moronic comment of the month – comparing abortion to slavery
In a place where it [abortion] is already illegal, it is probably best to keep it that way. In a place where it is legal and common, I doubt there is much that can be done on a legislative level besides trying to discourage it.
If you compare it to other evils like slavery, something that in the U.S. was ingrained into the culture and economy, it took 600,000 dead soldiers to end it. A prudent man living in the 1850s would, I think, look at that cost and decide banning slavery wouldn’t be worth it.
Not all evils can be fixed. (dpmonahan on Clare Flourish)
Sometimes when I’m lurking, I read comments that make my blood boil. My smug, squirrel-killing blogging buddy, dpmonahan, spewed the above piece of nonsense on Clare Flourish’s recent post about abortion. There are a few things about this comment that stand out for me.
1. For a ‘prudent’ man like dpmonahan, the lives of 600,000 white, male soldiers naturally weigh more heavily on the scales than the lives of the millions of African women, children and men who died as a direct result of slavery, and the further millions whose lives were utterly and horrifically ruined as a result of slavery.
2. It’s best to keep abortion illegal where it is already illegal, because the facts are of no relevance to dpmonahan. Anybody with a smidgen of understanding about abortion knows that in countries where abortion is illegal, there are more abortions than in countries where it is legal. So it’s ‘best’ to condemn women to unsafe and deadly procedures while keeping abortion levels high, rather than peel off our sexist sunglasses and acknowledge that access to legal abortion facilities is a must for any moral society.
3. If we can’t make something illegal, then we shrug our shoulders and give up because ‘not all evils can be fixed’, according to dpmonahan. So instead of looking to countries with lower levels of abortion as examples that can be built upon, instead of taking sensible action to help people avoid the difficulties of unwanted pregnancy, idiots like dpmonahan are smugly content to call it ‘evil’ and malign the millions of women who make the choice to seek a termination for themselves and for their families.
Dpmonahan, don’t belittle the horrors of slavery and the impact it has had on our societies, the reverberations of which are still felt today. Don’t parade your smug form of ignorant ‘morality’ around, flying in the face of reason, facts and logic to make a seriously misplaced religious point on behalf of an invisible god, who, if he really existed, would be more concerned with doing magic trick abortions for immoral women, telling slaves to suck up their lot and obey their masters, and encouraging his minions to rip open pregnant bellies. We’ve actually read the Bible, have you?
I’m just in the mood to stir things up today. Try THIS. 3 minutes. This is one of my best friends and an associate pastor at my church.
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As long as you don’t think much if at all, maybe this tripe may sound good to you, might sound reasonable and possible. One little scratch of critical thinking about the morality of allowing slavery to flourish to bring today’s idiots to the Jesus idol, however, and the entire argument, the whole proposition, falls to dust if one wants to maintain the fiction of an omnipotent and benevolent interventionist god.
This is so stupid it burns. Hallelujah! Can I have an amen to this idiocy?
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Tiribulus, that is foul ignorance beyond measure. If your invisible almighty deity had no better ‘plan’ than allowing millions to suffer and die in slavery, he’s not too bright. If that was a ‘plan’, it the plan of a desperately evil being.
But shifting to reality, it disturbs me that people have to imagine larger forces at work in everything humans do – your god is the ultimate conspiracy theory. In reality, people were just exploiting other people to make financial gain, in a time and place when the dominant religion told them slavery was good and natural (same religion you follow now).
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Wait a minuet Violet. Who are you to say what’s better or worse? Have you a created universe from nothing by fiat command when I wasn’t lookin? If not, your resume is a bit thin to be critiquing the holy providence of a being who has.
The English and American chattel slave trade were an abomination and a reprehensible evil, but thats’ the point. Our glorious God can bring eternal good even from such evil as this.
Chapters 37 and following of the book of Genesis (minus 38) tell the story of Jacob’s youngest son Joseph. How he was his fathers’ favorite and how jealous his brothers were and how they sold him into slavery in Egypt. (though Joseph was prideful and obnoxious in a way too)
Years later when the land was in a severe famine, Joseph’s brothers went to Egypt to seek food and found that Joseph had risen to a place of high office in Egypt. One where he could authorize the dispensing of grain during this famine.
The short version is, that they are reconciled and Joseph still loves his brothers and he gives them food and eventually his family moves to Egypt(bad move, but another story)
As his brothers are begging his forgiveness Joseph tells them “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.”
That is a nearly exact analogy. The greed and arrogant racism, even of those corrupting the Gospel of Jesus Christ to justify their own views (that happens all the time today) was used by God as a means by which He would eventually raise millions of Africans into new life in Christ.
See what Flynn understands is that, yes, slavery was a horrible evil, but without it, he’s born in a jungle somewhere without the Gospel and doomed to eternal perdition. So, it’s not that he’s grateful for slavery. He’s grateful to God who brings such glorious good through it.
I don’t know how many ways I can say it Violet. That’s SUPPOSED to be stupid to someone like you. You’re supposed to tell me what a morally bankrupt, religiously brainwashed dumb@$$ I am. If you were to like what I was telling you, but it didn’t bring repentance and surrender, then I’m telling you a lie.
All I can do is tell you. Just like I was told. What you do with it is between you and God.
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Yes, well I suppose if you have a limited imagination, then what happened in history might be the only thing you can imagine happening. In your little fictitious scenario, however, your invisible god could have sent loads more white missionaries to all the various African countries and converted them peacefully, with love, where they were born. Can you imagine that at all? Or does the violent deaths of millions transported in brutal conditions to die early in slave labour seem like the only way an invisible god could force people to believe in him? (You really don’t see how ridiculous this is? Wow!)
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That’s a great point Violet and one I make regularly to illustrate the culpability of professing Christians at the time.
Instead of sending missionaries to bring them the good news that in Jesus they could live free from these demonic false pagan gods they were worshiping, they instead turned them into beasts of burden for gain.
Missions and evangelism would have been a fulfillment of Christs’ great commission of Matthew 28. That’s what they should have done according to His revealed will. God determined by His secret providence, known only to Himself, that He would get more glory for Himself this way.
Yes, He really is all about Himself. Again, He can do it and we can’t. Because He alone is the singular sovereign creator and King of all that is, therefore He alone is worthy. His might does indeed make right. You can see that now or see it later, but you WILL see it. He has guaranteed it.
I’d very much prefer it if you saw it now.
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Yeah, I read that and just shook my head, V.
When someone’s moral compass is that far off course, no amount of words from me can guide the broken mind back into the port of rationality. It is lost in the religious sea.
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And the irony that he bleats on about ‘morality’ and ‘evil’ …
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Yes, it is difficult to compare slavery with the prenatal genocide called abortion, especially if prenatal genocide is disguised as a woman’s right to choose.
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What right does any man have to tell a woman what they can do with their body? http://wp.me/p4V4lR-VF
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darth,
It’s not the woman’s body that is in question.
It is the baby’s body that gets shredded and sold for coin that is in question.
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Except it’s actually all about the woman’s right to determine what happens with her body. Religious fundamentalists make zero allowances for cases of rape, or problems that may lead to the death of the mother during pregnancy. They make zero allowances for quality of life. Frankly, in claiming to be pro-life they usually demonstrate they are the opposite.
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darth,
You continue to repeat the same bit of brainwashed nonsense over and over.
So again I must repeat the truth:
It isn’t the woman’s body that is question.
It is the baby’s body that gets shredded and sold for coin.
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All this concern for babies SOM. Have you ever looked after one? Have you ever grown one in your body, or had an accidental pregnancy?
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violet,
So your argument for prenatal genocide is to wipe out the unborn because they are too much for women like you to waste their time and effort upon.
Your attitude, a truly genocidal attitude is the problem, not whether or not I have taken care of a baby.
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That’s an interesting opinion SOM. What’s it based on? Have you ever grown a baby within your body or even looked after a child full time?
My attitude, about the actual reality of both growing a baby in your body and then looking after it when it is born, is really rather pertinent to the issue. Do you have any personal experience?
And last time I looked, the unborn weren’t being wiped out. We have quite a little baby boom going on here. What aspect of never being conscious do you think an unborn clump of cells, or partially developed human baby would object to?
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violet,
Repeating blithering idiocy in the face of an argument you have no idea how to respond to rationally demonstrates a self-loathing of monumental proportions.
The value of human life is not dependent on whether Her Majesty Queen Violet can get up off her royal ass and take care of a baby.
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And yet, by not acknowledging the very real importance of quality of life, you demean the value of life.
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Darth,
Cold blooded murder of unborn children is what renders human life unimportant.
Quality of life is completely relative to life, times, culture and other variables and so does not constitute a basis for human rights.
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The irony of someone who follows an ultra-strict interpretation of religious texts, who desires to impose that interpretation upon others, throwing out accusations of being brainwashed.
The woman’s body is the fundamental aspect to this. It’s the woman who will undergo major physical and psychological changes during pregnancy. In most cases, it’s the woman who faces the biggest changes to her life when a baby comes along.
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Still sidestepping?
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Mr. Merveilleux,
Here is an excerpt from the statement I addressed:
“tell a woman what they can do with their body?”
Can you tell me which part of a woman’s body gets shredded and sold for coin because abortion?
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You’re entirely sidestepping a very important Catholic discussion. Do you think you’re above St. Augustine or Aquinas?
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Mr. Merveilleux,
I think we established that you don’t know what you’re talking about and that whatever it is you think you know about Saint Augustine and Saint Aquinas, is just another of a vast variety of atheist hallucinations.
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Quite the contrary. You’re choosing to ignore the ensoulment discussion which is precisely a discussion on when abortion was or was not deemed acceptable.
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Mr. Merveilleux,
You have failed to provide a written source for the anti-religious, bigoted mania you are trying to pass off as some sort of intellectual argument.
You need to understand that just because you say something it doesn’t have to be true.
In fact, it is clear that you either have no idea what you are talking about and you are just parroting some BS you picked up off the bottom of your shoe.
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Seriously? You need me to provide you references of the ensoulment debate? I thought you said you were Catholic. What do you think I’m inventing, that the debate existed? That Augustine and Jerome believed in delayed ensoulment? There are myriad of references easily available to all.
You should start by reading Decretum Gratiani (1140) which includes “He is not a murderer who brings about abortion before the soul is in the body.” Pope Gregory IX in his decretals of 1234 takes the same position. So did Gregory XIV by reversing Sixtus’ Effraenatum (which had included automatic excommunication for abortion.)
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Mr. Merveilleux,
The “ensoulment debate” an obvious hallucination of your imagination has nothing to do with this discussion.
The sanctity of life in the womb is undisputed in Christian theology.
Allow me to point to the biblical references that happen to be so important that they are presented as two Joyful Mysteries of the most holy Rosary of our Lady Mary, mother of the Christ Jesus:
1. The Annunciation
2. The Visitation
You can google those easily and read for yourself why a baby’s life in the womb is sacred and precious.
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SOM,
Don’t be childish. The ensoulment debate was the measure for the “punishment” regarding abortion. I presume I don’t have to explain to you the nuances of venial sin/capital sin/automatic excommunication and so forth. Whence there’s a debate on the gravity of an action we must accept it’s not as black and white and some would like to make us believe.
Gluttony is a capital sin, right? That should help put things in perspective.
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Mr. Merveilleux,
This post concerns the right to life, not “punishment.”
It isn’t childish of me to insist that we stay on topic.
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You want dominion over the female body. You don’t care for the problems of rape-caused pregnancy of health problems for mother and baby, for the well-being of the child after they’re born. You only care about dictating to women over a choice that will always affect them far more than it affect a man, for many different reasons.
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I love those flowers 🙂
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Thank you! I’m reduced to taking photos with a not too great camera on my phone, but some of them are turning out okay. Hopefully at some point I’ll have more time to dedicate to the pretty pictures.
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Clare did pretty good on that post. So did dpmonahan.
It’s sad that we’re living in a culture that doesn’t care for women, that doesn’t teach us how to care for ourselves, that fails to admit that an unwanted pregnancy is a violation of our bodies, disrespect for who we are as women and what we can do. To add insult to injury we insist on convincing women that the only way to empower yourself is to kill your own offspring.
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No, darling. Clare did *well*, not good.
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Bit of pedantric classism from the peanut gallery?
Tell me my Pampered Prince, why in the world are you even allowed an opinion on the matter? Clare at least tries to empathize with women. All you ever do is try to knock us down.
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Knock who down? The undereducated or imbeciles? And how does that work exactly? Aren’t those the classes who are fed peanuts? So isn’t it actually *you* in the peanut gallery?
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Those you call “undereducated imbeciles” are those most likely to seek an abortion. Poverty and an inability to raise a child is the most cited reason for abortion.
That stems from the attitudes of elitists and outright racists like you who encourage us to just kill our off spring so as not to burden the world with anymore imbeciles.
So yes, you are all about knocking women down, especially the women who you perceive as being unworthy of your alleged highly privileged state.
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If “Poverty and an inability to raise a child” are your concerns, Insanity, why do you vote Republican?
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Republicans often support policies that create the most opportunity and economic stability for the largest number of people.
I live in a dark blue state, I know what Dems always bring in, no matter how virtuous they imagine they are being. I work hands on with the collateral damage from their policies.
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Can you name a Republican policy that supports low income parents with children?
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John,
Yes, it’s called low taxes, religious freedom, human rights and the rule of just law.
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John I’ve just deleted your first ‘comment’ in the form of offensive picture, belittling and ridiculing people with learning disabilities. I really don’t appreciate that type of humour, and I’m surprised it still does the rounds, and that someone like you sinks to it. Shame on you.
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Interesting- so poverty and the inability to raise children are the most cited reason- and your solution is to force people in that position not only to have children but to inflict those problems on their children?
I think that makes your lack of ethics rather clear. It’s not just that you’re egocentric and feel you have the right to decide what other people do with their bodies and lives, but you also feel entitled to condemn children to possible hardship and neglect. Pat yourself on the back!
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“….you also feel entitled to condemn children to possible hardship and neglect.”
You feel entitled to condemn the offspring of the so called “undereducated imbeciles” to death.
To add insult to injury, you try selling a bill of goods that declares killing our offspring is allegedly for our own good.
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I suspect he feels entitled to suggest that a woman should be allowed to decide when a new human being grows to maturation within her own body. Surely you agree that each woman can decide that?
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No, I feel entitled to nothing. What I feel is the ethical obligation to let other free citizens make decisions for themselves. Make decisions that will affect *their* lives forever. Meanwhile you have the arrogance and the nerve to attempt to impose your will on other people.
Attention women of the world- Stop what you’re doing. You aren’t capable of making decisions. What you must do is follow the directives of Insanitybytes and her religion.
So you see, I may call people people like you an imbecile, but you actually treat all women as if they were imbeciles.
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“What I feel is the ethical obligation to let other free citizens make decisions for themselves.”
No. What you feel is an arrogant commitment to eugenics, so rather than solving the problems that create abortion, you would just tell impoverished and “undereducated” black girls, “hey you’re free, just kill your offspring, wouldn’t want them to hold you back or harm the community.”
I do feel entitled to impose my will on others. “My will” believes that all life has value, that even the under-educated, the poor, those you call “imbeciles and morons” have a right to reproduce and bring life into this world.
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My goodness, you’re such an idiot. Your *will* is that for some unjustified and entirely unsubstantiated reason people in society shouldn’t do what they think is right in regards to their lives. Instead they should follow the ridiculous tenets of a backwater North American sect that you belong to.
Your ideology isn’t about life having value. Your ideology was behind Uganda’s kill the gays bill which you defended here on this blog. Your ideology is about control, indoctrination and authoritarianism.
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“Your *will* is that for some unjustified and entirely unsubstantiated reason people in society shouldn’t do what they think is right in regards to their lives.”
My justified and substantiated position declares that when people believe what is “right for their lives” is killing their own offspring, something is terribly wrong.
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No. You stick yourself into other people’s business wherever you have a chance. That’s because of this religious delusion that makes you believe you have some sort of right to interfere in the lives of other free citizens. This week you’re the self-appointed abortion police. Last week you were the self-appointed gay marriage police. Or were you the gay-genitalia police? Both?
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“You stick yourself into other people’s business wherever you have a chance.”
Quite true, especially when they are contemplating suicide, dealing with a heroin addiction, or feeling pressured into killing their own offspring.
Your own morality would say, meh, people are free to do whatever they choose to do, even if they are choosing poverty, abortion, suicide, or surgically implanting a unicorn horn into their head. In other words, you don’t care about people at all, and certainly not about some uneducated black girl who has been brainwashed into believing the life she carries is nothing more than a parasite on society, having even less worth and value than she does.
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So, how are you going to justify your support for the Kill the Gays bill in Uganda? Or are you just trying to pretend it didn’t happen?
And btw, my morality says people get to make decisions for themselves. That easy enough. They don’t need some halfwit religious fool to make decisions for them.
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Pink, you’re trying to speak rationally to an irrational person. Their god, Yhwh, is PRO-ABORTION, yet this is something each and every evangelical will rather conveinently ignore in their pursuit to meddle in other people’s lives.
Numbers 5:11-21 details an ABORTION RITUAL, complete with a prayer to Yhwh, who then destroys the foetus.
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Talk about moronic comment of the month jn of the andes!
Was this word given to the Brazilians? The Aussies? The Brits? The Africans? The Chinese?
Geez, how your hands must be bloody from the razor sharp mishandling of scripture. I suppose the thought of context and purpose never crossed your mind……….
The very scriptures you appeal to for your supposed authority condemn your trifling.
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Sorry ColorStorm, a couple of your recent comments went to my Spam for some reason.
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By all means, John, tell me the context of the abortion ritual….
I look forward to reading your answer…
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Here is the context, TO and FOR the Jews. Alone:
—for it is an offering of jealousy, an offering of memorial, bringing iniquity to remembrance.—
The text makes it clear. Adultery and sin is not pretty. And btw, your ‘abortion ritual’ is quite lame.
But the greater question for you would be WHY you concern yourself with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and yet deny the courtesy of His own existence. Quite strange.
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TO and FOR the Jews. Alone
Ahhh, so abortion was fine then, but horrible now. Is that it?
Yhwh performed abortions then, but now now.
Okay.
I see.
He changed his mind.
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John-
Here’s a bonus for ya. God changes not as to His disposition toward the indiscretions of mankind.
Did you notice that word there ‘iniquity?’
The grace of God is a greater cloak however.
But it seems we are making progress with you recognizing His existence. Tkx for that.
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Right. Got it.
Yhwh performed abortions then, but not now.
Yhwh liked abortions then, but not now.
Abortions were OK then, but not now.
Yhwh had an entire abortion ritual then, but not now.
I think we’re clear on that.
He changed his mind.
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John-
Don’t take this as condescending, but as long as you hold God under your thumb…….His word will be a closed book to you.
The spiritual component and the egregiousness of sin escapes you, but rest assured, He stands blameless.
The law being a schoolmaster had a distinct purpose, for a distinct time……..
Once more, if you do not believe ‘in the beginning God………’ how in God’s good earth could you understand……..
If basic math troubles you, then calculus may be a tad more difficult. Just sayin.
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Yes, seriously, thank you for clearing this up and explaining the “context” of the abortion ritual detailed in Numbers 5:11-21
Abortion was once fine, but only when a woman had been unfaithful. Yhwh even personally performed these abortions, as the text says ”when he (Yhwh) makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell.”
HOWEVER, although Yhwh was fine with abortions then, he’s not, according to you, fine with them now… although there is no corresponding text to support you, but I’m sure you’re right.
You wouldn’t be just making this stuff up, would you, John?
So, in context
Yhwh performed abortions then, but not now.
Yhwh liked abortions then, but not now.
Yhwh had an entire abortion ritual then, but not now.
He changed his mind on the matter.
He evolved.
Thank you, again, John, for setting us all straight on this matter. It’s greatly appreciated.
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This continued charade of moronic comments by you is priceless.
You speak evil of a God you say is non-existent. Nice. You say God ‘changes His mind,’ while holding to the premise He has no mind to change.
Your ‘abortion ritual’ is a figment of your demented imagination.
And you are ultimately and supremely unqualified to interpret or teach that which you detest.
But you do provide comic relief. Unfortunately, the topic is serious.
Once more, SCRIPTURE IS A CLOSED BOOK to you, until you admit that the true God is perfect in all his ways.
You may want to start with giving him the benefit of existing.
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Again, thank you, John, for telling us all the “context” of Yhwh’s abortion ritual detailed in Numbers 5:11-21.
I think we’ve got it now.
Yhwh performed abortions then, but not now.
Yhwh liked abortions then, but not now.
Yhwh had an entire abortion ritual then, but not now.
He changed his mind on the matter.
He evolved.
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Pretending to be deaf as to what I have told you will not make the truth go away.
Here for your reading pleasure:
‘I am the Lord I change not.’ and again:
‘Jesus Christ the same, yesterday, to day, and forever.’
Please do not attribute to me YOUR wishful thinking. I am quite clear. And the doctrines and precepts of scripture are equally fine food for the truly hungry.
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‘I am the Lord I change not.’
Well, self-evidently, Yhwh does indeed change.
He evolves.
That is, of course, entirely dependent on whether or not what you say is correct, and Yhwh no-longer likes abortions.
He most certainly did favour them in the past.
Here’s the prayer the priest is to recite before he makes the pregnant women (whose been dragged before him) drink a magic concoction to destroy the foetus.
That line again: when he (Yhwh) makes your womb miscarry
Now, correct me if I’m wrong, John, but terminating a pregnancy unnaturally (with poison, in this case) is what we call an abortion, isn’t it?
But, of course, you say everything has since changed… Not least of all, Yhwh’s personal opinion on abortion.
He changed his mind.
He evolved on the matter.
Well, that’s at least what you say.
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Alter your language, Insanity. It’s wrong, and you know it is.
You can’t “kill” something that cannot “die.”
Period.
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“Alter your language, Insanity. It’s wrong, and you know it is.”
Alter your language, John. It’s wrong, and you know it is. I’ve even done a post for you that you seem to be skillfully avoiding:
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I saw that 🙂
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Did you read the link in the post at least? Please tell me you bothered to do that?
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For you, anything 😉
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And then leave your thoughts on the post. Thanks!
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“To add insult to injury we insist on convincing women that the only way to empower yourself is to kill your own offspring.”
I agree with some of your comment, Insanity. Certainly as seemingly advanced societies we’re not taking sex and pregnancy seriously enough yet, in that sex education is still for giggles and birth control isn’t as easily accessible as it should be. To add insult to injury, particularly in the USA, there isn’t the kind of support available for people who find themselves unexpectedly pregnant that makes continuing with the pregnancy a viable option – I am of course talking about 1-2 years paid maternity and paternity leave, reasonable childcare options, and flexible working options for both parents (which you see in countries with lower rates of abortion). Introduce these kind of measures that make life with kids possible, and you’ll instantly see more people choosing to continue with unexpected pregnancies. But there will always be people who are unable to continue with a pregnancy, for reasons of their own, and they need access to safe and legal abortion facilities – ask any healthcare professional who’s had to deal with a back street botch job.
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I believe the correct term is *delayed* not retarded.
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That’s clever, and being so, I’m afraid it’ll simply go over DP’s head 😉
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Whether you have 14 abortions or prevent 14 in front of a clinic, you go to the same hell without Jesus.
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Great! Hell is far more desirable. Apart from the company being better, the climate far, far more appealing. Heaven, according to Isaiah 30:26, is where “the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold as the light of seven days.” Taken as read, Heaven receives from the moon as much radiation as the earth does from the sun, and in addition 49 times more, meaning fifty times in all. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann fourth power law for radiation [(H/E)4 = 50 where E is the absolute temperature of the earth 300°K (273+27)] gives the temperature of H (Heaven) as 525°C. Hell, according to Revelations 21:8 is where the “fearful and unbelieving shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone.” Now here’s the fun part. A lake of molten brimstone (sulfur) means that its temperature must be at or below its boiling point, 444.6°C. Above that point and it’d be a vapor, not a lake. Heaven (525°C) is therefore hotter than Hell (<444.6°C).
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🙂
JZ did you figure this out by yourself or did you lift it from somebody? If so, who please?
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From the shape of your head I can see forceps were used- and so you’re probably angry your mother tried to abort you late in the game. But here you are! Bringing unpleasantness to the world at large! Isn’t that something to be celebrated?
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Skype. When?
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Whether you have 14 abortions or prevent 14 in front of a clinic, you go to the same hell without Jesus.
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How nice. Empty threats from the follower of One who loves perfectly, unconditionally and without respect of persons. Glad to make your acquaintance, Trilobite. -kia
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Likewise I’m sure, but the trouble you’re having is the same trouble every unbeliever has. A terrible habit of defining reality for yourself. You don’t get to do that. (neither do I btw)
nice.
Empty
loves
perfectly,
unconditionally
without respect of persons
These are all concepts, the definition of which we have inherited from our fallen father Adam. We are only enabled to truly understand and live by the valid definitions of these ideas (and all others) when given a renewed mind in Christ.
I know this because that very thing been done for me and I’ve walked on both sides of the spiritual grave. You only know the dead side, as did i for the first 20 years of my life. Notice I said it was done FOR me. I played no part in it.
My new life in Christ was given to me by the Father in the Son, Jesus Christ, from all eternity and made a temporal reality by the Holy Spirit in 1984.
I abhor abortion. It is one of the most depraved and barbaric crimes against the image of almighty God that anyone can commit. However, holding the right view on it and even helping others not to murder their own offspring does not impress God. Only the blood sacrifice of His only begotten Son, who was born Jesus of Nazareth impresses Him.
That was my point.
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So, trilobite… the biblical god is prolife?
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Perhaps you’d like to take my quiz? https://recoveringknowitall.wordpress.com/2016/08/09/the-pro-life-god/
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How about THIS post with the video, provided by Peter?
https://recoveringknowitall.wordpress.com/2016/08/12/watch-god-merciful-maniac-mass-murderer-on-youtube/
What say you, Tilobite?
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I made it 36 seconds before the fatal confusion of categories and false analogy.
Geometric shapes are morally indifferent entities. That is to say, no law of God is upheld or violated whether we call a square a circle or not, unless with some nefarious deliberately deceptive intent. In which case the intent is what is in question. Not the square or circle.
Love is what God is. He alone is either authorized or qualified to define it. Your friend has begged the question in a most flagrant display of insolence.
He assumes what he is ultimately attempting to establish. That being that his definitions of morally charged concepts, like love in this case, are true, and God’s are not.
Jumping from geometry to ethical abstractions is quite a leap. Took him 36 seconds. His argument only holds if I grant him his pre-assumed premises, which I do not.
The first step is to establish that what he advances as “love” must indeed be in fact “love.” Human consensus likewise assumes that if only enough sinners agree on what “love” is, then it must be. I deny it because God denies it.
Prove to me that “love” is what Perter says it is. furthermore, the biblical God does not love everybody, and certainly not equally.
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Try answering the question I asked… 1, 2, or three… ie. Kill the baby?
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Sorry… Trilobite
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“Whether you have 14 abortions or prevent 14 in front of a clinic, you go to the same hell without Jesus.”
I appreciate your honesty Tiribulus. A lot of people try and make Christianity touchy-feely and all about love. It’s clearly just about enjoying the fact that other people are going to suffer eternally, and that you and your mates are *special*. Well done for your self-realisation that you’re so *special* that Jesus chose you, and for still talking to all the people you are sure will suffer agony for eternity. It must be thrilling! … or you’re a psychopath …. not sure which …..
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KIA asks: “So, trilobite… the biblical god is prolife?”
The biblical God is pro biblical God. Everything exists through Him, to Him, by Him and for Him. It’s all about Him. He grants and takes life as he sees fit. He is pro death where He decides that death serves His purposes Better than life.
Not even the slaughtered unborn infants are innocent. They are in His eyes the corrupted offspring of a corrupted first father and deserving of death the moment sperm meets egg.
The fact that He spares anybody at all is a miracle of mercy. They are still precious because of that remaining though broken image and likeness of His that He has created them in. EveryTHING and everyONE belongs to Him.
Your next question is a cinch. Go ahead.
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If it’s a cinch… answer, 1, 2 or 3?
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Would you turn the boss over to the authorities, kill the woman for ‘asking for it’ or Kill the baby?
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I don’t know what you’re talking about.
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My post that I linked on The Prolife God. Go read it and answer the question
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I would do number one, but I’m not God. EveryTHING and everyONE does not belongs to me.
He can do it and we can’t. Yes, He has a different set of rules than we do. What is perfectly holy, righteous, just and good for Him, may be a damnable offense for us.
David’s child was not innocent any more than my children are. He could have exterminated the human race after Adam and been perfectly just in so doing. That didn’t serve His purposes though.
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So even though YOU wouldn’t kill the baby, but turn the murder over to Justice, the God of the Bible was perfectly Just in doing the Opposite to both? What kind of monster are you to say that would be ok… just because God did it that way? DTC Much? The biblical god is a monster, you agree it’s not Just by saying you would not do as he did, but He gets a Pass? What kind of monster are YOU for letting the real monster of the universe off the hooks of Justice yiu yourself can plainly recognize?
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Sorry… meant to say “DCT much?”
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See, your trouble is, as I said at the beginning, you keep confusing us with God. He is wholly and utterly unique in His being, nature and attributes. As such He has all this power and authority that we don’t.
When you comamnd light, matter, time and space to exist from nothing, and they obey you, I’ll be impressed with your opinion.
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Your God is a monster and so are you for agreeing with him. You WOULD kill the baby
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…If he told you to….
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There you go again with this divine identity crisis. You don’t’ get to decide who is and is not a monster based upon your personal preferences.
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If you were awaken, trilobite, by a voice claiming to be god… and it told you to take your son/daughter (assuming yiu might have one) and offer him up as a Sacrifice. Would you, with no questions asked?
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What if the same voice commanded you to kill your next door neighbors, because it said they were evil, and promised you could have their car, stuff and home. Would you?
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Prolife… fuck that! Your God is prod each when he wants to be, and “prolife” when he’s not killing
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*prodeath….
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You don’t have to be impressed with my opinion, you just have to consider how YOU answered the question….
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It’s you, trilobite, who is the LOST one here
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“It’s you, trilobite, who is the LOST one here”
According to what standard and prove it please.
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My standard… you are morally lost due to your following the moral standards of a proven monster
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My standard says no. Now what?
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Friend, you haven’t proven a thing. You’ve assumed every single thing you’ve said to me.
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I’ve taken your answers, trilobite, and applied them with reason. You are lost morally and you are following an immoral monster
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On the biblical God’s standard, that answer would change yes/no based on the moment and divine command of God. Not any moral standard he himself is held by, but whatever he commands at the moment.
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This… no standard at all. Just his whim, moment by moment.nthe whim of a monster who chose to kill the baby rather than punish the murdering rapist… if you chose number 1, the YOU are more moral than the god of the bible.
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KIA on August 13, 2016 at 3:35 am said:
Prolife… fuck that! Your God is pro death when he wants to be, and “prolife” when he’s not killing
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Wow. What a knucklehead.
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Not only that, but a smug squirrel killer. Never forget that. He likes killing little animals for fun.
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“…Not any moral standard he himself is held by”
He is bound by His own being, nature and attributes. Which are perfect, because they are His. Not because they conform to some standard beyond Him.
Abraham was prepared to sacrifice His own miraculously born covenant son. Yes, if God commanded me to kill somebody and commandeer their property for His purposes I would do it.
However, we are living in the New Covenant church age where the old testament earthly theocracy is no longer in place, so I would know for sure, that whatever was commanding me to do such a thing was not the God of the bible.
The Muslims are self actuating bloodthirsty barbarians with no mandate from the one true and living God for anything they do.
Let me save you some trouble. You will never ever bring me a passage of scripture where I GASP!! and say. “WOW, I never saw that before.”
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Trib, you say He is bound by His own being, nature and attributes. Which are perfect, because they are His. Not because they conform to some standard beyond Him.
There is no difference in the reasoning between what you say here (but attribute to God’s worthiness) and what Himmler said to the SS troops in Warsaw (but attribute to Hitler’s worthiness). The only difference is the object of the worthiness and, in your mind, the object ‘God’ is the reason why He can be as immoral as he chooses and you will follow His orders, whereas the object ‘Hitler’ in the minds of the SS is sufficient reason to justify following his orders… right up to murdering children.
Now, I understand you think God is moral by definition, and so anything this god chooses to do is by definition ‘moral’… regardless of the action. That places what constitutes moral action to be of no consequence. Only the source matters – God (Hitler) moral, orders from God (Hitler) moral no matter what the moral considerations and consequences of the action.
This is a moral whitewash you are committing. But so what?
Take a moment and try to appreciate why others are horrified by your stance; the same horrible actions carried out by different agents are both ‘moral’ (because it’s ordered by god, you see) and ‘immoral’ (because THE SAME ACTION is ordered by Hitler, you see). You are arguing that morality is determined only by the object whose orders are being followed. Get that? The difference of what constitutes moral action you say is the OBJECT that does the ordering. That’s it. That’s the only difference. You are granting to your Dear Leader the same trust that the SS granted to their Dear Leader.
That’s the company you keep.
This agreement you have made to follow orders no matter how immoral they may be, no matter how much harm they cause, no matter what any other considerations should play some role, places you by your own proud submission in the company of the very worst of mass murderers in human history. And they pale in comparison to a god who supposedly has no moral qualms whatsoever to kill almost every creature in the world in a fit of pique.
You’re good with that.
That is where your thinking takes you. That’s where you unquestioned moral trust in a Leader demonstrated to be immoral by action reveals the problem with Divine Command Theory you use. It does not ‘teach’ anyone how to be moral, does it? It teaches people to become anti-human, submissive, order-following jackbooted tools… tools capable of becoming horrific immoral mass murderers.
‘Just following orders’ was eliminated at the Nuremberg trials as a legitimate defense for moral immunity from personal moral responsibility. It’s you pulling the trigger, you dropping the canisters of Zyklon B, you igniting the flames, and so on. You can’t claim immunity from your own actions.
Now, the point here is that this company of which you are a willing member should shock you into a radical re-think.
But the sad truth is that joining such company doesn’t bother you in the slightest because you don’t think. You follow orders. you associate your actions not to be your own but an extension of your Dear Leader who, by your definition and not the moral consequences of actions is perfectly moral to act in as immoral a way as He chooses and you are going to go along and help and think yourself moral for doing so.
You’re not. You’re a danger to yourself and others.
This moral capitulation you are willing to commit demonstrates the disconnection between your morality and your actions in your mind. You have placed morality outside of yourself – the person committing actions – and won’t admit why this is a moral capitulation, why this refusal to be an autonomous moral agent means you are not capable or licensed to act morally.
We have some names for people who cannot accept moral responsibility for their own actions: we call such people immoral. We know this kind of thinking leads to social pathology. We have names for people who commit actions thinking themselves divorced from their moral responsibility: sociopath, psychopaths, terrorists, delusional and dangerous people all… because like you they are not willing to be responsible members of a society but shrug off responsibility for their actions and pretend it belongs to another.
It doesn’t. This is a rationalization you are committing and not a reasoned position. It’s an excuse to remain a moral infant. And you think this is pious in the same way the SS troops thought themselves true nationalists.
You need to do a serious re-evaluation of where your religious belief has taken you, what it tries to make of you, what it asks you to give up in exchange for turning you into a moral mewling infant.
Now think of yourself as an SS soldier given the opportunity to re-evaluate why murdering masses of people because you have been ordered to do so might not be moral at all, but its antithesis, an agent of immorality and psychopathology. .
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@tildeb
Don’t be a sloppy reader. Carelessness leads to faulty opinions.
Tiribulus (not that he needs any help from me) has gone on record saying he has NO mandate…………. get that? none, nil, nada, nula, zippo, zero, absolutely no order, dictate, or even the slightest hint or suggestion to murder anybody in this day and age of the grace of God.
But you wouldn’t care to understand since there is this thing called ‘rightly dividing the word of truth………..’ which divisions are apparently lost on you since you have no use for context and God’s dispensational truth.
Your hands appear rather bloody from handling sharp objects, but truth be told, there are many bloody hands in these parts. But God’s word stands perfect and without accusation, except in the minds and hearts of we misfits. Notice the ‘we.’
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Hitler was created by God in Adam and Hitler is therefore not only a finite creature, but a sinful one as well. Bearing no relevance or analogy for your purposes whatsoever. Your typing 18 inch attempts to overcome that are a proverbial exercise in futility. Just to save you some time for the future.
This is the very essence of our corrupted sinful nature on display here. The relentless insistence that man and God are analogous enough for the former to serve as a moral illustration of the latter.
That’s the result of what the serpent told Eve. “You will be like God knowing good and evil.” You are still buying that lie and really do think you know what’s good and what’s evil.
If you were not horrified by my stance I would be preaching a lie, Just like the serpent. I hasten to clarify that this has nothing to do with intelligence or any sort of especially egregious moral state on your part. This is how all people are without Christ. Most assuredly Including myself.
Define “right” and “wrong” for me please. Without a universally binding supra-human court beyond which there is no appeal, please tell me why the Nazis were wrong.
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Yeah, I figured I was probably wasting my time but, hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained. As long as you’re comfortable keeping company with the SS, that’s all the evidence I need that your ‘god’ is moral.
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Actually it was the epistemology and matching worldview that you have in common with the SS that made them possible.
Did you wish to take a stab at answering this question?
“Define “right” and “wrong” for me please. Without a universally binding supra-human court beyond which there is no appeal, please tell me why the Nazis were wrong.”
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Any definition I offered and explanation for it would be a waste of my time because you think you already know the answer. So, to help me appreciate why your knowledge is synonymous with your magical thinking, show me this moral court independent of your beliefs about it.
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And you think you already know yours. Or do you? I asked first. You brought up the Nazis. Remember? I’m asking on what basis beyond personal repugnance you condemn them? Is it really hoping for too much to get an answer to that question from the person who introduced them in the negative in this conversation?
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I raised the point to show you who else thought as you do. The only difference was the name of the Dear Leader. I thought you might find that fact disconcerting.
It takes no effort to raise the moral principle of reciprocity and it takes little effort to point out it’s source: biology. No agency of Oogity Boogity! is required to sufficiently explain why mass murder breaks reciprocity and significantly reduces the human well being of its targets.
But you already know this. You just choose to pretend their is some numinous court that bequeaths moral rules into humanity. You pretend that Adam was an historical and literal figure from whom humanity as a whole derives its sinful nature. All of that is at the very least factually wrong and at worst cause for a very great deal of unnecessary and incredibly stupid yet real human suffering. That’s the side you think is pleasing to god, and its perverted because it cannot be justified by any shared sense of morality. It is a recipe for causing harm and you support it because of the moral privilege you afford to the Dear Leader you think is perfect.
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“…mass murder breaks reciprocity and significantly reduces the human well being of its targets.”
And this is bad because____________________ . (I know why it’s bad, I’m asking you why it’s bad to you. )
“…unnecessary and incredibly stupid yet real human suffering. “
Define “unnecessary” and “stupid” and tell me again why human suffering is wrong?
“…shared sense of morality….”
How big does that share have to be? Because the Nazis had a pretty widely shared sense of morality. Mussolini and Hirohito seemed pretty onboard too. Let’s not forget how Stalin started cuttin up 15 minutes after the war ended too. Why was our shared sense of morality better than any of theirs?
At what per-capita rating does that share become large enough to be “right?” Does one country’s’ vote count more than another’s? If so why? If not, why not? Or do we poll individuals regardless of national origin? If so why? If not, why not? Who decides any of this? You? Violet disagrees. Now what?
You’ve still given nothing beyond your personal preference and some vague undefined notion of “shared morality.”
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@Tiribulus
Although this might seem slightly off topic I think it important as it will illustrate how you arrive at your particular worldview, so may I ask what was it/the moment that convinced you of your god’s existence and made you decide to become a Christian?
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I was sitting on a couch in an apartment on the west side of Phoenix in August of 1984. I was 20 years old. I don’t know the exact date, but right about now is my 32nd Christian birthday.
A man I had met 2 nights previous told me I was lost in sin and that only Jesus Christ could save me. The Holy Spirit was already bringing me to life and I believed him. No argument, no debate, no evidence. I just knew way down where I lived that he was telling me the truth.
He taught me how to tell God that I believed Him. That I knew I was a criminal in His court and that His Son had already served my sentence and ask Him to save me. (in so many words). Yes, it pretty much was that simple Ark.
The worship pastor at my church comes from a long line of preachers. He got saved when he was a boy. Never been drunk, never a doper, was a virgin when he got married and been faithful for 30 years and worked for GM that whole time. Never ran the streets, no crisis whatsoever, except that same conviction of being fatally undone before the holy God and knowing that only Jesus could make him right. Even as a young lad.
The knowledge of sin and saving faith is a gift Ark. He owes it to no one and gives to whom He pleases. I cant’ talk you into it. All I can do is tell you. The rest is up to Him. See that’s why I don’t look down on sinners. The difference between myself and those who will be forever lost, is His sovereign electing grace. Not my wiser choice or more moral life.
Gotta go fix somebody’s’ computer. TTYL.
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So, basically what we have here is your word and the fact your god seems very much a capricious son of a bitch.
Not much to go on and certainly not anything the average person would likely accept.
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“So, basically what we have here is your word…”
No, you have His word.
“…the fact your god seems very much a capricious son of a bitch.”
OH NO SIR!!!, God CANNOT be capricious. He is immutable and unchanging.(well, those are the same thing) Everything He does is for the same purpose. His own glory and pleasure. He is the most consistent being in existence. You just have to get to know Him.
“Not much to go on…”
Nonsense Ark. I say again. There’s no problem with the inescapable evidence. The problem is your blindness in sin. Every last particle and fact of all of creation, from quarks and neutrinos, to the universe as a whole, but most especially in your own mirror and your own sentient morally accountable consciousness. Everything there is or ever can be, shouts right in your face that God IS and that you owe Him.
You hate that. I understand. You’re supposed to hate that. How well I know. You’re my brother in father Adam. I used to hate that too. Chips off the ol block you and I.
I hope one day you’ll also be my brother in Christ. Then you won’t hate God anymore. As a bonus for me, you won’t hate me anymore either. 🙂 You won’t believe this, but there’s nothing you could ever do to make me hate you.
The Lord has shown me 2 things in stark relief. His holiness and my sin. If you were to rape and brutally torture my family to death, it couldn’t begin to compare to what he has forgiven me. Not because I’ve raped, tortured or killed anybody (which I haven’t) but because a single bite of a piece of forbidden fruit is infinitely and eternally heinous. Not because fruit is a big deal, but because of WHO was being defied in that act of disobedience. I bless His holy name that I’ll never have to count how many times I have bitten that fruit. (metaphorically speaking)
He loves me even though I have earned that lake of fire a million times over. I have no right to hate anybody else.
“…not anything the average person would likely accept.”
Absolutely not! Anything the average person would accept couldn’t possibly be the true saving gospel of Jesus Christ. Only those whom the Father has given the Son from eternity are even capable of believing, and they, not until their appointed time. There’s no way you could like what I was telling you, unless it was a lie or the Holy Spirit was working in your heart. I’m being totally serious and not at all sarcastic here.
Take a look at the apostle Paul’s interaction with the leading Greek thinkers in Athens in the 17th chapter of the book of the acts of the apostles. Unlike what is claimed by many of today’s bible butchering, especially American professing Christians, (there’s who I have no patience for) what he was telling them was a full frontal assault on their entire conception of everything. That’s what the gospel ultimately is or it isn’t the gospel.
Being a Christian is not an attitude adjustment or being pro-life and anti gay. It is a supernatural resurrection from true death in sin to true life in Christ. Everyone that’s happened to will change radically because they’re heart is new. The fakers are obvious in many cases because there’s no difference really between them and the pagans around them. Their instincts, intuitions and sensibilities are pretty much indistinguishable from the sinful world. They may change some big obvious views, but unbelievers do that too. Just look at politicians. True believers will spend the rest for their lives growing in love for what God loves and hatred for what (but not who) God hates. It will be an uneven but generally forward trajectory.
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OH NO SIR!!!, God CANNOT be capricious. He is immutable and unchanging.
How do you know?
Please explain on what evidence you base this assertion.
Also,please explain how your god chooses to whom he imparts the holy spirit and why did he chooses you and not someone like Violet, Tildeb or John?
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Those are great question Ark. Truly.
It is however going on 7am here and I work both services at our church this morning so I won’t be able to answer for several hours until later this afternoon.
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In your own time. And please, try to spare us the religio-speak if that is at all possible and consider those that have also been ”evangelical”at some point in their lives and deconverted based on no evidence of your god; otherwise your comments might tend to come across as condescending and sanctimonious.
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This is my perch til about 2 oclock
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Still waiting on an answer Tiribulus.
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By what objective criteria did you determine that God’s nature is morally perfect?
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Run away trilobite. Run far away. We know who you are now. Yiu who wouldn’t kill the baby, but Damned sure would justify the god who would and then call it perfect justice. We know you now for the monster you are by your own words you baby killing… run far way, and when you come back, we’ll be waiting for you,
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You have applied YOUR reason. What makes your reason better than God’s?
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DP’s comment illustrates the complete abhorrence US conservatives have for abortion, and the strange sympathy for slavery, like the reply to Mrs Obama’s line “I wake up every morning in a house built by slaves”- “They were well fed and housed”. I don’t get it, myself- valuing human potential but not actual humans- but this is the way people think.
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Clare,
In the United States the Democrat Party was the champion of slavery, not conservatives.
The KKK was all Democrats, not conservatives.
The Democrat Party instituted all the Jim Crow laws and segregation.
Democrat governors and other political leaders were the ones hosing down Black people who stood up for their civil rights.
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I was talking about now, rather than 1865. Indeed the “Solid South” voted for Democrats, but they have moved on since then- like Fine Gael and Fianna Fail have roots in the civil war, but are modern parties.
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Clare,
Now is formed by the past.
The Democrat Party is THE racist, bigot party that uses the unfortunate and marginalized in their shameless quest for power and riches.
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Let’s talk about now. Why is Mr Trump so popular among Republicans? http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/24/opinion/sunday/is-donald-trump-a-racist.html
I am a foreigner. I would prefer Mrs Clinton to Mr Trump, but have no allegiance to Democrats. I was talking about conservatives, not Republicans: those Southern Democrats seemed pretty conservative to me. However, I am not sure I should continue explaining to you, when you merely contradict; you appear not to be learning.
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Clare,
When you read the Establishment newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post, you are reading material written by members of the Democrat Party.
Consequently, you are reading material written by people with the same bias as yours.
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I am not sure- is not Fortune magazine right wing? http://fortune.com/2016/06/07/donald-trump-racism-quotes/
I am quite certain that The Daily Telegraph is: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/11/want-to-know-what-real-racism-is-ask-donald-trump-not-brexiteers/ This is a hard Right columnist, saying Trump’s opinions fit “1930s Germany”.
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Oh, and Paul Ryan is a Republican, isn’t he?
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Clare,
The thing to understand about the Republican Party is that is dominated by Progressives.
This domination goes all the way back to the beginning of the 20th century with President Teddy Roosevelt.
THE Donald was so successful this year because Republican voters are finally waking up to the fact that they’ve been scammed by the Republican establishment for all these decades.
Republican leaders like Paul Ryan actually lie to voters by pretending to be conservative, all the while teaming up with the Democrats.
The Republican Party, owning both houses of Congress did nothing but support President Obama.
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I’ve seen the ‘Democrats did X hundreds of years ago therefore let’s judge them by that NOW’ argument before. It’s absurd. Meanwhile, the Republicans get a free pass. Insanity!
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Darth,
You folks judge the Christians and Jews and God Himself by what happened centuries ago.
And Bill Clinton is today.
And preceding him is generation after generation of Democrat racist.
It was the Republican Party who championed black freedom and their 2nd amendment right to bear arms when the Democrats started slaughtering them.
And Black Lives Matters is today and they are still complaining about the American Founding, again, what happened centuries ago.
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I actually don’t judge by history. I judge by what’s going on NOW.
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Interesting point. I think they can’t get their head round the fact that their ‘great nation’ isn’t built on a dream, but a nightmare. The Bible also confounds the notion that slavery is completely evil, even though they know it is, so they have to find something good in it.
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Abortion bad, slavery bad, war bad. Not all in the same way of course. I fail to see how that makes me sympathetic to slavery.
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John,
So let’s not only condemn unborn children a shredding genocide, let’s also use the mentally retarded children as the butt of our jokes.
This is genocidal, fascist atheism on display for all to see.
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Glad I could give you some blog fodder.
The point of the comment was that I’m not willing to fight a civil war to eliminate every evil, whether it be slavery or abortion or whatever. You however twist that to mean I’m a racist who hates women, though that is logically impossible: if I’m secretly pro-slavery because I’m against ending it by civil war then I must also be pro-abortion because I oppose uprooting abortion at all costs. Though of course I’m not sure how dismemberment of fetuses is pro-woman, I’m just trying to use your categories.
I suggest you look up the March to the Sea, Cold Harbor or The Bloody Angle to understand where I’m coming from.
And if I recall, abortion rates increased about 400 percent right after Roe v Wade, so get your facts straight.
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“The point of the comment was that I’m not willing to fight a civil war to eliminate every evil, whether it be slavery or abortion or whatever.”
Yes, your comment is still horrendous. So you’d think about a violent struggle to make it illegal for women to choose what grows in their bodies, but in the final analysis, a lot of people might die in that violent struggle. Unbelievable.
Abortion IS NOT AN EVIL that can be placed neatly alongside slavery – alongside owning, controlling and exploiting the life of another sentient human being. Abortion is something that you can’t properly comprehend because you imagine that an invisible god fires a fully developed human ‘soul’ into every stage of fetal development. It’s something you double can’t properly comprehend because you’ll never have to grow an unwanted baby inside your body.
The only war that needs to be fought with regards to abortion is the political fight to put sex education higher up the agenda, free contraceptives higher up the agenda (including the morning after pill) and decent support for low income families, who choose to have children, higher up the agenda. You talk about it like a violent war might be worth considering to make abortion illegal, and yet you and all those like you, wouldn’t think for a minute to support any kind of policies that will reduce numbers. It’s so illogical and harmful, it’s sickening.
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OK, I get it. Your objection isn’t so much to the argument but to the point of departure (abortion is evil) and some of the rhetoric.
I’m using ‘war’ as a big metaphor like the ‘war on drugs’ which has been a big failure, or as a limit concept, as in how far are you willing to push your ideas.
Anyway, if you are going to make something illegal the first question should be ‘OK, how many people am I willing to incarcerate?’
I don’t place it “neatly” alongside slavery, the analogy rests on the fact that that both evils are ingrained into the culture and economy of the nation, that making them illegal would cause civil unrest, and prudence seems to dictate legislative restraint. I’m not saying one is as bad as the other because that would be comparing apples and oranges.
As for your assertion that abortion isn’t evil, no healthy mind can contemplate abortion and call it anything but evil. That is why pro-abortion people generally invoke euphemism and red-herrings when discussing the matter.
As for means of reducing rates abortion, I’m open to ideas but can’t see why you would be: why on earth bother reducing abortion if it isn’t evil?
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I’m trying not to resort to personal insults. I can usually avoid it but you’re so smug, dp, it’s a struggle. One thing I can say, which hopefully isn’t personal, is that you have a moronically simplistic approach to life.
“why on earth bother reducing abortion if it isn’t evil?”
Dp, some things we can loosely term ‘good’ and ‘bad’, maybe generally positive and negative in terms of how they affect the lives of sentient beings in our existence i.e. the outcomes we have the ability to evaluate. When a woman gets pregnant, a chain of traumatic events is initiated within her body. If she wants the baby, she can interpret the trauma of having a parasitic growth mutilating her body with delight – the end result makes the rest of it worthwhile. And that’s nice, believe me, I’ve done it. If she doesn’t want the parasitic growth (her own offspring) to develop to maturity, for whatever reason, then there is no law in the land that can stop a woman trying to eject the pregnancy from her body. So we’re talking actions that incur serious risk, mutilation and death. Modern medicine has given women who find themselves in such situations another option that seriously decreases the risk of physical harm, but does not eliminate it. Abortion isn’t evil. It’s a satisfactory solution to an unenviable situation. Like most things in life, it doesn’t suit the religious baby labels of either ‘good’ or ‘bad’. But it’s a procedure that’s best avoided, given that it signifies a mistake has been make. Idiot. (sorry about that, just slipped out)
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LOL. I appreciate the effort. I seem to have a knack for getting under your skin.
The nice thing about good and evil is that even us morons can know the difference.
This “fetus-as-alien-parasite-putting-women-at-mortal-risk” idea would make sense if we were not talking about the normal means of mammalian reproduction. You overstate the danger: even in the developing world childbirth is a statistically negligible cause of death. About 800 women a day die every in childbirth compared to 360,000 births. By comparison about 1300 Americans die in car accidents every day.
So you are taking the most normal thing that happens 1/3 million times a day and turn it into something foreign and dreadful like it were invented by martians.
An individual’s thoughts and feelings about this or any moral choice can vary between extremes or anything between, but feelings don’t determine the rightness or wrongness of an action.
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“So you are taking the most normal thing that happens 1/3 million times a day and turn it into something foreign and dreadful like it were invented by martians.”
You don’t get it all do you? It’s the most natural and normal thing to happen to animals working on pure instinct because it’s about reproduction and survival – that doesn’t make it nice, that doesn’t make it anything less than dreadful. It is dreadful and horrible, and it is a parasite, I’ve been there. Fortunately for me, my pregnancies were intended and I had not only a lot of support, but a lot of happy natural chemicals telling me everything in the midst of what is essentially a horror story is good. What you and all the forced birthers like you want to do is force this misery on people with no support during or after, with no happy chemicals, and with seriously diminished quality of life for everyone on the other side. It’s completely inhumane – you are evil.
I agree feelings don’t determine the rightness or wrongness of an action. Your feelings about whether a fetus has a ‘soul’ (whatever that is) and your feelings of complete disregard for a woman’s right to choose based on her own circumstances, don’t determine anything – except your own rank ignorance on the subject.
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Wait, I thought there was no such thing as evil, now I’m confused.
I suppose you find my opinions as repulsive as I find the idea that a fetus is some kind of space monster. It isn’t a new idea, the whole Alien movie franchise is basically about the wonders of abortion. I keep feeling like a lot of you atheists just hate nature, like there is something inherently evil about ordinary biological existence, what with the icky reproducing and eating animals and all. I suspect the point of departure for being able to believe in god is being able to experience the world as a fundamentally good place, even in the midst of suffering.
If a young woman finds herself pregnant in unfortunate circumstances it is understandable that she would feel trapped, but it is a feeling that usually comes from a culture and people around her that put money or exaggerated autonomy (really, isolation) ahead of basic human happiness. You say, poor thing is isolated and trapped, let her kill her offspring to escape (increasing her isolation). But she is trapped and isolated because she and the people around her bought into a series of lies about life.
If your underlying understanding of sex, autonomy and human nature leads you favor killing ones own offspring, there is something wrong with your point of departure.
As for the fetal soul, I don’t really think metaphysics are relevant. I just know humans who are minding their own business ought not to be killed.
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I say that women have the right to choose what to do in their individual circumstances. I say that people like you, who base their opposition to safe and legal abortion on a wayward religious understanding of what invisible entities think of it, have nothing to offer the conversation.
Let a woman do what she believes is best for herself and for any family she has. But don’t romanticise pregnancy or parenthood in attempt to control her. I’m not basing my understanding of either on films (like you are) but on reality. I’m not telling people whether they should or shouldn’t have abortions (like you are), I’m saying they can decide for themselves.
No, if you choose to terminate your own pregnancy, there’s probably something seriously unpleasant about the probable consequences of continuing with the pregnancy. Again, things aren’t black and white. There’s something wrong with your point of departure when you think that you should be able choose what a woman allows to grow within her body.
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VW, you say that those … who base their opposition to safe and legal abortion on a wayward religious understanding of what invisible entities think of it, have nothing to offer the conversation.
I think the more one investigates what a religious mindset brings to any such conversation about anything in reality that tries to accommodate religious concerns, one realizes it’s empty of any additional positive value. The religious contribution to any area of human concern is… nothing good. But it does come loaded with negative effects. And it is these effects that in net terms are pernicious.
The reality of why abortion services are an essential component of informed women’s health care is of zero concern to those who promote the religious anti-abortion arguments. This demonstrates the incredible perniciousness of assuming that the religious contribution is anything other than an impediment to proper care, an impediment to all women everywhere, an ongoing imposition of patriarchy, an fountain of perpetual harm to the idea of equality in dignity and personhood of women.
And this idea of religion’s contribution as a pernicious impediment seems to me to be true in everything the religious motivation is used to empower. And the primary victims are women.
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I know what you mean, but I don’t completely agree with you. I’ll give it some thought. We can’t make blanket statements like that to shut people out of conversations. Not all conversations are about controlling other people’s lives, and I think religions generally are moving away from that and accepting that traditional black and white rules aren’t applicable. Perhaps religions can evolve into something useful – certainly as a basis for trying analyse and promote doing ‘good’ some of them have value. It’s when they decide there are pre-written rules that problems start …
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VW says but I don’t completely agree with you.
I’m shocked, I tell you. Shocked!
Seriously, though, religious beliefs in the private domain, applying one’s religious beliefs only so far as they affect one’s self, is fine and dandy. If dpmonahan doesn’t want to have an abortion for his own religious reasons, he’s quite empowered to not have one. If he were a woman and thought the same, again, that’s fine but I think it’s the wrong reasons for bringing a child into this world.
But what gets my dander up is the assumption that if an issue can be repackaged into a moral question, then all of a sudden many folk seem to think that their religious beliefs grant them licence to have some authority on the issue. All of a sudden we get all kinds of people with a lot to no medical expertise weighing in on a medical issue as if this were in any way a ‘contribution’ rather than what it is: meddling and interfering and causing harm to others in the name of piety.
It’s not just revolting, it’s hubris.
Imagine me walking into dpmonahan’s house and rearranging his furniture, passing bylaws about how he can use each room, deciding what he may and may not possess, telling him how he may use the them with warning labels about various punishments should he transgress, and so on… all the while claiming I have the right to do so because it’s morally correct, which I happen to know all about because I pay homage to and so can be a spokesperson for the the Great and Powerful Casper.
The idea that religious belief in some way adds to or increases some level of expertise in moral and ethical issues (or scientific, educational, governmental, parental, and so on) is so far removed from the truth – religious belief imports no additional knowledge about anything other than its own dogma – that it passes beyond the border of lunacy. It’s irrational.
Yet look at how often religious folk are lent an ear based on the religious identity no matter what the issue actually is about, granted a place at various discussion tables populated not just experts in various fields but by grownups actually concerned about finding real solutions to real problems in real life, paid attention to as if they have a contribution to make beyond some personal opinion that may or may not be informed as the next person, have any clue what they’re talking about by means of being declared ‘religious’.
Religion imports nothing but impediment to real world issues. And the tip-off is the change from the topic at hand to a moral concern… as if this is the legitimate purview of the religious. The arrogance behind this assumption and the mewling submission to religious spokesmen (and aren’t they almost always men in leadership roles?) by so many of us without any real thought, any real demand for demonstrated expertise, quite revealing about the privilege we stupidly afford to exported religious belief into the public domain.
DpMonahan has no medical expertise about abortion as a part of women’s health care, no social expertise on or knowledge about being a pregnant woman with significant local concerns, no respect for why some women must choose to have an abortion, all the while pretending – la-di-da – that he has some moral position that grants him licence to think himself not just capable of speaking to the issue but morally superior to anyone who disagrees with him.
The hubris is right there for all to see.
And why should it be different in matters of science, when religious folk think their faith-based beliefs are equivalent in merit? Or in law? Or education? Or child-rearing? In foreign aid? In defense? In medicine and reproductive technologies? Seriously? We’re actually listening on this merit?
And isn’t it funny that so many religious spokesmen so willing to speak from the soapbox of ethics and morality seem to find that right religion just so happens and by the greatest of coincidences to always favour the man… oh, not in all ways, to be sure, just in all ways associated with power and control? Why, it’s only ethical to have a male god favour men. It’s morally right and proper that women be subservient to them, you see. But it’s a bugger-and-a-half to fully control that uterus so we’d best make the female identity is always presented to be morally dependent on its use. Let’s pretend the very character of a female is subject to some wandering penis, whether or not it penetrates the vagina, and let’s make sure that women are raised to understand just how central the penis is to their well being.
It’s so absurd it should be laughable. But it’s real. And it’s ubiquitous. And it causes a very great deal of harm to real people in real life every day. And in exchange for what? So that men’s fragile egos (and penis) can be stroked by fooling people into thinking it must be god-sanctioned?
If women are to be equal partners in all things human, then the greatest impediment is religious belief. And it’s not a trivial problem. It’s huge.
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Ron says: “By what objective criteria did you determine that God’s nature is morally perfect?”
Ark is first and I’m still at church, but there is no such thing as objectivity (by your definition) for finite contingent beings.
Boy have have we ever been through this before.
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I had an unforeseen circumstance prevent me from answering you after church Ark. Just letting you know.
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Ark says: “Still waiting on an answer Tiribulus”
Yes, and your patience is very much appreciated Ark. This is absolutely not a slight to yourself or anybody else here. Honest it’s not, but there are ongoing circumstances and people that when they make demands of me, I simply cannot honorably and responsibly put off.
I’m sorry man, I know how that might sound. I don’t mean it like that. I will respond. This isn’t even especially difficult, and yes, I have gone over it here before, but I just want to do it right
In the meantime, just for your own well rounded information, you may want to read THIS 360 year old document. I agree that probably 97 % of what that says is what the bible says. It may even answer your questions.
The men who wrote that confession (and the two sister catechisms), were towering gargantuan champions of the faith.
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Pingback: Repost: On the Goodness of the Material World | Truth and Tolerance
Arkenaten quotes me as saying: “OH NO SIR!!!, God CANNOT be capricious. He is immutable and unchanging.”
And then responds by asking:
How do you know?
Please explain on what evidence you base this assertion.
I have been over this many times on this blog Ark, though not specifically with you. As I said to the other fella, Ron, above: “…there is no such thing as objectivity (by your definition) for finite contingent beings. “
Unless you are prepared to make a case for personally infinite and non-contingent human beings, I believe we will formally agree at least as far as the finitude and contingent nature of all men (girls too). “Objectivity” is (practically speaking) the ability to assess the meaning and truth of a proposition, as it is in itself, independently of what amounts to one’s own consciousness. Do yourself (and Ron) really feel that you have this capability?
Dear Victoria introduced those extraordinarily useful BBC VIDEOS dealing with the apparent infinity of maths and logic here a couple years ago. Do you fancy yourselves more qualified than Georg Cantor, Ludwig Boltzmann, Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing to speak about ultimate necessary truth? They all learned the hard way that there is no such thing as objectivity (by their/your definition) for finite contingent beings. These men destroyed their lives desperately attempting to overthrow that reality and keep God’s glory for themselves.
Your concession on this point shows that you actually realize that you live over here with me, squarely in the realm of faith. Which is indeed where you, and all others, in fact live. As tragically discovered, we have no solution to ANYTHING, not even 1st grade mathematics or the simple law of non-contradiction in ourselves. In other words we know literally nothing “objectively.”
Everything we know for certain, and we DO know things for certain (like 1st grade mathematics and the simple law of non-contradiction), we know by faith. It’s only a matter of what in. Mine is in a God who explains everything. Yours is in yourself who explains nothing. It really is an all or nothing affair my friend.
I am a child of the one true and living omniscient God. The God who has never learned anything because he’s always known everything. As His special creation, so are you, though morally estranged through your sinful rebellion. A child does not know what his father knows. But he knows that his father knows it. Our certainty Ark, yours and mine, and every solution for Cantor, Boltzmann, Gödel and Turing, all comes from the same place. This is why the first four words of His scriptures read: “in the beginning GOD…” He is indeed the beginning and ground of all things, including our minds and the rules and parameters under which they must operate.
So when you (or Ron) demand objective evidence for such high knowledge as the immutability and sovereign electing decrees of an infinite God, you are demanding of me what you yourselves cannot deliver for so elementary a proposition as “1+1=2.” Don’t you see? Until we know how and why we know anything at all, any questions of WHAT we know are ultimately meaningless.
I am working on an answer to the 2nd part of your question. It will be a lot shorter.
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Ok. Granting (tentatively) your proposition that “there is no such thing as objectivity” (where objectivity is defined as: “the ability to assess the meaning and truth of a proposition, as it is in itself, independently of what amounts to one’s own consciousness.”), please explain how you determined God’s nature was morally perfect.
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Haven’t forgotten about you Ark.
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I am still unavoidably detained in a situation that I cannot honorably neglect just yet Ark. Rather that leave you hanging any longer, lemme do this.As I’ve said, I consider the Westminster Standards (Confession and Two Catechisms) to be the most biblical, extra-biblical statement of the Christian faith ever penned ion one place.
Please consider these portions of the confession of 1646. I will reciprocate, by reading and or watching, anything you wish (within reason).
==========================================
CHAPTER III.
Of God’s Eternal Decree.
I. God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin; nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.
II. Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass, upon all supposed conditions; yet hath he not decreed any thing because he foresaw it as future, as that which would come to pass, upon such conditions.
III. By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestined unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death.
IV. These angels and men, thus predestined and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed; and their number is so certain and definite that it can not be either increased or diminished………………………..
———————————————————————
CHAPTER X.
Of Effectual Calling.
I. All those whom God hath predestined unto life, and those only, he is pleased, in his appointed and accepted time, effectually to call, by his Word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ: enlightening their minds, spiritually and savingly, to understand the things of God, taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them an heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and by his almighty power determining them to that which is good; and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ; yet so as they come most freely, being made willing by his grace.
II. This effectual call is of God’s free and special grace alone, not from any thing at all foreseen in man, who is altogether passive therein, until, being quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit, he is thereby enabled to answer this call, and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed in it.
III. Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and how he pleaseth. So also are all other elect persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word.
IV. Others, not elected, although they may be called by the ministry of the Word, and may have some common operations of the Spirit, yet they never truly come to Christ, and therefore can not be saved: much less can men, not professing the Christian religion, be saved in any other way whatsoever, be they never so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature, and the law of that religion they do profess; and to assert and maintain that they may is without warrant of the Word of God.
===============================================
As to why God chooses who He does and not others specifically? He doesn’t say, so I don’t know. I have no idea who they are (aside from myself) and it’s none of my business.
I’m just grateful and love Him for His having chosen me. I want everybody I see to be one of His elect and to know Him like I do. I will not get my wish, but I will faithfully proclaim His truth and leave the saving up to Him. What an unspeakable honor it is to be allowed to participate with the King of all creation in His most glorious work of giving everlasting life to all those who believe.
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Ron asks: “Ok. Granting (tentatively) your proposition that “there is no such thing as objectivity” (where objectivity is defined as: “the ability to assess the meaning and truth of a proposition, as it is in itself, independently of what amounts to one’s own consciousness.”), please explain how you determined God’s nature was morally perfect.”
The same way you know that 1+1=2 Ron. By faith.
I say again. Being a Christian does not mean giving assent to a sufficiently persuasive package of propositions. Although, Jesus Christ alone can allow us to give assent to the one and only package of necessarily and axiomatically true propositions. Among which are those I have been proclaiming on this blog, on and off, ever since Violet invited me over here.
Being a Christian means one is of the eternally elect, given to the Son, by the Father before creation and made alive in Him, in time by the Holy Spirit.
Such a child of the first man Adam, has been put to death in the death of Christ, the last Adam, and raised with Christ in His resurrection to newness of eternal life in and with Him. He (or she) has been given the mind of Christ and been made an adopted partaker of the very divine nature with Him.
The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is the seal of the guarantee of God Himself that one is His and that He will finally make them free of this decaying body of sinful flesh when they are given a glorified resurrected body, just like the one that Jesus Christ brought with Him out of that tomb.
There is of course scripture for all of this (and MUCH much more) or I wouldn’t believe it. Everything I am saying IS the historic Christian gospel. 44 of the 55 delegates to the first United States constitutional convention openly associated with communions that held some close form of what I preach. This pathetic, polluted, degenerate compromise you see all around you today would have been unrecognizable as the Christian gospel in the western world before the last half of 20th century America.
How do I know ANY of this is true? Because of everything I’ve just been saying. Is that circular reasoning? On the basis of sinfully self deluded and necessarily nonexistent autonomous human “objectivity?” Of course it is. As is any attempted explanation for how and why 1+1=2.
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Tiribulus,
My “faith” in math can be tested empirically, whereas your faith in an indwelling of the Holy Spirit cannot—a fact borne out by the multitude of competing factions professing to represent “the one true faith” and the Pauline epistles chastising such divisions (which, coincidentally, reveals that it’s been this way since the beginning).
And unlike Christian apologists, I have no problems assessing God’s moral character. A critical reading of the Old Testament was all it took to conclude this particular god was morally deficient.
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That’s your quintessential problem ron. You actually think you are qualified to sit in judgement of God Almighty. He knows perfectly the past, present, and the future. You and I know nothing of tomorrow, except I know that His word is just s good as it was yesterday..
And while you need answer to Him, He is under no obligation to satisfy your petulance..
Hi Tirib!!
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To judge is to form an opinion about someone or something. In proclaiming that God is “good” you have also judged God.
Pot, meet kettle. 🙂
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Well ron, I at least, extend to God the courtesy of His own existence.
As to my ‘assessing’ the attributes of the Creator as good…………yeah, nature agrees as well.
It seems I am in good company.
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What can I say? Perhaps I subscribe to higher moral standards.
In any case, respect is earned, not given. No exceptions. (Not even if you present yourself as a genocidal deity.)
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Sorry ron; in the most polite way possible, without God……….there is no HIGHER moral standard.
You can kick and scream, argue and deny, but that’s the way it is. To borrow the truth from that exact science known as arithmetic, (created by God) the standard is known and revealed as easy as 2 plus 3 equals 5.
Case closed.
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Ron says: “My “faith” in math can be tested empirically…
Your assertion (and mine) THAT 1+1=2 can be observed to be empirically necessary for our rational existence.
Please demonstrate to me empirically, WHY this is the case. Of course everybody knows THAT 1+1=2. Even the pagan rice farmer in inland China who has never heard of Jesus Christ or the bible.
Why?
Why does 1+1 always equal 2 in any way that matters to our day to day life? Why is it that anywhere on earth this is the case? Why is it that we can design machines according to this reality on earth, and they continue to follow those rules on Mars? And by any sane estimation, everywhere else in the universe?
Why? It just is? Really?
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Funny… If I now claim THAT 1+1=2 because the Universe Creating Supernatural Pixies, that have always existed, have ordained it to be so in this entire particular universe, what have I accomplished? I have now provided an explanation as to why all this is, as we observe it to be. So, do I get to define such pixies into existance by this feat of mine? I would say nay. Not even though human history is full of telltale stories about pixies and other similarly unnatural entities such as gods.
An honest man would admit that we do not know WHY 1+1=2, but that at least we can observe as much, so we do not need to put religious faith in mathematics. We do not observe gods in the real world like we observe the amounts of items. Do we? For example when a person hears voices in their head, our first assumption is not (though theirs might be), that they are actually being selected to hear the voices of pixies or gods. Right?
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Forgive me rautakyy. I am not ignoring you either. There are only so many hours in a day. (guess why 🙂 )
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Oh, Tiribulus, I have no idea why you are busy and I am not much into guessing games – like metaphysics for example. However, I do not demand your time and I do appriciate that you answered me at all, even though I now visit here rarely and left my previous comment more as a rhetorical device, than an actual discussion piece.
However, I try to be open for discussion, if you ever happen to have the time to spare. To clarify, the thing is, that we actually do know why 1+1=2 as these numbers are symbols we have created to signify how two separate items put together are actually two separate items together. Mathematics is descriptive. We may not know why something is as our science describes it is, but making up imaginary answers does not really change that. Now does it?
As to why the universe is as we observe it to be, is sometimes a result of a complex chain of events of cause and effect, but if we do not know something, we are not warranted at making up an unnatural explanation for it. Why? Since making up super- or otherwise unnatural explanations has never worked. Even if we happened to guess right, our guesses would be not to much awail, and in any case we would have been fools to proclaim truth value on a guesswork. Would we not?
Lightning was not after all made from divine stuff by Zeus any more than it was made by Thor, or any other gods, rather it is a natural phenomenon. No gods I know of, show any capability to controll Lightning, and as proof of this all divinities that still exist in the minds of the faithfull and sincere believers have temples and chruches adorned whith lightning rods. It is the humans who controll the lightning, not the gods. Right?
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