[extropy-chat] Prelate: Catholicism incompatible with neo-Darwinism.

[Amara Graps]

Damien Sullivan:
>I had the impression this goes back to St. Augustine and his own
>looking to Aristotle, with the soul coming in at 40 or 90 days after
>conception, and later penitentials giving lesser penalties to early
>abortion than later.  (The Church never approved of abortion, but
>early abortion was considered birth control, not as bad as murder.)

Damien, can you suggest a reference for Augustine's input? (I am
writing an article on this topic.) I know that Aquinas adopted alot of
Augustine (but I dont know what), and I know that Aquinas was an
Aristotle scholar, purging the Aristotle texts of the Arab commentary
by Ibn Sina (1037), ("Avicenna"), to make it more 'pure'. As far as I
know  Aristotle didn't talk about the soul, his main input into the
historical (present: cloning) debate would be his 'spontaneous
generation' ideas. (is this right?)

Amara

-- 

********************************************************************
Amara Graps, PhD          email: amara at amara.com
Computational Physics     vita:  ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt
Multiplex Answers         URL:   http://www.amara.com/
********************************************************************
"It never hurts to be conservative where the galactic plane is involved."
   -- Chris Fassnacht