The Great Tim Tebow Fallacy

NikoSD -- why don't you let those of us
who disagree with you go to
Hell after we die and , in
the meantime,let pregnant women
make up their own minds in a
democracy.

Don't worry about God's wrath.
Las Vegas is still standing.

Robster 1 - - It would take a superhuman

effort for Dawkins NOT to be

condsescending toward his

reality-challenged opponents.

Cerpin_Taxt"
"The desire is there, with every anabolic reaction and every single cell division. This cell is telling us that it wants to grow up. To run, play, and maybe someday breed."

Um, no. This is completely ridiculous. A lone cell doesn't "want" to live any more than my computer "wants" to have power. A cell does all it does because of the laws of chemistry, not of some mystical desire to thrive.

Robster1:
"Why is this fool atheist given such prominence in this forum? He's a condescending boob."

Beautiful irony. You call him an idiot, and you think *he's* a condescending boob?

"And, when will you man-up and debate William Lane Craig? You're obviously frightened that he will obliterate you as he does all atheists."

Craig has never obliterated anyone.

Dear Christians, remind me again why your all-loving God murdered David and Bathsheba's child (1 Samuel 12:15-18). Remind me again how many abortions your God performed while flooding the planet. Remind me again how many innocent Egyptian children your God murdered in the Passover.

If this was the man that was voted the top intellectual in England a couple of years back then that speaks volumes of negativity about the ability of Britons to reason.

Yes, Tim Tebow is a product of the sperm cell that reached his mother's ovum first. That is something she had no control over.

Yes, that fertilized egg managed to implant itself into her uterus where it was able to grow and become nourished rather than be sloughed off with uterine tissue during a monthly period. Once again, that was outside of his mother's control.

Once a legitimate gestation period has begun the fate of the embryo/fetus/child is largely contingent upon the mother. At this point, Mrs. Tebow could have elected to terminate the pregnancy. Had she done so, then the eventual Heisman Trophy winner would not have been born. That is the point, after consensual sex, where her choice effected the outcome of an eventual life. Mr. Dawkins not-so-tacitly asserts that her decision is of no more significance than the uncontrollable event of which sperm cell reached the egg first.

Say was you will about the organization who sponsored the ad but just look at the ad objectively: a woman exercised her reproductive right to choice and chose to have her baby despite having a valid medical reason to have an abortion. That child then grew up to be the highest regarded college football player in America. If you want further details then go the the website of the aforementioned organization. Case closed. It is oxymoronic for ANYONE who considers themselves "pro-choice" to oppose the ad.

So remind me again why we protect fully developed endangered species or these same species in wombs, eggs, or seed but we do not extend the same protections to a growing human? And in some places like India, a growing human female is an endangered species.

This is where I just don't get either atheists or Christians.

I'm not a sperm cell.

If my body came from a different sperm cell at a different time, it would still be me... Just a different shape. If it weren't me, it'd be someone else.

What's wrong with that?

I think this is *all* about elevating certain sexual controls and tabooes into some position of being *actually creating human life and or soul,* when we all know there's much more to it than that.

Commercials (and editorials) want to make it 'simple' (by complicating a whole lot of real lives around a 'moment' that cannot in fact be truly controlled)

But that's not what we all find *sacred,* or real, or .....Anything but a political *football,* appropriately or inappropriately-enough.

It's not about the thirty seconds. Whether that thirty seconds is a commercial or the mechanics of some dude spooing.

It's about *people's lives,* not 'definitions' or commercials or other nonsense and hyperbole.

Maybe a particular quarterback is a wonder of improbability, .. But so would he be if he were a really good cobbler, or mediocre muffin-baker, or, your Mom, or whoever.

You can't control it like that.

Enough already

To Catken1:

My beliefs pertain to Christians. The very number of hairs on our heads are known to God and a sparrow doesn't fall to the ground without Him knowing it. If a Christian woman dies during childbirth, then there was a reason for it and God was well aware of it and allowed it. Romans 8:28 tells us, "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."

Now, you may ask how can the death of the woman work together for her good? That is a fair question and in the hopes of living a long and healthy life on earth, it certainly wouldn't be good. However, in the realm of Eternity, it could be a whole different story. If we are Eternity-bound, what is the difference if we lived 5, 10, 45 or 100 years? It's all a drop in the bucket; a snap of the fingers compared to the billions and billions and billions of years ad infinitum that we are destined for.

The apostle Paul said in 2 Corintians 5:6-8 "Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (For we walk by faith, not by sight:) We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord." I would dare say that there isn't a Christian who is now with the Lord who would want to come back from His presence. The sorrow is on those left behind.

Pertaining to your second argument on donating bone marrow and then changing your mind if complications arose, that is a whole different story. I would expect that there would be a clause in the agreement for just that scenario. The receiving party would have to agree to that possibility before going on the immune-suppressor drugs. The difference being that the receiver has the choice to decide if he/she wants to risk the procedure. The aborted baby never had that choice.

The non-believer is going to hell anyway. So, if they want to abort their babies, that's up to them. You can bet that of the million or so abortions in the U.S.A. each year, very, very few have to do with the health issue. It's all about inconvenience and crimping their lifestyle. The unfortunate part of it is that God will judge this nation because of it and the rampant immorality that is permeating our society. The woes that we are starting to face, along with the confusion of our elected leaders on how to govern properly is just the beginning. You ain't seen nuthin' yet!

"It’s perplexing that a biologist could look at a single celled human and not see that cell’s desire to live. The desire is there, with every anabolic reaction and every single cell division. This cell is telling us that it wants to grow up. To run, play, and maybe someday breed"

The cell has no brain or nerve endings with which to "want" anything. It multiplies because that is what it is programmed to do, no more. It cannot make conscious choices or have conscious desires yet.

At any rate, there are plenty of innocent human beings who can and do articulate a desire to grow up and live happy lives, but are kept from doing so because other human beings do not wish to allow them to use their body parts, blood, bone marrow or other physical resources. How is the four-year-old child who dies for lack of a kidney donation less human than that single-celled creature to whom you attribute such very moving feelings and wishes? Or is it just that the person who refuses the kidney donation is a human entitled to make choices about his or her body, whereas a pregnant woman is a thing who may be used by another without her consent and without any concern for the consequences to her?

When a fetus becomes human is not the question. The question is whether a woman ceases to be a human being and becomes her fetus's property upon conception. You apparently believe she does - apparently a single cell has feelings and rights, but not a living, breathing, thinking woman.

"Regardless of the odds of Tim Tebow being conceived in the first place, if Mrs. Tebow had terminated the pregnancy, it would have been an abortion, which would have been murder."

Refusal to allow someone to inhabit your body and use your body parts is not murder. If you conceive a child, that child is living inside you and taking your physical resources. If you find during the pregnancy that this use of your body threatens your life, and that there's only a small chance that both you and the child would survive the pregnancy, it is perfectly reasonable, not murder, to have an abortion.

If you choose to donate bone marrow, and discover halfway through the process that the process will likely kill you, is it murder to change your mind? (After the patient has been put on the immune-suppressor drugs needed for a transplant, which means they will die if they don't get a donation imminently - the likelihood is extremely near zero that they won't find another compatible donor in time)

"If someone comes along one day and puts a bullet through your brain, would they have a good defense if they argue that your chances of existence were so miniscule in the first place, it shouldn't be considered wrong what they did?"

There is a difference between killing an unrelated third party and refusing to donate the use of your body to another who needs it to live (at great physical and emotional cost to you, with even the best-case scenario resulting in permanent changes to your body and mind, and with additional, and quite significant, risks to your life and health).

I'm not buying the part of the argument where a fertilized egg is compared to a unfertilized egg and sperm.

The moment an egg, sperm, fetus, whatever becomes a human has always been crucial to this argument to me. This cannot be known and only generalized. Then it comes down to a person's freedom.

I hate the discussion of this subject...it's different shades of gray to me. I see both sides views and always fall into a person making their own choice...since I am so undecided.

I happen to be reading 'An Ancestors Tale'. It's a great read.

I agree. The ad did not at all feel in your face or out of line in anyway.

After seeing the ad, one must wonder what all the fuss was about.

??

No doubt about it, there is also the Great Richard Dawkins Fallacy.

?

Dawkins's "Beethoven fallacy" commits the informal logical fallacy of division, which is to reason that something that is tue of a thing must also be true of all or some of its parts. So while the sperm-fertilized egg can be "Beethoven," the sperm sans egg is not. This being the case, all of what Dawkins says in this little ad hominem piece of his is, simply, illogical in spite of his appeal to logic.

In order to defend some cherished inherited traditional superstition (flat earth comes to mind), there always has been a huge investment of human fantasy, human longing, human logic (within a given system!), philosophical somersaults, in short, an incredible amount of collective and individual brain activity of the highest order without really coming to terms with the untenable.

You cannot prove a system (religion, Christianity) by using elements from within this system (bible quotes), as has indubitably been established by Goedel.

Even by throwing around verbal attacks you will not succeed in "obliterating" Dawkins (what an inquisition-like hate construct!)
All deja vue.

How rich the "Christian" Huckabees in lock-step with right-wing extremism pretending they are "pro-life" while supporting pre-emptive war and capital punishment.

While I agree not having abortions more frequently saves lives, these religious impostors then quit caring about the very lives they would save, saying health care and education for the survivors is godless socialism.

As for the Super Bowl, it has come to be another extension of evangelical theocracy and isn't worth watching. Maybe next year it will be carried on CBN with Jim Daily from Focus on the Family as the main commentator.

Why is this fool atheist given such prominence in this forum? He's a condescending boob. Go to AbortionNo.Org "Dr." Dawkins, and try to deny that abortion is the killing of innocent life.

And, when will you man-up and debate William Lane Craig? You're obviously frightened that he will obliterate you as he does all atheists.

Google the side effects of Implanon before using:

Some results:

http://au.messages.yahoo.com/lifestyle/womens_health/99/

http://www.rxlist.com/script/main/rxlist_view_comments.asp?drug=implanon&questionid=fdb144857_pem

Are there side effects from vibrators, hand or mechanical?

TO MR. DAWKINS:

And if God hadn't said, "Let us make man in our image", you wouldn't be here to bore us, who also wouldn't be here, with your ill conceived logic. Well, maybe you would since you evolved from nothingness.

Regardless of the odds of Tim Tebow being conceived in the first place, if Mrs. Tebow had terminated the pregnancy, it would have been an abortion, which would have been murder. If someone comes along one day and puts a bullet through your brain, would they have a good defense if they argue that your chances of existence were so miniscule in the first place, it shouldn't be considered wrong what they did?

One thing is certain, you will bow before the Lord and learn Truth one day.

"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God......." (Psalm 14:1)

For the commenter wondering about conservatives and the death penalty: good info here - http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/2/2/832988/-The-2010-Comprehensive-Daily-Kos-Research-2000-Poll-of-Self-Identified-Republicans

An implantable contraceptive like Implanon has a reported failure rate of 0.05%.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implanon
It also is easily reversible, and produces far lower doses of hormones than normal birth control pills. Therefore, theoretically if all women in the US had implanon, then the rate of unwanted children would drop from a million per year to a few thousand. If people were serious about preventing abortion then they would be encouraging that, particularly for girls in their early teen years when pregnancy is the most costly.

Still Dawkins is quite correct that most abortions (90%) take place within the first trimester and the majority (over 50%) within the first 8 weeks, at a stage of development far before a fetus can be reasonably compared to a newborn baby, much less an adult.

Anti-abortionism, however, has never really been about the advertised issue of abortion. It is really just about attempting to be preachy, self-righteous, and wanting to impose your religious views on other people through the legal system. The "pro-choice" position does not dictate that the women will choose abortion. She can choose to continue the pregnancy, but it's not a choice when there is no alternative.

Thank you Dr Dawkins for your logic and courage

Here is the cockamamie thinking of pro-aborts: "...How many of the same conservatives are against the death penalty?.."

Maybe every serial killer embryo or fetus should also get the death penalty. But they deserve the same million-dollar defense more than the Jeffrey Dahmers of the world...

Killing the innocent unborn and saving alive the rapist is all backwards upside thinking.. George Orwell had no idea...

OK.Dawkins is off-topic until the very end. But he does destroy the Beethoven
fallacy, and gets in his licks at an
indoctrinated "home-schooler" who majored
in biblical football.

Many of Dawkins critics either avoid his
arguments or distort them.

(And he is so "strident".)

The comments of the conservatives in this bunch are very informative. How many of the same conservatives are against the death penalty? There is a continuity to objectiveness that will shine through or be tarnished.

Rossacpa writes: "Truth is your subjective view has no value at all. Conservative Jews, Catholics, and Protestant Christians live in the real, objective world ..."

You do? Well, that must be nice for y'all. I guess this would be the "real, objective world" in which the Pope is and isn't infallible, Jesus is and isn't the Messiah, salvation does and does not come from faith alone, the New Testament is and isn't the word of God, Purgatory does and doesn't exist, God is and isn't triune, the Apocrypha is and isn't part of the Bible, transubstantiation does and doesn't take place during Mass, Jews will and won't burn in Hell forever because they haven't accepted Jesus as their personal savior, and Christians are and are not committing blasphemy by worshiping a mere man as God ... the "real, objective world" in which you guys spent centuries burning one another alive over which of these mutually contradictory statements was true.

Still, at least CONSERVATIVE Jews, Catholics, and Protestants can all agree on SOMETHING --- that your respective more liberal co-religionists who don't agree with you about abortion are just plain wrong. That's so real and objective that Christians can't even agree about it with Christians and Jews can't even agree about it with Jews. Heck, you can't get much more objective than that.

YOU can't, but I can. I can really objectively say that being religious, or even religious AND conservative, evidently does not magically make a person's subjective opinions real and objective, however much you'd like to think so.

BLASMAIC:

Your post reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the applicability of the rights granted by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

With very few exceptions (such as eligibility for service in Congress or eligibility for the presidency), the rights granted are granted to ALL PERSONS and are explicitly not limited to citizens of the United States. Additionally, the first ammendment does not grant free speech rights, instead it prevents the government from passing any law which abridges those rights. There is no qualification which allows the government to abridge the free speech rights of non-citizens vs, citizens.

These protections of free speech apply fully to Richard Dawkins, whether or not he is a US citizen. And the "valued principle of free speech" is a general Enlightenment principle--his standing to reference that principle would apply even if the constitutional protections did not.

A suggested ad for the 2011 Super Bowl:

The pill fails to protect women 8.7% during the first year of use (from www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_contr_use.html)

Doing the math using the data from the above reference:

0.087 (failure rate in decimals)
x 62 million (# child bearing women)
x 0.62 ( % in decimals of these women using contraception )
x 0.306 ( % in decimals of these using the pill)

= 1,020,000 unwanted pregnancies
during the first year of pill use.

For male condoms (failure rate of 17.4 and 18% use level), there are approximately 1,200,000 unwanted pregnancies during the first year of male condom use.

The Guttmacher Institute (same reference) notes also that the perfect use of the pill should result in a 0.3% failure rate
(35,000 unwanted pregnancies/yr) and for the male condom, a 2% failure rate (138,000 unwanted pregnancies/yr) .

The annual USA abortion death rate (CDC) is approximately one million/yr meaning there are over one million unwanted children born alive every year in the USA but it appears the USA citizenship continues to thrive. See a list of some famous unwanted children at:

http://www.parents.com/parenting/adoption/stories/famous-adoptees/

Dawkins talks about, "our valued principle of free speech." Dawkins is not one of us. He's a royal subject of Her Royal Highness the Queen of England.

Americans receive their freedom of speech from our Constitution of 1787. Royal subjects of England have their freedom provisionally granted to them from on high. We share no value of free speech with Dawkins nor he with us.

Dawkins is a fraud, but for Dawkins deception is as perfectly natural as the camelion's camoflage.

JamesMcmull... remarks "What I truly do not understand is the propensity for pro lifers to NEED everyone else to go by their rules."

You believe moral decision making is a personal prerogative based upon your subjective understanding and experience of the universe. Truth is your subjective view has no value at all. Conservative Jews, Catholics, and Protestant Christians live in the real, objective world, and with regard to abortion, we will fight continually to re-instate the fundamental moral law in place before Roe v. Wade until its overturned.

Yes, if you had an abortion, paid for an abortion, or in any way performed or assisted an abortion, you committed murder. Get over it and get on with LIFE!

GMartin-Royle

You wrote, "When anyone advises someone, it is called advice, not advise."

Thank you, you are right, I was wrong but then again I am just a messenger and I think you understood what I meant.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

What I truly do not understand is the propensity for pro lifers to NEED everyone else to go by their rules. If YOU believe that abortion is wrong for any reason, DO NOT HAVE ONE. The fact that others think differently does not carry any weight. If I got an abortion, I am going to hell, right??? Why is that not enough for you? Why, if i make an agonizing decision, in the face of hell, do you feel empowered to crap on me further? Do you realize that hell might not exist (in my mind it does not). Who, exactly, do you think you are???

Wow! Mr. Dawkins (aka the 'Pat Robertson of the atheists') takes an entire column to rail at people we already know he dislikes. Only in the last paragraph does he address the question. I wonder how he would grade one of his students for such a poor approach to writing?

The question here is not about abortion itself, but whether issue ads of any type are appropriate for events like the Super Bowl. Instead of having the network ban such ads, issue groups should voluntarily refrain from buying the ads in the first place. One can be pro-life and oppose issue ads for such events, or one can be pro-choice and support the ads.

The ad in question is not bothering me because of its anti-abortion message so much that is is funded by Focus On The Family -- a particularly odious organization headed by an even more ODIOUS man, Dr. James Dobson. This is an anti-gay, homophobic group that once tried pushing the idea that Sponge Bob Square Pants is gay. I guess they have a lot of money to throw around and found a mark in CBS.

whywontgodhealamputees.com

whywontgodhealamputees.com

whywontgodhealamputees.com

I actually feel sorry for Mr. Dawkins. He is a bitter man whose thinking is distorted.

Cerpin_Taxt is quite right. Since atheists think that humans and corks have ONE thing in common, namely being material things governed by physical laws, they ought to treat them as though they were exactly the same in EVERY way. That's just logic. Well, Christian Logic™ anyway. That's just like being logical, only even holier!

On the other hand, I cannot agree with him that atheists are inconsistent in not incorporating this immutable law of Christian Logic™ into their thinking. They are, of course, not Christians, and are therefore free to stick to the rules of real logic.

No, it seems to me that the boot is on the other foot. If Christians were consistent, and if they really believed in the principle that they wish to foist on atheists, then they would treat bicycles and beefsteak in exactly the same way on the grounds that they have ONE thing in common, namely beginning with the letter B, and we should be treated to the amusing spectacle of Christians trying to ride beefsteaks and eat bicycles.

Ctasigater:

"It's become frightfully clear for sometime that Mr. Dawkins' boorish default is that anyone who professes faith in God is, de facto, an idiot"

Not really. Rather, anyone who tries to argue against abortion on the basis of her/his religious faith is an idiot. I couldn't agree more.

Cerpin_Taxt, I must ask which church instilled your illusion that a foetus, particularly one in the pre-embyronic state before the third month, is assimilating ANY experiences, since no memory cortex for storing such experiences, nor a prefrontal cortex for processing any sensory input, which also doesn't exist because the optic nerve complex is still unlinked to the cerebellum, is somehow equivalent to a human being.

There is much in the universe that is alive, and human, that is not a human being. By way of example, any of the 10 million skin cells sloughed off every day has a complete human DNA, is a fully functioning member of the complex creature, and is NOT an undifferentiated stem cell. Surely that skin flake, being larger and more organized than a 2 week zygote,is more a Human Being than is any such zygote.

Now, if you are tempted to fall back on the "unique DNA" claims, I remind you there are naturally occurring clones, the so called blastomeric clones, called twins and triplets, quads and quints, and even Octoplets, who all have NON-unique DNA. Tell us, which of these is NOT a Human Being, since none is unique?
Hmm?

That said,you have no argument, merely mental masturbation that begins with a conclusion, circles itself, and returns, like a missile unable to reach escape velocity, bound forever to that which is its inevitable demise.

FROMCLOUDS,

The first paragraph of my argument was more directed at the general attitude expressed by the posters, as well as addressing a topic Dawkins brought up. The very first post in response to this article, you’ll see, claims that no one would complain if Hitler’s mother had gotten an abortion. I would claim, yes, it would still be morally wrong. That is because the argument is consistent in that it seeks to protect human life. Adding these historical figures only seeks to appeal to the emotions of those listening so that they may more easily understand the impact, since they will likely feel emotional connection as well. You’ve already misinterpreted a portion of my argument, because you thought I was referring to Dawkins as being the one appealing to emotion, when I was referring to the pro-life, Beethoven argument.

“Where we diverge here is that you consider….”

Good, you did find the purpose of my analogy. Denying the victims of the blast their awareness or suffering through instantaneous death sought to show that our only difference on what makes killing wrong is that these humans had developed cognitive minds. I’m finding it impossible to rationalize this belief out from the atheist’s empirical worldview, however, because the central nervous system’s ability to consciously desire life is carried out by unknown amounts of metabolic processes and electrical signals (not cognitively controlled). Based on your argument, we can equate everything to a cork wanting to float on top of the water. The world can only exist of material things, can it not? Physical processes that follow universal laws? Stopping a developed human from thinking cognitively is as inconsequential as throwing that floating cork into a fire to keep yourself warm.

Are you seeing the inconsistency yet? There are so many numerous ways to go with this which result in an inconsistency in atheist thought. The Christian God is the only rational precondition for intelligibility which provides a concrete, unchanging basis on which to objectively base arguments deriving from universal laws like mathematics, logic, science, and morality. But this is a separate argument that I won’t get into here.

These reactions are being carried out in developing fetuses as well, which I would still label as a chemical desire to live. I will point out that the DNA a human has after being conceived is the DNA that will be retained until death, not considering mutations and maybe a bit less dark DNA at the telomeres. Fundamentally, it is our DNA that defines us as human. But none of this argument really matters when you believe that the universe is made up solely of material, empirically analyzable matter.

Dear Cerpin_Taxt,

How do you arrive that the conclusion of the Beethoven Fallacy is an appeal to emotion? As far as I can tell, Dawkins seems to be saying "Here is an argument that is often bandied about by pro-lifers that is on its face false." The inclusion of Beethoven by name seems incidental at best, and were it not part of an oft-cited anecdote, I doubt it would have been cited at all. Saying that it intentionally being used as a sympathetic device seems a stretch at best.

As per your example of detonating a nuclear device in a crowded city, I find it rather stunning that you can compare the two. Where your analogy breaks down (and this may be ascribed to our differing world-views), is that you are killing breathing, thinking, feeling, people. That it happens instantaneously and that the victims are spared any suffering is immaterial, it is not about that. Where we diverge here is that you consider unborn fetuses, regardless of developmental stage to be people, whereas Dawkins (and myself were it not obvious) considers them to be merely potential people, in the same way that sperm cells, egg cells, blastulae, stem cells, et al. are potential people.

Now, onto what I mean by "potential people," as you seem to be ignoring the difference between a sentient being (one with "a conscious will to live") versus an insentient fetus. I would argue that it is this conscious will to live that separates a fetus from a person. What is this business of equating a conscious will to live versus an unconscious one? Why do you seem to propose that they are equal? I might point out that division is what fertilized cells do. Ascribing this to "an unconscious desire to live" is no more valid than pointing to a cork floating in water and claiming that it has "an unconscious desire to float." Desire implies consciousness, after all.

Also, while we're on the subject of emotional appeal:

Godwin's Law.

That is all.

"Further, their God is the greatest abortionist of all, given the high rate of abortions that occur naturally."

Couldn't have said it better...

Course they'll cry foul yapping on and on about freewill, the result of sin, yada yada yada...

Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

When anyone advises someone, it is called advice, not advise.

cerpin_taxt wrote:

"a single celled human"

what a daft statement.

Richard Dawkins

This is one of the most absurd articles that I have ever read.

Yes, there are many variables in making a person just who that person is but without a doubt if Mrs. Tebow would have had a abortion at the time she was pregnant with Tim then Tim would not have been born.

Would you agree with this very simple statement?

She chose to continue her pregnancy, I suppose that you are pro-choice, why do you and anyone else who is pro-choice seem to be so upset with the choice that she made? If indeed you and others are upset about her decision.

Does being pro-choice mean that one should make the choice that others think you should make or the choice that the person involved decides to make?

Also, I am not sure but pretty sure that she made her decision against doctor's advise so this should go to show that doctors can be wrong in their advise and it should be just that, advise, and then the patient makes a decision.

Whether or not the doctor's advise turns out to be right or wrong, it is still the patient's decision to make and some do not think of a pregnancy as a "parasite" but as a developing human being.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

The Beethoven example in the argument is obviously used to appeal to emotion. The person making the argument has used a prominent, positive figure of history so that the listener feels the underlying point, which is that the abortion has prevented a human from living. The argument loses the emotional support when Stalin or Hitler are substituted for Beethoven. However, it does not lose ground because Hitler and Stalin are still human.

Prof. Dawkins's argument is relying on a numbers game, only as any atheist argument ever can. Abortion is just one more obstacle, or dice game, that humans overcome before they have reached the point in time where they control a functioning nervous system. Somehow, at this point, it becomes unacceptable to Dawkins to take life. He's boiled his argument down to dumb luck. And why shouldn't he? It makes logical sense in the atheistic worldview.

So, let me pose a question. Would it be wrong to plant a nuclear bomb in a city and instantly obliterate all of its inhabitants before their nervous systems could process any knowledge of what was happening?

Despite their post-explosion lack of complaints, Dawkins might claim that a wrong was committed because one person's will was held in higher regard than another's (the person blowing up the town over the person who doesn't want to be blown up. I chose this because it is the only difference between destroying a cognitive, developed human, and destroying a non-cognitive fetus. And Dawkins hinted that lack of complaints, or wills, are what make it ok to deny life).

My response is to point out Dawkins’s bias. That Dawkins only acknowledges conscious will to live. It’s perplexing that a biologist could look at a single celled human and not see that cell’s desire to live. The desire is there, with every anabolic reaction and every single cell division. This cell is telling us that it wants to grow up. To run, play, and maybe someday breed. It’s unfortunate that this cell does not have vocalization capabilities to make the desire clear as day, because I believe that might brighten Dawkins up a bit and change his stance on the matter.

Won't Christians say that a fetus is imbued with a soul, so that's why abortion is murder?

The posters who mention the massive genocide that occurs when one scratches one's nose (because every human cell will soon have the potential to become an entire human being) can't claim that all those cells have their own souls, can they? Or would they have a tiny piece of the soul of the larger organism? If this is the case, are we destroying our own souls bit by bit when we use the loofah?

Or, is it the "every sperm is sacred" argument that moves Christians? I don't know--I'm an atheist. Just wondering.

Since biological research is close to the point where it will be able to make a complete new human out of any cell from anywhere in the body, we will soon be faced by the absurd situation where -- according to religious 'authorities' like the Catholic Church -- killing any cell in a human body exterminates a potential human and is therefore 'murder'.

Cut yourself shaving? Bad luck -- off to Death Row. Have a hangnail removed? Ditto. Apply liquid nitrogen to a wart? Likewise.

What a bloodthirsty lot of mass murderers we all are!

Excellent article. Thank you for pointing out such a ridiculous argument. I don't personally have an issue with anyone buying ad time during any TV program. I do have to say though that if Focus on the Family would have focused their money on helping out some actual families it may have been more in line with what Jesus would have done. If only my dad would have cheated on my mom, I might have more brothers and sisters that could reply and agree with me.

Sometimes I have to agree with the "Dawkins is a Dummy" crowd. He never mentioned that a doctor in the PI could not have recommended an abortion DESPITE Tebow's mother's condition and use of certain prescribed drugs for fear of jail time (under Marcos, no less).

"The Pusillanimity of Mr Dawkins"

Would that Mr. Dawkins' skill at invective were matched by his abilities at objective evaluation of the matter at hand.

Setting up a straw man parallel between Mr. Tebow's upcoming ad and an apocryphally attributed story - when Mr. Dawkins has yet to see the ad in question - is hardly the stuff of good argument.

It's become frightfully clear for sometime that Mr. Dawkins' boorish default is that anyone who professes faith in God is, de facto, an idiot. Nonetheless, one cannot help but grow tired of his increasingly splenetic rants dressed up and trotted out as pearls of wisdom.

Exposure to Mr. Tebow's magnanimous spirit would undoubtedly do Mr. Dawkins a world of good.

Shortly someone will come along and ask: "What if your mother had thought that way?"

Thereby implying that you would be upset if you had not been born.

This is, of course, logically unfallible.

The Mrs. Tebow's who died aren't here to make commercias.

Advertising during the Super Bowl costs millions of dollars, far more than advertising on any other programs. So if a group or company really wants to get their message out (and who doesn’t) the Super Bowl would be the place to do it. However, most companies can’t afford to advertise during the Super Bowl and few non-profit groups have that kind of money to throw around.

You can read the rest of my response to this topic: http://lnk.ms/5kL7g

I will be responding to every issue posted in the 'On Faith' section. If you would like to be notified when my new response is up, please subscribe.
-Staks
http://www.DangerousTalk.net

Excellent article! It's wonderfully written and the argument presented is completely logical and convincing. I don't see how any "pro-life"-rs will be able to respond to this with anything other than overwrought emotional appeals, logical fallacies, or "because God says so!"-type statements. There's no way to present a successful logic-based argument against this piece (not that the "pro-life"-rs are fans of logic or evidence anyway.)

And of course, the illogic of these so-called pro-lifers is taken to its full nonsensical height (or depth) when viewed in the light of the fact that they are all, practically without exception, advocates of the death penalty.

Further, their God is the greatest abortionist of all, given the high rate of abortions that occur naturally.

Sorry that should be she not see. I'll use the preview button next time.

OK stay/become rational.

I don't think too many people would be upset if Mrs Hitler would have gotten an abortion. Though see was catholic so see couldn't.

OK stay/become rational.