Pro-life activist goes off on Planned Parenthood’s racial hypocrisy
Ludwig: the Democrat Party has arrested the development of the the black community. Your objective is to keep the Black community in a state of dependency. They are useful to the Democrats as a voter stock.
And being as your occupation is the killing of children (most of which are black), I’m sure it’s safe to say that for you the only thing better than a dependent and a loyal Democrat voting black person, is a black person that’s been aborted.
~ Alfonzo Rachel responding to the African-American Leadership and Engagement Director for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Ludwig Gaines , and his allegation against Republicans and the pro-life movement, PJTV’s ZoNation, February 25
Feb.27, 2012 7:29 am |
Genocide, Industry watch |
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
And being as your occupation is the killing of children (most of which are black), I’m sure it’s safe to say that for you the only thing better than a dependent and a loyal Democrat voting black person, is a black person that’s been aborted.
Well, that’s some pretty silly rhetoric there….
Bold man!
Outstanding! Bless you, Alfonso Rachel!
This is the Truth being spoken. It is not hard, it is heart breaking (to most, save Doug).
Way to go Alfonzo.
Yep, rhetoric sure is silly when only 6 out of 10 conceived black children make it to their birthday in New York City for example. Silly rhetoric. I guess when it gets to 9 out of 10 then we might be justified in saying Sanger’s Negro Project is still going strong. Maybe. But we just want to control women.
What’s silly is to say or imply that “most” of the abortions done at Planned Parenthood involve pregnant black women. That’s just not true.
“Arrested the development of the black community”? As if simply having more babies born will somehow “develop” that community in good ways, when the birth rate is already higher than that of white Americans? Silly.
Los Angles used to be 25% Black and now it is 9% Black. I guess the fact that Obama is only half Black slips past alot of people who just want the symbolism of a “Black” president. I certainly hope they don’t want the reality-that he is bent on the destruction of our beautiful Black babies. There are 2,000,000 American families that would love to adopt those little Black babies. I am sure the babies would appreciate it too-much more than they would appreciate being poisoned by saline, or stabbed by a cannula, while they are screaming in agony. Not fair!
You could say the Latino population caused the watering down of the other ethnicities–they are Catholic and have a large immigration rate to this area-but the fact is, Planned Parenthood put an abortion clinic in Watts before it was even legal: in 1967.
There are just many racist Whites voting for Obama as there are racist Blacks voting for Obama—how ironic. The racist Whites want less Blacks which the y blame on crime and poverty. The racist Blacks want power and resect over Whites who they blame for discrimination. That’s how evil abortion is. I remember a quote some where that said, the tragedy of abortion is that “abortion is a product of humanity’s hatred of itself.”
I don’t think he’s talking about increasing birth rates, Doug. I think he’s talking about fostering the sense of individual responsibility in the black community. Like, one that recognizes that babies are produced by sex and has a more mature regard for sex than they do currently. You DO realize that “arrested development” is not just the name of a popular television show, right?
Since statistically, black women get more abortions than hispanic or white women, then YES, it is absolutely accurate to say that the nation’s largest abortion provider’s largest demographic IS black women and their babies. YES, the Negro Project is still going strong. YES, black leaders are still misled. NO, it’s not silly. There is nothing silly about killing babies, Doug.
You know, Doug, sometimes you write nice, thoughtful, even logical comments. And other times, you write just like the trolls.
Ninek, I think you misunderstand “absolutely accurate.”
Hal, try to keep up. If black women have statistically more abortions than white or hispanic women, and they do, then it IS accurate to say that most of the abortions that PP performs are on black women. Statistically, this is true, Hal.
Or maybe I just don’t understand the word “silly.” Maybe, since “choice” really means “butcher human babies when they’re most vulnerable,” then maybe “silly rhetoric” means “rhetoric that is seriously based in objective reality.”
So doubleplusungood. Excuse me while I go feed the rats in room 101.
Gaines has a point about some people and some groups being oh-so-concerned prior to birth, and then turning a blind eye, afterward. So, someone has found a young black man to shill for the Republican party, apparently with (ugh) a dose of religious extremism thrown in. So what?
Yes, the Democratic party is far from perfect. Yes, just “throwing money” at a problem is no guarantee of solving it. But the black community knows full well where the efforts of the Republicans are aimed, and it’s not at the general good of black Americans, or really – at anybody, regardless of race, outside the wealthiest demographic. The Republican party’s masters may wish for “diverting” concerns to be raised, but the intent, and the effects – when that agenda is implemented – are easy to see. For Alfonzo Rachel to pretend to speak for the black community is a poor joke. Who has benefitted in the past 50 or 60 years from Republican policies? Far and away, it’s only that “top 1%” or the like.
His approach sounds like he thinks that “throwing babies” at the black community would somehow make things better. I’m here to tell you that’s not the way, and I scoff at Alfonzo or anybody else who pretends they know better than me what I should do, should I become pregnant. For the sake of liberty, I hope everybody else will too. Let the woman decide.
Doug says:
February 27, 2012 at 4:38 pm
“What’s silly is to say or imply that “most” of the abortions done at Planned Parenthood involve pregnant black women. That’s just not true.
“Arrested the development of the black community”? As if simply having more babies born will somehow “develop” that community in good ways, when the birth rate is already higher than that of white Americans? Silly.”
+1
If people understand and bother to actually read what Alfonzo said, he’s not telling the truth. Add in his absurd speculation and innuendo, and he’s just a clown. “Brother, who are you to act like you know what’s best for me? You go on and have a ton of kids if you wish. But don’t be telling me I need to have a baby ‘for the sake of the black community,’ or any other community.”
Doug,
You know very well the “arrested development” he was talking about was the food stamp/welfare culture, not about the pesky babies being done away with.
People are a resource, not a liability, unless there’s something really dark going on in you.
Just when I thought Zo couldn’t get any more brilliant. “Voter stock!” That says it all.
Jasmine,
Say hello to your dark place for me.
ninek says:
February 27, 2012 at 6:36 pm
“If black women have statistically more abortions than white or hispanic women, and they do, then it IS accurate to say that most of the abortions that PP performs are on black women.”
That’s not what Alfonzo said, and think about what you said – even that doesn’t have to be as you portray it.
Wow! A flock of Jasminites has descended on us all of a sudden! Gotta stop this talk of “throwing babies” on the black community. We must hold their numbers down. It would take 18 whole years for them to be “voter stock”, and we can’t wait that long for another messiah to show up.
;) Looks like Alfonzo Rachel came here and read ninek’s figuring, which isn’t right anyway.
“If black women have statistically more abortions than white or hispanic women, and they do, then it IS accurate to say that most of the abortions that PP performs are on black women.”
No… black women abort at a higher rate for sure, but more white babies are aborted over all (by a few percentage points). Which is still horrible, but it isn’t accurate to say that most of the abortions PP does are on black women. Which is horrific, in my opinion, considering that this far exceeds the percentage of black women in the population. It’s a sign of inequality and something needs to be done about it.
Jasmine said @ 6:55
“…someone has found a young black man to shill for the Republican party…”
Yep, sure–cuz if anyone with more a little more pigmentation expresses views contrary to the Democrat platform, he/she’s a “shill”. Before you begin to suggest Zo isn’t thinking for himself, you maybe ought to get a little more acquainted with his work. Really, you’re embarrassing yourself.
It might blow your narrow little mind, Jasmine, but check out Star Parker moderating the Conservative Black Forum last month.
ninek,February 27, 2012 at 6:36 pm
Or maybe I just don’t understand the word “silly.”
Do you understand mathematics? If so, then Doug, Hal, Jasmine and Jack have good points. ‘Zo is either deliberately lying or foolishly in error.
Sigh. Statistically can just as well refer to percentage as to a simple numerical value. You’re arguing about how the deck chairs are arranged on the Titanic. The black community is imploding. Take some notice!
The point was raised about the black birth rate being higher than the white birth rate, Hans.
klynn73, Alfonzo has said some things in the past that I agreed with. Above, he’s acting the fool.
Jasmine said: ““Brother, who are you to act like you know what’s best for me? You go on and have a ton of kids if you wish. But don’t be telling me I need to have a baby ‘for the sake of the black community,’ or any other community.”
Amen!!
Jasmine: “But don’t be telling me I need to have a baby ‘for the sake of the black community,’ or any other community.”
Please, clarify WHERE anyone is encouraging you to reproduce? Please don’t. Melanie, follow suit. Biology 101: once you’re pregnant, you’ve already GOT the baby. An abortion just kills your child, making you the mother of a dead baby. That you want to bury your head in the sand and plead ignorance of Maggie Sanger’s eugenic plan being carried out speaks more to your lack of education and information than to anyone’s “acting the fool”.
Doug, I find your minimizing the truth of the tragedy that is the violent taking of innocent life, regardless of ethnicity, to “silly rhetoric” appalling. Imagine Doug on the Rwandan holocaust: “side-splitting”, the Nurenberg trials, “a real knee-slapper!” the killing fields of Khmer Rouge, “oh, let’s not get all carried away, no biggie”. Others compliment you on your restraint, but I find your lack of human emotion in the face of atrocities disgusting.
You know very well the “arrested development” he was talking about was the food stamp/welfare culture, not about the pesky babies being done away with.
People are a resource, not a liability, unless there’s something really dark going on in you.
Hans, okay – I was looking at the two quoted paragraphs, but yes – there is a point that’s undeniable about the motivation and incentive to work. Where do we draw the line? On the one end is where “everything’s free” and the other end is there’s no such thing as a free lunch and if you don’t work then you starve.
If we go with “the welfare state is not really helping the black community” (or a different group) then it hardly makes sense to advocate increasing the population, which does mean “more people to feed” if nothing else.
Personally, I think we are at a time where draconian measures are required. The honest thing to say is that we can’t feed everybody. Can’t give ’em all medical care. Can’t even supply what’s been promised to those who paid into Social Security and Medicare. Gonna have to have higher taxes and less expenditures.
On people being a resource, not a liability – maybe, maybe not. It’s not just “raw numbers of people,” it’s that they have to have purchasing power. How many tens of millions in the US are unemployed now? If we “added people,” yes – there would be some increase in demand from that alone, but it’s far from a 1 to 1 benefit, i.e. one more person in the population = well less than one person required to work to satisfy their demand.
To think of the economic system as a Ponzi scheme never works out in the long run. It will always fail, that way. There has to be some “steady state” constancy and stability to it, relative to the population. Had we no gov’t debt nor deficits, the markets would take care of things (but of course we’re massively far from that).
With mechanization, automation, computerization (just to name a few), the demand for labor has declined drastically. No, not every job is “lost forever,” since new occupations arise, but again, it’s not a 1 to 1 deal. The level of business and economies as a whole still matter, but all other things being equal, I see us having a higher systemic level of unemployment, the higher the population goes.
How harsh would be your cuts, if you were the one to dole out gov’t money? I recently read that in the past few years, 1/4 of the people who were on unemployment eventually qualified for disability. This is amazing to me. :(
klynn: Doug, I find your minimizing the truth of the tragedy that is the violent taking of innocent life, regardless of ethnicity, to “silly rhetoric” appalling. Imagine Doug on the Rwandan holocaust: “side-splitting”, the Nurenberg trials, “a real knee-slapper!” the killing fields of Khmer Rouge, “oh, let’s not get all carried away, no biggie”. Others compliment you on your restraint, but I find your lack of human emotion in the face of atrocities disgusting.
What is that? I didn’t comment on your opinion of what has occurred or what is occurring. You are free to feel any way – and I’m not saying you’re “a bad person” for feeling that way or that you “should” feel any different way, necessarily.
You say, “it’s a tragedy” – okay, your opinion. Take it up with the individual woman with an unwanted pregnancy. I bet she’ll tell you that your claim on things is a lot less important than is hers. I certainly agree with her.
I’m saying that it’s BS to build statements or arguments around falsehoods, and that’s what Alonzo did.
Xalisae: I think he’s talking about fostering the sense of individual responsibility in the black community.
Okay, X, agreed. My same question to you – if things were up to you, how deep would your cuts be in welfare, food stamps, etc. I’m not arguing with you here, just wondering.
Ninek: You know, Doug, sometimes you write nice, thoughtful, even logical comments. And other times, you write just like the trolls.
Well good grief – I’m pointing out facts. Geez, once again, dealing with reality and things that are true for all of us gets one called a “troll” or the like. ;)
Alfonzo was wrong, as it was well-stated by Carter Hayes, above, “‘Zo is either deliberately lying or foolishly in error.” Sounds to me like old ‘Zo has been reading things off of pro-life websites that are adept at, shall we say, “creative accounting”?
He could have made his point without engaging in falsehoods.
Doug, even if you don’t think abortion in itself is a tragedy, can’t you see that the fact that women, especially minority women, feel like they have to abort at such high rates is a sign of something very wrong. Something tragic even?
I do agree that Zo was either overstating things or misinformed, there are only a couple ways you can take “most of the babies that PP aborts are black”. I don’t see how anyone can think that the high abortion rate in the black community is a positive thing, though. At the very least it speaks to a really high unplanned pregnancy rate, which everyone should want to reduce.
So Ludwig,
how’s that Negro Project going for you?
Hold on a minute!! Fetuses would have to be human beings to have race…
So- Jasmin and co- you’re acknowledging the humanity of fetuses by acknowledging their race. Better watch it- you’re gonna have to defend why it’s ok to destroy human beings of ANY race.
Jack: Doug, even if you don’t think abortion in itself is a tragedy, can’t you see that the fact that women, especially minority women, feel like they have to abort at such high rates is a sign of something very wrong. Something tragic even?
Sure, Jack. In no way do I see abortion as “good,” per se. I think it’s *vastly preferable” to prevent unwanted pregnancies versus ending them via abortion. If I was younger and female, I would be VERY wary and against getting pregnant, unless the time was right.
I think Alphonzo’s analysis refers to the fact that the American people need to remember that a society cannot afford limited government if the family and marriage are not supported morally and financially by the government. If young people (white, black, hispanic, et al) continue to have children out of wedlock, if men continue to abandon pregnant women, or if women continue to fall into single motherhood or view babies as fashion accessories, then the government cannot be small. It will have to be big, it will have to have government programs to help these young single mothers. So whether you view the breakdown of the family as a moral problem or a public health problem, it is definitely a financial problem for any country. A restoration of the Family will mean that more families will have the funds and tools to welcome, without discrimination, all human life whether pre-natal testing is done or not. He is advocating that the government should protect the unborn in addition to the born babies. He is not advocating the government simply promote having more babies without a corresponding call to family values. The curent government is completely silent on family issues. Rick Santorum is right to talk about economic issues and moral/public health issues. The solution to the problems within America is not limited to either fixing the economy or fixing the moral deficit.
A restoration of the Family will mean that more families will have the funds and tools to welcome, without discrimination, all human life whether pre-natal testing is done or not.
Tyler, that’s very general and “blue-sky” and frankly, IMO, naive. There’s no simple “turning back the clock here.”
I don’t mean to just jump on your case. Hey – agreed that two-parent families tend to have kids that do better and that end up contributing to society more. So, what was the recent statistic – 30% of babies in the US born out of wedlock? 50%? There’s no putting the genie back in the bottle.
Likewise, we’ve had both a big decline in mortality and fertility. There’s not going to be any valid saying, “If only people had larger families like they used to….” Things don’t work like that, so many other factors are also altered, and what would you have the President do? Get out there and tell more people to “hurry up and get married”?
if things were up to you, how deep would your cuts be in welfare, food stamps, etc. I’m not arguing with you here, just wondering.
I wouldn’t cut any, Doug. What I WOULD do, is turn the welfare programs into something that will actually help people in need GET OUT OF THE SYSTEM instead of the worthless killing-time pile of BULLCRAP they are now, that gives you a real education instead of some dumb “certificate” that isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. And probably pass some laws mandating childcare programs for employers or at least giving them tax breaks for having on-campus childcare services.
Doug, yes advocating for people to get married would and can help. Revitalizing some of the values that the American public used to live by would also help (I don’t want to call these conservatives values because that would be inaccurate and falsely assoicate them with a political party. Nonetheless, Republicans do seem to champion these values more often than Democrats.) One of these values would be to protect life at all of its stages, and another would be to respect the rights of parents to educate their families in their own beliefs. Enshrining the value of all life in law is not just a means to deter abortions but it is also a way for the government to state what it values and to educate people about thesoe values. Championing the value of all human life means the governement would have to encourage people to educate themselves about how and why they should plan (how ironic – and for clarity’s sake I don’t mean abort) their families. I agree there is no overnight solution to this problem, but there has to be some leadership and discussion of these issues. To simply give a speech on Father’s Day or Mother’s Day actually backfires, and it sentimentalizes these important concepts and ideas. The person speaking also needs to believe in what he is saying. The intolerance of the MSM media and certain secularists and feminists (due to protecting their reproductive turf) are hostile to even discussing these ideas. this hostility has not helped. This poisoned environment is not even funny, it is sad. Another important initiative is to start respecting the rights of parents to educate their children in their faith and the value of faith in general. A public that understands the value of faith could help the government get out of the business of incarcerating its citizens…. Unfortunately, to those without faith these ideas and many others would be considered “blue-sky” thinking. Furthermore, these ideas are not concrete, and are not tangible. like the technological ”solutions” such as abortion. I could go on but I need to think about these ideas some more. Admittedly, I need to flush these ideas out.
Do we have to define troll AGAIN? If you go to a wine lover’s website and rail against wine, you’re trolling. If you go to a shoe lover’s website and comment that bare feet are the only way to go, you’re trolling. So, get over yourself. I am not implying that you sit on the end of a pencil with wild pink hair that sticks up, nor am I implying that you live under a bridge. If you want to comment like a troll, then don’t expect no one will notice.
And yes, people, whether you want to count percentages or not, it is true that black women get more abortions. Jesus H. Christ in a chicken basket, if a 60% abortion rate doesn’t rattle your cage, nothing will. Obviously there are a lot of people that think there just aren’t enough dead babies rotting in this country or even the world. The human race is sick with this species-self-destruct illness, and one of the symptoms is the existence of an abortion industry.
As a pro-lifer, I only want one simple thing: stop killing people. It’s really that simple. But you see it on the internet all the time: “babies aren’t people unless we say so.” THAT is madness. Every good rationale we give to stop abortion is met with ever more diabolical and twisted excuses. The pro-life worldview is so simple: Live and let live. The pro-abortion worldview is constantly twisting and warping, scraping lower and lower. Can you imagine if in 1973 McCall’s magazine would have published an article exactly like the kind of drivel you read today on Huffington about ‘choice’? Can you imagine if Nancy Pelosi got in a time machine and said exactly the same kind of bs she spouts today? She’d be run out of town on a rail! But see, year by year, bit by incremental bit, the abortion sickness has spread and purged all logic and common sense from people’s minds. Rachel is right to be angry. Sanger’s Negro Project is still decimating the black population, many years after her death.
You abortion devotees can say whatever you like about me or any pro-lifer. I’m healthy and I know it. I know that it’s a sick and loathsome thing to kill a vulnerable little child. Yep, it’s really that simple. Stop killing people. Stop killing them when they’re tiny, old, or in any other state of being. Just stop killing.
Universal, state run, or even privately run child-care can present real problems for the Parents that use them. The most obvious problem to child care is it separates the parents from their role as the Child’s primary caregiver, educator and role-model. They are needed and definitely desired by some parents but they are only a band-aid solution, so to speak. Child care doesn’t sufficiently change the way people look at families. More specfically, state run childcare also opens the door for more government indoctrination of our children. Childcare also has tendency to say that Parents only have value if they are economically contributing to society by being emploed, it doesn’t value the role of stay-at-home parents which is why Santorum’s increased tax credit to families is a good idea: it gives families the flexibility to decide how they want to raise their children.
Doug,
Here are Rick Santorum’s solutions on how to fix both economy and the public health of our society:
http://www.ricksantorum.com/oped/my-economic-freedom-agenda
They seem pretty good to me.
Tyler:
Who the clear blue F said ANYTHING about “state-run childcare”? Because I sure as hell didn’t. GTFO my @$$ about EVERYTHING I SAY. Plus, you’re full of it. I was in preschool because my mom worked. Get stuffed.
Face it America is morally bankrupt and soon to be financially bankrupt. We cannot afford the taxes to pay for people to live “loose as goose” lives. Planned parenthood says “Saran Wrap works”. Sounds like a HELL of a deal to me!!!
I should add to my post above that I have purchased child care services.
Nivek, I found your comment on the incremental change towards abortion strange, given an article that I’d recently read: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/02/18/the-biblical-view-thats-younger-than-the-happy-meal/
Now, I don’t know how much credence to give it, since it comes with a very obvious bias and plenty of snark (and snark really doesn’t have a place in this discussion) but, if it’s true and can be proven so, it does starkly contrast with what you said about our collective views on abortion having changed between now and then.
As for the fact that minority women have abortions at a higher rate than white women, I think that’s a symptom of social ills more than the ill itself. Minority race women are more likely to have abortions because they’re more likely to be poor and feel like they can’t afford another child. If we fix our racist society that privileges white people over minorities, we’re much less likely to have this problem to begin with.
@Christine: The Bible also does not condemn slavery outright in exactly so many words at any point. That doesn’t make slavery okay.
As any thinking Christian will tell you, the Bible is a big book and covers a lot of ground, but it does not directly address everything. That’s why God gave us brains. So we can learn about the world and apply Biblical principles to it. Including things like how, despite the fact that it’s not specifically condemned anywhere in the Bible, there is no real reason any one person should be a slave to any other. And things like, despite the fact that it’s not specifically condemned anywhere in the Bible, there is no reason the unborn should not be considered human beings. Or, to quote Galileo, “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use.” The fact that the Bible doesn’t say something in exactly so many words is not an excuse not to apply Biblical principles to the stuff it doesn’t directly address. Like, “Don’t kill innocent human beings.” That’s a pretty clear Biblical principle. Whole reams of the Bible were written on how killing innocent human beings is a very bad thing.
There’s more to that post than just a discussion of Bible verses. The comments are pretty interesting, too, to give some historical perspective. In general as humans, we tend to assume that because something is this way now that it has always been, and that’s usually not the case.
We live in a culture that now celebrates and has normalized children being born to single women. I think Fox recently stated around 50% of children born are to single women? Isn’t Planned Parenthood strategically placed in these minority communities? How convenient. I’m not saying abortion is the answer. There are horrible circumstances like rape, incest, baby daddy takes off, etc. that leave women alone, tragically. Abortion is not the answer and leaves a dead child and a wounded mother. What happened to the ideal of a married man and woman raising children? Maybe Prez. Obama and those running on the Republican Ticket can address this. Something is seriously wrong when around half of our nation’s children are being born to single women.
PP is strategically placed in low-income communities so that they can provide low-cost reproductive health services to low-income men and women. Despite the horrific beliefs that Margaret Sanger espoused, modern PP has nothing to do with eugenics. They’re not trying to exterminate minority kids by opening clinics in low-income areas!
aaaaghhhh! doug and hal have been here for a long time. its always always the same stuff. i dont think either is anywhere near a conversion. they are both okay guys to talk to unless the topic is abortion. its just the same old shift ” a womans body a womans choice.”
i realize a lot of people missed hal but i wasnt one of them. it was always ” obama is doing a great job.” or ” my wife is fine with her abortions.” sure on both counts. i mean if you havent budged since 06 on your position then get on with your happy life and your wonderful president;)
Gosh, Christine J., there’s no doubt that racism still exists. Gee, I’d say Oprah Winfrey, a successful and very wealthy black woman lives quite a priviledged life compared to me and my husband’s modest income. Mr. Prez lives high on the hog as well. Oh – I’m white, by the way.
Heather, I have budged on my opinions since 2006. I’ve explained some evolution in my thinking based on discussions here with Carla and others. But, I am excited about four more years of Obama. And, I’m having a very “happy life,” thanks.
…. A few successful black people mean that white privilege doesn’t exist, Doe? I am not sure what you are saying.
good for you hal have a wonderful life;)
Jack, I’m so glad you’re around and I really wish they’d listen to you more often.
“I found your comment on the incremental change towards abortion strange, given an article that I’d recently read”
Yes, sure, Christine, yep. Now, back to reality: I am OLD ENOUGH to remember FIRST HAND the rationale that feminists were using to promote abortion. I can tell you that it has gotten much worse. The incremental changes were and are real, and part of the real life experience of anyone in America who was reading, talking, and watching television in the 1970’s and has seen the changes leading up to today. I am horrified by the cold-hearted view of children that we see and hear today. Horrified. In the 1970’s people hadn’t started this “it’s not a person so we can kill it” rationale. The focus was entirely on the plight of the pregnant woman while the child, rather than being called “parasite,” was pretty much ignored. Today, the hostility toward human children is terrifying to witness.
I am so enouraged by the number of young people entering the pro-life movement today. It gives me hope, especially when I encounter pro-aborts on the internet and in my personal life. Now, I’ve got to go help some post-born humans who need me today… :>)
Christine J., 11:56 AM, Some things.
All of which, while I’m sure it’s interesting to someone, doesn’t actually respond to anything that I said.
“if things were up to you, how deep would your cuts be in welfare, food stamps, etc. I’m not arguing with you here, just wondering.”
Xalisae: I wouldn’t cut any, Doug. What I WOULD do, is turn the welfare programs into something that will actually help people in need GET OUT OF THE SYSTEM instead of the worthless killing-time pile of BULLCRAP they are now, that gives you a real education instead of some dumb “certificate” that isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. And probably pass some laws mandating childcare programs for employers or at least giving them tax breaks for having on-campus childcare services.
X, I agree that the programs could be improved. What is the “certificate”? The GED? While I also agree that in general, more education is better than less, I question how much of an effect there would be. Would there be jobs for these now more-educated people? There are plenty of college grads pushing brooms, so to speak, already.
Mandating childcare programs would place a greater financial burden on the employers – something that’s counter-productive if we’re trying to expand employment. And tax breaks? That makes gov’t finances that much worse. I’m not saying these are “huge things” at all, but I think everything mentioned here is “small stuff,” and not really addressing the huge-money problems we are facing.
Tyler: Unfortunately, to those without faith these ideas and many others would be considered “blue-sky” thinking. Furthermore, these ideas are not concrete, and are not tangible. like the technological ”solutions” such as abortion. I could go on but I need to think about these ideas some more. Admittedly, I need to flush these ideas out.
Good post, Tyler. Hey, I don’t have any solutions, either, that are acceptable to the American people. Nor the politicians. I think it’s too late. Heck, it’s probably been “too late” all along – it always goes this way, the king figures out he can just print money…
You also didn’t address anything in the blog post, so I was redirecting you.
I’m also fairly sure that if God meant us to know that an embryo is a human being, it would have been clearly stated in the Bible. It isn’t, so I don’t buy your reasoning about there being no reason why we don’t consider a fetus a human. There’s no reason for us to consider a fetus a human being, either. That’s not the kind of thing that one would leave up to chance. While the Bible does condone slavery, it also confirms the humanity of slaves. It does no such thing with unborn children.
Ninek: Do we have to define troll AGAIN? If you go to a wine lover’s website and rail against wine, you’re trolling.
I just have to disagree, ninek. It’s too broad, what you stated. If I was just trying to make people mad, or was a “drive-by” poster calling people names, etc., that would be one thing. But “trolling” is not merely disagreeing.
And yes, people, whether you want to count percentages or not, it is true that black women get more abortions. Jesus H. Christ in a chicken basket, if a 60% abortion rate doesn’t rattle your cage, nothing will. Obviously there are a lot of people that think there just aren’t enough dead babies rotting in this country or even the world. The human race is sick with this species-self-destruct illness, and one of the symptoms is the existence of an abortion industry.
“Chicken basket” :) :) :p And what’s the “H” stand for? I heard it was “Hallmark,” because God cared enough to send the very best.
Or, “Harold,” as in “Our father who art in Heaven, Harold be thy name…”
*Per capita,* black women get more abortions. If Alfonzo had said that, he’d have been correct. Black women, per capita, have more unwanted pregnancies, thus they have more abortions.
I don’t think this in any way is “our species self-destructing,” but there I guess we just disagree.
Can you imagine if in 1973 McCall’s magazine would have published an article exactly like the kind of drivel you read today on Huffington about ‘choice’? Can you imagine if Nancy Pelosi got in a time machine and said exactly the same kind of bs she spouts today? She’d be run out of town on a rail!
I’m not sure what you mean. Is it that society was more “conservative” back then? I don’t know what stuff you’re saying appears on Huffington or from Pelosi.
You’re right. The Bible has no detailed discussion of embrionic development. Therefore we are left with two possiblilities. Babies are either manufactured on a Great Assembly Line in the Sky awaiting a stork to pick them up, or they are growing in a cabbage patch.
All this talk of fetuses is clearly a ruse by pro-lifers to cover up the scientific genius of those two scenarios.
Tyler: Child care doesn’t sufficiently change the way people look at families.
Agreed, Tyler. I’m not saying that “non-traditional families are the way to go.” I came from a really “normal” one – mom, dad, 3 boys and a girl. However, we already have a much different deal now – lots of economic and social things have happened (for better or worse) and there simply is no “putting the genie back in the bottle.” Not to say change cannot happen now, and for the better; but there isn’t any way to “turn back the clock.”
Santorum’s increased tax credit to families is a good idea
Hey, wait a minute! Why should there be a tax break at all? Why should somebody get taxed at a lesser rate just because they choose to have kids?
In this day and age, we don’t need “more tax breaks,” we need less gov’t spending and a balanced budget, above all. Whether increased taxes have to be a part of that is one question, but “reduced taxes” ain’t gonna make it.
Well, Doug, we could always go back to the traditional value of having the top tax bracket taxed at 90% or so. ;)
Christine, we don’t legislate based on the Bible, anyway. What reasons can you find outside the Bible to justify that a human fetus is not a human being?
Oh. My. God.
Christine, please don’t reveal your ignorance of the bible by arguing what is or isn’t in it. If you don’t know, then the smartest thing to do is to NOT try to make the argument. OK?
Now, there are so many references in the Bible, (both the Jewish Bible that we Christians refer to as the Old Testament, and in the New Testament), I could write a nice thick book about it.
The story of Jacob and Esau, for example, illustrates the human identity of the pre-born brothers. The story of Samson, the story of Samuel, the story of Mary the Blessed Mother and her visitation to her kinswoman Elizabeth, are just a few of the examples where the human identify of the pre-born child is illustrated and affirmed. The Blessed Mother was very recently pregnant when she visited Elizabeth and the pre-born John-the-Baptist CLEARLY reacts to her presence. It specifically states that he “leapt for joy.” It does NOT say: “the paracitic clump of cells suddenly gave Elizabeth some kind of indigestion.”
Did the Bible’s author’s anticipate the 21st century wherein people would argue that the small and defenseless do not count as human beings? You tell me, when Jesus wept for Jerusalem, did he weep also for us?
Was it Mark Twain who said: “It is better to be though ignorant than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.” ?
But, since many pro-lifers are pagans and many are atheists, I do not use the Bible to prove to people that abortion is wrong. I prefer to keep most of my arguments scientific. For example, since respiration is a scientifically accepted sign of life, and since growth is a scientifically accepted sign of life, it’s accurate to state that the embryo is alive, and since it contains his or her own unique DNA, it is also accurate to state that the embryo is a human being.
What reason can you find outside the Bible to justify that a human fetus is a human being? I mean, outside of religion and ethics and morals, we don’t really know at what point a fetus becomes a human being deserving of all of the same human rights as we have. We generally don’t treat a fetus as a human being in our legal system– to the best of my knowledge a miscarriage isn’t treated as manslaughter. What else do we have?
“I mean, outside of religion and ethics and morals, we don’t really know at what point a fetus becomes a human being deserving of all of the same human rights as we have. We generally don’t treat a fetus as a human being in our legal system– to the best of my knowledge a miscarriage isn’t treated as manslaughter. What else do we have?”
Humanity is based on legality? I don’t think so. Humans don’t suddenly become un-human based on legality. You can take away human rights, but you cannot make people all of a sudden not people.
We have science, which proves to us that we have a genetically distinct human being gestated. To argue that abortion should be a legal choice, you have to explain why that human doesn’t deserve protection, unlike every other human that shares the human genetic code.
You also didn’t address anything in the blog post, so I was redirecting you.
Ugh. The blog post was making a specious argument. The “…but the Bible doesn’t say the word…!” is virtually always a specious argument. Especially when put forth by the non-religious in an attempt to silence religious people and censor their voices in the public forum. And even if it were true that Christians thirty years ago were not largely pro-life (which it most decidedly isn’t), that would make no difference to any of the arguments pro-lifers are putting forward now.
What is true is that you are, by attempting to paint this article as somehow relevant, attempting to assign to us a strawman position. This is me roundedly rejecting that strawman. If you want to engage the arguments the pro-life movement is making, reading what abortion apologists post on their blogs is not the way to go about it. At all. Ever.
Gee golly, guess what, abortion devotees? We didn’t need to prove when a human was a human. A human was always so.
It is the ABORTION INDUSTRY that seeks to deny humanity to the smallest members of our community. So, the onus is on YOU to PROVE that a very small and newly developing unique human being is not in fact a human being. YOU go ahead and prove that the magic personhood fairy taps you on the head when it’s time to be a human.
We didn’t need to define it in the past. We didn’t have a multi-billion dollar international industry based on the wholesale slaughter of babies until now. So, again I ask abortion devotees, PROVE that a new human being is something else. Maybe it’s a goldfish?
Ninek, I didn’t know that being for legal abortion made me an abortion devotee, but I’ll try to take a stab at your comment.
You say that we didn’t need to define it in the past, and that is utterly untrue. Throughout history, there have been many debates on when personhood begins. There was the medieval idea that a fetus only became a child until quickening. There were some people who believed that a fetus got a soul 40 days after conception. Only until relative recently did we get this idea that at conception, an embryo is a full human being. If you read the link that I provided, you would see that 30 years ago, even some major evangelical leaders weren’t convinced of that fact.
I’m not trying to say that an embryo or a fetus is a goldfish. It has human DNA, and given the right (or even the wrong conditions) it will develop into a human being. I just don’t think (and have seen no proof that) it deserves full human rights.
Alice, the blog post wasn’t talking about the Bible so much as it was talking about how quickly attitudes towards fetal personhood and abortion have changed so quickly. I don’t see how that is irrelevant. If something is true, shouldn’t it have always been true? What has changed between now and then?
JackBorsch, what is it then that makes a human being a human being?
@Jack, I’m pretty sick and tired of hearing about white privileged people keeping the black man down. This is the type of crap that I learned in the humanities department, particulary multiculturialism studies, at the secular university I attended. People were defined according to race, gender, and class. How about values? I only used Oprah and Obama to make a point that the privileged in this society is not all white males/females. I in no way mean this to be insensitive to any racial minorities. Racism is evil. But, should those that are privileged and in a higher economic status be made to feel guilty just for that?
sorry for the typos, can’t get the spell check to work.
Jack: Well, Doug, we could always go back to the traditional value of having the top tax bracket taxed at 90% or so.
Ha! I hear you, Holmes. My dad worked 33 years for the Internal revenue Service. You know – for a few years after World War II, it maxed out at 94% – I believe. As the 1960s went on, it went down to 91% or 90%.
There is a valid concern about: “past a point, higher taxes mean such a slower economy that they’re a net negative.” If anything is pertinent, here, I’d say the thing is that nobody is talking about raising the top marginal rate to 94%, or 90%, or even 60% or 50% or 40%. It’s only going back to a lesser top rate, which was the case in times of good economic growth in the past. (For that matter – the “Nifty Fifties” and the 1960s – the “Go-Go years,” featured the highest income tax rates, ever, in the US.)
Christine: You also didn’t address anything in the blog post, so I was redirecting you. I’m also fairly sure that if God meant us to know that an embryo is a human being, it would have been clearly stated in the Bible. It isn’t, so I don’t buy your reasoning about there being no reason why we don’t consider a fetus a human.
Christine, let me reply to this, as a Pro-Choicer. You have a massively good point about Biblical definitions. However – why would people who don’t necessarily bother with the Bible worry about that? “A human” -this is open to definition.
There’s no reason for us to consider a fetus a human being, either.
Have to say, “human being” *has* to apply to the unborn. “Human” as an adjective simply *has* to apply, and the “state of being,” here, is satisfied by the zygote, blastocyst, embryo, etc. This is not the same thing as “legal human being,” or “person,” etc. It could be a toenail clipping, after all – “human,” undeniably, in the adjectival sense. As for “being,” then “having existence” is sufficient, and the toenail clipping satisfies that. It’s there, it’s human. Okay, so then the arguing begins…. People picking and choosing their preferred definitions.
That’s not the kind of thing that one would leave up to chance. While the Bible does condone slavery, it also confirms the humanity of slaves. It does no such thing with unborn children.
Well, there’s the good point that if “God – supposedly the author of the Bible” was really against abortion, it would be mentioned in the Mosaic Law – the Law of Moses in the Old Testament. Given all the detailed, even finely broken-down rules for this and that (incuding many things that would be considered comparitively trivial) there, it’s ludicrous to maintain that the “Bible is really against abortion.” The New Testament doesn’t address it. Now then, there are some Old Testament passages that are ambiguous – they can be interpreted from a pro-life or a pro-choice perspective. The arguing over them will never end.
You’re evidently pro-choice, right? Are you really concerned with interpretations of the Old Testament?
You advocate for killing small humans because you can. You question whether or not they even have any right at all to their own existence. You are an abortion advocate, an abortion devotee, and whatever other pro-abortion name fits. I like ‘devotee’ because I find abortion advocates to have a zeal for abortion which borders on religious fervor.
Throughout human history, you will find sporadic mentions of ‘ensoulment’ and the like, but it was not until the last century that humans began killing each other by the millions. You only quote obscure references in a vain attempt to legitimize your passion for the murder of our smallest members of our human community.
Feminists used highly-charged and emotional appeals all through the 60’s and 70’s to promote abortion. (the poor suffering women, woe is them!). Now, devotees are using any and all excuses (they’re not really human! they’re parasites! they’ve invaded women’s bodies! Ultrasound is rape!) and I gotta say: if you’d used these verbal excuses in the 60’s and 70’s, abortion would have never succeeded in killing over 50 million American children. No one would have been able to stomach such gross dehumanization. But incrementally, here we are, with at least 1 out of 5 pregnancies ending in death to the fetus via paid murder.
I was a premie, so I am personally offended at claims that pre-born children are less than people.
Your continued dehumanization of human children does absolutely nothing to convince me that abortion is anything but brutal, bloody murder. I’m glad you’re not trying to win converts to your side, because if you were you’d be failing.
Doug, you should not read Shakespeare without some understanding that he was writing hundreds of years ago. Likewise, you should not read the Bible and expect it to address abortion, texting, or Apollo Moon Landings. The Bible does not mention that it is a sin to drive an automobile while drunk and kill people. Does that mean that Christians should condone drunk driving??? Of course not. Automobiles hadn’t been invented yet. Use your head, man! Up until the last century, abortion was usually a life and death risk to the mother. That is why, historically, most people killed or abandonned their unwanted children after birth.
JackBorsch, what is it then that makes a human being a human being?
Did you miss the bit from the dictionary that said the only qualification was being an organism that is a member of our species, which a gestating human being is?
Here are Rick Santorum’s solutions on how to fix both economy and the public health of our society:
http://www.ricksantorum.com/oped/my-economic-freedom-agenda
They seem pretty good to me.
Tyler, I read it. There is some silly ranting about Obama (which would be expected). And there are shots taken at Romney, but they fall totally flat right away. Mitt has proven himself as a good financial manager. Santorum is a “pork barrel” and “earmarks” guy from way back – it’s a matter of public record.
I am not saying that Romney has any foolproof “plan” or “magic bullet.” Ain’t no such thing. I am for the Keystone Pipeline – Canada is a massively stable energy supplier compared to almost all other places on earth, after all. But this talk of “unleashing America’s domestic energy production” is grossly misleading – the US’s energy production is not all that much in the whole scheme of the world, and we now live in a global economy. Were we to “drastically” increase our energy production, within what is possible – we’re still only talking a percentage point, maybe two, as far as world energy and the effect on supply and prices.
Also – I agree that Santorum has a point about gov’t regulation – it is hurting us, economically. However – “All Obama administration regulations that have an economic burden over $100 million will be repealed” – this is *nothing* – it’s a talking point aimed at people too gullible to know any better. $100 million ain’t squat. If Santorum is reluctant to spell out anything – I don’t blame him. He really just wants to get in office, and all this talk of “what I will do” would soon fall by the wayside. There’s nothing to prevent that from happening.
“two income tax rates of 10% and 28%. To help families, I’ll triple the personal deduction for children and eliminate the marriage tax penalty.”
I don’t know how those tax rates would work out. The past few decades show that such measures really only benefit the super-rich. As for the deductions for children – again, why should you, me, or Joe Blow pay less taxes just because the choice is to have kids? This is not what we need, now. What we need is to cut the gov’t deficit.
The “marriage tax penalty” – heh – “Married, filing jointly” is a boon to the majority of taxpayers that qualify. It’s only if you have both people making closer to the same money that any “penalty” could be considered, versus “married filing separately.” If one person is the primary breadwinner, then the way it is now is not a penalty, but a great advantage.
But hey, if we want to talk about deductions, okay – I say take them all away. No deductions for your pet causes, mine, anybody’s – no nothing. But that will never happen. Not until a time after so much economic pain that almost everything we talk about on this board is shown as relatively moot.
Forget Shakespeare. Abortion advocates would do well to read Don Quixote. LOL!!
Jack: We have science, which proves to us that we have a genetically distinct human being gestated.
Jack, doesn’t even have to be “genetically distinct.” Merely being “human” (as an adjective) and having existence – “a state of being” is enough. It exists, it’s human, it’s a human being. More than one genetically identical entities could both be human beings, and really – they don’t even need to be so identical.
Humanity is based on legality? I don’t think so. Humans don’t suddenly become un-human based on legality. You can take away human rights, but you cannot make people all of a sudden not people.
“Humanity” is in question. Does this not imply “being humane,” etc.? -Things that can require some mental awareness, etc.? It’s at issue. It’s not necessarily just that exact same as “human” (adjectival sense).
You are right – “legality” need not matter, depending on what type of meaning we’re looking for. However, it really is the legal sense of “human being,” which largely equates to personhood, and in large measure that’s the issue.
Right – “humans don’t suddenly become un-human based on legality.” But that’s not the issue.
“Take away human rights”? No, that’s really not the way it works. They can be attributed or not.
Doe: I think Fox recently stated around 50% of children born are to single women?
Yeah, Doe, that sounds right. I’m pro-choice, and I’m as surprised as anyone.
AH, the human s. human being, vs. person argument! So tired of it, and it never stops. But as tenacious as it is, it is absolutely ridiculous. We know better now. We have the 4d ultrasound, We can prove heartbeats, brainwaves, pain and dreams. We can prove how we are NEVER made better as a people when we kill our most vulnerable members.
And yet there will be these women who show up here, who somehow believe that their right to kill their unborn somehow makes them stronger, freeer women. The irony? They don’t see it: you see yourselves as vulnerable women because you can become pregnant. And when you so, you believe the killing will transform your weakness into strength and wholeness. How amazingly, stunningly, ignorant.
I know that there are lots of comments for me to address, but this one really struck me:
You only quote obscure references in a vain attempt to legitimize your passion for the murder of our smallest members of our human community.
Ninek, you don’t know me. Usually I’m all about how wonderful it is that the internet brings people together from all sorts of different backgrounds, but this…this is just a terrible thing to say to another person, especially someone you don’t know personally. You don’t know who I am and what I do in my spare time and what my family is like and what my background is. Why do you assume that I have a passion for murdering babies? I think abortion should be legal and available, but my no means am I a deranged baby-killer. I also think that we should be working towards creating a society that is truly pro-life, where abortions would be rare. Welfare systems would work, and kids wouldn’t linger in the foster care system for years and years and girls wouldn’t get kicked out of their homes for being pregnant.
I mean, I’m in a pretty tough academic discipline, and I get harsh criticism all the time, but never, ever in my life has someone stooped to a personal attack like that. Never. It’s certainly not the kind of reaction that I would expect from a pro-life blog peopled by religious folk. I’ve been posting here for a couple days, and the amount of vitriol that I’ve seen here is staggering. I’ve been ridiculed and mocked and assigned all sorts of horrible motives because of my beliefs. Is that really the kind of environment that you all want here?
It’s been a very informative few days, folks, but this is too much for me. God’s peace to you all.
ninek: Doug, you should not read Shakespeare without some understanding that he was writing hundreds of years ago. Likewise, you should not read the Bible and expect it to address abortion, texting, or Apollo Moon Landings. The Bible does not mention that it is a sin to drive an automobile while drunk and kill people. Does that mean that Christians should condone drunk driving??? Of course not. Automobiles hadn’t been invented yet. Use your head, man!
“Using our heads” instantly reveals that automobiles weren’t known back then, but abortion certainly was. Moon landings weren’t the case, either. Given the detailed Mosaic Law, it’s ludicrous that the biblical god was really against abortion, and somehow just neglected to mention it.
There are plenty of examples where the biblical god didn’t necessarily value unborn life positively. Speaking of “heads,” consider 2 Kings 2:23 and onward – some old homeboy named Elisha is trucking along a road, and here come some rude boys that say to him, basically “get out of here, baldy.”
Well, old Elisha didn’t like this, so he curses the boys in the name of God, and God sends two bears to tear up 42 of the kids. (Dang – that’s quite a reception committee for poor ol’ Elisah.) Is calling somebody “baldhead” or the like worth being killed by bears? According to the God of the Old Testament, it is.
Christine J: I know that there are lots of comments for me to address, but this one really struck me:
“You only quote obscure references in a vain attempt to legitimize your passion for the murder of our smallest members of our human community.”
____
Christine, you know that it’s not “murder,” anyway, right? That somebody does not favor legal abortion in no way makes it “murder.” The degree to which the unborn are “members of our human community” is a valid question, as is if it would trump the rights of the pregnant woman.
Alice, the blog post wasn’t talking about the Bible so much as it was talking about how quickly attitudes towards fetal personhood and abortion have changed so quickly. I don’t see how that is irrelevant. If something is true, shouldn’t it have always been true? What has changed between now and then?
One, attitudes towards the personhood of the unborn and abortion have not changed that much. People have become more passionate about it, so if you went that direction, you would be right. But this idea that some time between 1979 there was this sudden flash of insight is made up out of whole cloth. The pro-life movement did not spring out of the USCCB’s heads, fully grown and wearing armor, sometime within the last few decades. Simply put, the blog post is wrong. Way wrong. As I said, abortion apologists are not your go-to group for What Pro-Lifers Think. That’s a good way to build up useless strawmen and never engage the actual pro-life movement.
As far as things being true, you’re right that if something is a fact (like the fact that the unborn are indeed fully human, which is a fact), it is true in all cases and for all people. However, not all facts are always known in all cases and for all people. We are allowed to learn new things and alter our behaviors based on the new information we take in. And while we certainly did know that life begins at conception prior to 1973 (the year of Roe), ultrasound technology, our understanding of prenatal biology, and our ability to observe the unborn in the womb have grown by leaps and bounds since that time. So, if you absolutely must validate that joke of a blog post (don’t, though, because it really is totally worthless) by looking for something to have changed, this would be it. We learned more. We learned more about the unborn. And by learning, people have grown more passionate about stopping what is–and always has been–a grave evil.
Christine, God WILL bless us because our cause is, well, Godly.
If you believe abortion should be legal, then you are EQUAL in moral stature with those who advocate wholesale slaughter. Get off the fence! WHY, exactly, should it be rare? Perhaps, because it is wrong.
You cannot defend what you stand for. It is untenable as it is unholy. You want to leave this board, fine, But do it with the full knowledge that you came to a place where we will not tolerate the idea of dead babies.
Vitriol??? You betcha. We’re mad as HELL.
X, I agree that the programs could be improved. What is the “certificate”? The GED?
No. It’s basically a generic piece of paper that says “Job Readiness Training Certificate” that no employer cares about. I’ve gone through the program offered where I used to live. It’s a load of crap.
While I also agree that in general, more education is better than less, I question how much of an effect there would be. Would there be jobs for these now more-educated people? There are plenty of college grads pushing brooms, so to speak, already.
Part of the job counseling/educational experience would probably be looking at the job market to determine what sort of jobs are in demand in that area and provide the training for that job so that the candidate can get the required education in the most timely manner possible, with additional job counseling so that as they gain more qualifications and progress in their education, they become employable in the same industry in entry-level jobs to provide experience as well.
Mandating childcare programs would place a greater financial burden on the employers – something that’s counter-productive if we’re trying to expand employment.
I wouldn’t necessarily mandate it. I would incentivize it with tax cuts. We’d make back the loss in taxable earnings from additional workers contributing taxes, and the money we’d no longer be spending on welfare programs.
X: No. It’s basically a generic piece of paper that says “Job Readiness Training Certificate” that no employer cares about. I’ve gone through the program offered where I used to live. It’s a load of crap.
Okay – I believe that.
“While I also agree that in general, more education is better than less, I question how much of an effect there would be. Would there be jobs for these now more-educated people? There are plenty of college grads pushing brooms, so to speak, already.”
Part of the job counseling/educational experience would probably be looking at the job market to determine what sort of jobs are in demand in that area and provide the training for that job so that the candidate can get the required education in the most timely manner possible, with additional job counseling so that as they gain more qualifications and progress in their education, they become employable in the same industry in entry-level jobs to provide experience as well.
Yeah – “looking at the job market.” Hey – it’s over-saturated in most places, already. If the demand is not there, it’s not there, and I’d say that applies doubly, trebly, or more for those who come through such a system as you propose, versus the “normal” channels.
Not saying it’s not a valid goal – making them employable, and/or eligible for better pay, but the demand for labor has to be there in the first place.
“Mandating childcare programs would place a greater financial burden on the employers – something that’s counter-productive if we’re trying to expand employment.”
I wouldn’t necessarily mandate it. I would incentivize it with tax cuts. We’d make back the loss in taxable earnings from additional workers contributing taxes, and the money we’d no longer be spending on welfare programs.
A lot of “ifs” there, X. If employers thought it was a good enough deal to go with. If the whole thing actually did work out to be a net positive for the gov’t. If it ended up resulting in “additional workers” – how would that actually occur?
For all I know, some of what you say would happen. But we are facing problems in the multi-billions and trillions of Dollars. What is required to not only fix this, but even just bring the further “damage” to a halt is so severe that it’s just not going to happen, no matter who the President is.
Heather: aaaaghhhh! doug and hal have been here for a long time. its always always the same stuff.
Yep – the debate has been the same, all along, Heather. It’s a philosophical matter.
Doug wrote the following (combined here as one paragraph): There are plenty of examples where the biblical god didn’t necessarily value unborn life positively. Speaking of “heads,” consider 2 Kings 2:23 and onward – some old homeboy named Elisha is trucking along a road, and here come some rude boys that say to him, basically “get out of here, baldy.” Well, old Elisha didn’t like this, so he curses the boys in the name of God, and God sends two bears to tear up 42 of the kids. (Dang – that’s quite a reception committee for poor ol’ Elisah.) Is calling somebody “baldhead” or the like worth being killed by bears? According to the God of the Old Testament, it is.
What Doug doesn’t seem to understand is that God is God and not another human being. His glory is more important than our happiness although both are bound up together. It seems to me that Doug in the above piece goes even further than those boys did. They merely mocked the bringer of the Word of God–note that Elisha (which means “God is my Saviour”) was not merely a “homeboy”–whereas Doug mocks the Word of God itself. Of course, that same Word of God says that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.
According to the Bible, human life is special and sacred because it originally resembled in some ways God who had created it. Though that likeness has been lost, God still restores it in some. God keeps His promises, and the wages of sin is death. And God (and His minister, the civil government) has the authority to end human life; He is not a man. Those boys knew (or should have known) the Fifth Commandment which implies respect to one’s elders (let alone God’s prophets). The civil code which God had given Israel even included provision for capital punishment of children who rebelled against their parents, though there is little evidence that it was much used (I think that there might have been one instance in the wilderness wanderings but that might have been a case of blasphemy against God).
The welfare of America, according to founders such as George Washington and one or both of the Websters, depends on the fear that Americans have for God and a similar though lesser respect that American children have for their parents. I haven’t read it, but I can well believe that every American ought to be reading Rick Santorum’s It Takes a Family.
What Doug doesn’t seem to understand is that God is God and not another human being. His glory is more important than our happiness although both are bound up together. It seems to me that Doug in the above piece goes even further than those boys did. They merely mocked the bringer of the Word of God–note that Elisha (which means “God is my Saviour”) was not merely a “homeboy”–whereas Doug mocks the Word of God itself. Of course, that same Word of God says that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.
Jon, I wasn’t trying to mock anything. My point is that just as some people will quote biblical verses with an eye to “every life is sacred,” so can quite a few verses be presented where in the Old Testament the concern was not with the unborn life – either not at all or where it was certainly not first priority.
“You only quote obscure references in a vain attempt to legitimize your passion for the murder of our smallest members of our human community.
Ninek, you don’t know me. Usually I’m all about how wonderful it is that the internet brings people together from all sorts of different backgrounds, but this…this is just a terrible thing to say to another person, especially someone you don’t know personally. You don’t know who I am and what I do in my spare time and what my family is like and what my background is. Why do you assume that I have a passion for murdering babies? I think abortion should be legal and available, but my no means am I a deranged baby-killer.”
Christine, if you think abortion should be legal and available, and you think that a fetus isn’t a person, then you may kid yourself about what you stand for but let me remind you: PP’s mission statement online still says they’re about population control. PP is building new facilities in minority areas. Margaret Sanger may be dead, but PP still has awards named after her and still celebrates her. Her writings speak for themselves and the evidence of her Negro Project still speaks for itself. During a still-legal abortion, a human being isn’t gently removed from his mother’s womb. There is nothing gentle about it. I’m not going to be gentle with people who advocate for this brutal act. Every single abortion is bloody. Every single one, Christine, and just because some of you kid yourselves that that blood doesn’t really belong to a person, it doesn’t make you right. 2 + 2 = 4. And it always will. Abortion is murder and it always will be.
It is frightening that many abortion defenders do honestly consider themselves compassionate people. Too bad. I don’t come on the internet to sing Kumbaya with people who don’t want to face what abortion is. If you think I think you’re ”a deranged baby-killer” and it offends you, it offends you so much that you don’t want to comment here anymore then good!! GOOD!! It means it pricked your conscience. You’re thinking. And you’re thinking that you don’t want to be a deranged baby killer. It bothers you to even imagine someone would think of you that way. GOOD. I hope all abortion defenders, advocates, and devotees would become uncomfortable with the idea that killing small humans is an ugly thing.
Abortion is ugly, Christine. I use words like ‘small and defenseless human’ and ‘it’s murder’ because that is how it is when you take away the euphemisms and double talk. I don’t think that you personally are a ‘deranged baby killer.’ But you are spot on: abortion is indeed deranged and it does indeed kill babies.
Maybe I’m alienating people who might otherwise become pro-life. I kind of doubt it. I didn’t become pro-life because some Christian sweet-talked me into it. I became a pro-life activist because it’s the right thing to do. For humankind. For all of us.
Preach it, Ninek! You are exactly right.
Doug wrote, “I wasn’t trying to mock anything. My point is that just as some people will quote biblical verses with an eye to ‘every life is sacred,’ so can quite a few verses be presented where in the Old Testament the concern was not with the unborn life – either not at all or where it was certainly not first priority.”
I don’t think an agnostic or atheist needs to try to mock. It’s his general attitude of carelessness and unbelief and is the reason that verbal profanity of God’s name and the Lord Jesus Christ’s is common in our society. Doug was mocking God whether he was trying to or not. He should try not to (as maybe he usually does).
The concern in the Old Testament is the same as that in the New: the restoration of human beings and of fellowship with the Creator. The Bible is His love letter to them, but it’s real, so the bad news of sin precedes the good news of salvation.
Doug wrote, “Given the detailed Mosaic Law, it’s ludicrous that the biblical god was really against abortion, and somehow just neglected to mention it.”
First of all, God didn’t need to mention abortion there. He had already established the sanctity of human life in His covenant with Noah, the new Adam (whom He had established after He destroyed the world for its violence). He had reiterated it in the Sixth Commandment against murder. He had made clear that unlike the false gods of the surrounding nations, He was not to be worshiped with child sacrifice and fornication. He had also, depending on one’s translation of Exodus 21:22-25, specifically dealt with abortion. Nevertheless, a comprehensive abortion law was unnecessary because the Israelite culture was not the culture of death that American culture has become.
In the New Testament, the Jews came into contacts with the Greeks and their widespread use of an abortifacient herb, which they almost made extinct. The injunction against witchcraft in Galatians 5:19-21 might have referred to the use of these “contraceptives” (see, for example, http://www.opc.org/nh.html?article_id=471, ).
It doesn’t make sense to make a statement explicitly condemning abortion when “Thou shalt not kill.” had already been stated. “Thou shalt not kill.” is “Thou shalt not kill.”, regardless of how old the human being is or where they are located, I would imagine.
How that goes over their heads, I don’t know.
Xalisae: It doesn’t make sense to make a statement explicitly condemning abortion when “Thou shalt not kill.” had already been stated. “Thou shalt not kill.” is “Thou shalt not kill.”, regardless of how old the human being is or where they are located, I would imagine.
X, it’s actually “Thou shalt not murder.” The Old Testament is chock-full of killing, rules for killing, etc. It’d be pretty crazy to act like “all killing” was prohibited in the O.T. What was prohibited was illegal killing, and abortion wasn’t illegal.
If one’s son was stubborn and wouldn’t listen, he could be stoned to death. If you cursed your mom or dad, you were supposed to be killed. And if you picked up sticks on the Sabbath day, then you were gonna get whacked – the stoning thing again.
Jon: First of all, God didn’t need to mention abortion there. He had already established the sanctity of human life in His covenant with Noah, the new Adam (whom He had established after He destroyed the world for its violence). He had reiterated it in the Sixth Commandment against murder.
What law against abortion do you think there was back then, Jon? The Commandment would have only prohibited it had it been illegal, to start with. For whatever “sanctity of human life” had been established, it was still routine to call for killing in this or that situation, to massacre this or that group…. And the Hebrew law and tradition was that personhood was at birth.
He had made clear that unlike the false gods of the surrounding nations, He was not to be worshiped with child sacrifice and fornication. He had also, depending on one’s translation of Exodus 21:22-25, specifically dealt with abortion.
That passage is ambiguous. It’s at least as rational to see it calling for a fine if the woman miscarries, with “an eye for an eye” only applying if the woman was harmed.
In the New Testament, the Jews came into contacts with the Greeks and their widespread use of an abortifacient herb, which they almost made extinct.
Not sure what you mean there. You mean it had almost made them extinct? That the herb was almost wiped out?
The injunction against witchcraft in Galatians 5:19-21 might have referred to the use of these “contraceptives.”
Well, possibly. :) I guess at least one Orthodox Presbyterian feels that way. And there are plenty of Christian churches, sects, and organizations that agree that the Bible does not condemn abortion.
Another one that’s open to interpretation is in Numbers 5 where for a test for infidelity a priest mixes a drink that includes dust from the temple floor, which would presumably contain ergot mold, a known abortifacient. If the woman miscarried, she was seen as guilty, and if she didn’t, then not guilty.
The arguing over this stuff never ends…. I think the point remains that with Moses having 600+ laws, then if abortion was actually a concern, it would have been mentioned.
Doug,
We have Sacred Tradition (if you want to look at abortion from a religious perspective) and the Catholic Church has always taught abortion is intrinsically evil. The Didache is one of the writings outside of Sacred Scripture that addresses abortion, i.e. you shall not kill a child by abortion.
Doug wrote, “For whatever ‘sanctity of human life’ had been established, it was still routine to call for killing in this or that situation, to massacre this or that group…”
No, it wasn’t. Prove what you say. God did say to Abraham (Gen. 15:13,16), “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own [Egypt]… In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here [Canaan], for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.” God called for them to be exterminated. You just don’t believe in His existence or His Word. Killing the Canaanites (Amorites) was not murder.
Doug wrote, “The Hebrew law and tradition was that personhood was at birth.”
No, it wasn’t. Didn’t I point out to you the Noahic covenant? It was essentially a repeat of the covenant made with Adam except that it contained provisions to restrain human violence. Very clearly human life itself was sacred.
Here is what God said to Noah (Genesis 9): “Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything. But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it. And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being. Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind. As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it.”
The sentence that I put in bold is in verse form; it was a poem, I suppose, meant to be remembered and often repeated. It established the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death. The Old Testament provided for the punishment of the murderer by an avenger of blood, a near relative of the victim. In the New Testament, because God’s people no longer live in a theocracy, the civil government is God’s minister and (Romans 13) has the power of the sword. The sword is only used to kill. Again, capital punishment for the crime of murder shows the sanctity of human life. The only just punishment for deliberately taking a human life is the loss of one’s own.
Note the last sentence in the piece of Genesis 9 that I quoted. Israelites were all forward-thinking, hoping to have a posterity in the land of God’s promise and to produce the Messiah (Genesis 3:15) who would defeat Satan and bring blessing to all the nations of the earth (Genesis 12:3). They wouldn’t have wanted to kill their children or implement “birth control.” God specifically told them not to kill their children as the surrounding nations did in idol worship. Those nations aren’t on record as aborting their children, either. Anyway, technically speaking, most women would die without the miracle drug, penicillin. Where would forced abortion (not spontaneous miscarriage) have been spontaneously practiced two to four thousand years ago? Surgically, I mean.
And, as I also wrote in my comment at 5:57 pm on February 29, there is Exodus 21:22-25. The controversy there is not first of all a question of ambiguity but of translation. So even if we argue about the necessity of a specific law against forced abortion, there may very well have been this one, anyway. And what’s more, you have to know that some of Israel’s civil code was less than ideal because of the hardness of their hearts, the same hardness that you exhibit when pretending an unborn child isn’t worthy of the same protection as you are. You need to hear Jesus’ answer to the Pharisees who asked, “Why then did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” (Matt. 19:7)
“surgically practiced,” I mean, not “spontaneously practiced.” I’m getting my words mixed up.
Some Pharisees came to [Jesus] to test Him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
“Haven’t you read,” He replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
“Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”
Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”
Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”
Then people brought little children to Jesus for Him to place His hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked them.
Jesus said, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” When He had placed his hands on them, He went on from there.
You see, Doug, that when Pharisees said that the Mosaic law made provision for easy divorce, Jesus went back to first principles. The first principles such as the unity of a man and woman in marriage (Gen. 2:24) or the sanctity of human life (Gen. 9:6) are not hard to understand. The reality of living in a messed-up world is what necessitates a host of rules and regulations.
God could have made us mere animals or something more like robots. He didn’t. I think we can say that He is pro-choice. He wants fellowship with us. He had made us somewhat like Himself. He wants willing and loving obedience.
Doug asked about the abortifacient herbs which the Greeks had almost made extinct. Wikipedia says the following,
The ancient Greek colony of Cyrene at one time had an economy based almost entirely on the production and export of the plant silphium, considered a powerful abortifacient. Silphium figured so prominently in the wealth of Cyrene that the plant appeared on coins minted there. Silphium, which was native only to that part of Libya, was overharvested by the Greeks and was effectively driven to extinction. The standard theory, however, has been challenged by a whole spectrum of alternatives (from an extinction due to climate factors, to the so-coveted product being in fact a recipe made of a composite of herbs, attribution to a single species meant perhaps as a disinformation attempt).
I had written, “The injunction against witchcraft in Galatians 5:19-21 might have referred to the use of these ‘contraceptives.’
Perhaps my meaning wasn’t clear, because you seem to have thought I was saying that Galations 5:19-21 was advocating “contraceptives” instead of forbidding them. If Galations 5:19-21 is referring to them, then it is certainly forbidding the use of them.
You wrote: “There are plenty of Christian churches, sects, and organizations that agree that the Bible does not condemn abortion.”
But the Orthodox Presbyterian author of the article you were commenting on had exactly the opposite emphasis:
“It is… highly significant that the church down through the centuries—Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant alike—held one view on contraception with remarkable unanimity until just recently. It was condemned in strong terms, and contraception was often made a criminal act.”
You concluded, “I think the point remains that with Moses having 600+ laws, then if abortion was actually a concern, it would have been mentioned.”
I don’t think you’ve proved your point. Abortion wasn’t a concern; it just didn’t happen. There wasn’t a law against Internet pornography in the Mosaic law, either. But even if abortion like polygamy and easy divorce was tolerated by God in the Old Testament (and the mold theory of yours give me pause, though I’m not going to take your word for it), abortion certainly is prohibited in the New Testament. Like Jesus we go back to the universal principles, and the Church has never had a problem to understand until the nineteenth century when a large part of it went apostate and lost confidence in the Bible as God’s Word (higher criticism began).
I conclude with the final paragraph from the piece I linked to in my comment on February 29 at 5:57 pm. Just substitute the word abortion for the word contraception. See also Doe’s comment above on March 1 at 9:37 pm.
This historical context alone does not prove that contraception is wrong. However, should we expect an immoral and hedonistic society to come up with genuine moral insight, contrary to nearly two millennia of consistent Christian teaching?
Jon, I appreciate the effort you put into your posts. You’re right – I don’t believe in “God” as you do, nor do I think the Bible is literally true. Yet I do think some things in the Bible can be argued, and that some things are a matter of interpretation, or – as you say – translations.
“For whatever ‘sanctity of human life’ had been established, it was still routine to call for killing in this or that situation, to massacre this or that group…”
Jon: No, it wasn’t. Prove what you say.
I’m thinking of stuff like the Mosaic law saying, “Thou shalt kill” (in this or that situation) rather than the “Thou Shalt not kill,” being in effect. Leviticus 26:22 “I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children” – what had the kids done?
Numbers 31:17 “Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.” That would obviously include pregnant women (how better to know they’d laid with a man?) and thus the unborn would be killed.
As I said to Xalisae: “If one’s son was stubborn and wouldn’t listen, he could be stoned to death. If you cursed your mom or dad, you were supposed to be killed. And if you picked up sticks on the Sabbath day, then you were gonna get whacked – the stoning thing again.”
____
I was wondering about this: “In the New Testament, the Jews came into contacts with the Greeks and their widespread use of an abortifacient herb, which they almost made extinct.”
Did you mean the Jews pretty much wiped out the herb? The Greeks?
____
Abortion wasn’t a concern; it just didn’t happen. There wasn’t a law against Internet pornography in the Mosaic law, either.
While they didn’t have the internet, they did have abortion. It was known in the ancient world, even before biblical times. The Chinese wrote about it, the Egyptians, the Assyrians, Sumerians, Greeks, Romans…
Doug, I’m not disputing with you that God has the right to give and take human life. He is its author. In all the examples you just gave in your comment on March 2 at 10:16 pm, God is requiring death. The wages of sin is death. That’s basic Christian theology (in the Old Testament too). To live apart from God is death, and in all the instances you gave, there was sin at the root. What I thought we were disputing–because it’s necessary to your argument–was whether the Jews themselves routinely called for killing with the blessing of God and not as a matter of justice or national defense. They didn’t.
My comment on March 2 at 7:23 am already answered your question about my reference to the abortifacient herb. “Silphium… was overharvested by the Greeks and was effectively driven to extinction.”
You wrote, “The Chinese wrote about [abortion], the Egyptians, the Assyrians, Sumerians, Greeks, Romans…” Interesting. But as far as we know, the Jews didn’t write about it, right?
Jon, sorry about not seeing what you said about the Greeks and Silphium. I was dog-tired last night, but that’s not really an excuse. Yours were the last posts I got to, and I just wasn’t worth a crap at that point.
Good point about the Jews and writings on abortion. I don’t know – it bears further inquiry re herbal lore. (It was known, per se, and there are references to it in the Talmud.)
What I meant about “the Hebrew law and tradition was that personhood was at birth” is that Jewish law held that life begins at birth. For that matter, it’s still that way today. It’s when the baby is halfway out of the womb that the value is considered equal.
The Talmud is specific about this – if the mother’s life is endangered by the fetus then it has to be taken out by abortion, as the woman’s life is more valuable.
Okay, “God can require death.” In the case of unborn babies, is Original Sin presumed, there too? I ask because there’s no rational way that we earthly humans can “blame” the unborn – it’s not like they do anything, consciously, in that respect.
Jews do not believe in Original Sin, as I recall. Not that it matters to our discussion, necessarily, just noting it.
What do you think about miscarriages, where it’s not due to the will of the pregnant woman nor conscious efforts on her part? If God is omniscient, then God knows these miscarriages will take place, right? And really, the same for abortions.
Hey Doug,
Do you think God can create a rock so big that even He can’t move it?
Do you believe human beings have Free Will?
Doug, you can’t appeal to the Talmud in our discussion. Looking at Wikipedia just now, I see that its earliest component, the Mishnah, wasn’t put into writing until 200 B.C. The Old Testament had already been completed. Moses, in fact, lived around 1500 B.C. So, no, it’s not true that “Jewish law held that life begins at birth.” You’re talking about the more modern history of Judaism and that’s irrelevant.
You asked, “In the case of unborn babies, is Original Sin presumed, there too?” My best answer comes from King David, an Old Testament Jew (Psalm 51:5-6 NIV):
Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb;
you taught me wisdom in that secret place.
You asked, “What do you think about miscarriages, where it’s not due to the will of the pregnant woman nor conscious efforts on her part? If God is omniscient, then God knows these miscarriages will take place, right? And really, the same for abortions.” Of course! In God we live and move and have our being as the Greek poets said (Acts 17:28). But in abortion, the mother forces a miscarriage, whereas in a spontaneous miscarriage, the death happens despite her best motherly efforts. And if you are questioning God for what He does, then you had better first read Job’s account in the Old Testament and the apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans in the New.
Another Old Testament Jew, Isaiah wrote (45:9), “Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker, to him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground. Does the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you making?’ Does your work say, ‘He has no hands’?”
Praxedes: Do you think God can create a rock so big that even He can’t move it?
I don’t believe in the God of the Bible, Praxedes, but going with what most Christians think, despite the paradoxical sound of the question, I don’t think so. I guess the idea is that God is “outside” of spacetime, and thus could “move” all matter and energy.
Do you believe human beings have Free Will?
I always did, but now I’m not so sure. Brain scans of people deciding on things have shown impulses that occur a significant amount of time prior to the person making the decision. We don’t really know what it is yet…
If we assert that there is an omniscient God, then I think that argues strongly against free will – it’d mean we’re predestined.
Doug, you can’t appeal to the Talmud in our discussion. Looking at Wikipedia just now, I see that its earliest component, the Mishnah, wasn’t put into writing until 200 B.C. The Old Testament had already been completed. Moses, in fact, lived around 1500 B.C. So, no, it’s not true that “Jewish law held that life begins at birth.” You’re talking about the more modern history of Judaism and that’s irrelevant.
Jon – very good point. I didn’t know the Talmud was more recent, and much more recent than when Moses was supposedly doing his thing. I guess the question of the Jews and abortion, back then, remains.
____
You asked, “In the case of unborn babies, is Original Sin presumed, there too?” My best answer comes from King David, an Old Testament Jew (Psalm 51:5-6 NIV):
Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb;
you taught me wisdom in that secret place.
Does this mean that the biblical God sees in that way too? “I’m just asking, and not saying it really applies to the abortion debate. “Sin for babies” just seems pretty crazy to me.
____
You asked, “What do you think about miscarriages, where it’s not due to the will of the pregnant woman nor conscious efforts on her part? If God is omniscient, then God knows these miscarriages will take place, right? And really, the same for abortions.” Of course! In God we live and move and have our being as the Greek poets said (Acts 17:28). But in abortion, the mother forces a miscarriage, whereas in a spontaneous miscarriage, the death happens despite her best motherly efforts. And if you are questioning God for what He does, then you had better first read Job’s account in the Old Testament and the apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans in the New.
I’m not saying the literal-Bible believers should “question God.” I’m saying that given the beliefs some people have, if we accept them as the premise, then what does that mean for the idea of free will, predestination, etc.?
I’ve heard people say that “God is outside of time.” Well, okay, but there is still that which we call the future, and if events in that time are known – to God (or any entity, really) then we’re predestined and really do not have free will. If God “knows ahead of time” (as we see it), that a miscarriage will happen, then we can’t change it. Who is to say it’s not part of God’s plan, at that point?
Doug wrote, “I guess the question of the Jews and abortion, back then, remains.” Perhaps, but absence of information would back my belief that the Jews weren’t interested in getting rid of their unborn children.
On February 28 at 7:27 pm, you wrote the comment which started this whole discussion.
You said: If “God – supposedly the author of the Bible” was really against abortion, it would be mentioned in the Mosaic Law – the Law of Moses in the Old Testament. Given all the detailed, even finely broken-down rules for this and that (incuding many things that would be considered comparitively trivial) there, it’s ludicrous to maintain that the “Bible is really against abortion.” The New Testament doesn’t address it. Now then, there are some Old Testament passages that are ambiguous – they can be interpreted from a pro-life or a pro-choice perspective. The arguing over them will never end.
You haven’t established that abortion was commonly practiced by the Jews over the time period of the Old Testament. (You claim that it’s dealt with in the Talmud, and I pointed out that by that time the Greeks had come into contact with the Jews.) Certainly surgical abortion was out of the question. Chemical abortion, I’ve said, may been addressed in the Gal. 5:19-21 passage. If it was viewed as witchcraft in the New Testament, then, certainly it would have also been viewed as witchcraft in the Old Testament. The Mosaic law does forbid witchcraft. The penalty of witchcraft was death. (Israel’s first king Saul had difficulty finding a medium once he had totally rejected God; he had previously enforced the law against witchcraft.)
At any rate, even if God overlooked the sin of abortion in the Old Testament, the New Testament age is one of greater light. The apostle Peter at Pentecost (soon after the Ascension) quoted Old Testament prophecies of the enlightenment. Jesus said that because of the hardness of the human heart God had tolerated easy divorce (and I might add polygamy and perhaps also abortion) in the Old Testament age, but He has now poured out His Holy Spirit in the New Testament age. So, as Jesus did, the Church goes back to first principles and seeks to realize the spirit of the law, the ideal.
God said to Noah (Genesis 9): “Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything. But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it. And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being. Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind. As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it.”
The Bible teaches us, therefore, that abortion is an attack on the image of God. It’s a manifestation of the same violence which God punished with the Flood, washing clean the whole world and saving Noah (and his family), a preacher of righteousness.
Jon – you may be right about the ancient Hebrews. If they didn’t practice abortion, would that really change the point about it not being mentioned in the Bible, though? Were people doing everything that was prohibited under the Mosaic law?
____
At any rate, even if God overlooked the sin of abortion in the Old Testament…
That’s putting the cart before the horse, however – there’s no agreement that abortion really was seen as a sin. It’s a question. In the Old Testament, for their actions and inactions, the biblical God did order the killing of many people, and often the unborn would be included. The unborn could not be said to be guilty of the offenses of the born, however, and that’s why I asked about “Original Sin.” Yet, there too – would that really matter? The killings in the O.T. that we’re talking about were for much more specific things than just “Original Sin.”
____
Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind
Other Bible versions say “another person’s life,” rather than “human blood.” Or, “Whoever takes the life of a man will have his life taken.” Or, ” a human being,” and the question remains as to whether the unborn were so considered. “Human blood” would certainly apply to killing another person, a man, etc., but to work things backwards and maintain that it necessarily would apply to the unborn isn’t supported by anything other than what may be wishful thinking, especially in light of the admonishments to kill the unborn.
____
The Bible teaches us, therefore, that abortion is an attack on the image of God.
If I agreed with you, in the beginning, then we’d end up in the same place. You have your favored translations and interpretations, but there are plenty of other Christian churches and sects that disagree with you – they say the Bible does not forbid abortion and that abortion isn’t “an attack on the image of God.”
I’d also say these questions remain:
I’m not saying the literal-Bible believers should “question God.” I’m saying that given the beliefs some people have, if we accept them as the premise, then what does that mean for the idea of free will, predestination, etc.?
I’ve heard people say that “God is outside of time.” Well, okay, but there is still that which we call the future, and if events in that time are known – to God (or any entity, really) then we’re predestined and really do not have free will. If God “knows ahead of time” (as we see it), that a miscarriage will happen, then we can’t change it. Who is to say it’s not part of God’s plan, at that point?
Doug, you wrote, “If [the ancient Hebrews] didn’t practice abortion, would that really change the point about it not being mentioned in the Bible, though? Were people doing everything that was prohibited under the Mosaic law?”
There are two things wrote with what you wrote there: (1) Abortion is addressed in the Bible as I have adamantly said from the start. I made an allowance that perhaps the Old Testament didn’t specifically refer to abortion, but I’ve also made clear that even if there is no such specific reference–and that’s arguable–a specific reference is unnecessary. The argument that human beings are made in the image of God and therefore His property means absolutely no trespassing, and I’ve quoted to you His Word on that (Gen. 9, the covenant with man re-established after the violence preceding the Flood).
(2) Whether people were doing everything prohibited under the Mosaic law is irrelevant. We know for a fact that they weren’t, anyway. See the words of the Lord Jesus Christ (Matt. 23; cf. Matt. 11:28-30). Read what the apostle Paul wrote to the Roman Jews (Rom. 2:17-24; Rom. 3:1-4):
“Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and boast in God; if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law; if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of little children, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth— you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? As it is written: ‘God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.‘
“What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision? Much in every way! First of all, the Jews have been entrusted with the very words of God. What if some were unfaithful? Will their unfaithfulness nullify God’s faithfulness? Not at all! Let God be true, and every human being a liar. As it is written: ‘So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge.’”
The fact that the Old Testament people of God could not and did not keep the covenant which He had made with them is the basis of the gospel. As King David, the man “after God’s own heart,” confessed in Psalm 51, he was sinful from conception. We are sinners by nature, and a polluted fountain cannot produce good water. We need a Saviour, one who shares the same human nature as we but is as unpolluted as Adam was before his fall into sin.
Doug wrote, “[God’s perhaps overlooking the sin of abortion in the Old Testament] is putting the cart before the horse – there’s no agreement that abortion really was seen as a sin. It’s a question.”
No, it isn’t putting the cart before the cart before the horse at all. Did you read the Scripture quoted as my comment on March 2 at 6:15 am? Jesus Christ spoke of an Old Testament law, i.e. easy divorce, as not being in accord with God’s plan. Probably I shouldn’t have used the word sin there. But that’s why I used the word overlooked. Now go back and read the comment before this one that you’re reading now. Compare it with the comment that preceded the words you wrote which I quoted above. The Jews were unable to keep the letter of the law, let alone the spirit of the law. As far as the Old Testament Jews were concerned, easy divorce, polygamy, and slavery (a soft form of it) were not sins. Their hearts were as hard and unable to understand as yours seems to be.
I’d like to jump on the rest of your comment on March 5 at 3:40 pm, Doug, but I don’t have the time right now. Maybe later today (where I am that may be twelve hours or so).
Doug wrote, “In the Old Testament, for their actions and inactions, the biblical God did order the killing of many people, and often the unborn would be included. The unborn could not be said to be guilty of the offenses of the born, however, and that’s why I asked about ‘Original Sin.’ Yet, there too – would that really matter? The killings in the O.T. that we’re talking about were for much more specific things than just ‘Original Sin.’”
Look at your last sentence, Doug. What specific things (sins) are you talking about that you say they weren’t punishment for original sin? Certainly the subjugation and extermination of the Canaanites was both a fulfillment of Noah’s prophetic curse on his son Ham (and grandson Canaan, though Ham committed the sin) and punishment for the extent of their depravity (as archaelogy has revealed, and there is a National Geographic book I once saw about it).
“Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind.“ (Gen. 9:6)
In response, Doug wrote, “Other Bible versions say ‘another person’s life,’ rather than ‘human blood.’ Or, “Whoever takes the life of a man will have his life taken.” Or, ‘a human being,’ and the question remains as to whether the unborn were so considered.”
What versions, Doug? You’re not being very specific. Replacing man with person sounds like a gender-neutral version in which the concern is not accurate translation but modern sensibility. The New International Version which I’ve been using with you is easily understood because it uses the principle of dynamic equivalence. Verbal equivalence is more accurate, being word-for-word translation. However, even the New International Version uses the word blood, and so I’m quite sure that blood was used in the original Hebrew. Probably the Hebrew word for man also referred to the whole human race, which is the reason the NIV editors chose it. The New American Standard, for example, uses the word man.
There’s no question that unborn human children are human beings (and persons in the sense of the original Hebrew word). You’re just being silly if you say otherwise. The fetus is just a stage of development. A human fetus is as much a human being as a human adult is.
“the NIV editors chose human” (not “the NIV editors chose it”)
Doug wrote, “‘Human blood’ would certainly apply to killing another person, a man, etc., but to work things backwards and maintain that it necessarily would apply to the unborn isn’t supported by anything other than what may be wishful thinking, especially in light of the admonishments to kill the unborn.”
Nonsense. See my previous comment. I think you’re just being silly and engaging in wishful thinking yourself. And what “admonishments to kill the unborn” are you thinking of? There are none, except in relation to an entire group of people whom God was judging. One of the first principles of Scripture interpretation is to keep a selected piece in its context. I wouldn’t expect an unbeliever to do a very good job of interpretation, but you’re just being lazy when you don’t even provide a reference.
Doug asked, “Who is to say it’s not part of God’s plan, at that point?”
My church makes a distinction between God’s revealed will and His secret will. The Ten Commandments, for example, are His revealed will. If I were a mother and had an unplanned pregnancy, for example, abortion is out of the question. It’s not God’s will for my life. However, if I have a choice of two job offers, I will pray to God and ask Him for wisdom, but I don’t know His will in this case.
Everything is part of God’s plan in the sense that nothing thwarts His purposes. God even uses sin in the end to increase His own glory. However, God is not the author of sin. He does only good. Where does sin come from? That’s a question that we cannot answer. I heard one pastor say that sin is the greatest contradiction in God’s world.
Abortion is addressed in the Bible as I have adamantly said from the start. I made an allowance that perhaps the Old Testament didn’t specifically refer to abortion, but I’ve also made clear that even if there is no such specific reference–and that’s arguable–a specific reference is unnecessary. The argument that human beings are made in the image of God and therefore His property means absolutely no trespassing, and I’ve quoted to you His Word on that (Gen. 9, the covenant with man re-established after the violence preceding the Flood).
Jon, for different Bible versions I just scrolled through a whole bunch at http://www.biblegateway.com/
There is still the question of whether the unborn were considered “human beings” and valued positively. Some Bible scholars and other churches, rather than your own, don’t think abortion is prohibited by the Bible. Would “man’s blood” necessarily include the unborn? On the genetic level, yes, certainly. But the biblical God allowed many types of legal killing, it was not that “shedding human blood” was prohibited, per se.
With that in mind, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God has God made man,” obviously would not apply to legal killing. In the absence of specific condemnation of abortion, we wouldn’t necessarily have to apply it to abortion – it was a very relative law. Also, to a point in gestation, the zygote, blastocyst, etc., hardly look like a person, so there is the question of what is meant by “image.”
____
And what “admonishments to kill the unborn” are you thinking of? There are none, except in relation to an entire group of people whom God was judging. One of the first principles of Scripture interpretation is to keep a selected piece in its context. I wouldn’t expect an unbeliever to do a very good job of interpretation, but you’re just being lazy when you don’t even provide a reference.
Didn’t mean to be lazy, but there are plenty of examples. Yes, it was entire groups of people, as with I Samuel 15:3, where God orders Saul to massacre the Amalekites. Or in Numbers 31: ” kill every woman who has known man by lying with him.”
Judah was Jewish, correct? In Genesis 38, Tamar is pregnant and Judah orders her to be burned to death. If the unborn were considered persons, would Judah not have waited until Tamar had given birth?
____
Everything is part of God’s plan in the sense that nothing thwarts His purposes. God even uses sin in the end to increase His own glory.
Okay, so as before, since an omniscient being would know everything that will occur in what we conceive of as the future, it would really mean that we don’t have free will, and that we’re predestined. That miscarriages as well as abortions are not “thwarting the biblical God,” and that they’re “part of the plan.”
Doug wrote, “There is still the question of whether the unborn were considered ‘human beings’ and valued positively.”
No, there isn’t. And you used the passive voice. Why? Who’s doing the considering? The very Word of God here (Gen. 9:6), explicitly so, could not be more comprehensive. Not only does God speak of shedding human blood–and the life of the flesh is in the blood according to Leviticus 17:11 (so shedding of blood refers to killing), also compiled by Moses–but God also gives the reason that He had made human beings like Himself thus distinguishing them from the animals to whom He gives no special protection. In other words, the protection is for a species, not a level of development or “quality of living.”
You wrote, “The biblical God allowed many types of legal killing, it was not that ‘shedding human blood’ was prohibited, per se.”
No, God is setting a price on human life. His Word here to Noah quite obviously prohibits killing except in retributive punishment (justice) which ascribes great value to human life. His covenant with Israel also didn’t allow the Israelites to kill each other. The nearest relative of a murdered man had the responsibility to seek out and kill the murderer, and there were cities of refuge to which the suspected murderer could flee for appeal to the elders at the gate (justice system).
It’s very easy to state that “God allowed many types of legal killing,” but is it true? You’re being lazy again and not giving references. The legal code of a nation (because you’re obviously not speaking of God’s covenant with Noah but are being vague) governs the life of its citizens in relation to each other and foreigners in their midst. It does not apply to warfare with enemies, and the penalties for breaking it are not to be confused with breaking it. (Legal conduct is a different thing than the penalty for illegal conduct.)
You wrote, “It was a very relative law.”
No, it isn’t relative at all. It applies to all human beings and forbids the killing (except in retribution) of any human being, whether zygote or octogenarian.
You wrote, “To a point in gestation, the zygote, blastocyst, etc., hardly look like a person, so there is the question of what is meant by ‘image.'”
No, there isn’t. Your interpretation is neither logical nor informed. A human fetus looks just as much like God as any other person; God does not have a body. The resemblance is spiritual. “Put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph. 4:24). “Put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator” (Col. 3:10).
You wrote, “There are plenty of examples [of admonishments to kill the unborn]. Yes, it was entire groups of people, as with I Samuel 15:3, where God orders Saul to massacre the Amalekites. Or in Numbers 31: ‘kill every woman who has known man by lying with him.’ … If the unborn were considered persons, would Judah not have waited until Tamar had given birth.”
The Amelekites were not Israelites, and their extermination would obviously include the pre-born ones. God commanded Saul to exterminate all the Amelekites as you just noted (“massacre”). In fact, God was angry with Saul because Saul did not completely exterminate them. The Midianites of Numbers 31 were also under God’s vengeance.
As for Judah, I’m not sure how his sinful treatment of Tamar helps your argument. The whole point with regard to Judah and his son’s treatment of her, along with the even more vile deeds of Levi and Simeon, is that Israel and his sons didn’t in any way deserve God’s grace. They broke God’s laws. They were faithless, and the people of God in the Old Testament and now in the New have often been faithless. God continually punished Israel with famine, sword, and the diseases of Egypt, saving only a remnant. Even today we see Him leaving the post-Christian West to the ruin it has chosen and building His Church in places like China.
Doug said, “[Then] we don’t have free will… we’re predestined.”
Certainly we’re predestined. Certainly God uses all sin, including every case of forced abortion, to accomplish His purposes and increase His glory. Certainly also God is not the author of sin.
As for free will, I’m not sure what you mean by the term. Martin Luther wrote a book called The Bondage of the Will. Adam had a free will at Creation, but with the Fall he died spiritually. He became bent (I like this word C.S. Lewis used). To be saved, you must be born again by the Spirit of God. The wind blows where it wants, but you only see it by its effects.
My father always said that the co-existence of human responsibility and divine sovereignty cannot be understand. A favourite verse of his was Phil. 2:12b-13: “Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.”
Quite a thread. Jon, good engagement. Doug, Jon’s not trying to win an argument — he’s faithfully representing something that doesn’t adapt to argument. It is what it is.
Here, Doug, you find an interlocutor indeed in whom there is no guile. ;-)
Jon: Certainly we’re predestined. Certainly God uses all sin, including every case of forced abortion, to accomplish His purposes and increase His glory. Certainly also God is not the author of sin.
Well, that surprised me – it’s rare to see somebody say we’re predestined.
____
As for free will, I’m not sure what you mean by the term. Martin Luther wrote a book called The Bondage of the Will. Adam had a free will at Creation, but with the Fall he died spiritually. He became bent (I like this word C.S. Lewis used). To be saved, you must be born again by the Spirit of God. The wind blows where it wants, but you only see it by its effects.
I’d say free will is the ability to make events or not. To alter the future. If we are predestined, then why all the hubbub over people having abortions?
___
My father always said that the co-existence of human responsibility and divine sovereignty cannot be understand. A favourite verse of his was Phil. 2:12b-13: “Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.”
Heh – agreed that some of it is “hard to understand,” but given the often-seen human desire for beliefs in this realm, it’s not surprising that they persist.
Rasqual, yes, Jon is doing an excellent job. I’d never accuse him of guile. However, there *is* argument about some it it…
Jon, again – I appreciate your efforts in this thread. It’s going to “time-out” in 2 or 3 more days, and that always sucks when the discussion is still going. I usually propose that if so, we move ahead in time to a “Life Links” or “Proliferations” thread to continue, since they’re usually “grab-bags” anyway. Doesn’t work out, most of the time – it’s hard to maintain interest, I suppose.
Doug asked, “If we are predestined, then why all the hubbub over people having abortions?”
They are still responsible.
One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use? (Rom. 9:19-21)
One thing I’d like to go back to and take off from is the likeness that man has with God. I’d said that the resemblance is spiritual rather than physical, but maybe my emphasis was wrong. The resemblance has more to do with function and position than composition.
Whoever sheds man’s blood,
By man his blood shall be shed,
For in the image of God
He made man.
As for you, be fruitful and multiply;
Populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it. (Gen. 9:6-7, New American Standard)
God had purged the world of its violence. After the Flood, God established His covenant with man just as He had at Creation. (Only, the new covenant dealt with effects of the Fall, sin and death.) At Creation, in the first mention of God’s image, He had said,
“Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” (Gen. 1:26, NAS)
If the second clause is an explanation of the first, then being made in God’s image means ruling. Man was God’s steward to take care of everything; God placed everything in man’s care. Man also had at his disposal everything except the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:16).
God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so. (Gen. 1:27-30, NAS)
The animals were not given to man to eat at Creation because sin and death had not yet entered the world. Being a good ruler like God, man would not want to kill them. After the Fall, however, God gave man clothes made from animal skin. To Noah He said,
“Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; I give all to you, as I gave the green plant. Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. Surely I will require your lifeblood; from every beast I will require it. And from every man, from every man’s brother I will require the life of man.” (Gen. 9:5, NAS)
Going back to the first chapters of Genesis, I think we can we can see the basis for the old-fashioned concept of chivalry. The Strong One (which is the meaning of God) had made man like Himself; however, man was the lesser being. The Strong One told man to rule everything. Man began to do this when he named the animals and told woman (Eve) the Strong One’s instructions.
Adam and man are the same word in Hebrew and mean earth. “Dust you are,” the Strong One said to Adam after the Fall, “and to dust you shall return.” However, Eve means life. Whereas man’s job is to husband the earth for food, woman’s job is to produce offspring. As ruler, a good man is willing to fight and die for his family; as nurturer, a good woman is willing to live for them.
God told man to reproduce and multiply, but without his helper he would fail. She was made from him and is weaker than he; blood (life) periodically pours out of her, and pregnancy makes her vulnerable. Yet Adam’s wife literally was his flesh; they were made to live as one. As Matthew Henry wrote, “Eve was not taken out of Adam’s head to rule over him, neither out of his feet to be trampled on by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected by him, and near his heart to be loved by him.”
The Enemy (which is the meaning of Satan) chose the likeness of a snake, which ever since then, generally speaking, attacks man at his feet. The Enemy deceived the woman, attacking the stronger (the man) through the weaker (the woman). The Strong One told the woman that her salvation would come through one of her offspring. So Adam’s wife Eve likely thought Cain was the one promised. Of course, the Messiah did not come until thousands of years later, and when He came, He was born of a virgin by the power of the Strong One.
Joshua the Messiah (Jesus is Greek for Joshua and like Elisha means that God saves) crushed the Enemy under His feet and rose from the dead. He now rules at the right hand of God. He is the perfect man. He said, “I came that My people may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). He is the way, the truth, and the life. His people are one with Him.
He said to His apostles, “You know that those who are recognized as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them; and their great men exercise authority over them. But it is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant; and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (NAS Mark 10:42-43). “You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet” (NAS John 13:13-14).
To be pro-life is to be pro-woman. A boy should never hit a girl. Let a man find his willing helper and then rule and love his family well; never leave your partner. As Mark Steyn wrote in January (National Review Online), the “sinking of the West” will look more like the Costa Concordia than the Titanic.
Doug, Rasqual’s “no guile” comment was an allusion to Nathanael in John 1:47, perhaps made because I had just referred to John 3. I’ll take it as a compliment, but Nathanael’s response makes it a dubious one. I think Rasqual made it impishly.
I don’t think that I will want to continue our discussion on another thread. It’s taken a lot of time, and though I’ve enjoyed it, I’ve other things to attend to. Thanks for corresponding. May God give you faith and thus be with you.
In writing that last sentence, I may have left you with the impression that I think you’re passive. I don’t. The call to repent is to you, too. You can heed it and live, or go to hell correct in your assertion that hell is what you were predestined for, anyway. God is pro-life, however; He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. He is also pro-choice, but He is not the author of sin. And when somebody repents and converts, he does so because of God’s work of grace in him.
Jon, no problem, and I thank you. I totally acknowledge your beliefs, and while I don’t agree with all of them, in no way am I saying “you’re a bad person,” or anything like that because that’s who you are.
I wish I’d done better – even as far as debating what is discernable to all of us in the printed Bible – sometimes my work lets me stay online all day, and other times I have a lot of driving to do – lately from MD to NJ to WV and then all the way out to SW Kansas, which is where I am this evening, Dodge City, to be exact.
Good luck and happiness to you. :)