Issues of Faith

[angel_luv]

I found the following linksinformative and helpful.

I am posting them for anyone else who might be interested.

I do realize this is just one source of information, so if anyone has links to add, please do.

The following blogs are written by Mary Fairchild, About.com
She introduced her blogs this way:


Issues of faith and religion come to the forefront quite often during elections and presidential campaigns. In preparation for the primary elections, I sent each candidate a brief questionnaire about their faith and provided a "faith snapshot" of each of the 2008 presidential candidates. This project was updated as I received responses and found additional faith-related statements from the candidates.

Senator Obama



Party: Democratic
Age: 46
Education:
Columbia University, B.A.
Harvard Law School, J.D.
Current Position: U.S. Senator, Illinois
Experience: Attorney, Illinois State Senator
Declared Candidacy: Feb. 2007
Vice Presidential Pick: Joe Biden
Web site: Obama '08

Barack Obama's Faith Snapshot:
Religion/Church: United Church of Christ

Barack Obama was not raised in a religious household. Like his mother, he said he "grew up with a healthy skepticism of organized religion." His father was born Muslim but became an atheist as an adult. His mother's family members were "non-practicing" Baptists and Methodists. It was after college that he encountered a "spiritual dilemma." He realized something was missing in his life and he felt drawn to be in church.

Obama said he had begun to sense God beckoning him to submit to His will and dedicate himself to discovering truth. So one day he walked down the aisle at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago and affirmed his Christian faith. During a "Call to Renewal" Keynote Address in June 2006, he refers to himself as a progressive Christian. And in this New York Times article, Senator Obama's denomination, the United Church of Christ, is described as "a mostly white denomination known for the independence of its congregations and its willingness to experiment with traditional Protestant theology."

Barack Obama's Expressions of Faith:
Barack Obama said that his faith "plays every role" in his life. "It's what keeps me grounded. It's what keeps my eyes set on the greatest of heights." In the "Call to Renewal" Keynote Address he also said, "Faith doesn't mean that you don't have doubts. You need to come to church in the first place precisely because you are first of this world, not apart from it. You need to embrace Christ precisely because you have sins to wash away - because you are human and need an ally in this difficult journey."

Barack Obama & the Bible:
Obama writes in his book, The Audacity of Hope, "I am not willing to have the state deny American citizens a civil union that confers equivalent rights on such basic matters as hospital visitation or health insurance coverage simply because the people they love are of the same sex—nor am I willing to accept a reading of the Bible that considers an obscure line in Romans to be more defining of Christianity than the Sermon on the Mount.”


Senator Biden

Profile has yet to be posted on site. Is coming soon.

Senator McCain
http://christianity.about.com/od/religionpolitics/p/mccainfaithss.htm


John McCain's Political Profile:
On the Issues: Compare
Party: Republican
Age: 71
Education:
U.S. Naval Academy, B.S.
Current Position: U.S. Senator, Arizona
Experience: U.S. Navy, Senate Navy Liaison, U.S. Rep., Arizona
Declared Candidacy: April 2007
Vice Presidential Pick: Sarah Palin
Web site: John McCain 2008

John McCain's Faith Snapshot:
Religion/Church: Baptist

Although John McCain was raised in the Episcopal Church and attended an Episcopal high school, he no longer considers himself a member of the Episcopal faith. For a number of years, he and his wife Cindy have attended the North Phoenix Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist congregation. But McCain does not call himself a Baptist either. The Associated Press reported that McCain prefers to simply be known as a Christian. He said, "The most important thing is that I am a Christian."

John McCain's Expressions of Faith:
Speaking to TIME about his experience in captivity as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, McCain said that prayer played an important role in sustaining him: "Those of us who gained our spiritual help and strength through God seemed to do better physically than those who basically gave up."

About his prayer life, McCain went on to say, "I pray regularly, and I don't have to be getting ready for bed, or be getting up in the morning. I seize opportunities throughout the day."

McCain also said his faith has helped him move past failure: "I haven't always succeeded; I've failed many times. But because the foundation of ... my belief is redemption, I've been able to receive additional comfort, strength and the desire to move forward again."

McCain told Beliefnet, "I've sort of evolved in my religious faith. And I think probably because of my failings and mistakes in life I'm a much bigger believer in redemption. I really believe that redemption is a very important part of our religion. I'm much more of a believer in a loving God, a personal God. I'm much less inclined in every way to believe in a vengeful God."

Govenor Palin
http://christianity.about.com/od/religionpolitics/p/sarahpalinfaith.htm


Sarah Palin's Political Profile:
Party: Republican
On the Issues: Palin on the Major Issues
Age: 44
Education:
University of Idaho, B.S.
Current Position: Governor of Alaska; Vice Presidential Candidate
Experience: Chairwoman, Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission; 2-Term Mayor, Wasilla, Alaska; 2-Term City Council, Wasilla, Alaska.
Declared Candidacy: John McCain announced Palin as running mate on August 29, 2008.
Website:
Alaska Governor's Office

Sarah Palin's Faith Snapshot:
Religion/Church: Non-Denominational, Christian

Sarah Palin was raised in the Assemblies of God denomination, however, a spokesperson for the McCain-Palin campaign told the Associated press, she now attends different churches and does not consider herself a Pentecostal. In high school she led her local Fellowship of Christian Athletes group.


According to this report in the National Catholic Reporter, today Palin frequents an independent Christian church known as Church on the Rock, located in Wasilla, Alaska. It has also been reported by an Associated Press religion writer, that Palin sometimes attends Juneau Christian Center in Juneau, Alaska. And in this Time article, the Palin's place of worship is said to be the Wasilla Bible Church.

Sarah Palin's Expressions of Faith:
When early testing showed that Palin's fifth child would be born with Down syndrome, Palin's pro-life stance and undoubtedly her Christian faith, kept her from ever considering ending the pregnancy. When little "Trig" was born, Sarah told the Anchorage Daily News, "she was sad at first but they now feel blessed that God chose them." This press statement from the Palin family explains in more detail:

"Trig is beautiful and already adored by us. We knew through early testing he would face special challenges, and we feel privileged that God would entrust us with this gift and allow us unspeakable joy as he entered our lives. We have faith that every baby is created for good purpose and has potential to make this world a better place. We are truly blessed."
Michael Paulson, religion writer for the Boston Globe put together this faith perspective called, "Sarah Palin on faith, life and creation." In it he includes this portion of a 2006 Anchorage Daily News article:

"Her Christian faith, they say, came from her mother, who took her children to area Bible churches as they were growing up (Sarah is the third of four siblings). They say her faith has been steady since high school, when she led the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and grew stronger as she sought out believers in her college years. Palin doesn't brandish her religion on the campaign trail, but that doesn't prevent others from doing so."
A longtime Alaska resident, Chas St. George, said, "Wearing her faith quietly fits more with Palin's personality."

[Findog]

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/21896154/without_a_prayer

Phoenix, July 13th, Sunday morning. Thank God John McCain has declared that he wants to wallpaper the continent with new nuke plants, because now the chances are better that this wretched slab of hot, birdshit-covered asphalt they call a state will be blown to hell in an accident someday. I hate this place. Once the sun comes up on an Arizona weekend, nothing moves except the occasional elderly-piloted Buick floating boatlike in the direction of some hideous megachurch.

This morning I've come to one of those monstrosities, North Phoenix Baptist Church, to witness John McCain's halfhearted offensive in his battle to win over the Christian right. On the stump, McCain talks about God less than any Republican politician in recent memory — certainly less than any Republican I've ever seen. The guy pitches a tent visible from a mile off whenever anyone so much as mentions the military; you can almost hear the dopamine surging into his bloodstream every time someone stands up in a town hall and begins a question by saying, "Hello, Senator, my husband was a Navy pilot. . . ." And he seems positively tumescent when talking about such horrors as Al Qaeda or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But his basic stump speech doesn't contain a single line about God or religion. McCain is probably the first Republican in modern history to talk more about "green technology" than about his personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

While Barack Obama gives regular addresses at churches, where he comes off very like a preacher (right down to his natty blue suits and his lilting oratory), McCain's chosen stump locations are invariably VFW halls or factory sites — where he tries to win over working-class crowds by telling them that their jobs aren't coming back. As the nominee of a party that has swept two straight elections by hawking cheap pieties and ramming one preposterous lie after another down the public's throat, McCain's agnostically bummerific public-speaking strategy is a curiosity, to say the least.

Here's the thing about John McCain, and it's never easy to tell whether this is a good quality or a bad one. He's a shitty liar. He may be willing to change his position on anything from immigration to torture to campaign finance at the drop of a hat to win votes, and he may have no problem aiming below the belt — below the knees even — to impugn an opponent's patriotism. But this is not a guy who can get up in front of a churchgoing crowd in Asscrack, Arkansas, and start weeping to Jesus. In fact, he appears to deeply resent the implication that he needs to genuflect to the baby savior at all. As in, "Hell, I already lived through five years of torture! You want me to do more?"

The Republican party returned to power at the beginning of this decade thanks to a brilliantly innovative political hybrid represented in its most advanced form by the Bush-Cheney ticket — a high-tech engine of ruthless neocon capitalism wedded to a half-literate aristocrat dunce hiding his alcoholism in born-again Christian platitudes. Add corporate money to fundamentalist-Christian demographics in a country as dumb and superstitious as America, and you can vaporize a century's worth of Al Gores and John Kerrys.

But here's how fucked that seemingly unstoppable coalition is this time around, now that the ticket is headed by an aging Goldwaterite named John McCain: The candidate has only recently come around to the idea that the Republican nominee in the age of Bush and the evangelical ayatollahs has to go to church regularly. When asked recently if he is an evangelical Christian, McCain answered, "I attend church." When asked how often, he said, "Not as often as I should."

So in recent weeks, to prove his piety, McCain has taken to dragging himself out of bed on Sunday mornings to attend services at North Phoenix Baptist, not-so-subtly announcing his devotions to his traveling press. ("Yeah, they started telling us he was going to church about a month ago," one McCain-beat reporter chuckled to me on the Straight Talk Express. "Like, Oh, by the way, he's going to church again. At this address, if you want to check. . . .") Originally baptized an Episcopalian, McCain claims that he's been attending this Southern Baptist church for some 15 years, despite the fact that his 2007 congressional biography lists his faith as Episcopalian. But in a touching display of his apparent unwillingness to do absolutely anything to get elected, McCain still hasn't been baptized in his new church — he's not born-again, in other words. Dude is holding out for some reason. Like he's afraid to lie to God. A politician, afraid to lie!

The marriage of fundamentalist Christianity and the conservative movement has been a powerful force in world affairs. It has been the best smoke screen the archpriests of supply-side economics could possibly have had, giving Wall Street a populist in with the very people victimized the most by their union-busting, deregulatory policies. It turned out, for decades, that Bible-thumping Americans didn't mind having their jobs shipped to China, so long as someone was worrying about the air supply to Terri Schiavo's brain lump. As political cons go, this was the ultimate gift that kept on giving.

It all had to end sometime, though, and that sometime might be now. Nervous, white, sexually inhibited Protestants with fourth-grade educations are becoming a smaller and smaller share of the country's population, and the Christian right is increasingly frustrated with the Republican Party's failure to transform America into a fundamentalist caliphate. (Forget about abortion: After eight years of Republican rule, Christians can't even put up the Ten Commandments in Alabama without someone bitching about it.) But the last straw just might come down to one Republican politician's personal idiosyncrasies. All the party needed was one more pious, Scripture-quoting, hair-spray-soaked whore to hold this thing together for another four years, and instead they got John McCain. And John McCain may break up three decades of GOP Jesus-flogging simply because he is too afraid to get his forehead wet. Wouldn't that be something?

North Phoenix Baptist is an ideal spiritual hiding place for a reluctant believer. For anyone with private doubts about the religious right, or even religion in general, the place's architectural setup — with its thousands of seats and its giant twin TV monitors for reading hymn lyrics and its stoned-looking crowd of sun-damaged, elderly white retirees in golf garb — is the perfect venue to hunker down and take your lumps once a week. Even I blend in, crouched a dozen rows up from McCain and his wife, Cindy, on the right side of the auditorium, mouthing the words to a half-hour of excruciating hymns.

Dan Yeary, the pastor of North Phoenix Baptist, doesn't bear much resemblance to the torch-bearing bigots of the Ted Haggard/Jesus Camp variety. He's a low-key Southwesterner with a kindly smile who seems to recognize that his aging congregation prefers the weak beer of mild spiritual encouragement to the 10-alarm chili you find in the witch-hunting Bible Belt. But on this day, he has crafted a sermon that seems to be aimed directly at the casual believer who thinks going to church once a week makes him holy. "We're not talking about paying dues at a country club," Yeary preaches. "This isn't about ritual. This is about a relationship."

Yeary talks about how important baptism is as a symbol of one's submission to God, "the first act of obedience." Then he tells a story about Abe Lincoln — another famously vacillating Republican claimed by both atheists and Christians alike. The story involves a pastor who took Lincoln to hear another famous pastor speak. When the fiery oratory was over, Lincoln's friend asked him what he thought of the sermon.

"Lincoln said it was fine," relates Yeary. "The friend said, 'Fine? Just fine? Why?' And Lincoln answered, 'He did not ask me to do anything great for God.' "

Yeary carefully avoids looking over at the conspicuously unbaptized McCain. "That's what I want," he says. "I want to be part of people who take God seriously."

I watch McCain throughout the sermon. When the story is over, he flashes his creepy Count Chocula smile — the same one he pulls out, teeth bared, after his That's not change we can believe in! stump line — but otherwise doesn't react. Everybody on our side of the chapel is glancing over at him.

In a way, this scene says everything you need to know about McCain's dilemma. The man is a relic from a previous era of conservatism, when privacy was sacrosanct and public expressions of religiosity were considered vulgar and in bad taste. McCain comes from a generation of American men for whom religion was a ticket you punched once a week, a low-effort symbol of conformity to go with your two-car garage, your sorority-girl wife and your weekly golf game with the fellas. The whole braying-to-the-moon, born-again Promise Keeper act perfected by the Bushes and Huckabees of the world is as alien to his sensibility as an Iron John man-poetry retreat. Sitting here in the North Phoenix Baptist pews, he has a look on his face like he'd just as well suck a cock as do an altar call. It's one of his most likable qualities.

It's not like McCain isn't going to get Christian votes. In fact, his relationship with fundamentalist Christian groups has come a long way since last year, when some Christian leaders vowed to sit out the election if McCain was the nominee. Back then, it really looked bleak: Some prominent Christians sounded like they would rather have baguettes shoved up their asses than go anywhere near McCain come November. "Speaking as a private individual, I would not vote for John McCain under any circumstances," declared James Dobson, head of the influential Focus on the Family.

The Dobson comment came in January 2007, on a radio program called Jerry Johnson Live, a broadcast that exposed McCain's weaknesses with regard to the Christian community. Dobson was holding forth about this and that when the host suddenly whipped out an old audio recording of McCain offering his opinion about a key "values" issue. It was the kind of nightmarish, weirdly tolerant quip that seems to bubble up from McCain's past with unnerving regularity: "I think, uh . . . I think that gay marriage should be allowed if there's a ceremony kind of thing, if you wanna call it that," incredulous conservative listeners could hear McCain saying. "I don't have any problem with that."

That was enough for Dobson. "He's not in favor of traditional marriage, and I pray that we won't get stuck with him," he growled.

But that was back in the days when Huckabee was still a candidate and a whole field of more openly pious and gay-bashing Republicans had not yet dropped out. Since then, McCain has dealt with his weakness on the gay-marriage issue as he has dealt with countless others — by changing his mind. In fact, McCain changed his mind barely 11 minutes after the above "gay marriage should be allowed" statement, made on Hardball back in October 2006. "I believe that if people want to have private ceremonies, that's fine," he said in his about-face. "I do not believe that gay marriage should be legal." Just last week, McCain also came out against gay adoption. But for the most part, his strategy has been to just stop talking about any of this shit at all, recognizing that his political situation vis-à-vis the religious right improved dramatically without him saying a word the minute his chief opponent stopped being ex-preacher Mike Huckabee and started being queer-loving, Bernie Mac buddy Barack Obama.

It's McCain's newfound status as the lesser of two evils that recently won him a previously unthinkable triumph — the pledged support of more than 100 Christian groups who met in Denver on July 1st to create a so-called "Declaration of American Values." Organized by Mat Staver, chairman of the fundamentalist group Liberty Counsel, the declaration was an attempt to reunite a Christian right that, as Staver tells me, had suffered "through a fractious primary season. There were a lot of hurt feelings." The group — which included notables on the religious right like Phyllis Schlafly and Tim Lahaye — settled on a list of 10 basic principles, including the perennial sanctity of life and anti-gay-marriage stuff, as well as some weirder and less biblically obvious demands supporting unfettered gun ownership and opposing taxation "of a progressive nature."

And while the group came out in support of McCain, Staver is anxious that this not be interpreted as a broad expression of enthusiasm by the Christian right. "Uh, the media somewhat didn't accurately report that," he says with obvious fright in his voice. "This wasn't a Declaration of American Values in support of John McCain. This was a statement of support for those core values." It was agreed, Staver clarifies, that supporting McCain in this election was merely the best choice for the "short term." And the reason for that, he says, is that the election of Barack Obama would "decimate American values." From there, Staver is off and running about Obama's record on abortion rights and gay marriage, and how generally an Obama election would bring about the end of civilization; he said almost nothing about McCain.

I get the same response when I speak to Kristi Hamrick of the Campaign for Working Families, a political fundraising group affiliated with former presidential candidate Gary Bauer, who was one of the first prominent Christian-right leaders to pledge support for McCain. When I ask a general question about how evangelicals will vote in the fall, Hamrick immediately focuses on Obama. "When California endorsed gay marriage, Barack Obama said it was a good idea. John McCain didn't," she tells me. "It would be different if we had a pro-choice Republican running, but we don't. We have a pro-life Republican."

But despite the nearly monolithic support of the organized Christian right for McCain now that the infidel Obama is on the ballot, there's no guarantee that Christian voters are buying McCain as the electoral protector of biblical family values. In fact, McCain's backtracking with regard to the religious right seems to have had an off-putting effect: A recent poll shows that only one in 10 registered voters are more likely to vote for McCain now that he is campaigning with the religious right. Two in 10, on the other hand, say they are now less likely to vote for him.

The real problem here might be that McCain's stubborn refusal to pull a full-court Huckabee on the God front has coincided with (a) an impending economic catastrophe and (b) statements by one of his closest advisers, Phil Gramm, to the effect that America is in a "mental recession" and is a "nation of whiners." As a result, McCain now has the daunting task of somehow keeping voters in economically hard-hit evangelical regions mesmerized by Bible-humping, gay-bashing bullshit, despite the fact that he only started going to church regularly a month ago and as recently as a year ago was actually saying gay people are human beings. If he doesn't, who knows — people might actually start voting according to their economic interests, which would be disastrous for a Republican Party that has duped America's white underclass for decades, thanks to Christian conservatism.

But that's only if McCain keeps up his present habit of not playing the God card on the stump. "If the contrast between the candidates on social issues is heightened enough, then those evangelical voters will eventually come back on board," says James Gimpel, a professor of government at the University of Maryland who tracks voter demographics in real time for a project called Patchwork Nation. The project recently found that counties with large populations of Christian evangelicals have been hit especially hard by high gas prices and foreclosures, creating greater anxiety leading up to the election.

Gimpel concedes, however, that McCain is not doing a whole lot right now to "heighten" that contrast. "Yeah, he doesn't seem very interested in campaigning on those social issues," he says. "Unless he turns it around or gets surrogates to make that case for him, some evangelicals might sit it out."

McCain is so bad at this game that when it came time for him to pick an evangelical date for the prom, he chose the one preacher crazy enough to make even trailer-dwelling Southerners nervous — John Hagee, a beach-ball-shaped apocalypse merchant whose views on Catholicism would raise eyebrows at a Klan meeting. Classic McCain: He kicks off his presidential run in 2000 by insulting North American vote-generating champion Jerry Falwell, then heads into 2008 with his arms wrapped around an obscure televangelist whose only electoral pull is in the next world. As a result, the most influential leaders on the Christian right are keeping their distance. "Uh, no," says a spokesman for Focus on the Family, when I ask if Dobson has changed his mind about McCain, even with Obama on the ticket. "He hasn't changed his mind. No way."

Watching these once-united wings of the Republican juggernaut devolve into frank mutual suspicion and distaste along the runway to almost certain electoral disaster is, of course, a delicious development. The Moral Majority Christians and the supply-side neocons always represented two of the worst and most vile impulses in the American character — mass, willful ignorance and total, shameless greed. In one wing of the ruling-party mansion they housed preachers who transformed the religion of "turn the other cheek" and "go, give away all your possessions to the poor" into a "Christianity" that celebrated shock-and-awe bombing and assault-rifle ownership and decried the progressive income tax as unfair to the propertied class. In the other wing they housed "conservatives" who turned the party of limited government into a giant snooping apparatus, one that borrowed trillions against the future earnings of ordinary taxpayers and sacrificed thousands of lives to snatch a few Middle Eastern oil wells for companies that were rich as hell to begin with.

The Bible-thumpers, mainly working- and middle-class whites with limited educations from the landlocked states of the South and the Midwest, would seem to have had little in common with the archpriests of the neoconservative movement, who as it happened were mainly Jewish academics with fancy degrees from the East and West Coasts. But they did: They shared an almost equal disdain for democracy, free speech and learning, and paradise for both groups was an intellectually mute America of vast malls, prisons packed full of ungrateful blacks, shitty TV programming to keep the brains chilled and 200-foot-high electrified fences along the Rio Grande. And lots of hero worship of soldiers, if not so much in the way of VA benefits.

This vision looked unstoppable for a while; there was a time in the early Bush years when this mean-spirited program of flag-waving, gun-toting biblical nationalism looked destined to become a kind of continental religion, a Church of America our missionaries would spread everywhere — and woe to those liberals and Frenchmen and other heretics who didn't get with the program! Then we left them in office for a while, and it turned out that our would-be nationalist priests were totally stupid and completely incompetent at running anything at all, much less the world economy. And suddenly the red states stopped looking so much red as broke and fucked and responsible for a giant mess that even they didn't pretend to know the way out of.

It was at this low point in the Christian-corporate marriage that John McCain stepped into the breach to wreck the demographic even more. At this critical moment, the party needed a turbocharged con man to revive the old religion, and what they got was an old man with doubts who can barely bring himself to go to church on Sundays. The worst possible scenario. Or the funniest, depending on how you look at things.

[Findog]

Sitting here in the North Phoenix Baptist pews, McCain has a look on his face like he'd just as well suck a cock as do an altar call. It's one of his most likable qualities.

:lol

[Findog]

I'm sick of religion and politics mixing. Why can't we have an atheist candidate for Prez?

[I Love Me Some Me]

Findog with the trifecta.

[clambake]

I'm sick of religion and politics mixing. Why can't we have an atheist candidate for Prez?

but jesus is coming. how would that look?

[Shastafarian]

Sitting here in the North Phoenix Baptist pews, McCain has a look on his face like he'd just as well suck a cock as do an altar call. It's one of his most likable qualities.

:lmao I don't care who they're talking about. That is funny.

[RandomGuy]

evangelical ayatollahs.

:lol

Or maybe not so funny. Is it really that much of a stretch to be afraid of people like Falwell when it comes to letting him anywhere near the levers of government?

What would happen to mormon school children attending a public school where a baptist preacher is the one leading the daily prayer?

Would a methodist parent want his child to be attending a school where catholics control the school board?


The wall between religion and government should be unassailable.

[RandomGuy]

I'm sick of religion and politics mixing. Why can't we have an atheist candidate for Prez?

If you think the talk from the right about the Anti-Christ is nutty now...

(shudders)

[Findog]

Palin is the only one of the four who actually believes what she says about Jesus, and that's not a compliment.

[Findog]

If you think the talk from the right about the Anti-Christ is nutty now...

(shudders)

Well, maybe an Agnostic candidate. I'm an Agnostic. To me, that is the most intellectually honest position when it comes to religion:

"Shit, I don't know."

[Shastafarian]

Her ancestors walked with dinosaurs...she saw the footprints together!!!









:lmao :lmao :lmao

[Findog]

Her ancestors walked with dinosaurs...she saw the footprints together!!!









:lmao :lmao :lmao

Keep in mind she's so pro-Israel because that's where the End Times will begin.

[boutons_]

pitbull bitch is the purest incarnation of Christ's ethics and principles, right?

[Shastafarian]

Keep in mind she's so pro-Israel because that's where the End Times will begin.

Which drives me nuts. So many people (my relatives included) are persuaded by this phony evangelical support of Israel. They support Israel so it can be destroyed!!! Man I wish people would wake up.

[I Love Me Some Me]

The wall between religion and government should be unassailable.


Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise therof.

The first amendment restricts the government, not the people. The wall Jefferson spoke of is a one-way wall. Any religious person has his or her place in the public debate. That's classic pluralism right there.

[101A]

Keep in mind she's so pro-Israel because that's where the End Times will begin.

Every presidential candidate for all times has been glaringly pro-Israel...but because it's Palin its because of revelation prophesy?

You're such a bigot.

[101A]

Which drives me nuts. So many people (my relatives included) are persuaded by this phony evangelical support of Israel. They support Israel so it can be destroyed!!! Man I wish people would wake up.


Why was Biden so pro-Israel in the debate last week?

[byrontx]

Glock or Smith & Wesson? WWJD?

[Shastafarian]

Why was Biden so pro-Israel in the debate last week?

Because the Israeli Lobby is very influential? Palin is Pro-Israel for two reasons I would guess:

1) If you're not, you don't win elections
2) She believes the end times rhetoric and sees Israel as a bridge to revelations

[angel_luv]

I'm sick of religion and politics mixing. Why can't we have an atheist candidate for Prez?

Are you?


Personally, I am sick of the Truth being kicked to the curb in the name of convenience and greed and who knows what else.

I firmly believe that nothing good happens without Jesus.
The lack of God in the political process ( by which I mean to include campaining for election all the way through terms served) is exactly what is the most wrong with it.

[Findog]

Are you?


Personally, I am sick of the Truth being kicked to the curb in the name of convenience and greed and who knows what else.

I firmly believe that nothing good happens without Jesus.
The lack of God in the political process ( by which I mean to include campaining for election all the way through terms served) is exactly what is the most wrong with it.

Agree to disagree then. We could not have a more profound disagreement.

[Findog]

Why was Biden so pro-Israel in the debate last week?

AIPAC owns both major parties. Neither ticket has the guts to stand up and say that Israel's national security interests are not necessarily in perfect alignment with ours.

[angel_luv]

Agree to disagree then. We could not have a more profound disagreement.

Agreed.

The thing I like about you is you know your stance and are never ugly in maintaining it. That is an admirable quality. :)

[Findog]

Agreed.

The thing I like about you is you know your stance and are never ugly in maintaining it. That is an admirable quality. :)

Yeah, what's the point? You're not changing my mind or vice versa.

[baseline bum]

Well, maybe an Agnostic candidate. I'm an Agnostic. To me, that is the most intellectually honest position when it comes to religion:

"Shit, I don't know."

An agnostic is an atheist without a backbone. :stirpot:

I guess technically I would call myself an agnostic because there's always that 1 in aleph_nought probability that there is a bad man in the sky killing us all, and I guess I would believe in god if the alleged showed himself to me.

I guess the most accurate description of my faith is that I'm atheist with probability approaching 1.

[remingtonbo2001]

Are you?


Personally, I am sick of the Truth being kicked to the curb in the name of convenience and greed and who knows what else.

I firmly believe that nothing good happens without Jesus.
The lack of God in the political process ( by which I mean to include campaining for election all the way through terms served) is exactly what is the most wrong with it.

+1

I'm growing weary of politics. I'd much rather stand firm for Christ, who's love is never failing, than a politician bound by the laws and demands of society.

[baseline bum]

So you two want to turn this country into white Iran?

[Findog]

So you two want to turn this country into white Iran?

:lol

Iran and Saudi Arabia are great examples of mixing church and state.

[101A]

So you two want to turn this country into white Iran?

Why are you so threatened by Christians?

You do realize that ALL of the founders were Christian, and that they successfully birthed a nation w/o a state religion?

I find MUCH more hate these days coming from the self-ascribed atheistic community than from Christians.

[Findog]

Why are you so threatened by Christians?

You do realize that ALL of the founders were Christian, and that they successfully birthed a nation w/o a state religion?

I find MUCH more hate these days coming from the self-ascribed atheistic community than from Christians.

The hell they were. Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Franklin were NOT Christians.

[JoeChalupa]

Why are you so threatened by Christians?

You do realize that ALL of the founders were Christian, and that they successfully birthed a nation w/o a state religion?

I find MUCH more hate these days coming from the self-ascribed atheistic community than from Christians.

wrong

[baseline bum]

Why are you so threatened by Christians?

You do realize that ALL of the founders were Christian, and that they successfully birthed a nation w/o a state religion?

I find MUCH more hate these days coming from the self-ascribed atheistic community than from Christians.

Religion is an abstraction of the idea of do it because I say so; don't question me. Religion is responsible for countless wars, genocides, and for keeping people in the dark. Religion is anti-intellectual in the highest degree. Religion has always been a power grab. Religion was used to exploit black slaves and keep them in line while leading them into believing their suffering was good because it was going to make their spot in the alleged afterlife cushier. Religion tells people to kill themselves so they can bang 72 virgins in paradise. Religion is the best way to get rich in this country and not pay taxes. Religion fills people full of false hope that is justified by nothing more than a book full of inconsistencies and myths and a few loudmouths who play on people's fears. Religion is one of the worst things ever created by man.

[101A]

The hell they were. Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Franklin were NOT Christians.



Benjamin Franklin's Creed

A few weeks before his death at age 84, Benjamin Franklin summarized his religious beliefs, in terms with which I could readily associate myself:


You desire to know something of my religion. It is the first time I have been questioned upon it. But I cannot take your curiosity amiss, and shall endeavor in a few words to gratify it.
Here is my creed.

I believe in one God, the creator of the universe.
That he governs by his providence.
That he ought to be worshipped.
That the most acceptable service we render to him is doing good to his other children.
That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental points in all sound religion, and I regard them as you do in whatever sect I meet with them.
As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire,

I think his system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes,
and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble.
I see no harm, however, in its being believed, if that belief has the good consequences, as probably it has, of making his doctrines more respected and more observed;
especially as I do not perceive that the Supreme takes it amiss, by distinguishing the unbelievers in his government of the world with any peculiar marks of his displeasure.


Certainly would fit within the LARGE umbrella that is Christiandom. Shall I continue to search for each of the gentlemen you listed, or will you admit you don't know what the hell you are talking about now?

[JoeChalupa]

I do however love my religion. But I don't push it on anyone and don't look down on anyone who hasn't found religion. I can even laugh at Bill Maher's jokes about it.

[remingtonbo2001]

So you two want to turn this country into white Iran?

No.

You are more than welcome to choose to live the way you desire.

That's the neat thing about freedom of religion.

I would suggest though, if at some point, you're not satisfied with the results of your life, and you have yet to grow in relationship with Christ, that you might turn to him.

At no time will I force someone to hold a belief against their will.

Through my life expierence have come to the conclusion that Jesus Christ is indeed my Lord and Savior. I have no issues expressing this. If you disagree, then by all means, it's your choice.

[ElNono]

Why are you so threatened by Christians?

You do realize that ALL of the founders were Christian, and that they successfully birthed a nation w/o a state religion?

I find MUCH more hate these days coming from the self-ascribed atheistic community than from Christians.

The problem is that while nobody is going to bitch about exercising freedom of religion, we do take issue with religion dictating foreign policy, among other things:

"George Bush has claimed he was on a mission from God when he launched the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a senior Palestinian politician in an interview to be broadcast by the BBC later this month. Mr Bush revealed the extent of his religious fervour when he met a Palestinian delegation during the Israeli-Palestinian summit at the Egpytian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, four months after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. One of the delegates, Nabil Shaath, who was Palestinian foreign minister at the time, said: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I am driven with a mission from God'. God would tell me, 'George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan'. And I did. And then God would tell me 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq'. And I did." Mr Bush went on: "And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East'. And, by God, I'm gonna do it.""

See what I mean?
Religious people working for the government need to leave religion at home when they leave the house in the morning, there's no two ways to go about it.

[JoeChalupa]

Certainly would fit within the LARGE umbrella that is Christiandom. Shall I continue to search for each of the gentlemen you listed, or will you admit you don't know what the hell you are talking about now?

That is one helluva un umbrella you got there.

[baseline bum]

No.

You are more than welcome to choose to live the way you desire.

That's the neat thing about freedom of religion.

I would suggest though, if at some point, you're not satisfied with the results of your life, and you have yet to grow in relationship with Christ, that you might turn to him.

At no time will I force someone to hold a belief against their will.

Through my life expierence have come to the conclusion that Jesus Christ is indeed my Lord and Savior. I have no issues expressing this. If you disagree, then by all means, it's your choice.

Let me ask you this. Would you be a Christian if you were born and raised in Asia, the Middle East, or Africa?

[101A]

That is one helluva un umbrella you got there.


Thanks,

I'm gonna put that comment in my CV for St. Peter to review later.

[JoeChalupa]

Thanks,

I'm gonna put that comment in my CV for St. Peter to review later.

I'm covered under that umbrella. Gracias a Dios.

[Findog]

Certainly would fit within the LARGE umbrella that is Christiandom. Shall I continue to search for each of the gentlemen you listed, or will you admit you don't know what the hell you are talking about now?

Based on the passage you provided, Franklin was a DEIST, not a CHRISTIAN. There is a huge difference.

Do you want to assert that Thomas Jefferson was a Christian? You said ALL Founding Fathers were Christians. Some of them certainly were, but not ALL of them. Do you want to just admit that YOU are the one that doesn't know what the hell he's talking about?

[remingtonbo2001]

Let me ask you this. Would you be a Christian if you were born and raised in Asia, the Middle East, or Africa?

I was born in San Antonio, TX.

I was merely pointing out that Jesus has been and continues to be an incredible influence in my life. Whether I was born in Asia, the Middle East, or Africa makes no difference with regard to my statement. My statement doesn't pertain to my birthplace, but about my belief in Christ and how it has become a profound and benefical impact in my life.

[Findog]

I was born in San Antonio, TX.

I was merely pointing out that Jesus has been and continues to be an incredible influence in my life. Whether I was born in Asia, the Middle East, or Africa makes no difference with regard to my statement. My statement doesn't pertain to my birthplace, but about my belief in Christ and how it has become a profound and benefical impact in my life.

You didn't answer the question.

[I Love Me Some Me]

Based on the passage you provided, Franklin was a DEIST, not a CHRISTIAN. There is a huge difference.

Do you want to assert that Thomas Jefferson was a Christian? You said ALL Founding Fathers were Christians. Some of them certainly were, but not ALL of them. Do you want to just admit that YOU are the one that doesn't know what the hell he's talking about?

For Franklin, he also said this:

And have we forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need His assistance? I have lived, sir, a long time and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings that 'except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.' I firmly believe this and I also believe that without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel.

Jefferson, was not a Christian. A study on his life will tell you that. There were times when he seemed to be irreverent to Christianity. However, there are times when he sounded like a preacher. Hell, the Declaration of Independence has four references to God, and his second inaugural speech asked for prayer's to Israel's God on his behalf.

But this all kind of misses the point. It isn't whether or not these guys went to heaven when they died...it's about the dominant convictions that dictated the structure of this nation. That cannot be disputed.

[baseline bum]

I was born in San Antonio, TX.

I was merely pointing out that Jesus has been and continues to be an incredible influence in my life. Whether I was born in Asia, the Middle East, or Africa makes no difference with regard to my statement. My statement doesn't pertain to my birthplace, but about my belief in Christ and how it has become a profound and benefical impact in my life.

So it would be fair to say you're Judeo-Christian largely because you were born and raised in a Christian society?

[Shastafarian]

Why are you so threatened by Christians?


Because hating other religions is their national past time?

[remingtonbo2001]

So it would be fair to say you're Judeo-Christian largely because you were born and raised in a Christian society?

Read the faith bio on Barack Obama.

[jman3000]

So it would be fair to say you're Judeo-Christian largely because you were born and raised in a Christian society?

bingo.

just like if he was born in the middle east he'd be praising Muhammed.... or vishnu if he was born in India... or Zeus if he was born in ancient Greece.

[101A]

Based on the passage you provided, Franklin was a DEIST, not a CHRISTIAN. There is a huge difference.

Do you want to assert that Thomas Jefferson was a Christian? You said ALL Founding Fathers were Christians. Some of them certainly were, but not ALL of them. Do you want to just admit that YOU are the one that doesn't know what the hell he's talking about?

That Jefferson was a Deist is debatable; neither one is going to convince the other.

However, he penned "Endowed by their creator....."

Most of the atheists posting in this thread would cringe at that. He believes in a single God, appreciated and lauded Jesus of Nazareth's life, while questioning the Trinity - and Jesus's position in it. I'm a lot closer to his beliefs than you are.

Most of the Christians I know would have no problem discussing religion with him, or have a problem with his views. They are well thought out and reasonable. Certainly they are not knee-jerk and hyper sensitive and fearful of people who believe differently. Again, more like me, than you.

[101A]

Read the faith bio on Barack Obama.

pwned.

[jman3000]

Read the faith bio on Barack Obama.

his situation is a bit unique in that his parents were of different beliefs... if both his parents were muslim and they had stayed in a muslim country.... chances are almost zero that he'd have become a christian.

[baseline bum]

I ask two simple questions and I cannot get a simple answer to either. :pctoss

[ElNono]

But this all kind of misses the point. It isn't whether or not these guys went to heaven when they died...it's about the dominant convictions that dictated the structure of this nation. That cannot be disputed.

And how is religion related to that? You're basically telling me that either:

- There were no religious people before the founding fathers in this nation
... or ...
- Dominant conviction has nothing to do with religion

Gee, I wonder what's the right answer...

[Findog]

That Jefferson was a Deist is debatable; neither one is going to convince the other.

However, he penned "Endowed by their creator....."

Most of the atheists posting in this thread would cringe at that. He believes in a single God, appreciated and lauded Jesus of Nazareth's life, while questioning the Trinity - and Jesus's position in it. I'm a lot closer to his beliefs than you are.

Most of the Christians I know would have no problem discussing religion with him, or have a problem with his views. They are well thought out and reasonable. Certainly they are not knee-jerk and hyper sensitive and fearful of people who believe differently. Again, more like me, than you.

Jefferson was not a Christian. Some, but not all, of the founding fathers were Christians. You are the one being knee-jerk, not me.

[Findog]

I ask two simple questions and I cannot get a simple answer to either. :pctoss

Because he can't concede that where you are born greatly influences what religious beliefs you take on.

[I Love Me Some Me]

And how is religion related to that? You're basically telling me that either:

- There were no religious people before the founding fathers in this nation
... or ...
- Dominant conviction has nothing to do with religion

Gee, I wonder what's the right answer...

I guess I'm missing how you drew those two from what I posted. What I'm saying is that the dominant conviction of the time of the founding fathers was based heavily in Christianity, and that conviction strongly influenced the framing of the constitution. To deny that is intellectually dishonest.

[angel_luv]

Will bring this article here as to not hijack Manny's decision thread. :)



Thanks! I'll read it. :)

Lengthy but excellent article. These were my favorite parts:
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life_article.php?id=7616

Campolo agrees. “My contention is that if anybody asks if you’re a Democrat or a Republican, the answer should be, ‘Please name the issue,’” he says. “On certain issues, I’m going to come across as someone who likes what the Republicans say, and on other issues I will come across as saying what the Democrats say.”


In fact, Campolo became so disenchanted with the politicization of evangelical Christianity that he and a group of Christian authors and thinkers have chosen all themselves Red Letter Christians, a reference to the words of Christ being printed in red in some Bibles. Campolo hopes to break the stereotype that one political party has a monopoly on Christianity.



For us, the litmus test for whether we’re a Christian nation is, does it look like Jesus?



Haw adds that the idea of nationalism is often theologically unsound. He says that being “born again” should mean, from a theological standpoint, that Christians have a new and different citizenship. “Theologically, born again didn’t just mean that you have a spiritual attitude to your life. It literally meant that you’re joining into this people of Abraham that are a holy nation, set apart. There seems to be evidence all over the Bible that this is a very concrete people. You’re latching yourself onto this other nation. Now when you use the word we or our, your identity is connected to a different group of people, a diasporic people. That’s not just linguistic gymnastics. It’s biblical realism. Without that, our nationalism is misguided.”


Claiborne says that this was a concept understood well by the early Church. In a time when allegiance to Rome was not only expected, but required, early Christians maintained a peculiarity and attitude set apart from the empire in which they lived. “The early Christians said a Christian could only be emperor if he decided not to be a Christian,” Claiborne says. “There was a deep collision of identities between your citizenship on earth and your citizenship in heaven.”


Thus, say Claiborne and Haw, Christians should belong to a citizenship that is transnational. “What does it mean to be born again?” Claiborne asks. “For Christians, there’s got to be a sense that there’s something that runs deeper than what’s born of the flesh—my biology, my ethnicity, my nation-state. Our central identity is in this reborn people of God that’s transnational.”

In this context, patriotism can seem like a vice. However, Claiborne and Haw believe it’s all about keeping an appropriate perspective. “A love for our own people is not a bad thing, but it’s a love that doesn’t stop at the border,” Claiborne says.


Claiborne believes Christians can celebrate the good in America without falling prey to the idea that the United States, rather than Christ, is the hope of the world. “We want to celebrate the things that America and leaders of this country do well and right,” he says. “There’s plenty of them, but there’s also plenty of things historically and currently that don’t look like Jesus. That’s why it’s so important to differentiate them. Our hope and what we’re called to is to remind the world of Jesus, to be like Jesus, to take the words of Jesus seriously. We will applaud people when they do that, and we will interrupt and prophesy when they don’t.”


With this in mind, how can we chart a new course? How can we see society transformed when we have to be wary of involvement in the system? Claiborne and Haw believe that the importance lies in keeping our perspective. “There are a lot of models in Scripture,” Claiborne says. “There are prophets who are on the margins. There are prophets in the royal court. There are people who are engaged in a lot of different ways. One of the tricky things is to maintain the peculiarity and the distinctiveness of being a Christian.”


“For those of us working legislatively, we can’t compromise on things like, ‘We’re going to beat our swords into plowshares,’” he says. “That’s what we’re called to, and to bless the poor and meek. If we don’t hear any of these parties saying something that embodies that, then we don’t put our hand in with it. There are a number of ways you can call that. You can work for the Kingdom of God and align yourself with whatever seems to move us closer to that. It’s possible to say we’re also going to interrupt with grace and humility whatever seems to be standing in the way of the reign of God. One way of looking at voting is that it’s damage control. We’re in a sense voting against whatever is going to do the worst damage.”


Part of the beauty of it is saying, ‘We’re going to trust that the Spirit is at work in different people’s hearts in different ways.’ Ultimately, [we hope] whatever they do is seeking first the Kingdom of God and embodying their politics with their lives rather than just trusting in a single candidate or a single politician to change the world for them.”



Haw adds that action on the part of Christians far eclipses their party affiliation. “What is more important than how we vote on Nov. 4 is how we live on Nov. 3 and Nov. 5,” he says.



So, how should Christians engage the political arena? That is the question. If Claiborne and Haw are any indication, the choice is up to the individual. No matter what that individual decides, though, they must realize that true change will never happen through legislation alone. And, no matter what the individual chooses to do, they must realize that they are already voting through the way they choose to live.

“We vote every day with our lives,” Claiborne says. “We vote every day with our feet, our hands, our lips and our wallets. We vote for the poor. We vote for the peacemakers. We vote for the marginalized, the oppressed, the most vulnerable of our society. Ultimate change does not just happen one day every four years.”

[remingtonbo2001]

I ask two simple questions and I cannot get a simple answer to either. :pctoss

I provided my answer in a discrete way.

I figured it was a fitting proposition to your hypothetical question...

Assuming it was a genuine question.

[baseline bum]

I provided my answer in a discrete way.

I figured it was a fitting proposition to your hypothetical question...

Assuming it was a genuine question.

You completely dodged the first question, and gave a lame response about a guy born and raised in America who lived a few years in a Muslim culture and is Christian.

How about this... if you were born in and spent your entire life in Asia, the Middle East, or Africa would you be Christian?

[angel_luv]

You didn't answer the question.

They were asking him to answer a hypothetical question as fact- am impossible task.

He gave you all the facts he could.

[angel_luv]

I provided my answer in a discrete way.

I figured it was a fitting proposition to your hypothetical question...

Assuming it was a genuine question.

:lol

Great minds. I responded before I saw this.

[Shastafarian]

So angel_luv, what are your views on capital punishment?

[Anti.Hero]

It's between them and their god, we just arrange the meeting.

[angel_luv]

These I take to be the fundamental points in all sound religion, and I regard them as you do in whatever sect I meet with them.
As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire,
I think his system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes,
and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble.


I have to say...
Bad plan by Ben. Once you die it is too late to accept the Truth.

[Findog]

They were asking him to answer a hypothetical question as fact- am impossible task.

He gave you all the facts he could.

Well, let me ask you, if you were born in Saudi Arabia or India, would you still be a Christian?

[baseline bum]

I have to say...
Bad plan by Ben. Once you die it is too late to accept the Truth.

Yes, because there's no physical process controlling thought anymore and you're just a piece of meat at death.

[angel_luv]

So angel_luv, what are your views on capital punishment?

I am against it because I think it is wrong for a man to take another's life- period.

I know they stoned people in the old testament, but I also look to the New Testament when Jesus pardoned the woman caught in the act of adultry.
If Jesus can spare a life, how much more should I be willing to.

That said, with the exception of Bush in 2000, I have not refused to vote for a candidate because they were pro death penalty.

Much more important to me that a candidate stand against abortion because, while citizens are aware of the potential consequences of committing murder ( and therefore choose thier own condemnation), an unborn child has no way to protect itself, and thus ought to be advocated for.

[angel_luv]

Yes, because there's no physical process controlling thought anymore and you're just a piece of meat at death.

No, because you are immediately entered in the eternity you already chose for yourself on earth.

[angel_luv]

Well, let me ask you, if you were born in Saudi Arabia or India, would you still be a Christian?

I believe that God speaks to every heart through the course of a person's life and gives them the ability to choose him.
There have been people born in Saudi Arabia and India have become Christian, so it is possible.

Also, just because I live in the United States, it did not ensure by any means that I would choose to live my life for Christ.
There are several people who were born here in America who if asked would not want to call themselves a Christian- example the declared agnostics in this very thread.

[ElNono]

I guess I'm missing how you drew those two from what I posted. What I'm saying is that the dominant conviction of the time of the founding fathers was based heavily in Christianity, and that conviction strongly influenced the framing of the constitution.

You mean the dominant RELIGION. A conviction is having a strong belief, and can be applied to many non religious things. For example, I'm sure the founding fathers had a strong belief in freedom, separation of power, etc.



To deny that is intellectually dishonest.


I disagree completely. I think if Christianity would have had such influence, you'll see a lot more God and Jesus Christ imbued all over the Constitution.
Thankfully that's not what happened.

[Shastafarian]

Much more important to me that a candidate stand against abortion because, while citizens are aware of the potential consequences of committing murder ( and therefore choose thier own condemnation), an unborn child has no way to protect itself, and thus ought to be advocated for.

Your post was very respectable until this. Why is abortion more important? I brought it up in another thread but do you know how many people are wrongly convicted of murder and sent to death row? Where are the people fighting for them? Who knows how many innocent PEOPLE we have killed since we started allowing capital punishment again. See that's what kinda ticks me off. People stand up for fetuses but they don't make capital punishment an issue when it's on the same level.

[ElNono]

I am against it because I think it is wrong for a man to take another's life- period.

I know they stoned people in the old testament, but I also look to the New Testament when Jesus pardoned the woman caught in the act of adultry.
If Jesus can spare a life, how much more should I be willing to.


So, how do we spin the Inquisition to fit into all that above?

[angel_luv]

I have to leave this work computer soon, so if I vanish suddenly from the discussion, that is why.

[remingtonbo2001]

I believe that God speaks to every heart through the course of a person's life and gives them the ability to choose him.
There have been people born in Saudi Arabia and India have become Christian, so it is possible.

Also, just because I live in the United States, it did not ensure by any means that I would choose to live my life for Christ.
There are several people who were born here in America who if asked would not want to call themselves a Christian- example the declared agnostics in this very thread.

+1

Well said. :)

[I Love Me Some Me]

do you know how many people are wrongly convicted of murder and sent to death row?

How many?

[angel_luv]

Your post was very respectable until this. Why is abortion more important? I brought it up in another thread but do you know how many people are wrongly convicted of murder and sent to death row? Where are the people fighting for them? Who knows how many innocent PEOPLE we have killed since we started allowing capital punishment again. See that's what kinda ticks me off. People stand up for fetuses but they don't make capital punishment an issue when it's on the same level.

I am sorry I was unclear.

Let me clarify. I do not in any way advocate the death penalty. I would love to see it abolished. I do believe innocent lives have been stolen by the death penalty and that horrifies me.

With my previous post, I was trying to differentiate between how in abortion, all babies are innocent while some of the people executed are indeed guilty.

While both the death penalty and abortion are highly important causes because they involve human life, I can see how someone might feel there is Biblical justification is executing the guilty through the death penalty ( see much of the Old Testament), I cannot find any Biblical support for abortion.

But to put it into further perspective for you, I refused to vote for Bush in 2000 due to his history of decision making as govenor in regards to the death penalty in Texas.

[jman3000]

Also, just because I live in the United States, it did not ensure by any means that I would choose to live my life for Christ.
There are several people who were born here in America who if asked would not want to call themselves a Christian- example the declared agnostics in this very thread.

what ensured it was that your mother was hardcore religious and put you through religous schools where you were indoctrinated.

you could have taken it two ways:

if you were rebellious it would have caused you to revolt and become anti christian.

if you were passive it would cause you to embrace all its teachings.

you went through the latter.


i grew up in a Catholic household... my mother was religious and my father was skeptical about religion and didn't like the phonyness.

i went through 12 years of Sunday school and have a decent understanding of the church's teachings... but after i stopped being forced to go to church, i decided on my own that i was far more a believer in Man then I was in a God... or at least a God as how Christianity would have you believe.

I can't stand the notion of somebody pulling the strings above me. If I succeed i want it to be because i did it... and if i fail i want it to be because i failed. i want no excuses.

[Crookshanks]

In answer to the question if a person would be a christian if they lived in another country where christianity was not the predominant religion:

There are believers in every country. However, in some countries the cost is much higher because of persecution. In many middle eastern countries, the bible is forbidden. What's interesting is that we had a muslim from Beirut talk to us at church Sunday. He has a ministry that specifically reaches out to muslims in this country. And he said that more muslims have come to faith in Jesus Christ in the last 10 years than in the 1400 years preceding!

People are hungry for the truth - they just need someone to point the way.

[Shastafarian]

How many?

There have been 124 instances of exoneration since 1973. Not that's only exoneration. Who knows how many innocent men have been killed.

[angel_luv]

So, how do we spin the Inquisition to fit into all that above?

The teachings of the Bible are unfortunately not always properly followed, lived out, and applied.
However that is the fault of men not God- is due to men abusing the free will God bestowed upon all of us.

[angel_luv]

What's interesting is that we had a muslim from Beirut talk to us at church Sunday. He has a ministry that specifically reaches out to muslims in this country. And he said that more muslims have come to faith in Jesus Christ in the last 10 years than in the 1400 years preceding!

People are hungry for the truth - they just need someone to point the way.

I have heard similar reports. Is very encouraging.:)

[angel_luv]

Gotta run guys. :)

[ElNono]

People are hungry for the truth - they just need someone to point the way.

What is the truth?

[angel_luv]

Or not, :lol

[Crookshanks]

What is the truth?

Jesus said "I am the way, the TRUTH, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me." John 14:6

[angel_luv]

What is the truth?

I'm so glad you asked. :)

John 3:16- For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

John 14:6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Acts 16:31They replied, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household."

Romans 10:9-10- 9- If you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.

[Shastafarian]

Jesus said "I am the way, the TRUTH, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me." John 14:6

If Jesus said it why did he need John to write it down for him?

[ElNono]

The teachings of the Bible are unfortunately not always properly followed, lived out, and applied.
However that is the fault of men not God- is due to men abusing the free will God bestowed upon all of us.

Agreed. And even when I'm pointy about religion, I grew up in a Christian household, where it was respected that I did not believe in God. So I do respect other people's right to freedom of religion. It DOES bother me, however, when government decides that religion is going to dictate policy. It affects every one of us directly, wether you're a religious person or not, and that's just plain wrong.

[angel_luv]

Is Jesus said it why did he need John to write it down for him?

Jesus said that to His disciples in an actual conversation He had with them.

John kept a record of the conversation and it has been passed down through generations of Christians through the Bible.

[ElNono]

Jesus said "I am the way, the TRUTH, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me." John 14:6

Pretty humble dude that Jesus Christ... and if he's the truth, then his father, Mr God himself would be what exactly?

[Shastafarian]

Jesus said that to His disciples in an actual conversation He had with them.

John kept a record of the conversation and it has been passed down through generations of Christians through the Bible.

Right but why didn't Jesus just write it down? Why did he need other people to do it for him? And why are there apocryphal books in existence?

[JoeChalupa]

I'm keeping the faith!! YES I CAN!!!

[I Love Me Some Me]

You mean the dominant RELIGION. A conviction is having a strong belief, and can be applied to many non religious things. For example, I'm sure the founding fathers had a strong belief in freedom, separation of power, etc.

Semantics. What you're calling their RELIGION, I am calling their BELIEFS (convictions, as it were). They had a strong belief in freedom, non-establishment, along with a strong belief in God and the Bible.


I disagree completely. I think if Christianity would have had such influence, you'll see a lot more God and Jesus Christ imbued all over the Constitution.
Thankfully that's not what happened.

Because of their belief in non-establishment of religion, they carefully crafted the Constitution to avoid such references to God and Jesus Christ. They were careful not to give their Christianity any position of legal liberty.

The Supreme Court opens each session with "God, save this honorable court."
Our currency is stamped with "In God We Trust"
The pledge of allegiance states that we are "one nation, under God"
All but three states invoke the name of the almighty God in the preambles to their constitutions, including the following:
We the people of the State of California, grateful to the Almighty God for our freedom...

We the people of Alabama...invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God...

The people of Connecticut, acknowledging with gratitude the good providence of God...

Countless other examples of the influence of Christianity in the founding of this country. Again, to deny the influence of those beliefs on the foundation and history of this nation, is just a simple ignorance of fact.

[Shastafarian]

The Supreme Court opens each session with "God, save this honorable court."
Our currency is stamped with "In God We Trust"
The pledge of allegiance states that we are "one nation, under God"
All but three states invoke the name of the almighty God in the preambles to their constitutions, including the following:
We the people of the State of California, grateful to the Almighty God for our freedom...

We the people of Alabama...invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God...

The people of Connecticut, acknowledging with gratitude the good providence of God...

Countless other examples of the influence of Christianity in the founding of this country. Again, to deny the influence of those beliefs on the foundation and history of this nation, is just a simple ignorance of fact.
Well golly-jee-wiz you'd have a point if any of that happened when the country was founded. But it didn't. Except maybe for the Connecticut thing...those people are nuts anyways.

[angel_luv]

Pretty humble dude that Jesus Christ... and if he's the truth, then his father, Mr God himself would be what exactly?

Not a new question. :)

John 8: 51-54-

( Jesus said) I tell you the truth, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death."

At this the Jews exclaimed, "Now we know that you are demon-possessed! Abraham died and so did the prophets, yet you say that if anyone keeps your word, he will never taste death.

Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died, and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are?"

Jesus replied, "If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me.

[angel_luv]

Right but why didn't Jesus just write it down? Why did he need other people to do it for him? And why are there apocryphal books in existence?

I like that the Gospels, for example, are authored by four different men.

It says something to me that four people were moved by Jesus as to want to testify about how His presence and words changed their life.

And then add to that all the believers whose stories are told in the book of Acts and all the believers represented by the epistles Paul sent out.

It is just like any recommendation- the more people who testify to its goodness the more we as humans are inclined to try it out for ourselves.
Jesus would have been within His rights for us to just take His word for everything, but in His mercy and understanding He gave us access to the testimony of multiple people.

[I Love Me Some Me]

There have been 124 instances of exoneration since 1973. Not that's only exoneration. Who knows how many innocent men have been killed.

I know it's terrible for those 124 families, but compared to the number of abortions that have occurred over that same time frame, that's not even a statistically valid percentage.

However, I just don't think comparing captial punishment to abortion does either argument justice. It's apples and oranges. I can be in support of capital punishment of guilty criminals, and against abortion and not be involved in some sort of moral dilemma.

Is your opposition to capital punishment based solely on the lives of those 124 people, or are there other objections you hold?

[I Love Me Some Me]

Well golly-jee-wiz you'd have a point if any of that happened when the country was founded. But it didn't. Except maybe for the Connecticut thing...those people are nuts anyways.

I never claimed these happened when the country was founded, only referenced them as examples of the influence of Christianity.

[Shastafarian]

I like that the Gospels, for example, are authored by four different men.

It says something to me that four people were moved by Jesus as to want to testify about how His presence and words changed their life.

And then add to that all the believers whose stories are told in the book of Acts and all the believers represented by the epistles Paul sent out.

It is just like any recommendation- the more people who testify to its goodness the more we as humans are inclined to try it out for ourselves.
Jesus would have been within His rights for us to just take His word for everything, but in His mercy and understanding He gave us access to the testimony of multiple people.

Ok but what about the other books that have been stricken from Christianity because they didn't meet the "standards" thought up way back when?


I know it's terrible for those 124 families, but compared to the number of abortions that have occurred over that same time frame, that's not even a statistically valid percentage.

However, I just don't think comparing captial punishment to abortion does either argument justice. It's apples and oranges. I can be in support of capital punishment of guilty criminals, and against abortion and not be involved in some sort of moral dilemma.

Is your opposition to capital punishment based solely on the lives of those 124 people, or are there other objections you hold?

Maybe I haven't been clear. I think it's terrible what has happened to the men and women who have been wrongly convicted and executed. That is a large point. But my main focus is that it STILL HAPPENS. People go on crusades for the rights of a fetus but completely ignore people with established rights being executed. Our judicial system is nowhere near the level it ought to be if we're using lethal punishment. When life starts is a different matter all together.

[angel_luv]

Ok but what about the other books that have been stricken from Christianity because they didn't meet the "standards" thought up way back when?


I don't have all the answers and certainly cannot account for events that happened before my birth and/ or without my consent.

I can only point you to God's Word the Bible and assure you that if you sincerely ask God to reveal Himself to you, He will. :)

Now, it is time for me to leave work.

:)

[I Love Me Some Me]

Maybe I haven't been clear. I think it's terrible what has happened to the men and women who have been wrongly convicted and executed. That is a large point. But my main focus is that it STILL HAPPENS. People go on crusades for the rights of a fetus but completely ignore people with established rights being executed. Our judicial system is nowhere near the level it ought to be if we're using lethal punishment. When life starts is a different matter all together.

Do you really want people to get passionate about an issue that has resulted in the death of 124 innocent people over the last 25 years?

[101A]

Now, it is time for me to leave work.

:)

If you work in a Church, good for you; otherwise, LOL.

It is a pleasure to read a fellow Christian so proud and certain in her beliefs, and a shame more of us cannot be the same.

[ElNono]

Semantics. What you're calling their RELIGION, I am calling their BELIEFS (convictions, as it were). They had a strong belief in freedom, non-establishment, along with a strong belief in God and the Bible.

You wish it would be semantics. I have a strong conviction in freedom and non-establishment, but no conviction whatsoever in God and the Bible. That's a perfectly correct and understandable phrase.
As a bonus, ponder this: If their strong conviction in God and the Bible is what made them the founding fathers, then intrinsically, nobody before them had as strong as a conviction in God and the Bible (otherwise those other guys would have been the founding fathers). I somehow do not believe that.


Because of their belief in non-establishment of religion, they carefully crafted the Constitution to avoid such references to God and Jesus Christ. They were careful not to give their Christianity any position of legal liberty.

And you don't think that was by design? It was a deliberate act to prevent the Nation as a whole to be influenced by one religion. I mean, if they were all nice Christians and truly believed in the goodness of religion, they wouldn't have needed to do any of that.
The separation of state and church is a very, very important point.
Are you aware that quite a few nations based their own Constitution on the US one, except that they did not keep that specific point?


The Supreme Court opens each session with "God, save this honorable court."
Our currency is stamped with "In God We Trust"
The pledge of allegiance states that we are "one nation, under God"
All but three states invoke the name of the almighty God in the preambles to their constitutions, including the following:
We the people of the State of California, grateful to the Almighty God for our freedom...

We the people of Alabama...invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God...

The people of Connecticut, acknowledging with gratitude the good providence of God...

Countless other examples of the influence of Christianity in the founding of this country. Again, to deny the influence of those beliefs on the foundation and history of this nation, is just a simple ignorance of fact.

Except, as correctly pointed out by Shastafarian, none of those had anything to do with the founding of this country. Not to mention that acknowledging God is FAR from what I would call influence. If this country had any real Christian influence, cases like Roe vs Wade would read very different right about now.

[remingtonbo2001]

I can only point you to God's Word the Bible and assure you that if you sincerely ask God to reveal Himself to you, He will. :)

+1

You're on top of your game today. :clap

[FromWayDowntown]

To me, the issue of a candidate's religion is as irrelevant as the candidate's race or gender. What matters to me is what the candidate's policies are. To the extent that policies might be guided by religious viewpoints, I suppose I consider the issue; but I would never make a choice to vote for a candidate based on the fact that we do or do not share religious beliefs.

As to the broader issue, I have no problem with elected officials expresssing views of faith (or a lack thereof) and I have no problem with officials who choose to seek spiritual guidance in the context of making decisions required of an office. I do, however, draw the line at the notion that Judeo/Christian majorities and Judeo/Christian traditions mandate the promotion (and, to some, even the inculcation) of Judeo/Christian principles through governmental programs. I will never support, for instance, initiatives to include organized prayer in schools -- if students wish to pray, nothing prohibits them from doing so as they wish during the school day; I don't think the choices that parents make regarding the religious education of their children should be supported or challenged by an entirely superfluous governmental effort to unconstitutionally advocate in favor of religion. When I raise my children to pray, they won't need a governmentally-mandated prayer time to do so.

None of that is because I'm hostile to religion by any means; its because I firmly believe that freedom of choice, undoubtedly entrenched in the Bill of Rights, is eroded by governmental sponsorship of religion (no matter how subtle the sponsorship might be).

To me, it would be impossible for government to sponsor religion without choosing one religion over another. And the fact that the majority of the United States population maintains religious beliefs stemming from a Judeo/Christian tradition (or that I happen to believe as the majority does) doesn't convince me that sponsorship of those views over others is by any means justifiable. The beauty of the Constitution (and the First Amendment in particular) lies largely in its protection of the minority against the tyranny of the majority -- we protect expression of the unpopular viewpoint from being limited by government, both in speech generally and in the press particularly; we allow the disenfranchised to voice their disputes with government and to assemble with one another free from interference by government; and, germane here, we prohibit government from deciding, expressly or implicitly, what should be orthodox in matters of religion, allowing even the smallest groups of adherents to exercise their faith without interference while assuring them that government will not take a position as to the validity of their beliefs. To say that it would be acceptable for the machinery of government to endorse, promote, support, or sponsor particular religious views or practices would undermine those protections, in my mind.

Because I think government should be wholly isolated from religion and entirely neutral on those issues (and I don't think that neutrality amounts to an endorsement against religion), issues of the faith of individual candidates are not a part of my voting equation.

[Shastafarian]

Do you really want people to get passionate about an issue that has resulted in the death of 124 innocent people over the last 25 years?

Do you bother reading posts? 124 haven't died. 124 have been found to have been falsely convicted. I haven't found numbers on wrongful deaths and frankly I doubt any numbers will ever be looked at. And yeah, anytime someone is killed by their own government and is innocent of the charges, I expect people to be outraged. Sorry if that's too liberal for you.

I guess we could go into an issue on Iraq if you want. There's lots more innocent people dying o'er ther!

[I Love Me Some Me]

Sorry to re-hash a page 2 thread, but I just wanted to respond:


You wish it would be semantics. I have a strong conviction in freedom and non-establishment, but no conviction whatsoever in God and the Bible. That's a perfectly correct and understandable phrase.
As a bonus, ponder this: If their strong conviction in God and the Bible is what made them the founding fathers, then intrinsically, nobody before them had as strong as a conviction in God and the Bible (otherwise those other guys would have been the founding fathers). I somehow do not believe that.

It's not a cause and effect thing. I'm not saying it was their Biblical convictions that made them the founding fathers. I'm saying they were the founding fathers, who so happened to have Biblical convictions.


And you don't think that was by design? It was a deliberate act to prevent the Nation as a whole to be influenced by one religion. I mean, if they were all nice Christians and truly believed in the goodness of religion, they wouldn't have needed to do any of that.
The separation of state and church is a very, very important point.
Are you aware that quite a few nations based their own Constitution on the US one, except that they did not keep that specific point?.

It was absolutely by design. That was my point. If they wanted to establish a "Christian Nation" they probably could have done it, and gotten away with it. But they didn't...they looked to set up a just society, not a Christian one. And again, let me state the obvious. The non-establishment clause is not to keep religious people out of government. It is there to keep the country from establishing a state-sponsored religion. If you want to keep religious people out of government, don't vote for them.



Except, as correctly pointed out by Shastafarian, none of those had anything to do with the founding of this country. Not to mention that acknowledging God is FAR from what I would call influence. If this country had any real Christian influence, cases like Roe vs Wade would read very different right about now.

Let me make sure I understand this...I can't reference the Pledge of Allegiance as evidence of the influence of Christianity on the founding fathers, but you can reference Roe v. Wade as evidence of the lack of Christian influence on them? C'mon...let's play by the same rules here.

Look...if you want to study history, and read historical documents, and understand the lives of the men who framed the Constitution...and you do that with an open mind, then come to the conclusion that Christianity had NO influence on the foundation of this country, then that's your conclusion to make. Me, I've studied it, I understand it, and the evidence leads me to understand that Christianity had a STRONG influence on the foundation of this country.

There were 55 men who were part of the Constitutional Convention. Among the delegates were 28 Episcopalians, 8 Presbyterians, 7 Congregationalists, 2 Lutherans, 2 Dutch Reformed, 2 Methodists, 2 Roman Catholics, 1 unknown, and 3 deists. So of the 55, 51 (93%) were of Christian faith. 70% of those (the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Dutch Reformed) were members of some of the most extreme and dogmatic forms of Christianity. So, when these guys refer to God in any of their writings, which God do you think they are referring to?

[JoeChalupa]

I don't really care much about a candidate's religion. It just simply is not an issue for me.

[I Love Me Some Me]

Do you bother reading posts? 124 haven't died. 124 have been found to have been falsely convicted. I haven't found numbers on wrongful deaths and frankly I doubt any numbers will ever be looked at. And yeah, anytime someone is killed by their own government and is innocent of the charges, I expect people to be outraged. Sorry if that's too liberal for you.

Fine. The point is still the same. Let's just say that all 1100-1200 death row executions over the last 30 years were false. Yes, they would all be outrageous, they would all be terrible...but the numbers simply do not add up to the number of innocent deaths caused by abortion. If you're so outraged over these relatively small numbers, why are you not outraged by the loss of life abortion causes?

I'll tell you why, because it's a completely different argument, and the two should not be compared. Remember, you're the one who first referenced capital punishment in response to abortion. I'm simply pointing out to you that reference is invalid.


I guess we could go into an issue on Iraq if you want. There's lots more innocent people dying o'er ther!

Man...I enjoy talking to you, and you mostly come across as an intelligent guy. But when you do this act, it's completely unfunny, and drags down any conversation you're having. You do it all the time (twice in this thread), and all it serves to do is make you look childish.

[ElNono]

Sorry to re-hash a page 2 thread, but I just wanted to respond

No sorries. We're amicably talking here.


It's not a cause and effect thing. I'm not saying it was their Biblical convictions that made them the founding fathers. I'm saying they were the founding fathers, who so happened to have Biblical convictions.


That was exactly my point.


It was absolutely by design. That was my point. If they wanted to establish a "Christian Nation" they probably could have done it, and gotten away with it. But they didn't...they looked to set up a just society, not a Christian one. And again, let me state the obvious. The non-establishment clause is not to keep religious people out of government. It is there to keep the country from establishing a state-sponsored religion. If you want to keep religious people out of government, don't vote for them.

Exactly.


Let me make sure I understand this...I can't reference the Pledge of Allegiance as evidence of the influence of Christianity on the founding fathers, but you can reference Roe v. Wade as evidence of the lack of Christian influence on them? C'mon...let's play by the same rules here.

Look...if you want to study history, and read historical documents, and understand the lives of the men who framed the Constitution...and you do that with an open mind, then come to the conclusion that Christianity had NO influence on the foundation of this country, then that's your conclusion to make. Me, I've studied it, I understand it, and the evidence leads me to understand that Christianity had a STRONG influence on the foundation of this country.

There were 55 men who were part of the Constitutional Convention. Among the delegates were 28 Episcopalians, 8 Presbyterians, 7 Congregationalists, 2 Lutherans, 2 Dutch Reformed, 2 Methodists, 2 Roman Catholics, 1 unknown, and 3 deists. So of the 55, 51 (93%) were of Christian faith. 70% of those (the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Dutch Reformed) were members of some of the most extreme and dogmatic forms of Christianity. So, when these guys refer to God in any of their writings, which God do you think they are referring to?

You just said their Christianity had no effect on the founding of this country, which has been my entire point from the get go. Let me repeat myself here: Acknowledging God is far, FAR from being an influence. Mandated praying in school is what I call influence. Spending government money on religious entities is what I call influence. But you won't find any of that in the Constitution, because these Christians did not put religion over country. Which is the strongest evidence that Christianity did not shape our Constitution at all. Let me add, again, that some other countries that took the US Constitution and used it as the base for theirs did go a different path. I lived 20+ years in such a country. I have experienced first hand what true religious influence is. Perhaps that's why I see 'influence' in a different light.

But I think we're much closer to agree here. It might be just semantics at this point.

[Kamnik]

Faith should never be an issue when talking politics.

Especially in a country with so many diferent religions and beliefs.

I do not care if leader of my country (Slovenia) is christian, muslim or jewish... if he makes lifes of all the people better and does not act like a jerk while doing it he is the right guy.

He could worship stones for all i care...


If someone does not vote for a candidate because he is not of the same faith or very religius it is the same as he would not vote for someone for being black or a woman.

[Shastafarian]

Fine. The point is still the same. Let's just say that all 1100-1200 death row executions over the last 30 years were false. Yes, they would all be outrageous, they would all be terrible...but the numbers simply do not add up to the number of innocent deaths caused by abortion. If you're so outraged over these relatively small numbers, why are you not outraged by the loss of life abortion causes?

I'll tell you why, because it's a completely different argument, and the two should not be compared. Remember, you're the one who first referenced capital punishment in response to abortion. I'm simply pointing out to you that reference is invalid.

No I think you're wrong. The reason I'm not outraged by the number of "lives" lost because of abortion is because I don't view them as lives.




Man...I enjoy talking to you, and you mostly come across as an intelligent guy. But when you do this act, it's completely unfunny, and drags down any conversation you're having. You do it all the time (twice in this thread), and all it serves to do is make you look childish.

Why does it make me look childish? I enjoy it.

[Duff McCartney]

I like that the Gospels, for example, are authored by four different men.

It says something to me that four people were moved by Jesus as to want to testify about how His presence and words changed their life.

I think it says more about the inconsistencies within the Bible. Like regarding his birth. You know like how the Gospel of John and Mark are mum on his birth.

Or how the Gospel of Luke and Matthew have two conflicting views on the so-called virgin birth. And they both point out different genealogies, as well as different time frames for the birth.

"Matthew's account places the birth during the reign of Herod the Great, who died in 4 BC, but Luke dates it to the census of Quirinius in 6 AD"

It's a pointless argument to make about anything. I think angel_luv is an idiot when it comes to religion anyway. Not that she doesn't know what she says but she's just too blinded by it. It's alright though. It's what makes her what she is and I'm not trying to convince her otherwise.

I would NEVER take the Bible as anything more than a book. There are no words that are fact to me. I consider more to be a collection of cool sayings and quotes. Just like I consider the Koran to be the same. There are some beautiful verses in the Koran.

Back on the topic, the faith of any politician means nothing to me. It only matters to me when they start to dictate from the podium about their religion.

[exstatic]

angel, although I profoundly disagree with your positions, especially the whole Obama/AC thing (shame on you), I think that you genuinely believe what you say. The thing is, you're pretty young, and you don't really see how things work in the world. The only interest that the GOP has in Evangelicals is their votes. They don't give a shit about anything else.

Question: the GOP controlled the House, Senate, and the WH for 6 years, and after the SCOTUS decision on the 2000 election it's pretty clear that the court was theirs too. Why is abortion still legal?



Personally, I am sick of the Truth being kicked to the curb in the name of convenience and greed and who knows what else.
Don't see why you support the GOP then. Those things are what they do best. Greed is Good is practically their party motto.

[Ya Vez]

I find it funny that left brings up how religion has started wars and killed thousands upon thousands... while forgetting the fact that the great atheist states of the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, and Cuba have all together killed millions in just the last century...

[Shastafarian]

I find it funny that left brings up how religion has started wars and killed thousands upon thousands... while forgetting the fact that the great atheist states of the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, and Cuba have all together killed millions in just the last century...

I'm not sure people have ever claimed mass murder was exclusively done by religious nuts.

[LnGrrrR]

I find it funny that left brings up how religion has started wars and killed thousands upon thousands... while forgetting the fact that the great atheist states of the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, and Cuba have all together killed millions in just the last century...

FORCED atheism is no better than forced religion.

[spurster]

I guess I'm missing how you drew those two from what I posted. What I'm saying is that the dominant conviction of the time of the founding fathers was based heavily in Christianity, and that conviction strongly influenced the framing of the constitution. To deny that is intellectually dishonest.

I would say that belief in Natural Rights was the dominant concern. It could be argued that this came from a particular understanding of Christianity, but for most of history, there was more emphasis on the divine right of Kings rather than the rights of people.

[MaryAnnKilledGinger]

However, I just don't think comparing captial punishment to abortion does either argument justice. It's apples and oranges. I can be in support of capital punishment of guilty criminals, and against abortion and not be involved in some sort of moral dilemma.

No. If you believe a fetus is a human life and it is sacred, then all life is sacred. If you do not believe life is inherently sacred, then you're just arbitrarily picking and choosing. If one life is not just as sacred as the next, then what are you basing your opposition to abortion upon?

This is a moral dilemma. It's just one you've convinced yourself doesn't matter. This is one of the biggest problems people like me have with the entire pro-life movement. Most of it is deeply hypocritical and arbitrary.

[MaryAnnKilledGinger]

No I think you're wrong. The reason I'm not outraged by the number of "lives" lost because of abortion is because I don't view them as lives.

+1

[TheMadHatter]

Why draw the line at conception anyways? My sperm has the potential for human life and I am wasting it away everytime I masturbate.

[MaryAnnKilledGinger]

Why draw the line at conception anyways? My sperm has the potential for human life and I am wasting it away everytime I masturbate.

This is why the pro-life agenda is indefensible in my mind and should be indefensible to anyone who is examining the problem from a civic perspective. Just like Evangelicals cannot prove that God exists, the pro-life enthusiasts cannot prove that "life" begins at conception. It is opinion and belief and no one should support a law that gives your belief the right to tell me what to do with my body.

[Tully365]

Let's say in the future, a technique is devised whereby a 3 day old fetus can be taken out of the womb alive and put in some sort of test tube/medical compartment to develop. Now apply the famous old utilitarian argument to a scenario. The lab or hospital is on fire and there's a 5 year old child in one part of the building and the 3 day old fetus in another part. You will probably be able to save only one of them. Which one do you save? For me, it's the 5 year old child. And it would still be the 5 year old child even if there were 5,000 fetuses in the other part of the building, because in my eyes there's no way i would equate the life of a 5 year old, or a 10 year old, or a 50 year old, with that of a 3 day old fetus.

[MaryAnnKilledGinger]

Let's say in the future, a technique is devised whereby a 3 day old fetus can be taken out of the womb alive and put in some sort of test tube/medical compartment to develop. Now apply the famous old utilitarian argument to a scenario. The lab or hospital is on fire and there's a 5 year old child in one part of the building and the 3 day old fetus in another part. You will probably be able to save only one of them. Which one do you save? For me, it's the 5 year old child. And it would still be the 5 year old child even if there were 5,000 fetuses in the other part of the building, because in my eyes there's no way i would equate the life of a 5 year old, or a 10 year old, or a 50 year old, with that of a 3 day old fetus.

Your future has the ability to bring a fetus to term outside the womb, but no technological advancement in sprinkler systems. Maybe Joe the Plumber does need to be elected to congress...

[Tully365]

Your future has the ability to bring a fetus to term outside the womb, but no technological advancement in sprinkler systems. Maybe Joe the Plumber does need to be elected to congress...

Believe me, if there's ever a sprinkler system thread, I will post some shit that will make your head explode... two times.

[MaryAnnKilledGinger]

Believe me, if there's ever a sprinkler system thread, I will post some shit that will make your head explode... two times.

I'll remember to invest in a galvanized ski mask.

[Tully365]

I'll remember to invest in a galvanized ski mask.

(insert Black Sabbath joke...)

[ploto]

No. If you believe a fetus is a human life and it is sacred, then all life is sacred. If you do not believe life is inherently sacred, then you're just arbitrarily picking and choosing. If one life is not just as sacred as the next, then what are you basing your opposition to abortion upon?

This is a moral dilemma. It's just one you've convinced yourself doesn't matter. This is one of the biggest problems people like me have with the entire pro-life movement. Most of it is deeply hypocritical and arbitrary.

Amen. I am around a lot of people who claim to be pro-life and they always want to talk about abortion. But you should see them when I try to bring up the death penalty. The most adamant pro-life, have to vote Republican woman of them all got mad and walked away when I told her that the death penalty is a life issue, as well. And the numbers do not matter. If you believe in the sanctity of life-- all life-- then even one death is too many. What bothers me so much about the death penalty is that the government itself is the one doing the killing, supoosedly in my name. My government pays someone to kill people. How could that not bother me if I believe all life is sacred?

It is inconsistent, at best, and hypocritical, at worst, to separate the basic core belief that makes abortion wrong from the belief that makes the death penalty wrong.

[jochhejaam]

This is why the pro-life agenda is indefensible in my mind and should be indefensible to anyone who is examining the problem from a civic perspective. Just like Evangelicals cannot prove that God exists, the pro-life enthusiasts cannot prove that "life" begins at conception. It is opinion and belief and no one should support a law that gives your belief the right to tell me what to do with my body.

MAK-G, if you would, give us your thoughts on the following article (I believe everyone else in this forum has seen it, and given their opinion if they had one).





When does human life begin?

The most distinguished scientific meeting of recent years that considered this question in depth was the First International Conference on Abortion, held in Washington D.C., in October 1967. It brought together authorities from around the world in the fields of medicine, law, ethics and social sciences. The first major question considered by the medical group was, "When does human life begin?" Their unanimous conclusion (19-1) was as follows: "The majority of our group could find no point in time between the union of the sperm and the egg, or at least the blastocyst stage, at which point we could say that this was not human life." They continued, "The changes occurring between implantation, a six-week embryo, a six-month fetus, a one-week child and a mature adult are merely stages of development and maturation." (This quotation is taken from Handbook on Abortion by Dr. J.C. Willke.)

Some More Quotations

"It is now of unquestionable certainty that a human being comes into existence precisely at the moment when the sperm combines with the egg. When the sperm and egg nuclei unite, all the characteristics, such as colour of eyes, hair, skin, that make a unique personality are laid down determinatively." Dr. H. Ratner, Report April 1966.

"From the moment a baby is conceived, it bears the indelible stamp of a separate distinct personality, an individual different from all other individuals." Ultrasound pioneer, Sir William Liley, M.D. 1967.

"The birth of a human life really occurs at the moment the mother's cell is fertilized by one of the father's sperm cells." Life magazine, "Drama of Life before Birth," April 1965.

"A baby who has just been born is not brand new; he already has a life story. Human life begins when the sperm of the father enters the ovum or egg of the mother." The Life Cycle Library for Young People.

"When the sperm and egg fuse, the newly-formed cell has conferred upon it the degree of Homo Sapiens, with all the rights and privileges pertaining." (Note, "Rights and Privileges.") Peter Amenta, Ph.D. Professor of Embryology, Hahnemann Medical School.

"I have learned from my earliest medical education that human life begins at conception. I submit that human life is present throughout this entire sequence, from conception to adulthood, and any interruption at any point throughout this time constitutes the termination of a human life." Dr. A.M. Bongioanni, professor of obstetrics, University of Pennsylvania.

"After fertilization has taken place a new human being has come into existence. This is no longer a matter of taste or opinion. Each individual has a very neat beginning, at conception." Dr. Jerome Lejeune, genetics professor at the University of Descartes, Paris. He discovered the Down syndrome chromosome.

"It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception." Professor M. Matthews-Roth, Harvard University Medical School.

"By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception." Professor Hymie Gordon, Mayo Clinic.

"I oppose abortion. I do so, first because I accept what is biologically manifest - human life commences at the time of conception - and secondly, because I believe it is wrong to take an innocent human life under any circumstances." Dr. Landrum Shettles, pioneer in sperm biology. http://www.theinterim.com/1999/oct/15frted.html

[LnGrrrR]

I have to say...
Bad plan by Ben. Once you die it is too late to accept the Truth.

How do you know this? If the soul is forever, then why would you not be able to repent after you died?

[LnGrrrR]

The teachings of the Bible are unfortunately not always properly followed, lived out, and applied.
However that is the fault of men not God- is due to men abusing the free will God bestowed upon all of us.

A question that's always confused me. Could God have given men free will, yet created us without the need to go to war? If so, then it makes no sense why he hasn't. (Or at least, none that I can see.) If he can not, then how is he omniscient?

[LnGrrrR]

The Supreme Court opens each session with "God, save this honorable court."
Our currency is stamped with "In God We Trust"
The pledge of allegiance states that we are "one nation, under God"
All but three states invoke the name of the almighty God in the preambles to their constitutions, including the following:
We the people of the State of California, grateful to the Almighty God for our freedom...

We the people of Alabama...invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God...

The people of Connecticut, acknowledging with gratitude the good providence of God...

Countless other examples of the influence of Christianity in the founding of this country. Again, to deny the influence of those beliefs on the foundation and history of this nation, is just a simple ignorance of fact.

Uhmm check your history. Our Pledge of Allegiance did not have a reference to any God until 1954. And that was because of hysteria towards communism. Might want to remove the beam from thine own eye regarding simple ignorance of facts.

Edit: Our money did not have "In God We Trust" at our founding. The first usage seemed to be 1864.

[boutons_]

oops, jumping from numerous historical references to a non-denominational God to:

"Countless other examples of the influence of Christianity in the founding of this country"

See, "religion" as espoused by militant Christian supremacists, really does make one really stupid and dishonest.

"God" must love all y'all, because he made so many of you.

[MaryAnnKilledGinger]

MAK-G, if you would, give us your thoughts on the following article (I believe everyone else in this forum has seen it, and given their opinion if they had one).
http://www.theinterim.com/1999/oct/15frted.html

My first thought is that you have a 19-1 vote on something I don't think most people would argue. My next thought is that you're quoting from a group of people with questionable scientific credentials rendering one-sided opinions based on false logic and obviously outdated criteria. That's just from the information you showed; I'd have to research it on my own and see if everything was as slanted as you've presented and what the credentials of each individual were.

It's true no one can prove a lump of cells / embryo / fetus isn't a human life. But they cannot prove it is, either. And, when the very presence of a parasitical organism is a risk to the host (mother) -- no matter how slight the risk you may think it is -- criminalizing the rights of someone to defend their own body should at least require reasonable scientific verification.

I won't even go into the self defense side of things.

[Shastafarian]

My first thought is that you have a 19-1 vote on something I don't think most people would argue. My next thought is that you're quoting from a group of people with questionable scientific credentials rendering one-sided opinions based on false logic and obviously outdated criteria. That's just from the information you showed; I'd have to research it on my own and see if everything was as slanted as you've presented and why the credentials of each individual was.

It's true no one can prove a lump of cells / embryo / fetus isn't a human life. But they cannot prove it is, either. And, when the very presence of a parasitical organism is a risk to the host (mother) -- no matter how slight the risk you may think it is -- criminalizing the rights of someone to defend their own body should at least require reasonable scientific verification.

I won't even go into the self defense side of things.
You're about to start a debate with someone who maintains it's a FACT human life begins at conception.

[MaryAnnKilledGinger]

You're about to start a debate with someone who maintains it's a FACT human life begins at conception.

Hey so long as he can show his work, I'm happy to have a round and round on it.

[PixelPusher]

It is a pleasure to read a fellow Christian so proud and certain in her beliefs, and a shame more of us cannot be the same.

http://www.excons.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/george-bush-sour.jpg

I'll opt for a little philosophical humility and critical thinking this time around.

[Duff McCartney]

The teachings of the Bible are unfortunately not always properly followed, lived out, and applied.
However that is the fault of men not God- is due to men abusing the free will God bestowed upon all of us.

Impossible. There's no such thing as abusing free will. Free will if there is such a thing as god given free will...is exactly that. Free will. You can't abuse that.

If there is such a thing as abusing free will then we really don't have it if we have to put cages around it. Free will is meant to go everywhere and anywhere. Not be bound by any constraints whether god given or otherwise.

Me choosing not to follow any Christian teachings isn't abusing my free will. It's using it.

Like I've heard said before I don't think God would give is the ability to think, reason, and be intelligent, then command us not to use it.

[jochhejaam]

You're about to start a debate with someone who maintains it's a FACT human life begins at conception.

Thanks for tipping my hand Shasta...

I don't think there's going to be a debate, MaryAnn conceded (correct me if I misinterpreted your post) that most people wouldn't argue that point.

For those that support abortion, the arguement doesn't center on whether or not life begins at conception, more so they argue that terminating a pregnancy, until the baby's life is viable outside the womb (24 weeks), is the sole right of the mother.

Smattering of thoughts:
-I'm not a proponent of criminalizing abortion, my sister, at 16, had an abortion, and although she has received nothing but unconditional support and love from her family, still has trouble coming to grips with her decision.

-There are roughly 4,000 abortions in America each day, roughly 1 every 20 seconds, for me, those numbers are staggering and mind numbing.

Question; If the thinking is that; those who are against abortion and for the death penalty, are hypocrites, wouldn't that logic mean that the person that is for abortion and against the death penalty is also a hypocrite?

[jochhejaam]

A baby can be legally aborted up until the 24 week of a pregnancy;


At that time, here is some of the babies developement;

Week 21
White blood cells are under production. Leukocytes (or white blood cells) form our body's defense sytems. They help fight infections and diseases.

Your little one's skin has changed from translucent to become more opaque.
Your infant's tongue is fully formed. If you were able to peek you might catch your son or daughter practicing giving you a raspberry!

If your baby is a girl, her womb and vagina are formed. Unlike males, females have a limited supply of eggs in their lifetime. At this point your daughter will have 6 million eggs. This amount decreases to approximately one million by birth.

Baby swallows more this week. After your baby takes in amniotic fluid, his body absorbs the water in the liquid and moves the rest into the large bowel. This is good practice for his digestive system!

Wake and sleep periods become more consistent. Some research suggests that baby sets her internal clock to match the outside world's even before birth! Your eating and sleeping habits as well levels of light and noise serve as her signals.

Length is now measured crown to heel.
Baby measures about 10.51 inches (26.7cm) and weighs nearly 12.7 ounces/


Week Twenty-Two
Your baby weighs close to a pound at this point!

Your baby can now hear your conversations more clearly than before!. When you talk, read, or sing, expect her (or him) to hear you. Studies have found that newborns will suck more vigorously when read to from a book they heard frequently in utero.

Eyelids and eyebrows are fully formed.

Fingernails have grown to the end of the fingers.

Be prepared for all those "Why" questions coming! Your baby's brain has entered a stage of rapid growth, especially in what's called the germinal matrix. This structure deep in the middle of the brain serves as a kind of factory for brain cells and disappears shortly before birth. But the brain's amazing expansion program continues until around the five birthday.
With some help from mom, baby's liver is starting to break down bilirubin, a substance produced by red blood cells.
I
f your baby is male his testes begin their descent to the scrotum.
Primitive sperm have formed and he is producing testosterone.
Length is 10.94 inches (27.8cm); weight is nearly 1 pound

Week Twenty-Three
Proportions of the body are now quite similar to a newborn although thinner since he hasn't begun to form body fat.

Bones located in the middle ear harden.

Your baby is able to hear. (Dads, did you know: low-frequency sounds mimicking a male voice penetrate the abdomen and uterine wall better than the higher frequencies of the female voice?)

The eyes are formed, though the iris still lacks pigmentation.

The pancreas, essential in the production of hormones, is developing steadily. She has begun producing insulin, important for the breakdown of sugars.

If born now, your baby has a 15% chance of survival, his odds going up with each passing day. .

The average baby at this stage weighs 1.1 pound (501gm) and is 11.38 inches (28.9cm) long.
http://www.pregnancy.org/pregnancy/fetaldevelopment2.php#week23


That life can terminated...legally...in this Country...and terminated with the support and blessing of multiplied millions...

[TheMadHatter]

Thanks for tipping my hand Shasta...

I don't think there's going to be a debate, MaryAnn conceded (correct me if I misinterpreted your post) that most people wouldn't argue that point.

For those that support abortion, the arguement doesn't center on whether or not life begins at conception, more so they argue that terminating a pregnancy, until the baby's life is viable outside the womb (24 weeks), is the sole right of the mother.

Smattering of thoughts:
-I'm not a proponent of criminalizing abortion, my sister, at 16, had an abortion, and although she has received nothing but unconditional support and love from her family, still has trouble coming to grips with her decision.

-There are roughly 4,000 abortions in America each day, roughly 1 every 20 seconds, for me, those numbers are staggering and mind numbing.

Question; If the thinking is that; those who are against abortion and for the death penalty, are hypocrites, wouldn't that logic mean that the person that is for abortion and against the death penalty is also a hypocrite?

You raise some good points, I must admit as someone who is pro-choice I would have a hard time understanding my gf or wife wanting to go through with an abortion if her life were not in danger. That being said, it's not my choice to make. It's not your choice to make. It rests in the hands of the mother whether or not she wants to continue with the pregnancy.

I think focusing our energy here is foolish. Neither side will ever come to any sort of agreement on this issue. What we need to do is focus on preventative education so we can stop unwanted pregnancies. I also believe we need to fund more scientific research on birth control to find better alternatives to what we have. I can't tell you how many women I've met who won't take the pill because they are afraid of the side effects.

The problem with preventative education is that certain religions like Catholicism outright ban the use of contraceptives. Abstinence only education does not work in this country, it has been a horrible failure.

[MaryAnnKilledGinger]

I don't think there's going to be a debate, MaryAnn conceded (correct me if I misinterpreted your post) that most people wouldn't argue that point.

I conceded that neither side can prove an embryo or fetus constitutes a human being. You cannot prove it is, and I cannot prove it isn't. The ability to prove one way or the other is what I don't debate.


For those that support abortion, the arguement doesn't center on whether or not life begins at conception, more so they argue that terminating a pregnancy, until the baby's life is viable outside the womb (24 weeks), is the sole right of the mother.

I disagree. Just because the pro-choice side is multi-tiered doesn't mean I concede one as being more important or "centered" than the other. I do not think a fetus unable to live outside the mother is a human being. That said, I also believe self-defense on behalf of the mother is equally valid. Anyone that understands what a fetus does to a body and the risks associated with pregnancy cannot deny that any pregnancy poses a possible health risk to the host/mother. Bottom line: Even if a fetus is a life, you do not have the right to force me to put my life in danger to save someone else. Pro-choice is multi-faceted, even without the other elements like the public good cop-out.


I'm not a proponent of criminalizing abortion, my sister, at 16, had an abortion, and although she has received nothing but unconditional support and love from her family, still has trouble coming to grips with her decision.

I sincerely hope your sister finds peace in accepting the actions of the past. It's a difficult world and we are not always happy with the decisions we are forced to make. She is genetically and socially conditioned to feel an obligation toward motherhood. Her conflict is unfortunate and all too common. I commend you and your family for treating her with acceptance and forgiveness even though she acted against your core beliefs.


There are roughly 4,000 abortions in America each day, roughly 1 every 20 seconds, for me, those numbers are staggering and mind numbing.

We are agreed that this is a terrible thing. I suppose those numbers might seem staggering to people who don't realize what the nation's youth and uneducated poor are up against. But it's important to note that the same people who oppose abortion are largely the same people who've created those large numbers. The majority of the pro-life movement are against sexual education, against providing safe sex materials, against birth control, against masturbation and private sexual materials like pornography, and insist on pushing ridiculous abstinence programs even though they've been proven ineffective.


Question; If the thinking is that; those who are against abortion and for the death penalty, are hypocrites, wouldn't that logic mean that the person that is for abortion and against the death penalty is also a hypocrite?

Your logic doesn't follow. Those who believe abortion is wrong believe it is wrong because a human being's life is being taken away. If it is wrong to take a life one way, logic demands it is wrong to take a life any other way, otherwise you are back to picking and choosing. Now, if you are saying that one type of life is more valuable than another, that's a different argument and a slippery slope. In such a case, even though one is not a hypocrite, they are certainly not on any higher moral ground.

Those of us that believe a fetus is not a human being do not consider it to be killing to terminate it. Even the worst criminal is still a human being. A person for abortion and against the death penalty would not necessarily be a hypocrite.


A baby can be legally aborted up until the 24 week of a pregnancy...

I'm going to ignore the fact that you intentionally used terms like "baby" and "little one" in the information you presented because it's a common tactic when one is trying to inject emotion into a logical debate. I don't think anyone argues that the longer a fetus gestates the closer it comes to becoming a human being. So, I'm not sure what the point is you're trying to make except that the thing that starts off as a lump of cells begins to take on more human characteristics as time progresses. Your final line, however, saying "That life can terminated...legally...in this Country...and terminated with the support and blessing of multiplied millions..." again presupposes we all agree that it is a life. I don't. Many do not. Many others don't know and wouldn't presume to say with certainty.


I think focusing our energy here is foolish. Neither side will ever come to any sort of agreement on this issue.

I don't know. I'm always happy to discuss the issue with anyone who doesn't get all Bible-thumping mad-ass crazy about it. The only way we're going to come to terms with these sorts of things is to understand the other side. I used to think I knew all the arguements for the pro-life side and dismissed them, but the more I've listened, the more I've understood and that's helped me to make my own beliefs and arguements more clear (and less volitile) while discussing them.


What we need to do is focus on preventative education so we can stop unwanted pregnancies. I also believe we need to fund more scientific research on birth control to find better alternatives to what we have. I can't tell you how many women I've met who won't take the pill because they are afraid of the side effects.

The problem with preventative education is that certain religions like Catholicism outright ban the use of contraceptives. Abstinence only education does not work in this country, it has been a horrible failure.

+1 (sorry about the line-by-line quoting thing - I know you hate that :p:)

[jochhejaam]

That said, I also believe self-defense on behalf of the mother is equally valid. Anyone that understands what a fetus does to a body and the risks associated with pregnancy cannot deny that any pregnancy poses a possible health risk to the host/mother. Bottom line: Even if a fetus is a life, you do not have the right to force me to put my life in danger to save someone else.
I don't believe that anyone in their right mind would put the life of the baby before that of the mother, that argument is a red herring, therefore, it's use by abortion advocates is disingenous, purposefully twisting the position of those that are opposed to abortion to strengthen their own argument. Deceptive at best.



I sincerely hope your sister finds peace in accepting the actions of the past. It's a difficult world and we are not always happy with the decisions we are forced to make. She is genetically and socially conditioned to feel an obligation toward motherhood. Her conflict is unfortunate and all too common. I commend you and your family for treating her with acceptance and forgiveness even though she acted against your core beliefs.
Thanks for the kind thoughts toward my sister, she shares the same core beliefs and has 3 healthy sons, her remorse is in her thoughts regarding what could have been.





I suppose those numbers might seem staggering to people who don't realize what the nation's youth and uneducated poor are up against. But it's important to note that the same people who oppose abortion are largely the same people who've created those large numbers. The majority of the pro-life movement are against sexual education, against providing safe sex materials, against birth control, against masturbation and private sexual materials like pornography, and insist on pushing ridiculous abstinence programs even though they've been proven ineffective.
(In my best Jermiah Wright imitation) No, no, no, no, no! That argument is the equivalent of Obama exclusively playing the race card while attributing racial innuendo to the opposition.
Pro life advocates are not against sex education, and there are plenty of places to get free condoms if you can't afford them. For the many that don't use them, they're playing with fire, and if a pregnancy results from wreckless behaviour, that's on them, and them alone.
I'm not aware of an anti-masturbation movement, and what you refer to as "private pornography", is anything but private.
My belief is that abstinence is the best way to go, but in light of the fact that many aren't inclined to do so, and assuming they don't want to be impregnated, by all means they should be using some form of contraceptive. The catholic position on contraceptives (fwiw, I'm not catholic) has little bearing on the pregany/abortion ratio, if as you say, it does, please provide information that would support that.



I'm going to ignore the fact that you intentionally used terms like "baby" and "little one" in the information you presented because it's a common tactic when one is trying to inject emotion into a logical debate.
I'm not so sure that bringing it up can be considered ignoring it.
Nice try. :lol




Work beckons

[Phenomanul]

Impossible. There's no such thing as abusing free will. Free will if there is such a thing as god given free will...is exactly that. Free will. You can't abuse that.

If there is such a thing as abusing free will then we really don't have it if we have to put cages around it. Free will is meant to go everywhere and anywhere. Not be bound by any constraints whether god given or otherwise.

Me choosing not to follow any Christian teachings isn't abusing my free will. It's using it.

Like I've heard said before I don't think God would give is the ability to think, reason, and be intelligent, then command us not to use it.

Free will simply means that GOD doesn't control us like robots. He ultimately wants us to come to the realization that we need Him. Hence we ultimately have to the option of choosing Him or rejecting Him. Most choose the latter due to the corrupted nature of their hearts. But yeah, humans are basically "free" to do whatever they so desire.

[ElNono]

Free will simply means that GOD doesn't control us like robots. He ultimately wants us to come to the realization that we need Him. Hence we ultimately have to the option of choosing Him or rejecting Him. Most choose the latter due to the corrupted nature of their hearts. But yeah, humans are basically "free" to do whatever they so desire.

So, god is constantly battling with this heart entity? Why didn't he create it not to battle with him? Was he bored?

[Phenomanul]

I conceded that neither side can prove an embryo or fetus constitutes a human being. You cannot prove it is, and I cannot prove it isn't. The ability to prove one way or the other is what I don't debate.



I disagree. Just because the pro-choice side is multi-tiered doesn't mean I concede one as being more important or "centered" than the other. I do not think a fetus unable to live outside the mother is a human being. That said, I also believe self-defense on behalf of the mother is equally valid. Anyone that understands what a fetus does to a body and the risks associated with pregnancy cannot deny that any pregnancy poses a possible health risk to the host/mother. Bottom line: Even if a fetus is a life, you do not have the right to force me to put my life in danger to save someone else. Pro-choice is multi-faceted, even without the other elements like the public good cop-out.



I sincerely hope your sister finds peace in accepting the actions of the past. It's a difficult world and we are not always happy with the decisions we are forced to make. She is genetically and socially conditioned to feel an obligation toward motherhood. Her conflict is unfortunate and all too common. I commend you and your family for treating her with acceptance and forgiveness even though she acted against your core beliefs.



We are agreed that this is a terrible thing. I suppose those numbers might seem staggering to people who don't realize what the nation's youth and uneducated poor are up against. But it's important to note that the same people who oppose abortion are largely the same people who've created those large numbers. The majority of the pro-life movement are against sexual education, against providing safe sex materials, against birth control, against masturbation and private sexual materials like pornography, and insist on pushing ridiculous abstinence programs even though they've been proven ineffective.



Your logic doesn't follow. Those who believe abortion is wrong believe it is wrong because a human being's life is being taken away. If it is wrong to take a life one way, logic demands it is wrong to take a life any other way, otherwise you are back to picking and choosing. Now, if you are saying that one type of life is more valuable than another, that's a different argument and a slippery slope. In such a case, even though one is not a hypocrite, they are certainly not on any higher moral ground.

Those of us that believe a fetus is not a human being do not consider it to be killing to terminate it. Even the worst criminal is still a human being. A person for abortion and against the death penalty would not necessarily be a hypocrite.



I'm going to ignore the fact that you intentionally used terms like "baby" and "little one" in the information you presented because it's a common tactic when one is trying to inject emotion into a logical debate. I don't think anyone argues that the longer a fetus gestates the closer it comes to becoming a human being. So, I'm not sure what the point is you're trying to make except that the thing that starts off as a lump of cells begins to take on more human characteristics as time progresses. Your final line, however, saying "That life can terminated...legally...in this Country...and terminated with the support and blessing of multiplied millions..." again presupposes we all agree that it is a life. I don't. Many do not. Many others don't know and wouldn't presume to say with certainty.



I don't know. I'm always happy to discuss the issue with anyone who doesn't get all Bible-thumping mad-ass crazy about it. The only way we're going to come to terms with these sorts of things is to understand the other side. I used to think I knew all the arguements for the pro-life side and dismissed them, but the more I've listened, the more I've understood and that's helped me to make my own beliefs and arguements more clear (and less volitile) while discussing them.



+1 (sorry about the line-by-line quoting thing - I know you hate that :p:)

So would you defend Obama's stand that survivors of failed abortions don't deserve a right to live, or that medical attention should not be "wasted" on them:

"Helping them would go against the intial decision to have them aborted..."

"It would burden doctors to require them to come out at 2:00 AM just to try and save the life of an unwanted baby..."

Obama's arguments on the Illinois senate floor are inexcusable and indefensible. In this circumstance "survivors of failed abortions" are no longer tied to the health or desires of the mother; they are U.S. Citizens entitled to "Life, liberty and the pursuit of hapiness"...

[Phenomanul]

So, god is constantly battling with this heart entity? Why didn't he create it not to battle with him? Was he bored?

He took that risk... He created us to LOVE Him, for His Glory.

By very definition... LOVE can't be genuine unless it is 'uncoerced'... Giving us free will, hence, gives humans the capability of truly loving Him. Without it we would be reduced to being mindless minions.

Another way of putting it is that "free will" brings out the best in humanity as well as the worst.

[ElNono]

He took that risk... He created us to LOVE Him, for His Glory.

By very definition... LOVE can't be genuine unless it is 'uncoerced'... Giving us free will, hence, gives humans the capability of truly loving Him. Without it we would be reduced to being mindless minions.

How could an ever-powerful god 'take a risk'? For what purpose? Again, was he bored and needed a challenge?

[Phenomanul]

How could an ever-powerful god 'take a risk'? For what purpose? Again, was he bored and needed a challenge?

Just goes to show that your perspective of "GOD" is rather clichéed... and not founded on Scripture.

You really think that all the world's evil is GOD's fault? That it doesn't pain Him to see our decadence, our refusal to acknowledge Him? Wars, deceit, pain, bloodshed, greed were all bore out of man's evil heart.

If He hasn't killed us off in JUST payment for our actions, it's because He desired to give us the oportunity to find Him. One day however, that period of Grace will come to an end, and everyone will face judgement for their actions.

[Duff McCartney]

You really think that all the world's evil is GOD's fault? That it doesn't pain Him to see our decadence, our refusal to acknowledge Him? Wars, deceit, pain, bloodshed, greed were all bore out of man's evil heart.

I think your not the one seeing logic. I know you believe more in the New Testament than the Old. But the Old Testament is part of the Christian beliefs and God shuns people who turn away from him. Not only does he shun them..he destroys them.

I think the Old and the New have very differing views on God and there is no way for anyone to believe which one is the true one.

If anything by reading the Old Testament...God is responsible for alot of bloodshed.

[Phenomanul]

I think you're not the one seeing logic. I know you believe more in the New Testament than the Old. But the Old Testament is part of the Christian beliefs and God shuns people who turn away from him. Not only does he shun them..he destroys them.

I think the Old and the New have very differing views on God and there is no way for anyone to believe which one is the true one.

If anything by reading the Old Testament...God is responsible for alot of bloodshed.

I value both New and Old Testaments equally... they both reveal the character of GOD. The Old Testament shows what GOD will do to wicked men when the time of the New Covenant in Christ, this current period of Grace, is over.

[LnGrrrR]

Free will simply means that GOD doesn't control us like robots. He ultimately wants us to come to the realization that we need Him. Hence we ultimately have to the option of choosing Him or rejecting Him. Most choose the latter due to the corrupted nature of their hearts. But yeah, humans are basically "free" to do whatever they so desire.

Short version: You're free to believe whatever you want! Of course, if you don't want to burn in hell for all eternity, you'll choose me. But you don't have to!

Wow! What an awesome, fair and just God that is!

Then again, he is a jealous God.

[LnGrrrR]

Just goes to show that your perspective of "GOD" is rather clichéed... and not founded on Scripture.

You really think that all the world's evil is GOD's fault? That it doesn't pain Him to see our decadence, our refusal to acknowledge Him? Wars, deceit, pain, bloodshed, greed were all bore out of man's evil heart.

If He hasn't killed us off in JUST payment for our actions, it's because He desired to give us the oportunity to find Him. One day however, that period of Grace will come to an end, and everyone will face judgement for their actions.

If God is omniscient, then hasn't he foreseen all this? And if he has foreseen it, why did he not make us without this capability for violence?

(Of course, the answer is that he DID make us without knowledge of good/evil, much like an animal, but somehow he didn't foresee the snake. Whoops!)

[ElNono]

If God is omniscient, then hasn't he foreseen all this? And if he has foreseen it, why did he not make us without this capability for violence?

(Of course, the answer is that he DID make us without knowledge of good/evil, much like an animal, but somehow he didn't foresee the snake. Whoops!)

Not to mention he could just wipe any 'bad' humans in a blink of an eye, and replace them with the theologically upgraded 2.0 version. But I guess he's kind of a masochist and rather keep around the bad fellas that 'pain Him'.

[DarkReign]

If you really remove yourself from the gene pool and take a loooong look at God's Great Experiment, youll realize that if the Bible is wholly true, God is a sadist.

He created us full-well knowing we would descend into decadence, thus he warned against us doing such things as to incur his wrath.

BUT....he also knew we would eventually, and that he would have to come down from on high and slaughter the masses (lets not pretend what is and what is not the Biblical End...its slaughter...wholesale style).

So really, its like having a baby and knowing youre going to have to murder it at some point in its adult life because it went against your word, even though you knew without a shred of doubt it was going to happen.

Basically, you enjoy killing things you love. Or worse, you keep trying to make something work, that you know will fail to meet your standards, that youll have to destroy. Youre a sociopath...good luck with that.

[DarkReign]

...queue JJ...

[MaryAnnKilledGinger]

I don't believe that anyone in their right mind would put the life of the baby before that of the mother, that argument is a red herring, therefore, it's use by abortion advocates is disingenous, purposefully twisting the position of those that are opposed to abortion to strengthen their own argument. Deceptive at best. You misunderstanding my point does not make me disingenuous or deceptive. You believe I am referring to those particular cases where a pregnancy poses an extraordinary danger to the host/mother (something which happens every day). I am not. It is my position that each and every pregnancy poses a danger to each and every host/mother, however statistically small. Forcing anyone to carry any fetus to term is dangerous to their health in any number of ways up to and including the act of childbirth itself. The law has no right to force one person to put their life in danger for another, no matter how low the odds. This is all presupposing a fetus should be considered a person, which I do not believe.
Pro life advocates are not against sex education, and there are plenty of places to get free condoms if you can't afford them. While I am sure there are many pro-life advocates who logically support sex education, the fact is that the official positions of most churches and their lobbyists are largely against effective sexual education (hint: abstinence-only programs are not sex education). This same community is the one that has sought to deny funding to programs that distribute condoms to the people who need them most. To deny this simply makes you uninformed. (Side note: Sarah Palin, the current poster girl of pro-life is both pro-life and against sex education.)
For the many that don't use them, they're playing with fire, and if a pregnancy results from wreckless behaviour, that's on them, and them alone. This is a morality argument that cannot be logically defended. The pro-life "a fetus is a life" argument only holds up if your treat every host/mother and embryo/fetus the same. Otherwise you are back to making exceptions and picking and choosing. What you are saying with this line is that society should have a right to punish a woman and her body for not being responsible with birth control. That view is both antiquated and misogynistic.
I'm not aware of an anti-masturbation movement Again, the abstinence-only programs that have been forced on schools are to blame here. Even though they should be advocates of masturbation, they often discourage, or fail to mention it at all. That's your friends on the religious right again.
and what you refer to as "private pornography", is anything but private. It is a private industry enjoyed by private citizens. I'm not sure what could be more private.
My belief is that abstinence is the best way to go, but in light of the fact that many aren't inclined to do so, and assuming they don't want to be impregnated, by all means they should be using some form of contraceptive. I don't think anyone debates what should happen in an ideal world.
The catholic position on contraceptives (fwiw, I'm not catholic) has little bearing on the pregany/abortion ratio, if as you say, it does, please provide information that would support that. I didn't raise this point, you did.
I'm not so sure that bringing it up can be considered ignoring it. Nice try. By ignoring it I meant I wasn't going to rise to the bait.
So would you defend Obama's stand that survivors of failed abortions don't deserve a right to live, or that medical attention should not be "wasted"; on them:....Obama's arguments on the Illinois senate floor are inexcusable and indefensible. That is neither Obama's stand, nor something I have expressed opinion about. It is currently the law that a doctor must act reasonably to preserve the life of a "born" fetus if there is a reasonable likelihood of survival. The bill that Obama voted present on (not against, and not for) was an overreaching publicity stunt which attempted to use the red herring of laws already in existence to further the pro-life cause. The bill was opposed by the Illinois medical community because it attempted to interfere with the patient/doctor relationship and increased liability for medical professionals. You might want to note that this bill the anti-Obama sect bases all this hooey on was so badly worded that even its Republican sponsor admitted it was overreaching and that those who opposed it were not favoring infanticide. (http://therecord.barackobama.com/?p=2671). If you actually want me to venture an opinion on something, I'm afraid I'll need one based on reality and not the make-believe world of the anti-Obama demagogues.

[romad_20]

Can someone mention that just because we don't believe in god, doesn't mean we want to keep other people from believing in him or following his rules. The fact that most Christians want to make their religious views into law, or effect law, for the rest of us is what gets us into a ruckus.

I'm not for abortion but I don't have a vagina, so ultimately its not my choice. I think you should be responsible for your actions, across the board. Unless you’re the person with the fetus, then you shouldn’t be involved.

[monosylab1k]

Anybody who is really a Christian would know that being involved in government and politics is the last thing Jesus would want his followers to be doing. A strong "Christian" political candidate is getting involved in something Jesus explicitly stated not to get involved in.

[Duff McCartney]

I couldn't agree more with you Mono.

Personally for me the biggest problem I have with so called Christians and their Christianity is that none of them follow anything about the Bible. I know there are some devout Christians just like there are pious and devout Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and all that.

I personally think that if you call yourself one of these terms then you have to follow everything literally and at 100 percent. Not because I believe in the sayings of scripture, but because Jesus, Mohammad, Buddha, didn't say to follow them sometimes or half the time...they said to follow them all the time.

In not so many words..I always ask people who are self professed Christians "It may not be wrong for you to get drunk or it doesn't explicity say it in the Bible or whatever, but do you really think Jesus/God will like what you do?"

I think for me the biggest change in my view about Christianity was when I read the Divine Comedy. It got me to thinking so much about my family and their Catholic beliefs as well as the entire Christian view point.

For one I never really thought about Catholicism much anymore but being that I was raised a Catholic it will always have something towards me. I'm not one now nor do I ever think I was one. But when one my cousins husband hung himself, I got to thinking deeply about the beliefs that my family had. I even asked my mom a few months after where she thought he was now that he was dead. Her answer was probably the epitome of what I think is wrong with so called Christians or any religion.

She confessed that she thought he was in heaven right now and it absolutely floored me. I asked her how can you think that? You know in your heart he's not there. So why do you say that? In fact you're absolutely instructed by the Catholic teachings to know he's not there. He's not in Heaven with God, he's in Hell...burning for taking his own life.

Not only did that change my view on the afterlife but it also changed my view on how much of a premium do we really put on life and sin. I think religion is dangerous because it tears so many things up inside of us.

My shining example has always been that I've always agreed with the sayings of all the "prophets" that kindness and forgiveness is the way to go. I know they all said that in all religions. But it tears open any human up inside when they stop and think about it. For me it's always been that I don't know how I can accept the fact that I am not a bad person...I don't drink, I don't smoke, and I'm a vegetarian. I plan to live a life of altruism as much as I can so I can help the less fortunate. Yet its devestating to know that according to most religions, I will spend the "afterlife" burning in hell because I chose not to believe.

Likewise when I wonder about these evil people that kill their babies, murder people, or do horrendous things, how can I ever be expected to believe in the teachings? Is there really a hell if God is all forgiving like it says in the Koran? Or in the Bible? If there isn't then why should I worry about not believing when all I've done is not believe, yet these people are muderers and rapists. But it also kills a person inside because it makes you wonder how you're supposed to think about these people, you want them in hell? Or do you want them in Heaven?

Does it take away from heaven if even a person who raped and killed in their life is able to get in it? What is the price of redemption? I mean the real price. How much does it take?

...............Holy shit this is long...(That's what she said)

[LnGrrrR]

Anybody who is really a Christian would know that being involved in government and politics is the last thing Jesus would want his followers to be doing. A strong "Christian" political candidate is getting involved in something Jesus explicitly stated not to get involved in.

Indeed. I believe it was Jesus who said to pray in private.

[jochhejaam]

It is my position that each and every pregnancy poses a danger to each and every host/mother, however statistically small. Forcing anyone to carry any fetus to term is dangerous to their health in any number of ways up to and including the act of childbirth itself. The law has no right to force one person to put their life in danger for another, no matter how low the odds.
How outrageously selfish of people that think that way, the vast majority of pregnancies result in no long term health problems for the "host". My mother had 5 and is in very good health, my wife had 5 and is in very good health, my sisters have had a total of 6 and are both in very good health, in fact, among my many aquaintances, I'm not aware of even one that suffers any health problem as a result of being pregnant (I'm sure they are out there, but on a very small scale)
Discarding unborn children every 20 seconds, as if they were no more than a pieces of trash, screams of decadence, and is a true indicator of a moribund society.




This is all presupposing a fetus should be considered a person, which I do not believe.
Whatever eases you conscience MaryAnn.

Abortion is legal up to 24 weeks, the unborn child feels pain at 20 weeks;

Does The Fetus Feel Pain?
Summary of a presentation given by Dr. Paul Ranalli.
The fetus can feel pain at 20 weeks. This is probably a conservatively late estimate, but it is scientifically solid. Elements of the pain-conveying system (spino-thalamic system) begin to be assembled at 7 weeks; enough development has occurred by 12-14 weeks that some pain perception is likely, and continues to build through the second trimester. By 20 weeks, the spino- thalamic system is fully established and connected.

There are three different indicators providing evidence that the fetus feels pain.

Anatomical
- pain receptors spread over the body in stages: 8-16 weeks
- pain impulse connections in the spinal cord link up and reach the thalamus (the brain's reception center): 7-20 weeks (summarized by Anand, K.J.S., Atlanta)

Physiological/Hormonal
- fetuses withdraw from painful stimulation
- two types of stress hormones, normally released by adults subjected to pain, are released by adults subjected to pain, are releases in massive amounts by the fetus subjected to a needle puncture to draw a blood sample:
(a) from 19 weeks onward (N. Fisk; London, England)
(b) from 16 weeks onward (J. Partch; Kiel, Germany)

Behavioral
- withdraw from pain
- change in vital signs
A 20-30 week old fetus actually will feel more pain than an adult. The period between 20-30 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.
http://www.gargaro.com/fetalpain.html



But to hell with the babies pain, because you don't consider it a person.

If you weren't aware of this, then the following opinion is not for you, if you were, it is for you and all others that don't give two whoops about the unborn.

I would classify as heartless and soulless those that are aware of the information above, along with the physical development, who still think it's fine and dandy to abort the baby.


Here's a 5 month old fetus. It's legal to abort this baby. In fact, this baby can develope for 2 more weeks after this and still be aborted...
http://regiaecclesia.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/fig03face5mos.jpg

MaryAnn? Anyone?






While I am sure there are many pro-life advocates who logically support sex education, the fact is that the official positions of most churches and their lobbyists are largely against effective sexual education (hint: abstinence-only programs are not sex education).
If you have proof that "most" churches are largely against sex education, provide the proof of that. (Clue for you: abstinence works 100% of the time, if followed it's fool-proof, and therefore it should be stressed as a part of every sex education program)





[



This is a morality argument that cannot be logically defended.
In light of the carnage taking place in the womb every 20 seconds, which you apporve of, you really aren't the ideal person to be preaching about morality.

Your argument fosters in people, both a lack of responsibility and a lack of accountability, it's not the Governments job to make sure that every couple that wants to bang does so while using some form of birth control. What percenatage of people having sex don't know that it can possibly result in a pregnancy? That being said, free condoms and/or birth control are available free to those that can't afford them.
Blaming this lack of being responsible and accountable for those that have an unwanted pregnancy on those that are opposed to carnage in the womb is unconcionable.




The pro-life "a fetus is a life" argument only holds up if your treat every host/mother and embryo/fetus the same. Otherwise you are back to making exceptions and picking and choosing. What you are saying with this line is that society should have a right to punish a woman and her body for not being responsible with birth control.
Without proof, I refuse to believe that the majority of Americans view a baby boy or girl as "punishment" that ought to be dealt with via abortion.






That view is both antiquated and misogynistic.
Antiquated is subjective and even if it were, that doens't meant that it's irrelevant.
Additionally, it's narrow-minded of you to levy a charge of being misogynistic against those that believe the life of a baby is sacrosanct.




Even though they should be advocates of masturbation, they often discourage, or fail to mention it at all. That's your friends on the religious right again.
Masturbation happens without any advocating from my friends on that love God, or from my friends that don't believe in God.




It is a private industry enjoyed by private citizens. I'm not sure what could be more private.
This private industry can be accessed at will by typing in a few words on a keyboard. I'm not sure if it could be any less private MaryAnn.






I didn't raise this point, you did.
I'll agree that I raised my points, if you'll agree that you raised yours.
(that was intended as humor, posted to lighten you up in case your a bit riled up)

[jochhejaam]

Indeed. I believe it was Jesus who said to pray in private.
Would this be the same Jesus that prayed in front of the 5,000 that God would multiply the loaves and the fish?

[jochhejaam]

...queue JJ...

Go away. :lol


Edit: j/k DR

[PixelPusher]

Would this be the same Jesus that prayed in front of the 5,000 that God would multiply the loaves and the fish?
Yes, but you're not Jesus. Study your bible harder.




Matthew 6:5 - 7

5. And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites [are]: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen [do]: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.


Matthew 14:23

23 And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone.

Matthew 26:36

36. Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder.


Mark 1:35

35 And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.

[jochhejaam]

Yes, but you're not Jesus. Study your bible harder.
So, we know that he prayed in front of crowds, and that he also prayed alone. We are also told to pray without ceasing. What can we derive from all of this? That their is a time for public prayer, and also a time for private prayer.

Glad to see that your into the Scripture Pix, and telling me to study my Bible harder is good advice, I'll do just that.

[ElNono]

I would classify as heartless and soulless those that are aware of the information above, along with the physical development, who still think it's fine and dandy to abort the baby.


Here's a 5 month old fetus. It's legal to abort this baby. In fact, this baby can develope for 2 more weeks after this and still be aborted...
http://regiaecclesia.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/fig03face5mos.jpg

MaryAnn? Anyone?


You can add me to your heartless and soulless list...
I already stated I don't personally like abortion except on the cases of incest, rape or danger to the mother. But in those cases, I don't give a shit how many nice pictures you post, if the mother decides to axe the fetus, I'm 100% behind her decision.

[jochhejaam]

You can add me to your heartless and soulless list...
I already stated I don't personally like abortion except on the cases of incest, rape or danger to the mother. But in those cases, I don't give a shit how many nice pictures you post, if the mother decides to axe the fetus, I'm 100% behind her decision.


No one is proposing that the life of the mother should be sacrificed for the life of the child, and you certainly didn't get that from anything I've posted.

[DarkReign]

You can add me to your heartless and soulless list...
I already stated I don't personally like abortion except on the cases of incest, rape or danger to the mother. But in those cases, I don't give a shit how many nice pictures you post, if the mother decides to axe the fetus, I'm 100% behind her decision.

Here is what I dont get.....why are people waiting that long to have an abortion?

That makes no sense to me and it never will (outisde health problems, mind you). Ive seen the videos of a mid-term abortion. If youre human, it bothers you.

My personal abortion take...I would never condone one, my wife will never have one, nor would my girlfriend before I was married.

I had that scare. It was obvious what her and I were going to do if she was indeed pregnant (shes my wife now, btw).

Abortion never entered the conversation. I just have a problem with morality legislation, which is what abortion is. On principle, I cant support anti-abortion crowds.

[ElNono]

Here is what I dont get.....why are people waiting that long to have an abortion?

That makes no sense to me and it never will (outisde health problems, mind you). Ive seen the videos of a mid-term abortion. If youre human, it bothers you.

My personal abortion take...I would never condone one, my wife will never have one, nor would my girlfriend before I was married.

I had that scare. It was obvious what her and I were going to do if she was indeed pregnant (shes my wife now, btw).

Abortion never entered the conversation. I just have a problem with morality legislation, which is what abortion is. On principle, I cant support anti-abortion crowds.

I agree. And I had personally never had to go through it with girlfriends. And if it would have happened, I'm sure I would have accepted responsibility for fathering the child.
But I have no doubt whatsoever if my wife's life is on the line what decision I'm going to ask her to take. It's not an easy decision, but it's a decision you should be allowed to make.
My other beef is with restricting sex education to abstinence. It's just retarded. It really is.

[MaryAnnKilledGinger]

How outrageously selfish of people that...
This is why people cannot have rational discussions on this topic. You're not discussing, but passing judgement. You want to wrap yourself in the emotion of the issue as if your humanity is better than mine. That's fine. But I am not advocating my personal belief or choices I would personally make so much as I am explaining that from a legal and moral standpoint I do not presume to criminalize or hold myself superior to anyone else. The pro-choice position is very much about maintaining that no one gets to decide they have permission over the body of another. I'm glad that none of the women in your family encountered any serious complications from pregnancy. The women in my family are not quite so lucky as yours.


Discarding unborn children every 20 seconds, as if they were no more than a pieces of trash, screams of decadence, and is a true indicator of a moribund society.
This sort of histrionics is exactly why the pro-life movement discredits itself. The more you make the issue play like a penny dreadful and paint perfectly average Americans as villains, the more you ensure that you are alienating the center.


Whatever eases you conscience MaryAnn.
My conscience doesn't need easing.


Abortion is legal up to 24 weeks, the unborn child feels pain at 20 weeks...
No scientific evidence has proved conclusively that a fetus "feels" pain in the way you characterize it.


But to hell with the babies pain, because you don't consider it a person...I would classify as heartless and soulless those that are aware of the information above, along with the physical development, who still think it's fine and dandy to abort the baby.

See above re: histrionics. I personally think it's indefensible that some people who hold personal beliefs based on things they cannot prove presume to hold power and judgement over their fellows on the basis of anecdotal and inconclusive evidence that does not meet the burden of proof set by our scientific and legal communities. I further find it hypocritical that such people do so despite the teachings of their own self-subscribed dogma.

But what you and I think of one another based on a few volleys on a message board is hardly worth discussing. If you're just here to pass judgement, then the conversation isn't worth continuing.


MaryAnn? Anyone?
I'm sorry, was there a question, or were you just hoping for some contrite repentance after posting of an image intended to shock people into an emotional reaction?


If you have proof that "most" churches are largely against sex education, provide the proof of that.

My links would be to sites like planned parenthood and such sources and you would disqualify them. (http://www.plannedparenthood.org/issues-action/sex-education/abstinence-6236.htm) There may well be a census of church positions on social issues, but I'm not going to spend any time having foreplay with Google trying to find it. Revoking sex education from schools and revoking contraception materials from outreach programs has been a big focus of the far-right. But then I'm sure your next questions would be to prove that most powerful religious groups and churches overwhelmingly support the far-right.


(Clue for you: abstinence works 100% of the time, if followed it's fool-proof, and therefore it should be stressed as a part of every sex education program)
Abstinence may be a 100% effective form of contraception and I have no problem with it being included in every sex education class. Abstinence-only programs, however, are massively ineffective.
.

In light of the carnage taking place in the womb every 20 seconds, which you apporve of, you really aren't the ideal person to be preaching about morality.
I would never presume to preach to anyone about morality or any other topic. I was simply pointing out that holding hypocritical viewpoints doesn't help make a case for those who are trying to preach morality to others.


Your argument fosters in people, both a lack of responsibility and a lack of accountability, it's not the Governments job to make sure that every couple that wants to bang does so while using some form of birth control.
My argument fosters the belief that preventing unwanted pregnancy and disease benefits our entire society. People are going to "bang" and it is in my best interest that they do so as safely as possible. So, yes, I am happy to toss a little of my tax money to help educate, empower, and equip them to do so, especially when large numbers of those people are too young to fully understand the ramifications of personal responsibility due to the fact that their sex organs have developed to maturity long before their brains.


Without proof, I refuse to believe that the majority of Americans view a baby boy or girl as "punishment" that ought to be dealt with via abortion.
I would refuse to believe that as well -- which is probably why I never said any such thing.


Additionally, it's narrow-minded of you to levy a charge of being misogynistic against those that believe the life of a baby is sacrosanct.
It's misogynistic to think you have a right to tell a woman what she can or can't do with her own body. That you don't like the word make it no less true. Part of misogyny is the mistrust of women. What could me more misogynistic than not trusting a woman to do what she wishes with her own body?


Masturbation happens without any advocating from my friends on that love God, or from my friends that don't believe in God.
Except that chruches have traditionally held that it is a sin and therefore made it taboo. If you make self-stimulation just as "shameful" as sex with a partner, you are equating them by action and consequence. Masterbation (solitary and mutual) is also a 100% effective means of contraception. If you believe abstinence should be stressed, shouldn't masterbation also be stressed?


(that was intended as humor, posted to lighten you up in case your a bit riled up)
That's twice now that people have accused me of being riled up while I've posted calm, rational responses. I think it's quaint that women with strong liberal opinions and the ability to reason them out at length should strike you as being riled up.

Perhaps I should have taken the advice of those who posted previously. You don't appear to have any intention or desire to have a rational exchange on the topic. Ah well, live and learn.

[Duff McCartney]

So, we know that he prayed in front of crowds, and that he also prayed alone. We are also told to pray without ceasing. What can we derive from all of this? That their is a time for public prayer, and also a time for private prayer.

You mean what can you derive from it. Like I've said a million times..every person interprets/feels/hears something different when they read. I don't really interpret it that way.

I mean hell how would you interpret the Sermon on The Mount?

Is my stepdad an adulterer for marrying my mom?
Am I condemned to hell because I didn't chop off my arm when I stole as a child?

And before you say it..you're right...they very well could be allegories. Then how do you interpret what is and isn't an allegory?

Praying in private an allegory?
Son of man an allegory?
Kingdom of Heaven inside you an allegory?

Yes...and no. I think it's whatever you make of it. I know you may feel the same way but my point is that people like Angel and the likes don't.

[MaryAnnKilledGinger]

Here is what I dont get.....why are people waiting that long to have an abortion?

This is a question I couldn't fathom for a long time myself. I think most Americans have a deep sense of personal responsibility. On one level we balk at anyone being irresponsible enough to allow themselves to get to this position. I think the late-term abortion compromise is a bridge between the two sides for that reason. And, honestly, I don't have a great deal of problem with it.

There are a number of factors that lead to this place. Some are accidental. Not all women exhibit obvious signs of pregnancy in the early stages and still others have such irregular cycles and issues that it's hard to say. Still others are obviously personal responsibility issues that stem from basic denial to social fear, etc. These are the types of factors that we, hopefully, can address through education and prevention along with a reverse stigmatizing of sex (and the role women play in society) in general.

However, it should also be noted that one sneaky element of the right-wing anti-abortion agenda has been the underhanded methods that try to circumvent the attempt to ban abortion by simply tricking women into carrying to term too late to do anything. The most overt tactic is the false abortion clinic. These types of centers, which have been popping up in the last several years, advertise and claim to be abortion clinics. When women go in, they are inundated with one-sided medical advice and literature, all aimed at adoption. If this strong-arm tactic doesn't work, in some extreme cases these "clinics" have pretended to set and cancel and re-schedule procedure dates (for procedures they have no intention of carrying out) until such time as the woman is beyond the legal stage to have an abortion. Before some people in this thread start drooling and ranting about this being just a few cases, I will reiterate that this isn't a huge phenomenon. But it does happen, has been happening more and more in the last 8 years, and should be noted.

The less overt action, of course, is by cutting the funding for low-income clinics that depend on partial funding from the government. Poor clinics can't perform abortions, the cost of abortion goes up and it's harder for low-income persons to get abortions in the early stages since they have to save money for the procedure.

A final element that should not be overlooked is the individual coming to terms with their own personal beliefs. Most people think of abortion in abstract terms, but they don't really know for sure what they believe for themselves until they sit down and face it themselves. I don't think any of us argue that it's a decission that no one should take lightly and should take their time coming to terms with. Often just a couple weeks isn't enough time for individuals. I know this is another personal responsibility issue, but it is a significant enough one to stand on its own in my opinion.

I think this issue, however, is really only relevant as a means to target the need for prevention and education. Otherwise you get into the dangerous waters of "you get what you deserve."

[Phenomanul]

If God is omniscient, then hasn't he foreseen all this? And if he has foreseen it, why did he not make us without this capability for violence?

(Of course, the answer is that he DID make us without knowledge of good/evil, much like an animal, but somehow he didn't foresee the snake. Whoops!)



Not to mention he could just wipe any 'bad' humans in a blink of an eye, and replace them with the theologically upgraded 2.0 version. But I guess he's kind of a masochist and rather keep around the bad fellas that 'pain Him'.

I could offer a biblical explanation... but:

1) You all really don't care to actually listen... I mean... I would be kidding myself if I thought you all were in a thread titled "Issues of Faith" for the sake of learning about a scriptural view of GOD.

2) You all are just going to brush it off with some other wise crack...

3) Even if I used the Bible to reveal GOD's character to you all... you all would probably just skim over it, reject it, and refuse to even admit it into the discussion... I mean, to you all the bible is a bunch of bunk anyways...

It's a no-win scenario...

Yeah, I'm not perfect; never claimed to be. At my relatively young age I have lived a life where I tried my best to help others, tended to the needs of underpriviledged families, orphans, donating of my time, and resources. Trying to reflect GOD's love on them... All while trying to to be a productive member of society... knowing fully well that none of those actions will ultimately get me into heaven... only the fact that I've decided to place my faith in Christ as LORD of my life...

So what if I'm wrong... eh....??? Nothing will happen. I'll just return to the earth as 'worm food,' but will have still made an impact on others.

What if you all are wrong?

[Phenomanul]

This is a question I couldn't fathom for a long time myself. I think most Americans have a deep sense of personal responsibility. On one level we balk at anyone being irresponsible enough to allow themselves to get to this position. I think the late-term abortion compromise is a bridge between the two sides for that reason. And, honestly, I don't have a great deal of problem with it.

There are a number of factors that lead to this place. Some are accidental. Not all women exhibit obvious signs of pregnancy in the early stages and still others have such irregular cycles and issues that it's hard to say. Still others are obviously personal responsibility issues that stem from basic denial to social fear, etc. These are the types of factors that we, hopefully, can address through education and prevention along with a reverse stigmatizing of sex (and the role women play in society) in general.

However, it should also be noted that one sneaky element of the right-wing anti-abortion agenda has been to underhand in trying to circumvent the attempt to ban abortion and has been content to simply trick women into carrying to term too late to do anything. The most overt tactic is the false abortion clinic. These types of centers, which have been popping up advertise and claim to be abortion clinics. When women go in, they are inundated with one-sided medical advice and literature, all aimed at adoption. If this strong-arm tactic doesn't work, in some extreme cases these "clinics" have pretended to set and cancel and re-schedule procedure dates until such time as the woman is beyond the legal stage to have an abortion. Before some people in this thread start drooling and ranting about this being just a few cases, I will reiterate that this isn't a huge phenomenon. But it does happen, has been happening more and more in the last 8 years, and should be noted.

The less overt action, of course, is by cutting the funding for low-income clinics that depend on partial funding from the government. Poor clinics can't perform abortions, the cost of abortion goes up and it's harder for low-income persons to get abortions in the early stages since they have to save money for the procedure.

A final element that should not be overlooked is the individual coming to terms with their own personal beliefs. Most people think of abortion in abstract terms, but they don't really know for sure what they believe for themselves until they sit down and face it themselves. I don't think any of us argue that it's a decission that no one should take lightly and should take their time coming to terms with. Often just a couple weeks isn't enough time for individuals. I know this is another personal responsibility issue, but it is a significant enough one to stand on its own in my opinion.

I think this issue, however, is really only relevant as a means to target the need for prevention and education. Otherwise you get into the dangerous waters of "you get what you deserve."

With all this rhetoric there is still no way you can defend Obama's position that survivors of failed abortions don't deserve a shot at life, or even medical attention.

His thought process is abominable.... since when did the constitutional right to an abortion (through Roe vs. Wade) supercede the constitutional right to 'life'?

One would think that pro-abortionists would draw the line at birth... not Obama's brand. That is the man that will be our president!

[MaryAnnKilledGinger]

With all this rhetoric there is still no way you can defend Obama's position that survivors of failed abortions don't deserve a shot at life, or even medical attention.

Once again for the people in the cheap seats:

It is currently the law that a doctor must act reasonably to preserve the life of a "born" fetus if there is a reasonable likelihood of survival. The bill that Obama voted "present" on (not against, and not for) was an overreaching publicity stunt which attempted to use the red herring of laws already in existence to further the pro-life cause. The bill was opposed by the Illinois medical community because it attempted to interfere with the patient/doctor relationship and increased liability for medical professionals. You might want to note that this bill the anti-Obama sect bases all this hooey on was so badly worded that even its Republican sponsor admitted it was overreaching and that those who opposed it were not favoring infanticide. (http://therecord.barackobama.com/?p=2671). If you actually want me to venture an opinion on something, I'm afraid I'll need one based on reality and not the make-believe world of the anti-Obama demagogues.

Reading is free. Comprehension is extra.

[ElNono]

I could offer a biblical explanation... but,
1) You all really don't care to actually listen... I mean... I would be kidding myself if I thought you all were in this thread for the sake of learning about a scriptural view of GOD.

2) You all are just going to brush it off with some other wise crack...

3) Even if I used the Bible to reveal GOD's character to you all... you all would probably just skim over it, reject it, and refuse to even admit it into the discussion... I mean, to you all the bible is a bunch of bunk anyways...

It's a no-win scenario...


I'm glad you're giving up on us. I mean, it's all we ask for. You do your thing, we'll do ours. Some Christians don't get it.



Yeah, I'm not perfect; never claimed to be. At my relatively young age I have lived a life where I tried my best to help others, tended to the needs of underpriviledged families, orphans, donating of my time, and resources. Trying to reflect GOD's love on them... All while trying to to be a productive member of society... knowing fully well that none of those actions will ultimately get me into heaven... only the fact that I've placed my faith in Christ as LORD of my life...


Well, it's not like I eat babies for breakfast. I try to help too whenever I can, even though I have no concept of god. I just think it's rewarding both for me and the other person.



So what if I'm wrong... eh....??? Nothing will happen. I'll just return to the earth as 'worm food,' but will have still made an impact on others.

What if you all are wrong?

I guess the bummer if you are wrong is all the stuff you could have done but you didn't because you considered them a sin. There's also the substantial time spent trying to make sense of the scriptures, the Bible, time wasted going to church and going places to spread the word. The good deeds are good no matter what, so those are good either way.

If we are wrong, then we go to hell. BFD. I really have no expectations past this life, and so I try to live it to the fullest. After getting married I settled down quite a bit, but it's been a fun ride. Heck, still is. And it's 2x as good when I don't have to be thinking if I'm pissing off the guy upstairs. In all honesty, I don't really believe there's an afterlife, so I simply don't dwell on it. But if there happens to be, and I'm headed down on the Lucifer express, then so be it. Life has been wonderful to me. I always think I'm one of the luckiest guys alive, so when it's my time to go, I'll kick the bucket with a smile.

[Phenomanul]

Once again for the people in the cheap seats:

It is currently the law that a doctor must act reasonably to preserve the life of a "born" fetus if there is a reasonable likelihood of survival. The bill that Obama voted "present" on (not against, and not for) was an overreaching publicity stunt which attempted to use the red herring of laws already in existence to further the pro-life cause. The bill was opposed by the Illinois medical community because it attempted to interfere with the patient/doctor relationship and increased liability for medical professionals. You might want to note that this bill the anti-Obama sect bases all this hooey on was so badly worded that even its Republican sponsor admitted it was overreaching and that those who opposed it were not favoring infanticide. (http://therecord.barackobama.com/?p=2671). If you actually want me to venture an opinion on something, I'm afraid I'll need one based on reality and not the make-believe world of the anti-Obama demagogues.

Reading is free. Comprehension is extra.

Other than this website I don't generally visit any political websites... I did however, come across a DVD where I heard Obama's discourse on the Illinois senate floor arguing against this proposed bill... ah... but don't let a website titled "the record" get in the way of actually understanding Obama's position on late term abortions... Yeah... obviously, His people want to rationalize his statements for the sake of his election... Who's sitting at cheap seats???

Obama argued against the bill, not on technicalities, or due to semantics...

Once again, Obama said,

"Helping them [survive] would go against the intial decision to have them aborted..."

"It would burden doctors to require them to come out at 2:00 AM just to try and save the life of an unwanted baby..."

He was not arguing against the wording or the provisions of the proposed bill... Obama overstepped the bounds of the necessary arguments with the above freudian slips - truly showing his position.

If you can't understand what he is saying then that's on you... don't even try and lecture me on reading comprehension.

[monosylab1k]

Would this be the same Jesus that prayed in front of the 5,000 that God would multiply the loaves and the fish?

Yes. And the same Jesus who kept his worship out of the political realm. The same Jesus who fled and hid when the people tried to make him king.

[MaryAnnKilledGinger]

Once again, Obama said,

"Helping them [survive] would go against the intial decision to have them aborted..."

"It would burden doctors to require them to come out at 2:00 AM just to try and save the life of an unwanted baby..."


And your DVD source for this is...?

[The Reckoning]

Jesus was a tolstoy anarchist

[Phenomanul]

Yes. And the same Jesus who kept his worship out of the political realm. The same Jesus who fled and hid when the people tried to make him king.

He didn't come to be crowned or to overthrow the Romans (which is why the people wanted to crown him as King in the first place)... He came to defeat sin by overcoming all temptation and by triumphing over death. Furthermore Christ came to establish his spritual kingdom...

[Phenomanul]

And your DVD source for this is...?

The Illinois public broadcasting chanel... a friend of mine from Chicago, TiVo'd it the day it aired (oddly enough he said it was never rebroadcast)... Anyways, he sent it to me..... whottt posted a segment of that audio clip [not his entire discourse] a couple of days ago...

[MaryAnnKilledGinger]

The Illinois public broadcasting chanel... a friend of mine from Chicago, TiVo'd it the day it aired (oddly enough he said it was never rebroadcast)... Anyways, he sent it to me..... whottt posted a segment of that audio clip [not his entire discourse] a couple of days ago...

Wow, I can't believe your friend has that video and hasn't shared it with all the pro-lifers out there who would love to have it to play on their webistes. Surely, he's shared copies with them so they can use it to get the facts out there. There has to be a couple reputable pro-life advocacy groups that would welcome such material. Or does the pro-life movement also have a liberal bias?

...or could it be that your friend doesn't want anyone to try and authenticate its validity when there is established documentation that such proceedings were never recorded? Or, heaven forbid, those truncated statements are taken wildly out of context from someone that actually did unofficially record the event?

It's propaganda like this that confuses well-intentioned, but misinformed people like angel_luv.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/oct/09/illinois-born-alive-abortion-law-becomes-campaign-/

Back in 2001, legislative transcripts show that Obama questioned one piece of the "born alive" legislation package because he said it would be struck down by the courts because it gave legal status to fetuses. In 2002, Obama discussed a different aspect of the legislation, which required a second doctor be present at abortions. Obama said he thought that legislation was intended to make abortion more difficult to obtain, not to provide better care for the "born alive." There is no record of his remarks in 2003 because the bill never made it out of committee, and the committee proceedings were not recorded.

We requested documentation from the Illinois State Archives about the 2003 bill and found that it did have a neutrality clause, as the National Right to Life said. (The clause was added at the committee level, and those records are not available online. But we have posted the documents we received via fax from the State Archives here (http://www.politifact.com/media/files/bornalive.pdf)). But there is an important caveat to add here: We don't know what the discussion was at the 2003 committee because the proceedings weren't recorded, but it seems likely that the federal neutrality clause was not considered sufficient at the state level, because the 2005 Illinois law that eventually passed included a more extensive neutrality clause than the federal legislation. To read more about the differences between the neutrality clauses, please see our statement here (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/763/).

Obama's own position: http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/429328.aspx

[Phenomanul]

Hear for yourself.... the clip whottt posted...

ypDwNpgIUQc&feature=related

[Phenomanul]

Anyways... I'll talk to you later... I have to catch some zzzzzzs.

Just expressing my view that mother's lives and children's lives should be valued equally... that abortion not be used as some last recourse contraceptive... that's all.

:)

[MaryAnnKilledGinger]

Hear for yourself.... the clip whottt posted...

1. This video has two clips taken out of context. It is impossible to know what they were referring to and in what context.

2. Even allowing for #1, neither of the two quotes you posted are in that video. What your own video clip actually says is:

"Adding an additional doctor who has to be called in an emergency situation to come in and make these assessments is really designed simply to burden the original decision of the woman and the physician to induce labor and perform an abortion."

This is absolutely true and in no way implies that care should not be given to a live birth fetus. It does imply that requiring an unnecessary third party just for the sake of looking over a doctor's shoulder is a disingenuous attempt at hiking up the price of an abortion.



Just expressing my view that mother's lives and children's lives should be valued equally... that abortion not be used as some last recourse contraceptive... that's all.

That's not at all what you've been expressing and has nothing to do with the misleading information you've presented.

Pleasant dreams.

[El Jefe]

So what if I'm wrong... eh....??? Nothing will happen. I'll just return to the earth as 'worm food,' but will have still made an impact on others.

What if you all are wrong?

Two issues I have with this.

1. As a decidedly non-religious person, it irks me when someone tries to say that religion=morals, as if the only way to be a good and moral person is through religious belief. I have never been a member of a church, and I view science as much more meaningful than religious expression. And yet I am a moral and decent person. I get along well with people, I help out when and where I can, I've donated my time to what I believe are good causes and I try my best to take care of my friends and my family. Not because someone up in the sky might be upset if I don't, but because I believe it's just the best way to navigate life. I don't believe there's a reward or a punishment waiting me at the end of the line, this is just the way I can make the experience as positive as possible.

2. I don't begrudge people their beliefs. I don't know that I'm right, and I have no place to try to convince you otherwise. I respect your right to your beliefs as long as you respect mine. But this argument quoted above is essentially the same thought process I had about Santa Clause what I was four (If he's real, I get presents. If he's not, what's the harm in believing?) I know that your faith runs deeper than that, and I'm not mocking you. I'm just saying don't insult yourself by reducing your faith into something so simplistic, and don't insult us by trying to win us over with the same argument.

ps MAKG ftw. I wish I could so eloquently state my position on so many things.

[jochhejaam]

You can add me to your heartless and soulless list...
I already stated I don't personally like abortion except on the cases of incest, rape or danger to the mother. But in those cases, I don't give a shit how many nice pictures you post, if the mother decides to axe the fetus, I'm 100% behind her decision.

Your view doesn't qualify you for the list, if we adhered to abortion based on you qualifiers, the 1,400,000 abortions that take place in the U.S. every year would be cut by an astounding 1,386,000 a year (research shows that roughly 1% of abortions are performed for rape, incest of to protect the life of the mother), for a grand total of 14,000 abortions a year.

Any pro-life advocates that wouldn't jump at that reduction would have to be out of their mind.

The soulless, heartless list is reserved for those who perform abortions, and all others that have an in depth understanding of the development of a child in the womb, and in spite of that knowledge still pursue an agenda that advocates abortion-on-demand under every circumstance.

[ratm1221]

Your view doesn't qualify you for the list, if we adhered to abortion based on you qualifiers, the 1,400,000 abortions that take place in the U.S. every year would be cut by an astounding 1,386,000 a year (research shows that roughly 1% of abortions are performed for rape, incest of to protect the life of the mother), for a grand total of 14,000 abortions a year.

Any pro-life advocates that wouldn't jump at that reduction would have to be out of their mind.

The soulless, heartless list is reserved for those who perform abortions, and all others that have an in depth understanding of the development of a child in the womb, and in spite of that knowledge still pursue an agenda that advocates abortion-on-demand under every circumstance.

So you wouldn't mind paying more taxes to support those 1.4 million babies would you? Let's say the cost of raising a child for the first year of it's life costs $10,000, which should be somewhat accurate or not too far off. That would be (1.4 million * 10,000) = 14 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR. And it goes up from there since I'm only using the first year of a child's life, unless it starves and dies before that first year because some people on here hate taxes, but they are pro-life.

[J.T.]

I firmly believe that nothing good happens without Jesus.


Just out of curiosity answer this simple true/false question:

T/F Jesus Christ's birthday is December 25th.

[ratm1221]

Just out of curiosity answer this simple true/false question:

T/F Jesus Christ's birthday is December 25th.

That's an easy one to dodge, but even if you gave her a hard one it wouldn't matter. Truth and faith don't go together no matter how hard you try to make them fit.

[I Love Me Some Me]

The issue of abortion can be discussed in circles forever, but it only comes down to one thing.

Is the unborn baby a human being?

If it is a human being then you cannot, in good conscience, justify terminating it's life, simply because it is in the way.

If it is not a human being, then you can do whatever you want with it with no moral or ethical ramifications.

[ElNono]

The issue of abortion can be discussed in circles forever, but it only comes down to one thing.

Is the unborn baby a human being?

If it is a human being then you cannot, in good conscience, justify terminating it's life, simply because it is in the way.

If it is not a human being, then you can do whatever you want with it with no moral or ethical ramifications.

To me it has little to do with that at all. For me, personally, it has to do with being responsible for what you do. If you father a child, then you need to have the balls to respond for your actions. Of course, this is from a man's POV. Women actually have more weight IMO, because they are the ones that will carry the pregnancy, and it's associated effects and risks.

[I Love Me Some Me]

To me it has little to do with that at all. For me, personally, it has to do with being responsible for what you do. If you father a child, then you need to have the balls to respond for your actions. Of course, this is from a man's POV. Women actually have more weight IMO, because they are the ones that will carry the pregnancy, and it's associated effects and risks.
Really?

So when it comes to abortion, it doesn't matter much whether or not we're talking about a human being?

I mean, I agree 100% about father being responsible (mother's too, for that matter), but the abortion argument really is "are we or are we not, killing a human being?"

[LnGrrrR]

I could offer a biblical explanation... but:

1) You all really don't care to actually listen... I mean... I would be kidding myself if I thought you all were in a thread titled "Issues of Faith" for the sake of learning about a scriptural view of GOD.

2) You all are just going to brush it off with some other wise crack...

3) Even if I used the Bible to reveal GOD's character to you all... you all would probably just skim over it, reject it, and refuse to even admit it into the discussion... I mean, to you all the bible is a bunch of bunk anyways...

It's a no-win scenario...

Yeah, I'm not perfect; never claimed to be. At my relatively young age I have lived a life where I tried my best to help others, tended to the needs of underpriviledged families, orphans, donating of my time, and resources. Trying to reflect GOD's love on them... All while trying to to be a productive member of society... knowing fully well that none of those actions will ultimately get me into heaven... only the fact that I've decided to place my faith in Christ as LORD of my life...

So what if I'm wrong... eh....??? Nothing will happen. I'll just return to the earth as 'worm food,' but will have still made an impact on others.

What if you all are wrong?

Oh cmon, that's a copout. I have not said anything critical of you that I know of.

I've helped out others as well, but without the carrot of Heaven floating over me. :)

And Pascal's argument is a weak one.

[ElNono]

Really?

So when it comes to abortion, it doesn't matter much whether or not we're talking about a human being?

I mean, I agree 100% about father being responsible (mother's too, for that matter), but the abortion argument really is "are we or are we not, killing a human being?"

That's your opinion, respectable as any other. But my position preempts getting to that question. You either take responsibility and pass the moral test, or you don't and you fail it. Obviously, I stated exceptions to that.

[hater]

Jesus would share the wealth

[ElNono]

Jesus would share the wealth

Free wine bitches!

[~~~~~~]

http://www.michaelcrichton.com/speech-environmentalismaseligion.html
An excerpt:
...Most of us have had some experience interacting with religious fundamentalists, and we understand that one of the problems with fundamentalists is that they have no perspective on themselves. They never recognize that their way of thinking is just one of many other possible ways of thinking, which may be equally useful or good. On the contrary, they believe their way is the right way, everyone else is wrong; they are in the business of salvation, and they want to help you to see things the right way. They want to help you be saved. They are totally rigid and totally uninterested in opposing points of view. In our modern complex world, fundamentalism is dangerous because of its rigidity and its imperviousness to other ideas...

[I Love Me Some Me]

http://www.michaelcrichton.com/speech-environmentalismaseligion.html
An excerpt:

true of any 'fundamentalist', not a trait exclusive to a religious fundamentalist.

[ratm1221]

Jesus would share the wealth

:lol

He sure would! Obama is the real Jesus! Christians were off by a couple thousand years...

[Phenomanul]

http://www.michaelcrichton.com/speech-environmentalismaseligion.html
An excerpt:

Hey.... sounds alot like the atheist 'fundamentalists' in here as well (except for the salvation part)...

It's a two way street...

Or as they like to say, "Pot meet kettle...."

[ElNono]

Hey.... sounds alot like the atheist 'fundamentalists' in here as well (except for the salvation part)...

It's a two way street...

Or as they like to say, "Pot meet kettle...."

Actually, I would say the only 'fundamentalist' we've seen around here is Angel... I don't think anybody else is preaching to you that you should stop believing in whatever you believe.

[Phenomanul]

Oh cmon, that's a copout. I have not said anything critical of you that I know of.

Not personally... but you did express a rather cynical view of GOD - one which you are definitely entitled to. Wasn't that the reason you were quoted in the first place? Cynicism, is the classic tactic against a genuine disposition to want to learn.



I've helped out others as well, but without the carrot of Heaven floating over me. :)
I specifically stated that I believe none of my 'works' will get me into heaven; so why would I do them with that end in sight? I stated that I'm trying to live out a life where I can positively impact those around me; doing those things only serves to suggest that I'm trying to live out what I say... the whole "actions speak louder than words" concept...




And Pascal's argument is a weak one.
Skirting the question... that's the true cop out. At least people here know where I stand.

[ratm1221]

Hey.... sounds alot like the atheist 'fundamentalists' in here as well (except for the salvation part)...

It's a two way street...

Or as they like to say, "Pot meet kettle...."

Sorry, I don't agree with you. Christians (most) look down on those that don't believe in their God or their Jesus. The difference is, I could care less what Christians believe as long as they stay out of my way. It's their life to waste on petty superstition, but when it interferes with my life (i.e. influencing law based on their beliefs), it's a problem. Christians need to stay out of government. There are way too many people in this country, with way too many beliefs that don't want to conform to what you believe in. If you don't like it, move. Go start another county with an all Christian government.

[I Love Me Some Me]

Sorry, I don't agree with you. Christians (most) look down on those that don't believe in their God or their Jesus. The difference is, I could care less what Christians believe as long as they stay out of my way. It's their life to waste on petty superstition, but when it interferes with my life (i.e. influencing law based on their beliefs), it's a problem. Christians need to stay out of government. There are way too many people in this country, with way too many beliefs that don't want to conform to what you believe in. If you don't like it, move. Go start another county with an all Christian government.

If you don't want a Christian in your government, don't vote for one. But they have just as much right to run for office as anyone else.

[ElNono]

If you don't want a Christian in your government, don't vote for one. But they have just as much right to run for office as anyone else.

They sure do. The problem is when they trump the constitution to run their religious agenda from the government. THAT is illegal, and I definitely have a problem with that.

[angel_luv]

Not to mention he could just wipe any 'bad' humans in a blink of an eye, and replace them with the theologically upgraded 2.0 version. But I guess he's kind of a masochist and rather keep around the bad fellas that 'pain Him'.

Do you feel the same is true about a parent who continues to love thier rebelling, runaway child, even while the child continuously and delibrately rejects the parent and the parent's love?

[The Reckoning]

i dont think jesus went by the gregorian calendar

[ElNono]

Do you feel the same is true about a parent who continues to love thier rebelling, runaway child, even while the child continuously and delibrately rejects the parent and the parent's love?

Parents can't 'wipe' any children without consequences. There's no reason why god shouldn't be able to.

[monosylab1k]

They sure do. The problem is when they trump the constitution to run their religious agenda from the government. THAT is illegal, and I definitely have a problem with that.

:tu And in his teachings Jesus made clear distinctions between church and state. I wish the majority of his so-called followers would do the same.

[angel_luv]

You didn't answer in regards to what I asked. I quoted you in full context, but please see the underlined.

I am authentically interested to hear what you think.

[ElNono]

You didn't answer in regards to what I asked. I quoted you in full context, but please see the underlined.

I am authentically interested to hear what you think.

I did answer in context. If he could just wipe off the 'bad guys', then you would have your ideal world angel. No more people to 'convert', since you all would live not only in a Christian nation, but a Christian world. What's better for you than that?

Now, as far as your example, I think you have everything out there. There ARE parents that in fact do abandon their children. And then there's the ones that do not. The difference is that to me, 'feelings' like love, compassion, feeling good, etc are nothing but electrical impulses/chemical reactions in the brain.

[angel_luv]

:tu And in his teachings Jesus made clear distinctions between church and state. I wish the majority of his so-called followers would do the same.

About that...

Many non Christians love citing Matthew 22:21: "Then he said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."

What they may not know is that in this verse Jesus is instructing people to obey the law by paying their taxes.

Read the whole story:





Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words.

They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. "Teacher," they said, "we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren't swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are.

Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?"
But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, "You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me?

Show me the coin used for paying the tax." They brought him a denarius, 20and he asked them, "Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?"

"Caesar's," they replied.
Then he said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."

When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.

[angel_luv]

I did answer in context. If he could just wipe off the 'bad guys', then you would have your ideal world angel. No more people to 'convert', since you all would live not only in a Christian nation, but a Christian world. What's better for you than that?

Now, as far as your example, I think you have everything out there. There ARE parents that in fact do abandon their children. And then there's the ones that do not. The difference is that to me, 'feelings' like love, compassion, feeling good, etc are nothing but electrical impulses/chemical reactions in the brain.

Thank you for your answer.

[ElNono]

About that...

Many non Christians love citing Matthew 22:21: "Then he said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."

What they may not know is that in this verse Jesus is instructing people to obey the law by paying their taxes.

Read the whole story:

So, god is for taxes and not against taxes? Marxist!

EDIT: this was a joke BTW, with all the Marxist name calling going on in this forum.

[hater]

Radical Fundamentalist Forum

[The Reckoning]

the Church prevents clergy from running for or being involved in government. it, for the most part, stands firm with Jefferson's wall of seperation

[Phenomanul]

1. This video has two clips taken out of context. It is impossible to know what they were referring to and in what context.

2. Even allowing for #1, neither of the two quotes you posted are in that video. What your own video clip actually says is:

"Adding an additional doctor who has to be called in an emergency situation to come in and make these assessments is really designed simply to burden the original decision of the woman and the physician to induce labor and perform an abortion."

He was addressing the very scenario presented by the nurse. That is afterall the reason why enough momentum was ushered to get the proposed bill on the Illinois Senate floor in the first place. The same nurse who helplessly held the failed abortion survivor.... only to watch the baby die. The same nurse who was later fired for having stirred up the controversy.

As for your articles suggesting that coverage of those meetings doesn't 'exist'... That's news to me. The format is very similar to what we see on the Texas Senate hearings on the Texas news channel. Not a bootleg copy. I just got off the phone with my buddy from Chicago who said that he finds the allegations that the hearings never aired highly disturbing. I told him to mail a copy to those who need to hear. He said he doesn't want to become the next "Joe the Plumber" out of fear that the media will unleash destruction on him too.



This is absolutely true and in no way implies that care should not be given to a live birth fetus. It does imply that requiring an unnecessary third party just for the sake of looking over a doctor's shoulder is a disingenuous attempt at hiking up the price of an abortion.
Wow... that's really all you heard in that clip? I don't remember seeing them debate over the presence of a second doctor at the abortion procedure itself; rather a doctor who would have to be bothered by tending to both the mother and her unwanted baby, and then having to make a call requesting additional medical support (only after the abortion failed to begin with - otherwise the question doesn't even arise).




That's not at all what you've been expressing and has nothing to do with the misleading information you've presented.

Pleasant dreams.

I've argued against abortion on the grounds I stated above, on numerous occasions in this forum... You're just relatively new here. That's where I stand.

[ratm1221]

If you don't want a Christian in your government, don't vote for one. But they have just as much right to run for office as anyone else.

I don't mind a Christian in government. They usually have good values and morals. But I don't agree with all their beliefs, and if they use their beliefs to base changes, it becomes a problem.

You wouldn't like it if a Muslim got elected president and used their beliefs as a guideline for law would you? The door should swing both ways.

[monosylab1k]

About that...

Many non Christians love citing Matthew 22:21: "Then he said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."

What they may not know is that in this verse Jesus is instructing people to obey the law by paying their taxes.

Read the whole story:

I understand what his point was there. I'm just saying that as far as being a king or ruler or politician or whatever, Jesus wanted no part of it, and encouraged his followers to avoid it the same way he did.

[Phenomanul]

Sorry, I don't agree with you. Christians (most) look down on those that don't believe in their God or their Jesus.

Most??? Nice little generality... I take it broad strokes of the paintbrush are acceptable as long as they suit your argument.

True Christians worry about the "pole in their eye" before worrying about the "speck" in their brother's eye. Their actions should be driven by love for the people they work with.



The difference is, I could care less what Christians believe as long as they stay out of my way. It's their life to waste on petty superstition, but when it interferes with my life (i.e. influencing law based on their beliefs), it's a problem.

So vote against their propositions... it's your vote against theirs (fortunately for you... your numbers are growing larger with each passing generation).

Christians are entitled to shape and influence the laws that govern their land as much as the next citizen... it is a constitutional right granted to every voting citizen. Oh but you'll say, "that infringes the separation of church and state principle!!"

Not quite... democratic representation of our law making bodies counters such arguments. That infrastructure prevents the will of any one faction to be imposed over everyone else...

I've stated this repeatedly, but maybe you hadn't read it yet. Wishing that someone's rights be denied simply because they don't agree with your worldview is a faschist concept.




Christians need to stay out of government. There are way too many people in this country, with way too many beliefs that don't want to conform to what you believe in. If you don't like it, move. Go start another county with an all Christian government.

Who ever said Christians wanted to implement a theocracy in the US? Do you honestly believe that is our agenda?

[Phenomanul]

I understand what his point was there. I'm just saying that as far as being a king or ruler or politician or whatever, Jesus wanted no part of it, and encouraged his followers to avoid it the same way he did.

Is there a biblical citation for that assertion? Or is that simply your assumption?

Besides I've already explained why he rejected the notion of being crowned King of the Jews... He wasn't there to overthrow the Romans. He came down to defeat sin once and for all, by triumphing over death.

[ElNono]

So vote against their propositions... it's your vote against theirs (fortunately for you... your numbers are growing larger with each passing generation).


How do you vote against an executive order or an attorney general opinion?



Christians are entitled to shape and influence the laws that govern their land as much as the next citizen... it is a constitutional right granted to every voting citizen. Oh but you'll say, "that infringes the separation of church and state principle!!"


They sure are entitled to shape and influence the laws, but the laws themselves MUST be religion-free. Otherwise you are breaking the separation of state-church.

[boutons_]

"Who ever said Christians wanted to implement a theocracy in the US?"

Forget talking, dubya is walking the theocratic walk, giving govt money to religious orgs that discriminate against employees based on faith, with the bizarre justification that not giving them the money would be a restraint on religious practice. :lol

"Christian" supremacists are pushing hard to have laws, regulations, even a Constitutional amendment that make Christianity the official religion of the USA.

Christian-only displays (10 commandments, Nativity scenes) on govt property (no Stars of David, no Muslim moon/stars need apply)

"Christians" forcing ID/creationism/Biblical fairy tales into public school curricula as scientific.

"Christains" have been blocking condoms for Africa, "Christians" have been writing govt websites and documentation saying that sexual abstinence works in practice.

"Christians" have been pushing hard into Caesar's realm, very un-Christ-like.

The Christian supremacists/theocrats have a very active, and well-defined agenda to breakdown the US's church/state barriers. Denying it is a lie, but lying for Christ are good, godly lies.

[angel_luv]

I understand what his point was there. I'm just saying that as far as being a king or ruler or politician or whatever, Jesus wanted no part of it, and encouraged his followers to avoid it the same way he did.


Jesus' focus was on fulfilling the specific purpose God had for Him and He instructed His followers to each fulfill God's purpose for them.

If you look in the Bible, there are people in authority all throughout it whom God helped- Joseph ( served as second command to the Pharoah at the time; Genesis 41:41-43),Moses ( He led millions of people to freedom; Exodus),
Deborah ( she was a judge; Judges 4 &5), David ( God chose him to be the king of Israel when he was only a shepherd boy) 1 Samuel 16), Anna ( a prophetess at the time of Jesus' birth; Luke 2: 36-37) as well as Stephen, Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas ( those seven men were chosen by the Disciples to be head of the outreach committee of the fellowship of Christian believers; Acts 6:5),

Each of the above ( as well as many others, not mentioned in this post in the interest of keeping it semi- brief) made the most of the opportunities presented to them- using their God bestowed talents and giftings to give honor back to God.

[monosylab1k]

Jesus' focus was on fulfilling the specific purpose God had for Him and He instructed His followers to each fulfill God's purpose for them.

If you look in the Bible, there are people in authority all throughout it whom God helped- Joseph ( served as second command to the Pharoah at the time; Genesis 41:41-43),Moses ( He led millions of people to freedom; Exodus),
Deborah ( she was a judge; Judges 4 &5), David ( God chose him to be the king of Israel when he was only a shepherd boy) 1 Samuel 16),.

true, but none of the above were Christians.

And some of them lived in a Jewish nation created specifically for the Jews. The United States is NOT a Christian nation created specifically for Christians.


Anna ( a prophetess at the time of Jesus' birth; Luke 2: 36-37) as well as Stephen, Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas ( those seven men were chosen by the Disciples to be head of the outreach committee of the fellowship of Christian believers; Acts 6:5),

Each of the above ( as well as many others, not mentioned in this post in the interest of keeping it semi- brief) made the most of the opportunities presented to them- using their God bestowed talents and giftings to give honor back to God.

All of the did great things as Christians, but just like Jesus, none of them reached out for political office in the government.

[ratm1221]

Most??? Nice little generality... I take it broad strokes of the paintbrush are acceptable as long as they suit your argument.

I can only speak for the Christians I know. Let's put it like this, 9 out of 10 Christians that I meet treat the fact that I don't believe in a God as taboo, and usually don't want to be my friend.


So vote against their propositions... it's your vote against theirs (fortunately for you... your numbers are growing larger with each passing generation).

Christians are entitled to shape and influence the laws that govern their land as much as the next citizen... it is a constitutional right granted to every voting citizen. Oh but you'll say, "that infringes the separation of church and state principle!!"

You would be singing a different tune if Muslims outnumbered Christians in the US and started voting in majority to chop thieves hands off. I'm sure you would be outraged and be crying that the Muslim faith shouldn't effect law.


I've stated this repeatedly, but maybe you hadn't read it yet. Wishing that someone's rights be denied simply because they don't agree with your worldview is a faschist concept.

If you think that by me saying that I don't want Christian beliefs influencing the laws that effect others that are not Christians somehow denies you your rights, there is something seriously flawed in your logical thinking.


Who ever said Christians wanted to implement a theocracy in the US? Do you honestly believe that is our agenda?

Last time I checked there was a fairly large politically motivated group called the Christian Right. Maybe you've heard of them. Maybe not.

[LnGrrrR]

Do you feel the same is true about a parent who continues to love thier rebelling, runaway child, even while the child continuously and delibrately rejects the parent and the parent's love?

Depends. Are you throwing that child into eternal torment when he dies if he hasn't confessed his love before that?

[I Love Me Some Me]

Scripturally, the Bible seems (IMO) to indicate government to have a limited role in our lives. Romans and Proverbs both provide reference to government's role...which is pretty much to ensure justice and equity. In other words, every person should receive fairness and equity, not that everyone should have the same status or the same wealth, the same access and the same privileges...that seems to be the emphasis nowadays. The Bible doesn't teach that everyone is entitled to the same thing. What people obtain on earth should be a function of their contribution, not a function of the state's contribution. The function of the state is to provide an even playing field, in which everyone is equally protected to move forward. The state should reward those who do good, and punish those who break the law. But, once a level playing field is established, it's up to the individual to go from there. I think Abe Lincoln said something like, government establishes the conditions that allow an individual to rise as high as his cleverness or his hard work or his enterprise will take him. From my studies, that's what the Bible says about government.

I think when you allow the government to be responsible for equality (socialized healthcare, redistribution of wealth, etc...), it has to use despotism to accomplish that goal. You give the government power over you (taking your money and redistributing it as it sees fit) and it will exercise that power excessively and in an increasingly corrupt fashion, so much so that the people under that government can no longer effectively exercise self-direction of it.

All that to say that I think when someone claims to be a Christian, they should commit themselves to studying the Bible in a way outside of just memorizing scripture. Become familiar with the scriptures that talk about government, and try to learn the intent behind them. If people were to do this correctly, we'd have fewer people afraid of a "Christian" politician. Instead, they would see that the policies that "Christian" supports are good and just, outside of the fact that they are scripturally supported.

[angel_luv]

true, but none of the above were Christians.

And some of them lived in a Jewish nation created specifically for the Jews. The United States is NOT a Christian nation created specifically for Christians.



Please read:




Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
This is what the ancients were commended for.

By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead.

By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God.

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.
By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.
For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

By faith Abraham, even though he was past age—and Sarah herself was barren—was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise.
And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.

All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.

People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own.
If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return.
Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son,
even though God had said to him, "It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned."
Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.

By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future.

By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph's sons, and worshiped as he leaned on the top of his staff.

By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions about his bones.

By faith Moses' parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king's edict.

By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter.

He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time.
He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.

By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king's anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible.
By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of Israel.

By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned.

By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the people had marched around them for seven days.

By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.

And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets,
who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. Women received back their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection.
Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison.
They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.

These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.






All of the did great things as Christians, but just like Jesus, none of them reached out for political office in the government.

Again, everyone has different opportunites in which to serve God.
Isn't it possible that in New Testament times there was not many if any opportunties for Believers to serve in politics?

Here is a more modern comparison:

Black women now have the right to vote, a right refused women a few centuries back.

In that sense, I have more opportunity now to make a difference than my my great, great, great grandmother had.
( Hopefully I used enough greats :) )

I believe Jesus wants me to use the ability I have to vote and, if He puts it on my heart, run for office- all the while giving glory to Him.

[Phenomanul]

Scripturally, the Bible seems (IMO) to indicate government to have a limited role in our lives. Romans and Proverbs both provide reference to government's role...which is pretty much to ensure justice and equity. In other words, every person should receive fairness and equity, not that everyone should have the same status or the same wealth, the same access and the same privileges...that seems to be the emphasis nowadays. The Bible doesn't teach that everyone is entitled to the same thing. What people obtain on earth should be a function of their contribution, not a function of the state's contribution. The function of the state is to provide an even playing field, in which everyone is equally protected to move forward. The state should reward those who do good, and punish those who break the law. But, once a level playing field is established, it's up to the individual to go from there. I think Abe Lincoln said something like, government establishes the conditions that allow an individual to rise as high as his cleverness or his hard work or his enterprise will take him. From my studies, that's what the Bible says about government.

I think when you allow the government to be responsible for equality (socialized healthcare, redistribution of wealth, etc...), it has to use despotism to accomplish that goal. You give the government power over you (taking your money and redistributing it as it sees fit) and it will exercise that power excessively and in an increasingly corrupt fashion, so much so that the people under that government can no longer effectively exercise self-direction of it.

All that to say that I think when someone claims to be a Christian, they should commit themselves to studying the Bible in a way outside of just memorizing scripture. Become familiar with the scriptures that talk about government, and try to learn the intent behind them. If people were to do this correctly, we'd have fewer people afraid of a "Christian" politician. Instead, they would see that the policies that "Christian" supports are good and just, outside of the fact that they are scripturally supported.

+1 :tu

Why wouldn't people want "just" representation in government? Leaders of integrity, who tried with their very being to live out what they said. People who kept their promises, and people that couldn't be bought off. That would be the ideal candidate...

Unfortunately the amounts of money required to run for office today make that task prohibitively impractical, and such people really hard to find... which is why special interest groups and lobbyists end up tarnishing good-intentioned men and women.

[ElNono]

I believe Jesus wants me to use the ability I have to vote and, if He puts it on my heart, run for office- all the while giving glory to Him.

Now that's some scary shit right there...

[Shastafarian]

Now that's some scary shit right there...

I wonder if angel_luv knows why they called the Dark Ages the DARK AGES.

[LnGrrrR]

I'm still waiting to see if she'll answer my question about throwing her theoretical child into theoretical eternal torment...

There are two views of God. Either he requires we be good at heart, or he requires our submission. One is ultimately more important than the other in each view. It is the latter I do not like.

[jochhejaam]

This is why people cannot have rational discussions on this topic. You're not discussing, but passing judgement. You want to wrap yourself in the emotion of the issue as if your humanity is better than mine. That's fine. But I am not advocating my personal belief or choices I would personally make so much as I am explaining that from a legal and moral standpoint I do not presume to criminalize or hold myself superior to anyone else. The pro-choice position is very much about maintaining that no one gets to decide they have permission over the body of another. I'm glad that none of the women in your family encountered any serious complications from pregnancy. The women in my family are not quite so lucky as yours.

I disagree with your characterization of my opinion as "passing judgement", if the shoe fits, wear it, if it doesn't, don't. A large majority of abortions are done so because the woman or father of the child consider a child to be an inconvenience, you know, it messes with their mojo. To terminate a life for that reason is the heighth of selfishness, most would agree with that MaryAnn.
Regarding no one having the right over you body, I agree with that, but the fact is that the female body has been designed as the method of bringing "another life" into exististence, that life is a separate individual and is certainly deserving of the most basic of human rights, the right to live.
I'm sure that you are aware that the heart of the child in the womb starts beating after the 5th week of pregnancy;
So there are 2 separate and distinct heartbeats, that equals 2 separate and distinct lives, abortion unequivocally stops one heart from beating, that's taking a life.

Got a late start this morning, hopefully I'll get a moment or two this evening to further respond to your thoughts

[J.T.]

Hey guys long time believer first time poster here... I have a question. I believe that the Bible is completely true and if we don't do everything it says (even the contradictory parts!) then we're all going to hell. But I'm having a problem with the commandment about remembering the sabbath and keeping it holy. You see, the sabbath is actually Saturday, not Sunday, and I can't find a church that's open on Saturdays. Please help, I don't want to go to hell.

[jochhejaam]

[QUOTE]This sort of histrionics is exactly why the pro-life movement discredits itself. The more you make the issue play like a penny dreadful and paint perfectly average Americans as villains, the more you ensure that you are alienating the center.
I've embellished nothing, and other than that callous minority (the majority of Americans are opposed to abortion in one form or another) that screams for aborting a baby for any and all reasons, you citing these truths as "histrionics", brings discredit to your pro-abortion argument.



My conscience doesn't need easing.
And that fact was addressed when we categorized a certain minority of those who fervently push abortion for all reasons as soulless and heartless


No scientific evidence has proved conclusively that a fetus "feels" pain in the way you characterize it.
It has, and I submitted the medical information that backs this up. Hiding from truth, or ignoring truth, does not invalidate truth.




See above re: histrionics. I personally think it's indefensible that some people who hold personal beliefs based on things they cannot prove presume to hold power and judgement over their fellows on the basis of anecdotal and inconclusive evidence that does not meet the burden of proof set by our scientific and legal communities. I further find it hypocritical that such people do so despite the teachings of their own self-subscribed dogma.
More of the same from you, if you don't like the facts, disregard them as histrionics, and it's disingenuous to foist off the legal community as yours as I'm quite sure the R v W vote was 5-4, so almost half of the legal community disagreed with you, that means there is not a consensus





But what you and I think of one another based on a few volleys on a message board is hardly worth discussing. If you're just here to pass judgement, then the conversation isn't worth continuing.
You consider pointing out the facts of how developed a child can be when aborted, how much pain they feel when highly developed along with the fact that the heart begins beating at 5 weeks (which means that pratically all abortion stop a beating heart) as passing judgement. I, and a host of others, consider it inhumane, uncivilized, and primitive behaviour to the degree of being unfathomable.
Discontinuing our conversation is irrelevant to the argument, that fact show, that with few exceptions, abortion should be discontinued.



I'm sorry, was there a question, or were you just hoping for some contrite repentance after posting of an image intended to shock people into an emotional reaction?
We'll repeat it over and over, the image is what it is, a baby that can be legally aborted, most are shocked and emotional, as well they should be, the exception to those human feelings of emotion are with those who are hardened and calloused to the rights of unborn children to live.





Abstinence may be a 100% effective form of contraception and I have no problem with it being included in every sex education class. Abstinence-only programs, however, are massively ineffective. My argument fosters the belief that preventing unwanted pregnancy and disease benefits our entire society. People are going to "bang" and it is in my best interest that they do so as safely as possible.
Common ground.



I would never presume to preach to anyone about morality or any other topic. I was simply pointing out that holding hypocritical viewpoints doesn't help make a case for those who are trying to preach morality to others.
No problem, and I'm not certainly not one to hold such viewpoints.









That's twice now that people have accused me of being riled up while I've posted calm, rational responses. I think it's quaint that women with strong liberal opinions and the ability to reason them out at length should strike you as being riled up.
A little hyper-sensitive are we? I didn't say that you were riled up, I said "in case", and the theme of the comment centered on humor.






It's misogynistic to think you have a right to tell a woman what she can or can't do with her own body. That you don't like the word make it no less true. Part of misogyny is the mistrust of women. What could me more misogynistic than not trusting a woman to do what she wishes with her own body? Perhaps I should have taken the advice of those who posted previously. You don't appear to have any intention or desire to have a rational exchange on the topic. Ah well, live and learn.
Your definition of having a rational exchange consists of relenting to your arguments on abortion, arguments which I and and multiplied millions of others disagree with. You are consumed with self, to the detriment to the unborn child. You deal with valid argument by haphazardly flinging terms like "histrionics" and "misogynistic", dirty little tricks utilized by abortion advocates to draw attention away from the central theme of abortion; that the beating heart of a child is stopped and that a life has unequovocally, and unceremoniously been destroyed.

You've taken the "I am Woman, watch me roar" theme well beyond any plausible or reasonable level, if you want to roar, go ahead, I'm fine with that, but when that roaring goes beyond rational and sensible argument, that is, it doesn't stop until it consumes a child within the womb, then that facet of the roar, (and again, there are a few exceptions) needs to be eliminated.

[MaryAnnKilledGinger]

I'm going to try to make this my last exchange on this topic for a while because even I'm bored with being abortion girl at this point.


I've embellished nothing, and other than that callous minority (the majority of Americans are opposed to abortion in one form or another) that screams for aborting a baby for any and all reasons, you citing these truths as "histrionics", brings discredit to your pro-abortion argument.

If you're going to use incendiary comments to make your point, have the wherewithal to stand by them. To sling insults out of one corner of your mouth and then pantomime civility out of the other is just annoying.

I began addressing you because you asked me specifically what I thought about an article you posted, and then followed-up with a question because you don't feel the pro-life movement is hypocritical for being anti-abortion but not necessarily anti-death penalty. You've since tried to bait me with all the "this is what a fetus looks like" shock tactics that pro-lifers have used to scare children and emotional people for decades. If you'd started out using such tactics I'd have just ignored you, but clearly this was my learning experience.

One again, I'm happy to let the character and merit of the points I've made stand on their own, but your editorial opinion is so noted regarding the "discredit" of my argument.


...that fact was addressed when we categorized a certain minority of those who fervently push abortion for all reasons as soulless and heartless

And you balk at being called judgmental? You characterize anyone who disagrees with you and your pseudoscience evidence as soulless and heartless. There's no middle ground. I can't present anything to you because all your thoughts are pre-loaded. I can't learn anything from you because you don't adhere to any consistent flow of logic or reason in regards to this topic. Further exchange is therefore moot. It was until it got boring.



It has, and I submitted the medical information that backs this up. Hiding from truth, or ignoring truth, does not invalidate truth.
You have supplied "truth" that is not conclusive and is hotly debated in both the legal and medical community. You've culled talking points and isolated facts from a vast array of research and embraced only those facts that agreed with you. That isn't truth, it's agenda. It would be impossible to link to all the medical information on whether or not a fetus is a "life." It's easy to link to one article and cite that as the definitive truth. But then the pro-life point of view is so often all about the easy answers. Admitting we don't know would mean the fundamentalists would have to life with possibilities outside their own "truths." Oh, the horrors.

One key difference between you and I on this topic is that I accept the things you've presented as part of a larger picture that is undecided and perhaps can never be proven. You insist your small personal library of information is the whole picture and disregard that which contradicts you. I can't make you see the bigger picture because I can't force you to think outside the bubble of your own morality.


I'm quite sure the R v W vote was 5-4, so almost half of the legal community disagreed with you, that means there is not a consensus...
Do you even get the irony of this? You're presenting your side as "the truth" and "facts" while at the same time admitting there's no consensus. My entire argument is based on the fact that there is no consensus and that your "evidence" doesn't meet the standards set forth by our legal and medical communities.


You consider pointing out the facts of how developed a child can be when aborted, how much pain they feel when highly developed along with the fact that the heart begins beating at 5 weeks (which means that pratically all abortion stop a beating heart) as passing judgement.
No. I have no problem with the medical information you've provided for consideration. While your language is slanted toward a singular point of view, that is not what I consider to be passing judgement. But, wait for it...


I, and a host of others, consider it inhumane, uncivilized, and primitive behaviour to the degree of being unfathomable.

This and the "soulless" and "heartless" comments are what I consider to be passing judgement. I don't understand what you're so bent out of shape about. You obviously enjoy passing judgement and your whole argument is based on the "evil" of abortion, so embrace it already.


Discontinuing our conversation is irrelevant to the argument, that fact show, that with few exceptions, abortion should be discontinued.
The true danger of people who think like you to our society cannot be overstated. When the very words "truth" and "fact" are twisted to characterize bits of information that are anything but, it represents a frightening state of affairs. Although it makes people like you flinch, facts and truths have standards and the information you've presented here doesn't meet them. You've presented opinion and possibility. Of themselves, perfectly valid, but it meets none of the criteria the medical or legal community demands for fact or truth. That it meets the lower bar of criteria you've set in your own mind is perfectly clear.


We'll repeat it over and over, the image is what it is, a baby that can be legally aborted, most are shocked and emotional, as well they should be, the exception to those human feelings of emotion are with those who are hardened and calloused to the rights of unborn children to live.
You balk at the implied insult you perceive when I address your words as histrionic and yet continue to all but call me hardened, callous, soulless and heartless. I don't fall to pieces at your fetus photo and I'm a hardened bitch. I guess you prefer your womenfolk all weepy-like.


A little hyper-sensitive are we?
Callous, souless, heartless, and hyper-sensitive. Wow. I'm hitting them out of the park. Maybe I'm the anti-christ?


Your definition of having a rational exchange consists of relenting to your arguments on abortion, arguments which I and and multiplied millions of others disagree with.
I never expect anyone to relent to my arguments. Mostly I enjoy exchanging ideas and watching the reactions of people with fundamentalist mindsets (I don't consider fundamentalist mindsets limited to religion). It never ceases to amaze me how eager many are to pass judgement, call names, and erode the very foundation of the superior moral ground they claim to stand on. And, like yourself, how so many do so while remaining completely blind to it. This ability to rationalize combined with such selective sight is a phenomenon continues to intrigue me. This is what has convinced me in my life that making a "moral" argument is never enough and why I demand more from myself and those attempting to convince me of things. So, in a roundabout way people like you are what help me to keep myself centered. So, thanks and all.


You are consumed with self, to the detriment to the unborn child.
You have no idea what my sense of self is. I've never had an abortion and will never have an abortion. I believe that decision would be wrong for me. Unlike you, however, I don't presume to tell others what is wrong for them. You think I'm consumed with self for trusting others to their own judgement where you would rule over the body of others. One of us is consumed with self, but it isn't me.


You deal with valid argument by haphazardly flinging terms like "histrionics" and "misogynistic", dirty little tricks utilized by abortion advocates to draw attention away from the central theme of abortion...

Wow. You should look into spin as a career, because you're almost as good as the pros. I used "histrionic" after you opened the "soulless and heartless" door. And it's a perfectly valid word to describe your tactics and language. I've already proved you're misogynistic and you pushed that envelope even further with this. As for the "dirty little tricks" role, I'm not the one posting fetus photos to illicit emotional responses in a rational argument. I'm all about the sarcasm parade at this stage because you've all but invalidated yourself in my view, but up to this post I haven't been anything but straight with you.


that the beating heart of a child is stopped and that a life has unequovocally, and unceremoniously been destroyed.
See above re: irony and consensus.


You've taken the "I am Woman, watch me roar" theme well beyond any plausible or reasonable level, if you want to roar, go ahead, I'm fine with that,
I prefer to rawr. I never really liked Helen Reddy. The anti-feminist card is priceless coming from someone who got so miffed at the word misogynictic. Way to lean into that fall.


when that roaring goes beyond rational and sensible argument, that is, it doesn't stop until it consumes a child within the womb, then that facet of the roar, (and again, there are a few exceptions) needs to be eliminated.
Yeah, no passing judgement there. Hard to imagine I ever considered you judgmental. Your argument is not rational. Your argument is not sensible. I know many people who have rational and sensible pro-life views. You're a hysteric. That you don't know you're a hysteric is perfectly underscored by the way you amp up every time something doesn't fit into your snow globe of "truth." A fetus within a womb is not proven to be a human life. It hasn't been and possibly never will be proven. You cannot prove it medically. You cannot prove it scientifically. Your best legal argument is "better safe than sorry" and that just doesn't cut it when you're talking about curbing the rights of individuals. I understand these things make people like you foam at the mouth in frustration, but that's just the way it is.

Obviously I am troubled by the fact that these things are undetermined and indeterminable (any rational human being would be troubled by such ambiguities that center on the very nature of our existence), but I've arrived at my personal beliefs through logic and consideration of the whole library of information I've come across, not just the cross-section of slanted information that fits my preconceived notions. This is what you characterize as soulless and heartless. You would have others base their beliefs on slanted information and emotionally-charged photos. The prime difference in our arguments is that your view does not negate mine - it is merely one other possibility to be considered. My view, however, does negate yours. This is the danger of an all-or-nothing argument. One link breaks down and the whole thing crumbles. That is where the hysterics and name calling enter into play.

Look, I obviously I enjoy debating issues for discussion and I'm not afraid to be long-winded. And it's even kinda fun to have someone call me a rabid feminist for a while. But, I don't have any need to be agreed with on a message board. I'm just not that insecure. Whether my position is minority or majority doesn't weigh on me. I'm content that a person like you disagrees with me. And by a person like you, I mean someone who prefers to conduct emotional warfare because they cannot properly defend an argument. I think we've both presented our points of view. I'm happy to let mine stand for anyone that was bored enough to read through this and the rest of what I've posted.

So, unless you've got something more than calling me a new name, or presenting controversial information as "fact" I'm pretty much done here.

[El Jefe]

:clap@MaryAnnKilledGinger

Well done

[MaNuMaNiAc]

After reading the entire 10 pages of this thread, all I can say with regards to MaryAnnKilledGinger is...

http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k59/tx4coe/clapping.gif

[~~~~~~]

MaryAnnKilledGinger for Secretary of State.
http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/9133/repoanclaptv7.gif

[jochhejaam]

[QUOTE]If you're going to use incendiary comments to make your point, have the wherewithal to stand by them. To sling insults out of one corner of your mouth and then pantomime civility out of the other is just annoying.
I stand by everything I've posted, and I'm not at all concerned by your being annoyed with my characterization of abortion activists, a characterization that I consider fair and accurate.




I began addressing you because you asked me specifically what I thought about an article you posted, and then followed-up with a question because you don't feel the pro-life movement is hypocritical for being anti-abortion but not necessarily anti-death penalty. You've since tried to bait me with all the "this is what a fetus looks like" shock tactics that pro-lifers have used to scare children and emotional people for decades. If you'd started out using such tactics I'd have just ignored you, but clearly this was my learning experience.
That you feel baited by my what I post is out of my control, and showing a picture of a child in the womb at 5 months wasn't done for shock value, nor was it posted for your benefit (this isn't a private conversation) MaryAnn, we are addressing each other, but each of us are also posting for whomever may be curious about the intracacies of our respective positions.




And you balk at being called judgmental? You characterize anyone who disagrees with you and your pseudoscience evidence as soulless and heartless. There's no middle ground.
They are my opinions and I believe them to be truthful, however, regarding abortion, truth appears to be relative to which side of the table you are sitting. And I adhere to my "opinion" that abortion activists, and the fanatical adherents who are educated on the life in the womb, yet still push abortion for any and all reasons, as being heartless and soulless.
Lets make a deal, I'll allow you to voice your opinion without whining about it, if you'll afford me the same allowance.







I can't present anything to you because all your thoughts are pre-loaded. I can't learn anything from you because you don't adhere to any consistent flow of logic or reason in regards to this topic. Further exchange is therefore moot. It was until it got boring.
I can't prevent you from presenting anything, nor would I wish to, and I'm not attempting to teach you teach you anything, nor are my thoughts "pre-loaded" as you imply (you're being judgemental MaryAnn). It boils down to me I believing in the absolute that human life in the womb is sacred, and you don't believe that.




You have supplied "truth" that is not conclusive and is hotly debated in both the legal and medical community. You've culled talking points and isolated facts from a vast array of research and embraced only those facts that agreed with you. That isn't truth, it's agenda. It would be impossible to link to all the medical information on whether or not a fetus is a "life." It's easy to link to one article and cite that as the definitive truth. But then the pro-life point of view is so often all about the easy answers. Admitting we don't know would mean the fundamentalists would have to life with possibilities outside their own "truths." Oh, the horrors.
As previously stated, I believe in moral absolutes, I'm well versed on the pro-abortion talking points, and they don't merit me softening my view that abortion (and again I have to state that their are a few exception) is barbaric.

You're not satisfied with my views, I'm not satisfied with yours, do you really consider that a valid reason to get in a knock on fundamentalism?
Your argument is well thought out, well presented, but you'll have to be content with the fact that it has brought nothing new in the way of a revelation to the "right to terminate" argument, you have not presented any compelling arguments that would suggest that abortion is nothing more that an inhumane taking of a life.




One key difference between you and I on this topic is that I accept the things you've presented as part of a larger picture that is undecided and perhaps can never be proven. You insist your small personal library of information is the whole picture and disregard that which contradicts you. I can't make you see the bigger picture because I can't force you to think outside the bubble of your own morality.
MaryAnn, I have no library of information, indeed, the compelling force behind my opining on this issue is my strong belief in an unassailable right of a child in the womb to have life, freedom from the tyranny of the abortion's doctor scalpel, freedom from being dismembered and discarded as if he or she had no value, the same freedom and opportunity that you and I were given.
For that I am totally unapologetic.





Do you even get the irony of this? You're presenting your side as "the truth" and "facts" while at the same time admitting there's no consensus. My entire argument is based on the fact that there is no consensus and that your "evidence" doesn't meet the standards set forth by our legal and medical communities.
I do not see any irony here MaryAnn. I'm not bound to the interpretation of 5 SCJ's, and I find nothing compelling in the way of medical information that should cause me to waver in my opinion.




This and the "soulless" and "heartless" comments are what I consider to be passing judgement. I don't understand what you're so bent out of shape about. You obviously enjoy passing judgement and your whole argument is based on the "evil" of abortion, so embrace it already.
You've falsely passed judgement on me as being "bent out of shape" MaryAnn, in the future I'd appreciate it you would refrain from such..., cuts both ways, eh?

How many times are we going to revisit this MaryAnn? (this will be the last form me) If the shoe fits wear it, if it doesn't, don't.
They're merely opinions, and in light of that, try to relax.




The true danger of people who think like you to our society cannot be overstated. When the very words "truth" and "fact" are twisted to characterize bits of information that are anything but, it represents a frightening state of affairs. Although it makes people like you flinch, facts and truths have standards and the information you've presented here doesn't meet them. You've presented opinion and possibility. Of themselves, perfectly valid, but it meets none of the criteria the medical or legal community demands for fact or truth. That it meets the lower bar of criteria you've set in your own mind is perfectly clear.
The "real" true danger, and what's truly frightening :lol is when "people like you" (stereotype volley returned) attempt to portray those who are in disagreement with their viewpoints, as being a danger to society. That scares me MaryAnn. You give me the impression that you wouldn't have a problem if my freedom of speech on this issue were stifled or squelched.



You balk at the implied insult you perceive when I address your words as histrionic and yet continue to all but call me hardened, callous, soulless and heartless. I don't fall to pieces at your fetus photo and I'm a hardened bitch. I guess you prefer your womenfolk all weepy-like.
Oh, so you're gonna throw the ol' "you prefer weepy women" argument at me, eh? :lol
No MaryAnn, I prefer a good fight from my woman, and she has not disappointed. By her own words her mother "runs the whole ball of wax" with her husband, she did the same in her previous marriage, and wanted the same in our marriage. By nature, I was engendered with a passive, shy personality, but after marrying my lovely wife, my survival instincts kicked in and it was everything I could do to hold my own. FWIW, I do 95% of the grocery shopping and cooking (and enjoy both), and we split laundry and dishes duty. She pretty much cleans the rest of the house while I take care of the mechanical work and outside work.
Just though I'd share that. :)




Callous, souless, heartless, and hyper-sensitive. Wow. I'm hitting them out of the park. Maybe I'm the anti-christ?
C, S, H and H-S on the issue of abortion, yep, that's my opinion, the A-C, nah...do you believe I am...


Work beckons, and my "weepy woman" insists that I get my rear in gear, (she's actually already at work). Sayonara

[jochhejaam]

[QUOTE]I prefer to rawr. I never really liked Helen Reddy. The anti-feminist card is priceless coming from someone who got so miffed at the word misogynictic. Way to lean into that fall.
Not miffed at all MaryAnn, merely correcting your mis-characterization of me.





Yeah, no passing judgement there. Hard to imagine I ever considered you judgmental. Your argument is not rational. Your argument is not sensible.
You have no problem with terminating the life in the womb, I have a big problem with it. The irony here is in you pontificating about rational argument out of one side of your mouth while out of the other side of your mouth being a frontline cheerleader for the abortion Drs. that are sucking the life out of the child in the womb.




I know many people who have rational and sensible pro-life views.
Paraphrase: "I have convinced those without strong convictios that abortion isn't such a bad thing".





You're a hysteric. I understand these things make people like you foam at the mouth in frustration,
From what you've written, I've come to the conclusion that you are amused by abortion, and every 20 seconds or so you get this silly grin on your face and experience a rush of excitement. (hyperbole volley returned).





A fetus within a womb is not proven to be a human life. It hasn't been and possibly never will be proven. You cannot prove it medically. You cannot prove it scientifically. Your best legal argument is "better safe than sorry" and that just doesn't cut it when you're talking about curbing the rights of individuals.
So you would have us believe that the child in the womb could be born as a monkey, cat or a dog? Of course it's a human life MaryAnn. You and I and billions of others have proven that.
You are in denial and rationalize abortion for the singular selfish, self-centered reason of "having control of my body", which is fine until that control of "your body" ends the lifeline of another.
Two beating hearts, two individuals.
On curbing the rights of individuals, terminating the life in the womb is the ultimate curbing of individual rights.





Obviously I am troubled by the fact that these things are undetermined and indeterminable (any rational human being would be troubled by such ambiguities that center on the very nature of our existence), but I've arrived at my personal beliefs through logic and consideration of the whole library of information I've come across, not just the cross-section of slanted information that fits my preconceived notions.
I assume you've given the best of your "vast knowledge" into this discussion, and if that's the case you have brought nothing new to the argument, nor have you brought anything that would be considered the least bit persuasive to those that highly value the life in the womb.
Considering the fact that you haven't brought anything new, let alone something to be pondered in the abortion debate, I have no recourse but to categorize your overall argument as being one big disappointment.





My view, however, does negate yours.
Only to the fanatical abortion advocates, activists, abortion Drs., and that sector of delusional feminists that put their own interests above everything else are my views negated. Their motto? "I'm not my childs keeper".
Lovely.






Look, I obviously I enjoy debating issues for discussion and I'm not afraid to be long-winded. And it's even kinda fun to have someone call me a rabid feminist for a while. But, I don't have any need to be agreed with on a message board. I'm just not that insecure. Whether my position is minority or majority doesn't weigh on me.
If you weren't insecure why bring up being; "weighed down by" your views being in the minority or majority, or not bothered by your so called "need to be agreed with" why would you even bother to bring these things up?
I'll write them off as a freudian slip.




So, unless you've got something more than calling me a new name, or presenting controversial information as "fact" I'm pretty much done here.
Unless you have something more to bring to the table, other than the "I'm pro-abortion because it's my body and I can do whatever I want with it (and with the other body that resides in me)", or more patently false accusations of me being a "rabid", foaming at the the mouth, misogynisticic hysteric, I too am through here.