Mormon Worldview

[Res Ipsa]

The fetus does not have a heart at 22 days. It does not have anything resembling a heat. The claim that a 22 day old fetus has a heartbeat is one of many examples of false or misleading information that, sadly, the leaders of anti-abortion groups have fed to a public that is unfamiliar with the biological process that begins with a single cell and ends with a live baby.

You’re right, it’s 35-37 days.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9225347/

When an author leads with drawings from the late 1800's, one might reasonably conclude that the author isn't doing science.

[sock puppet]

Our society is willing to 'pull the plug' on someone who no longer has detectable brain wave activity. So why the aversion to ending a pregnancy before a fetus has any detectable brain wave activity?

Yes, now we are having a conversation. The brainwave view does have some logic behind it. What is your argument against when a fetus has a heartbeat at approximately 22 days after conception? Isn’t that also a standard for end of life?

My point is that a human with a heartbeat but no detectible brain waves leads to 'pulling the plug.' A heart is not the same as detectable brain wave activity in the cerebral cortex, where conscious thought occurs. The heart--beating or not--is not the location of conscious thought. Prior to conscious thinking, the fetus is just human tissue growing. Crassly said, like a tumor is.

[huckelberry]

Yes, now we are having a conversation. The brainwave view does have some logic behind it. What is your argument against when a fetus has a heartbeat at approximately 22 days after conception? Isn’t that also a standard for end of life?

My point is that a human with a heartbeat but no detectible brain waves leads to 'pulling the plug.' A heart is not the same as detectable brain wave activity in the cerebral cortex, where conscious thought occurs. The heart--beating or not--is not the location of conscious thought. Prior to conscious thinking, the fetus is just human tissue growing. Crassly said, like a tumor is.

Sock Puppet, I think you point out something of value here. How it is received is confused by the fact that a cluster of related but different questions are in view here. The matter of when life begins is different if asking biologic history, if hopeful parents are looking for a child, if a woman has been attacked, if a woman is privately with her doctor considering safety or her ability to deal with a child. If society is thinking what legal protection needs or should be given a developing child.

I am inclined to think when conscious thought has developed the organism has developed to the point of being a person who should have legal protections. That does not answer how that balances with potential serious health risks. I think doctors and mothers should have important rights in difficult decisions.

These are different questions though related to a decision of what is best moral practice. There are reasons to say morally abortion should be avoided to the extent possible. That is something people can make their own decision about, perhaps with encouragement and help. Abortion is tragic, ending something valuable.

[Morley]

Abortion is tragic, ending something valuable.

That’s often true, Huck. However, I’m sure you’d agree that there are also times when to reverse your sentence would also be true. In some horrific instances, abortion is valuable, ending something tragic.

[Marcus]

I'm going to push the boards' collective patience by trying again to express my one point more clearly.

People who believe in the Bible as an infallible authority for truth and morality actually all believe in and use two separate standards of truth and morality. Accepting the authority of the Bible, and trying to interpret it as objectively as possible, is their Method 2. It's the one they use, or at least try to use, most of the time. Before they ever got to use their Method 2 even once, though, they had to rely, at least once, on their other standard of truth and morality: Method 1.

Method 1 is just to rely on human reason, emotion, instinct, and conscience, possibly including the best human efforts to recognise and discern spiritual prompting from God. Even people who mostly rely on the Bible, through Method 2, have had to fall back on Method 1 at least once: that's how they made the big initial decision to accept the Bible as an authority.

People who now navigate through life by Method 2, relying on the Bible, may want to forget that Method 1 even exists. They used it once, but that was a while ago, now. These people still have to agree that Method 1 can be reliable enough for individuals and even whole societies to use, though, because if it is not highly reliable, at least when carefully used, then there is a high chance that Method 1 failed when the decision to believe in the Bible was made. In that case Method 2 would be a useless delusion that does not lead to truth or morality after all. So if you use Method 2, you still have to acknowledge that Method 1 also works, because Method 2 is based upon Method 1.

Since everyone has to agree that Method 1 works, then why can't people and whole societies simply keep on using Method 1, day by day and case by case, without accepting the authority of the Bible? Why does anyone really need Method 2?

Perhaps as penance for having repeated myself like this, I can now try to bring this thread back to Mormonism. One important part of the Mormon world view is a belief in "the witness of the Holy Spirit" to confirm the authority of the Mormon scriptures and the Mormon prophets. The "promise of Moroni" is that if anyone prays sincerely to know whether or not the Book of Mormon is true, God will answer that earnest prayer by giving the petitioner a strong feeling that the Book of Mormon is indeed true.

This is a sort of extended version of Method 1. It amounts to relying on a human emotion, but the emotion is supposed to be an unusual and mysterious one, which is further unusual in that it comes right after praying a certain prayer. This extended Mormon version of Method 1 then supports an extended Mormon version of Method 2, in which there is an even stronger belief in the authority of the Book of Mormon than there is in the authority of the Bible.

The peculiar circumstances by which the Book of Mormon appeared—miraculous translation through Joseph Smith—then mean that if the Book of Mormon is a divinely certified true revelation, Joseph Smith must be a genuine prophet. If Joseph Smith was a genuine prophet, then since his main prophetic revelation was not the Book of Mormon but rather the Restoration of the one true church, it must follow that the LDS church is God's only true church, led by continuing prophets.

And so just as Method 1 can support Method 2, as a standard of truth and morality, the extended Mormon versions of Methods 1 and 2 quickly lead to a new Method 3 for Mormons: relying on the LDS church, and its authorised prophetic leaders, as the main practical standard for truth and morality.

This Mormon concept of doctrinal and moral authority may turn out to be right or wrong, but its general structure makes just as much sense as the fundamentalist Protestant structure that upholds the Bible-based Method 2. There is no quick-and-easy way to prove that the two-method fundamentalist Protestant concept is necessarily and inherently better than either the extended Mormon three-method structure or simple reliance on Method 1 only. You have to grapple with details to decide whether one method really does lead to another reliably.

I myself just don't see how anyone can really get from Method 1 to Method 2, let alone Method 3, without tilting the scales with careless thinking or ulterior motivation. The mileage of others may vary.

No patience necessary, I enjoy reading your assessments on the matter-- your take and others like it are ones the OP has steadfastly refused to address, which makes me suspect they understand very well that they have no way to refute the position.

[sock puppet]

My point is that a human with a heartbeat but no detectible brain waves leads to 'pulling the plug.' A heart is not the same as detectable brain wave activity in the cerebral cortex, where conscious thought occurs. The heart--beating or not--is not the location of conscious thought. Prior to conscious thinking, the fetus is just human tissue growing. Crassly said, like a tumor is.

Sock Puppet, I think you point out something of value here.How it is received is confused by the fact that a cluster of related but different questions are in view here. The matter of when life begins is different if asking biologic history ,if hopeful parents are looking for a child, if a woman has been attacked, if a woman is privately with her doctor considering safty or her ability to deal with a child . if society is thinking what legal protection needs or should be given a developing child.

i am inclined to think when conscious thought has developed the organism has developed to the point of being a person who should have legal protections. That does not answer how that balances with potential serious health risks. I think doctors and mothers should have important rights in difficult decisions.

These are different questions though related to a decision of what is best moral practice. There are reasons to say morally abortion should be avoided to exent possible. That is something people can make their own decision about , perhaps with encouragement and help. Abortion is tragic, ending something valuable.

Unfortunately, some of the loudest anti-abortionists are also the loudest voices against the most effective way to minimize the need for abortion: sex education in the schools, such as in The Netherlands. I hear arch conservatives say sex ed ought only be taught in the home, but most parents are too embarrassed to talk about it with their children--at least until one of their teenagers has become pregnant or whose girlfriend has become pregnant.

[huckelberry]

Abortion is tragic, ending something valuable.

That’s often true, Huck. However, I’m sure you’d agree that there are also times when to reverse your sentence would also be true. In some horrific instances, abortion is valuable, ending something tragic.

Morley I can see that possibility, I can imagine more situations that would be very mixed.

[Res Ipsa]

Abortion is tragic, ending something valuable.

That’s often true, Huck. However, I’m sure you’d agree that there are also times when to reverse your sentence would also be true. In some horrific instances, abortion is valuable, ending something tragic.

I have personal experience with the horrific experiences you reference. Had anyone tried to force Ms. Ipsa to endure the trauma that would have resulted from forcing her to give birth against her will, I likely would be in prison. Those monsters who harass women entering abortion clinics are lucky they didn’t try to pull that inexcusable crap on my lovely wife.

[Moksha]

When an author leads with drawings from the late 1800's, one might reasonably conclude that the author isn't doing science.

This could simply mean they have a degree from BYU and a blog on Patheos.

[drumdude]

When an author leads with drawings from the late 1800's, one might reasonably conclude that the author isn't doing science.

This could simply mean they have a degree from BYU and a blog on Patheos.