You misunderstand the article. Human _development_ begins at conception. Neither life nor human life begin at conception. The uniting cells are already alive and they are already human (as are skin cells, incidentally.)

 

You are right, I misspoke. I should have said "human being", not "human life".

A fetus is human life, but not a complete human being yet. As such in Judaism aborting a fetus (potential human being) is allowed to save the life of the mother (a complete human being).

 

Technically, G-d cannot "murder". He can give and take life as He pleases.

You can do the same in a video game you design.

But then the ark story is one of the most misunderstood in the Bible, possibly due to three major issues.

One is the fact that "on the mountains of Ararat" was translated as "on Mount Ararat", making readers believe that the highest mountain was meant.

Another is the fact that a word that means "land" has been translated first into "terra" (Latin for "land") and finally into "earth" (not the correct translation for "terra").

The third is the general problem that because of Christianity's claim to be a religion for everyone in the world what was once a local story of one people became understood as a story about the entire world.

My reading of the Ark story is that "the entire land was flooded", that Noah finally landed "on the mountains of Ararat" and that the story was always, always about a people who lived there and were the ancestors of the Hebrews. It was not about the entire world. (Incidentally, Islam, which was not subject to the Latin translation, still believes that the deluge was local.)

I have always been there and saw the landscape. It's a big river, lots of very flat land on both sides, and mountains starting in the north-east. It looks exactly like the sort of place that could easily flood and where one would ultimately land on mountains (or rather hills, but the word "harim" means something of both). Huge mountains start a few miles after the smaller hills start.

Here you can see how ridiculously flat the region is:

http://gallery.me.com/ajbrehm#100028

The only high place is the hill on which the old city is built, but even that is not particularly high. (Although believe me you don't want to climb it during the day even in September.)

The big river flows to the west of there, comes in from the north-west.

If it floods, an ark would either be moved towards the mountains in the east or towards the swamps in the south. We know from the story that Noah didn't land further south, so he must have landed on the mountains in the east. They start a few miles from the city in the pictures.

What certainly didn't happen, is that the ark was moved to what we now call "Mount Ararat" which is considerably further north in the complete opposite direction of the water flow.

Taking this into consideration ... do you call a human amputee an incomplete human being too? If you don't, then why the difference between an immature human without all its parts established yet? Two thousand plus years ago ... how were they to know what may or may not be life threatening to the woman in most cases ... their science or their experience with treating women well?

 

The "local flood" theory of the Ark is physically not possible.  Genesis says it flooded to a depth of 15 cubits over the mountains.  To claim that it covered the mountains of Ararat to a depth of 15 cubits while leaving the neighboring lands unscathed...what did it rain?   Jello?  

Besides, the Bible is pretty clear on the matter:

 

Genesis 7:

 ¹⁹ They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. ²⁰ The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits. ²¹ Every living thing that moved on land perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. ²² Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. ²³ Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.

I am no scientist for sure but if one covers all the "LAND", that just leaves out the parts filled with water (are there more kinds of surface areas) so ... did God drain them to flood the "LAND" or what? I think it important that man viewed the world as flat at the insistence of the RCC (regardless of what the Greeks published hundreds of years before the Church). God may have known better ... but he sure forgot to impart that fact to his flock. How does one flood a flat Earth ... why with an endless supply of water of course and this was supposed to cover the land (only) without spilling over the edge is another of those imponderables hahaha. You failed to mention the logistics concerning the ark in your list … care to go over this stuff?

I am sure the area is beautiful as are most places where humans haven’t encroached.

 

Just as a curiosity ... how does flooding the lands destroy all the fish? I would think gills and whatnot would work well in their favor for survival???

Sorry, thought I was done with this thread.

I would like to clarify something in regards to the flat earth and heliocentric comments.

I do agree that for most scientists and philosophers the shape of the earth was considered spherical. This dates back to the time of Greek philosophers (4th century BC) even though the flat earth concept was generally accepted in some cultures through the 17th century.

Obviously these concepts were not accepted by all however where the arguments in favor of a flat earth and the earth being the center of the universe were made, they were generally made by men of religion and used the scriptures to make their case.

Saint Augustine, Diodorus of Tarsus, Photius Severian (Bishop of Gabala), Cosmas Indicopleustes and others claimed the earth was flat. It was not a generally accepted notion that the earth was flat even by most theologians. My original point was that the argument in favor of a flat earth was those provided mostly by religious figures.

The heliocentric argument, to me, is a no brainer. Galileo was brought before the inquisition (Catholic Church) and charged with heresy for stating that the earth revolved around the sun and not the sun around the earth. He was forced to recant and was placed under house arrest for the remainder of his life. The inquisition was also responsible for millions, mostly women, being hung or burned at the stake.

I believe that there are sufficient counter points to these examples throughout history and should not be considered as the beliefs of those educated in science, philosophy or even theology. I should have prepared and explained my examples more thoroughly and to the points I was attempting to make, not figuring that they would be attacked with such zealously. (go figure)

A response regarding the difference between a woman's "moral" or "legal" right to an abortion. Regardless of the tag one wish's to attach, a woman has the "right" to make that decision, you do not get to make that decision, nor do I.

My wife was in her 40's when our son was born. We discussed the "what if" possibilities necessitating an abortion. Her well being was an obvious reason to consider an abortion as was any condition where the quality of life would be severely impaired for the child.

OK, I can buy this (it is true), but what were the pre-scientists in charge of? How many lost their lives for their heresy. Today a scientist cannot be burned at the stake no matter how outrageous he may be. In 400 BC, how many schools were there (if any) to teach the people to disagree with church doctrine. This of course has nothing to do with the actual truth ... only Church doctrine. G Galileo wasn't prepared to buck the Church two thousand years in the future of those Greek masters. I don't think a commoner had a chance if he disagreed with the Church on any issue. I am of course all about the people … not the people in charge.

I'm puzzled every time someone brings stuff like this (and the abuse of children by priests, for instance) in an effort to put religion into a bad light, as if religion by itself is actually some kind of evil thing. Scientists also created the Zyklon-B gas that was later used to put 6 million Jews to death in the Holocaust. Does this mean science is evil?

Of course not.

Religion, just like science, can - and often is - used by certain *men* to evil purposes.

Scientists don't function as the mouth piece of God.  Scientists don't claim to have the ability to absolve someone of their sins.  Furthermore, scientists don't claim that they are getting their orders from an all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing supreme being--they admit they are fallible men.  In short, scientists can't commit the sort of egregious hypocrisy that "the Church" does.

it was the time of the inquisition that was brought upon by those in power of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church is not evil, nor is religion per se, but those in power at that time should be considered evil. granted, there was political interests in play also. Those in power used their position within the church for evil purposes. your zyklon gas analogy is the same. the gas is not evil however it was used by an evil government for an evil purpose.

for myself, I bring things like this up because others make it seem that religion can do no harm.

First, many scientists are not standard XY humans--plenty of them are ovary owners, and a share are probably neither XY nor XX. Second, many of them do claim (or imply) to speak with authority, said authority formally based on notions of empiricism and hypothesis testing. Third, after decades of thinking about it, I still don't understand why any claim to authority based on metaphysics is definitively superior or inferior to a claim to authority based on physics. Politically, I long ago got converted from my youthful philosophical anarchism to a reluctant, pragmatic form of democracy. But spiritually, well, I guess I'm still an anarchist and am persuaded by neither the devout theist tropes nor the adamant arguments of evangelical materialists. Shit just seems way more complicated than either of the big camps are ready to accept.