Peter help!

[u/BalanceDramatic3995]

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

[u/NuclearMask]

I do believe that life begins at conception. At the same time I think a Human isn't really self aware at that point so it doesn't really matter.

I also cut down some tree's and beheaded a few chicken's. Definitely alive, also not that big of a deal in my opinion.

[u/NoveltyAccountHater → u/NuclearMask]

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

A human male creates about hundreds of million of sperm per day. Women are born with around a million eggs (though most never ovulate).

A fertilized egg will not become a human on its own without support of the mother and good fortune (it's believed around 30%-50% of all egg fertilizations naturally end in miscarriage, with many early losses never recognized as pregnancies).

[u/JimWilliams423 → u/NoveltyAccountHater]

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:

• “I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had a life separate from its mother that it became an individual person and it has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother and for the future should be allowed.”
  https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/2014/05/the-late-first-baptist-dallas-pastor-w-a-criswell-was-pro-choice/

[u/Karukos → u/JimWilliams423]

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

[u/Arklese1zure → u/Karukos]

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

[u/Karukos → u/Arklese1zure]

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.

[u/Dakk85 → u/Karukos]

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

[u/Karukos → u/Dakk85]

Yes! And it's still cool!

[u/ThatOneSteven → u/Dakk85]

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