There, that settles it then. Do you ever get tired of spewing this idiocy? Do you actually think this is effective or convincing, or do you just enjoy the little cheap thrill it gives you, like the toddler who shouts, “Poopy!” to see the reaction?
What I don’t get is all these christians meddling in the affairs of others. If I were to believe in an all-powerful, all-knowing, purely good being (and somehow got this messed up with still living with suffering, and having to proove yourself worthy, but this is another debate), I’d stick to being as good as I could, not even sinning in the defense of my enemies, strangers, loved ones or myself. Neither would I blame others for sinning, nor would I mourn other people, or anything really. Because, if God is all that, and someone has an abortion (and if killing something that doesn’t know it’s alive really is a sin), wouldn’t he somehow give the unborn a new opportunity?
The bible is full of implausibilites, plain errors and contradictions, but the teachings of the new testament aren’t all that bad. But! They’re about love and forgiving, not hatred and punishment. If you believe abortion is wrong, don’t have one yourself, and feel free to pray for any aborted babies out there.
And for people who don’t hold life sacred, but are still against abortion: What? If there’s nothing in any way beyond life, noone complains about dying.
If you read my previous post, I said that I don’t spend my time worrying about who does or doesn’t deserve the death penalty, because I feel that the government has no right to impose it.
It doesn’t necessarily follow that the government has no right to mete out punishment of any other kind. I never said I was an anarchist. But if we assume that when dealing with criminals, we have two goals, which are punishing the criminal, and ensuring the public safety (not neccessarily in that order), community service, fines and/or imprisonment are adequate to these needs.
Well, as you know by now, I was more curious about that other post, the one in which you took a shot at those who ‘maintain that life is sacred in some situations but not others’ and ‘believe they are qualified to judge who is and isn’t fit to live’. I thought you had a bright-line reason as to why you have no problem with folks who maintain that liberty is sacred in some situations but not others, folks who believe they are qualified to judge who is and isn’t fit to be free; I honestly hadn’t realized it’s just that you believe imprisonment is adequate, and thus find execution unnecessary.
So just to make sure I’m reading you right and this whole thing can be dropped: you do think the government is qualified to judge who is and isn’t fit to be free, but don’t think it’s qualified to judge who is and isn’t fit to live? Have I got that straight?
This is why symmetry shouldn’t be applied too easily to complex situations. It certainly might seems like death penalty is to murder as a fine is to robbery, but that’s a dangerous oversimplification.
You don’t fine robbers or imprison kidnappers to let them taste their own medicine, you fine robbers to make them pay their debt, and you imprison kidnappers because there’s no easy way to make them pay theirs, so they’re put away to (hopefully) prevent themselves and others from kidnapping again.
(By the way, if it’s not evident already, I don’t think prison is a satisfying solution. It might be better than just letting criminals go, but I still think we should look for an even better solution. Fines are fine, although I hold that property is basically theft anyway, so it doesn’t really matter if you steal it. And I’m not quite sure about DP anymore… I used to oppose it, now I just think it’s infantile.)
This thread is supposed to be about how it’s possible to be anti-abortion and yet (however cautiously) in favour of war and capital punishment, and not just another abortion trainwreck of which we’ve already had plenty… but I’d like to respond to the above quote with one of my own:
If you believe wife-beating is wrong, don’t beat your wife, and feel free to pray for any battered wives out there.
I might have wandered a bit off, but my reply was ment to be about inconsistent christian views of taking life. I took abortion as an example, but the exact same goes with war and death penalty. If you believe in an ultimately good and powerful entity, the only consistent thing to do is to serve it as it demands of you, with no worry of what other people do with their lives.
As (and I thought I made it rather obvious) I’m no christian, your reply to me is rather meaningless.
No, it’s not meaningless. You can leave out the part about praying, and I’ll just say “…don’t lobby for anti-DV legislation” instead if you like.
I disagree with your view as to “the only consistent thing to do”, too. As a Christian, I’m not obliged to divorce myself from secular society; as far as I can tell, it is very much my business to be a part of it, and while I’m willing not, as a rule, to interfere in what other people do with their own lives, I’m supposed to do corporal works of mercy to my fellow man, and not pass by on the other side.
If I observe a murder in process, I should try to prevent it. If I see a sick man by the way, I should tend to him or at minimum bring him to the attention of someone else who will. And so on. It may well be that my duty is to be opposed to abortion too - if it be truly the case that the unborn creature has the right to life and is deserving of protection; if the abortion be not merely a medical procedure for the good of the pregnant woman but an act of unconscionable violence against an innocent party. That is a whole 'nother question; but it’s not good enough simply to beg it by saying that I should serve God and ignore what other people do with their own lives.
anti-DV legislation?
I’m not saying you shouldn’t intervene with a murder, just don’t make yourself a murderer doing it. But at least as I view christianity, or rather the consequences of god being omniyouknowtherest, it’s not so terribly important if things go wrong here and now, as god would fix it in the end. Thus, try to do good, but if you throw god into the mix, the ends DON’T justify the means. This omnigod of yours will make sure everything works out in the end, in the meantime, he’s told you not to kill. If anyone else wants to kill, at the heart of it that’s their buisness, but your duty as a christian might very well be to tell them that they’re wrong, and do all sorts of peaceful things to convince them, or even physically stop them, as long as you’re not hurting anyone. Death penalty and war certainly is hurting people, even if they are “evil”, “deserve it” and serves to reach a greater good. But this greater good is, according to your bible, already being taken care of.
I might have expressed myself a bit to harshly, and I really don’t mind christians telling me that abortion is bad, as long as they leave it at that. Although Der Trihs might be taking it a bit to far himself, I do agree that far too many anti-abortionists these days display a lot more hatred than love, and THAT is what I object to as inconsistent.
Since I don’t believe there’s a god taking care of everything, I personaly believe in sacrifices for a greater good, by the way. I just don’t think war and death penalty are effective means to securing peace.
It seems obvious to me that you can’t be against abortion because “life is sacred” and yet be for the death penalty, unless you profoundly misunderstand what the word “sacred” means, or are an intellectual contortionist of the highest order. Being opposed to abortion and for the death penalty is not necessarily contradictory, provided that your reason for being anti-choice isn’t the “sanctity of life.”
You do. The government (through the courts) must have the ability to remove people from society to protect the public safety, and so I have to concede to them the right to judge who is and isn’t fit to be free. Necessary evil, and all.
Since killing criminals doesn’t contribute to the public safety, affords the government rights over its citizens’ bodies that I don’t think it should have, and is irreversible, I maintain that the government is *not * qualified or within its rights to assign or impose death in punishment. Unnecessary evil, you see.
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah I think you nailed it
Those Roman Catholic priests who actively opposed the Vietnam War (the Berrigan brothers come immediately to mind) were actually ostrasized by the church, not just for the radicalism of their tactics, but for their very opposition to the war. In South America, Roman Catholic clergy who worked for justice and against the oppression of governments there were denied protection by the church and were kidnapped, raped and/or murdered while the church refused to lift a finger. Oh, there were the half-hearted protests filled with faux moral outrage, but the power of the church was never brought to bear. Later, church authorities would lump the whole group – anti-Vietnam War activists, South American activist clergy and so on – together and accuse them of practicing “social theology” or something like that (the second word was theology, I don’t recall what the first one was.)
Bottom line: The Roman Catholic church has never raised a finger to stop a war.
I agree with the OP (I think, or maybe I’m making a huge assumption about what the OP meant.)
If one opposes abortion on religious grounds, then it should be a pretty simple thing to be “pro-life;” one would be in favor of anything that preserved life. Conversely, one would be opposed to anything that artificially shortened life – like bullets and bombs, injections, that sort of thing. At the very least, one would be deeply conflicted about even fighting back when one is physically endangered. The Jehovah’s Witnesses come closest to that kind of pacifism in everyday life (isolated pockets of Amish and Mennonites notwithstanding.) The JWs are opposed to abortion and capital punishment, and refuse to even serve in uniform for pacifist reasons. Of course, most of us realize that pacifism is okay as a concept, but in practice it can get you conquered pretty fast, unless you have the population of India.
But I think the reason we see anti-abortion sentiments coupled with pro-capital punishment sentiments across great swaths of the American landscape is the nature of conservative (that is, puritanical) religion. Religious conservatives are a judgemental bunch, mindful that their God never hesitated to wipe out whole races of people who didn’t deserve to live in the world He created. Religious conservatives are convinced that because they are devoted to God, God is on their side, and as such they can only do right while they are obeying God’s law(s). And in a mind ruled by emotion and religion, saving “babies,” killing murderers and nuking un-Godly races just feels right.
Conservatives, or at least the particular ones we’re talking about here, place a high value on personal responsibility, behaving yourself, looking out for Number One, and facing the consequences of your actions. Out of this mindset grows the attitude that certain criminals deserve to be put to death and shouldn’t be allowed to escape their just punishment; that if you mess up and become pregnant you shouldn’t be allowed to weasel your way out of your responsibility via abortion; and that we have the right to protect ourselves and punish any country that messes with us.
I don’t know whether such an attitude grows out of their religion, or vice versa; it’s a chicken-and-egg question; but I’ll go along with you that such beliefs go hand-in-hand with their religion (a “Christianity” that doesn’t have much use for mercy, forgiveness, humility, or compassion).
I certainly don’t mean to imply that such attitudes are the motivation for all, or even the majority, of people who oppose abortion, or take any other particular side on any other particular controversy.
How about if you believe in the sanctity of innocent life?
Thus you could with perfect consistency believe that the innocent life of a fetus (presuming that it is such) must be protected, but also believe that the innocent life of a murder victim is equally worthy of protection via the DP.
Same thing with supporting a just war as opposed to being a strict pacifist. You believe the innocent victims of an unjust attack are worthy of protection, even if it means killing their attackers. The attackers, not being innocent, are not worthy of the same level of protection.
You can also argue on utilitarian grounds. If we do nothing, X number of innocents will die. If we fight a war (or execute this murderer), X - Y innocents will die, where both X and Y > 0.
Regards,
Shodan
The problem with your question is that there is really no such group as “pro-life”. They are not pro-life, they are anti-abortion.
lol, you can’t be serious. Women’s bodies are designed to carry children during pregnancy, hence hips and fatty tissue. I stopped reading anything you wrote after you said that. You have no valid points at all.
They are designed to survive having children, not to enjoy the process or come out of it healthier. That’s why so many women have died from it, and even today suffer long term damage, ranging from small things like stretch marks to major things like autoimmune disorders from leftover fetal cells.
Translation : You found an excuse, and are refusing to listen.
Well, you could be a Christian who is also a pacifist, who believes that abortion is murder (since presumably God put the zygote in there by design), is also a pacifist, and who believes also that only God can give or take life. Such a person would also oppose Euthanasia.