Parchment & Pen Blog

1. JoanieD says:

   May 24, 2007 at 5:45 am

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   This is very enlightening, Michael. I know that in Genesis there are various translations of Genesis 2:7. After God “…breathed into his nostrils the breath of life…” some translations say “…and man became a living being” and some say “… and man became a living soul. ” If the best translation is “soul” than man does not HAVE a soul, man IS a soul. For those of you who are studied theologians, which do you think is the best translation? And what is it that we mean when we say “soul?” I think it is very important to know that, because that can help us determine what we think about abortions.

   It sounds like you are equating soul and spirit as one and the same, Michael. I know other people would say that humans are made up of physical, soul, and spirit where spirit is the life-giving “substance” and soul is more like the personality/mind of a person.

   I have not sorted this all out for myself. Abortions seem to me to be not what God or nature or anything else would want. Yet, what would you tell a married couple when the doctor advises them that if the baby is not aborted, both the baby and the mother will die? If you believe any abortions are murder, then I guess you have to say, “Oh well. God gives life and he takes life and that’s the way the cookie crumbles” so to speak. It may be that the mother feels so closely connected to her baby that despite the fact that she has been told she will die, she just cannot choose to end her baby’s life anyway. Perhaps she will say that God can produce miracles and she will hope for a miracle. I pray that none of us and no one we love will ever have to face such a decision.
2. C Michael Patton says:

   May 24, 2007 at 11:44 am

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   Joanie,

   You are right about the different translations of Gen 2:7. Most would say that we should translate this as “living being” rather than soul. It uses the same phrase for the animals. The idea is that when God breathed into them, He breathed life, not a soul. This would better support Traducianism.

   I am in full agreement with you that any choice that one has to make in such a situation would be beyond my comprehension.

   Thanks for the comment.
3. richards says:

   May 24, 2007 at 1:01 pm

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   Theologically, they both have some problems. One of the things with a traducian perspective (to which I lean), is that just as parents can produce a less than ideal human (i.e., birth defects), traducians also affirm that the soul is born defective (total depravity, etc.). But if a child can be born without arms or legs or certain organs, could a child be born without a soul? Or would that situation be more analogous to being born without a brain (anencephaly) or without a head (acephaly), where survival is 0%? After all, when the soul is not joined to a body, the body is dead. Could some souls be “more defective” than others?

   With a creationist view, could God choose not to give a soul to someone? Or is it guaranteed that every single child born will be provided with a soul, which is promptly corrupted?

   Oddly enough, though, from a purely secular point of view, abortion is untenable. Greg Koukl at http://www.str.org has an incredible argument against abortion in which he never appeals to the Bible. There’s just one question to ask: “What is it?” If it’s just tissue, then who cares about privacy or choice or anything else — just cut it out like a mole. If it’s a human, then no issue of privacy or choice will even matter. He then goes on to show that no matter how we define human, that definition either applies equally to a fetus or is arbitrary.

   As with Michael, I have no answers, only more questions.
4. C Michael Patton says:

   May 24, 2007 at 1:21 pm

   Like or Dislike: 1

   Richard, I agree with the difficulties of the issues.

   The traducianist would say that it is impossible for their to be a case where the soul is not present in and with the body since it is vitally connected to it. It would be like saying what if there was a body without cells? Mysteriously, although you cannot test it or see it in a microscope, the immaterial aspect, according to the traducianist, is a part of the body from the beginning and the body cannot be without it. A good definition of death is the separation of the immaterial from the material. This separation is mysterious and unnatural and make the resurrection necessary so the we, in the resurrection, can be complete once again.

   While the body is born with the effects of the fall, so is the soul. These effects do vary and the immaterial will always most certainly be deformed by sin. When God redeems the world, the complete person, body and soul, material and immaterial, will be restored.
5. richards says:

   May 25, 2007 at 8:57 am

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   This whole idea of the body being part of the “good” creation of God was one of the more important ideas I took from Humanity and Sin. I had naively held a Gnostic view of the body. In fact, I was so adamant in my reckless view of the body, that I had said on several occasions to not spend a lot of money on my funeral — just put me in a hefty bag and throw me in a dump, ’cause that’s not me. Sounds really horrible now, but my thinking was, “The soul is what counts, the body is going to decay, and God can recreate me from whatever he wants at the resurrection.” But as H&S and this post points out, our “selves” are not composed of just a spirit with a body chained to it. God created us as material and immaterial.
6. James Snapp Jr says:

   May 26, 2007 at 11:04 pm

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   Greetings C. Michael Patton,

   Acknowledgement that some abortions might not be murder — i.e., that they
   might not involve the separation of an innocent human soul from a human
   body — is not the same as lending support to all or any abortions. If one
   considers that children are a gift from the Lord, then, barring rare
   circumstances, a woman’s awareness that she is pregnant may be
   considered a signal of God’s intent to give her a gift. Shouldn’t it be
   incumbent upon Christian parents to co-operate with what appears to be
   a divine intention, regardless of whatever ignorance we may have about
   exactly how and when this gift will be given? Istm that the right Christian
   approach to pregnancy (barring those rare circumstances) is one of
   co-operation.

   On the question of ensoulment and some related issues, I welcome you
   to consider three essays I wrote some time ago, which can be found
   near the bottom of the homepage of the Curtisville Christian Church website
   – http://www.curtisvillechristian.org –
   or you can go directly to the first essay at
   http://www.curtisvillechristian.org/Biogenesis.html .

   Yours in Christ,

   James Snapp, Jr.
7. aChristian says:

   January 25, 2009 at 8:07 pm

   Like or Dislike: 1

   “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.”
   (Psalm 51:5)
   13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. (Psalm 139)
   22 “If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. 23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise. (Exodus 21)
   These verses are self-explanatory, and although many would not like to hear this, the babies(or fetus’, whatever you want to call human life at its beginning) are not getting the chance to accept salvation. Robbing them of their physical lives is also robbing them of their spiritual lives. Psalm 51:5 says it all…Please don’t try and justify murder.
8. Dr. G. says:

   April 14, 2009 at 10:15 pm

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   Causing a woman to give birth prematurely, or miscarry, note, is implicitly distinguished from a”serious” situation or injury, in Ex. 21. So abortion is not serious, it seems here.

   Why not? Surely, to be a human, we must have a mind or spirit or intelligence, all closely interrelated; otherwise, we are just an animal. As Christianity often affirms.

   Therefore, one of the main objections to current “Catholic” anti-abortionism, is that it is not really Catholic; it violates much Catholic tradition. About the soul, specifically. Ignoring for example not only much of the Bible, but also, say, one of its own central saints and theologians, Aquinas: who asserted that the soul did not enter the body until 40-90 days.

   Aquinas’ argument appears to be in part, Biblical: parts of the Bible suggest we are not yet “formed” at a very young age.

   And in part highly rational: a very young fetus would not seem to have enough structure or or a brain, to be “rational” or have Reason (a word which it appears A. himself used?). Would not have enough of a brain to have the intelligent spirit we say is what distinguished us from animals. Thus, in the same way we might have a defective brain, we could have a defective soul. Indeed, many Christians in another context, assume even our souls or spirits are somewhat bad, are stained with original sin etc.. … until we receive Christ.

   What did the Bible itself say, finally? Finally, Numbers 5 appears to have God himself, ordering a priest to perform an action, administer a drug or powder or “dust,” which causes a woman’s “womb” or lower “thigh” to fall; which, if performed on a pregnant woman, would in effect be an abortifacient; would induce an abortion.

   Thus God orders a priest to perform an abortion, in the Bible, it seems.

   Because, in all likelihood, we are not really fully human, en”souled,” until rather late in development; many would say indeed, not until … natural, timely, full-term birth. The moment when God indeed (and Natural Law), apparently felt we were at last complete enough at last, to enter the world.

   In the meantime, even the Church has suggested in yet another context, that the baby who dies before birth, baptism, is in “Limbo”; a place where its status is at best, undermined; and is not firmly declared to be human.

   Surely there are other ways to be “fruitful,” than just having kids? Being fruitful in our “works,” or “spirit,” say?
9. cheryl u says:

   April 14, 2009 at 11:13 pm

   Like or Dislike: 1

   Dr. G,

   In Luke chapter 1, the mother of John the Baptist claimed that her baby “leaped for joy” within her when she was greeted by the mother of Jesus. This was in her 6th month of pregnancy. To leap for joy in the womb certainly implies having a soul and being aware of at least some of what is going on around him.
10. Bridget Jack Meyers says:

    April 15, 2009 at 1:04 am

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    Here’s my struggle with thinking the soul enters the body at conception (whether from a traducianist view or a creationist view): abortion is not the only method we have of terminating a fertilized egg. Hormonal forms of birth control (the pill, patch, shot, etc.) don’t just work by trying to prevent the egg from releasing. They also make the walls of the uterus slick to try and prevent an already fertilized egg from attaching. If abortion is wrong because the soul enters the body at conception, then all forms of hormonal birth control must also be wrong. If abortion is the equivalent of murder, hormonal birth control is the equivalent of playing Russian Roulette on someone. Is that really more ethical?

    But it goes further than that. For a fertilized egg to fail to attach to the uterus is a very natural process. It happens all the time with couples who are trying to get pregnant and aren’t using any hormonal forms of birth control. Between abortions, women on birth control and plain ol’ natural processes, an awful lot of souls are going into the fertilized egg and then meeting their doom. Is heaven (and possibly hell, depending on your view) really going to be filled with the souls of unlucky blastocysts?

    Yet I think examples like the account Cheryl (#9) cites in Luke 1 of the unborn John the Baptist coming into proximity with the unborn Christ make it very clear that later in the pregnancy, babies definitely have souls.

    I’m drawn to the traducianist view for other reasons, and I consider myself to be pro-life both religiously and politically, but I am not drawn to the notion that the soul enters the body at conception.
11. Dr. G. says:

    April 15, 2009 at 2:55 pm

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    To be sure, we are arguing that an embryo is not human, merely in the earlier days; “from conception.”

    I would not like to argue much more. But hypothetically, as for even 6 months: is an embryo human, mere because it kicks? Even at a sound?

    Animals have reflexes, that can cause them to grasp things – and kick. Indeed, perhaps animal embryos do this. I t doesn’t mean they have a soul; or are human.

    What makes us human, Aquinas suggests, is a developed, “formed” brain, and intelligence; part of our spirit or soul. While that intelligence develops not just in the womb, but even more, after birth, in socialization.

    No doubt, any pregnant woman who intends to carry to full term, and give birth, should rigorously protect the health of her embryo; as perhaps not quite fully human yet, but as forming the foundation of indeed, a real human being. While many laws suggest that, right at 6 months, it might well be. Here, we are arguing against “conception.”

    In any case, many of us (including myself) are repulsed by abortion, the Church urges us to note that there can be other “proportionate”ly more important “issues” to consider in the voting booth; like innocents killed in wars, withholding health care, and so forth.

    As for very early forms of gametes and embroys? Remember in the 1950′s or so, when elements of the Church declared that “every sperm is sacred”? Obviously, we can push things bad too far. Millions of sperm are used up, every time a male has an orgasm. By this standard, even a male who only had sex once every nine months with his wife, and got her pregnant every time … would still be a mass murderer.

    So when do we become human? One central principle of persons like Aquinas, is this: a clump of cells just isn’t “formed” enough to be human. We likely become human, when we are distinguised in our abilities – our mind or spirit – from the animals. A moment rather later than … “conception.”

    By the way, when the Church puts the date at “conception,” it thereby goes against two of its own greatest saints; Augustine, and St. Thomas Aquinas. While the Code of Canon Law, 1917 ed., and to some extent the current (1983?) edition, made Aquinas the foremost theologian of the Church; the saint and “angelic doctor,” whose work it said, was to be the foundation of the education of all future priests, in seminaries.

    Why does the Church now turn its back on the saints?
12. Dr. G. says:

    April 15, 2009 at 3:09 pm

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    By the way, we can update “traducian”ism enough to have it allow that we do not have a soul till well after conception, and thus allow abortion.

    The basic idea in much of biology and in Aquinas, is that a certain brain mass and brain complexity, in Biblical language”form”ing, is necessary before we have a characteristically human intelligence/spirit/soul. And a pin speck of matter, at conception, does not have that …yet. That comes later … as the embryo “grows” a bigger brain; or grows in “wisdom” and so forth.

    The soul appears in part (or some might argue, even in whole?) by the action begun by parents. But it does not begin to fully emerge, in a complete form worthy of the term “human,” till well after conception.

    So we can have a traducianism, that does not assume humanity from conception.
13. cheryl u says:

    April 15, 2009 at 3:35 pm

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    Dr. G,

    There are several things here on my mind. I am curious as to how you view pregnancies in the animal world. Is a dog a dog at conception for instance? Is a cat a cat at conception? Or do you believe it is only humans that don’t become human until a later time?

    Secondly, I take it from your comments above that you are probably a Catholic. I am not and I don’t think a lot of the others posting here are either. So to state that certain of the saints of the past that were to be the basis for all future education of priests are now being ingored doesn’t have the same impact for us that it does for you.

    And finally, I read the Exodus 21 verses you mentioned above in a different way than you do. I think that they very possibly may refer to the woman delivering prematurely and no further evil happening to her and no further harm coming to that child–death or problems related to prematurity. If that is the case, then this Scripture would not be downplaying the seriousness of this issue as you believe it to be.
14. Dr. G. says:

    April 15, 2009 at 4:39 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    1) Is a small microscopic glob of cat cells really a cat? No. If you went to a pet store to buy a cat, paid $100 dollars for one, and got a glob of cat cells, would you be satisfied?

    2) I’m not Catholic. I just mention it, because it is one of the major Christian traditions; and the major voice in anti-abortionism. While in any case, Aquinas argues much of his case, on the basis of Reason. We read Aquinas, even in Protesant seminaries.

    3) I read Ex. 21 (or Num. 5?) differently than you. After a miscarriage (in those days) the embryo is all but already dead; but the Bible considers that no “harm” is done. So long as the adult mother is not hurt.

    And this is just one of many scriptures.

    Note that the Bible never, ever mentions abortion specifically by name; suggesting (in a weak way to be sure) that God did not think it was so important. While in conrast, the Bible mentions helping the poor, some say, hundreds or thousands of times.

    Then as we read the rest of the Bible … it does not in fact seem to support the conception position. We are “Being knit” in the womb; suggesting we are not completed yet there, for example. God “knew” us before we were born; but did he know the fetus?

    To say a mere clump of matter or cells, is a human being, is to denigrate adults, and the human mind or soul or spirit; which is most evident, after birth.

    Be honest: would you trade your life one-to-one, for a clump of human cells? That look in a microscope, like a soccer ball? Is that really a human being?

    We might be able to clone a human being from a cheek cell one day; does that make a cheek cell human? What happens when I swallow?
15. Kara Kittle says:

    April 15, 2009 at 4:48 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Dr. G,

    I would. And yes it is.

    Just because it doesn’t look human yet doesn’t mean it’s not. You’re like the guy in the crows nest. His job was to cry “Land Ho” at the first sight of what he recognized as land. He didn’t have to explain it was land because he saw trees and sand. Even though those are parts of land.
16. cheryl u says:

    April 15, 2009 at 4:49 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Dr. G,

    It seems to me that the ideas you put forth in your last comment truly could be a proverbial “slippery slope”. What becomes of the severely developmentally disabled from birth in this scheme of things? Are they “sufficiently formed” to qualify as human or not? Who is to make the final judgment call here? Do we then say it is permissible to take the life of one with severe metal disabities from birth because they don’t qualify as being human? Really, if this scheme of things is followed to what may very well be it’s logical conslusion, the thought of where it could lead us terrifies me.

    What happens to the one with severe brain damage that is in what appears to be a permanent vegatative state? Did they lose their humanness because they can’t act in a way that distinguishes them from animals? Is it alright then to kill them?

    This whole discussion is leaving me cold. God ultimately is the giver of all human life even if it does come about through the agency of human parents. What right does anyone think they have to take that life that He has given at any point because in our minds it is not “fully human” yet? Even if we could prove that a human soul is not there at conception, what right do we have to destroy that life given by God with all of the potential of a lifetime ahead of it? I honestly don’t think there is any justification for it at all.
17. cheryl u says:

    April 15, 2009 at 4:59 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Dr G,

    Why does the phrase “being knit” in your mind seem to equate to not having a soul yet? Of course we are not completely formed at conception, that is very obvious from a physical standpoint alone. Why do you automatically seem to assume that it also means that the soul is not “knit in” there yet?

    And frankly, if I went to a pet store to buy a dog or a cat, I would be expecting to buy a full term, several months old animal. Not a “clump of cells”. That doesn’t mean that clump of cells is not a cat or a dog–just that it is a cat or a dog in the earliest stages of development.
18. Dr. G. says:

    April 15, 2009 at 5:14 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    “Being knit” suggests not yet complete; which opens to the possiblity that it does not completely have a soul yet.

    Perhaps after all,our normal/natural idea of what a cat is – four legs; fur; meows for food – is really the best; and extending that to something that does not match that at all, a clump of cells, is … not natural. While Paul commends the non-Jews, Gentiles, for doing by “nature” what the law requires. And “Natural law” is a major subdivision of Theology.

    Why assume there is a complete soul there? When clearly there is not even a complete body? If soul and body are intimately linked and parallel … why not suggest the soul is imcomplete when the body is?

    Note by teh way,, that most theologians suggest that the old word “soul” really stood basically for our spirit or intelligence, our consciousness, and even our “reason” some said. It wasn’t something entirely different and separate from that. And does a clump of cells have that?

    What about the guy who saw a tree top at see, and said “Land Ho” … but then when the ship got there, saw just a potted palm floating in the water.

    What standard are you usuing to say a clump of cells is a cat? If a clump of cells is a cat, then what about … the pencil on my desk?
    Could you prove it is not a cat?

    Or that it doesn’t have soul? What is your criterion? You saw a potted palm floating in the water? Land Ho.
19. mbaker says:

    April 15, 2009 at 5:21 pm

    Like or Dislike: 1

    (1) Is a small microscopic glob of cat cells really a cat?

    According to its DNA it is. Even the most rabid atheist scientist will attest to that. Even one DNA cell makes the difference between a human individual and anything else.

    (2) While the Bible doesn’t specifically use the word abortion, which is a modern day term, the Lord says:

    “I have called heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life, that you and your offspring might live.” ( Deuteronomy 30:19)

    Hard to argue with that statement.
20. Dr. G. says:

    April 15, 2009 at 5:33 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    1) Nope. A clump of DNA is a clump of DNA; that might someday become a human being. In the meantime, note a semantic nuance: it is a “human cell”; it is “human,” but not a human being.

    That this is what Biologists meam, is confirmed in part by their actions: obviously ew if any embryologists think embryos are human; they experiment with them all the time.

    2) Yet indeed, chose “life”; but every week or so, a fried chicken dies for my meal. Was that “life”? And in the Bible many holy men eat meat sacrifices.

    So what “life” are we talking about? Animal lives apparently are not quite fully important as other things.

    And if the embryo is not human? Then it is … ?

    Easy to argue with that statement. Got any more?

    I set before you a blessing and a curse, on false ideas.
21. mbaker says:

    April 15, 2009 at 5:51 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Then, my good doctor, you are arguing with the entire scientific community, plus the Lord.

    May I ask you something: Do you, as a doctor, perform abortions?
22. cheryl u says:

    April 15, 2009 at 5:52 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Dr. G,

    You said, “Yet indeed, chose “life”; but every week or so, a fried chicken dies for my meal. Was that “life”? And in the Bible many holy men eat meat sacrifices.”

    You know that verse taken in context has absolutely nothing to do with eating the flesh of an animal. And obviously, animal life is not as important as human life Biblically speaking.

    So what are you implying here–that a human embryo is merely animal life? Sorry, but I can never buy that one.
23. cheryl u says:

    April 15, 2009 at 5:53 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Dr G,

    Do you believe that the state of being immortal that goes with being human is something that we grow into as the brain develops too?
24. mbaker says:

    April 15, 2009 at 5:57 pm

    Like or Dislike: 1

    And no, despite protestations to the contrary, animal lives, such as chickens are not the same as human ones. Chickens don’t have a soul, neither do cats. They are animals of pure instinct.

    Of course if you are a PETA enthusiast, (are you?) you are probably much more interested in preserving cats and dogs and other animals than you are human beings.

    Sorry, but your chicken argument has never made sense to me. If I’m nothing more than a chicken to God, why did Christ have to die on the cross for humanity?

    Why not just do it for a chicken instead?
25. Dr. G. says:

    April 15, 2009 at 6:01 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    The chief pro-abortion argument, is that an embryo is not “ensoul”ed; therefore is not human. Therefore it should have no special status.

    Such a clump of cells without a human woul would be … an animal, or less. A mere spiritless body. And so its death would not be so serious as say … executing innocent persons in wars, for example. People, bodies, that do have souls.

    Who is not following God? Listen to my biblical – God-based – arguments.

    You misunderstood my remark: I said too, that the medical community did not regard the embryo as human, either.

    I am not a medical doctor.

    There are many, many arguments about “life” in the Bible; here and in a hundred other places. Some even say it often means, chose the life of God, the spirit; and does not have to do with avoiding physical death. Indeed, Jesus himself chose not to try escape, physical death on the cross.
26. mbaker says:

    April 15, 2009 at 6:09 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    But the fact is ,Dr. G., all things are ordained by God, except things like abortion which is actually, and let’s honestly admit it, just another birth control option for those who are too lazy too take precautions in the first place. Rationalizing that away makes folks feel more comfortable. That’s really the issue here.

    I have worked with many young girls to help them keep their babies who have admitted as much.

    So what are you a ‘doctor’ of?
27. cheryl u says:

    April 15, 2009 at 6:13 pm

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    I’m sorry, Dr. G, but our interpretation of Scripture here seems to be two totally different things. You haven’t convinced me.

    And by the way, you referred the Numbers 5. You said a priest was to give a woman something to cause an abortion. I don’t know how you get that out of that chapter. It says it would make her belly to swell and her thigh to rot. That doesn’t sound like an abortion to me.
28. Dr. G. says:

    April 15, 2009 at 6:24 pm

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    It would be better if girls used birth control.

    In Num. 5, it is commonly thought that the “belly” and probably upper “thigh,” in effect encompased/described, in ancient language, the .. womb. While anything that destroyed the womb in a pregnant woman? Would also in effect, be an abortion.

    Chose the life of God; what the Bible really says.

    We were immortal some might say, even before a soul or a body; the second God thought of us? I haven’t thought much about this yet: what do you think? Perhaps all things are immortal, in that they live on in the mind of God?
29. mbaker says:

    April 15, 2009 at 6:28 pm

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    Dr. G.

    I think this, since you asked: We would do best to consider what if Mary thought like popular opinion on abortion nowadays. What if she had chosen to abort Jesus? Where would mankind be?
30. Dr. G. says:

    April 15, 2009 at 6:35 pm

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    God works through, “fills,” “all things”; not just Jesus.

    Jesus himself was even often rather modest, humble, about his own status: usually refusing to directly refer to himself as God (or, 99% of the time, as “Christ”; Jesus instead merely asking others, “who do you say I am?”. Jesus constantly deferring it might seem to many, to God the Father; and referring to another, others, that would come after him.

    God fills all things. God is everywhere.

    That is where we are.
31. cheryl u says:

    April 15, 2009 at 6:37 pm

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    Dr. G,

    By immortal I mean the state of being that will continue to exist for all of eternity in either heaven or hell. That is something that all of the human race are born with.

    Since man is immortal, killing man is a mighty weighty thing to do.
32. Dr. G. says:

    April 15, 2009 at 6:41 pm

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    Since man is immortal, killing man is impossible to do.
33. cheryl u says:

    April 15, 2009 at 6:46 pm

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    Dr. G,

    You know as well as I do we are talking about physical death here. And you know as well as I do that immortal man can die a physical death. My point is that to mess with God’s creation that He has placed such value on as to give them immortality seems to me be a mighty weighty and dangerous thing to do
34. mbaker says:

    April 15, 2009 at 6:46 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Er, Dr. G., are you saying that Christ is all things to all people no matter what their belief? That sure doesn’t seem to seem to coincide with the God of the Bible.

    But as a retired former journalist, I am always open to hearing both sides. So give me, and the rest of us here, the specific facts of what, where, why, who and how that we ask from other folks to prove their opinions.

    Ready and waiting.
35. cheryl u says:

    April 15, 2009 at 6:51 pm

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    I am referring to a comment you made to mbaker, Dr. G. You said God works through all things, not just Jesus. Surely you don’t mean to say that Jesus was not totally unique in all of history in that He was the only one sent to be our Saviour? The only one that was completely God and completely man at the same time?

    Your answer to the question she asked makes absolutely no sence at all unless you are saying that Jesus was no different than anyone else.
36. Dr. G. says:

    April 15, 2009 at 7:00 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Yes it is very, very, very serious, to take a life. And yet … every day, we do it; we mess with God’s creation, and kill a cow for dinner.

    There are many kinds of “life.” No doubt we should respect 1) all life, the environment; but there are things, unfortunately, we kill so we can live. Like the fish you had on Good Friday. Far more important to be sure, (at least to us), is 2) a human physical life. But the critical question in the anti-anti-abortion position … is whether the very young embryo is human. As defined as, having a human soul or spirit or intelligence. Evidence is that it does not.

    God “fills all things”; he is everywhere. Some even say that when bad things happen, God is even in them, in that he allowed them to happen. God some say, even created the Devil himself; who else? Some would therefore suggest that to be sure, though God is in all things, he does not necessarily approve of all things in some way. Although he created them.

    What do you think of this? Strange indeed, that he should be in everything … and at the same time disapprove of parts of what he made.
37. cheryl u says:

    April 15, 2009 at 7:06 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Killing a cow for dinner is not the same as taking a human life. God gave us permission to eat animals and forbids us to kill humans.

    Could you please tell us what you meant in your answer to mbaker above that we have both asked about?

    And again I will say that even if you could prove to me beyond the shawdow of a doubt that an embryo or young fetus has no soul, I could find no justification whatsoever for taking the life of one that God intended to have that soul.
38. Dr. G. says:

    April 15, 2009 at 7:16 pm

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    Sorry; maybe next day. Work to do.
39. Kara Kittle says:

    April 15, 2009 at 7:21 pm

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    DR. G,
    A caterpillar becomes a moth….but boy do we get nice silk from the silworms. The point is, just because it does not look like us yet does not mean it is not one of us. That’s the concept people need to understand because a glob..or zygote…is completely human. If you look at it’s dna it will still be human no matter what. So therefore I conclude that if it has human dna then it must be human and living. It has to be living because it divides itself until we recognize what it has become.

    What are the requirements for something to be alive?

    Nahle, N. (2004). Definition of Life. Obtained on (month) (day), (year), from http://www.biocab.org/Definition-of-Life.html. Biology Cabinet. New Braunfels, TX.

    “a delay of the spontaneous diffusion or dispersion of the internal energy of the biomolecules towards more potential microstates.”

    More potential? You mean the tiny zygote has potential to become more? Yes it does, therefore it has life. And human life has a being and a soul. Just because it does not look like it yet, it is still there.

    I would challenge you now, ask any mother who miscarried or even had an abortion, sometimes those mothers feel a kinship with the child. They sense the presence of the child. It is there with them. So it must have a spirit.
40. cheryl u says:

    April 15, 2009 at 8:38 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Dr G.

    I would like to go back to that Numbers 5 Scripture we were talking about earlier. A thought has just come to me about that whole situation that seems to be pertinent to me.

    If it is indeed true that the drink the priest gave a guilty woman caused an abortion, was this not a direct judgment from God upon the sin of this woman since He is the one that ordered it done? That wouldn’t be the first time that the Lord has taken a child in death because of the sins of the parents. (See I Kings 14 and II Samuel 12). And these were children that He took after the birth of the child so no one can argue that they were not human yet.

    If He could do it with children that were already born as a judgement, He could certainly do the same with a baby before it was born. I don’t think that in any way proves that the Numbers 5 child was not yet a human being.

    And it is one thing for the Lord to take a child as a judgement against a sinful parent. It is another thing completely for any man or woman to take it upon themselves to take the life of that unborn child for the sake of convenience. That is like comparing apples and oranges as the old saying goes.
41. John C.T. says:

    April 16, 2009 at 10:21 am

    Like or Dislike: 0

    G. “the critical question in the anti-anti-abortion position … is whether the very young embryo is human. As defined as, having a human soul or spirit or intelligence. Evidence is that it does not.”

    I’m not aware of anyone (public writer, ethicist, textbook, society policy) that seriously puts forward the position that the critical question is whether the embryo is human. What is it? a dog? a salamander? It has human DNA; it’s human. Of course, on a practical basis it is necessary to bring people to a conscious awareness of this fact, as often people refuse to think about that as they are going through the abortion process. Of course, pro-abortionists would like that to be the critical question, but their desire and their dissembling and disengenuous attempts to do so do not in fact make it so.

    It is inappropriate to redefine “human” as requiring a soul or spirit or intelligence. First off, that is not the usual use of that word, either in regular parlance or in biology. Second, many doctors and scientists are strict materialists or physicalists and would not therefore agree with a dualist view (i.e., that humans are composed of a material body and nonmaterial soul). Consequently, your usage is (unintentionally) misleading and prevents dialogue from occuring.

    Richard John Neuhaus made a very important observation when he stated, “Who belongs to the community for which we accept common responsibility? That, I would suggest, is the question that defines the disagreement over abortion law.” First Things (June/July 2001). That is, is a developing human in the womb a human that we want to, or should, protect?

    To propose that the question is one of deciding whether the developing human is “human”, is to mask the real issue. It supposes that the question is biological, or scientifc, when in fact the question is one of values. How much do we value the developing human? (similarly, and linked to the same issues, is the question of how much we value the elderly, the mentally deficient, the unconscious, the terminally ill, etc.).

    It is not commonally known that the question of value has, in American courts, been answered the opposite way that it was in Roe. In Stenberg v. Brown (1970) a three-judge federal district court upheld an anti-abortion statute, stating that privacy rights “must inevitably fall in conflict with express provisions of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments that no person shall be deprived of life without due process of law.” After relating the biological facts of fetal development, the court stated that “those decisions which strike down state abortion statutes by equating contraception and abortion pay no attention to the facts of biology.” “Once new life has commenced,” the court wrote, “the constitutional protections found in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments impose upon the state the duty of safeguarding it.” Yet in commenting on the unborn person argument in Roe, Justice Blackmun wrote that “the appellee conceded on reargument that no case could be cited that holds that a fetus is a person within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.” He did so despite the fact that he had cited the case just five paragraphs earlier! The failure of appellees and the Court to quote and consider Stenberg correctly is both unfortunate and inexplicable.

    A significant, and I believe fatal, flaw in the reasoning of people like G is that they consider humans instrumentally and functionally, much like philosopher Mary Ann Warren who defines “personhood” in terms of consciousness, reasoning, self–motivated activity, the capacity to communicate about indefinitely many topics, and conceptual self–awareness. If you can do all those things, you’re a person; if you can’t, you’re not.

    To that I would echo the reply of J. Budziszewski, ”
    The functional approach to personhood seems plausible at first, just because—at a certain stage of development, and barring misfortune—most persons do have these functions. But to think that they are their functions blows the core right out of the moral code.

    “Warren offers her definition to justify abortion. Obviously, unborn babies are not capable of reasoning, complex communication, and so on. If they cannot perform these functions, then by Warren’s definition they aren’t persons, and if they aren’t persons, they have no inherent right to life. But it cannot end with abortion. If unborn babies may be killed because they lack these functions, then a great many other individuals may also be killed for the same reasons—for example the asleep, unconscious, demented, addicted, and very young, not to mention sundry other cases, such as deaf–mutes who have not been taught sign language. In Warren’s language, none of these are persons; in biblical language, she refuses to recognize the imago Dei. She does claim to oppose infanticide—but only because any given infant is probably wanted by someone. She does not concede that the infant has an inherent claim to our regard, and if no one does happen to want it, then, she says, “its destruction is permissible.”

    “The cure for such blindness is not to tinker with the list of functions by which we define persons, but to stop confusing what persons are with what they can typically do.” The Second Tablet Project, First Things (June/July 2002).

    regards,
    John
42. cheryl u says:

    April 16, 2009 at 11:08 am

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    I agree John C. T., this argument certainly does not end with an embryo but it has far reaching implications for others as well. As I mentioned above, I think it is truly a slippery slope argument.

    I think the following Bible verses were mentioned in the original article, but I am going to quote them in full here:

    “Behold, children are a gift of the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward.
    Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one’s youth.
    How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them; They will not be ashamed When they speak with their enemies in the gate.” Psalm 127:3-5

    Since this is the blessing and the reward God gives people in having children, I don’t know why in the world any Christian would even consider aborting a child.

    What a slap in the face it must be to God when one of us treats His gift and His blessing in such a callous way as to say we don’t want it, thank you very much, and then proceed to destroy that blessing (and life) through abortion!
43. Kara Kittle says:

    April 16, 2009 at 11:20 am

    Like or Dislike: 0

    John CT,
    Good rebut. Of course it does get down to how we perceive persons. In the eyes of science does a Caucasian fetus hold more worth than an African one? Or Asian? Or Indigenous? That was the prevailing consensus at the beginning of the 20th century and was expounded by socialist Margaret Sanger.

    Now we could argue saying Margaret Sanger felt some sort of sympathy toward the less fortunate because of the dreadfulness of poverty she viewed as the cause of so much misery. So she began to advocate birth control, but only within certain groups.

    The Breeding of the Thoroughbred was written to express her disdain of certain types of persons she deemed were unworthy to breed. So it asks the question, why were those people worthy of such disgust on her part?

    When does a person begin? At the moment they have reason, or the moment we recognize them as having it? If we believed in science of the 1700s, we would never accept Africans and Native Americans as even having souls. Jews would still have horns on their heads and the Irish would still be enslaved with the Africans.

    Now I know people will jump on that last statement, but it is an historical fact, just look it up before you jump on me.

    This question goes beyond human, it wants us to define what a person is. A person is a being with a soul. Whether there may be something medically wrong that causes limited emotion or reason it still has a soul. That soul is it’s life.

    “And God breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and man became a living soul.”
44. Dr. G. says:

    April 16, 2009 at 12:16 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    John CT:

    1) Read some more. The literature by servious ethics professors and others, from the days of Aquinas, often decided that a) the thing that makes human beings more than animals, is our human mind, spirit, or soul. So that b) the crucial question in abortion, is … does the embryo have one of those? Most serious literature, like that cited in the beginning of this article – no sensationalist chat – addresses “homization,” en”soul”ment, as the central issue. Indeed, religion often suggested that what makes humans special, is their soul or spirit. The spirit is a key issue for God himself.

    2) You are on a slippery slope too: is the intelligence and spirit of a cat, as good as human, now? where is the line after all?

    3) Semantics: A piece of skin has human DNA in it; it is therefore known as “human” skin – but not “a” human, or a human being.

    “Human” is used that way, in Biology.

    4) Neuhas’ remark here is strictly speaking, not a statement at all, but a question: “Who” would …

    5) Yes, it is values. Do you value the human spirit, intelligence … or not? Do you value a mere piece of matter, more than something with a soul or spirit?

    6) By the way, we can simply draw a line and end the slippery slope: for various other reasons, some suggest … that someone with say teh permanent loss of ability, leaving them with less than 1/4 of a human mind, is no longer human.

    A line that would allow the humanity of … the deaf; the disadvantaged, but not the brain dead. Or in Biblical terms, those without a “spirit.”

    Without that, you are valueing the spirit on intelligence of a cat or less, as human. You are on teh slippery slope too.

    7) Quote both decisiions in their entirety, not misleading parts; Blackmun knows the law better than you.

    8) So people that can “functionally” do nothing at all – who, in biblical language, have no “fruits,” “works,” “deeds” – can still be wholly good? When does an entity that has no coventional human attributes – intelligence, arms, legs – cease to be a human being? Nowhere? No line at all? If so ,t hen prove to me the pencil on my desk is not a human being. Slipperly slope for you too.

    9)If you look at a young embryo, as blatocyst, its does not even look human, or like the “image of God”: “Imago Dei.”
    I am sorry some scholars do not have image of God in their mind; a significant theolical shortfall.

    10) To be sure, we sleep .. but can wake up in a second and do the works of God. Can a blastocyst do this? So how about setting the bar .. above a blastocyst? And above the brain dead?

    11) “By their fruits you shall know them”; God’s functionalism.

    12) Ignoring our basic intelligence and arms and legs, what God gave us, and sliding down the slippery slope that might make an animal, a cat, as good as a human … slaps God in the face.
45. cheryl u says:

    April 16, 2009 at 12:46 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Dr. G,

    Since you seem to be so 100% certain that our spirit and soul are tied completely to the brain and it’s development, can you please explain to me how a person’t spirit or soul can possibly go on living after that person is dead? Remember the Scripture says: “we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.” If the soul or spirit is so completely tied up with the brain, that spirit would have to cease to exist, would it not, when the brain died? Doesn’t the fact that this is not the case according to the Bible say that there is something more going on here than what science admits? If the spirit can exist past death without a brain, why are you so certain it has to wait for a certain amount of brain development in an embryo or fetus to exist?
46. John C.T. says:

    April 16, 2009 at 12:48 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Very good points Cheryl (both in your most recent and also earlier comments). The theology of God’s attitude toward the unborn cannot, and should not, be derived solely from verses that mention pregnancy (and even there I, and I assume you also, disagree with G’s interpretation).

    A pro-abortion stance represents, and is indicative of, a disordered understanding of humankind and of children. As Kara correctly notes, Sanger had it in for blacks. In America, children are regularly aborted–and parents pressured to do so–if they are defective, as is proved by the rapidly dropping numbers of live born Downs Syndrome babies. In China, there recent decades have seen 32 million more men than women born, and sex selective abortions have increased in proportion to increasing access to ultrasound.

    Abortion is more than a slippery slope–even from a natural law perspective; it is a divide, a chasm, a cliff that once crossed over leads immediately to a materialist, instrumentalist, economic, and de-humanizing approach to human life.

    regards,
    John
47. John C.T. says:

    April 16, 2009 at 1:11 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    G, if you’re going to ask people to read more, at least point them to what you’ve read (as I did).

    There is a significant difference between the question of “is that animal a dog or a human” and “is there a difference between a human and all other animals that makes a human qualitatively different”. You’re first point confuses those two issues and misunderstands the point made in my post. A human is genetically different from a dog; that’s why we call one a human and the other a dog and categorize them into different species, etc. For many scientists and other people it ends there (e.g., Dawkins (a darwinist), Singer (an ethicist)), for they say that humans are merely animals, though ones with a more complex brain. So, in that regard, it is settled science that an unborn human at any stage of development is human.

    The second question, which you conflated into the first, is whether there is some divine spark, or spirit, or nonmaterial aspect that separates us from all other animals, and which grounds a belief in human exceptionalism. In the context of that question one may ask if all living humans have that attribute, and whether it can be gained or lost during the period that the human is alive.

    As for the nonsensical skin argument, an unborn human at any stage of development, is a complete human at that stage of development. A piece of skin, on the other hand, is only that—a piece—it is not a complete human organism at any stage of development nor does it resemble a complete human. It is a specialized piece of tissue from part of a complete human. Note that this entails that what consitutes completeness at each stage varies, but that completeness is organically and intimately and inevitably connected to previous and successive stages of development of that complete human.

    G, “If you look at a young embryo, as blatocyst [sic], its does not even look human”. To which I reply, “???” It does look human, it looks like a human blastocyst. In any event, since when can physical looks ground a theory of morality? I suppose in the land of Ken and Barbie, but not in a serious moral discussion.

    As to the legal argument, you did not indicate any way in which my quote did not support the point I was making, nor anyway in which it misrepresented the two legal decisions.

    BTW, you can post to me as “Dr. J”, since I play basketball.

    regards,
    John
48. Dr. G. says:

    April 16, 2009 at 1:13 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    I here of course support and value the mind and soul; but your supporting an argument that might even declare a sperm a human being, or a brain-dead mere “body,” or a bit of matter without a soul, as human, is an insult to humanity and God; it is de-humanizing.

    Look for the beam in your own eye; the slippery slope in your own arguments; which lead us to slide down a slope that eventually declares things with no human attributes at all – a cat; a pencil; an animal – as good as human.

    After all, probably you put a line in there somewhere yourself, don’t you? Slide a little further: 1) an adult is a human being; 2) a baby is human; 3) an embryo is human; 4) a sperm is human; 5) the meal that you ate last week that furnished the matter to make that sperm is a human being.

    Of course we can and should avoid the slope; and so we draw a line. Where You draw the line?

    I am a lifetime, activist supporter of human and minority rights, by teh way. And of course, we draw the line of “human” in such a way as to include all kinds of disadvantaged persons. And babies. But … clumps of cells? Cats? Your last meal? Where do you yourself draw the line? And why?

    Everyone draws the line. The qustion is: have your drawn it correctly? State why you draw it where you do … to keep yourself from sliding down teh slippery slope that leads to declareing all kinds of souless bodies as good as human? And in the process, degrading the human soul?

    Who is the dehumanizing, soulless person here, after all? Look for the beam in your own eye.
49. cheryl u says:

    April 16, 2009 at 1:33 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Dr. G,

    Please at least try to answer my last question. If you can come up with no good answer to that one, all of your questions as to where to draw the line are mere nonsence because there is no way at all that you can prove that an embryo doesn’t have a soul or a spirit.

    To me your Biblical arguments have proved nothing. And we certanly have no proof that science is correct in what they are saying at this point either. They can not prove what they say either.

    I have tried to ignore to this point your ongoing question about your pencil. I am sorry, but that is the most ridiculous argument I have ever heard. A pencil is by nature an inanimate object and it certainly does not have the DNA of a cat or a human embryo. And taking your version of the slippery slope back to the food we eat as being as important as a human being (which by the way, you implied yourself in an earlier comment), with a soul and spirit is ridiculous also. The food we eat is not something that is alive and growing when we eat it and God gave us the command to eat both plant life and animal life for our sustenance. Again, you are arguing apples and oranges.
50. John C.T. says:

    April 16, 2009 at 1:36 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Your point about the beam is irrelevant to reasoning based on logic, unless you are ripping that reference out of its original context and normal usage and merely stating that you believe there to be a flaw in my reasoning.

    A sperm is not genetically a complete human, nor is it ON ITS OWN organically and intimately connected to previous and later stages of human development. It cannot, without fertilizing a human egg, ever progress through any stages of human development. It is not, without the genetic contribution of the egg, a complete human being. That’s a pretty obvious, hard and scientific line. In your listing of adults to meals, you did not provide any attribute that commonly makes those things all human. Indeed, there is none, and so there is no slippery slope.

    If one believes, as I do, that a human nonmaterial component (I’ll call it “spirit’) is attached to and coexists with a living from the moment of conception until the body is completely dead (not merely brain dead) vitiates your argument. I, along with many others do not see that as dehumanizing, but as elevating and as glorifying to God and respectful of what he has done. Someone with a different concept of God (you) do not take it that way, but the bare fact of asserting that a zygote has a soul does not in and of itself defeat my position.

    Since no one can point to a spirit, or put it in a test tube, there is no way of determining scientifically or medically when a spirit enters or leaves a human. One cannot say with certainty that an alleged “brain dead” human does not still have a soul (moreover, “brain dead” is neither a scientific term nor a rigorous medical term). In fact, many medical doctors and scientists deny the existence of the soul for that very reason. One therefore has to establish on other grounds when the soul/spirit is with the human body and connected to it in some relevant way. You have not provided adequate grounds for your belief that it is later than conception and earlier than so-called brain death.

    My view, while I believe it is consistent with what we know of God and His Words, is also based on caution. I cannot know when the spirit is present with and connected to a human, and therefore I will not damage or kill a human at any stage of its life.

    regards,
    Dr. J
51. John C.T. says:

    April 16, 2009 at 1:38 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Good arguments, Cheryl.

    regards
    Dr. J
52. Dr. G. says:

    April 16, 2009 at 1:55 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    1) You too find a quality or characteristic or function, by which you define or know, something as human: it has human DNA.

    2) Derrida and others suggest that we define and know things, by their “differences” on contrasts, with other concept/things. How do you know that you are looking at “a bluebird” and not a “chicken” … except by looking at its observed qualities, and their differences. The bluebird is smaller, etc… Then too, when we defined and classified animals, by observing … their differences. How do you know that a picture of a bird, is not a bird … unless you look more closely.

    Thus I do not “conflate” all this; the idea that something is somethign and not something else – “is that a dog or a cat” – is inextricably tied to … defining the characterisitcs of a dog; as vs. a cat.

    3) Possibly Dawkins and some scientsts are simply wrong; most scientists I know, including the many MD’s that perform abortions, both feel that killing human beings is wrong, and yet support abortion. Clearly implying that they do not therefore, feel that embroyos are human. So as a practical matter of observation, it seems you are wrong about what scientists believe.

    Look at their statements more closely: I know many that call DNA “human” material; but not a human being. See my remarks above, on “semantics.”

    As for what you feel are the implications of some of their statements? I’m not sure you have characterized them accurately. Probably many others feel exactly what I am voicing here: that the same DNA, does not make a clump of cells and an adult human, one and the same. That there must be a long process of bodily development, many calories consumed, many more things added to those first few cells … before you have a human being.

    3) Yes we can ask if it is possible to ask if you can lose your soul. Preachers refer to it all the time. Can we lose our minds? Yes; Psychiatry refers to that too. To be sure, then we look at the slope … and then deal with that, next. Where is the cutoff point.

    4) Is an dembory at a complete stage of development? Define complete. A complete human being … can have no arms and legs; no consciousness or intelligence; can be the size of a pinhead, and look like a soccer ball? Then why isn’t my Barbie Doll a human being? By that standard, no resemblance at all is needed.

    5) By the way, you said that DNA is enough; a skin cell they tell us, does have a complete set of DNA in it. So by your definition, a skin cell is a human being?

    6) Visual appearnace is not important? So I can point to what looks liek a cat, and say it is human … and you have no objections? Observation is extremely important in science; what it “looks like” actually does carry some weight.

    By the way, I mention appearance because someone cited the part of the Bible, where it said that “God made man in his own image”; “imago dei.” This is thought to say, in a theological context, what I confirm here in a scientific one as well: looks are occasionally deceiving … but on the other hand, in science empiprical observation is accepted, and valued: and a very young embryo does not look like a human being.

    Do you want to say that however, it has some qualities, functions, that make it human? Like having DNA? Then you contradict an earlier argument that we should not be “functionalist.” And by the way, you are using a function .. that we find not to be critical or definitive: an average skin cell has they say, a complete set of DNA in it; but probably even you would say it is not a human being. It is “human” material; but not a human being.
53. Dr. G. says:

    April 16, 2009 at 2:01 pm

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    At least part of my spirit or mind, can be expressed, when I write my thoughts down on paper. And that paper – and my thoughts, a part of my spirit – can survive … even after my death. Even when my brain dies.

    Thus, even in science, (much of) an intelligence and spirit, that grew up in a brain … can nevertheless live on, even immortally, even after I die, and my brain is gone.

    Which is to say, by the way, that we have here a scientific proof of a kind of (part of), immortality. Science and religion begin to come together; we can begin to scientifically prove … even immortality.

    In conventional theology, by the way, our body can die, but live on in the memory of God.
54. cheryl u says:

    April 16, 2009 at 2:21 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Dr. G.

    By the way, if I were to agree that the “clump of cells” as you call it that is a human embryo indeed has no soul or spirit, (which I am not doing), that still would not mean that embryo had no more value than a cat, your pencil, or the meal I ate last night. The reason is that that clump of cells will one day, if left to grow in the womb until birth WILL be a human being with the soul and spirit and all that you say makes it human. No pencil will do that, no cat, and certainly no meal I ate last night! Even that “clump of cells” then, with all of it’s potential, has far more value than any of those other things you spoke.

    And, if I understand you correctly from your last statement about immortality: “At least part of my spirit or mind, can be expressed, when I write my thoughts down on paper. And that paper – and my thoughts, a part of my spirit – can survive … even after my death. Even when my brain dies.”–that you do not believe that a person’s spirit literally lives on after they are dead. For the Christian, that means life in the presence of the Lord.

    If it is true that you don’t believe that, you obviously don’t believe that Jesus and Paul were correct in the statements they made in the Bible. Since this is supposedly a theological discussion, and we are apparently basing our theologies on two totally different premises, I don’t believe there is much point in going on with this discussion. So, please let me know if this is truly what you believe and I will probably bow out of this discussion.
55. mbaker says:

    April 16, 2009 at 2:26 pm

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    Dr. G.

    Let’s get back to something John pointed out: A complete human being is only made so when the egg is fertilized by a sperm. It’s DNA makes it different from a chicken or a pencil because of its originating donor.

    Notice I said a complete human being, because the DNA in its tiny cells is blueprinted already as having everything it needs but time to fully form all its visible parts. This is true of all species.

    Now let’s apply some common sense here. I could not give birth to a pencil or a cat, nor could they to me. So please let’s stop arguing that point, because it is already a proven fact that every species has DNA specific to its own kind.

    My dividing line, whether it agrees with your reasoning or not, is that when that a human egg and sperm bond into one, then it becomes a new human life, microscopic that it may be. If you have seen an early ultrasound of a two week old pregnancy, all you can see at first is a tiny dot jumping around on the screen, That is the beating heart, which is formed first. So it is alive in a physical sense as well. The heart pumps blood to all our cells, and provide oxygen and life sustaining nutrients to all our cells as well, so the heart must develop first to sustain growth. That makes it different from just ‘pieces of skin.’

    Now let’s take the development phase. I know this is my child because I carry it in my womb, even if I can’t see it. If I should choose to abort it, I can’t then call it an incomplete zygote instead of my child just because I chose to interrupt its development phase before it became capable of surviving outside the womb. That’s like picking the flower blooms off a tomato plant and then saying we didn’t know they were developing tomatoes, when we knowingly planted them as such.
56. John C.T. says:

    April 16, 2009 at 2:32 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    A repitition of previous arguments, continued incoherence, and a lack of logic are not inspiring.

    For example, a characteristic is not the same as a function so your first enumerated reply point is incoherent. Furthermore, you fail to make, or even understand, the basic distinction that I pointed out regarding the two ways of viewing or understanding “human”. You also continue to use the unmodified word “human” without clarifying whether it means “human animal/creature/organism with some additional nonmaterial aspect like a soul” or merely “human organism”. It does not even appear that you looked up the meaning of “conflate” in a dictionary. If you can’t agree that a human is a human and not a pencil or a dog because of its unique complete set of DNA, there’s really not much point in continuing this discusson or in continuing to point out the ways in which your reasoning confuses matters, does not support your points, and does not defeat the points raised by others.

    ciao
    Dr. J
57. Kara Kittle says:

    April 16, 2009 at 2:32 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    John CT and Cheryl,
    These are very good observations. And while we question if a blastocyst is capable of sleeping, yes it is. Is a sperm human? That’s like asking is sweat human.

    I think it is funny when pro-abortionists argue, they always fall back on pseudo-medicine. Tell me then Dr. G, and by the way I hope you aren’t the Dr. G from tv or I will be very disappointed because I love that show, but tell me….can you replicate that tiny little spark that commands the sperm to fertilize the egg? That is what I want to know, at what point in the chain of command does the dna speak and say “ok, now” when at other times it does not?

    How can a man and a woman be married for 20 years and suddenly she gets pregnant with no outside influence? And why can some women get pregnant their first time? Perhaps it’s defunct parts.

    But seriously, can you pin point that moment the order is given and the cells all act according to plan. Well how would two simple cells with no knowledge of each other, never learned of each other, how do they know what their function is? That takes a greater intelligence than you or I possess.
58. mbaker says:

    April 16, 2009 at 2:52 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    John,

    In #56 were you replying to my comment directly above, or to Dr. G?
59. Dr. G. says:

    April 16, 2009 at 2:59 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    1) An embryo is not really complete and entire and self-sufficient at all; it must have the support of a womb, etc..\

    2) Someone said that the question of “ensoulment” – when we get a soul – is unimportant. I replied that this position, among other problems, denigrates the indeed central importance of the soul; it might even end up saying a soulless entity, is a human being. Which would be indeed, a bad thing.

    It is in fact of absolutely central importance, whether something has a soul or not. That makes it human, or not. And related to this is: “when?” No doubt a child after birth has one; but does an embryo? And if an embryo does … then look a little further down your own slippery slope: how about the sperm?

    This is where the discussion of DNA then comes in: you and others claim that … the fact that both the embryo and the child have a complete set of DNA, is enough in itself, to claim they are human beings. And you say, science affirms this.

    But no it doesn’t. 1) First, a point of semantics: when scientists refer to an embryo as “human,” they say it is “human” … in the sense of human material. Just as a piece of skin, can be looked at an found to be “human,” and not say, say, “cat” skin; not “”bovine” or a piece of skin a dog. But note, to say a piece of skin is “human,” is not to say that it is a human being. Likewise, to say an embyro is “human,” can merely distinguish it from … say, a “cat” embryo.

    Understand science closely. Often Theologians and Ethics professors, mis characterize science; especially when it is convenient to their own arguments. Then too, their citations of science are often not only incomplete and inaccurate; but also often hypocritical; they quote it when it is convenient, but then ignore it in other contexts. Some quote parts of science when they think it supports the humanity of the embryo; but then ignore it, when they support a soul that science cannot confirm.

    As I understand the context of the quote “beam in your own eye”? It is indeed, there, a generalizable statement. Many things in the Bible are intended not just to apply to the day and the exact specific thing that for example, Jesus noted them; we teach them today because after all, they have more … general application, to all of life. The context though in any case, as I recall was … be careful in your criticism of others; look for your own errors first. In this case, when various parties accuse my position of executing minorities as not human, or attacking God … note that various aspects of your own arguments do that.

    2) Perhaps in fact, we can point to a soul, after all. Precisely by looking in part, at the “functional”ism you reject. For one thing, you can know humans, in part by observing human behavior, the things they produce – and from that, begin to deduce their spirit, its nature. By their “fruits you shall know them.” Look at how they behave … and deduce from that in part, what they deep down believe, in their soul or spirit. According to the Bible … and according to Behavioral Science, including Psychology.

    Did you ever read one of those old Philosophy texts, where the ask, “what is a man”? And you begin taking away one after another individual attributes: hair; hands; feet; eyes. Sometimes you arrive at a point, where there seem to be many things that are not essential; you arrive at a sort of minimum. But then next, you start taking things away … and what you get … just doesn’t seem enough. Then next, we start looking for what the “essence” of being a human was; as opposed to being say, an animal or a cat.

    Usually, for some of the reasons stated here, we decide that … it wasn’t just having a complete set of human DNA. And it wasn’t the color or our skin. And it wasn’t any number of things. But keep down, it was … do they have human intelligence, spirit, a soul. Indeed, Christianity often decides often that the soul, not the body – DNA included? – is not so important.

    So indeed, it is the soul. But then next, we need to … look at what the soul is; and where and when do we find it?

    So the question of “ensoul”ment became critical. In Aquinas, and to this very day.

    And so there I begin my investigation: what is the soul; and where and when does it appear?

    The question of ensoulment therefore, is of absolutely critical importance; DNA is just a distraction. Or in any case, is quickly rejected as the defining essence of what is a human being. By arguments like those employed here.

    By claiming that DNA is all we need, that the question of “ensoulment” is unimportant,” most of you have begun to imply in effect, or are drifting into the position, that the “soul” is … unimportant. That a mere bodily, material quality – DNA – is all we need to be human. A body … and even no soul? Thus you are in danger of embracing … a soulless body.

    A very, very stange and inconsistent and unattractive position for any alleged Christian to occupy.

    So next, we must go on to try to make out what a “soul” is after all. And in part by the way, it must be … composed of our likes and dislikes; which we might tenatively offers, as part of our basic self, or “soul.” And those soulful preferences, science and the Bible both tell us, can in part be observed; by looking at our behavior. As Behavioral science confirms.

    So in effect, we can put the soul in a test tube, so to speak.
60. cheryl u says:

    April 16, 2009 at 3:14 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    But Dr. G, you are still defining the soul as something so intrinsically linked to the body that it ceases to exist when the brain is dead. If you refuse to admit that the soul or spirit is an essence, for lack of a better word, that lives on in reality, not just in other’s memories, after death our understanding is so far apart that we have no common ground to discuss with period. And if you will not accept the Bible’s word for it, there is no common ground to go to because that is not a concept that can be examined in a test tube!
61. Kara Kittle says:

    April 16, 2009 at 3:20 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    He is asking a philosophical question, not a scientific one. That’s why there’s so much muddled ideas.

    Ok, for you, requirements include the fetus must be independent of the womb…but what about babies who are premature and need to be incubated in a womb-like environment? They are still humans who cry and get lonely and are hungry.

    And on that particular note, does it make you less human because you are dependent upon certain elements even for you to live. And that is oxygen, then water, then heat, then let’s go on to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

    You want to put the soul into a test tube? Have you ever seen a dead person? I have, just when the person died. That was my grandmother and I had to help clean her body so I know what death looks like. And I know when she was alive she had a soul. It spoke through her eyes. When she died, her eyes were open but there was nothing expressive about them. Her life was gone and her eyes spoke it. There is a great evidence of a soul. But it is not our job to catch it, because is was not mine, it was hers.
62. John C.T. says:

    April 16, 2009 at 3:20 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    To G, not to you mbaker. Your (mbaker’s) post was not visible when I was typing. Your (mbaker’s) thoughts made sense.
    regards,
    Dr. J
63. John C.T. says:

    April 16, 2009 at 3:27 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    BTW, G, if you want to make useful contributions, it would help if you would actually both fully read what others write and pay attention to what they write. I did not say “complete and self sufficient”. No human is self sufficient over their entire life. New born babies are not self sufficient. I said “complete” as in “genetically complete” and capable of “developing”. That assumes an environment appropriate for and supportive of development. Put a sperm, or an egg, or some skin cells by itself in a womb and nothing happens. None of those are complete organisms.

    Good grief, I can’t believe I just replied to that.

    ciao for good now.
    Dr. J
64. mbaker says:

    April 16, 2009 at 3:36 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Dr. G,

    Here we go with the chicken and egg, which comes first, kind of reasoning. Like others here, I’m finding this circular reasoning rather tiresome.

    Man is born complete with everything he needs, including his soul, and his spirit. This is determined in the womb, so DNA is not merely a physical cell, but carries within it the complete plan for a reasoning brain which will develop as time goes on. It also carries the ‘essence’ of a soul, which will experience a full range of human emotions and an understanding that we cannot see or know everything.

    Yet, your assumption seems to be that we must be born complete with a certain amount of maturity and productivity before we can even be considered viable human beings. This argument leaves no working room for the development of children into adults, disabled folks, or people in comas to even exist by your definition.

    I can’t see your ‘essence’ either, yet I know whether you are a believer or an unbeliever, you’re a human being with a spirit and a soul because God’s common grace gives that to all human beings alike.

    A soul is not acquired by human means, it is imprinted by God on each individual’s DNA. What we do with what we have been given is make choices regarding the kind of human beings we want to be afterward. That too me is the difference between a soul, which is inborn, and an ‘essence’ that is merely acquired from the choice of our beliefs.
65. Dr. G. says:

    April 16, 2009 at 3:41 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    1) “Conflate … to bring toether : FUSE b : CONFUSE.”

    2) Am I fusing together, confusing, “characterisitics” and “functions”? Or are they deeply related in logic?

    3) In part, we define the characteristic of many things, by the things they do: my car has wheels, to roll on, a carburator to mix gas with air. So many times, characterstics of things are defined by their … functions. Indeed, if we look deeper, I suggest you will find that it is almost impossible to separate them. So I am not conflating or failing to distinguish two entirely separate things at all; you are failing to see the relation between them.

    4) I myself, have been at great pains, to make precisely, a dictinction beween “human” – meaning just having distinctively human things in it, like DNA; and other senses of human. Especially, from the idea that to be “human” is to be a human being. HUman skin is human, as distinguished from animal; but it is not a human being.

    5) As for the two senses that you are using it in? I do feel I’ll have to go back and disvoer them. In the meantime, when I refer to a human being, I mean a being with a soul. Of course. That is precisely what is at issue here; “ensoulment.” My argument against the foetus, is precisely based around that vital question.

    If you yourself – or anyone – does not think the “soul” is important, then some of you, might try roughly, substituting the term “mind” or “intelligence,” or some other term roughtly equivalent.

    6) And indeed, precisely, I do believe that having a complete set of DNA in it is not enough to make something a human, in the sense of being a full human being; a piece of skin has that, but is not a human.

    7) You may chose to leave in contempt of me; but as far as I am concerned, you are welcome to stay too. I’m capable of turning the other cheek, even in the face of insults.

    8) A worm has a beating heart; that indeed makes it more than a piece of skin; but it does not make it human.

    9) To be sure, none of us knows everything about Biology; or exactly when and how … a person is formed. But that means that neither dogmatic “Christians,” nor scientists either, know everything. So … let’s just look at what we do know. And perhaps there is enough just in that, to find something useful.

    10) So let’s just keep going; until we see … what is the essence, the true nation, of being a human being.

    As it turns out, it is not DNA. It’s probaby much closer to the “soul.” So let’s continue to look at that.

    And by the way, we can put it in a test tube, finally at last. Not to know all its qualities right away to be sure; but to begin to make out some of them.

    First those who are Christians might ask: what are the characteristics of a “spirit” or “soul” in the Bible? Then … what other qualities or words might relate to that, to include scientists in the discussion.

    Howabout: “intelligence”; “conscience”; “mind,” “emotions,” “consciousness”? Aquinas and Newman even proposed even “Reason.” Though to be sure there are some distinctions and arguments with each of these terms, suppose we consider these, to start, roughly; as being parts of the soul. Or spirit. Though there are arguments with each, in the Bible our soul is … it seems, our deep nature; our preferences and so forth; our “heart,” and so forth?

    Or … propose your own Biblical terms here. And we will discuss them. If you propose something other than Biblical, then I would say that you aren’t a Christian. And that your “Christian” defense of the soul and embryo is … hypocritical. If you are a rationalist, then … try the nearest … equivalents: “mind,” “consciousness,” “intelligence.”

    Let us therefore, look soon, not at DNA; but at the soul.
66. Dr. G. says:

    April 16, 2009 at 4:05 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Cheryl:

    I believe our spirit literally lives on after we die; in part, on this piece of paper, or computer screen. Which preserves/presents, part of my thoughts, my spirit. Literally. Thus the Bible is true; we do live on. This is not a metaphor. Here I am; in the word (s).

    Sorry I’m a bit stiff; presenting/preserving myself on computer screens and memory banks, is not quite like a full conversation. Or full survival or presentation of the complete spirit. But here is part of me, now.

    This is anything but a refutation of the Bible. Indeed, some thought that Jesus so liked the indentification of the self or spirit, with his words, even the Biblical writings, that they began to call him, “the Word.”

    Doesn’t the spirit of Jesus survive in some realistic way, in the Bible? Writing? Does that spirit “live” to you at all? Didn’t you get the sprit of Jesus in part, by listening to “mere” words, from the Bible? And now that spirit is living on in a material body: your brain.

    Do you really want to say then, that a spirit cannot live on, in any real way, on paper and words? Or the brain?

    I’m confirming, not refuting, the Bible here.
67. cheryl u says:

    April 16, 2009 at 4:09 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Dr. G,

    Isn’t that exactly what I have been trying to do–and from a Biblical standpoint even? However, you have chosen to totally ignore the Biblical concept that the soul or spirit lives on after phyical death of the body and maybe therefore isn’t as connected to brain and physical development as you believe them to be and just gone ahead and given your own definition of immortality.

    You spoke above of theologians picking and choosing scientific evidence to prove their point. Seems to me you are picking and choosing Biblical truths to suit yourself here!
68. cheryl u says:

    April 16, 2009 at 4:15 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Obviously, our last comments crossed in posting.

    Your saying you brain lives on on a computer screen or on paper is a totally different concept than Paul saying to be absent with the body is to be present with the Lord or Jesus saying to the thidf on the cross, “Today you shall be with me in paradise.” Read the Bible verses as they are, for goodness sake, and don’t tell me you are confirming the Bible by making a statement that is so completly opposite the meaning of what the Bible says and trying to make me believe it is the same thing!
69. Dr. G. says:

    April 16, 2009 at 4:15 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    I personally do not in fact, require that to be a human being, you have to be “complete”; I was merely responding to that assumption, by another voice here (Baker?). By saying that if “complete”ness is your requirement, then … note that the embryo does not meet it.
70. mbaker says:

    April 16, 2009 at 4:16 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Dr. G,

    I should also add to my comment in #64 above, that our souls are immortal. Our human choices just determine where they will reside after our physical death – either in heaven or hell.

    Aborted babies do not get the chance to make such choices, either about their lives or their deaths. That’s why I cannot call abortion pro-choice, and cannot understand why any thinking Christian could believe that anyone but a totally selfish mother, who just doesn’t want to be inconvenienced by her poor decision to have unprotected sex in the first place, has any choice at all in the matter. Because of her inability to make responsible choices herself, a baby is killed, and the only folks who profit are the abortion clinics.

    Why not call prevention pro-choice instead, because it really is the only positive choice that can and should be made by the person having sex. So. instead of defending abortion, why not campaign more vigorously for the practice of birth control beforehand, instead of pushing the woman’s ‘right’ to choose afterwards?
71. Dr. G. says:

    April 16, 2009 at 4:18 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Cheryl: where is paradise? God is in “all things”; all around us all the time. So he lives in part … on a computer screen. So why should I be embarrased to survive, live on, in this part of the world that God made? Since God is here too; and I am thus in God?
72. Dr. G. says:

    April 16, 2009 at 4:29 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    I also prefer birth control, very much, to abortion.

    Abortion in fact, I find repellant. Though not quite as criminal as others do. Or in any case, my point to Christians: I do not see in the Bible itself any firm rejoinder against Abortion.

    My immediate point is therefore that … no one has the right to tell us that “God said” that abortion is bad. God never said any such thing.

    My larger point: we need people to stop speaking falsely for God. God did not speak definitely against abortion; or for the Republican party; neither did God endorse Coka-Cola over Pepsi.

    You may or may not like abortion; but don’t cite God as your authority. God never said much about it. Except to support it perhaps, in Numbers 5.

    Don’t speak falsely for God. Cite your opinions as your opinions; not the word of God.

    To speak falsely for the Lord, is a very, very, very great offense indeed by the way, according to the Bible itself.
73. cheryl u says:

    April 16, 2009 at 4:33 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Sorry Dr G, the Bible speaks of paradise and hades, heaven and hell as real and literal places inhabited by real and literal people that died on this earth. They are not just some nebulous idea with no specific location.

    And by the way, you are seriously contradicting yourself here. You are the one, after all, that has been insisting that a soul or spirit is so closely related with phyiscal and brain development and brain death. How then, can you all of a sudden claim, that your spirit lives on with no body, no brain, on a computer screen? Or that you brain lives on after phyiscal death–after all, before it was strictly the phyiscal development that counted!
74. mbaker says:

    April 16, 2009 at 4:35 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Dr. G,

    I think you are just one of those pro-abortion folks who stubbornly insist that an embryo is a not a viable human being, without being able to furnish any real proof that it isn’t.

    Disregarding scientific facts about DNA is one thing, insisting an embryo must be completely developed physically in every sense of the word to even qualify as a human being is silly.
75. cheryl u says:

    April 16, 2009 at 4:38 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Dr G,

    You said, “To speak falsely for the Lord, is a very, very, very great offense indeed by the way, according to the Bible itself.”

    If you believe that is the case, then why are you twisting the meaning of the verses I have quoted to say something altogather different than what the obvious meaning of them is??? You are surely speaking falsely for God, are you not??
76. Dr. G. says:

    April 16, 2009 at 4:55 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Cheryl (?): The kingdom of God is within you; God and heaven and the kingdom are everywhere. “Hell” means buried underground; the “heavens” mean the skies … or are used at best, as merely a polite conventional metaphor, for God. Who is strictly, not “just” in heaven, but “fills all things.” As many fairly ordinary ministers and theologians know.

    MBaker: you are not really talking about scientific facts; you are employing a common interpretation of, or extapolation, from those facts.

    It is indeed a scientific fact that 1) the embryo and the adult human, both have a complete set of DNA in them. But the next question is, 2) what do we then make of that fact? What can be deduce from it? Is the admitted, scientific fact that the embryo and adult have complete DNA, or whatever … enough to establish that therefore, an embryo is human?

    That second question, is another, separate, philosophical question; one not currently established by scientific fact at all. Having one quality or characteristic or function in common – like say DNA – is not to say that two things are entirely identical; or even are the “same” thing. Thus we cannot say that … just because it has DNA, the same as a human being, a glob of protoplasm is a human being, one and the same.

    What does science really say on this subject? If anything? Indeed, if you go, just superficially for a moment, just by looking at what beliefs scientists evidence in their behavior and words, then … most scientists, like medical doctors, value human life … but do not oppose abortions. Why? Because they – and science – does not believe that the foetus is a human being. And why not? Because, we should deduce, they did not really believe that a complete set of DNA, is all one needs to be human ( a human being).

    There’s a lot of very, very bad and presumptous misuse of “science” by many theologians and ministers; let’s look at what science really says.

    And for that matter, there is much misuse of teh authority of “God,” by alleged Chrsitians and ministers too: let’s look at what the Bible say, really says.

    Which is what I am doing, here and now.
77. Dr. G. says:

    April 16, 2009 at 5:02 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Cheryl: Do you feel that you completely understand the Bible and God already? That your sense of the words, of where God is for example,already final and complete? That anything other than what you already know, is … bad and evil and wrong and “twist”ing?

    Is it possible that … there is another meaning in the Bible, of which you are not yet aware? Another understanding of God that is different from yours .. but not worse than it?

    If you say your understanding of the God and the Bible is the standard by which all others must be measured, … isn’t that a little Prideful? Vain?

    Let us all be humble; and be prepared to listen to others. No matter how uneducated and stupid and crazy a mere doctor may appear to you, who knows; I might know something.
78. cheryl u says:

    April 16, 2009 at 5:03 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Dr. G,

    I apoligize for my last comment. I was just plain being sarcastic and rather nasty. This is obviously a hot button issue for a lot of us and can bring out the worst in a person if we are not careful.
79. mbaker says:

    April 16, 2009 at 5:04 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Dr. G,

    I think most who have to reason with you would have to agree by now: You are rationalizing reasons to be pro-abortion.

    If we are indeed Christian in our beliefs, I think it comes down to this: it is God who establishes and determines life, period.

    You seem like a lot of other Christians who want to have human control instead.

    But, we can’t have our cake and eat it too. Once life is created, it should never be terminated. And scripture does back that up. Suggest you familiarize with the whole context of the Bible again, and quit cherry picking obscure verses that you believe might back up abortion.

    I am like John CT. I’m outa here, and off to another thread where folks can provide something more than personal philosophy.

    God bless.
80. Dr. G. says:

    April 16, 2009 at 5:17 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Godspeed, MBaker.

    Not to take any advange by any absences to get in a cheap last word. But … if you one day return, here’s my answer.

    What is the will of God? Is it really what we thought? There were many who said particularly, that human culture and science were not. They said for instance, that the invention of the airplane was against God: “if God had intended us to fly,” they said, “he would have given us wings.” Flying is agianst the nature given to us by God.

    But by that argument, all technology is against God. Which indeed some claim; but …

    We interfere with the apparent nature of things all the time. And even life. Suppose I look out of the window, and see my grass is growing taller; apparently God or nature wants it to grow, and have abundant “life,” many would say by the same arguments as yours. And yet … we cut it.

    And arguably, if we look deeper into the Bible, God allows us to do that: to prune our trees.

    So what appears superficially or at first, to be against the will or nature of God … often, on second glance, is not. When we look more deeply.

    This is not a personal philosophy; all this is done by reference to the Bible itself. It is to be sure, not what you heard on talk radio religion; or even in your local church. Or in commonly held ideas. But is that the standard we accept, as the word of God?
81. mbaker says:

    April 16, 2009 at 5:22 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Dr. G,

    Not to do the same thing: But you are indulging in the same kind of religious angst I did when I was a teenager.

    Are you one?
82. Dr. G. says:

    April 16, 2009 at 5:29 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Yes, I am 18 years old?

    Or am acting like one … for instructional purposes?
83. cheryl u says:

    April 16, 2009 at 5:42 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    (I got interrupted in writing this, so if someone has alread said this, I apologize.)

    Dr. G,

    Mt 18:9 “And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast [it] from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.”

    Does that mean buried underground?

    Mt. 6:20 “But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:”

    We are supposed to lay up treasure in the skies? Sometimes the skies seems to be what is meant by “heaven” but other times there seems to be a very different meaning.

    Here is the Thayer’s Lexicon defintion for heaven which seems to apply: ” the region above the sidereal heavens, the seat of order of things eternal and consummately perfect where God dwells and other heavenly beings.” That sounds like a place, not just “the skies”.

    I suggest reading Luke chapter 16 beginning at verse 19. Here Jesus tells a story, maybe a parable, about two people that have died and what happened to them afterwards. They went to two separate locations; one was in a good and comforting place and the other was in torment. These were certainly spoken of as specific places where the dead go. And it wasn’t to a computer screen or the pages of a book.
84. cheryl u says:

    April 16, 2009 at 6:18 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Dr. G,

    You say God did not say much about abortion, did not forbid it. No, He did not give a commandment that said, “Thou shalt not commit abortion.”

    However, there are certainly a lot of principles given in the Bible that lead many of us to believe that it is a totally wrong thing to do from His perspective.

    First of all, He said, “Thou shalt not kill (or murder).”

    Secondly, He has made it plain by the Psalm I stated above that children are a gift from him and a man that has many are blessed. Again, doesn’t it seem like it would have to be totally wrong to kill his gift and his blessing?

    Thirdly, He has made it clear in the Bible that our soul or spirit survives physical death. If it can live on without a functioning physical body or brain, I ask again, doesn’t that leave the door wide open for saying it can live without the extensive development of those things in the womb?

    And you referred again to Num. 5. Did you read my thoughts on that Scripture that I commented on earlier? Maybe they don’t make sence to you, but they certainly do to me.

    Putting all of these things together, I can come to no other conclusion than that abortion is wrong. If you could somehow prove beyond the shadow of a doubt to me that an embryo or fetus is not a human being until sometime later in pregnancy, I wouldn’t feel quite as strongly about it as I do now. But you can’t give me any certain time or date and do it beyond the shadow of a doubt, so how can I believe it is right to have an abortion? At best I would be left always wondering if I had really killed a human being–had in fact committed murder.

    And even if you could convince me that the embryo or fetus did not become a human being until a specific date, I would still not believe that it could be right to destroy an embryo or fetus that God had made that was to grow into a human being, was being formed in the likeness of God, and one that would have an immortal soul that would live on after physical death. Nor could I ever believe it was right to kill one that was meant to be a great heritage and gift from God.

    So in spite of the fact that God does not say in so many words, “Thou shalt not commit abortion,” my belief is very much founded on the Bible and the principles that I see there.
85. Dr. G. says:

    April 16, 2009 at 6:36 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Our word “Hell” is translated in our Bibles, in the Old Testament, from the Hebrew “Sheol”; in part. (The words are probably etymologically related; our “hell” just being derived from “sheol” or a similar root; somewhere in the transition from language to language – Hebrew to Greek to English? – losing first the “s.”)

    So the root idea was “Sheol.” However they say, in Hebrew, in Judaism, there was no implication there, of anyone living there after death. That kind innovation we might suggest, was a later Greek/Egyptian extrapolation (from the myths of Persephone, Orpheus, and “hades” among others?).

    Some scholars also suggest that “Hell” referred to “Ghenna,” or a burning garbage pit found at the edge of the town of Jerusalem. Thus going to hell meant … dying, and having your body thrown into the garbage pit, to be ignobly burned. IN a fire that was “everlasting” in some metaphorical sense; perhaps in the sence that there will always be some similar kind of fire out there somewhere.

    Being cast into Hell probably therefore meant … being bad and getting killed; and then … your body going to the garbage dump, to be burned. Not living there after life. Not quite necessarily “Buried” to be sure; but put into a pit; a hole in the ground; halfway there. Until someone covers up the remains with a little dirt.

    As for the two who seemingly come back to warn us about living there? Oddly enough, other parts of that same passage tell us that no one has ever come back from Hell to tell us it existed; so where and how do we have this account? Which in any case, admits lack of evidence.

    Hhmmmmm.

    As for “Heaven”? The ancient Jews and Christians were not allowed to use the word “God” in print; so they used metaphors for HIM: “heaven” was one of them. At times, the Bible finds it convenient to speak as if it was … literally up there in the sky; in the clouds. Other times though … ? It began to speak as if God was in “all things.” The “kingdom of God” was “within you.” God is not just in Heaven, but filling “all things,” in “heaven and earth.” Or indeed, God is “above all heavens.” Thus if you want to join God? You perhaps don’t even have to go to Heaven. Wherever that is. Or perhaps you can skip Heaven, and just join God; who is everywhere. Even here and now.

    Which of the many ideas in the Bible, about God and Heaven, the afterlife, should you accept? Think about them all. Certainly things are not just as simple as … just Heaven above us, and Hell below us, as they taught us in Sunday School. There’s more than that, in the Bible.

    Though we enter the “kingdom of heaven” as children, one day, Paul suggests, we should … “mature”; and seek another vision of God.
86. cheryl u says:

    April 16, 2009 at 6:45 pm

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    “As for the two who seemingly come back to warn us about living there? Oddly enough, other parts of that same passage tell us that no one has ever come back from Hell to tell us it existed; so where and how do we have this account? Which in any case, admits lack of evidence.

    Hhmmmmm.”

    Rremember, Jesus was the one that spoke these words. Since He was God, I don’t suppose that He needed anyone to come back there to tell us about it, do we? After all, as God I reckon He would of known this.

    At any rate, the point is that actual human souls/spirits live on after death, not just on a compuer screen!
87. cheryl u says:

    April 16, 2009 at 6:48 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Again, I want to ask you, how can you even believe that you can live on in any way except in someone’s memory if you believe that a soul/spirit is inextricably tied up with a developed phyiscal brain?
88. Dr. G. says:

    April 16, 2009 at 6:50 pm

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    I don’t blame you for your hesitation.

    I am sure women take all this much more personally than men.

    And in fact, I’m not encouraging anyone to have an abortion.

    I just want to make sure that no one is insisting that absolutely, God said we shouldn’t have one. Or especially – as various quasi Catholic organizations claim, like EWTN, EWTN, Karl Keating’s Cathlic Answers, Frank Pavone’s “Priests for Life” – that we must absolutely vote in every election, only for the most anti-abortion candidates. Which means in effect, that God orders us to vote Republian in every election.

    My only aim here, is to … break down that extreme “Catholic” position; and show that the Bible itself leaves this matter to individual discression; your choice. And to let everyone know, that God himself, never came out firmly on this subject. Don’t be bullied by priests or talkshow Catholics, or uninformed ministers, into believing that God firmly pronounced on this subject: He did not.

    It is your decision. And in that decision, be informed about … both sides of the question. In that decision, don’t be bullied by false theology, the false priests, that cover the world.
89. Dr. G. says:

    April 16, 2009 at 7:04 pm

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    There’s so much writing here, you might have missed the answer: check the above. Though my thoughts were grown in a brain, I have learned to write and put them into words (many of them). Thus, things grown in my brain, can make (to some degree) the translation to another medium.

    Can things, spirits, make such a transition? You were born in Kentucky; but then you moved to Brazil. How could you make such a transition? The situation that gave you birth, is now gone? Easy enough. The transition from mind/spirit to paper and screen to be sure, is … rather more difficult. But just as possible. By the way, “words” are just part of all this.

    And by the way, I wouldn’t say my words here, are entirely perfect.

    Still … listen to “The Word.” God is in there, in part. Though you may also find him … anywhere and everywhere; for those who can “see.” And if our immortality is joining God as “one” somehow, (as parts of Jesus suggest) then … your immortality, might take place … even on earth? Even through … an unexpected Samaritan? A “stranger” on the way to Emmaus? One that didn’t look like God or Heaven at first, at all.

    Good luck with your moral dilemma. I am sure it is an extremely difficult choice. I wish I could make it easier for concerned women and others, and say that God firmly commanded women not to have abortions. But in all honesty, I cannot say God saidthat. And no one else can either; not honestly.

    God be with you all. Good luck.
90. mbaker says:

    April 16, 2009 at 7:33 pm

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    Just a last word to all concerned in what has been a fascinating discussion.

    The bottom line is always not what we as Christians, as human beings believe, but what we are told in the Bible to believe. That is what we are told is how the Lord believes as well. And abundant life here on earth as well. How can one any Christian reconcile that to the death knell of pro choice abortion?

    Who are we anyway to question, especially concerning the rights of innocent others, like unborn babies, who never get a chance to speak for themselves?

    So glad Jesus died for them on the cross too. Thats the real bottom line.

    So , Dr. G., if you must. have the last word, because no matter how you try to spin it, it is Jesus who will have the last word. And he speaks life.
91. cheryl u says:

    April 16, 2009 at 7:34 pm

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    Dr. G,

    If were talking to me when you said, “Good luck with your moral dilemma,” I think you missed my point completely!

    I said, “Putting all of these things together, I can come to no other conclusion than that abortion is wrong.”

    And, “And even if you could convince me that the embryo or fetus did not become a human being until a specific date, I would still not believe that it could be right to destroy an embryo or fetus that God had made that was to grow into a human being…”

    No, you haven’t changed my mind or put me in a moral dilemma at all.
92. Kara Kittle says:

    April 16, 2009 at 10:18 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Cheryl,
    After having to go out for a while this evening and come back home I missed a lot of debate but now I see the story laid out here. For Dr. G, everything boils down to this…if it can fit into my worldview that is propped by pseudo-philosophy and can be beat down to the minutest detail then I might believe it, as long as it agrees with me. Not considering that a great many things are outside our realm of understanding.

    But let’s discuss this rationally and historically. First the whole thing gets down to God. Does God exist, and if God exist why? And if God exists does He speak? And if He speaks, what does He say? Does He have a mind? Of course this is all on the assumption that God is a He and not an it or a she, but for our purpose we will say Him.

    The belief of gods, goddesses and God has been in the world as long as man has been here. So then does God exist outside our mind? As the question was posed earlier. So logic dictates that He must because people who lived long before us knew Him. If God merely exists in our minds singularly then we would be delusional.

    So the question now becomes, if we are delusional, why are we not delusional about other things? Either we are completely delusional or sane. There is no such thing as partial delusion.

    And this delusion causes us not to act contrary to other forms..such as we aren’t dressed like Napoleon and shoot cannons from our belfries. So the God delusion must be good because it causes us to think good thoughts and act in certain good behaviors. So there, if it is delusion it is a collective one shared with millions of people across a span over 5,000 years of history. Good record for delusional thoughts.

    So how does that answer the topic? Does this God of delusion speak? Yes, and even wrote a book so all who read it share in the collective delusion. This object of said delusion encourages us to walk with integrity and clearness of mind. Wait…a non-entity making a statement to think clearly? This delusion said…thou shalt not kill. Who shall not? We, people…why? Because we are created and am the image of said non-entity delusion.

    That’s pretty good, a bunch of people who have never met share in a collective delusion that demands of them not to hurt each other. But, and this is important…a delusion qualifies as such if it is internal…but these words spoken came externally. The burning bush was external, the tablets of the commandments were external, the ram caught in the thicket was external and so was the cross of crucifixion.

    So we move from internal to external. How does this answer for a soul which is internal? It is merely our flesh that is external and the flesh is what is going to die and the flesh is not as real as the desk or computer keyboard I am typing on. This flesh becomes an illusion because it is completely dependent on external and internal forces. Does the external world change because we die? No. But yes it does…because the person was loved and now is missed. It is not the memory of that person we feel, it is the presence of that person that lingers. Sometimes we smell perfume they wore, sometimes we sense them beside us. And the world around us changes because that person is no longer alive. And it is the same with babies. An embryo has made a bond with it’s mother and when it is removed all is changed. That woman can never go back to what she was like before she was pregnant.

    I am sleepy now, and probably rambling.
93. Dr. G. says:

    April 16, 2009 at 10:54 pm

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    KK: a lot of modern philosophy and theology, has been devoted to some of what you are asking … and has actually come up with some answers.

    Basically, we no longer believe in an absolutely firm distinction, between “internal” (soul? Mind?) and “exernal” (world?). Or no longer have any confidence in our ability to know which is which. Because we see everything .- even the external world – through the lens of our unforunately, subjective – and often biased – mind. I see the sun … as my brain or mind allows me to see it; as my eyes all me to see it.

    For example: I look at the sun going past in the sky; and ancient people said, “the sun is going around the earth.” They thought they were perceiving an external, objective truth. But in fact, their lack of knowledge in their subjective minds, caused them to see it incorrectly. Today we know that the sun does not go around the earth; the earth goes around the sun. Their subjective minds were biased by certain ideas … and did not see “external” or “objective” reality, correctly.

    So: your “internal” ideas, mind, mood, feelings … do effect the way teh “external” world appears to you. The way it IS, to you.

    But another case. Someone dies … and the world changes; it has one less person in it, and perhaps that changes the behavior of man. The internal self … our spirit … talked and probably did change the external world; whatever it was. In ways we cannot see clearly. But likely, there is an external world; and we can change it, in spite of all difficulties telling how and when, in modern Philosophy.

    A pregnant woman will often feel very much like the embryo she has is, or should be, a human; or is a presence. A person or entity of some sort, who if lost – by abortion or other means – that was part of the woman, and can be missed. Perhaps in such cases, though, we might call that presence a significant presence indeed; if not a person or a child. Indeed, it can be part of teh healing process for a woman perhaps, who suffers miscarriage … if she sees the lost entity, as a child in teh making … but not quite a full child yet.

    I have probably seen – and certainly have heard of – women in almost inconsolable grief, at a miscarriage. Because they feel a baby has been lost. And because of that conviciton precisely, they feel an emormous loss that … many of them can never get over. I have seen or heard of women, who could do nothing else for the rest of their lives … because of that moment. Queen Victoria lost her husband early on in her life … and for then next fifty years they say, wore funeral black. And withdrew from life in many ways.

    But should we thus reject the rest of life? And why do we do it? IN part perhaps, it is becaue we make this or that loved one … too important. Or fail to see the equal importance of teh rest of life.

    And in any case, whatever that presence was? It does live on in part in your memory; in the mind of God; and in perhaps all other similar entities which share a like Being for a time. If that being was not finally born? Priests used to suggest that however, that it might get to heaven; a better place.

    Or inspire us to … have some respect and love for a kind of life that almost, but did not quite, become human? I would guess this would be the deep feeling that many woman have, that … does not want to let go.

    But to be sure … there is life everywhere; not just in that one entity. And to fix too much on that one life … to the point that your thereby neglect or ruin your own? Or fail to appreciate and share the many lives around you?

    Do things live on in the memory of God … which might somehow be in things external to us? Of course; the memories of others external to you, for example. Or the words you write …
94. Dr. G. says:

    April 17, 2009 at 5:20 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    SUMMARY:

    To clear up, and finally summarize, my basic position, after much confusion, crossed E-mails, many hasty statements:

    1) From ancient times, people would look at an adult human, and wonder; why are we humans, better than the rest of the animals (We do suggest here that humans are better than animals; we assert a kind of moderate human Exceptionalism; which seems Biblical and Rational both).

    2) Human beings seem better than most animals to most of us. For some, though, the question is: “why.” For many, it seemed obvious: in that we have been an unusually powerful being in many ways; dominating the earth, flourishing, just as God commanded.

    Human beings have done well. But therefore of course, we have always been very interested to know … exactly what qualities was it, that gave us such success.

    3) What especially was it, that was unique and better in Man? What was the central characteristic, that allowed us to cover the earth and prosper? Many philosophers eventually decided,that the unique quality that man had, that seemed to give him special power, was … his unique “spirit” or mind. Or some said, Reason, and “superior intelligence.”

    We are more successful … it seems most likely, because we are smarter than the other animals; we have Reason and so forth. It is that quality, that makes us able to build … fires; and bows and arrows; and modern medical science. To build the technology … that has given us tremendous powers. That has allowed us to “flourish,” as the Bible said we should.

    4) Therefore, many have said it is all due to our spirit or intelligence, or something in that range. And countless philosophers, Anthropologists, have embraced this idea; supporting human intelligence as our preminent, most valuable quality or characteristic or ability. (Along with say, lesser qualities like “opposing thumbs,” “binocular vision,” etc.). Many commentators embraced intelligence as our best – or your might say, “defining” – quality or characteristic.

    Or commentators have mentioned, stressed, various aspects that might ultimately be found to be closely related to that quality. Under different names: a) “intelligence”; b) “Reason”; c) “judgement”; d) “science”; e) a unique human “spirit”; e) “consciousness.” And even many say, f) “soul.”

    These are related names, many have claimed. All relating in any case finally, to whatever it was, that allowed us to .. make the technology, that fed billions of people, and cured billions of them of many diseases; that fed and sheltered us, and so forth.

    Something in that nexus of names, was our greatest quality, many said. Indeed, many even suggested that this was what “defined” us as as truly “human,” and not animal: that was our defining, best, distinctive characteristic. To the point that even if you had something that looked exactly like a man, but that did not have that … it would not really be a man. Just as a body without a spirit was nothing. Indeed,you could just about look like anything at all; but you had to have that. Without it, you were perhaps a dead body, or an animal.

    5) But here today we have some dissent. Here has been a source of confusion here though today: Biology, seemingly offers a slightly different sense of “human”; it is anything with human DNA. And this is seems to cause a kind of confusion: because just a clump of DNA, has that; therefore, many are temped to say it is “human”; or even what we call even a full human being, or “human person.”

    6) And yet however, here is one first critical point: is it really just our DNA per se, that is our best characteristic? Or isn’t DNA just a means to an end? In other words, what if we had DNA … but it didn’t produce an intelligent person? Or what if we just had a clump of DNA: Would we then have, still, a being that had the best, definining characteristic of man? The (apparently God-given) characteristic, that makes us more than just another animal?

    Obviously, even a complete set of human DNA, in a skin cell or though it is “human” as in the sense of a “human organism,” it does not however, have the characteristic that we regard as our most valuable characteristic of all: the human mind, or our characteristic mental processes.

    7) Or finally, the crucial question: does even a tiny embryo, have more than just DNA? Does it have what it takes to be called a real, valuable, full human being?

    Here is the crucial point: many have said that the embryo does not have much of what it takes to be considered human. Even when we allow religion into this scenario, and call what it does not have, not just a signficantly human intelligence, but also a”spirit,” a”soul” … it seems that an embryo hasn’t got one, in any appreciable degree.

    8) How can Aquinas for example say that? And could it be proven?

    As it turns out, many ancient philosophers and theologians, often accepted or asserted that indeed, our human “spirit” was an ancient name for what we would call our conciousness or intelligence or Reason today. Though there are many quibbles about this, suppose we accept this provisionally: that the Bible’s spirit or soul, was very closely tied to intelligence. Then … we can in fact, determine if the embryo intelligence.

    9) And then enough intelligence to be considered … human.

    10) May say this cannot be done. Where is that line? Is it impossible to place? Many say it is. But … maybe its not, after all.

    11) And so at last comes the key question in Abortion: When exactly? When does the embryo become not just “human” in the sense of DNA or human tissue; but a fuller, characteristically intelligent “human being” or “human person,” as we might term all this.

    When as they say, is “hominization” or “ensoulment”?

    For various reasons, we may conclude that the major and minor criteria for really, distinctively “human,” do not seem to appear to come together, till about 6 months to a year, at the very earliest; some would even put that date a year after birth, in fact. Though to be sure, we will try to place the bar, the line, where it will accomodate the most, different types of people, and criteria.

    12) Finally though, where is the line? We should say up front, that it does not seem reasonable or right at all, to set the moment we are considered to be human beings … “at conception.”

    13) Unfortunately, The Roman Catholic Church seems to want to set that moment, on conception. But in doing that, it makes many fatal theological, scientific, mistakes.

    The Church thus turns its back, first, on one of its greatest saints, St. Thomas Aquinas.

    14) Worse, there are now Protestant anti-abortion churches too; that insist that we must vote in every election, for the most anti-abortion candidate.

    15) All of which meaning, that shockingly now, we have many churches and Catholic media, telling us that God orders us to vote Republican in every election.

    16) If this isn’t bad enough; in effect, what is happening here is that our many anti-abortionist churches of all denominations, are also – quite literally – turning their backs on intelligence and Reason.

    17) Christianity itself in fact, by adopting the abortion standards it has, is on the verge of turning its back on, denying, even attacking, we show, Reason itself. And indeed, Christianity is shockingly, currently … abandoning the “soul” or “spirit.”

    Which seems like a very, very bad thing for a church to do.

    So let’s all take a look at the Abortion issue, a little closer.
95. cheryl u says:

    April 17, 2009 at 6:10 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Dr. G,

    In point 6 above you ask, “In other words, what if we had DNA … but it didn’t produce an intelligent person?”

    And I am asking you that question–What If indeed? What if you have a baby born full term with very severe mental disabilities and an extremely low degree of intelligence because of it? According to your definition it would seem that child would neither have a soul/spirit or be a human being. Wouldn’t your definintion say then, that no one had the right to say that it was wrong to take the life of that child, after all they are not really a human being but an “animal” or something?

    What do you do with your definition of soul or spirit then?
96. Kara Kittle says:

    April 17, 2009 at 7:09 pm

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Dr. G,
    Answers to philosophy is in the mind of the beholder. Because you agree philosophically does not mean I do. Hard science is in the mind of the beholder. Facts can be manipulated.

    Prove to me without using circumnavigation and astronauts that the world is round. Suppose I know nothing about either concept. What will you say to prove it to me without getting me on a ship or rocket. Pictures? We have Adobe Photoshop. People claiming it? We have people claiming to see Sasquatch but science does not accept it.

    Freud said sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. The way I see it is this, people who claim very high intelligence seem to lose their way in the simplistic things. God is not hard to understand. Blaise Pascal said in Pensees about the intuitive and the mathematical minds.

    Don’t be so intuitive you miss the explanations, and don’t be so analytical you only accept what only you perceive. Blaise Pascal, smart guy that one.

    BTW, I’m Irish…do you suppose the Modest Proposal was the only way to solve the Irish problem? That question follows this dialogue if you can connect my meaning.

    Job 12
    3 But I have a mind as well as you;
    I am not inferior to you.
    Who does not know all these things?

    Intellectualism is cold and lonely.
97. Dr. G. says:

    April 18, 2009 at 9:27 am

    Like or Dislike: 0

    What should we do, with the two or three specific questions at hand?

    1) C’s question on the status of a deformed, severely retarded child? Which relates to the status of the embryo . And for that matter, KK’s ..

    2) Question/objections, that Reason, Intelligence, is of no use; (give up and believe?). Which might be related after all: the objection is to intelligence? (As a standard of humanity?).

    3) Or for that matter, the earlier, perhaps related question on the soul of animals?

    What would we do Biblically, with a severely retarded Child? That might relate to all three?

    1) Cite what God actually said that directly pertains to the subject, first of all? That would be Numbers 5; Gen. 21; etc. (discussed above).

    2) Or what we wish God might have said?

    a) What a rather severe, patriarchial Old Testament God, who regularly kills millions, (who in a sense, kills everyone, by instituting Death in the universe; only to redeem them later?), might say? Or even did say, in Numbers 5? Citing the parts of the Bible, of course, that most directly address the subject? (And more general statements later?).

    b) Or speak about what a kinder Jesus might say … but didn’t specifically say in the New Testament, about abortions, and so forth? Before he was executed? Never mind any differences between the old God and Jesus?

    Usually Jesus was just said to heal them. So, you do that. End of problem? According to the faithful, this happens all the time. So go do that.

    There is therefore no need for a conversation here at all: go heal them, just like you said you can.

    3) But if, by almost any standard of science or reason you can name, no one is making people well by miracles these days, after all? (Are you?). Then should we … abandon the context of the Bible? And wonder.

    a) Skip all that; and wonder about animal and vegetative souls?
    b) Or the cost of maintainingg such bodies indefinitely?

    4) Or get really Biblical – and Patriarchial? And when faced with feminine sentimentality … assert classic Reason and Logic; the Logic, the hard judgements, even of God?

    Any suggestions? Any particular interests out there among any and all listeners?

    By the way; intellectualism is not so cold and lonely … when you find other intellectuals to talk to. And keep in mind … we did circumnavigate the globe. So we know some things now. I listen somewhat to sentimental arguments; more to reason to be sure however.

    But I’m open. And this is anybody’s formn. What should we do, with what we know? Or what things should we now look at? Hopefully, staying close to the specific topic: Abortion. Or more broadly: what is a man?

    I can’t promise to stay with this conversation long myself; but above we have left a few topics for discussion, in the meantime.

    Keep in mind though: I object to the new sentimental, Church of the Holy Embryo; that by deifying the unconscious, non rational, incomplete unborn, “being knit” in the womb, now deifies 1) irrationality 2) unconsciousness; 3) a soulless body; and 4) childishness, at best.

    Must we worship, now the soulless, the mindless, and the Brain Dead? Is that really Christianity? On face, is looks compassionate; viewed more closely in its implications, like a demonic cult. What will that growing worship of the Holy Fetus, the Brain Dead, finally do? What is that worship currently doing, no matter how well-intended, to classic Christianity?
98. Kara Kittle says:

    April 18, 2009 at 10:21 am

    Like or Dislike: 0

    Dr. g,
    What do you consider a viable person to be? Does a severely deformed child deserve death of something that was not it’s fault. That is a cold heart to look at a child in that condition and believe it was better off dead. If that were the case then Christy Brown could not have written My Left Foot. You present intelligence like one who has to use big ideas and big words. Perhaps that is the problem, the bigger the word the less the meaning.

    Do you even know people who are mentally and developmentally disabled? Go once to a Special Olympics event and tell me they should be worth so much pity they deserve to die. And then tell me Dr. G, of all the embryos that will become citizens, which ones should be permitted to live? White ones? Black ones? Hispanic?

    What is the criteria for you to determine who is worthy of life? Let’s deal with the fundamental issues of why women choose abortions, ok.

    1:inconvenience
    2:coercion
    3:poverty
    4:lack of love
    5:rape or incest
    6:society pressure
    7:wants to choose sex of child
    8:just because
    9:too young
    10:too old

    Tell me of all these, why was it the baby who had to endure the pain of being torn apart? We know the embryo has feelings at 10 weeks, that is just a little more than 2 months. Why is it that the biggest excuse is always “it’s better for the baby if it never comes into the world” as though reading the mind of the infant to be.

    And in all your circumnavigation, have you found anyone yet who is worthy of your time and attention other than to debate your socialist view?
    Yes, intellectualism is cold when you only think among people who think like you. It never leads to warmth of accepting someone else who does not share same ideas. You have presented us with cold hearted, pseudo-medical reasoning and yet never fully acknowledge why you believe it is your place to make the call of who’s baby should be aborted. The same thing Margaret Sanger did when she created Planned Parenthood. If a certain baby is to be aborted, but another should live because it has different parents and different circumstances then you have just made the argument of inequality of persons, and not viable medical reasons.

    Do you get to make the determination about who should live or die? You choose death, and you choose who should receive that death. Before you preach that doctrine, consider you are making the same determination Communist governments make, and Nazis made, and the American government that forced sterilization of thousands of people they determined were not worthy enough.

    Read Breeding of the Thoroughbred then tell me who you believe is worthy of living. I’m Irish, was the Modest Proposal the only way to solve the problem of the Irish?
99. Dr. G. says:

    April 18, 2009 at 10:30 am

    Like or Dislike: 0

    1) Of course, as is well known, Swift’s “Modest Proposal” was a deliberate parody. Swift was not serious; he was mocking the attitudes of the English occupiers of Ireland.

    2) Consider the standard long set by God: before medical science, when there was just God, but no science, many persons with severe defects, simply died. For lack of the very medical attention and attitude, which you despise. Indeed, many persons with defects today are alive, because of medical science.

    Someone might argue this:

    3) Do you really want the standards of God, rather than Science? In this specific case? If so, just start pulling the plugs on the millions of sick and disabled people, now being kept alive by science.
100. Dr. G. says:

     April 18, 2009 at 10:34 am

     Like or Dislike: 0

     I am a lifetime civil and minority rights activist. Of course, the line as to what is “human,” allows minorities; I was among the first to put my life on the line, in the name of that question, in 1964.

     But a blastocyst the size of a pinhead? That looks like a soccer ball? Do you really want to trade your life for that, one-for-one?
101. Kara Kittle says:

     April 18, 2009 at 11:01 am

     Like or Dislike: 0

     Oh my gosh, to imply I despise medical treatments????

     well shucky darn…yooos jess got me there….considering I am an MS patient who has to take shots…and have an electric wheelchair….and have MRIs when necessary. So that’s a bark up a wrong tree.

     And Margaret Sanger of Planned Parenthood advocated against all those minorities you claim to represent. Fortunately for us, yours was a matter of civic duty, and not human duty.

     And yes, one-for-one, if the choice came of my life for that one, yes. Without a doubt. You fail to see human life as it is intended to be, fragile at any age.

     And the Modest Proposal was a parody, but made because of very real sentiments. Perhaps you should read Citizens in Chains, about kidnapping Irish and Scot children and transporting them to the Americas as slaves. Before the African slave trade was implemented. This is about human life, and because something is in development to look like us….tell me, are we not conceived with the instructions in our dna already?

     The message for my blue eyes was encoded into those cells present at conception. So if the cells are not fully developed yet does not mean they are not there. All the messages of who I am are there at conception. And my XX…all there at conception. You seem to accept the end result.

     http://www.dianedew.com/sanger.htm

     So tell me one who speaks for society…how do you endorse philosophy spouted by the very one you marched against? Those poor black people you marched for, according to Margaret Sanger, should have been aborted. What a dichotomy you are.
102. cheryl u says:

     April 18, 2009 at 11:15 am

     Like or Dislike: 0

     Dr. G,

     The Scripture verses you mentioned above have absolutely nothing to do with mentally disabled children after birth. And do not agree with you that they mean it is alright for a woman to have an abortion either.

     No where in the Old Testament or the New did God tell people to kill their infants because they were severely disabled.

     Yes undoubtedly many of them died because of that disability and the lack of the medical care we can now provide. So did many people with diabetes, heart disease, etc.

     The fact that they died without that type of care is a totally different thing than killing them outright because we don’t believe they should live!

     Obviously, you are not just talking about abortion here. You are talking about euthanasia and you have decided man has the right to decide when another life is not worth living.
103. Dr. G. says:

     April 18, 2009 at 11:21 am

     Like or Dislike: 0

     Of course I do not support M. Sanger. I’ve often stipulated my position is very, very different from hers, and the other racists you cite.

     And my point was, that your remarks against science, conflict with your sentiments in other areas. Indeed, with your very life. Can you despise the ideas/rationality of science … even as you depend on it for your very life?

     I’m consistent; not a dichotomy. How about you?

     I’m part Irish myself.

     A plan for development, is not the same as the completed building.

     If you went to that Pet Store again, and paid $100 for a cat … and they gave you a genome read-out of a cat … would you be satisfied? Is the plan, really the same as the completed object? Many, many things have to be added to the plan, to make the building.
104. cheryl u says:

     April 18, 2009 at 11:23 am

     Like or Dislike: 0

     Dr. G,

     My Mother died this last December of heart disease. However, for many years before that she had suffered from Altzheimer’s disease. If was very advanced before she finally passed away. She could no longer communicate, most of the time, with anything more than groans, she didn’t know her own children most of the time, she couldn’t feed herself, dress herself, bathe herself, or attend to her other bodily needs. According to your definition, was she soul less–non human–an animal?? And I suppose we should of killed her because of that? She certainly no longer fit the description of someone with advanced intelligence that is your definition required for humanity.
105. Dr. G. says:

     April 18, 2009 at 11:28 am

     Like or Dislike: 0

     A true story:

     My uncle was a successful engineer who had a fatal cancer. Before he ran up huge medical bills that would take medical resources away from those who could profit more from it … he committed suicide.

     Nearly every member of my family has signed a Living Will, asking that no extraordinary procedures be taken in our lives, should we become brain dead.

     This is a voluntary procedure.
106. Dave Z says:

     April 18, 2009 at 12:29 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     As I was re-reading CMP’s original article, I found myself wondering about the accuracy of the following:
     “Because the traducianist’s theology precludes a necessary belief that a person is complete from the moment of conception. There can never be a time when the child is without a soul. The parents provide the soul at the same time and in the same way as they provide the body.”

     Does the “instant soul” really follow logically? If “The parents provide the soul at the same time and in the *same way* as they provide the body” we have to recognise that the body is produced by a process. There is a time when the embryo is without all the major body parts – heart, brain, lungs. Those components develop. Why can there not be development of the soul? Which would mean there could be a time before the development of the soul, therefore leaving open the possibility of a soul-less clump of cells, same as the creationist perspective.

     Also, I find the absence of any specific Biblical reference to abortion (other than possibly Numbers 5) to be very striking, since the procedure was apparently known in ancient Egypt, roughly around the time of the exodus.

     That said, I generally oppose abortion in all cases (including rape and incest) except possibly the life of the mother.
107. cheryl u says:

     April 18, 2009 at 12:29 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     By the way Dr. G,

     To call the position being stated here “feminine sentimentality” is actually quite an insult to all of the men in this world that would oppose your views just as strongly as those of us opposing you here are. Just because there are only two women in this conversation with you at this time does not mean there are no men out there that believe the same way.

     For that matter, it is quite insulting to women too to call this view “feminine sentimentality”. And such a statement is not at all likely to make us change our firmly held beliefs in the innate dignity of all human life!
108. Kara Kittle says:

     April 18, 2009 at 12:50 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     Tell me what science has to do with abortion? Social engineering does. Women have had abortions since there were humans. It has nothing absolutely to do with science, and if you can reduce humanity to a science experiment then you are no better than Joseph Mengele.

     And yes, by passive complicity you do endorse Margaret Sanger and eugenics.

     A true story,
     My grandmother was dying of liver cancer and instead of sending her away we took care of her at home. We did all those thing someone would in a nursing home. She died surrounded by people who cared more for her life to bring comfort to her. I have a Living Will also. Nothing extraordinary about it. That is a terrible about your grandfather. But are you trying to imply that while he was an engineer and a brilliant mind that was what made him valuable? He had value as a human.

     You make the implication that he committed suicide for the greater good of society, but that is hard to know because no one knows what anyone really feels inwardly. It is sad he had cancer, but suppose his doctor at birth had some kind of gauge to show the man would have cancer one day and instead of letting him go through it, he suggested abortion. A quicker way to die, and just as painful.

     I had cancer.

     And a person is different than a building being built. Again, just because it does not look like it does not make it any less. A person is a person, and a heartbeat at 10 weeks is pretty telling about development.

     Yes, you are supportive of socialism and racism. You make it very clear you endorse eugenics. A blastocyst is a human being. It is not a social cancer that needs to be extracted.

     Abortion is social engineering and experiments are funded by Planned Parenthood and propaganda telling society the soft lie that perhaps we would be better off without certain individuals.

     And you are a dichotomy. I do not believe you are interested in Civil Rights because you have a limited view of humanity. Go to the NAACP and quote to them Margaret Sanger, and tell them it was for the good of society she said these things when creating Planned Parenthood. You have read Margaret Sanger…haven’t you? She is the founder of Planned Parenthood, you did know that, didn’t you?
109. Dr. G. says:

     April 18, 2009 at 12:53 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     I don’t challence the innate dignity of all human life; just embryos at conception.

     Though I do think that … it is women, who are most directly involved, concerned, in the abortion debate.

     And to be sure, your attack on an allegedly excessive rationality behind my own anti-antibortionism, might tend to confirm that the anti-abortion sentiment, is … more of a feeling or sentiment.

     There is a place for feelings. Sorry I haven’t addressed sentiments much; to be sure, they have some importance.

     And yet still I feel, we must make a rational case here. And anyone who values reason – male or female – is welcome to participate. I know many who let their emotions sway them, also have good minds here.
110. Kara Kittle says:

     April 18, 2009 at 12:59 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     Cheryl
     As I was typing this, you responded so I did not get to see your response before I posted.

     Feminine sentimentality? You mean now women are sentimental about babies they carry? Oh my goodness, how awful for a woman to have a bond with her unborn child…(that was sarcasm for those keeping score of my sarcastic statements)

     Now we have just trampled into a new type of yard…the kind that says “keep off the grass if you are a woman”…

     Cheryl, you keep plugging in there because Dr. G is slowly giving away what is really the heart of the matter. I bet Dr. G is in need of a heart transplant…of the Jesus kind. And Dr. G is fighting pretty hard on a sheet of ice. Good thing for us we are on the side and will go out and help Dr. G stand back up when the inevitable fall comes.
111. Kara Kittle says:

     April 18, 2009 at 1:03 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     LOL,
     Welcome to participate? Is this your forum? Does the debate belong to you and you are just being gracious to invite us in? How kind of you. (Again sarcasm for the scorekeeper).

     Yes, you decry human dignity and have done so all along.

     BTW, the sarcasm statements are because someone commented on how many sarcastic statements I make, so I am alerting them to keep on tally.

     LOL, like the very thought of abortion does not bring about some form of emotion for the woman. It is an emotional issue, because we aren’t talking about robots of cold mechanical parts, we are talking about real life human babies.
112. cheryl u says:

     April 18, 2009 at 1:06 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     You DO challenge the innate dignity of all human life. Because to you human life isn’t truly “human” unless it meets your specific definition of having a high degree of intelligence.

     Therein lies the rub, our definitions of who is “human” and who is not are extremely different.
113. Kara Kittle says:

     April 18, 2009 at 1:07 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     Cheryl,
     Exactly right on.
114. Dr. G. says:

     April 18, 2009 at 1:22 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     This is about abortion of embryos; nothing else. No adults need to feel threatend.

     1) How many times do we need to say it explicitly here: I NEVER, EVER, SUPPORTED MARGRET SANGER! I am not a eugenicist. I am a lifeetime suporter of human and civil rights.

     2) I merely balk finally, at saying that an embryo the size of a pinhead, that looks like a soccer ball, is a human being with rights. For the many, many reasons, outlined here.

     3) Many commentators here are passionately, emotionally telling me, they are not emotional/sentimental.

     4) To your question: “What does science have to so with abortion?” Here are some quick answers.

     a) You need some technology, usually, to have one. Early abortions, even in the time of Egyptians, were performed often with early pharmaceuticals like bella dona. Such abortifacients were known in the days of the Bible. Probably in fact, the “dust” referred to, when a priest performs an abortion in Num. 5, was a pharmaceutical powder.

     b) See the whole discussion above, on the links between science, reason … and abortion. The main argument is, that we value reason, the human mind … and an embryo the size of the head of a pin, does not have one. While indeed, scientists – medial doctors – perform abortions. Based on beliefs like those outlined here.

     c) No adult should feel threatened by our standard; all living adults that are not brain dead, past the muster for sufficient intelligence, I would say here and now. Very unlike Sanger and Eugenics?

     d) Democracy was an “experiment.” Do you oppose democracy?

     e) There is no “passive complicity” with Sanger and Eugenics here; I have once again herein, actively, and explicitly opposed them; as I do here and now, for about the … fourth time?

     f) In fact, I’m not even interested in the issue of adults, eugenics; I address my attention, only to embryos.

     g) Worms have a heartbeat; that doesn’t make them human.

     5) I know how my uncle felt about his death … because I discussed it with him before he died. He did indeed support suicide, to avoid taking medical resources away from others.

     The same medical resources by the way, essentially, that some of you are apparently living on right now.

     6) I hear many motional assertions about embyos here. But assertions are emotional; and are not enough. What we need is a reasoned discussion. Whether a embryo or a blastocyst is human or not, is precisely what these discussion here, are meant to determine. Read the discussion that preceeded this statement.

     7) We are here listing dozens of good reasons, why an embryo should not be considered to be a human being; with a mind or Reason, intelligence; or even a soul. To contribute to the discussion … please simply address one or more of the arguments above, in a reasonable way. Many of you are combining some good arguments … mixed with emotional outbursts.

     8) Abortion to be sure, is an extremely emotional subject; we and the monitors of this blog, request that people be polite; and address the issue fairly, and respectfully.
115. cheryl u says:

     April 18, 2009 at 1:29 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     Dr. G,

     Who are the “we” you keep referring to? It would certainly be helpful to know who we are talking to here.

     And secondly, would you please tell us, since you keep calling yourself Dr. G., what kind of a Dr. you are? Again, it helps to know who we are talking to here.

     And, like Kara above, I would like to know how it is that you have come into this discussion and are insisting on laying out the rules as to how it is to continue? You are not the blog owner here nor the originaltor of the discussion.
116. Dr. G. says:

     April 18, 2009 at 1:43 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     WHO AM I?

     1) I have a PhD. I am not a medical doctor.

     2) I am not the owner of this blog;

     3) In calling for polite discussion, I in part, appeal to your humanity, and reasonableness. Do you reject those?

     4) In calling for that, I paraphrased the Blog’s policy statement. Which you can look up for yourself.

     Presumably, “Parchment and Pen” will stand behind its policy statement. Which I don’t object to: all it calls for, in essence, is polite and reasonable discussion.

     Those are the simple rules of politeness and honest debate. If you don’t like them, or follow them, I’ll probably simply leave you, to talk to yourselves.

     5) “We” refers to a) a rather large community of abortion supporters; which in fact presently seems to encompass … more than 50% of the adult population of the United States. Though I suppose that I particularly represent in effect, the b) scholarly community; that has long been pursing this topic, since at least the days of Aquinas, under the rubric of “ensoulment,” “hominzation,” and so forth.
117. cheryl u says:

     April 18, 2009 at 1:43 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     Dave Z,

     Do you suppose that maybe the reason abortion was not mentioned specifically in the Bible past what you were speaking of, if that was indeed talking of abortion in Num. 5, is that God had already given the overiding command, “Thou shalt not kill (murder)”? It seems to me that in the Bible it speaks often of “she conceived and brought forth a child.” It seems to me that there was not a question in the Biblical writers minds on if that was a child or not. If that is the case, to kill that one would already be against God’s specific commandment.
118. cheryl u says:

     April 18, 2009 at 1:48 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     Dr. G,

     A PhD in what?? You have not answered my question.

     And I was not talking about an appeal to politeness. I was talking about you telling us in general how this discussion was to be carried out: “please simply address one or more of the arguments above”. That is telling us how this discussion is going to proceed.

     And, as to comment # 5, we finally get at the truth here that although you say you find abortion repugnant, you are a part of, “a rather large community of abortion supporters”.
119. Dr. G. says:

     April 18, 2009 at 1:59 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     Yup! This supports abortion!

     It’s not a conspiracy.

     If you don’t like my rules, play by yourself; I’ll take my soccer ball and go home.

     And honestly, I’d rather not get too specific about my identity, or even what my PhD is in. The anti-abortion community is extremely virulent. I like reasonable discussion; not bomb threats.
120. Dr. G. says:

     April 18, 2009 at 2:07 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     Dave Z:

     In your defence, and to catch you up: these ladies like to suggest that:

     1) Even if the most relevant passages in the Bible on abortion do not support their Pro Life anti-abortionism, or even directly contradicts them (as in Numb. 5),

     2) Still, the general tone of the Bible supports them.

     And so: a) “thou shalt not kill.” Just exactly what the Old Testament meant by that however, is a matte of debate. For dozens of reasons. Which these ladies know. First aa) God himself killed lots of people; in fact in a sense he kills us all, by creating us in a way that we all die physically. bb) God’s friends/subjects kill lots of people too, in military victories. While, as for “life,” cc) we “kill” life every time we eat fried chicken.

     So … the question is … just exactly what do these very general statements about not “killing” and “honoring life” actually say?

     These ladies assert that these very, very general remarks in the Bible, prove their God – Christ the Holy Anti-Abortionist – is real.

     But if you look at the Bible itself more closely? Suppose we do that.
121. Dave Z says:

     April 18, 2009 at 2:08 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     Cheryl,

     That’s a pretty big leap in logic. Worshipping other gods was forbidden too, but it’s a regular topic throughout the OT. The Bible eats some subjects at length in several places. I just find it interesting that abortion is not specifically addressed, since it was a known procedure. No doubt the Caananite peoples were aware and practiced it. Just surprised it isn’t mentioned.
122. cheryl u says:

     April 18, 2009 at 2:34 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     Here is a definition of the Greek word pneuma from the Thayer’s Lexicon: 3) a spirit, i.e. a simple essence, devoid of all or at least all grosser matter, and possessed of the power of knowing, desiring, deciding, and acting a) a life giving spirit
     b) a human soul that has left the body
     c) a spirit higher than man but lower than God, i.e. an angel
     1) used of demons, or evil spirits, who were conceived as inhabiting the bodies of men
     2) the spiritual nature of Christ, higher than the highest angels and equal to God, the divine nature of Christ

     This definition of spirit as a simple essence devoid of matter is the one that I believe all of those opposing you in this discussion are using. Since this is a simple essence, devoid of matter, how can we say that it has to have a well developed brain in order to exist? Indeed, as I have asked before, if it can exist as a simple essence–with no brain–after a person dies, why would anyone automatically assume that it could not exist in an embryo or fetus before that brain is highly developed? To me that idea is totally lacking in logic and reason.
123. Dr. G. says:

     April 18, 2009 at 2:51 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     “Pneuma,” roughly sometimes translated “wind,” is the root of English words like our “pneumatic.” In some ways, it’s thought to refer 1) literally to wind or air. As when God breathed air into man and caused him to live; and then begin breathing similar air on his own time. At the time, wind and air were often not thought to be matter at all; insubstantial as they were thought to be (until the experiments of Dr. Priestly and others, discovered oxygen and so forth).

     It may be therefore, that it is at least as substantial as oxygen. In spite of years of spectulation to the contrary.

     Though I would not make that claim, precisely. Still, 2) many things once thought to be immaterial, are not being described by science; like gravity, etc.. And perhaps even the soul.

     IN any case, 3) don’t we believe that the soul inhabits your material body now? So the soul can tie itself to material things. And furthermore 4) it appears that our soul can change; be effected by material things too. So for example: your soul resides in your body now … but as you look at the world and have experiences (divine experiences if nothing else; baptism?), your soul can change; be “washed” clean. Or, if we accept a close identification between the “soul” and the “mind,” then … our mind changes, “grows,” when we look up at the chalkboard for example.

     So I personally don’t see any huge, great, irrepetable difference, between “spirit” and “matter.” For these and a hundred other reasons.

     By the way I don’t know that I would agree with “essence” entirely; or in any case would suggest that somehoe, tht “essence” can grow and change; by baptism? So that it is not a static or permanent essence somehow.

     But guess I’m totally stupid, and lacking in logic and reason however?
124. Dave Z says:

     April 18, 2009 at 3:10 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     Uhhh… that should be “the Bible TReats…” had to post in a hurry – was getting called away.
125. cheryl u says:

     April 18, 2009 at 3:21 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     Dr. G,

     Please play by your own rules of politeness here. You have gotten sarcastic and made rather snide remarks about those with opposing views more than once now.

     You have consistently said that we are being sentimental and not entirely logical and have called for logic and reason.

     Then when somebody dares to present a logic or reason different than yours, you immediately get all sarcastic. I call foul!
126. Dr. G. says:

     April 18, 2009 at 3:24 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     I don’t know that I should defend the idea that a soul did not exist before I or whosever, built it; that might not be biblical. And might not be my position.

     But adressing that situation hypotehtically, without committing myself to it? As I have said before, the fact that a soul or anyting, can live independently of this or that body after death, does not in itself imply that 1) it could have lived independently of body before. I can build something with my body – a car – that can live after me; even though it could not have existed unless I had built it.

     2) I adressed a similar situation: The car I built here in Kentucky, can easily be taken by boat to Brazil, and live in an entirely different circumstance than the one in which it was built. Moving from one mateirila body to another. But … without ever presupposing that it existed before I built it.

     3) One might argue that theoretically, a soul could exist in the embryo at birth; though Aquinas and the Bible suggest souls get infused when we breathe air; at birth in part.

     4) In any case, my immediately previous remarks suggest that whatever soul we have can “grow” and change. As Jesus “grew in knowledge”; or even our soul is fundamentally changed in events like Baptism?

     5) A disclaimer however: none of the remarks in this specifica message, may be entirely relevant; since I do not necessarily believe that the spirit is as immaterial as many do.

     6) Or we might better put it another way: the spirit is becoming flesh again.

     These are fast responises; unedited. There may be some errors in them to be sure. I do not absolutely committ myself at present to any of them.

     But for purposes of discussion, this has been my quick answer.
127. Dr. G. says:

     April 18, 2009 at 3:27 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     I think we’ve all enjoyed some sarcasm now and then; though I’m glad things are taking a somewhat more substantial direction.
128. Dr. G. says:

     April 18, 2009 at 4:06 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     CORRECTION:

     “Many things previously thought to be immaterial, are NOW being described by science”

     Many other errors; but none as important as this?
129. cheryl u says:

     April 18, 2009 at 4:15 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     Back to that verse in Exodus 21 that you say shows God does believe an abortion to be a serious matter. (For the record, I still hold to a different interpretaion of the verse than you do). However, there is something we have failed to look at here. The miscarraige, abortion, premature birth, whatever, caused in this situation was not an intentional act. It was caused by two men fighting and injuring a pregnant woman in the process so that she delivered the child or lost it.

     In the Bible, deliberately taking a life and accidentally taking a life are generally treated as two very different things. And notice, the man causing this did not go unpunished, he was to be fined as the woman’s husband demanded and as the judge decided.

     Taking the fact that this was an accident and not intentional into account here, I do not see how this verse can be used in any way to support the intentional killing of a humn child before birth.
130. cheryl u says:

     April 18, 2009 at 4:17 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     Correction for me too:

     I said, “that you say shows God does believe an abortion to be a serious matter” should of been, “shows God NOT believe an abortion…”
131. cheryl u says:

     April 18, 2009 at 4:18 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     And I still made a dumb error in my correction! I’m tired. Think you get the idea though.
132. Kara Kittle says:

     April 18, 2009 at 4:37 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     A PhD? Somehow I would not feel safe if we were stranded on a deserted island together. Perhaps my lack of your credentials would merely make me your girl Friday.

     Yes, when you support abortion, you are passively complicit with Margaret Sanger’s agenda. You seem to be more passionate toward worms and other creatures than the human being.

     Now let’s see if we can find a Bible passage relating to infanticide…oh yes, twice we find it.

     Pharaoh gave the command to all Jewish midwives to kill all the Jewish babies that were being born, because in his eyes they would have outnumbered the Egyptians. But the midwives feared God and said they could never do such a thing. But how does this relate to abortion? It was the destruction of life, even in the smallest form. So Pharoah commanded his soldiers to do the task…”in Rachel a cry was heard, Rachel crying for her own because they were taken”… Rachel being Jewish women by the way.

     Another passage, Herod the Great gave a commandment to slay all the babies two years and under in Galilee and the coasts. The soldiers carried out that as well. Because he was threatened by the birth of a king who would replace him.

     Oh yes, one other I just remembered…evil Queen Athalia broke into the palace and killed every child, except for Mephibosheth whose nurse ran out with him, escaping.

     Now three examples of such a disregard for human life with three excuses why they can’t live. Now if you say God gave the command, no. These were done for entirely selfish reasons.

     If those events never happened we would have never had Moses, Jesus or David keeping his vow to his best friend Jonathan. But maybe we would have had them.

     I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

     Thou knewest me before I was in the womb.

     Two statements from David and Jeremiah on just how much God values infants.
133. Kara Kittle says:

     April 18, 2009 at 4:38 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     A man didn’t make you like you made a car, so there is no comparison.
134. Dr. G. says:

     April 18, 2009 at 5:26 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     KK:

     Huh?

     The car is an analogy of course. Showing how this can make sense.

     If you assert that the nature of God, his spirit, has to be different from this example, specify how. Using passages from the Bible. Otherwise, it seems you are just voicing an opinion. A raw assertion. With no evidence whatsoever. No BIble quotes; nothing. So why should I follow you? You might be a “deceived,” “false prophet.”

     Many people here are given to dogmatic presentations of their ideas, as the voice of God.

     But why should I follow you, as the voicepice of God? God himself is great and perfect; but are you the perfect spokesman for him? Do you always characterrize him perfectly? Just telling me “God” did it, isn’t enough. Prove you are the true voice of God.

     The Bible warned there would be many vain, false persons who tell us “God said” this or that; but we should examine them closely, before we follow them.

     I’m sorry ladies; I do not accept you are the final voice on who or what God really is. You have not convinced me. Just asserting “God” did it is not enough.

     KK: God knew my car, that I will build tomorrow, out of a soap bar. He knew it long before I was born. That does not mean my car existed yesterday at all.

     Thanks for the examples above. But note, I myself did not mention them ever. Still less did I says that they pictured God allowing infanticide. YOur mention of them above, is the first time any reference to them appeared on this blog, so far as I know. I do not refer to them myself, in any way, ever. Because in part, I agree: they do not in any way imply God’s support for infanticide.

     I never spoke about them myself, because … my subject here not infanticide; it is the blastocyst.

     Cheryl:

     Ex. 21? Yes, you are right, it seems, in one or two ways. It was a miscarriage – caused by accident. Which makes it less serious in some ways. Still, God said, “no harm was done”

     And the man who caused it was fined; fined, in an era when stealing a loaf of bread … or even cooking one on a Sabbath/Sunday – was a crime punishable by death. (Q.v., O.T.)

     Incidentally, a perhaps more relevant example than the Pharoah etc: God to be sure often destroyed the equivalent of whole cities and nations; presumably there was at least one pregnant women in at least one of them?
135. Kara Kittle says:

     April 18, 2009 at 6:02 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     Dr. G,
     Again you try to cleverly assert a point of which you look absurd to us. I understand you trying to make an analogy of course. You putting yourself in the place of God by making a creation…but there’s a big problem with your analogy, you are not equal to God in creation, and you do not create equally, so your side is a little lacking.

     A car cannot be compared to a human. Why don’t you try instead taking clay, forming a complete human out of it, with organs and bio-systems and electro-chemical processes complete as a fertilized egg.

     Wait, are there electro-chemical processes occurring? Is there a bio-system? We would have to agree there are. All a human needs to be a human is present the moment that spermatozoa (I could not use the simple term for this blog) fertilizes that egg. Can you in anyway replicate that precise moment? No, you can manipulate the environment but not the process itself. Perhaps that is cloning, but that requires an original contributor.

     Can you replicate the systems to such perfection that a mere nine months later a recognizable human is born? No, but you can make a mechanical object that does not move of it’s own accord and does not speak. There simply is no comparison. And while you keep referring to “us women” why don’t you say the truth about that. Because I suspect this is is going in another direction that you keep hinting at.

     Am I the mouthpiece for God? When I quote scripture then yes I am. And so is Cheryl and everyone else who speaks what the Bible says.

     BTW, my husband is putting together a model car, a 1964 Ford Fairlane. That looks like a tiny real one, but it’s not. He just asked me what color he should make the tiny seats. But it’s just a tiny model. Now comparing blastocysts that is in accelerated division moving toward what we look like, is nothing compared to an inanimate object. So if the dna is already present, the chromosomes are already there and the determined look is already there, then I concur, it must be a tiny, tiny human being. One with feelings.

     And when we said God said, it is because God said it.

     Now us “wimminfolk” who ain’t as smart like you is, will juss havta’ learn our place…So what are you a PhD in anyway? I once had a neurologist who told me that my multiple sclerosis was just an anxiety attack, so he told also to some people who had epilepsy. And he was a PhD in neuroscience. So somehow I just can’t seem so impressed by that.

     Can your car reproduce another car?
136. cheryl u says:

     April 18, 2009 at 6:26 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     Remember the point I made that accidental death and deliberate death were generally treated totally differently by God? You didn’t seem to fit that into the equation here. Accidental deaths were not punishable by death in the Old Testament, at least not that I am aware of. (Read further up in the same chapter of Exodus 21 to see what I mean).

     And there is another Scripture reference that I read earlier today, can’t remember the refernce now at all, and the online concordance that I would use to find it is down at this time, that refers to a fine being given as a “ransom for your life”. So a fine was not always considered such an unsubstantial punishment, evidently.

     And your example of God destroying whole cities and nations, pregant women and all, is again not a correct comparison. God did many things as a punishment in the Old Testament. And, yes, he often used man to do it. But it was directly commanded by Him and with a reason. That is not at all the same thing as a woman making a decision to take the life of her unborn child for reasons of inconvenience or whatever.

     Here is the link to a very interesting article regarding this verse and the translation of Hebrew words used there:

     http://www.christiancourier.com/articles/786-does-exodus-21-sanction-abortion
137. Dr. G. says:

     April 18, 2009 at 6:37 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     Careful; even epilepsy can be related to anxiety too. Calm down!

     One of the best ways to relax, is to discover – as God told us – that none of us are perfect; “all have sinned.” And once we know this, that everyone makes mistakes – and that God forgives us – we can begin to relax.

     I used to suffer too; but, admitting that I am not perfect – including not the perfect voice of God – helped me quite a bit. And actually, I got there too, by admitting I wasn’t as smart as I think, sometimes; can you admit that too?

     I hestitate to advance another argument to a person who should relax. But … regarding my point on carving a car? Just in case I made any mistakes in presenting it:

     Many people are saying here, that you get your soul at birth. They say this, partilly based on the saying that God “knew us,” long ago. Suggesting that our soul was in existence, very long ago. Well before conception, actually. (Which would be another odd objection to souls “at conception”; from the other way around).

     Why was I talking about this car? Making a person of course, is not as easy as making a car. But my point above was a logical one. To prove that my statement on the soul developing, even after birth, was consistent even with the BIblical statement that God “knew” us from long ago.

     I am trying to use this example to prove the logical possiblity that God could both 1) say he knew us long ago … 2) without that meaning we, our souls, were in existence from the beginning. Or 3) From long ago; before our conception. 4) At conception. Or 5) at birth. The fact is, you could have a new soul … tomorrow. And still, God could have known that soul, long ago. Even if we were only created today.

     Here again, is what I’m trying to say with the soap car: it is possible logically, for God to have known us from the beginning of time … without implying however, that we came into actual creation, until even yesterday. Or tomorrow. Like my car.

     So: long ago, our powerful God, could have seen a soul … that was only born today.

     There is no need therefore, for us to assume that the Bible actually ever said, that our souls existed before birth; or existed, or were given to us, at birth either. The Bible can be read – as far as I humbly can tell here – in a way consistent with the creation of souls, at any time; even long after birth.

     And indeed, some preachers sometimes say that we get a “new” or at least “washed” soul, at Baptism, or other significant times.

     So a new soul, newly reborn soul, can appear any time!

     And indeed, I hope that you will soon feel, a renewal in your own soul; knowing that here is yet another argument, for … rebirth of the soul, at any time.
138. Dr. G. says:

     April 18, 2009 at 7:18 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     I’m currently miles away from a concordance … and haven’t managed to make sense of Strong’s online yet.

     Haven’t have much luck finding …

     1) “Yasa,” meaning “untimely birth” yet; nor
     2) “Yeled,” “child.”

     1) However to be sure, your cited reference says that the Bible translations we have are wrong; our English Bibles, are wrong: “miscarriage” is the wrong word. Which doesn’t inspire confidence.

     2) And cf. Hos. 28-9:14: “Give them O LORD: what wilt thou give? Give them a misscarrying womb and dry breasts.”

     To be sure, I have not read whether God gives the people what they ask for.

     I’ll be looking at this though; if anyone wants to refer me to a simple, usuable, online condordance, with Hebrew in translation, feel welcome here.
139. Dr. G. says:

     April 18, 2009 at 7:22 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     Correction? On “without implying”: Now: “Without precluding … that we, our soul, came into existence, even today.”
140. cheryl u says:

     April 18, 2009 at 7:24 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     Dr G,

     Do you remember the very first commandment that God man when He created him: “Be fruitful and multiply” Genesis 1:28

     Do you remember the commandment He gave Noah after the flood? ” Be fruitful and multiply.” Genesis 9:1

     Do you remember the commandment He gave to Jacob? “Be fruitful and multiply.” Genesis 35:11

     Don’t you find that significant? Three times He says that. In fact, it was the very first commandment ever given to man, even before the commandment to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And it was given in conjunction with the job that man was to have on the earth–fill the earth, subdue it, have dominion.

     Is not abortion going against the very first commandment that God ever gave to mankind? How then can it be right?
141. Dr. G. says:

     April 18, 2009 at 7:34 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     Notice that I am here not denying any passage of the Bible whatsoever. Indeed, I constantly quote the Bible. In this case?

     Yup! “Be fruitful and multiply.”

     Which has two understandings at least. Including:

     1) “Spiritual” “fruits.” “Fruits of the spirit.”

     2) And then too, it may be that we can have too many children, to the point that it causes mass starvation; which is not fruitful. So that the right strategy, is not having endless children; that would be a naive definition of “fruitfulness.”

     3) Remember: Jesus himself did not have any children. Was he therefor, not fruitful?

     4) Many priests do not have children: likewise.

     5) In some contexts, it might even mean … grow better crops, more fruit?

     6) To have better fruit too, God tells us to prune trees; which can produce fewer, but bigger fruit. Abortion is like pruning trees? Fewer, but better children? We can cherish, train the few we have, better?
142. Kara Kittle says:

     April 18, 2009 at 7:37 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     Cheryl
     Abortion smacks of Molech. After all, what is life anyway? Here we are talking about a human and after there is no convincing us, he wants to go on the soul. Like God is not smart enough to create a soul within the baby. He still never said how he could replicate it. Now while he is explaining that, let him explain also personality. Let him explain why some people can be so full of hate toward some people and be so loving toward his own family. Or vice versa.

     What is the soul? The Bible says man is a soul. It does not say we create it, catch it, fabricate it, none of that stuff. We are a soul that flesh grew around.

     Genesis says “God breathed into his nostril the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” When did my soul come into being? When God breathed into me the breath of life. And what is life? Anything that is not dead. A blastocyst is not dead, it is fully alive because it is formed from cells, which according to dictionary meaning, is the basic unit of…..wait for it….LIFE. And it is fully functioning as a cell, I mean basic unit of life.
143. cheryl u says:

     April 18, 2009 at 7:42 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     Dr. G,

     Many versions do not use the word “miscarriage” in this verse. Take a look at this link which lists many versions for this verse:

     http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Exd&c=21&v=1&t=KJV#vrsn/22

     I will give you the link for the home page of this site. It is the one I go to a lot for a concordance and lexicon. Someone told me that the Lexicon on here was outdated, but I haven’t found a site anywhere else that has all of the features that this one does. I will put it in another comment however because two links in one comment usually sends the comment to moderation.
144. cheryl u says:

     April 18, 2009 at 7:42 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     Dr. G,

     Here is the link I promised you: http://www.blueletterbible.org/
145. cheryl u says:

     April 18, 2009 at 7:50 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     Dr. G,

     The lexicon definition of multiply in the site I gave you the link for is:) be or become great, be or become many, be or become much, be or become numerous
     a) (Qal)
     1) to become many, become numerous, multiply (of people, animals, things)
     2) to be or grow great
     b) (Piel) to make large, enlarge, increase, become many
     c) (Hiphil)
     1) to make much, make many, have many
     ) to multiply, increase
     b) to make much to do, do much in respect of, transgress greatly
     c) to increase greatly or exceedingly
     2) to make great, enlarge, do much
     2) (Qal) to shoot

     It says the stem is Qal, hense the first meaning above would be the one used. To be become many, numerous.

     Because priests do not have children doesn’t mean that God commanded them not to.

     And Jesus was a man yes. But remember, He was sent from God for a very specific purpose in that manhood–to become our Saviour. He didn’t have children, neither did he have a wife having an abortion!
146. Dr. G. says:

     April 18, 2009 at 8:00 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     Of course God is smart enough to create a soul in anyone, at any time. I’m not denying that. The problem is … when does he choose to do it?

     The signs are, it is not at conception. Take your present examples:

     1) Note that Adam’s body was more or less adult, most think, when God breathed life into it.

     2) And indeed, (in Aquinas?), part of the argument that our soul begins at birth, is based on …the idea that we don’t get it, till we draw our first “breath.”

     3) Do I really need to be able to create a soul myself, to have anything valid to say about it? Then you too should stop talking. Because indeed, can you create one from knowledge? We can all create them by procreation; but …

     4) What does that famous phrase “chose life” mean? It might mean … a) spiritual life. What b) physical lives does it intend to save? Surely not all lives; God demands that we kill animals to sacrifice to him. Indeed, even jesus gives up his own physical life.

     So given so much variability in the world “life” … where do you get your God-like authority, to tell us that for sure, it means the embryo?

     And so perhaps we should cease speaking, soon enough.

     No doubt, we should honor the lives of human beings with souls. But the question is: is a blastocyst a human being with a soul. So far, no one has proven that.

     5) By the way: I know you feel sure today, that you know what God wants and says; and that I am wrong and evil. But is that humillity? Often in life, we discover that just when we were absolutely sure we were right … we discover that we were wrong after all. That is why Jesus called us to be humble.

     6) I admit, abortion is not attractive. But … I cannot say that God himself, ever firmly pronounced against it.

     7) And the more I look at the Bible itself, the less suport I see for the current Apostate Church of the Holy Foetus; which looks like a heresy to me.

     8) There is no strong Biblical evidence against abortion. Indeed, there is some evidence in favor of it.

     9) Therefore, anyone can say abortion is wrong “in their own opinion,”

     10) No one should ever say, that “God said” abortion was wrong.

     Those who say that, speak falsely, for God.

     Which is a very, very, very bad thing.

     Often the people who think they are very, very good … turn out … to be the opposite of what they think. So consider carefully. So many think their anti-abortionism, is the word of God. But … so far, we have not come up with a single place where the Bible definitely supports anti-abortionism at all.

     And so I conclude: religious anti-abortionism, is, surprisingly enough, a heresy.

     And a dangerous one too.
147. Dr. G. says:

     April 18, 2009 at 8:02 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     Become “large” in your spirit.

     Thanks for the site.
148. Kara Kittle says:

     April 18, 2009 at 8:14 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     Dr. G,
     Wow. Such intellectualism may just get you into trouble with God. So by your logic then we all must be adults to get a soul?

     And you think you can change the very idea of God’s creation, to reduce to the level that you have and say God perhaps intended for us to have abortions?

     Are you really implying that God is ok with abortion?

     http://www.blackgenocide.org/photos.html

     This link is graphic and please do not view the link if you are sensitive. It is pictures of abortion as you Dr. G. advocate. Now you tell me that God in any way can be pleased with this. I say no, and I believe He becomes angry because His creation was viewed as nothing more than just a few cells that are not viable.

     Now you might say it is unfair for me to post the link, but it is the real pictures. It is germane to the discussion, and after seeing this, how can anyone say it is a viable option. Even the methods used are inhumane. And you want us to believe this as acceptable?

     I say no, because it is evil to do this. Not even the worst horror slasher film can come in comparison to this.

     Warning, pictures of actual aborted babies. Unfair? Someone has to speak for these innocent children. Again, don’t look at the link if you are sensitive and not in front of children. It made me cry when I saw them. So how dare anyone say this is something God could be pleased with or permits.
149. cheryl u says:

     April 18, 2009 at 8:20 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     Well, Dr. G,

     The more I look at the Bible, the more I believe God doesn’t approve of abortion. And you certainly haven’t been able to prove to me scientifically that an embryo of fetus doesn not have a soul, and thus is not, in your opinion, a human being.

     By the way, no thoughts on the “multiply” comment above? How do you justify abortion in light of the command to multiply? That is a total opposite.

     And of course there was the Scripture that says that children are a gift from God and the young man that has many are blessed.

     I don’t see how abortion fits with either of those Scriptures and I certainly don’t see that there are others that say it is alright.

     You asked for Scriptural back up to our beliefs. We have given you many. But you just throw aside everything we say and indeed say the more you look, the more you believe the Bible supports abortion.

     Obviously there is nothing more we can say. So I am bowing out of this conversation.
150. Dr. G. says:

     April 18, 2009 at 8:26 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     My last remarks were address to KK; not C.
151. Kara Kittle says:

     April 18, 2009 at 9:28 pm

     Like or Dislike: 0

     Cheryl
     Take care. You held on course and I think God would be pleased with your words.

     Dr. G,
     God is love. God is mercy. God is just. Babies were meant to be loved and cherished because they are themselves created in the image of God and innocent. It is unfair of you to deny them the right to life because your world view is propped by liberalism. When you get to the heart of the matter, a baby pre-born is just as human as you and I. The Bible states it, ancient prophets declared it, science supports it. Why does it seem the more liberal a person is, the more they drift away from the fundamental relationship with God?

     Have a good life Dr. G, you earned it. You almost succeeded in proving your intellectual superiority. Nothing about your arguments were honest, and they were at times abasing to women and children. We leave you on your pedestal, your ivory tower of university education with all it’s clinging ivy. You practically did your side well, you have just about shown us we can’t possibly be as good as you.

     But that’s it. I find your reason and logic a disservice. You clearly question the morality of the Bible by defining it’s meaning to fit the current world view. Because it is popular currently does not make it right. If I must choose between being stupid but right over being intellectual and wrong…I choose stupidity.

     As Paul says…we have become fools for Christ. So this foolish person says have a good one. Nice try, but Cheryl and I both can end this with our conscience clear. So from now on, why don’t you go to a pro-choice room, and tell them all the Bible you think you know. They probably will accept it there.

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