Pro-Life means sex creates souls?

[Fascinated With God]

To even refer to this secret place implies the human saying these words had knowledge of this place.

It is a secret that will never be known to humans, only to God & the angels. That is not Gnosticism.

Since we do not have knowledge of this place but presumably the human whose words are recorded in the psalm did, then he had secret knowledge, ie knowledge we don't have.

It's a vague reference to Sheol, which is down, but clearly not Sheol itself. David is not claiming to have secret knowledge, just a vague reference to the netherworld.

You have to understand OT soteriology, Sheol is not hell and no one's soul goes to heaven, everyone goes down to Sheol. Even prophets and patriarchs go to Sheol, but there is a tradition of the "Bosom of Abraham" in Judaism since the 2nd Temple period which is reflected precisely in Luke 16.

There are obviously rotten places in Sheol too, most notably Abaddon, the Place of Destruction. (Abaddon becomes the Angel of the Abyss in Rev.). The Pit is more like Purgatory. You can come back from it two or three times Job 33:29.

 

[Serving Zion]

Then why does one's nephesh (soul) go to Sheol after death in the Old Testament?

To be completely honest, I am still interested to check your reading of this scripture. I can't shake the accusation that I have missed an important point otherwise. Could you show me the scriptures you have used in forming this impression?

 

[Fascinated With God]

But.. blame God.. go ahead.. How you can or why... it's beyond me.

No, that was my allegation about someone else's statement:

Likewise if someone stabs or shoots someone else, whether they live or die from that wound, is out of the control of the assailant.

 

[Fascinated With God]

To be completely honest, I am still interested to check your reading of this scripture. I can't shake the accusation that I have missed an important point otherwise. Could you show me the scriptures you have used in forming this impression?

There is only a *single* reference to going up rather than down in the OT. It is said as pure speculation, and it refers to the destination of the spirit rather than the soul. Ecclesiastes 3:21

If you do a search on BlueLetterBible.org for the Hebrew word Sheol, not some search on English interpretations, there are 63 verses that use the word Sheol, 23 of which also use the word down. Up never appears in conjunction with Sheol.

 

[Mal'ak]

Genesis 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

Really you are not looking at the complete picture, thinking two adults having intercourse controls God. But the truth is the first commandment the Father gave to humans, was for them to have intercourse and breed to populate the world along with the Father making intercourse able to create babies. It is the foundation of his law, that we bring the next generation into the world so they can be tested and have a chance to choose Jesus Christ as their savior like others before them. If we do not mate and breed, then God's plan could never happen.

Proverbs 16:9 A man's heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps.

The other thing to remember, is that we have free will. If we step in front of a truck, we will die even if the Father had plans for us, it just means we chose to rebuke the Father's plan for ourselves and leave the world which is why suicide is possible but also a sin. The law of God says not to tempt the Father, you jump in front of a truck, he will let you die. But the Father knows everything that will happen, so you killing yourself is already known and part of his plan.

1 Corinthians 10:13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.

Just like killing babies, the Father knows it is going to happen so he places souls in them he has planned to die at birth or in womb. This is a hard test and some souls are not fit to live here, so the Father protects their eternal soul by just having them wait for the return of Christ to give them the chance to choose Jesus as their savior. The Father never gives us more then we can handle, and if being in this world is too much to handle, he will make sure we are not here. He picks who is born into which body, and he also controls if intercourse leads to conception.

Revelation 20:12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.

But the Father allows people to get pregnant so they can murder their own child, just as a witness for them on judgement day "...see here, you murdered your own child".

 

[Johnny4ChristJesus]

I understand that this is a view that we could have. The problem is that most, well maybe not most, times people, these days, are having sex.... creating another life is the furthest thing from their minds and totally unwanted.

Some will accept the responsibility... others will just take the morning after pill or get an abortion.

It's the sign of the times.. selfishness and greed run this earth.

Yes, sadly, what is called society has moved away from taking responsibility for their actions. But, people who claim to be Christian shouldn't be doing this.

 

[Fascinated With God]

You are presuming that God has no control over whether or not conception occurs.

That is a free will vs. predestination issue. You can't presume God's point of view, to Him everything is predestined but to us, we are judged by the actions we take as a result of our free will.

Its sort of like the way light is both a wave and a particle, which produces all sorts of seeming contradictions, yet they are both undeniably true.

But that analogy does not capture the presumption of assuming God's point of view of predestination. We are in the dark so from our point of view can only act on free will. The fact that God is omniscient doesn't change our limited knowledge and the fact that we can never hope to perceived the predestined future.

 

[Fascinated With God]

Yes, sadly, what is called society has moved away from taking responsibility for their actions. But, people who claim to be Christian shouldn't be doing this.

Yes, promiscuity is a sin (lit. "missing the mark") because it damages & poisons your lifeforce/soul.

I once met a girl who showed me a collage of 14 pictures of her that looked like 14 completely women. I went thru them and said you were in a relationship here, not there, here again, and there, but not that one, etc.. I didn't ask for confirmation until the end and she burst out, "How do you KNOW?" I told her that the less attractive images were obviously while in a bad relationship and the attractive pictures were while she was unattached.

Then I asked, "How is your relationship with your father?" And she burst out, "ITS ALL HIS FAULT!!!" (Smiling though)

My point being that being promiscuous poisoned her soul and was extremely apparent in how it affected her attractiveness.

 

[Daniel Martinovich]

My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body.
Psalm 139:15

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.
Jeremiah 1:5​

Don't spirits and souls exist before conception? Why would two people having sex, force God's hand to automatically pop out a soul & spirit? That seems to me to go against divine omniPotence.

We have no idea how God procreates along side and with living souls. It’s not revealed as far as I know. As far as man is concerned though we do know why he does it. So that one man and one woman can, along side of God raise godly people fit to populate heaven with.
If someone “loves” as God does then they understand wanting to share the blessings you are blessed with, with as many as possible.

 

[Fascinated With God]

One could argue that, so what if we don't know of evil or have anything to 'push off' against if we never need to know, ie if God made sure we never sinned.

We know evil exists, it is rather the full extent of it that is humanly impossible to perceive. If God made sure we never sinned we would have no free will. The free will issue and the question of evil are intertwined. It is precisely free will that makes evil necessary until the Resurrection.

Also, it helps a lot with allowing for evil if in fact God and heaven are so good that any suffering we undergo here, even those who really suffer a lot or are killed when young (ie missing out on their lives etc) pales into insignificance when we live the life to be lived in heaven.

It is a great comfort, but even though I know they are in a better place I selfishly miss them sometimes, and every few years some memory will be triggered that makes me cry.

 

[Natsumi Lam]

That does not address the question of how souls and spirits are supposedly being created automatically at conception by HUMANS and not God. That reduces God to nothing but an automation and puts US in control of creating souls and spirits. Nowhere in the Bible does it even remotely suggest we have that power.

Be fruitful and multiple seems to me to be something spoken into existence as a directive. So it doesnt seem like automation.

 

[Fascinated With God]

We have no idea how God procreates along side and with living souls. It’s not revealed as far as I know.

I have never met a Christian who understood the OT spiritual cosmology vs. the more elaborate NT cosmology that borrows heavily from the much richer literary and philosophical traditions of Greece.

The world nephesh/soul is an elusive word, used 753 times, mostly translated as soul, but with 40+ other translations that are COMPLETELY different words. It is translated once as a dead body, perfume, and most interestingly of all, fish.

So even fish have nephesh, which is something more than just the English word soul. Clearly, they don't have individuated souls as we do. They have a collective soul, sort of like Jung's collective unconscious. Also, like the way some dogs have distinctive personalities across the entire breed. Lower animals have cookie cutter souls, all basically the same, and connected in a soupy network instead of individuated. The human comparison is like impoverish Muslims who still have tribal souls instead of individuated souls.

There's a lot more to say about the comparison between nephesh vs. pneuma, and ruach vs. psyche (soul). But I'm starting to ramble... lol

So that one man and one woman can, along side of God raise godly people fit to populate heaven with.

"Thy kingdom on Earth as it is in Heaven." Eternal life after the Resurrection(s) will be here in the physical world. The "rapture" actually refers to evil people disappearing. Matthew compares those that disappear to those that were taken in the Flood.

If someone “loves” as God does then they understand wanting to share the blessings you are blessed with, with as many as possible.

Indeed, well spoken.

 

[Fascinated With God]

Be fruitful and multiple seems to me to be something spoken into existence as a directive. So it doesn't seem like automation.

I see that theme repeated in other replies I haven't gotten to yet.

God telling humans to have lots of kids has nothing to do with when existence begins. Existence doesn't begin at conception. That is just a microbial worm, no conscious soul would want to be trapped in that. The soul decides beforehand where to be born, and I suspect we actually have to go thru a lot of 'red-tape' to earn the privilege to incarnate here, at the front lines of a cosmic war of angels.

 

[Natsumi Lam]

I see that theme repeated in other replies I haven't gotten to yet.

God telling humans to have lots of kids has nothing to do with when existence begins. Existence doesn't begin at conception. That is just a microbial worm, no conscious soul would want to be trapped in that. The soul decides beforehand where to be born, and I suspect we actually have to go thru a lot of 'red-tape' to earn the privilege to incarnate here, at the front lines of a cosmic war of angels.

We will never know one way or another. But we do know a baby can react in the womb.

One thing is Luke 1:41
41 And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost:

 

[AlexDTX]

My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body.
Psalm 139:15

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.
Jeremiah 1:5​

Don't spirits and souls exist before conception? Why would two people having sex, force God's hand to automatically pop out a soul & spirit? That seems to me to go against divine omniPotence.

No. That is the doctrine of the demonic cult known as the LDS. The will of God is abundant life. Children are the result of laws of reproduction that governs life. Everything begets after its own kind. That is the law of reproduction. When male and female mate, that moment of conception forms the new spirit, soul and body of the new person.

You may say, But it is also God's will that children are born within a marriage. So how can we resist his will? The answer is because God's will has priorities. He said, Be fruitful and multiply. That will has priority over marriage. Just as God is not willing for anyone to perish, his will that we all have freedom of choice has priority over salvation.

God's omniscience knows every possible choice we can make and every choice we will make. Thus He knows all who will be born, even in declaring the birth of Cyrus 500 years before Cyrus was born. This is not the same thing as the doctrine of predestination that teaches that God decides for some to go to Hell and others to Heaven. It is the ability of the Supreme mind to think everything through.

 

[Fascinated With God]

Genesis 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply

I address this in the previous post. I don't want to be repetitive (spamming).

A man's heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps.

I address free will vs predestination to someone else immediately after your post.

There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.

Followed immediately by the section heading "Idol Feasts and the Lord’s Supper". The emphasis of the chapter is primarily on food. Taken out of context the above verses are so general that you can use it to justify all kinds of false judgments. Here are excerpts from the rest of the chapter:

3 They all ate the same spiritual food 4 and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them...
[...]
7 Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: “The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.”
[...]
27 If an unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience. 28 But if someone says to you, “This has been offered in sacrifice,” then do not eat it..​

Then there is 1 Corinthians 10:21-22 that gets straight to the point on food:

The sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. 21 You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons.​

This was an easy thing for people in those days to get confused about, so the Apostles had to give it a lot of emphases and compare it other nasty things.

Nothing in Corinthians supports your assertion that souls and spirits do not pre-exist. That was not an issue that needed to be hammered in, Jews all believe in the pre-existence of the soul and always have. So there was no need to mention it except in passing.

You are assuming that a microbial worm has a conscious soul attached to it. Souls are always conscious. The idea of an unconscious soul is a self-contradiction. Consciousness ultimately comes from our soul and spirit, the brain is just the last stop. To believe otherwise is materialism, not spiritual.

Revelation 20:12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.

I see "small and great", but a microbial worm is nowhere on the list. The idea that microbial worms go to heaven is, I think, preposterous.

 

[Fascinated With God]

We will never know one way or another. But we do know a baby can react in the womb.

By the 3rd trimester, yes. This is confirmed by science. But the subject is conception and equating killing a microbial worm to murder. Microbial worms do not go to heaven, regardless of their genetic content.

At conception, the outer layer of the blastocyst acquires a retrovirus essential to placental life forms that creates two nuclei. Genetically, its really bizarre, and no one knows what's in the 2nd nucleus yet. But without it, the blastocyst couldn't attach to the uterus and grow an umbilical cord.

It is so alien to life as we ordinarily consider it that scientists have no idea what to make of a microbe with two nuclei. But to me, it seems, not just like a microscopic worm, but an alien life form that almost appears to have been the product of incredibly advanced genetic engineering beyond the wildest imaginings of scientists today.

 

[AnticipateHisComing]

We will never know one way or another. But we do know a baby can react in the womb.

One thing is Luke 1:41
41 And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost:

We know more than that. A baby can be filled with the Holy Spirit in the womb.

Luke 1:13 But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. 14 He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth,15 for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born.​

 

[Fascinated With God]

No. That is the doctrine of the demonic cult known as the LDS.

No, it is JEWISH. Like Jesus.

You may say, But it is also God's will that children are born within a marriage.

That is absolutely true. So how does forcing kids to have children when they are too young to be able to make a committed relationship, much less raise children properly, accomplish this sacred task?

That will has priority over marriage.

It sounds like you're condoning premarital sex. I'm sure that's not the case, but you're getting way off topic and really aren't addressing the central issue of consciousness.

Consciousness comes from your spirit & soul ultimately, the brain is just the last stop. Why would a conscious soul want to bond with a microscopic worm? The notion of a soul with no consciousness is a fundamental theological self-contradiction.

Souls sleep in Sheol, but that is not consciousness annihilation, they dream and can be awakened. The idea of a soul with no consciousness is fundamentally contrary to the basic theologic principles of Judaism. The brain is just a computer that churns over the same data again and again. All new thought comes from higher consciousness, from your soul and spirit.

You are relegating the soul to a purely material thing. That is materialism, not spirituality. Your soul is conscious before you were born and chose where to be born, just as it will continue to exist after you die.

 

[Fascinated With God]

We know more than that. A baby can be filled with the Holy Spirit in the womb.

Of course they can, after they have a heart and brain to feel anything at all. Not until the 3d trimester.

Luke 1:13 But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. 14 He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth,15 for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born.​

Notice the abundance of the word 'will', in future-tense. The word 'is' in present-tense is never used.