[caterpi11ar]

That Bible passage is about God blowing His breath into Adam who was non-biological clay up to that point. It has nothing to do with Adam taking his first breath. Obviously, Adam was never a foetus, nor was he a child, nor a teenager. As according to this passage life starts when you are a full grown man, should we allow abortions into the 108th trimester?

[arcticbull]

the Old Testament does say you can stone your belligerent child to death outside the city walls if you like (Deuteronomy 21:18-21 [1]) - after all, what is the death penalty if not a very late abortion plus some due diligence?

However, more interestingly, do you think you could cite where (a) the Bible forbids abortion or (b) the Bible makes clear that life begins at any point prior to birth?

[1] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy%202...

[caterpi11ar]

I have no interest in discussing The Bible further with you given that you blatantly misrepresented a passage and then shifted the goal posts when questioned about it.

[Ensorceled]

> However, more interestingly, do you think you could cite where (a) the Bible forbids abortion or (b) the Bible makes clear that life begins at any point prior to birth?

I too, am interested in this answer and have not misrepresented any biblical passages.

[caterpi11ar]

Ok, if you're willing to renounce the style of 14 year old who just saw their first Hitchslap video, I will offer you some Biblical and non-Biblical Christian arguments against abortion. Various Psalms (22, 139) in which the narrator speaks of themselves in the womb being created by God. The Gospel of Luke also uses the same word for an infant before and after He is born. It is also a heresy to suggest that Jesus in the womb was fully God but not Human. Of course, Paul's letters to the Galatians suggests that God had set him apart in the womb, which seems an odd thing to do to a non-living clump of cells.

Given the above information, I don't find the idea that The Bible doesn't directly condemn abortion to be the gotcha that reddit atheists think it is. I think it suggests that life-at-conception was so obvious to the authors that they didn't feel the need to distinguish between abortion and murder, much in the same way that life-at-conception was mainstream biology until the moment it became politicized. The Bible doesn't go very in depth about the benefits of exercise, do we therefore interpret it to suggest we should all get fat, or is this just so obvious that the authors didn't bother to put it in? Should we start using 50 layers of abstraction and euphemism to believe that being fat is fine, just as we do with abortion (oh, we started doing that too).

Furthermore, (and this might surprise you if you are from an American context) most Christians in the world do not believe in Sola Scriptura, the belief that the Bible is the soul source of authority. We also venerate saints and the Church Fathers, and the Church itself (whether it be the Catholic Church or one of several Orthodox Churches), all of which we believe to be guided by the Holy Spirit. Abortion was condemned very early on by the Church Fathers. This is all to say that The Bible is not the soul source of authority for most of the world's Christians and therefore not the soul battleground for the religious debate on abortion.

[Ensorceled]

> Ok, if you're willing to renounce the style of 14 year old who just saw their first Hitchslap video

Well, this is a pleasant, open minded start... but thank you for the references.

> much in the same way that life-at-conception was mainstream biology until the moment it became politicized.

I think most mainstream biologist believe that a fetus is living cells and, hence, life. Most mainstream biologists would not, and did not, agree that humanity begins a conception, similarly most would agree a human is dead upon brain death and not "alive" simply because the corpse still has a heart beat. This is a discussion that was foisted upon biology and politicized, not vice versa.

The abortion debate is a fundamentally a religious debate, so it's good to understand it from that point of view.

[caterpi11ar]

When I was an atheist, I eventually came to understand that the belief that saying that a new organism created by two humans wasn't itself human was essentially a euphemism I could use to keep myself sane while still arguing in favour of abortion on social harmony grounds. But it is difficult to lie to oneself.

[caterpi11ar]

Sorry about the barb.

[giaour]

> I think it suggests that life-at-conception was so obvious to the authors that they didn't feel the need to distinguish between abortion and murder

Mosaic law does distinguish between violently inducing a miscarriage (punishable by a fine to be paid to the father) and murder (punishable by death) in Exodus 21. It is unclear whether there was any penalty for a self-induced miscarriage, though that would not have been uncommon in other ancient societies.

[dane-pgp]

Do you mean Exodus 21:22-24? That's not what it says at all:

"When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman’s husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe."

Not only is the fine specifically a punishment for inadvertently hitting the woman (in the case where the child is not harmed), but it says "life for life", proving that children in the womb are considered alive and their death is a capital offence, just like killing an adult.

[giaour]

You may disagree with OP's interpretation, but they would hardly be the first to interpret Genesis 2:7 as equating breath with life. Job 33:4 is a more direct assertion of the "life comes from God's breath" hypothesis, and Ezekiel uses a similar metaphor about God's breath giving life to dead matter.

Jumping immediately to an accusation of dishonesty is uncalled for.

[arcticbull]

So that's a no, then. Noted.

[caterpi11ar]

You've won the debate by proving yourself to be dishonest, congrats.

[8note]

> should we allow abortions into the 108th trimester

Yes. That's not a viable fetus, and keeping it in the womb forever isn't going to change that

[florplea]

Yes, we should. HN threads and Twitter would enjoy a significant improvement, at the very least.

[caterpi11ar]

reconsidering all my stances...