you?  Is your identity divisible in this way?"

I didn't say identity was divisible (except in the broad 'being' sense like all cats have the same identity of 'feline'). I said a seperate human being was created.

So not all humans exist from conception then?

And truthfully this is more a dilemma for you as physically identical twins are...well...identical. So I'd say the issue of both individuals should be the same identity applies more to your materialistic views than mine.

Why?  The mind-brain-world interface goes both ways y'know.  Even in the womb, twins will have slightly different experiences, different levels of certain hormones, and therefore (once they have the capacity to achieve them) different brain states from their sibling.

"As i said (in the bit that you obviously didn't read) i am happy to allow that these qualities of personhood need not be displayed 24/7 for an individual to qualify."

I know. That's where I justify the 'abandoning on a whim' statments which show the criterias to be arbitrary. Seriously how did you think this disproves me at all? You don't consistently apply any of them, and you admit it.

It was the same post, so i was hardly "abandoning" them.  What i was doing was explaining them, and the fact that you disagree with them does not make them arbitrary.  You want criteria which are invariable, fine, then come up with something consistent across the board.

"The mind is a phenomenon which we can examine and verify, but all the studies show it to be entirely contingent on the physical state of the brain."

Apparently not as you can't see which piece of the brain the mind is in.

Weak.

And all the studies show this as in studies involving the brain you need first-person revelation rather than being able to access anything in the third-person that the physical requires. Given the whole life and death thing it's already indicated that the soul and body have a link in which an effect on the body effects the soul.

The entire body, or one particular bit?  What i take you to be saying in the first sentence is that people have to tell you what mental state they experienced in order for it to be correlated with activity seen in certain areas of the brain, but this is not always the case.  Some mental states can be reliably induced by certain stimuli (fear, arousal, etc), without the need for people to actually say what they're feeling.  That's just one example.

i wonder, what is it exactly that you think the brain actually does?

I'm not claimming a behavior is a prerequiset for being in an alternatively defined group. I'm saying a group can demonstrate a general behavior.

And you conclude that i'm not an example of that group on the basis of my statement that i do not engage in certain behaviour.  What's that called again?

I feel it's appropriate that thoughts stay largely on-issue and attempt to demonstrate something relevant. It's one of the things that seperate decent forum users from trolls.

Since you squeal "irrelevant" any time the precise terms of a debate seem to be sliding out of your control, i don't feel especially chastened.  i will continue to bring up issues which i feel are relevant, not from a malicious wish to provoke or disrupt (as you imply), but because that's how debates work.  If you have complaints about my conduct beyond your usual infantile mudslinging then feel free to raise them with a moderator.

By that reasoning your previous stements of pro-lifers not being like Roeder was an over-generalization of the same level as mine (as you're still trying to use an individual example to prove something in regards to a group). Or what is problably more relevant to reality is that you're grasping at air to save face.

i have not made any characterizations about what all "pro-lifers" are like.  If you actually look back, what i have said is that i do not think that Roeder is representative of them.  That is a little different from you saying "Liberals think x, y and z", or "The Left is trying to do a, b and c".  Looks like you're the one "grasping at air".

You can no longer claim evolution is ideologically void as just a theory. And as it's evident that evolution exists under a naturalistic light, the naturalistic philosophy goes with it.

This is becoming frighteningly tedious.  The only "ideology" that you have shown to be a pre-requisite of the formation of any scientific theory is the rejection of solipsism.  Please feel free to do your victory dance now, if you think it is warranted.  Anything beyond adherence to the wacky idea that the world is real has yet to be proven.  As for the accusation of naturalistic bias, it is inevitable that scientific theories largely study the natural, rather than the supernatural, because it is easier to verify.  There are controlled studies done on ESP, telekinesis and other psychic phenomena (usually rather embarassing), but they are a minority.  So, what you infer to be bias is really just a product of necessity, and as i said before, evolution no more denies God than gravity does.  It attracts your puny wrath only because it differs from your chosen pseudo-historical account of creation.

It's shown that an ideology is at the core before anything else. It's shown that it's implications go with the theory. Obviously as the implications are still with the theory one is going to pick up on them and thus have motivation for behaviour. This isn't a multitude-of-influences point. This is an A-to-B-to-C point.

So you're saying that a-solipsism was to blame for the Holocaust?  Otherwise you need to work on your argument some more.

And one can clearly see he used the scientific justification for non-aryans as "evolved from animals" ideologically implies equality to animals ergo justified to treat like animals. He simply used religion as an "out" for Aryans, but clearly the ideological implications remain when used for the entire human race like today. It just reaffirms me.

According to you, everything does.  Looks more like it affirms my 'multitude of influences' point to me.  Religion and twisted science.

"Evolutionary theory doesn't say anything about the "value" of humans, it simply refutes the history that you want to base your ideas of their value upon."

And replaces it with a history of being from primordial sludge and random events with no purpose or reason or meaning, thus being equal to cosmic dust which implies no value in any meaningful way.

Does that mean it cannot be true?  If not, what on earth is your point?

You remind me of the accusations levelled against atheists from time to time, that the reason we don't believe in God is because we dont like the idea of something being superior to us.  i have to say, you show more and more signs of being anti-evolution not on the basis of the evidence so much as what it would do to your self-esteem if you allowed yourself to believe it was true.

"If human beings are evolved, rather than created by God, then notions of value must be independent of divine sanction or being made-in-His-image etc."

And thus come from a different source. The only/highest source here being human beings. Human beings assigning value to themselves and others while all comming from the same source - random events and base materials - thus having no authority or meaning behind it. Such behavior best being described as self-serving, delusional, and worthless.

Like i said, the fact that something is disagreeable to you has no bearing on its truth or falsity, so this is irrelevant.

There was homosexuality and sexual promiscuity back in the times of Sodom, everyone did what they saw fit in Judges' day, and lets not forget this habit of discriminating and terminating (note the non-inflammatory language) what is considered 'nonpersons'.

The national sport of my country for over a thousand years was "small bunnies fighting" (not actually "small bunnies", but the word that this forum automatically replaces with "small bunnies - it starts with a "C" and ends with "ock").  In France, a popular source of entertainment in the Middle Ages was "Cat burning".  In most countries where religion is not dominant, the status of women has dramatically increased over the last century, and the persecution of minorities (including homosexuals) is no longer officially sanctioned.  i realise that this all must be terribly disappointing for you, but i consider it progress.

"We have also found plenty of reliable naturalistic explanations for things which two thousand years ago could only be imagined to be the work of God, which definitely counts as progress in my book."

Sure. No one ever glorified creation over Creator in ancient times.

But they didn't have good alternative explanations.  Now we do.

EB,

Here's a fun riddle for you - it has a unique set of human DNA, it may not have all of the functional organs of an independent adult human but with a little outside support it can survive (heart beating and pumping blood around its body, etc) and grow, and while it is not capable of conscious thought, many people consider it to be a person, although i personally don't.

What is it?

Obviously, it's a brain-dead adult.  You refuse to acknowledge the enormous similarities between zygotes and the brain-dead (leaving aside potential, which you have explicitly denied having any relevence), and continue to bleat "But it's dead!", as if that was some kind of definitive retort.  You have not presented any clear definition of what you think it means to be dead, and i encourage you to try and do so.  Bearing in mind that a brain-dead adult needs roughly the same amount of "life-support" as is required by a zygote from the maternal body, and that the body of such an adult continues to live, by almost any definition - cells divide and respire, fingernails and hair grow as normal, wounds heal, lymph drains, kidneys filter and the gut digests.

So why do you consider it dead when you consider an embryo alive?  Why is one a person when the other one isn't?  Why should anyone take you seriously as long as you refuse to address this problem?

Consciousness is your criteria. One you've shown not to even stick with. So why should I or anyone find it important if you're willing to say a thing is a person but need not display the signs 24/7 yet condemn a thing as a 'nonperson' simply because it's not displaying the signs at that particular moment? You are utterly contradicting in declaring something as a person without meeting your criteria in one instance, yet say it's a 'nonperson' because it doesn't meet your criteria in one instance. And yet have the utter arrogance to say it can be destroyed. Pathetic.

Guess i must have touched a nerve.  The capacity is what is important, as i think i have already said.  If i take the strings off my guitar it remains a guitar, even if it cannot currently perform the function which defines it, because if i put them back on it will play again.  At the point when it can no longer do that ever again (smashed beyond repair, perhaps) then it ceases to be one.

My terms is alive or dead (and obviously human). You have failed to even address this, but have beaten on a strawman of a criteria I don't concede in it's entirety.

A brain-dead adult is alive and obviously human.  My beliefs can account for this, yours apparently cannot.

And since function wise all the brain does is send electrical signals to body parts it would seem simply making the parts move and twitch is materiasticly displaying signs of conciousness. Yet you know there is another aspect beyond the material.

Do chimps have souls?  i ask because you seem to me to be creating a false dichotomy that we must either be slavish automatons if there is no such thing as a soul or conscious sentient entities if there is.  So what about our friends the apes?  What makes them display altruistic behaviour, or be sad, scared, happy or angry?

"In my view the mind ultimately reduces to the brain alone, so you are incorrect."

Which is again why you fail as materialisticly all the brain does is fire electrical signals to body parts. Yet you maintian there is some distinction beyond machines doing the same thing to individual pieces. Almost as if the materialistic aspect was irrelevant. Quite contradicting.

The materialistic aspect is obviously very important, given the studies of brain-damaged individuals and the function that they have lost, whether it be certain memories or certain character traits.  Presumably you think that physical injury can damage the soul?  i prefer to apply Occam's razor in this case.

You don't show how this is relevant to personhood. I can concede that technically identical twins aren't in fact identical due to different finger prints. I don't see how finger prints is relevant to personhood. You don't show where one hormone level being a thousandth of a percent in difference suddenly makes a whole new person.

The fact that it's a different brain makes it a whole new person.  The different influences on that brain is what makes identical twins less identical over time.  Not too difficult.

As you freely admit you concede that a person who does not display any criteria at one particular moment is still a person. As such I don't know why I'm not free to say the zygote is a person just not displaying your criteria at a particular moment.

A zygote is incapable of displaying my most important criteria.  So is a brain-dead adult.  Seems like i have rather consistent reasons to regard them both as non-persons, unlike some people here who appear to not have thought this issue through beyond rote-learning dogmatic catch-phrases.

And I have come up with something that is consistent across the board and nonarbitrary - Living. Human. Being. Why this doesn't register in your head when it's crystal clear is beyond me.

And yet you exclude the brain-dead on an intuitive whim, unable to justify your reasoning for doing so other than repeating "They're dead" ad nauseum.  To me, that just shows that your criteria are driven by the conclusions you want to reach, rather than reality-based.

"Some mental states can be reliably induced by certain stimuli (fear, arousal, etc), without the need for people to actually say what they're feeling."

No, what you do is see hormone level or adrenaline and just guess and assume what they are feeling. Till they tell you you don't know for a fact.

We're talking about the reliability of correlating certain mental states with certain brain states, so unless you're suggesting that experimental subjects over the last twenty to thirty years might have colluded together to lie to neuroscientists that they were feeling happy when they were actually feeling scared, then i really don't know what your point is.

Further that you see physical correlation doesn't equate to where the emotion "resides". The heart pumps faster, sweat potrudes from every orrifice, and the eyes dart around, does fear originate in the heart, sweat glands, or eyes because they are expressing as much activity as the brain?

   Because people with no eyes are never scared.  You're grasping at straws EB.  Damage to the brain demonstrably affects mental functioning in a way that damage to any other part of the body does not.

"i wonder, what is it exactly that you think the brain actually does?"

All it is, is like the CPU on the computer (and hey that's something one can wrap one's head around materialisticly). I view the soul as simply being the guy on the keyboard. All you come at me with is referencing a virus or damaged hardware which will obviously effect how one can opperate on the computer. That's a far cry from showing the person on the keyboard reduces to the CPU.

Well, it's not a bad analogy, so let's run with it.  i hope you'll concede that what we are talking about here is more like some NASA super-computer which can perform staggering calculations, and which you claim can do so because there is a little person inside the frame.  What i want to point out is that damage to different parts of the computer will affect its function, and that we can confidently locate different areas of processing to various areas (This short explanation of Split-brain research might help).

Moving outside of the analogy for a moment (because i can't think of a good computer analogy for alcohol), why should certain chemicals affect our decision-making abilities?  Why should hormone levels or drugs make us less inhibited?  Is the soul affected by such things?

If there is truly a man inside the computer, then i would expect evidence for this in the form of some output which could not be altered or shut down by computer viruses (i.e. physical things).  In the above example, i can see how alcohol might affect our physical coordination if the brain is just the CPU, but why would it change the sensibleness of the decisions taken (presumably) at a spiritual level which a physical substance cannot touch?

i see no reason to infer a man inside the computer.

That's because you at least make the attempt and stay on issue (mostly). Your attempts simply fail to demonstrate anything silly.

Sometimes i'm sure that is the case.  Other times, you just happen not to see the relevance.  However, given your above statement i hope you'll refrain from implications of time-wasting and/or troll-hood in future.

"i have not made any characterizations about what all "pro-lifers" are like. If you actually look back, what i have said is that i do not think that Roeder is representative of them.  That is a little different from you saying "Liberals think x, y and z", or "The Left is trying to do a, b and c".  Looks like you're the one "grasping at air"."

No that's exactly the same thing - 'Pro-lifers think differently from Roeder.' or 'Pro-lifers aren't trying to gun down doctors like Roeder'.

Quote me.  Find an example of me stating that "pro-lifers do/think x".  i really don't think you can.  That's because i tend to avoid making positive generalizations about entire groups of people, something you do fairly often, based on your anecdotal and unfalsifiable experience of a "trend".

I've demonstrated ideology accompanies all sceintific theory.

*sigh*  Scientific theories are developed by human beings, all of whom will adhere to some ideology or other.  That there will be some sort of cross-polination is inevitable and unavoidable.  However, when theories which have been more influenced by ideology than reality come up against peer-review by people who do not share that ideology, they will be shot down.  It is also quite possible for people to be vehemently ideologically opposed to scientific theories which are reality-based however.

Having spent quite a long time hammering out the blindingly obvious, are we any closer to supporting your contention that evolutionary theory is more philosophy than science, or that it "led to" the Holocaust?

For Christians that obviously manifests itself in creationism while being receptive to ID. For atheism that manifests itself in evolution and while not being exactly disproven by ID as one can claim "super aliens" the amount of ground it gives to creationism makes atheism less receptive to ID.

So what was Darwin's ideology?

As shown Creationism is as much the same kind of science as evolution.

In that it "studies" the same phenomenon - the origin of species.  In other ways, not especially.  You have the cart before the horse.

Evolution is all about denying God as a necessary factor for life thus dismissing evidence for His existence. That is obvious and is reinforced by the history of the last century.

No.  Evolution offers an explanation for the diversity of life which differs from your prefered one of "godidit", (which is no kind of explanation at all).  Evolution shows that divine intervention is not necessary for life to have evolved (although says nothing about how it got started).  Your statement is no more sensible than someone saying "The theory of Gravity is all about denying God as a necessary factor for keeping things from floating away, thus dismissing evidence for his existence!".  And your assertion that history demonstrates this is just a post hoc fallacy.  i could use the same kind of thinking to "prove" that Scientology is responsible for Swine Flu.

And as evolution obviously has ideological implications other than a-solipsism you can't dismiss it as "just" a theory.

You think that only because you believe in the Genesis story, and because you cannot conceive of how humans could have any value without your God.  In other words, it's all about your beliefs.

I'm saying these are the baggages that go with evolution regardless of true or false.

We can certainly differentiate an argument about whether a theory is true or false from one about what it means if true.  

The value and rights of human beings either exists under theism, or it doesn't exist at all.

A ludicrously false dichotomy.  Ask SntJohnny whether he became a one-man killing machine during his brief period of atheism.  The value we asign to human life has little or nothing to do with religious faith.

"In most countries where religion is not dominant, the status of women has dramatically increased over the last century, and the persecution of minorities (including homosexuals) is no longer officially sanctioned.  i realise that this all must be terribly disappointing for you, but i consider it progress."

To be replaced with drug and heroine usage,...

Drug use is an almost universal human characteristic.  Is there something inherently immoral about it, in your view?  Also, are you suggesting it is new?

...easy access to pornography,...

Sexuality and different forms of sexual expression is equally universal, in humans and animals.  This is also hardly a modern phenomenon.

...the devaluement of basic family structure...

By which i assume you mean easy divorce and the spread of gay marriage?  i will (perhaps) surprise you by agreeing that it would be better if people took marriage more seriously.  From my own experience it is a very good thing (although we haven't been married in a church as yet), and society would benefit from more, and better, marriages.  Straight or gay.

(and I laugh heartily at the notion of a religion ever not being dominant)

Well it does you good to laugh.  i wonder what your explanation would be for why in the UK a sincere declaration of religious faith actually hurts a politician, rather than helps them, as it does in the states?

...government legitimizing sexual promiscuity under the cloak of tolerance (sounds like Sodom to me)

   You'd criminalise "promiscuity" if you were in charge i assume?  And anyone who considers the story of Sodom and Gomorrah to be any kind of worthy morality tale has lost their wits so completely that it's hardly worth engaging with them, in my opinion.

...and human extermination and discrimination based on not having some particular body part (Sound familiar?).

Sounds like God.  And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,

EB,

It's a sad testimony to your ability to comprehend that I need to clarify what "dead" means. Here it is - no longer alive. Boy that was tough.

Good job.  How about trying to be a bit more specific, because despite pouring scorn on the idea that possession of certain organs is in any way definitive of human life you are complacently content to label someone with the mere misfortune of having a dead brain as "dead".  Your dismissal of this issue as irrelevant to the subject of abortion is purely a smoke-screen.  It is entirely relevant, because it has grave implications for the coherence of your position that someone's status as a human person is unrelated to their physical components, but depends only upon whether they are a) human and b) alive.  Your deliberate vagueness about what you mean by "alive" is starting (scratch that - continuing) to dent the already limited credibility of your argument.

Please explain why in your view a brain-dead person, who has after all suffered the death of only a single organ whose biological functions can be replicated by machinery, is "dead".

All that is being done in the case of a brain-dead human is that decomposition is being prevented.

That's called "living", EB.  Sure, remove the life support and the whole body will cease to function.  Do you need reminding what would happen to a zygote if it was taken out of its mother?  It would decompose.

It's not the life/person in the body being preserved, because life/personhood is more than simply the material parts. Almost as if we were more than the sum of our parts.

So if the material parts don't matter (nor apparently consciousness), then why do you ascribe death based on the disfunction of a single bodily organ?  Sounds a bit materialistic to me.

I would actually ask you the same question as materialisticly the brain-dead human on life-support is no different than the fully living person.

Yeah, totally.  Except for the tiny fact that their brain, upon which their mind is entirely contingent, is dead.  Small difference really.  Not worth mentioning.  

"The capacity is what is important, as i think i have already said."

And zygotes fully have the capacity. It just takes time to grow, just as a sleeping person takes time to wake up. So again your inconsistent.

Right, and sperm have the capacity - they just need to find an egg to fertilize.  An adult human, on the other hand, has the capacity now.  Not waiting to maybe develop it if conditions x, y and z occur.

And a human being is a human being at the moment of conception even if it cannot currently perform the functions you think define it. Still an inconsistency you have yet to address.

What planet are you on?  That is not an inconsistency in my views, that is an inconsistency between my views and yours.  i do not subscribe to the idea that a zygote is a "human being", so i have no need to address this supposed inconsistency.

"Do chimps have souls?"

Your dodging. Come on DB. Where do you honestly get saying "We are more than the sum of our parts." if you are just going to turn around and use materialistic standards for everything? Materialisticly automatons are exactly what we should be under such a view. So where do WE get altruistic behaviour, be sad, happy, or angry, because all of these things can't be reduced to the material?

i think you're dodging.  You certainly didn't answer the question.  All you did was make a lot of unsupported assertions.  Why can't emotions be reduced to the material?  Are we alone in having these mystic and completely unfalsifiable souls, or do some animals have them too?  If they don't, how can we explain moral and/or emotional behaviour witnessed in chimpanzees (for example)?

*smirk* Occam's razor would deny evolution based on the sheer improbability of it all. So don't pull it out if you're not going to use it consistently.

*yawn* Occam's razor would prefer a naturalistic explanation over one which requires the existence of a deity about whose existence and intelligence many more answers would then be required (by anyone of even limited intellectual curiosity).

if you hold the materialistic aspect in such high regards than you can't make a distinction between a normally functioning human being and the pieces of a human being that's being kept from decomposing and is wired to move and twitch. But it seems to be par for the coarse with your habit of raising a criteria then abandoning it on your whims.

Of course i can make that distinction.

Who says the brain has anything to do with personhood?

Me.  And, in your more lucid moments, you - since you recognise the non-personhood of the brain-dead despite their bodies being in otherwise good working order.

So is an unconcious person incapable of displaying your most important criteria what with the definition of 'unconcious' and all. You still inconsistently regard people asleep as persons. Seems your simply projecting your inadequicies.

A sleeping person has the capacity for consciousness.  A zygote only has the potential to attain the capacity for consciousness.  You may not agree with this, but continuing to suggest that i have not made a full and consistent account of my position is disingenuous.

"We're talking about the reliability of correlating certain mental states with certain brain states, so unless you're suggesting that experimental subjects over the last twenty to thirty years might have colluded together to lie to neuroscientists that they were feeling happy when they were actually feeling scared, then i really don't know what your point is."

So you admit it's all based on people revealing to someone over a long history rather than being able to objectively see it in the third-person? Case closed.

   You think?

As I've said the body and soul are intertwined. You even acknoweldge that the material brain effects the immaterial mind, so why not extend the same principle to the soul?

Because the mind, in my view, is entirely the product of the brain.  States of mind will all ultimately reduce to brain states, so it is understandable that changes in brain chemistry will affect the mind.  What is less understandable to me is why the soul is a necessary concept, given that all our mental activity is contingent upon the state of the brain.

If the computer was shut down by being smashed with a hammer (a physical thing) how then could you expect evidence for this at all? Seems your standard for testing is specifically designed to make it unprovable.

Hey, it's your analogy.  So if you were communicating with me (since i am a man at a keyboard - as far as you know), and my writing sudden y b cam  fr gmen ed, or just pl@!n w$!rd, you might well presume some sort of hardware problem (with my keyboard, for instance), however if my language started to gestate into an unremitting paroxysm of flowery, nay positively exuberant prose, with no hint of surcease - what are the odds you would think that there was something wrong with my computer?  The point i am making is that in your analogy there would be significant differences between the expression of problems affecting the computer, and problems affecting the writer.  A computer virus would affect my prose no more than alcohol should affect the immortal soul.

Computer viruses affect the computer, human viruses affect the man, and their effects are radically different.  You are making a case for computer viruses effecting the man.

"i see no reason to infer a man inside the computer."

Then why aren't we all automatons like computers? Why are we more than the sum of our parts?

Because our computers aren't yet advanced enough?

I didn't imply you are a troll. I think you just read too much in that statement.

i read what was there.  You say you didn't mean it that way, and i accept that, but i read what was there.

You do, however, waste time with these lines of arguements that even if they succeed don't have any impact on the issue.

Allow that i don't always accept your judgement on what is and is not relevant.  i will continue to raise issues which seem to me to pertain to the issue.

"Quote me.  Find an example of me stating that "pro-lifers do/think x".  i really don't think you can.  That's because i tend to avoid making positive generalizations about entire groups of people, something you do fairly often, based on your anecdotal and unfalsifiable experience of a "trend"."

i do not think that Roeder is representative of them

Didn't even need to leave the page as the only way you can say Roeder doesn't represent pro-lifers is to conclude pro-lifers don't do/think like Roeder.

Contrast these two phrases - "i don't think that all Christians are virgins", and "All Christians are promiscuous".  The first one is a negative assertion, denying that a certain trait is characteristic of a whole group.  The second one is a positive assertion, applying a different characteristic to the whole group.  The first one is what i do, and the second is what you do.

Find an example of me doing the first sort.

"Having spent quite a long time hammering out the blindingly obvious, are we any closer to supporting your contention that evolutionary theory is more philosophy than science, or that it "led to" the Holocaust?"

Oh the former was proven a while ago that you simply chose not to address. Claimming to have a life or some such. The latter has been repeatedly shown as evolution does indeed dictate human beings are fundamentally no different than rats, bugs, or the vast majority of pests we freely exterminate. Thus making human beings free to exterminate.

"Proven"?  Big words.  i may have declined to engage with your recycled creationist talking points, but that doesn't mean that i accept your arguments.  i do, as you mention, have a life to lead.  As for your other point, again this is all about your issues.  If someone believed that human life only had value insofar that its possessor was white, a theory of racial equality might cause that person, if they accepted it, to be especially brutal and unpleasant to their fellow white people.  Would the theory be to blame, or the person's initial assumptions?

i note, by the way, that you have not tried to link evolution to any of the other great genocides of the 20th century.  Can't make the case?  Should be easy enough i would have thought, what with the evil implications of the theory being so obvious.

For someone who deny's evolution being about removing God as the explanatory for the diversity of life and thus evidence for His existence you sure strongly advocate evolution is about removing God as the explanatory for the diversity of life to replace it with a more unguided naturalistic process, thus can't be evidence for His existence. Exactly how did you think this would disprove me at all?

The fact that evolution removes a gap formerly occupied by God does not mean that it denies God.  If you think that SJ created this forum but then i demonstrate that i did instead, that does not deny the existence of SJ.  

I cannot concieve of how humans can have any kind of objective value, because there truly IS NO WAY they can have without God.

The man with a car says that it's impossible to manage without one.  Amazing.  As a carless man, trust me when i say that life goes on without one.

Hitler and many other prominant figures in Nazis Germany certainly thought evolution was true.

So frikkin' what?  They all believed in the Christian-inspired doctrine of anti-semitism as well.  Religious (specifically Christian) education in schools was generously encouraged during the Nazi era, so exactly what do you think that it proves that also they believed in evolution?  Pretty much every killer in the history of the West has been Christian, but i don't think that they were killers because they were Christian.

"The value we asign to human life has little or nothing to do with religious faith."

Who says "we" do? If "we" do than value doesn't exist because "we" can just as easily say human life has no value and *poof* there it goes. IF "we" do then it's simply self-serving delusion because "we" amount to little more than cosmic junk. Not that your denials don't amount to a petulant "Nuh-Uh" anyway.

Again, you beg the question.  If there is no god, and cosmic junk is all we are, then how do we procede with life?

And when it comes to "drug" use there is something inherently immoral.

Why?  Please explain.

Actually I'm talking in regards that children (which is what marriage is ultimately about) need a specific healthy environment to grow up. And the environment needed is one mother and one father.

What they need is love and support, and it doesn't much matter whether the people they get it from are gay or straight, single or a couple.  i lean towards couples actually, but there are plenty of single parents who do a great job, and i doubt that you'd advocate taking the children away from the recently widowed.

It's not the absence of religion at all. It's the fact that his religion isn't someone elses. And that goes equally for atheism/secularism.

You're mistaken.  British politicians just dont talk much about religious or secular beliefs.  There are very few politicians who identify their religion, or lack thereof.  It's a non-subject, and anyone who made a big deal of it would be thought more than a little odd.

"You'd criminalise "promiscuity" if you were in charge i assume?"

I'd not legislate a person's right to voice disapproval or interfere with their belief that it's wrong.

When you say "voice disapproval", are you talking about saying "i disapprove of the homosexual lifestyle", or picketting funerals like the Fred Phelps crowd?

"And anyone who considers the story of Sodom and Gomorrah to be any kind of worthy morality tale has lost their wits so completely that it's hardly worth engaging with them, in my opinion."

Don't feel bad. I think anyone who thinks something that looks designed but doesn't think this infers design is living with his head in the ground.  Though this does say something about your stance on gang rape.

Oh yeah.  The right thing to do in the case of threatened gay gang rape is to offer your virgin daughters as alternative fodder.  That would certainly be the mark of a good man.  Then to assume that on the basis of certain behaviours that the whole population of several cities were all irredemably wicked, including the babies and the unborn which you spend so much energy on defending the innocence and value of, and burn the lot of them.  Plus anyone who sneaks a peak at the resultant destruction should be turned into a condiment.  i'd say that it says more about your level of brain-washing than my stance on anything.

Sounds like a reasonable procedure no different than dress code. Unless you think people without legs should serve in the infantry?

Oh for pity's sake EB, if you can show me the essential purpose for which Israelite priests required un-blemished skin, equal length limbs, perfect vision or fully intact testicles, then i will award you a small medal.  Otherwise i will conclude that you are just bluffing to cover up another ridiculous illogicality in your holy book.

Women, homosexuals, foreigners, the disabled... what's that quote - you can safely assume that you've created god in your own image when it turns out that He hates all the same people that you do.

Good job.  How about trying to be a bit more specific, because despite pouring scorn on the idea that possession of certain organs is in any way definitive of human life you are complacently content to label someone with the mere misfortune of having a dead brain as "dead".

Problably because human life doesn't begin with the posession of those organs. And in some cases doesn't end with there removal either. I've taken away any substance this issue has. There is NO vagueness that a zygote is fully alive. Thus completely it's irrelevant to abortion.

Please explain why in your view a brain-dead person, who has after all suffered the death of only a single organ whose biological functions can be replicated by machinery, is "dead".

Tell me why YOU think a person is dead when materialisticly machines making the body move and twitch is no different than you typing on the keyboard right now?

That's called "living", EB.  Sure, remove the life support and the whole body will cease to function.  Do you need reminding what would happen to a zygote if it was taken out of its mother?  It would decompose.

Thus no vagueness that the zygote is indeed fully alive and a human being by virtue of comming from humans. Ergo fully a person. The only thing you can acomplish is to prove the brain-dead human is indeed still alive despite the loss of brain function. In which case he/she would be a person as well and reaffirm MY standards that personhood is not based on some arbitrary body part. This is what happens when you take up a lose-lose arguement DB.

So if the material parts don't matter (nor apparently consciousness), then why do you ascribe death based on the disfunction of a single bodily organ?  Sounds a bit materialistic to me.

Because for the umpteenth time I've said consistently organs aren't relevant to personhood in itself. They only have relevance to the issue of being alive or dead. I can fully admit 'personhood' doesn't reside in the heart, but if the heart is pierced it doesn't matter if some signals from the brain are making the foot twitch.

Yeah, totally.  Except for the tiny fact that their brain, upon which their mind is entirely contingent, is dead.  Small difference really.  Not worth mentioning.  

So? The mind isn't materialistic. Frankly you are completely inconsistent with your materialistic views and standards to even acknowledge a mind exists.

Right, and sperm have the capacity - they just need to find an egg to fertilize.  An adult human, on the other hand, has the capacity now.  Not waiting to maybe develop it if conditions x, y and z occur.

A sleeping adult doesn't have the capacity now, but you still abandon your criteria. And it's true if you are going to raise "capacity" as a defense you end up proving too much. But that's your problem rather than mine.

What planet are you on?  That is not an inconsistency in my views, that is an inconsistency between my views and yours.  i do not subscribe to the idea that a zygote is a "human being", so i have no need to address this supposed inconsistency.

No, that is an inconsistency with your views that if you are going to demand that a person must perform the functions at the exact second, but abandon it when cepa patients or people unconcious don't perform the functions or have the capacity at the exact second. So you'll have to do a lot better than "capacity" or "perform the function" if you are obviously going to be so fickle in your standards.

i think you're dodging.  You certainly didn't answer the question.  All you did was make a lot of unsupported assertions.  Why can't emotions be reduced to the material?

Because they are immaterial by their very nature. And what's there for me to dodge? I can freely admit animals have souls. Not souls like humans, but that's a different topic. You still don't get out of answering MY question.

Are we alone in having these mystic and completely unfalsifiable souls, or do some animals have them too?  If they don't, how can we explain moral and/or emotional behaviour witnessed in chimpanzees (for example)?

You're still dodging. Materialisticly automotons are all we should be. We're not, so you can't reduce it to the materialistic and be rational. Now I'll ask you again - Where do you get saying "We are more to the sum of our parts" if all you are going to do is reduce things down to their parts? Answer this.

*yawn* Occam's razor would prefer a naturalistic explanation over one which requires the existence of a deity about whose existence and intelligence many more answers would then be required (by anyone of even limited intellectual curiosity).

Proof by assertion. And a rather silly defense as one must then believe the pyramids were constructed by random unguided improbable chance because the existence of a culture raises more questions. Congradualtions you just proved Egyptians never existed. Hehe.

Of course i can make that distinction.

But not materialisticly. Which is the whole point.

Me.  And, in your more lucid moments, you - since you recognise the non-personhood of the brain-dead despite their bodies being in otherwise good working order.

Not even close as I've said the only issue that has any relevance is in the issue of ALIVE or DEAD. Which is why your tact of brain-dead adults fails. Unlike you I'm working to see if it fits within my criteria or not, rather than acknowledge one example doesn't but give personhood status anyway.

A sleeping person has the capacity for consciousness. A zygote only has the potential to attain the capacity for consciousness.  You may not agree with this, but continuing to suggest that i have not made a full and consistent account of my position is disingenuous.

You have not, because it is simple fact. A sleeping person simply doesn't have the capacity at the exact time they are sleeping (by definition) and has the "potential" to wake up. And again it would seem the zygote has the very same "capacity" and just needs the time to perform the function like a sleeping person needs time to wake up. Which shouldn't be a problem if you are going to say the criteria need not be met 24/7. You can not distinguash one from the other in your justifications, and it shows how flimsi your standards are the more you try. It honestly doesn't even come down to any standards, but rather your attitude of 'I'll know it when I see it.'

Because the mind, in my view, is entirely the product of the brain.

And the soul is entirely the product of the human body being alive. But again materialisticly you can't even acknowledge the mind, but must stop at the brain.

States of mind will all ultimately reduce to brain states, so it is understandable that changes in brain chemistry will affect the mind.  What is less understandable to me is why the soul is a necessary concept, given that all our mental activity is contingent upon the state of the brain.

Problably because it's not "contingent" upon the state of the brain as emotions are not mental things. But we've gone over why a body part reacting doesn't dictate the mental state "reduces" there, and how you couldn't even get this far in knowledge without an immaterial revelation. If it truly was contingent on the brain then anyone should have been able to look at the brain in the thrid-person and instantly see what a person was thinking/feeling. Nor did you ever examine any part of your own body to find your own consciousness. You are just self-consciously aware of it. Thus why you can never really prove the mind/soul is purely contingent on the brain or any other physical part. Physical things have no first-person priority, and yet people do know things that can only be accessed in the first-person; as you have admitted that everything is the culmination of first-person revelation.  Thus you can not prove it all reduces down to the physical brain.

Hey, it's your analogy.  So if you were communicating with me (since i am a man at a keyboard - as far as you know), and my writing sudden y b cam  fr gmen ed, or just pl@!n w$!rd, you might well presume some sort of hardware problem (with my keyboard, for instance), however if my language started to gestate into an unremitting paroxysm of flowery, nay positively exuberant prose, with no hint of surcease - what are the odds you would think that there was something wrong with my computer?  The point i am making is that in your analogy there would be significant differences between the expression of problems affecting the computer, and problems affecting the writer.  A computer virus would affect my prose no more than alcohol should affect the immortal soul.

You haven't seen the wierd kinds of viruses I have. But actually you affirm me as you admit a virus can affect your prose by fragmenting them beyond understanding. Because you admit a problem to the hardware can indeed affect your expression of language. And language is an immaterial thing (thus the only way to understand more than one). Materialisticly they are just symbols on a screen, yet we discern immaterial meaning from them. So a computer virus would indeed effect you if you were "inside a computer" because it would effect your expression and/or understanding.

Computer viruses affect the computer, human viruses affect the man, and their effects are radically different.  You are making a case for computer viruses effecting the man.

And computer viruses do indeed effect the man outside of the computer as your own analogy shows. It would affect your expression and my understanding (setting aside the radical frustration over having to deal with it). If I had only evidence of your expression through fragmented language I could easily presume you were mentally retarded or just gramatically stupid. And according to you I would have to say your mental capacity in the area of language "resides" in the computer part affected. Very humurous.

Because our computers aren't yet advanced enough?

Do I hear a waver in your voice? If you're about to spout some scifi nonsense about robots behaving like people, I'll save you some trouble by laughing now. Otherwise I'd say you have made a falsehood in saying "We are more than the sum of our parts." if all you ever do is to just sum us all up to our parts ("advanced" though they are). Deal with this contradiction, or give up.

Allow that i don't always accept your judgement on what is and is not relevant.  i will continue to raise issues which seem to me to pertain to the issue.

Allow that it's been demonstrated and isn't solely a matter of judgement then.

Contrast these two phrases - "i don't think that all Christians are virgins", and "All Christians are promiscuous".  The first one is a negative assertion, denying that a certain trait is characteristic of a whole group.  The second one is a positive assertion, applying a different characteristic to the whole group.  The first one is what i do, and the second is what you do.

Find an example of me doing the first sort.

Poor defense. It's not a trait you asserted as a negative, but rather clearly a person who represents a behavior/ideal. Even your example of negative assertion implicitly asserts the positive "i think all Christians are sexually active". You have asked, and I have answered.

"Proven"?  Big words. i may have declined to engage with your recycled creationist talking points, but that doesn't mean that i accept your arguments. i do, as you mention, have a life to lead.

It's only one word. And as you declined/decline to disprove them (I guess an even bigger word), the examples stand regardless of your acceptance. It's not like I expected you to accept it anyway.

 As for your other point, again this is all about your issues.  If someone believed that human life only had value insofar that its possessor was white, a theory of racial equality might cause that person, if they accepted it, to be especially brutal and unpleasant to their fellow white people.  Would the theory be to blame, or the person's initial assumptions?

*yawn* Spouting 'you believe' is one of the laziest defenses I've ever heard. When someone believes that human life was no different than any other animal slaughtered for one's own purposes because a theory promoted this, how is the theory not partially to blame?

i note, by the way, that you have not tried to link evolution to any of the other great genocides of the 20th century.  Can't make the case?  Should be easy enough i would have thought, what with the evil implications of the theory being so obvious.

Hehe. On the contrary as many of the genocides were performed under Communistic regimes. Lennin was well documented using evolution to convince others into his mode of thinking of "scientific atheism". And it's no coincidence Mao's favorite authors were Darwin and Huxley. Do you really think there is no substantial link? Or that it's just a coincidence that more atrocities have been commited in the last century evolution has been around than all the centuries the other religions have existed?

The fact that evolution removes a gap formerly occupied by God does not mean that it denies God.  If you think that SJ created this forum but then i demonstrate that i did instead, that does not deny the existence of SJ.

No, but then you're not denying it's creation by an intelligent being of some kind. And if you were looking to deny SJ's existence demonstrating that he didn't create this site would indeed be an obvious method, because it would indeed remove evidence for his existence.

The man with a car says that it's impossible to manage without one.  Amazing.  As a carless man, trust me when i say that life goes on without one.

*yawn* And a carless man wants us to think there is some way to drive a car without the car's existence. Delusional.

So frikkin' what?

Your arguement by outrage and red-herring aside, it just goes with the fact that the issue of actually being true or not is totally irrelavant and thus your continued responses about it is nothing but a strawman. Evolution is not as ideologically isolated as you vehemently if not dogmatically cry out that it is. Beliefs lead to behavior. And evolution was key to the genocidal behavior of not just the Nazis, but in many genocides throughout the 20th century.

Again, you beg the question.  If there is no god, and cosmic junk is all we are, then how do we procede with life?

I would like to know why we should, but we would just procede by the opinion of whoever has the most power. Survival of the fittest and all that. If it turns out to be another Hitler then you have no grounds to complain about it.

EB,

There is NO vagueness that a zygote is fully alive. Thus completely it's irrelevant to abortion.

Being "alive" by itself is an entirely trivial distinction.  All but a very few of the cells in my body are alive.  A sperm is alive, and an egg is also alive.  Life doesn't begin at conception, it just continues.  i am not questioning the fact that a new individual is formed at conception, but i think you need to adjust your terminology in order to make a coherent argument.

My argument would be that since we use the ultimate end of organised brain activity as a mark of the end of personhood, then it is logical and consistent to use the start of brain activity as the point where we first ascribe personhood.  There is also something to be said for the idea that one of the reasons why killing people is wrong is that it is a form of stealing - taking away something that that person values.  Taking the life of a creature which is incapable of valuing it is therefore a different kind of moral action from taking the life of someone who is consciously-aware.  Since i take it as a given that an embryo cannot be said to value its own existence, then it is not possible to wrong it by ending that existence.  

There may be other ways to wrong a creature which cannot value its own existence, causing it pain would be a prime example.  For example, i am quite happy to eat meat, because i do not consider it a terrible thing to deprive a cow or a chicken of its life.  i would consider it wrong to cause unnecessary pain to either, however.  That's why really, i'd prefer to be able to kill my own food (something i am currently only able to do from time to time).

Tell me why YOU think a person is dead when materialisticly machines making the body move and twitch is no different than you typing on the keyboard right now?

Well, to be precise, i don't think that a brain-dead human being is "dead", i think that they are no longer a person, even though their body still lives.  If you're asking why i think they are no longer a person, then i think i have already explained this numerous times - they have no awareness of their surroundings or themselves, no ability to interact with others, and no response to painful stimuli (the last point being indicative that there is no brain activity whatsoever).

Thus no vagueness that the zygote is indeed fully alive and a human being by virtue of comming from humans. Ergo fully a person.

While that may be convincing to you, it is not to me, nor (apparently) to millions of other people around the world.  Even those who consider themselves to be "pro-life" apparently see some gradient of personhood as the foetus develops (witness how late-abortion practitioners are disproportionately targetted with protests and attacks), so i think you have more work to do.

The only thing you can acomplish is to prove the brain-dead human is indeed still alive despite the loss of brain function. In which case he/she would be a person as well and reaffirm MY standards that personhood is not based on some arbitrary body part. This is what happens when you take up a lose-lose arguement DB.

Since what i am doing with this argument is trying to get some consistency on that principle from you, i think that a little less smugness would be in order.  By your stated belief that personhood is not based on body parts, a brain-dead human should be classed as a person, of equal moral value to you or i, however you have repeatedly stated that the brain-dead are dead and therefore not persons (because they're dead).  If you will accept the implications of your position and embrace the personhood of the brain-dead then i will be quite happy to leave it at that.  i would expect you to start a couple of threads in the near future about the murderous practice of organ donation, of course.

Frankly you are completely inconsistent with your materialistic views and standards to even acknowledge a mind exists.

The mind clearly exists, in some sense.  The question is how we explain it, and i am satisfied with the explanation that it is entirely a product of the brain in the same way that violin music is the product of violin.  In some way it transcends the medium which produced it, but it is obviously contingent upon that medium (i.e. the physical), because physical changes - hormones, drugs, trauma or surgery - have reliable psychological implications, and when the violin is damaged beyond repair the music stops forever.

The soul is an unnecessary hypothesis.

No, that is an inconsistency with your views that if you are going to demand that a person must perform the functions at the exact second, but abandon it when cepa patients or people unconcious don't perform the functions or have the capacity at the exact second.

i have never said that a person must be able to perform function x at that exact second, so it seems that the 'inconsistency' stems more from your desire to dismiss a more realistic account of personhood.

I can freely admit animals have souls. Not souls like humans, but that's a different topic.

That's interesting.  Are these souls immortal?  Do they appear at the moment of conception?

Materialisticly automotons are all we should be. We're not, so you can't reduce it to the materialistic and be rational.

   To be fair, your statement that we would be automatons without our souls kinds of rests on the assumption that we have souls now.  Since you don't admit to any living creature not having a soul, and i see no need to invoke the idea of a soul in any circumstance, we really don't have a lot of common ground to make comparisons here.  It's a bit like you saying that the universe must be designed because it looks designed.  If you're right, then we have no idea what an undesigned universe would look like, and any description of one is just imagination.  But it could just as easily be the other way around.

From my point of view, the soul is much like God.  Before we had any idea what made the world (and ourselves) tick, then it was a reasonable explanation.  Now...

For instance, you are rather forced into saying that the physical affects the spiritual.  It could not be otherwise, because so much of our mind can be affected by physical things.  Are these changes permenant?  Does someone who becomes aphasic as a result of a stroke still not have the power of speech in Heaven?  If the soul gets drunk when i do (as you have implied) and i die while in a drunken stupor, does my soul stay drunk for the few hours it would have taken for the alcohol to work its way out of my bloodstream?  Is my soul in anyway related to the souls of my mother and my father, since we know that significant elements of personality are inherited, and are likely to be expressed even if i never meet either parent?  Can a soul be schitzophrenic?

These questions, for me at least, illustrate the absurdity of your concept of minds as souls.  However, please feel free to make sense of them for me.

Now I'll ask you again - Where do you get saying "We are more to the sum of our parts" if all you are going to do is reduce things down to their parts? Answer this.

i honestly don't see your problem here EB.  Plenty of things are more than the sum of their parts without magic being involved.  Mentos and Diet Coke are more than the sum of their parts, but does that lead you to conclude that there is something supernatural going on?  A car is more than the sum of its parts, in the sense that only in correct combination will you be able to use those components to drive you anywhere.  Nevertheless, these are physical things (unless you also think that cars have souls).

And a rather silly defense as one must then believe the pyramids were constructed by random unguided improbable chance because the existence of a culture raises more questions. Congradualtions you just proved Egyptians never existed. Hehe.

Entertaining analogy.  However, positing that humans built extraordinary structures is hardly multiplying entities, is it.  i would rather do that than take the Von Daniken approach and infer alien intervention.  Or divine, for that matter.

"Because the mind, in my view, is entirely the product of the brain."

And the soul is entirely the product of the human body being alive.

   The soul is a product of the human body?  It didn't exist before?  Are you sure that it continues after?

But again materialisticly you can't even acknowledge the mind, but must stop at the brain.

Choosing the most narrowly absurd interpretation of your opponent's belief system and then arguing with that is not a productive debate tactic EB.  Your statement is akin to saying that i cannot acknowledge the production of insulin, but can only admit to the existence of the pancreas.  The brain is the violin, and the mind is the music.

"What is less understandable to me is why the soul is a necessary concept, given that all our mental activity is contingent upon the state of the brain."

Problably because it's not "contingent" upon the state of the brain as emotions are not mental things.

The soul is emotionless then?  Joy and wonder will not be experienced at the gates of heaven, only detached intellectual curiosity.  Sounds fun.

But we've gone over why a body part reacting doesn't dictate the mental state "reduces" there, and how you couldn't even get this far in knowledge without an immaterial revelation. If it truly was contingent on the brain then anyone should have been able to look at the brain in the thrid-person and instantly see what a person was thinking/feeling.

Anyone?  Sure, and if the heart truly is a pump then a plumber ought to be able to fix it, right?  We are still some way from fully understanding the brain in all its complexity.  However, there are plenty of studies which verge on what you demand:

Decoding mental states from brain activity in humans
Identifying natural images from human brain activity
Researchers Develop

Being "alive" by itself is an entirely trivial distinction.  All but a very few of the cells in my body are alive.  A sperm is alive, and an egg is also alive.

No. Sperms, cells, eggs, etc. are just healthy and active. They are not "alive" in themselves nor do they have any quality of "being".

Life doesn't begin at conception, it just continues.  i am not questioning the fact that a new individual is formed at conception, but i think you need to adjust your terminology in order to make a coherent argument.

Not at all. If you concede a new individual forms at conception that individual is undoubtably a human being, and as you concede even flippantly that the zygote is  fully alive then the individual is just as entitled to the full range of civil rights as any other human being. As such pro-abortionists don't have a leg to stand on.

My argument would be that since we use the ultimate end of organised brain activity as a mark of the end of personhood, then it is logical and consistent to use the start of brain activity as the point where we first ascribe personhood.

"We" used skin colour as the mark of personhood at one time. But again brain activity doesn't mark personhood. It marks death. And that is what marks personhood. But death is a nonissue in the zygote's case.

There is also something to be said for the idea that one of the reasons why killing people is wrong is that it is a form of stealing - taking away something that that person values.  Taking the life of a creature which is incapable of valuing it is therefore a different kind of moral action from taking the life of someone who is consciously-aware.  Since i take it as a given that an embryo cannot be said to value its own existence, then it is not possible to wrong it by ending that existence.

What's this? Are you suggesting there is some kind of objective transcendant standard that says killing/stealing is wrong? What an odd position for an atheist.

This is all bunk anyway, because killing isn't a form of stealing. Killing is destroying which is an entirely different act. And unless you are willing to advocate strangling babies too young to value their own life is ok as well (a rather clear indication of the kind of evil you are championing), then not only is it irrelevant, it's inconsistent. Besides as established placing "value" on one's own existence is just self-serving delusion under evolution/atheism. In which case you have very little foundation to prohibit any and all forms of murder.

Well, to be precise, i don't think that a brain-dead human being is "dead", i think that they are no longer a person, even though their body still lives. If you're asking why i think they are no longer a person, then i think i have already explained this numerous times - they have no awareness of their surroundings or themselves, no ability to interact with others, and no response to painful stimuli (the last point being indicative that there is no brain activity whatsoever).

No different than a sleeping cepa patient or someone in a comma. All I continue to see is you dodging the question of how you can hold everything comes down to the material, yet seem to recognize there is a fundamental distinction between a healthy human being moving around under his/her own power and machines making body parts move, when materialisticly there is none. Massively inconsistent.

While that may be convincing to you, it is not to me, nor (apparently) to millions of other people around the world.

Blacks being fully people wasn't convincing to many people. Ad popullum.

Even those who consider themselves to be "pro-life" apparently see some gradient of personhood as the foetus develops (witness how late-abortion practitioners are disproportionately targetted with protests and attacks), so i think you have more work to do.

Irrelevant. But the more you resort to these 'Nuh-uh' posts the more I see you have little to no reasoning behind your beliefs.

Since what i am doing with this argument is trying to get some consistency on that principle from you, i think that a little less smugness would be in order.

You've gotten it several times. It comes down to the question - Is the human being is dead or alive? And in the case of abortion there is no doubt about the zygote's status. Brain-death is a different subject.

By your stated belief that personhood is not based on body parts, a brain-dead human should be classed as a person, of equal moral value to you or i, however you have repeatedly stated that the brain-dead are dead and therefore not persons (because they're dead).  If you will accept the implications of your position and embrace the personhood of the brain-dead then i will be quite happy to leave it at that.  i would expect you to start a couple of threads in the near future about the murderous practice of organ donation, of course.

I admit the more you argue the more I'm willing to come to the view that a brain-dead human is a full person. I generally doubt it because as stated one can cut off the head and keep the lower body parts functioning for the same effect and there is zeroe doubt the person is dead. Only difference is when the "living" body parts are connected together or seperated.

The mind clearly exists, in some sense.  The question is how we explain it, and i am satisfied with the explanation that it is entirely a product of the brain in the same way that violin music is the product of violin.

Heh. And according to you it would all reduce to vibration in air molecules. If that were true a person would be able to "hear" a concert just by using an oscilloscope. Yet there is a rather obvious distinction and it reveals that music is much much more than the physicality of it all. You merely reduce it to the physical and the music is gone. Beauty is just light waves. Love is just chemical reactions. This kind of mateialistic reduction is frankly insane.

In some way it transcends the medium which produced it, but it is obviously contingent upon that medium (i.e. the physical), because physical changes - hormones, drugs, trauma or surgery - have reliable psychological implications, and when the violin is damaged beyond repair the music stops forever.

The soul is an unnecessary hypothesis.

Not even close. Because as stated above violin music is much more than just the physical instrument. The music correlates with the physical instrument just as the body, mind, and soul are correlated and certainly the physical state of the violin can influence the music just as hormones, drugs, trauma, surgery, etc. can influence the mind and soul, but it's a big mistake to think correlation equals causation (I think you've actually used this line once or twice).

But again you are inconsistent. How? Because you immediately appealed to the "pyschological implications". And the only way you know what's going on in a person's head is when he/she tells you. Materialisticly all you can see is chemical reactions, just as all you can do is detect the vibrations in the air for the violin music. Materialisticly you can't really acknowledge psychological implications because that's the state of mind. Again, all you can do is stop at the brain if you were really consistent with this materialistic standard.

i have never said that a person must be able to perform function x at that exact second, so it seems that the 'inconsistency' stems more from your desire to dismiss a more realistic account of personhood.

No the inconsistency is that the zygote has just as much "capacity", but is just unable to perform function x at the exact second, yet you don't acknowledge personhood status. You are massively inconsistent in applying your standards and arguements.

 To be fair, your statement that we would be automatons without our souls kinds of rests on the assumption that we have souls now.  Since you don't admit to any living creature not having a soul, and i see no need to invoke the idea of a soul in any circumstance, we really don't have a lot of common ground to make comparisons here.  It's a bit like you saying that the universe must be designed because it looks designed.  If you're right, then we have no idea what an undesigned universe would look like, and any description of one is just imagination.  But it could just as easily be the other way around.

Actually I can admit several living things don't have souls as far as we can tell. As soulish beings have beliefs, desires, intentions, emotions, etc. I can acknowedge when a living creature has a soul when I can see evidence of these things. (Note: I apply this standard in the context of "being" or "species" and not as an individual basis.) It's easy to see these traits in dogs, cats, monkeys, etc. I don't, however, see these traits in living organisms like plants or bacteria. How would a plant fullfill an intention anyway? And frankly all we need to look at are nonliving automatons to get a sense of what automatons are, "living" or otherwise.

Just as we know the qualities that a designed thing has is orderliness and function (thus can indeed imagine an undesigned universe as a place of true randomness and chaos ), so too can we recognize when something does have a soul and when it doesn't by knowing the qualities a soul has.

From my point of view, the soul is much like God.  Before we had any idea what made the world (and ourselves) tick, then it was a reasonable explanation.  Now...

...even more reasonable. Almost demanded in fact.

For instance, you are rather forced into saying that the physical affects the spiritual.  It could not be otherwise, because so much of our mind can be affected by physical things.  Are these changes permenant?  Does someone who becomes aphasic as a result of a stroke still not have the power of speech in Heaven?  If the soul gets drunk when i do (as you have implied) and i die while in a drunken stupor, does my soul stay drunk for the few hours it would have taken for the alcohol to work its way out of my bloodstream?  Is my soul in anyway related to the souls of my mother and my father, since we know that significant elements of personality are inherited, and are likely to be expressed even if i never meet either parent?  Can a soul be schitzophrenic?

Is any of this relevant? Just as you don't have a clue how life comes from nonlife, whether the kidney or liver came first, etc. yet maintain evolution is true despite not being able to answer every single question surrounding it; it doesn't seem to matter that I am unable to answer every single question yet maintain the soul as true. You would claim the evidence we have now is enough, and that's what I'm doing. However, unlike you I can at least logically approach the questions in that if the physical influences the soul, then when the physical is removed so too are the influences.

These questions, for me at least, illustrate the absurdity of your concept of minds as souls.  However, please feel free to make sense of them for me.

And I can again list the numerous other questions over evolution you can't even begin to answer. Unless you are prepared to admit it illustrates the absurdity of evolution, then it just reveals this as a smoke screen.

i honestly don't see your problem here EB.  Plenty of things are more than the sum of their parts without magic being involved.  Mentos and Diet Coke are more than the sum of their parts, but does that lead you to conclude that there is something supernatural going on? A car is more than the sum of its parts, in the sense that only in correct combination will you be able to use those components to drive you anywhere.  Nevertheless, these are physical things (unless you also think that cars have souls).

And this all demonstrates your contradiction. For your Mentos and Diet Coke example just amounts to chemical reaction, and your car example doesn't show it's "more" than the sum of it's parts. It shows a car IS the sum of it's parts. I'm beginning to think you don't even have a clue what "more than the sum of it's parts" even means.

And this post again demonstrates you aren't listening. I'm not advocating "magic" or even "supernatural". I'm advocating the immaterial. Repeat this ten times to let it sink in (useful memorizing technique).

Entertaining analogy.  However, positing that humans built extraordinary structures is hardly multiplying entities, is it.  i would rather do that than take the Von Daniken approach and infer alien intervention.  Or divine, for that matter.

It's multiplying cultures (and you amount to question begging if you were trying to answer the question). But I knew you'd be inconsistent with this, and what do you know - you are. Surprise, surprise.

 The soul is a product of the human body?  It didn't exist before?  Are you sure that it continues after?

Yep.

Choosing the most narrowly absurd interpretation of your opponent's belief system and then arguing with that is not a productive debate tactic EB.  Your statement is akin to saying that i cannot acknowledge the production of insulin, but can only admit to the existence of the pancreas.  The brain is the violin, and the mind is the music.

True, but holding that your opponent means what he/she say is, though admittedly one has to pick and choose when one's opponent is being so contradicting and inconsistent. And as the music isn't just air vibrations from strings, your analogy helps my view more than yours.

The soul is emotionless then?  Joy and wonder will not be experienced at the gates of heaven, only detached intellectual curiosity.  Sounds fun.

When I say emotions aren't mental things, I mean emotions are soulish things. Just as intent, desire, beliefs, etc. are soulish things. Following your tact, can you tell me which chemical reaction to which part of the brain gives one the intent to see a movie? What's the difference in the amount of hormone levels that differentiates one believing in Christianity rather than Islam?  Which chemical injected into the brain will make me desire vanilla over chocolate?

These questions, for me at least, illustrate the absurdity of your concept of the mind reducing to the brain.  However, please feel free to make sense of them for me.

Anyone?  Sure, and if the heart truly is a pump then a plumber ought to be able to fix it, right?

Actually, that's pretty spot on to what doctors do when there is indeed a "plumbing" problem.

We are still some way from fully understanding the brain in all its complexity.

Apparently until you have all the answers it's an "absurdity" according to you.

You may notice that these studies largely used visual images with reliable mental associations as triggers, removing the need to ask someone to explain what they think for the purposes of correlating it with brain activity.

And they won't amount to anything that hasn't already been shown: You can see the brain respond, but you'll never see the "thought". It has to be revealed. Or in your examples' cases guessed and infered in a general sense.

Fortunately for you, if you are ever involved in a major trauma you can rest assured that the people who will be looking after you will suffer from no such disingenuous confusion about where your consciousness might be located, and will do everything they can to protect your brain - not because of the biological functions it provides to the rest of the body, those can be replicated by machinery in the main, but because they are under no illusions that your consciousness is contingent upon the organ inside your skull.  If the mind-brain correlation was less clear then trauma management would be rather different.

I'll take that as a "no". Heck, people have never been confused about consciousness even before CT scans ever existed. And that says something about the debate when people have been aware of there own self-conciousness for millenia and scientist still look for the "spot" to materialisticly prove it.

Well i encourage you to put your money where your mouth is on that score EB, and carry some sort of card around with you at all times saying that should you be seriously injured and are unable to be consulted about medical decisions that you place no special importance on the pre-frontal cortex, or the frontal, temporal or parietal lobes, but only on those parts of the brain necessary for life and basic motor functions to continue (brainstem and probably the cerebellum as well).  You certainly dont want anyone prioritizing any of those parts over, say, your arm, on the basis of such faulty materialistic assumptions.

It's cute how you can beat up strawmen and totally miss the point. I've never denied body parts aren't correlated to the spiritual/immaterial. I'm arguing it simply doesn't reduce to it. Frankly all this argueing isn't even necessary as the immaterial isn't the material by definition, nor do immaterial things take up any space to be located at.

Yes, by removing it or rendering it incomprehensible.  You have yet to coherently explain how physical things can affect the sensibleness of our decision making.

I've clearly said physical things can influence soulish things. Heck, I can just point to the fact that being physically asleep renders you decision making temporarily null. And back to the analogy if you can't be properly informed due to jumbled language, you can't have adequate knowledge of about what decision to make or if a decision is even needed at all.

Artificial intelligence is impossible as far as you're concerned, i assume?  Since it would have to have a soul?

It would have to have free will (and yes that's a soulish thing). I just laugh at the notion that it could ever reach a level of being entirely indistiguashable.

i have pointed out several instances of you claiming that things are irrelevant when in fact they are merely inconvenient to your argument.  As usual, your arrogance speaks for itself.

So does the fact I've demonstrated their irrelevance. More often than not by conceding things for the sake of arguement and showing little to no impact on the issue.

If you can't see the difference then i obviously can't teach it to you. For most people there is a big gap between saying something like "Roeder is not representative of the 'pro-life' movement" (which actually asserts nothing about the "pro-life" movement except that they are mostly not killers), and saying "Liberals think everything except their own opinion is propaganda".  Clearly the EB denial and self-justification machine is not bothered by the facts of the matter.

For some atheists, a-theism is a negatively claimed lack of belief in existence instead of a positively claimed belief of inexistance as if there is a "big gap" as well. It's nonsense for them, and it's nonsense for you.

If the theory actually says nothing of the kind then i think that would be a big clue.

Too bad for you the theory does indeed say it.

It is moderately hilarious to me the effort you put into tarring evolutionary theory with the blood of millions, when you have spent so much time and energy defending Christianity as a doctrine from any guilt by association with the Spanish Inquisition or the Crusades.

Ignoring the fact that there is little to be guilty of in defending one's nation from foreign invasion, it mostly has to do with what the two beliefs actually say.

Given that Christianity, in the form of scripture, does actually say things like "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live", or casting unbelievers into the fire, one might think a little bit more responsibility might apply than in the case of a scientific theory which, while certainly capable of being misapplied, definitively does not say that humans are no different than animals, just that they're not different in the way that you think they are.

And again it has to do with what it actually says in it's entirety. If all you can ever do to take shots at the Bible is to take up a tact that can be applied to all literature it says something for the strength of your accusal. With evolution on the other hand I don't need a cut-and-paste approach. I have used exactly what evolution teaches and advocates to demonstrate where it leads. Especially when you concede that evolution does in fact teach humans are no different than animals in a certain way. And that certain way being the only meaningful one.

Besides, aren't you guilty of denying the differences between animals and humans by asserting that animals also have souls?  Could be a genocide on the way with your name on it.

How am I denying the differences between animals and humans when I advocate animals may have souls but they aren't like ours? Seems I'm promoting it.

i assume that you think improved technology and communications is an irrelevance here? Correlation is interesting, but certainly not indicative of causation.

Seems to be enough for your brain=mind belief. If only you could ever be consistent. What progress we could make.

Of course there have been atheist regimes which have done terrible things (Nazi Germany not being one of them), and most of which substituted some kind of messianic personality cult of the Leader for the role that religion often plays in these sort of things.

It's cute you think there's some distinction between atheism and any other religion. It's sad you deny history.

Were you unable to make a case for the role of evolutionary theory in the Armenian or Rwandan Genocides?  How about the very effective genocides in North and South America, Australia and Africa, most of which occured before evolutionary theory was developed?  What was the key ideology that led to them?

....

This is like saying because racism isn't the motive of every murder, then it must never be a motive to any murder. The fundamental stupidity of such a position is obvious. I've not advocated evolutionary theory played a part in every geonicide. But it was a major factor in those that it did play a part in.

Also, in line with your comments about needing to show a trend of "pro-lifers" killing abortion doctors in order to infer that the ideology was to blame, can i ask you to demonstrate your hypothesis on an individual level.

No, because it's impossible to establish a trend on an individual level by definition. It would all have to be in isolation.

i am unable to find any statistics on what percentage of the US prison population believes in evolution, as compared to the non-incarcerated population, but given that we are both aware that atheists are under-represented in prison populations, i think we could predict which way the figures would go.  i suspect that, since this observation is highly damaging to the case you are making, it will be considered irrelevant as well.

You'd have to establish what crimes were religious in nature or even religiously motivated and contrast this with the population of atheism in the country entirely (a minority having less representation in a specifc location isn't unexpected). But what's there for me to get bent out of shape over? The belief that it's human nature to do wrong is very compatible with the Biblical view, rather than an atheistic one where prisons in their entirety are illogical.

If this site was the only evidence for SJ's existence then yes, that might be the case.  However, having met him myself, i would not personally question SJ's existence whether or not he actually designed this forum.  We are clearly dealing with a being whose existence is quite uncertain if finding an alternative explanation for something he is said to have done is tantamount to denying him.

Heh. This is far from the only subject where atheists adovacte an alternative for something. Your constant crys of alternative source for "value" (despite never once saying what that source is) is testament to that. Evolution is just atheists attempt on the issue of creation. And if you indeed had such an agenda to deny SJ's existence you wouldn't stop here either.

You take this simplistic "A leads to B" line only when it is convenient for you.  An analysis of the religious reasons behind the North and South American Genocides would not lead you to draw any negative conclusions about Christianity, only about people, so i dismiss your arguments here in the same way.  People do terrible things given the right motivations (which are invariably territorial), and their choice of ideological or pseudo-scientific justification invariably says more about them than it does about that particular belief system.

Hey, I draw plenty of negative conclusions about people even when they have evolutionist ideals driving them. But it all goes back to what evolution and Christianity actually say in their entirety. With your cut-and-paste tactics, I can alternatively say evolution doesn't teach anything like "love thy neighbour as thy self" or such.  And as I don't see any foundation in atheism to define something as "terrible", coupled with the motivation evolution gives (survival of the fittest), or if not motivation at bare minimmum lack of inhibition (no value, no equality), I'd say it is indeed a simplistic "A leads to B".

 You have no idea what you're talking about.  Evolutionary Theory explains where we came from, it says nothing about how we should procede.

It says how the world has proceded to get to this point (where we came from). If that's not a clue, then at minimmum there seems to be no reason to stop.

Raw survival of the fitest is still a dynamic operating in human societies, but we (like many other animal species) have managed to temper it with cooperation and reciprocal mutually beneficial behaviour.  Read some game theory - the Prisoner's dilemna, etc.  As for the idea that i would have no grounds for complaint, that is akin to saying that a believer in the theory of gravity should not mind if a heavy object falls on him.

Well you can blame the Earth, but you'd be silly for doing so. And you question beg as many societies are the left-overs of conquering empires, or founded on religious ground. And as "mutually beneficial" just translates to 'ultimately look out for numero uno' in reality it's not as cooperative founding as it sounds as the instant it's beneficial to kill the competition it's pretty much demanded.

Do your comments on drugs being the "wrong fuel" include caffeine, nicotine and alcohol?  Just curious.

When one gets to a level of dependance/addiction? Sure.

PS - one of the reasons that i will no longer be engaging in any evolution/creation related debate with you is my sudden realisation of the terrible danger i would be putting your friends and relatives in were i to be successful in changing your mind.  i wouldnt have thought of scientific theories requiring an age rating, but having read your views on what would constitute appropriate behaviour if evolution were true i have to conclude that this particular idea is strictly for grown-ups.  You stick with what you know EB, and we'll all feel safer.

You might as well drop all debate as it's not evolution/creation so much as atheism/theism. A-theism promoting a-morality after all. But you have little to fear as the fact that I have an abundance of knowledge on the subject, rather than being spoon-fed like some, makes me very confident in denying the beliefs. After so much debate you should have picked up on this as well.  

EB,

i don't know what definitions you are working from, but i was under the impression that something was either alive or dead, and that there was no in-between state.  Therefore i was a little confused when you responded to my assertion that the egg and sperm are both alive with this:

No. Sperms, cells, eggs, etc. are just healthy and active. They are not "alive" in themselves nor do they have any quality of "being".

So there are three possible states of being, according to you - Alive, Dead, and "Healthy and active"?  This is entirely foolish.  We might disagree about when something can be said to be "dead", especially when it is a complex organism (the cells do not all die at once, after all), but there is no need to invent a third category simply in order that you can continue to delude yourself that individual body cells are not "alive".

If you concede a new individual forms at conception that individual is undoubtably a human being, and as you concede even flippantly that the zygote is fully alive then the individual is just as entitled to the full range of civil rights as any other human being. As such pro-abortionists don't have a leg to stand on.

Of course a zygote is alive (just like the egg and sperm were), and of course it is human (just like the egg and sperm were).  Combine the two and apparently a soul is magically added making a human being.  You're not convincing anyone except maybe yourself.

"My argument would be that since we use the ultimate end of organised brain activity as a mark of the end of personhood, then it is logical and consistent to use the start of brain activity as the point where we first ascribe personhood."

"We" used skin colour as the mark of personhood at one time.

i know that the knee-jerk comparison with racial discrimination is virtually a reflex for you, but the fact is that you have used the end of brain activity as a mark of the end of personhood.  Even if you are now starting to go back on that.

But again brain activity doesn't mark personhood. It marks death. And that is what marks personhood. But death is a nonissue in the zygote's case.

Maybe the zygote is just "alive and healthy".    i am personally not sure how best to define death.  In many cases of brain-death the body is sustained enough for live organ donation to be performed.  Everything except the brain is still healthy, so i find it hard to call that death.  What i am quite confident about is that it marks the end of personhood, which informs my conclusions about the start of personhood.

Re: Killing as a form of theft.

This is all bunk anyway, because killing isn't a form of stealing. Killing is destroying which is an entirely different act.

   If someone takes your wallet and just burns it instead of spending the money, is the effect it has on you radically different?  i dont see a major distinction here, but maybe its not important.

And unless you are willing to advocate strangling babies too young to value their own life is ok as well (a rather clear indication of the kind of evil you are championing), then not only is it irrelevant, it's inconsistent.

As i've said to SJ, i'm not 100% sure whether or not new-born babies fit the criteria of personhood, but as soon as a foetus is viable i don't think abortion should be permitted (except for anencephaly, and other quickly fatal conditions).  That's erring on the side of caution.  Hardly characteristic behaviour of a champion of evil (nice hyperbole though).

Besides as established placing "value" on one's own existence is just self-serving delusion under evolution/atheism. In which case you have very little foundation to prohibit any and all forms of murder.

i guess you'll never understand that, so i might as well stop trying to explain it to you.  Again, we're all safer if you stick to what you currently believe.

I admit the more you argue the more I'm willing to come to the view that a brain-dead human is a full person.

 

I generally doubt it because as stated one can cut off the head and keep the lower body parts functioning for the same effect and there is zeroe doubt the person is dead.

From your point of view, i don't see why. [parody] Just because the dude doesn't have a head he gets excluded from the human race?  That's just prejudiced.  Next you'll be excluding black people, you racist! [/parody]

Seriously, a zygote doesn't have a head, and relies on the maternal body to fulfill the functions it has yet to develop.  How is that different from a headless adult on life supprt?  From my point of view, it doesn't matter whether the head has gone or just the brain, it's the same end result.

Re:  

And according to you it would all reduce to vibration in air molecules. If that were true a person would be able to "hear" a concert just by using an oscilloscope. Yet there is a rather obvious distinction and it reveals that music is much much more than the physicality of it all. You merely reduce it to the physical and the music is gone. Beauty is just light waves. Love is just chemical reactions. This kind of mateialistic reduction is frankly insane.

But it does just reduce to vibrations in air molecules, that's the whole point.  The fact that we experience it in a certain way doesn't change the fact that it reduces.  Think how a bat would experience violin music - possibly as a visual image.  That's just about how we process the data.  Plants experience sunshine and respond to it according to their biology.  Please go ahead with your argument about the souls of plant or the mystical properties of sunshine.

Because as stated above violin music is much more than just the physical instrument. The music correlates with the physical instrument just as the body, mind, and soul are correlated and certainly the physical state of the violin can influence the music just as hormones, drugs, trauma, surgery, etc. can influence the mind and soul, but it's a big mistake to think correlation equals causation (I think you've actually used this line once or twice).

Interesting.  i completely agree with every aspect of that paragraph, except for the implication that the relationship between mind and brain (or for that matter with a violin and violin music) is mere correlation.  On the contrary, it is scientifically established fact.  One thing happens after another - that's correlation.  One thing happens after another hundreds or thousands of times with appropriate control group testing to rule out other influences - that's causation.

Materialisticly all you can see is chemical reactions, just as all you can do is detect the vibrations in the air for the violin music. Materialisticly you can't really acknowledge psychological implications because that's the state of mind. Again, all you can do is stop at the brain if you were really consistent with this materialistic standard.

Apply the same logic to the violin and see where that gets you.  i can study the physical object, the technique of the violinist, the physics of sound transmission, but i can't know what it is like for anyone except myself to hear a violin played.  Does that mean i cannot draw any conclusions about the relationship between the object and the music?  Of course not, but that's exactly as ridiculous as what you are suggesting.

"i have never said that a person must be able to perform function x at that exact second, so it seems that the 'inconsistency' stems more from your desire to dismiss a more realistic account of personhood."

No the inconsistency is that the zygote has just as much "capacity", but is just unable to perform function x at the exact second, yet you don't acknowledge personhood status. You are massively inconsistent in applying your standards and arguements.

While there may be problems with my argument, this is not one of them.  A zygote clearly does not have any capacity to be conscious or self-aware, and it is foolish to imply that it does.  Not having a brain is a fairly big clue.  Coma patients are an actual problem for my argument, but i guess you're a little too focused on the unborn to notice that.

As soulish beings have beliefs, desires, intentions, emotions, etc. I can acknowedge when a living creature has a soul when I can see evidence of these things. It's easy to see these traits in dogs, cats, monkeys, etc. I don't, however, see these traits in living organisms like plants or bacteria. How would a plant fullfill an intention anyway? And frankly all we need to look at are nonliving automatons to get a sense of what automatons are, "living" or otherwise.

Can't you see the kind of evil that you're championing here EB?  If cats and dogs have souls then you're saying that human beings aren't special, and only need treating as well as cats and dogs.  You know that they eat cats and dogs in some parts of the world?  i can't believe that you're advocating cannibalism!

i will admit to finding it entertaining to apply the same creative interpretations to your position as you do to mine.  Maybe that's why you do it.  It would explain why such an otherwise intelligent guy believes such monumentally stupid things about evolution.

So, having stretched the idea of a soul as far as it will go, why stop there?  What would happen for instance if a human was born with a cat soul by mistake?  Would anyone notice?  Would they still be eligible for full human rights?

Just as we know the qualities that a designed thing has is orderliness and function (thus can indeed imagine an undesigned universe as a place of true randomness and chaos ), so too can we recognize when something does have a soul and when it doesn't by knowing the qualities a soul has.

However we also know that plenty of non-intelligent systems can produce orderliness, and your abrupt ensouling of cats and dogs shows how much you're having to rationalise the idea to make it workable.  If they manage to make an AI with the same level of functioning as a cat (something which is by no means far off), will you claim it has a soul, or will you abandon the claim that a soul is required for such a creature?  i suspect you'll do neither.

For your Mentos and Diet Coke example just amounts to chemical reaction, and your car example doesn't show it's "more" than the sum of it's parts. It shows a car IS the sum of it's parts. I'm beginning to think you don't even have a clue what "more than the sum of it's parts" even means.

Why dont you tell me what you think it means then.  For me, it means that (literally or in metaphorical terms) what you get when you add up the parts separately is less than what you get when you put them all together.  For example, money is not more than the sum of its parts - you have five separate dollars or a five dollar bill, it doesn't matter, because their combined buying power is the same.  A car is more than the sum of its parts, because the distance that i can travel, or the overall function, is less with the parts taken individually than taken all together.

I'm not advocating "magic" or even "supernatural". I'm advocating the immaterial. Repeat this ten times to let it sink in (useful memorizing technique).

Care to explain the difference?

When I say emotions aren't mental things, I mean emotions are soulish things. Just as intent, desire, beliefs, etc. are soulish things.

All of which are contingent on the physical state of the brain.

It's cute how you can beat up strawmen and totally miss the point. I've never denied body parts aren't correlated to the spiritual/immaterial. I'm arguing it simply doesn't reduce to it. Frankly all this argueing isn't even necessary as the immaterial isn't the material by definition, nor do immaterial things take up any space to be located at.

Strange that something allegedly immaterial should be so easily locatable.  And i am quite happy to conclude that something reduces to something else if they reliably correlate.

I've clearly said physical things can influence soulish things. Heck, I can just point to the fact that being physically asleep renders you decision making temporarily null. And back to the analogy if you can't be properly informed due to jumbled language, you can't have adequate knowledge of about what decision to make or if a decision is even needed at all.

The soul gets drunk when there is alcohol in the blood stream.  The soul gets high when there are any one of a variety of illicit substances in the bloodstream.  The soul gets depressed when there is a lack of the neurotransmitter serotonin.  This is incoherent to the point of self-delusion.

And again it has to do with what it actually says in it's entirety. If all you can ever do to take shots at the Bible is to take up a tact that can be applied to all literature it says something for the strength of your accusal. With evolution on the other hand I don't need a cut-and-paste approach. I have used exactly what evolution teaches and advocates to demonstrate where it leads. Especially when you concede that evolution does in fact teach humans are no different than animals in a certain way. And that certain way being the only meaningful one.

Evolution doesn't advocate anything.  There is no point in continuing this particular topic of conversation.

"i assume that you think improved technology and communications is an irrelevance here? Correlation is interesting, but certainly not indicative of causation."

Seems to be enough for your brain=mind belief. If only you could ever be consistent. What progress we could make.

And if you understood the difference between correlation and scientifically demonstrated causation then we might make even more.

It's cute you think there's some distinction between atheism and any other religion.

Jeez EB, stop coming on to me.  i told you before, i'm married already.

And the distinction is pretty simple.  Calling atheism a religion is like calling health a disease.

I've not advocated evolutionary theory played a part in every geonicide. But it was a major factor in those that it did play a part in.

Oh well, that's very balanced of you.  Unfortunately, all you could ever possibly show is that Social Darwinism has played a major part in several genocides, and that is equally as compelling as the suggestion that The Theory of Gravity is evil because some people jumped off buildings inspired by something called "Social Newtonism".  Nothing in either theory advocates the kind of activity that their "social" versions prescribe, which just shows that you share more in common with Hitler and Mao than you might like to think, in that you all appear to have a twisted idea of what evolutionary theory actually says.

Maybe i'm being unkind there.  Maybe you all are/were opportunists who creatively distort evolutionary theory for your own purposes, in their case to advance a social agenda, in your case in order to block out any information contradicting your own belief system.  Still, that just gives us a choice between your intelligence or your integrity being suspect.

Tough one.

Re: evolution as a motivating factor in crime.

You'd have to establish what crimes were religious in nature or even religiously motivated and contrast this with the population of atheism in the country entirely (a minority having less representation in a specifc location isn't unexpected).

That's not what i'm talking about.  You say that evolution leads to 'immoral' behaviour in the form of genocide.  i'm saying, if that's true then surely such a correlation should be demonstrable at an individual level.  It's like if you say that x leads to good behaviour, shouldn't we find less people displaying x in prison, even allowing for a slight disparity between populations who do bad things and people who go to prison.

But what's there for me to get bent out of shape over? The belief that it's human nature to do wrong is very compatible with the Biblical view, rather than an atheistic one where prisons in their entirety are illogical.

*sigh*  i wont ask you to explain that little gem of EB wisdom.  And if you are standing by your statement that evolutionary theory leads to genocide, then you essentially sign up to the idea that factors other than "Biblical" human nature are at work.  As such, you are obliged to defend them, not cop out.

With your cut-and-paste tactics, I can alternatively say evolution doesn't teach anything like "love thy neighbour as thy self" or such.

   Is that a criticism?

"Do your comments on drugs being the "wrong fuel" include caffeine, nicotine and alcohol?  Just curious."

When one gets to a level of dependance/addiction? Sure.

But with illegal drugs its any use at all?  Why so?

A-theism promoting a-morality after all.

You make a compelling argument.  They both do have the letter "A" at the start, so i guess they must be related.  Could there also be a link with Aphasia?

But you have little to fear as the fact that I have an abundance of knowledge on the subject, rather than being spoon-fed like some, makes me very confident in denying the beliefs. After so much debate you should have picked up on this as well.  

   What i see is a liking for verbal sparring combined with immature self-importance and little else.

This brought a smile to my face:

http://lti-blog.blogspot.com/2009/07/making-case-for-life-to-2nd-graders-at.html

Some things are just that easy to understand.

EB,

i think you need to define your criteria a little better.  It's fine, if a little redundant, to say that an embryo is alive, but rather embarassing when you then try to claim by comparison that a sperm isn't.  What you seem to be talking about is individuality, not the quality of being alive, so i'd advise you to argue on those grounds instead.

Living. Human. Being.

Is it a reading disorder? Do you have some illness that prevents you from comprehending three simple words? Do you see them as squiggles on the screen, or perhaps, as fire-breathing werewolves offering you a martini? Because seriously, I can't simplify it any further.

Which is begging the question (because you take it as read that an embryo is more than just "part of a living thing").  Obviously there are some significant differences between a sperm and a fertilized egg - genetic, functional and potentiality differences.  However you have rejected functionality as being any kind of guide to personhood, and have also rejected the potentiality argument (presumably because it differentiates between embryos and fully formed humans by judging the former on their odds of becoming the later).  That leaves you with genetics, which i personally find to be unconvincing as a criteria for personhood.

Only in so far as genetics plays a part of Being. There is no such thing as a Sperm Being. A fertilized egg is, however, a Being of the species that conceived it.

The distinction is egg and sperm may come from humans (or whatever animal produces them), but they are not beings. The zygote is as beings are created at conception.

Begging the question.

Scientific fact.

And yet you've now admitted that it is possible for humans to remain alive and therefore persons in your frame of reference after brain death.  That is more consistent with your stated beliefs, although i don't really expect you to act on the implications of it.  The point is that, up until i pressed you on this issue, you were insisting that the living body of a brain-dead human was "dead" by every definition, suggesting to me an unconscious affiliation to the idea that brain=mind (or soul, if you like) = person.

No you simply read into it what you wanted to see, as I have repeated x-amount of times it was the idea that personhood = living human being ergo dead = 'nonperson'.

Perhaps you missed it every other time i've reiterated my position on this subject.

Pot. Kettle.

Just in case, i'll do it again.  i am entirely certain that prior to the development of a brain there is no chance of anything resembling personhood residing in an embryo (up to 8-10 weeks).

As babies have brains and you've admitted not being 100% sure with them, it seems you've abandoned even this one constant.

i am therefore completely relaxed about permitting women to choose to have terminations during that time.  From 10 weeks to 24 weeks the brain is developing, but almost certainly cannot feel pain or have any awareness of itself, so again, i would allow abortions during this period, although i would prefer them to occur earlier.  After 24 weeks the foetus is viable and could theoretically be delivered and cared for outside the mothers body, should she wish to end the pregnancy, so i consider the issue of personhood moot.  Somewhere between 24 weeks gestation and roughly 1-2yrs of age personhood begins, in my view.  There's no way to identify exactly when, nor do i see any need to.  What is clear though, is that no abortions/terminations should be allowed between 24 weeks and term, because the state can take over from the mother if she refuses, something i believe she has the right to do (although i would not commend such a decision).  The exception to this would be in cases where the attainment of personhood is impossible, such as in anencephaly.

So what? All question begging to the significance of feeling pain or awareness (as you've shown to abandon these distinctions on a whim) aside, all this amounts to is "I". Who cares what you would or wouldn't do? You don't give any reasoning beyond your own subjective feelings, and when your own criteria allows for the killing of babies all you show is you are entirely inconistent and contradicting to your own reaonsing. Why should anyone listen to the mere opinions of someone who can't even keep his own rationale straight?

So, there you have my clear and non-arbitrary reasons for not killing babies.

Not really. Even though your reasons are indeed arbitrary, all you seem to allow is that one can kill babies so long as it's not in a painful manner (and who cares, one can say they cry all the time anyway), and since they have all the self-awareness of a rat one is still free to "terminate" due to your own arguement of not having the self-serving ability to place value on themselves (if we are to ignore that "stealing" is a crime against ownership, in which the value of a thing is irrelevant). So no, all you seem to give me is more of your whims than actual reasoning.

Sure, whereas you have God on your side.  Delusions of ideological grandeur aside, no one need listen to your opinion either EB, whether you dress it up as unarguable fact or not.

Whereas I have facts, logic, and solid reasoning on my side. Though it does seem you treat these in the same manner you do as God.

Injuries which remove the head are usually so catastrophic that there is no possibility of the body surviving them, even with the best medical care in the world.  However, if a person is brain-dead, their body sustained by machines, there is no theoretical reason why their head could not be removed in controlled circumstances without changing their status (which you have agreed may count as "alive").  Without the brain, the head is fairly pointless, so for you to fixate on it as being indicative of life whether or not the brain is functioning seems a little appendage-focused.

No, it's rather focused on the self-evident. But again there's that slippery grasp.

i see.  So violins have souls, according to you?

Music isn't just sound, according to me.

That is irrelevant to the analogy.  i am not primarily talking about the experience of hearing violin music, i am talking about violin music (which is non-physical in the sense that you can't see or touch it) as a product of a violin, as an analogy for the mind being a product of the brain.  The two relationships are almost identical, but we do not demand a supernatural explanation in the case of violin music.

No it's entirely relevant because it addresses the heart of the issue. If you want to claim that a thing reduces to the physical then the implications of experience demands an answer. And if all you want to do is see things in the realm of the physical it is an inconsistency for you to even acknoweldge 'music' exsists like the 'mind' exists. All you can say is 'brain' and 'sound'.

And I don't know why this conversation even goes on further when you beat up strawman about there being something "supernatural", as I've never advocated there was in the first place.

You're contrasting a widespread linguistic convention with a demonstrated cause-effect relationship.  That looks a little desperate.

No it looks like an arguement being defeated.

With which sophistry you could also deny that mass exerts a gravitational pull.  You are committing so much of your prodigious denial ability to this issue that i am starting to worry that soon you wont have enough left to remain a Creationist.

Yeah, because you using an example of a materialistic cause having a materialistic effect and thus contingency is tooootally the same as an issue of a materialistic cause having an immaterialistic effect and concluding it's contingency . 

Certain kinds of brain damage cause certain kinds of loss of mental function.  Reliably.  Certain kinds of drugs which act on the brain alter mental status.  Reliably (notice, we call them "mind-altering drugs" when in reality they are merely brain-altering).  Cause and effect.  Do you see?

Sure, in as much as physical things cause the effect of influencing the immaterial mind/soul. That's a long ways off from proving the mind is just the brain.

i have not said that the music doesn't exist, just that it is entirely contingent on the violin.  If you can only critique me by misrepresenting me then that says a lot about the weakness of your argument.

I know. According to your beliefs and arguements music doesn't exist, yet you know and acknowledge it does. That's where I get the conclusion you have an inconsistency with your beliefs and attitude. Try to keep up.

That's a slippery slope to saying that black people have inferior souls to white people!  Repent repent! [/typical EB hysteria]

As both are human and race only exists in the physical, the comparison doesn't even apply. If the soul/personhood is an inherent quality of Being than you have to keep it in the context of species, which I believe I've explicitly said when this whole line of conversation was getting started. Perhaps your reading disorder made you see werewolves at the time.

You are saying that the kind of soul you get is contingent on your physical form then?  Does the baby born without arms or legs lack the full soul of a human being too?  Be careful EB.

In as much as different species/beings will self-evidently have different physical forms ie if it looks like a cat, moves like a cat, has fur, tail, and eyes like a cat, licks itself like a cat, then it's a cat and thus has a "cat soul".

More like you've chosen to pretend that your specific usage of the phrase is the only correct one.  My usage - meaning that the individual parts produce something greater when combined than the added total of their separate outputs - is perfectly valid, notwithstanding your trademark patronizing sneer.

Your usage is nonsensical to the meaning of the words "more than", as your usage only reduces to being the "sum of their parts" as you can't get what is produced unless you add/combine them together by your own admittance. Otherwise to continue the car analogy, you think a car has some "greater value" if you remove the lesser part of the engine. That you want to play this mathematics game smells of desperation.

That's one interpretation, and not too far from the way i was using it.  Violin music goes beyond the physical, but is the product of a wholy physical thing.  The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

The way you are using it and from past arguements seems to indicate an attitude of there being nothing but the physical. One wonders where you even get 'personhood' from to argue with. And in truth violin music is the product of the immaterial being that concieved/wrote/composed it. The violin is just what produces the sound.

With your worldview, which looks at the immensity of the cosmos from the vantage point of a tiny world orbiting an insignificant star on the edge of an unremarkable galaxy, and says "It was all created for my benefit!", then i guess it couldn't be otherwise.  Take a slightly less egocentric view, and the idea of human souls being part of the natural order of the universe becomes absurd.

My, one wonders how one could defend the notion of having worth/value with such a view of the cosmos. Sadly you're beating up a strawman as I don't think all of creation was for mankind's benefit. All of creation was made to glorify God, including us. But again if you hold to such a view then you have to hold immaterial things like the mind or even numbers is an absurdity. You won't, but that's because you are indeed inconsistent.

Nope.  Repeatedly demonstrated and verified scientific fact, which you do not wish to admit to.

Pot. Kettle. Difference being all you have demonstrated is influence which doesn't prove your contention.

If you can't see the absurdity of this then i can't make you.  i guess i'll just go and wake my soul up properly by putting some caffeine into my bloodstream, and then me and my soul will go off to work.  After work i might give my soul a good time by ingesting some alcohol.  

Crass denial does not a rebuttal make. Unless you are about to tell me a person doesn't get drunk when drinking alcohol, in which I highly doubt I'm the one beign absurd with this.

This "Evolution is eeeevil" thing is intensely tedious.  Evolution advocates no particular behaviour, despite your religiously prejudiced rantings to the contrary (Christian scriptures, by amusing contrast, advocate a whole range of very unpleasant behaviours).  It is only because you cling to the idea that humans are chosen by God that you find the idea of humbler origins so offensive.  In short, your objections spring from your ego rather than from any rational process, so i see no need to engage with them.

Evolution does indeed advocate a particular behavior or at minimum puts some kinds in favor of others (survival being the end goal and all). It is only your closed-minded prejudiced adherence to the said belief that you continue in this state of denial to avoid thinking you advocate something that leads to behavior and acts you recognize are indeed evil. Your objections spring from pride rather than any rationale process so I see no reason not to advocate evolution as a major justification and rationale for such crimes like the Holocaust.

Children have long been recognised as being sophisticated analysts of the difference between truth and falsity.  That's why all around the world they almost invariably grow up believing in the same religion as their parents.  i guess that means that all religions must be true.  You're also not doing your argument any favours by showing its popularity with 2nd Graders.

I'm doing a favor by showing this issue isn't as complex as you seem to want to make it if even 2nd Graders can comprehend it and make well thought out conclusions. Do you really want to be less than a 2nd Grader?