The souls of aborted fetuses

[Storyteller]

Did you read the link neo? A scientific study classes conception as the point when a human becomes a person.

[neo-x]

Did you read the link neo? A scientific study classes conception as the point when a human becomes a person.

Haven't yet. My cousin passed away just now so on my way there. Will update you when I have read it.

[neo-x]

So guys, At what point does a apple seed become an apple tree?
How do you see it, Or do you think that the apple seed is the apple tree?

Please let me know how you define the difference?

[LittleHamster]

Take some time to consider Ensoulment

- Jeremiah 1:5 Implies a spirit soul exists before conception.
- Apologetics: The spirit of man is created by God immediately at the moment of conception. The doctrine of the faith affirms that the spiritual and immortal soul is created immediately by God. Catechism 382
- Paramahansa Yogananda - the soul enters when the sperm and ovum unite - sometimes two or three souls get in and you end up with twins and triplets.
- Through clairvoyance, the spirit soul may not be attached in a permanent way until the baby takes its first breath.
- Through clairvoyance, aspects of the spirit soul enter to assist embryonic development before birth. So then, the Soul does not enter into the child’s tiny body fully until the body is very first released from the mother’s womb and the child draws in its FIRST breath.
- Some Buddhists believe that the spirit soul enters the human body when the baby takes is first breath.
- Some Buddhist traditions say that ensoulment is cotemporal with conception. Other traditions have said it can take 7 weeks.
- The Zohar stipulates the spirit soul enters at birth.
- Pope John Paul II wrote about ensoulment in 1995
-The verse of the Qur'an (Surah Mu'minun, 14) seemingly says that life is breathed into the body after the bones are clothed with flesh, but it does not specify how long after.
- Indian guru specifies that life begins in a fetus around 42-48 days from conception but may vary.
- Christian Opinion: I cannot conclude when a fetus receives a soul, but from scripture, it seems that God’s actual mechanism on this is not our concern. The point is that this unformed substance will have/does have/has always had a soul, and we treat it as such. I also think it is reasonable to conclude from general and special revelation (that would be from what we know from observation and from the Bible) that from the time of conception the new clump of cells is a new individual.
- Science: Catholics have long believed life begins at the moment of conception; Researchers discovered the moment a human soul enters an egg.....The precise moment is celebrated with a zap of energy released around the newly fertilized egg.
- As per the eternal Vedas, the soul enters immediately at the time of conception.
- Anthroposophy: Waldorf education....the physical body is born at birth...the vital body, etheral body as they call it, (pranamaya kosha) is not totally born, meaning separate from the mother’s until 7 years of age. This second birth is said to be manifested physically by the change of teeth. The “astral” body what is closest of what usually called soul, the emotional “desire” body is also attached to that of the parents’, until the age of 14, and this third “birth” manifests as puberty. The fourth birth would be when the Ego is free of any parental influence, the man or woman is a grown up, an individual with the sense of being someone. This is set to the age of 21.
- Sri Chinmoy: Between six and eight months before birth is the usual time for the soul to enter into the body. On rare occasions it may enter at the time of conception. The latest time for the soul to enter is usually about thirteen or fourteen days before the child is born. In very rare cases the soul enters into the body just two or three days before birth and sometimes it may even come shortly after birth. At that time the soul may be waiting until the last moment before making a decision because it is doubtful about the family. Some souls feel that by waiting for a longer time they will be able to make a better decision. Again, some souls simply take longer to make the decision just as some people take more time to make a decision than others. But some souls don’t wait; they know immediately what to do and it is done within a few months after the time of conception.
- Upanishads state that spirit is present at pre-conception


References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ensoulment
http://biblehub.com/jeremiah/1-5.htm
https://forums.catholic.com/t/when-does ... /126906/16
http://www.mayimachronim.com/a-mystical ... -abortion/
https://www.ananda.org/prayers/articles ... -the-body/
http://reincarnationforum.com/threads/w ... body.3908/
https://www.quora.com/How-and-when-does ... o-our-body
http://www.ilmgate.org/when-does-the-so ... the-fetus/

https://blog.sivanaspirit.com/soul-enters-body/
https://probe.org/when-does-a-fetus-receive-a-soul/
http://www.catholic.org/news/hf/family/ ... p?id=68661
https://yogaforums.com/t/when-does-the- ... ody/2355/6
https://www.srichinmoylibrary.com/esb-16
http://www.hinduwebsite.com/upanishads/ ... -day17.asp

[Philip]

Little Hamster, as you list yourself as a Christian, what possible reason would you try to validate issues of morality by referencing pagan source views of it?

[LittleHamster]

Little Hamster, as you list yourself as a Christian, what possible reason would you try to validate issues of morality by referencing pagan source views of it?

I am a researcher-of-truth-christian. Examine all evidence, compare it to scripture and attempt to draw some conclusions.

Example.
In my opinion, human beings become holy-spiritual after ensoulment. Terminating an entity that is holy-spiritual carries a penalty. All human beings are Holy-spiritual, Angels and Archangels are Holy-Spiritual. Plants and animals are not holy-spiritual. Kill and eat plants/animals all you like - or as Jesus stated, its not what you eat (what goes into a man's mouth) that defiles as man but what comes out of it, thus declaring all foods clean. (Matt 15:11).


We can discuss frozen embryos on another thread

[Kurieuo]

I'm interested in discussing the logic clearly rather than someone merely supporting or not supporting abortion.

Soul was introduced in the original question and has since come up in discussion. The thing is, re: a soul distinction, this metaphysics of sort is actually applied by those who introduce a non-scientific category like "persohood" to argue something like neo-x did: Abortion isn't murder although biologically it is killing an innocent human life because it's not what I'd call a "person".

Such arguments can be made, and have been made, by societies to de-personify a group of people throughout history (with horrific outcomes). With unborn babies there is no good objective distinction one can make that matters as to why a baby about to be born is any less than a baby born.

Infact, two rather simple questions can be asked here to help us be consistent with our beliefs: 1) Are "you" a person? 2) Were "you" once a baby in your mother's womb? If you answer yes to both, then the human life/human person distinction doesn't really exist for you, except perhaps when you merely prefer it to exist for others (which is dangerous). And, scientifically speaking, no distinction can be made, a human life and human person are one and the same.

K. personhood is the outcome of the brain. So if a brain is formed we can say that yes this is actual human life now. Not potential anymore. I am not advocating for personhood to be the measure as no one know when someone actually becomes a person but it is safe to say it isn't when a baby is born since there is no brain that has formed comapred to when the baby comes to term. I wanted to clarify this. Personhood may or may not be fully there but what begins it, is the brain, and if it is there as it would be when the baby is out of the womb I think that is what a human being is.

Why is it a brain is important? I see numerous reasons, after thinking about it, for considering the brain to be a garbage subjective distinction for assigning personhood:

• babies' brains at 8 week gestation coordinates movement of muscles and organs. (but you'd still condone a "doctor" being allowed to kill the baby at this point)
• animals have brains and we don't necessarily assign value of "personhood" to such, and where value is assigned, really not to the extent that we'd prohibit killing them.
• a logical outcome of assigning value based upon brain, is that someone who doesn't develop a brain, or a brain more fully (e.g., holoprosencephaly), ought to be considered as non-persons.
• if you assign value to a brain based upon function, then someone brain-damaged ought to be conisdered less persons, while someone with a highly functioning brain (perhaps people with higher IQ) should be consider more as persons.
• possibility-wise, we can imagine a world where people exist without brains are still conscious beings.
• those of the past who thought aboriginal or people with dark skin possesses smaller brains, such is/has been used and even taught as evidence in support of considering aboriginals/people of darker skin as being less evolved and less human than people of white European descent. (by the time I got to school it wasn't taught, but my dad was taught this in his science class)

While you might find abortion bad, you will tolerate it because you do not really see anything wrong with it. I'm perplexed as to why you would say you find it bad at all though. I mean if babies inutero are more like some growth -- i.e., they aren't human life but more like a cyst -- then a woman ought to be able to cut it out all she wants. There's nothing horrible about such, nothing to feel bad about. Yet, that you consider abortion undersirable and bad, I think shows your own deeper intuition as knowing better than that.

Nonetheless, forget all that. I want to draw a line here. I don't want to go back and forward and in circles. I'm not going to convince you, and I find your reasoning vacuous, so...

What I did want to get at was simply this. It is apparent that you DO NOT see as a viable solution to the poverty woes you see in the world for a born baby to be killed. To you, such would be murder, regardless of the reason. Yet, you DO see it as a viable solution to kill a baby a few cm from the outside world located inside its mother's womb. To you, such isn't murder. So clearly either your facts about the unborn are wrong, or mine are (along with others here).

You came into this thread feeling a little pricked by Storyteller's comment that killing an unborn baby inutero was murder, as you declared that it wasn't at all murder. Whether or not it is murder really depends upon whether the unborn is more some growth like a cyst, or human life like those who are "pro-life" on this issue believe. Right?

So then, if you were to place yourself in the shoes of those who do view a baby inutero to be "human life" the same as you do a born baby, then you too would consider it murder when an unborn baby is innocently killed just the same as you would a born baby. And vice-versa, if Storyteller, myself and others here were to place ourselves in your shoes, considering the unborn baby as not being like a born baby, but more like some biological growth, then we'd agree with you that it isn't murder. This then is the root of our difference, no matter anything else that is said. Would you agree with me on that?

In fact, there is no real moral issue, nothing wrong with getting rid of a pregnancy, if it were merely a biological growth of some sort and nothing more. Anyone should be able to remove and do as they please with it, cut it up, sell its parts, maybe serve it up in a Chinese dish. Yet, biologically we know we are dealing with human life. The unborn baby isn't just some sort of growth, but rather human life with its own distinct DNA.

I'll add here also that "you" (Neo-x) were once a baby at 1 week gestation. With/without a brain, it was YOU who existed in your mother's womb from the time of conception, and it is YOU who remains until now. If personhood didn't come until at birth (or brain development), then it makes no sense to say YOU were conceived in your mother's womb. Rather there was some biological mass, and you were conceived only at birth (or when your brain came). Such just doesn't make any sense. Truly it doesn't. It makes no more sense to me than someone who believes a soul comes into existence at such and such an age, or people are more/less human based upon the colour of their skin.

[jenna]

So guys, At what point does a apple seed become an apple tree?
How do you see it, Or do you think that the apple seed is the apple tree?

Please let me know how you define the difference?

the seed becomes a tree, once it grows. just as an unborn baby will eventually become an adult.

[RickD]

So guys, At what point does a apple seed become an apple tree?
How do you see it, Or do you think that the apple seed is the apple tree?

Please let me know how you define the difference?

the seed becomes a tree, once it grows. just as an unborn baby will eventually become an adult.

Jenna,

Are you saying that unborn babies are like apple seeds, so you have to bury a baby, then water her for her to grow to an adult?

[abelcainsbrother]

A solution is of course to a problem. Consider china, India # Pakistan. Some of the most popultlated countries in the world. In some places abortion is not a choice - choice like it is in the west. Sometimes it is just necessity.

Ok, perhaps there's a chance I'm missing something. How is murdering innocent humans a solution and a necessity?

OK but before we go forward It seems I am missing something too. Are you agreeing with me that killing innocent people like nuking Japan was unjustified?
From your wording I wanted to clarify.

It might be shocking to you but if you are fighting in a war and if you are upholding the laws of the land you can kill in war and it is not murder in God's eyes.However abortion is murder in the eyes of God.Murder is very different from killing and there is a difference you're overlooking.Justice is of God.Murder is a sin,killing is not in order to uphold the laws of the land.It was NOT murder in God's eyes when David took a stone in his sling and hit Goliath in his head and killed him and chopped off his head.However it was murder in the eyes of God when David had the guy who's wife he was sleeping with killed.

Killing enemy combatants in war is one thing, but directly targeting civilians including women and children is another. I think Neo's point, if I understand him correctly, is that the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki targeted civilians.

It depends on if you're in the line of duty and in a war.There are alot of factors that goes into war but as long as you're justified in war you can kill and it is not murder in the eyes of God,yes even innocent civilians.If you're truly in a war defending your country you have every right to use whatever force necessary to defend it,however if you're not defending yourself but just attacking for evil reasons then it would be wrong. It also depends on God's will too and if you're acting in God's will too.But God blesses his people with the weapons to defend themselves and he expects them to be used for defense of your country. I'm convinced that alot of the wars we've fought have been for the wrong reasons though,especially when it comes to the Middle East and regime changes that just made things worse than they were before.

[PaulSacramento]

So guys, At what point does a apple seed become an apple tree?
How do you see it, Or do you think that the apple seed is the apple tree?

Please let me know how you define the difference?

That is a tricky line of thinking Neo.
When dealing with what something potentially will be we have to be careful as it also effects what things are RIGHT NOW and not just what they will/can be.

The seed of an apple has ALL the potential of being an apple tree and as such MUST have ALL that an apple tree can be/will be/ is.

A fetus ( the human equivalent of a "seed") is the same.

[Philip]

If ALL one does is merely look at the morality of abortion from a scientific or worldly view, then they've missed or are unconcerned as to GOD'S view of when HE considers human life to be a reality, and per what He has said, through His apostles and prophets, as to how unnecessarily killing ANYONE made in His Image is a great wrong. Scripture clearly reveals abortion is taking a human life, even at an immature stage. And now, science has unmistakenly shown us the life and stages of the life of an unborn child. Those who argue otherwise argue against God's word.

[thatkidakayoungguy]

Abstinence is hard, Kid - find a good Christian woman early in life and stay married to her!

VERY HARD especially with their behavior of most, even Christians, these days.

[PaulSacramento]

The one thing that Christianity tells us is that we suck.
We are flawed, we suffer from the "weakness of the flesh", we do bad even knowing that it is bad.
Christianity doesn't say that we WILL be better than others as Christians, it tells us that we SHOULD try and WHY and HOW.
A Christian should be better than he/she was before they became a Christian, but that doesn't mean better than other people. Just better than what THEY were.
Christianity tells us what is wrong with us and gives us a way to fix ourselves ( via the Holy Spirit), it tells us that the road to hell is NOT paved with good intentions but paved with the view that the "end justifies the means", It doesn't promise that we will miraculously be good, simply that we will know that we are not and that we need fixing.

[LittleHamster]

The one thing that Christianity tells us is that we suck.
We are flawed, we suffer from the "weakness of the flesh", we do bad even knowing that it is bad.
Christianity doesn't say that we WILL be better than others as Christians, it tells us that we SHOULD try and WHY and HOW.
A Christian should be better than he/she was before they became a Christian, but that doesn't mean better than other people. Just better than what THEY were.
Christianity tells us what is wrong with us and gives us a way to fix ourselves ( via the Holy Spirit), it tells us that the road to hell is NOT paved with good intentions but paved with the view that the "end justifies the means", It doesn't promise that we will miraculously be good, simply that we will know that we are not and that we need fixing.

I'd add to this the point of our Reckless and Wild living. Where in the bible does it specifically talk about this ? - In the parable of the prodigal son. Reckless living eventually brings us back to our senses and back to the Father. The question I would be asking is "Do others have to die in order to bring someone else back to God ?". Is abortion one of those lessons ? No woman would ever want to go through that procedure imho. No one wakes in the morning and says "I'm planning to get pregnant and then terminate it". This would be a really hard lesson indeed.




Need a warning message here "Danger - thread may cause stress, anxiety and emotional turmoil"