"... breathed into his nostrils THE BREATH OF LIFE..."

[Douglas Hendrickson]

Trying to use the way people three thousand years ago conceived of the idea of life as breath as an application to biology probably isn't a good idea. The ancient Hebrews conceived of "the soul" as breath, things that lived breathed, it was the difference between a living creature and a dead corpse. It's not particularly hard to see why that thought process existed, but it wasn't about biology or medical science, it was simply the way they spoke about what made a living creature living.
We know, biologically, life isn't dependent on breathing, lots of things that don't breathe are alive--bacteria, fungi, plants--and anything with gills doesn't exactly "breathe" either. So trying to use it in a biological sense doesn't work and is far beyond what the idea being conveyed is intended to do.-CryptoLutheran

Of course when breath was noticed to be necessary, or the human being body was a dead corpse; and that many animals breathed when they were living beings, certainly those things were matters of BIOLOGY. They were not some mere imagining of creative language or unexamined religious dogmas.

LOTS OF THINGS THAT DON'T BREATHE ARE ALIVE, you are certainly correct in saying that. Including the fetus!
It is not a question of where there is life - of course there is life in the womb - abortion kills it. That too is biologically true, but not useful to decide what is a human being.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Of course when breath was noticed to be necessary, or the human being body was a dead corpse; and that many animals breathed when they were living beings, certainly those things were matters of BIOLOGY. They were not some mere imagining of creative language or unexamined religious dogmas.

LOTS OF THINGS THAT DON'T BREATHE ARE ALIVE, you are certainly correct in saying that. Including the fetus!
It is not a question of where there is life - of course there is life in the womb - abortion kills it. That too is biologically true, but not useful to decide what is a human being.

When I sigh my last breath I'm not going to stop being human. I was human when I was conceived, I'm human now, I'll be human at my death, I'll still be a human in the intermediate state, and I'll be human in the resurrection.

The breath of life has nothing to do with being human or not.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[AFrazier]

An egg is NOT a chicken (not a member of the species "chicken") - most people easily recognize that.

Yes, most would recognize that. But most would also exclaim that there was a chick in their egg if they cracked it open and found a formed bird rather than a yellow glob in clear, viscous fluid. Things are what they are. Both of my sons were born six weeks premature. By the "not alive until born" point of view, had these two perfectly viable lives been aborted two days before they were born, they wouldn't be life, just fetuses. But their birth demonstrated the integrity of their very real human lives.

 

[civilwarbuff]

You probably want to say it is a child "from the moment of conception," but were you to see it then, it would definitely NOT look like a real baby.

If you saw a picture of Stephen Hawking today, without knowing who he was, would you surmise he is maybe the most intelligent person on earth since Einstein or even Newton? Not likely.....appearances are deceiving.....

 

[Hieronymus]

A bit late:

Like I already said, that Adam was not born is irrelevant.

But it is relevant because through procreation life is inherited from the parents.
In Adam and Eve's case there were no parents to inherit life from, nor for any animal in Creation Week for that matter.

 

[Douglas Hendrickson]

With respect, the born baby exercises, in principle, the same parasitic attachment to its parents. Leave a baby to its own devices and it will die. It can only survive by the external means of a care-giver. For that matter, old people are the same. And it is our duty to care for them when they are too old and infirm to care for themselves. The inability to self-sustain is not a credible argument against the validity of life, whatever its age or geographical location, whether the womb or the nursing home.

"The validity of life" - are you saying ALL LIFE IS VALID? Don't try to kill any polio virus, okay? Or common mouse.

BTW, with
Douglas Hendrickson said: ↑
"The fetus especially the early one, and always qua fetus, is only kept alive by its parasitic attachment to the placenta-womb,"
I was only countering the FALSE claim that "the fetus is totally separate."
And do I need to point out, it is certainly and clearly and obviously not as separate as the real baby?

 

[mmksparbud]

So now a fetus is not just a tumor, but a tumor with polio??
We're moving up!

 

[Douglas Hendrickson]

But it is relevant because through procreation life is inherited from the parents.
In Adam and Eve's case there were no parents to inherit life from.

"Life is inherited from the parents" is an interesting TRUTH.
This puts the lie to the idea that there is "new life in the womb." Both sperm and egg are alive long before they unite, and it is that life that continues to be nourished and grow in the womb.

 

[civilwarbuff]

"The validity of life" - are you saying ALL LIFE IS VALID? Don't try to kill any polio virus, okay? Or common mouse.

Technically, viruses are not alive:

Viruses are not considered "alive" because they lack many of the properties that scientists associate with living organisms. Primarily, they lack the ability to reproduce without the aid of a host cell, and don't use the typical cell- division approach to replication.

Viruses fascinate me. How is that they are not living organisms? - ...

scienceline.ucsb.edu › getkey

 

[mmksparbud]

That life?? Which one? The sperm is a life, the egg is a life---the 2 join and become ---a new life.

 

[Hieronymus]

=====================

 

[AFrazier]

"The validity of life" - are you saying ALL LIFE IS VALID? Don't try to kill any polio virus, okay? Or common mouse.

All life is, of course, valid life. I have no problem killing a lesser organism of life that the Lord gave me charge over. Especially when it will kill me.

 

[AFrazier]

So now a fetus is not just a tumor, but a tumor with polio??
We're moving up!

lol

That's awesome.

 

[Hieronymus]

"Life is inherited from the parents" is an interesting TRUTH.
This puts the lie to the idea that there is "new life in the womb."

It is new none the less, because itś half of the fatherś DNA plus half of the mother's DNA combined in one fertilized egg cell.
So this human first cell is not the mother or the father, it is a new human being in the first stages of development.

Both sperm and egg are alive long before they unite, and it is that life that continues to be nourished and grow in the womb.

Alright, it is the life of the parents that is inherited by the newcomer.
But from the point of conception (egg cell fertilized) onward, it is a new human life by itself.
But it still has to develop into a baby ready to be born.

So where would we then draw the line?
When is the stage reached that we can speak of a person?

I mean, assume a woman gets pregnant when she didn't want to? (failing preservatives, rape, ... )
And / or it would be better not to go through with it? (physical reasons, psychological reasons, ... )
How long can you wait to decide?

 

[Hieronymus]

All life is, of course, valid life. I have no problem killing a lesser organism of life that the Lord gave me charge over. Especially when it will kill me.

Remind me not to walk my dog near your house.

 

[Sistrin]

Ey yi yi...

Looks human? Looks like what might become an actual human baby, yes.

Human reproduction leads to human offspring. There is no might about it, no maybe, no could be. From the moment of conception there is only one track for the developing offspring to follow, that of becoming another 'actual human baby.' You have no point here.

But please notice critical differences between this and the born human person...

The only critical difference is one has completed the developmental process and the other hasn't. The pro-abortion crowd often cites this as the holy grail of proof supporting the justification of abortion on demand, that given the magical trip through the birth canal hasn't occurred yet that thing inside the woman deserves no recognition and is of no value.

Paying attention in tenth grade biology should have provided enough information to explain why this 'critical difference' argument is not just seriously flawed but worthless.

...especially the BREATH OF LIFE that is highlighted in the subject of this thread.

Fetal development occurs in a liquid environment. Therefore the developing embryo receives oxygen from its mother. That is the biological process which develops and is maintained during each and every pregnancy. However the developing embryo begins to make breathing motions, begins the process, during the ninth week of pregnancy. It is an autonomic response practiced reflexively so that following birth the baby will innately know how to breathe.

You begin with a critical point - DNA is NOT good enough (to prove it is a human being).

What do you believe human DNA is an indicator of? The scope of your comments suggest human reproduction involves random probability in context of whether the offspring will actually be human. That is ridiculous, as no such condition exist. Beginning with the zygote the developing human has a complete genome sequence, the complete nucleic acid sequence, for humans. There is no debate about this. Embryological science is against any other suggestion.

All human cells have human DNA - are the cells of your ear a human being? Of course not.

Heart, lung, kidney, skin, blood, or whatever other cell type you wish to name are cells which have differentiated during the development process to form specialized organs and perform specialized functions. Your argument is specious. Cells which comprise the various constructs of the human ear are human cells. No individual cell of any human is itself a human being, but then individual cells were never meant to be, or even defined as such.

DNA gets one closer to the heart of the matter, but falls short of being "enough" because what one wants is a human being, and one does not have that new member of a species, an actual animal being, until birth.

Wow. According to any number of medical and general news sources thousands of babies born at 27 weeks of development have survived. Many as young as 22 weeks of development have survived as well. Again, there is no magical process involving the trip through the birth canal which imparts life into a new baby. That process begins at conception and continues throughout.

 

[mmksparbud]

Remind me not to walk my dog near your house.

It'll be OK---as long as the dog doesn't try to kill him.

 

[Douglas Hendrickson]

↑mmksparbud said: [URL='http://www.christianforums.com/goto/post?id=69548725#post-69548725']↑[/URL]
So now a fetus is not just a tumor, but a tumor with polio??
We're moving up!

lol
That's awesome.

Its life, it is alive, so it must be at least a tumor accompanied by polio virus!

 

[Kenny'sID]

Its life, it is alive, so it must be at least a tumor accompanied by polio virus!

So then, we are all at least a tumor accompanied by the polio virus?

Some of us are indeed moving up.

 

[Isaacsname]

" Adam " is a fiction, so it really doesn't matter

To quote the physicist W. Pauli - " Not even wrong "