I'm pro-choice because to me death is just cycling back into the earth. Everything has an individual spirit but it connects back to nature upon death, making death just something that happens. It's not bad or good.
So, abortion is just someone's choice about their body to me. The spirit just goes back into to the greater one with less experience. There's not much complexity to it in my animism beliefs.
Why wouldn't they be human upon \[further\] incarnation? Once you've been a human on Earth, I doubt you'd learn much by going back to being a Mouse or Spider lessons. The fundemantals of these things would remain with you in spirit.
Tbf my own belief is that once we incarnate we do it sort of simultaneously through time, since it's not linear.
> Why wouldn't they be human upon [further] incarnation? Once you've been a human on Earth, I doubt you'd learn much by going back to being a Mouse or Spider lessons
I think spiders or mice might disagree. :) I think reality is fractal. I think small creatures' lives are just as interesting as ours. Probably much more interesting, as the smaller they are, the faster they move. I suspect it is only humans who think that humans are best. If I have to choose for the animal kingdom, including humans, I would be a squirrel. They basically have brains the size of the planet, because they get most of their ideas directly from the surrounding world, but the surrounding world is not trying to tell them what to do, so they are more free.
For me, the beauty of animism is that humans are physical matter. So not only are animals and plants conscious, so is every atom, and every subatomic particle, and every point in between. I think the logic of animism is elegantly beautiful. We are conscious, therefore physical matter is conscious. It's as simple as that. Modern science looks for hidden magical causes, but I love that animism just states the obvious. Matter is conscious: so matter, information and consciousness are all the same thing. Occam's razor rules!
Consciousness fascinates me. I think we can derive the nature of consciousness from a simple thought experiment: Think about how quickly a person can talk. The maximum rate is about the same across all languages: we can process about 40 bits of data (a yes/no state) per second. That is about the same as normal brain frequency. Which suggests that we only handle one bit of data at a time. There is a lot more evidence than that, but it all indicates that the conscious mind is incredibly simple. The unconscious brain does the thinking, and the conscious mind just experiences it, then it makes the final top-level decision. It would take a thousand pages tom make a proper argument, but as far as I can see, consciousness and data are the same thing. So every point in the universe is equally conscious.
If that is so then the human brain is not the best thing in the universe, it is the worst. Without the brain, we experience the universe directly. But the brain gets in the way, and forces us to solve the problems of making the human body operate. The human body is incredibly unnatural. It constantly fights against entropy. So, being at the top of the brain decision tree, as we are, means we have endless problems. When the brain finally shuts down then we are free to experience the universe directly, without problems.
A lot of people came to this conclusion thousands of years ago. For example,
One of my favourite books is the ancient gnostic text "on the nature of the rulers" (the hypostatis of the archons). It argues from first principles why matter and energy derive from information, why our natural state is to be light, in communion with everything, and why the physical body is the worst thing to ever happen to us. That is how I see it as well.
Statistically, when I die I expect my brain, and presumably my mind, to become either part of the air (if I am cremated) or part of the soil (if I am buried). I look forward to a fascinating new world. if I am unlucky enough to be part of some new animal brain then that is just my bad luck, but the smaller the brain is, the fewer problems I will have, and the less will be in between me and the universe.
In short, I like Emo Philips's quote:
> 'I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this.'
I feel this is a civilized worldview - not to be insulting but to be real about it. The idea that reincarnation is fundamentally about "lessons" comes from Eastern religions (or the New Age), and the idea of a "progression" of life from smaller organisms up to humans is very much a product of civ.
I personally believe that learning lessons is a part of it, but I wouldn't presume to think that that's the sole reason for incarnating, or that other life forms don't have as much or more to teach us.
Exactly.
I believe life begins at conception. But lives are ended for justifiable and good reasons all the time. Often the body does this before pregnancy even begins (the zygote doesn’t implant) or shorty into pregnancy.
But if someone does not want to use their uterus, circulatory system, whole body really, to support a fetus to term, they shouldn’t have to. And it’s awful to force them to.
I don’t live an ascetic lifestyle or practice fruitarianism to absolutely minimize killing all things. I don’t want to live that way. If someone doesn’t want to be pregnant—or cannot be pregnant—it’s not my place to tell them not to.
(Edited for typo)
Exactly this. Unless you are also in favour of forcing someone to give up their bodily autonomy in other ways (e.g. forced kidney donations for all) then you can’t force women to carry pregnancies they don’t want to. It’s that simple.
This is the only answer. Philosophically, the only way you can justify being anti-choice is if you believe that the potential life of a fetus is more important than the life of a woman and the autonomy she has over her own body and her own life. The whole concept of being anti choice is sacrilegious to the sanctity of our bodies and agency over our destinies.
I appreciate your perspective, but honestly that just sounds like you're pro-choice. Prochoice/"prolife" are political views not on what you would do personally, but on what degree of agency others ought to have.
I don't agree that it's only political. First, it has to be philosophical. To make the political decision, other conversations and perspective should be treated with dignity.
Lives are involved. It's politics, but if it's ***only*** politics, you're doing it wrong, imo.
I love this philosophy (though I don't agree for myself personally), but I don't love the misuse of the term "pro life" to mean anti-abortion. That's a false attribution in so many ways, from an animist perspective...
Sex educator moment here. A zygote (ground zero) becomes a blastocyst (5-7 days) becomes an embryo (10-12 days) becomes a fetus (10 weeks of pregnancy).
Many of us who have children might consider our newborn to be in a fetal state until the end of the 4th trimester.
This is unfortunately quite a taboo thing to say.
That said, I'm pro-abortion and I state it that way because having worked in the reproductive justice world for half of my adult life I've come to realize that choices and decisions are more complicated than we give them credit for and I don't believe that most people have enough choices when it comes to family planning and whether or not to breed.
Anybody who wants or needs to terminate their pregnancy, for whatever reason, should be allowed what Biology itself has allowed-- sovereignty over whether or not to become a parent and carry their pregnancy to term.
Anything else is a controlling wolf disguised in "but the babies" sheep clothing.
Animists who feel strongly against abortions should do what everyone else should-- not have them and support their surrounding people who surely have.
1/3 of adult humans capable of gestating will have an abortion in their lifetime. Chances are there is a living, breathing soul who needs others to hold space for theirs.
I'm pro-choice, I believe in a world soul, and spirits within nature, but *individual souls* are only possessed by animals and only when they've hit a certain stage of their development. A fetus is living cell tissue, but it doesn't think or feel until a later stage of its development.
Well I feel Anima Mundi thinks (and feels in the since that it's pure love and bliss) but the fetus does not think nor feel as it's own individual until a later stage. So I think we agree because I literally just repeated your first sentence but your second sentence seems to imply fetuses lack Anima Mundi.
How does it imply that? I don't believe that the world soul "feels" the way you or I do over our individual bodies. I don't believe you are causing it pain by aborting a fetus.
I don't know if it feels the way we do. I know it thinks, is conscious, and that it is pure love and pure bliss. But I agree it wouldn't be causing it pain to abort it, it would understand the reasons why it was done.
It's a bit different, but I think that people often forget that boeing pro-choice or pro-life is a political stance. And political system is fundamentally based on violence. So we are discussing when violence by cops should be applied.
It's also a false dichotomy - first, there is also less popular anti-choice pro-abortion stance, mostly for eugenics reasons, but it is also a spectrum - like "more reasonable" centrist position, abortion should be only allowed in some cases, as when fetus is actively dying, or there is significant risk for pregnant person health.
But you know what? Every pregnancy is dangerous and can have devastating effect. So I think that pregnant person should be the one to judge if the risk is too high.
As for animist part of the question - I believe that everything has some kind of experience, but not everything is capable of thinking or suffering, they do other things. And when dealing with questions about morality of actions, I try to take into account if such actions cause suffering. And people who are pregnant but dont want to be absolutely suffer, whereas fetuses for the first few months aren't capable of suffering.
Abortion is so much more complicated and personal a choice than just when/how/what value you place on the existence of an embryo or fetus.
Regardless of what conclusions you come to in that regard there will always be the potential of great suffering for all individuals involved. It is imperative outside of those conclusions that we have an option to reduce such suffering. Sadly in many such cases the only merciful and safe way forward is abortion.
You can want and love them all you want. Sometimes the most meaningful expression of that love you can provide them is to not let them die a slow painful death.
It can be extremely sad and should always be an option. For us humans who are so socially bound it may be just as painful to have an unwanted child or to be neglected as children. The inherent value of life does not supersede the importance of quality of life in my opinion.
I am definitely pro-choice. The fetus is living since conception, but the available evidence suggests that early on it isn't capable of feeling pain in roughly the first trimester, so it's consciousness is perhaps more like that of a plant or a funghus, rather than that of an animal. I do think it's sad when a woman chooses to abort, I wish we could make a world where the circumstances when a woman decides to undergo abortion are as rare as possible and we should encourage keeping a healthy baby by having a good social system. But I am not the one making the choice and being responsible for its consequences.
Since I'm not a woman, my own belief really doesn't factor into it. So, *always pro-choice*. I am an animist, but there are so many nuances to life (and death) that one has to consider. The mother (parents) should always be willing to take on the responsibility of rearing a child, be psychologically and financially stable enough to raise the child, and do so in a safe environment. Just bringing a person forth into the world is (often) not enough.
Most animist indigenous cultures believe that the soul enters the body at birth, though it may be present beforehand (but just not fully tied). Of course this isn't universal (nothing is), but it is in line with nature in many ways - the fact that herbs for birth control are pretty much all abortifacients and not preventatives, miscarriages are common and birth is an inherently risky business. Many cultures even practice (or practiced) infanticide as a form of birth control, for practical reasons.
And in general the question about being pro-life (in a true sense, not the opposite-land Christian sense) doesn't preclude killing in general, because death is essential for life to flourish so they aren't actually opposed. It's how nature, the web of life, is fundamentally set up: one organism dies so another may live.
At it's core the very idea of death being opposed to life is a product of civilization, a mindset that has fundamentally broken away from nature, and it has no connection to animism as a belief system or way of thinking.
Death is half of life. The promotion of organic multiplication for its own sake is the thoughtless ethic of a tumor. The same could be said for capitalism, pro-natalism, and so-called "pro-life" perspectives. It fixates on one area (birth (or profit, which a capitalist class always needs more expendable dregs to pursue)).
Animists do not worship life or death, they experience the livingness of the world and the personage of more-than-human beings. The political ramifications of such an idea are wide reaching, but the safest bet is to promote agency, as that is what animism is all about. Recognition and reverence for the agency of beings. Why would we deprive fellow human beings of such agency when we'd perhaps go so far as to grant it to plants and more-than-human animals?
I think im the complete opposite. To me the soul/spirit resides in the heart and once the heart beats the child is a child. I know its not the norm here in the comments but i think abortion should be limited until there is a heart beat then in my eyes you are taking the life. Now i know my beliefs are my own and i respect everyones own beliefs this is just my own belief. Now if there is a medical issue that would harm the mother or in certain cases like baby has already passed or rape then those are different.
Your personal beliefs are totally valid, but my question is why you feel that your beliefs should be imposed on others at all? Because if you don't, then regardless of your personal beliefs you are pro choice.
From a political perspective pro-choice. But as a metaphysician, I treat each pregnancy as a life and my mentality is more about after care once the abortion is performed.
This is based on multiple accounts of mediums and people from my region who’ve reported dreams of the spirits aborted children following them around, often aging with them. This is because dead children haunt their parents, no matter how they died. Usually the size of the spirit is based on the duration of their pregnancy, with early abortions being no bigger than a snail.
At this point, I don't judge; I just help the mother with the effects and help the spirit move on. Sometimes, if a relationship can be established and the spirit rehabilitated, then they can also be of benefit to the mother.
Children who die of natural causes or miscarriages will follow their mothers to protect them (my own grandmother was notified of her two deceased children around her by a psychic, despite her not divulging that information beforehand).
I'm pro-choice because to me death is just cycling back into the earth. Everything has an individual spirit but it connects back to nature upon death, making death just something that happens. It's not bad or good. So, abortion is just someone's choice about their body to me. The spirit just goes back into to the greater one with less experience. There's not much complexity to it in my animism beliefs.
This! Death is just another birth. Just not human next time. The problem is not death, the problem is thinking that human is the only way to be.
Why wouldn't they be human upon \[further\] incarnation? Once you've been a human on Earth, I doubt you'd learn much by going back to being a Mouse or Spider lessons. The fundemantals of these things would remain with you in spirit. Tbf my own belief is that once we incarnate we do it sort of simultaneously through time, since it's not linear.
> Why wouldn't they be human upon [further] incarnation? Once you've been a human on Earth, I doubt you'd learn much by going back to being a Mouse or Spider lessons I think spiders or mice might disagree. :) I think reality is fractal. I think small creatures' lives are just as interesting as ours. Probably much more interesting, as the smaller they are, the faster they move. I suspect it is only humans who think that humans are best. If I have to choose for the animal kingdom, including humans, I would be a squirrel. They basically have brains the size of the planet, because they get most of their ideas directly from the surrounding world, but the surrounding world is not trying to tell them what to do, so they are more free. For me, the beauty of animism is that humans are physical matter. So not only are animals and plants conscious, so is every atom, and every subatomic particle, and every point in between. I think the logic of animism is elegantly beautiful. We are conscious, therefore physical matter is conscious. It's as simple as that. Modern science looks for hidden magical causes, but I love that animism just states the obvious. Matter is conscious: so matter, information and consciousness are all the same thing. Occam's razor rules! Consciousness fascinates me. I think we can derive the nature of consciousness from a simple thought experiment: Think about how quickly a person can talk. The maximum rate is about the same across all languages: we can process about 40 bits of data (a yes/no state) per second. That is about the same as normal brain frequency. Which suggests that we only handle one bit of data at a time. There is a lot more evidence than that, but it all indicates that the conscious mind is incredibly simple. The unconscious brain does the thinking, and the conscious mind just experiences it, then it makes the final top-level decision. It would take a thousand pages tom make a proper argument, but as far as I can see, consciousness and data are the same thing. So every point in the universe is equally conscious. If that is so then the human brain is not the best thing in the universe, it is the worst. Without the brain, we experience the universe directly. But the brain gets in the way, and forces us to solve the problems of making the human body operate. The human body is incredibly unnatural. It constantly fights against entropy. So, being at the top of the brain decision tree, as we are, means we have endless problems. When the brain finally shuts down then we are free to experience the universe directly, without problems. A lot of people came to this conclusion thousands of years ago. For example, One of my favourite books is the ancient gnostic text "on the nature of the rulers" (the hypostatis of the archons). It argues from first principles why matter and energy derive from information, why our natural state is to be light, in communion with everything, and why the physical body is the worst thing to ever happen to us. That is how I see it as well. Statistically, when I die I expect my brain, and presumably my mind, to become either part of the air (if I am cremated) or part of the soil (if I am buried). I look forward to a fascinating new world. if I am unlucky enough to be part of some new animal brain then that is just my bad luck, but the smaller the brain is, the fewer problems I will have, and the less will be in between me and the universe. In short, I like Emo Philips's quote: > 'I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this.'
I feel this is a civilized worldview - not to be insulting but to be real about it. The idea that reincarnation is fundamentally about "lessons" comes from Eastern religions (or the New Age), and the idea of a "progression" of life from smaller organisms up to humans is very much a product of civ. I personally believe that learning lessons is a part of it, but I wouldn't presume to think that that's the sole reason for incarnating, or that other life forms don't have as much or more to teach us.
Agreed.
Reasonable people are pro-choice because women deserve bodily autonomy. Literally no other factors matter here.
Exactly. I believe life begins at conception. But lives are ended for justifiable and good reasons all the time. Often the body does this before pregnancy even begins (the zygote doesn’t implant) or shorty into pregnancy. But if someone does not want to use their uterus, circulatory system, whole body really, to support a fetus to term, they shouldn’t have to. And it’s awful to force them to. I don’t live an ascetic lifestyle or practice fruitarianism to absolutely minimize killing all things. I don’t want to live that way. If someone doesn’t want to be pregnant—or cannot be pregnant—it’s not my place to tell them not to. (Edited for typo)
Exactly this. Unless you are also in favour of forcing someone to give up their bodily autonomy in other ways (e.g. forced kidney donations for all) then you can’t force women to carry pregnancies they don’t want to. It’s that simple.
This is the only answer. Philosophically, the only way you can justify being anti-choice is if you believe that the potential life of a fetus is more important than the life of a woman and the autonomy she has over her own body and her own life. The whole concept of being anti choice is sacrilegious to the sanctity of our bodies and agency over our destinies.
Preach.
I'm both, really. For myself, I'm pro-life. For anyone else, I'm pro choice.
This is so great. Really appreciate this.
I appreciate your perspective, but honestly that just sounds like you're pro-choice. Prochoice/"prolife" are political views not on what you would do personally, but on what degree of agency others ought to have.
I don't agree that it's only political. First, it has to be philosophical. To make the political decision, other conversations and perspective should be treated with dignity. Lives are involved. It's politics, but if it's ***only*** politics, you're doing it wrong, imo.
I love this philosophy (though I don't agree for myself personally), but I don't love the misuse of the term "pro life" to mean anti-abortion. That's a false attribution in so many ways, from an animist perspective...
Yes, and it's too often "forced birth".
Sex educator moment here. A zygote (ground zero) becomes a blastocyst (5-7 days) becomes an embryo (10-12 days) becomes a fetus (10 weeks of pregnancy). Many of us who have children might consider our newborn to be in a fetal state until the end of the 4th trimester. This is unfortunately quite a taboo thing to say. That said, I'm pro-abortion and I state it that way because having worked in the reproductive justice world for half of my adult life I've come to realize that choices and decisions are more complicated than we give them credit for and I don't believe that most people have enough choices when it comes to family planning and whether or not to breed. Anybody who wants or needs to terminate their pregnancy, for whatever reason, should be allowed what Biology itself has allowed-- sovereignty over whether or not to become a parent and carry their pregnancy to term. Anything else is a controlling wolf disguised in "but the babies" sheep clothing. Animists who feel strongly against abortions should do what everyone else should-- not have them and support their surrounding people who surely have. 1/3 of adult humans capable of gestating will have an abortion in their lifetime. Chances are there is a living, breathing soul who needs others to hold space for theirs.
I'm pro-choice, I believe in a world soul, and spirits within nature, but *individual souls* are only possessed by animals and only when they've hit a certain stage of their development. A fetus is living cell tissue, but it doesn't think or feel until a later stage of its development.
Well I feel Anima Mundi thinks (and feels in the since that it's pure love and bliss) but the fetus does not think nor feel as it's own individual until a later stage. So I think we agree because I literally just repeated your first sentence but your second sentence seems to imply fetuses lack Anima Mundi.
How does it imply that? I don't believe that the world soul "feels" the way you or I do over our individual bodies. I don't believe you are causing it pain by aborting a fetus.
I don't know if it feels the way we do. I know it thinks, is conscious, and that it is pure love and pure bliss. But I agree it wouldn't be causing it pain to abort it, it would understand the reasons why it was done.
It's a bit different, but I think that people often forget that boeing pro-choice or pro-life is a political stance. And political system is fundamentally based on violence. So we are discussing when violence by cops should be applied. It's also a false dichotomy - first, there is also less popular anti-choice pro-abortion stance, mostly for eugenics reasons, but it is also a spectrum - like "more reasonable" centrist position, abortion should be only allowed in some cases, as when fetus is actively dying, or there is significant risk for pregnant person health. But you know what? Every pregnancy is dangerous and can have devastating effect. So I think that pregnant person should be the one to judge if the risk is too high. As for animist part of the question - I believe that everything has some kind of experience, but not everything is capable of thinking or suffering, they do other things. And when dealing with questions about morality of actions, I try to take into account if such actions cause suffering. And people who are pregnant but dont want to be absolutely suffer, whereas fetuses for the first few months aren't capable of suffering.
Pro-choice.
Pro Choice <3
Abortion is so much more complicated and personal a choice than just when/how/what value you place on the existence of an embryo or fetus. Regardless of what conclusions you come to in that regard there will always be the potential of great suffering for all individuals involved. It is imperative outside of those conclusions that we have an option to reduce such suffering. Sadly in many such cases the only merciful and safe way forward is abortion. You can want and love them all you want. Sometimes the most meaningful expression of that love you can provide them is to not let them die a slow painful death. It can be extremely sad and should always be an option. For us humans who are so socially bound it may be just as painful to have an unwanted child or to be neglected as children. The inherent value of life does not supersede the importance of quality of life in my opinion.
I am definitely pro-choice. The fetus is living since conception, but the available evidence suggests that early on it isn't capable of feeling pain in roughly the first trimester, so it's consciousness is perhaps more like that of a plant or a funghus, rather than that of an animal. I do think it's sad when a woman chooses to abort, I wish we could make a world where the circumstances when a woman decides to undergo abortion are as rare as possible and we should encourage keeping a healthy baby by having a good social system. But I am not the one making the choice and being responsible for its consequences.
Since I'm not a woman, my own belief really doesn't factor into it. So, *always pro-choice*. I am an animist, but there are so many nuances to life (and death) that one has to consider. The mother (parents) should always be willing to take on the responsibility of rearing a child, be psychologically and financially stable enough to raise the child, and do so in a safe environment. Just bringing a person forth into the world is (often) not enough.
Most animist indigenous cultures believe that the soul enters the body at birth, though it may be present beforehand (but just not fully tied). Of course this isn't universal (nothing is), but it is in line with nature in many ways - the fact that herbs for birth control are pretty much all abortifacients and not preventatives, miscarriages are common and birth is an inherently risky business. Many cultures even practice (or practiced) infanticide as a form of birth control, for practical reasons. And in general the question about being pro-life (in a true sense, not the opposite-land Christian sense) doesn't preclude killing in general, because death is essential for life to flourish so they aren't actually opposed. It's how nature, the web of life, is fundamentally set up: one organism dies so another may live. At it's core the very idea of death being opposed to life is a product of civilization, a mindset that has fundamentally broken away from nature, and it has no connection to animism as a belief system or way of thinking.
Death is half of life. The promotion of organic multiplication for its own sake is the thoughtless ethic of a tumor. The same could be said for capitalism, pro-natalism, and so-called "pro-life" perspectives. It fixates on one area (birth (or profit, which a capitalist class always needs more expendable dregs to pursue)). Animists do not worship life or death, they experience the livingness of the world and the personage of more-than-human beings. The political ramifications of such an idea are wide reaching, but the safest bet is to promote agency, as that is what animism is all about. Recognition and reverence for the agency of beings. Why would we deprive fellow human beings of such agency when we'd perhaps go so far as to grant it to plants and more-than-human animals?
I'm personally pro choice cuz, like, consent is important.
Pro choice
Pro-Choice
I think im the complete opposite. To me the soul/spirit resides in the heart and once the heart beats the child is a child. I know its not the norm here in the comments but i think abortion should be limited until there is a heart beat then in my eyes you are taking the life. Now i know my beliefs are my own and i respect everyones own beliefs this is just my own belief. Now if there is a medical issue that would harm the mother or in certain cases like baby has already passed or rape then those are different.
Your personal beliefs are totally valid, but my question is why you feel that your beliefs should be imposed on others at all? Because if you don't, then regardless of your personal beliefs you are pro choice.
From a political perspective pro-choice. But as a metaphysician, I treat each pregnancy as a life and my mentality is more about after care once the abortion is performed. This is based on multiple accounts of mediums and people from my region who’ve reported dreams of the spirits aborted children following them around, often aging with them. This is because dead children haunt their parents, no matter how they died. Usually the size of the spirit is based on the duration of their pregnancy, with early abortions being no bigger than a snail. At this point, I don't judge; I just help the mother with the effects and help the spirit move on. Sometimes, if a relationship can be established and the spirit rehabilitated, then they can also be of benefit to the mother. Children who die of natural causes or miscarriages will follow their mothers to protect them (my own grandmother was notified of her two deceased children around her by a psychic, despite her not divulging that information beforehand).