From: scerir (scerir@libero.it)
Date: Wed Feb 07 2001 - 01:17:55 MST
Spudboy100 writes, about "Robots have Souls":
> Forwarded from another list. The description makes me think of the Roman
> Catholic(?) robot babe (played by Wynonna Ryder) in Alien4 Ressurection.
St. Augustine said: "There cannot yet be said to be
a live soul in a body that lacks sensation".
He (and other early Christian theologians) believed,
as had Aristotle centuries before, that "animation"
(the coming alive of the fetus) occurred 40 days
after conception, for a boy, and 80 (sometimes 70)
days after conception, for a girl.
Now the questions are: are robots boys or girls?
And are they "animated" from the very beginning?
[The conclusion that early abortion is not homicide is
contained in the first authoritative collection of canon law,
perhaps until the "new" Code of Canon Law of 1917.
But already in 1869, Pope Pius IX officially eliminated
the Catholic distinction between an animated and a
non-animated fetus and required excommunication
for abortions at any stage of pregnancy.]
- scerir
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