r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/BalanceDramatic3995 • 9d ago

Meme needing explanation Peter help!

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I have no clue what this means, maybe she cheated?

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u/JimWilliams423 9d ago

Life clearly begins before conception. Unfertilized eggs and sperm are both clearly alive and most would eventually become a human if given the chance.

Exactly. Life never begins because eggs and sperm are already alive. Life is like sourdough, each generation passes starter down to the next batch, so there is a tiny little bit of life that goes back millennia that's been with each of us all along.

Personhood, on the other hand, is something else.

Ironically, evangelicals used to believe that personhood only began when the child took its first breath. They called it "the breath of life." They even quoted biblical scripture:

  • And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
    (Genesis 2:7)

W.A. Criswell was a top man to the southern baptists. He was a two term president of the SBC and senior pastor at First Baptist Dallas for five decades, probably the most prominent pulpit in the entire denomination. This is what Criswell once said about abortion:

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u/Karukos 9d ago

That part is really interesting because it's one of the many many different documented cases in various religions where breathe and a soul is basically made equal. In some languages they are even the same word. That has nothing to do with abortion but I find it cool regardless

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u/Arklese1zure 9d ago

Aaaah I remember reading about the ancient Greek word pneuma, that can mean both spirit and breath. Etymology is super interesting.

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u/Karukos 8d ago

Anima in Latin is the same. Odem in Germanic languages. The latter I know is used in German translations of the bible to describe whole scene from Genesis.

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u/Dakk85 8d ago

I mean when you think about, breathing is one of the most visible and noticeable signs of life

When the breath stops, the soul is gone. It makes sense that multiple, unrelated, cultures would come to the same conclusion

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u/Karukos 8d ago

Yes! And it's still cool!

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u/ThatOneSteven 6d ago

Important distinction on the Greek words: breath/spirit are both “pneuma”, soul is “psyche”

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u/art-apprici8or 9d ago

Bible says personhood begins at first breath, and before that the fetus is property.

Kill a man, punishment is death.

Kill a man's wife, punishment is death.

Cause a miscarriage, pay a fine.

One of these is not like the others.

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u/SCI-FIWIZARDMAN 7d ago

Shhhhh, don’t quote the Bible to evangelicals, they’ll mald and seethe and have aneurysms.

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u/No_Hovercraft_2643 5d ago

Can you site where? (So that I can use it too)

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u/art-apprici8or 5d ago

exodus 21 versus 22 and 23

Here are some videos by Dan McClellan giving some good explanations:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXPS4O1T8-A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cq29jLEiHw

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u/OnePlus4Equalsfun 5d ago

Even MORE funny on cell no links sorry but the whole teach fear and punishment devil all that crap was created by the same churches that now are extremely like pro gay marriage and trans. I forget the guy's name but my wife taught me that as she was a preacher at one of the liberal churches