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Originally Posted by 9th Engineer
This was actually never intended to be an abortion debate. It's exactly what the title says, 'when does a human become human'. Once we had discussed that for a while it would probably turn to stem cells.
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Are we confusing the issue - as if human were somehow something special. Human - a bag of water, some lumps of DNA, and clumps of mineral deposits - is the physical being. When is life called life? A completely different question from the humanity question. After all, some creatures only differ significantly from others due to higher intelligence. They are all biological matter. They all have life in various degrees. There is no magic criteria for life; no digital threshold. In occurs in various degrees from viruses to other higher forms.
We routinely kill zygotes, stem cells and other human cells. They are all human life - which religious extremists must deny to impose their beliefs on all others. The emotional want to impose their emotions on all others in the name of their religion. Religious concepts have no place in a logical discussion. Religious concepts are and should never be more than a relationship between you and your god. [big period] No religion or religious teachings should appear in this discussion. This discussion is about life - not religion nor personal biases.
As even the pagan gods intended, we are expected to make life and death decisions every day. The only thing that differentiates humans is higher cognizance levels. We make life and death decisions every day as we kill off our own tissues - even bleed - even kill other life forms such as bacteria. Even blood is human life. Zygote is life. Stem cells are biological life. And we make those life and death decisions daily - not some ficticious god.
Meanwhile that is completely different from cognizant existence. But again, not one religious bias or extremist rhetoric belongs in this thread. Intelligent life is considered superior to other life forms - a basis upon which some life forms murder or preserve life. Don't kill that insect! You will go to hell! Or instead we use logic and drive those silly religious beliefs from this discussion.
Biological life exists in so many forms. And then some lives have more right to live than others. We humans routinely murder life every day - as is required to survive and is defined by the real god - sometimes called nature. Get over and ignore those silly religious concepts as if a zygote was any more special than some other stem cell. It's a cell - nothing more. And like all other living cells, it has a unique purpose. Nothing more. Religious extremists don't like blunt logic which is why religious reasoning has no acceptable purpose in this thread.
Are you alive? Fine. That was nature as others routinely determine; who lives and who dies. Using contraception? Then you are killing life that god intended - if using pervert logic that some religions mislabel as facts. And yet that too has no relevance to the question of what is life.
The question posed is about reality - not about your relationship with your god. There is no digital threshold that defines life. Mankind even created life by mixing a soup of proteins and electrically sparking them. Where is god in all this? He does not exist. The experiment simply created another type of life. Nothing special. Just a lifeform with less intelligence. And still we chose which and when life will be murdered or survives. We start this decision by throwing away all religious biases and other similar emotions.