Soooo....what you are saying is that "the fruit depart her" includes the case where the baby is born dead, and that fact would have been considered outside the realm of mischief? And that the mischief that may or may not follow could only pertain to the woman? Not only does your interpretation go against what is the intent of the verse, it also goes against:
1. Law as practiced today in all cultures.
2. Both the pro-choice and pro-life movements. The pro-choice movement insists on the definition of the fetus as something inseparable from the woman. How then could the fetus be considered as something separate but non-consequential? The pro-life movement, which bases many of its beliefs on the Bible, considers life as sacred and God-given, not something that can be taken away or considered of no import, as your interpretation seems to suggest.
Your original argument implies that Christianity is silent on the question of abortion because it supports the practice. This has not been true throughout history, and is most emphatically not true today! A more logical, coherent reason why it is not mentioned in the Bible is simply because the sacredness of life is a given, and that the unthinkable doesn't need to be discussed.
>>>Racial but not Physical? Sorry, that was obviously a Dubya-ism. In fact, I read in the latest Atlantic last night that DNA evidence indicates that racial differences are purely physical. One part of the article states that there is more divergence in the DNA of a single hillside population of Chimpanzees than there is in the entire human race.
Thanks for the dialogue also, Virg. I've learned some things too.
Thanks, Virg, for your comments. Heck, I agree with you - science can't be looked at in isolation. As for eugenics, I think that we need to be on guard against repeating what happened in the '20s and '30s, where scientists extended their findings to absurdity. One aside: eugenics was not soley focused on physical, but also on racial and IQ characteristics as well. Fortunately, the implementation of eugenics carried out by Nazi Germany brought society to its senses.
Swedenborg was probably one of the last persons who could be called a true renaissance man - someone who knew major portions of the sum total of knowledge during his time. I agree that his major fallacy was the doctrine of uses, which lives on in many guises.
Your last paragraph ties in with what I was getting at in my previous post - that we can't think about abortion outside of the situation - that doctrinaire statements about when life starts are necessary but NOT sufficient to understanding the problem.
As a fundamentalist Christian, I agree also that many of my brothers and sisters are too quick to rush to conclusions, and to retreat into 'just-so' acceptance of the world around us. Thankfully, there are very exciting movements in the Christian fundamentalist movement towards education and dialogue.
Hmmm...I focused on Christianity because I believe it is different. Besides, the post that started this thread talked about Christian values, not simply religious ones.
Your second point neatly buttresses my argument - if your sins are paid for, then why adhere to a moral standard? Christianity answers this postulate. This is quite different than what you originally said - that religion is a simplistic injunction to believers - don't sin or you'll go to hell. And, why not stray into the particulars of one religion? Why frame your discourse in banal generalities?
If you want to talk in public about the difference between morals and religion, you need to have some background in the subject. One given would be that you know something about what has gone before. Otherwise, you would simply be stating an unsupportable opinion, not reasoning. If your education didn't provide you with the basics, then perhaps you need to do so on your own.
You're reaping the benefits today. A case can be made that The Great Awakening of the late 1800's protected us from the rise of socialism that overwhelmed many other countries in the early 1900's. Abolutionists were in large part also acting out their Christian faith.
Most of what we know as science today sprang from Christianity, based on the idea that, if an intelligent being made the world, then we could study that world. Science isn't divergent from Christianity, only naturalism is.
I'd also get rid of the ethno-centric viewpoint of Christianity. Christianity is not a Western concept, never has, and never will be. Look at the rise of Christianity in Southeast Asia - more missionaries come from South Korea than come from the U.S. Is it because those poor people have been subjugated by the lies and half-truths of us invading, hate-mongering Anglo-Saxons? What an arrogant viewpoint. Get real - those folks have a choice and they've made it and survived and prospered. Where would you rather live - in Vietnam or South Korea? In Cambodia or South Korea?
...the answer if you kill people you will go to hell (ie because god says so) is a lot simpler, straightforward...
But that's not what Christianity teaches! Your sins have been paid for, and nothing can change that. Christians are supposed to limit their actions in obedience to (and in celebration of) God's will, not because they will go to hell if they don't. Not exactly the straightforward answer you suppose.
Take the secular argument to its logical conclusion and you'll find that there is really no reason not to sin outside of belief in God. Don't you guys read Nietzsche in school anymore?
Correct. also irrelevant, since there is virtually no-one who actually PROMOTES abortion outside of China.
What if the amniocentesis indicates that the baby may be retarded? Is abortion promoted in that case? Should it be?
What about Jocelyn Elders' statement that "abortion has had an important and positive public health effect." Doesn't that statement promote abortion? (Elders went on to become Surgeon General.)
BTW, I also believe that being pro-life means also being anti-death penalty.
Look at God in the context of a relationship. Wouldn't the forcible prevention of a suicide attempt by God be the use of force? What is the quality of a relationship that is the result of force? Me, I answered Christ's call freely, and freely stay. I believe that God wants a two-way relationship with everyone, not one that results from force.
You have a choice, and if you choose to commit suicide, God will probably try to reason with you (those in suicide prevention training are taught that no one is ever 100% committed to suicide during an attempt), but I doubt that he will force you to stop.
As for preventing someone else from murdering you: The idea of free will is very much in play here and has to be, otherwise we would all be automatons. Look at it from God's point of view: What is the greater sin, that someone die or that our humanity is reduced irretrievably? (see The Grand Inquisitor by Dostoevsky for the best treatment of this struggle).
Fourth, you have every right to, but please stop trying to make converts here. You seem to enjoy your theology, and that's great. I'm truly happy for you. But until the day my potted plant bursts into flames and starts giving me The Word of God, neither I nor many other people here are going to accept that Jerry Falwell's speeches and some 3000 year old book have any basing in fact nor much bearing on modern topics.
Ah, but you've fallen into the modern trap that if it isn't less than 50 years old, then obviously, it can't have any bearing on modern topics or basis in fact. Wonderful how those that place their trust in the theory that things are getting better and better through evolutionary change can at the same time assert that those same things have nothing to do with the past.
Why doesn't that "3000-year old book" have any bearing on modern topics? Has human nature changed so much in the past 3000 years? Not from my observation.
And you are right, "anomaly" has every right to "make converts" here. Something to do with free speech. Seems to me you are giving the "appearance" of denying him those rights:)
Have you ever listened to Jerry Falwell? To put the shoe on the other foot, would you like to have your beliefs categorized and characterized by a nitwit like Carl Sagan? I dislike Falwell for his political grandstanding, but that doesn't influence my beliefs.
Your argument depends upon scientism, which allows no other source of knowledge into the realm of discussion or decision-making. Eugenics is a natural and observed outcome of such "thinking in isolation" when applied to the question of life. Eugenics is also the natural outcome if you determine an individual's humanity based upon what Swedenborg called a person's 'uses,' which is what I was objecting to in my earlier post.
Why make science the only basis for determining when a fetus is "human?" Most individuals do not rely on science as the only source of truth, much to the chagrin of some in the scientific community. I think their conclusion (which I share) is based upon solid reasoning. Science is the haphazard application of a finite set of observations onto an amazingly complex world. When it reaches the realm of the social sciences, I contend that the scientific method breaks down completely and becomes, for all practical purposes, useless (I've done graduate research in Psychology and was horrified at how stats and observational data are stretched to support immensely specious arguments).
In your last argument, you base your decision to support abortion on when the fetus can be considered separate from the mother. With research and scientific advances, there is the increasing possibility that 1st trimester pregnancies will be viable outside the womb. When that happens, will you then decide that abortion should not take place in the 1st trimester? Will pure science drive your decision?
Thanks for a very interesting, cogently worded post!
The US is the most religious country in the Western World and also happens to be the most violent by orders of magnitude. Its murder rate per capita is seven times that of France, where active practice of religion is virtually nonexistant. Within the US, the most religious regions/states of the country (i.e., Louisiana) also have among the highest rates of poverty, teen pregnancy, drug abuse/alcoholism, and murder. Louisiana's murder rate is over twice the national average even though they lead the nation in churchgoing.
Really? So, naturally, religion == violence? Or perhaps it could be 'access to guns' == violence? Or poverty == violence? Or 'drug abuse/alcoholism' == violence?
Yet the liberal centers of secular humanism such as Berkeley and New York City are shooting-free. I wonder why that is. I wonder why all of these school shootings are taking place in small, conservative, religious towns that Norman Rockwell would have been proud to call home. Hell, the school that was shot up in Santee, CA is one mile from the famous Institute for Creation Research. It seems that God-soaked is becoming synonymous with blood-soaked.
San Diego is a small, conservate, religious town? You gotta get out more! New York is safe? You definitely gotta get out more!
Personally I am sickened by the way that you people gleefully try to twist the murders of innocent people to further your own agenda. When events like Columbine happen I think you people are secretly overjoyed because you can go in and say "See, we need to hang up the Ten Commandments now!" even though if the Ten Commandments were hanging in Columbine the body count would have probably tripled.
Really? What do you base that deduction on? Read the transcripts of the videos that the Columbine shooters made - nihilist and ego-centric. I don't rejoice in the incidents - I've got a 10 year old son and each incident strikes cold fear into my heart. BTW, please realize that any statement that includes the phrase you people does not exactly lend weight to an argument.
Teacher-led prayer was taken out of schools in the sixties, kiddo, you're a bit too late to blame school shootings on it. Any other bright ideas?
Hmmmm...chances are that you (and I) were both affected by that injunction, along with all those who raised their kids in the 70's and 80's. Basically, you are denying cross-generational societal effects.
Soooo...what you are saying is that Margaret Sanger did not believe in eugenics?
Here's a quote from Margaret herself:
"Neither in the neighborhood nor the school should the progress of the normal, healthy, growing child be impeded by those poor little victims of hereditary disease whose bodies and brains are incurably subnormal from the start. While everything must be done to right the wrong that was committed in bringing them with such tragic handicaps into this world, it is certainly not the children of the next generation -- the veritable torchbearers of the race -- upon whose shoulders this load should be placed." - NO HEALTHY RACE WITHOUT BIRTH CONTROL
By Margaret Sanger, 1921.
(http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/healthy.htm)
if it can't do bad, and can't do good, it can't be a human being.,/p>
Some parapelegics and severely mentally handicapped fit that criteria. Does that make them non-human, also? Pretty slippery slope you're on, I would say.
This is a common trick that is used by many - quoting a verse or passage out of context. Let's include verse 23 also, for the record:
"Now suppose two people are fighting, and in the process, they hurt a pregnant woman so that her child is born prematurely. If no further harm results, then the person responsible must pay damages in the amount the husband demands and the judges approve. But if any harm results, then the offender must be punished according to the injury. If the result is death, the offender must be executed." (NLT)
Or, to use the KJV:
"If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life."
Clearly, the intent of this dictate is that murder of an unborn child is a capital offense, even if it is committed by accident.
If you proceed logically, the inference is that protection of the unborn child is paramount, since in no other situation in the Bible is capital punishment called for when there is accidental loss of life.
Slashdot Mirror
Soooo....what you are saying is that "the fruit depart her" includes the case where the baby is born dead, and that fact would have been considered outside the realm of mischief? And that the mischief that may or may not follow could only pertain to the woman? Not only does your interpretation go against what is the intent of the verse, it also goes against:
1. Law as practiced today in all cultures.
2. Both the pro-choice and pro-life movements. The pro-choice movement insists on the definition of the fetus as something inseparable from the woman. How then could the fetus be considered as something separate but non-consequential? The pro-life movement, which bases many of its beliefs on the Bible, considers life as sacred and God-given, not something that can be taken away or considered of no import, as your interpretation seems to suggest.
Your original argument implies that Christianity is silent on the question of abortion because it supports the practice. This has not been true throughout history, and is most emphatically not true today! A more logical, coherent reason why it is not mentioned in the Bible is simply because the sacredness of life is a given, and that the unthinkable doesn't need to be discussed.
>>>Racial but not Physical? Sorry, that was obviously a Dubya-ism. In fact, I read in the latest Atlantic last night that DNA evidence indicates that racial differences are purely physical. One part of the article states that there is more divergence in the DNA of a single hillside population of Chimpanzees than there is in the entire human race.
Thanks for the dialogue also, Virg. I've learned some things too.
Thanks, Virg, for your comments. Heck, I agree with you - science can't be looked at in isolation. As for eugenics, I think that we need to be on guard against repeating what happened in the '20s and '30s, where scientists extended their findings to absurdity. One aside: eugenics was not soley focused on physical, but also on racial and IQ characteristics as well. Fortunately, the implementation of eugenics carried out by Nazi Germany brought society to its senses.
Swedenborg was probably one of the last persons who could be called a true renaissance man - someone who knew major portions of the sum total of knowledge during his time. I agree that his major fallacy was the doctrine of uses, which lives on in many guises.
Your last paragraph ties in with what I was getting at in my previous post - that we can't think about abortion outside of the situation - that doctrinaire statements about when life starts are necessary but NOT sufficient to understanding the problem.
As a fundamentalist Christian, I agree also that many of my brothers and sisters are too quick to rush to conclusions, and to retreat into 'just-so' acceptance of the world around us. Thankfully, there are very exciting movements in the Christian fundamentalist movement towards education and dialogue.
Hmmm...I focused on Christianity because I believe it is different. Besides, the post that started this thread talked about Christian values, not simply religious ones.
Your second point neatly buttresses my argument - if your sins are paid for, then why adhere to a moral standard? Christianity answers this postulate. This is quite different than what you originally said - that religion is a simplistic injunction to believers - don't sin or you'll go to hell. And, why not stray into the particulars of one religion? Why frame your discourse in banal generalities?
If you want to talk in public about the difference between morals and religion, you need to have some background in the subject. One given would be that you know something about what has gone before. Otherwise, you would simply be stating an unsupportable opinion, not reasoning. If your education didn't provide you with the basics, then perhaps you need to do so on your own.
You're reaping the benefits today. A case can be made that The Great Awakening of the late 1800's protected us from the rise of socialism that overwhelmed many other countries in the early 1900's. Abolutionists were in large part also acting out their Christian faith.
Most of what we know as science today sprang from Christianity, based on the idea that, if an intelligent being made the world, then we could study that world. Science isn't divergent from Christianity, only naturalism is.
I'd also get rid of the ethno-centric viewpoint of Christianity. Christianity is not a Western concept, never has, and never will be. Look at the rise of Christianity in Southeast Asia - more missionaries come from South Korea than come from the U.S. Is it because those poor people have been subjugated by the lies and half-truths of us invading, hate-mongering Anglo-Saxons? What an arrogant viewpoint. Get real - those folks have a choice and they've made it and survived and prospered. Where would you rather live - in Vietnam or South Korea? In Cambodia or South Korea?
But that's not what Christianity teaches! Your sins have been paid for, and nothing can change that. Christians are supposed to limit their actions in obedience to (and in celebration of) God's will, not because they will go to hell if they don't. Not exactly the straightforward answer you suppose.
Take the secular argument to its logical conclusion and you'll find that there is really no reason not to sin outside of belief in God. Don't you guys read Nietzsche in school anymore?
What if the amniocentesis indicates that the baby may be retarded? Is abortion promoted in that case? Should it be?
What about Jocelyn Elders' statement that "abortion has had an important and positive public health effect." Doesn't that statement promote abortion? (Elders went on to become Surgeon General.)
BTW, I also believe that being pro-life means also being anti-death penalty.
Everything you know is wrong - Firesign Theatre
Look at God in the context of a relationship. Wouldn't the forcible prevention of a suicide attempt by God be the use of force? What is the quality of a relationship that is the result of force? Me, I answered Christ's call freely, and freely stay. I believe that God wants a two-way relationship with everyone, not one that results from force.
You have a choice, and if you choose to commit suicide, God will probably try to reason with you (those in suicide prevention training are taught that no one is ever 100% committed to suicide during an attempt), but I doubt that he will force you to stop.
As for preventing someone else from murdering you: The idea of free will is very much in play here and has to be, otherwise we would all be automatons. Look at it from God's point of view: What is the greater sin, that someone die or that our humanity is reduced irretrievably? (see The Grand Inquisitor by Dostoevsky for the best treatment of this struggle).
Thanks, Dave
Fourth, you have every right to, but please stop trying to make converts here. You seem to enjoy your theology, and that's great. I'm truly happy for you. But until the day my potted plant bursts into flames and starts giving me The Word of God, neither I nor many other people here are going to accept that Jerry Falwell's speeches and some 3000 year old book have any basing in fact nor much bearing on modern topics.
Ah, but you've fallen into the modern trap that if it isn't less than 50 years old, then obviously, it can't have any bearing on modern topics or basis in fact. Wonderful how those that place their trust in the theory that things are getting better and better through evolutionary change can at the same time assert that those same things have nothing to do with the past.
Why doesn't that "3000-year old book" have any bearing on modern topics? Has human nature changed so much in the past 3000 years? Not from my observation.
And you are right, "anomaly" has every right to "make converts" here. Something to do with free speech. Seems to me you are giving the "appearance" of denying him those rights :)
Have you ever listened to Jerry Falwell? To put the shoe on the other foot, would you like to have your beliefs categorized and characterized by a nitwit like Carl Sagan? I dislike Falwell for his political grandstanding, but that doesn't influence my beliefs.
Prove it's fiction :)
Everything you know is wrong - Firesign Theatre.
Your argument depends upon scientism, which allows no other source of knowledge into the realm of discussion or decision-making. Eugenics is a natural and observed outcome of such "thinking in isolation" when applied to the question of life. Eugenics is also the natural outcome if you determine an individual's humanity based upon what Swedenborg called a person's 'uses,' which is what I was objecting to in my earlier post.
Why make science the only basis for determining when a fetus is "human?" Most individuals do not rely on science as the only source of truth, much to the chagrin of some in the scientific community. I think their conclusion (which I share) is based upon solid reasoning. Science is the haphazard application of a finite set of observations onto an amazingly complex world. When it reaches the realm of the social sciences, I contend that the scientific method breaks down completely and becomes, for all practical purposes, useless (I've done graduate research in Psychology and was horrified at how stats and observational data are stretched to support immensely specious arguments).
In your last argument, you base your decision to support abortion on when the fetus can be considered separate from the mother. With research and scientific advances, there is the increasing possibility that 1st trimester pregnancies will be viable outside the womb. When that happens, will you then decide that abortion should not take place in the 1st trimester? Will pure science drive your decision?
Thanks for a very interesting, cogently worded post!
DaveReally? So, naturally, religion == violence? Or perhaps it could be 'access to guns' == violence? Or poverty == violence? Or 'drug abuse/alcoholism' == violence?
San Diego is a small, conservate, religious town? You gotta get out more! New York is safe? You definitely gotta get out more!
Really? What do you base that deduction on? Read the transcripts of the videos that the Columbine shooters made - nihilist and ego-centric. I don't rejoice in the incidents - I've got a 10 year old son and each incident strikes cold fear into my heart. BTW, please realize that any statement that includes the phrase you people does not exactly lend weight to an argument.
Hmmmm...chances are that you (and I) were both affected by that injunction, along with all those who raised their kids in the 70's and 80's. Basically, you are denying cross-generational societal effects.
"Neither in the neighborhood nor the school should the progress of the normal, healthy, growing child be impeded by those poor little victims of hereditary disease whose bodies and brains are incurably subnormal from the start. While everything must be done to right the wrong that was committed in bringing them with such tragic handicaps into this world, it is certainly not the children of the next generation -- the veritable torchbearers of the race -- upon whose shoulders this load should be placed." - NO HEALTHY RACE WITHOUT BIRTH CONTROL By Margaret Sanger, 1921. (http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/healthy.htm)
Really? How does partial-birth abortion fit on that time line?
if it can't do bad, and can't do good, it can't be a human being.,/p>
Some parapelegics and severely mentally handicapped fit that criteria. Does that make them non-human, also? Pretty slippery slope you're on, I would say.
This is a common trick that is used by many - quoting a verse or passage out of context. Let's include verse 23 also, for the record:
"Now suppose two people are fighting, and in the process, they hurt a pregnant woman so that her child is born prematurely. If no further harm results, then the person responsible must pay damages in the amount the husband demands and the judges approve. But if any harm results, then the offender must be punished according to the injury. If the result is death, the offender must be executed." (NLT)
Or, to use the KJV:
"If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life."
Clearly, the intent of this dictate is that murder of an unborn child is a capital offense, even if it is committed by accident.
If you proceed logically, the inference is that protection of the unborn child is paramount, since in no other situation in the Bible is capital punishment called for when there is accidental loss of life.