• RaccunaMatata@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I’m also curious. The bible says life begins after birth, when God breathes life into the lungs. This is stated multiple times. You are not alive until you take your first breath.

    • CeeBee@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      That’s kind of a stretch. The “breathing life into lungs” is a figurative way of saying “giving life to” or even “putting life into”. We don’t breathe “life”, we breathe “air”. And throughout time the act of breathing is associated with being alive. It’s visual and testable. When someone stops breathing, they die. No one dead breaths. So if you’re breathing, you’re alive.

      The Bible also mentions the life of an unborn child multiple times, and no one today would say a fetus isn’t alive.

      • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        When you stop breathing you’re no longer a “living person”. Your cells are often alive for a while and there are some human cell lineages that have persisted for some time past the animal death. You are still biologically alive after its clear you’ve died as a person.

        Even in the bible they don’t value a fetus like they do a person

        There is ambiguity in the word “life” that doesnt translate well even among english speakers.

        Suppose some “angel” did come down and try to communicate something to you and you wrote it down in english words today, do you think you’d be able to capture and tell people accurately what the angel intended or do you think its possible to maybe misquote a divine messager such that a bunch of dumbasses in a second language think a fetus is a person and use that interpretation as a test of faith that they mandate into law?

        • CeeBee@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          When you stop breathing you’re no longer a “living person”. Your cells are often alive for a while and there are some human cell lineages that have persisted for some time past the animal death. You are still biologically alive after its clear you’ve died as a person.

          I honestly have no idea what you’re trying to say. You’re hyper-fixating on the exact modern definition of a specific word.

          There is ambiguity in the word “life” that doesnt translate well even among english speakers.

          There absolutely is no ambiguity when talking about a person. You are either alive or not. Yes it’s possible to resuscitate someone after “clinical death”, but even that is well understood. Clinical death is the absence of vitals (heart beat, sinus rhythm, etc). And we also understand that as long as cellular respiration is occurring at the molecular level, the body hasn’t gone past the point of no return. However, once brain death or cellular death has occurred, it’s over. We understand all of this. We also understand that even with modern medical knowledge there’s nothing we can do past a certain point even in the most ideal conditions. And ideal conditions would be in a hospital bed surrounded by medical experts. We understand there is a hard line between “alive” and “not alive”.

          Even in the bible they don’t value a fetus like they do a person

          Except that even harming a woman who is pregnant, even accidentally, causing a miscarriage is considered punishable by death in the Mosaic Law. “A life for a life”. So no, you’re wrong.

          do you think you’d be able to capture and tell people accurately what the angel intended or do you think its possible to maybe misquote a divine messager such that a bunch of dumbasses in a second language think a fetus is a person and use that interpretation as a test of faith that they mandate into law?

          I’m very foggy on what you’re trying to say here. But if I have the gist of it, you’re asking if the writer of a Bible book could have misinterpreted an angel and wrote the wrong thing down. And then later on someone incorrectly translated the writings so that the 2nd language people “think a fetus is a person” and take it as a test of faith to mandate it into law?

          Did I get that right?