When does a baby get a soul? (genesis, America, prophet)

[weatherologist]

Originally Posted by beth ann

You've read my testimony, but I can't find yours in the Testimony thread.

Oh, yes, Madjagorie. Absolutely a beautiful testimony. I remember that I commented on it. Sorry, I don't always start with the "who's" in a post. I quite honestly, it's very hard for me to keep up with who is who. I think that I have the Catholics down. But the atheists still throw me!

[beth ann]

Originally Posted by lorelei2873

Why would someone assume that what someone states is supposed to be an exact statement of what a church teaches?

I think we all know that everyone is providing either their own opinion or their understanding of what the church teaches.

Also if we want to know what our own church teaches, we should ask our minister or priest, not try to glean the truth from an internet forum.

Also, while the Catholic church does not believe in reincarnation, some non-Catholic churches do believe in pre-existence without reincarnation. The sould does not always have to be embodied in the physical form, according to some faiths. For example, the Mormon church has a doctorine of pre-existence. I doubt they'd agree with my personal belief on the mootness of abortion though! There is also some debate about pre-existence in the Jewish faith.

The reason why I mentioned church teaching is because Weather is a regular on the religon forum and she is known "far and wide" as a catholic. The catholic church has a teaching body (magisterium, heirarchy, etc) that encompasses papal infalliblility on issues reagarding faith and morals. Distinguishing catholic teaching verses personal opinion of a member of the catholic church is a distinction worth mentioning.

I don't mean to get off-topic, I just wanted to explain as to why I posted the way I did.

[beth ann]

Originally Posted by weatherologist

Testimonies of how God reveals himself, page 5

Weather....I just read your testimony...it's funny (and humbling) to know that I shouldnt' have "jumped to conclusions". Your expreience doesn't strike me, in any sense, as justification of reincarnation.....I'm thinking more along the lines of....miracle.

[Mark S.]

Originally Posted by irishmom

LOL...Go with what JerZ said...LOL

Heh. Seriously though, it depends entirely on what you mean. By sould if you mean the intellect, emotions, psyche, etc., then medically and scientifically we know that those things develops as a fetus develops. A fetus certainly doesn't have "consciousness" as we adults do. Even a newborn infant or a toddler does not. Any parent will tell you that teenagers' emotions are a roller-coaster ride. So if you are talking about the "brain functions," then those certainly begin when the brain develops, and it is a continuously evolving process throughout our lives.

But if by "soul" you mean that indefinable "spark" that makes us uniquely human, that sets us apart from even our closest living biological relative, then that certainly begins at conception.

[Mark S.]

Originally Posted by beth ann

Distinguishing catholic teaching verses personal opinion of a member of the catholic church is a distinction worth mentioning.

Excellent point and well worth stating.

[alicenevada]

I believe babies ARE souls. Just like Adam was a soul. (Gen 2:7)

[irishmom]

Originally Posted by beth ann

I just think it's important to make distinctions between what is church teaching and what is personal opinion.

I'm pretty sure most here know that a lot of what I believe is not necessarily what the officail teachings of the church are. But I still don't think a soul is sent into a baby before pregnancy occurs, and I don't even know if it's done then, but I don't see why it would be before implantation.

Everyone has very interesting views on this though, I really did enjoy reading about them. Thanks!

[edgewalking]

When does a baby receive it’s soul?

So, can we work out precisely at what moment the baby in the womb would receive his or her soul? Apart from somehow viewing the foetus’s bio-plasma with an electron microscope to look for some sort of rapid pattern structuring, perhaps it is an indication that the soul has arrived when the baby in the womb begins to dream.
There are many psychological and physiological theories for dreams, but we still do not really know why we dream - this part of our life is still a mystery. From the point of view of soul-to-brain interaction dreaming could be a meeting ground of soul and everyday self, or sometimes perhaps a plane of free play of the spirit, or of higher learning, problem solving, or even precognition. The psychologist Wilson Van Dusen thought that we could communicate with our higher self at the edge of sleep, and in our dreams this communication becomes symbolic and can tell us the truth about our lives.
When we sleep we alternate between dream sleep (called paradoxical sleep because brain wave emissions are almost the same as those we have while awake) and deep sleep (or orthodox sleep). While awake our brain waves are usually in the beta wave. In dreaming they slow to alpha wave. In deep sleep they slow even more to the deep waves of delta. Dreaming is less common in deep sleep, although it can occur. Most subjects woken from deep delta sleep would say they weren’t dreaming, and some say they were just thinking about something.
Occult investigator Colin Wilson wasn’t satisfied by the scientist’s conviction that we only dream in the shallow alpha states. He reasoned that since on the edge of sleep we experience dream-type images, called hypnagogic visions, it is hard to see why they would just shut off when we fall into deep delta sleep (our sleep patterns start with deep delta sleep and then after about two hours surface into the shallower alpha dream sleep [REM sleep] before plummeting again). In his book, Mysteries, Wilson gives examples of dream prophecies, which he suggests come to the dreamer while in deep delta sleep.
From my own experiences I am inclined to agree with Wilson. For about 12 months I experimented with what is called astral travel. When I eventually succeeded in inducing this state it was clear to me that what I had been practicing was to keep a small point of consciousness awake as I plummeted into deep delta sleep. Once in the depths of this state I found extreme consciousness and feeling, I was able to go anywhere I wanted, to fly, but the most important thing about this state was that I was in touch with the higher, or even ultimate part of my being, and with the higher being of existence.
The ‘music’ or feeling of ultimate being was all around me, and I was struck by the power of my awareness, as if in comparison the normal waking state was a blurry, unfeeling existence. For me the lesson of astral travel was that it revealed to me the possibility of higher awareness and feeling, which I was later able to develop in my normal awake state. The point being made is that in our sleep, in our dreams, and in our depths of being, we can make contact with our soul and the larger dream of the Ultimate Beings. If in the depths of deep sleep we are in contact with our source and our eternal soul, then it seems reasonable to suppose that when the unborn child shows indications of dreaming, at about the eighth month , the soul has arrived. William Henderson, The Science of Soulmates.
From: the science of reincarnation

[SuSuSushi]

Originally Posted by irishmom

The "Where do Souls come from" thread made me think of this one.

At what point in the process of pregnancy do you think life begins and therefore a soul is present in the womb?

I personally think it is not present until the blastocyst attaches to the uterus (approximately 1 week after conception) because there is no pregancy until that point and I don't think God would send a soul in until there is an actual pregnancy, a fool's errand so to speak. This just be because I tend to look at things through a medical view when it comes to the body. But I was interested what everyone else thought.

The following statement is my opinion. YMMV.

You're making the assumption that life = soul which is just another unvalidated religious superstition. There is no such thing as a "soul". Life is life, and when it's done there's nothing that leaves the body and carries on in any way. You die, you're done. Your life-force and the things that made you uniquely yourself won't ever occur again.

So my answer to your question is: Never, because souls don't exist.

[MysticPhD]

Originally Posted by SuSuSushi

So my answer to your question is: Never, because souls don't exist.

Your certainty speaks volumes about your actual mis-understanding of the limits of science and scientific method . . . something you have repeatedly castigated others for not understanding.