Wen Does Life Begin?

[tonyg]

“Before I formed you in the womb, I new you.” In my opinion this kind of sums it all up for me. In the eyes of God, and at the point of His choosing, life would begin for us.
So many people question when this actually takes place. I think, in our search for the beginning of life, we need to look at the so called end of life.
One day we will finally breathe our last breath, and this journey on earth will end. Our physical nature will be gone and return to the dust of the earth. But what happens then?
Christians believe that the soul will live on for eternity. Is this the same soul that our Heavenly Father knew before He formed it in the womb; or is this a different one?
My question is, were our souls already alive and just waiting for God to start our earthly journey; or did we need for a certain month to pass before we were considered to be alive?
The Angel Gabriel said to Mary, “Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with you! Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” The fruit that the Angel Gabriel was speaking of was our Lord Jesus; present in the womb after Mary was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit. Gabriel did not say, “Mary you conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and in a month or so you will bear the fruit of a child in your womb.”
On a more personal note, I am the third born of ten children. My loving mother, whose name just happens to be Mary, also had four miscarriages. She lost her babies early in her pregnancy; does that mean that their life did not exist? There is no doubt in my mind, heart, and soul that all fourteen of us will some day be enjoying each other in Gods glorious presence.
Life is a precious gift from our Loving God from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death. Then our souls, that were known to God before the creation of the universe will live on for all eternity.

God Peace,
Tony

 

[ricko]

Life begins at conception. At conception the soul is then infused into the fetus. Souls do not exist before conception. They are not in a wharehouse waiting for a conception to happen somewhere. See what Catholic Answers has to say:

When viewed without the lens of Aristotelian science, the biblical view of ensoulment becomes clear. In the Old Testament, the psalmist assumes the humanity of the unborn child at conception when he says, “Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me” (Ps. 51:5, NRSV). This indicates that the unborn child possesses a sinful, fallen nature at the time of conception (though it does not manifest in actual, personal sins until later; cf. Romans 9:11). Since sin is a spiritual phenomenon, the presence of a sinful nature indicates a spiritual nature and thus a soul, making the child a complete human being from conception.

The humanity of the unborn at all stages of development is also indicated by the biblical terminology used to refer to unborn children. The Hebrew term yeled, which means “child, son, boy, offspring, youth,” is used to refer to the unborn child, regardless of the stage of development. (Cf. Ex. 21:22, where the Hebrew says literally “her children come out” instead of “she has a miscarriage,” as in some translations.) The same is true of the term ben, which means “son, child, youth” (cf. Gen. 25:22).

From the biblical perspective, all children are children, whether born or not. The Jews neither had nor needed a specialized term for the unborn, whose humanity they saw clearly. Thus the Hebrew Scripture regularly refers to individuals existing in the womb (“I knew you in the womb,” Jer. 1:5; cf. Job. 10:8–12, Ps. 139:13–16, Is. 44:2).

 

[ribozyme]

3.8 billion years ago
Gerald Joyce:

The worlds of prebiotic chemistry and primitive biology lie on opposite sides of the defining moment for life, when [D]arwinian evolution first began to operate…Once a general mechanism existed for self-replication, allowing the introduction of variation and the ability to replicate those variants, [D]arwinian evolution began to operate. This marked the beginning of life.

Joyce, G.F. (2002). The antiquity of RNA-based evolution. Nature 418, 214–221.

Life begins when self-sustained Darwinian evolution begins.

 

[Atreyu]

3.8 billion years ago

Joyce, G.F. (2002). The antiquity of RNA-based evolution. Nature 418, 214–221.

Life begins when self-sustained Darwinian evolution begins.

While I personally agree with your post, Ribozyme, I think the OP
was talking about the life of an individual human being…

 

[ribozyme]

On a more personal note, I am the third born of ten children. My loving mother, whose name just happens to be Mary, also had four miscarriages. She lost her babies early in her pregnancy; does that mean that their life did not exist? There is no doubt in my mind, heart, and soul that all fourteen of us will some day be enjoying each other in Gods glorious presence.
Life is a precious gift from our Loving God from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death. Then our souls, that were known to God before the creation of the universe will live on for all eternity.

God Peace,
Tony

I am curious though, do you believe that the souls of this miscarried babies are in heaven or in limbo?

 

[porriwiggle]

The Angel Gabriel said to Mary, “Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with you! Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” The fruit that the Angel Gabriel was speaking of was our Lord Jesus; present in the womb after Mary was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit. Gabriel did not say, “Mary you conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and in a month or so you will bear the fruit of a child in your womb.”

Actually the Angel Gabriel only said “Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee! Blessed art thou among women." (Luke 1:28) Gabriel went on to say, “behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb and shalt bear a son, and shalt call him Jesus.” (Luke 1:32) It was Elizabeth who said "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” (Luke 1:42) which happened a few days - if not a few weeks - later.

On a more personal note, I am the third born of ten children. My loving mother, whose name just happens to be Mary, also had four miscarriages. She lost her babies early in her pregnancy; does that mean that their life did not exist? There is no doubt in my mind, heart, and soul that all fourteen of us will some day be enjoying each other in Gods glorious presence.

I am absolutely sure you are right here. I also have two siblings whom I confidently hope to meet when the Lord calls me.

Life is a precious gift from our Loving God from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death. Then our souls, that were known to God before the creation of the universe will live on for all eternity.

Yes I agree, but just because God knew our souls before the creation of the earth does not necessarily mean we actually existed then. I think this is one of the mysteries of God which we will never completely understand, but the way I see it - before the creation of the earth he knew he would create each one of us at a particular time.

God Bless
Elizabeth

 

[thistle]

I am curious though, do you believe that the souls of this miscarried babies are in heaven or in limbo?

This is off topic. If you want to discuss this then open a new thread.

 

[ribozyme]

This is off topic. If you want to discuss this then open a new thread.

Sorry, but the question was directed regarding the souls of the 4 miscarried babies of tonyg’s mother, so I think it is on topic.
I wonder what would God do to souls that he said he knew before they were born that had no feasible chance to be cleansed of original sin. Limbo or heaven?

My point by stating the Joyce definition of life is that it is nothing special; it is merely a collection of molecules capable of undergoing Darwinian evolution. I believe we can also say the same about human life, which is relevant to the OP. However, we have to care about the welfare of humanity because utilitarian ethics states we should maximize the principle of utility, that is do the thing the causes the greatest amount of happiness, and the least amount of pain.

 

[mosher]

Science confirms for us that human life begins at conception. This is not even an issue of discussion among scientists. Literally every embryology text book states this fact on or about the first page.

 

[ribozyme]

Science confirms for us that human life begins at conception. This is not even an issue of discussion among scientists. Literally every embryology text book states this fact on or about the first page.

Fine it does, but I challenge what makes the embryo special besides its membership in the species Homo sapiens. I argue life is nothing special but a throng of molecules that undergo Darwinian evolution.

 

[Jennifer123]

Fine it does, but I challenge what makes the embryo special besides its membership in the species Homo sapiens. I argue life is nothing special but a throng of molecules that undergo Darwinian evolution.

The embryo has everything that makes a human a unique individual, DNA, determining every physical characteristic about that person.
The only thing it doesn’t have at that moment is the ability to live outside the womb, eat or breathe on its own.

 

[ribozyme]

The embryo has everything that makes a human a unique individual, DNA, determining every physical characteristic about that person.
The only thing it doesn’t have at that moment is the ability to live outside the womb, eat or breathe on its own.

Do you understand biochemistry? Biochemistry has been extremely successful in elucidating the natural phenomenon of life in the context of enzyme-catalyzed chemical reactions.

DNA huh? What’s your knowledge of nucleic acid chemistry? Well, I say that the DNA and proteins are simply molecules, no more, no less. That is easy to understand without going into the fundamentals of biochemistry here. Other organisms have DNA, too, there is nothing special about human life.

 

[Jennifer123]

Do you understand biochemistry? Biochemistry has been extremely successful in elucidating the natural phenomenon of life in the context of enzyme-catalyzed chemical reactions.

DNA huh? What’s your knowledge of nucleic acid chemistry? Well, I say that the DNA and proteins are simply molecules, no more, no less. That is easy to understand without going into the fundamentals of biochemistry here. Other organisms have DNA, too, there is nothing special about human life.

I’ll ignore your attempts at patronizing me because you do not know anything about me or my education, or in your opinion, a lack thereof. (BTW - while I was a liberal arts major, my husband is a biochemist currently working in the biotech field at one of the leading pharmaceutical companies in the world, so while I’m no PhD in biochemistry, I don’t think I’m fresh off the turnip truck either.)

DNA is hardly just “simple molecules” and if you believe that then I think you’re the one who should be defending their education.

 

[ribozyme]

I’ll ignore your attempts at patronizing me because you do not know anything about me or my education, or in your opinion, a lack thereof. (BTW - while I was a liberal arts major, my husband is a biochemist currently working in the biotech field at one of the leading pharmaceutical companies in the world, so while I’m no PhD in biochemistry, I don’t think I’m fresh off the turnip truck either.)

DNA is hardly just “simple molecules” and if you believe that then I think you’re the one who should be defending their education.

I used “simply” not “simple”. I would never think nucleic acids are simple molecules. But it is a molecule, that what it is.

 

[tonyg]

This is off topic. If you want to discuss this then open a new thread.

 

[HoppityRedux]

Science confirms for us that human life begins at conception. This is not even an issue of discussion among scientists. Literally every embryology text book states this fact on or about the first page.

Agreed. I have yet to encounter anyone anywhere who denies the sperm, egg, and subsequent fertilized egg are alive.

 

[Jennifer123]

Agreed. I have yet to encounter anyone anywhere who denies the sperm, egg, and subsequent fertilized egg are alive.

Alive can be agreed upon but in my experience many pro-choicers deny that embryos are human. I get a lot of “bunch of cells” nonsense.

 

[HoppityRedux]

Alive can be agreed upon but in my experience many pro-choicers deny that embryos are human. I get a lot of “bunch of cells” nonsense.

That is true. So, I wonder what the value is of claiming pro-choice people deny life? It simply detracts from the credibility of the pro-life movement. I fail to see how that helps the cause.

 

[Jennifer123]

That is true. So, I wonder what the value is of claiming pro-choice people deny life? It simply detracts from the credibility of the pro-life movement. I fail to see how that helps the cause.

The value is that it’s a completely baseless and subjective claim. Of course they deny life - how does saying so detract from the credibility of the pro-life movement? Life is what we are fighting for - life for our children and for women.

In my experience if pro-choicers want to discuss abortion then they need to be objectively correct, and not manipulate language to fit their ideology, “bunch of cells” being a popular manipulation.

 

[Transformer]

Fine it does, but I challenge what makes the embryo special besides its membership in the species Homo sapiens. I argue life is nothing special but a throng of molecules that undergo Darwinian evolution.

It’s difficult to refute the idea that human life is valueless by itself without working from Christianity as a premise. The simple Christian answer is that human dignity comes from being made in the image of God and loved by him, and it is utterly clear from scripture and tradition that God loves each man, not merely men who are loved by others, have reached a certain size or complexity, exist in a certain space (outside of the womb), or have measurable brainwaves. It takes a pretty shallow Christian to think God’s love is dependant on those things.

The best secular argument against the idea that human life by itself is valueless is the world that such logic leads to. What does make a human life valuable then, if not the fact that it is a human life?

Is it that society says a human being of a certain size or stage of development is valuable? What happens when society changes its mind and decides 2 year olds are nothing more than evolving molecules? Child abuse becomes moral. Raping 2 year olds then becomes moral. Is that the world you think we life in, where society gets to decide who has worth and who doesn’t? Is that the world you want to live in?

Is it only human beings that are valuable to society that have a right to life? Could you best friend, or spouse, or mother suddenly become handicapped tommorow, and become unable to work, and thus become nothing more than a worthless lump of molecules? If you believe that the value of human life is dependant on value to society, you wouldn’t be mad if I murdered you best friend when he become no longer able to work, right?

Is it only human beings who have reached a certain stage of development that deserve life, or only human beings who can feel the pain of being murdered who have a right to life? If you could no longer feel pain tommorow because of that medical condition that impairs one’s sense of feeling, would I have the right to murder you?

I can play this game all day, but the point remains the same: The minute you base the value of human life on anything other than the fact that it is human life, you turn the kingdom of God on earth into hell. I ask you honestly: If human life is not valuable in-and-of itself, what makes some human lives valuable?

I apologize honestly is this post was too forceful, I do get carried away sometimes. God bless.