Every Christian I have approached with this question has immediately replied, "With conception." And I have asked, "How do you know that?" And have received the same answer from all, "The Bible says so." "Oh,"
has been my reply, "where, exactly, does the Bible say that life begins with conception?" And no one has been able to show me where the Bible says that life begins with conception. I am usually quoted just this one verse as the authority, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you." (Jeremiah 1:5 NKJ) And I am quick to point out that "formed you in the womb" does not say life begins with conception. And then I am sucked into the ultimate Christian rationale for when life begins, "Well, it is better to err on the side of caution. . ."
Why is better to make a mistake instead of getting it right? I believe the Bible does tell us when life begins, and it is not at conception. And before you get all puffy with me, let me ask you this, have you read the Bible? In its entirety? All of it? Can you stand before the God of the Bible and say "Yes, I have read all of your book." Because my informal survey of Christians has found that the majority have not even read the book they love to quote. Yet Christians claim that the Bible is the "inspired Word of God,"
that it is their duty to study and to "search the scriptures daily." But the majority of Christians do not do so, instead they allow someone else to tell them what the Bible says and then they mindlessly parrot what they have been told to believe.
The Bible clearly states in Leviticus Chapter 17 Verse 11, "The life is in the blood" and in verse 14, "for the life of all flesh is its blood." And even earlier, in God's instruction to Noah, God says, "you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood"
(Gen. 9:4). And again in Deuteronomy 12:23, "the blood is the life."
Christianity is the ultimate sacrificial blood based religion in the world! If there is no blood, then there is no life. No one in the Christian community has ever argued this point with me.
And that's my point, if there is no blood, then there is no life. And it is many days after conception that a fertilized embryo can be said to have rudimentary blood cells. And if there is no blood, and the life is in the blood, then an embryo without blood cells has no life. If you believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, if you believe that "life is in the blood," as the scripture states, then embryos without blood cells should be made available for stem cell research because they have no life, and this national debate on embryonic stem cell research can be resolved and we can move on to other important issues of the day.
In the normal course of things, it is also several days after conception that an embryo arrives "in the womb," conception usually occurring in the fallopian tubes. God knows what He is saying when He says He formed us in our mother's womb. By the time we arrived in the womb, or very shortly thereafter, we had blood, we had life, and we were formed.
It is easy to fall into the trap of believing doctrine and dogma to be more important than scripture if you haven't read it. If you name Christ as your Personal Savior, if you are "washed in the blood of the Lamb"
then why haven't you read His book? And please, stop using the Book you haven't even read to batter people about their heads with just one verse taken out of context to advance a doctrine that is not even biblically sound. Thank you very much for your prayerful consideration of this matter.
In the Spirit of His love,
Doyle Doss redpanax@excite.com
Short Bio. Inventor/Innovator/Aspiring Author. BS, Natural Resources. Former Novell Systems Manager.
Small business owner. Denizen of the North Coast.
(Put "tomato palace greenhouse" in google for latest story on my latest invention.)