[hrothgar]

deleting duplicate post

[kenberg]

 phil_20686, on 2012-October-24, 16:21, said:

This was basically a non event. He was just saying, in a not very elegant way, that the designs of providence take account of men's evil. God allows evil, He does not will it, nor intend it, but He does take account of man's evil in the designs of providence. Moreover, evil makes possible some goods that would otherwise be impossible, on account of being unnecessary. It is the position of nearly all Christian churches, that human life, from conception, is inherently a good thing. A life conceived by rape is a good that has come out of evil.

This is the position of essentially all Christian churches. I didn't think it was very controversial, except insofar as the existence of God is controversial.

I am in no sense whatsoever a crusader against religion but I really would hope that my devout friends do not believe that a pregnancy that comes from a rape is somehow in God's design of the universe and therefore cannot be interfered with. For those who do think in that way, I would insist that they apply this moral imperative only to themselves and let the rest of us deal with practical problems in practical ways. I simply cannot imagine arguing that a woman impregnated by a rapist must bear and raise the child because it is God's will. I was brought up as a member of a church, and quite a rigid one at that, lots of threats of damnation, but this one is beyond me.

[PassedOut]

 hrothgar, on 2012-October-24, 18:00, said:

For the purpose of this discussion, the import issue is how carefully the language skirts when life begins... "Life begins at conception was most certainly NOT church teaching back when I was actively involved with the ELCA.

Seems hard to support that it does. Suppose that after conception occurs, the fertilized egg divides into identical twins or quadruplets. Do they share fractional lives, or do the extra lives from that egg start with its division?

[Flem72]

For all those folks who are arguing the abortion question: Isn't it really VERY DUMB to swing a presidential election upon this issue? as the Dems seem to be doing (since every BHO commercial I see has to do with abortion or birth control....).

[PassedOut]

 Flem72, on 2012-October-24, 18:42, said:

For all those folks who are arguing the abortion question: Isn't it really VERY DUMB to swing a presidential election upon this issue? as the Dems seem to be doing (since every BHO commercial I see has to do with abortion or birth control....).

Probably an issue of importance to some voters.

[phil_20686]

 blackshoe, on 2012-October-24, 16:43, said:

God created Man, Man created Evil? I don't buy that. Man had nothing to do with Lucifer's Fall. Besides, everybody knows that God created everything. It says so in the Bible.

I assume this is intended to be humourous? Where in what I wrote is the implication that man `created' evil. Besides which, its not clear that evil is a thing, so much as a lack of a thing.

[phil_20686]

 PassedOut, on 2012-October-24, 18:35, said:

Seems hard to support that it does. Suppose that after conception occurs, the fertilized egg divides into identical twins or quadruplets. Do they share fractional lives, or do the extra lives from that egg start with its division?

So this is a non issue. You can just consider one twin to be the `asexual' parent of another, in the same way you would be if someone cloned you. Fertilisation is the time when two distinct entities become one different entity. The DNA is complete, and given an appropriate environment development will proceed on its own. I do not see any other logical place to consider life to begin.

[phil_20686]

 hrothgar, on 2012-October-24, 16:30, said:

Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, in The News-Sentinel, Fort Wayne

So I happen to have read this speech or at least a very similar one, by Randall Terry, and I would feel comfortable that the hate he is talking about is hate directed at pro-lifers by pro-choicers. I have no idea who the other people you quoted are, Google has nothing on Gary North. There are two somewhat famous George Grant's, one an evangelical writer and one a philosopher, and this book appears in neither of their Bibliographers. I looked it up on amazon and found that it was edited by none other than Gary North, and I still have no idea who that is. Obviously large groups are filled with crazy people at the margins. I think you need to find quotes from at least reasonably mainstream people in the evangelical movement. Pat robertson, Falwell etc.

However, I know that the evangelical churches did make a deliberate attempt to capture government in the eighties, via the Moral Majority, but I don't particularly see anything strange in a large grass roots political movement attempting to get a democracy to act on its point of view. You seem to think this is in some way subversive.

[phil_20686]

 kenberg, on 2012-October-24, 18:12, said:

I am in no sense whatsoever a crusader against religion [snip]

I would never imagine that you are. But I do not see what you find hard about this. If you believe that life begins at conception, then how a child came into being should not affect its right to life. It seems irrational to oppose abortion generally on such grounds and yet allow it in the case of rape. Of course, people are not very rational generally, and people obviously have a lot of sympathy for rape victims, but it doesn't seem to affect the logic.

[phil_20686]

 hrothgar, on 2012-October-24, 18:00, said:

(1)The notion of an activist God, who creates miracles or takes action to determine whether people get pregnant is completely foreign to me. I know that other denominations have very different beliefs. However, I personally find the notion that god intends for someone to get pregnant from a rape downright offensive. This is a complete misrepresentation of what I was taught.

(2)Second, you are conflating conception with the start of human life.

So I specifically stated, God does not intend Evil, but he does allow humans to exercise their free will, and some humans do evil, like rape. I understand your statement that "God intends for someone to get pregnant from rape is offensive" is basically just the statement that you think the world would be better if no rape ever resulted in pregnancy. There are estimated 35,000 persons born every year in the US who were conceived in rape. Who are you to say that the world would be better if none of them ever existed?

The idea that God is intimately, and personally, involved in the creation of every human being goes back to the very first years of Christianity. Most famously in Jerimiah Chapter 1 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. Before you were born I set you apart.". I could look up a bunch of Psalms for you, but its late here. God is the Author of every individual human life, as well as human life generally, and that has been a feature of Christian belief since the very beginning. Similarly, the belief that God does act on a day to day basis to influence the lives of both believers and non believers is a universal feature of christian belief. God sitting in judgement and providing temporal punishment is a fairly common theme. In the bible God, on multiple occasions, sends angels to help out his believers, and prophets to influence the course of events. These explicit acts are the exception, the rule being small spiritual nudges, but still, all of christianity believes that God can and does answer prayers. I am not sure what you intend to say in opposing the conception of an activist God, as you say, but I am pretty sure you are leaving mainstream Christian theology. I have no particluar knowledge of the ECLA, but it would be truly shocking if they have really abandoned a theological belief in an activist God, and way out of line with other Lutheran denominations.

(2) I am not conflating. I am explicitly identifying. Strictly speaking, even the Catholic church does not believe with certainty that ensoulment happens at conception, only that the beginning of life is somewhat fuzzy, and that in the absence of firm evidence it is right to err on the side of caution. Although certainly catholics believe that it has happened, by, say, a few weeks after conception, which is before most people even realise they are pregnant, making it a largely academic distinction, at least wrt the abortion debate.

[Thiros]

 hrothgar, on 2012-October-24, 16:30, said:

–Gary North, quoted in Albert J. Menendez, Visions of Reality: What Fundamentalist Schools Teach, Prometheus Books, 1993

Gary North? That isn't the same Gary North who predicted that the world would end on January 1, 2000, is he?

[PassedOut]

 phil_20686, on 2012-October-24, 20:59, said:

God is the Author of every individual human life, as well as human life generally, and that has been a feature of Christian belief since the very beginning. Similarly, the belief that God does act on a day to day basis to influence the lives of both believers and non believers is a universal feature of christian belief. God sitting in judgement and providing temporal punishment is a fairly common theme.

Belief in Christianity (and the spirit world in general) is a matter of personal opinion (often strongly held opinion, I grant). But I don't know anyone who wishes to force an abortion on a rape victim who believes that god wants her to deliver the child. The problem arises when lawmakers wish to force their own opinions (and requiring a rape victim to bear the child is a particularly barbaric example) on women who think differently.

[nigel_k]

I think you are all missing the point here. Those who are against abortion for religious reasons believe that it is equivalent to killing somebody. Why would you make it legal for someone to kill an innocent child if and only if the killer was raped recently? This is just a total failure to see things from the other side's point of view.

The fact that the other side's point of view is utterly inconsistent with fact and logic makes it harder, to be sure. But this view is not new or rare. It is shared by a large percentage of Americans.

[JLOGIC]

fml, got a sweat at least

[onoway]

 nigel_k, on 2012-October-24, 23:22, said:

I think you are all missing the point here. Those who are against abortion for religious reasons believe that it is equivalent to killing somebody. Why would you make it legal for someone to kill an innocent child if and only if the killer was raped recently? This is just a total failure to see things from the other side's point of view.

The fact that the other side's point of view is utterly inconsistent with fact and logic makes it harder, to be sure. But this view is not new or rare. It is shared by a large percentage of Americans.

It has always been a mystery as to how it is supposedly horrific to abort a foetus of 3 weeks but perfectly ok if not admirable to terrorize and/or murder doctors who perform careful and legal abortions.

I also cannot understand how people can justify forcing women to bear children who are not wanted without any concern for what sort of life that child will likely have, nor for the thousands of children already born and in the process of dying in great distress from such simple things as lack of food. It's handy for them that none of the "pro life" people apparently care at all if some children may inherit the sort of life they would be horrified to see anyone inflict on a dog.

It all seems a very conveniently compartmentilized morality.

[Winstonm]

 phil_20686, on 2012-October-24, 19:17, said:

I assume this is intended to be humourous? Where in what I wrote is the implication that man `created' evil. Besides which, its not clear that evil is a thing, so much as a lack of a thing.

Evil is an idea created by man to give expression to an opinion.

[Winstonm]

 kenberg, on 2012-October-24, 18:12, said:

I am in no sense whatsoever a crusader against religion but I really would hope that my devout friends do not believe that a pregnancy that comes from a rape is somehow in God's design of the universe and therefore cannot be interfered with. For those who do think in that way, I would insist that they apply this moral imperative only to themselves and let the rest of us deal with practical problems in practical ways. I simply cannot imagine arguing that a woman impregnated by a rapist must bear and raise the child because it is God's will. I was brought up as a member of a church, and quite a rigid one at that, lots of threats of damnation, but this one is beyond me.

Religious nuttery knows no boundaries and is driven by belief in the absolute correctness of the position. Sanity=Belief+Doubt

[gwnn]

 onoway, on 2012-October-25, 03:03, said:

It has always been a mystery as to how it is supposedly horrific to abort a foetus of 3 weeks but perfectly ok if not admirable to terrorize and/or murder doctors who perform careful and legal abortions.

I also cannot understand how people can justify forcing women to bear children who are not wanted without any concern for what sort of life that child will likely have, nor for the thousands of children already born and in the process of dying in great distress from such simple things as lack of food. It's handy for them that none of the "pro life" people apparently care at all if some children may inherit the sort of life they would be horrified to see anyone inflict on a dog.

It all seems a very conveniently compartmentilized morality.

Not all pro-life people are in favour of terrorise abortion doctors. Only a very tiny minority is. Also, I think it is very good that there are people who are fighting against small injustices without (seemingly) caring for bigger injustices; if there were none then all activists would just fight against the single biggest injustice on the Earth (probably the ACBL systems policy, but that is beside the point here). People are not automatically in favour of everything that they do not openly oppose.

Anyway it always comes back to the same question: when does life start? No need for ad hominems or quoting or mocking holy books. It seems common sense to condone 'murdering' 2, or 4, or 1024 human cells, it seems common sense to condemn murdering a perfectly formed human a few days before birth. The line is somewhere in between and it would be cool to say where it is.

[Trinidad]

 gwnn, on 2012-October-25, 06:34, said:

The line is somewhere in between and it would be cool to say where it is.

Gwnn, lines are invented by humans. Nature has no lines. You cannot find a line where there is no line.

Rik

[Vampyr]

I do not think that "pro-life" is a reasonable position for a man. When it is something that is never going to affect you, you should really keep out of it and let the people concerned decide for themselves, whether individually or en-masse.