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Life Begins at Conception
- Thread starter Darkness
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I would have thought the debate should apply to the question put forward in this thread which is "does life begin at conception," a question that has nothing to do with the murder of a pregnant mother, or whether it is right or wrong for a potential mother to abort the growth within her body. Only when it has been positively proven that a foetus is or is not a human being, can we begin to debate whether abortion is murder or not.
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We're not the authors of any subject of the natural sciences, either. Should those be off-limits as well?
sandy whitelinger
Veteran Member
I guess I'm dense. I still fail to see the relevence. Is the question when human life begins? I fail to see where a net change in material is relevant. A car isn't a car until all of the parts are put together. A human isn't a human until the sperm and the egg comes together.
I could also ask why the Bible refers to being pregnant as "being with child?"
I like your analogy, A car isn't a car until all of the parts are put together. But then you contradict your statement by saying that at conception, when the blue print for the potential human is being drawn up as the sperm and egg come together and before all the parts are put together, you have a human being. Surely you cannot be saying that when the first components for the making of a car go onto the assembly line, that the car is then in existence, the potential for those parts to become a car may be there, but until that vehecial comes off the assembly line and is rolled out of the factory, it is not a fully formed car.
A human is a triad being, consisting of a body of animated universal elements, and a inner spirit which is the gathering of the best ancestors that have evolved since the singularity of our origin burst forth from the great abyss and has become all that is which includes you and I, then there is the mind that is you the personality of godhead to that body; all the knowledge that has been taken into that body from the time that it drew its first breath. Any knowledge taken in before birth is shared knowledge from your mother body and is not the independent person who is you, the developing mind and potential child of the Mind that is God, and the only part of you that will survive the first death, when the elements from which your body was formed are returned to the universal body from which they came.
God does not deem the unborn to be a Human being who is “Body, Soul and Spirit,” and concerning this, it is written in Exodus 21: 22, If some men are fighting and a pregnant woman gets involved and is hurt so that she loses her unborn foetus, but the woman herself is not injured in any other way, the one who hurt her is to be fined whatever amount the husband demands, which is in accordance to the approval of the Judges. (This is the same law that applies to someone who causes the death of a man’s animal.) But if the woman herself (A human being) is injured, the punishment shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.
In referrence to your question, "why does the Bible refer to being pregnant as "being with child? I am assuming that you are referring to Luke 2: 5; were it is said that "Mary, being great with child etc." but this is an erroneous translation of the original Greek which said that Mary's pregnancy was near to its full term. As the male sperm is living then life begins before conception, but I believe we are discussing the life of a human being,
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There is but one living body and we are all sharers in it, our bodies are no more than the elements of the universe which are animated by the ever evolving life (Soul, or divine animating principle), when the elements are returned to the living universal body and the life that animated it is returned to the one from whence it came, we, the minds that have developed within those bodies are fed into the eternal cosmic cloud of shimmering waves which is the ever expanding mind that is God who is perceived as this living universe. For everything that can be known about God is plain to us for he is revealed in the creation.
Whoops - sorry for taking so long to get back to you. I'd written a reply, but then had to go do something else and it got lost. I'll try again:
For me, the term "an individual human life" is wrapped up in legal and moral issues, so it's hard for me to separate them. Like I said before, I consider the term to be roughly equivalent to "person".
However, assuming a definition more like "life, human in nature, that is unique, relatively autonomous and distinct from other human life", I think it happens at several stages.
First, when the egg and cell are first formed, I think these represent a sort of "individual human life" even before fertilization occurs.
When fertilization does occur, I think another "individual human life" begins. The product of fertilization is unique and distinct from the egg and sperm cell that came before it.
As pregnancy continues, I think new "individual human lives" are repeatedly created in place of what was before: just as a fertilized egg is distinct from the separate egg and sperm cell, a fetus is distinct from a blastocyst. However, because it's a continuous, gradual process, I think it's difficult to say exactly when each "individual human life" is created or destroyed... if it's even the right terminology to say that this occurs at a specific point in time; I suspect it probably isn't. As an analogy, the process can be thought of like ascending into space: the atmosphere and the vacuum of space are two different things, but where's the clear dividing line between them?
So... to sum up:
- an egg cell is not the mother.
- a sperm cell is not the father.
- a fertilized egg is not the sperm or egg.
- a blastocyst is not a fertilized egg.
- a developed zygote is not a blastocyst.
- a zygote is not a fetus.
- all of them are "individual human lives"... of a sort.
But surely, once a "growth" has been engendered by fertilization that "growth, for of life, which we know (if all goes well) will develop into a sentient life with the propensity for all characteristics of a human?
We are told that we are made in God´s image (biblically), therefore, the life, before even the first breath is taken - although it is taken in the womb, not through our lungs though, we are a person, and therefore have all the potential of being beings whose death, once born would be considered murder (if instigated by another)......surely, therefore, life begins at conception?
Biblically, we are told that lustful looks at women (for the men amongst us) is as sinful as the "performed lust" - therefore, the intention is as "good" as the finished product?
(badly phrased, but hopefully clear enough to make the point).
We are told that we are made in God´s image (biblically), therefore, the life, before even the first breath is taken - although it is taken in the womb, not through our lungs though, we are a person, and therefore have all the potential of being beings whose death, once born would be considered murder (if instigated by another)......surely, therefore, life begins at conception?
Biblically, we are told that lustful looks at women (for the men amongst us) is as sinful as the "performed lust" - therefore, the intention is as "good" as the finished product?
(badly phrased, but hopefully clear enough to make the point).
Storm
ThrUU the Looking Glass
No worries, doll.
OK. Thanks for working with me.
I have to say, it seems to me that you're really overcomplicating things. Still, debate got us nowhere. So, why do you believe that a new individual is created at each stage of development? That really makes no sense to me.
I see it like the Ship of Theseus problem: after Theseus' ship was put on display, each timber was replaced as it become rotten. Eventually, none of the original timbers remained, and most had even been replaced several times. Was it the same ship?
That problem was complicated enough that there was no clear answer. Now... consider a modification: instead of merely replacing the timbers, what if the timbers were placed around the old ship and the old ones inside were removed?
We start out with a rudimentary toy boat and start slapping planks of wood on the hull and throwing away the old wood that was behind it. Eventually, the ship gets to be the size of a rowboat... and not just that size, but it gets fitted with seats and oars so it really is a rowboat. Nobody would consider it to be a toy boat any more.
New wood keeps on being applied and old wood keeps on being removed until the point that it's the size of a small yacht. Along the way, the oars and seats were ditched and a mast, sails, and rudder were fitted. It's now certainly not a rowboat.
This process continues, and the ship ends up being a gigantic three-masted schooner with a jib, complex rigging, a ship's wheel, a keel, holds, and all sorts of things that were never present even in the small yacht, let alone the rowboat or the toy.
Now: are the three-masted schooner and the toy boat the same boat? I say they aren't... even though the line between "schooner" and "yacht" can sometimes get a bit fuzzy, as can the line between "rowboat with a sail" and "sailboat with oars". Despite the difficulty in drawing hard lines between each category, I think that at a macro level, we can recognize that as development progresses, it goes through stages that are fundamentally different from each other... so different, in fact, that in each stage, the thing undergoing development is not the thing that it was in earlier or later stages. I think this is a good analogy for prenatal development.
The propensity for a characteristic is not the characteristic itself.
I think it's worth pointing out that in Biblical times, the woman's contribution to pregnancy was misunderstood: IIRC, the woman was thought to provide merely an "empty vessel" of the womb, and the fetus was thought to be solely the product of the man. Maybe an argument could be made on that basis that Biblically, life begins even before conception. After all, the man's contribution to the pregnancy is often referred to as a "seed" in the Bible, isn't it?
And is a breath not taken through the lungs a breath at all? Again, we're dealing with something written millenia ago; is it reasonable to assume that the author intended term "breath" to include oxygen transfer to the fetus through prenatal circulation?
Even if they're equally bad, I don't think this means they're equal in every way.
And if intention is as "good" as the finished product... didn't Lucifer intend to be greater than God?
DadBurnett
Instigator
I think it's worth pointing out that in Biblical times, the woman's contribution to pregnancy was misunderstood: IIRC, the woman was thought to provide merely an "empty vessel" of the womb, and the fetus was thought to be solely the product of the man. Maybe an argument could be made on that basis that Biblically, life begins even before conception. After all, the man's contribution to the pregnancy is often referred to as a "seed" in the Bible, isn't it?
With that line of reasoning ... would not a man "spilling his seed" be just as grevious as the abortion of a fetus??? After all, without seed thaer could be no human being ...
With that line of reasoning ... would not a man "spilling his seed" be just as grevious as the abortion of a fetus??? After all, without seed thaer could be no human being ...
"Life begins at conception." This is not a question, this is a statement, so the question must be asked, which sort of life begins at conception and the conception of what? It's obvious that life existed before the person who made this statement was conceived, and it cannot be disputed that life began long before the first human being who is but an extension of the eternal evolving life, came on the scene.
As far as the false interpretation of Genesis 38: 9-11; is concerned, it was because Onan failed to obey the customary law and sire a child for his dead brother that displeased the Lord and the reason why the Lord killed him. If the lord were to kill every man who spills his seed on the ground, then women would need to clone themselves to produce children, because there would be no men on the earth.
And if them self-righteous oozing hypocrites who would condemn as murderers, those women who choose to abort the forming animal body within their own wombs, and if, as you seem to be insinuating DadBurnett, that the male seed can be defined as a human being, then they’d better get the rope out for me also, cos I’m 68 and I’ve lost count of the wet dreams and the number of times that I’ve masturbated over those many years, and if I had to choose which I prefer, whether masturbating or having a wet dream, I would choose the latter every time, as one seems to encounter a better class of woman while experiencing a wet dream, and I’m yet to experience one of those dreams in which the woman concerned, conceived.
But as to your statement that without the minute, living seed of the male which gives life to the ancestral characteristics in the massive dormant female egg, there could be no human being, then you may as well take it back a little further and say that without the life giving seeds of the male animals in the kingdom from which we evolved there could be no human body in which a life giving male seed could form to produce another human being, etc, etc, etc.
Concerning the question asked by darkeness after the statement that life begins at conception, which question is, "Is there any Biblical basis for the belief that life begins at conception and I am assuming that the referrence is to the life of a human being, the answer is NO.
But the Bible does show that the living thing that develops in the womb of a woman is not to be concidered as a human being until it takes its first independant breath of life. While still in the womb, it is to be concidered as an animal body and the person who causes the abortion of that growth if it is not theirs to make that decision, cannot be charged with murder, but must pay compensation to the family of that potential human being, which is the same punishment that would be imposed on that person if they had killed an animal that belonged to that family, which animal could have legally been killed by the family to which it belonged.
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sandy whitelinger
Veteran Member
All analogies fall short but you got the basic concept as it appyed to my question about Penguin's point.
It seems to me that all this points out is that there is a different value placed on unborn life and does nothing to resolve the OP.
Please provide the "correct" translation.
This thread “Life Begins At Conception,” opens with the question “Is there any Biblical basis for the claim that life begins at conception?” As no one on this forum can possibly know at what time in the history of this evolving universe that life began, we are left to assume that human life is the subject referred to, and even then, if our assumption is correct, we would have to go back beyond the life of the animals from which we developed as an extension to that animating animal life, in order to answer the said question.
So we must now assume that the original question is referring to when the life of a human being begins. But even here, the emphasis is on the ‘LIFE’ of which all living beings are sharers, the life which courses through the veins of all our ancient ancestors including our pre-human parents through who the eternal life was passed down to us. As we cannot be expected to answer the question, “When Did Life Begin”? We must then assume that the answer that is being asked for, must be, “is there any Biblical basis for the claim that a Human Being exists from the moment of conception?”
As you have correctly pointed out, the Bible differentiates between the unborn animal foetuses, of which animals, we humans share some 80% of our DNA, and the being who, when the umbilical cord is severed and it is separated from the mother body and takes its first breath of air and is able to then begin to take in the universal information with which it senses will now be bombarded.
It is then that it begins to develop within that animal body an individual mind that is capable of comprehending mind, which is the one thing that separates a Human Being from our animal ancestors.
Please provide the "correct" translation.
Luke 2: 5; as originally written in the Greek, uses the Greek word "eykous," which means "Pregnant, holding in, conceiving," see 'Young's Analytical Concordance to the Bible.' Irrelevant to what the English translators have written, the Bible said that Mary's pregnancy was nearing its full term.
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