Tag Archives: science

Life Begins at Conception: So What?

What follows began as a correspondence five years ago via social media with some one I know who challenged my claim that it’s undeniable both scientifically and logically that humans are humans from the moment of fertilization (with the creation of a new zygote, in biological terms). I had been trying to unflinchingly draw attention back to that singular, foundational, undeniable fact while news outlets and pundits were routinely shifting conversation away from that reality to any other subject they could possibly link to the pro-life / pro-choice debate (like the inconsistencies of some pro-life advocates regarding other policy issues, such as the death penalty, war, health care, etc). My response was once again to double down on the irreducible importance of acknowledging the full humanity of the new human creature from the moment of conception/fertilization, but then to move on to answer some legitimate policy questions that may follow from that premise, adding that, unlike the scientifically and logically demonstrable premise, my answers regarding policy were completely my own opinion. I’m glad I had the chance to differentiate between the objectivity of the premise and a more personal, perspective-relative grounding of my own policy thoughts following from that. And five years later, with a challenge to abortion currently in deliberation within the Supreme Court, I hope some of my theoreticals may prove to be sensical and compassionate.

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The Pro-Choice Motive

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A recent referendum in Ireland followed the popular vote of the people there and lifted a constitutional ban on abortions when the mother’s life is not endangered. The legislation has yet to be drafted, but it’s likely to permit abortions now for the broadest of reasons, up to three or six months—who knows. I kept tabs on news stories there during the run up to this vote, and from what I witnessed in pictures of rallies, saw in comment sections and read in published articles from both sides, the pro-life side was, on the whole, more civil and polite, and the pro-choice side was, on the whole, more rancorous, insulting, and boastful. I’ve seen the same thing here in the States. In the visible public square, the proponents of the pro-choice movement behave more poorly than their opposition, have ruder signs and more vulgar slogans. But clearly, the pro-choice camp is the majority in the entire Western world now. And I don’t believe all of them are the rancorous rally-ers and picketers in the images featured in news articles. Continue reading

It Happened at Night

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One night in 2008 I awoke in the middle of the night to a strange sound. I was still groggy, and as I blinked my eyes to try to get them to focus in the darkness of the room, the sound became louder. All at once I was inexplicably certain that the sound was that of massive, feathered wings beating—not as if they were in flight, but just as if they were flapping for the effect of their sound, since they were clearly flapping in the same place: at the foot of my bed. Continue reading

Is Consciousness Physical?

When we see, hear, smell, or feel something, what’s happening? How do we take in information about the world around us, and how does that information get to us?

When I smell the fragrance of new azalea blooms in my yard, actual microscopic particles emanating from the blooms themselves are wafting through the air, entering my nose, and interacting with my olfactory cells. Anytime you smell anything, there’s physical contact in the form of floating particles occurring between you and the source of the smell. Continue reading

Lesslie Newbigin on Knowing

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How can we know things? It’s an important question which isn’t as easy or obvious to answer as you might first think. In fact, it’s such a tough question that there’s an entire branch of philosophy dedicated to answering it called epistemology. But it’s not just a question for the specialists with their thought experiments and fancy terms; it should be a question that we all think about regularly. Why? Because the way we operate in this world, the choices we make, and much of our identity is wrapped up in what we believe, what we know or think we know, and why we think we can or should believe it. Continue reading

Infinite Turtles

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Every event in the universe is causally linked to an event before it, right? And every one of those events are linked to prior events. These chains of events all converge and are set in motion by the initial event of the beginning of the cosmos. But what caused that event?

This is the infinite regress problem. The chain of causality in this cosmos of ours begs the question of its ultimate beginning. If our universe is cyclical, expanding in a big bang and then collapsing on itself only to then expand again, what started the cycle in the first place? Continue reading

God The Scientist, God The Poet

Eyes that can see

When I was a kid I lived in a neighborhood that was relatively safe to run around in and explore. There was a small creek that ran through the neighborhood, and I used to play on its small muddy banks. I’d take the route from my house that wound through my neighbors’ back yards, through dense foliage, between trees, and behind fences, until I could hear the faint babbling of the water and saw the sun only reaching the ground in a few thin shafts that squeezed through the dancing, leafy canopy above. The somewhat isolated creek had its own character and feel, and its banks and surrounding grounds became a secret garden. I was probably only a few hundred yards from my house, but it was a world away. Continue reading