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The purpose of this 2-part post is to explain how the Judeo/Christian/Muslim God, claimed to be smart and knowledgeable and loving, will as a simple logical consequence of those claims not condemn anyone for getting (or performing) an abortion. Replies should be restricted to attempting to point out errors in the logic.
We start with some background information, mainly some claims about "souls". Religions tend to claim that a soul is a special thing associated with every person, that that thing that is "immortal" and able to survive physical death, that that thing endows living persons with Free Will, and that that thing will be Judged after death for choices made during life. Here I will point out that while in other places I have stated that a person is a mind, not a body, a soul must have a mind in order to understand Judgement --and therefore a person is still a mind, even if souls exist. (If souls exist, then the person is the soul's mind, not the body's mind.)
It needs to be mentioned that in ancient times living things were perceived to be fundamentally different from non-living things, and one consequence of that perception was the notion that living things had some sort of "life force", which even today some folks seem to think is the same thing as the soul. (Research the topic of "vitalism" for more details.) Unfortunately for those folks, however, modern scientific investigations have quite thoroughly proved that living things are made up from the same fundamental physical elements (like carbon and nitrogen and oxygen and hydrogen) as non-living things (like diamonds and air and stars). There is no such thing as "life force"; living things are somewhat equivalent to fuel-powered toys, like model airplanes --and when they run out of fuel, they stop working. If souls exist, they are something entirely different from "life force".
For the purposes of this 2-part post, the most relevant of the above claims is the one about souls being "immortal". That word has been defined in such a way as to allow us to say that in all of the physical Universe, there is nothing that can harm a soul (not even if it dives into a black hole). In other words, a soul is a non-physical thing (or perhaps a "meta-physical" thing), and its existence cannot be affected by physical things. But that same definition leads us to a very specific logical conclusion: It is impossible for a soul to begin to exist as a direct consequence of some physical event. Only a non-physical (or meta-physical) event can cause a soul to begin existing.
Well, The Fact Is, the process of ovum-fertilization is purely a physical event (of physics, chemistry, biochemistry, and biology). Any religion that claims a human zygote is associated with a soul needs to explain how that soul began to exist, when it is just plain impossible for the purely physical conception-event to affect a non-physical soul (like cause it to begin to exist). Logically, some sort of non-physical event is necessary, such as an Act of God.
Which leads us to various standard claims about God, such as the claims that God is smart and knowledgeable and loving. Well, a smart God will be able to think logically, so here is a Question: Does a human zygote need a soul in order to survive? Since God is knowledgeable, God knows that a zygote is a living thing very similar in many ways to other very-common single-celled living things, like amoeba and paramecia (research "eukaryotes"). And since God knows those living things are equivalent to fuel-powered toys, God certainly knows zygotes don't need souls to survive.
So here is another Question: What might a zygote do with a soul? A zygote is a fairly simple entity that will follow various genetic instructions built into its DNA; having Free Will makes absolutely no difference regarding what it must do if it is to ultimately yield a whole human body.
That last thing leads us to something well-known to humans, and therefore must also be known to God: About 2/3 of all new-formed human zygotes will ultimately and quite Naturally fail to yield a whole human body (most often because of defects in the DNA code). Well, if a soul cannot begin to exist without an Act of God, and if God knows that zygotes very often don't survive, and if God is knowledgeable enough to be able to "read" DNA code and directly detect fatal defects, and if God is smart/logical, then why should God bother to create a soul for every single new human zygote? (Does your religion claim God is a mindless soul-creating automaton?)
We start with some background information, mainly some claims about "souls". Religions tend to claim that a soul is a special thing associated with every person, that that thing that is "immortal" and able to survive physical death, that that thing endows living persons with Free Will, and that that thing will be Judged after death for choices made during life. Here I will point out that while in other places I have stated that a person is a mind, not a body, a soul must have a mind in order to understand Judgement --and therefore a person is still a mind, even if souls exist. (If souls exist, then the person is the soul's mind, not the body's mind.)
It needs to be mentioned that in ancient times living things were perceived to be fundamentally different from non-living things, and one consequence of that perception was the notion that living things had some sort of "life force", which even today some folks seem to think is the same thing as the soul. (Research the topic of "vitalism" for more details.) Unfortunately for those folks, however, modern scientific investigations have quite thoroughly proved that living things are made up from the same fundamental physical elements (like carbon and nitrogen and oxygen and hydrogen) as non-living things (like diamonds and air and stars). There is no such thing as "life force"; living things are somewhat equivalent to fuel-powered toys, like model airplanes --and when they run out of fuel, they stop working. If souls exist, they are something entirely different from "life force".
For the purposes of this 2-part post, the most relevant of the above claims is the one about souls being "immortal". That word has been defined in such a way as to allow us to say that in all of the physical Universe, there is nothing that can harm a soul (not even if it dives into a black hole). In other words, a soul is a non-physical thing (or perhaps a "meta-physical" thing), and its existence cannot be affected by physical things. But that same definition leads us to a very specific logical conclusion: It is impossible for a soul to begin to exist as a direct consequence of some physical event. Only a non-physical (or meta-physical) event can cause a soul to begin existing.
Well, The Fact Is, the process of ovum-fertilization is purely a physical event (of physics, chemistry, biochemistry, and biology). Any religion that claims a human zygote is associated with a soul needs to explain how that soul began to exist, when it is just plain impossible for the purely physical conception-event to affect a non-physical soul (like cause it to begin to exist). Logically, some sort of non-physical event is necessary, such as an Act of God.
Which leads us to various standard claims about God, such as the claims that God is smart and knowledgeable and loving. Well, a smart God will be able to think logically, so here is a Question: Does a human zygote need a soul in order to survive? Since God is knowledgeable, God knows that a zygote is a living thing very similar in many ways to other very-common single-celled living things, like amoeba and paramecia (research "eukaryotes"). And since God knows those living things are equivalent to fuel-powered toys, God certainly knows zygotes don't need souls to survive.
So here is another Question: What might a zygote do with a soul? A zygote is a fairly simple entity that will follow various genetic instructions built into its DNA; having Free Will makes absolutely no difference regarding what it must do if it is to ultimately yield a whole human body.
That last thing leads us to something well-known to humans, and therefore must also be known to God: About 2/3 of all new-formed human zygotes will ultimately and quite Naturally fail to yield a whole human body (most often because of defects in the DNA code). Well, if a soul cannot begin to exist without an Act of God, and if God knows that zygotes very often don't survive, and if God is knowledgeable enough to be able to "read" DNA code and directly detect fatal defects, and if God is smart/logical, then why should God bother to create a soul for every single new human zygote? (Does your religion claim God is a mindless soul-creating automaton?)
