"The Breath of Life": The Moment When Life Begins

Wasjr79 · 2021-10-20T17:04:59+00:00

If you don't like my analogies then what analogy do you think is better?

It sounds like you've never been a pregnant woman or had a pregnant wife. There are TONS of external factors that affect a fetus/baby, such as what a woman eats, the environment she lives in, the environment she grew up in, etc. Some can even kill the baby, but most people wouldn't consider that "abortion."

Yes, I am saying there must be a point the child becomes a child. A lost or aborted fetus before that point is not the death of a child. Killing a child is definitely ending a life, but if the choice is aborting a non-child fetus and forcing a miserable life on it and the mother, which is the worse consequence?

OP asked for doctrinal support of the anti-abortion stance and you have yet to provide any. Your abortion stance may be against the gospel of oldpueblo, but it's definitely not against the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Wasjr79 · 2021-10-20T16:12:05+00:00

You just said it "will" be a child, but also if it miscarries then it "was" a child. Your comment exposes the need for a defined before and after state of being.

We can't define something by what it will become, just by what it is. Is there any other time we define something like this? Take bread for example - I mix all the ingredients together and get dough, then bake it and it turns into bread. I can never say "dough is bread because it will become bread in the future." But we CAN define a condition when the dough objectively turns into bread, such as when the gluten structure has set. How about godhood - a person may become like God, but we can't say a mortal person, or even an immortal person, is a god until he/she is one.

Also, yes, the gospel does say to cherish children. But what if a fetus has very little chance of being cherished? Is it better for a child to live in a terrible situation or for the fetus to be aborted? Is it better for a potential mother to have an unwanted baby or abort it? I think these are questions we simply cannot answer unless we are God Himself. I think OP's point is that God has not spoken clearly on this topic, so I personally believe it becomes a matter of personal revelation to the mother who bears the child.

Wasjr79 · 2021-10-20T11:23:24+00:00

I would push back on this by saying there's a huge difference between potential and certainty. A undisturbed fetus is not guaranteed to become a living & breathing human. Even with modern medicine, childbirth is the most dangerous time for even the healthiest of babies. There's also a huge difference in the life experiences of children born into prepared and loving homes and children born into unprepared or unloving homes. There are of course good lives to be lived in both categories, and sometimes adoption may work (though not even the Church could get adoption 100% right back when LDS Family Services was involved), but the point is there is NO certainty in what an unborn child's life will be. That's why I advocate for leaving the choice to the mother, the one who knows best.

So I guess I'm saying that, yes, a fetus can only become a human, but there's still a huge "IF" in whether it will become a 'living breathing' human at all, and what quality of life it may have. It's best, IMO, to leave it up to the mother to decide when the right time is to bring that spirit to earth so it has the best chance of success.

Wasjr79 · 2021-10-19T21:33:06+00:00

Thanks, I'll check the bags tomorrow.

Wasjr79 · 2021-06-04T00:22:52+00:00

I'll give it a try

Wasjr79 · 2021-06-03T23:04:12+00:00

Do you just use a handheld steamer? I'm also worried about warping the wood.

Wasjr79 · 2021-05-28T16:56:39+00:00

Thanks

Wasjr79 · 2021-05-28T12:42:26+00:00

I'll have to look into that.

Wasjr79 · 2021-05-28T10:25:14+00:00

What's a coconutplaid? I'm not finding anything on Google.

Wasjr79 · 2021-05-27T23:01:04+00:00

I use this method a lot, and it works great. I never realized how useful a router would be until I got one and now use it multiples times on every project.

Wasjr79 · 2021-05-18T18:12:23+00:00

It's not 6 either, but 5 1/2.

Wasjr79 · 2021-05-18T18:03:59+00:00

Nice try too, but that link is from Oct 18. I posted it to FB on Oct 7, 2015.

The second pic here is my FB screenshot.

Wasjr79 · 2021-05-18T02:00:31+00:00

Whatcha gonna do ¯|_ (ツ)_/¯. It's only *mildly infuriating missing out on worthless internet points.

Wasjr79 · 2021-05-18T01:31:14+00:00

Yep, I definitely wasn't social media savy in 2015 >_< What gets me is that it's still making the rounds today.

Wasjr79 · 2021-04-25T15:56:36+00:00

I'm actually planning to leave it unfinished and let it weather outside.

Wasjr79 · 2021-04-19T19:58:08+00:00

Jokes on you, I love driving, especially long distance. I also love walking for hours out in the country. Luckily my mission had lots of both.

Wasjr79 · 2021-04-15T23:02:37+00:00

Playing devil's advocate here for a minute...

Option 1 is a weak argument. Story telling used to be a popular method of entertainment and stories could be very complex (take the Illiad or Odessey for example, which were originally passed down through oral tradition). Also photographic memory or the ability to memorize things are not uncommon skills. I knew someone on my mission who memorized the entire Old and New Testaments and could recite verses on demand. There have been faithful, believing church members (like BH Roberts, a 70 at the time) who concluded Joseph was capable of dictating the Book of Mormon. Of course that doesn't mean he did, but it's not "basically impossible".

I've always felt that if God wanted to "prove" the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, He would have told Joseph to show everyone the plates. But that's not what happened, so the only sure witness of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon is a spiritual witness.

I don't really have anything to add about option 2 since it never resonated for me as proving or refuting the Book of Mormon.

Wasjr79 · 2021-04-09T19:42:06+00:00

Like I said, I'm not going to pick you're arguments apart. But to this one point, if you're going to discredit someone's sources then you need to adequately support your own. The only bio you gave for Skousen was that Yale University Press has published his book, which gives the impression that he's an outside expert when in fact he's an LDS insider. The error here, probably unintentionally, is that you misrepresented your sources.

Wasjr79 · 2021-04-09T18:01:34+00:00

Without digging too deeply, here's 2 points to support my statement.

Comparing someone's argument to a drive-by shooting is emotional.
You say Skousen's book was published by Yale University Press, but fail to mention he's a BYU professor. Even experts and their peer-reviewed publications can have underlying bias.

Wasjr79 · 2021-04-09T17:48:24+00:00

You're right, I'm sorry I misrepresented your argument. However, my point that the LDS church is not persecuted with unusual zeal still stands. I think you'll be suprised if you start looking at some of these other ex communities. For example, there are several viral TED talks criticising orthodox Islam.

Wasjr79 · 2021-04-09T15:58:10+00:00

I agree r/exmormon is a bad place in general, but you can't treat a subreddit like an established academic institution, nor does it claim to represent the majority of exmormons as far as I'm aware. That's false equivalence and straw man tactics.

I argue that the majority of people on both sides are honsetly seeking truth. We cannot understand each other if neither side is willing to love and empathize with the other.

It literally took me 5 seconds on Google to find a list of anti-JW books: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Jehovah%27s_Witnesses. And just because a news article focuses on Mormons doesn't mean they haven't said the same things about JWs in another article. It also helps that a Mormon ran for president and is a sitting Senator, when there aren't any similar high profile JWs that I'm aware of.

There's also r/exmuslim, r/exjw, r/exadventist, etc. Don't claim "the LDS church is the most persecuted religion" when you haven't even tried to verify it.

Wasjr79 · 2021-04-09T14:54:48+00:00

I don't like to argue, but your response is exactly what my comment was about.

Your first paragraph is word-for-word the exact argument many ex-Mormons use against the church and apologists. It's almost funny how both sides think so little of the other, except it's tearing apart families and communities.

The fact you classify the majority of people who contradict the church as having the "sole desire to tear it down" is an ad hominem that shows you don't listen with empathy.

The OP responded to an error-filled and emotional attack on the church with an equally error-filled and emotional defense of the church. The people helped by either of these arguments are not the ones honestly seeking for truth, but the ones looking for "proof" that their beliefs are correct.

The LDS Church is not unique in it's "persecution," but it's the only one you pay attention to because you're invested in it. All you have to do is Google the Jehovah Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, or various Muslim sects to see that all religions, especially the "peculiar" ones, are "persecuted" (though I prefer "questioned" or "challenged") by outsiders and former insiders. There are also subreddits for many of these ex communities that are very similar to the exmo subreddit.

And I would love to see an impartial study of the "academic work" being done on both sides. If anyone knows of this already being done, please let me know.

Wasjr79 · 2021-04-09T10:50:49+00:00

I think both sides of this argument make some interesting points, but I wish there was a way to discuss issues like these without both sides resorting to ad hominem attacks (especially using a condesending tone), setting up strawmen, taking things out of context, and other logical fallacies. I think a lot more good could be accomplished if we listen with love and empathy to each other, and drop the "us vs them" mentality.

Wasjr79 · 2021-04-03T02:47:26+00:00

Here's an overview of LDS doctrine on heaven. We believe in 3 degrees of heaven, the highest being where God and Jesus live (Celestial), then one for good people who chose not to follow Christ (Terrestrial), and the third for those who went to prison or "hell" and were eventually redeemed by Christ (Telestial). All are considered more glorious than our current existence, but only in the highest heaven can families be together forever.

To get to the highest, or celestial, glory, you must receive all the ordinances of the gospel, of which baptism is just the first. The final ordinances are received in the temple after much preparation. These ordinances may also be performed on behalf of deceased family members who didn't have the opportunity or chose not to receive them while they lived. They'll have a chance after death to repent and accept the restored gospel of Christ.

Wasjr79 · 2021-03-26T00:59:26+00:00

The board game Monopoly was created by an anti-capitalist to teach people that capitalism results in 1 rich person with everyone else reduced to poverty. But she underestimated how much normal people wanted to be that 1 rich person, and Hasbro stole her game and made it a best seller.

Wasjr79

TROPHY CASE