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

[Damien Sullivan]

On Sat, Jul 09, 2005 at 10:14:36PM +0200, Amara Graps wrote:
> 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

> Damien, can you suggest a reference for Augustine's input? (I am

Not a direct scholarly one; my opinion was formed by googling [augustine
abortion]; I think I'd looked at most of the top links.  (The topmost one
claims

   |The Jewish faith was generally opposed to both infanticide and  |
   |abortion. An exception occurred if the continuation of a        |
   |pregnancy posed a risk to the life of the pregnant woman or to  |
   |her other children. In such cases, the pregnant woman is        |
   |actually obligated to abort the fetus; the fetus is then        |
   |considered "radef" -- pursuer.

which amused me.  The 20th century Catholic church allegedly opposes abortion
even if the mother will die otherwise, and made it grounds for automatic
excommunication.  Worse than murder!

-xx- Damien X-)