Author: Al
Posted: 2006-08-14 15:59:20
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What I am about to lay out are beliefs. I call them as such because they cannot be proven. Do not delude yourself into thinking that you have successfully refuted my thesis because you do not hold the same beliefs. Do not confuse your opposing beliefs for fact. The purpose of this section is to promote understanding, by showing you what my beliefs are, and by showing you that I understand your own.
The first bit of nastiness is as follows. I do not wish to tell you what to do with your body. It saddens me when you treat it poorly, but not to the point where it is worthwhile to actually deal with you, especially on matters where you have a vehement opinion. You aren't pleasant to be around on a good day, much less on a day where I would try to alter your behavior.
What makes this unpleasant task worthwhile is when there is a life at stake. I believe that in this circumstance there is. This is, most assuredly, a belief. I cannot tell you when life begins. Every definition that I know is so legalistic that it seems vulgar in comparison to the term life.
There is the definition for Judaism which says that a baby is not a valid human life until it is born. If I bought that, then we wouldn't be having this discussion at all. The problem, as I see it, with that definition is that I can find no discernible difference between a child just born and one minutes away from being so. The only real difference is environment. One might as well say that someone in Idaho is a human, but someone in Washington is not. Sure, we say these things, but they are mostly in jest.
Next we have the view that life begins at conception. This too strikes me as legalistic. Two cells are hardly human life, and could hardly have a soul. The potential for life is there. But potential is not reality. If you are going to argue potential with me, then you had best not practice any form of contraception whatsoever. Even abstinence removes potential.
What we have left, is somewhere in the middle. It is not at the end, nor at the end minus one. It is not at the beginning, nor at the beginning plus one. Yet it is somewhere. What we have just defined is the heap problem. I love the heap problem. Though I love it, it infuriates most people these days because we live such a letter-of-the-law existence. For the uninitiated, the heap problem is complicated. You have to understand induction to know why it is fun. If you understand mathematical induction, then here it is. There exists some amount of sand that when put together is called a heap of sand. n = a heap. Take one grain of sand away and you still have a heap. n -1 = a heap. At some arbitrary point you will cease to have a heap. But where? Conversely, you have a grain of sand, it is not a heap. n = not a heap. Add one more grain of sand, and you will still not have a heap. n +1 = not a heap. At some point, you continue to do this and you will have a heap. But where? Thus induction does not work.
The reason it does not work is because “a heap” is hard to define. It just sort of is. The same problem exists for when does a soul inhabit a body. Does some magic occur at the moment of conception? I don't know. Maybe. For a lot of people, that maybe is worth an awful lot. It is worth dealing with the vitriol of folks who want to have their fun without consequences. It is worth trying to alter a person's behavior who is radically different from themselves. There is no joy in that.
For the rest of us, we aren't sure where the abominations start, but they are obviously occurring at some point. The cavalier and selfish attitude that you seem to be taking about innocent life makes us despair. Unless I were certain of my actions, I could not risk the life of an innocent.
I have made precious few strong statements in this column. I have striven to cut through all of the rhetoric on both sides. If I have not, then call me on it. This is my foundation, if I have allowed a flaw in it, then I wish to know. I plan multiple articles for this topic, and to change it now would be far better than after those are written.
Supplementary Material:
A good explanation of the heap problem |
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