Not really.. the youngest mom was 5 years and 10 months old when she gave birth... she got pregnant when she was 5 years and 1 month old... her period started at 9 months and become stable at 2 years. She was normal sized for her age. DNA testing showed that none of her relatives is the father, the father was never found. And her parents are raising the child as her brother.

As a scientist and an atheist I have to agree. Concept occurs at fertilization, anyone who tells you otherwise is full of shit.
A human is a colony of genetically identical cells, each cell is a living organism who is independantly alive and can survive outside of the body in PROPER conditions. however the conditions are VERY specific and outside of a lab or a human body do not occur. That is.. the body is a bunch of cells working together to form the conditions they need to survive. And the brain cells actually create sentience to match for that construct.

That being said. Birth rate failure is high, and a bundle of human cells, while a living unique individual human, has yet to develop a personality or sentience, or even a brain. Killing it is no big deal.

And depsite being an atheist, i find it rediculous to think that a loving god would place a soul in a body it KNOWS is going to be aborted / miscarried. If there is a god, and he is a loving one, he would only place souls in babies that are going to be born. 

As an atheist though, I am remiss at the thoughing of killing my own offsprings. Even if they have yet to develop a brain and are just unformed cell bundle, they are still an individual and my child. No soul, but they WILL develop a persona if I allow them to live. To murder them is unthinkable. Sometimes I wish I WAS religious because then I would be content in the knowledge that should it be inconvinient, I can just go for an abortion, safe in the knowledge that my loving god would not have placed a soul in it because he know it would be aborted.

Joseph didn't understand (how could he) that Mary had not been with a man?  Now, was she scorned?   Did God protect her?  Was her baby aborted?    Was she blessed?  Yes?  Or no?  You said that God was in the abortion business and you have yet to back up your statement Kingbee. 

you're only saying that El-D because I had not only experienced what we're discussing but I was able to show how what seems like a disaster be anything but in the end.  I'm no diff than anyone else.  I believe we always reap what we have sown.  I'm saying that it's never right to do the wrong thing and I want to help others to see what I'm saying is absolutely true.  There are lots and lots of success  stories like mine and the one I shared about the Pastor in NY.   And to take the life of another for purely selfish reasons (can't be bothered, too young, not ready, not enough money, not married) is not the right thing to do.  Never is. 

Interesting thought.  But as a Christian I know that it's not about our comfort but our character.  Christ said not to worry about the body but the spirit is what's important.  I know that is foreign to our fleshly thinking but it's true.  It's the spirit that in the end brings life while our mortal bodies weaken and die.   Spiritual eyes is what is needed because our physical ones grow weak and dim.   Almost everything that happens to us I believe is a test.  We either pass or fail and someday we will be graded on the decisions we made in this life.  It's either a P or an F we will be handed and we will have no one to blame but ourselves. 

God's ways are NOT our ways.  Over the years as I've grown and matured in my faith I realized that what didn't make sense when I was a baby Christian now all makes perfect sense.  That only can come about by the wisdom of age (spiritual); to be able to discern things once unknown to me.   So I completely understand your statement here.   But God is a loving God.  He cares for the smallest and the weakest soul.  Our trials and tribulations in this life are never to be separated from the love of God.   He will always be there for us no matter the tribulation we go thru even if it means death.

Kingbee.....on the death of David's child.  How much do you know and understand about the OT law?  If you truly read the passage you quoted above about Nathan and David and understood the law the whole thing would be much clearer for you.

In the Levitical law, if someone killed another's  lamb he was to restore the dead lamb four fold.  So that's why Nathan (the Prophet)  came to David with the story about the man who had only one little lamb in 2 Samuel 12. 

After David heard the story he was outraged at the one who killed the little lamb not understanding that he was the focus of the story.  David EVEN ANSWERED WITH HIS OWN WORDS...."He must pay for that lamb four times over because he did such a thing and had no pity."  v6. 

And that's what happened.  David paid for the death of Uriah with the death of his own newborn son. He had lost focus when he used his physical eyes (lust) instead of his spiritual.   He also lost three other sons over the course of a few years.  So in fact, he paid four times (by the death of four sons) over for the brutal killing of Uriah and the taking of Bathsheba.  Uriah had only one beloved wife while David the King had many wives and much riches. 

Immediately David recognized what he did.  He sinned against God and God alone.  After the death of his child he was ok completely understanding this had to happen.  Again......we always reap what we have sown.  Always.  Sooner or later.  David completely understood that's why the story ended the way it did.  The day the child died.  David stopped mourning.  He knew where the child was and that he would go someday to be with that child.  Later God blessed him with the birth of Solomon (Bathsheba was his mother as well)  to take that dead baby's place.  And you know that Solomon was the wisest king ever and had the greatest kingdom ever. 

Now you know the rest of the story. 

So how is god testing the fetus that never even got born? This isn't about condemning or testing the PARENTS. The issue I was raising is that if god places a soul in a fetus that is destined to be aborted god condemns that soul to have never getting a chance to live.

Also, when did god tell you that this is what he does? In which scripture does it say "and he shall place a soul in the fetus in the moment of conception"? it doesn't. It is merely a guess made by some religious people which cought on.

AEORTAR POSTS #33

First point: Other than marital sex between a husband and wife, anyone who engages in sexual behavior opposes chastity and commits a sin against the Sixth Commandment of Almighty God.

In saying such, you evidently don't understand public school sex education.

In today's sex drenched culture do public schools try to keep our children chaste? No, no, no, a thousand times no and you can take that to the bank, preferably a solvent one!  In fact, just the opposite and this is accomplished through 13 years (Kindergarten through 12th grades) of institutionalized "value-free", anything goes comprehensive, contraceptive, permissive sex instruction developed by sex educators from Planned Parenthood and the Sex Information and Education Council of the US. (SEICUS).

Yes, with federal grants, schools across the country are doing what is tantamount to sexually abusing our children.

 Imagine classroom props such as wooden or plastic realistic looking models of an adult male reproductive organ, dental dams, boxes of condoms, packages of flavored lubricants and teachers using these for hands on practice for 6th to 12th graders. The training sessions list sexual behaviors that are presented as natural and appropriate outlets as long as they use condoms or some kind of birth control device. The "diversity-tolerance" exercise works on appropriate attitudes toward homosexuality. Religion is deemed irrelevant and parental values, never mind rights, are not an issue because students are taught to trust themselves to make their own decisions when the time is right for them to engage in sexual activity.

Simply put classroom comprehensive sex education supports sexual experimentation, advises, instructs and prepares our children to engage in sexual activity using condoms, contraceptives and abortion as an option. 

Even though with the acknowledged scourge of AIDS, and the well established data that condoms are ineffective against sexually transmitted diseases and infections, students are being primed to experiment with their bodies as well as with life, disease and potentially death for themselves and others.

Obama is on record as 100% in favor of comprehensive, contraceptive, permissive sex education.  

how bored--or vacant--ya gotta be to fritter away however many of your rapidly diminishing lifetime supply of minutes whining about your misinterpretations of others' starements?  i merely identified her with a common reference to the fact of whom she is: one of the palin girls.

no other "discription" was offered.  I've no idea why you feel a need to project your depraved fantasies my way.

more likely, i'd refer to them as "the obama girls" since there are two.

you might wanna discuss it with a professional or take a break.

on 2nd consideration, you need meds

It's found in Genesis 2:7 "And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth; and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul."

The soul therefore is the breath of God that each one of us has at fertilization when life begins. The soul is the very cause of life and without it the body cannot live. When the soul is separated from the physical body, the body dies.

uh, no that says that god breathed a soul into the first man and woman after making them from clay, saying absolutely NOTHING about fertalization, fetuses, reproduction, or abortion...

If it was then it would have been a commandment... "thou shalt not murder thy unborn child".. it isn't though, there is no mention of it in the bible.

There is a however in genesis a note that when we ate the apple we became as wise the the godS (plural) and capable of distinguishing good from evil as they can. So don't give me the "god works in mysterious ways" schtick as an explanation to why god would condemn a soul to never getting a chance to live.

If you think life cannot exist without a soul, than all animals have a soul... heck mixing human/gorrilla semen and eggs results in a zygote that lives for a few weeks before failing due to internal incomptability of the dna... I guess it has a soul too then because otherwise it would not be able to live, eh?

LULA #7

ZUBAZ #10

El-duderino and Zubaz,

Note I'm talking about hope in the heart and you two are talking about hope in the head, brain, or mind. Two different things.

Consider this. Faith is the beginning of happiness in the mind. It's even more than this becasue it proposes to man the possibility of attaining eternal life with God in Heaven. Faith precedes hope and opens the door for hope to enter the heart and makes us cling to God as the source of our happiness.

The object of hope in the heart is eternal life, everlasting happiness which is quite distinct from the object of hope in the head which moves man to the pursuit of earthly happiness in the world or in the flesh.

Just thoughts.

True, Scripture doesn't have these specific words but that's okay.

We arrive at the meaning of man having a soul and when by going back in Scripture to Genesis 1:26-27, "And He said: "Let us make man in our image and likeness....27 and God created man to his own image: to the image of God He created  him: male and female he created them."

"Let us make man in our image" means the image of God in man is not in the body, but in the soul which is a spiritual substance endued with intelligence and free will. So strictly speaking, man is a living, composite being consisting of both a material body and an immortal spiritual soul, the soul being the nobler component.

Almighty God creates each soul as each body is generated and that is as soon as the embryo begins to exist at the moment of fertilization.

For proof look at it this way. A living human body is not the same thing as a corpse. The soul is the difference between the two. A dead body can't move, breathe, eat, think, enjoy, be miserable, etc. It can fall to pieces as it goes back to dust. There is something that stops our body from doing that now. It is our soul. For every activity you must find a principle of operation behind it. The principle in a man which thinks and loves, and is happy or miserable is a very real thing. It's not a chemical and no doctor or scientist upon examining a corpse can tell you what chemical is missing that it should not live. Becasue if it's chemicals, then let the scientists gather them together and say, live. They can effect nothing like this and never will.

There is something that all the chemistry in the world can never reach and that's the soul or spirit.

Yes, that is so....animals and plants have a soul, but they are not immortal and have intelligence and free will as our becasue we humans are made in the image and likeness of God and they aren't.

Animals aren't capable any operations which transcend the conditions of matter and do not rise to the intelligible order. They are devoid of moral intuition. Animal souls are dependent upon matter both for their being and their operation and cease to exist with death. Not so with our souls....they are eternal.  

YUK.

No I'm saying what I said because we have had this exact discussion before and it never went anywhere.  We all kept saying the same things over and over and neither of us are going to budge on our positions so I see it as pointless to continue the discussion.  You and Lula want to impose your moral code on other people and I want people to have the freedom to run their lives by their own moral code and live with the consequences of their decisions.  Like it or not I see valid reasons for abortions and birth control primarily the health of the woman (my wife for instance likely would have died without getting an abortion and without the pill she develops huge painful cysts on her ovaries).

Well, about abortion in the wrenching cases of rape or incest, even though we disagree, continuing the discussion is important becasue comfortable or not, there are some things that need be said.....and, we just might learn a thing or two along the way.

In the Holy Bible, the child of rape was allowed to live and the rapist was put to death...How far have we come from that? Penalties against rape are lenient and the product of the rape, the child in the womb gets the death penalty.

Just yesterday there was a news story that a man was given 10 years imprisonment for viewing child pornography and another man who sexually molested a child got a year and probation!

Oh for Pete's sake, and every law that is written is based on someone's moral code. But since when is abortion on demand a law since it was decreed to the nation by one of the most debated decisions of the Supreme Court. It's the legislative branch that makes law, not the judiciary one.

Isn't it something like less than 1% of all abortions are performed to save the life of the mother? But I have to ask...why an abortion....usually when a mother's life is in jeopardy, the doctor does a surgical procedure that tries to save both the woman and the baby, if at all possible. This is very different than having the baby aborted.

Why make a law of abortion on demand for any social or economic reason, at any time all the way to the ninth month applying to all women when only a very few have such extreme cases?

Yes... but what kind of soul does it have?

Is God really condemning a soul to never having a chance to live or does this come down to our free will choices we make? It's never God's desire that any should be killed or aborted. Why blame God for this?  It's our choice to go to that clinic.....not God's. 

When we go thru what we deem a trial in our life (in this case an unwanted pregnancy) we make choices as a result of the trial.  In my case, I chose life instead of death for my unborn child.  That was the right choice.  There is no other choice that makes sense and will bless you abundantly like this.  Choosing death while creating a seemingly instant quick fix turns into anything but later on.  It's something the mother will always carry with her long after the child she was carrying is torn from her womb.  It's also something she can not undo.  Going thru with an unwanted or unplanned pregnancy while hard at first will certainly not be regretted later.  In fact, quite often when we make quick instant decisions we do live to regret it later. 

Does what?  What diff does it matter about when the soul enters the body?   It has no bearing on whether or not we have the right to take another's life.   Psalm 139 says this:

"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.  My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.  When I was woven together i the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body."

I remember when I was pregnant with my first son...I knew immediately within two weeks of conception I was pregnant.  My mother couldn't believe I could know that early but I had what I kept referring to a stich in my side.  It felt just exactly like it says here about being knit together and I had no idea about this scripture at the time.  I just kept saying it felt like I had a stich in my side.  It was very bothersome and very strong.  It would be like having two fingers stitched together and feeling it while you were being stitched up.  Later when I did read this scripture I just sat there thinking this is amazing. 

Help! Help! I'm being repressed!  Damn, what is with some people and their persecution complex?  Relax!  Your religion isn't going anywhere lulapilgrim.  You will always be free to believe in whatever the hell you want to.

You weren't aware?  You see, you get to pick and choose what was literal and what was metaphor.  Stuff like that is ignored because it makes them uncomfortable when asked questions about some of the messed up s*** in their holy books.  

That aside, Obamaniacs scare the hell out me.  If you disagree with Obama about even the most trivial of things, here come the Obamabots calling you RACISTSSSS!!1!   Damn, this is going to be a mind-numbingly long four years.

I'd say no soul since it was man and not God in the work of creating.

Amen....this says it all.

VarekRaith posts:

What do you mean RELAX? My freedom of religion isn't going anywhere???

It's just the opposite...we must stay vigilant or our freedoms will be taken away, religious and otherwise!

Haven't you heard about the bill introduced in the Connecticut Senate to reorganize the financial and pastoral structure of the Catholic Church?  

Yes, religiously, from a conscience pov we will always be free to believe what we want.....but that's not the point....it's also the freedom to express my religious beliefs through speech and association that concerns me and rightly so. 

Take, for example, the politically protected sexual behavior of homosexuality....I imagine it will be sooner rather than later when the Holy Bible will be deemed as "hate speech" because it condemns homosexuality as a sin and religious people like me will be silenced, punished with fines or even imprisoned for defending Scripture and the Chruch's teachings.  

It's already happening in Canada and it's coming here.....which side will you be on when that happens? I hope you'll defend my unalienable right to freedom of speech and association.

I definitely agree that are justice system is far too lenient on sexual predators.  Too often the victim is blamed for the act: "She shouldn't have dressed that way", "She shouldn't have had so much to drink", etc.  When it comes to cases of rape we should require much longer prison sentences and repeat offenders should be given life without parole after the second offense.

I'm all for discussion on the topic the problem is that the three of us have been down this road more than once and it always ends the same way, no one gains anything and no one budges on their position.

And there are plenty of laws that I think are far overreaching in their imposing morals on the people.  There are certainly some that are universal like murder and theft but others fall more into personal choices that should be left up to the individual, abortion falls into that category.  But again this is where we differ and neither of us is going to budge one bit.

It's tough to save a fetus that is only about 8 weeks or so along and developing no where near at the rate it is supposed to with the heart growing outside of what will be the chest.  There was no real option other than to do a D&C to abort the pregnancy.

Just for the record let me clarify that I am not for abortions in the 3rd trimester at all, at that point the fetus should be delivered and put on life support if the woman or fetus's health is at risk, if the neither's health is at risk then she's stuck with the pregnancy till it's over.  And abortions in the 2nd trimester should only be done in extreme cases like the woman's health.

I heard about that and as much as I may disagree with the Christian faith this is a major overstepping of the States rights.  Our constitution guarantees that the government will not get involved in the Church and this bill before the Connecticut Senate should be struck down immediately.  If by some strange occurence it passes the courts better flex their judicial muscle and declare it unconstitutional asap.

Just in case you care, if this were to ever happen I would stand right beside you to protest that action.  I am a very big free speech advocate especially when I don't agree with the speech.

well it's hard to budge when you're right!  The question is who's right? 

And that's my point.  You think that you're right, I think that I'm right.  I'm open to changing my mind but citing stuff from the bible isn't going to change my mind, and I doubt there is anything that I can say to change your mind.

I highly doubt this would happen.

No offense, but this smells of a persecution complex. There are just too many (fervent/steadfast) religious individuals in the States to let this happen. On that note, how many people have truly been silenced, or thrown in jail in modern times (Let's say the past 50) for expressing their faith versus making a derogatory statement?The catch with freedom of speech/expression is that most think that means they can say anything they want, that's wrong.

It seems to me that most Christians (admitteldy, athiests and others as well) think they can make any derogatory statement about anything they want, and have it fall under freedom of religion, or expression/speech. In a civilized society there are certain expectations. It is sort of like a parent settind down the rules for their children.

How would this play into procreation? Would you still consider it God creating the life, or the man and woman creating the life?

It's only a bone of contention politically because once it's admitted that life begins at conception, the gig is up for abortion on demand. Unborn children, "persons" that they are, will be entitled to legal protection as defined by the 14th Amendment.

 Scientifically, it's an established fact. Biological science demonstrates that every human being begins his existence as a zygote and that every living human zygote is a human being at the first stage of development in his lifecycle. This has nothing to do with emotion or feelings nor is it a matter of religion or opinion.

Even though I am not fond of Abortion, I'm going to play devil's advocate. So, you're going to take away the right to choose (a liberty), at the expense of ending abortion? How quaint, and decidely ironic.