• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!
  • Welcome to our archives. No new posts are allowed here.

Biblically, life begins at birth

Panache said:
Following my logic, the moral implication is that preventing someone from ever living is not the same as killing someone. When you choose to abstain from sex, you are preventing someone from ever living just as much as you do when you perform an abortion. That is not at all equivalent to murder.
Click to expand...

Wow, the contortions of tortured logic some go through to make abortion ok in their mind. Now, abstaining from sex is just the same as, say, a late term birth abortion. That's some serious straw grasping right there (and I'm not even one that calls abortion "murder").
 
X Factor said:
Strange to see the OP use the Bible as a credible source all of a sudden. Lol

Anyway



PROLIFE: Scripture & the Sanctity of Life: Bible Study
Click to expand...

What? I use the Bible as a credible source all the time.

Anyway,

Jeremiah 1 says that God had plans for him not only before he was born, but before he was conceived. Just as He had plans for Adam before Adam was formed. Does that mean that Adam was alive before God breathed life into him?

As for psalm 51:5 "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me." How does that in any way talk about David's pre-birth spiritual state or personhood. It seems to me that it refers to the spiritual state of at least one of David's parents. Maybe he was a rape baby, Explain to me how that verse has anything to do with personhood.

Jacob and Essau weren't just distinct individuals before birth, they were ENTIRE NATIONS before birth.

“Two nations are in your womb;
And two peoples will be separated from your body;
And one people shall be stronger than the other;
And the older shall serve the younger.”
Click to expand...

Obviously prophecy takes some poetic liberties. Just as they weren't literally nations yet, they also weren't literally people yet. The prophecy was of things to come, not things as they were.

Psalm 139 is the same story as Jeremiah.
"Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be. "

All the days ordained for him were already written in the proverbial book prior to conception. By that standard of life, it is murder to not have sex with your prom date.
 
X Factor said:
Wow, the contortions of tortured logic some go through to make abortion ok in their mind. Now, abstaining from sex is just the same as, say, a late term birth abortion. That's some serious straw grasping right there (and I'm not even one that calls abortion "murder").
Click to expand...

It isn't a contortion of logic. It is a continuation of logic. If preventing a life from being formed is equivalent to taking a life that has been formed, then there is a moral obligation to realize every opportunity to create life.

If God knows that some people will one day have the breath of life, that doesn't mean that all the potential people who might have one day had the breath of life were killed. Presumably God also knew that such 'people' would never be anything more than unrealized potential.
 
X Factor said:
PROLIFE: Scripture & the Sanctity of Life: Bible Study
Click to expand...

First off, 'Christian' bible study = gross mistranslations and rewrites to recreate the bible per their fear/control agenda. I don't know what Bible this sight is using, but it sounds like a Evangelical rewrite, changing the context and meaning to make the bible say what they want it to say.

Also, your source makes an emphatic statement, then backs it up with just chapter and verse, as if by merely pulling out our bible we'll understand right way.

The OP included a the lines and a paraphrasing. He made his case. Why don't you make yours. Not what some 'Evangelical' web site says, what is your belief.

I explained why I believe first breath and breath of life makes sense to me. Your source actually reinforces that concept.

God had plans for us before we were born. Jeremiah 1:4-5; Isaiah 49:1, 5

David discusses the spiritual state he was in before he was born (his personhood began at conception). Psalm 51:5
Click to expand...

How do those passages imply that the soul enters the body prior to first breath?

Actually, they seem to account for that. Prior to being born and taking first breath, the body is just a vessel for a soul. An abortion could just be God's will for that body, He has other plans for the soul.


If an doctor performing an abortion on a child that was never meant to be (rape for example is not Gods will, it's self will, lust-rage run riot), then the abortion is just God's mercy. The morning after pill EC is the victim getting back on the right path.

Why do pro-lifers assume the understand will of God?
 
As for psalm 51:5 "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me." How does that in any way talk about David's pre-birth spiritual state or personhood. It seems to me that it refers to the spiritual state of at least one of David's parents. Maybe he was a rape baby, Explain to me how that verse has anything to do with personhood.
Click to expand...

David was born with the sin of Adam. He had it before he was born. Thus, he has spirituality and thereby personhood (at least in the eyes of God) before birth.


God had plans for us before we were born. Jeremiah 1:4-5; Isaiah 49:1, 5
Click to expand...

Is the argument that God's plan was for someone to be an abortion? haha. That goes against the entire idea of freewill and human/Satan-induced consequences.
 
Last edited:
ecofarm said:
David was born with the sin of Adam. He had it before he was born. Thus, he has spirituality and thereby personhood (at least in the eyes of God) before birth.



Is the argument that God's plan was for someone to be an abortion? haha. That goes against the entire idea of freewill and human/Satan-induced consequences.
Click to expand...

Original Sin wasn't doctrine until after 300 AD.
 
ecofarm said:
David was born with the sin of Adam. He had it before he was born. Thus, he has spirituality and thereby personhood (at least in the eyes of God) before birth.




Is the argument that God's plan was for someone to be an abortion? haha. That goes against the entire idea of freewill and human/Satan-induced consequences.
Click to expand...

More that God's plan was to use abortion to prevent someone from ever being. Much as it is God's plan to use abstinence to prevent someone from ever being.

For example, God's plan was to provide men with a ritual that would induce termination of a pregnancy in the even that their wife became pregnant with another man's child. The Bible provides instructions on how to perform such an abortion. See the OP for details.

Care to tell me God's plans for the 'people' supposedly created out of unfaithfulness?
 
sharon said:
Original Sin wasn't doctrine until after 300 AD.
Click to expand...

See, that's the thing about Christianity or any religion, people make it up as they go.

How much of the Catechism of the Catholic Church is actually in the bible?
 
hazlnut said:
See, that's the thing about Christianity or any religion, people make it up as they go.

How much of the Catechism of the Catholic Church is actually in the bible?
Click to expand...

I am not Catholic, but I vaguely remember that the Doctrine of Original Sin was introduced to combat the Gnostics... you know politics and dominion.
 
sharon said:
Original Sin wasn't doctrine until after 300 AD.
Click to expand...

That doesn't change the fact that it's the Christian interpretation of it (I'm pretty sure).


Anyway, Original Sin was first explained by Paul

Romans
18Everyone was going to be punished because Adam sinned. But because of the good thing that Christ has done, God accepts us and gives us the gift of life.
19Adam disobeyed God and caused many others to be sinners. But Jesus obeyed him and will make many people acceptable to God.
20The Law came, so that the full power of sin could be seen. Yet where sin was powerful, God's kindness was even more powerful. 21Sin ruled by means of death. But God's kindness now rules, and God has accepted us because of Jesus Christ our Lord. This means that we will have eternal life.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=romans 5:12-5:21&version=CEV

1Corinthians
22Adam brought death to all of us, and Christ will bring life to all of us.
 
Last edited:
sharon said:
I am not Catholic, but I vaguely remember that the Doctrine of Original Sin was introduced to combat the Gnostics... you know politics and dominion.
Click to expand...
I think Augustine came up with Original Sin to explain away the reason why infants die. If death is the punishment for sin, infants and small children can only die if they were born with some sort of sin since they are incapable of sin themselves.
 
Fletch said:
I think Augustine came up with Original Sin to explain away the reason why infants die. If death is the punishment for sin, infants and small children can only die if they were born with some sort of sin since they are incapable of sin themselves.
Click to expand...

Yes... I agree.......
 
ecofarm said:
That doesn't change the fact that it's the Christian interpretation of it (I'm pretty sure).
Click to expand...

You mean how they interpret something they made up?

Like Christmas and Easter.

And the wedding ceremony (Pagan)
 
ecofarm said:
As for psalm 51:5 "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me." How does that in any way talk about David's pre-birth spiritual state or personhood. It seems to me that it refers to the spiritual state of at least one of David's parents. Maybe he was a rape baby, Explain to me how that verse has anything to do with personhood.
Click to expand...

David was born with the sin of Adam. He had it before he was born. Thus, he has spirituality and thereby personhood (at least in the eyes of God) before birth.

God had plans for us before we were born. Jeremiah 1:4-5; Isaiah 49:1, 5
Click to expand...

Is the argument that God's plan was for someone to be an abortion? haha. That goes against the entire idea of freewill and human/Satan-induced consequences.
Click to expand...

It's arguments like these that really show how little validity there is in scripture. The bible is archaic poetry. Same with the Koran. When someone uses scripture in an argument like this, they're attaching modern interpretations to ancient language. Parsing out words that have been translated several times, and trying to squeeze in meanings that aren't really there. All of this bit about personhood prior to birth... That passage has nothing to do with that. Nor do the ones about god breathing life into people.

You can twist and turn a poetic phrase any way you like. It doesn't actually make for a valid argument to just quote a few lines of scripture and say "this means that", without any real basis for proving that it means such a thing. If you have to explain the meaning of a passage, then it probably doesn't mean what you want it to mean. "Thou shalt not commit adultery", on the other hand, is pretty clear.
 
Just thought of something looking at the title of this thread, Life began by inception not conception. Living continues with conceptions conceiving until extinction of specific life adding sole times of occupation being whole results of half the next generation.

Works Biblically and scientifically the same way. There is your bridge, missing link, or what ever divides theory and theology.

Wait a second, I transposed my thoughts again. Life begins with inception, lives by itself after birth, survives by conceiving another generation of the same results in different details while everything always continues to be done now balancing everything so far added together.

God is being not at a person itself, but everything here being exactly what it becomesall the time universally applied to each individual result.

Twelve disciples, atoms, 120 molecules of three states of elements, cellular adaptation on specific locations, planets of a solar system, solar system of a galaxy, galaxy of all galaxies here now with the six parts of life's three states of natural balancing plant and animal result, predatory and prey behaviors, male and fmeale means of making another generation.

Six of one and a half dozen of the other and now is exactly what it remains all the time now is here to everything never staying the same detailed DNS twice conceived from simple raindrops and snowflakes to fingerprints of the homosapien species.

Yea, it is that simple, compounding thing of exponential contracing expanding the details of self containment, self maintaining, and self evident by being here now.

Eternal Hell is figuring out ways to deny it each generation acting as participants of that legalized deception by any name, rank, and social justification in theory or theology.

Have a great eterntiy so far. Keep making it what you will, I cannot stop you all. So why play the game.
 
Last edited:
Panache said:
[FONT=Tahoma, Calibri, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif]Genesis 2:7 "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrilsthe breath of life; and man became a living being." The first human life did not begin with the first two particles of dust that God assembled. It didn't even begin when all of the particles of dust were assembled. It began with the first breath.

This is far from the only passage that suggests that life begins with the first breath rather than conception:

-Job 33:4 "The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life."

-Ezekiel 37:5 "This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life."


In fact both the Hebrew and Greek words for "soul" are synonymous with "breath"

-Ruach: Strong's Hebrew: 7307. ?????? (ruach) -- breath, wind, spirit

-Nephesh: Strong's Hebrew: 5315. ??????? (nephesh) -- a soul, living being, life, self, person, desire, passion, appetite, emotion

-Pneuma: Strong's Greek: 4151. ?????? (pneuma) -- wind, spirit



Clearly the Biblically supported position is that life begins not at conception but with the first breath.



Furthermore. the Bible gives explicit instructions on how to force a woman to abort a pregnancy that results from an adulterous relationship:

Numbers 5:11 "Then the LORD said to Moses, 12 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘If a man’s wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him 13 so that another man has sexual relations with her...

...may the LORD cause you to become a curse among your people when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell. 22 May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells or your womb miscarries.”

“‘Then the woman is to say, “Amen. So be it.”

...If she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result: When she is made to drink the water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering, it will enter her, her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry

Question for debate: Is there any sort of biblical support for the notion that life begins at conception?[/FONT]
[FONT=Tahoma, Calibri, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif][/FONT]
Click to expand...

The passage you are referring to concerns the creation of the first man....and nothing to do with the subsequent ones. In short, it doesn't mean you are not alive until born.
 
Panache said:
Jeremiah 1:5 is one of my favorites. Lets take another gander at it:

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you." Jeremiah 1:5

God says that He knew Jeremiah not only before he was born, but before he was even formed in the womb. BEFORE he was even conceived. By this standard, life does not begin at conception, but rather it begins BEFORE conception. If we continue to follow the logic, then not having sex with a girl that you have the opportunity to have sex with is murder because you killed the person who could have been born as a result of your intercourse. That potential for pregnancy was already a human life since God knew them before they were conceived. By preventing their conception, you murdered them.

A more reasonable interpretation is that God knew Jeremiah before he was conceived, because he knew that Jeremiah would be conceived. He appointed Jeremiah as a prophet to the nations before he was born because He knew that Jeremiah would be born.

In the same way that He might know that any given pair of sperm and egg might not ever become a human life, He might also know that a given fetus will never become a human life. Knowing people before they are conceived does not mean that He knows non-people who will never be conceived. Similarly it does not mean that He knows non-people before they are miscarried.
Click to expand...

Actually I believe it to mean that your soul (biblical person hood) exists before you do. That doesn't mean life begins before conception.
 
mac said:
The passage you are referring to concerns the creation of the first man....and nothing to do with the subsequent ones. In short, it doesn't mean you are not alive until born.
Click to expand...

He mentioned several passages. None from Genesis.

Perhaps you should get a copy of the bible before posting nonsense.
 
mac said:
Actually I believe it to mean that your soul (biblical person hood) exists before you do. That doesn't mean life begins before conception.
Click to expand...

But the soul is separate from the body until first breath.

So... Again, perhaps more careful reading and thought would help before you just post random unrelated nonsense.
 
Panache said:
...If she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result: When she is made to drink the water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering, it will enter her, her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry...
Click to expand...

this..is truly fascinating. in the Bible, God is telling the Israelites to force an unfaithful pregnant woman, to drink water that causes her to miscarry?

if that doesn't negate the personhood & rights of the unborn, I don't know what does.

clearly, the Old Testament considered a ZEF to not be a person.
 
Thunder said:
this..is truly fascinating. in the Bible, God is telling the Israelites to force an unfaithful pregnant woman, to drink water that causes her to miscarry?

if that doesn't negate the personhood & rights of the unborn, I don't know what does.

clearly, the Old Testament considered a ZEF to not be a person.
Click to expand...

Not to rain on my own parade, but that alone doesn't prove that the OT considered a ZEF not to be a person. After all, God could have just been telling the Israelites to kill babies. It certainly wouldn't be out of character for Him:

"And Samuel said to Saul, “The LORD sent me to anoint you king over his people Israel; now therefore listen to the words of the LORD. 2 Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘I have noted what Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came up out of Egypt. 3 Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction[a] all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’” 1 Samuel 15:1-3
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom