Kevin's Watch

Avatar wrote:IIRC, the original doctrine was indeed that any unbaptised child would not be allowed in heaven, but that this has been changed. (Hopefully someone can confirm or correct?)

The Catholic church I go to doesn't teach that anymore, and I believe that the Church in general has backed off that.

Yeah, that's pretty much my understanding. Although, that raises an interesting question in itself:

Was it changed because people "realised" that they'd misinterpreted god's law? Or because people couldn't reconcile the idea of a just, merciful and compassionate god denying unbaptised babies entrance into heaven?

--A

presumably they "realised" they'd misinterpreted it when they started to lose a lot of believers because they couldn't reconcile the idea of a just, merciful and compassionate god denying unbaptised babies entrance into heaven.

I don't see why they'd have a reason to change anything unless they were looking for a reason to change it.

I'd say that's probably pretty close to the truth.

Cail must know some pretty wacky Catholics...

Plissken wrote:Cail must know some pretty wacky Catholics...

Well, you know what you always find when you find four Catholics together?
....a fifth.

Thanks folks, I'm here all week, try the veal.....

>rimshot<

ur-bane wrote:

Plissken wrote: It would be nice for me, at least as a mental exercise, if Pro Life Christians began insisting that only the sanctum of a mother's womb allows the soul to enter, but I doubt that this will happen.

Could you expand on this? Are you saying that the true issue with Christians is the "soul" and not "life"? And that perhaps they are misrepresenting the true cause of their worry?

I don't think they misrepresent - I think that, for them (Cail and those like him excepted, possibly), Soul/Life are interconnected to the point that protecting one protects the other.

I also think that both the Pro Life stance on both the Schiavo case and protecting collections of cells less complex than many tumors is pretty indicative of this argument.

Sentience, Intelligence, Self Awareness, the Ability to Choose or Act - these are the things that define humanity. None of these things are/were present in either zygotes or Terry, but the Pro Life movement rallys to "protect" them. On the other hand, they don't claim to be advocates for all life, including the fungi (whose cells are more defined, and arguably more complex that fetal stem-cells), on the basis that such life isn't "human".

So in the absense any of the traits (or organs, in the case of stem-cells) that usually define us as human, and therefore worthy of their protection, what trait is it that Pro Life proponents claim imbues these cell collections with "humanity"?

I propose that most of the Pro Life camp would say it has to be the soul.

It should be noted that Cail has implied several times that his answer has more to do with the potential of each zygote, and the expectations of those around it that are worth protecting. I think that this is both a more honest and more accurate answer than anything to do with souls, but I also think that he is in the minority.

(As for the actual content of my above quote, it was more of a little joke than anything else.)

One of my friends and his wife lost their second son about this time last year. The had their first child with no problems, but then couldn't get another one started...They had undergone round after round of fertility treatments, lost every one of those babies quite early in the pregnancy, each time with great heartbreak, and were overjoyed when finally one of the pregnancies seemed to be working out. Horribly, at a full eight months of pregnancy, the baby stopped moving. My friend left work and rushed his wife to the nearest hospital to their home, but it was already too late. The baby was gone.

The baby was given a name, and a full funeral in their Catholic Church. The priest and people in the church were kindness itself to my friend and his wife, and everyone assurred them that their son was indeed, in heaven.

I'm not sure if you could call this a still birth, given how far along the baby was, or a very late miscarriage (though he was delivered with a C-section) -- but either way, the Church said the baby was in heaven.

That is absolutely heartbreaking Duchy.

It's stories like that that and my friend's that have pushed me to say "no thanks" to in vitro fertilization. Take the whole "playing God" argument out of the picture, and it seems relatively clear that the technology just isn't there yet.

As I've discussed before, I'm as OK as I can be with abortion in the case of rape, because rape is hardly consentual sex. I would have no problem with the stem cells from those aborted babies being used for stem-cell research.

See, but those types of fetal stem-cells are just about obsolete anyway. The next wave of fetal stem-cell work will be done with "cultured" stem-cells. In other words, the egg is fertilized in a similar method to the process used for invitro fertilization, and then the stem cells are grown in a culture.

The whole point is get stem-cells that haven't "decided" to become an organ or something already.

So you fertilise an egg to get stem-cells only? I can foresee this getting very "philosophically messy."

Thing is, as (Plissken?) mentioned earlier, who would refuse to use it to save somebody in their families life?

Interesting, SA has just started a "cell-bank", and what you do is register yourslef while pregnant, then as the baby is born, a tech squeezes the blood from the cut umbilical into a sterile container, and it get's frozen by some technique that prevents cell-rupture, and stored for the entire life of the baby.

There are already 40 diseases/whatever that can be treated by the cells obtained in this way, and if you're related to the baby, there's a 1 in 4 chance that you'll be enough of a match to be treated by those cells yourself. Of course, as Plissken says, the real first prize is going to be from those "undifferentiated" cells.

But hell, we should take what we can get at the moment, right? I'm sure even the most stringent pro-life (aarg) supporter can't have a problem with the process I mentioned.

--A

Cells that can divide, and specify according to what's needed, but come from the excess tissue from birth instead of from a fertilised egg. Hmmm...

"Philosophically messy" indeed!

This may not be the best place to say this, but here goes....


Plissken - I though you were dead. And a bit taller.

I get that alot!

(Welcome to the Close.)

Plissken wrote:I get that alot!

(Welcome to the Close.)

The dead bit, or the taller bit? Or both?

I just happened to find a copy of Escape from LA the other night for a low price, so I had to pick it up. I forgot how good it was.

Interesting, SA has just started a "cell-bank", and what you do is register yourslef while pregnant, then as the baby is born, a tech squeezes the blood from the cut umbilical into a sterile container, and it get's frozen by some technique that prevents cell-rupture, and stored for the entire life of the baby.

Mothers have the option in the US, too, but it costs 1500-2000 dollars and isn't covered by insurance. Now what does that tell you? Sounds to me that someone out there that stands to profit from illness wants this to be at least relatively unaffordable to the average person. Imagine if we actually started curing diseases like cancer and so forth...where would that leave all of the drug companies, large health care corporations, etc? I think there is more of a motive to the ban on stem cell research in the US than meets the eye....

Plissken wrote:So in the absense any of the traits (or organs, in the case of stem-cells) that usually define us as human, and therefore worthy of their protection, what trait is it that Pro Life proponents claim imbues these cell collections with "humanity"?

For me, it is the potential of humanity. As I've said, nothing in the universe becomes a human other than this particular kind of collection of cells. Since humans are top on my list of things to love and protect, zygotes are pretty special also.

Plissken wrote:I propose that most of the Pro Life camp would say it has to be the soul.

I suspect you're right. Which is odd, since I imagine they also say the soul is indestructible.

Plissken wrote:It should be noted that Cail has implied several times that his answer has more to do with the potential of each zygote, and the expectations of those around it that are worth protecting. I think that this is both a more honest and more accurate answer than anything to do with souls, but I also think that he is in the minority.

Well I'm on his side of this one. We don't seem to have a lot of common ground, but when Cail and Fist & Faith team up, the very earth trembles!

It's a Haruchai thing.


*cough*

Fist and Faith wrote:Well I'm on his side of this one. We don't seem to have a lot of common ground, but when Cail and Fist & Faith team up, the very earth trembles!

It's a Haruchai thing.

heh.....I can't remember the last time we agreed on something.

As I've said before, I don't have all the answers, so I'd rather err on the side of life. I don't think that's a bad philosophy.

This looks promising:

Researchers report potential stem cell breakthrough