terrible podcaster 15000+ posts
Joined: Sep 2002
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Quote:
Disco Steve said:
Quote:
Matter-eater Man said: we were designed to be predators & it's a survival thing.
I've actually read that humans share more in common with herbivores than carnivores. For example, we don't have claws on our hands or sharp teeth for tearing meat, among some other things I've forgotten.
Ah, the catch here is that no matter which perspective you take here, there's room to debate whether or not human beings are 'supposed' to eat meat.
From a Darwinian perspective, fossil evidence shows that human beings evolved as tool users. They didn't need claws to catch prey if they could use spears, clubs, and fire. Similarly, they didn't need an abundance of meat-tearing teeth (although we in fact have eight, our canines and incisors), because they had flint knives to cut the meat they killed.
Or, if you want to follow a strictly Biblical perspective, there's also plenty here to justify human beings eating animals. At the end of the flood narrative in Genesis 6 and 7, God specifically gives animals to human beings for food.
But that's not quite the topic we're on here.
I would have to say Darknight summed up how I feel about the abortion issue pretty well. I shared this in an abortion thread a long time ago, but I am an adopted child. My birth mother (who I had what you could call the 'privilege' of meeting two summers ago) was (and still is) a seemingly incurable alcoholic, and was at the time a drug user. She admitted to abusing prescription drugs while she was carrying me, and tests confirmed the presence of some decidedly non-prescription substances as well.
I was born with a mild incidence of cerebral palsy and some behavioral aberrations, but eventually my other biological relatives convinced my birth mother to do something for someone else just once and give me up for adoption. And here I am today. Yeah, I'm kinda clumsy, but you have to watch me really carefully to see why that is. Yeah, I do dumb stuff every now and then, but not that much more than anyone else, thanks to medication and therapy back in junior high and high school.
My point is that I believe I'm here for a reason, even though I was what many would call an accident, and by their logic I should have been written off, since I would surely never be a healthy, productive member of society. I am convinced that God has a purpose for every single human being alive, even though most of the time neither that person nor anyone around them knows what that purpose is.
I wouldn't expect any of you to see it from my perspective if you haven't been where I've been and gone through what I've gone through. But you'd better not expect me to go against all of that just because you believe one person's choice is more important than another person's (even potential person's, if you want) life. I can understand circumstances where the life of the mother is threatened. But from the perspective of my beliefs and experiences, it strikes me as a bit presumptuous to say that some human beings/potential human beings should have their lives granted or taken away on a trial basis depending on how convenient their existence may be, or how that particular person came to be conceived, or whatever.
Just my thoughts.
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