When do you think a newly conceived zygote becomes a person?

Good question. I’m not sure, but I think it should be whenever the brain and/or heart is formed.

Edit: Lol@Mississippi.

When the embryo/fetus can survive extra-utero. It becomes earlier and earlier with every medical advancement, and I am happy to adjust my feelings accordingly.

You know what I love? All those people sitting around in petri dishes… or even frozen! They have rights, right? Do they have the right to be born? Should we have slave women bring them to term? Yeah. Prison women. That’s the ticket. And if they don’t implant, both the technician and the woman will get murder charges.

These kinds of policies are travesties. They are ill-advised. They are political. They are divorced from reality.

I was reading about this last night and see so many issues that could come up if this passes. I think actual personhood should begin with birth of the child because there are so many things that personhood actually affects. When I think of personhood, I’m thinking of when the child has all of the legal rights and protections the rest of us have, meaning the parents can claim the child as a dependent, take out life insurance, and so on (not just the right to life). I really dislike the idea that passing this could make birth control pills and IUDs illegal.

That being said, I still think there should be protections for unborn children (like the late term abortion ban). I just think actual personhood is a separate issue.

When the fetus is able to survive outside of the womb. If it is capable of surviving independently (that being a relative term), then I believe in its “person-hood”.

A slightly fallacious argument would be that a fetus could be considered a parasite (“an organism that lives on or in an organism of another species, known as the host, from the body of which it obtains nutriment”) except for the minor detail of it being of the same species.

I don’t know. But I think it is irresponsible for some idiot politician to use it as an issue.

So… Mississippi wants to go back to 1920’s medicine and have one of the top 10 leading cause of death among women be ‘child-bearing’? Nearly 1 in 100 mothers died in childbirth as recently as 90 years ago. As it is, lack of health care is increasing the rates of women dying in childbirth in the US and it’s higher now than it has been in DECADES! Infant mortality is up as well. Women aren’t just facing a glass ceiling at work, they are facing the glass partitions in hospitals that quickly divide the haves with the have nots, and will soon recreate the dangers of childbirth seen in the 1920’s.

I think it is when the fetus can survive independent of the mother, basically at the time of viability.

Even if we all accept life begins at conception, it does not mean necessarily abortions cannot be performed to save the life of the mother, because then it is a choice between two lives. Sometimes the choice of the loss of both lifes or saving one. But, of course it will be harder to find experienced doctors to perform the abortions when necessary.

I always say pro-choice keeps abortions safe for the pro-lifers.

when they are about 30 years old with some people it seems (joke)

But seriously: I don’t know when neural activity begins? that first pulse of electric activity within the newly formed spinal column? something like that.

Don’t get me wrong though, I am definitely pro-choice.

@JilltheTooth If the fetus can survive, but it is at extreme measures almost definitely resulting in severe disabilities if the baby lives, do you still consider the fetus/baby an individual life to be protected, and all measures taken? I too am willing to move viability earlier as medicine advances, but I think the 5th month is a very tricky month of late term abortions and also early births.

Does it even matter if a zygote is a “person”? We strip people of their rights all the time—inmates, the mentally ill, the mentally handicapped. Even the most person-like infant cannot legally drive a car or buy a cigarette.

I think this issue should be about asking at what point in a development does terminating a life cause that life to suffer? When can the developing fetus feel pain and experience fear and anxiety? And the answer to that is: Around the beginning of the third trimester.

@JLeslie Actually, some doctor’s are concerned about not being able to focus on saving the mother because of this personhood issue in the event of emergent situations. Here’s one doctor’s take on it:

“Slocum said he considers himself pro-life, but he can’t support the amendment when he considers all of its possible legal consequences and the difficult situations that could arise.

“Imagine, for a moment, an estranged husband of a pregnant woman that suffers from some kind of illness that necessitates the delivery of a preterm child, be it breast cancer or elevated blood pressure,” he said. “Certainly, the rights of the preterm child need to be considered, and I assure you I consider these and my fellow physicians consider these now, without this amendment. But I would argue that this amendment would give this estranged husband even more of a legal argument to halt any treatment aimed at saving life of the mom at the expense of unborn. I see no good to come from that.”” (Source)

I believe life does begin at conception, the future person IS “born” at that moment.
The acorn may not yet be an Oak tree, but, all of it’s Oak tree-ness is contained within the seed,and while it may not be visable while underground in it’s sprouting phase, this does not negate it is a tree in formation.
While the viability of a fetus may be contingent of it’s ability to survive outside the womb under it’s own power, it does not cancel out that it is a person in progress way before it’s birth.

I’m pro-choice but I don’t split hairs to rationalize absolute truths.

While aborting sooner rather than later may seem to make the situation less ugly, more palatable, in reality, it makes not a whit of difference.

It just makes it appear to be more “humane”.

Personhood isn’t just about abortion and the right to life. Personhood includes other legal aspects as well, such as legal right to inheritances, tax status as a dependent, the ability to take out a life insurance plan, and more.

@Seaofclouds Yes, we are agreeing. Doctors will be afraid to do anything. Like I said pro-choicers keep abortions safe for pro-lifers and I don’t only mean medically safe as in sterile and the easiest procedure for the woman to tolerate, but safe in that they can happen legally by a medical professional period. I know more than one pro-life woman who needed a second trimester abortion. One had to travel two and a half hours because it seems our fair city of Memphis does not offer abortions past the 14th week. I don’t know if that is a law, or we just don’t have those doctors. What I do know is if laws continue to go in the direction of pro life the woman would have had to go to Canada maybe or just wait out her pregnancy. Her problem was not life threatening to her, it was that her baby basically had no brain and would never survive. She wanted the baby out, because they desperately wanted to be pregnant, it had taken a while to get pregnant, she hated the idea of having the baby growing inside of her, and she wanted to end the pregnancy so she could try for a new one as soon as possible. Her family is Catholic and pro-life, and I told her husband as he told me the story that now he knows why he actually is pro-choice politically. If he is glad that option for her abortion was available he needs to not be siding with the far right wingers. I don’t feel he is a right winger, but his vote winds up there here in the south quite often.

@JLeslie: I consider that a separate issue, that needs to be addressed as well. I also oppose late-term abortions, if it means the fetus could be delivered and survive with a chance of…well…surviving. As far as the bill in question goes, it won’t stop abortion if it passes, it will just return it to the back-alleys and the butchers. I cannot, under any circumstances, support anything that devalues the existing life so much in favor of an unknown.

I like @JilltheTooth‘s answer.

It’s Mississippi, I expect that a zygote is about as smart as the standard Mississippi Republican.

Of course this move is just another backdoor move to make all abortions illegal. I suspect that if the abortions, in Mississippi are band even in cases of rape and incest, the population of the state will rise significantly.

@Ron_C Not just abortions, but some forms of birth control could also end up being illegal as well because the egg could still become fertilized, but the uterus would not be in a condition to support implantation, there by technically leading to the death of the fertilized egg.

In the Jewish tradition, it’s not a fully-formed human being until it graduates from medical school.

I think it’s too personal of a decision for anyone to make for anyone else. The people that think they know what’s best for someone else should butt the fuck out.

@gasman thank you for making me laugh while I was quite furious Ignorant hypocrites want to turn back women’s health issues a century… GRR!!

@Seaofclouds that’s right, I forgot about birth control pills. Ironically, Republicans demand that the government stays out of their affairs. Evidently stock scams are approved in the bible but birth control is condemned. They want law in the Bedroom, not the Boardroom.

It’s been proven that many emotional and psychiatric conditions in humans can develop in utero.

An embroyos inate ” fear” of a precarious attachment to the womb can lend itself to a human that has many fears and emotional issues.

Call it what you will, but, it is obvious much more is going on in utero than many are aware of.

This inchoate “fear” of the embroyo shows that consciousness is “born” far in advance of physical birth.

@Coloma, how was that proven? Can you send a link to the study or the abstract?

@cazzie

Just various readings over the years, I cannot offer any one particular source but, if you google intra-utero traumas and mental illness etc. I am sure you can find many articles.

Birth; until then it’s a choice. But then that’s my opinion, everyone should be able to make that determination for themselves.

Not only does the attitude disallow the situations you mentioned in your OP, @ETpro, but it disallows many forms of birth control which prevent implantation after conception, rather than preventing conception.

Personally (and I know this is an unpopular opinion), I feel that even if a fetus is considered alive, I fail to see the difference between ending that life and preventing that life from coming to be in the first place. Of course we have to draw the line somewhere and I think it’s reasonable to draw that line where the fetus might experience suffering during the termination, so when it becomes capable of feeling pain.

@Coloma I am reserving my judgement on ‘fear’ as a learned experience/behaviour in utero.

@cazzie

Sure. I understand. However, the inate survival thread is in place from the very beginning, pre-verbal, on a deep feeling level in the organisms evolution, and can manifest in unconscious ways prior to memory formation.

Just an interesting little side line. Explore at your leisure. :-)

When they have a zygote of their own.

I too view the ability to survive outside the womb as the demarcation. That also implies that the fetus is viable even if more than 24 or 25 weeks. Partial birth abortion, despite what one hears from the anti abortion crowd, is performed on fetuses that are not viable.

I read on Huffington Post that this is the GOP strategy: get this on the ballot in all states as an end run around Roe v. Wade.

Without getting sucked into the drama of “how dare they” and blah blah blah, I’ll just answer the title question: I believe a person begins at conception, but to extend it a little, that life takes meaning when the heart begins beating. The heart begins beating at only 4 weeks. An abortion stops that heart. If you stop a heart, you end a life. End of story.

Like my mom once said, “An embryo (or in this case a zygote) is viable only when it finishes medical school.” She wouldn’t do well in the south.

I’ve recently been reconsidering my long held stance on this.

Typically, within hours of conception, recombination of mother/father genetic code authors an entirely unique code that has all the instructions necessary to build a human being. That’s pretty much where I stand on this.

But… I have been reconsidering that on the basis of what I believe consciousness is.

Consciousness doesn’t arise until an image/object relationship can be established. This can happen as early in the womb as when a mother sings and baby kicks in response. The singing has been associated with comfort… Consciousness is intact.

So I don’t know. It depends on how you define a person. To those who believe that we are just stardust, and there is no ghost in the machine, then a person exists upon the authoring of a unique genetic code.

But to those who do believe in a ghost in the machine, such as a conscious mind beyond the brain pan… then a conscious person doesn’t exist until that agent is capable of establishing image/object relationships… proto language.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir : Wait…what? You don’t think someone achieves the status of “person” until they can conceive?

@JilltheTooth I think that is a snub to the male of the species.

If it is I take exception to it. I’m male and childless.

Maybe so, @cazzie , but it includes way too many females of the species. I’m thinking she must have meant “gamete”. I hope.

And my above comment should have read ”...until they do conceive.” Not “can”.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies Plants lean towards the sun. Your example doesn’t really necessarily define consciousness. I have no quarrel with people who believe life begins at conception, I never fight that specific point, so don’t get me wrong there. I am just speaking to your example. Life can have reflex without being aware.

Truthfully, I hate the idea of abortion, especially when women use it strictly as a birth control measure. I don’t feel qualified to make law on this matter because I am a man. Women need complete control over their own bodies and men have no right to make laws that force them to carry or abort something growing in her own body. That would like telling me that I can’t have a tape worm removed because it would end a life.

Since the zygote does not have the consciousness of a tape worm, I see no reason to protect it.

It’s plausible that in the relatively near future, cloning may be possible using ordinary somatic (non-reproductive) cells in the body. If you had your gallbladder removed, let’s say, or a cancerous skin mole excised, every one of those millions of cells might be a potential human being. Would that represent mass murder?! Get real.

Fact from fiction, truth from diction. In the basic sense, when the newly fertilized egg attaches to the womb and become a blastocyst, that is really where human life begins. The blastocyst is not a tumor. If left alone from that point on, it will not stay in the body forever. It will not takeover and cannibalize healthy cells. It will in no way act like a tumor. It will grow into a person. The woman’s body will expel it at the proper time. If it were merely tissue, as some would allude to, to reconcile, or detach themselves, that it is a human they are destroying, when they terminate the pregnancy. The zygote is like introducing the match to fuel. You don’t have fire if the match or flame fail to create combustion. If the woman does not have a healthy uterus, no baby, no human. I can introduce the seeds of a rosebush to water, but with out the soil no bush would grow, anymore than if I put the seed in dry dirt, and never watered it. I think any bill trying to place life at the zygote stage is a little like trying to call pass interference on s sideline route, when the pass was thrown down the middle, and impossible to catch by anyone streaking down the sidelines. Once the zygote attaches to the uterine wall, it is a whole new ball game.

@Hypocrisy_Central

True, in theory, but, since it is impossible to be aware of the exact moment of implant by the time any woman finds out she is pregnant, even as early as within a few days of a missed period, it’s already a done deal and a human is well “attached” to it’s incubation period.

@Coloma The day after pill should be before the attachment I would think? There are people even against that form of “abortion.”

Wow. Sure, we’ve all sat up at night arguing when the clump of cells is technically called a person, etc…

It doesn’t really matter. We’ve evolved to be squeemish about things that go against reproduction. But are we just wasting time pretending that it matters what we call it when a pregnancy is ended?

Don’t we decide whether something is right or wrong based on things like weighing the suffering of conscious creatures that will result from various choices? If not, well shouldn’t we? I don’t care if you call a 35-year old auto mechanic a “person”, a “potentional person”, or a “bowl of oatmeal”. I’m able to build a case for not ending his life on criteria other than assigning him the label of “person”.

If we approach this with potential suffering in mind, then I think we can put away our freshman curiosity about the English language, and see what science has to say about consciousness and pain at different developmental stages.

If we think we’re already forming opinions on the subject that are informed by science, then I wonder if these same methods are applied in other positions we take, such as eating meat. I suspect that the “person” argument is a distraction.

Note: For the record, I am about as pro-choice as they come.

@JLeslie Yes, the morning after pill would be before implantation occurs. The morning after pills basically work in the same three ways that birth control pills do. They can stop ovulation, thicken cervical mucus to make it harder for egg/sperm to meet, and thin the lining of the uterus to prevent implantation. However, they (meaning the morning after pills and birth control pills) don’t always stop ovulation, so in instances where ovulation occurs, there is a possibility of fertilization happening. With the personhood initiative in Mississippi, they could deem that just the act of making it so that the fertilized egg can not implant in the uterus could be murder because they could argue that conception is fertilization. That’s how the morning after pills and some birth control methods could become illegal.

@JLeslie Forgot about that pill. Thank god I am outta the pregnancy woods. lol

@Seaofclouds In actuality, the Morning After pill serve no more purpose than an IUD. The IUD prevents the egg which is fertilized, from finding a home to grow. Basically that same as if you had gas and a match but no oxygen, you can never have an explosion. The zygote is fertilized when it makes it to the womb, but the IUD denies it of a hospitable place to anchor and grow. No hospitable home, no baby, no little cute human. ;-)

@Hypocrisy_Central It depends on where in the cycle the woman is when she takes it. The morning after pill can stop ovulation which would mean there is no egg to fertilize. It can also thicken cervical mucus so that the egg and sperm don’t meet, so again, no fertilized egg. Lastly, it thins the uterus, making it unsuitable for implantation if there was a fertilized egg looking for a spot to grow. So it does more than just what an IUD does. Also, there are some IUDs that contain hormones and can prevent ovulation from occurring.

Either way you look at it, if it is deemed that personhood begins at conception and people consider conception to be fertilization (which some do), it could lead to birth control pills, IUDs, and the morning after pill becoming illegal in Mississippi. Not everyone considers conception to be fertilization and implantation.

@Hypocrisy_Central actually, IUD’s are believed to work primarily by preventing fertilization rather than implantation though a definitive answer as to whether they effectively do the latter seems lacking.

I’ll just add one thing: if you think a “fetus” is not a “person” or a “life”, try looking at pictures and videos of aborted “fetuses” without cringing and crying. Those are babies in there, whether you choose to be a coward and deny it or not. /unfollow

@JLeslie “Plants lean towards the sun.”

I don’t understand the context.

“Your example doesn’t really necessarily define consciousness.”

Without consuming this thread with a more detailed description, it does indeed. That’s why congnitive studies use language testing to determine a patients level of conscious awareness. Consciousness is directly relevant to the level of image/object relationship capacity.

@JLeslie “I have no quarrel with people who believe life begins at conception, I never fight that specific point, so don’t get me wrong there.”

Oh, well I’m on the fence about that now. I was only answering the OP. The fact is that a fully functional unique genetic code exists without hours of conception. Everything a human needs to grow is in place. Whether one considers that human or not is up for debate. It is a human genome… and that’s enough to get you twenty to life in a courtroom.

@JLeslie “I am just speaking to your example. Life can have reflex without being aware.”

Reflex is not consciousness. Is that what you meant by the plant leaning? I don’t believe that just because something is alive that means it is also conscious by default. Any comatose human will confirm that. Plants can’t confirm that because they are not conscious.

But you know the funny thing about the genetic code… it doesn’t just reflex. It’s processing an entire network of communication protocols. It’s actually talking to itself with a four letter alphabet and instructing the cells what to do… building them even. Way beyond reflexing.

I actually think the woman carrying the child should have the right to decide whats going to happen with her un-born fetus. However I do think there should be a cut off point as to what and where a termination can take place. For me personally after studying this and working closely with pregnant women at the moment, the fetus as young as 12 wks can feel, and think enough to move their bodies about. Now here in the UK the cut off point for termination is 24 weeks. To me I find that just far to long, but again the decision has to lay with the mother, because she has to carry that around either way for the rest of her life.

I have to say from about 8 weeks it becomes human rather than cells and fatty tissue, so anything beyond that is in humane in my opinion!

Putting all its ramifications aside, I can agree with a zygote being classed a person.
There was a time years and years ago that I thought it a waste to spill my sperm because to me the spermazoids were persons-to-be and I felt sorry for their loss. Silly me…......
So, fused with an egg, that would sure make it a person, in my view.

I have no idea.
I like the Catholic view on the fetus being given a soul after its 40th day. I think they call that the Quickening.

What is a person? Does it have to be human? Does it have to be sentient, or can it just have the potential to be? Does intelligence matter when determining whether or not something is a person? “Person” may have a watered-down dictionary definition, but as a philosophical idea, there is no correct definition for “person”. I’m not entirely sure what I consider a person, but I do know that I value animal rights over human embryo rights, because I think that the average dog or pig has a higher capacity for suffering than a human embryo. Of course, I could be wrong.

@JilltheTooth Said tongue-in-cheek.

pssst… hey yarnlady… you awake? you ok? u been hangin there for hours

In my mind a person begins when they are able to survive outside the womb.

My Sister In Law lost several potential babies, and she named and mourned every one of them.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies Sorry, I had to go pick somebody up and just got back.

hahah just checkin! glad you’re back on.

A fetus becomes a person when it is born. To pass this law as it is written will undo a great many rights that women have struggled many years to attain.

@YARNLADY In my mind a person begins when they are able to survive outside the womb. Does that methodology goes both way? If a person outside the womb gets to the point they can’t survive without assistance they lose peopleship, you just let them die, or pull the plug on them, because their death is inevitable, and would happen naturally without hospital heroics.

Babies can’t survive outside the womb without assistance for many years.

@Hypocrisy_Central When a fetus is very young you can’t even help it with medicine or machines.

Even now, even with abortion being legal, there is grey area when a baby is born very early. The parents can choose whether to take extreme measures. Or, I assume the parents get to choose, that is how I understand it. Although, I think sometimes there are court orders sought to save a baby when the parents don’t want to. It could be a full term baby with health issues.

@bkcunningham Food doesn’t count. Viability goes to the baby being able to live without medical intervention. If I take a 9 month baby and lay him down in a bed it lives just fine on its own. A 4 month fetus probably will never even take a breath outside of the mother.

OMG! I am overwhelmed by all the answers. Thanks to all. I’d like to respond to what each of you had to say, but time simply does not permit. You have given me much to think about. Personally, I am glad the voters of Mississippi have given the far right much to think about in soundly rejecting this extreme legislation. Overall tonight, all the ballot issues have affirmed American’s belief in leaving things to the people to decide, and not having government ram their ideology down our throats.

@ETpro ….not having government ram their ideology down our throats. Just out of curiosity, what ideology is that? Seem to me, depending on where you are, the government is always ramming something down someone’s throat, and often ramming it up their [redacted]

@Hypocrisy_Central Yes, I don’t believe in using extraordinary measures to maintain an otherwise terminally ill person. I also believe in terminating their personhood for cause.

@ETpro I think part of the reason might be because it would affect IVF rules/laws if the law in Mississippi was passed. The Evangelicals seem ok with IVF, while the Catholics are against it. Since MS is very Evangelical, possibly that helped the vote against what was proposed; almost seems ironic. The vote still had a large number, 42%, vote yes.

Great news- apparently Mississippi’s “personhood” Initiative 26 has been defeated: http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/media/press-releases/2011/pr11082011_mspersonhood.html

@Brian1946 GA Best news in a while.

@Adirondackwannabe

Thank you, my friend. :-)

Whats funny about your link Brian is that the Pro Choice statement announces it as a triumph for Mississippians who treasure freedom and privacy.

I’m always astonished that drug legalization isn’t granted under the same premise.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies “I’m always astonished that drug legalization isn’t granted under the same premise” The problem is that there is too much money in keeping drugs illegal. You have several U.S. agencies, private prisons, border guards, and numerous contractors feeding at the government tit to actually change the system.

Personally, I would make drug enforcement one of the items to cut in the budget talks. We could actually make a multi-billion change from a loss to a gain with a taxation system rather than banning all drugs. I think that if a person is over 18 and uses drugs, the decision is between the person and his insurance company. If he dies too bad, it was a personal choice.

Agreed.

Agreed.

Sounds good to me. If people are too bored and unimagined to life in the real word, tax the hell of out of them to live in a fantasy world. ;-P

@Hypocrisy_Central The ideology that personhood begins at the moment of conception. Thise who aren’t swayed by religious appeals generally define personhood as beginning at delivery, or at the time in the womb when the developing fetus is viable outside the womb. The drive for “conception equals personhood” comes from the Religious right mainly. It is not biblically accurate. Deuteronomy 25:11 tells us, “If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts,” Clearly, killing an unborn child was a property crime, not murder. If God considered the unborn less than fully human, who are Christians today to argue?

@ETpro There is also a biblical passage that exhorts God’s people to rip the unborn children out of their Mothers’ wombs and dash them against the rocks. That shows what this biblical God cared about the unborn.Psalms 137:9; Joshua 6:17, Hosea 9:11–16

@ETpro Deuteronomy 25:11 tells us, “If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts,” Clearly, killing an unborn child was a property crime, not murder. Why people keep cherry picking the Old Testament, when it was for the Jews, the nation of Israel, and not us gentiles, I will never know. That is not how I see it, especially when seen in conjunction with Gen 38:9. Great to only follow the parts of the Bible that suits one’s fancy. Since most Christians who are not “milk Christians” understand when God considered you human, there is not much debate.

@Hypocrisy_Central “Why people keep cherry picking the Old Testament, when it was for the Jews, the nation of Israel, and not us gentiles,” I thought that the premise of Christians is that the bible is the word of god, not just the new testament. Granted the new testament describes a somewhat kinder gentler god but as you guys say “God always was and always will be”. So if you believe the second half of the bible is true, then you must believe the first half also. As you say, you can’t “cherry pick”.

@Hypocrisy_Central Why is it a devout agnostic has to spend time teaching Christians what their own Bible says? John 1:17 reads:

“Do not think I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I came, not to destroy, but to fulfill; 18 for truly I say to YOU that sooner would heaven and earth pass away than for one smallest letter or one particle of a letter to pass away from the Law by any means and not all things take place. 19 Whoever, therefore, breaks one of these least commandments and teaches mankind to that effect, he will be called ‘least’ in relation to the kingdom of the heavens. As for anyone who does them and teaches them, this one will be called ‘great’ in relation to the kingdom of the heavens. 20 For I say to YOU that if YOUR righteousness does not abound more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, YOU will by no means enter into the kingdom of the heavens.”

Now show me the passage where Jesus told you that, subsequent to his declaration on the Mt. of Olives, he had changed his mind and that the Law and the Prophets had been cancelled.

Uh, @ETpro, that passage you are referring to is Matthew 5:17, right after the Beatitudes.

John 1:17 says:17For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

18No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

19And this is the record of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou?

20And he confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ.

21And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elias? And he saith, I am not. Art thou that prophet? And he answered, No.

@bkcunningham Thanks for catching that. Indeed I wrote the wrong book and chapter, but the message is there and it’s clear.

@ETpro Why is it a devout agnostic has to spend time teaching Christians what their own Bible says? What devout agnostics and others have taught me, is never take advice from an electrician when I want to know about why I have a knock in my engine. Maybe you can ”teach” milk Christians, but you cannot teach me anything you don’t believe in the first place, that is why the true message gets lost. There is nothing you pointed out that said anything, at least not what you were alluding to. The Old Testament law is true, but for the Nation of Israel. You are trying to apply it as rules that train conductors are to adhere to are the same one for pilots. If you are so learned in the subject, why is it that people no longer need to bring an unblemished lamb to the high priest to get their sins forgiven? Lets start with that one, I might have to pull some covers and leave some hot, pissed off and naked, should I really get into it.

Back in the period that you speak, only the Jews were required to be circumcised, not all males. Jesus came to fulfill the law, he didn’t erase or take away from it. If anything he clarified it, but electricians looking in an auto manual can’t tell, really.

@Hypocrisy_Central Actually, I do beleive FIRMLY that the passages I quoted are exact transcriptions of the words written in what Christians claim is the inspired word of god. I further believe that most Christians today do not follow those words.

Again, as a dispensationalist, I ask you to provide the chapter and verse that gives you the liberty to ignore Jesus’ direct teachings. Jesus didn’t say “Whoever, therefore, breaks one of these least commandments , if he is an Israeli…”. No, he quite clearly said, “Whoever, therefore, breaks one of these least commandments and teaches mankind to that…

I’m delighted that you are not a “milk” Christian and it must feel wonderful to be so perfect that nobody but a select few can teach you anything. Congratulations on your elevated state. Now, being so enlightened, I ask you again, can you point me to the book, chapter and verse in the Bible that cancels or modifies Jesus’ words? Comparisons between trqain conductors and airline pilots won’t do. I want to see it in the holy text.

No sensationalist has ever been able to answer that question for me, and since you understand scripture so perfectly as to need no teaching, I was hoping you would share your insight with me. If what you reveal is convincing, you might even convert me. I am agnostic, but I am teachable. I know there is much that I don’t know.

@Hypocrisy_Central, read Genesis 17. I believe you are referring to a covenant, not a law, made between God, Abraham and Abraham’s seed.

@Hypocrisy_Central Sorry. I just noticed that my spell checker added an absurd correction to the beginning of the last paragraph above.

“No sensationalist…” should have read “No dispensationalist…”