This is a straw man argument, I completely conceded that the claim - God exists - needs to be proven and justified. As I said, if I hold that the claim ''God exists'' is true, then I would have to prove it.

You say that the claim God does not exist is valid, right? You say that this claim is true. Saying that something is true is a positive assertion that needs supporting evidence or argumentation.

Another example, I can make a positive claim - God exists. By your logic, because this is a positive claim, I would have to justify the truth value of such a claim. I agree with this.

What you don't understand is that I can make the same claim in a negative way - The claim ''God does not exist'' is false. This claim, while negative, is synonymous with the claim The claim ''God does exist'' is true. However, because its a negative claim and not a positive one, does that mean that I don't have to justify it?

It's not just that. A positive claim is a statement that you hold to be true, not whether something exists or not.

God exists - this statement is true. So now, I have to prove it.

The problem is that you can turn any positive claim into a passive claim and vice versa into eternity.

The claim ''God does not exist'' is not true - negative claim, therefore I'm not obligated to prove it.

The claim ''God does not exist'' is true - positive claim, therefore you are obligated to prove it.

You can't escape the burden of proof either way. Every claim needs to be substantiated regardless of whether they're negative or positive. The only thing that doesn't require burden of proof is ignorance, the claim - I don't know whether God exists or not, therefore I withhold judgement.

The thing with Dawkins is that as long as he sticks to his field (evolutionary biology), he's pure gold. I very much enjoy reading his books on the topic of evolution.

However, when it comes to reading his religion-bashing books, it's quite clear that he has an incredibly biased and simplistic view of religion, his approach to the more philosophical issues is sophmoric and superficial and it's obvious that he has an ideological axe to grind on the very topic of religion.

I'm simply confused as to why gays get preferential treatment over any other sexual minority. Why aren't we fighting for the rights of polygamists, zoophiles, incest practitioners, necrophiles etc?

Playstation was better.

It popularized the CD rom which enabled developers to create longer and more complex games. The N64 was actually criticized for keeping the cartridge system that had limited capacity. Developing for the cartridge took more time, money and effort while developing for the CD system the PS used was cheaper, quicker, easier and required far less optimization.

Also keep in mind that because of this, the PS enjoyed a huge amount of high quality games such as the FF series, Metal Gear Solid, Chrono Cross and Chrono Trigger as well, the Resident Evil Trilogy, Medievil, Crash Bandicoot, Legacy of Kain etc. The PS is the true console that perfected the 3D jump, the N64 was merely the pioneer.

The N64 had very few high quality and memorable games, most of them came from Nintendo themselves, such as Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time - though none of them have aged well at all, if you ask me.

Plato, Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas and Kant. Brilliant men all of them.

Sure, once sex robots hit the market and we've figured out how to artificially reproduce, we won't even need women anymore.

The future belongs to men and sex robots.

Whether or not it is a new being is not the argument. Regardless, the originality of it's genetic composite does not affect the argument you're making.

I agree that originality doesn't matter, however the completeness of the genetic information does. As long as the information is incomplete (in the case of the sperm, half the composite is missing) it doesn't have the capability to develop into an adult human being.

For it to gain the capability, the sperm needs to fuse with the unfertilized egg or in the case of cloning, you need to fuse the nucleus of the person with an egg that has no nucleus. Keep in mind, cloning changes nothing about how we perceive the beginning of an individual's life - it just shows that there is more than one way to get there, as in there is more than one way to create a zygote.

Once the genetic information is complete, then the being will develop into an adult human. The mechanics behind the zygote developing into an infant and the said infant into an adult are completely the same. The only thing that separates them is the amount of time it takes. Any cut-off point in the middle of that development is arbitrary and casually selected.

Unsupported opinion based on the assumption that a fetus is entitled and bestowed rights, when it is in no way sovereign, or able to act on the responsibilities that said rights bear.

If the fetus is a human being, then clearly it is a subject of human rights. I don't know how you define human rights, but the general theory behind it is that you don't have to do anything to have human rights. You have them by virtue of simply being human, you have them by simply existing. Nobody can give these rights to you and nobody can take them from you. These rights can only be violated.

The fact that it isn't sovereign or the ability to act on the responsibilites doesn't have any bearing on the status of the being nor the ability to bear those rights. Children, babies especially also aren't sovereign and they have no concept of rights whatsoever. Yet still, we consider them human and we still consider them to have a right to life.

If the quality of being sovereign/the ability to act on the responsibilities that rights bear is the criteria to determine, whether the subject has rights - then you now have a lot of people that have no rights and can simply be killed off. From children, to the demented/insane to the comatose etc.

Because when brain activity ceases 'pulling the plug' is an option, it's about the only option if you don't want them to live in the coma for the rest of their life, or if you don't have the money to support them.

I don't see how this is a legitimate analogy. Is it reasonable to pull the plug on a patient who will most certainly come back to consciousness after 9 months? The reason pulling the plug on the comatose is an option is because there is a very good chance that they'll never come back out of it. In terms on the unborn, they will generally always reach consciousness.

Secondly, this is a socially constructed criteria and has absolutely no bearing on the status of the fetus itself.

It's not my decision it's the ruling of the government. They chose brain activity because it's the only one that allows something the ability to function and feel emotion. It's the same reason (I think) that vegetarians made their choice.

So, basically the government gets to decide who is a human being and who isn't? I guess that sort of makes sense, given that governments have a centuries long tradition of coming up with arbitrary criteria to de-value certains members of the human race.

Barely a century ago the, the government decided that skin color was the quality that determined your worth as a human being. That quality also used to be and in some cases still is - gender, nationality, religion etc. If government gets to decide, then I guess if the government decided to re-institute slavery, you'd be cool with it? After all, the government decides and the government can't ever be wrong.

Because they don't have recordable brain activity.

They also don't have a circulatory system.

That's the same with a fetus that has no emotion, no consciousness.

Why care about emotion and consciousness? Because the government said so?

Brain activity. Seme are able to respond to their environment to a degree, yet we don't consider them alive, why? because they do not yet have brain activity.

Brain activity? Why brain activity? Why not a circulatory system? The seme don't have that either. What is the criteria by which you decide what quality is necessary and what quality isn't?

Semen are very much considered alive, they just aren't considered separate human life. Why? Because semen will never develop into an adult human being due to the fact that 50% of the genetic makeup is missing. The sperm only has 23 chromosomes, shares the DNA of its host etc. Killing a semen therefore doesn't kill any human because no human has yet come into existence.