Holiday weekend question II: Is it true pro-lifers “make significantly more noise” online?
I am always interested when pro-aborts let down their guard and give honest insights, even if typically couched by rhetoric.
So I was intrigued by this nugget in the September 2 Abortion Gang blog post, “An intro to the pro-choice Twitter movement”:
As in the offline world, anti-choice people are the minority online but make significantly more noise than those who think bodily autonomy is a basic human right.
Of course everyone knows pro-aborts comprise the minority in America these days, generally speaking.
So I do wonder if conventional wisdom still holds true that pro-aborts, as part of the liberal online bastion, rule the Internet.
But even if so, to learn pro-aborts think pro-lifers nevertheless “make significantly more noise” online was a surprise.
Questions: Do you agree? If so, why?

A simple Google search on abortion news should show everyone that most articles out there from the media are heavily slanted for abortion “rights.” So I can’t say with certainty that pro-lifers make more noise online.
I know they’d rather silence us completely (“free speech for me but not for thee”) so perhaps that’s why they think we’re “making more noise.”
There are obvious antichoice bot accounts (or people who have set up programs to post tweets for them) which make a lot of “noise” on twitter. Other antichoice twitter members repeat the same tweet over and over and over.
So I’d say the volume of antichoice tweets might be larger, but the quality isn’t there.
We make more noise because we are interested in genuine debate. When we go to pro-abortion websites and try to debate they just delete our comments. We seem to intimidate them. They realize they can’t debate because their arguments are nothing but slogans and bumper stickers without any real substance. Now when the pro-aborts come here it is to post inflammatory trollish snarky comments and then they’re off. Or they try to skirt around the issue (is the unborn a human life) by trying to lead us down rabbit trails.
We are the side who is not afraid of the issue or of someone disagreeing with us. Its easy to make more noise and be comfortable doing it when you have truth on your side.
Prochoicers clearly DO NOT believe the bodily autonomy is a basic human right. If they did, they would extend that right to EVERYBODY. How much more destructive of another person’s bodily autonomy can you be than to tear them limb from limb and toss them out in the biohazard trash?
Christina, very good point. Or pro-choicers would be lobbying for the right of perverted men to expose themselves in public. After all…bodily autonomy is a RIGHT! No matter WHAT!
Uh, making significantly more noise is not necessarily a good thing. It just means that your type knows how to scream.
Yea “Pro-lifers” make more noise online and offline… usually in the form of gun fire or clinic planted bombs…
“Pro-life” unless that life grows up to be a doctor then we can shoot them….
Since the pro-life side is so obviously logical and true, it only seems that we’re noisier to the other side. One man’s music is another’s noise.
What the “choicers” say is so obviously illogical and untrue (starting with the fact that they have to hide behind such a benign and misleading word instead of admitting what abortion actually is) that it just slides past us like water off a duck’s back.
I don’t know if we make more noise, but we certainly have a better ideology. It’s hard to sell “I should be able to kill!”
“It just means that your type knows how to scream.”
If I knew you or other prodeath types were going to be murdered, I’d scream for you too. Standing up for the life of other humans is a good thing.
Too bad those little unborn humans that you advocate and plan to kill can’t scream yet, eh, PCG?
Biggz, that was infantile, even for you. I suppose you prefer those on “your side” who shoot disabled old men with leg braces, and who needed a tank of oxygen to breathe properly?
http://www.lifenews.com/state4410.html
Yes “I should be able to kill” is a bit tough to sell but George Bush was pretty good at selling it huh?
You see, Pro-Choice people don’t see it as killing anything more than a small clump of cells… so there is no need to sell anything…
I find the “Pro-Life” movement more elitist everyday.
Lauren, you should be thankful you were lucky enough to be in a place where you had the support and resources needed to give birth and raise your baby. However you guys seem better at preaching down to others who may not have been as lucky as you were… Somehow I bet you were not living on welfare, homeless, raped, or left to raise you potential child all on your own… but feel free to judge others who are dealing with these issues and trying to decide what’s best for themselves… by all means please tell them what they can and cannot do with their own bodies and futures… I’m sure you have seen and lived it all, enough so as to put YOU in a prime position to dictate to everyone else how they should live their lives… I am sure you have spent many years living as a woman and mother in Kenya right? You guys know the plight of all women everywhere?
Oh that’s right, you guys don’t need all that perspective because you KNOW right from wrong… You were lucky enough to be one of the chosen few to be taught right from wrong while the rest of us were playing hungry hippos… Please tell the rest of us with insufficient moral fortitude, how wrong our decisions are, and how we will be punished in the afterlife…
Have you guys ever heard the term “Ivory Tower” you might google it if not…
Oh Biggz! (cue canned laughter)
First of all, it doesn’t matter what you think of the person being killed. You have to convince other people. The average person thinks “baby” when they see the first flicker of a heartbeat on the ultrasound.
Second of all, you know absolutely nothing about my life or my pregnancies. Regardless, outside situations do not mean that it is suddenly ok to kill another human being. If such justifications can not be applied to born children, they can’t be used as justifications to kill the unborn either.
Paladin – You know I do disagree with the killing of protesters on both side of this argument. The difference is that you will not find too many people advocating for MORE shootings of “Pro-Lifers” but there are a lot of kill the doctors advocates and you guys never do anything about them.
You guys say things like those are isolated incidents “yea all 7 of them” and those people don’t represent us… but understand this, Every Single One of those 7 seven “crazy” murderers started out as quiet protesters and sidewalk councilors… It makes it very difficult for us to figure out which one of you protesters is the crazy one with a gun… and Anti-choice protesters like to follow clinic people to their homes and protest outside the front door. Would you not worry about your family if you knew that anyone of those crazy people outside might be the one with a gun.
Lastly, the man you are referring to was shot outside a clinic during a “Pro-life” protest and was very well known for being a very aggressive protester who advocated murdering doctors and posting pictures of clinic staff and clients on the web for further religious prosecution, where as Dr. Tiller was at church on a Sunday praying with his family… I sure hope he got to the part of his prayer asking god to watch over his family before he was shot dead in front of them…
You’re right Lauren I do not know anything about you or the circumstances of your pregnancy which is why I do not presume to tell you what’s best for you and your family…
“It makes it very difficult for us to figure out which one of you protesters is the crazy one with a gun.”
Crazy people with guns that will use them to kill others are dangerous. Crazy people with bombs and knives that will use them to kill others are dangerous. Crazy people with tools that they will use to kill unborn humans are dangerous. People that support any of these behaviors are nut cases too.
I have no problem figuring our which antilifers are crazy.
You do, however, presume to tell me that there are circumstances in which it is better to kill a child than allow him to live. I reject that premise. Good to see you back of the ad hominem though.
“Lastly, the man you are referring to was shot outside a clinic during a “Pro-life” protest and was very well known for being a very aggressive protester who advocated murdering doctors and posting pictures of clinic staff and clients on the web for further religious prosecution,.”
First of all, he was outside of a school. Second of all, he was not harming anyone, but merely exercising his first amendment rights. It sounds as though you are advocating killing those who do so, which puts you about on par with Ahmadinejad.
1) Really? Scott Roeder was a street counselor? No, no he wasn’t. I don’t even have to prove anything about the other six, as you clearly stated that ALL SEVEN started out that way… therefore the fact that one did not already shows the lie to your argument.
2) You really know the entire life story of every single person on this blog? Really? You know for a fact that none of us have ever been on welfare, have never been raped, have never been abandoned, have never had to make tough choices? How amazingly arrogant that you think that you KNOW that about us. Just because not everyone on here feels the need to disclose every negative detail of their life doesn’t mean that those details don’t exist.
3) As Lauren points out… tough circumstances don’t justify murder of an innocent child. Circumstances are temporary. Death is permanent.
Biggz September 4th, 2010 at 3:59 pm
“Every Single One of those 7 seven “crazy” murderers started out as quiet protesters and sidewalk councilors… It makes it very difficult for us to figure out which one of you protesters is the crazy one with a gun…”
==============================================================
Biggz,
Just look for the pro-lifers WITHOUT the guns.
Every jew hating jihadist started out as a muslim.
It makes it difficult for your to distinguish the bomb totin would be mass murderer from the live and let live moderate muslim.
‘The wicked flee when no one pursures.’
Biggz,
I own several firearms.
I have never carried one with me to an abortuary.
I have never seen the need. The barbarians that operate the facilities are bullies and cowards. They never pick on anyone their own size.
They only prey on whom they perceive as the weak and the helpless.
I am neither.
1. 1. Yes Scott Roeder was a “Pro-life” protester who was involved in your movement and well known in Kansas as such. Did you know that Dr. Tiller lived in fear of being killed by a “Pro-Lifer” from 1998 till her was murdered in 2009. He had to wear a Kevlar vest everyday he left his house and was in fact wearing one when he was murdered.
David Leach, publisher of Prayer & Action News, a magazine that opines that the killing of abortion providers would be justifiable homicide, told reporters that he and Roeder had met once in the late 1990s and that Roeder at that time had authored contributions to Leach’s publication.[43][44][45] Leach published the Army of God manual, which advocates the killing of the providers of abortion and contains bomb-making instructions, in the January 1996 issue of his magazine.[46] A Kansas acquaintance of Roeder’s, Regina Dinwiddie, told a reporter after Tiller’s murder (speaking of Roeder), “I know that he believed in justifiable homicide.” Dinwiddie, an anti-abortion militant featured in the 2000 HBO documentary Soldiers in the Army of God, added that she had observed Roeder in 1996 enter Kansas City Planned Parenthood’s abortion clinic and ask to talk to the physician there; after staring at him for nearly a minute, Roeder said, “I’ve seen you now,” before turning and walking away.[47]
Roeder’s former roommate of two years, Eddie Ebecher, who had met Roeder through the Freemen movement in the 1990s, told a reporter after Tiller’s murder that he and Roeder had considered themselves members of the Army of God. Ebecher said Roeder was obsessed with Tiller and discussed killing him, but that Ebecher warned him not to do so. Ebecher, who went by the nom de guerre “Wolfgang Anacon,” added that he believed Roeder held “high moral convictions in order to carry out this act. I feel that Scott had a burden for all the children being murdered.”[48]
2. No I really DO NOT know the circumstances of anyone else’s life or pregnancy, which is why I like to leave such huge decisions to each individual person. You guys presume you know what is best for someone you don’t know anything about or even heard of for that matter. That was my point.
3. I agree NOTHING justifies the killing of a child. Not circumstances, fiscal expediency, or threat of terrorism from abroad! I just don’t think a fetus is a child. It is a fetus…
WOW look at the giant pair on Ken lol How is it that doctors and nurses “pick on” women? No one forces anyone into an abortion clinic. If that happened it would be something for the police to look into and address don’t you think? You guys have this picture in your mind of evil doctors and bloody gloves lol They are doctors… they spent 8 years in medical school to help people. They do not see a fetus as anything other than a fetus as they were trained in med school and as the AMA tells us. They are not evil or committing any crimes, they are doing the job they trained and tested to do and under the law.
Why must you demonize someone because you don’t agree with them and the American Medical Association? Dr. Tiller was a god fearing, family man who just wanted to help women. You can disagree with his medical practice, but he was no demon…
“I just don’t think a fetus is a child. It is a fetus…”
Yeah, and “fetus” means “young one.”
What’s your point?
“You guys presume you know what is best for someone you don’t know anything about or even heard of for that matter. That was my point”
No, we presume to know that the best option is not to kill her child. There are several option on the table that don’t involve killing.
BTW I was told by the FBI that all 7 were protesters before they were murderers at a briefing I was at last week. I did mention that I work in security right? Spend most of my time talking to cops and FBI guys? This briefing was specifically about violence around the abortion debate. There were also some CPC reps there who were also quite dismayed about what they learned about anti-abortion violence and murder.
3. I agree NOTHING justifies the killing of a child. Not circumstances, fiscal expediency, or threat of terrorism from abroad! I just don’t think a fetus is a child. It is a fetus…
Biggz – at every single point of human development – from conception on – even until death, you have a child. Every single one of us is a child. Playing semantic games as an excuse to kill human beings is something the world is weary of – you’re on the losing side.
What you say doesn’t even make sense, because prior to the ninth week, you have an embryonic human being. Fetus doesn’t fully describe an object – it describes a developmental stage of some particular species. And that species we’re discussing is homo-sapiens.
Biggz – what’s your self-interest in this issue? Covering up for past abortions?
And your FBI pals explained that CPC’s are regularly vandalized and sidewalk counselors are routinely assaulted, right”?
Yes there are several options on the table, and I don’t try to force any of them on anyone. I let them decide for themselves. How do you know killing a fetus is not the best option if you do not know the circumstances of the pregnancy? What it’s ok to kill brown people just in case they support terrorism but killing a fetus who hasn’t even developed into a person yet let alone one who attends school or has children waiting for them to get home isn’t ok?
It must be nice to be SO wise as to be able to make these type of life and death distinctions… when is killing ok with god? Only when he sanctions it? Do I need to start listing off holy wars that murdered millions and millions of people since the beginning of all religion, or how about just the Christian holy wars? I wish the Catholics would have been as concerned about all the Jews Hitler was killing by the thousands during WWII, but who cares they don’t believe in Jesus anyway… Don’t worry it’s not a complete give away that the current pope was a member of the Hitler youth. I know he had no choice back then… but my grandfather did and he choose to leave Germany and came to the USA…
Your arrogance astounds me.
No Lauren they did not. because its not as much of an issue as MURDER!!! The FBI has it’s own task force to deal with Pro-life violence… funny they see no need for Pro-choice task force…
As for my own stake in this argument… no i have never had an abortion as my twig and berries would get in the way lol My personal interest is in freedom. I don’t tell you how to live your life and you don’t tell me… sounds like freedom to me. I thought this was the land of the free? Not the land of the free so long as MY god agrees with what YOU’RE doing…. Also as I stated I work in security so violence on private property is my business. Also I stated in other post that I work across the street from a major PP so their security concerns are my security concerns.
Biggz September 4th, 2010 at 5:55 pm
“Why must you demonize someone because you don’t agree with them and the American Medical Association? Dr. Tiller was a god fearing, family man who just wanted to help women. You can disagree with his medical practice, but he was no demon”…
==============================================================
BOggz.
Suggest you look in the mirror and ask yourself that question.
Biggs: I don’t tell you how to live your life and you don’t tell me… sounds like freedom to me.
Well generally our freedom to act ends at the point where it hurts someone else, agreed?
Biggz: “What it’s ok to kill brown people just in case they support terrorism but killing a fetus who hasn’t even developed into a person yet let alone one who attends school or has children waiting for them to get home isn’t ok?”
This argument is flawed for three reasons. Number one, you are assuming that pro-lifers are automatically pro-war. Number two, even if this WERE true, the support for abortion has nothing to do with the support for war, other than to point us out as hypocrites. Rejecting an argument because the supporter is a hypocrite is the same thing as attacking the supporter on a personal level. Thirdly, nobody is saying we should kill “brown people” because just in case they support terrorism.
Biggz: “Your arrogance astounds me.”
Nobody is putting off the arrogance that you suggest. You are making up a claim on which to attack us. This is another argumentative fallacy. You make it seem that we support killing abortionist and “brown people,” yet we oppose killing a fetus. This is simply not true. Moreover, if it WERE true, it would be dumbing the issue down quite a bit. Killing is OKAY in some cases, and not in others.
Biggz: “You guys presume you know what is best for someone you don’t know anything about or even heard of for that matter. That was my point”
This is one of the WORST pro-choice “arguments” out there. Every citizen in the US, other than true anarchists, pressumes to know what is best for someone else. It is called the legal system. We pressume it isn’t okay to kill people all the time.
Are you pissed that you can’t murder your neighbor to steal his or her money? How dare you tell me what is best for me! I HAVE THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE!!
Idiot.
Why is it that the vast majority of active pro-choicers consistently refuses to argue the salient points of abortion? Why do they have to use “emotional” arguments instead of logic? I mean, I understand that they have no real legs to stand on, but at least put up the facade of reason. It is part of what sets us a part from animals, you know.
Biggz: “I don’t tell you how to live your life and you don’t tell me… sounds like freedom to me.”
Bullsh*t. I doubt you support complete lawlessness. I am sure you do not support murder, or theft, or whatever as personal “choices” either. Hell, I bet you support taxes. Isn’t that you telling me to do something?
For crying out loud, you are on this website telling us how to live our lives right now by telling us to not be pro-choice or to stay out of other people’s business.
Biggz,
Tiller was a hired killer. A dirty hit man. And people like you would bring thirteen year old girls across state lines to get his services cause he was one of the few with little enough conscience to mutilate them and inject saline into their wombs. That is why he had to leave his house wearing kevlar every day.
Biggz…it was a pro-choice father forcing his pregnant teenaged daughter into an abortion clinic recently who threatened sidewalk counselors outside of the clinic. He had a gun in his waistband. Cops had to empty out the whole clinic to find and arrest the father. But keep trying to convince yourself that its us who VALUE LIFE that carry guns to clinics with murder in our hearts. Its you who support murder in the first place that allow it to fester in your hearts.
I am curious. What is the murder rate on abortionists? There have been 7, in what, the last 40 years? So I guess that makes… .0175 murders a year. Yeah, we better build a huge task force immediately!
I am curious, Biggz, how many pregnant women have been murdered by their pro-abort boyfriends/husbands in order to kill the baby? I am going to bet it is more than 7.
Oliver, I have heard of three in the last month alone. Jill profiled a couple of them.
I also love the stories of boyfriends crushing RU-486 into their pregnant girlfriend’s drinks to make them abort against their knowledge and will. But nary a peep of protest will you hear from the pro-choice side. What about bodily autonomy? What about women’s CHOICE?????
Oh I love Oliver!
I am just tired of hearing “bodily autonomy.” My inherent rights are partially infringed by my children every day. The bottom line is that a parent is obligated to care for, feed, and shelter his/her child. If that means the loss of full property rights, then that is the way it is. If that means the loss of full privacy rights, then that is the way it is. Why is the loss of full autonomy any different? Parents are obligated to care for their children, and that’s that.
You know, I have been kicking this idea around the old bucket for a little while. How is ownership of your own body any different than ownership of any other property anyways?
Biggz,
If I had to make an educated guess about the profile of the next pro-life person to serve up a bullet to an abortionists head it would be a father of a minor girl that he injects with poison. Or possibly the father of the next baby that he burns alive. Other than that, they can sleep reasonably safely, physically that is, but their souls may not be able to escape the torment and the screams of all the women and children they maim and kill for a buck.
How many planned abortionist killings has the FBI task force stopped to date? lol What a waste of tax-payer money.
I find it amazing that Biggz thinks that because he works in security (what… a rent a cop?) that he is somehow an expert on this issue.
My father, a retired police officer, ran one of the largest private security forces in Arizona after more than 20 years on the Phoenix Police Department managing local security protection for celebrities when they were in Arizona. He provided the security details for Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign and was in charge of the local police security arrangements for William Shatner and Nancy Sinatra, amongst many others.
He also spent much of my childhood at Quantico attending training briefings. That’s where he was the week after I was born and many other times during my childhood.
The concept of Roeder being “well known” as a member of the pro-life community has been debunked. You’re a little late to the party, but check the archives here… it was thoroughly investigated at the time of Tiller’s killing. He was a well known member of local militias… NOT the pro-life ocmmunity.
Again… the fact that you lie and obfuscate in the one issue casts doubts on all other statements that you make here. It’s hard to believe a liar.
Biggz:
“BTW I was told by the FBI that all 7 were protesters before they were murderers at a briefing I was at last week.”
Apparently the FBI’s intelligence is no better than the CIA’s. So tell me, did the FBI call you to invite you to this briefing? It is scary to think that someone with such a distorted and inaccurate view of pro-lifers would have anything to say that the FBI would be interested in.
Your stated profession is “security” and you accept whole hog one side of the story. I have a suggestion–go “undercover” to a local pro-life group at a nearby church. A security expert like yourself should have no problem disguising yourself as a pro-lifer since you already know everything there is to know about them. See first hand for yourself the insidious planning that goes on while the members pray and discuss bake sales to raise money to support local pregnancy centers. If you can take secret pictures and videos so you can report to your FBI friends how these nefarious activities are TAKING PLACE UNDER THEIR VERY NOSES!
Biggz, you don’t think a fetus is a child? You don’t think? You don’t think, period. An unborn child is an unborn child. A person is a person. There is no magical day when we go from NON-PERSON to PERSON. We are always persons. It is easier to justify killing a non-person, so we arbitrarily make specific markers in order to assuage our guilt. But even pro-abortion doctors and a good number of pro-abortion feminists have admitted that the unborn are persons, are babies, are people. We know the unborn are persons, that they ARE babies, because that is what science and logic tell us. What the pro-abortion movement is saying is “Yes, we know it’s a baby, but the mother has the right to say if her child lives or dies.” Pro-aborts like you who continue to deny that the unborn are, in fact, babies, when we know they ARE babies, sound as bad as the creationists who don’t believe in evolution. You have never presented any sound argument FOR abortion. And it cannot be done, because THERE AREN’T ANY.
And yes, it is something all you pro-aborts like to do, bring up the extremists on the fringe and say it represents the whole. But say that about a Muslim, and all the pro-aborts cry foul. I don’t believe every Muslim is a terrorist. Even if you don’t agree with us, at least have the decency not to equate the entire pro-life movement with a small fringe of extremists….Especially since violence is not foreign to pro-aborts. I’ve been subject to pro-abortion violence. I’ve never protested, never done sidewalk counseling. But when a few people found out I was pro-life, they made horrible and inaccurate generalizations about me, they pushed me, they vandalized my property.
Until you have an argument that is based in science, logic, reason, and truth, nobody here is going to listen to you. You have nothing to say.
September 4th, 2010 at 6:30 pm
Biggz September 4th, 2010 at 5:55 pm
“Why must you demonize someone because you don’t agree with them and the American Medical Association? Dr. Tiller was a god fearing, family man who just wanted to help women. You can disagree with his medical practice, but he was no demon”…
___________________________________________________________
First off, the AMA knows a “fetus” is a LIVING, GROWING HUMAN BEING. And as for Tiller…sitting in a church pew doesn’t make you a “Christian” any more than sitting in a garage makes you a CAR. George Tiller never knew who God was. He made blood money off of women. He LIED and covered up to stay in business, and I wouldn’t have put it past him to have paid people off (police, prosecutors, government officials, etc.) to “look the other way”. Killing LATE-TERM babies..if that’s not DEMONIC I don’t know what you’d call it.
Who the heck is pro abortion?
“Also I stated in other post that I work across the street from a major PP so their security concerns are my security concerns.”
Don’t worry Biggz. Last I heard, the unborn haven’t been able to congregate and plan ways to oppose tough security guards who support their slaughter. You’ll be OK.
SocialAtheist: “Who the heck is pro abortion?”
James Lee, to name one.
SocialAtheist
September 4th, 2010 at 10:17 pm
Who the heck is pro abortion?
If you are doing abortion apologetics, and if you believe that abortion can be morally, logically, rationally, ethically, and legally justified, you are. You may not think it’s the greatest thing ever, but you are participating in its defense anyway. There is no rationale under which that is not pro-abortion.
In answer to the main question, I think pro-lifers and pro-aborts make about the same amount of “noise” online. Both sides seem to think that the other has more clout. And it is true that most of the MSM outlets write from an at least vaguely pro-abortion POV, if not an obvious one, but pro-lifers seem to be able to get our message out anyway. I’m just glad that the pro-life movement has been making much more noise IRL than the pro-aborts.
SocialAtheist: Pro-abortion is what the pro-“choice” movement is about. It’s not about choice. It’s about abortion. “Choice” is a smokescreen. Anyone who believes abortion is a right, and defends that right (even those who wouldn’t “personally” have an abortion, but don’t feel it’s their place to tell a woman she shouldn’t have one) is pro-abortion. To say that you’re NOT pro-abortion is like slave owners and slavery supporters saying “I’m not pro-SLAVERY, I’m pro-CHOICE. It’s your choice to own a slave or not.” It’s all semantics and word games. In the act of choosing, something must be chosen. I am not “anti-choice.” I am anti-abortion. I believe in lots of choices. I believe in birth control, and have no hang ups about sex. I don’t believe abortion is a choice, but that doesn’t make me against all choices. Abortion is a dirty word, even to pro-aborts. It’s such a dirty word that all pro-aborts try to distance themselves from it, hiding behind the word “choice.” Wolf in sheep’s clothing, indeed.
Most of the proaborts I talk to are college age, w/ laptops their parents bought them. They are more likely to have a head start on the internet, We’re catching up though. We are learning what’s going on, IRL, and in their minds. I think we’re catching up on the “noise meter”.
Pro-aborts like to parade their false views through the mainstream by pretending they want dialog. But read their blogs and comments and they don’t want ‘dialog’. They declare that we “spew”. We ‘spew’, they ‘remove pregnancy tissue.’ We ‘lie’ and ‘want to force women to be pregnant’ but when a girl regrets her abortion they say, ‘she should have done more research’ and ‘pp gives women all their choices and information.’ When women die at the front alley abortuaries, you can hear crickets chirp and see tumbleweeds blow by their blogs and comments.
Pro-aborts are the euphemism generations. They think you can put a pink bow on anything and make it palatable. “Choice” = death. “Fetus” = disposable. “Pro-life” = anti-what-ever-I-want.
Marylee, I take offense at your statement that creationists are dumb like pro-aborts. I believe in science. The fossil record gives plenty of evidence of creationism. Even evolutionists don’t agree on most facets of evolution. Do you study the fossil record? If you did you would see there is NO PROOF of evolution. I know this an area that not all pro-lifers agree with but you should not equate not believing in the humanity of the unborn which is truth available in front of our very eyes with ultrasound etc… to not believing in evolution which, as well as creationism, has not been proven. Neither THEORY has been proven. Both are believed by faith.
Because I believe the Word of God it makes me wise. The Bible says “the fool hath said in his heart ‘there is no God.’ ” If you’re a Christian ( I don’t know if you are or aren’t) then why don’t you believe His Word that tells us how the world began? If you are not a Christian I urge you to study the fossil record and see how it points to a creator and not evolution. Acts and Facts is a great FREE magazine written by doctors and scientists which explains easily how creation points to a Creator.
Sydney, I’m sorry I offended you. I’m agnostic. But I believe in a creator, so to speak, in the way Stephen Hawking and Einstein did. I believe in a creator AND evolution. I’ve taken my share of theology classes as well. Evolution doesn’t go against the concept OR the word of God (if you believe in the Word of God). But to say evolution is a theory that has not been proven is to basically shut your eyes to logic and science. I am vehemently pro-life. I am not pro-ignorance. I am pro-science, pro-logic, pro-responsibility.
I am pro-life as you. I am pro-science as you. There are many many many scientists who know their chosen fields of anthropology, geology, biology, entomology, paleontology who do not see science pointing towards evolution but creationism.
If you’re agnostic then I understand why you don’t believe God’s Word. But evolution certainly takes God out of the picture. And His Word very clearly explains how the earth was created in a literal 7 days. Not millions of years with an absent and disinterested Creator. So you cannot say that evolution is contrary to the Word of God because it is!
But I guess we’ll just agree to disagree.
Biggz — let’s take a body count, all right?
Number of abortion “doctors” killed by “pro-life” people: Do you know? AFAIK, it’s less than 10 — maybe less than 5.
Number of nascent babies killed by “pro-choice” butchers (IMO, a more accurate term) just since January 22, 1973: Way more than 40 MILLION — the count is actually closer to 50 MILLION at this time.
My thoughts:
~ Not even ONE abortion “doctor” should be killed by anyone. God says, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.”
~ I have to put “doctor” in quotes because every medical professional who performs abortions violates the Hippocratic oath when s/he does so.
~ Our government has been schizophrenic/hypocritical (take your pick) on this issue for years: They rightly term the killing of a pregnant mother a double murder, while denying the humanity of babies killed by abortion.
~ It is nothing short of hypocritical for “pro-choice” people to condemn the killing of any abortion provider — especially one who performs partial-birth abortions — while defending the willful murder of the youngest, most innocent, most helpless human beings among us.
I challenge you to research the writings of Dr. Bernard Nathanson, co-founder of NARAL (National Abortion Rights League), who self-admittedly killed at least 70,000 nascent children (including at least one of his own) before the advent of ultrasound showed him the truth about the baby in the womb and how foolish he was to have ever promoted abortion.
Also — read the book Won by Love, written by Norma McCorvey, “Jane Roe” of Roe v. Wade. She gives all the details you will ever need to know about her life, the court case, etc. She tells her story with total honesty and transparency, not hiding anything at all.
Another book recommendation: Blood Money: Getting Rich Off a Woman’s Right to Choose, by Carol Everett, who at one time owned several abortion “clinics” in Texas
Until you (and anyone else) has done this research, neither you nor they can comment on the subject of abortion intelligently, fully understanding what it is and its ramifications.
To the question under discussion here:
Is it true pro-lifers “make significantly more noise” online?
I certainly hope so! Defending the youngest, most innocent, most helpless among us warrants a whole lot more noise than I hear about it.
To say that you’re NOT pro-abortion is like slave owners and slavery supporters saying “I’m not pro-SLAVERY, I’m pro-CHOICE. It’s your choice to own a slave or not.”
Well said, MaryLee! I cannot understand why it is so hard for anyone to understand this.
Sydney, this is my problem with creationism. From what I understand after studying theology for years and years, God has no “time.” Time is a human concept. So seven days to God could easily be a billion years for us. So creationists saying the universe was created in seven days is NOT pro-science or pro-logic. It’s just stupid. I’m not a total atheist, and I sometimes have a rather strong Judeo-Christian-esque/slightly Buddhist leaning when I am feeling spiritual, but I am not a Christian by any stretch of the imagination. However, having read a lot of C.S. Lewis as well, I would think that if God created the world, he created ALL the worlds, and so if there is Jesus, there is also Aslan. (By the by, C.S. Lewis is my tether to a complete LACK of faith. I have not crossed over entirely to the other side yet.)…..The Narnia books are a good example of this: In Narnia, years and years and years passed; but when the children leave the wardrobe, not a moment has passed in the “other” world.
The seven-day week was not even in existence since the world began. History tells us that the Romans were the first to use the seven-day week. Our entire concept of time is something *we* invented with and for our own finite minds.
So yes, Creationism is ridiculous. Evolution is not ridiculous, but it also doesn’t negate the presence of a creator, of God. Therefore, if someone says “Creationism is the truth, and abortion is wrong,” well, gosh, I don’t blame pro-aborts for using that kind of argument against us. We have science on our side. We need to use it.
Oh, and Claire, yes, thank you! I don’t understand when someone says they wouldn’t personally have an abortion, and yet they still think it should be available to women….Well, if you wouldn’t have one, then why? And if that is reason for you to not want abortion as a choice for yourself, why would you want that for anyone else? A matter of “choice,” at its basic terms, would be, say, cosmetic surgery. I wouldn’t want rhinoplasty, but someone else has a right to it. Go ahead, get whatever cosmetic surgery you want. Even if I think it’s vain and stupid and a waste of money, it’s not my call—that is YOUR body. But abortion involves another person entirely, whose right to live trumps the right to a woman’s need to keep her boyfriend/job/not upset her parents, etc. Abortion tells women that we must defeminize ourselves in order to make it in the world, it tells us that children are disposable, that might makes right. There is nothing good about abortion; I am surprised anyone could support it, let alone fight for it.
You are right MaryLee that God created time for humans. However, it says in Genesis that “the morning and the evening were the first day” a literal 24 hour period like what we have today.
Claire, I have tried to get the pro-abortion posters to read all those books you posted! They are GREAT books, written by abortion industry insiders who changed their minds and hearts…but Biggz will never read it. I have read many many books by pro-abortion people because I want to know their take on abortion, how they think, what their defenses are, and partly out of curiosity. I am always learning about the subject. But you won’t find pro-abortion types flocking to read pro-life books. I guess it bothers their consciences too much.
Sydney M, I hope you won’t mind me pointing out that we measure the day and night by the appearance of the sun and moon during the 24-hour period that the earth spins on its axis — and the sun and moon weren’t even created until the 4th day (Gen 1:14-19). Nor, apparently, were the author(s) of Genesis aware that the earth spins on its axis. Of course that’s that the only problem with taking Genesis 1 literally. To do that, you would have to believe that there is a solid dome or firmament, placed like an upside-down bowl over the earth, into which the stars are stuck, with holes in it to let the rain fall. Such was the Hebrew cosmology of the time, but it’s not something you can claim with a straight face is literally true.
You can certainly believe in God and creation and the Bible, as I do, without taking the primitive ideas about the earth and heavens literally as they are expressed in Genesis.
I believe that the fossil record actually does show that many species of animals did spring up on earth in too short a time for natural selection to account for them. So evolutionist scientists clearly don’t know everything either!
There is certainly a lot we don’t know yet. But Christians who want to be taken seriously when they talk about creation and God should be careful that all their science is accurate and that they don’t try to defend as literally scientific what is in Genesis.
Time for editing ran out! What I meant to insert after “on its axis”:
“So the morning and evening are not likely to have been measured as we now measure our days, but simply as periods of time marking off the stages of creation and explaining why there are seven days and we should rest of the seventh.”
(By the way, MaryLee, I’m pretty sure Genesis with its seven-day week, was written before the founding of Rome).
I hardly think that believing God and His Word is “primitive” Lori. If you do, thats your problem. How did Job know the earth was round when they didn’t even believe that in the middle ages? I believe God’s Word, science upholds God’s Word and you will never change my mind or shake my faith so I don’t know why you’re trying. You are in direct opposition to God’s Word which is not a wise position. Science and God’s Word are not opposed to each other. You don’t need to “explain” God’s Word in light of humanist philosophies such as evolution that seeks to take God out of the origins of the world.
If evolution is true, where did matter first come from? Where did the energy for the “big bang” come from? What wired reproduction into species (after all, having offsprings means less food for you, so according to evolution having offspring would be contrary to your own survival wouldn’t it?)
Darwin was a racist who created the theories in evolution to prove that white people were evolved and black people weren’t. Did you know that? Did you know Darwin was a marxist? Darwin also was agnostic and was searching for a way to explain the origins of life without having God in the equation. Maybe those who are atheists believe it hook line and sinker, but those of us who are bought with the blood of Christ should be critical of anything that is not in line with the word of God.
If God can forgive my sin and save my soul then I know He is powerful enough to create the world by speaking in a literal 7 day period. I also know that the fossil record supports creationism and not evolution. In college I took a great class that went through the supposed “missing links” such as Lucy using the sciences of decomposition, geology and paleontology to poke holes in evolution. It opened my eyes. Those who disagree with me and think I believe in fairy tails don’t bother me. I take God at His Word. He said He created the world and all people in it and i believe it. He said He would save me from my sin by trusting in His Son and I believe it.
Lori, yes, Genesis was written before Rome. But not that much earlier, and it wasn’t until Rome that we used a seven-day calendar. And Sydney, yes, we live on earth so we have night and day. That is our planet, spinning in the universe. If we lived on a different planet, we would have a different time scale. I don’t understand this idea that EARTH is the only creation of God’s, and that God actually created the universe in seven 24-hour days. It blows my mind that ANYONE could actually believe that.
Furthermore Lori, do you believe in Mary’s virginity at Christ’s birth? How can you believe that but not God’s account of creation? Why is it believable to you that God is powerful enough to implant His Son into a virgin but not believable to you that God created the world by speaking in a literal 7 day week.
God said He created man in His image. Did that include a couple million years of God’s image being monkeys? How did certain species “die out” and enact “survival of the fittest” if there was no sin in the world? Sin brought death. If man didn’t sin until Adam and Eve then the monkeys that became the first humans never died? Evolutionists don’t believe that. They believe there was death from the very beginning but how does that jive with the Bible? The Bible says over and over that through Adam’s sin death came into the world.
According to theistic evolution God used evolution to “set the clock” if you will then sat back and let His creation duke it out for survival without any interference for billions of years. According to the Bible God lovingly and personally created the earth and all that is in it. When man sinned God set in motion His plan for the redemption of mankind through the personal sacrifice of His own Son on the cross. You cannot study biology (that was my major…many many years ago) and not see the Creator. I took a genetics class taught by a wise professor who was a Ph.D and M.D and was working on the Human Genome Project (and he looked like Carey Grant, but I digress) and I was so AWED by the complexity of our world, of our bodies…there is no way this randomly occurred. I know I was knit in my mother’s womb by the loving hand of God. And I know God lovingly knit my son together in my own womb. i know a loving and involved Creator designed the complexity of the insect world (my area of interest was entomology) If God could care enough to design insects with that level of complexity…how much more us, His image bearers?
Whoa, Sydney, slow down! I never said that I didn’t believe in God or accepted Darwin’s theories. I am a Christian like you, and I believe in creation. I also accept the Bible as God’s word. I don’t have any difficulties believing that however God created the world, He did it with loving attention, whether it was over a period of seven days or a billion years. I am not trying to take that away from you.
I do notice that you never answered my questions. though. Which are: how was it possible for God to have created 24 hour days according to the sun before the sun was created? (Remember, as C.S. Lewis said, God can do miracles, but not nonsense). And do you think that, as Genesis 1 also clearly states, that the earth is flat and there is a giant upside-down bowl over it? This belief is reflected in Genesis and in later passages as well.
Genesis is, I believe, the part of the Bible that was written earliest and reflects the earliest Hebrew view of the cosmos. By the time Job was written, yes, the Hebrew people had accepted the idea of an earth suspended in space, possibly from contact with the Babylonians, who seem to have been the earliest people to have recognized this. (By the way, medieval people accepted the Ptolemaic cosmos with a spherical earth in the center and the planets going around it — they NEVER believed in a flat earth, that’s Englightenment propaganda).
Our understanding of science is changeable; so is that of people in Biblical times.If their ideas about what the universe looked like had really been a part of revealed truth, the Hebrew people wouldn’t have changed them. A good sign that we shouldn’t rest so much on their views of science as we do the faith that God revealed to us through them.
This has really gone way off topic. As an agnostic, and a pragmatist, I cannot accept the Bible literally. I believe there are truths IN the Bible, but to take it literally is just as foolish as taking Greek mythology literally. You can take it seriously, but literally? I don’t believe we should discard the Bible, as it holds great truths and great wisdom. But I also cannot understand how anyone with any amount of intelligence can discard science and reality in favor of allegory. As one of my theology professors said (a wonderful Catholic missionary, by the way): Just because it isn’t literally true doesn’t make it false. But we’ve really gone off topic.
To answer the question: I believe both pro-abortion and pro-life communities make the same amount of noise. The problem is, nobody is hearing anything anyone is saying.
And do you think that, as Genesis 1 also clearly states, that the earth is flat and there is a giant upside-down bowl over it? This belief is reflected in Genesis and in later passages as well.
Hi Lori, just jumping in here. Could you please give me the verses and other passages where you believe this is clearly stated? It would be much appreciated. Thanks! :)
Hi Kel,
To begin with, it’s in Gen. 1:6-7; In the King James version it’s translated as “firmament”:
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
The Catholic New American Bible translates firmament as “dome,” which is really how the people of the time understood it.
Then God said, “Let there be a dome in the middle of the waters, to separate one body of water from the other.” And so it happened:
God made the dome, and it separated the water above the dome from the water below it. God called the dome “the sky.”
The water under the dome, the water on earth became the sea, and the waters above the heavens became the rain etc.
Note also in vv. 16-17, the sun, moon and stars are set in the firmament. According to ancient Hebrew thought, they were not just placed in the sky but set into a solid dome.
Similar ideas held on for a very long time. In the Middle Ages, the orbits of each of the planets was thought to be a solid sphere, in which the planets moved. When you haven’t got a telescope to see with because it hasn’t been invented yet, you try to imagine what seems sensible, which is what all ancient people did.
(I know there are a number of other OT descriptions of the firmament, but don’t have time to look them up now).
MaryLee is right; the teachings that we need to hold onto in Genesis are all still there and unchanged, no matter what the writers of Genesis thought the universe looked like:
God created the universe; He created it all, created it all by himself, created it out of nothing, loved it and saw it was good.
Mary Lee…. if you don’t like the idea of taking the Bible literally, fine. But don’t mock those who DO take it literally. Amazingly, it IS possible to do so and still be a rational, intelligent human being.
Are you aware that the Bible states that to the Lord a thousand years is the same as a day? Now all of a sudden a “day” can be taken precisely the way it is listed in Genesis and still not mean 24 hours. The order of creation listed in Genesis precisely matches the order in which scientists who believe in evolution list the order of evolutionary development. How precisely would ancient people who knew nothing of evolution or its processes do this?
In the new testament, we are told that our sins are removed as far as the east is from the west. Well, had it said the north is from the south, which would have been just as logical to a person of that time who knew nothing of the true shape of the Earth, we would keep bumping into our sin…. as eventually when you go north far enough, you will end up going south. But you can go east FOREVER and never be going west…. and vice versa.
how was it possible for God to have created 24 hour days according to the sun before the sun was created?
If you have light and a rotating earth, then you have day and night.
In John 4:45-47, Jesus claimed that those who do not believe Moses’ writings would have difficulty believing His words, as well. Christ also referenced the accounts of Adam and Eve, Abel, Noah and the Flood, the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah, Jonah and the great fish, and many other major events in Biblical history.
Exodus 20:11 echoes the sentiments of Genesis 1: “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day.” If Moses just goofed up, and Jesus was who He claimed to be (God incarnate, through Whom all things were created) don’t you think perhaps He might have corrected such grave errors?
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v13/i2/firmament.asp
Elizabeth, I am not mocking anyone. I am simply having a discussion. But we have gone off topic, completely. ….It is interesting, however, that the religious pro-life community often tries to keep us secular pro-lifers mute, and somehow discard our beliefs. It’s a terrible thing to do. Whether or not I believe that God created the world in 7 24-hour days should not make us enemies. I believe unborn babies have the right to live from the time they exist until their own natural death. That is what we should be fighting for, no matter how we are approaching it.
You said: I believe there are truths IN the Bible, but to take it literally is just as foolish as taking Greek mythology literally. You can take it seriously, but literally? I don’t believe we should discard the Bible, as it holds great truths and great wisdom. But I also cannot understand how anyone with any amount of intelligence can discard science and reality in favor of allegory.
Do not tell me that is NOT mocking those who do. Would you care to tell me that I do not have any amount of intelligence to my face? Would you like to tell me to my face that I have discarded science and reality?
Tell me where the religious pro-life movement tries to keep secular pro-lifers mute? We simply speak to OUR beliefs and leave it to you to speak to yours. I have seen MANY religious pro-lifers on this site POINT to the secular pro-lifers as examples of how our pro-life beliefs are based just as much on science as they are on our religious beliefs. If anyone is trying to silence secular pro-lifers it is PRO-CHOICERS because it destroys their meme.
Kel, I read the article you linked and wasn’t impressed. The best the author can come up with is “well, Genesis never exactly says the raqiya‘, or firmament was solid, so clearly it wasn’t?”
And as for the light and the earth, I guess it depends on where your light is placed.
I do understand the fear that if the Bible is shown to be in error in some way, it must be in error in other ways as well – like the resurrection of Jesus, moral teaching against homosexuality, etc.
The thing is, the early Christians, including the great doctor of the Church, St. Jerome (who also translated the Bible into Latin) when faced with the problems raised by Genesis for the more sophisticated fourth century A.D. science, simply said that the creation story was “written after the manner of a popular poet” and left it at that. It didn’t bother anyone or lead them to question the reality of the Bible for quite some centuries.
The more literal reading that grew up after the Reformation hasn’t fared too well with modern science. It won’t do us much good to retrench ourselves now in too literal a reading if we want to dialogue with those outside the fold.
Forgive me for bringing a question of denomination, but the teaching of my Church, the Catholic Church makes it clear enough that the Bible is inerrant when it teaches us “what we need to know for our salvation.” In other words, the Bible is religious teaching, not a science textbook. This distinction, I think, covers all the difficulties. When this is clearly understood, even atheists can’t argue against it. (Not that that many atheists are inclined to listen).
I’m afraid I’ve stirred up too much of a hornet’s nest, and need to finish editing my video before tomorrow night. So I must bow out.
If you read Genesis 1 it says on day one that God separated darkness and light. Light He called day and darkness He called night. So there was day and night on the first day even without a sun and moon. It says “And the evening and the morning were the first day” Time was created by God not by the sun.
I have no fear of the Bible being shown to be in error… I have yet to see a scientifically proven fact (not a theory, not a hypothesis, but a FACT) that contradicts the Bible’s teachings. +
The more we learn scientifically, the more truth the Bible is shown to contain.
Kosher food laws? We now know about the dangers posed by the food items that were banned in terms of the ability of the people of ancient Judea to be able to cook them safely.
In fact, the laws of Leviticus and Deuteronomy have been shown to put the Jewish people eons ahead of those around them in terms of hygiene and safety. The laws about where latrines could be built, or quarantining the sick were way beyond the scientific knowledge of the time.
So, I personally look forward to scientific advancements. They give me a greater and fuller understanding of the truths contained in the Bible. Science is no threat to the Greatest Scientist of all.
Elisabeth, you need to calm down. Seriously. I believe it is foolish, but I didn’t call anyone a fool. There is a difference. Please, take a breath. If my fellow pro-lifers who are so uptight and so unwilling to listen to what their ALLY (i.e., ME, a secular pro-lifer) has to say, then we aren’t going to solve anything, and the pro-aborts will use that dynamic against us. It isn’t enough that I want to save unborn babies….I have to believe what you believe? That’s very sad.
Marylee, no one is saying you have to believe what we believe! YOU are the one who equated us who believe in creationism as being stupid like those who refuse to believe fetuses are living human beings. So who opened the can of worms here?
Really, believe what you like. I will too. And believing God and His Word does not make me uneducated, or dumb, or an idiot. Thanks.
It isn’t enough that I want to save unborn babies….I have to believe what you believe? That’s very sad.
No, MaryLee, of course you don’t have to believe what we believe. It would just be helpful if you didn’t outright *mock* those beliefs. You have denigrated Christian beliefs on more than one thread without any provocation, which causes me to question why you would do that and then blame those who get upset for the discord.
BTW, I appreciate that there are secular pro-lifers. I have no issue with them; I think it’s great.
Kel, I read the article you linked and wasn’t impressed. The best the author can come up with is “well, Genesis never exactly says the raqiya‘, or firmament was solid, so clearly it wasn’t?”
Actually, what I read was much more detailed than that, and referenced many other uses of the term throughout Scripture, which is what we’re supposed to do in order to rightly determine the meaning. I understand you disagree, and that’s fine.
If I may ask, Lori, when in Genesis do you believe the Bible chronicles actual history rather than allegory? The Creation of Man? The Fall? The Flood? The Abrahamic covenant? And I’m not familiar with Catholic teaching on the subject, but I am genuinely curious.
Elisabeth – I totally agree!
No, you absolutely do NOT need to believe what I believe, nor have I ever said that you did. I stated that you, as a secular pro-lifer speak to what you believe and I, as a religious pro-lifer, speak to my beliefs. How is that claiming that you have to believe what I believe?
Go back and read what you wrote: But I also cannot understand how anyone with any amount of intelligence can discard science and reality in favor of allegory.
How is that not insulting?
Elisabeth, please. I’m merely asking a question. If you find it so inflammatory, just ignore my posts. Stop fighting with me. I am not your enemy. I was not saying that religious people are stupid. You can be religious and believe in science at the same time. That is not what I was saying. I am saying it is difficult for me to comprehend how anyone can discard science in favor of allegory. Obviously, you find my comments to be so hateful and insulting. I’m not trying to insult anyone. I believe pro-aborts are narrow-minded and ignorant for overlooking the obvious and logical fact that unborn human beings are persons and deserve to be protected under law. Along the same lines, if you are going to counter any pro-abort argument with the Bible, you’re going to run into a wall, because it does not hold. The Bible can be manipulated to suit anyone’s purpose.
Sydney, and Elisabeth, please ignore me. I am done discussing this. Obviously you have no interest in healthy debate, and merely want to fight with me. Why you want to fight with a fellow pro-lifer is beyond me. Enough already.
Kel, I did not “denigrate” anything. I am asking a question. I have not called you names, and I have not said that I hate God or the Bible entirely. You are not reading what I’m saying; obviously many of you forget Jesus’ talking about the Letter of the Law versus the Spirit of the Law. Obviously, a lot of you sound, to me, like Pharisees. I have great respect for people of all faiths, and have been known to throw a prayer out from time to time. I’m agnostic–not an atheist. But the pride and hubris of the religious pro-life community is disturbing, unwelcoming, and judgmental. When I–or anyone–questions you, you claim we are “denigrating” and “mocking” your beliefs. I’m not trying to start a fight with anyone; YOU are interpreting what I am saying as insults. Many of you have made erroneous claims about birth control, about the gay community, and mock those of us who believe in birth control and believe in gay rights.
And you claim you “welcome” secular pro-life views….but it’s really just like a patronizing pat on the head. You have berated many of us who are here, and argued with us if you believe we are not pro-life enough. Like I said before, is it not enough that I want to protect the unborn? Can you realize I am your ally? I’m not trying to change your beliefs. I am merely debating. Many of you need to realize: It is the secular pro-life movement that is ultimately going to win this war.
Kel, I never said that that biblical history in Genesis is allegory. We can certainly believe that the historical parts of Genesis and other OT books are indeed historical, as is the NT — and much of this history is borne out by archeological findings.
However, not everything in the OT is actually intended to be history. Some scholars believe that there are books of the OT, like Judith, that are actually intended by their authors to be religious allegory.
The important point to remember is that that God didn’t simply dictate the text word for word, and the inspired authors simply took it down as though they were mediums. Each author wrote with a human mind and imagination steeped in a specific culture. Most important, they wrote in literary genres that were understood and appreciated at the time. If we know that, we have a better key to understanding those books, and in what way they are divinely inspired.
If you want to read more about Catholic teaching on the Bible, I’d highly recommend the magnificent encyclical by Pope Pius XII, Divino Afflante Spiritu, which has a great deal to say about the questions I’ve been discussing.
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_30091943_divino-afflante-spiritu_en.html
Or the Second Vatican Council’s constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum.
http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html
(Don’t worry, all this stuff is in English once you get there!)
And now I really have to bow out.
MaryLee:
Go back and read what you wrote: But I also cannot understand how anyone with any amount of intelligence can discard science and reality in favor of allegory.
Can you simply not be a grown up and say, “You know, that probably came out really wrong and I’m sorry” ?
I don’t know of any pro-lifer on here who argues ONLY from the Bible. There are those of us who are religious and use both religious and scientific arguments. There are those of us who are secular and argue only from the scientific perspective.
You are erecting straw men and then fighting them. You have claimed that I told you that you had to believe what I believe. I did not say that. I have never said that. You haven’t acknowledged that I haven’t said it. You just keep telling me to “calm down”. (As I’m perfectly calm that is a less than useful suggestion.)
But you DID say that those of us who believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible are discarding science in favor of allegory and you fail to see how anyone with any intelligence can do that. We have tried to show you that science is not incompatible with our beliefs. We have not told you that you have to believe them. We have pointed out that you have called those of us who believe in a literal interpretation unintelligent. You fail to acknowledge that perhaps you misspoke. (The other possibility is that you did not misspeak and you actually do mean that you believe we are unintelligent. If that is the case, again, I dare you to actually say, Elisabeth, you are unintelligent because you believe something I do not.) The person who is trying to claim that some beliefs are superior to others is you…. not us.
Lori, just a reminder that Judith is not in the Protestant canon of the OT. It is doubtful many Protestants would be familiar with it. As I was at one time a Catholic, I am… but many are not.
Elisabeth: yes, sorry, I forgot that.
I believe that some scholars put Jonah in the same category, but others disagree.
My apologies, MaryLee, I just don’t know any other way to interpret things like this:
Pro-aborts like you who continue to deny that the unborn are, in fact, babies, when we know they ARE babies, sound as bad as the creationists who don’t believe in evolution.
So, this isn’t denigrating and/or mocking creationist beliefs? You’ve compared Bible-believing creationists to deniers of the humanity of the unborn. If that’s not what you meant, would you care to clarify?
Kel, I never said that that biblical history in Genesis is allegory. We can certainly believe that the historical parts of Genesis and other OT books are indeed historical, as is the NT… However, not everything in the OT is actually intended to be history.
I am aware of this. But my question to you would then be, which parts of Genesis do you deem to be “historical” as opposed to allegorical? I’m aware of OT *books* being works of poetry, prophecy, etc, but Genesis is one book, one of the five books of the Law. And no doubt, there are many elements in it, many of which point to Christ as Messiah. But do we deem that these events are simply allegorical and never actually occurred, simply because they symbolize something greater? The Passover Lamb is a foreshadowing of Christ. Does that mean it never really occurred?
If we’re going to write off Creation as laughable, and as if the author really had no idea what he was saying, then we might as well write off original sin, the Fall (through which sin and death entered Creation), and the promise of the coming Messiah. Genesis is the foundation for the rest of Scripture. I studied the Old Testament in college, and continue to study the Scriptures today. Those of us who take the Creation account as written do not see any reason not to, and should not be treated as if we know nothing about Scripture. Believe me, most of us have been battered for some time by theistic evolutionists, etc, and have had to deeply study to defend our beliefs against the onslaught.
Goodnight.
Yes, i’ve heard that about Jonah. Matt. 12:39-41:
“He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41 The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here.”
But I guess Jonah was just allegorical and never really preached at Nineveh. I guess Jesus just goofed… ;)
Yes Marylee we are allies. We are all pro-life and I respect you for that. I also respect your right to believe in evolution or not believe the Bible. While that makes me sad I am not going to claim you are “as bad” as a pro-abort willfully closing his or her mind to truth. You claimed I was “as bad” as a pro-abort for believing creationism and that is where I and others took offense.
Being pro-life is not a religious position and I am glad that there are secular pro-lifers like you. i’m done fighting too. Peace.
Genesis is one book, one of the five books of the Law. And no doubt, there are many elements in it, many of which point to Christ as Messiah. But do we deem that these events are simply allegorical and never actually occurred, simply because they symbolize something greater? The Passover Lamb is a foreshadowing of Christ. Does that mean it never really occurred?
Anyone who would try to claim that would be ignoring the Apostle Paul. Like most highly religious Jews of his day, Paul believed in and taught the concept of the Midrash. This is a Hebrew term similar to our word “exegesis” but with slightly more complex meaning. One of the major teachings of the Midrash is that all events have both a literal and a non-literal meaning. For example, the Pesach was a literal event, the passing over of the Jews in Egypt because they had the slain lamb’s blood on their doorposts. They were literally protected from a literal harm by literal blood from a literal lamb smeared on literal doorposts. At the same time, Midrash teaches that this literal happenstance ALSO has the non-literal interpretation of pointing towards Y’shua Bar-Yosef, the carpenter from Natzrat, who was definitely a literal person, but NOT a literal lamb, of whose sacrifice that saved us from a supernatural harm (eternal judgment in Hell) rather than the literal harm of a physical death.
Therefore, the fact that something in the Bible happens to have a very important non-literal meaning does not mean that it does not also have a literal meaning. Obviously, many literary genres are represented in the Bible. Genesis, however, is regarded as a book of history, not one of poetry, by any grouping I have ever seen of the books of the Bible.
I have to admit, the concept that Jonah was allegorical is one that I’ve never heard given much credence. I knew it was a theory floating around out there, but I’ve never heard of anyone with any real credentials in Biblical scholarship who believed it.
Genesis, however, is regarded as a book of history, not one of poetry, by any grouping I have ever seen of the books of the Bible.
Exactly. And thank you for those great comments, Elisabeth. :)
I have to admit, the concept that Jonah was allegorical is one that I’ve never heard given much credence. I knew it was a theory floating around out there, but I’ve never heard of anyone with any real credentials in Biblical scholarship who believed it.
I went to a Christian university, and that’s what I was taught there – that Jonah was allegorical. And our professor also laughed at Creationist beliefs, actually drawing a picture of what we’d “have” to believe the world looked like if we believed the Creation account. It looked like a snowglobe with columns. (That was the day I almost walked out.) And today this dude is a missionary – you don’t even believe what you’re preaching, and you’re a missionary?? Whatever.
Like I said, Kel… real credentials… that is so sad. It’s sad that even professors at Christian universities feel the need to mock other Christians.
But my question to you would then be, which parts of Genesis do you deem to be “historical” as opposed to allegorical?
Kel, I never said anything in Genesis is “historical as opposed to allegorical.” Elisabeth is quite right. The events described in Genesis are both historical AND allegorical. Historical in that they really happened, and allegorical in that they point to future events and the coming of Christ. This was the method of all the Church Fathers and the only real way of reading Scripture for many centuries. Once again, I repeat, I don’t have any problem is seeing events presented as historical in Genesis as being historical. (Things are a bit different when it comes to events at creation which nobody living on earth could have witnessed, and where the author, at least partially, had to use his imagination, inspired by the Holy Spirit).
I actually think that even if it were a fictional story, Jonah could well “point” to the coming of Christ in an extraordinary way, since its author would still have been prescient in coming up with the three days and other details, just as if it were a historical event.
And I don’t see why Jesus couldn’t have referred to a fictional story to make his point, just as we might refer to the text of a current novel to make a point. It is the same point either way. Jesus is using Jonah as a reference point to tell everyone what is going to happen to him. And he even made up stories himself to make points.
On the other hand, denying the physical resurrection of Christ, or saying as many do, that all that “really” happened at the multiplication of the loaves and fishes is that “Jesus got the people to share” is completely illegitimate, since it fundamentally changes the meaning of what we read. One would be to remove Christ’s miraculous power where the author clearly intended to express it, and in what turns out to be a solemn foretelling of the Eucharist, in which his greatest miraculous power is displayed. In the other case, a “spiritual” resurrection of Christ in the minds of the disciples vs. a true physical one, are the foundations for two different religions, and it makes a great deal of difference which one you choose. Here it is very clear what we must think of the happenings, which were seen by eyewitnesses.
Please note, Kel, that I did NOT say I think Jonah is fictional, just that nothing much would change if it were. You’ve already put quite enough words in my mouth for one day. Good night everyone.
Lori, I actually think Kel was legitimately trying to figure out what you thought was allegory and what you thought was historical fact… I don’t think it was intended as debate.
Lori, it hasn’t been my intent at all to put words in your mouth. I apologize if it came across that way. I just looked back at some of your comments which I interpreted to mean that you believed Genesis was allegorical. These:
But Christians who want to be taken seriously when they talk about creation and God should be careful that all their science is accurate and that they don’t try to defend as literally scientific what is in Genesis.
and
However, not everything in the OT is actually intended to be history. Some scholars believe that there are books of the OT, like Judith, that are actually intended by their authors to be religious allegory.
I took these comments to mean that you believed Genesis was strictly allegorical. Thank you for clarifying your views in your last post. I still am not sure I get what you’re saying regarding the Creation account itself since you referred to it as “primitive” which I interpreted to mean “unscientific.” But I do apologize for getting my wires crossed and misunderstanding your view.
Lori, I actually think Kel was legitimately trying to figure out what you thought was allegory and what you thought was historical fact… I don’t think it was intended as debate.
Yes, Elisabeth, thanks, that’s correct.
Thanks for the apology, Kel. I guess I misunderstood you too.
When I spoke of “literally scientific” I mean scientific, not historical, and was referring at that point solely to what was being discussed – the first chapter of Genesis, not to the book as a whole.
By calling the creation account “primitive” I merely meant that it was very old, that is, that it is the earliest, or one of the earliest, texts in the Bible. Also, the ideas expressed in it were “primitive” in the sense that they were earlier than subsequent thought. I would say that they were in tune with the science of the day. I wasn’t attempting to denigrate them.
But abortion involves another person entirely, whose right to live trumps the right to a woman’s need to keep her boyfriend/job/not upset her parents, etc. Abortion tells women that we must defeminize ourselves in order to make it in the world, it tells us that children are disposable, that might makes right. There is nothing good about abortion; I am surprised anyone could support it, let alone fight for it.
THANK YOU for posting this truth, MaryLee! It has been terribly uncommon for me to see anyone anywhere online posting this TRUTH.
The nascent child has her own DNA, his own fingerprints, her own blood type, his own gender (if nascent children were “part of the woman’s body”, they must needs all be female!), and much more.
The nascent child is NOT a “part of the woman’s body”; s/he is NOT an organ in the woman’s body (like an appendix or gall bladder, for example).
The nascent child is a completely separate HUMAN BEING.
This truth is reflected in US laws which deem the killing of a pregnant woman a DOUBLE murder.
But this truth is completely ignored and repudiated in US abortion laws.
At one time in this nation, SLAVERY was completely legal. Did that make it right? Of course not. Though abortion is legal, it is WRONG.
(BTW, MaryLee, you and I completely disagree on Creation. I prefer to stick to this subject, so I won’t belabor that point. Just wanted to commend you on your pro-LIFE stance.)
Lori, there was LIGHT on the earth before God created the sun. God said, “Let there be light”, and there was light — on Day One. Light was the first thing God created. Therefore, the plants He created had light even before there was a sun.
One thing that sheds light on this (no pun intended), for me, is the scripture passage in Revelation which tells us that Christ Jesus is the Light of Heaven, that there is no need there for a sun or moon.
If God be God, I believe He could just as easily have created the world in 6 nanoseconds, 6 minutes, or 6 hours, as in 6 days.
It seems clear in the Scriptures that He created the world in 6 days (evenings and mornings, according to Genesis) and then rested on the 7th day to set the precedent for humans of working for 6 days and then resting on the 7th.
Someone here said that the Romans invented the 7-day week. But we know the ancient Israelites observed a 7-day week, long before the Roman Empire existed.
To all Christians here (I can’t remember who wrote each post):
Christ Jesus continually verified the veracity of OT Scripture. He verified the existence of, and events pertaining to, Adam and Eve, Satan, Noah, Abraham, Lot and his wife, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Moses, David, Solomon, the Queen of Sheba, Jonah, and more.
If anyone doubts the historicity of these people and events, they must needs also doubt the words and teachings of Christ Jesus.
Hi Claire.
“To all Christians here (I can’t remember who wrote each post):”
Do you mean non-Christians here? Were Christians saying Satan (or whatever) isn’t real on this thread? God love you.
Hi, Bobby.
I wrote this to the Christians here (not non-Christians):
Christ Jesus continually verified the veracity of OT Scripture. He verified the existence of, and events pertaining to, Adam and Eve, Satan, Noah, the Great Flood*, Abraham, Lot and his wife, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Moses, David, Solomon, the Queen of Sheba, Jonah, and more.
*edited to add this
If anyone doubts the historicity of these people and events, they must needs also doubt the words and teachings of Christ Jesus.
I wrote this to Christians because I had read some posts where the authenticity of the events related in the book of Jonah (and, IIRC, some other OT people/events) was called into question.
I mentioned all the people/events above because it seems a lot of people do not realize Christ Jesus did in fact affirm all of them, not because they had all been mentioned here.
Since Christ Jesus Himself verified all these things, I see no reason for a Christian to doubt them.
Now that you’ve mentioned this, though, I would like to add a brief addendum:
It is true that nonChristians will acknowledge the historical Jesus as being a “good man” or “great teacher”, etc, while at the same time they reject the verifications I mentioned above (including His statement “Before Abraham was, I AM”) , as well as His miracles, atonement for sin, resurrecxtion from the dead, etc.
It was refreshing to see a reminder of God’s love. :)
Beautiful and thought-provoking post Claire. I am always amazed when people say “Well, Jesus was a good man but…” if Jesus was NOT the Son of God then He certainly wasn’t a good man. He was a man who went around claiming to be God in the flesh, persuading other men to give up careers and follow him etc…If He wasn’t the Christ, the Messiah, then He was incredibly blasphemous and pompous.
But we who are redeemed know that He was the Christ, the Messiah, the Redeemer. And yes, as you pointed out, Jesus verified many many accounts of the OT, including creation. Non-christians may shake their heads at our faith and think we are looney, but Christians should not doubt the accounts of Scripture, especially when Jesus agreed with them, read them, memorized them, respected and followed them. If the Bible is just a bunch of words written by men, then why would the SON of GOD revere and obey it?
In Revelation John was going to write words but God told Him not to write those words. God ordained the writings in the Bible. They are written by men under divine influence from God.
Ah, I see what you’re saying in yoru original post now, Claire. Thanks for the clarification, and for saying that!
Sydney,
This is why we are seeing this bizarre, intellectually bankrupt position becoming more popular on the internet that Jesus never existed. It is so much easier to say he never existed than to have to explain away the fact that he claimed to be God, but was a good man, but was not insane. The skepticism that has to be applied to the historical documents about Jesus is beyond anything that is even reasonable. People have to hold the documents to a higher standard than any other document known to man in order to reasonably say that we have no good reason to trust them. It is always amazing how high the skeptical dial needs to be turned up when one’s whole way of life is at stake (though it is understandable).
Quoting Elisabeth:
I have no fear of the Bible being shown to be in error… I have yet to see a scientifically proven fact (not a theory, not a hypothesis, but a FACT) that contradicts the Bible’s teachings. +
The more we learn scientifically, the more truth the Bible is shown to contain.
Kosher food laws? We now know about the dangers posed by the food items that were banned in terms of the ability of the people of ancient Judea to be able to cook them safely.
In fact, the laws of Leviticus and Deuteronomy have been shown to put the Jewish people eons ahead of those around them in terms of hygiene and safety. The laws about where latrines could be built, or quarantining the sick were way beyond the scientific knowledge of the time.
So, I personally look forward to scientific advancements. They give me a greater and fuller understanding of the truths contained in the Bible. Science is no threat to the Greatest Scientist of all.
Elisabeth, I was going to crop some of this, but I can’t find anything that is not equally important to the rest! So I’ve left it all.
Everything you have said here is SO accurate. Many people do not realize how many of the early scientists, upon whose shoulders today’s scientists stand, were Bible-believing Christians!
A number of them gave direct credit to the Lord for the things they discovered, and many of those things are still used continually today.
For example, Joseph Lister (for whom Listerine was named) was the pioneer of modern santitation methods used in surgery. This was ground-breaking work (so important because so many lives were and have been saved because of it) AND was based on what he had learned in the Levitical scriptures!
There are many others, some who have died and others who are still with us today.
One great resource is 21 Great Scientists Who Believed the Bible, written by Ann Lamont (more than 21 scientists are named; those are highlighted). It is now OOP, but I found my copy by going to http://www.bookfinder.com
Excellent points, Sydney and Bobby. You have both brought out points which really need to be heard and given consideration by everyone. Thanks, guys.
As I’ve said before. I will honestly say that I am alarmed with the increasing momentum of and networking among pro-choice Twitters and blogs. This is area we need to improve and catch up in.
*Sighs* Why does every thread lately seem to turn into a debate on religion? Perhaps a thread should be created specifically for that topic, so as to not continue drawing threads off-topic?