MrVitaminP

this is more of a "run as fast as you can" than a red flag but I noticed that several of these red flags point to personality disorders:

I have read multiple of these threads that have come up over time. And, I have listened to the linked podcasts/videos. I have read through the linked articles and blog posts. It seems like good advice. But, most of it seems to be oriented on finding out if the therapist you've selected is a good one or at the very least what you should ask to find that out. Yet, in my area there are literally hundreds of therapists. They have lots of fancy credentials. Where does one even start? How can I narrow down the list? Do I need to contact them one by one and try them out to see if there is a fit or is there a quicker/easier way to seperate the wheat from the chaff?

sentient and animate are not one and the same. Maybe I'm missing something in the definition but I understood inanimate to mean not living.

Can you help me understand why time is a factor? In other words, why does the state of the fetus at the moment of abortion matter? If the fetus is incapable of being a moral agent at that moment aren't there potentially many more moments through out the life of a human where at that exact moment they are incapable of being a moral actor? If that were true would it then be neutral terminate that life? As an aside, why would an amoeba be inanimate? It is alive - it moves, it grows, it reproduces, etc.

I'm not sure that I can contribute much to the "what gives" question. But, I would echo that I have certainly observed similar behavior in women. Speaking for myself, I'd say, as a man, that I'm probably pre-disposed in a similar manner. At first sight I am certainly using visual clues to help me indicate whether a woman is mate-worthy. But, it doesn't stop there as that would just be the start. And, as a man, I'm not very keen on describing a woman as either sweet or creepy. But, I am still going into an encounter with a certain bias based on those visual clues.

The hamster has never and will never be able to. The same cannot be said of the human life.

I'm not sure what a grassy hamster is but it sounds delicious. I'd be interested in learning more if you'd like to share. The basis would be the same for how I'd conclude that you're capable of owning yourself. You own yourself because you have an exclusive monopoly on the control of yourself. I'm not looking at it from a point in time perspective but instead as an entirety of your life. For example: if you were to become a paraplegic I'd argue that you wouldn't suddenly lose ownership of self whether you were still able to manipulate that self fully or not. I'd also expect that contracts, such as wills, would still be a valid product of your life even after you're dead. At conception you do not have a brain. You do not have limbs to move or manipulate. But you will. No one else owns those cells - the self ownership is inevitable (at least to the extent that anything can be inevitable in life). Self ownership is universal to the human life and that life starts at conception.

The fetus owns itself. Reality comes with certain physical and, in the case of the fetus, biological rules that are present regardless of our preferences. She may prefer not to become pregnant. But, if she wants that to be she has to take actions to prevent it. Self ownership grants that I own the product of my life's labor. But, that doesn't mean I get to ignore the physical rules of reality. For example, I may labor to create a piece of paper. I now own that paper. But, that paper, if I want to continue to own it, needs to be protected. It could rot over time, it could fall apart when exposed to water, etc. If I allow the paper to fall into a fire there is no point in complaining that the paper is consumed and that I can no longer use it. The physical reality is that paper burns. It doesn't matter whether I am aware of this fact or not. My ignorance will not prevent it from burning. My paper is gone, my ownership is gone, and I am responsible for that consequence. The biological reality is that when an egg is exposed to sperm it becomes a new life. It doesn't matter if I didn't want it to become a life. The woman's negligence in protecting her egg has a consequence. And, that consequence is life. If she didn't want to have the responsibility of carrying that life, she shouldn't have had the life in the first place. She chose for the life to be there. Btw, it is not solely a consequence of her actions. She jointly owns that responsibility/consequence with the father. Furthermore, this new life is not a part of her body. She lost that at conception. Her body is merely a vessel in which the new life resides and takes nutrients from. And, it is not kidnapping as at this point in the lifecycle of this new life there is a symbiotic relationship with its mother. It needs to be there. In a quasi-sense it is choosing to be there. On the flip side of this, if the mother owns the child, then there is no self ownership. How could she own the child when she couldn't possibly own herself as her mother would own her and her mother's mother would own her mother... Follow the chain and it goes on forever.

The woman does not have a property right to the fetus. She has a property right to the egg. If she didn't want to lose ownership of the egg she then has a responsibility to protect the egg. She does, however, have ownership of her actions and resulting consequences. This is why she has a responsibility to care for the resulting child. If she didn't want that, again, she should have protected the egg.

Is that what Stefan is suggesting for the listener to do? It would seem to me that he has already joined the Mafia, pre-enlightenment. Is that not different than trying to infiltrate them in an attempt to do good? The listener had devised two options for himself: leave the church and accept the ostracization or stay and live a lie. Maybe I need to listen to the show again, but I did not equate the third option that Stefan presented as being the same as the listener's second option. In my experience, excommunication with a church doesn't come from one voicing that they have doubts or are struggling with their faith. Instead it comes when you essentially say: "screw you guys, I'm going home!" Your mileage may certainly vary, however. But, what I heard from the show was that the listener shares many of the values with his church. If he stays he can build on those values and possible keep his family without having to lie or be a hypocrite, as you suggest. Instead, he needs to not focus on the outcomes and speak more about the journey. In other words, you don't lead with: I don't believe in god. You lead with the journey you have taken and the insights you gained that resulted in that conclusion. Again, in my experience, this won't result in having your Christian friends agree with you but it also doesn't lead them to ask you to get the fuck out either.