Immorality of Abortion and Forced Cryosleep: A Thought Experiment

People who supposedly support women's rights think that abortion is not equivalent to murder in principle. But they are disturbingly mistaken; they overlook the wisdom of old, thinking that they are better than they out of hubris. Murder is wrong in that it willfully takes actual life and/or the potentiality of future life. If one of the two criteria are met, then it is counted as murder. Let's use a thought experiment that presents how this principle of murder applies. Perhaps this thought experiment will give the advocates of abortion something to think about.

Forced Cryosleep
Imagine yourself a future where cryosleep machines are being used as a means to keep astronauts from aging through a long journey through space. For safeguarding the life within, its power supply is 100% self-sufficient and its computer is completely disconnected from outside sources, meaning it cannot be deactivated through wireless means. To deactivate the cryosleep, one must manually enter the date the machine will release the body within.

In this future, there is a giant space station orbiting a planet in a faraway system. It is a research facility that examines the system. In it, there are escape pods equipped with cryosleep machines and a distress beacon. The escape pod is designed to withstand impacting into planets with extremely high gravitational pull; it can easily withstand a force equivalent to a nuclear blast. Once inside, the chances of survival is extremely high.

A mechanic who lives in the station holds a grudge against one of the scientists for looking down at him, calling him uneducated. Overcome with fury, the engineer forced the scientist into an escape pod, pushed him into a cryosleep machine, turned it on, set the deactivation date to 09/09/99999999, destroyed the distress beacon, and launched the escape pod into deep space, away from the gravitational pulls of celestial bodies.

A week passed by without the scientist being seen. So an official investigation begins. After two weeks, the engineer is arrested and brought back to earth for trial. By this time, the escape pod being found in deep space is slim to none; the area to be covered for search is too vast for human beings.

When he was charged with murder, the engineer argued that it was not murder for the scientist is technically still alive; his life is still in stasis.

If you were a judge in this case, how would you decide the case? Is this murder or no? While there is no actual life taken away, there is a potentiality of life taken away. Would you not judge that this is murder? Would you not say that, while the scientist's life itself is not taken away, this is indeed murder for the very fact that the possibility of life is taken away? All the things he could have done, all the happiness he could have had... they are taken away.

Abortion
In a voluntary abortion, there are elements at hand that are similar to the cryosleep case:

1) No actual perceivable life is taken away, that is to say no life of a biological form capable of self-sufficiency is taken away ( a religious argument would say that a life imperceptible was taken away, but I will stick to secular arguments).
2) A potentiality of life is taken away.

All the things the child could have done, all the happiness the child could have had... they are taken away.




Possible Objection
A pro-abortion advocate would say that a murder can only account for the taking away the potentiality of life of an actual life.

Reply

I answer that we are beings that are intertwined with past and future; we cannot be looked at as beings that have their actualities separate from their potentialities. To assume that the potentialities and the actualities of our lives are separate and distinguishable is an ontological fallacy in both religious metaphysics and in physics as discovered by quantum mechanics. I will explain in physical terms only since the religious will understand without me explaining and the irreligious will not be interested to know. The scientific findings suggest that the material things are in a superposition of states; the past, present, future, possible pasts, possible presents and possible futures are all interwoven. Assuming that the essence of life is in the will itself, in terms of talking about materials that compose our bodies, it is fair to consider ourselves as beings interwoven with our actualities and potentialities of the future for the will has no effect in the past. And since the potentiality to will is created at conception, it can then be said that life begins at conception. In this sense, to willfully abort a baby is tantamount to murder for the actual accidental properties of the fetus is interwoven to its potential accidental properties of the future. The future of a fetus, of course, holds a human being .

To readers: Sorry for using field-specific language. It is the only way I can explain it. If what I said is unclear, look it up on Google.

Being an Atheist... Does it Make Rational Sense?

Truly, you are a God who hides himself, O God of Israel, the Savior. - Isaiah 45:15

I've been puzzled about the nature of faith and the lack thereof. Even though I consider myself a devout Catholic, there are yet times my faith shakes. Whenever moments of uncertainty happens I pray like any sensible devout Christian would do in times of uncertainty. When I have calmed myself, I further pose this question to really hit he nail and affirm my faith once more: Does it make sense to be an atheist? It is the aim of this post to share the thought process I go through in asking myself the question.

     When an atheist says that he doesn't believe in God, he, whether he is a common man or a distinguished philosopher, he believes so essentially because he does not see God and His works. But this assumption is an error. Just because one does not observe certain things to be so does not mean that it is so. Imagine yourself sitting across a man you've never met. You do not see his cellphone so you assume that there is no cellphone. But, of course, this would be erroneous for there are other factors. One of them being his cellphone hidden in his pocket.

     In order to cure the empirical uncertainty, he may start from a cosmological argument to show how God may not exist, or he can even launch a counter argument for theists' other metaphysical arguments. But such arguments will end in mere speculation. The word "may" being the key word, the arguments will only show the possibility of nonexistence of God; they do not show certainty.

     So, however sure the atheists may believe themselves to be, all they are left to support their claim is the possibility/impossibility of God's existence. They cannot even be moderately sure. Since the arguments will always go outside the physical universe there will never be a moment in human history, however advanced our sciences may become, where we can clearly say with empirical certainty that God exists or does not exist for the sciences developed in the perceivable world will cease to exist outside the perceivable world. Further, the probabilities dealing with the existence of God cannot be put into a numerical form; we cannot say that there is a 60% chance that God does not exist. Such factors are unknown. So one cannot even say: "There is 50% chance of there being no God. I am therefore reasonably justified in taking the risk in this empirically unproven field". There simply is no room for reasonable disbelief.

     When one is left with such uncertainty, there is only one thing a person can retreat to: his own feelings. The gist of disbelief in God is based on feelings not a rational risk. Within the core of atheist's judgment, however convincingly he may try to rationally expound on his beliefs, it is his feelings that passed the ultimate judgment. It is therefore shown that atheism makes no rational sense.

     An atheist reading this may ask: But what about those religious people? What basis do they have for being reasonable in their faith? They are in a same epistemic darkness as we are. Are they not simply basing their belief based on mere feelings?  Are they not simply doing what they do out of fear of imaginary hell?

     First, I want to challenge the psychological reductionism. The act of reducing religious acts as "fear of imaginary hell" is erroneous in that you can't just simplify the complex thing that is the human mind into simple principles. This practice of psychology is a dying breed in modern world for the simple fact such practices are erroneous. Think to how Freud made wrong reductions. If you interview the faithful (like an actual psychologists would do), many will say in all honesty that the driving force of their religion is not the fear of hell but the love of God.

     Second, I want to challenge the thought that the religious are in a same epistemic darkness. It is true that many start their faiths based on their feelings. Perhaps they were raised to be religious and their feelings simply conformed to the things they were taught. And perhaps so many abandon their faiths when their feelings are corrupted by external sources, most likely by hedonistic temptations. But the fact that many religious base their faith on feelings does not mean that it stops at mere feelings.

     What drives people to have such adamant faiths, even more so for things that are not visible? One might say that brainwashing does the trick. By brainwashing its faithful the religion maintains the number of believers. This is a lie. Brainwashing does not do the trick; it fails when the visibility fails. There are countless Nazi and Communist agents who were thoroughly indoctrinated by the regime's propaganda. But majority of them lost the faith in their regimes when the visibility of them failed; they abandoned their faith in their governments when they were wiped from the map. Not to mention many North Koreans, who were indoctrinated from their childhood, now living a well-fed capitalist life in the South; in this case the visible construction of the North's regime failed when they saw the truth of it all.

     So, if not brainwashing, then what? What drives the faithful? Perhaps the reason why they are so adamant in their faiths is because they have encountered something real and perceivable.

     There is a phrase called "spiritual experience". And no, I do not mean those that are induced artificially through drugs endorsed by new-age Buddhists or hyper emotional states endorsed by Pentecostals (though I recognize that many can have authentic experiences through artificial emotional states, but I must detest the fact that many do not; they are simply swept by the mood). It is stated:“Go out and stand on the mount before the LORD.” And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake.And after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper. - 1 Kings 19

     Genuine spiritual experiences are found in silence. Some Christians claim that God has spoken to them, that Virgin Mary has appeared to them, and that they have witnessed miracles. Further, many Catholics report indescribable sense of peace following after praying the rosary, one thing I myself can testify. In defense of Christianity there are spiritual experiences reported by multiple people (who were sober and in a silent meditative state of course) who report similar experiences, many of which are unique to Christianity (experiences gained after each rosary, for example).

     Being a skeptic during one point in my life, I was quick to dismiss them as some sort of psychological phenomena. But, being a committed Catholic now, I can say that it is not a mere psychological phenomena. There's something definitely perceivable but cannot be described using human language, a language that is severely limited in describing certain transcendental experiences.

     Summing up, there are just too many unified and similar experiences reported by the faithful. They will all say that they have felt, and by that word (see how the language is already limited, requiring me to clarify?) I mean more than mere an emotional account. Sure, the experience can include emotion. But they will all agree with me in saying that there was something definitely perceivable yet invisible. The encounter is not empirical yet its is empirical in a sense. However contradictory the previous statement may sound, that is the only way I can think of to explain the transcendental experience (again, limited human language).

     Considering how unified the experiences are, one cannot merely dismiss them as superstitious or subjective. Even atheists must realize (as I have many years ago) that the unified nature of the experiences makes it clear that there's something objective and beyond emotional impulses. In observing this, they would think: Perhaps the reason why I'm not religious is because I have yet to experience the things that they have. Therefore, for those who have had genuine spiritual experience, the ones the professed atheists have yet to experience, are rationally justified in being religious.