Posts by Sam F
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look at your writing, accept the comment. You come across as a man wildly in love with the national party so don't be surprised to hear that as a criticism.
grow up.
I may be a voice in the wilderness here, but Craig's comments don't come across that way on my end. In fact, we're lucky he's still contributing here, given the number of people who've tried to paint him with the same brush as the average uninformed Kiwiblog troglodyte.
How accepting would you be of the 'cheering the team' comment directed at yourself?
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If all politics is theatre, then non-binding citizen-initiated referenda are mimes -- sublimely pointless and stupid
Nice!
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That is, remin__d__ing.
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I'll continue the aside - I loved the story too. But you knew that.
Despite, or perhaps even because of, its remining me of this...
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And though it might breach multiple UN conventions, we cap it off with the Kiwibank Mini roaring through the street of Harrare with Michael Laws' greatest shits cranked up to 11. If that doesn't make Mugabe drop dead nothing will.
This is where I lol'd.
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Why is it so very satisfying to imagine Michael Laws as David Schwimmer in this particular Band of Brothers?
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Given that personhood is an abstract concept, not something that can be measured or tested for then it is you, the pro-abort, who relies on distinctions between person and non-person and you, the pro-abort, that needs to find a material explanation for a non-material entity.
Right then.
I believe personhood to be a function of a brain that can play host to self-aware consciousness. I do not believe that consciousness can occur in a embryonic brain or within the two cells of a fertilised ovum, because the biological hardware needed for consciousness to develop has not itself developed. A biological human may exist at these early stages, but a person does not. Human consciousness is the greatest mystery in the universe, but it is demonstrably impossible without the necessary hardware in place, as Kurt Cobain and many other victims of severe cranial trauma since the dawn of humanity have well proven.
This is obviously not a complete model of the mystery of personhood, but it at least has more basis in a reasonable understanding of human development than your approach, which is basically to declare personhood undefinable and then apply it to every confederation of vaguely human matter that attracts your sympathy.
Finally, it amuses me that you're assuming that what I say demonstrates my need to find some kind of excuse for denying personhood to a just-fertilised ovum - as if I secretly know that you're right about every sperm being sacred (as the poet wrote) and am merely trying to weasel out of my own feelings of guilt. Wrong. Sorry. I've done my best to explain my actual beliefs, but I am now going to leave you alone in your hermetically sealed mental universe, since that's obviously where you were planning on staying all along.
Out.
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babies at conception
No such thing, unfortunately. You're talking about a fertilised human ovum, which is human (as all human cells are to an extent 'human') and alive (again, as are all living human cells). But whatever, continue.
have the same metaphysical nature as all people
Alive and human I can accept, but you're going to have to define 'metaphysical nature'. From where I'm sitting right now it looks a lot like 'nebulous religiously originated concept which allows me to bypass the differences between a human adult, a newborn baby, and a fertilised ovum with exactly two cells to rub together'.
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This whole lack of an edit button thing is beginning to grate.
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<quote>:squint: Dolphins are people?</quote?>
Ooh. That is definitely another thread for another day, Grant.