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Real simple:

What are you?

  • Pro-life

    Votes: 19 32.8%

  • Pro-choice

    Votes: 39 67.2%
  • Total voters
    58
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Noah's Hammer said:
No. Credibility left you instantaneously upon your revelation of your own ignorance when you called the idea that full term could not reach 39 weeks "histerical".

If you don't even know how many weeks is full term then you have no ethical right to attempt to debate on a thread about abortion. I would think that this would be the very bare necessity of knowledge necessary to form an intellegent opinion on a matter such as this.

But what is most amazing is not your ignorance. It's that you quite literally called "histerical" the notion that a full term pregnancy could even go to 39 weeks.

You laughed at me for even having purported such a notion!!!!
That means that your ignorance finds it's origins in a great and vast vaccum of arrogance.

This is what has cost you your credibility in this debate.
Click to expand...

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. I already retracted my statement, but you seem intent on leaning on that one laurel as though one misstep on my part (which was an honest mistake that someone else pointed out) can undo the body of evidence I have presented long before you ever entered the debate. Why don't you try debating the topic or at least the philosophy as a whole?

And if you are going to make a slam at me...perhaps you should learn to spell "hysterical" before you try to assert it against someone. I mean, you have no excuse...I spelled it properly for you in the very quote you took. Inability to maintain at least an illusion of calm is the very definition of "hysterical". :lol:

Now run along and chase your tail until you can find bring something to the table that hasn't already been taken care of, johnny come lately. :doh
 
C Foster said:
I see the point you are trying to make, but it is very weak ...
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Your mere claims are worthless without evidence. Let's see the evidence! --that what I wrote #962 is a "weak" point.
C Foster said:
... and I standby what I say.
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That's OK; the more you spout nonsense that is provably nonsense, and the more you stand by it, the more other people will simply ignore you altogether. Including other pro-lifers.

C Foster said:
I would also like to ask you this: Does a surgeon lose the capacity to preform operations when he is asleep?
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I can answer that after first pointing out that you are using the word "capacity" as a synonym for "ability", which is a third definition altogether, than the two definitions that Felicity routinely tries to equivocate. Thus to discuss "ability" is NOT to discuss either "potential" or "actual magnitude". And the answer to your question is "NO". Abilities that exist do not disappear just because they might not currently be getting exercised, such as during sleep.

C Foster said:
I model myself on the great jimmyjack, and I sense you fear me because of that, he taught me all he knew.
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jimmyjack was an idiot, and his constant lies, and distortions of what others wrote, plus his refusal to straightforwardly answer simple questions directed at him (all adding up to "failure to legitimately Debate"), caused him to be banned from this devoted-to-Debate site. If you plan on modelling your behavior after that, such as by failing to provide the evidence requested above, then you will inevitably/eventually be banned, too. There is absolutely nothing for me or any other normal Debater here to fear in that, and it will be "good riddance" to one more blathering/lying non-Debating idiot.

FutureIncoming said:
Ethnic group - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An ethic group is defined by itself. It is not defined by outsiders. For example, when "whites" colonized the Western Hemisphere, they may have used such words as "Injuns" to designate the indigenous population as an overall group, but that is not an ethnic designation. The actual ethnic designations were such words as "Aztec", "Cherokee", "Iroquois", "Inca", "Apache", and so on. THEY decided which groups they were.
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FutureIncoming said:
You have claimed that killing fetuses is "genocide". If you are talking about what humans do after they are born and grow up, you cannot be talking about actual fetuses. It is actual fetuses that are incapable of forming an ethnic group, and so killing actual fetuses cannot qualify as "genocide". PERIOD.
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C Foster said:
Nonsense!
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Ah, it looks like the idiocy is beginning already. Because the rest of what you wrote (quoted below) is not about fetuses, and cannot ever be about fetuses. Therefore your statements have nothing to do with fetuses independently associating themselves with some unique ethnic group, nor do they support your thencely-still-worthless claim that killing fetuses qualifies as "genocide". Therefore what I wrote in #927 and #962 is not only not "nonsense", the actual nonsense/idiocy is instead what you have written. As is to be expected from anyone stupid enough to both model self after jimmyjack, and brag about it.
C Foster said:
Let me give you an example: A Jew becomes a Christian.
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C Foster said:
You mean you have actually understood something?

There is hope!
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Jerry said:
Jimmyjack was banned for a reason.

Wach your step, C Foster.
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Jerry's right. Be aware of what you say. And remember; affiliating yourself with a banned poster is not a great way to endear yourself. Perhaps you don't care about that, and that's fine, but it also brings upon suspicion that your agenda your posting style, and how you conduct yourself would be similar. Jimmyjack was banned for a reason, some of them one's that I just mentioned. Watch yourself.
 
FutureIncoming said:
3) "potential" is NEVER equal to "actual magnitude", and any attempt to equate the two, by using the intermediary word "capacity", is pure equivocation, and nothing else.
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Felicity said:
Unfortunately you present the argument INCORRECTLY since your understanding of the word is improper and truncated.
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Actually, what I presented in #885 is a denunciation of the truncated essence of your argument: pure equivocation, an attempt to extract more from the word "potential" than it actually means, by mis-using the synonym of "capacity".

Felicity said:
Capacity is a word that is not directly synonymous with the word potential.
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So? That only makes your so-called "argument" fail even worse!
Thesaurus.com: Cite This Source
preceding link said:
1. applied to a person, ability and capacity mean about the same thing but are grammatically different: an ability to do something, a capacity for doing something; ability is qualitative while capacity is quantitative
2. capacity refers to a general ability to comprehend an issue or perform a task; capability implies a reference to one of a set of such abilities
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And a fetus has neither comprehension nor set-of-abilities. So the word doesn't apply at all to a fetus, despite your equivocations!
Felicity said:
They are very similar, but there is a nuance of meaning that clearly escapes your comprehension. I have spelled it out numerous times in numerous ways. I am a fool to believe at last you will finally "get" it, but alas...I am the eternal optimist...
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It is impossible, without telepathy, to "get" the illusion of what you mean, when it is actually meaningless.
FutureIncoming said:
2) "capacity" can mean "actual magnitude", a volume of space which can be filled with something. Do note that even in this definition, it is the "volume" and not the "filling".
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Felicity said:
UTTERLY IRRELEVANT.
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HAH! YOU WISH! Consider the cliche` that the normal adult human supposedly uses his or her brain at 10% of "capacity". Here the word designates actual magnitude of the brain's power, and the word "filling" that I mentioned in #885 is here the portion of that power that is actually used. Nevertheless, this portion of total brainpower is sufficient for that normal adult human to exhibit person-class characteristics. Indeed, this portion of even a toddler's brainpower is generally sufficient for a number of personhood characteristics to be recognized. But for an unborn human, total brainpower is simply too small; the capacity for personhood simply does not exist. Only mere "potential" exists instead.
Felicity said:
The space available is of no consequence in this argument. The reality of the entity in question, and that entity's potential future, is what is important to the position. It is not a specific area to be filled--human potential is nearly unlimited--it is about future possible qualities and not about a measurable quantity of something.
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I have taken the liberty of stressing the key phrase in the above quote. You are indeed trying to make mere "potential" seem to be more than it actually is, by mis-using the word "capacity".
FutureIncoming said:
3) "potential" is NEVER equal to "actual magnitude", and any attempt to equate the two, by using the intermediary word "capacity", is pure equivocation, and nothing else.
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Felicity said:
UTTERLY FALSE.
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UTTERLY TRUE. The definition of "equivocate", as you agreed, involves trying to make two different things equal to each other. Of course, below in the rest of your quote, you start talking about something else altogether.
Felicity said:
When you are talking about the actual magnitude of the potential--or IOW--what potential is actually possible, the capacity of the entity is an actual magnitude of potential.
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SO? YOU ARE STILL TALKING ABOUT POTENTIAL. You are merely adding descriptors to it, just as if instead of talking about a "house" I specify a "red house". Whoop-te-do. The potential of an unborn human, regardless of its magnitude, remains something that does not have to be fulfilled.
FutureIncoming said:
Thus an unborn human only has capacity/potential to, in the future, exhibit various characteristics such as Rational Will, that allow us to distinguish persons from animals.
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Felicity said:
UTTERLY REDUNDANT.
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UTTERLY PRECISE. The "/" I used between the words "capacity" and "potential" was put there to indicate that "potential" was the particular definition being referenced, of "capacity". There is no redundancy when a particular phrasing helps eliminate possible misinterpretations. Have you ever seen this sign on a door before?
some cartoon said:
DEPARTMENT OF
REDUNDANCY
DEPARTMENT
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Redundancy involves repetition, especially unnecessary repetition, but that is not what I did in #885.
Felicity said:
The capacity for future traits is an actual magnitude of potential. You need not differentiate capacity/potential from capacity/actual magnitude because they are one and the same when speaking of the reality of what an entity ACTUALLY has the POTENTIAL to become.
Click to expand...
As previously indicated, an actuality or magnitude of a potential is still just a potential. It is not more special than any other usage of "potential", mostly because the word always already implies some accompanying magnitude. That is, if "potential" was always associated with zero magnitude, then in every single ordinary usage of the word, you would always see a quantifier specified along with it. Since that does not happen, we get to conclude that "potential" already implies some associated greater-than-zero magnitude (Q.E.D.), and therefore what you wrote could border on redundancy-in-phrasing, hah!
FutureIncoming said:
At no time during pregnancy does it have any capacity/actual-magnitude to exhibit those characteristics.
Click to expand...
Felicity said:
UTTERLY IRRELEVANT AGAIN.
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FALSE. UTTERLY RELEVANT -- it is the essence of why an unborn human cannot at any time during a pregnancy qualify for person status.
Felicity said:
If it was required for a human being to exhibit rational conscious thought to be a person, it would never be wrong to kill someone while they slept.
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But that is not the requirement. As I pointed out to our jimmyjack wannabe in #977, if an ability exists, it does not disappear just because of sleep or even coma. And it should be obvious even to you, that for a human to exhibit some characteristics of personhood, that human must have actually-existing-and-not-merely-potential ability, to exhibit those characteristics. Meanwhile, if you now try to blather about "capacity/ability", that will merely make me think you are trying to equivocate THREE different things, instead of the usual two.
Felicity said:
As a person sleeps, they are not demonstrating the characteristics of personhood--those characteristics are merely future actual potentials in the sleeping human that cannot be demonstrated until they wake.
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We have discussed the difference between "function" and "ability" before. Functionality becomes potential with sleep, but not ability. DARE you tell a heavyweight boxer, during a flight between bouts, that he isn't a boxer, because he isn't functioning as a boxer?
Felicity said:
And according to this "logic," you should never go to sleep.
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That's your faulty logic, not mine.
 
Roberdorus said:
I have grown too powerful. This is my kingdom
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Another stupid lie by a cowardly pro-lifer. At least that's the description that applies to you until you respond to Message #473.
And if you really want to prove how "powerful" you are, you would answer all the questions in Msg #296, too.

Have fun --because slinking away again, red-faced, for maybe 300 more Messages, is what I expect you will actually do!
 
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FutureIncoming said:
Another stupid lie by a cowardly pro-lifer. At least that's the description that applies to you until you respond to Message #473.
And if you really want to prove how "powerful" you are, you would answer all the questions in Msg #296, too.

Have fun --because slinking away again, red-faced, for maybe 300 more Messages, is what I expect you will actually do!
Click to expand...

Another time, perhaps.
By the way, your lame insults make you sound a lot like a frustrated man-child who lives in his mother's basement. You can be sure I will be gathering up your posts, to present to the moderators, if you continue to insult what others have written in big red letters like a little kid who isn't getting enough attention, as you clearly and provably did in #980.:)
Or, perhaps I'll just cut off the middle-man and tell my mom on you.:mad:
 
FutureIncoming said:
Your mere claims are worthless without evidence. Let's see the evidence! --that what I wrote
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You used the very argument that you condemned a user for implementing, that is hypocrisy in its purest form.

FutureIncoming said:
That's OK; the more you spout nonsense that is provably nonsense, and the more you stand by it, the more other people will simply ignore you altogether. Including other pro-lifers.
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Do you standby that?

FutureIncoming said:
I can answer that after first pointing out that you are using the word "capacity" as a synonym for "ability", which is a third definition altogether, than the two definitions that Felicity routinely tries to equivocate. Thus to discuss "ability" is NOT to discuss either "potential" or "actual magnitude". And the answer to your question is "NO". Abilities that exist do not disappear just because they might not currently be getting exercised, such as during sleep.
Click to expand...

Excellent, we are getting some where.

So how can he carry out an operation when he is asleep?

FutureIncoming said:
jimmyjack was an idiot, and his constant lies, and distortions of what others wrote, plus his refusal to straightforwardly answer simple questions directed at him (all adding up to "failure to legitimately Debate"), caused him to be banned from this devoted-to-Debate site. If you plan on modelling your behavior after that, such as by failing to provide the evidence requested above, then you will inevitably/eventually be banned, too. There is absolutely nothing for me or any other normal Debater here to fear in that, and it will be "good riddance" to one more blathering/lying non-Debating idiot.
Click to expand...

I think that you are afraid of defeat, and you realise you can't win this one, I do feel a tiny bit sorry for you though. Willing a user to be banned translates as: Help! I cannot deal with this one, he's too good!

FutureIncoming said:
Ah, it looks like the idiocy is beginning already. Because the rest of what you wrote (quoted below) is not about fetuses, and cannot ever be about fetuses. Therefore your statements have nothing to do with fetuses independently associating themselves with some unique ethnic group, nor do they support your thencely-still-worthless claim that killing fetuses qualifies as "genocide". Therefore what I wrote in #927 and #962 is not only not "nonsense", the actual nonsense/idiocy is instead what you have written. As is to be expected from anyone stupid enough to both model self after jimmyjack, and brag about it.
Click to expand...

Your logic implies that killing all Muslims is not genocide because a Muslim can become a Christian, it is simply not true, nor is it sound logic.
 
C Foster said:
No, it was a response to your comment directed at pro-choicers.

Try again if you like.
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What ever you need to tell yourself guy. We may have to tolerate you for a time, but you are one of those problems which fix themselves....just like Jimmyjack ;)
 
Jerry said:
What ever you need to tell yourself guy. We may have to tolerate you for a time, but you are one of those problems which fix themselves....just like Jimmyjack ;)
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If that makes you feel better, however you still have the short term problem of actually making counter claims relevant and conducive to the debate.

You seem to think all problems can just be aborted, the truth is that the problem will just come back, there is no rest for the wicked.
 
Moderator's Warning:
This thread is turning into Basement meat fast. Focus on the topic at-hand, please, instead of the other posters, and let's keep things nice and civilized.
 
This thread degenerated into **** about 20 pages ago, when FI started calling people idiots and liars. Not to mention the omnipresent semantic quibbling that destroys every thread on abortion.

I tried to catch up on this thread, I really did. But I kept choking on the intellectual diarrhea and finally decided it wasn't worth the time.

I trust I didn't miss much..
 
Roberdorus said:
I have grown too powerful. This is my kingdom
Click to expand...
FutureIncoming said:
Another stupid lie by a cowardly pro-lifer. At least that's the description that applies to you until you respond to Message #473.
And if you really want to prove how "powerful" you are, you would answer all the questions in Msg #296, too.

Have fun --because slinking away again, red-faced, for maybe 300 more Messages, is what I expect you will actually do!
Click to expand...
Roberdorus said:
Another time, perhaps.
Click to expand...
See? Already you are avoiding participating in actual Debate, despite claims of being "powerful". Which is why I called the claim a stupid lie by a coward. You have conveniently supplied the evidence that supports my claim (first of all by avoiding posting this forum for hundreds of messages after #473)! I want to see your "powerful" facts and logic, that fulfills the requests made in #980. If you can't present them, then the claim of having lied is proved, and if you refuse to Debate, the claim of cowardice is proved. (Also, if you refuse to Debate, then why are you here? You might as well be banned, too.)
 
C Foster said:
You used the very argument that you condemned a user for implementing,
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I DID NO SUCH THING. If you look at #885, you will see that the thing I condemned was an "equivocation" argument that involved the word "capacity". There was no condemnation regarding using the word "capacity"; there was only condemnation regarding mis-using it. And since I did not mis-use the word, much less create an equivocation argument with it, there is absolutely no trace of hypocrisy in what I wrote -- and you are proved to be a liar.

FutureIncoming said:
the more you spout nonsense that is provably nonsense, and the more you stand by it, the more other people will simply ignore you altogether. Including other pro-lifers.
Click to expand...
C Foster said:
Do you standby that?
Click to expand...
To some extent; it is generally foolish to put too much store in predictions about how people behave. However, already there is some evidence supporting what I wrote:
1069 said:
Haven't you noticed how much the other PLers despise him? Haven't you noticed all the bickering and dissent in the PL ranks since his arrival?
Click to expand...
It seems to me that in the end, the best choice, even for the pro-lifers, will be either to ignore you or to ban you. And that, based on current evidence, I will stand by. (Meanwhile, I find it entertaining to rip your illogic and non-arguments to shreds, thereby further revealing to others the extent to which you deserve to be ignored or banned.)

FutureIncoming said:
Abilities that exist do not disappear just because they might not currently be getting exercised, such as during sleep.
Click to expand...
C Foster said:
So how can he carry out an operation when he is asleep?
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Why should he? You appear to be confusing "functioning" with "ability".
ability - definition of ability by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.
above link said:
The quality of being able to do something, especially the physical, mental, financial, or legal power to accomplish something.
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That definition has no requirement that an ability must be exercised to prove it continues to exist. Consider that many humans, as children, learn how to ride bicycles. It is claimed that this is something --an ability!-- that humans generally retain for life, even if they switch to driving cars as teenagers, and never ride a bike again. So, if you walked up to an average 60-year-old man and asked if he had the ability to ride a bicycle, would you believe him if he said "yes"? (I would, mostly because I have seen older people riding bicycles, after I found out they hadn't done so for decades.)

So the surgeon who is asleep retains the ability to function as a surgeon, even if sleep precludes actual functioning. There is nothing wrong with that. A surgeon who is wide-awake and sitting in an airplane seat at 10 kilometers of altitude is also precluded from functioning as a surgeon, and yet nobody doubts that the surgeon has the ability to function as a surgeon in other circumstances. As I asked Felicity:
FutureIncoming said:
DARE you tell a heavyweight boxer, during a flight between bouts, that he isn't a boxer, because he isn't functioning as a boxer?
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I think I would very much like to see you, C Foster, take up that dare!

So, back to more abortion-specific stuff, and regarding the ability to function as a person, any organism that has the ability qualifies as a person, regardless of circumstantial preclusions from functioning as a person. If the ability simply doesn't exist, as is true for every single unborn human, then the organism cannot possibly be a person. And if it does exist, then only if the ability is lost (as is true for brain-dead humans on life-support), can a person become a non-person. Mere sleep is NOT a reason to claim that an ability has become lost.

C Foster said:
Willing a user to be banned translates as: Help! I cannot deal with this one, he's too good!
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FALSE. Because more than one translation is possible, such as, "All the evidence shows that this one doesn't know anything about Debating, so why do we keep letting him post nonsense?" So far as I can see, you yourself haven't exhibited one "good" Debating thing yet. Just lies and distortions and Bad Logic. Exactly like jimmyjack.

FutureIncoming said:
Ethnic group - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An ethic group is defined by itself. It is not defined by outsiders. For example, when "whites" colonized the Western Hemisphere, they may have used such words as "Injuns" to designate the indigenous population as an overall group, but that is not an ethnic designation. The actual ethnic designations were such words as "Aztec", "Cherokee", "Iroquois", "Inca", "Apache", and so on. THEY decided which groups they were.
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FutureIncoming said:
You have claimed that killing fetuses is "genocide". If you are talking about what humans do after they are born and grow up, you cannot be talking about actual fetuses. It is actual fetuses that are incapable of forming an ethnic group, and so killing actual fetuses cannot qualify as "genocide". PERIOD.
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C Foster said:
Nonsense!
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FutureIncoming said:
the rest of what you wrote (quoted below) is not about fetuses, and cannot ever be about fetuses. Therefore your statements have nothing to do with fetuses independently associating themselves with some unique ethnic group, nor do they support your thencely-still-worthless claim that killing fetuses qualifies as "genocide". Therefore what I wrote in #927 and #962 is not only not "nonsense"
Click to expand...
C Foster said:
Let me give you an example: A Jew becomes a Christian.
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C Foster said:
Your logic implies that killing all Muslims is not genocide because a Muslim can become a Christian, it is simply not true, nor is it sound logic.
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FALSE; ANOTHER OUTRIGHT LIE. My logic concerns fetuses only, which are inherently unable to independently associate themselves with an ethnic group, as specified in the first two of those several quotes above. That logic is not at all applicable to any human which is able to indepently become associated with some ethnic group -- every such human is not a fetus. It is only your own illogic that continues to somehow lead you to blather about various ethnic groups, despite the fact that fetuses neither know nor care about such things. You most certainly have not provided any evidence to show that fetuses choose to participate in ethnic groups! Probably because you can't, so you tell lies instead, to disguise your inability to support your claims with evidence.

===========
"All the evidence shows that this one doesn't know anything about Debating, so why do we keep letting him post nonsense?"
 
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