Abortion debate thread

Fanny Cradock · 26-11-2012 02:18PM

Siuin wrote: »

Wow, you actually managed to bring the Holocaust into this? And also manage to get the wrong decade... very intelligent.

You are aware that the Nazi propaganda that sought to dehumanise certain groups of people - Jews, Gypsies, mentally challenged (or whatever the correct term is) etc. - began before the 40's?

Siuin · 26-11-2012 02:19PM

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

The primary entry for בֵּן in Strongs Hebrew concordance is son, grandson, child, member of a group.

Grandson is נכד, child is ילד and member of a group depends on the context.

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

could you please provide some information to back up the claim that the Jews considered a "son" in the womb to be a non-person? That is your claim, right?

I provided it 2 posts ago. A fetus in the womb will be considered the woman's son simply by her biological ownership over it. However, according to Judaism this fetus is still part of her body and not a person in its own right.

PDN wrote: »

You aren't aware of how Nazi propaganda in the 1930s paved the way for the 'Final Solution'?

Making digs about other people's intelligence (particularly when they are factually correct) doesn't actually strengthen your case.

You think that was confined to the 1930s? Wow, ignorance...

PDN · 26-11-2012 02:22PM

Siuin wrote: »

You think that was confined to the 1930s? Wow, ignorance...

I never mentioned it being confined to the 1930s, did I?

Your inability to follow the English language, or perhaps your determination to twist it, doesn't inspire confidence when you claim to possess the only true interpretation of a Hebrew word.

Siuin · 26-11-2012 02:27PM

PDN wrote: »

I never mentioned it being confined to the 1930s, did I?

Your inability to follow the English language, or perhaps your determination to twist it, doesn't inspire confidence when you claim to possess the only true interpretation of a Hebrew word.

Then why speak specifically of the 1930s at all? Or bring the Holocaust into the debate? Pathetic attempt to change the subject when your claims have obviously fallen flat on their face.

There's no one 'true' interpretation, but your translation of Hebrew out of context in order to justify the notion that a fetus is an individual person conflicts with the general 'old testament' view on the definion of personhood.

PDN · 26-11-2012 02:35PM

Siuin wrote: »

Then why speak specifically of the 1930s at all?

Because the 1930s saw a period of sustained propaganda to present the Jews as less than human. Jews were regularly portrayed in cartoons as spiders or pigs.

The same process preceded the Rwandan Genocide - Tutsi's were denounced on radio as 'cockroaches'.

The 1930s was the the time when all right thinking Germans should have protested against the de-humanisation of Jews in the media. By the 1940s it was too late - the damage was already done and the ground prepared.

And the reason I refer to it is because I never want to share the guilt of those Germans who kept silent. So when people run an agenda to de-humanise the unborn children I will speak up for those who can't speak up for themselves.

Fanny Cradock · 26-11-2012 02:35PM

Siuin wrote: »

Grandson is נכד, child is ילד and member of a group depends on the context.

Yes, I'm sure that the Jews had many words for son. So are you saying that Strong's Concordance is incorrect?

Siuin wrote: »

I provided it 2 posts ago. A fetus in the womb will be considered the woman's son simply by her biological ownership over it. However, according to Judaism this fetus is still part of her body and not a person in its own right.

Thanks

Siuin · 26-11-2012 02:44PM

PDN wrote: »

Because the 1930s saw a period of sustained propaganda to present the Jews as less than human. Jews were regularly portrayed in cartoons as spiders or pigs.

The 1930s was the the time when all right thinking Germans should have protested against the de-humanisation of Jews in the media. By the 1940s it was too late - the damage was already done and the ground prepared.

And the reason I refer to it is because I never want to share the guilt of those Germans who kept silent. So when people run an agenda to de-humanise the unborn children I will speak up for those who can't speak up for themselves.

There has been a sustained campaign of propaganda presenting the Jews as not being human for a very, very long time- long before Nazism. A great deal of it has come directly from the Christian church. I find your views in comparing fetuses to Jews bizarre and disturbing, but whatever floats your boat...

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Yes, I'm sure that the Jews had many words for son. So are you saying that Strong's Concordance is incorrect

No, just one word for son. בן (ben).
I'm saying that Strong Concordance doesn't reflect the reality of the translation.

Fanny Cradock · 26-11-2012 02:55PM

By "reality of the translation" I assume you mean the context of the original documents?

Siuin · 26-11-2012 03:04PM

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

By "reality of the translation" I assume you mean the context of the original documents?

Yes, the context. While there is some leeway for other interpretations, I think most people underestimate how limited the Hebrew language really is in terms of vocabulary.

Fanny Cradock · 26-11-2012 03:14PM

Siuin wrote: »

Yes, the context. While there is some leeway for other interpretations, I think most people underestimate how limited the Hebrew language really is in terms of vocabulary.

So we appear to be edging towards the one true interpretation, no?

Incidentally, I don't see why you deny that there can not be a true interpretation. Assuming we grant that the author(s) had a specific message to convey then that surely is the one true interpretation.

Siuin · 26-11-2012 03:20PM

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

So we appear to be edging towards the one true interpretation, no?

Incidentally, I don't see why you deny that there can not be a true interpretation. Assuming we grant that the author(s) had a specific message to convey then that surely is the one true interpretation.

There's rarely any one way of interpreting a text, particularly religious texts which were written thousands of years ago in an ancient language. We can't read the mind of its authors, we can only speculate on what they may have been trying to convey.

PDN · 26-11-2012 03:24PM

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

So we appear to be edging towards the one true interpretation, no?

Incidentally, I don't see why you deny that there can not be a true interpretation. Assuming we grant that the author(s) had a specific message to convey then that surely is the one true interpretation.

Let's edge a bit more.

The same word for 'children' is used in the following verses:

"He settles the childless woman in her home as a happy mother of children." (Psalm 113:9)

"The children gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough and make cakes to offer to the Queen of Heaven. They pour out drink offerings to other gods to arouse my anger." (Jeremiah 7:18)

Given how limited Hebrew vocabulary is, I look forward to the explanation of why these verses refer to non-persons, rather than simply acknowledging that we have a word here which means 'children'.

(Of course, this being the Christianity Forum, we're studiously ignoring the fact that the New Testament clearly refers to John the Baptist as a 'baby' while he was a foetus in his sixth month of development).

Fanny Cradock · 26-11-2012 03:27PM

Minor correction in my last post to avoid confusion. Should have read as follows:

I don't see why you deny that there can not be a true interpretation

Siuin · 26-11-2012 03:36PM

PDN wrote: »

Let's edge a bit more.

The same word for 'children' is used in the following verses:

"He settles the childless woman in her home as a happy mother of children." (Psalm 113:9)

"The children gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough and make cakes to offer to the Queen of Heaven. They pour out drink offerings to other gods to arouse my anger." (Jeremiah 7:18)

Both refer to sons

PDN wrote: »

(Of course, this being the Christianity Forum, we're studiously ignoring the fact that the New Testament clearly refers to John the Baptist as a 'baby' while he was a foetus in his sixth month of development).

I don't deal with the new testament because I don't believe that it has any religious credability.

PDN · 26-11-2012 03:44PM

Siuin wrote: »

Both refer to sons

ah, sons aren't children then. Ok.

I don't deal with the new testament because I don't believe that it has any religious credability.

And yet you were able to make the sweeping claim that "According to religious doctrine (or common sense) a fetus can never be described as being a 'child'."

So - just to clarify - when you made that claim, you were referring solely to non-christian religious doctrine (in the Christianity Forum)?

jasonmcco · 26-11-2012 04:11PM

ehcocmeo wrote: »

Just wanted to share this story with you all.

The other Thread I started seems to have gotten off the rails.

This thread is to share our Pro-life experiences and to stand up for Ireland being rail roaded into legislation we don't need.

Did you notice Sharon said she thought it had something to do with her abortion, think it's her guilt which has her thinking like this.

No evidence to suggest abortions harm the reproductive process.

Anyway expert group has said we must legislate for abortion so the anti choice lobby has lost and that is a victory for humanists everywhere.

georgieporgy · 26-11-2012 05:17PM

Thank God for experts! :pac:

Siuin · 26-11-2012 05:22PM

PDN wrote: »

ah, sons aren't children then. Ok.

Already explained this point on several occasions. If you can't understand by now, you never will

PDN wrote: »

So - just to clarify - when you made that claim, you were referring solely to non-christian religious doctrine (in the Christianity Forum)?

As much as you obviously loathe to admit it, Christian doctine is extremely heavily based on Judaism. You can either gain insight from the foundation of the Abrahamic faiths, or you can choose to discard it and try to convince yourself that Christianity is some kind of aberration. If you choose the latter, then that's your loss, not ours

PDN · 26-11-2012 05:43PM

Siuin wrote: »

As much as you obviously loathe to admit it, Christian doctine is extremely heavily based on Judaism. You can either gain insight from the foundation of the Abrahamic faiths, or you can choose to discard it and try to convince yourself that Christianity is some kind of aberration. If you choose the latter, then that's your loss, not ours

You just totally ignored my question, so I'll ask it again.

You made the sweeping claim that "According to religious doctrine (or common sense) a fetus can never be described as being a 'child'."

So - just to clarify - when you made that claim, you were referring solely to non-christian religious doctrine (in the Christianity Forum)?

Fanny Cradock · 26-11-2012 05:47PM

Siuin wrote: »

As much as you obviously loathe to admit it, Christian doctine is extremely heavily based on Judaism. You can either gain insight from the foundation of the Abrahamic faiths, or you can choose to discard it and try to convince yourself that Christianity is some kind of aberration. If you choose the latter, then that's your loss, not ours

I think that is very uncharitable of you.

I would like to think that any Christian who has a basic grasp of biblical history would be informed enough to realise that their faith was born out of Judaism, and that just about anyone of note in the NT was Jewish. This, of course, includes Jesus. The Old Testament is every bit as much Scripture as the new.

In short, an understanding of Judaism is essential to understanding what Jesus was all about. Scholars like Tom Wright and Richard Bauckham are very keen to tell anyone listening to them that a deeper understanding of Christianity involves having some sort of knowledge of Judaism.

Tim Robbins · 26-11-2012 06:14PM

Zombrex wrote: »

We don't need to get into philosophical notions about determinism. There is nothing that happens at fertilization that changes the DNA. We can tell after fertilization what the child's DNA is like, and if we had better medical devices we could tell what the child's DNA is going to be like before fertilization. There is no process going on during fertilization that is comparable to the random selection of genes during the formation of the gametes themselves.

The selection of genes may not be random. There could be something bio - chemical going on that make it deterministic but we just don't have enough information yet to realise it is determinism.

Its like an author writing half a book, and then writing the other half of a book, and then coming to the publisher and giving them the whole book. It is at this point the publisher knows what the whole book is, but there is nothing in going to the publisher that produces anything new, and if the publisher had gone over to the authors house and read the first half, and then the second half, they would know the whole story anyway.

No that's wrong. The consequences of the DNA in the sperm or egg can be different depending on the "other half".

So I might have a gene for brown in my sperm.
It meets an egg with a gene for brown eyes.

Baby has brown eyes.

However, if it meets a egg with a gene for blue eyes it may not be brown eyes.

Siuin · 26-11-2012 06:16PM

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

I think that is very uncharitable of you.

I would like to think that any Christian who has a basic grasp of biblical history would be informed enough to realise that their faith was born out of Judaism, and that just about anyone of note in the NT was Jewish. This, of course, includes Jesus. The Old Testament is every bit as much Scripture as the new.

In short, an understanding of Judaism is essential to understanding what Jesus was all about. Scholars like Tom Wright and Richard Bauckham are very keen to tell anyone listening to them that a deeper understanding of Christianity involves having some sort of knowledge of Judaism.

I fully agree that an understanding of Judaism is essential to understanding Christianity. However, PDN continually dismisses what I am saying because it is 'based on non-Christian doctrine' and emphasises that this is a Christian forum that I should apparently be making up my own Jewish forum if I am to state my views.
Perhaps you should read previous posts before you decide who is being 'uncharitable' here.

doctoremma · 26-11-2012 06:28PM

Tim, your ninja-edit makes it clear what distinction you're making. The genome of the child is physical information. Nothing changes with this physical information when the two "half genomes" are brought together at conception.

What we don't understand at the moment, although in theory it should be possible one day to do so, it the full set of rules for interactions between the two halves. So we might know if you add a brown-eyed gene to a blue-eyed gene, you (mostly) get a brown-eyed baby. But we don't have the predictive power for more complex traits, mostly because thay involve multiple genes and, quite often, because such things aren't always determined entirely by genetics.

Tim Robbins · 26-11-2012 06:35PM

doctoremma wrote: »

Tim, your ninja-edit makes it clear what distinction you're making. The genome of the child is physical information. Nothing changes with this physical information when the two "half genomes" are brought together at conception.

Correct.

What we don't understand at the moment, although in theory it should be possible one day to do so, it the full set of rules for interactions between the two halves. So we might know if you add a brown-eyed gene to a blue-eyed gene, you (mostly) get a brown-eyed baby. But we don't have the predictive power for more complex traits, mostly because thay involve multiple genes and, quite often, because such things aren't always determined entirely by genetics.

Yes I know that. That's what I said. I don't think I agree with you choice of words "quite often". But I expect there to be some major break throughs in this area in the next 10 years. Why? Because of the break throughs in parallel processing in data analytics. The same approaches google use to search in the web in split second can now be used to search genomes.

doctoremma · 26-11-2012 06:40PM

Tim Robbins wrote: »

Note in the DNA code. But the cells that are made obviously change.

OK. Again, I would be interested to get a recap from you as to where you're headed. I've lost the thread.

Tim Robbins wrote: »

Yes I know that. That's what I said.

Indeed, but I'm trying to understand why you said it. Was it not to differentiate simple from complex rules? Was it to define "information" as "output" rather than "physical code"?

A side note: I'm not sure why you are (apparently) taking exception to my posts. Of course, regarding the discussion, you can take exception as you please and that can be discussed. But I'm feeling a little aggression from you and perplexed as to why?

Tim Robbins wrote: »

I don't think I agree with you choice of words "quite often"

OK. Do you have some traits (or categories thereof) in mind that prompt ^^^?

doctoremma · 26-11-2012 06:52PM

Tim Robbins wrote: »

But I expect there to be some major break throughs in this area in the next 10 years. Why? Because of the break throughs in parallel processing in data analytics. The same approaches google use to search in the web in split second can now be used to search genomes.

Of course, technology is moving quickly. I'm not clear what you've said there ^^^ but we use massive parallel sequencing in my unit - is that what you are referring to?

However, while I can map an entire genome in a few days, I still have to work out what that information means. Having all this information isn't really the Holy Grail we were looking for. Yes, it's quick. Yes, it's easy. But we still don't know how to interpret half of what we see. There are times when it's very clear and times when it isn't. The "rules of interaction" still need to be defined.

Fanny Cradock · 26-11-2012 07:12PM

Siuin wrote: »

I fully agree that an understanding of Judaism is essential to understanding Christianity. However, PDN continually dismisses what I am saying because it is 'based on non-Christian doctrine' and emphasises that this is a Christian forum that I should apparently be making up my own Jewish forum if I am to state my views.
Perhaps you should read previous posts before you decide who is being 'uncharitable' here.

I'm not sure that PDN is dismissing you because you are bringing non-Christian doctrine into the discussion. But that is for a discussion between yourselves.

Perhaps I was not clear, but it seemed to me that the uncharitable portion of your post centred around the accusation that PDN would be loathe to admit that Christianity came out from Judaism. I'll assume that this was just a forceful counter to PDN's remarks rather than a veiled accusation of bigotry.

Siuin · 26-11-2012 07:25PM

PDN wrote: »

So - just to clarify - when you made that claim, you were referring solely to non-christian religious doctrine (in the Christianity Forum)?

PDN wrote: »

(Of course, this being the Christianity Forum, we're studiously ignoring the fact that the New Testament clearly refers to John the Baptist as a 'baby' while he was a foetus in his sixth month of development).

PDN wrote: »

Jews don't exclusively own the book of Genesis. Nor can they dictate to others how they interpret it.

If you want to lobby boards.ie for a Jewish Forum then please feel free to do so - but evading what Genesis says and then saying, "I'm allowed to do so if I'm Jewish" won't cut any ice round here.

PDN wrote: »

Turning around and saying, "Ah, but I'm a Jew and as Jews we don't interpret that verse to mean what it actuially says" has zero relevance for Christians. We believe that the Old Testament Scriptures were given by God through the Jewish people as a preparation for the coming of Christ. But as for some interpretation that has been developed by a rabbi or a school within Judaism at some point since the coming of Christ, that really has very little to say about how Christians understand the Word of God.

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

I'm not sure that PDN is dismissing you because you are bringing non-Christian doctrine into the discussion. But that is for a discussion between yourselves.

Perhaps I was not clear, but it seemed to me that the uncharitable portion of your post centred around the accusation that PDN would be loathe to admit that Christianity came out from Judaism. I'll assume that this was just a forceful counter to PDN's remarks rather than a veiled accusation of bigotry.

Fanny, I highly recommend that you read over past posts by PDN because attempting to blame me for anything. It's very clear from the above posts that PDN is indeed dismissing many of my points purely because they are 'non-Christian doctrine'.
As for bigotry- I'll let any intelligent person reading his posts figure that one out for themselves...

JimiTime · 26-11-2012 08:24PM

Siuin wrote: »

As for bigotry- I'll let any intelligent person reading his posts figure that one out for themselves...

It is truly despicable that you so whimsically throw such disgusting and abhorrent accusations about.

Siuin · 26-11-2012 08:27PM

JimiTime wrote: »

It is truly despicable that you so whimsically throw such disgusting and abhorrent accusations about.

I didn't accuse anyone of anything - I pointedly let it up to the reader to make an informed decision.

Abortion debate thread

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