Life In The 'hood

A strategy used by those who believe life begins at conception is the drive to create a status designated as "personhood" for embryos. Personhood Kansas was quoted as stating, "As a movement, we know what our goal is: to have all children in the womb protected by love and law. It is important that we learn the lessons of history and rely on the moral clarity of our God-given moral law to guide our efforts not on demoralizing legal and moral subterfuge."

While their motives are likely well meaning with good intentions, and this criticism may initially come across as harsh, their actions appear to be a bit hypocritical, even misdirected, and their theology off center as to when life begins, if using the Biblical record as their source text.

It is a bit hypocritical because their stated goal, "...to have all children in the womb protected..." is geared only towards the abortion issue, which from their point of view, is all about not killing those children in the womb. This seems to imply that once we're out, it's bombs away! We’re on our own when it comes to moral law guiding their efforts. In addition, morally speaking, it seems they do not take into account that the US has the largest military budget, and therefore killing machine, in the history of planet Earth, more than most all the other countries of the world combined.

This answers the question why a country that is less than 5% of the world's population nearly outspends the other 95% on its military and doesn't have universal health care to protect all those children in the womb despite the efforts of Obamacare. Those of a conservative political bent who favor “pro-life” are the same ones who mostly favor militarism as a form of foreign policy. Yet, the connection between these two polarities escapes them. Unless of course, the end game is producing more cannon fodder for future wars.

Robert Gates, the former Secretary of Defense wanted a "substantial increase in the military budget" according to the Fall 2010 issue of Foreign Policy magazine, despite the fact the US can't afford to spend money at the current budget levels for weapons to kill people outside the womb and take care of its "persons" inside the womb. In 2016, more than half of the US annual budget was earmarked for war making in one form or another. The "personhood" initiative folks apparently are unmindful of this contradiction, and that each of these same people in Kansas regularly contributes hefty financial sums through federal taxes [apparently more than billion dollar profit making weapons corporations such as GE, No Tax GE] for bombs and weapons delivery systems that are known to kill pregnant mothers with "children in the womb." [Drone Kills]. So much for moral clarity.

In fact, the cost incurred for killing those still in or who've exited the womb, including current direct military budget items, ever increasing interest payments on past, cumulatively multi-trillion dollar military expenditures, add-on requests to fund on-going wars, via drones that do kill pregnant women, post-war medical costs, the more than 260 new intelligence agencies created since 9/11, whose combined efforts to date have more information about US citizens than ever before, [as the Snowden disclosures has shown us] and hidden CIA, NSA et al expenditures, is estimated by organizations who track these things, based on the "Budget of the US Government, FY 2009," that upwards of a nation-killing 50-55% of federal taxes, directly or indirectly, go to feed the world's largest socialized institution, the US military beast.

This tidy sum amounts to multiple thousands of dollars every year, for every person in the US including, presumably, "all the children in the womb." No nation has ever sustained these socialized levels of military spending and continued to survive. Substantially increasing the level of military spending is a formula for the ultimate failure of the US nation-state, as we know it. The apocalyptic prophecies of Revelation also show us this is the case. [See the Feature article, Revelation 17: Big Brother, The Beast Of Babylon]. Noting this, then, it's possible that the urgency and priority of the "personhood" for embryos folks may be misdirected too.

If this "personhood" push becomes reality, it raises lots of new questions. Do these embryos get social security numbers with "personhood" like any other person? What about passports? What photo gets put on it? And what name? Will doctors start charging for two person visits when a woman is pregnant? Will medical insurance companies, in this case, double their rates for coverage of two persons rather than one? When a woman gives birth to a stillborn "personhood" child, will she be tried for first or second-degree murder or just manslaughter? Can we qualify for social security and Medicare benefits nine months sooner if "personhood" is adopted? What about driver's licenses and legal drinking age? These conditions should change if someone accused of killing a pregnant woman is charged with two crimes. This "personhood" thing can cause some big social and financial waves in society. [See the Sneakers article, Biologically Irrefutable, Guv'nor?].

What each person in Kansas ponies up every year for military weapons to kill people post-utero is a whole lot more than what they spend on the "personhood" initiatives to save all those children in the womb. If all this seems a bit contradictory, that's because it is.

These conundrums all come about for one reason primarily. And that is the belief that physical life, "personhood," begins at conception. This misguided belief, according to the "personhood" people, comes from the pages of the Biblical record. But does it? And while there are a few sets of verses they use to show life exists in the womb, let's focus on one set in particular that is a favorite of personhood advocates. This is the Old Testament account in Psalm 139 written by King David of Israel.

As a side note, the Jewish religion does not take these Old Testament verses to mean life begins at conception. Life begins at birth according to Jewish tradition. In fact, it isn't until 30 days after birth that they consider a newborn to have full "personhood" status. While there is a very definitive verse, Genesis 2:7 regarding the beginning of life for mankind, which the Jewish religion acknowledges, and which we’ll look at below, this gets shunted aside by those seeking "personhood" for embryos in favor of verses that were never meant to delineate the beginning of life.

Now a psalm is simply lyrics or a poem set to music. And for most people, using song lyrics or lines from a poem as proof to verify fact is a bit dicey. After all, if a song lyric says, "She broke my heart," who of us would use this as proof positive that she breached a guy's chest, and literally ripped apart his heart? And would we deduce from this that she must be on trial for murder? Hardly. The lyric is allegorical not literal. It simply means the guy was hurt emotionally.

Psalm 139 is a song. In fact, the first line of the psalm says, "To the chief Musician. A Psalm of David." David wrote the lyrics of this song. Now when we examine the words of this psalm, used as definitive proof that we have life in the womb by those seeking "personhood," one can understand why they would want to take this to mean David had life in the womb. But it is a song. Songs are meant to be allegorical just like "She broke my heart."

We need to make a very strong point here, which is vital to our understanding of what David was saying. The consensus among Old Testament scholars is that the context of David's poem-song is not the beginning of life, but God's omnipresence and omniscience, which are manifestations of His pure consciousness. It is God centered. We can't hide from God. He knows all things about us, where we are, past and present and future, whenever in our classical state of consciousness that may be as David points out. [See Luke 12:7]. However, David also is expressing a quantum point of understanding concerning the nature of God. [See the Feature articles, Brown Paint: Quantum Potentialities and The Good News Colour Revolution].

Interestingly, in his book, The Quantum Doctor, physicist Amit Goswami makes the point that quantum physics has much in common with poetry. To understand what David is saying, we can't use a classical, literal frame of reference. We have to understand it in more fundamental terms. This may be why David chose to use poetry set to music to convey an understanding of these particular aspects of the nature of God.

One can certainly make the argument that David was king of the psalmists with Psalm 139 being regarded as his quintessential work by scholars. But stating that these verses literally mean life begins at conception or that David had "personhood" in the womb totally misses the point of what David is expressing. It's much, much bigger and far more profound than this. It’s a bit akin to claiming that the significance of E = mc² is that it contains letters of the alphabet on both sides of the equal sign.

So, let's read the verses allegedly used to show "personhood" in the womb using the Jewish Publication Society's Bible. Verses 13-16 are the ones in question.

We read beginning in verse 13: "For you [God] have made my reins [literally kidneys; seat of emotion and affection]; you have knit me together in my mother's womb. [Tiny, tiny nano-knitting needles?]

Verse 14: I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are your works; and that my soul knows right well.

Verse 15: My frame was not hidden from you, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

Verse 16: Your eyes saw my unformed substance, and in your book, even the days of my life that were yet to be created were written, when there were no days." Italics and [ ] added.

In a literal sense, we can hardly consider David's reference to an "unformed substance" to mean an embryo in a high state of order, a fully formed human who is a person. David isn't conveying that he had life as an unformed substance. He is talking about the power and nature of God. When he speaks of "the days of my life that were yet to be created were written, when there were no days," David is making the point that God knows the potential us in the future, when there were no days for us as an unformed substance, because we were yet without life in the flesh. Remember, this psalm is about God's omnipresence and omniscience, not about the beginning of life. [See the Feature article, The Good News Colour Revolution, commentary v. 48].

And we should keep in mind when knitting something, it is not a sweater or jumper or scarf until the knitting is done. And as the knitting is done in the womb, this, too, supports the fact that life begins once the kitting in the womb is done. That is, at first breath.

At the quantum level, the past, present and future are all one [a singularity] as David’s son Solomon pointed out in the book of Ecclesiastes, 3:15. While we can’t know the future because of the construct of the universe, God is not impaired in this regard. This simply means that before we are manifested in the flesh as a human being in our universe, the space-time continuum, God already knows our future. God knows when we will be born, how long will live, when we die. Therefore, God can look into the future and see us as yet an unformed substance, like a lump of clay in the potter's hands, when the days that we will live are not yet in existence in our 4-D world.

David also mentions that if he were in hell [v.8], meaning the grave, God knows him there too. Does this mean our bodies are still alive after we are dead or that we bury people alive? No. David is alluding to our spirit, the spirit of man. And at death of the body, this spirit returns to God who gave it. "Then shall the dust [our body] return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return to God who gave it." [Ecc. 12:7].

And when Christ said in Mark 12, referencing the resurrection, that God is the God of the living and not the dead, the word living is zao, meaning to breathe, to live. The Greek word for dead is nekros, meaning one who breathed his last. Throughout the Biblical record, the beginning of physical life is tied to our first breath at birth and death to our last breath. [James 2:26]. As Solomon pointed out, there is "a time to be born, and a time to die." He said nothing about a time to be conceived.

David Brown, in the Jamieson, Fausset and Brown Commentary states in his remarks on Mark 12, when Christ is explaining the resurrection to the Sadducees, who didn't believe there was a resurrection, "It is true, indeed, that to God no human being is dead or ever will be [excepting the second death, Rev. 20:14], but all mankind sustain an abiding conscious relation to Him." And in the flesh, that means having zao, or breath.

At the death of the body, the spirit of man, our spiritual consciousness, disengages from that which we experienced in the natural body and completely re-enters the spiritual domain of consciousness from which the spirit of man came. Our consciousness leaves the physical body and returns to God who gave it. [See the Feature articles, Heaven Can Wait and Heaven Can Wait II]. After all, each of us is a spiritual consciousness experiencing "Big Bangland," the physical or natural universe, not vice versa. Mankind has this spiritual/physical duality that no other creature has. As Paul states in the New Testament, Christ is the mediator between mankind and God. [1 Tim. 2:5]. There is no mediator for animals.

Some folks also use Jeremiah 1:5 to show that we have life, "personhood" in the womb. "... before you came forth out of the womb, I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations." This they say proves Jeremiah had "personhood," or life in the womb because God sanctified and ordained Jeremiah before birth! Rather, it is a facet of God’s omniscience.

However, taken together, if Jeremiah was sanctified in the womb before birth, and God knew David in the womb, knit him together there, it must mean life begins at conception! If so, we now have a real dilemma on our hands. Using this very same logic progression, we find life begins before conception!!

Let's go back to Jeremiah 1:5, it also says, "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you ...." Conundrums of conundrums, Conceptionists, we now have life before conception!!!

And, this doesn't even begin to address what Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus. "According as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world ...." [Eph. 1:4]. We had life before the universe and Earth were even formed?!

Does this mean that Monty Python was right all along!? Every sperm, and egg too, is sacred? The pope insists life begins at conception. However, life has to begin before conception using “personhood” people’s Biblical logic. If life begins before conception, that means only one sperm and one egg is sacred, only one of each is destined to be “us.” Which one? How do we know? How do we know some future pope or president hasn’t disappeared in a wet dream? What person is doomed each month when a woman has her period!? Imagine the photos the Pre-Conceptionists will show us!

My apologies if this seems a tad gross, but this entire line of reasoning that Psalm 139, and Jeremiah 1 are definitive when it comes to conception as the origin of life, well, it leads to the absurd. We might as well discuss the number of angels dancing on a potential particle.

If “personhood” people wish to use Psalm 139 in a literal sense, one can make the case for David having life in the womb. By the same token, however, Jeremiah had life, “personhood,” before he was conceived. So when does life begin? At conception? Before conception? How is it God can know us before conception, and in the womb, while alive and after we are in the grave? And if God knows us in any or all of these potential states, does this mean we have physical life in all of them? Or does it mean something else?

It simply means David was providing examples of God’s omnipresence and omniscience. David was not intending to address the issue of the beginning of physical life. That was made crystal clear with the creation of the first man in Genesis 2. David is pointing out that the effects of the Big Bang, space and time, are not binding factors on the Creator in terms of man’s potentialities.

“Now a mediator does not mediate for one only, but God is one,” as the apostle Paul wrote to the Galatians. And as we noted above, Christ is the mediator between God and mankind as he explained. Thus, man, and man alone has a duality of life as it were. While we have a consciousness in the flesh, the spirit of man is made manifest at first breath. When our flesh dies, after its last breath as James writes [James 2:26], man’s spiritual consciousness returns to the “other side” of the Big Bang to God who gave it. David is stating that man’s relationship to God, therefore, is unique compared to all other life. [See the Sneakers article, Darwin: God Created Life].

The spirit of man is separate from all that which was created in the Big Bang. The spirit of creatures is of the Big Bang. It is inherent in the nature of the Big Bang’s creation, “Let the earth bring forth kind after kind” as opposed to "Let us [the plural, elohiym; also see Job 38:4-7] make man in our image, and in our likeness, and let them have dominion ...." Regarding man’s duality, Solomon pointed out, “Who knows the spirit of the sons of men, which goes upward, and the spirit of the animal, which goes down to the earth?” [Ecc. 3:21].

Man’s unique spiritual consciousness enters our physical body at first breath and exits at last breath. Our physical bodies are vehicles, interfaces, for our extra-Big Bang spiritual consciousness in this manifested illusion we call reality, or life even though we may not fully understand how it is mediated. [See chapter one in The Blind Man's Elephant regarding the three creations of life, a complimentary PDF download on the Home page].

Solomon also pointed out, “Then I beheld all the work of God, that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun: because though a man labor to seek it out, yet he shall not find it; even further, though a wise man think to know it, yet shall he not be able to find it.” This is an apt description of the quandary we face when contemplating the mysteries of life presented to us when we venture into the realm of quantum physics. Remember, this is from the guy who wrote of time's singularity at the quantum level and the space-time continuum 3000 years before Einstein.

Everything of the universe “this side” of the Big Bang, the space-time continuum, has one consciousness or quantumness. It is the construct of the natural universe. The “other side” starts at the point called owlam in Hebrew. Owlam is defined as "concealed or hidden, the vanishing point; generally, time out of mind past or future.” Prior to the Big Bang, and what’s ahead of the cosmological arrow of time, is kept from us. Only the theological arrow of time lets us know future events, and this is from God on the other side of owlam.

We read in Ecclesiastes, “He has made every thing beautiful in his time: also he has set the world [owlam] in their heart [mind], so that no man can find out the work that God makes from the beginning to the end.” [Ecc. 3:11]. We can explore everything this side of the Big Bang. But what’s on the other side is a door we can’t open. One aspect of our consciousness is of this side of the Big Bang, and the other is of the other side. Man’s spiritual duality sets us apart from all other creatures. Consciousness’s similarities are of the Big Bang. Consciousness’s differences are of the spirit of man and the Spirit of God.

To keep it simple, concerning the beginning of life of the physical body for the very first man in the Biblical record, made in the image and likeness of God, let’s look at Genesis 2:7. God makes it extremely clear and direct. It’s not a song or a poem. There are no allegorical meanings here. It doesn’t get any plainer than this although “personhood” people completely dismiss it.

“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 being.”

What’s happening here? The first man, Adam is being made. And who is the one forming man? The LORD God. This is a credible source for “personhood” people. And what did the LORD God do? He formed man of the dust of the ground. This seems clear enough. Then what did the LORD God do? He breathed into the man’s nostrils that he formed. Okay, this seems clear too. And what exactly did the LORD God breathe into man’s nostrils? The BREATH of LIFE. The breath of what? LIFE! You mean as in when does LIFE begin? Yup. Same one.

Okay, then what happened as a result of the LORD God breathing the BREATH of LIFE into man’s nostrils? Man became a living being. Nowhere else in the Biblical record is there such a clear statement of plain fact concerning the beginning of physical life.

So why is this overlooked in place of Biblical verses that do not address the beginning of life? I can’t speak for the “personhood” people, but it appears they really don’t like abortion. And it appears, the only way they believe they can convince others to forsake abortion is to find a Biblical basis for life beginning at conception rather than at birth or first breath. Thus, abortion becomes murder. And as murder is illegal and immoral, so too should abortion. Simple, and simplistic.

Apparently, not only is it sufficient to say life begins at conception, but a legal status of “personhood” needs to be conferred on embryos as the verses in Psalm 139 and Jeremiah allegedly show for both David and Jeremiah. Rather what these verses show is a quantum aspect of the nature of God and his all-knowingness as well as our spiritual nature. It does not prove life in the flesh begins at conception or before. The Biblical record clearly shows that our physical life begins at first breath, which is the breath of life.

Merely because physical life begins at first breath, it does not imply a pro-abortion mindset or automatically means abortion is something society should take frivolously. A balanced and thoughtful approach should guide society’s standards. But neither can “personhood” people claim it is murder according to the Biblical record when we “rely on the moral clarity of our God-given moral law to guide our efforts ….”

Speaking of moral clarity guiding efforts, rather than wage a battle about conferring “personhood” on an embryo, perhaps the combined energy of those efforts should scrutinize the short and long term implications of the US military’s huge socialized financial millstone, and its consequences on the lives, not only those in the womb, but of every person in every country outside of it. It is eviscerating the US from the inside as sure as any abortion procedure. If it is important to learn the lessons of history, then we should learn that military extravagances have proved to be the leading cause of death among empires past. Therefore, what profit is there if personhood is gained and a nation is aborted?

 
For more details, see chapter four, If Life Begins At 40, Where Does That Leave Conception? p. 105, in The Blind Man's Elephant.

Italics, underline and [ ] are the author's.

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"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."