How many Christians are here?

I am a Christian. However, I don't attend church, because I'm not very social. On the other hand I keep God close to my heart. I am a sinner, and my heart is full of regrets. I feel that every day I find a new way to spit on all I have been given and I just can't turn back some things. So I feel the need for salvation. I believe Jesus came to earth to show us the dangers of ``amor sui', and is our savior. I certainly accept him as my savior.

Is anyone else here a Christian? I imagine most of you are atheists, agnostics or of other religions. This is ok with me, as I understand it is what is fashionable amongst young people these days. However, I'm always happy when I meet a fellow Christian in an unexpected place :)

>>41

using years of human life as a measure of value

So if killing a 2 year old baby would extend the life of 2 people by 100 years, we should do so? Just because you're not using dollars doesn't mean you aren't being utilitarian in your thinking.

I'm disregarding child-rearing years, because I can safely assume in my country that the unaborted child has at least equal odds to a "normal" child of finding a family whose parents will consider its presence to be a benefit.

Until all the families who want children become saturated. What then?

I will disregard your description of the age and physical characteristics of the foetus because I do not perceive their relevance. Please correct me if they are in fact relevant to the question.

It is relevant in that the foetus in question (at 6 weeks, giving ample time to the mother to become aware that she is pregnant and to take a decision regarding it) is unable to think or feel (since the brain is not only undeveloped, but also just a few millimetres in length), nor has it ever thought or felt in the past, nor does it hold any experiences and memories (relevant to information-theoretic death). It is as alive as a person whose entire brain has been obliterated by an some accident; biologically alive, but doesn't qualify as "human life".

To see my point, what if we managed to make animal muscle tissue in labs (for the purpose of replacing meat taken from traditionally farmed animals)? Sure, the muscle tissue is `biologically alive', but you can't say that the animal itself is alive. What if now we also produce animal livers and hearts in the same manner, would that change anything? What if we produce the entire animal [i]except[/i] for the brain, would you call it `alive'?

Note that in a region with a saturated human population, this argument is not so clear.

Such as the entire planet?

And if we are to resort to murder, why should it be babies getting murdered? Why not old people, who are economically useless? Why not the sick or disabled? The chronically unemployed?

Because old people, the ``economically useless'', the sick, the disabled, and the chronically unemployed are proud owners of functioning human brains, are able to think/feel, and hold experiences and memories of their past lives. 6 week old foetuses aren't.

The underlying assumptions of these arguments are that human life is precious and that it is of equal value between individuals.

Oh, I absolutely agree with you, it's just that we don't define human life in the same way. :)

Also people seem to never consider non-penetrative sex among the `solutions' to the no-babies problem, I wonder why that is.