Is it just me that feels strange about people insisting on a blanket prohibition on the taking of innocent life when those same people would also insist on the concept of original sin and that salvation can only be achieved through the proactive act of accepting Jesus, the clear implication being that there is no such thing as an innocent life because everyone is born in sin?
That's incorrect. When we say "innocent" in reference to the unborn we are referring to the fact that they haven't committed a sin. That's why original sin is contrasted with personal / committed sins. Either way, even though people are sinners, that doesn't necessarily mean we have a right to kill them. It would only be valid in self defense (applying the principle of double effect)
Interesting to read about the link between Hammurabi and Moses. I saw half on article (on JSTOR) by George Duncan on the parallels there: The Code of Moses and the Code of Hammurabi. Thank you for that background.
The Visigothic code from early medieval Spain has regulations on abortion. It's never punished as murder. It's either a fine if the abortion was caused by someone of the same social class, or a fine and lashings if it was caused by someone socially inferior (for example, a slave performing it on a free woman). And fun fact, there's no crime at all if the husband doesn't report it or demand a fine.
Life does not begin at birth, nor when the brain forms, nor even at conception. Life began a couple of billion years ago and CONTINUES. Two living organisms release two living cells which combine into a living cell that grows eventually into an independent organism. The point you consider the new organism to be a new "life" is arbitrary.
The topic isn't when "life" (living cells) began. The topic is when "life" (a new human being) begins. You have to know how disingenuous and pointless your comment is. There is nothing "arbitrary" about distinguishing between clearly distinct living beings. Does that distinction begin at conception, or does that distinction begin at birth when the baby is separated from the umbilical cord, or at another time all together? You are engaging in a fallacy of equivocation.
@@BK-hq7tn I disagree. I'm pointing out that there is no clear boundary where a new organism begins. A fertilized ovum is neither viable nor conscious, while a baby is both even before it is literally born. You can set one for legal purposes, just like in my country you set 18 for the age to be an adult, but other jurisdictions choose differently. The approach to the problem is wrong. It is more important to work on fixing society, culture, economics, education, health care, etc to reduce incidence rather than legislate against it which increases suffering.
Thoroughly informative. As someone of a Catholic background, I typically find Biblical arguments to be weaker compared to those based on philosophical tradition. When discussing things such as abortion, sex, and any other hot topic, using something like a natural law framework, for instance, at least puts the discourse in terms that tend to be more universally comprehensible than the "revealed" truth of a particular tradition.
It's also more practical if looking to make any legal or social changes, as religious reasons have the problem of not applying to everyone, separation of church and state and would rightly be viewed as forcing religious beliefs onto others. Not to mention people are more receptive to views if they have more then my holy book says so, that's just not a convincing thing for both those in that specific religion (who have a different interpretation of gods clear and unchanging word) or those outside of it (definitely those outside of it, why would they care what a book of myths says? Or what a heretical religious text says?). At the moment I'm firmly on the side of abortion for moral, philosophical and scientific reasons but if an arguement were to convince me it wouldn't be from the bible.
@@charlestownsend9280Everyone has a conscience and would be appalled at the very least by 2nd trimester abortions if they were presented with the details of the procedure. Here’s a video of a doctor who used to perform abortions explaining it and some of the issues. th-cam.com/video/9l7lTMzEs8E/w-d-xo.htmlsi=yPmREicjur1iEKw_
@@charlestownsend9280 There are always two arguments that need to be addressed to oppose abortion. 1 Does it have a right to exist ? 2 Does that right to exist take precedence over the person it is going to exist inside ? The third argument would be: Why do we need consent if its existence always takes precedence ?
In mid 90s I well recall a Youth Fellowship talk at our fundamentalist church on “sanctity of life” aka this topic, given by a senior medical student. He let slip/was asked about how many human fertilised eggs didn’t make it to full term - and he had to admit the majority don’t even manage attachment to the uterus. In other words in this worldview, countless mini-human lives are created and destroyed annually at a genocidal scale in the first moments of life, with no divine intervention to stop it! If that is a designed system described by sound theology… it’s beyond mixed-up
One of the bloggers I've read talks about her gradual shift to pro-choice and one of her steps was when she realized that the birth control her sect also opposed would have prevented so many more of these (usually unrecognized) spontaneous abortions than any success they obtained in preventing the more obvious elective or medically necessary abortions.
One thing that people seem to either forget or overlook is the trial of bitter waters. This is a trial that a woman is forced to undertake if her husband believes her to be unfaithful to him and is carrying another man’s baby’s. She is to drink a mixture of water and ash. She then aborts the baby if it belongs to another man. Numbers 5: 11-31. This is scriptural prescription for abortion.
Like with biblical slavery and homophobia and the one case of human sacrifice people with twist themselves into knots trying to make that not say what it literally says.
Dan has a video about that. You can try to find it yourself using appropriate keywords if you are interested. I ain’t going to rummage through hundreds of Dan’s videos. Anyway, in short he basically says it’s not about abortion and gives a detailed explanation of the original Hebrew. He says there’s no mention that the woman is given the potion because she is pregnant, just that the husband believes her to be unfaithful. Tbh I was not fully convinced because a lot of other scholars do mention the reference to miscarriage and I don’t think they dreamed it. I am not equipped to judge who is right, however, whatever the correct context/interpretation it’s clear that forcing a woman to drink nasty s*t at a time when women spent most of their fertile life pregnant, shows utter disregard for the possible fetus they carry.
That was a fun thing to read while I was a believer going from cover to cover of the Bible. There's a lot of stuff in there that most Christian positions just seem to ignore. Anyone who says that God values life didn't read the Old testament. And anyone who says that God values fetuses who have committed no sin have never read God's commands to ransack cities, sparing no woman who is pregnant or breastfeeding. The only thing you could say is that the only lives he values are those of men in his chosen people. Kind of messed up by any modern measure.
The inclusion of Michael J. Gorman’s “Abortion & the Early Church” as recommended reading at the end is an excellent recommendation. It goes through all the scholarship touched on above but also, interestingly, comes to a quite different conclusion. Not that it’s at all uncommon for Biblical scholars to come to different conclusions from the same set of facts. All the more reason to applaud Dr. McClellan for including it in the list of texts to check out. In that book Gorman argues that the position of the Early Church firmly against abortion actually is instructive and relevant for us today and that it should indeed lead modern Christians to oppose abortion. And I think it’s a conclusion worth taking seriously and it makes Gorman’s book well worth reading.
Science does not say life begins at conception, that is an entirely religious position. The egg and sperm were already "alive" before conception. It was only after medical science revealed the basic steps in embryonic development in the mid-20th century that some religious groups seized on the idea that human life must therefore “begin” at fertilisation.
_["Science does not say life begins at conception, that is an entirely religious position."]_ Given the rest of your comment as context, you appear to be committing the equivocation fallacy. "Life" as in the complex self-perpetuating chemical reaction that is metabolic activity began billions of years ago. A "life", as in the existence of an individual organism, begins at conception and this is hard to dispute. The sperm and the egg are alive, yes, but only because they are haploid fragments of a larger multi-cellular organism. If you were to try to evaluate a sperm or egg as to whether it qualified as alive, it would fail on grounds such as an inability to acquire new resources and inability to perpetuate more of itself. In isolation, sperm and eggs would get put in the bin full of life-like but non-living things like protocells and viruses. At conception, when the haploid DNA components of sperm and egg combine, we get a unique diploid human cell which does meet the criteria we would use to evaluate whether something we found on Mars is "alive". This cell is not a sperm or an egg. It is not a part of either parent. It did not exist prior to conception. That makes it a new living thing. The question of the moral weight of this new living thing is the bit at debate. Trying to dispute that an embryo is alive is a losing move, as it will just make you look ignorant as you lose. The winning moves are to evangelize the set of axioms that you use to arrive at your position, wherever on the spectrum between pro-choice and pro-life you land. _["It was only after medical science revealed the basic steps in embryonic development in the mid-20th century that some religious groups seized on the idea that human life must therefore “begin” at fertilisation."]_ The idea that life began at conception dates at least as far back as ancient Greece, where one of the major branches of philosophical thought considered life to begin at conception.
I'm always mystified by 'life begins at conception' when, in reality, life began once and we're really not sure how or when. There's no point where inert matter becomes animate matter.
they mean when does an individual human life begins. it begins at conception. which doesn't compel any particular position on abortion. society places limited value on individual human lives all the time. Food and drug, products liability, and environmental standards allow for estimated mortality rates, for example.
@@scambammer6102 Does it begin at conception? What is the criteria for an individual human life? Surely if it cannot sustain its own existence then it is not an individual but rather a part of the body that is sustaining it?
Does this mean that identical twins have only one human life between them? Or that people who are born as chimeras of two conceptions have two lives?@@scambammer6102
@@scambammer6102 And I mean that the statement "life begins at conception" is an actual nonsense statement in terms of biology. I know what they think they mean, but that's not how it works. Sorry.
Dan, do you agree with Jennifer Bird's position that the ordeal of bitter water in Numbers can result in abortion? I can't see how such a trial would not take into account the possibility of pregnancy, and so provide an outcome if the woman is pregnant. I would assume, then, that the thigh rotting and falling away would indicate the lost life issuing forth from her, providing visual evidence of the transgression and leading to her ostracization.
If god were against abortion it could simply withhold the miracle of life from someone who doesn’t want to accept it. This would not violate free will, in fact it would honor it
valid analysis; however, although 'life' as it stands on its own is an interesting scientific question, as it stands as a criterion for abortion is irrelevant since bodily autonomy takes priority over life, personhood, 'soul' or any other arbitrary attribute the religious feel like attributing to the zygote, embryo or fetus.
IMO, the abortion issue will never be fully answered or "solved," it will always be an individual decision and opinion. Personally, I believe the spirit enters a fetus just before birth and that keeping, or aborting a fetus, is 100% the decision and choice of the woman and mother, NOT any church's or the government's. And, I'm an active moderate Christian. Harris 2024!!!
@@FishfaceTheDestroyer billions of years ago. And it most likely began in some sort of interface medium, such as on the internal or external walls of "black smokers", or similar environments.
@@FishfaceTheDestroyer semantic nonsense. The topic isn't when "life" (living cells) began. The topic is when "life" (a new human being) begins. You have to know how disingenuous and pointless your comment is.
If a decree came down tomorrow and stated that all religions are false and manmade, how would your life change? It would make you hold your children closer to you knowing that there is no sky daddy that is going to save you. It’s a beautiful awakening! Cheers!
Interesting! The question is: “can a decree make someone stop believing?” In china, there are plenty of religions that are illegal. Still people continue to practice. Clandestinely though. But still.
Some of them know how they use these verses is incorrect. Once you point out you know what the verse mean or are saying they choose different arguments or ghost any further conversation. They know they are arguing in bad faith.
In 7:14 it is spoken about how opposition to abortion is not based entirely on the testimony of scripture but it is mentioned it is mentioned in the Epistle of Barnabas. The thing is, the Epistle of Barnabas is part of the Codex Sinaiticus, someone regarded it as scripture.
If people want to decide this question biblically, the Bible is very clear. In the Book of Genesis, Chapter 2 verse 7, God creates man out of dust and breathes into his nostrils the breath of life, and man becomes a living being. Read it yourself. So man (and woman etc.) as a living being begins with the first breath after birth.
Those people are not "pro-life," they are anti-choice. If they were pro-life, then they would be addressing the issues that might compel a girl or woman to seek an abortion.
Didache does confirm a tradition that abortion equates to murder at some point in the development of the fetus and it doesn't "argue" this, it takes it for granted that some abortions are murder of children.
@bertilow Polygamy is still part of church doctrine. It is accepted that polygamy will be practiced in the next life and that it is simply "on hold" for now. Technically, the church could reactivate it at any time and that would be consistent with church teachings. The church teaches that you must be married to attain the highest degree of heaven. It also teaches that that means polygamy because there will be more women than men, so what it teaches women is that you must accept polygamy if you want to go to heaven. Go investigate.
Also asking "when life begins" is the wrong question since life began long before any person or other creature was conceived. Life is simply continuing from parent to offspring, so trying to define personhood as occurring at conception because that's "when life began" seems tenuous at best in my eyes.
While I enjoy watching debates now and again, I do hope that Dan will avoid this trap. It's all too often the case that brilliant, sincere, well intentioned people end up on stage with the intellectually dishonest who despite being thoroughly exposed during the debate, strut around like they "won" and then turn around and fleece their gullable followers. Though you and I may differ on the topic of Dan doing debates, I wish you all the best and excellent health! ❤
@@marlabeard5352 that's the thing about humans,He said My little ones,,babies inside the body are still little ones .And decides that back then,people weren't ramming sharp objects into their bodies to kill their offspring.,And God said be fruitful and multiply,not destroy your children in your womb.But hey ,do what you want and take your chances on the other end.
@@ricklamb772 Between one-third and one-half of all fertilized eggs never fully implant. If God wanted every fertilized egg to become a born baby, it sure seems like he wouldn't have aborted so many.
@@ricklamb772 "And decides that back then,people weren't ramming sharp objects into their bodies to kill their offspring" *besides that And yes, they were. Abortion has been practiced throughout human history. We have manuscripts from ancient Egypt (ca. 1550 BCE) discussing the practice.
A local catholic school in New Orleans (Amy Coney Barret's Alma Mater) posted signs everywhere saying "thou shalt not kill". My brother (orthodox Jew who went to Yeshiva) always critiqued it saying that the torah actually says "thou shalt not murder" and as long as abortion is legal, that cannot definitionally be murder.
@@danparks8290when “God’s law” is silent on a topic, then yeah. The Bible says nothing at all about abortion, meaning we can’t say the Bible considers it murder, and since murder is illegal killing, that means the only authority on abortion’s permissibility is the society you live in
@@danparks8290 that helps my point more than anything. Look up that Hebrew word for death there, it’s the word used for death by natural causes, by God himself, and by capital punishment, these are all permissible means of ending a life, so if that verse has any bearing on the discussion of abortion, it would mean that it isn’t murder, thus legal.
We should take a moment to appreciate the accuracy of the title in directly suggesting it was decided by _people…_ which it was. Just like every other alleged attribute of God. Somehow God can never speak for itself.
Doesn’t god recommend a method (poultice ?)to determine if a woman has/had committed adultery? If she has a abortion it was adultery, if not she had been faithful
Can someone explain the point of a proscription against 'ratzah' (Thou shalt not murder) if the concept of ratzah already entails definitionally that it is illegal? Don't do this thing that by definition should not be done. What work is being done by this 'command' or verse?
Well, there’s also a prohibition against stealing, which is to illegally take something from someone else, so that’s another command that really doesn’t have much of a point
Not just Christians but Jews also who maintain this boundary….probably because thats what the Hebrew tradition believes whether the biblical text says it outright or not. Sooo thats something.
All this boils down is a mystical, supernatural notion of “life” and that a magical ghost lives inside of us rather than our mind being the product of brain function.
Great explanation, thank you. I do have a question. Do you think it's possible that because of what Christians are taught about sinful nature, that it is much easier to allow women today to die in childbirth and to be forced to carry babies they don't want because they are considered "sinful", and the babies are innocent and pure, so they deserve to be protected more than their mother?
This. It's not really that big of a deal to put down a crotch goblin even a few months after it's actually born, I've had to do the same to one of my dogs in the past and I guarantee he was way smarter than a baby that young.
@@ossiah_i I'd probably draw the line somewhere prior to birth, _but_ I have known some SOBs that made a pretty credible case for legalizing abortion up to 200ish trimester. Sorry about your dog.
The whole "thou shalt not murder" commandment always seemed to me to be really stupid. As you point it, it boils down to "Thou shalt not kill when you are not allowed to kill." Thanks. That's real helpful. Glad you cleared that up, God. I was confused.
@@sullivanbiddle9979 Yes. Murder is killing that is not allowed. Some killing is allowed, some is not allowed. If it is not allowed, it is murder. By definition. And since murder is, by definition, not allowed, why do you need a commandment against it?
The notion that Exodus 21 refers to the baby being born intact or not intact comes directly from the Septuagint. Edit: wrote this comment before hearing the section about the Septuagint.
Just to be clear, Dan did not take a position on abortion. He only clarified the biblical text, religious traditions, and a little philosophic tradition for good measure.
Here’s a fun thought, if all of the proof that God is pro-life hinges on all the verses about God creating human life, then shouldn’t we also hold the same or at least similar reverence for ALL of biblical creation? Like…. The Earth…. And shouldn’t those same Christians be as loudly fighting against climate change? Just a thought…
Another question: which god are we talking about? The wrathful one of the OT is pro killing, murder, war, torture, suffering. The real God is pro free choice. He lets women choose.
While one could argue that a person is formed at conception, to say that life begins at conception is just silly. Both the sperm and the egg are necessarily alive when they fuse, so there is no "new" life, just a continuation of the lives of the parents.
@@scambammer6102 The child is a new person and also a continuation of the parents. The potential child is a potential new person, not an actual new person. Sperm and eggs are also potential new people, just more ambiguous - but a fertilized egg is extremely ambiguous as well, since fetal development can proceed or not in multiple ways (such as the ambiguous potential at fertilization for identical twins).
If a life is formed at conception, if the soul enters the body at the point of conception, and twins form by the abnormal division of an embryo after conception takes places, does that mean that twins are considered a singular lifeform? This is why the whole appeal to science is silly. Science is able to draw a distinction between what is and isn't "alive" (even then the boundaries are fuzzy) but it does not draw a distinction between what is and isn't "a life" because that is a legal/ethical term and not a scientific one. Even science's category for what is and isn't an individual comes with fuzzy boundaries and asterisks, because you start to get into things like colonial organisms, symbiosis, genetic chimera's etc. There is no clear demarcation of when life begins because it can only be a qualitative assessment and not an objective empirical one.
If personhood could occur apart from the moment of conception and going foward , then this argument might have some legitimacy. But personhood is wholly dependent on the unborn having life. So there is no point in separating life from personhood. My flowers grow and one day produce a bud and then a bloom, but rip the young plant out of the ground, it will never flower. A dead baby will never realize personhood - it has to have life to do so.
Personhood is certainly dependent on life (you can't be a person without being alive), but that doesn't mean that life is synonymous to personhood. A flower is alive, yet we wouldn't call it a person.
@@scambammer6102 This fellow reminds me of a conservative, drinking-is-a-sin preacher, who was expounding upon John 2. When he reached the part where Jesus turned the water into wine, he, like the guy in the video, began verbal gymnastics to undermine reality to fit his desired belief. He comes off as wise and studied, but his message is nothing but verbal smoke and mirrors. (Personage/personhood - know this: The slave owners in America used the same thinking as this guy. The slaves, they said, were not people, so killing them, when, of course, necessary, was perfectly fine and legal. The nature of the slaughtered individuals is different, but the thinking behind the murderous behavior is the same.) (Meaningless platitudes? If I had written my comment to the conservative preacher instead of a fellow you obviously support, you would have said, "Yeah, man. Yeah," instead of dismissiveness. By the way, my comment does not meet the definition of platitude. Find a better word when condemning me.)
@@rainwalker95 Personage/personhood - know this: The slave owners in America used the same thinking as this guy. The slaves, they said, were not people, so killing them, when, of course, necessary, was perfectly fine and legal. The nature of the slaughtered individuals is different, but the thinking behind the murderous behavior is the same. Like this guy, the slave owners used verbal gymnastics to justify killing slaves (when necessary), who were, like the fetus, different than they. The single cell egg, freshly germinated, has all it's chromosomes and a unique, human DNA chain. Other than appearance, if that ain't human, what is?
According to Genesis 2:7 life begins with the first breathing. Something happens in the process of consciousness with breathing. Before that it is a "life", but more like a plant is a life. So, let every women to decide what is inside her body or not. When God did mess with something like that? Only religious people can tell other people what to do (being religious and being a believer are opposed things to me).
No one who has actually read the whole bible can honestly say that it's pro-life, whether you're talking about the unborn or the living. All you have to do is read the first few books of the Old Testament to see.
Thank you ! Does Jewish law state that life begins at conception? No, life does not begin at conception under Jewish law. Sources in the Talmud note that the fetus is “mere water” before 40 days of gestation. Following this period, the fetus is considered a physical part of the pregnant individual’s body, not yet having life of its own or independent rights. The fetus is not viewed as separate from the parent’s body until birth begins and the first breath of oxygen into the lungs allows the soul to enter the body. Does Jewish law assert that it is possible to murder a fetus? No, Jewish law does not consider a fetus to be alive. The Torah, Exodus 21:22-23, recounts a story of two men who are fighting and injure a pregnant woman, resulting in her subsequent miscarriage. The verse explains that if the only harm done is the miscarriage, then the perpetrator must pay a fine. However, if the pregnant person is gravely injured, the penalty shall be a life for a life as in other homicides. The common rabbinical interpretation of this verse is that the men did not commit murder and that the fetus is not a person. The primary concern is the well-being of the person who was injured. According to Jewish law, is abortion health care? Yes, Jewish sources explicitly state that abortion is not only permitted but is required should the pregnancy endanger the life or health
God loved babies, except for those killed in the flood and all Israel's conquests in the Promised Land. Not to mention all the plagues, starvation diseases and natural disasters.
Deuteronomy 30:19-20 (KJV): I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them. And if the King James Bible was good enough for Joseph Smith, then that's good enough for me.
But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. God new you even before you were born, is that also something you will correct, even God our creator?
So the simple question then is, Dan, would you argue that the Bible (and God) allows abortion? That it is not morally sinful and that a person who has an abortion is not culpable for murder?
@TomJones-wm4ro I don't think Dan is about arguing one way or the other in this - as a scholar, he is just examining the arguments and dismissing those that don't hold up.
Firstly, after listening to a lot of this gentleman's videos that has become pretty obvious that he is leaning more on the left side and is atheist. So expecting to hear anything good about the Bible is out the window. Furthermore he is a scholar. So for every opinion he has on his readings, there are 100 other opinions from other Scholars that argue the exact opposite. Realize that. More realistically, the Bible doesn't go into abortion and death because it wasn't near as popular now and as widespread with a good method of performing it with accuracy. If the Bible touched on every single moral conflict ,we would have a much larger book. Which is why passages are inserted such as inspireto be like Him etc. And obviously from his teachings, inspiring to be like Him would certainly make killing the creation of life wrong.
Ah, you're a typical theist. AKA, a blatant liar. Dan is a practicing Mormon. Dan is honest about what the Bible does and does not say. Whether what it says is good or bad is a value judgement that you're making. Dan goes out of his way to mention if a position is his own or the academic consensus. He always has sources for the latter. _And obviously from his teachings, inspiring to be like Him would certainly make killing the creation of life wrong._ You apparently missed the entire Noah story.
Then again, it is irrelevant. I can concede that you are a perfectly fully formed human person with all agency of yourself. However, that does not give you the right to use my body parts without my consent. If you need a kidney and we are a match, you cannot have mine unless I consent to it. If you, as a human being, are dependent on the use of my body, I have the right to say no and you are SOL.
@@flowingafterglow629 Strange you say that. Because when l saw my daughter In my wife's womb at 20 weeks old on a ultra scan l saw a separate human being. I could see she was a girl with a heartbeat.
By not considering it from God's point of view. What the Hell 🔥🔥🔥 reason could God have for being pro-life? Explaining how it could do it is not an answer. I could explain *how* a loving parent killed their child, it wouldn't explain *why.*
Psalm 139:9 "Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones." Biblical deity appears to have very little concern regarding the lives of children, let alone fetuses!
Mr. McClellan, God says he does not know you in the womb. The only time he says he knew "you" in the womb is when he is referring to Jesus. So of course he knew him in the womb. He also tells some priests how to make a drink that will abort the babies of women that have been unfaithful to their husbands. More evidence of an unjust or even an evil God. I think you should have included this info in your video.
"22 If people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely[e] but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. 23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise." That's what the verse says. Jesus was conceived, he wasn't a soul put into a robot. That's how we decide that God is pro life. This misinformation, or blatantly ignorant arguments, need to stop.
He did reference it. He also explained that the reference is to the woman and not the birthed itself. It is not that if the fetus looses a life, eye, tooth (that grow later) etc. But if the woman get a serious injury. Than the woman's husband (not the w herself) can demand the equivalent to be fined. Especially because, if I remember correctly, nearly all if not all premature births in that time is not survivable. Additionally, are there stories of the killing of innocent life and pregnant women in the bible, including an abortion if the fetus is formed by the seed of another man. (Numbers 5:11-?? can't look up the more specific citation) This of course can't mean, you can't be pro-life, I just don't see it as a biblical debate or backed by the bible. Especially with conflicting rules or events on that matter. Especially because not all of the referenced "we" agree to that interpretation.
Something doesn’t have to be murder to be morally wrong. The Bible encourages us to put the interests of others above our own, be fruitful and multiply, glorify the creator whose image is in every born and unborn person, love sacrificially and live above reproach. You would have to disregard a lot of Biblical concepts to decide that abortion is ok morally. Science will tell you that the unborn are human, they are living and they can feel some form of pain after 15 weeks. Your conscience testifies that it is wrong to brutally destroy a human life that can feel and respond to stimuli by vacuuming it out piece by piece.
The bible was used to justify abortion until the "moral majority" wanted an easy emotional issue to convince Christians that Jesus wanted them to vote for Reagan. It worked so well that a lot of Christians today think that Trump is their guy for moral reasons.
I find this to be more in the realms of opinion than I do as thought of contested morality, I look at it this way, a fetus is part of God's creation and if God so desires to terminate then so be it, but it's not our place to interfere with his creation, it's not our place to act as though we are god and have the right to say who lives and who dies.
We interfere with his creation every second of our lives. But, anyway, how is that the fetus if part of God's creation? It's the creation of their parents, not God's.
So with that logic we shouldn't be treating cancer or any other illness. Or doing surgery or anything, get a cut just let it bleed and wash it or you might kill gods creation of harmful bacteria amd viruses, break a leg if god wants it fixed it will get fixed, need your eyes fixed, only of god says so.
@@juanausensi499 if we are all his creation then we are ALL his, we don't have the right to decide, the process had begun, if you didn't want to be pregnant keep you legs closed, or take precautions, it just amazes me people have sex and then are so shocked that they became pregnant, like HOW DID THAT HAPPENED! abortions are not a contraception! And that's what's happening. You don't have to agree with me but I don't buy into the lie of "My body my choice" as they kill the body of their baby!
So, you are saying that abortion is more complicated than what pro-life Christians make it out to be and that "banning abortion" because God commands it is at best, very misguided? Cool. 😎
@@geraldingraham4948 When God causes people to die there is an overarching reason. As tough as it is, & it is tough, ultimately good will come of it for all those affected. All people who have ever lived will be resurrected and offered the chance to live forever. The Bible does not specifically say this, but I can see no reason that a pregnant woman who died, won't still be pregnant when resurrected. With humans, except in rare cases, almost all abortion is for selfish reasons of personal convenience. This attutide & motivation is wicked.
I would suggest that you wasted your time earning your various academic "theological" degrees which you seem to think so highly of. To be honest, I have found that the more academic “theological” learning someone has acquired the less they actually seem to know God, His will, Jesus and the Bible. For many years I have referred to institutional theological seminaries as theological cemeteries. Places where Biblical faith and Spirit led life go to die and be buried. Like the Pharisees of Jesus day, rather than higher education, they tragically seem to become indoctrinated with various humanistic philosophies, fanciful interpretations, and absurd in-vogue opinions about the Bible that Spirit led believers would not acquire from a straight forward reading / study of inspired Biblical scripture. I have yet to find a sermon or commentary upon the Bible that was one iota as life giving as continuously reading and rereading the inspired Word of God over and over and over while asking The Holy Spirit to illuminate it’s meaning. Nothing is equal with scripture. Nothing comes close. Regarding your opinions of God’s views on abortion, your biggest and most glaring error was that YOU DID NOT USE THE BIBLE as the source of authority for your absurd claims about when a baby was considered life in God’s sight. You relied upon "subtle" and "nuanced" non-biblical opinions, philosophies, and interpretations, rather than upon pure, unadulterated, God breathed, and inspired scripture. There are numerous Biblical passages that plainly and clearly indicate that God is prophesying the detailed futures of specific unborn people who are called by name with set in stone certainty before they are born. And, on numerous occasions it is long before they are even conceived. I will include a few such passages but there are many more: In Luke chapter 1 both Mary the mother of Jesus and Zechariah (Elizabeth) are given angelic prophecies about the lives of Jesus and John the Baptist before they are even conceived. Regarding John the Baptist, first the prophecy is given ub verse 13: 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. After this, Elizabeth becomes pregnant in verse 23: 23 When his time of service was completed, he returned home. 24 AFTER THIS HIS WIFE ELIZABETH BECAME PREGNANT and for five months remained in seclusion. Regarding Mary the mother of Jesus, the prophecy is given as future tense not past tense so it is before conception: 30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God.31 YOU WILL CONCEIVE and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” 35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit WILL come on you, and the power of the Most High WILL overshadow you. The prophecies about Jesus (Isaiah 52, 53) and Cyrus (Isaiah 45) were given centuries before they were conceived. There is not whiff of “if” or “maybe”. It is fully settled in God’s perfect plan. And there are many more such passages. Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. Regarding Exodus 21, the emphasis is upon what happens to the baby and it makes no reference regarding how long the baby has gestated. If the baby dies, then the killer is put to death (life for life). Exodus 21:22-25 “If people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, YOU ARE TO TAKE LIFE FOR LIFE, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise. There is a reason that Jesus rejected the Pharisees and instead chose 12 untrained disciples to establish His Kingdom. The Pharisees had become polluted wells, contaminated with the accumulated toxins of an empty, adulterated religious doctrine which were in opposition to God’s will. I would suggest that you cast aside your academic shackles and strictly read the Bible asking the Holy Spirit to see and hear God’s will rather than the humanistic interpretations of men as they are often poisoned wells.
Laughable to say the combatant just pays a "fine" If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, Exodus 21 22:23 KJV While his testimony regarding Romans 13 is pretty spot on. He uses the Word to reinforce his left wing world view. Similar to what the despot-sationalists do to justify their violent, blood thirsty rants.
@@howardnapier3618 If you were logically and rationally correct, you wouldn't need to appeal to emotion with a fake laughs and appeals to mockery. You literally lost the debate with your first word "laughable".
@@ErraticFaith An educated person wouldn't assume that someone else isn't educated. Nor use that assumption as an ad hominem attack to explicitly attempt to force someone out of a conversation with "aren't welcome here". My education allows me to analyze ancient texts, and establish that Dan is a known liar. And the only people who shouldn't be welcome in a conversation are intellectually dishonest liars. His other video about abortion he explicitly states that the bible "repeated" establish personhood at birth. This video seems to be a followup because he was called out on that lie (or at least very very ignorant non-truth).
there is nothing myopic about extrapolating and interpolating using scientific knowledge, it is correct, and it is inevitable. Knowledge of when life begins is critical to the debate and is an extension of life beginning in the womb, as when Elizabeth's baby 'leapt' inside her when the Virgin Mary visited.
There is a major difference between when LIFE begins and when the PERSONHOOD of that life begins. This is what the Jewish law and thinkers recognized for millennia. Also, what Elizabeth’s baby did in the womb has no inherent significant bearing on what we assert about the global case of when personhood begins. Any significance we attach to that verse is implicit, not explicit.
"When life begins" is a relatively irrelevant question to me in this matter. If the pregnancy is within a Catholic marriage, then it is the fruit of a Holy Sacrament. If it's a sin forgivable only by the Pope to desecrate the eucharist, then it's very reasonable to say that its a sin forgivable by any priest to destroy the fruit of the Sacrament of Matrimony. Now, in the case of someone not in full communion with the Holy See, I don't see how it is the business of the Church (or we could say that person has bigger issues to deal with first). And in any event, as far as a legal matter, as the law applies to non-Catholics as well as there are times when the termination occurs under pastoral consideration (for the welfare of the person who is pregnant), I don't see how the Church should be supporting any laws of the State in this matter.
So how do you account for the 14% of pregnancy that are auto-aborted by the body. Could this be the will of god? And if so why cannot medical abortions be seen as the will of god?
Considering how 99% of all life that has ever existed on the Earth is now dead? Well... I'd say you, and/or your reasoning, are wrong there. We can further add to that with the fact that throughout all of the Bible 'God' is ultimately responsible for Millions of Deaths (both direct & indirect, commanded & inspired), including the Deaths of Untold Numbers of Pregnant Women (And their Unborn Child), especially from Neighboring Tribes & Nations. And that's not even [yet] factoring in how he [apparently] was perfectly fine with (/Endorsing of) the Ordeal of Bitter Water(/Abortion Ritual) portrayed in the Bible. There even used to be Christian Sects during the Earlier Years of Christianity, which were full of Self-Martyring Suicidal Devotees... people who would deliberately provoke others into killing them, other people on the street, guards, home-owners, etc... Solely just so they could die quickly and go to 'heaven' as a "martyr". And it's not surprising to realize how & why the Roman Catholics had to eventually Condemn the act of suicide as "Unforgivable/Unpardonable in the eyes of God", despite the Bible NEVER making such a claim. If the Biblical 'God' exists at all, then if anything Occam's Razor would suggest it IS Pro-Death, rather than the opposite.
"Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee." Notice it doesn't say, "Before I formed a clump of cells in the belly." Also, who is doing the forming? God. If you think you should destroy God's creations willy nilly, you might be a devil.
Notice it doesn’t say “when I formed you I knew you, you were a person”, it says “before I formed you in the womb I knew you”. It’s not saying “when you were a fetus you were a person” it’s saying before Jeremiah was formed God already knew him. It’s a reference to God’s knowledge
Abortion is unethical regardless what the barbaric, pro-infanticide, racist, genocidal, pro-slavery, misogynistic Old or New Testaments or Quran say. Human rights do not need ancient [un]holy law codes as a reference. Also, considering embryos, individual bio-organisms, as genetically and philosophically human, is not dogmatic, and definitely not an inherently Christian position. There is nothing dogmatic or particularly religious about defending human rights.
I think you're missing the point. People are claiming in overwhelming numbers that their religious faith, informed by a specific book, is the reason they are holding a specific view. More than that they are insisting that there is no science or medical information that matters more than that view because it is a moral position backed by a religious text. That doesn't mean that they couldn't come to that same conclusion for different reasons or that anyone should. But it is important to be rigorous when that religious belief is being used to make medical decisions that can and had resulted in people's deaths. Because forcing someone to carry a non viable fetus because some voter thinks that their religious faith demands it, or continuing with an ectopic pregnancy when there is a high risk of injury or death for the same reasons shouldn't be decided using the Bible. And that should be something people should be able to discuss, but can't when "because it's in the Bible" is the constant rebuttal. I would also argue you can defend human rights vigorously and still think abortion should be a medical decision that will be necessary to save lives. Because we don't live under theistic dogmatic rules where all pregnancies are magically viable and never result in death. We live in the real world and when a fetus doesn't have lungs or a brain there isn't going to be a chance for a miracle. Science lets us know we're looking at a tragedy and forcing people to endure that tragedy because of the Bible is obscene. Look at the case of Savita Halappanavar who's death at the time was preventable, her pregnancy was not viable and her husband was told that the hospital would do nothing to save his wife's life because Catholicism. While both of them had wanted to welcome a child into their lives the reality turned into Savita spending days dying from sepsis while they both knew her life could have been saved if they were in a different country. That is what prioritizing religious texts over medical facts can get you when it comes to abortion. The ethical and moral decision might not be pretty but it would have saved a life. The religious choice ended a life.
The word quickening is also used in early colonial America to describe abxrtion cutoffs along the Aristotelian definition. This was probably based on the Bible and/or early church, so that might make an interesting video topic, since people also worship early US laws as if they're sacred.
Is it just me that feels strange about people insisting on a blanket prohibition on the taking of innocent life when those same people would also insist on the concept of original sin and that salvation can only be achieved through the proactive act of accepting Jesus, the clear implication being that there is no such thing as an innocent life because everyone is born in sin?
That's incorrect. When we say "innocent" in reference to the unborn we are referring to the fact that they haven't committed a sin. That's why original sin is contrasted with personal / committed sins. Either way, even though people are sinners, that doesn't necessarily mean we have a right to kill them. It would only be valid in self defense (applying the principle of double effect)
@@chadtyrone that's not really much of an argument.
@@fodynot2244 you just said that babies are born with original sin. In addition to be morally disgusting, your position is inconsistent.
@@scambammer6102I'm pretty sure that's the standard version isn't it?
@@squiddwizzard8850 yep
First words: “Christians came to this conclusion...” This is true. It was never spoken, written, or otherwise communicated by God.
Ah, Thiest Brooks. The guy whose followers believe never loses an argument...
We need to get him and Ben Shapiro in a room!
Lol his comments section might as well be bots. Its honestly kind of incredible. Same 4 comments recycled over and over.
It frightens me these people are real 😂
@@kodiekulpand can vote
@@xaayer thanks for putting the icing on the fear cake 😀
Interesting to read about the link between Hammurabi and Moses. I saw half on article (on JSTOR) by George Duncan on the parallels there: The Code of Moses and the Code of Hammurabi. Thank you for that background.
The Visigothic code from early medieval Spain has regulations on abortion. It's never punished as murder. It's either a fine if the abortion was caused by someone of the same social class, or a fine and lashings if it was caused by someone socially inferior (for example, a slave performing it on a free woman). And fun fact, there's no crime at all if the husband doesn't report it or demand a fine.
Life does not begin at birth, nor when the brain forms, nor even at conception. Life began a couple of billion years ago and CONTINUES. Two living organisms release two living cells which combine into a living cell that grows eventually into an independent organism. The point you consider the new organism to be a new "life" is arbitrary.
The topic isn't when "life" (living cells) began. The topic is when "life" (a new human being) begins. You have to know how disingenuous and pointless your comment is. There is nothing "arbitrary" about distinguishing between clearly distinct living beings. Does that distinction begin at conception, or does that distinction begin at birth when the baby is separated from the umbilical cord, or at another time all together? You are engaging in a fallacy of equivocation.
@@BK-hq7tn I disagree. I'm pointing out that there is no clear boundary where a new organism begins. A fertilized ovum is neither viable nor conscious, while a baby is both even before it is literally born. You can set one for legal purposes, just like in my country you set 18 for the age to be an adult, but other jurisdictions choose differently.
The approach to the problem is wrong. It is more important to work on fixing society, culture, economics, education, health care, etc to reduce incidence rather than legislate against it which increases suffering.
@@BK-hq7tn That's the entire point. That all of this is arbitrary boundaries and you cannot just appeal to science for this
Thoroughly informative.
As someone of a Catholic background, I typically find Biblical arguments to be weaker compared to those based on philosophical tradition. When discussing things such as abortion, sex, and any other hot topic, using something like a natural law framework, for instance, at least puts the discourse in terms that tend to be more universally comprehensible than the "revealed" truth of a particular tradition.
It's also more practical if looking to make any legal or social changes, as religious reasons have the problem of not applying to everyone, separation of church and state and would rightly be viewed as forcing religious beliefs onto others. Not to mention people are more receptive to views if they have more then my holy book says so, that's just not a convincing thing for both those in that specific religion (who have a different interpretation of gods clear and unchanging word) or those outside of it (definitely those outside of it, why would they care what a book of myths says? Or what a heretical religious text says?).
At the moment I'm firmly on the side of abortion for moral, philosophical and scientific reasons but if an arguement were to convince me it wouldn't be from the bible.
@@charlestownsend9280Everyone has a conscience and would be appalled at the very least by 2nd trimester abortions if they were presented with the details of the procedure. Here’s a video of a doctor who used to perform abortions explaining it and some of the issues.
th-cam.com/video/9l7lTMzEs8E/w-d-xo.htmlsi=yPmREicjur1iEKw_
@@charlestownsend9280 There are always two arguments that need to be addressed to oppose abortion.
1 Does it have a right to exist ?
2 Does that right to exist take precedence over the person it is going to exist inside ?
The third argument would be: Why do we need consent if its existence always takes precedence ?
In mid 90s I well recall a Youth Fellowship talk at our fundamentalist church on “sanctity of life” aka this topic, given by a senior medical student.
He let slip/was asked about how many human fertilised eggs didn’t make it to full term - and he had to admit the majority don’t even manage attachment to the uterus.
In other words in this worldview, countless mini-human lives are created and destroyed annually at a genocidal scale in the first moments of life, with no divine intervention to stop it!
If that is a designed system described by sound theology… it’s beyond mixed-up
It's the nature of pregnancy. Mother Nature, plain and simple.
One of the bloggers I've read talks about her gradual shift to pro-choice and one of her steps was when she realized that the birth control her sect also opposed would have prevented so many more of these (usually unrecognized) spontaneous abortions than any success they obtained in preventing the more obvious elective or medically necessary abortions.
One thing that people seem to either forget or overlook is the trial of bitter waters. This is a trial that a woman is forced to undertake if her husband believes her to be unfaithful to him and is carrying another man’s baby’s. She is to drink a mixture of water and ash. She then aborts the baby if it belongs to another man. Numbers 5: 11-31. This is scriptural prescription for abortion.
Like with biblical slavery and homophobia and the one case of human sacrifice people with twist themselves into knots trying to make that not say what it literally says.
I would argue that this is folktale nonsense.
@@stormy8110not really relevant though.
Dan has a video about that. You can try to find it yourself using appropriate keywords if you are interested. I ain’t going to rummage through hundreds of Dan’s videos.
Anyway, in short he basically says it’s not about abortion and gives a detailed explanation of the original Hebrew. He says there’s no mention that the woman is given the potion because she is pregnant, just that the husband believes her to be unfaithful. Tbh I was not fully convinced because a lot of other scholars do mention the reference to miscarriage and I don’t think they dreamed it.
I am not equipped to judge who is right, however, whatever the correct context/interpretation it’s clear that forcing a woman to drink nasty s*t at a time when women spent most of their fertile life pregnant, shows utter disregard for the possible fetus they carry.
That was a fun thing to read while I was a believer going from cover to cover of the Bible. There's a lot of stuff in there that most Christian positions just seem to ignore. Anyone who says that God values life didn't read the Old testament. And anyone who says that God values fetuses who have committed no sin have never read God's commands to ransack cities, sparing no woman who is pregnant or breastfeeding. The only thing you could say is that the only lives he values are those of men in his chosen people. Kind of messed up by any modern measure.
Shorter Evangelicals: We deny science and the scientific method...unless we think it will reinforce our worldview.
Nonsense. The largest bulk of science denial today comes from the nonreligious left.
I'm atheist but I enjoy your videos. Mostly because from what I've seen you don't use the Bible as a weapon.... thanks
Wow, thank you so much for the short bibliography at the end of your video. Great stuff. 🙂
The inclusion of Michael J. Gorman’s “Abortion & the Early Church” as recommended reading at the end is an excellent recommendation. It goes through all the scholarship touched on above but also, interestingly, comes to a quite different conclusion. Not that it’s at all uncommon for Biblical scholars to come to different conclusions from the same set of facts. All the more reason to applaud Dr. McClellan for including it in the list of texts to check out. In that book Gorman argues that the position of the Early Church firmly against abortion actually is instructive and relevant for us today and that it should indeed lead modern Christians to oppose abortion. And I think it’s a conclusion worth taking seriously and it makes Gorman’s book well worth reading.
I don’t know how you can reconcile God saying “kill everything that breathes” to the Israelites a few times with “God is pro-life”.
Excellent vid, Doc; very enlightening. Pleasantly surprised me, as I figured this would be all stuff I'm quite familiar with. Thanks again! ♥️
Thank you so much for debunking this nonsense! Bravo!
Thank you for this clear and concise explanation of the topic Dan.
Science does not say life begins at conception, that is an entirely religious position. The egg and sperm were already "alive" before conception. It was only after medical science revealed the basic steps in embryonic development in the mid-20th century that some religious groups seized on the idea that human life must therefore “begin” at fertilisation.
_["Science does not say life begins at conception, that is an entirely religious position."]_
Given the rest of your comment as context, you appear to be committing the equivocation fallacy. "Life" as in the complex self-perpetuating chemical reaction that is metabolic activity began billions of years ago. A "life", as in the existence of an individual organism, begins at conception and this is hard to dispute.
The sperm and the egg are alive, yes, but only because they are haploid fragments of a larger multi-cellular organism. If you were to try to evaluate a sperm or egg as to whether it qualified as alive, it would fail on grounds such as an inability to acquire new resources and inability to perpetuate more of itself. In isolation, sperm and eggs would get put in the bin full of life-like but non-living things like protocells and viruses.
At conception, when the haploid DNA components of sperm and egg combine, we get a unique diploid human cell which does meet the criteria we would use to evaluate whether something we found on Mars is "alive". This cell is not a sperm or an egg. It is not a part of either parent. It did not exist prior to conception. That makes it a new living thing.
The question of the moral weight of this new living thing is the bit at debate. Trying to dispute that an embryo is alive is a losing move, as it will just make you look ignorant as you lose. The winning moves are to evangelize the set of axioms that you use to arrive at your position, wherever on the spectrum between pro-choice and pro-life you land.
_["It was only after medical science revealed the basic steps in embryonic development in the mid-20th century that some religious groups seized on the idea that human life must therefore “begin” at fertilisation."]_
The idea that life began at conception dates at least as far back as ancient Greece, where one of the major branches of philosophical thought considered life to begin at conception.
I'm always mystified by 'life begins at conception' when, in reality, life began once and we're really not sure how or when. There's no point where inert matter becomes animate matter.
they mean when does an individual human life begins. it begins at conception. which doesn't compel any particular position on abortion. society places limited value on individual human lives all the time. Food and drug, products liability, and environmental standards allow for estimated mortality rates, for example.
@@scambammer6102 Does it begin at conception? What is the criteria for an individual human life? Surely if it cannot sustain its own existence then it is not an individual but rather a part of the body that is sustaining it?
Does this mean that identical twins have only one human life between them? Or that people who are born as chimeras of two conceptions have two lives?@@scambammer6102
@@scambammer6102 And I mean that the statement "life begins at conception" is an actual nonsense statement in terms of biology. I know what they think they mean, but that's not how it works. Sorry.
@@scambammer6102 actually that came off bitchier than I wanted it to, sorry I twisted my ankle the other day and I'm cranky
I just love your knowledge and how you're able to explain enough to back it up.
I am really enjoying your videos. Very insightful stuff.
Bringing the fire, yet again! :)
Dan, do you agree with Jennifer Bird's position that the ordeal of bitter water in Numbers can result in abortion? I can't see how such a trial would not take into account the possibility of pregnancy, and so provide an outcome if the woman is pregnant. I would assume, then, that the thigh rotting and falling away would indicate the lost life issuing forth from her, providing visual evidence of the transgression and leading to her ostracization.
If god were against abortion it could simply withhold the miracle of life from someone who doesn’t want to accept it. This would not violate free will, in fact it would honor it
valid analysis; however, although 'life' as it stands on its own is an interesting scientific question, as it stands as a criterion for abortion is irrelevant since bodily autonomy takes priority over life, personhood, 'soul' or any other arbitrary attribute the religious feel like attributing to the zygote, embryo or fetus.
IMO, the abortion issue will never be fully answered or "solved," it will always be an individual decision and opinion. Personally, I believe the spirit enters a fetus just before birth and that keeping, or aborting a fetus, is 100% the decision and choice of the woman and mother, NOT any church's or the government's. And, I'm an active moderate Christian. Harris 2024!!!
Yes, the soul incarnates right before birth.
Science most certainly does not say that "life" begins at conception. That's rhetorical nonsense.
Science says life begins millions of years ago in the ocean!
@@FishfaceTheDestroyer billions of years ago. And it most likely began in some sort of interface medium, such as on the internal or external walls of "black smokers", or similar environments.
@@FishfaceTheDestroyer semantic nonsense. The topic isn't when "life" (living cells) began. The topic is when "life" (a new human being) begins. You have to know how disingenuous and pointless your comment is.
This is so refreshing. Thanks for this brief, but thorough, explanation of this.
That was very good and wildly informative.
If a decree came down tomorrow and stated that all religions are false and manmade, how would your life change? It would make you hold your children closer to you knowing that there is no sky daddy that is going to save you. It’s a beautiful awakening! Cheers!
Interesting!
The question is: “can a decree make someone stop believing?”
In china, there are plenty of religions that are illegal. Still people continue to practice.
Clandestinely though. But still.
Thank you for your videos!
Some of them know how they use these verses is incorrect. Once you point out you know what the verse mean or are saying they choose different arguments or ghost any further conversation. They know they are arguing in bad faith.
In 7:14 it is spoken about how opposition to abortion is not based entirely on the testimony of scripture but it is mentioned it is mentioned in the Epistle of Barnabas. The thing is, the Epistle of Barnabas is part of the Codex Sinaiticus, someone regarded it as scripture.
If people want to decide this question biblically, the Bible is very clear. In the Book of Genesis, Chapter 2 verse 7, God creates man out of dust and breathes into his nostrils the breath of life, and man becomes a living being. Read it yourself. So man (and woman etc.) as a living being begins with the first breath after birth.
Those people are not "pro-life," they are anti-choice.
If they were pro-life, then they would be addressing the issues that might compel a girl or woman to seek an abortion.
Didache does confirm a tradition that abortion equates to murder at some point in the development of the fetus and it doesn't "argue" this, it takes it for granted that some abortions are murder of children.
I would love to see you take on polygamy the same way, and include LDS scriptures in your analysis.
LDS doesn't practice polygamy
@bertilow Polygamy is still part of church doctrine. It is accepted that polygamy will be practiced in the next life and that it is simply "on hold" for now. Technically, the church could reactivate it at any time and that would be consistent with church teachings. The church teaches that you must be married to attain the highest degree of heaven. It also teaches that that means polygamy because there will be more women than men, so what it teaches women is that you must accept polygamy if you want to go to heaven. Go investigate.
Also asking "when life begins" is the wrong question since life began long before any person or other creature was conceived. Life is simply continuing from parent to offspring, so trying to define personhood as occurring at conception because that's "when life began" seems tenuous at best in my eyes.
Thank you. When are you, or would you ever consider debating another scholar or theologian?
While I enjoy watching debates now and again, I do hope that Dan will avoid this trap. It's all too often the case that brilliant, sincere, well intentioned people end up on stage with the intellectually dishonest who despite being thoroughly exposed during the debate, strut around like they "won" and then turn around and fleece their gullable followers.
Though you and I may differ on the topic of Dan doing debates, I wish you all the best and excellent health! ❤
I decided when Jesus was just sitting around and kids were all around Him,and He said don't hurt none of my little ones,or your going to regret it.
Those kids were already born
@@marlabeard5352 that's the thing about humans,He said My little ones,,babies inside the body are still little ones .And decides that back then,people weren't ramming sharp objects into their bodies to kill their offspring.,And God said be fruitful and multiply,not destroy your children in your womb.But hey ,do what you want and take your chances on the other end.
@@ricklamb772 Between one-third and one-half of all fertilized eggs never fully implant. If God wanted every fertilized egg to become a born baby, it sure seems like he wouldn't have aborted so many.
god said i knew you in the womb...to me that seems like he's acknowledging the personhood of the unborn@@marlabeard5352
@@ricklamb772 "And decides that back then,people weren't ramming sharp objects into their bodies to kill their offspring"
*besides that
And yes, they were. Abortion has been practiced throughout human history. We have manuscripts from ancient Egypt (ca. 1550 BCE) discussing the practice.
You the man, Dan ❤
A local catholic school in New Orleans (Amy Coney Barret's Alma Mater) posted signs everywhere saying "thou shalt not kill". My brother (orthodox Jew who went to Yeshiva) always critiqued it saying that the torah actually says "thou shalt not murder" and as long as abortion is legal, that cannot definitionally be murder.
@@gweiss1858 ah, so God's law conforms to whatever the prevailing modern laws are?
@@danparks8290
The conservative Christians would certainly like to think so.
@@danparks8290when “God’s law” is silent on a topic, then yeah. The Bible says nothing at all about abortion, meaning we can’t say the Bible considers it murder, and since murder is illegal killing, that means the only authority on abortion’s permissibility is the society you live in
@@BobbyHill26 Jeremiah 20:17 refers to unborn human life being taken.
@@danparks8290 that helps my point more than anything. Look up that Hebrew word for death there, it’s the word used for death by natural causes, by God himself, and by capital punishment, these are all permissible means of ending a life, so if that verse has any bearing on the discussion of abortion, it would mean that it isn’t murder, thus legal.
We should take a moment to appreciate the accuracy of the title in directly suggesting it was decided by _people…_ which it was. Just like every other alleged attribute of God. Somehow God can never speak for itself.
The biblical God is pro-death.
Doesn’t god recommend a method (poultice ?)to determine if a woman has/had committed adultery?
If she has a abortion it was adultery, if not she had been faithful
Can someone explain the point of a proscription against 'ratzah' (Thou shalt not murder) if the concept of ratzah already entails definitionally that it is illegal? Don't do this thing that by definition should not be done. What work is being done by this 'command' or verse?
Well, there’s also a prohibition against stealing, which is to illegally take something from someone else, so that’s another command that really doesn’t have much of a point
Not just Christians but Jews also who maintain this boundary….probably because thats what the Hebrew tradition believes whether the biblical text says it outright or not. Sooo thats something.
Bravo!
All this boils down is a mystical, supernatural notion of “life” and that a magical ghost lives inside of us rather than our mind being the product of brain function.
Great explanation, thank you. I do have a question. Do you think it's possible that because of what Christians are taught about sinful nature, that it is much easier to allow women today to die in childbirth and to be forced to carry babies they don't want because they are considered "sinful", and the babies are innocent and pure, so they deserve to be protected more than their mother?
i always hope when a book is mentioned that it will makes its ways to the Description // is that lazy of me ? // ≧◡≦
Yes another great video exposing the charlatans for who they are
Life begins at a cellular level. Grass is alive, so should we stop mowing the lawn? A cat or a dog is more aware and conscious than a fetus.
This. It's not really that big of a deal to put down a crotch goblin even a few months after it's actually born, I've had to do the same to one of my dogs in the past and I guarantee he was way smarter than a baby that young.
@@ossiah_i I'd probably draw the line somewhere prior to birth, _but_ I have known some SOBs that made a pretty credible case for legalizing abortion up to 200ish trimester.
Sorry about your dog.
The whole "thou shalt not murder" commandment always seemed to me to be really stupid.
As you point it, it boils down to "Thou shalt not kill when you are not allowed to kill."
Thanks. That's real helpful. Glad you cleared that up, God. I was confused.
murder and kill don't mean the same thing..all murder is killing but not all killing is murder
@@sullivanbiddle9979 Yes. Murder is killing that is not allowed. Some killing is allowed, some is not allowed. If it is not allowed, it is murder. By definition.
And since murder is, by definition, not allowed, why do you need a commandment against it?
The notion that Exodus 21 refers to the baby being born intact or not intact comes directly from the Septuagint.
Edit: wrote this comment before hearing the section about the Septuagint.
Just to be clear, Dan did not take a position on abortion. He only clarified the biblical text, religious traditions, and a little philosophic tradition for good measure.
Logical inconsistency, get thee behind me!
Here’s a fun thought, if all of the proof that God is pro-life hinges on all the verses about God creating human life, then shouldn’t we also hold the same or at least similar reverence for ALL of biblical creation?
Like….
The Earth….
And shouldn’t those same Christians be as loudly fighting against climate change?
Just a thought…
Is God pro-life, is a question that can only come from a carnal mind.
So if not pro-life, then exactly pro-what do you think?
Another question: which god are we talking about? The wrathful one of the OT is pro killing, murder, war, torture, suffering. The real God is pro free choice. He lets women choose.
While one could argue that a person is formed at conception, to say that life begins at conception is just silly. Both the sperm and the egg are necessarily alive when they fuse, so there is no "new" life, just a continuation of the lives of the parents.
the potential child is a new person. it isn't just "a continuation of the parents"
@@scambammer6102 Don't misquote me.
@@scambammer6102 The child is a new person and also a continuation of the parents. The potential child is a potential new person, not an actual new person. Sperm and eggs are also potential new people, just more ambiguous - but a fertilized egg is extremely ambiguous as well, since fetal development can proceed or not in multiple ways (such as the ambiguous potential at fertilization for identical twins).
If a life is formed at conception, if the soul enters the body at the point of conception, and twins form by the abnormal division of an embryo after conception takes places, does that mean that twins are considered a singular lifeform?
This is why the whole appeal to science is silly. Science is able to draw a distinction between what is and isn't "alive" (even then the boundaries are fuzzy) but it does not draw a distinction between what is and isn't "a life" because that is a legal/ethical term and not a scientific one. Even science's category for what is and isn't an individual comes with fuzzy boundaries and asterisks, because you start to get into things like colonial organisms, symbiosis, genetic chimera's etc.
There is no clear demarcation of when life begins because it can only be a qualitative assessment and not an objective empirical one.
@@joelpartee594The fetus is a wholly unique individual human organism. Not the same as sperm and ova.
Do you believe that the Bible takes a stance on this issue? If it does not, how ought Christians think on this issue?
This was covered in the video.
Watch it again - you'll get it! 😊
If personhood could occur apart from the moment of conception and going foward , then this argument might have some legitimacy. But personhood is wholly dependent on the unborn having life. So there is no point in separating life from personhood.
My flowers grow and one day produce a bud and then a bloom, but rip the young plant out of the ground, it will never flower.
A dead baby will never realize personhood - it has to have life to do so.
Sure, but the question is the timing of the onset of personhood. You’re using personhood as a synonym for life, but that’s not what it means.
Personhood is certainly dependent on life (you can't be a person without being alive), but that doesn't mean that life is synonymous to personhood. A flower is alive, yet we wouldn't call it a person.
Has anyone read Numbers 5?
I was waiting for that, but according to Christians you have to not feed your flock the hard to swallow stuff until they become hooked.
God seems to be a huge fan of killing everything...he isn't really too picky
Welcome to how the Joo's do business.
This is sick
Beware the man who says, "I know; I know," and then presents his knowledge through verbal gymnastics.
Can you be a little bit more specific.
beware the man who posts meaningless platitudes.
@@scambammer6102
This fellow reminds me of a conservative, drinking-is-a-sin preacher, who was expounding upon John 2. When he reached the part where Jesus turned the water into wine, he, like the guy in the video, began verbal gymnastics to undermine reality to fit his desired belief.
He comes off as wise and studied, but his message is nothing but verbal smoke and mirrors.
(Personage/personhood - know this: The slave owners in America used the same thinking as this guy. The slaves, they said, were not people, so killing them, when, of course, necessary, was perfectly fine and legal. The nature of the slaughtered individuals is different, but the thinking behind the murderous behavior is the same.)
(Meaningless platitudes? If I had written my comment to the conservative preacher instead of a fellow you obviously support, you would have said, "Yeah, man. Yeah," instead of dismissiveness. By the way, my comment does not meet the definition of platitude. Find a better word when condemning me.)
@@rainwalker95 Personage/personhood - know this: The slave owners in America used the same thinking as this guy. The slaves, they said, were not people, so killing them, when, of course, necessary, was perfectly fine and legal. The nature of the slaughtered individuals is different, but the thinking behind the murderous behavior is the same.
Like this guy, the slave owners used verbal gymnastics to justify killing slaves (when necessary), who were, like the fetus, different than they.
The single cell egg, freshly germinated, has all it's chromosomes and a unique, human DNA chain. Other than appearance, if that ain't human, what is?
A slave is not a fetus
According to Genesis 2:7 life begins with the first breathing. Something happens in the process of consciousness with breathing. Before that it is a "life", but more like a plant is a life.
So, let every women to decide what is inside her body or not. When God did mess with something like that? Only religious people can tell other people what to do (being religious and being a believer are opposed things to me).
No one who has actually read the whole bible can honestly say that it's pro-life, whether you're talking about the unborn or the living. All you have to do is read the first few books of the Old Testament to see.
Thank you ! Does Jewish law state that life begins at conception? No, life does not begin at conception under Jewish law. Sources in the Talmud note that the fetus is “mere water” before 40 days of gestation. Following this period, the fetus is considered a physical part of the pregnant individual’s body, not yet having life of its own or independent rights. The fetus is not viewed as separate from the parent’s body until birth begins and the first breath of oxygen into the lungs allows the soul to enter the body.
Does Jewish law assert that it is possible to murder a fetus? No, Jewish law does not consider a fetus to be alive. The Torah, Exodus 21:22-23, recounts a story of two men who are fighting and injure a pregnant woman, resulting in her subsequent miscarriage. The verse explains that if the only harm done is the miscarriage, then the perpetrator must pay a fine. However, if the pregnant person is gravely injured, the penalty shall be a life for a life as in other homicides. The common rabbinical interpretation of this verse is that the men did not commit murder and that the fetus is not a person. The primary concern is the well-being of the person who was injured.
According to Jewish law, is abortion health care? Yes, Jewish sources explicitly state that abortion is not only permitted but is required should the pregnancy endanger the life or health
God loved babies, except for those killed in the flood and all Israel's conquests in the Promised Land. Not to mention all the plagues, starvation diseases and natural disasters.
Even though the bible doesn’t say anything about abortion, that doesn’t mean you can’t have an opinion about it. 😉
Deuteronomy 30:19-20 (KJV): I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.
And if the King James Bible was good enough for Joseph Smith, then that's good enough for me.
But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
God new you even before you were born, is that also something you will correct, even God our creator?
I read that as the spiritual person makes it up as they go along based on their feelings. Do you think your feelings are a reliable path to truth?
So the simple question then is, Dan, would you argue that the Bible (and God) allows abortion? That it is not morally sinful and that a person who has an abortion is not culpable for murder?
@TomJones-wm4ro I don't think Dan is about arguing one way or the other in this - as a scholar, he is just examining the arguments and dismissing those that don't hold up.
Striking a pregnant woman and causing the end of a pregnancy was a property crime against the father.
Firstly, after listening to a lot of this gentleman's videos that has become pretty obvious that he is leaning more on the left side and is atheist. So expecting to hear anything good about the Bible is out the window.
Furthermore he is a scholar. So for every opinion he has on his readings, there are 100 other opinions from other Scholars that argue the exact opposite. Realize that.
More realistically, the Bible doesn't go into abortion and death because it wasn't near as popular now and as widespread with a good method of performing it with accuracy. If the Bible touched on every single moral conflict ,we would have a much larger book.
Which is why passages are inserted such as inspireto be like Him etc. And obviously from his teachings, inspiring to be like Him would certainly make killing the creation of life wrong.
Ah, you're a typical theist. AKA, a blatant liar.
Dan is a practicing Mormon.
Dan is honest about what the Bible does and does not say. Whether what it says is good or bad is a value judgement that you're making.
Dan goes out of his way to mention if a position is his own or the academic consensus. He always has sources for the latter.
_And obviously from his teachings, inspiring to be like Him would certainly make killing the creation of life wrong._
You apparently missed the entire Noah story.
how did we come to the conclusion that the biblical God is pro Choice?
We don't need God to tell us its weing to kill a helpless living beings/ fetus / baby
So, there 😂
Abortion is a tricky subject. On the one hand the baby resides within a woman's body and on the other dna will always determine it is a human being.
Then again, it is irrelevant. I can concede that you are a perfectly fully formed human person with all agency of yourself. However, that does not give you the right to use my body parts without my consent. If you need a kidney and we are a match, you cannot have mine unless I consent to it.
If you, as a human being, are dependent on the use of my body, I have the right to say no and you are SOL.
@@flowingafterglow629 Strange you say that. Because when l saw my daughter In my wife's womb at 20 weeks old on a ultra scan l saw a separate human being. I could see she was a girl with a heartbeat.
By not considering it from God's point of view.
What the Hell 🔥🔥🔥 reason could God have for being pro-life? Explaining how it could do it is not an answer.
I could explain *how* a loving parent killed their child, it wouldn't explain *why.*
"Because he did not kill me before birth, So that my mother would have been my grave, And her womb forever pregnant." - Jeremiah 20:17
Psalm 139:9 "Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones."
Biblical deity appears to have very little concern regarding the lives of children, let alone fetuses!
@@tulpas93 And this verse reflects the attitude of biblical deity how?
So Mary could have aborted Jesus and that would not have been murdered?
Mr. McClellan, God says he does not know you in the womb. The only time he says he knew "you" in the womb is when he is referring to Jesus. So of course he knew him in the womb. He also tells some priests how to make a drink that will abort the babies of women that have been unfaithful to their husbands. More evidence of an unjust or even an evil God. I think you should have included this info in your video.
"22 If people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely[e] but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. 23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise." That's what the verse says. Jesus was conceived, he wasn't a soul put into a robot. That's how we decide that God is pro life. This misinformation, or blatantly ignorant arguments, need to stop.
He did reference it. He also explained that the reference is to the woman and not the birthed itself.
It is not that if the fetus looses a life, eye, tooth (that grow later) etc. But if the woman get a serious injury. Than the woman's husband (not the w herself) can demand the equivalent to be fined.
Especially because, if I remember correctly, nearly all if not all premature births in that time is not survivable.
Additionally, are there stories of the killing of innocent life and pregnant women in the bible, including an abortion if the fetus is formed by the seed of another man. (Numbers 5:11-?? can't look up the more specific citation)
This of course can't mean, you can't be pro-life, I just don't see it as a biblical debate or backed by the bible. Especially with conflicting rules or events on that matter. Especially because not all of the referenced "we" agree to that interpretation.
Something doesn’t have to be murder to be morally wrong. The Bible encourages us to put the interests of others above our own, be fruitful and multiply, glorify the creator whose image is in every born and unborn person, love sacrificially and live above reproach. You would have to disregard a lot of Biblical concepts to decide that abortion is ok morally.
Science will tell you that the unborn are human, they are living and they can feel some form of pain after 15 weeks. Your conscience testifies that it is wrong to brutally destroy a human life that can feel and respond to stimuli by vacuuming it out piece by piece.
The bible was used to justify abortion until the "moral majority" wanted an easy emotional issue to convince Christians that Jesus wanted them to vote for Reagan. It worked so well that a lot of Christians today think that Trump is their guy for moral reasons.
Soos!
Check the Didache
I find this to be more in the realms of opinion than I do as thought of contested morality, I look at it this way, a fetus is part of God's creation and if God so desires to terminate then so be it, but it's not our place to interfere with his creation, it's not our place to act as though we are god and have the right to say who lives and who dies.
What is "God" and why should I care whatever it might have done 10-15 billion years ago?
@@digitaljanus if you don't know than that's your problem not mine
We interfere with his creation every second of our lives. But, anyway, how is that the fetus if part of God's creation? It's the creation of their parents, not God's.
So with that logic we shouldn't be treating cancer or any other illness. Or doing surgery or anything, get a cut just let it bleed and wash it or you might kill gods creation of harmful bacteria amd viruses, break a leg if god wants it fixed it will get fixed, need your eyes fixed, only of god says so.
@@juanausensi499 if we are all his creation then we are ALL his, we don't have the right to decide, the process had begun, if you didn't want to be pregnant keep you legs closed, or take precautions, it just amazes me people have sex and then are so shocked that they became pregnant, like HOW DID THAT HAPPENED! abortions are not a contraception! And that's what's happening. You don't have to agree with me but I don't buy into the lie of "My body my choice" as they kill the body of their baby!
So, you are saying that abortion is more complicated than what pro-life Christians make it out to be and that "banning abortion" because God commands it is at best, very misguided?
Cool. 😎
Here l was thinking you, Dan was a Christian. No... you are not
He is simply saying the matter isn't as black and white as some present it.
Only a person bereft of any knowledge of God can believe deliberate abortion is remotely OK with God.
God personally wiped out every baby on earth once. How many pregnant women did he let on the Ark?
@@geraldingraham4948
When God causes people to die there is an overarching reason.
As tough as it is, & it is tough, ultimately good will come of it for all those affected.
All people who have ever lived will be resurrected and offered the chance to live forever.
The Bible does not specifically say this, but I can see no reason that a pregnant woman who died, won't still be pregnant when resurrected.
With humans, except in rare cases, almost all abortion is for selfish reasons of personal convenience. This attutide & motivation is wicked.
the Hebrew says she gives birth. It doesn't say miscarriage.
You claim that isreal adopted a palestinian view anciently, so do biblical scholars now claim there is an ancient people called Palestinians?
I would suggest that you wasted your time earning your various academic "theological" degrees which you seem to think so highly of.
To be honest, I have found that the more academic “theological” learning someone has acquired the less they actually seem to know God, His will, Jesus and the Bible. For many years I have referred to institutional theological seminaries as theological cemeteries. Places where Biblical faith and Spirit led life go to die and be buried.
Like the Pharisees of Jesus day, rather than higher education, they tragically seem to become indoctrinated with various humanistic philosophies, fanciful interpretations, and absurd in-vogue opinions about the Bible that Spirit led believers would not acquire from a straight forward reading / study of inspired Biblical scripture.
I have yet to find a sermon or commentary upon the Bible that was one iota as life giving as continuously reading and rereading the inspired Word of God over and over and over while asking The Holy Spirit to illuminate it’s meaning. Nothing is equal with scripture. Nothing comes close.
Regarding your opinions of God’s views on abortion, your biggest and most glaring error was that YOU DID NOT USE THE BIBLE as the source of authority for your absurd claims about when a baby was considered life in God’s sight. You relied upon "subtle" and "nuanced" non-biblical opinions, philosophies, and interpretations, rather than upon pure, unadulterated, God breathed, and inspired scripture.
There are numerous Biblical passages that plainly and clearly indicate that God is prophesying the detailed futures of specific unborn people who are called by name with set in stone certainty before they are born. And, on numerous occasions it is long before they are even conceived.
I will include a few such passages but there are many more:
In Luke chapter 1 both Mary the mother of Jesus and Zechariah (Elizabeth) are given angelic prophecies about the lives of Jesus and John the Baptist before they are even conceived.
Regarding John the Baptist, first the prophecy is given ub verse 13:
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.
After this, Elizabeth becomes pregnant in verse 23:
23 When his time of service was completed, he returned home. 24 AFTER THIS HIS WIFE ELIZABETH BECAME PREGNANT and for five months remained in seclusion.
Regarding Mary the mother of Jesus, the prophecy is given as future tense not past tense so it is before conception:
30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God.31 YOU WILL CONCEIVE and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.
34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” 35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit WILL come on you, and the power of the Most High WILL overshadow you.
The prophecies about Jesus (Isaiah 52, 53) and Cyrus (Isaiah 45) were given centuries before they were conceived. There is not whiff of “if” or “maybe”. It is fully settled in God’s perfect plan. And there are many more such passages.
Isaiah 7:14
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.
Regarding Exodus 21, the emphasis is upon what happens to the baby and it makes no reference regarding how long the baby has gestated. If the baby dies, then the killer is put to death (life for life).
Exodus 21:22-25
“If people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, YOU ARE TO TAKE LIFE FOR LIFE, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.
There is a reason that Jesus rejected the Pharisees and instead chose 12 untrained disciples to establish His Kingdom. The Pharisees had become polluted wells, contaminated with the accumulated toxins of an empty, adulterated religious doctrine which were in opposition to God’s will.
I would suggest that you cast aside your academic shackles and strictly read the Bible asking the Holy Spirit to see and hear God’s will rather than the humanistic interpretations of men as they are often poisoned wells.
Laughable to say the combatant just pays a "fine"
If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.
And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life,
Exodus 21 22:23 KJV
While his testimony regarding Romans 13 is pretty spot on. He uses the Word to reinforce his left wing world view. Similar to what the despot-sationalists do to justify their violent, blood thirsty rants.
Religious filth aren't welcome here. Get an education like Dan, before you dare to challenge his expertise.
He's not making any theological arguments. He's pointing out what the text does and doesn't say.
@@howardnapier3618 If you were logically and rationally correct, you wouldn't need to appeal to emotion with a fake laughs and appeals to mockery. You literally lost the debate with your first word "laughable".
@@ErraticFaith An educated person wouldn't assume that someone else isn't educated. Nor use that assumption as an ad hominem attack to explicitly attempt to force someone out of a conversation with "aren't welcome here". My education allows me to analyze ancient texts, and establish that Dan is a known liar. And the only people who shouldn't be welcome in a conversation are intellectually dishonest liars. His other video about abortion he explicitly states that the bible "repeated" establish personhood at birth. This video seems to be a followup because he was called out on that lie (or at least very very ignorant non-truth).
there is nothing myopic about extrapolating and interpolating using scientific knowledge, it is correct, and it is inevitable. Knowledge of when life begins is critical to the debate and is an extension of life beginning in the womb, as when Elizabeth's baby 'leapt' inside her when the Virgin Mary visited.
Science doesn't really have a firm stance on when "life" begins, though it almost certainly would not be at conception.
There is a major difference between when LIFE begins and when the PERSONHOOD of that life begins. This is what the Jewish law and thinkers recognized for millennia.
Also, what Elizabeth’s baby did in the womb has no inherent significant bearing on what we assert about the global case of when personhood begins. Any significance we attach to that verse is implicit, not explicit.
"When life begins" is a relatively irrelevant question to me in this matter. If the pregnancy is within a Catholic marriage, then it is the fruit of a Holy Sacrament. If it's a sin forgivable only by the Pope to desecrate the eucharist, then it's very reasonable to say that its a sin forgivable by any priest to destroy the fruit of the Sacrament of Matrimony.
Now, in the case of someone not in full communion with the Holy See, I don't see how it is the business of the Church (or we could say that person has bigger issues to deal with first). And in any event, as far as a legal matter, as the law applies to non-Catholics as well as there are times when the termination occurs under pastoral consideration (for the welfare of the person who is pregnant), I don't see how the Church should be supporting any laws of the State in this matter.
So how do you account for the 14% of pregnancy that are auto-aborted by the body. Could this be the will of god? And if so why cannot medical abortions be seen as the will of god?
It would kind of throw a wrench 🔧 in things if cancers ♋🦀 were found to be alive and sentient.
Let’s ask in reverse.. is God pro-death.. using Occam‘s razor, I’m guessing pro-life. Yes it’s an over simplification
Well said
IDK {j/j} using Occam's Razor.... Everybody dies🤔 Pro~Death😅
I think it's a personal choice🤷
"is god pro death"
Well he did flood the world drowning countless men, women, and children
God is definitely pro killing and death
Considering how 99% of all life that has ever existed on the Earth is now dead? Well... I'd say you, and/or your reasoning, are wrong there.
We can further add to that with the fact that throughout all of the Bible 'God' is ultimately responsible for Millions of Deaths (both direct & indirect, commanded & inspired), including the Deaths of Untold Numbers of Pregnant Women (And their Unborn Child), especially from Neighboring Tribes & Nations. And that's not even [yet] factoring in how he [apparently] was perfectly fine with (/Endorsing of) the Ordeal of Bitter Water(/Abortion Ritual) portrayed in the Bible.
There even used to be Christian Sects during the Earlier Years of Christianity, which were full of Self-Martyring Suicidal Devotees... people who would deliberately provoke others into killing them, other people on the street, guards, home-owners, etc... Solely just so they could die quickly and go to 'heaven' as a "martyr". And it's not surprising to realize how & why the Roman Catholics had to eventually Condemn the act of suicide as "Unforgivable/Unpardonable in the eyes of God", despite the Bible NEVER making such a claim.
If the Biblical 'God' exists at all, then if anything Occam's Razor would suggest it IS Pro-Death, rather than the opposite.
"Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee." Notice it doesn't say, "Before I formed a clump of cells in the belly." Also, who is doing the forming? God. If you think you should destroy God's creations willy nilly, you might be a devil.
Very astute. After all, the original Hebrew for "clump of cells" would be
uhhhhhh
Notice it doesn’t say “when I formed you I knew you, you were a person”, it says “before I formed you in the womb I knew you”. It’s not saying “when you were a fetus you were a person” it’s saying before Jeremiah was formed God already knew him. It’s a reference to God’s knowledge
Abortion is unethical regardless what the barbaric, pro-infanticide, racist, genocidal, pro-slavery, misogynistic Old or New Testaments or Quran say. Human rights do not need ancient [un]holy law codes as a reference. Also, considering embryos, individual bio-organisms, as genetically and philosophically human, is not dogmatic, and definitely not an inherently Christian position. There is nothing dogmatic or particularly religious about defending human rights.
I think you're missing the point. People are claiming in overwhelming numbers that their religious faith, informed by a specific book, is the reason they are holding a specific view. More than that they are insisting that there is no science or medical information that matters more than that view because it is a moral position backed by a religious text.
That doesn't mean that they couldn't come to that same conclusion for different reasons or that anyone should. But it is important to be rigorous when that religious belief is being used to make medical decisions that can and had resulted in people's deaths.
Because forcing someone to carry a non viable fetus because some voter thinks that their religious faith demands it, or continuing with an ectopic pregnancy when there is a high risk of injury or death for the same reasons shouldn't be decided using the Bible. And that should be something people should be able to discuss, but can't when "because it's in the Bible" is the constant rebuttal.
I would also argue you can defend human rights vigorously and still think abortion should be a medical decision that will be necessary to save lives. Because we don't live under theistic dogmatic rules where all pregnancies are magically viable and never result in death. We live in the real world and when a fetus doesn't have lungs or a brain there isn't going to be a chance for a miracle. Science lets us know we're looking at a tragedy and forcing people to endure that tragedy because of the Bible is obscene.
Look at the case of Savita Halappanavar who's death at the time was preventable, her pregnancy was not viable and her husband was told that the hospital would do nothing to save his wife's life because Catholicism. While both of them had wanted to welcome a child into their lives the reality turned into Savita spending days dying from sepsis while they both knew her life could have been saved if they were in a different country. That is what prioritizing religious texts over medical facts can get you when it comes to abortion. The ethical and moral decision might not be pretty but it would have saved a life. The religious choice ended a life.
Mind your own business.
The word quickening is also used in early colonial America to describe abxrtion cutoffs along the Aristotelian definition. This was probably based on the Bible and/or early church, so that might make an interesting video topic, since people also worship early US laws as if they're sacred.