Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Bobboau on November 28, 2015, 07:35:17 pm
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http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/28/us/colorado-planned-parenthood-shooting/
Been a while since we'd had some good'ole home grown Christian terrorism, was beginning to get bored with the Islamic variety.
Colorado shooting suspect said 'no more baby parts' (http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/29/us-colorado-shooter-idUSKBN0TH05O20151129#kC7PZQw0V1X2ZCh7.97).
We had a long drawn out thread (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=90128.0) about that.
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I'll bite, I can't see in the above links where it says "Christian". Only suspected motives, and the investigators
though NBC reported that sources said investigators still did not know for certain what motivated the gunman.
While I would probably agree that there could be a strong cause for religious motives against an abortion clinic, it doesn't appear confirmed in this case from what else I've seen.
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Yeah, hypothetically it's possible, but I have a funny feeling he's (ironically) "pro-life". It's extremely rare to not have a religious basis for that position, and I have a funny feeling he's not a Jain. I'm willing to go out on a limb and publicly connect the dots at the risk of being caught publicly wrong.
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I'd be very surprised if this wasn't religiously motivated. This shows a ridiculous lack of logic that is typical of religious fanatics. How exactly is killing people "pro-life"? The mind boggles...
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The thing that really gets me here is we seem to have found the one police department and the one SWAT unit in North America outside of maybe ESU or LAPD SWAT who take their job seriously, who are like "do it right or don't do it at all". None of this warrior cop assault resolution ****; if you have to shoot the suspect that is technically a failure. So they spend an hour talking him down, after he's shot five other cops and nobody would have batted an eyelash if they had opted for an assault resolution.
Colorado Springs PD SWAT: apparently the people who do not run around shooting the neighbor's dogs during drug raids and other stupid shenanigans.
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"Find the perfect moment to take out the gunman with a burst of well-placed shots. But take no chances of hitting one of his hostages by mistake." was among the things said captured off police scanners, so it looks like they were looking for an opportunity to take him out and it never presented it's self[1 (http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/28/us/colorado-springs-police-scanner-sniping/index.html)]. Looking through the dialog yeah, they were real pros about it. It really is amazing and testament to these guys' skill that only 3 people were killed.
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Yeah. Considering the previous experiences with terrorists and psychos, this was the best they could do. It was lucky that they captured him alive, but it's no wonder they considered taking him down to prevent further causalities.
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As for using the term "Christian," if this man was moved to take lives, it is not what Jesus taught us.
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Been a while since we'd had some good'ole home grown Christian terrorism, was beginning to get bored with the Islamic variety.
http://economicsandpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Global-Terrorism-Index-2015.pdf
Islamic fundamentalism was not the main cause of terrorism in the West over the last nine years. Eighty percent of deaths by lone wolf terrorists in the West were driven by right wing extremism, nationalism, antigovernment sentiment and political extremism and other forms of supremacy.
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That sneaky little 'lone wolf' part is a pretty massive swindle.
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Still, it's Islamic terrorism that gets all the press. I think Bobbeau was referring to that, not to actual frequency of attacks. Also, Islamic terrorists are rarely "lone wolves" these days, they have a choice of organizations to work for.
As for using the term "Christian," if this man was moved to take lives, it is not what Jesus taught us.
In the same vein, we shouldn't be using the term "Muslim", because the same applies. It's not what... Jesus (Isa) taught them. Yes, they do consider him an important figure, nearly as important as Mohammad. Who didn't exactly endorse that sort of thing, either. Not that it ever stopped anyone from killing "in the name of God". Though to their credit, God from Old Testament was actually pretty OK with slaughtering innocents (that is to say, he once demanded that they be killed to a man and got angry when someone got merciful and spared some), as long as they were infidels. It was Jesus who came up with this "love and forgiveness" thing. Ironically, Jewish terrorists are pretty rare (unless you want to get snarky and count Israel, but that's a discussion for another thread...), despite orthodox Judaism not being influenced by either prophet. Generally, religious terrorists rarely let actual teachings of their religion get in their way.
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Still, it's Islamic terrorism that gets all the press. I think Bobbeau was referring to that, not to actual frequency of attacks. Also, Islamic terrorists are rarely "lone wolves" these days, they have a choice of organizations to work for.
As for using the term "Christian," if this man was moved to take lives, it is not what Jesus taught us.
In the same vein, we shouldn't be using the term "Muslim", because the same applies. It's not what... Jesus (Isa) taught them. Yes, they do consider him an important figure, nearly as important as Mohammad. Who didn't exactly endorse that sort of thing, either. Not that it ever stopped anyone from killing "in the name of God". Though to their credit, God from Old Testament was actually pretty OK with slaughtering innocents (that is to say, he once demanded that they be killed to a man and got angry when someone got merciful and spared some), as long as they were infidels. It was Jesus who came up with this "love and forgiveness" thing. Ironically, Jewish terrorists are pretty rare (unless you want to get snarky and count Israel, but that's a discussion for another thread...), despite orthodox Judaism not being influenced by either prophet. Generally, religious terrorists rarely let actual teachings of their religion get in their way.
Jesus did not come up with "love and forgiveness," he said only what his Father said. The Muslims do see Jesus as "Isa", but if you look at the Koran, Jesus is mentioned more time there than Mohammed is.
Here is a video saying that:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJr8tcqvuMg
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Please also read this article for the thread topic:
http://www.lifenews.com/2015/11/28/shooter-at-colorado-planned-parenthood-called-a-rambling-loner-never-talked-about-abortion/
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it's Islamic terrorism that gets all the press. I think Bobbeau was referring to that
more or less
As for using the term "Christian," if this man was moved to take lives, it is not what Jesus taught us.
In the same vein, we shouldn't be using the term "Muslim"...
vvvvvv
Though to their credit, God from Old Testament was actually pretty OK with slaughtering innocents (that is to say, he once demanded that they be killed to a man and got angry when someone got merciful and spared some), as long as they were infidels.
^^^^^
Jesus did not come to bring peace but a sword, all the old testament stuff is still more or less valid, just because you choose not to follow the word of the LORD because it's politically inconvenient to slaughter wholesale large segments of the domestic population doesn't mean you're not a heretic. The best Christians are the worst Christians, in the same vein the best Muslims are the worst Muslims. The more you use your own sense of morality to pick and choose from either of these religions the better a person you are, the more you follow all of it the more ISIS-like you become. Both have some of the same basic core problems in that they devalue life for afterlife, they establish legitimacy for autocracy training people to submit to authority, and kill any possibility of learning by establishing faith as a virtue.
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Jesus said at one time: "I did not come to bring peace, but a sword."
Many have misunderstood these words. What do they mean?
Jesus and the Sword
There are many verses from which it is clear that Jesus mission and message was peace, and was to be spread peacefully only. His commands are in no way ambiguous:
Matthew 26:
52 "Put your sword back in its place," Jesus said to him,
"for all who draw the sword will die by the sword."
Luke 9:
51 As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven,
Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.
52 And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan
village to get things ready for him;
53 but the people there did not welcome him, because he was
heading for Jerusalem.
54 When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked,
"Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to
destroy them?"
55 But Jesus turned and rebuked them,
56 and they went to another village.
[Shortly thereafter, he sends out a larger group of disciples to
preach the gospel, and gives among others, these instructions.]
Luke 10:
1 After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them
two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was
about to go.
2 He told them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.
Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into
his harvest field.
3 Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves."
5 "When you enter a house, first say, `Peace to this house.'
6 If a man of peace is there, your peace will rest on him;
if not, it will return to you."
10 But when you enter a town and are not welcomed,
go into its streets and say,
11 `Even the dust of your town that sticks to our feet we wipe off
against you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God is near.'
It is clear from these passages (and there are more) that Christians are not allowed to use force to spread the message of the Gospel. We are to make clear that it is very serious to reject the message of God, but if we are not welcomed, then we should move on to those who are willing to listen.
How then are we to understand Jesus' words in Matthew 10:45?
I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
Let us read these words in their context. Interestingly, this is again a passage where Jesus calls disciples and sends them out to preach the Gospel.
Matthew 10:
1 He called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority
to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.
2 These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is
called Peter) and his brother Andrew; ...
5 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: ...
16 "I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as
shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.
17 Be on your guard against men; they will hand you over to the
local councils and flog you in their synagogues.
18 On my account you will be brought before governors and kings
as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles.
19 But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or
how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say,
20 for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father
speaking through you.
21 Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child;
children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death.
22 All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the
end will be saved.
28 Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.
Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
34 Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth.
I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
35 For I have come to turn `a man against his father, a daughter
against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law -
36 a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.'
37 Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me
is not worthy of me;
anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me
is not worthy of me;
38 and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me
is not worthy of me.
39 Whoever finds his life will lose it,
and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."
The first important observation is to recognize that Jesus does not speak about "the sword", but about "a sword". Jesus is not a prophet of the sword. The sword of violence, force and war has no place in his message. What kind of sword is he talking about?
The above passage speaks about the consequence of being obedient to the command of Jesus that we are to preach his message. Some will listen and accept it but many will reject it and react violently.
We will be hated for the message of repentance that we have to bring. We will be hated because we call people from evil to light and because this message exposes their evil deeds.
For many it will mean that even our own family will turn against us.
What kind of sword? It is the sword of division that God's word brings. It is the division of truth from error, and the reaction of the darkness against the light. The sword that Jesus brings, is the sword that his followers have to suffer, a sword that is applied to them, not a sword that they wield against others.
And exactly that happens in many countries. The fellowship of believers, while full of peace, incurs the wrath of the nonbelievers. Christians are gathering peacefully, yet are persecuted.
It is a horrible and sad reality, that in history not all who called themselves Christians were obedient to Jesus' commands and much violence and persecution in the name of Christianity has been committed. We know this, we are grieved by it, and we repent of it. But it is not the authentic teaching of Jesus Christ.
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oh, so the "I came to bring a sword" line was about how nothing in this world is more important then the afterlife and you must be blindly obedient to his authority in the face of all reason or evidence to the contrary? gee that completely invalidates my pointohwaitnoitdoesnt!
maybe next time you should try and read more than the first line of my post before googling a premade apologetic (http://www.answering-islam.org/BibleCom/mt10-34.html) to try and refute me. Maybe if Jesus hadn't taught to sacrifice everything on the alter of obedience to gain the ultimate reward and in his other two forms hadn't been a bloodthirsty genocidal monster his followers wouldn't have been so easily sent into war.
checkmate theist
(https://secure.static.tumblr.com/d004251fde456c88ebcd3a9aeba992eb/eikcaq0/g4en3cpz1/tumblr_static_5012689__6f67e31c52471863af16582fedf6cfa2.jpg)
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Bobboau you caught me! I don't have all the answers, but Jesus does. I think you like to debate. Have you heard of the New York jail inmates who beat a Harvard University Students in a debate: http://www.india.com/news/world/new-york-jail-inmates-beat-harvard-university-students-in-debate-competition-611330/
Till we meet again Bobboau
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yes, I do like arguing on the internet.
I had heard about that debate team. not sure where that came from or what it's about or if you're trying to imply something or what.
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I think he's basically saying that you're being a dick again. Nowhere in your original article did it talk about faith or christianity as motivation... just anti-abortion.
But your sentence in your OP with the article link was exactly what you wanted to say. You knew exactly what topic you were starting... just so you can do what you just did. Be a dick.
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all the old testament stuff is still more or less valid
Talkin' theology you ain't qualified for, son. Even I know that. The old covenant was replaced.
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I'll bite, I can't see in the above links where it says "Christian". Only suspected motives, and the investigators though NBC reported that sources said investigators still did not know for certain what motivated the gunman.
While I would probably agree that there could be a strong cause for religious motives against an abortion clinic, it doesn't appear confirmed in this case from what else I've seen.
There are reports that this guy wasn't targeting Planned Parenthood at all; rather that this was a botched bank robbery where the robber fled to Planned Parenthood because it happened to be nearby. And I'd like to find out the source of the "no more baby parts" quote because it seems to have sprung out of whole cloth.
But I'll be interested to hear the official report when it comes out.
EDIT:
The thing that really gets me here is we seem to have found the one police department and the one SWAT unit in North America outside of maybe ESU or LAPD SWAT who take their job seriously, who are like "do it right or don't do it at all". None of this warrior cop assault resolution ****; if you have to shoot the suspect that is technically a failure. So they spend an hour talking him down, after he's shot five other cops and nobody would have batted an eyelash if they had opted for an assault resolution.
Colorado Springs PD SWAT: apparently the people who do not run around shooting the neighbor's dogs during drug raids and other stupid shenanigans.
This is an excellent point. Quoting for truth.
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Who says a bank robber can't be against abortion? He couldn't rob a bank and PP was nearby, so maybe he thought he'll at least take this opportunity to make an ideological statement. :)
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Talkin' theology you ain't qualified for, son. Even I know that. The old covenant was replaced.
No, the OT wasn't replaced by the NT. It was completed (as in fulfilled) by Jesus. That's for another thread though. :)
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Actually I think it's pretty relevant, one could make the argument that Jesus never commanded his followers to violence himself (telling them he'd do the head busting). The main counterargument to that is that Jesus is god and god previously had ordered quite a bit of violence so if the OT isn't replaced by the NT then all of the old commandments (killing homosexuals, killing witches, rapists buying their victims, etc) are still valid.
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Ok, fine - I'll get into it.
The King James translation of the Bible sucks. It translates "Lo tirtzach" into "Thou shalt not kill." Lo = No/Don't/Thou shalt not. Tirtzach = Murder. Not "kill".
Now that's not to say that we should go around killing in a non-murderous way (not even sure what that would look like TBH). However, it does help explain why the Bible might appear to record God commanding "Don't do XYZ" and then leading His people on an "XYZ spree" a few books later.
Part B, God's all about holiness. Contrary to popular English usage of that term, it does not specifically mean "pure" or "without sin/badness/evil". The original Hebrew word is קדוש - Kadosh. The proper translation of this word is "dedicated", as in, "something dedicated (or put aside, devoted) for God's use". The term for the Temple in Hebrew is בית מקדש - Beit Mikdash - "House of Dedication". God called the Jewish people to be "holy", and went on to clarify what that meant many times throughout the Bible. It meant set apart, separated for a purpose. "In the world, but not of the world", "Do not do as the nations around you...", etc.
This state of holiness - being set apart and differentiated from all other nations - is one of God's concerns in the Bible. It guides the kashrut laws (kosher foods vs unkosher ones), the instructions against adopting the idol worship of the Israelite neighbors, etc. It guides the harshness of certain of the punishments to be meted out to violators of God's laws - as the paraphrased verse says, a little yeast causes the entire dough to rise. A little sin in the camp left unchecked can affect the entire nation.
So, when God led the Israelites out of Egypt and into the land of Canaan, He directed them to slaughter a number of the indigenous people there, both in the interest of maintaining that differentiation, that holiness, as well as it being a punishment on those people's great sins (see Molech (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch) - the parents burning their kids alive). God had a purpose with the Hebrew people, that of bringing forth His Son Jesus into the world and through Jesus' sacrifice on the cross for our sins, being able to tear down the veil of separation between a holy God and sinful man - our sins would no longer prevent us from fellowshipping with our Creator.
One more thing. I realize and recognize that the Bible was written thousands of years ago, and that there are no lack of passages that are relevant for the culture back then, and not so much for today. There's no hard-and-fast rule about what parts are and are not relevant, but just be aware that there is that to take into account. For example, any verses dealing with multiple wives, or the taking of slaves from conquered nations, etc. It's safe to say that most of us don't have multiple wives or slaves. :)
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No, the OT wasn't replaced by the NT. It was completed (as in fulfilled) by Jesus. That's for another thread though. :)
That is a point theologists of various religions and levels have spent the last two thousand years disagreeing upon. Assuming its validity for any one person's worldview is, frankly, a rookie mistake when it comes to theological discussion. Hence my comment to Bob.
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I'll bite, I can't see in the above links where it says "Christian". Only suspected motives, and the investigators though NBC reported that sources said investigators still did not know for certain what motivated the gunman.
While I would probably agree that there could be a strong cause for religious motives against an abortion clinic, it doesn't appear confirmed in this case from what else I've seen.
There are reports that this guy wasn't targeting Planned Parenthood at all; rather that this was a botched bank robbery where the robber fled to Planned Parenthood because it happened to be nearby. And I'd like to find out the source of the "no more baby parts" quote because it seems to have sprung out of whole cloth.
Speaking of "sprung out of whole cloth", there was no bank robbery. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Ok, fine - I'll get into it.
The King James translation of the Bible sucks. It translates "Lo tirtzach" into "Thou shalt not kill." Lo = No/Don't/Thou shalt not. Tirtzach = Murder. Not "kill".
Now that's not to say that we should go around killing in a non-murderous way (not even sure what that would look like TBH). However, it does help explain why the Bible might appear to record God commanding "Don't do XYZ" and then leading His people on an "XYZ spree" a few books later.
Part B, God's all about holiness. Contrary to popular English usage of that term, it does not specifically mean "pure" or "without sin/badness/evil". The original Hebrew word is קדוש - Kadosh. The proper translation of this word is "dedicated", as in, "something dedicated (or put aside, devoted) for God's use". The term for the Temple in Hebrew is בית מקדש - Beit Mikdash - "House of Dedication". God called the Jewish people to be "holy", and went on to clarify what that meant many times throughout the Bible. It meant set apart, separated for a purpose. "In the world, but not of the world", "Do not do as the nations around you...", etc.
This state of holiness - being set apart and differentiated from all other nations - is one of God's concerns in the Bible. It guides the kashrut laws (kosher foods vs unkosher ones), the instructions against adopting the idol worship of the Israelite neighbors, etc. It guides the harshness of certain of the punishments to be meted out to violators of God's laws - as the paraphrased verse says, a little yeast causes the entire dough to rise. A little sin in the camp left unchecked can affect the entire nation.
So, when God led the Israelites out of Egypt and into the land of Canaan, He directed them to slaughter a number of the indigenous people there, both in the interest of maintaining that differentiation, that holiness, as well as it being a punishment on those people's great sins (see Molech (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch) - the parents burning their kids alive). God had a purpose with the Hebrew people, that of bringing forth His Son Jesus into the world and through Jesus' sacrifice on the cross for our sins, being able to tear down the veil of separation between a holy God and sinful man - our sins would no longer prevent us from fellowshipping with our Creator.
One more thing. I realize and recognize that the Bible was written thousands of years ago, and that there are no lack of passages that are relevant for the culture back then, and not so much for today. There's no hard-and-fast rule about what parts are and are not relevant, but just be aware that there is that to take into account. For example, any verses dealing with multiple wives, or the taking of slaves from conquered nations, etc. It's safe to say that most of us don't have multiple wives or slaves. :)
Sandwich is absolutely right. When you look at the original text written either in Greek or Hebrew, "Thou Shall Not Kill" was translated wrong. There is a translation that I think is more accurate. Its called Young's Translation. Please check it out Sandwich.
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I think he's basically saying that you're being a dick again. Nowhere in your original article did it talk about faith or christianity as motivation... just anti-abortion.
But your sentence in your OP with the article link was exactly what you wanted to say. You knew exactly what topic you were starting... just so you can do what you just did. Be a dick.
There aren't any worthwhile non-religious arguments against abortion. Being against abortion is because you believe in original sin and you are sending those newly-formed souls directly to hell. Rational, informed people understand that it's far worse to bring an unwanted life into the world than it is to end a life before it truly begins.
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When you look at the original text written either in Greek or Hebrew, "Thou Shall Not Kill" was translated wrong. There is a translation that I think is more accurate. Its called Young's Translation. Please check it out Sandwich.
oh, so there are forms of killing sanctioned by Jesus? do please elaborate. (also directed at Sandwitch)
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Funnily enough, even the religious arguments are shaky. I recall there being a medieval saint and scholar (forgot his name soon after and could never recall it since, maybe one of you will know?) who researched souls and had stated in one of his writings when the soul enters the body during pregnancy. It was, IIRC, 4th month for boys and 5th for girls (again, correct me if I'm wrong, but I do know if was fairly late and earlier for boys). Now, you don't have to agree with that, especially if you're not Catholic, but this would make a darn good religious argument for early-stage abortion.
Regarding the Bible, yes, King James' translation (and many others) sucks, especially now because of all the language drift. "Thou Shall Not Kill" was actually accurate at the time the translation was made, since "kill" at the time meant what we would now translate as "murder" (the contemporary equivalent of modern "kill" was "slay"). I myself have a copy (of the original edition, not less :) ) of the "Millennium Bible" (called such because it was first released in 1966, to commemorate 1000th anniversary of Mieszko I's baptism, which officially made Poland a Christian state), translated into Polish directly from the original. As far as I figured out, it's pretty good.
oh, so there are forms of killing sanctioned by Jesus? do please elaborate. (also directed at Sandwitch)
By God, actually (yes, I know they are one being according to Christians, but let's keep them separate). This is from The 10 Commandments. Executing criminals, war (exactly what Sandwich mentioned in this context) with infidels, self-defense (presumably, I don't know if that one is actually in The Bible), perhaps others I don't know about. It would be very unreasonable to forbid killing under any reason, especially in the ancient world, where this could quickly lead one's own death.
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Ok, fine - I'll get into it.
The King James translation of the Bible sucks. It translates "Lo tirtzach" into "Thou shalt not kill." Lo = No/Don't/Thou shalt not. Tirtzach = Murder. Not "kill".
Now that's not to say that we should go around killing in a non-murderous way (not even sure what that would look like TBH). However, it does help explain why the Bible might appear to record God commanding "Don't do XYZ" and then leading His people on an "XYZ spree" a few books later.
Part B, God's all about holiness. Contrary to popular English usage of that term, it does not specifically mean "pure" or "without sin/badness/evil". The original Hebrew word is קדוש - Kadosh. The proper translation of this word is "dedicated", as in, "something dedicated (or put aside, devoted) for God's use". The term for the Temple in Hebrew is בית מקדש - Beit Mikdash - "House of Dedication". God called the Jewish people to be "holy", and went on to clarify what that meant many times throughout the Bible. It meant set apart, separated for a purpose. "In the world, but not of the world", "Do not do as the nations around you...", etc.
This state of holiness - being set apart and differentiated from all other nations - is one of God's concerns in the Bible. It guides the kashrut laws (kosher foods vs unkosher ones), the instructions against adopting the idol worship of the Israelite neighbors, etc. It guides the harshness of certain of the punishments to be meted out to violators of God's laws - as the paraphrased verse says, a little yeast causes the entire dough to rise. A little sin in the camp left unchecked can affect the entire nation.
So, when God led the Israelites out of Egypt and into the land of Canaan, He directed them to slaughter a number of the indigenous people there, both in the interest of maintaining that differentiation, that holiness, as well as it being a punishment on those people's great sins (see Molech (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch) - the parents burning their kids alive). God had a purpose with the Hebrew people, that of bringing forth His Son Jesus into the world and through Jesus' sacrifice on the cross for our sins, being able to tear down the veil of separation between a holy God and sinful man - our sins would no longer prevent us from fellowshipping with our Creator.
One more thing. I realize and recognize that the Bible was written thousands of years ago, and that there are no lack of passages that are relevant for the culture back then, and not so much for today. There's no hard-and-fast rule about what parts are and are not relevant, but just be aware that there is that to take into account. For example, any verses dealing with multiple wives, or the taking of slaves from conquered nations, etc. It's safe to say that most of us don't have multiple wives or slaves. :)
Don't forget too, God gave them forty years to repent before Israel entered. We know that by how Rehab answered the spies.
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There aren't any worthwhile non-religious arguments against abortion. Being against abortion is because you believe in original sin and you are sending those newly-formed souls directly to hell. Rational, informed people understand that it's far worse to bring an unwanted life into the world than it is to end a life before it truly begins.
There are plenty of worthwhile non-religious arguments against abortion. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_aspects_of_the_abortion_debate)
It's perfectly possible to be rational, informed, and pro-life. It's also perfectly possible to be rational, informed, and pro-choice.
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The thing is, those are philosophical arguments. I looked through them, not a single one is grounded in any inarguable truth. They're in the same basket as religious arguments, only that they're not tied to a particular religion. Those are deonthological and based on a particular morality, making them no better than religious arguments, either. To make them work, have to impose a morality. Attempts to do so usually end up referencing religion, without it I find it hard to arrive at a conclusion much different than "The good of the species is the most important" or "My own good is the most important" (I find the latter most natural, as depressing as it might be...). Both happen not to provide arguments against abortion. In the former case, unwanted children don't do the species as a whole any good, straining resources and having a higher chance to grow up into a threat (due to, well, being unwanted) and they obviously do not benefit the mother, either.
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There aren't any worthwhile non-religious arguments against abortion. Being against abortion is because you believe in original sin and you are sending those newly-formed souls directly to hell. Rational, informed people understand that it's far worse to bring an unwanted life into the world than it is to end a life before it truly begins.
There are plenty of worthwhile non-religious arguments against abortion. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_aspects_of_the_abortion_debate)
It's perfectly possible to be rational, informed, and pro-life. It's also perfectly possible to be rational, informed, and pro-choice.
Not only that, but even most of the religious arguments against abortion have absolutely nothing to do with "sending babies to hell." (Most major denominations I'm aware of would state that exactly the opposite happens.) Dismissing one whole side of a contentious issue as radical whackjobs is a great indication that you're not willing to participate in honest debate, and I would strongly suggest that anyone who is not so willing should consider themselves free to exit, thread left.
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You have to start somewhere, or no argument is possible. "The good of the species is the most important" and "my own good is the most important" are reasonable starting points, but not the only starting points - and as you implied, the latter is troubling.
I generally dislike the mindset that "the other side" must be irrational. In some cases, that mindset is justifiable. This is not one of those cases.
@Mongoose: :yes:
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As an active member of the pro-life movement, I find this disgusting. Whatever motivated this shooter, his actions are the opposite of everything we stand for.
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There aren't any worthwhile non-religious arguments against abortion. Being against abortion is because you believe in original sin and you are sending those newly-formed souls directly to hell. Rational, informed people understand that it's far worse to bring an unwanted life into the world than it is to end a life before it truly begins.
There are plenty of worthwhile non-religious arguments against abortion. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_aspects_of_the_abortion_debate)
It's perfectly possible to be rational, informed, and pro-life. It's also perfectly possible to be rational, informed, and pro-choice.
Not only that, but even most of the religious arguments against abortion have absolutely nothing to do with "sending babies to hell." (Most major denominations I'm aware of would state that exactly the opposite happens.) Dismissing one whole side of a contentious issue as radical whackjobs is a great indication that you're not willing to participate in honest debate, and I would strongly suggest that anyone who is not so willing should consider themselves free to exit, thread left.
It's worse. I think it's a debate about something that's so glaringly obvious, we shouldnt even be debating about it.
These events happen because of politically motivated incitement. These people wouldn't be all riled up and shooting people if they weren't listening to people who were egging on that response.
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What evidence do we have that PP was his intended destination? He started his spree in front of a Chase bank, IIRC?
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Been a while since we'd had some good'ole home grown Christian terrorism, was beginning to get bored with the Islamic variety.
Bored by people getting murdered? America's Us vs Them culture manifests itself in another nonsympathetic twat on the internet.
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When you look at the original text written either in Greek or Hebrew, "Thou Shall Not Kill" was translated wrong. There is a translation that I think is more accurate. Its called Young's Translation. Please check it out Sandwich.
oh, so there are forms of killing sanctioned by Jesus? do please elaborate. (also directed at Sandwitch)
Ok Bobboau. Let me ask you this. Would you give your life to save someone else? If you really want to know what Jesus taught, please read the Bible for yourself. That is what I know, but there is far more.
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Been a while since we'd had some good'ole home grown Christian terrorism, was beginning to get bored with the Islamic variety.
Bored by people getting murdered? America's Us vs Them culture manifests itself in another nonsympathetic twat on the internet.
Though I can appreciate the point you're trying to make here, have a warning for a directed and obvious ad hominem.
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Been a while since we'd had some good'ole home grown Christian terrorism, was beginning to get bored with the Islamic variety.
Bored by people getting murdered? America's Us vs Them culture manifests itself in another nonsympathetic twat on the internet.
Though I can appreciate the point you're trying to make here, have a warning for a directed and obvious ad hominem.
Worth it
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What evidence do we have that PP was his intended destination? He started his spree in front of a Chase bank, IIRC?
First, please provide evidence of the latter. A quick google search turns up this (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_29172660/colorado-springs-firefighters-respond-active-shooter-at-planned):
The shooting began at 11:38 a.m., and the entire incident took place at the Planned Parenthood clinic, according to police.
...and the source on the Chase claim appears to be Fox News?
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First, please provide evidence of the latter. A quick google search turns up this (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_29172660/colorado-springs-firefighters-respond-active-shooter-at-planned):
The shooting began at 11:38 a.m., and the entire incident took place at the Planned Parenthood clinic, according to police.
...and the source on the Chase claim appears to be Fox News?
MSNBC, ironically:
http://www.ibtimes.com/colorado-springs-planned-parenthood-shooting-officer-reported-shot-injured-scene-not-2202582
Witnesses at the scene told MSNBC the original gunshots came from near the Planned Parenthood at a Chase Bank facility.
There is also this:
http://gazette.com/active-shooter-situation-reported-near-planned-parenthood-in-colorado-springs-reports-of-multiple-people-shot/article/1564419
Colorado Springs police says there is no connection to Planned Parenthood and shooting victims are getting treatment.
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There is also this:
http://gazette.com/active-shooter-situation-reported-near-planned-parenthood-in-colorado-springs-reports-of-multiple-people-shot/article/1564419
Colorado Springs police says there is no connection to Planned Parenthood and shooting victims are getting treatment.
You mean the thing at 1:34 PM immediately followed by this update nine minutes later?:
Police say they do not know the connection to Planned Parenthood, but that is where the 911 call came from.
...and then followed by several updates that make it clear that everything happened at Planned Parenthood?
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You mean the thing at 1:34 PM immediately followed by this update nine minutes later?:
Police say they do not know the connection to Planned Parenthood, but that is where the 911 call came from.
...and then followed by several updates that make it clear that everything happened at Planned Parenthood?
This is consistent with the shooter starting at Chase Bank and then taking cover at Planned Parenthood. In other words, according to these reports, Planned Parenthood was not the original target. (And if PP and the bank are close by, it would not be unusual for the 911 call to come from there.)
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I don't know, I'd believe that a bank would be quicker off the mark than a Planned Parenthood clinic in calling 911 if they were attacked, but that's something only the final police report can actually tell us. Right now, everything is hearsay and eyewitness reports, and those just aren't reliable enough for us to make statements like "PP wasn't the original target" with any amount of certainty.
As an active member of the pro-life movement, I find this disgusting. Whatever motivated this shooter, his actions are the opposite of everything we stand for.
Just remember this the next time someone (*cough*Trump*cough*) calls for measures against a group of people whose only common characteristic is the religion they follow.
Also remember this the next time a Pro-Life group spreads disinformation and denounces abortions, the people who have them and the people who perform them, as babykillers without conscience or remorse.
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You have to start somewhere, or no argument is possible. "The good of the species is the most important" and "my own good is the most important" are reasonable starting points, but not the only starting points - and as you implied, the latter is troubling.
I generally dislike the mindset that "the other side" must be irrational. In some cases, that mindset is justifiable. This is not one of those cases.
Note, those are not "starting points" I listed. Those are conclusions, albeit of another reasoning. My starting points were scientific theories about how species develop and how societies work. I was trying to get a morality which would not be imposed on us by some superior entity, but flow naturally from established scientific facts. If you pick a predefined morality as a starting point, you could make an argument, but how to convince others to follow your morality and not their own? Well, my answer is, derive my morality from things that aren't really up to debate. Of course, this has so far landed me on one of the two above, tending towards the latter ("good of the species" is risky, as it's very hard, if not impossible, for any one human to comprehend what is best for the whole species). It's not all bad if you consider that in most cases, good of the society and even "altruism" actually has personal benefits (indeed, there's a story that the man who first found that out dedicated the rest of his life towards random act of altruism in order to prove his very depressing conclusion wrong. He ended up broke and in the gutter), so you do end up acting like a decent human being with that mindset, at least most of the time (it also goes pretty well with epicurean hedonism).
In general, assuming a particular morality weakens an argument very much, IMO. Different people have different moral systems and thus can come, in a perfectly sound way, to two opposite conclusions simply by assuming their moral system is the "proper" one. Even if you do have a morality that can be derived from some scientific theory, there is no guarantee you'll convince your opponent to think in its terms. Arguments based on a morality other than the one used by the person you're arguing with aren't going to help anyone.
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Alice accepts established scientific facts. Alice also thinks that "the good of the species is the most important".
Bob accepts established scientific facts. Bob also thinks that "the good of the species is not the most important".
Apparently, neither worldview contains a logical contradiction. Hence, "the good of the species is the most important" is independent from established scientific facts.
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If you pick a predefined morality as a starting point, you could make an argument, but how to convince others to follow your morality and not their own? Well, my answer is, derive my morality from things that aren't really up to debate.
Convincing others to follow your idea of deriving morality from facts isn't any easier than just convincing them to follow your morality.
And of course "deriving morality from facts" doesn't fundamentally really make any sense in the first place. Neither of your hypothetical conclusions can be derived from facts.
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all the old testament stuff is still more or less valid
Talkin' theology you ain't qualified for, son. Even I know that. The old covenant was replaced.
@bob Repeating the same arguments that have been disproved or explained multiple times is exactly the same sort of **** you get so annoyed with Young Earth Creationists for. I've seen the whole explanation for the new covenant posted on this board enough times that I wouldn't expect ignorance of it from someone who complained about missing the religious arguments on yore.
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Ok Bobboau. Let me ask you this. Would you give your life to save someone else?
Yes, now let me ask you a question. Would you kill to save the life of another?
@bob Repeating the same arguments that have been disproved or explained multiple times is
I'll stop using the old testament when the Christians do. There is clearly a difference of opinion on the matter among them, otherwise gay marriage wouldn't be a big deal.
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As an active member of the pro-life movement, I find this disgusting. Whatever motivated this shooter, his actions are the opposite of everything we stand for.
Just remember this the next time someone (*cough*Trump*cough*) calls for measures against a group of people whose only common characteristic is the religion they follow.
Also remember this the next time a Pro-Life group spreads disinformation and denounces abortions, the people who have them and the people who perform them, as babykillers without conscience or remorse.
Fair enough. I think we both agree Trump's an ignorant bigot anyway.
To tell the truth, I've met surprisingly few actual, active pro-lifers (as in, willing to get off their butts and do something other than argue on the internet) who espouse the whole "babykillers" craziness. Most of the people who actually take the time to protest and pray outside abortion clinics, and try and help the women going in and out of them, stop seeing these people as babykillers and see them as what they really are: victims who deserve our help and sympathy.
Or in other words, Ghandi and MLKJr were right: hatred never solves anything.
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Hmm. "Try and help" sure looks a lot like "scream incoherently and intimidate" a lot of the time. That is, when it doesn't go to outright violence and murder (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence).
Now, I'm sure you guys are completely peaceful and want only the best for everyone. But you're also incredibly presumptuous, in that you try to force your particular morality and standards onto people who very clearly do not share them, are not required to share them, and really do not need your kind of shaming in what is probably not a very good time in their lifes.
Hatred never solves anything. It's perfectly true. So try to accept that the place to make arguments against abortions is when a mother speaks to her doctor, or people she trusts, or her priest. Not when she's on the way to a clinic that does quite a bit more than just abortions.
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Hmm. "Try and help" sure looks a lot like "scream incoherently and intimidate" a lot of the time. That is, when it doesn't go to outright violence and murder (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence).
Now, I'm sure you guys are completely peaceful and want only the best for everyone. But you're also incredibly presumptuous, in that you try to force your particular morality and standards onto people who very clearly do not share them, are not required to share them, and really do not need your kind of shaming in what is probably not a very good time in their lifes.
Hatred never solves anything. It's perfectly true. So try to accept that the place to make arguments against abortions is when a mother speaks to her doctor, or people she trusts, or her priest. Not when she's on the way to a clinic that does quite a bit more than just abortions.
Something I need to make clear here, while "force" is probably the wrong word in this particular case, we can't simply sit back and let other people (the unborn) be the victims of injustice on the grounds that we shouldn't be "forcing" morality on someone. Was it presumptuous of Martin Luther King Junior to "force" people to accept racial equality? Or of abolitionists to stand against the slave trade?
This, of course, needs to be balanced with the knowledge that these people are human beings who deserve our respect, not "enemies" in some way. It's absurd to assume that everyone involved in an abortion is a monster, or even a bad person. But when an action is wrong, and it hurts innocent human beings, trying to persuade people not to do it is not presumptuous manipulation. It's rescuing the baby, and giving the mother exactly what she needs and has every right to: the truth.
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In fact, pro-life people are incredibly restrained considering their beliefs. If you had clinics which would legally and without consequences kill anyone you manage to drug and drag there, many if not most people on both sides would probably accept violence as a perfectly acceptable last resort for stopping or hindering their operation. For a pro-lifer these kind of free murder clinics should be reasonably analogous with abortion clinics, and yet on the vast majority of days they actually manage to not do anything about it! And when they do something about it, it overwhelmingly takes the form of non-violent protest.
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In fact, pro-life people are incredibly restrained considering their beliefs. If you had clinics which would legally and without consequences kill anyone you manage to drug and drag there, many if not most people on both sides would probably accept violence as a perfectly acceptable last resort for stopping or hindering their operation. For a pro-lifer these kind of free murder clinics should be reasonably analogous with abortion clinics, and yet on the vast majority of days they actually manage to not do anything about it! And when they do something about it, it overwhelmingly takes the form of non-violent protest.
Quoting for truth. That's what makes being a pro-lifer so hard: trying to protect innocent lives without dehumanizing those who disagree with you. If this shooter was a pro-lifer to begin with, it seems he failed at that.
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The 'enemies' are the ones using emotional terrorism and 'innocent lives' to try and strip women of their rights.
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The 'enemies' are the ones using emotional terrorism and 'innocent lives' to try and strip women of their rights.
Assuming that by "emotional terrorism" you mean reaching out to them and trying to persuade them to let their children live... I suppose you mean I'm the enemy? Seriously, Turambar, you complain about the tactics of the Pro-Life movement, but here on HLP you're far less restrained and civil to people with different religions and views from yours than they are to. You answer a post explaining why a pro-lifer doesn't consider pro-choicers enemies by calling pro-lifers enemies. Please rethink this. I can tell you, as someone who is absolutely not your enemy, that you are never going to change anyone's mind that way.
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This, of course, needs to be balanced with the knowledge that these people are human beings who deserve our respect, not "enemies" in some way. It's absurd to assume that everyone involved in an abortion is a monster, or even a bad person. But when an action is wrong, and it hurts innocent human beings, trying to persuade people not to do it is not presumptuous manipulation. It's rescuing the baby, and giving the mother exactly what she needs and has every right to: the truth.
It's declaring that you know better, and that everyone should adhere to your morality because you're correct and they're not. Even if your interpretation of when life begins is correct, and even if it was against your sincerely held religious and spiritual beliefs, that doesn't matter in the slightest, because this is a country that emphatically rejects, in a matter so important it is enshrined in the supreme law of the land, the concept that you can force your beliefs on anyone else.
When it comes right down to it, no matter whether you say you're trying to help the unborn or not, you're attempting to aggressively persuade (at a time in which these people are most vulnerable) them that they are committing murder. Even the softest Pro-Life positions are couched in this, because it is the entire reason Pro-Life believes and does what it does.
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Jesus Christ Scotty, that's a load of bull****. Do you believe that it's wrong to force your belief that murdering 5 year olds is bad on others?
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:banghead: This is so incredibly frustrating. If more of us could see both sides of the argument, maybe we'd actually make some progress.
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Jesus Christ Scotty, that's a load of bull****. Do you believe that it's wrong to force your belief that murdering 5 year olds is bad on others?
The difference is that everyone agrees that 5 year olds are alive and there's no scientific basis to pin a difference on them that would justify murdering them. The belief that an embryo is alive is a belief, there is no scientific basis for it.
@bob Repeating the same arguments that have been disproved or explained multiple times is
I'll stop using the old testament when the Christians do. There is clearly a difference of opinion on the matter among them, otherwise gay marriage wouldn't be a big deal.
Wrong again. The New Testament contains lots of stuff that is against homosexuality too. Jesus might not have said anything on the subject but the New Testament isn't just the gospels. So while Christians frequently quote the OT when talking about homosexuality it's only cause the NT says that it is still wrong.
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Jesus Christ Scotty, that's a load of bull****. Do you believe that it's wrong to force your belief that murdering 5 year olds is bad on others?
The difference is that everyone agrees that 5 year olds are alive and there's no scientific basis to pin a difference on them that would justify murdering them. The belief that an embryo is alive is a belief, there is no scientific basis for it.
[/quote]
How about a person in a coma?
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This, of course, needs to be balanced with the knowledge that these people are human beings who deserve our respect, not "enemies" in some way. It's absurd to assume that everyone involved in an abortion is a monster, or even a bad person. But when an action is wrong, and it hurts innocent human beings, trying to persuade people not to do it is not presumptuous manipulation. It's rescuing the baby, and giving the mother exactly what she needs and has every right to: the truth.
It's declaring that you know better, and that everyone should adhere to your morality because you're correct and they're not. Even if your interpretation of when life begins is correct, and even if it was against your sincerely held religious and spiritual beliefs, that doesn't matter in the slightest, because this is a country that emphatically rejects, in a matter so important it is enshrined in the supreme law of the land, the concept that you can force your beliefs on anyone else.
When it comes right down to it, no matter whether you say you're trying to help the unborn or not, you're attempting to aggressively persuade (at a time in which these people are most vulnerable) them that they are committing murder. Even the softest Pro-Life positions are couched in this, because it is the entire reason Pro-Life believes and does what it does.
Again, you'd have to explain to me why the logic you just used applies to me and not Martin Luther King Junior or Harriet Tubman. Besides, which is better: trying to persuade people of the truth or leaving them in a serious error which harms a third party?
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The difference is that everyone agrees that 5 year olds are alive and there's no scientific basis to pin a difference on them that would justify murdering them. The belief that an embryo is alive is a belief, there is no scientific basis for it.
It's a basic biological fact that an embryo is alive. Hell, it's a basic biological fact that an embryo is human life: it consists of a full 26-chromosome-pair genome distinct from either of its parents, and also distinct from the original sperm and egg cells which only had 26 single chromosomes each. Most non-religious arguments against abortion I've come across have used this as a foundation. Now obviously the rub comes in determining what sort of rights that particular form of human life should be afforded: is it equivalent to a bunch of cells in a petri dish? To a brain-dead coma patient? To a fully-fledged developed human being? I don't expect to see any significant resolution of those questions in my lifetime.
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Man.. there is a quote that I wish I could remember and find the source, but I couldn't. However it applies here. I'll paraphrase what I remember.
"I have the utmost respect for a Christian who feels the need to share their faith with me because they believe it's true and to them, I need Christ for eternal life. They are hoping for my best, even if I don't agree."
EDIT: Found it. Penn Jillette
"I don't respect people who don't proselytize," Jillette said, "I don't respect that at all."
"If you believe that there is a Heaven and a Hell, and people could be going to Hell ... and you think it's not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward, ... how much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that? I mean, if I believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that a truck was coming at you and you didn't believe it, ... there's a certain point where I tackle you, and [everlasting life] is more important than that."
Link (http://www.christianpost.com/news/famous-atheist-magician-penn-jillette-cites-bible-as-a-favorite-book-85175/)
The point being that whatever speaker I heard say this Jillette was in complete disagreement with the Christian faith, but he would actually think less of Christians who didn't share their faith because those Christians truly believe they are out to help others. If a Christian truly believes they have the truth about eternal life and try to do something non-violent about it, they deserve some respect. Something similar applies here.
If a pro-lifer absolutely believes that an embryo is life, what choice do they have? To believe an embryo is life and do nothing is to be a hypocrite. But when one does do something, no matter how civil, they get dumped on. I have the utmost respect for someone who has such strong convictions that they try to actually do something [civil] about it rather than just have pissing contests on the internet.
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well, it's because they believe what they believe because they believe it. they make arbitrary lines and act as if they are justified. and if you ever manage to get them to elaborate beyond that it starts sounding like they oppose abortion because they want people who have sex in ways they don't like to be punished by the consequences of their actions.
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That's it? You're not even going to try and put thought into the arguments in the thread? You just dismiss all opposing viewpoints by using an extended set of assumptions that may or may not apply? OK I guess.
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at 1 in the morning? no, maybe later. right now I'm just expressing my opinion and experience on the matter, feel free to dismiss it.
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It's a basic biological fact that an embryo is alive. Hell, it's a basic biological fact that an embryo is human life: it consists of a full 26-chromosome-pair genome distinct from either of its parents, and also distinct from the original sperm and egg cells which only had 26 single chromosomes each. Most non-religious arguments against abortion I've come across have used this as a foundation. Now obviously the rub comes in determining what sort of rights that particular form of human life should be afforded: is it equivalent to a bunch of cells in a petri dish? To a brain-dead coma patient? To a fully-fledged developed human being? I don't expect to see any significant resolution of those questions in my lifetime.
Fair enough, I was in a hurry when I wrote alive. But that's basically still the point I was making. No one would claim that a 5 year old child should have less rights than a bunch of cells in a petri dish. The distinction is quite obvious. As is the difference between a healthy person and a person in a persistent vegetative state from which they'll never recover.
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Man.. there is a quote that I wish I could remember and find the source, but I couldn't. However it applies here. I'll paraphrase what I remember.
"I have the utmost respect for a Christian who feels the need to share their faith with me because they believe it's true and to them, I need Christ for eternal life. They are hoping for my best, even if I don't agree."
EDIT: Found it. Penn Jillette
"I don't respect people who don't proselytize," Jillette said, "I don't respect that at all."
"If you believe that there is a Heaven and a Hell, and people could be going to Hell ... and you think it's not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward, ... how much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that? I mean, if I believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that a truck was coming at you and you didn't believe it, ... there's a certain point where I tackle you, and [everlasting life] is more important than that."
Link (http://www.christianpost.com/news/famous-atheist-magician-penn-jillette-cites-bible-as-a-favorite-book-85175/)
The point being that whatever speaker I heard say this Jillette was in complete disagreement with the Christian faith, but he would actually think less of Christians who didn't share their faith because those Christians truly believe they are out to help others. If a Christian truly believes they have the truth about eternal life and try to do something non-violent about it, they deserve some respect. Something similar applies here.
If a pro-lifer absolutely believes that an embryo is life, what choice do they have? To believe an embryo is life and do nothing is to be a hypocrite. But when one does do something, no matter how civil, they get dumped on. I have the utmost respect for someone who has such strong convictions that they try to actually do something [civil] about it rather than just have pissing contests on the internet.
This is certainly a respectable stance. However, if I have to choose between applauding someone for standing by their principles, and condemning that same someone for the use of emotional blackmail, attempts to shame people who disagree, inflammatory rhetoric and outright falsehoods in the pursuit of their principles, then I am choosing to condemn.
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But that's basically still the point I was making. No one would claim that a 5 year old child should have less rights than a bunch of cells in a petri dish. The distinction is quite obvious. As is the difference between a healthy person and a person in a persistent vegetative state from which they'll never recover.
Scotty condemned forcing your beliefs on others, specifically formulated as a blanket statement. The belief that 5 year old kids shouldn't be killed and the belief that human embryos shouldn't be killed are both beliefs being forced on others.
That more people have the belief that 5 year old kids shouldn't be killed and don't need to be forced that belief is irrelevant, the only thing that matters is whether you think it's ok to force that belief on someone who disagrees. And of course you and Scotty and everyone here does, making the "it's bad to force your beliefs on others" little more than a rhetorical device.
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Are you going to tell me that there is anyone in American society without a mental illness who thinks that's okay?
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Are you going to tell me that there is anyone in American society without a mental illness who thinks that's okay?
Umm... no, I wasn't planning on. Why do you ask?
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So then it's not about forcing beliefs on people any more than a vicar is forcing his beliefs on people in the congregation. They already believe.
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So then it's not about forcing beliefs on people any more than a vicar is forcing his beliefs on people in the congregation. They already believe.
How does that figure? There's lots of people who actually have killed 5 year old kids, so obviously not everyone already believes that it's somehow inherently bad and would automatically refrain from doing it even if it was legal.
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There are lots of preachers who bang on about homosexuals and then get caught having sex with another man.
My point is that even people who kill 5 years olds would argue that killing 5 year olds is a bad thing. They just believe that their circumstances make them a special exception. There aren't any people who believe that anyone should be able to kill any random 5 year old. At least not anyone who doesn't have serious mental problems.
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There aren't any people who believe that anyone should be able to kill any random 5 year old.
And the analogy doesn't require that. It only requires someone to have a belief that it's ok a kill a 5 year old and you to have a belief that it's clearly wrong.
Either forcing your beliefs on others is wrong or it's not. All you need to do is pick one and stick with it. Saying that forcing your beliefs on others is wrong is purely a rhetorical device if the most obvious kind of scratching the surface immediately reveals that it depends on extra qualifications like overwhelming majority, living in American society, not having a mental illness or whether the belief is a categorical imperative -style general belief about something which would apply to everyone.
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Scotty's argument is about as specious as libertarians who argue that taxes are wrong because they take away freedom. Somebody's freedom has to be curtailed, and someone's beliefs have to be forced on others. This is a basic fact of reality.
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Kara, remember, there have been times when whole cultures (Aztecs, Nazis, ISIS) have condoned the killing of five-year-olds, or fifty-year-olds, and taught their populace that this was necessary to appease the gods/cleanse their nation/win the Jihad. I doubt anyone here would say that we, as modern Americans with a hopefully better respect for human life, could not "impose" our beliefs on them.
Meanwhile, the Pro-Life movement, as zookeeper and others pointed out, actually succeeds in limiting itself to non-violent protest 99.9% of the time, and when the 0.1% decides to act out, the rest of the movement promptly condemns him as a terrorist. If what we're doing is "imposing our beliefs on others", than Martin Luther King Jr. was imposing his beliefs on racists.
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Once again we get into the fact that there is no biological difference between a black person and a white person that could allow you to treat the two differently. That much is not an issue of belief.
You can't really tell me that there is no biological difference between a foetus and a 5 year old child.
Basically my problem is that by the definition you are trying to argue, it's not that Scotty is wrong to use "forcing your belief onto others" as a blanket statement but that there is no such thing because there is nothing but that in human society. That smacks of attempting to use linguistic trickery to win an argument.
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Once again we get into the fact that there is no biological difference between a black person and a white person that could allow you to treat the two differently. That much is not an issue of belief.
You can't really tell me that there is no biological difference between a foetus and a 5 year old child.
Okay then, let's make the difference a little less visual. On the one hand, a child who's one day old. On the other hand, a child one day away from being born. Where's the difference between the two that makes it acceptable to kill one and not the other?
After all, there's a lot of difference biologically between me and a five-year-old child. None of that matters morally. The five-year-old is a former unborn baby, I'm a former five-year-old, in fact, I'm a former fetus myself... and yet somehow my moral value changed at my birth?
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This "debate" is rapidly degenerating into useless sophistry. We've heard all these arguments and read this entire discussion before. It all boils down to the question where a mother's right to sovereignty over her body ends and an unborn's right to live begins, and that question is unsolvable in this environment. No amount of hypotheticals will change that.
So let's go back to other topics that can be discussed in this context before this degenerates further.
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Basically my problem is that by the definition you are trying to argue, it's not that Scotty is wrong to use "forcing your belief onto others" as a blanket statement but that there is no such thing because there is nothing but that in human society. That smacks of attempting to use linguistic trickery to win an argument.
Sure, I'm not saying there's many legitimate uses of that phrase. However, my problem is basically that I don't think there is any reasonable, non-pedantic interpretation for it that, at least in this case, wouldn't also be a circular argument.
The non-pedantic formulation would be something along the lines of "it's wrong to force your beliefs on other people except for the belief that other people shouldn't be harmed, therefore it's wrong to force the belief that fetuses shouldn't be harmed on other people, because fetuses are not people" which is rather circular because whether fetuses are people or not is precisely the thing the disagreement is over in the first place. Hence why I called it little more than a rhetorical device.
It's sidestepping the disagreement about whether fetuses are people and reframing it into a disagreement about whether it's ok to force your beliefs onto others, in a way which simply doesn't do anything. The disagreement regarding abortion is still about whether fetuses are people or not, and as The E said, that is in this context unsolvable.
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No one who is pro-choice (and not a misanthrope) that I have ever met thinks that an abortion late term is appropriate or justifiable. Implying that I and people who are pro-choice either agree with that particular event or support its practice is disingenuous at best, and deliberately obfuscates the issue at worst. When I'm not on a phone I'll elaborate.
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Welp, it went from religion, to morality, to liberties and then some more. This thread is degenerating faster than a crowd of games journalists accusing themselves of being GamerGate supporters :P
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The problem is that we all need to get over this idea that every successful combination of Human DNA is special and needs to be preserved.
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No one who is pro-choice (and not a misanthrope) that I have ever met thinks that an abortion late term is appropriate or justifiable. Implying that I and people who are pro-choice either agree with that particular event or support its practice is disingenuous at best, and deliberately obfuscates the issue at worst. When I'm not on a phone I'll elaborate.
We'll, I'm very happy to hear this, although unfortunately it doesn't necessarily line up with a lot of the people I've debated the issue with in the past. Perhaps I've run into too many of the extremists.
EDIT: For that matter, given The E's comments about "screaming incoherently and intimidating" (I've met very few pro-lifers who meet that description... perhaps three total?) I get the feeling a number of us might be basing responses on extremists we've met. Thanks for calling this out; it's something we need to be careful about.
EDIT: Now that we've found a point of agreement, a question. Would you be willing to force (i.e. by enacting a law) those who do approve of late-term abortions to comply with your moral stance on the matter? I sure would. There's a life at stake.
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I'll just go ahead and skip the part where we mutually determine what the other believes through a series of hypotheticals, and instead outright state what I think about the matter and why.
The very core my pro-choice beliefs is the concept of bodily integrity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodily_integrity). In short, it is the concept that what happens in one's body is under the jurisdiction of oneself and no higher authority. This is perhaps best exemplified in the complete lack of controversy surrounding organ donation. Under law in damn near every modern country, it is not only morally unconscionable but outright illegal to force anyone, regardless of age, heritage, citizenship, even whether the person is alive or not, to donate any of their organs or body parts to anyone else, period. It is utterly irrelevant whether the donation would save a life, or the donation is the only reasonable match. It is utterly irrelevant whether the potential donor is alive or dead; if they are dead, they must have indicated they wanted to be an organ donor in death, or taking any one of those parts is completely illegal. There are no exceptions to this, even if the person needing the donation would die without this specific donation.
And yet, suddenly it's not only morally acceptable but imperative that when a woman becomes pregnant, her right to bodily integrity is void? Unacceptable.
That said, I absolutely think that it's inhumane to prolong the process beyond the point where the fetus is capable of feeling pain (which is emphatically not at the moment of conception, or anywhere near that).
To be pro-life is to be anti-bodily-integrity. The very concepts are diametrically opposed.
To be pro-choice is not to be anti-life. I absolutely support a woman's right to control what goes on in her own body. I also absolutely support a woman's right to carry a pregnancy to term.
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Okay then, let's make the difference a little less visual. On the one hand, a child who's one day old. On the other hand, a child one day away from being born. Where's the difference between the two that makes it acceptable to kill one and not the other
I've not met anyone who would argue that it's okay to abort a day before due date. That's a complete strawman of the pro-choice position. I called out Bob when he was strawmanning Christianity, I'll thank you to not do the same yourself.
As Scotty said, most people draw the line at the point where the foetus becomes capable of feeling pain or the point at which it could survive (with medical intervention) if it were born.
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I'll just go ahead and skip the part where we mutually determine what the other believes through a series of hypotheticals, and instead outright state what I think about the matter and why.
The very core my pro-choice beliefs is the concept of bodily integrity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodily_integrity). In short, it is the concept that what happens in one's body is under the jurisdiction of oneself and no higher authority. This is perhaps best exemplified in the complete lack of controversy surrounding organ donation. Under law in damn near every modern country, it is not only morally unconscionable but outright illegal to force anyone, regardless of age, heritage, citizenship, even whether the person is alive or not, to donate any of their organs or body parts to anyone else, period. It is utterly irrelevant whether the donation would save a life, or the donation is the only reasonable match. It is utterly irrelevant whether the potential donor is alive or dead; if they are dead, they must have indicated they wanted to be an organ donor in death, or taking any one of those parts is completely illegal. There are no exceptions to this, even if the person needing the donation would die without this specific donation.
And yet, suddenly it's not only morally acceptable but imperative that when a woman becomes pregnant, her right to bodily integrity is void? Unacceptable.
That said, I absolutely think that it's inhumane to prolong the process beyond the point where the fetus is capable of feeling pain (which is emphatically not at the moment of conception, or anywhere near that).
To be pro-life is to be anti-bodily-integrity. The very concepts are diametrically opposed.
To be pro-choice is not to be anti-life. I absolutely support a woman's right to control what goes on in her own body. I also absolutely support a woman's right to carry a pregnancy to term.
Makes sense.. but I couldn't help wonder at what point does the fetus obtain the right to bodily integrity? That's what makes this so complicated. At some point (a point that is still often in debate) the fetus is a human being and deserves the same basic rights. How do you reconcile the rights of the woman and the child at that point?
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Makes sense.. but I couldn't help wonder at what point does the fetus obtain the right to bodily integrity? That's what makes this so complicated. At some point (a point that is still often in debate) the fetus is a human being and deserves the same basic rights. How do you reconcile the rights of the woman and the child at that point?
This one is pretty easy, actually! Until and unless the fetus is no longer using the woman's uterus, the woman's bodily integrity is intact. Whether it is or is not morally reprehensible (or should be legal) to conduct a late term abortion (with the understanding that such a service was reasonably available during previous stages of pregnancy) is honestly a side-issue, but one that I feel like I've adequately described earlier. I personally think that when the fetus is capable of feeling pain is an adequate cutoff.
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It is utterly irrelevant whether the potential donor is alive or dead; if they are dead, they must have indicated they wanted to be an organ donor in death, or taking any one of those parts is completely illegal.
I'd be perfectly ok with making organ donation mandatory when the donor is dead (barring medically relevant issues like transmissible diseases).
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I personally would be willing to accept a 2/3rds compromise, in that abortion was legal for the first 2/3rds of a pregnancy and banned in the last one (with obvious medical exemptions) if I thought it would end this debate. but it wouldn't
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Makes sense.. but I couldn't help wonder at what point does the fetus obtain the right to bodily integrity? That's what makes this so complicated. At some point (a point that is still often in debate) the fetus is a human being and deserves the same basic rights. How do you reconcile the rights of the woman and the child at that point?
This one is pretty easy, actually! Until and unless the fetus is no longer using the woman's uterus, the woman's bodily integrity is intact. Whether it is or is not morally reprehensible (or should be legal) to conduct a late term abortion (with the understanding that such a service was reasonably available during previous stages of pregnancy) is honestly a side-issue, but one that I feel like I've adequately described earlier. I personally think that when the fetus is capable of feeling pain is an adequate cutoff.
So, is this summarization of your position correct?
1) The woman's right to bodily integrity covers the length of time that the fetus is using the woman's uterus
2) The fetus's right to bodily integrity begins at the point it is capable of feeling pain
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No; that's just the point at which killing the fetus becomes morally reprehensible.
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The very core my pro-choice beliefs is the concept of bodily integrity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodily_integrity). In short, it is the concept that what happens in one's body is under the jurisdiction of oneself and no higher authority. This is perhaps best exemplified in the complete lack of controversy surrounding organ donation. Under law in damn near every modern country, it is not only morally unconscionable but outright illegal to force anyone, regardless of age, heritage, citizenship, even whether the person is alive or not, to donate any of their organs or body parts to anyone else, period.
Maybe, to make it a little more clear about the controversy here:
Hypothetically (or maybe there is an actual case, who knows) suppose you have Siamese twins. One has 60% of the body, the other 40, but two heads obviously. One wants separation. One does not (can't survive with 40% of a body).
...Except in the case of a pregnancy, assuming that the unborn is actually a person (or, some would say, has reached the point of becoming a person), you have a completely viable means of separation with both parties surviving, in 9 months maximum.
You are already violating bodily integrity with abortion, assuming the unborn is indeed a human. How do you determine which party's bodily integrity is to be enforced above another's? The one who has a voice? The one who doesn't??
I really wish there was a way to viably freeze the unborn out of the womb for later implantation for those who can't have children of their own / or want to adopt an unwanted child. That would make this issue so much easier, as you could get rid of multiple issues at once.
Anyways, on the subject of pain, some links here (http://www.doctorsonfetalpain.com/fetal-pain-the-evidence/#.VmBGsvmrSM8), here (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/17/health/complex-science-at-issue-in-politics-of-fetal-pain.html?_r=0), here (http://www.justfactsdaily.com/when-do-humans-begin-to-feel-pain/), here (http://www.factcheck.org/2015/05/does-a-fetus-feel-pain-at-20-weeks/), and here (http://www.lifenews.com/2015/06/03/science-confirms-unborn-children-feel-intense-pain-during-abortions/), in no particular order, for and against, but the jist is that an unborn child can feel pain between 20 (pro life arguments) and sometime after 24 (pro-choice) weeks, however, do take note of these:
• In the 6th and 7th weeks after fertilization, the brain’s “cerebral hemispheres and cerebellum are developing.” [Gray’s Anatomy: The Anatomical Basis of Medicine and Surgery]
• By 7 weeks, pain “sensory receptors appear in the perioral [mouth] area.” [New England Journal of Medicine]
• By 10 weeks, “All components of the brain and spinal cord are formed, and nerves link the stem of the brain and the spinal cord to all tissues and organs of the body.” [Encyclopedia of Human Biology]
• By 12 weeks, “the fetus sucks its thumb, kicks, makes fists and faces, and has the beginnings of baby teeth.” [Human Genetics: Concepts and Applications]
• By 14 weeks, “Limb movements, which occur at the end of the embryonic period (8 weeks), become coordinated….” [Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects]
• By 16 weeks, “Eye movements begin.” [Embryology: Board Review Series]
• By 18 weeks, pain sensory receptors spread to “all cutaneous [skin] and mucous surfaces….” [New England Journal of Medicine]
• By 20 weeks, the fetus “now sleeps and wakes and hears sounds.” [American Medical Association Complete Medical Encyclopedia]
Anatomical:
Pain receptors are present throughout the unborn child’s entire body by no later than 16 weeks after fertilization, and nerves link these receptors to the brain’s thalamus and subcortical plate by no later than 20 weeks. For unborn children, says Dr. Paul Ranalli, a neurologist at the University of Toronto, 20 weeks is a “uniquely vulnerable time, since the pain system is fully established, yet the higher level pain-modifying system has barely begun to develop.” As a result, unborn babies at this age probably feel pain more intensely than adults.
Behavioral:
By 8 weeks after fertilization, the unborn child reacts to touch. By 20 weeks post-fertilization, the unborn child reacts to stimuli that would be recognized as painful if applied to an adult human—for example, by recoiling. Surgeons entering the womb to perform corrective procedures on unborn children have seen those babies flinch, jerk and recoil from sharp objects and incisions. In addition, ultrasound technology shows that unborn babies at 20 weeks and earlier react physically to outside stimuli such as sound, light and touch.
Physiological:
The application of painful stimuli is associated with significant increases in the unborn child’s stress hormones. During fetal surgery, anesthesia is routinely administered to the unborn baby and is associated with a decrease in stress hormones compared to their level when painful stimuli is applied without such anesthesia.
Despite the fetus’s advanced development at 20 weeks, the following abortion procedures are the most commonly used:
Dilation and Evacuation (D&E): Sharp-edged instruments are used to grasp, twist, and tear the baby’s body into pieces. This continues until the child’s entire body is removed from the womb. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Kennedy describes the procedure saying, “The fetus, in many cases, dies just as a human adult or child would: It bleeds to death as it is torn limb from limb.”
Digoxin abortion: A drug called digoxin is injected directly into the baby’s heart, giving the fetus a fatal heart attack. The dead baby is then removed from his or her mother by dismemberment.
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Constructing hypotheticals and asking "But what about these special cases?" is not helpful. These issues will always have a degree of fuzziness around the edges.
So let's stop doing that, yes?
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As I said, I'm glad to here both Scotty and Kara acknowledge this, although it bothers me that they're the first pro-choicers I've met to say anything to this effect. Most of the ones who even brought the matter up followed the same logic as the "How I lost all faith in the pro-life movement" article that went viral:
In the five years since that day in October, I have rethought many things. I no longer believe that abortion is murder because I no longer hold that a zygote, embryo, or fetus is a “person.” I also came to realize that the focus on personhood ignores the fact that a zygote, embryo, or fetus is growing inside of another person’s body. For a variety of reasons, I see birth as the key dividing line.
As I said, it's entirely possible that I've simply run into too many people you would probably consider "extremists" or as Scotty put it, "Misanthropes". Demographically, HLP is a lot more centrist than, well, the world in general.
The problem I have with this logic is that, pain issue aside, a human being is still getting killed. A late-term unborn baby is a former early-term one; any way you slice it, that person's getting killed. Not to mention, the solution to this "violation of a woman's bodily integrity" involves making an even bigger violation of the baby's bodily integrity. The mother might have to carry her baby for nine months, but the baby's body is completely destroyed.
EDIT Kinda Ninja'd by Jr2's point. The "violation of the mother's bodily integrity" ends in less than a year. Trying to end it early leaves one member of the pair dead.
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Constructing hypotheticals and asking "But what about these special cases?" is not helpful. These issues will always have a degree of fuzziness around the edges.
So let's stop doing that, yes?
I think what I'm attempting to do is to remove the unborn human from the realm of hypothetical, to the realm of reality.
In much the same way as it's much easier to bring home the horror of something like the Holocaust after watching something like The Boy In Striped Pajamas, or easier to realize the horrors the victims of war crimes go through after watching, say Casualties of War, etc, etc.
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The only hypothetical worthy of discussion here is "What about a mother wanting to have an abortion?". Nothing else matters. Constructing a hypothetical like your siamese twin, which you deem to be equivalent to the abortion example, is completely useless, because these examples just aren't equivalent.
Everyone who has posted in this topic is sophisticated enough to discuss the actual issues without using not-really-equivalent examples. Using them does not add to the discussion. Discussing them is useless.
Also, for the record, there is an actual example of the hypothetical you constructed. You can read about it here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Re_A_(conjoined_twins)). It should be noted that the only reason that case existed was because there was a choice between maybe saving one twin or definitely losing both, something your hypothetical didn't touch on, but which is crucial in determining whether or not a separation is ethical.
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It doesn't matter how long the violation will occur for. You don't tell someone that slavery is okay because there's a hypothetical ten year statutory limit on being a slave. It's totally tangential to the point.
Nothing here violates the fetus's bodily integrity. If you don't know why that is, I suggest going back and reading the definition I supplied a bit more carefully.
Hint: it has nothing to do with bodily harm.
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In short, it is the concept that what happens in one's body is under the jurisdiction of oneself and no higher authority. This is perhaps best exemplified in the complete lack of controversy surrounding organ donation. Under law in damn near every modern country, it is not only morally unconscionable but outright illegal to force anyone, regardless of age, heritage, citizenship, even whether the person is alive or not, to donate any of their organs or body parts to anyone else, period.
So, basically, because the duration of bodily integrity violation for the woman (9 months) is longer than the bodily integrity violation of the fetus (half an hour?), then the lesser of two evils is to violate the bodily integrity of the unborn.
This sails right past one detail:
You mentioned slavery, forcing someone to do something against their will
How does your position deal with forcing someone to forfeit the entirety of their, let's say average of 70
I get the issue with body integrity, check.
I get that the woman cannot be forced to donate her organs for their use in keeping an unborn alive, check.
I don't get that you don't get that you are inversely donating the entirety of another human's life (totality of all body organs) for 70 years.
Please do elaborate. :confused:
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It doesn't matter how long the violation will occur for. You don't tell someone that slavery is okay because there's a hypothetical ten year statutory limit on being a slave. It's totally tangential to the point.
Nothing here violates the fetus's bodily integrity. If you don't know why that is, I suggest going back and reading the definition I supplied a bit more carefully.
Hint: it has nothing to do with bodily harm.
As far as I understand, your definition of bodily integrity is that what happens to, or in, a person's body, is under their jurisdiction. But abortion not only interferes with but completely destroys the baby's body, and the baby has no choice in the matter.
Comparing pregnancy to slavery is pretty far fetched. Slavery is a violation of a person's most basic freedoms; pregnancy is a natural part of life, and as it's needed to bring a new human being into the world, it's broadly speaking a good thing.
but even if I grant you that, look: we have two people, who's rights to bodily integrity seem to conflicting.
Option A: Wait a couple months until the conflict ends with both parties alive and well.
Option B: For the sake of reinstating A's bodily integrity a little faster, commit the ultimate violation of B's integrity by destroying B's body.
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well, the fetus has no choice in anything because the fetus is incapable of choice, the fetus doesn't have a choice in being born either. You don't have a conflict between two people because a fetus is not a person, especially early on in the pregnancy. In the future I will be dead, that doesn't mean I'm dead now, why is it that in the future a fetus will turn into a person means that it is a person now?
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pregnancy is a natural part of life, and as it's needed to bring a new human being into the world, it's broadly speaking a good thing.
This is where we'll have to agree to disagree. The world is probably OK on humans.
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well, no no we need more children because our demographics are aging and we need more young people to pay for our older generation. :)
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well, the fetus has no choice in anything because the fetus is incapable of choice, the fetus doesn't have a choice in being born either. You don't have a conflict between two people because a fetus is not a person, especially early on in the pregnancy. In the future I will be dead, that doesn't mean I'm dead now, why is it that in the future a fetus will turn into a person means that it is a person now?
Because despite how factually you try to type that... large portions of the population have conflicting views on when personhood begins...
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It should perhaps be noted that the bodily integrity of the fetus is not neccisarely impacted during the abortion. Rather, it's ejected from the worm along with it's "life support system". The unfortunate side effect to this is that the fetus is at that point completely dependant on the mother to survive, and thus dies.
The question here is whether or not the fetus has the right to use the resources that a woman provides to it without her consent, or that a woman should risk sacrificing her own life for the sake of having a higher chance of saving the baby's life. The decisions of abortions often boil down to a) The unwanted result of consensual sex due to failure of contraceptives, b) the unwanted results of unwanted sex (ie rape) or c) medical complications.
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Let me ask you this, let's suppose that the bible said the soul enters the body only at birth and that before that the embryo was no more a person than an unmixed sample of sperm and an egg. I know it doesn't say that, but let's suppose it did. The bible does not say that sperm is alive just because it might one day become a human being. It's just something that might possibly one day have a soul and become a human. Let's say the bible flat out says that an unborn child is the same. Would you still have a problem with abortion then?
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Let me ask you this, let's suppose that the bible said the soul enters the body only at birth and that before that the embryo was no more a person than an unmixed sample of sperm and an egg. I know it doesn't say that, but let's suppose it did. The bible does not say that sperm is alive just because it might one day become a human being. It's just something that might possibly one day have a soul and become a human. Let's say the bible flat out says that an unborn child is the same. Would you still have a problem with abortion then?
Having felt the kicks of my own children before they were born... have experienced that they reacted and kicked back to certain stimuli. Yes, very much yes. But of course I'm talking late pregnancy here. But in your hypothetical, it still counts given where your line is drawn.
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It should perhaps be noted that the bodily integrity of the fetus is not neccisarely impacted during the abortion. Rather, it's ejected from the worm along with it's "life support system". The unfortunate side effect to this is that the fetus is at that point completely dependant on the mother to survive, and thus dies.
that's not entirely accurate, there are plenty of abortion methods that destroy the fetus still in the womb, not that it invalidates your greater point.
Because despite how factually you try to type that... large portions of the population have conflicting views on when personhood begins...
it's the only premise that an anti-abortion stance has to stand on.
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Having felt the kicks of my own children before they were born... have experienced that they reacted and kicked back to certain stimuli. Yes, very much yes.
A pig reacts to stimuli, that doesn't stop most people from eating bacon. It's not a human, so it's okay to kill it.
But if that's the issue you can't get over, let's say that the soul enters at 20 weeks. Would you still have a problem with a pill that could cause an abortion in a woman up to 10 weeks?
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It should perhaps be noted that the bodily integrity of the fetus is not neccisarely impacted during the abortion. Rather, it's ejected from the worm along with it's "life support system". The unfortunate side effect to this is that the fetus is at that point completely dependant on the mother to survive, and thus dies.
that's not entirely accurate, there are plenty of abortion methods that destroy the fetus still in the womb, not that it invalidates your greater point.
Actually there's an interesting side question there, if people would be okay with some abortion methods but not with others.
Also... How did we actually get to discussing the merits of abortion here? Although Planned Parenthood provides abortion as one of it's many services, the vast majority of the services it provides are aimed at preventing unwanted pregnancies entirely (thus reducing the need for abortion), supporting women in poor financial healthcare so that miscarriages don't happen (And if you are going to argue that abortion is murder, miscarriages are manslaughter), preventing cancer, preventing STIs and many other measures that our child loving community would adore. There are quite a few planned parenthood clinics (slightly less then half) that do not provide abortion but do provide these other services. It is in nobodies interest, not of that of any *-life movements, pregnant women or any fetus that these clinics are attacked. Yet the politicians seem more interested in letting their policies be influenced by terrorists rather then preventing senseless deaths. Woo. Go world.
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For the last time: stop it with the hypothetical scenarios and what-ifs. They do not lead to anything productive, and are more of an interrogation or blackmail technique than a good way of making your argument.
Let's also get away from the topic of the ethics of abortions and talk about something perhaps more relevant to the concrete case that started this thing. Namely, is the way in which the abortion debate is conducted in the United States, with all the exaggerations and hyperbole and panic-making, at least partially responsible for this?
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Having felt the kicks of my own children before they were born... have experienced that they reacted and kicked back to certain stimuli. Yes, very much yes.
A pig reacts to stimuli, that doesn't stop most people from eating bacon. It's not a human, so it's okay to kill it.
Not sure what point you're trying to make here... a pig is most clearly a different situation that an nearly fully developed unborn child... We don't farm children in order to eat them. Nor does anyone other than the most hardcore animal rights activists actual consider a pig having equal or similar rights to a human child in any way, shape, or form.
But if that's the issue you can't get over, let's say that the soul enters at 20 weeks. Would you still have a problem with a pill that could cause an abortion in a woman up to 10 weeks?
And at this point, the argument you were trying to make becomes void. Birth, being one of the clearest and easiest dividing lines between "child with rights" and "child without rights" has been ceded. There are few, if any, lines to be drawn with any sort of hard conclusion during pregnancy. That's why pro-lifers keep using the same old arguments about how early there is a heartbeat or when some other very person-like development happens in the child. If any of these lines were true debate-enders, this whole thing wouldn't be such an issue. As soon as pro-choicers ceded birth as the dividing line, the debate became exponentially more complicated.
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Let me ask you this, let's suppose that the bible said the soul enters the body only at birth and that before that the embryo was no more a person than an unmixed sample of sperm and an egg. I know it doesn't say that, but let's suppose it did. The bible does not say that sperm is alive just because it might one day become a human being. It's just something that might possibly one day have a soul and become a human. Let's say the bible flat out says that an unborn child is the same. Would you still have a problem with abortion then?
Where on earth have I brought up the Bible as an argument? To me at least, the fact that Christianity in general tends to line up with the pro-life movement is more of an argument for Christianity than for the pro-life movement. In other words, it's more accurate to say that I'm Christian because I'm pro-life, not the other way around (either statement is an oversimplification, but still).
EDIT: Kinda Ninja'd by The_E
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@josh- why are we talking about abortion and only abortion? Because it's the controversial issue. See http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc
@mixael- I never ceded nothing. I only ever entertain discussion about other dividing lines in order to understand the point of view of the person I'm arguing against.
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@mixael- I never ceded nothing. I only ever entertain discussion about other dividing lines in order to understand the point of view of the person I'm arguing against.
You are not the defining factor of the pro-choice group, perhaps regardless of how much you'd like to be. In fact many who seem to be pro-choice in this thread have already said that an abortion in the last third of pregnancy might be morally reprehensible. That is exactly what opens the door to further discussion, debate, and more complications.
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think of what I said as more calling out those others for having done that if they did and you are not merely misinterpreting.
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Let me ask you this, let's suppose that the bible said the soul enters the body only at birth and that before that the embryo was no more a person than an unmixed sample of sperm and an egg. I know it doesn't say that, but let's suppose it did. The bible does not say that sperm is alive just because it might one day become a human being. It's just something that might possibly one day have a soul and become a human. Let's say the bible flat out says that an unborn child is the same. Would you still have a problem with abortion then?
:wtf:
No.
However, in that case, if the body still counts as a being capable of experiencing suffering (like an animal, say), then care should be taken when euthanizing.
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I think I know where he's going with this...
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I should say, if you don't believe in souls, then you need to find what makes a human human (some said pain response, in which case we are looking at 20-24 weeks) and draw your line there I would think.
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I for one think 979 weeks is the ideal line.
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consciousness, perception, awareness, personality. give birth as the early cutoff to err on the safe side and because at that point parental instincts really aught to be kicking in.
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So you have no problems euthanizing severely mentally disabled people who were born that way, or were in a severe accident / debilitating disease?
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I get the issue with body integrity, check.
I have my doubts.
I get that the woman cannot be forced to donate her organs for their use in keeping an unborn alive, check.
Good.
I don't get that you don't get that you are inversely donating the entirety of another human's life (totality of all body organs) for 70 years.
Please do elaborate. :confused:
What sort of horse**** is "inversely donating"? I get what you're trying to say, and I reject it completely. A woman (or anyone else) should not be required to unwillingly donate parts of their body to ensure the survival of someone else. This is inviolable, as far as I'm concerned.
InsaneBaron: even after explaining it a couple times I can see you don't understand what bodily integrity means. It does not actually mean the physical integrity of a body. Unless the fetus's organs are being donated against its will to something, its bodily integrity is intact whether its body is or not. I can't explain it any clearer than that. If you disagree with it, fine, but stop trying to say it's something that it isn't because it fits your narrative better.
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every month a woman remains un-pregnant after puberty is a life inversely donated by her hypo-child!
I hope I don't have to declare sarcasm here
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I should say, if you don't believe in souls, then you need to find what makes a human human (some said pain response, in which case we are looking at 20-24 weeks) and draw your line there I would think.
Good. You've basically arrived at the pro-choice position. Pro-life believe that what makes human a human is conception or that since there is no way to know, it's safest to treat that point as conception. Pro-choice believe that it's the things that set us apart from animals that makes a human a human and that there are certain concrete indicators to guess the time frame around which that will happen. Now obviously those two points of view can't be reconciled which basically is what causes the whole argument.
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InsaneBaron: even after explaining it a couple times I can see you don't understand what bodily integrity means. It does not actually mean the physical integrity of a body. Unless the fetus's organs are being donated against its will to something, its bodily integrity is intact whether its body is or not. I can't explain it any clearer than that. If you disagree with it, fine, but stop trying to say it's something that it isn't because it fits your narrative better.
Okay, if destroying a person's body without their consent is not a violation of bodily integrity, then what on earth is that term supposed to mean? However bodily integrity is defined, destroying a person's body is clearly a violation of their right to live- and by extension, of pretty much all their rights, since a dead person can't enjoy rights like property, conscience, et cetera.
Based on the italicised part, can I assume you disapprove of selling baby parts?
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InsaneBaron: even after explaining it a couple times I can see you don't understand what bodily integrity means. It does not actually mean the physical integrity of a body. Unless the fetus's organs are being donated against its will to something, its bodily integrity is intact whether its body is or not. I can't explain it any clearer than that. If you disagree with it, fine, but stop trying to say it's something that it isn't because it fits your narrative better.
Okay, if destroying a person's body without their consent is not a violation of bodily integrity, then what on earth is that term supposed to mean? However bodily integrity is defined, destroying a person's body is clearly a violation of their right to live- and by extension, of pretty much all their rights, since a dead person can't enjoy rights like property, conscience, et cetera.
Based on the italicised part, can I assume you disapprove of selling baby parts?
I have now linked this twice (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodily_integrity), and explained it four times. It is, in basest form, the inviolability of the concept of bodily self-determination. This is the basis for the statutes in the United States (and nearly all other functioning, civilized states) that require informed consent regarding organ donation. The government cannot force anyone to donate an organ to someone else, period, no two ways about it, even if that donation would save the other person's life.
This is equivalent (unlike literally every other example presented in this thread). If a person cannot be forced to offer up the use of a kidney to save a life, a person cannot be forced to offer up the use of a uterus to save a life. It is a personal choice, made with sound mind and body, whether to effect an organ donation. This is true even in death. To suggest that a woman must carry a pregnancy to term is to grant more personal freedoms to dead bodies than to women.
The amount of time is irrelevant. The fact that it would save a life is entirely irrelevant. This is self-determination in the most basic, most intrinsic sense.
Now, all of that said: it is morally reprehensible to wait to get an abortion until the fetus can feel pain, especially when the capability for the operation and the decision existed beforehand. I further absolutely do not agree with the utilization of aborted fetuses, sold or not.
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Based on the italicised part, can I assume you disapprove of selling baby parts?
It should be noted that the 'selling baby parts' controversy of Planned Parenthood was entirely fabricated. The real controversy here is that a health clinic was attacked with that fabrication as a pretext.
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InsaneBaron: even after explaining it a couple times I can see you don't understand what bodily integrity means. It does not actually mean the physical integrity of a body. Unless the fetus's organs are being donated against its will to something, its bodily integrity is intact whether its body is or not.
[...]
Okay, if destroying a person's body without their consent is not a violation of bodily integrity, then what on earth is that term supposed to mean?
[...]
I have now linked this twice (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodily_integrity), and explained it four times. It is, in basest form, the inviolability of the concept of bodily self-determination.
[...]
You do realize that you're giving the impression that you really think that destroying someone's body is not a violation of their bodily integrity, but taking their kidney or not letting them have an abortion is?
I mean, for some reason you clearly are avoiding saying that the concept of bodily integrity doesn't apply to a fetus because it's not a person. Instead, you are simply saying that killing the fetus is not a violation of its bodily integrity because, like, bodily integrity doesn't mean physical integrity of a body.
Of course that would sound very nutty to most people so I'll assume it's not what you actually mean, but surely you can see how that's what your point very much looks like, so I'd really suggest clarifying. Describing this part of your position could be easily and effortlessly done with just a few checkboxes:
[ ] The mother is a person
[ ] Preventing the mother from having an abortion violates their bodily integrity
[ ] Killing the mother violates their bodily integrity
[ ] The fetus is a person
[ ] An abortion where the fetus is actively killed violates their bodily integrity
[ ] An abortion where the fetus is expelled but not actively killed violates their bodily integrity
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Okay. Since this topic has now officially degraded into "Interrogate the unbeliever about the extent of his heresy", I'm closing it.
Learn how to discuss philosophy and morality while accepting that there are far too many nuances and gray areas for any quick-and-simple rule to work everywhere, please. That goes for all of you.