Catholic Veeky Forums general

It wouldn't be entirely indefensible for them to recognize the biological reality of the unborn. They could just take the position that not all human beings have an equal right to life. This is the position that most of the educated ones take although they're not very open about it.

Any other good Catholic writers to follow other than Feser?

god's dead, toots ;^)

is chopping their legs off ok?

If they're not human than what are they?

"Althought life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed."
-Human Embryology & Teratology, 3rd edition pg. 8

"Zygote. This cell, formed by the union of an ovum and a sperm (Gr. zyg tos, yoked together), represents the beginning of a human being. The common expression 'fertilized ovum' refers to the zygote."
-Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects

"The development of a human begins with fertilization, a process by which the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote."
-Langman's Medical Embryology

>thread about catholic literature
>instantly turns into a debate about abortion
thanks

If fetuses aren't the initial stage of a human organism, what are they? The first stage of a rock? A plant? A giraffe?

>tfw no catholic gf to go to mass with

Oh was somebody talking about books here? Where?

Please show why mere membership of a given biological species should be a sufficient basis for a right to life.

The pro-choice view of personhood is human plus birth, or human plus consciousness, or human plus viability. But how is this different from those who say personhood is human plus white skin, or human plus male gender, or human plus an IQ higher than 70? Why not just say being human is enough?

It is not. A fetus will progressivly become a human being. If you hurt the fetus in such a way that he will not become a human being because of it, then you did not hurt a human being. However if you hurt the fetus, but still allow it to grow into a human being (like chopping his legs off), then the consequences of your act will hurt a human being in the future, which is wrong.

What is Catholic literature, and what makes those works Catholic?

For that matter, what does it even mean to be Catholic?

Why isn't a fetus a human being in itself?

>Why not just say being human is enough?
Because it isn't

Why shouldn't all human beings have an equal right to life?

Stop ruining my thread, faggots.

>Why shouldn't all human beings have an equal right to life?
WHY SHOULD THEY
stop making shit threads, faggot

Fetuses are early stage of homo sapiens, but they are not human beings. At early ages they are not even sentient, which is why abortion is usually only allowed at early stages of pregnancy. Fetuses cannot think, they have no minds, they are only mechanicly carying genetic information. Would you say that a single human cell kept alive in a laboratory is a human being ? Is Henrietta Lacks (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks) still alive ?

See

>WHY SHOULD THEY

Because it's the only way that modern society can function. If all humans don't have an equal right to life then there's no reason that we can't declare born human "non persons." thus enslaving or killing them at will. This was how slavery and genocide is justified, not all humans had equal rights.

To answer the question "Does having a brain make someone a person?", we must answer a more basic question: "What does the brain do?"

When our brain isn't performing complex tasks (such as when we sleep), or when it hasn't developed the ability to do so (such as when we are infants), our brain simply keeps our bodies alive. At brain death we lose our "organic unity," and we become a corpse. Our body parts no longer function together to keep us alive. If a person stops existing not when the brain dies but when his body parts no longer function together to keep him alive (or when he no longer has organic unity) then it makes sense to say that a person begins to exist when his body achieves this organic unity.

When does this organic unity occur? At fertilization a person begins to exist, because at that time the unborn child's parts work together to keep the child growing and living. When the child becomes so complex that he needs a brain to survive, he will simply grow one, because he is a person who can continue developing new organs and new abilities over time. A brain-dead person cannot do this, and that is why the brain-dead are no longer persons, while the unborn, even without a brain, are persons who are merely immature.

it's a very early stage human being, do you think the fetus is going to become something else? some other species?

>Because it's the only way that modern society can function
Function for whom? Itself. Who cares
>If all humans don't have an equal right to life then there's no reason that we can't declare born human "non persons."
Good
>This was how slavery and genocide is justified, not all humans had equal rights.
What's wrong with slavery and genocide?

This. Flannels O'Connor is my waifu.

This is what the pro-choice philosophy always comes to. Slavery and genocide. I only wish you people were more open about this stuff in real life rather then just the internet.

Are there any good 21st century Catholic writers?

KIIIIIIING OF THE EEEEEEEEDGE

>muh clump of cells

We're all clumps of cells. What's the point, the more cells you have more human you are?

Maybe it's time you take the redpill and stop catering to your 'feels' and make up human rights out of cuckoldry, sweetheart

If what you said made any sense I may have been offended.

My idea was that if you killed the fetus before he developped enough to be considered sentient, you would be breaking the continuity between him and the future human being, and therefore the human being it would have become would never exist, and cannot be wronged.
A fetus is not yet a person, and a dead fetus will never become a person, so as far are your actions will definitvly end his life, they cannot be wrong.
But maybe i'm wrong, I'm still young, I may change my mind at some point.

Ratzinger
Feser

I'm moderately pro-life but I'm interested in how you can defend the position that abortion is impermissible even in the instance where its being born will kill the mother.

Seems to clash with the most basic principle of self-defense which I'm sure nobody will dismiss

...

How can you tell if it will kill the mother before it is happening?

if youre gonna debate over this shit then at least dont rehash the same meme arguments over and over

You seem to be defining personhood or what gives us our right to life as being contingent on the ability to think or feel. Thinking and feeling are actions that human beings can perform but to say those actions are what makes you human and gives you the right to life commits the fallacy of confusing cause and effect. You must be a human before you can act like one, so you must be a human before you can think or feel like one.

Why not instead use organic unity as the marker for personhood?

Aren't Benedict and Feser theologians, though? I'm talking about fiction writers, ones whose fiction is shaped by their religion.

When you have enough cells who follow a certain patern, the clumps of cell start to have an emergent property we call "consciousness". Smaller, or more chaotic clumps of cell do not have this property, which is the difference between them.

A person is not an organ. What do you mean by organic unity?

>Christianity was from the beginning, essentially and fundamentally, life's nausea and disgust with life, merely concealed behind, masked by, dressed up as, faith in "another" or "better" life.

Sure, that may be acceptable pragmatically (I'd be
a little skeptical but willing to consider it), but I'm talking hypothetically here. I think that's important considering we're talking about a categorical injunction not to abort any fetus ever, so it should hold to any situation, even hypotheticals.

I defined organic unity here: Organic unity is when all the body parts begin working together to keep a human living and growing.

> Seems to clash with the most basic principle of self-defense which I'm sure nobody will dismiss

I agree that abortion should be permitted in cases of danger to the life of the mother, but not for this reason, because that's an inaccurate analogy. Self-defense is usually justified because someone intends to do you harm, or is being so reckless that it's as good as intent; nobody claims the baby, even when it's due in a day or so, has the intent to harm the mother or is being reckless in its development or being born, it doesn't really have any choice in the matter.

>tfw you held hands before marriage and got excommunicated

I'm not too sure about fiction writers. Most are probably atheist faggots though.

>working together

kek

According to some pro-choice people, it is the loss of the conscious self that makes killing wrong, because we are essentially just self conscious minds. Thus, if a being is killed prior to the development of its conscious self (such as in abortion), no harm occurs. Likewise if the conscious self is lost at any point later in life (such as someone falling into an irreversible coma), then that person has died, even if his body is biologically alive.

However, imagine a case in which a four-year old boy is dying from a rare disease. We have a drug that can save his life, but it will cause him to lose all of his memories and return him to the psychological state of an infant. Should we erase the boy's memories or let him die? I think most people would agree that we should save his life.

But under the pro-choice view, the acts of letting the boy die and erasing his memories while saving his life are equivalent. Both acts destroy the conscious self, so there should be no difference, and hence no difficulty in choosing the "correct" course of action. But since people see death as being worse than the child losing his memories. I believe this provides evidence that a person is not just a mind but a union of body and mind. This implies that a person begins to exist prior to the development of a conscious mind after birth.?

Reading a book published by Franciscan Media called, "In God's Holy Light: Wisdom the Desert Monastics". It's of zero spiritual value; the sayings of the Desert Fathers quoted are great, but the commentary is terrible, it's either vapid drivel or politically charged things about how we should be ashamed for our treatment of gays, blacks, Muslims and women, and how evil the U.S. is for imperialism. John the Dwarf, a great saint, is called John the "Little" to be PC. Catholic spirituality is bankrupt. I'm Orthodox and I read the work to take a look as Catholic monastic spirituality, so tragic. Listen to A Word from the Holy Fathers, an Ancient Faith podcast (where John is called "the Dwarf" and the commentary is applied to living in a holy and beautiful way). It's Orthodox, but Catholics will love it too

catholic m8s how do we stop the ev*ngelical menace?

why do ev*ngelicals hate catholics so much?

>Why not instead use organic unity as the marker for personhood?
Organic unity is not enough for me because I think a human being is more than the sum of his parts. Just like humanity is not merely individuals scatered across the earth, a human is not merely the sum of his organs.

Just let make them less ignorant of the tradition and the wisdom within it, desu. Initiation by Augustine is best as Proddies tend to quote him.

>I think most people would agree that we should save his life.
Would he?

Kreeft is pretty great

But degenerative diseases don't deprive of personhood, and neither does growing old or having naturally declining organ functionality. I don't understand how this notion of organic unity is useful. Did you come up with it or are you borrowing it from someone?

>But degenerative diseases don't deprive of personhood, and neither does growing old or having naturally declining organ functionality

A person with failing organs still has organic unity because he's obviously still alive. I wonder if you both even read the original post because I don't know how you could misunderstand so hard

>We have a drug that can save his life
Not 'his' life

This. It's for the benefit of the family, not the kid. Using him as a means to an ends.

Anyone here familiar with Christopher Dawson? His historical work seems interesting.

I did read it but maybe it's not as coherent as you think it is, if I dare say.
For example, you have to consider that someone who's brain-dead is still alive.

>According to some pro-choice people, it is the loss of the conscious self that makes killing wrong

It is not consciousness that makes killing wrong. It's all the hopes and desires that a person has ever had that makes killing wrong. Since a fetus has never had hopes or desires, and is unable to make decisions, the decision should be made by the parents.

It's probably too obvious to mention, but Ratzinger. Also, Card. Sarah.

im a protestant-turning-orthodox and Augustine is my boy.

was he a devout catholic? Only familiar with Tonybe's and Durant's works

Take what I wrote and replace the word "consciousness" with "hopes and desires" and it makes no difference at all.

Check the blog "shamelessorthodoxy", it's by a Latinphile Orthodox, he even does original translations from obscure Latin works

Former atheist here, but thinking of converting to Catholicism. I might go to Church for the first time this Sunday. Is it OK if I go alone, or do most people go with other people?

Interesting, so what is your reasoning behind it allowing it?