Jon: I am guessing you'll find some typos in this one.
Thanks. Lots of good remarks here. I will repond very briefly and we can all discuss this maybe when we hook up next time.
My "narcotics" analogy means simply this and no more. Permitting something which is detrimental to the health of a society in order to accomodate those individuals who insist on behaving badly toward themselves and society would make no sense in other scenarios, so why do it in this one? Whether or not certain drugs should be legal was not the point, just an example of a thing I perceive to be similar.
I sense that you may be lumping me in with those self-righteous types who seeth with shrieking rage toward pro-abortion folks. Please don't. They can get on one's nerves, I know. We do tend to see other's sins more readily than our own. But I ask you, does that mean that we ignore the sin altogether? To forgive is not to condone, indeed, to encourage by default. "Go and sin no more," says the Lord, full of compassion, not, "We can fix this at the clinic down the street." The woman who survives the stoning still carries with her the consequences of her actions, though not the guilt of her sin. From that she is saved. Again, we can do what we do to the unborn for one reason; because they are weak. The situation that this or that particular girl is in is irrelevant to the issue of what is to be done. I know we agree on this.
What I call a human being is what any biology professor worth his weight in petri dishes would call a human being; an organism which contains the same genetic material as you and me and that includes a zygote. Of course, the real issue is when is it a person, I know. So, when is it? And here is where we humans stubbornly refuse to submit to mystery, to say, "I do not know", and resign ourselves to the difficulties we face, whether we bring those difficulties on ourselves or not. Do you know what I mean?
Of course abortions will and probably have indirectly resulted in a decline in monogamy. Again, how could they not? I don't see what is so difficult about that when we are talking about premarital and extra-marital sex. Furthermore, the "stigmatizing" of unwanted pregnancies? Give me a break. Do you think that in the last fifty or so years divorce, homosexuality and promiscuity have not each found their way further into the clear light of day. Of course they have. Don't get me wrong, I don't worry much about these things, cultures come and go and cultures past have been more or less as depraved as our own. But the people of those cultures have a luxury I don't have; they are all dead. I have to live in this one and face it and listen to all the mumbo-jumbo excuses for why we do dumb things and how we can (we think, wrongly) undo something with one stroke of a scalpel.
Likening abortion to adoption is ridiculous really. The whole point of abortion is to avoid the hassle of a pregnancy, obviously; adoption demands that the pregancy be carried all the way. I cannot fathom a man or a woman saying, "We can coplulate with whomever we please because we can always give the child away, heh, heh!" To that the world replies, "Yeah, sure, if that's what you want then knock yourself out, er, up". Sure, we are a wicked generation and I, for one, need little encouragement to behave badly. But for heaven's sake, if you tell me that it's not only understandable that I am inclined to beat my wife silly from time to time, but, furthermore, that I am permitted by Caesar to do that, well, gosh, I might just fall over backwards with glee, certainly I will not feel as compelled NOT to do it when the urge comes over me next time.
So, very young children are safe under the constitution. Well, sure, for now! Why on earth could that not change tomorrow? It certaily could and if trends continue the way they have for the past fifty years I see no logical reason how an infant in years to come will be safe from its mother who perceives it to be a nuisance and threat to her well-being.So, these weren't very brief remarks. I gotta go mow now, let's keep talking about this if you guys don't mind. Game?
tm
Also, I didn't mean to compare those who get abortions with thieves or murderers (I don't think I mentioned murderers at all) in order to spew at them. I only chose one type of behavior which most sane cultures prohibit with another one which I think sane cultures should prohibit if they don't already.
The problem comes down to mystery, I think, coupled with a conviction (held by 46% of the population if your figures are right) that our Creator places a value, a high value, on an unborn "human", "person", "fetus" "zygote" or whatever that damn thing is and we would do well to leave it be and deal with it alive when it gets here. See Psalm 139 for what one wise and noble king believed about what God knows about the unborn, bearing in mind that the poem was written long before 1860 (10th century B.C., I think.)
Kelly, there very well could be a distinction between capital punishment and war versus abortion. Capital punishment is certainly permissible, but not necessarily demanded of a society, unless you take the Genesis mandate as binding on us today: "Whosoever sheds man's blood by man shall his blood be shed" War, on the other hand, is, apparently, taken as a fact of life for a society by St. Paul in Romans 13. It is inconceivable that a society can exist for long without wielding the sword from time to time. I wonder if maybe that should be government's sole purpose, but that is another topic.
Jon: Forget about coming off as pretentious. Who you are (young, white, unmarried, childless law student) is wholly irrelevant to the topic if, and only if, the unborn are valuable. Because if they are, then you are affected by how society treats them. If they have no value, which is exactly what current law says, and that is the status quo regardless of what the other 46% want, then we are simply wrong and need to be set straight with a little education and training. Convince me, I say, I am all ears.
Thanks. Lots of good remarks here. I will repond very briefly and we can all discuss this maybe when we hook up next time.
My "narcotics" analogy means simply this and no more. Permitting something which is detrimental to the health of a society in order to accomodate those individuals who insist on behaving badly toward themselves and society would make no sense in other scenarios, so why do it in this one? Whether or not certain drugs should be legal was not the point, just an example of a thing I perceive to be similar.
I sense that you may be lumping me in with those self-righteous types who seeth with shrieking rage toward pro-abortion folks. Please don't. They can get on one's nerves, I know. We do tend to see other's sins more readily than our own. But I ask you, does that mean that we ignore the sin altogether? To forgive is not to condone, indeed, to encourage by default. "Go and sin no more," says the Lord, full of compassion, not, "We can fix this at the clinic down the street." The woman who survives the stoning still carries with her the consequences of her actions, though not the guilt of her sin. From that she is saved. Again, we can do what we do to the unborn for one reason; because they are weak. The situation that this or that particular girl is in is irrelevant to the issue of what is to be done. I know we agree on this.
What I call a human being is what any biology professor worth his weight in petri dishes would call a human being; an organism which contains the same genetic material as you and me and that includes a zygote. Of course, the real issue is when is it a person, I know. So, when is it? And here is where we humans stubbornly refuse to submit to mystery, to say, "I do not know", and resign ourselves to the difficulties we face, whether we bring those difficulties on ourselves or not. Do you know what I mean?
Of course abortions will and probably have indirectly resulted in a decline in monogamy. Again, how could they not? I don't see what is so difficult about that when we are talking about premarital and extra-marital sex. Furthermore, the "stigmatizing" of unwanted pregnancies? Give me a break. Do you think that in the last fifty or so years divorce, homosexuality and promiscuity have not each found their way further into the clear light of day. Of course they have. Don't get me wrong, I don't worry much about these things, cultures come and go and cultures past have been more or less as depraved as our own. But the people of those cultures have a luxury I don't have; they are all dead. I have to live in this one and face it and listen to all the mumbo-jumbo excuses for why we do dumb things and how we can (we think, wrongly) undo something with one stroke of a scalpel.
Likening abortion to adoption is ridiculous really. The whole point of abortion is to avoid the hassle of a pregnancy, obviously; adoption demands that the pregancy be carried all the way. I cannot fathom a man or a woman saying, "We can coplulate with whomever we please because we can always give the child away, heh, heh!" To that the world replies, "Yeah, sure, if that's what you want then knock yourself out, er, up". Sure, we are a wicked generation and I, for one, need little encouragement to behave badly. But for heaven's sake, if you tell me that it's not only understandable that I am inclined to beat my wife silly from time to time, but, furthermore, that I am permitted by Caesar to do that, well, gosh, I might just fall over backwards with glee, certainly I will not feel as compelled NOT to do it when the urge comes over me next time.
So, very young children are safe under the constitution. Well, sure, for now! Why on earth could that not change tomorrow? It certaily could and if trends continue the way they have for the past fifty years I see no logical reason how an infant in years to come will be safe from its mother who perceives it to be a nuisance and threat to her well-being.So, these weren't very brief remarks. I gotta go mow now, let's keep talking about this if you guys don't mind. Game?
tm
Also, I didn't mean to compare those who get abortions with thieves or murderers (I don't think I mentioned murderers at all) in order to spew at them. I only chose one type of behavior which most sane cultures prohibit with another one which I think sane cultures should prohibit if they don't already.
The problem comes down to mystery, I think, coupled with a conviction (held by 46% of the population if your figures are right) that our Creator places a value, a high value, on an unborn "human", "person", "fetus" "zygote" or whatever that damn thing is and we would do well to leave it be and deal with it alive when it gets here. See Psalm 139 for what one wise and noble king believed about what God knows about the unborn, bearing in mind that the poem was written long before 1860 (10th century B.C., I think.)
Kelly, there very well could be a distinction between capital punishment and war versus abortion. Capital punishment is certainly permissible, but not necessarily demanded of a society, unless you take the Genesis mandate as binding on us today: "Whosoever sheds man's blood by man shall his blood be shed" War, on the other hand, is, apparently, taken as a fact of life for a society by St. Paul in Romans 13. It is inconceivable that a society can exist for long without wielding the sword from time to time. I wonder if maybe that should be government's sole purpose, but that is another topic.
Jon: Forget about coming off as pretentious. Who you are (young, white, unmarried, childless law student) is wholly irrelevant to the topic if, and only if, the unborn are valuable. Because if they are, then you are affected by how society treats them. If they have no value, which is exactly what current law says, and that is the status quo regardless of what the other 46% want, then we are simply wrong and need to be set straight with a little education and training. Convince me, I say, I am all ears.
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