Last year, the community choir that I was in set up rehearsals at a Unitarian Universalist (UU) Church (really pseudo-ecclesial community). When you came in the door (or came up the stairs from the bathrooms), there was a big sign that read, "The inherent dignity and worth of all people" with some silhouettes of mature humans kneeling down.
I got to wondering since that's what I sometimes do.
Could a UU person be prolife, or OTAAAC since "The inherent dignity and worth of all people" is a principal held by UU's. After a long search, it didn't look like it was possible.
Even though it didn't look like it, I started a dialog with a UU here. I'll let you know how it goes.
From the last link of this post ("ogre" won't let anyone freely post at the last link of this post):
ReplyDelete"Big Sap said...
ogre: You say crushing an acorn is categorically different from cutting down a majestic oak. Into which category do you place uprooting saplings? Saplings are in the same place biologically as, say, kindergarten-age children. Your positing of a hard categorical distinction would seem incompatible with any argument rooted in a notion of intermediacy."
This is the thing, things such as plants, animals, and (most if not all) non-humans have variable worth. This is because they become more or less useful by the presence of their realized trait. For trees, larger trees are more desirable or have more worth because they create more wood, release sap, hold bird nests, are majestic, etc. The worth they have is on a sliding scale. They have no capacity to morality/no soul, ie, no freedom to choose to love God or not.
This is not the case with humans. Once an individual human fe/male is created at fertilization, their usefulness or actual traits are not the basis of their worth. It's their soul that gives them worth, the part of them that has the capacity (capacity is not the same as potential) to love God or not. There is no sliding scale of worth for humans: they have it once they come into being as an individual.
-Gerry
Gerry, Thank you for the concept of capacity rather than potential which is bandied about by some abortionists. The sovereign person whose soul is infused when life at fertilization by "OUR CREATOR" The Declaration of Independence begins. Life is an attribute of the soul not of the body. Growth is a sign of life. If the child was not alive and growing abortion would not be happening. Abortion is a direct attack agaisnt the God of LIFE Whose name is I AM.
ReplyDeleteGerry,
ReplyDeleteI must comment on the usefulness of the newly conceived human being. The sovereign personhood of the newly conceived constitutes our sovereign nation, even before birth. Being born gives the child citizenship and vital statistics, nothing more except the duty to pay taxes.
Mary,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments. I do find the US Dec. of Independence very to-the-point about how each human is created equal; then do we receive our inalienable rights. I would be careful about the idea of an "infused" soul. I think it more valid to say that a human fe/male is an embodied soul that has the capacity to love God from his/her creation.
About governmental pragmatic considerations, many people confuse a birth certificates (something the government uses) with human right to life (something humans inherently have). I would be careful with, "Being born gives the child citizenship and vital statistics, nothing more except the duty to pay taxes." Being a pre/born human boy or girl gives citizenship to human kind or family. What happened to Romans when Rome fell? Were they not human persons with universal human rights?
Good day.