I agree with you that science is the ONLY way to explain certain things. I wanted to elaborate on your mention of when life begins as well. I always thought the discussions on abortion were fruitless. Debating on something as unproven as a soul will always leave us divided (those who believe it is there at conception and those that don't.) My solution was always to use a 'legal' definition of life as opposed to an 'actual' one.

We define the end of life as when an individual is without heartbeat and brain waves. Why can't we define the beginning as the same thing? This would make illegal a great proportion of abortions, while allowing for ways to reduce unwanted children.

Thanks for this post.

I think, if you took that position, you would be building securely on the position of St. Thomas Aquinas (who followed Aristotle in this) that the soul requires a body sufficiently developed to serve as its instrument, having, not only senses, but memory, imagination, common sense and cogitative power. Legally, Aquinas was against abortion at any stage, but that had to do with his views of the proper relationship of divine and human will - a matter of belief.

I found this blog post fascinating. I particularly enjoyed the mention that "religion does not do explaination well". I have never been a particularly religious person, I have spent countless hours researching, trying to find proof, something to believe in. I remain unconvinced and for the vast majority of my life supported the scientific end of the spectrum. Upon recent research I have begun expanding my horizons so to speak, and have found more people believe the two entities exist together. The idea behind the post, that religion and science do coexist exemplifies my own theories. I believe it is important not to ask those who do not understand religion to simply accept it out of a lack of knowledge. As mentioned, this truly does lead to confusion; I had been confused for much of my existence. Finally, I have begun finding answers to my questions, with science as proof. So while religion remains an answer for questions, science provides the explainations to those answers.