| Gnizmo said: If sperm were identical to single celled amoebas you would have an amazing point. However they are not, so your definition has a hole right there. The bigger hole is that we do not consider all parasitic creatures to be alive by default. Viruses are not considered alive for example. Taking the requirements for what is considered alive or not on the special level and applying it to an embryo simple does not work. |
Why not? It responds to stimuli and has all the characteristics of a living cell? I think it is far more difficult to claim that it isn't alive than it is. Why isn't it alive? We all came from one.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
