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Life Begins at Conception

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angellous_evangellous

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Hey sky don't bother reading up on kertreption 'cause I'm just making it up as I go along.

Therefore, I'm right.
 
9-10ths_Penguin

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
smokydot said:
I will simply change the qualifier of the human zygote to 45-47 chromosomes to include all human possibilities and to distinguish it from the gametes.
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Do you really base the worth of a human being on its number of chromosomes?

Hypothetical scenario: an alien lands on Earth. He lives, breathes, walks, talks, thinks, and feels. He's like a human being in every measurable way that matters. There's only one difference: he has no chromosomes. Apparently, life evolved on his planet with some other mechanism instead of DNA.

Would you consider this alien's life to be worthless?


BTW - a tumour also normally has 46 chromosomes, and is genetically distinct from the person it inhabits. Is a tumour a person in its own right?

IMO, using number of chromosomes as some sort of measure of the worth of a human being is bass-ackward. It seems to me that you've decided ahead of time that an embryo/fetus is a person, and then looked from something that's common to embryos, fetuses, children and fully mature humans. The only problem is that you didn't bother to consider whether the thing you found has anything at all to do with the actual worth of a person.

IMO, the only logically consistent argument for "personhood" beginning at the moment of conception is based on the idea that this is the point at which "ensoulment" occurs. The problem with this, though, is that it can be dismissed by anyone who doesn't agree with the "ensoulment" premise (not to mention the question of whether souls exist at all).
 
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angellous_evangellous

Guest
smokydot said:
That's a crappy approach to religious education. . .

(Website: Religious Education Forum).
Click to expand...

... if you have a guide, you will make it out ...

As my prof says, "good things happen in Purgatory."
 
S

smokydot

Well-Known Member
angellous_evangellous said:
There are a number of other chromosomal abmormalities in humans that result from additions or deletions to the usual 46.

Chromosome abnormality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

One thing about sky's fantasy world: it's clean. First there weren't any births outside of the womb. Then the zygote died when it split, instead of forming twins. Now a human being only has 46 chromosomes.
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Misrepresentations of my statements:

1) Nowhere did I say there were no births outside the womb.
Nor do births outside the womb affect my argument for human life beginning at conception.

2) The haploid zygote does not split. If it did, the zygote would cease to exist, it would be something else, if it survived the split.
Only the diploid zygote can split.
Zygotes do not form twins, blastocysts form twins.
Changing the number of chromosomes to 45-47 does does not invalidate the qualifier which distinguishes human life (zygote) from the precursor of human life (gametes).

Is there an issue for you if human life begins at conception?
I have no issue if human life does not begin at conception.
What is, is.
I am simply showing what is.
If it is not, then show that it is not.
Talk is cheap. . .put your money (demonstration) where your mouth is.

And why should biology be excluded from the issue of human life beginning at conception?
 
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angellous_evangellous

Guest
smokydot said:
Right. . .thanks.

"Human gametes, though alive, are not human life, but a precursor of human life."

That's why I included the qualifiers for the human gametes--i.e., "incapable of sustaining life for more than a few days"--to distinguish living gametes from the living zygote which continues to live and develop into a specific mature human being.

Like human gametes, human non-reproductive skin cells are also alive, but no one mistakes them for the human itself.
And like human gametes, human skin cells are incapable of sustaining life for a long period, and also die.

There is human non-reproductive cellular "life" without the six essential characteristics of life and therefore, it is not human life;
and there is human reproductive cellular "life" without the 46 chromosomes necessary for human life and therefore, it is not human life, but is a precursor of human life;
and there is the human zygote with 46 chromosomes and all the essential charcterisitcs of life and therefore, it is human life.
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Would you like to clarify this little statement before it's destroyed by basic biological insight? Just in the interest of avoiding "misrepresentation."
 
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angellous_evangellous

Guest
smokydot said:
smokydot: If the zygote splits, it dies.



The zygote (union of sperm and ovum) does not split.

It doubles itself (no longer just a union of sperm and ovum) before cleavage into the blastomere.

If the zygote (union of sperm and ovum) splits, it dies.
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hmmmm
 
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angellous_evangellous

Guest
smokydot said:
No, a seed is life, of the nature of that which produced it, but in a different form. In the right conditions (planted), it will change forms as it develops into a plant of the same nature as the seed.
In adverse conditions, the seed will die, preventing its life from changing forms and developing into the body of a plant.
Human seed (fertilized egg) is life, of the nature of that which produced it. In the right conditions (the womb), it will change forms as it develops into the body of a human, which is the nature of the seed.
In adverse conditions, the human seed will die, preventing its life from changing forms and developing into the body of a human.
In human seed, it is human life that is extinguished when the seed dies.
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hmmm.... misrepresentation?!

I suspect that it's hard to remember what you've said when you're just making stuff up.

[I then showed several examples of births outside of the womb]
 
A

angellous_evangellous

Guest
smokydot said:
There is human non-reproductive cellular "life" without the six essential characteristics of life and therefore, it is not human life;
and there is human reproductive cellular "life" without the 46 chromosomes necessary for human life and therefore, it is not human life, but is a precursor of human life;
and there is the human zygote with 46 chromosomes and all the essential charcterisitcs of life and therefore, it is human life.
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This is my favorite peice of rat-poo that I would like clarified. (I asked repeatedly for clarification on the death of the zygote with no clarification)

So there are reproductive cells that are not human life because they lack the six characteristics of life? I don't really know where to go with this nonsense. How are we to characterize this make-believe material?
 
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angellous_evangellous

Guest
smokydot said:
Thanks.

I am defining human life as 46 chromosomes to distinguish it from the mere cellular life of the gametes, which possess neither 46 chromosomes nor the six essential characteristics of life, but whom cell biologists regard as life.
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Which are lacking?

[I can't help but point out the SEVEN characteristics of life, and call biologists regard gametes as 'life' because they don't need to exhibit all seven characteristics to be considered 'alive'.]

note: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life#Biology
 
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9-10ths_Penguin

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
angellous_evangellous said:
Which are lacking?

[I can't help but point out the SEVEN characteristics of life, and call biologists regard gametes as 'life' because they don't need to exhibit all seven characteristics to be considered 'alive'.]

note: Life - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Click to expand...
I can't help but notice that of those seven characteristics, while every person I know posesses all of them, none of them are the basis for the value I place on the life of a person.
 
A

angellous_evangellous

Guest
smokydot said:
Then refute my argument on human life beginning at conception.
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There's still nothing to refute.

You can't just make stuff up about biology, merge that with something else you made up about seeds, and then expect an intelligent response.

The first thing that we can do is correct the MANY biological problems that you have, dismiss completely the idiotic seeds crap, and then maybe talk about what really is the issue: the theological / philosophical concept of life. Conception begins before all of these latter processes that you don't understand, and it's best to understand conception as the initial union of sperm and egg. Then you just need to adobt a supersticious notion that somehow this union constitutes a human being worthy of human dignity, most notably the right to live.

Your supersticion is located on your delusion concerning seeds, and you had to go through quite elaborate reworkings of human biology to force that false analogy to stick.
 
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angellous_evangellous

Guest
9-10ths_Penguin said:
I can't help but notice that of those seven characteristics, while every person I know posesses all of them, none of them are the basis for the value I place on the life of a person.
Click to expand...

It's better used to determine if something is alive or not, ie where there is no question that something is alive.

The value of a person is a philosophical question and not a biological one.
 
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