I always thought it would be funny to argue against the religious right that life begins before conception, and conception is a meaningless marker on the way to being a baby just like “viability” was.
As someone who has had a bizarre life so far, I think the argument for self determined reincarnation is a good one—I’m the only entity I know with a sick enough sense of humor to write the conditions of my life, and I have more belief that I exist than in the existence of a sky puppeteer.
I’m a one degree of separation hinge between the White House, a crack house, and a nudist tree house, and I’m not even Hunter Biden. Only I would have done this to me.
I moved there and let my car be broken for a year as a strategy to recover from heroin addiction. I’m glad to say it worked. Never underestimate the power of nudists with hula-hoops for encouraging good clean fun.
This was after attending the White House Christmas party, and before joining two cults.
I barely understand it myself. I am not Forrest Gump. The ride is still in progress.
Or if you just believe everything is pre-ordained. The argument to the religious right is that if God is omniscient, then He knows which sperm will hit the egg, so 1 second prior to conception is exactly the same as conception in terms of the odds a given sperm or egg becomes a baby. And 1 second prior to that, and 1 second prior to that, all the way back to Adam and Eve.
So even if conception is when the baby is “ensouled” (hundreds of years ago they thought “the quickening” when the mother first felt the baby kick was when it got ensouled so that choice is arbitrary but whatever if it’s a religious tenet I don’t want to go against it) it’s not meaningfully impacting whether or not an ensouled baby is born any more than birth itself is.
It’s all shades of gray all the way down, there is no morally “correct” hard line.
I always thought it would be funny to argue against the religious right that life begins before conception, and conception is a meaningless marker on the way to being a baby just like “viability” was.
But it doesn’t seem as funny these days.
Yes, life begins at inception. When the idea to have sex with someone blossoms in your mind, the resulting child now has a soul.
It kinda does if you believe in reincarnation. As I understood it you get to pick your parents before you’re conceived.
As someone who has had a bizarre life so far, I think the argument for self determined reincarnation is a good one—I’m the only entity I know with a sick enough sense of humor to write the conditions of my life, and I have more belief that I exist than in the existence of a sky puppeteer.
I’m a one degree of separation hinge between the White House, a crack house, and a nudist tree house, and I’m not even Hunter Biden. Only I would have done this to me.
You have my full and undivided attention.
I moved there and let my car be broken for a year as a strategy to recover from heroin addiction. I’m glad to say it worked. Never underestimate the power of nudists with hula-hoops for encouraging good clean fun.
This was after attending the White House Christmas party, and before joining two cults.
I barely understand it myself. I am not Forrest Gump. The ride is still in progress.
Or if you just believe everything is pre-ordained. The argument to the religious right is that if God is omniscient, then He knows which sperm will hit the egg, so 1 second prior to conception is exactly the same as conception in terms of the odds a given sperm or egg becomes a baby. And 1 second prior to that, and 1 second prior to that, all the way back to Adam and Eve.
So even if conception is when the baby is “ensouled” (hundreds of years ago they thought “the quickening” when the mother first felt the baby kick was when it got ensouled so that choice is arbitrary but whatever if it’s a religious tenet I don’t want to go against it) it’s not meaningfully impacting whether or not an ensouled baby is born any more than birth itself is.
It’s all shades of gray all the way down, there is no morally “correct” hard line.