toldailytopic: At what point does a person become a person?

[oatmeal]

Therefore there is no problem with aborting fetuses prior to their exiting the womb and taking that first defining breath?

Why would you oppose it?



Answer my questions regarding your views on abortion and then we'll address scripture. But in the meantime I'll look forward to your response to Krsto.....

Adam was a special case as he was never in a womb.



How is "at conception" arbitrary?

since you replied to my first post which pointed out Genesis 2:7 twice, I have started with scripture and ended with scripture.

Now, the question is, do you believe what God had Moses write?

I do. Do you?

Therefore there is no problem with aborting fetuses prior to their exiting the womb and taking that first defining breath?

Why would you oppose it?

From the stand point of Genesis 2:7 alone, (but does any scripture really stand alone?) no, there is no problem with that. As long as the first breath was not taken, technically, from the letter of that scripture no, it is not murder. It is however, killing. That is the major concern.

Because of the clear instruction of Genesis 2:7, abortion is not murder, because there was no "living soul" involved.

It is however killing, because, although there is no "living soul" up to the moment previous to the first breath, there is obviously a life "energy" present.

Now, lest you get all emotionally worked up, and start calling me a bunch of names, ie, babykiller, etc.

This thread is about when life begins. I am taking it as "living soul" of a human being.

Not the living soul of a vicious dog that needs to be put down.

There is obviously more to the decision of abortion than the technical matter of when "living soul" begins.

My primary concern is that since Adam, the prototype of all men, was not a living soul until his first breath and there are not scriptures that ever changed that standard. Now what?

Let us ask the question, Since Adam clearly had a body, (it was already formed of the dust of the ground) but was not a living soul, if some one had run it over with a bulldozer, would a murder been committed? No, because it was not a living soul.

You cannot murder something that is not a living soul.

God knows when a sparrow dies, not hardly a human a sparrow is.

Wow, that sounded like a Yoda sentence.

Would I ever recommend that a woman wait til the last second to have an abortion?


What do you think?

oatmeal

 

[Krsto]

Jeremiah 1:5 Would seem to settle God's perspective, to get into the Christian argument.

I've heard this one used frequently but it's more of a statement of God's foreknowledge than anything else. Notice it says BEFORE I formed you (Jeremiah) in the womb. Also, does God get personally involved in anybody's formation in the womb or is this another way of saying he created the reproductive system or was he saying with everybody they are produced by natural means but with Jeremiah, since he had a job to complete, God was personally involved in his making in the womb? Not a very conclusive scripture given the many possible and valid interpretations.

 

[oatmeal]

The one in question. Different method of generation. What applies to A&E doesn't necessarily apply to their offspring.

Maybe, but what scripture do you have to substantiate that God's purpose of the info in Genesis 2:7 is somehow negated or altered?

Let us look at the commandment to A and E to multiply. Nothing changed that. They multiplied.

Let us look at the access to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

That changed. We read that A and E were removed from the garden.

They no longer had access to that tree nor to the tree of life.

That is clearly taught.

But what scripture alters the teaching in Genesis 2:7?

I am not aware of any.

Please point one out. I would be happy to read it.

oatmeal

 

[Krsto]

since you replied to my first post which pointed out Genesis 2:7 twice, I have started with scripture and ended with scripture.

Now, the question is, do you believe what God had Moses write?

I do. Do you?

From the stand point of Genesis 2:7 alone, (but does any scripture really stand alone?) no, there is no problem with that. As long as the first breath was not taken, technically, from the letter of that scripture no, it is not murder. It is however, killing. That is the major concern.

Because of the clear instruction of Genesis 2:7, abortion is not murder, because there was no "living soul" involved.

It is however killing, because, although there is no "living soul" up to the moment previous to the first breath, there is obviously a life "energy" present.

Now, lest you get all emotionally worked up, and start calling me a bunch of names, ie, babykiller, etc.

This thread is about when life begins. I am taking it as "living soul" of a human being.

Not the living soul of a vicious dog that needs to be put down.

There is obviously more to the decision of abortion than the technical matter of when "living soul" begins.

My primary concern is that since Adam, the prototype of all men, was not a living soul until his first breath and there are not scriptures that ever changed that standard. Now what?

Let us ask the question, Since Adam clearly had a body, (it was already formed of the dust of the ground) but was not a living soul, if some one had run it over with a bulldozer, would a murder been committed? No, because it was not a living soul.

You cannot murder something that is not a living soul.

God knows when a sparrow dies, not hardly a human a sparrow is.

Wow, that sounded like a Yoda sentence.

Would I ever recommend that a woman wait til the last second to have an abortion?

What do you think?

oatmeal

When we look at what the bible does, and doesn't, say about it, I don't have a problem with the morning after pill. Nobody has given me a scripture to show me otherwise.

So God knew Jeremiah when he was in the womb. So what? He's omniscient - that verse is a statement of who God is and his divine attributes, not a treatise on abortion.

 

[Krsto]

Maybe, but what scripture do you have to substantiate that God's purpose of the info in Genesis 2:7 is somehow negated or altered?

Let us look at the commandment to A and E to multiply. Nothing changed that. They multiplied.

Let us look at the access to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

That changed. We read that A and E were removed from the garden.

They no longer had access to that tree nor to the tree of life.

That is clearly taught.

But what scripture alters the teaching in Genesis 2:7?

I am not aware of any.

Please point one out. I would be happy to read it.

oatmeal

The one about the first birth as a product of the reproduction system. It's just different.

 

[Town Heretic]

I've heard this one used frequently but it's more of a statement of God's foreknowledge than anything else. Notice it says BEFORE I formed you (Jeremiah) in the womb.

Well, no. Before I formed YOU IN THE WOMB I knew you. Not, I knew what you would become or be. Not before you were born and became, etc.

As far as time goes, it's more of an argument against our sense of the arrow than an argument for God as fortune teller. But that's another discussion replete with modern physics and the latest interpretation of what time may be and, more importantly, what it may not be.

Also, does God get personally involved in anybody's formation in the womb or is this another way of saying he created the reproductive system or was he saying with everybody they are produced by natural means but with Jeremiah, since he had a job to complete, God was personally involved in his making in the womb? Not a very conclusive scripture given the many possible and valid interpretations.

I don't see the language as harboring any ambiguity, though I can see how someone desiring ambiguity might infer it, which isn't the same thing.

If I felt like speculating I'd say there are two things going on at conception. The first is a purely biological event and one set in motion by God through creation. The second is a spiritual event requiring a spiritual catalyst, God. Or are you suggesting that the soul, an immaterial and necessarily non biological entity, can be produced by the material and biological? :squint: That would be an interesting argument to advance with all sorts of peculiar implications.

:e4e:

 

[Krsto]

Well, no. Before I formed YOU IN THE WOMB I knew you. Not, I knew what you would become or be. Not before you were born and became, etc.

As far as time goes, it's more of an argument against our sense of the arrow than an argument for God as fortune teller. But that's another discussion replete with modern physics and the latest interpretation of what time may be and, more importantly, what it may not be.


I don't see the language as harboring any ambiguity, though I can see how someone desiring ambiguity might infer it, which isn't the same thing.

If I felt like speculating I'd say there are two things going on at conception. The first is a purely biological event and one set in motion by God through creation. The second is a spiritual event requiring a spiritual catalyst, God. Or are you suggesting that the soul, an immaterial and necessarily non biological entity, can be produced by the material and biological? :squint: That would be an interesting argument to advance with all sorts of peculiar implications.

:e4e:

You are still missing the fact God knew him BEFORE he was formed, before he even existed. That to me speaks of foreknowledge.

The mind/body connection is an interesting one and I don't see why soul isn't dependent on biology for its existance unless God intervenes which he does when he gives eternal life. We tend to think our soul is created eternal and thus transcends biology but that is a concept we got from Plato, not the bible.

Perhaps science will answer that for us when they are able to do a brain transplant.

 

[Town Heretic]

You are still missing the fact God knew him BEFORE he was formed, before he even existed. That to me speaks of foreknowledge.

Didn't miss it the first time you said it. And I answered it.

The mind/body connection is an interesting one and I don't see why soul isn't dependent on biology for its existance unless God intervenes which he does when he gives eternal life.

It's an inherently self contradictory premise, that the immaterial owes its existence to the material. That something material can spawn anything other than the material. That or the soul isn't anything more to you than our process, which is rather against the weight of scripture.

We tend to think our soul is created eternal and thus transcends biology but that is a concept we got from Plato, not the bible.

I don't see the soul eternal as part of the argument. Whether or not God reserves the right to destroy a thing says nothing as to its origin or means of production...And transcends is an equally peculiar word, unless you mean it in the narrow sense of survival, which is inarguably true in the Biblical context.

Perhaps science will answer that for us when they are able to do a brain transplant.

What is it you imagine that would demonstrate? :e4e:

 

[Krsto]

Didn't miss it the first time you said it. And I answered it.


It's an inherently self contradictory premise, that the immaterial owes its existence to the material. That something material can spawn anything other than the material. That or the soul isn't anything more to you than our process, which is rather against the weight of scripture.


I don't see the soul eternal as part of the argument. Whether or not God reserves the right to destroy a thing says nothing as to its origin or means of production...And transcends is an equally peculiar word, unless you mean it in the narrow sense of survival, which is inarguably true in the Biblical context.


What is it you imagine that would demonstrate? :e4e:

Well if my body was wasting away (not that it isn't already - stay with me now) and they were able to put my brain in a good body, or maybe a bionic one, and I woke up from surgery with this new body but I am still me that would indicate that my soul is somehow "tied to" my brain.

Mormons think a person's soul is created by God and is waiting for a body to inhabit but it appears to me a person's soul is created while in the womb and some would even say at the time he or she takes his/her first breath then his soul is created but I don't think so. I can't pinpoint the exact time that soul is created but I doubt it is when the zygot is just a few thousand cells smaller than a pinhead.

Dang run on sentences . . .

 

[Lovejoy]

Maybe, but what scripture do you have to substantiate that God's purpose of the info in Genesis 2:7 is somehow negated or altered?

Let us look at the commandment to A and E to multiply. Nothing changed that. They multiplied.

Let us look at the access to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

That changed. We read that A and E were removed from the garden.

They no longer had access to that tree nor to the tree of life.

That is clearly taught.

But what scripture alters the teaching in Genesis 2:7?

I am not aware of any.

Please point one out. I would be happy to read it.

oatmeal

A) He is never shown to be breathing life into Eve, which is a precedent that it was a unique action with the first progenitor of humankind.

B) The human embryo begins getting oxygen (air, o2, whatever) from day one from the placenta. What is the difference from passively receiving oxygen from God and passively receiving it from the womb? Adam is not shown to take a breath at the first moment of life, he is given one. Are you really going to hang your theology on negative pressure respiration?

I think your argument holds no water. Or air. Or whatever.

 

[Town Heretic]

Well if my body was wasting away (not that it isn't already - stay with me now) and they were able to put my brain in a good body, or maybe a bionic one, and I woke up from surgery with this new body but I am still me that would indicate that my soul is somehow "tied to" my brain.

Well, no. You're equating being and intellect. That's an interesting assumption, but not an inescapable conclusion. And if the physical isn't the source of the immaterial then it also isn't the house of it and we have to stop thinking in terms of location, which is another material/immaterial conflation. It's understandable. We're born in the box and assume everything must fit there, even as we describe what simply can't.

I can't pinpoint the exact time that soul is created but I doubt it is when the zygot is just a few thousand cells smaller than a pinhead.

Can you see the problem within your own statement? :e4e:

 

[Lovejoy]

A) He is never shown to be breathing life into Eve, which is a precedent that it was a unique action with the first progenitor of humankind.

B) The human embryo begins getting oxygen (air, o2, whatever) from day one from the placenta. What is the difference from passively receiving oxygen from God and passively receiving it from the womb? Adam is not shown to take a breath at the first moment of life, he is given one. Are you really going to hang your theology on negative pressure respiration?

I think your argument holds no water. Or air. Or whatever.

I hate quoting myself, but I want to clarify (sometimes I use medical terms that obfuscate my own points).

Your argument states that the soul begins when we first take a breath because that is when life began for Adam. Assuming that God took a physical form and gave a physical breath to Adam (both silly, but okay), it was a, well, CPR style breath (positive pressure that inflates the lungs from without) that somehow animated his whole body.

When a child is born, it is already animate, already alive, already using oxygen, and its first breath is a negative pressure breath (expanding its chest to pull air in) that closes off the fetal circulation.

There is no common ground between the concepts. God only does it the one time, and it is not the same as when and why we breath. The only common ground is that the soul began for Adam when his life began. Life begins at conception, as such, the soul begins at conception. You missed the whole point of your incessantly repeated Scripture.

 

[Krsto]

I hate quoting myself, but I want to clarify (sometimes I use medical terms that obfuscate my own points).

Your argument states that the soul begins when we first take a breath because that is when life began for Adam. Assuming that God took a physical form and gave a physical breath to Adam (both silly, but okay), it was a, well, CPR style breath (positive pressure that inflates the lungs from without) that somehow animated his whole body.

When a child is born, it is already animate, already alive, already using oxygen, and its first breath is a negative pressure breath (expanding its chest to pull air in) that closes off the fetal circulation.

There is no common ground between the concepts. God only does it the one time, and it is not the same as when and why we breath. The only common ground is that the soul began for Adam when his life began. Life begins at conception, as such, the soul begins at conception. You missed the whole point of your incessantly repeated Scripture.

How do we know the soul begins with the beginning of biology? Does that zygot have a consciousness?

 

[Lovejoy]

How do we know the soul begins with the beginning of biology? Does that zygot have a consciousness?

The only evidence I have is that same scripture oatmeal is using. It is clear that God gave Adam his soul the moment He gave him life. In the absence of other evidence, what other conclusion can I reach?

 

[Lovejoy]

Sorry, talking too fast, the kids are sick. To be clear, there are other conclusions, including a Christian non-dualism like Sela holds to, but to support my perspective on a soul I find this the safest route.

 

[Krsto]

The only evidence I have is that same scripture oatmeal is using. It is clear that God gave Adam his soul the moment He gave him life. In the absence of other evidence, what other conclusion can I reach?

Yes but Adam's biology was fully developed with complete brain while a zygot doesn't have one.

Do we really need to make any conclusions? Why not empbrace ambiguity?

 

[Krsto]

Sorry, talking too fast, the kids are sick. To be clear, there are other conclusions, including a Christian non-dualism like Sela holds to, but to support my perspective on a soul I find this the safest route.

I don't understand non-dualism.

 

[Town Heretic]

Well if my body was wasting away (not that it isn't already - stay with me now) and they were able to put my brain in a good body, or maybe a bionic one, and I woke up from surgery with this new body but I am still me that would indicate that my soul is somehow "tied to" my brain.

Well, no. You're equating being and intellect. That's an interesting assumption, but not an inescapable conclusion. And if the physical isn't the source of the immaterial then it also isn't the house of it and we have to stop thinking in terms of location, which is another material/immaterial conflation. It's understandable. We're born in the box and assume everything must fit there, even as we describe what simply can't.

I can't pinpoint the exact time that soul is created but I doubt it is when the zygot is just a few thousand cells smaller than a pinhead.

Can you see the problem within your own statement?

So that's a "No" then...lain: Okay, see you around. :e4e:

 

[Lovejoy]

Yes but Adam's biology was fully developed with complete brain while a zygot doesn't have one.

Do we really need to make any conclusions? Why not empbrace ambiguity?

Because ambiguity means I don't actually know when I am commiting, well, murder. The only precedent I can find is the soul granted at the moment life began. Consider this my way of honoring Matthew 3:15, let it be so now, fulfilling all righteousness, at least until we have more information.

 

[Lovejoy]

I don't understand non-dualism.

There are Christians embracing the notion that there is no difference between the mind and the soul. There are a number of permutations on the idea (it is not necessarily a strictly materialist notion), but it would mean that Adam did not get his soul at the moment of first life, as he never got a soul. He got his mind, and that is all anyone gets. Essentially, those embracing the notion of a soul starting with consciousness are flirting with a non-dualist position. You can say that the first sign of consciousness is an evidence of soul, but it is not a far cry from saying that the conscious mind is the same as the soul.