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Abortion and a Living Soul

Fool

ALL in all
Premium Member
when did adam become a human?


when god formed his body from the dust of the earth?

or

when he breathed the breath of life into the form?


when a form, a body, doesn't have the breath of life in it, is it human?
 

Brian2

Veteran Member
when did adam become a human?


when god formed his body from the dust of the earth?

or

when he breathed the breath of life into the form?


when a form, a body, doesn't have the breath of life in it, is it human?

I don't think that the breath of life was air. I recon God breathed a spirit into him, which became his inner man, his soul to use common language.
With an unborn all that needs to happen is feed it and protect it and it will stay what it is, a human, and grow bigger and more developed and capable as a human.
I think it is artificial to make some arbitrary place in this development as the time when it becomes a human.
Some people are now saying that because of markers in development which babies after birth have not achieved, we should also class them as not human yet and be able to kill them when pragmatism tells us it is for the best.
Any good decisions in this subject should come from at least some common sense and realisation that a human is a human is a human.
I'm not saying that abortion should not be a legal option but the truth of what an unborn is should be recognised in the making of abortion laws at least.
 
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Fool

ALL in all
Premium Member
True but I don't think God gave Adam life by giving him mouth to mouth resuscitation.
I edited my previous post and added more btw
has nothing to do with mouth to mouth; especially having nostrils too

job 27:3
 

pearl

Well-Known Member
The Church had differing opinions at times as to whether an act of abortion was considered a 'homicide'. Aquinas, Augustine, concerned with when the union of the soul to the body, (ensoulment) took place. The Didache, ""Thou shalt not slay the child by causing abortion, nor kill that which is begotten. For everything that is shaped, and has received a soul from God, if slain, it shall be avenged, as being unjustly destroyed."
 

Fool

ALL in all
Premium Member
There is no evidence any of this actually happened. It's all folklore.
And what does this have to do with a 'living soul'? Did Adam get a soul when life was breathed into him?
If so, did my cat get a soul when life was breathed into her?
has to do with the concept of the chemical body not having an electrical body
 

Fool

ALL in all
Premium Member
The Church had differing opinions at times as to whether an act of abortion was considered a 'homicide'. Aquinas, Augustine, concerned with when the union of the soul to the body, (ensoulment) took place. The Didache, ""Thou shalt not slay the child by causing abortion, nor kill that which is begotten. For everything that is shaped, and has received a soul from God, if slain, it shall be avenged, as being unjustly destroyed."
has received a soul would be the pivotal point
 

Fool

ALL in all
Premium Member

Tambourine

Well-Known Member
Yea, anti-abortionism has very little to do with "souls" and everything with controlling women's bodies.
 

LightofTruth

Well-Known Member
when did adam become a human?


when god formed his body from the dust of the earth?

or

when he breathed the breath of life into the form?


when a form, a body, doesn't have the breath of life in it, is it human?
What God formed was man. And when God breathed the breath of life into the man the man became a living soul.
Before having the breath of life, he was man.
The first man was formed directly from the ground. Everyone after that is formed indirectly from the ground.
Adam didn't become a living soul until he was animated by the breath of life. Babies in the womb are already animated by the life they have from their parents.
 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
when did adam become a human?
The first human species showed up around 200,000 to 300,000 years ago, give or take.

when god formed his body from the dust of the earth?

or

when he breathed the breath of life into the form?
Or when he evolved around 300,000 years ago. If you want to talk about breathing life into organisms in general, that goes back a few million years before that.

when a form, a body, doesn't have the breath of life in it, is it human?
Everything living, even each individual cell of the body, has the breath of life in it. No, cells are not humans.
 

LightofTruth

Well-Known Member
The first human species showed up around 200,000 to 300,000 years ago, give or take.


Or when he evolved around 300,000 years ago. If you want to talk about breathing life into organisms in general, that goes back a few million years before that.


Everything living, even each individual cell of the body, has the breath of life in it. No, cells are not humans.
At what point did human species become human species. Was there a point just before human species that human species was not human species?
 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
At what point did human species become human species. Was there a point just before human species that human species was not human species?
I think that is actually a relevant question to the abortion question. The answer to your question is, gradually. These divisions we like to make between this and that historically is completely artificial. That's not the way we evolved, not-human one day, and human the next. There was a whole lot of in-between stages, until gradually, our species appeared more distinct and apart from the others. Probably a span of tens of thousands of years.

Not to forget, these are maps of the terrain, not the terrain itself.

So to the abortion question, at what magical, artificial line, like above, do we say an early embryonic collection of cells is a realized, autonomous human being? If a woman miscarries, do they gather the remains and hold funeral services, honoring that child? Not typically, though I'm sure you'd find exceptions dotted here or there. But for the most part, no. It's seen as an aborted pregnancy. It's something that happens in nature all the time. So an elective abortion is the same thing, an aborted pregnancy. It's not the killing of a child. People don't see the unborn, literally as in miscarriage, as a full term, born, human child.

So where is that line? Can you say they were a human being, which consisted nothing more than one egg and one sperm? You could look that under a microscope, zoomed way in, and say, "Hey there Rebecca! Welcome to the family!" :) So you see, this is not a sharp timeline thing, either in dating when human beings became our modern form of homo sapiens, or in when a few cells suddenly change in to a human. Where is that line? To say the cells, is ridiculous. Those are bodily processes at that point, not a child.
 

LightofTruth

Well-Known Member
I think that is actually a relevant question to the abortion question. The answer to your question is, gradually. These divisions we like to make between this and that historically is completely artificial. That's not the way we ev
I think when a woman becomes pregnant the life cycle of a human begins.
Humans, like other animals, go though stages of development. And those stages begin at conception.
It doesn't make sense to say that the earliest stage is not human.
 

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
when did adam become a human?


when god formed his body from the dust of the earth?

or

when he breathed the breath of life into the form?


when a form, a body, doesn't have the breath of life in it, is it human?
Since this is in a debate forum, I think I'm allowed to respond. So...

When did myth become reality? When did magic become fact? When did allegory become history?

There was no "Adam." No creature was "formed from the dust of the earth." Creatures that are born take their first breath on their own, it's not breathed into them.

So, there doesn't really seem to be anything to actually answer here.
 

lostwanderingsoul

Well-Known Member
Adam was not alive until breath moved in and out of his lungs. A baby that is not born is not alive because no air is moving in and out of it's lungs.
 
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