I haven’t read Jonah Goldberg’s new book “Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning,” and I probably never will. But I’m amazed that anyone even tried to make the argument he’s trying to make.
One of the main reasons why I started blogging a few years back was because I read Mein Kampf. As hard as it was to read a book that’s not just extremely racist but led to the deaths of people I’m related to, I felt like I had to wrap my head around how something like the Holocaust can happen. To try to compare the sentiments expressed in Mein Kampf to anything you hear on the American left today is a stretch of the imagination that I can’t comprehend. If Goldberg claims to have read Mein Kampf as part of researching his “thesis,” he’s either lying or crazy.
Dave Neiwert does a good job picking apart some basic errors, like pointing out that despite Goldberg’s claims that the Nazi’s were “socialists,” the first people sent by the Nazis to Dachau were actually Socialists and Communists. People who called themselves socialists back then were as close to real socialists as the people who today call themselves conservatives – but believe in starting war after war in the Middle East – are to real conservatives. But the whole book seems to be based upon this very basic error in understanding the history of Nazi Germany.
The Sadly No! crew actually have a copy of the book and have been posting some of the most ridiculous passages. His larger argument is that the desire by liberals and progressives to improve society through government is the direct path to fascism and relates back to the Nazi movement. Now while it’s certainly possible for left-leaning movements to become authoritarian, it’s not what’s happening in America right now, it’s not how fascism evolved in 1930s Germany, and one can really only reach the alternate conclusion if they believe that things like universal health care are more anti-liberty than torture. I think Brad may have located a major part of Goldberg’s mental block:
Giving out free food isn’t fascism. Look, Jonah, I’ve done some research into the matter and have determined that giving out free food is one of the least fascist things a government can do. Call this hyperbole if you will, but if the very worst thing the Nazis had ever done was to give people free food, they’d have probably gone down as the greatest government in history.
When Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, his vision had nothing to do with economics. His vision was pure paranoia, where he blamed the “Jewish press” for weakening support for the war effort during World War I. He viewed the influence of immigrants as a direct threat to the nation. He also railed against pacifists, Communists, capitalists, the ruling class, ethnic minorities, and fellow soldiers who faked injuries to get out of the war. As Germany was subjugated by the victors of WWI in the post-war period, his paranoid outlook found an audience, but his message was never one of socialism, it was of nationalism. In Chapter V of Mein Kampf, he shared his thoughts on what happened during World War I:
After the very first news of victories, a certain section of the press, slowly, and in a way which at first was perhaps unrecognizable to many, began to pour a few drops of wormwood into the general enthusiasm. This was done beneath the mask of a certain benevolence and well-meaning, even of a certain solicitude. They had misgivings about an excess of exuberance in the celebration of the victories. They feared that in this form it was unworthy of so great a nation and hence inappropriate.
The notion that the press (which was of course run by Jews and treasonous Germans) was insufficiently patriotic during the war and had a bias towards pacifism and international institutions like the League of Nations was central to his outlook. It’s the polar opposite of what the American left stands for today, and it’s why comparisons to Ann Coulter and other extreme voices on the authoritarian right aren’t all that far-fetched. At the same time I started blogging back in 2004 and wrote that post, Jonah Goldberg wrote the following:
In the process of debating the merits of publishing, and now continually hyping, the Abu Ghraib photos, I keep hearing that it is contrary to the American journalistic tradition to let patriotism or concern about the negative effects of bad news interfere with coverage. I have no idea where this idea comes from.
You know where the idea comes from, Jonah? It comes from people who’ve actually taken the time to study and to try to understand the roots of fascism, rather than just attempting to draw nonsensical parallels between Hitler and the people who make fun of you on the internet.
Poor Doughy Pantload!!!
This drivel will meet the same fate as Michelle Malkin’s pitiful In Defense of Internment, totally discredited and an utter embarrassment.
There was a very bitter joke that originated at Dachau:
“Ich bin hier, weil ich habe gefragt, ‘wo ist der Sozialismus im Nationalsozialismus’?”
I’lll start here with a few parallels to yourself (in hopes that through sympathy you will listen more closely to my argument). I, as well, have never read Liberal Facism. The Holocaust was also extremely influential to my family history.
While I think it is absolutely absurd to equate Hitler or anything about the 1940’s with contemporary America, I will support the very general claim that at least some Leftists today do seem to be falling into a mindset that could potentially lead to facism.
Personal Example:
I live in a house with three other individuals who attend Socialist Alternative regularly and rant about the “Bush Regime” like its their job. All three of them truly believe that the media needs to be nationalized because its the only way to bring objectivism to our news outlets. I, on the other hand, am more inclined to blame the population for the popularity of shitty newscasts like FOX, but when i try to explain this to me the simply call me a “capitalist” and call it good.
Which brings me to the next point: all of them also truly believe that there is a “capitalist conspiracy” going on which needs a revolution to overturn. While I try to explain the nuances of small business and “voting on aspiration” they hear nothing and continue to foster eachother’s paranoid delusions of a secret group of capitalists (i would in some small respects equate this to hitler (and for that matter Henry Ford’s) paranoia about Jews and money).
While I tend to agree with these people on many issues that need to be revamped (taxes, health care, foreign policy) my plan of action is far different from theirs, which involves a strong forceful government to “fuckover capitalists” and “achieve equality”. I think there is a possibility for a charasmatic “socialist” to get many people to rally behind them in the coming years, and I DONT believe this is a good thing.
The holocaust began with a demonization of a people. Demonization is always the first step. But few dared speak out against this demonization. The Germans remained silent.
Roger Rabbit also demonizes people. On this very blog. But I never see anyone with posting privileges on this blog speak out against him.
You remain silent.
I think you all are fucking cowards and hypocrites.
But RR demonizes everyone and anyone; its like equality in the form of insults.
I know that wasn’t you and really has no place on this thread but: GREATEST QUOTE EVER
So true.
“To try to compare the sentiments expressed in Mein Kampf to anything you hear on the American left today is a stretch of the imagination that I can’t comprehend.”
On the other hand, comparing Mein Kampf to what you hear from the American right today is fairly easy — all you have to do is read Ann Coulter’s ravings about “concentration camps” and “executions.”
What Goldberg doesn’t understand is that the left is the center, and the right is the lunatic fringe.
“In the process of debating the merits of publishing, and now continually hyping, the Abu Ghraib photos, I keep hearing that it is contrary to the American journalistic tradition to let patriotism or concern about the negative effects of bad news interfere with coverage. I have no idea where this idea comes from.”
I think it came from Ben Franklin, and from a guy named John Peter Zenger.
Liberals are totally unlike Nazis, because we don’t like to kill people. We prefer peaceful solutions. In fact, we’re even more eager than Republicans for the Rapture to get here.
How can we not like the Rapture? A flash and a bang, and 144,000 Republicans vanish! That’s not enough, but it’s a start.
But the word “socialism” was in their name, so they must be socialists, just like Hunter Thompson was a Doctor.
re 4: Conservatives are the demonizers. Clown.
This about right:
It’s like Jonah’s never talked to a liberal in his entire life. He reminds me of Steve Carell in the 40-Year-Old Virgin describing a woman’s breast as a bag of sand.
JoshMahar,
So, if you don’t like Fox News, do you favor ABC, CBS, NBS, MSNBC or some other network? You might give Bernard Goldberg’s book “Bias” a read just to get a different perspective.
JoshMahar: Looks like the lefty history revisionistas are back at it again. They continually try to republish the history books with their leftist propaganda. I published the historical truth here on HorsesASSHoles but the lefty HorsesASSHolers can’t stand verified historical truths.
Hitler and his gang pushed to remove guns from the populace in the early 30s. Who is pushing to remove guns today? The NEW Progressive democrat party.
The Hitler Youth bragged on how they would kill Red Cross nurses who tried to help Hitler Youth enemies. Who here preaches the same action on us whom think right? The NEW Progressive democrat party.
Hitler nationalized the press. Who is pushing for the Fairness Doctrine? The NEW Progressive democrat party.
When Hitler removed all of the guns the Jews and others had nothing to protect themselves the Holocaust began along with the Blitzkrieg. Can you say Maginot Line anyone? Which party wants to always cut defense spending? The NEW Progressive democrat party.
JoshMahar: RR AKA The Pelletizer (TM) attacks anyone who doesn’t walk lock step in the ideals of the The NEW Progressive democrat party.
What the socialists never understood is that the whole purpose of having wealth is having more wealth than the other guy. Sorry, but that’s the way it is. Money matters. Capitalism is the worst and best economic system there is, but anything else is just the worst.
You might give Bernard Goldberg’s book “Bias” a read just to get a different perspective.
He might also be interested in reading something not written by a discredited loon.
@10…RR…
Liberals don’t like to kill people? Been to an infant holocaust…er…abortion clinic lately? How many lives have been sucked down sinks all in the name of “choice?”
Or go down to Oregon where “assisted suicide” is another way of dealing with the inconveniently ill and keeping healthcare costs low.
When our liberal culture is gleefully content to snuff ’em on both the front end and back end without any compunction, then I’d say liberals are good with killing people.
The Piper
@13…IK…
This post alone has you condemned out of your own mouth.
The Piper
@11…RR…
Before you get all giddy about being left behind after the rapture, you better read up on just what happens to those “souls” who then are beyond the pale. T’ain’t pretty or funny, McGee!
The Piper
re 3: “… a secret group of capitalists”? All individuals belonging to groups with a common interest (i.e., capitalists or labor) tend to gather together at times to plan strategy or discuss common problems.
When a socialist points this out, you think they are crazy and paranoid. But aren’t you the blind one?
re 21: You are laughable, Joe McCarthy. Examples of conservatives demonizing groups or individuals is so plentifu, I hardky know where to begin.
The elephant in the living room is that Goldberg’s book is itself an attempt to demonize Liberals.
You are one ‘Piper’ that no one will follow.
Piper: The idiot gene possessor behind Irv Kupcinet admitted he’s using the name in vain. I believe Irv Kupcinet is Helpless Loosie (TM) because he called me PudWax. Only one stupid gene person uses that – Helpless Loosie (TM).
So in the future call him by his ignant 24/7 name – Helpless Loosie (TM).
Helpless Loosie (TM)@24: In the Good Book, it says follow no man. Oops… I forgot, you don’t possess the Good Book or… the one your momma gave you got a thick dust layer on it.
Several rightist posts on this thread are idiotic.
If any nation that controls guns is moving towards fascism, then nearly all industrialized nations are moving that way. Like France, England, Sweden, Japan, Australia, Canada, Germany today, et alia.
But: fact: they are not. Theory disproven. Reject. Stop asserting it.
(Hitler drank milk. You drink milk. Thererfore you are a Nazi = stupid and ignorant reasoning = same reasoning as Hitler banned guns, you want to ban guns, you are a Nazi).
Abortion is not government killing because the government is not doing the killing. Plus, every nation that allows it = most advanced rich nations in the world = are not moving to Naziism or genocide or anything like that.
Facts again; theory disproven; so righties, stop asserting it.
Anti abortion folks who say it is killing reveal that it is really not — even to them — because 99% of them refuse to then say all parties involved should be executed.
Thus, even they see a grand moral distinction between abortion and premeditated murder; this destroys their argument that they are the same thing; so allowing abortion is not the same as allowing genocide; so natios that allow it are not Nazis.
As regarding the “fairness doctrine” being equal to government ownership of the press — it’s not. Fact.
In Germany today you cannot spread Nazi propaganda. It’s illegal. So a Nazi newspaper would be illegal. Yes, this is less freedom of speech than in the USA. But no, this does not make the German system today Nazi. Or totalitarian.
The persistence in asserting theories disproven by fact and logic shows the rightists on this site have “cervelles d’hot dog” (French Postcards, circa 1979).
If they could follow logic or facts, in other expression if they were rational, they would admit they are Nazis, because (a) they support prohibitions on obscenity; (b) this is a regulation of speech — even more severe than the fairness doctrine; (c) the Nazis took away freedom of speech; (d) therefore they, the rightists, are Nazis.
@16
Hitler and his gang pushed to remove guns from the populace in the early 30s. Who is pushing to remove guns today?
Puddybud, here’s a link from a strongly pro-2nd Amendment website addressing this myth:
http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcnazimyth.html
@16
Hitler nationalized the press. Who is pushing for the Fairness Doctrine?
The Fairness Doctrine is not the same thing as nationalizing the press. Even my cat understands this.
@3
Josh,
You make a valid point, and as I explained in the post:
Now while it’s certainly possible for left-leaning movements to become authoritarian
The larger point is that when the sentiments that you’re talking about go towards their extreme, they become Communist, not Fascist. The other point is that the number of people who are actually as paranoid about Bush are fairly small in this country (compared to those whose paranoia still compels them to blame liberals and pacifists for military setbacks and demand perpetual war), and many of them are of the Ron Paul variety (ultra-capitalist).
Every statement a rightist, authoritarian troll has made in this thread has been an effort to demonize a Liberal. Every… single… one.
@29…Lee…
The net result between nationalizing the press and re-imposing the so-called “Fairness Doctrine” will be the same; irrespective of its path, totalitarianism is totalitarianism.
The Piper
Lee@28: Wow you found a site with revisionist history. Good for you.
I tend to side with those who were exterminated by your “good friends”:
http://www.jtf.org/israel/isra.....ontrol.htm
@32
I jumped the gun on that somewhat, but the Fairness Doctrine is not quite the same thing as nationalizing the press. The difference is that when you nationalize the press, you control the decision-making over what gets covered as news, whereas with the Fairness Doctrine, you simply have oversight to ensure accuracy and fairness (in theory). This oversight can absolutely be abused, but it’s not the same level of control.
I don’t support the Fairness Doctrine, but that doesn’t cause me to believe it’s something that it’s not.
I posted this before:
http://www.stephenhalbrook.com.....-side.html
Of course revisionists don’t like the truth.
When I was an undergraduate up at Western, lo, these many decades ago, Prof. Gerard F. Rutan remarked, “The best Communist is an ex-Nazi.”
His point, and one that many of you seem oblivious to, is that there isn’t much difference, net, net, net, between Communist totalitarianism and Fascist totalitarianism; there is a point on the political spectrum where the two meet and greet and cohabit.
The mindset that favors control of the individual by the “bigs” – big government, big business, big anything – that results in the individual losing liberty and freedom and becoming dependent upon government such that government then dictates to him the quality of his life.
The purpose of government should be to zealously protect and maximize individual liberty and freedom, not subplant them all in the name of some amorphous “collective good” defined by…government.
What do we have today? Growing government and shrinking liberty? Or Growing liberty and government held at bay and kept in check? By extension, I would argue that the larger government becomes – higher taxes, more programs, greater intrusiveness – the less free we are.
Government dictated redistribution of wealth is a totalitarian concept, both in the Communist and Fascist worlds.
So-called government “protection” isn’t. Rather, it’s a limitation on the rights and liberties of others, including the right to be responsible for one’s own life, including one’s own mistakes.
Bottom line? The larger the government, the more it resembles both Communist and Facist dictatorships.
The Piper
@33
Sorry Puddybud, not true (from the article you posted):
This is complete fiction. It’s repeated all over the place on the internet, but it never happened.
The second link is makes it clear what actually happened:
Despite the fact that the author doesn’t understand that the main enemies of the Nazis were “Communists,” this article explains that the Nazis didn’t implement widespread gun control, they simply took guns away from political opponents (which is not much different than what we’ve had the new Iraqi government try to do, and what Israel expects the Lebanese government to do).
Didn’t Donk POTUS candidate Kucinish call for the “Fairness” Doctrine?
oops Kucinich
So Lee: You disagree with the people wronged by the Holocaust? Isn’t that part of the premise used by Whackminojab?
@27…Marcel…
Go back and look closely at what I said in response to Rabbit, who contended liberals don’t kill people. My point wasn’t that government does it, though liberals are all in favor of Medicaid-provided abortion, which is government paying to kill people, but that Rabbit is wrong in his bald assertion.
Liberals don’t mind snuffing the unborn and the aged and infirm all in the name of convenience, an attitude disturbingly close to that of the extremes of ethnic cleansing done in the same name.
Lauding “most advanced rich nations” because they not only tolerate but also promote abortion reminds me of lauding Mussolini for getting the trains to run on time.
Sublime efficiency doesn’t equate with liberty…ask the Germans.
The Piper
Lee from your first anti-article you posted:”Nazi SA (aka “the brownshirts”)”
These became the Hitler Youth of the 30s.
Lee: Your quote also doesn’t cover the early 1930s activities as you used in my second article yet you used this as your first frontal attack!
@ 36:
“The purpose of government should be to zealously protect and maximize individual liberty and freedom, not subplant them all in the name of some amorphous “collective good” defined by…government.”
Wow. It sounds like the opposite of the Bush administration of the last 7 years. They’ve increased the size of government dramatically AND reduced our liberties (heard of habeas corpus?), all in the guise of “protection” from the evil terrorists.
So you’re calling Bush a Nazi?
@36
Piper,
Thank you for the 3rd-Grade-level rundown of this topic. We all appreciate it.
The purpose of government should be to zealously protect and maximize individual liberty and freedom, not subplant them all in the name of some amorphous “collective good” defined by…government.
What you don’t seem to understand is that many, many people understand that you can maximize liberty by developing institutions and systems that benefit all of society. Collectivism (either through corporations or through government institutions) can both lead to greater liberty. Trying to inhibit the creation of one or the other is the path to totalitarianism. When the corporate form of collectivism is demonized, you get Communism. When the government form of collectivism is demonized, you get Fascism. By misunderstanding the reality that corporations are a form of collectivism, you have been unwittingly supporting a political party that has been inching towards Fascism for the past few decades.
@38
Didn’t Donk POTUS candidate Kucinish call for the “Fairness” Doctrine?
Yes, and I disagree with him.
Piper: It is estimated 15.5 Million black babies will be donkoinfanticided since RvW in 1973. While it reduces the Congressional and POTUS Moonbat! vote it still reduces our political and capital purchasing power.
Well Lee you and I finally have something in agreement. You left the reservation on this one!
Mike: Please delineate for all of us here what liberty or liberties you lost over the last 7 years. A simple list will suffice.
@42
Lee from your first anti-article you posted:”Nazi SA (aka “the brownshirts”)”
These became the Hitler Youth of the 30s.
Are you going to try to make sense today, or are you just going to embarrass yourself again?
@40
So Lee: You disagree with the people wronged by the Holocaust? Isn’t that part of the premise used by Whackminojab?
Uh, no. I’m simply pointing out that they wrote something on a webpage that was not true.
@36: I think you have it right on but i might add a slight detail.
True Communism does not involve a large government or ANY government for that matter.
The problem is that the zealousness of people who look towards the idealism of Communism continuously think that the only way to achieve their aspirations is through a large controlling government who can bring about all of the changes necessary for a communist state. The idea is that this large government is temporary and will be absolved but history shows time and time again that this NEVER happens.
Thus, you are left with a large controlling government who puts, as you point out, the very subjective “collective good” above anything else. And I agree that I don’t exactly see how this is any different really than a Facist state.
Didn’t Stalin and Mao kill thousands upon thousands of people? No big government is a good government! Even we ever want to achieve socialist or communist ideals there are other ways of going about it.
@41
Go back and look closely at what I said in response to Rabbit, who contended liberals don’t kill people. My point wasn’t that government does it, though liberals are all in favor of Medicaid-provided abortion, which is government paying to kill people, but that Rabbit is wrong in his bald assertion.
Killing fetuses is not the same as killing “people” Crackpiper. By your logic, hunting would have to be made illegal.
@52
Exactly.
40 – PStupid is making yet another fallacious argument. Lee has refuted Puddy’s claims based on the facts of what the Nazi’s actually did.
Ironically he uses the same comeback holocaust deniers use, “look at what all these wonderful ‘experts’ say..”
Thanks for playing Stupes!
@43
Lee: Your quote also doesn’t cover the early 1930s activities as you used in my second article yet you used this as your first frontal attack!
Was this comment supposed to be coherent?
@53…Lee…
“Killing fetuses is not the same as killing ‘people’ Crackpiper. By your logic, hunting would have to made illegal.”
Even for you, Lee, this is an absurdly nihlistic statement. A fetus isn’t the same as a quail or squirrel. If left un-aborted – read that un-killed – a human fetus is eventually birthed as an infant.
Go to any neo-natal clinic and watch ultra-sounds of fetuses and tell me if you can shrug your shoulders at the destruction of them.
It’s fascinating to me that pro-abortion groups oppose requiring ultra-sound images of a fetus be shown to a mother prior to aborting it. Looking at an image of your prospective murder victim tends to deter the murder.
Abortion is the ultimate child abuse. And there’s no doubt in my mind that the proliferation of both abortions and cases of child abuse aren’t intrinsically linked. We’ve become a culture blase about the death of children.
The Piper
@11:
Me, at the Rapture: “Dude! Can I have your Mercedes and your McMansion?”
@49
Mike: Please delineate for all of us here what liberty or liberties you lost over the last 7 years. A simple list will suffice.
If the Pentagon declares you an enemy combatant, you can be held without access to a lawyer (see: Jose Padilla and the Military Commissions Act).
Many of our 4th Amendment protections have been eroded away (see: this page), not to mention that a highly anti-4th Amendment jurist (Sam Alito) was installed on the Supreme Court.
The Patriot Act gave law enforcement a number of tools to allow for greater intrusions into our property and our privacy.
@52…JM…
Marx’s notion of the dictatorship of the proletariat necessitates subsuming the individual to something. Whether it’s government or the collective good, individual freedom and liberty are considered antithetical to the best interests of a larger entity.
You are expendable when it’s in the best interest of the state…according to the state.
The Piper
@58…Tlazolteotl…
It will be more like, “You can have my Hell for eternity, I won’t be going there…See ya!”
The Piper
Lee …
Mussolini invented the concept of fascism. Hitler was anything BUT a fascist. Mussolini’s big idea was that the interests of large corporations and the government were congruent. He brought large corporations into the government fold. To achieve this model there had to be limits on freedom. While it is true that Mussolini glorified the Roman Satate, that was more a reflection oc concurrent ideas of nationalism than a governing principle. indeed, under il Duce, Jews inter alia prospered. Some of what looks today like Italian racsm , was simply the usual Eurocentric colonialist mentality.
Not only was there no connection to racism or supremacism, at this stage of Mussolini’s system and il Duce himself were widely feted by liberals (FDR and Gandhi esp) as a potential answer to communism.
If I look around the globe today, it seems to me that Mussolini is VERY successful. Contrary to Fukayama, Democracy as a model for state reform may not be the ultimate end of history. The success stories of the moment include China, Russia, Vietnam, Venezuela, Sweden, England, Cuba, …. While these states call themselves by different names, they are all in fact very similar to Mussolini’s Italy.
Let me suggest a different term, “corporatism.” Sounds better, no?
I define corporatism as government where corporate governance remains in “private hands” but the government itself is controlled by a cadre of folks from the same corporate leadership. In a corporate state, the state works to promote the needs of the corporations. Clinton’s concept of state “investments” is as corporatist as Putin’s engineering of “private” takeover for Yukoil.
The most dramatic examples in our current world are pretty obvious … Lenovo is owned and controlled by the Chinese Army, Putin has just, reportedly, hidden 40 BILLION he will still control after leaving the Presidency. Cuba makes national POLITICAL decisions that are int he interest of Cuba’s Communist Party which is also the management6 of Cuba’s industries. Back to the US, the push for national health care is to relieve the corporations of the burden of health care as they compete world wide.
I will not dwell on the danger of corporatism controlling the US as well. That seems obvious to me. Instead, let me point out some of the outcomes, based on traditions economics, of a corporate society.
Corporations’ own self interest which may or may not include the interest of the nation. Microsoft is a clear (and scary) example. The company exists for only one reason .. to make money for its stockholders and it does that by monopolistic efforts at controling the internet.
Suppose Steve Balmer concluded that MS would be more functional if its headquarters were in Beijing? Under the rules of capitalism, MS SHOULD move! Of course, under the corporate model, the same is true in reverse. Just as Boeing moves its management to Chicago to escape Union oversight in its home town, one can imagine Lukoil moving its headquarters to Basel where controls of capital are more secure than in Moscow.
The motto of a corporatist society is:
The fittest must survive.
As in Ec 101, the corporatist tells u8s that any other model hurts the poeple by being inefficient. The only difference is that in a corporatist state, the fitness of the corporation is more important than the fitness of the nations.
Let me point out that corpoartism is utterly antagonistic to Hitlerism. There is no racism, nor nationalism in a corporatist state. The Corporate state exists for the benefit of the corporation(s). The Hitler state existed for the benefit of the Nazi racist ideals.
@57: It’s true that we don’t take abortion as seriously as we should, but this has a lot more to do with it being a banner between social rights and lefts.
If “pro-choice” and “pro-life” weren’t such telling political statements maybe we could all agree that abortion should be legal, but should be taken seriously and used as sparingly as possible. Birth Control is far better (and cheaper) than an abortion. Legal abortion doesn’t have to mean high abortion rates:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/si.....xed=google
@57
Wow! Going for the next Crackpiper Chronicles! Nice!
Even for you, Lee, this is an absurdly nihlistic statement. A fetus isn’t the same as a quail or squirrel. If left un-aborted – read that un-killed – a human fetus is eventually birthed as an infant.
It doesn’t matter what it eventually becomes. You can’t justify a violation of another person’s rights solely because of potential. By that logic, you could arrest people for being celibate because they are preventing people from being born.
And no, a fetus is not a quail or a squirrel. Quails and squirrels actually have greater awareness of the world around them.
Go to any neo-natal clinic and watch ultra-sounds of fetuses and tell me if you can shrug your shoulders at the destruction of them.
I have, and I do. A fetus does not have the same level of awareness that humans do (not even the same level of awareness that most mammals do). It’s the act of robbing someone of their human awareness (and the effect that that has on the bonds that that human has formed with others) that makes the crime of murder something that we punish people for.
Someone from PETA could tell you to look at a squirrel and dare you to shrug your shoulders at someone who kills one.
It’s fascinating to me that pro-abortion groups oppose requiring ultra-sound images of a fetus be shown to a mother prior to aborting it. Looking at an image of your prospective murder victim tends to deter the murder.
Requiring the images to be shown? Wow, you are the champion of the nanny state, Doris!
Abortion is the ultimate child abuse. And there’s no doubt in my mind that the proliferation of both abortions and cases of child abuse aren’t intrinsically linked.
Bullshit. Child abuse has actually decreased since the days before Roe v. Wade. You used to be able to beat the crap out of your kids. Now you can barely spank them. [Edited – I went a little too far there]
Abortion is the ultimate child abuse. And there’s no doubt in my mind that the proliferation of both abortions and cases of child abuse aren’t intrinsically linked. We’ve become a culture blase about the death of children.
Aside from the fact that a fetus is not a baby…
You are right. Abortions and child abuse are not linked and have nothing to do with each other. Ooops! That isn’t what you really meant to write, was it?!
If you think that abortion and child abuse are somehow linked, some cites with actual data relating the availability of abortion to an increase in incidence of child abuse would be of value. (Yes, I’m referring to actual studies published in peer-reviewed journals, with a sufficient IF to be credible.) Because otherwise, your opinion (like assholes, everyone has one, and they all stink) is based on whatever sugarplum faeries are dancing in your head to the crackpipe music playing there, and nothing anyone else should pay any attention to, because they have nothing to do with anything in the real world.
@61
Steve, thanks. I always like talking about these topics with you. You’re completely right that the true fascists aren’t centered in the Bush camp today. Many of them are actually in the Ron Paul camp and completely despise Bush, while also holding highly racist outlooks.
Puddy you may only respond to this post after identifying yourself by your real name (I’m guessing Greg Nickels), giving your real IP and having it verified by Goldy, and also telling us your mother’s maiden name.
More Republican values:
Purdue Frederick, maker of the drug Oxy Contin, knew that they were peddling an addictive product that could be easily abused, but intentionally hid the warnings from the general public for a decade. They got off with a slap on the wrist a few months back, after the Justice Department attempted to slow down the investigation and the prosecution produced such a poor case that even the judge yelled at them for failing to jail the executives for their crimes. Today in the New York Times, Barry Meier, who wrote a great book on this subject called Painkiller, has a long piece detailing Rudy Giuliani’s business involvement with Purdue Frederick.
In 2002, the drug maker, Purdue Pharma of Stamford, Conn., hired Mr. Giuliani and his consulting firm, Giuliani Partners, to help stem the controversy about OxyContin. Among Mr. Giuliani’s missions was the job of convincing public officials that they could trust Purdue because they could trust him […]
A former top federal prosecutor, Mr. Giuliani participated in two meetings between Purdue officials and the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, the agency investigating the company. Giuliani Partners took on the job of monitoring security improvements at company facilities making OxyContin, an issue of concern to the D.E.A.
As a celebrity, Mr. Giuliani helped the company win several public relations battles, playing a role in an effort by Purdue to persuade an influential Pennsylvania congressman, Curt Weldon, not to blame it for OxyContin abuse.
@65
And don’t forget that Giuliani also strongly believes that medical marijuana users should be arrested and thrown in jail.
@60:
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
I’m not supposed to laugh at examples of delusional thinking!
*******
Someone please tell me why there are people who want to wipe out the progress of the last 600 years? If social Darwinism really worked like you conservatives claim it does, you people would have died out 300 years ago already with your superstitious nonsense.
@62…Lee…
“How do you even live with yourself knowing that you’ve achieved such a refined level of idiocy?”
I glory in the absolute certainty that I’m light years ahead of you.
The Piper
@68
I glory in the absolute certainty that I’m light years ahead of you.
OK, putz. And the Rapture is coming any day now.
Cuckoo…cuckoo…cuckoo…
@17 “JoshMahar: RR AKA The Pelletizer ™ attacks anyone who doesn’t walk lock step in the ideals of the The NEW Progressive democrat party.”
So what? Rightwing propagandists don’t? Why do you fucks suddenly have a problem with us behaving like you?
@18 You can never have more money than the other guy. No matter how much you have, there’s always someone else with more. Only 1 person in the entire fucking world is an exception to this rule. So what’s the fucking use of playing a pointless game only 1 person out of 7 billion people can win?
@20 Your logic works only if you accept the definition of “person” to include a formless lump of insentient cells the size of your thumb. Of course, no one in the “choice” movement accepts your definition of “person.” Frankly, I think your assertion is absurd. However, you are preaching to the wrong choir, buddy, because I’m one of those in-the-minority but not-so-rare Democrats who opposes abortion on religious and moral grounds.
P.S. – The Great Mother Rabbit Spirit doesn’t want us to abort baby rabbits — She wants us to crank out as many rabbits as lagomorphically possible!!! The more fucking rabbits in the world, the better, She says!!! After you humans extinctivize yourselves, rabbits are going to run this place, and I’ll be their king. Eat shit, humans.
@21 You’re saying conservatives don’t demonize?
(pause)
(snicker)
HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR
HEY EVERYBODY!!! CRACKPIPER CLAIMS CONSERVATIVES DON’T DEMONIZE!!! =:-D
I almost cracked a rib on that one. If I had, I would have sent the veterinary bill to your place of business with the expectation you’d pay it, crackpiper. That falls in the category of recklessly dangerous comedy.
@29 You expect pudwhacker to be as smart as your cat?
@30 “The larger point is that when the sentiments that you’re talking about go towards their extreme, they become Communist, not Fascist.”
Actually, Lee, communists and fascists are rather interchangeable judging from the number of former hippie-leftist-commies are now neocon fascists. A neocon is simply an ex-Trotskyite who realizes the corporatists and wealthy people who bankroll fascism pay salaries better than the Bolsheviks and their offshoots do. They’ve got more money.
@76
My cat is pretty stupid.
@77
They’re both authoritarians, so if your main political outlook is authoritarian (see: Ann Coulter, David Horowitz), you can switch from far-left to far-right rather seamlessly (the ends justify the means).
@73…RR…
You’re the king of demonizers…Living proof that hate exists in the animal kingdom.
The Piper
@36 Prof. Rutan was right, which is probably the only thing you learned in college. Where you go awry, crackpiper, is in your misperception of which domestic political movement/party seeks to suppress free speech, dissent, the free flow of information, diverse media ownership, and open government. In case you forgot, Republicans are the guys who gun down journalists in Iraq and other places where they don’t want any light shined on their activities.
@38 I hope so.
Ever notice how the righties absolutely hate the idea of anyone’s point of view except theirs getting air time?
It never fails to amaze me how many wingnuts come here to attack the Rabbit.
I can’t quite put my finger on it beyond the simple fact that the rabbit relentlessly speaks the truth about the utter failure of Republican politics.
Whatever it is keep doing it Roger. It keeps this board target rich with crazies.
@61 … Lee and the left
I don’t see the corporate threat as right vs left.
Thats is why I listed countries like Sweden along with Russia. The huge difference between the two is that Sweden has strict belief in the rule of law, the needs of the many, and …. NATIONALISM. Push come to shove, the Swedes put the interests of their people above the interests of SAAB.
When the left talks about the needs of the poor in Rwanda, I wonder the compassion includes the needs of kids on the Olympic peninsula?
I also find too many of our colleagues willing to sacrifice fee speach, a very anti-corporatist principle.
Roger Rabbit says:
What Goldberg doesn’t understand is that the left is the center, and the right is the lunatic fringe.
Riiiiight! You have fallen into the tendency to believe that the “center” is wherever YOU are at. The truth is that the left is, well, the left. And the right is, well, the right. You are on the left!
Part of my thought is that much of the traditional arguement for go9vernment .. protection of citizens, education, coomon purpose, etc.
Much of this is now the function of the corporation.
If that is true, why do we need government? Are we headed for a time, as in Russia and China, where the folks we elect are subordinate to the corporate heads?
I love the part where Piper spouts, “The purpose of government should be to zealously protect and maximize individual liberty and freedom, not subplant them all in the name of some amorphous “collective good” defined by…government.”
…and then goes on to advocate the outlawing of abortions in the name of the collective good.
That is just rich!
Roger’s on the fringe of lunacy, Itchy. He’s so deep in his own doots that he thinks Rabbit doots are the norm.
Speaking of stench, there’s Lee. Spewing at length, in print, in public, to make a pointless point about a book he hasn’t read. He hasn’t read Goldberg’s book because Goldberg, having a brain, would be way over Lee’s head.
Putting the socialism in National Socialism: Hitler’s economic model was similar to Stalin’s: revive a dead economy via military-industrial policy. Both regimes socialized armaments … the ultimate public-works projects. Hitler ended Germany’s depression (Churchill said Germany solved economic depression before Britain or the New Deal even understood it); Stalin was able to surmount his genocidal collectivization of agriculture by collectivizing guns.
Malkin: She took on the difficult task of defending a progressive project, internment, and made an ok case for interning Japanese nationals who lived in Hawaii. If I’d been Japanese or Japanese-American in 1942, living on the Left Coast, I’d have signed myself into Heart Mountain. Way safer being behind concertina wire than being on the outside with rotters like Rabbit and Lee.
@88
It’s amazing to see someone who is so blissfully unaware of his own glaring hypocrisies.
@90…Lee…
For a look at the Numero Uno HA Happy Hooligan hypocrite, go look in the mirror.
Abortion is the killing of an innocent human being. I believe in protecting inocent human beings, hence I’m pro-life. That abortion has a societal consequence of desensitizing the culture toward the death of and harm toward children is also a reason to loath it. But my first and foremost concern is the protection of the innocent.
Who speaks for the unborn? Who rises to protect their freedom and liberty?
I do, for one, and I make no bones about it. Abortion kills children, and that’s wrong.
The Piper
Do fertility clinics practice abortion?
I’m just asking.
@81…RR…
Democrats are the ones seeking to resurrect the mis-named “Fairness Doctrine” not in any effort to balance points of view, but, instead, to silence them.
That liberals fail at talk radio – Air America making money and attracing millions of listeners? – is a case in point.
Our old liberal friends on the Washington Supreme Court have struck another blow for inhibiting the free flow of information by gutting the law requiring public disclosure of government documents. It’s Republicans like Toby Nixon who have for years spearheaded openness in government efforts and intiatives, always to the dismay and consternation of and with opposition from Democrats in government.
Democrats in King County were the ones who sought to thwart more accountable government by opposing I-25 only to have the voters tell them to get bent.
Rabbit, you’re a Johnny-One-Note who hops only on your left leg in a leftward circle while banging a drum only with your left hand, which is a fairly ludicrous sight until it becomes boring in its repetition.
The Piper
@89
Putting the socialism in National Socialism: Hitler’s economic model was similar to Stalin’s: revive a dead economy via military-industrial policy. Both regimes socialized armaments … the ultimate public-works projects.
How is this different from what modern Republicans have done? They’re expanding the size of the federal government through spending it on military appropriations. Reagan did it in the 80s and Bush is doing it now. Was Reagan a socialist because he built up the military-industrial complex?
Hitler ended Germany’s depression (Churchill said Germany solved economic depression before Britain or the New Deal even understood it); Stalin was able to surmount his genocidal collectivization of agriculture by collectivizing guns.
Hitler ended Germany’s depression? Really? By plunging the entire nation into a war that they’d eventually lose? Are you nuts? Do you not understand the fact that the economic aspects of what happened in Germany in the 1930s are inconsequential to the larger problems that hypernationalism led to? Are you not familiar with why people are wary of times where people forget that the ends don’t justify the means?
Malkin: She took on the difficult task of defending a progressive project, internment, and made an ok case for interning Japanese nationals who lived in Hawaii. If I’d been Japanese or Japanese-American in 1942, living on the Left Coast, I’d have signed myself into Heart Mountain. Way safer being behind concertina wire than being on the outside with rotters like Rabbit and Lee.
Really? It was better for Japanese-Americans to be locked up than to be around us scary “liberals”. My god, you’re a retard.
89 – so much bat shit insane lunacy, it’s not worth commenting.
@91
Abortion is the killing of an innocent human being.
No it’s not. It’s the killing of a fetus.
I believe in protecting inocent human beings, hence I’m pro-life.
No, since you believe in intentionally misstating the nature of life that a fetus has in order to dictate the decisions of pregnant women, you are anti-choice.
That abortion has a societal consequence of desensitizing the culture toward the death of and harm toward children is also a reason to loath it.
Abortion does not have that consequence. As I explained to you above, child abuse is now less common than it was in the days before Roe v. Wade.
Who speaks for the unborn? Who rises to protect their freedom and liberty?
The reason that you’re a H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-T-E is because I know that you don’t support the outlawing of hunting, yet PETA can make THE EXACT SAME ARGUMENT you’re making concerning a number of different animals.
@80 I criticize, diss, expose, and hold up to ridicule our idiotic friends on the Nutty Right. So what? You guys do it to us. In fact, your side started it. So why are you complaining? A wingnut complaining about demonizing is like Ted Bundy bitching about crime. It’s all in good clean fun anyway.
@96…Lee…
Your’re trapped by ideological blinders…
Go read http://www.ispub.com/ostia/ind.....ortion.xml
“Research on abortion decision-making conducted over the last few decades has consistently revealed that women who abort often do so with ambivalence and under the pressure of others and/or in response to situational constraints [ 11 , 12 , 13 ]. Unresolved grief responses associated with perinatal loss may negatively impact parental responsiveness to child needs [ 14 , 15 ], trigger anger, which is a common component of grief [ 16 , 17 , 18 ], and/or increase parental anxiety regarding child wellbeing [ 15 , 17 ]. All these factors may increase the risk of parenting difficulties and increase the likelihood of child maltreatment.”
More as I find it…
The Piper
@84 I measure my patriotism according to my unpopularity among the anti-American goatfucking fascist trolls.
Crackpiper seems to think there’s something wrong with demonizing the servants of Hell.
@97…RR…
Good clean fun? Is it? Or how many attacks on character are there? Are those good clean fun?
Or is all this about as serious and honest as professional wrestling? Including the plethora of fake names and hidden identities? The over-the-top hyperbole of the HA Happy Hooligans, is that serious discussion of issues, or mere rhetorical bomb throwing just for the fun of it?
The Piper
Of course, you don’t expect THEM to like it.
http://www.mt.net/~watcher/demonsinhades.gif
@86 I’m very proud to say I’m NOT on the right with you baby raping warmongers.
@98
So what? Are you arguing that adult women need to be protected from their own decisions? How spectacularly nanny state of you (surprise)!
Do you understand anything about statistics? Demonstrating that the kind of person who gets an abortion is also more likely to be a bad parent DOES NOT prove that the LEGALIZATION of abortion is increasing the incidence of child abuse. You’re making the very common mistake of mistaking correlation for causation.
@89 “If I’d been Japanese or Japanese-American in 1942, living on the Left Coast, I’d have signed myself into Heart Mountain.”
Sometimes golden opportunities come more than once in a century — you can sign yourself into Western State Hospital right now! What are you waiting for?
@93 Silence who? Who the hell did Democrats ever silence? We’re not the big cheerleaders for media consolidation, government secrecy, and suppression of dissent — you guys are.
Sheesh. Idiots like crackpiper descend into Level of Denial 5 (which is functionally similar to Defcon 5) and think they’ve attained nirvana.
It’s sort of amusing to listen to the Biggest Mouths in the country whining about how they’re being “silenced.”
@98
If you’re still confused, Crackpiper, here’s a better reference:
http://www.naccchildlaw.org/ch.....tment.html
There are approximately 1 million substantiated cases of child abuse and neglect in the United States each year and millions more reported cases.12 Child maltreatment is not a recent phenomenon, nor is it unique to certain nations and cultures.13 It appears children have always been abused and neglected.14 A number of studies of the history of child maltreatment have begun with the now familiar quote by psychohistorian Lloyd De Mause:
History seems to bear out De Mause.
96 – You obviously believe that an unborn fetus is not a human being and does not become a human being until actual birth. This is your position, fine. It doesn’t square with reality when you view a baby through a sonogram and see the beating heart, wiggling fingers, moving legs, etc. Myself and most other pro-life (that would be pro-life, not anti-choice Einstein) individuals believe that life begins at the moment of conception. This is when a new human life has began and an eternal soul is created. Although I’m sure you think there is no such thing as an eternal soul since you no doubt think we all evolved from apes. Such is the great abortion debate!
I mean, show me a wingnut blog, and I’ll show you censorship. It took me only 34.2 seconds to get banned by the Freepers. These fucking wingnut trolls come here to HA, an unabashedly liberal blog, and shit on the sidewalks to their heart’s content about how they’re being “silenced.” Jesus Christmas do these people spew just because they enjoy hearing themselves talk? Do they have any fucking clue how ridiculous they look?
@95 Oh c’mon, when they’re asking to be kicked in the balls, shouldn’t we accomodate them?
@98 “Research on abortion decision-making conducted over the last few decades has consistently revealed that women who abort often do so with ambivalence and under the pressure of others and/or in response to situational constraints [ 11 , 12 , 13 ]. Unresolved grief responses associated with perinatal loss may negatively impact parental responsiveness to child needs [ 14 , 15 ], trigger anger, which is a common component of grief [ 16 , 17 , 18 ], and/or increase parental anxiety regarding child wellbeing [ 15 , 17 ]. All these factors may increase the risk of parenting difficulties and increase the likelihood of child maltreatment.”
None of this proves that an insentient cell mass is physiologically anything other than an insentient cell mass.
@108
In other words, in comment #57, when you wrote:
Abortion is the ultimate child abuse. And there’s no doubt in my mind that the proliferation of both abortions and cases of child abuse aren’t intrinsically linked.
You were, as always, completely and utterly full of shit. Is this going to alter your thinking in any way? Is it going to finally make you stand up, look in the mirror, and finally have that moment of realization that much of what you think and believe is built on a big pile of horseshit? Are you finally going to accept that the fact that I can continually point out your hypocrisies isn’t some weird disturbance in the universe or word games, but instead just the obvious by-product of the fact that you’re a massive hypocrite who either can’t or won’t do the requisite work to second-guess your own opinions and presuppositions? Are you ever going to figure out how much of a complete dumbass you are?
@96…Lee…
Here’s a locally produced study, admittedly a little old (1996), that shows dramatic increases in child abuse since the legalization of abortion.
http://www.wsipp.wa.gov/rptfiles/child-ab.pdf
I remember when the issue was voted on by Washington citizens. We were assured by pro-abortion types that it would be a rare occurance and then only in cases of necessity while never for purposes of convenience or simply to avoid giving birth.
They lied and children died.
Your claim that a fetus isn’t a child is an opinion. And analogizing it to an animal vis-a-vis PETA is testimony to your nihlistic POV. To you, then, sucking a human life down a sink is of no greater or lesser significance than swatting a bug. Yet, even Washington law recognizes the human status of a fetus:
RCW 9A.32.060
Manslaughter in the first degree.
(1) A person is guilty of manslaughter in the first degree when:
(a) He recklessly causes the death of another person; or
(b) He intentionally and unlawfully kills an unborn quick child by inflicting any injury upon the mother of such child.
(2) Manslaughter in the first degree is a class A felony.
Does the killing of an animal qualify as manslaughter?
The Piper
@101 If you haven’t figured out yet that this site is 99.9% rhetorical bomb throwing for the fun of it, I can’t assist you. Try a psychiatrist, maybe he can help.
Roger Rabbit says:
@86 I’m very proud to say I’m NOT on the right with you baby raping warmongers.
Any guess as to why I’m not in jail on baby raping charges?
Hint: It has something to do with your inability to tell the truth.
@109
96 – You obviously believe that an unborn fetus is not a human being and does not become a human being until actual birth.
Yes, and this is a simple matter of common sense for anyone who has any interest in thinking it through. The qualities that make a human being superior to the lives of animals are qualities that can only begin to develop AFTER birth. Before birth, a fetus has certain human characteristics, but they don’t have human awareness. One thought experiment that I like to use to help people understand this is to imagine a person born with none of the five senses (no ability to smell, taste, touch, see, or hear). Will that person ever know it’s alive?
It doesn’t square with reality when you view a baby through a sonogram and see the beating heart, wiggling fingers, moving legs, etc.
So what? As I’ve pointed out to Piper, squirrels have beating hearts, moving legs and wiggling fingers. Does that mean that killing a squirrel should be considered murder?
Myself and most other pro-life (that would be pro-life, not anti-choice Einstein) individuals believe that life begins at the moment of conception.
So do I. That’s why I’m pro-life.
This is when a new human life has began and an eternal soul is created.
Please paste all links to the scientific studies done on how the “soul” gets created. And no, life may begin at conception, but human life does not begin until after birth.
Although I’m sure you think there is no such thing as an eternal soul since you no doubt think we all evolved from apes.
Oh. My. God.
@109 “You obviously believe that an unborn fetus is not a human being and does not become a human being until actual birth.”
I don’t know about the others — I can’t speak for them — but I don’t believe that. On the other hand, a lot of people on your side seem to think that a 2 or 3 month old lump of cells about the size and shape of a golf ball is a human being, which is equally absurd.
If you’ve never read the actual Roe v. Wade decision, I recommend you do so, simply to see the Supreme Court justices wrestle with the question of when does a cell mass become a baby. In the end, after pointing out that the best minds from the fields of science, theology, and philosophy have been stumped by this for ages, they said, “we don’t know, either.”
Which makes some of us wonder where people like you get your certitude from. We attribute it to (a) ignorance, (b) close minds, and (c) arrogance.
@116 “Any guess as to why I’m not in jail on baby raping charges?”
I give up, why? Because the prosecutor and judge are Republicans?
@117 “Although I’m sure you think there is no such thing as an eternal soul since you no doubt think we all evolved from apes.”
“Oh. My. God.”
Yeah, that’s what I say, too. It’s hard to believe this numbskull ever took a single science class. He apparently doesn’t realize that the science of evolution HAS NEVER CLAIMED that humans descended from apes. The concept of humans and apes evolving separately from a common (and now extinct) ancestor is too complex for a small mind to grasp.
@114
There have been dramatic increases in the amount of child abuse cases, but that does not mean that there’s been a dramatic increase in the amount of child abuse itself. It’s just that in this day and age, child abuse is not as accepted as it used to be, and it’s much harder to hide it. As the doctor in my previous link pointed out, historically, child abuse was much more common the further you go back in history.
I remember when the issue was voted on by Washington citizens. We were assured by pro-abortion types that it would be a rare occurance and then only in cases of necessity while never for purposes of convenience or simply to avoid giving birth.
So what? They were being naive or disingenuous if they thought that people wouldn’t have abortions out of convenience. That has absolutely nothing to do with what we’re talking about here.
Your claim that a fetus isn’t a child is an opinion.
Your claim that it IS a child is a religious belief.
And analogizing it to an animal vis-a-vis PETA is testimony to your nihlistic POV.
Whatever, crackpiper. Animals are living creatures with awareness of their surroundings and a desire to live. It would be silly not to look at how we deal with animals in trying to understand the right approach to dealing with a complicated moral situation like abortion.
To you, then, sucking a human life down a sink is of no greater or lesser significance than swatting a bug.
That’s up for the person carrying the fetus to decide. The reason why Washington State law is coded as you point out is because if a mother decides that the fetus she’s carrying is as valuable as a born human, then that fetus should be treated by the law as a born human. But if the mother carrying a fetus decides that the fetus she’s carrying is not that valuable, then she should able to terminate the pregnancy. That’s what being pro-choice is about. It’s about understanding that each person decides for themselves what moral value they place upon that living creature. Telling a woman that she can’t have an abortion is as wrong as telling someone that they can’t hunt or eat meat.
Better goats than Bill: http://images.google.com/imgre.....n%26sa%3DG
Lee, a fucking retard, used to call me a fucking retard. Now he calls me a retard. For a progressive, that’s progress. He’ll soon be drooling incoherent lectures on civility. Bring a brolly.
Hitler got power in early 1933. He didn’t start war until summer 1939. He presided over six years of economic boom fueled by stealth abrogation of armaments limitations imposed by Versailles. He pulled Germany out of its Weimar depression/inflation. Look it up, retard.
Yes, he put away Bolsheviks who pushed Germany toward civil war during Weimar, then he governed like a Bolshevik. Like Stalin. Like a centralizing statist socialist.
Reagan restored military with the USSR after Carter let the USSR gain first-strike advantage against us and conventional superiority in its proxy wars of “liberation.” Reagan pumped up our military spending to (um …) 3% of GDP (?) Think that was about it. USSR military spending was (um … ) 50%+ of their GDP. Unsustainable for them. A drop in the bucket for us. And we, the good guys, won. The evil empire, which was evil and an empire, lost.
And if at this very moment I were stuck in a liberally drunk bar with Rabbit Doots and Retard Lee, I’d sign myself into a McCarran (Democrat, NV) concentration camp for safety.
oops … restored military parity. But you knew that. That’s why we won.
Have previously noted that Big Abortion and Big Eugenics had the same mother, Margaret Sanger. She pushed progressive eugenics as a low-cost way to cull the human herd of its inferior races and classes, an apt characterization of modern abortion. Blacktivist Jesse Peterson said truly that if a neo-colonialist had cut the same swath thru darkest Africa that “reproductive choice” cuts thru black America, we’d have the neo up on charges for genocide at the Hague and the UN.
“Better goats than Bill” was ambiguous, but even Lee probably got the point.
@122
Hitler got power in early 1933. He didn’t start war until summer 1939. He presided over six years of economic boom fueled by stealth abrogation of armaments limitations imposed by Versailles. He pulled Germany out of its Weimar depression/inflation. Look it up, retard.
Are you really that dense that you didn’t understand what I was saying about the ends not justifying the means? Any country can temporarily pull itself out of depression by convincing it that it needs to build weapons in order to defend itself. The point is that this strategy always fails in the end.
The reason that we were able to do what we did to the Soviet Union was because much more of our economy was based upon doing productive things (as you point out) than the Soviet economy. That’s precisely my point.
Can you please come back to this discussion only after you’ve started to comprehend some of these basic ideas?
@121…Lee…
“Your claim that a fetus isn’t a child is an opinion.
Your claim that it IS a child is a religious belief.”
Which elevates life to a higher plane? Which has a higher regard for humanity? Which is ultimately the more moral position?
“The reason why Washington State law is coded as you point out is because if a mother decides that the fetus she’s carrying is as valuable as a born human, then that fetus should be treated by the law as a born human. But if the mother carrying a fetus decides that the fetus she’s carrying is not that valuable, then she should able to terminate the pregnancy. That’s what being pro-choice is about. It’s about understanding that each person decides for themselves what moral value they place upon that living creature. Telling a woman that she can’t have an abortion is as wrong as telling someone that they can’t hunt or eat meat.”
Once again you demonstrate an ignorance of both the law and legal analysis.
Criminal law isn’t subjective. Whether a defendant is guilty of manslaughter isn’t something for the the mother of an un-born child to determine. The crime is against the people, hence the caption of the case: The People of the State of Washington vs. John Doe.
The opinion of the mother is irrelevent in a criminal action. Under your analysis, a defendant in a manslaughter case could beat the rap by showing the mother had pro-abortion beliefs. The law makes no such distinction.
Under your theory, a woman who’s pro-abortion is under no legal obligation to safeguard the child growing in her body, while a woman who’s pro-life does.
Where do you get this thinking? Off the back of a cereal box?
It’s not up to the mother to decide the applicability of RCW 9a. The people of the State of Washington through their legislative representatives have determined that the killing of an unborn child due to harm inflicted upon the mother is manslaughter irrespective of the opinions or beliefs of the mother.
Since that’s the case, in the event of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which will eventually happen just as Plessy v. Ferguson was overturned and Dred Scott was rendered moot by the Civil War and the 13th Amendment, what would prevent the people of the State of Washington through their legislative representatives from making a similar determination that terminating the life of an un-born child is a criminal act?
Let’s say Roe is overturned, and, say, Nevada passes such a law. What then for you?
You review and slam books you don’t read, you render opinions on law you don’t understand, and you pass moral judgment when you have none yourself.
The Piper
@123
Have previously noted that Big Abortion and Big Eugenics had the same mother, Margaret Sanger.
Big Abortion?!? Hahahahaha! You’re the dumbest motherfucker on the planet. Exactly how many women are forced to have abortions in this country every year? Hahahahahahaha!
120: Check the New Yorker, two or three weeks ago, the article about paleovirology. The case for common primate ancesty is now slam dunk, due to commonality of retrovirus fragments among primate species. Slam dunk, or so it seems to me. Even my viruses are retro.
The case for God is even stronger, but you won’t read it in the New Yorker. And you won’t get a clue from pissing contest and dissing contest that is ridiculous Goldstein’s ridiculous blog. We come here to waste time while time is wasting us, and God is not amused.
Hope you gag on your haha, Lee. But at least in your last moments you’ll have had the pleasure of finding a grasping gouging Big Business that you can get down with. Big Abortion = Big Business = Big Bucks.
You must be a stealth capitalist.
oops again … ancestRy; THE pissing contest … Maybe I Lee’s right. Maybe I am the dumbest motherfucker. Way too many typos, even for me.
124: Since we’ve put the socialism back in National Socialism, and since Hitler and Stalin governed as centralizing statist socialists, and since socialism always fails in the end, we’re back where we began, with a book you didn’t read but about which you spew a simulation of knowledge.
There’s a strong case that National Socialists were socialists, and there’s a strong case that the fashionable left-wing fascism of our “news” media and universities and Left Coast is fashionable left-wing fascism.
@125
Which elevates life to a higher plane?
How is that relevant? Again, by your logic, banning hunting and forcing everyone to become a vegan would be imperative because that’s the ultimate end result of elevating life to a higher plane.
Which has a higher regard for humanity?
That’s at the heart of the abortion question. And the right answer is that allowing women to make the decision for themselves over the value of the fetus they carry is the highest regard for humanity.
Which is ultimately the more moral position?
The pro-choice one. Do I need to explain why again? I don’t really feel like it. Try to keep up here.
Once again you demonstrate an ignorance of both the law and legal analysis.
Criminal law isn’t subjective. Whether a defendant is guilty of manslaughter isn’t something for the the mother of an un-born child to determine.
You’re still missing the point. What I’m saying is that if a pregnant mother is carrying a fetus to term that she values that fetus as if it were a born human and would expect anyone who killed that fetus to be tried for murder.
The crime is against the people, hence the caption of the case: The People of the State of Washington vs. John Doe.
This doesn’t refute anything I wrote in the above comment in any way. When animal cruelty cases are tried, it’s the same thing, and whether or not those cases are tried is often influenced by whether the animals in question meant something to particular people.
The opinion of the mother is irrelevent in a criminal action. Under your analysis, a defendant in a manslaughter case could beat the rap by showing the mother had pro-abortion beliefs.
Absolutely not. You’re misinterpreting what I’m saying. Whether or not a woman has “pro-abortion” beliefs is irrelevant. A woman can have “pro-abortion” beliefs and still value a child and carry it to term. That’s the key distinction here.
Under your theory, a woman who’s pro-abortion is under no legal obligation to safeguard the child growing in her body, while a woman who’s pro-life does.
Again, please try to understand my argument before you try to refute it. You’re way the hell out in left field right now. And even a person who’s pro-life doesn’t have a legal obligation to safeguard the child growing her body (does the state have the right to force her to eat healthier foods?).
It’s not up to the mother to decide the applicability of RCW 9a. The people of the State of Washington through their legislative representatives have determined that the killing of an unborn child due to harm inflicted upon the mother is manslaughter irrespective of the opinions or beliefs of the mother.
And what I’m saying is that if a woman is pregnant, I have no problem with the law assuming that they plan to carry that fetus to term in any case where the fetus is killed unwantonly by a third-party. You’ve TOTALLY missed my point here.
Since that’s the case, in the event of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which will eventually happen just as Plessy v. Ferguson was overturned and Dred Scott was rendered moot by the Civil War and the 13th Amendment, what would prevent the people of the State of Washington through their legislative representatives from making a similar determination that terminating the life of an un-born child is a criminal act?
The fact that when it comes down to it, only about 25% of Americans are anti-choice (but many mistakenly think they’re pro-life until they actually realize what it is). Even if Roe v. Wade is overturned, it would be impossible to make abortion illegal in this state. Even in South Dakota, the people rose up and rejected their Governor’s attempt to ban it.
Let’s say Roe is overturned, and, say, Nevada passes such a law. What then for you?
I stand with the people trying to overturn an unjust law (not too different than what I try to do with unjust drug laws today).
You review and slam books you don’t read, you render opinions on law you don’t understand, and you pass moral judgment when you have none yourself.
When I’m wrong about something, you’ll have a point. Until then, I think I’ll keep making you look like an idiot (which is not terribly hard).
@129
Maybe I Lee’s right. Maybe I am the dumbest motherfucker.
It’s the first thing you’ve said that makes sense. Did you really just claim in comment #127 that the New Yorker magazine debunked evolution?
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
@130
124: Since we’ve put the socialism back in National Socialism, and since Hitler and Stalin governed as centralizing statist socialists, and since socialism always fails in the end, we’re back where we began, with a book you didn’t read but about which you spew a simulation of knowledge.
Except that you’ve also shown that both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush were socialists too (by your definition).
Roe was a crock, a travesty, a product of fashionably progressive left-wing fascism. If the Bush-Roberts Court knocks Roe down tomorrow, your rights are enhanced, not abrogated, because complex social policy would revert to state adjudication where the complex policy was being thrashed out before Blackmun wrote his goofy decision.
I’m even ok with “gay” “marriage” and with mpg standards being legislated by the states, tho there are many clear reasons for the federal imposition of uniform standards of marriage and miles. There were and are no clear reasons for ‘federalizing’ the approval of infanticide.
Bush. The most-admired man in America. Again. Must make you wretches retch.
Bush beat out his closest competitor, the Miss-Congeniality runner-up, Bill Clinton, by a 10 point spread. Wait for Clinton to demand a recount, but only in certifiably left-wing loon counties like ours.
@126…Lee…
Forced abortions? How about covering up statutory rape? Take a listen to: http://www.childpredators.com/Clip8.m3u
Isn’t it special how a whole coterie of Planned Parenthood types arm-twist a 13-year old girl into coming in for an abortion while giving her tools to hide the fact that the father is…a…22…year…old…man.
The gist of it is that the PP sink suckers aren’t interested in protecting this child from being raped by a man as much as they are killing another child.
What a progressive bunch they are! Aren’t you proud that you support this?
The Piper
Look. I’m a little (a lot) tweaked about Baby Bush spending like a liberally drunken Democrat. It’s a point I made loudly in 2002 when BUSH LIED about the exorbitant cost of his Medicare drugs. There’s no evidence that Bush lied during or about his interminable rush to war with Iraq, but he lied about drugs and costs. That’s why we deserved to lose in 2006. End of story.
Reagan’s military build-up was no more socialistic than JFK’s, and had infinitely better results. Dope-addict JFK started wars he couldn’t win or end. Reagan won every time, except in his war with the socialist Education Dept. He threatened to abolish it. Like Castro outlasting Kennedy, Dept of Ed outlasted Reagan. Dammit.
134: Very good catch. For PP that’s SOP. Over & over again.
Check out early 2006 issues of Atlantic Monthly, Caitlin Flanagan’s essay (and subsequent letters) about PP’s pedo-predatory teen abortion program and about its fashionable left-wing obliviousness to statutory rape.
Well, Reagan won … almost every time. There was unpleasantness at Beirut, with an unseemly retreat. Even Cap the Knife admitted that 200+ Marines in body bags was a disastrous loss.
Piper, you still don’t get it that you can’t be an advocate for liberty out of one side of your mouth and an anti-abortion zealot out of the other.
I get it that you’re against abortion. Good for you! Don’t have any, it’s all the same to me. It’s when you want to tell a stranger what to do with her pregnancy that you cross the line. It’s anti-liberty!
And oh by the way, you never answered me the last time I asked: What penalty would you impose on a woman who had an abortion if it were criminalized? Is it manslaughter? Murder? A hanging offense?
Inquiring minds want to know!
“Did you really just claim in comment #127 that the New Yorker magazine debunked evolution …?”
No. I just claimed that the article pushes an evo-agnostic like me off the fence. Microevolution? Been down with that since we can almost see it happening.
Macroevolution with intimations of common descent? Not so much, because transitional species just aren’t there unless they’re pasted together like the archeoraptor fake that National Geographic fell for a few years ago.
But while macro-transition species still aren’t there, even 150 years after Darwin’s book, the transition evidence is hiding deep in retrovirology. Case closed.
@125 Pipe Scott
Unlike Lee, I usualy ignore you. If you care why, it is because I neve rlearn anything when I read your posts. The issues is NOT R vs. L, the issue is your willingness to state as facts what you like and ignore science. Frankly, if you knew more you would be a he;ll of a lotm ore effective in areguing with Lee.
Here are a few simle facts in regard to abortion:
1. the sperm plus egg .. that is the zygote, is NOT a unque moment in life. MOST zygotes fail to progress becasue they are not viable .. lacking some property se4lcted against during the processes of implantation and early development.
THEREFORE By your logic we ought to spend mega bucks fxing this massive loss of life. It can be done by selctive abortion and application of methods to “save” these defectigve lives. .. YOU WANNA GO THERE?
2. the late term”abortion” outlawed by the Bush court HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH BABY KILLING! The court actually legalized killing full term fetuses .. viable abaies in your terms … by dictating to doctors how they could and could not kill the fetus. YOU WANNA GO THERE?
3. Each newborn baby has a finite probability of developing one of several diseases that can now be cured if we maintain a stem cell clone of that person. Of curse this is OK by your standards since the clone is just more cells of the same person. YOU WANNA GO THERE?
4. Finding miscellaneous studies is not proof of anything. It is all too easy to make the reverse argument by pointing out that far greater efforts at protecting child welfare in traditional aborting scoeities … Sweden, Germany, than life protecting societies.. Italy, Spain, Saudi Arabia.
What I note is that the same folks who are antipathetic to choice seem to also be against free kindergarten. Is there a connection?
On the other hand if you want to argue with Lee about who has rights over a fetus, let me donate some ammo (sorry Lee).
1. Genetically any conceptus is the product of both parents. Aside form the obvious health reasons, there is no idealistic or scientific reason to make a distinction that gives the mother rights the father should not alos have. Personally, I do not believe in the untrammeled right of choice … but to make this meaningful we need laws with real teeth assigning paternal responsibilities.
2. The moment of birth is not magical nor are intellecual changes that happen post partum unique. Since modern medicine makes ost third trimestre fetuses viable, if we allow late term choice, then I can not see any easy logical argument against infanticide. Given reasonable choice in the first trimestre, it seems to me that there is an obligation to the person/fetus in the third trimester to do all that is possible to protect its life.
BTW Lee, Helen Keller came close to your sensual deprivation argument. She did, of course have some senses .. touch, proprioception, temperature, pain, smell, time of day?. Would your thought experiment deprive the being off all these too? We also know that adults can survive w/o there senses for a long time.
Personally, I would go further than you by NOT respecting the moment of birth. It seems to me that there are times throughout our lives when there are rational choices to be made about death. I would only want tio be sure we make these decisions … from the third trimestre to the end of life very carefully.
One good criterion is the difference between an person, person able to understand death vs. life, vs a person not able to make the distinction. That helps distinguish adult choices .. e.g. voluntary suicide, form decisions of those who can not decide. At the other edn, a potential life, is very different form one that has had experiences. A throd trimestre person or a newborn who I know is going to have a terrible life .. e.g. microcephaly, can .. it seems to me .. be sentenced to death because they will never be able to make that choice on their own.
Sorry for the cold language folks, but I find it is easier to be blunt. The biggest p0roblme, it seems to e is with our legalistic society. WHO do we trust with such onerous decisions?
@131…Lee…
“And even a person who’s pro-life doesn’t have a legal obligation to safeguard the child growing her body (does the state have the right to force her to eat healthier foods?).”
You sure you want to make such a bald assertion without doing a little research?
Legal trends are moving toward holding a mother accountable for behaviors while pregnant that harm the child.
http://advocatesforpregnantwom....._child.php
cf., McKnight v. South Carolina, cert. denied USSCt 2003
And it’s beneath contempt, especially to any mother who has carried a child only to lose it through no fault of her own, for you to continually dismiss the un-born fetus as nothing more than something akin to an animal.
Pretty obvious to me that you’re not a parent…nor should you be one…if that’s all the regard you have for the living, growing, developing human being that’s in a mother’s womb.
The Piper
South Dakota was a test. It represented an absolutist position (no exceptions for anything) that only a minority of Americans approve. Most of us can see grey. And most of us, a vast majority of Americans, do not support the extremist absolutist leftist position that abortion should be unrestricted, that the rights of infanticide are absolute.
The Left lied about partial-birth infanticide (claiming it was never done, and then claiming it was rarely done, and then claiming it was done often but was never elective, and then claiming it was rarely elective) and America got tired of your lies. Most Americans are pro-life (most of the time) and pro-truth.
@140…Steve…
I respect your academic and scientific achievements, from which I’m sure I can learn something.
I don’t respect your narrow minded assertion that you learn nothing from me; try opening your eyes to a world outside left-oriented academia.
You analyze almost exclusively through a test tube or a microscope, yet life is infinitely greater than mere numbers or zygotes.
How many DeVinci’s, Einstein’s, Churchill’s, or even Brian Wilson’s have we as a society allowed to be destroyed all in the name of some made-up right of choice? Of course, some would say that criminals have also been aborted, but on that score, I’m willing to take the risk.
Human life is precious, and innocent human life even more so. Yet I don’t see any pro-abortion types doing anything other than being blase about killing the un-born.
How soon before you get on board the post-birth euthanasia bandwagon? Like the Church of England cleric in this news article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pag.....ge_id=1770
“The Church of England has broken with tradition dogma by calling for doctors to be allowed to let sick newborn babies die.
Christians have long argued that life should preserved at all costs – but a bishop representing the national church has now sparked controversy by arguing that there are occasions when it is compassionate to leave a severely disabled child to die.
And the Bishop of Southwark, Tom Butler, who is the vice chair of the Church of England’s Mission and Public Affairs Council, has also argued that the high financial cost of keeping desperately ill babies alive should be a factor in life or death decisions.
The shock new policy from the church has caused outrage among the disabled.”
The term “slippery slope” is often misused and abused, but on this issue had there been no slippery abortion slope, there wouldn’t be even a discussion of the legitimacy of infanticide, let alone some idiot clergyman doing a pounds and pence financial analysis to justify it.
And then there’s always good, old Princeton Prof. Peter Singer, who finds nothing wrong at all with killing imperfect children after they’re born.
Read him and weep at: http://www.princeton.edu/~psinger/
“Q. You have been quoted as saying: “Killing a defective infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Sometimes it is not wrong at all.” Is that quote accurate?
A. It is accurate, but can be misleading if read without an understanding of what I mean by the term “person” (which is discussed in Practical Ethics, from which that quotation is taken). I use the term “person” to refer to a being who is capable of anticipating the future, of having wants and desires for the future. As I have said in answer to the previous question, I think that it is generally a greater wrong to kill such a being than it is to kill a being that has no sense of existing over time. Newborn human babies have no sense of their own existence over time. So killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living. That doesn’t mean that it is not almost always a terrible thing to do. It is, but that is because most infants are loved and cherished by their parents, and to kill an infant is usually to do a great wrong to its parents.
Sometimes, perhaps because the baby has a serious disability, parents think it better that their newborn infant should die. Many doctors will accept their wishes, to the extent of not giving the baby life-supporting medical treatment. That will often ensure that the baby dies. My view is different from this, only to the extent that if a decision is taken, by the parents and doctors, that it is better that a baby should die, I believe it should be possible to carry out that decision, not only by withholding or withdrawing life-support – which can lead to the baby dying slowly from dehydration or from an infection – but also by taking active steps to end the baby’s life swiftly and humanely.”
http://www.princeton.edu/~psinger/faq.html
Isn’t Prof. Singer especially progressive?
So much for the B.S. that passes for “thinking” among many academics.
“Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals could believe them.” Michael Levine.
The Piper
Piper .. typical post
1. Because I am a scientist, you diss my FEELINGS!!! Puhleezzz…. Do you really think that knowing the facts disables morality??? Who would you rather trust, GW Bush, the ignorant POTUS, or Al Gore? Youi want to diagree with Algore? Fine, he will fight you with facts. GW? He appeals t his imaginary God.
Look back at my post. I TRIED to give yu some ammunition for a more robust attack on Lee. When he says it is a woman’s right that comes first until birth, Lee is kindly giving you something to fight over on equal turf. He has no magic book ath says something special happens at birth anymore tyhan you have one that can identify a soul in a zygote.
2. Science OUGHT ot be the beginning for anyone who actually cares about life or morality at all.
3. My reason for dissing you is that you seem unwilling to do the work that Lee, esp does. As one who trysts with him, one thing I always respect is that lee answers form a major effort to KNOW facts. Put another way, when he and I disagree I expect to learn something.
If you want to be more than a bore, do some3 effin work!
Here is an example:
You argue that permitting abortion leads to child abuse. The you go out on the web and find a study that says what you want? Why the f should that interest me? I can find studies on the web that claim to prove the spped of light is infinite, that Darwin evolved form a demon, etc.
Another example is asserting that a conceptus is “life.” What the f do you mean? The first 1 cell ancestor of us all is no more a person that nay other cell in aqn adult man. When I shave I discard far more information than a conceptus has. Do you want me to save my Gillette and send it to you so its sanctity can be preserved? (Admission .. I once saved my toe clippings …not sure why. I gave u after a while.). If YOU want to claim a coneptus is life, spend some time thinking or reading about this. Otherwise why in Ahuru Mazda’s world should I care what oyu feel about abortion?
@144…Steve…
Science can either enhance or limit; you’re letting it limit. Science isn’t the beginning of morality. It is, instead, an amoral exercise that can just as easily be used for bad as it can for good.
Consider the possibility that there are empirically unprovable laws above science that can be ascertained only by faith. Consider further, then attempt to prove scientifically, Jefferson’s words:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…”
You can’t, because they’re ethical, political, moral, and, indeed, spiritual truths well outside of and above the limits of science.
Both you and Lee live in a cocoon out of which it would do you some good to break. For example, you failed to address the moral questions posed by Prof. Singer, an academic like you, and Bishop Butler that it’s perfectly OK to kill children who aren’t perfect.
Square up, Steve, is that a concept you find empirically acceptable or morally reprehensible?
Where I live, abortion is child abuse…it’s the ultimate in child abuse. When you track the numbers of reported cases of child abuse since 1973, the trend is up. Can you link them definitively and empirically to the easy availability of abortion? No, you can’t. But only a fool ignores the obvious, and only the blind refuse to see the truth.
I work a lot with engineers in enhancing their careers. Engineers, scientists, and techies all share similar limitations. For the most part, they’re devoid of the intuitive sense inherent in artists, poets, and philosophers. They seek to measure the immeasurable and reconcile the irreconcilable; they have no sense of their own finite limitations, which are profound.
Of course, the occassional one breaks free of the bonds of one and one must always equal two, but he or she is the exception, not the rule. The honest among them have no difficulty admitting this, hence they leave matters of truth and morality to those more qualified to address them.
Remember, the scientific minds of their day believed the earth to be flat. What so-called scientific “truths” of today are flat as well? In 10-years, what enlightened absolutes of the scientific community will be leisure-suited into oblivion? When it’s discovered that a gasbag opportunistic politician cooked the books in order to sell books or take away your freedoms and mine?
In short, the Al Gore I remember is the tobacco choppin’ faux cracker who titillated Naomi Wolf in his role as the Alpha Male of the left. He’s a humbug and a conniving politician. And the debate isn’t over.
Why should anything I say interest you? That’s up to you, I suppose, but let me offer this: Mine is a perspective about which you’re pretty ignorant – this goes for Lee, too – and you dismiss it not because you’re aware of it, but, instead, because that which you do not understand confounds you. In short, it’s outside the limited box within which you’ve allowed yourself to be cloistered.
Science is your small “g” god, and you worship only that which can be proven in the lab. That is a very narrow perspective indeed.
I believe in miracles that confound human wisdom, do you? If you don’t, then how do you explain joy, love, beauty, the sense of awe at hearing Mozart, seeing Michaelangelo, reading Shakespeare? Such esthetic experiences are so far above the limits of the white lab coat as to render any comparison useless.
Human life and its essence ranks even above them. And the miracle of birth heads that list. My offer of proof for this statement is the indescribable joy I felt at the birth of my first two children – twin sons – and the near-inconsolable grief I felt when one of them died after only three days of life.
Per Prof. Singer and Bishop Butler, it would have been no skin off anyone’s nose to have euthanized him given the profound damage done his brain by his premature birth. Had they tried, however, I would have shot them dead.
This is an issue central to where I live. You can at least respect that.
The Piper
Lee: I see the idiot gene appeared. Take a deep breath and read carefully.
You posted a link refuting a statement I placed above about Hitler and guns. In this link it talked about the brown shirts. The brown shirts were the early group later called the Hitler Youth. So your link agrees with my Hitler Youth comment. I see you can’t follow a thread either.
I didn’t know you had the same disease infesting Clueless Gooberfool’s single brain cell. He can’t follow threads either.
Lee@51: Your link you used to try discredit my Hitler and guns link does not cover anything in the mid-1930s which is what I referred to in Puddybud@43. Yes, you can’t follow a link.
So you need to refer to a new link because your link does nothing to refute Germany in the mid 1930s.
Clueless Gooberfool: Did you write something important?
The jury returns. The jury foreman announces, we the jury while reviewing Clueless Gooberfool’s comment #55 has determined it’s another adventure in complete gibberish. We looked into Clueless Gooberfool’s eyes and viewed neon flashing lights saying “Space Available Here”.
Clueless Gooberfool: Lee didn’t refute me. His URL quoted does not cover the mid 1930s period. And his link agrees with the Brown Shirts which became The Hitler Youth Movement. Did you read the link Clueless Gooberfool?
152 – Ok I followed the link – what a bunch of mindless batshit insane garbage. Meir Kahane a saint? Later on it calls Sharon a traitor!
Fuck! You are nuts to hold this shit out as support for any argument.
But we all knew that already.
So Lee@59: You worried about being named an enemy combatant? What was Jose Padilla doing that was special? Why he named as such? What was John Walker Lindh doing that was special?
Will you be taking special training at strange overseas sites?
How will their status be conferred to you? I’ll wait!
From the 4th Amendment link, which of those apply to the Patriot Act?
Clueless Gooberfool@152: Glad to see you know your name. Did you read my other link and Lee’s link? Show me where the time from 1932-1936 was discussed in Lee’s link?
Clueless Gooberfool@86: Yeah, I remember Pelletizer telling us the AMT would affect Millionaires. I proved the assertion to be really false!
Maybe he meant Goldy’s Minionaires.
Piper: Faith does not trump reason. Where reason falters doubt and theory prevail. Someone like yourself marching in where no one really knows and proclaiming that your faith shows you the truth is the basest sort of shaman flimflammery.
@156…IK…
Faith doesn’t trump reason, it transcends it. There are some places rationality cannot go, and it’s there faith takes over.
To not believe this requires an act of faith on your part.
The Piper
Piper: I applaud you on taking these leftist idiots on with the abortion issue. I agree with your assertions and have placed these here many times. I even asked about Old Testament times why did God tell the Israelites to kill the pregnant mothers. It was pure gibberish from these leftist morons. I have come to the conclusion I support donkoinfanticide. Donko – the culling of lefties.
So go forth lefties and continue to cull yourselves.
Piper,
To be perfectly honest, I’m having difficult grasping exactly what your point of view is. You’ve rejected an epistemology that attempts to derive knowledge using sound reasoning based on assumptions that reflect observed reality (or, at the very least, don’t contradict observed reality), but, having rejected that epistemology, exactly what do you put in its place? How do you decide what is and is not true.
Terrorist,
Fuck off.
@159…DJ…
Take your blinders off, open your mind to a new perspective, and accept the fact that you’re not the know-it-all you think you are.
Just because you can’t see, touch, taste, smell, or hear it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. You’re as much a product of the notion of blind faith as am I. The difference between us is that I’m willing to accept that where I leave off, faith begins. You, on the other hand, can’t get beyond your own self, so you take it on faith that nothing exists outside your notions of “sound reasoning,” “observed reality,” etc.
In short, you take on faith that there is no faith.
More’s the pity for you.
The Piper
Piper,
Take your blinders off, open your mind to a new perspective, and accept the fact that you’re not the know-it-all you think you are.
Exactly what blinders do I have, Piper? Having never actually tested my open-mindedness, how do you conclude that I have any blinders? Do you presume I’ve never investigated any one of a variety of faith-based epistemologies, and rejected those points of view for reasons I might be able to articulate?
More importantly, if you cannot tell me how you decide between truth and falsehood, I simply have no way of knowing exactly what your point of view is. Frankly, I don’t think you know either. There are a lot of cues to that, and I’d be more than happy to outline them if you wish.
@147
Why should anything I say interest you? That’s up to you, I suppose, but let me offer this: Mine is a perspective about which you’re pretty ignorant – this goes for Lee, too – and you dismiss it not because you’re aware of it, but, instead, because that which you do not understand confounds you.
No, Crackpiper. We understand you perfectly. The reason nothing you says interests us (beyond its comedic value of course) is because we care about logic and science enough to know that even though science can be used for evil sometimes, it’s still the most efficient path to the truth. Not everything in life has been scientifically explored, but it’s not worth listening to someone who believes that there are methods other than science that are better for divining truth.
I don’t always agree with Steve, but he and I both use science to back up our opinions. We tend to disagree about various logical breakdowns, but I respect his opinion because there’s a rational basis for it. When you make claims based upon gut feelings, as you did in trying to claim that abortion has increased child abuse, it’s clear to me (and everyone else) that you don’t give a crap about what’s real, only what you want to believe.
Man you lefties amaze me. You claim everything is based on science and you forget one of the world’s most preeminent scientists believed in God – Sir Issac Newton. If you scientists remember, Mr Scientist Newton discovered all these before he reached 30 years with his God given talent.
1) The binomial theorem
2) Calculus
3) Gravitational law – remember the falling apple
4) He added these words to our daily lexicon – inertia, momentum and acceleration and he delivered precise calculations
5) Three Laws of Motion
6) Light and it’s composite nature – white light is the full color spectrum
7) The foundations of modern astronomy and physics
8) Explained how the center bulge of the earth produced the equinoxes
9) Proved the date of Christ’s Crucifixion
He believed that God created everything. BTW you lefties Newton believed God created the Bible. Oh no… Lee and Steve. He believed that the Bible was true in every respect. He continually tested the physical truths of experimentation and theoretic science against Bible truths. He wrote he never observed a contradiction between God and science. Google this. Newton’s wrote his beliefs that his scientific work reinforced all Biblical truths. While he didn’t come out and say abortion is wrong, if he was confronted about it he’d take Piper and my view as a God fearing Christian.
His book: “Observations on the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John, was published in 1733”
From his book: “For the Gospel must first be preached in all nations before the great tribulation, and end of the world. The palm-bearing multitude, which came out of this great tribulation, cannot be innumerable out of all nations unless they be made so by the preaching of the Gospel before it comes. There must be a stone cut of the mountain without hands, before it can fall on the toes of the Image, and become a great mountain and fill the earth. An Angel must fly through the midst of heaven with the everlasting Gospel to preach to all nations, before Babylon falls, and the Son of man reaps his harvest. The two prophets must ascend up to heaven in a cloud, before the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of Christ.”
“Daniel was in the greatest credit amongst the Jews, till the reign of the Roman Emperor Hadrian. And to reject his prophecies, is to reject the Christian religion. For this religion is founded upon his prophecy concerning the Messiah.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I.....ious_views is a good reference but some of the article dates are wrong.
@161 & 162…DJ & Lee…
That you both reject out of hand anything that is outside your own realm of experience tells me that your not genuinely curious about that which you have no knowledge.
Truth in the natural sense – water boils at a certain temperature – is capable of being determined scientifically, but the truth of the beauty of an expanse of water is not.
How do you logically and scientifically prove the truth of a mother’s love? Does your inability to do it mean that it doesn’t exist?
You’re prisoners of and limited by a hubris that demands the worship of created things rather than their creator. That you both don’t bother to conceal your contempt for any opinion or value system save your own tells me you’re also bigoted against opposing points of view.
Not all reality is observable by you, so, in your pantheon of beliefs, such reality must not exist.
Baloney!
“It’s not worth listening to someone who believes that there are methods other than science that are better for divining truth.” What a foolish statement, and one that cavalierly dismisses every religion in the history of the world and every believer in every religion who’s lived since the beginning of time.
I suppose I shouldn’t expect anything better or more enlightened from either of you, but I will ask the question:
Do you believe in God?
You can’t prove His existence or lack thereof scientifically, ergo you must take it as an act of faith.
Do you believe in faith – being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see? In anything? Aside from your uncritical and blind faith in the perfection and infallibility of science and logic, that is. You can’t prove faith scientifically or reason it logically, you either have it or you don’t.
Oh…both of you continue to dodge addressing the morality of Prof. Singer and Bishop Butler and their belief that killing imperfect children after birth is OK.
Both of them use “science” and “logic” to justify their belief, so, in your value system, that must make it moral.
Is it moral? Or is it murder?
You both seem willing to bend over backward as apologists for abortion, which is typical of your specie, yet the trends in public opinion and law show an increasing unease with it.
See http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.....-abortion/
See also Gonzales v. Carhart, 550 U.S._____(2007).
The Gonzales case raises an interesting ethical question: Partial birth abortion…can you justify it scientifically or logically? Or does the practice repel you morally?
How do you respond to men and women of science – physicians – who oppose abortion? Go here http://www.physiciansforlife.o.....ew/862/26/ and read their opinions, study their data, then call them stupid like you call me.
Reasonable people can disagree, but reasonable people disagree with respect. Small-minded knee-jerk reactionists simply refuse to engage points of view or thinking outside their limited perspective.
Think on this.
The Piper
I decided to Google “Results 1 – 10 of about 210,000 for Well known Scientists who believed in God”.
http://scottdaddy.wordpress.co.....ed-in-god/
Amazing how the scientific foundations used today are rejected by todays “enlightened scientists”!
Remember Einstein said: “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”
Clueless Gooberfool (YLB) I know Murdoch/Scaife didn’t know Einstein!
Well, Puddy, let’s start with the premise that the Bible is 100% true in every respect. How many different Christian sects are there? Does not each one of them claim to have the only correct understanding of the Bible? How do you know that your particular sect got it right?
I’ve had several chats with a former pastor for one of the area’s United Churches of Christ. The man is very liberal in his views, and very much a believer in Christ and in the Bible. What makes him wrong and you correct?
Not speaking for Steve or Lee, an acceptance of the truths that science uncovers about our world does not require one to reject God and religion entirely. It does require rejecting certain religious interpretations, but that gets us back to the questions I asked in the first paragraph.
Allow me to make a slight digression into geometry, because it illustrates an important concept when we start talking about notions of truth. A mathematical fact that we all learned in grade school is that the sum of the interior angles of a triangle is always equal to 180 degrees. So, let’s take a mental journey. Start at the North Pole. Go south a ways, then turn 90 degrees to the left. Go east a ways, then turn 90 degrees to the left. Go north until you return back to the north pole. You’ve just walked a triangle, and made two 90 degree turns. How can that be possible?
The error that you and Piper both make is that you reach conclusions before you’ve come to understand all the facts. Indeed, you each spend a great deal of time looking for facts trying to justify those foregone conclusions rather than spending time testing those foregone conclusions against new information.
I really had to chuckle at Piper’s claim that I believe myself to be a know-it-all. The truth is quite the opposite. I don’t know it all, which means that nearly every conclusion I’ve ever reached is tentative and open to being rejected in light of new information and experience. If you want to make the same claim, you’ll have to provide cogent answers to the questions I’ve asked above.
To return this to the subject of the thread, allow me to toss out a thought. First, let’s presume that there is, indeed, a soul present at the moment of conception–that a fetus is a person from the get-go. It should also be readily apparent that, as long as the fetus is in the woman’s womb, the life of that fetus is an issue of health both for the fetus itself and for the woman.
The question is: does it not run contrary to every conservative principle about government to demand that our legislatures carve out some area wherein the state chooses to interfere with the woman’s decisions about her own health and that of her unborn baby?
Is it not possible, and entirely consistent with conservative principles, to hold that abortion itself is, indeed, morally reprehensible, yet still believe that our government has no business interfering with a woman’s right to make decisions about her own health in light of consultations with a competent physician?
Piper,
Every time I get out of bed in the morning, I exercise faith. Every time I get in my car and drive to work, I exercise faith. I exercise faith on a daily basis in my work, and my work involves logic in its extreme.
Faith is something we exercise when we lack sufficient information to reach a sound conclusion on an issue, yet we still must make a decision on that issue. Faith is not something to be used to discard information that runs counter to a conclusion we’ve already reached.
Spencer Ackerman has been laying the beat-down on the Doughy Pantload. It’s devastating:
http://toohotfortnr.blogspot.com/
By the way, Piper, not everything an academic or scientist writes is worthy of consideration by mere virtue of the fact that the person who wrote it is a scientist or an academic. To accept that notion is to fall prey to the fallacy of an appeal to authority. That is not science.
I believe I’ve already discussed, in another thread, how Milton Friedman, himself, fell prey to reaching unsound conclusions about government involvement in the economy the moment he stepped outside the boundaries of sound Economic inquiry.
To answer your specific question about Prof. Singer, he’s entitled to his opinion. I can’t say I’d go so far as to accept his conclusions, because I haven’t considered his argument to make a sufficiently reasonably determination about his assumptions and principles. Frankly, I’m not all interested in doing so, because the stuff you’re quoting isn’t science. It’s not even something that’s been subjected to any form of peer review. It’s just one man’s opinion, and worth no more or less than any other man’s opinion regardless of how many letters he can put after his name.
@167…DJ…
You still haven’t answered the questions I posed, especially about Prof. Singer and Bishop Butler…
You skirt the issues and play your games and tout your wares…nevertheless, Emperor Don Joe, your new clothes aren’t impressive.
The Piper
@170
Sorry, Piper, but I thought I’d answered those questions, particularly as of 169. Is there some specific question you feel hasn’t been answered in general terms?
As for my clothes, I’ve never been one to go for outward appearances. Frankly, I don’t think God does either. Do you?
@169…DJ…
OK…so you won’t come out and say that killing a child born with defects is morally wrong? That you won’t allows a reasonable observer to infer that you must, then, be willing to accept Singer’s fundamental premise.
Either you do, or you don’t…which is it?
Questions such as the one posed by Singer’s position shouldn’t require ponderous “thought;” issues of life and death are immediate and demand immediate answers.
That you claim not to have considered his arguments or have no interest in doing so tells me that you aren’t morally offended by even considering the killing of children.
Which is it? Does it offend your moral sensibilities or not?
The Piper
Piper,
Apparently, I’m not allowed to reserve judgement on the issue. OK. For now, at least, I’m inclined to think that killing children is morally wrong. On the other hand, I’m not so sanguine about my own moral compass as to say that killing children is always morally wrong under any circumstances. That is a conclusion that’s open to revision in light of new information.
What makes the question so important to you that it demands an answer right here and now? Well, other than that you seem to think that you can score some rhetorical points by it.
By the way, I note that you’ve not deigned to answer any of the questions I asked Puddy @166. Consider yourself asked. What say you?
Let me add just a bit to my remarks at 173. I think there are a number of cases where parents are forced to make some moral decisions that are extremely difficult to make. I am thankful that my wife and I have never had to make those decisions, but I’m also not entirely prepared to say that one decision or another made in light of some difficult moral trade-offs is either right or wrong.
So, here’s the question of the flip side: if you believe in God, isn’t God quite capable of sorting all of those issues out in light of what’s in people’s minds and hearts? Why does the state have to get involved?
Well, Puddy, let’s start with the premise that the Bible is 100% true in every respect. How many different Christian sects are there?
Don Joe: There are many hundreds
Does not each one of them claim to have the only correct understanding of the Bible?
Don Joe: Do they keep the full 10 Commandments and the Golden Rule? I say not many keep the 10 Commandments
How do you know that your particular sect got it right?
Don Joe: See answer above.
I’ve had several chats with a former pastor for one of the area’s United Churches of Christ. The man is very liberal in his views, and very much a believer in Christ and in the Bible. What makes him wrong and you correct?
Don Joe: The Seventh-day Adventist Church, True Jesus Church, such as Seventh Day Baptists and Seventh Day Churches of God keep the true Sabbath.
http://www.amightywind.com/wol.....hanged.htm
@173…DJ…
Moral relativism! How preposterous! You won’t even come out and condemn infanticide for the crime against humanity that it is, then you have the gall to tell me that there’s no connection between abortion on demand and child abuse?
Crap…which is about as close as I’ll get to low-intellect use of cuss words!
So…was the murder of the two young children on Christmas Eve in Carnation morally wrong, or do you want to reserve judgment on that, too?
Does it matter that Prof. Singer’s POV is, under the criminal law, a form of murder? Are you, then, willing to argue that, given the “right” circumstances, murder is justifiable?
If you can justify one by parsing the language and hiding behind “science” and “logic,” then why not 6,000,000?
As for the questions you asked Puddy, from the get-go you demonstrate a complete misunderstanding of Christian theology and denominational differences.
For example, you falsely state about denominations: “Does not each one of them claim to have the only correct understanding of the Bible?”
Asking such a question tells me you don’t interact much with people of faith. If you did, you’d have enough information to not ask such a foundationally preposterous question. Different denominations speak to different expressions of faith, and the truth or falsity of their doctrine isn’t based upon what they think, but upon whether they’re in alignment with the Bible.
Isn’t that an objective standard?
There are scores of issues upon which people of faith can reasonably disagree or even adopt a personal expresion of belief, hence different forms of worship and application of teaching for different people.
Your interpretation of “conservative principles” also shows a singular ignorance of them. Consider: I’m pro-life, believing that human life begins at conception, hence I oppose abortion and believe that innocent life deserves legal protection, a position in the mainstream of conservative thought.
I also believe, as a conservative, that it’s immoral for the state to take the property of one and redistribute it to another all in the name of some amorphous and subjective notion of equity or “justice.” Theft is theft. If you study the history of American independence, you see a strong strain of property rights thinking, something many on the left conveniently ignore these days.
Still…let’s get back to the real issue: do you have a moral conscience or not? If someone came to you today and asked whether it’s OK to kill a new born who has birth defects, what would you say?
The question envisions a yes or no answer, which isn’t all that tough…is it right…or is it wrong?
Viscerally, in your gut and in your heart, what’s the answer?
The Piper
@ 175
Um… You’ve listed four different sects as meeting your criteria. Since they’re different sects, they don’t all interpret the Bible the same way. Again, I ask, how do you know which is correct?
The error that you and Piper both make is that you reach conclusions before you’ve come to understand all the facts. Indeed, you each spend a great deal of time looking for facts trying to justify those foregone conclusions rather than spending time testing those foregone conclusions against new information.
Don Joe: Ummmm… not true. The Universe created by God is a fact. Old time scientists agreed to this principle. It’s the Darwin trained ones who reject it today.
Today 4 out 10 scientists believe in God yet you never hear or read this in the news. http://www.guardian.co.uk/scie.....e.research
Oh Darn I used another Murdoch/Scaife based paper. Clueless Gooberfool will discount it.
Don Joe: Jesus confronted the disciples when they met a man driving out Demons:
Luke 9:49-50
[49] “Master,” said John, “we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we tried to stop him, because he is not one of us.”
[50] “Do not stop him,” Jesus said, “for whoever is not against you is for you.”
So religions who finally come to keeping all the commandments come to the crux of the matter:
Rev 14:12 Here is the patience of the saints: here [are] they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.
Piper,
Moral relativism! How preposterous! You won’t even come out and condemn infanticide for the crime against humanity that it is, then you have the gall to tell me that there’s no connection between abortion on demand and child abuse?
You seem to have ignored my point at 174. Let me put it in slightly different terms. Sitting in judgement of other people’s choices under difficult moral circumstances isn’t my job. It’s God’s job. Last I knew, God doesn’t really appreciate it all that much when we humans attempt to usurp God’s prerogatives.
Does that mean I don’t have a moral compass? I wouldn’t think so. It only means that I not so arrogant as to think that my moral compass should decide what other people should do, which is why, at a very fundamental level, I believe the state has no business trying to legislate morality on issues where there is no clear-cut answer.
Still…let’s get back to the real issue: do you have a moral conscience or not? If someone came to you today and asked whether it’s OK to kill a new born who has birth defects, what would you say?
The question envisions a yes or no answer, which isn’t all that tough…is it right…or is it wrong?
First, I believe I’ve already answered the question in general terms. And, no, the question doesn’t envision a yes or no answer under all circumstances. Or do you simply deny, for purposes of rhetorical convenience, that some circumstances are capable of presenting difficult moral choices even when it comes to the life of a child?
Lastly, with regard to different Christian denominations, you state:
Different denominations speak to different expressions of faith, and the truth or falsity of their doctrine isn’t based upon what they think, but upon whether they’re in alignment with the Bible.
Your answer is circular. How do you determine whether or not a given doctrine is in “alignment” with the Bible?
Allow me to make a slight digression into geometry, because it illustrates an important concept when we start talking about notions of truth. A mathematical fact that we all learned in grade school is that the sum of the interior angles of a triangle is always equal to 180 degrees. So, let’s take a mental journey. Start at the North Pole. Go south a ways, then turn 90 degrees to the left. Go east a ways, then turn 90 degrees to the left. Go north until you return back to the north pole. You’ve just walked a triangle, and made two 90 degree turns. How can that be possible?
It’s really easy. In grade school you learned this on a flat surface. The Earth is a sphere so this analogy you postulate falls “flat” Don Joe. You don’t take into account the Earth’s curvature.
So for the frame of reference Don Joe, this is not a good analogy.
@ 178
The Universe created by God is a fact. Old time scientists agreed to this principle. It’s the Darwin trained ones who reject it today.
To quote Lee, “Oh. My. God.” There are people who believe both that God exists and that evolution is a scientifically established fact on about the same par as the law of gravity. What evolution forces us to do is reject certain interpretations of the Bible as being mere superstition.
@ 179
So, if I understand you correctly, the “truth” of a church is an issue of practice, not doctrine. But, that leads me to wonder why you reject evolution on the basis of doctrine. Why does your doctrine trump science?
@ 181 & 182
Very good. You almost go to the head of the class, except for one thing. My father was a land surveyor. He always did his geometry on a flat surface, because the computations required to do spherical geometry actually produce more error than is introduced by the approximation of plane geometry on the scale of people’s property.
Intercontinental airline pilots, on the other hand, had better be using spherical geometry for their navigation, or they don’t end up where they’re supposed to go.
So, even in real life, there are reasons to choose one form of geometry over the other. The analogy might not be exactly perfect, but I’d say that the flaws aren’t substantive.
@180…DJ…
I don’t determine whether doctrine is Biblically sound; God will sort that out, and I’m content to allow others freedom of conscience just as I insist upon it for myself.
You’re so insistent upon trying to undermine my belief system, I can only conclude that you do so because you have so little…faith…in your own.
Infanticide is either right or it’s wrong. You can’t justify killing living human beings by bogging yourself down in, yes, moral relativism.
Right now, the law says Singer’s position is murder, yet you won’t support the law and condemn murder. You care nothing for nor will you speak in favor the right of a child after its birth to have its right to life protected.
How about a child who becomes disabled at, say, age 11? Would you allow that child to be murdered in order to make the lives of the parents convenient?
Life is filled with an infinite number of difficult moral questions. If you have a solid moral compass, the choices you make aren’t difficult to discern.
Your Hamlet-like, “To be, or not to be…” posturing only shows you to be incapable of standing on moral principle…except when you attack me, and then you’re an absolutist in your dogma.
The Piper
Don Joe: Land Surveying is great until you need to take into effect the affect of the Earth’s curvature.
@176
Moral relativism! How preposterous! You won’t even come out and condemn infanticide for the crime against humanity that it is, then you have the gall to tell me that there’s no connection between abortion on demand and child abuse?
There is no connection between abortion on demand and child abuse. As I very clearly pointed out above, the incidence of child abuse today in this country is lower than it was in the past. Again, you’re reaching conclusions based upon believing in things you want to believe, rather than the facts.
Crap…which is about as close as I’ll get to low-intellect use of cuss words!
Swearing does not make one stupid. Rejecting science, logic, and the facts does.
So…was the murder of the two young children on Christmas Eve in Carnation morally wrong, or do you want to reserve judgment on that, too?
Of course it’s morally wrong. But that’s irrelevant to why it’s illegal. It’s illegal because those two children had human awareness (a fetus does not), were not biologically co-dependant upon those who killed them, and had valuable bonds with other human beings (their maternal grandparents for example). The reason you keep going down this path is because you’re still convinced that the job of government is to legislate morality. It is one of the basic misconceptions that drives your very deluded view of how the world should work.
Does it matter that Prof. Singer’s POV is, under the criminal law, a form of murder?
His POV is a form of murder? Can you rephrase that into something coherent so that we may respond?
Are you, then, willing to argue that, given the “right” circumstances, murder is justifiable?
Of course it is. Even you believe that. If your son kills someone he deems to be an Iraqi insurgent, should he be tried for murder?
If you can justify one by parsing the language and hiding behind “science” and “logic,” then why not 6,000,000?
I don’t know, you tell us. I don’t agree at all that you should be able to kill any newborn baby, but Singer is absolutely correct that a newborn baby does not have the same level of human awareness as grown humans. The reality is that you create slippery slopes when you don’t understand the parameters. For example, I’m sure you believe that if your son killed an Iraqi who he believed was an insurgent, he should not be tried for murder (and I agree). Does that then give him the right to kill 6,000,000 Iraqis if he thinks they’re all insurgents?
As for the questions you asked Puddy, from the get-go you demonstrate a complete misunderstanding of Christian theology and denominational differences.
First of all, the idea that the Bible forbids abortion is completely false. The Bible contains stories of adulterers being stoned to death. It does not mention the parts where the people who did the stoning checked to see whether the women about to be stoned were pregnant first so that they could spare the ones carrying innocent children. Now this has nothing to do with whether or not abortion should be illegal (other than the fact that the fact that people use religious justification for the ban is an important clue as to why the ban is a violation of one’s religious freedom), but it does demonstrate that Don Joe arguably has a much better understanding of what religion actually believes than either you or Puddy.
Asking such a question tells me you don’t interact much with people of faith. If you did, you’d have enough information to not ask such a foundationally preposterous question. Different denominations speak to different expressions of faith, and the truth or falsity of their doctrine isn’t based upon what they think, but upon whether they’re in alignment with the Bible.
Sure, and people who believe that innocent life is sacred and can never be killed under any circumstance are simply not in alignment with the Bible because innocent lives were obviously killed if, as in Deuteronomy 22:13-21:
Do these people sound like they cared so much about an unborn fetus? The reality is that your religious belief about the sacredness of the value of a fetus’ life has nothing to do with Bible, but is simply a way for free-market conservatives to win votes from very stupid people like yourself for policies that benefit their wallets. As we’ve tried to explain to you several times before, your political philosophy is based upon your inability to think critically.
Your interpretation of “conservative principles” also shows a singular ignorance of them. Consider: I’m pro-life, believing that human life begins at conception, hence I oppose abortion and believe that innocent life deserves legal protection, a position in the mainstream of conservative thought.
Republican != conservative. Conservative thinkers generally have a better understanding of the importance of separating church and state than you do.
I also believe, as a conservative, that it’s immoral for the state to take the property of one and redistribute it to another all in the name of some amorphous and subjective notion of equity or “justice.” Theft is theft. If you study the history of American independence, you see a strong strain of property rights thinking, something many on the left conveniently ignore these days.
First of all, taxation is not the same as taking property. The reason that taking property is regarded as being closer to tyranny is because it’s an action with a greater likelihood of being done as a way of enforcing morality. You should read Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man to understand that there’s a very coherent set of beliefs that can balance the strong desire to protect property rights with the intelligent recognition that progressive taxation can be a path to greater liberty.
Still…let’s get back to the real issue: do you have a moral conscience or not?
Everyone here has a moral conscience.
If someone came to you today and asked whether it’s OK to kill a new born who has birth defects, what would you say?
I would say that it depends on the extent of the birth defects. For example, if the baby has no chance of living past 6 months, and will be in excruciating pain for as long as it’s alive, I think it’s the humane thing to simply end that baby’s life right then and there. Do you disagree? What I suggest should be done is that people in the medical profession get together and suggest what the threshhold is in situations like that. That way, you avoid slippery slopes and you ensure that its easier for doctors to do the humane thing at all times.
Viscerally, in your gut and in your heart, what’s the answer?
What’s in our heart and in our gut is secondary to logic and science. That’s the whole damn point here crackpiper, and until you understand that, you’re still saying nothing of any importance here.
Piper,
Your standing in judgement of my refusal to stand in judgement is, well, amusing. But, you still haven’t answered my question. Why does the state have to get involved in questions of morality? We are, after all, talking about politics.
I don’t determine whether doctrine is Biblically sound; God will sort that out, and I’m content to allow others freedom of conscience just as I insist upon it for myself.
Damn, if you only did that in the political arena, I dare say the rest of us would be quite happy.
By the way, I don’t believe I’m at all trying to undermine your beliefs. I’m asking you to explain them. If you feel my questions are too pointed, I’m afraid that’s your problem, and not mine.
Lastly, you state:
Life is filled with an infinite number of difficult moral questions. If you have a solid moral compass, the choices you make aren’t difficult to discern.
Well, yes, there is an infinite number of difficult moral questions, which, I believe, is precisely the point. Why do you keep insisting I provide a definitive answer to cover all possible circumstances, where neither of us is capable of enumerating those circumstances?
I’ve already answered your question with the sole caveat that I’m open to changing that conclusion in light of different facts and circumstances. Why do you insist on hammering this one question to death?
@147
Piper …
What do you bring to my table??Assertions of your own sense of magi? There is nothing wring with that sense, nor do I mean to patronize you, but why should you demean my spirituality? or Lees? What do you have to teach me?
Your arrogance is unlimitted,
FWIW, I suspect my own readings and explorations of the spiritual are ell beyond your own. I read widely ans try t learn form sources as divers as Gandhi, Sif=Siddhartha, Zarathustra, Spinoza, Maimonides, Aquinas, etc. If you read at all, it surely does not show up inlyour writing.
I am also aoffended b your ignorant assertion that I (or Lee) have al;ack of feelings because we respect science. I am not sure if you have ever met anyone with much education but there are few pople anymore apssionate than scientists. And, FWIW, in the night of my daughter’s birth I went very high, lofted on a creative wind that I can never forget … two years later I had that experience again when My son was born. What right do you have to make any other assumption????
I admire pople who have similar beliefs in the sanctity of the zygote, BUT those folks bring a lot more to the table. I know Muslims who talk about the beauty of the Quran and its concept of the clot of blood, OJ who see the shechina (I would translate but will not in the hope you just might want t do some reading)in a conceptus, RC who simply submit to papal authority, and few things have been more fulfilling than reading Gilgamesh. I can and do learn from these folks.
Look, it is soon to be a new year. Would it not be wonderful if we all could learn just a lttle more next year? The forum can be a place to do that. Why not bring something more meanigful to this shared table? Surely you have more to say?
@188
Your standing in judgement of my refusal to stand in judgement is, well, amusing.
Don Joe, this whole thread has been unbelievably amusing. I think I finally have enough material for the 3rd Crackpiper Chronicles.
Why does the state have to get involved in questions of morality? We are, after all, talking about politics.
This is the question that he can’t answer. He believes in something that our founding fathers were absolutely dead set against, which is why he continually paints himself into a corner where he’s either a hypocrite or he has to accept the various slippery slopes his moral nannyism takes him down.
Grasshopper .. aka Piper
Piper Scott says:
@161 & 162…DJ & Lee…
That you both reject out of hand anything that is outside your own realm of experience tells me that your not genuinely curious about that which you have no knowledge.
Lee, AFIK, accepts the existance of quanta,. If he has experienced these he is unique. Lee also accepts Darwow/o having been there when man evolved. The differenc ebetween my faith and yours, is that I believe with Spinoza and Miamnides that any deity who does exist would not be such an anus as to distort reality to the point thta scientific insight was nto useful .
Maybe you actually beieve in Loki or Rave?
… but the truth of the beauty of an expanse of water is not.
How do you logically and scientifically prove the truth of a mother’s love? Does your inability to do it mean that it doesn’t exist?
1. Try a grammar checker please.
2. Yu are really arrogant. Do you think scientists can not love? I love my wife, my Dad, my kids. I love peple, I love beauty. I do not need to discard reality to experience love, do you?
You’re prisoners of and limited by a hubris that demands the worship of created things rather than their creator.
creator? You KNOW there is a creator? How the fuck??? Is it a good guy? a demon?? a turtle?? Maybe you are worshiping the wrong guy?
That you both don’t bother to conceal your contempt for any opinion or value system save your own tells me you’re also bigoted against opposing points of view.
Hunhhh??? YOU are the one telling others they have no values, no sense of love. Intolerance is your problem graasshopper.
Not all reality is observable by you, so, in your pantheon of beliefs, such reality must not exist.
Baloney!
ABSOLUTELY little hopper. I URGE you to read Feinman. I recommend QED. learning hw we know that light is not a wave or a particle, learning why we postulate quanta .. might help you see God.
“It’s not worth listening to someone who believes that there are methods other than science that are better for divining truth.” What a foolish statement, and one that cavalierly dismisses every religion in the history of the world and every believer in every religion who’s lived since the beginning of time.
Have you studied any religion? Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism all insist that science is a form of worship and accept tis primacy. OTOH, since you are such a fan of religon over science, maybe you should join in the A href= “/search?q=pope”>Pope’s neosatanism movement.
I suppose I shouldn’t expect anything better or more enlightened from either of you, but I will ask the question:”
Do you believe in God?
do you??
Do you believe in God?
You can’t prove His existence or lack thereof scientifically, ergo you must take it as an act of faith.
Dear Grasshopper,
This is so sad. Before asking if I beleive in God, do we agree on what God we are talking about? I surely do not believe in a God who crucifies his son, foments wart, allow innocents to dies in pain, creates AIDS, turns the beuty of a mother’s breasts into the ugliness of cancer,
Do you believe in faith – being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see? In anything? Aside from your uncritical and blind faith in the perfection and infallibility of science and logic, that is. You can’t prove faith scientifically or reason it logically, you either have it or you don’t.
Need the ‘ol grammar checker again,
Oh…both of you continue to dodge addressing the morality of Prof. Singer and Bishop Butler and their belief that killing imperfect children after birth is OK.
Do you still beat your wife?
You both seem willing to bend over backward as apologists for abortion, which is typical of your specie, yet the trends in public opinion and law show an increasing unease with it.
??specie, errr ahhh the human race?
The Gonzales case raises an interesting ethical question: Partial birth abortion…can you justify it scientifically or logically? Or does the practice repel you morally?
THERE IS NO MORAL ISSUE IN PBA. PBA OR INTRAUTERINE DISSECTION BOTH KILL THE FETUTS.
How do you respond to men and women of science – physicians – who oppose abortion? Go here http://www.physiciansforlife.o rg/content/view/862/26/ and read their opinions, study their data, then call them stupid like you call me.
Reasonable people can disagree, but reasonable people disagree with respect. Small-minded knee-jerk reactionists simply refuse to engage points of view or thinking outside their limited perspective.
Think on this.
The Piper
Steve,
Have you studied any religion?
He certainly has religion, but I don’t think he’s studied it in any way.
By the way, Piper, I don’t think any of us has contempt for your opinions. I, personally, have a tad bit of contempt for the manner in which you’ve chosen to arrive at those opinions, but I think we’ve been through this before.
I just think it would go a long way to furthering the discussion if you didn’t presume to know quite so much about what’s going on in everyone else’s head and heart.
@187, et seq…Lee, et al…
As they come up…
You assert child abuse is on the decline, yet you offer no data to prove it.
Per http://www.childhelp.org/resou.....statistics there has been a nearly 25% INCREASE in child abuse-caused deaths since 1996.
I didn’t find any stats to support your position.
I don’t reject science, logic and facts, I simply include more facts than you do. You reject out of hand entire spheres of human learning and experience simply because you don’t believe them, which is illogical on your part.
It’s not the job of government to legislate morality, it’s the job of government to defend the weak and helpless against criminal acts. Singer’s POV is that it’s OK to kill a child AFTER its birth if that child isn’t perfect or healthy.
The law calls that murder. You good with murder? Is Singer’s position moral or immoral?
You don’t understand law at all, and you repeatedly expose your nakedness in this regard.
Murder is defined at Common Law as, “The unlawful killing of a human being by another with malice aforethought, either express or implied.” Black’s Law Dictionary.
This definition doesn’t encompass a soldier in combat, but it does someone who acts under color of Singer’s philosophy.
How can you, who doesn’t believe the Bible, tell me what it says about anything?
Here are a couple references that will give you a Biblical analysis on abortion:
http://www.gospelway.com/morality/abortion.php
http://www.godandscience.org/doctrine/prolife.html
http://www.christiananswers.ne.....bible.html
Don Joe is almost as ignorant on matters of Christianity as are you.
You’re comfortable legislating your morality (social welfare spending, re-distribution of wealth, restrictions on free exchange in the marketplace, etc.) yet you offer no conclusive data other than your own subjective OPINION that such should be law.
Morality is legislated every day, some good, some bad. Live with it.
Progressive taxation is an excuse for you to take from me. Why not fair taxation? Each pays the same? Your idea of “progressive” is to take from those who have and give to those who don’t, all because your opinion says that those who have, have too much, while those who don’t are entilted to take from those who have.
What morality entitles you to dictate to me how much of my purse you should have access to?
If you had a moral conscience, you’d at least express discomfort over some of the infanticidal policies flogged in the name of choice, including Singer and Butler’s rationalization of killing children.
BTW…they’re eerily reminiscent of Nazi eugenics, which called for the killing of infants born with cerebral palsy.
Should infants born with cerebral palsy be subject to Singer’s thinking?
What’s in your heart and gut define who you are and establish your character. Science and logic don’t do that.
Character and values count.
Don Joe…
The state legislates morality all the time. When it increases taxes to provide some new benefit, the excuse is usually, “it’s the right thing to do,” as opposed to the wrong thing.
Society collectively dictates its morality all the time. Consider the concept of “malum in se,” defined as, “A wrong in itself; an act or case involving illegality from the very nature of the transaction upon principles of natural, moral, and public law.” Black’s Law Dictionary.
Again, Jefferson, in the Declaration of Independence, catalogued without bothering to prove them, a series of self-evident truths and violations thereof that warranted breaking the bonds that tied the colonies to Britain.
“Malum prohibitum,” is defined as, “A wrong prohibited; a thing which is wronge because prohibited; an act which is not inherently immoral, but becomes so because its commission is expressly forbidden by positive law; an act involving an illegality resulting from positive law.” Black’s Law Dictionary.
Talk about legislating morality!
You waffled and wiggled and parsed your way out of making a categorical statement whether you consider Singer’s thesis to be abominable. Yet you have no such compunction ripping into me when I press the issue.
Typical.
Singer is wrong, he advocates murder, and people with a moral conscience ought to be repulsed by his callousness toward innocent life. And I’m not talking abortion.
Steve…
What do I have to teach you? The same thing you have to teach me: a differenct perspective.
I never claimed you to be without feelings. My point is your exclusive reliance on only what can be produced in the laboratory or ostensibly “reasoned” from Point A to Point B leaves out vast oceans of the human experience.
BTW…Gandhi, as I read him, would have been appalled by abortion.
I made no assumptions about your experiences as a father. My comments were directed toward Lee and Don Joe, both of whom were comfortable with the notion that killing a child AFTER its birth could be acceptable.
You call me arrogant because I unapologetically believe what I believe. You do, too, but I don’t call you arrogant.
BTW…the joy of parenthood? The exultation at the birth of your children? Since those emotions are scientifically unprovable and not subject to logical rigor, both Lee and Don Joe reject them as invalid.
As a father, I understand them intuitively; you were created to have the emotions you have, and they prove your humanity and worth.
Lee…
You haven’t a clue as to what the Founding Fathers were dead set against, and we’ve been down that path before. As an interpretive historian? Don’t quit your day job.
Steve…
I don’t recall ever calling you a name. How is your doing it to me consistent with your earlier plea for more rational discussion? Just curious…
Do I believe in God? Let me answer by quoting a line from the movie, Rudy, where Fr. Cavanaugh, played by the great character actor, Robert Prosky, says:
“Father Cavanaugh: Son, in 35 years of religious study, I have only come up with two hard incontrovertible facts: there is a God, and I’m not Him.”
Yes…I absolutely believe in God, and I regard His creation, the work of his hands, as proof of His existence. To that end, I think it’s wise policy to worship not what He created, but, rather, He who created.
You have the absolute right to disagree and believe otherwise.
I don’t have the need to read every religious text in order to believe what I believe just as I don’t need to try on every suit in the men’s department before settling on one that fits.
The essence of man is his free will; you can believe what you wish, but you’re held to be accountable for the consequences of your belief.
I never said you can’t love; my question was directed to whether love exists since it can’t be proven scientifically, and it seems to be a central theme in this thread that the only truths in the world are those that can be proven scientifically or logically.
Love is neither, yet it’s more real than all the data assembled since the beginning of time. As a loving husband and father, wouldn’t you agree?
You blame God for the ills of the world. Let me suggest that man, in the mis-use of his free will, caused them. The essence of Christianity is in 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.”
What makes Christianity work isn’t that Jesus died, but rather that he rose on the third day and lives.
God allowed the death of my son…Why? I’m not fully certain, but I am confident that his death has made me infinitely more compassionate toward the suffering of children, hence my loathing of abortion. And I’m absolutely certain that I will see him again some day.
I’m sad that you don’t see a moral issue in partial birth abortion. Read this: http://www.abortioninfo.net/facts/pba.shtml then tell me if such a procedure doesn’t turn your stomach.
Even the liberal American Medical Association is on record opposing the procedure as unethical.
Again…you are all entitled to believe as you wish, and you all insiste that your POV’s be accepted without question, including their assumptions.
How about according me the same courtesy? All in the spirit of open-minded tolerance and true diversity of thought, of course.
The Piper
@163 Puddbud
I have never said that science is incompatible withe belief in “God.” Sceintce is incompatible, however, with some ideas abut what God may be.
FWIW, Francis Collins, the head of the Genome Project is R. Catholic and devout at that! Mendel, of course, was a monk. I know a number of Nobelists who are believers. I have another firend whgo is a devout Mahayanna Buddhist.
So what is YOUR point?
I would side wiht Spinoza and Maimonides, in case you are yo to doing some reading. They taught that revelation is to be believed as a whole. The “Bible” is one form of data. So is the human genome. When they agree, there is no reason not to include the bible, when they disagree obviously the stronger form of revelation is science because science can be reproduced. So Maiminides and Spinoza both rejected the fundamentalist interpretation of the story of creation .
What is your problme?
While we are at it , however, let me suggest YOU have a problem. You claim to beleive in something called the Bible. I assume you mean one of the flavors of the Christian Bible? But why would you consider that book to be divinely revealed?
I have read the Chriostian Bible and AFIK Jashka (closer to Jesus’ true name than Jesus or Joshua BTW) never says …
“Go forth and record these worlds as holy script! ” That is true even for his own words .. never mind all the fantasies in your book of revelations or the books of our history that you have somehow decided are God”s word. BTW, FWIW the book of Daniel in your Bible is NOT in the Jewish canon and even if it were, the material after Deuteronomy is NOT considered revelation in Judaism since nowhere does it say , “I am God and I certify that the love poem attributes to a lustfilled David is holy>” (though we might both agree the song of songs is lovely and erotic!
So, let me turn the shoes …
On what authority do YOU claim that the “Bible” is the word of God?
!165 Puudybud
Sighhh ..
Before quoting Uncle Alfred, I suggest yu read him. He was adamantly opposed to the idea of God you have. His God was NOT the creator of the Universe, nor was it a person at all. It was a sense of order.
Besides that, Einstein’s own idea of God is now disproved , the Unoverse IS based on the laws of randomness.
@172
OK Piper, let me help you.
I DO believe that insensate babies should be killed. I see no purpose in maintaining a life that can not become self aware.
BUT since you claim to so beleive, what do you wanna do to stop all those spontaneous first trimestre abortions?
@193 Piper and religion
I think he just lazy. Someone once told him the earth is a sphere, so he believes that. Someone else probably told him GW was not an idiot. Data does not matter.
Piper,
You equivocate on the meaning of the word “morality,” and then accuse me of waffling and wiggling. Moreover, I haven’t extended my remarks to morality in general, but those cases where the moral lines are not at all clear. Go back and look at the full context. I distinctly disavowed judging the decisions of others in cases that require difficult moral decisions.
In the mean time, you’ve left more unanswered questions lying around here than bodies in a Cecil B. Demille movie.
I’m particularly fond of your complaints about my ignorance of Christianity, or, to be more precise, your particular understanding of Christianity. If you aren’t going to answer my questions, your complaints about my ignorance lose all their force.
Lastly, you’re completely misstating Prof. Singer’s opinion. He believes that there may be cases wherein an infant who is certain to suffer death in the very near future might be more mercifully put to death.
Do you know what Infantile Tay-Sachs disease is? Allow me to quote Wikipedia:
The medical dictionary (medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/disease), gives:
You might, also, want to look up the terms “hyperacusis” and “macrocephaly.”
Some people would say that forcing such a child to continue to live under this disease is, itself, more cruel and immoral than killing the child at birth. As I said, I can’t say that I agree with that conclusion, but I’m thankful that I’ve never been put in a position of having to choose with one of my children.
@194
As you know I type poorly. To be polite, I try to use a spell checker.
The comments in 194 are4 so discursive, that I am at a loss as to how to reply.
Tell you what, let me set out some ideas for you to digest as questions:. Take your time. If you prefer to answer them at SJ, I will post there too along with a comment on why they were created.
1. You accept some version of the Septuagint, the Xtian “bible” as truth. Why? To my knowledge your religion teaches that there is to be no prophet after Jesus and, unlike Moses or Mohamed (or Joseph Smith for that matter), this particular revelation dis not include an claim to leaving behind a physical trace.
So what is your rationale for beleiveing that this et of writings is divine?
2. Again, I think I know the text pretty well, where in your bible does it define the moment of life? Since the bible (and the Quran) seem blissfully unaware of DNA, chromosomes, sperm or eggs … how do YOU decide when life begins? Lets try ti as a multiple answer quesitons:
Life begins when:
a. the unique combination of male and female DNA interact to form the first dividing cell. (We call that the forst division).
b. the moment wheh a sperm penetrates the egg.
c. when the potential exists in the form of a unique male and female set of DNA.
d. when the two sets of genome are sufficiently interacting to “recombine” .. that is trade genes from one set of chromosomes to the other.
e. if and only iff the two sets of DNA are viaable, that is complimentary in ways thqat wil permit a life to develop.
f when the ball of cells derived from the zygotes has formed the first suggestion of an embryo (called a blastula).
g. When the interacting sets of DNA have begin to express a program for the nervous system.
h. when the ball of cells implants itself into the uterine layer to begin the process of forming a placenta.
i. the heart first appears.
j. when the brain first appears.
k. when the being is potentially viable without a placenta.
2. In your religion, “salvation” requires the intersession of Jesus. Does thta mean that Buttho has gone to hell? how about my grandfather, an Orthodox rabbi?
3. Assuming that what you beleive in 2 is true, shouldn’t we make the teaching of Islam, Judaism, and Moromonism illegal? Or at least remove children for those environments?
4. Since you associate morality with your religion, can you tell me who were the ten most moral people to live in the last 100 years?
5. Since the septaguint began as aRoman State Document, would you accept a new version fo your bible that had been vetted by independent scholars no influenced by the need to comply with Roamn law?
6. The Torah is pretty admant about worship of any statues,are catholics pagans?
7. A number of more modern, post Jesus, folk have claimed to speak for God .. Mary Baker Eddy, Joseph Smith, Mohamed, Jim Jones, .. on hwta basis do you reject tHEIR views of the truth?
8. The predictions the Christians claim to prophesize Jesus, say he will be of the House of David. “House” inb that era ONLY meant male lineage. Who was Jesus’ Dad?
9. Jewish law at the time of the crucifiction required stoning for anyone claimng to be God. Should Jesus have been stoned?
10. Did Jesus ever have intercourse? How do you know this?
11. Judaism allows many wives, where does jesus say you should only have one?
12. The critical difference between the Nazarenes under James and the Paulines, was the idea that one could become aChristian without following the Jewish law. Where is the textual basis for this claim?
13. Jewish, Islamic and Christian law all have very clear statements that require act of charity of a holy man. Act of charity are defned as giving o your own property to help others. Why are there NO act of charity in the stories of Jesus’ life?
14. Jesus never ate pork, do you?
15. Thee religion based in Jesus was used as a weapon of terror for hundreds of years by the Roman State. Later versins of Christianity, used the church to enslave or even exteminate millions of Africans, Jews, and Muslims. The loot from these exercises enriched Christian institutions that still exist. Should they pay reparations?
16. You and I may well share an admiration for certain Christian sects charact4erized by charity, service anbd love. Given the origins of the Church, when did these wonderful versions of Christianity first appear?
17. Here is a thought problem:
I am trying to create a legal code based on the ives of famous people. Whose lives would serve best as a basis for such a code:
Confuscious, the Buddha, Jesus, Hillel, Spinoza, Maimonides, Cesar Chaves. Fidel Castro, GW Bush, MK Gandhi, Saul Alinsky, Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, Sister Theresa, Benzir Bhutto, Lincoln
Choose two and list the ten riles you would derive from ther lives.
18. If God created the Universe, who created God? Did God always exist? How do you know this … please cite text in your Bible.
19. Who created the Donosaurs and why are they not mentioned in the Bible?
20. When we discover life around another planet, how much would you bet that this other life will worship a God who had his son sacrifice for humans in an obscure village in Ohio?
@194
You assert child abuse is on the decline, yet you offer no data to prove it.
Per http://www.childhelp.org/resou rces/learning-center/statistic s there has been a nearly 25% INCREASE in child abuse-caused deaths since 1996.
Read the first paragraph of that link.
Experts cannot agree on a single reason for this increase, but most attribute it to both a population increase and an increase in reporting. Other factors that are sometimes cited include changing a wider definition of child abuse, increased reporting requirements, states providing more accurate information, better recording systems, and changes in data collections.
Again, as I said earlier, it’s attributable to factors that reject the notion that it is a result of children being treated worse in society today. And anyone can tell you that hitting a child is much more unacceptable in our society than it was in the 1950s. You know it. I know it. We all know it. In fact, I will even bet that if I met someone who knows you well that you’ve once complained about how disciplining kids through spanking has become less acceptable over time.
I don’t reject science, logic and facts, I simply include more facts than you do. You reject out of hand entire spheres of human learning and experience simply because you don’t believe them, which is illogical on your part.
Give me one example.
You haven’t a clue as to what the Founding Fathers were dead set against, and we’ve been down that path before. As an interpretive historian? Don’t quit your day job.
Are you going to argue that the Founding Fathers believed that government should be used to enforce morality? Please do.
It’s not the job of government to legislate morality, it’s the job of government to defend the weak and helpless against criminal acts.
Once again, for the umpteenth time, if you believe this as a justification for outlawing abortion, you’re a hypocrite if you don’t also believe in outlawing the killing of deer, squirrels, or other living things.
But by all means, keep making an ass of yourself. Keep telling yourself that you’re smarter than everyone else. It’s really entertaining to watch a pro-life person come to terms with the fact that the belief system they’ve been hoodwinked to believe in is little more than a sham to coax more church-goers to vote for pro-corporate politicians. There’s a reason why there are documents online claiming that abortion is referenced in the Bible. It’s because people like you are dumb enough to believe them.
Just for fun, I looked up one of the Piper Hoppers’s refs:
“God created only three basic classes of life, each of which reproduces after its own kind: plants, animals, and people. (Gen. 1:11,12,20-25,26-30; 5:1-4). In which of these three categories should a living, unborn baby be classed? It cannot be considered plant or animal because plants and animals reproduce after their own kind. It is the result of human reproduction, and humans are distinct from the plants and animals. Therefore the life in the womb of a human mother must necessarily be human! “
Hunhhh??? Last Illoked there were viruses, bacteria, fungi. algae …..
Oh .. they must mean that every one of my skin cells is me??
God distinguishes between human life and animal life, since the killing of animals has been allowed by God from as early as just after the fall.5 It would be helpful to first define what makes human life different from that of the animals. The Bible says that God created three kinds of creatures:
1. Creatures which possess bodies (Hebrew – basar, Greek – swma) only
2. Creatures which possess bodies and souls (Hebrew – nephesh, Greek – psuchay)
3. Creatures which possess bodies, souls, and spirits (Hebrew – ruach, Greek – pneuma)
Most of God’s creatures possess bodies only. These creatures include the insects, worms, fish, etc. God defines the creatures possessing souls as being the birds, the whales, the predatory and domesticated land mammals, and human beings (Genesis 1:20-27). Creatures which possess a soul have the characteristics of having a mind, a will, and emotion. Most of us who have cats or dogs realize that these soulish creatures have all these character traits.
and whales? octopus?
Did the dinosaurs have souls too?
And this one: All of the above verses tell us God considers us to be human before we are born, but they don’t answer the question of when we actually become so. I propose there is a way to know what God considers the latest point in development at which we must consider a fetus to be a living human. Even before God gave Moses the law, when He gave Noah and his family all the animals for food (in addition to the plants), He told them, “Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood” (Genesis 9:4). At the same time, God gave the law and penalty for murder (described as the shedding of “man’s blood”).7 Therefore, God considers blood to be the basis for life and the shedding of human blood, which results in death, to be murder. Science tells us that the heart of the human fetus begins to form 18 days after conception.8 There is a measurable heart beat 21-24 days after conception.9 Since blood is flowing at this point, it is likely that blood formation begins well before day 21 (I could find no reference for the date at which blood formation begins). Therefore, this represents the latest date at which we must consider the fetus to be human (according to biblical standards), which is only 7-10 days after a women would expect to begin her menses. Most women have cycles that can vary by this amount, and therefore do not discover they are pregnant until after this point. For all practical purposes, from a biblical perspective, abortion at any point must be considered murder by Bible-believing Christians.
And then we have :
“Meredith Cline observes, “The most significant thing about abortion legislation in Biblical law is that there is none. It was so unthinkable that an Israelite woman should desire an abortion that there was no need to mention this offense in the criminal code.””
Or to add to Lee’s collection of odd ball humor, hopw about these grisly thoughts,
Hayyyyy … this means that a fteus is not “human until it starts making “blood” Errrr ahhh, what is blood? The ful composition of bhlood is not available until AFTER birth. hmmmm
@200…Steve…
Most of your questions and side-show excursions completely miss the point of faith and belief in God, and they show you don’t have much understanding of the New Testament or God’s plan of salvation.
Nevertheless, I’ll do what I can.
Authority of the Bible…
“2 Timothy 3:14-17
But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, 15 and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
There are many other references to the authority of the Bible, such as the first several verses in John 1.
See also http://www.sbc.net/bfm/bfm2000.asp#i
“The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God’s revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. Therefore, all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy. It reveals the principles by which God judges us, and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried. All Scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is Himself the focus of divine revelation.
Exodus 24:4; Deuteronomy 4:1-2; 17:19; Joshua 8:34; Psalms 19:7-10; 119:11,89,105,140; Isaiah 34:16; 40:8; Jeremiah 15:16; 36:1-32; Matthew 5:17-18; 22:29; Luke 21:33; 24:44-46; John 5:39; 16:13-15; 17:17; Acts 2:16ff.; 17:11; Romans 15:4; 16:25-26; 2 Timothy 3:15-17; Hebrews 1:1-2; 4:12; 1 Peter 1:25; 2 Peter 1:19-21.”
That the early church struggled with which books to include in the canon isn’t surprising; God works through people. Yet over time and culminating in a fourth-century council in, I believe, Carthage, accord was reached as to which books belong in and which don’t.
I don’t believe in the divine inspiration of the Apocrypha, for example, but I’m content through faith to accept the Bible as we know it today as divinely inspired and without error, although people sometimes erroneously interpret it.
Life begins…
Psalm 139: 13 – 17
“13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!”
Jeremiah 1:5
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
Luke 1:41-44
“41When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! 43But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.”
While your technical jargon applies biologically, the essence of life spiritually isn’t limited by your rules.
Salvation…
Only God knows the heart of a man or woman. As for your grandfather, I hold to the position that the covenant God created with Abraham hasn’t been rescinded; Jews are still God’s chosen people, and governed by the law. Gentiles have the opportunity to become adopted children, heirs of God.
From http://www.sbc.net/bfm/bfm2000.asp#iv
“Salvation involves the redemption of the whole man, and is offered freely to all who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, who by His own blood obtained eternal redemption for the believer. In its broadest sense salvation includes regeneration, justification, sanctification, and glorification. There is no salvation apart from personal faith in Jesus Christ as Lord.
A. Regeneration, or the new birth, is a work of God’s grace whereby believers become new creatures in Christ Jesus. It is a change of heart wrought by the Holy Spirit through conviction of sin, to which the sinner responds in repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance and faith are inseparable experiences of grace.
Repentance is a genuine turning from sin toward God. Faith is the acceptance of Jesus Christ and commitment of the entire personality to Him as Lord and Saviour.
B. Justification is God’s gracious and full acquittal upon principles of His righteousness of all sinners who repent and believe in Christ. Justification brings the believer unto a relationship of peace and favor with God.
C. Sanctification is the experience, beginning in regeneration, by which the believer is set apart to God’s purposes, and is enabled to progress toward moral and spiritual maturity through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in him. Growth in grace should continue throughout the regenerate person’s life.
D. Glorification is the culmination of salvation and is the final blessed and abiding state of the redeemed.
Genesis 3:15; Exodus 3:14-17; 6:2-8; Matthew 1:21; 4:17; 16:21-26; 27:22-28:6; Luke 1:68-69; 2:28-32; John 1:11-14,29; 3:3-21,36; 5:24; 10:9,28-29; 15:1-16; 17:17; Acts 2:21; 4:12; 15:11; 16:30-31; 17:30-31; 20:32; Romans 1:16-18; 2:4; 3:23-25; 4:3ff.; 5:8-10; 6:1-23; 8:1-18,29-39; 10:9-10,13; 13:11-14; 1 Corinthians 1:18,30; 6:19-20; 15:10; 2 Corinthians 5:17-20; Galatians 2:20; 3:13; 5:22-25; 6:15; Ephesians 1:7; 2:8-22; 4:11-16; Philippians 2:12-13; Colossians 1:9-22; 3:1ff.; 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24; 2 Timothy 1:12; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 2:1-3; 5:8-9; 9:24-28; 11:1-12:8,14; James 2:14-26; 1 Peter 1:2-23; 1 John 1:6-2:11; Revelation 3:20; 21:1-22:5.”
See http://www.sbc.net/bfm/bfm2000.asp#xvii
“Religious Liberty
God alone is Lord of the conscience, and He has left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which are contrary to His Word or not contained in it. Church and state should be separate. The state owes to every church protection and full freedom in the pursuit of its spiritual ends. In providing for such freedom no ecclesiastical group or denomination should be favored by the state more than others. Civil government being ordained of God, it is the duty of Christians to render loyal obedience thereto in all things not contrary to the revealed will of God. The church should not resort to the civil power to carry on its work. The gospel of Christ contemplates spiritual means alone for the pursuit of its ends. The state has no right to impose penalties for religious opinions of any kind. The state has no right to impose taxes for the support of any form of religion. A free church in a free state is the Christian ideal, and this implies the right of free and unhindered access to God on the part of all men, and the right to form and propagate opinions in the sphere of religion without interference by the civil power.
Genesis 1:27; 2:7; Matthew 6:6-7,24; 16:26; 22:21; John 8:36; Acts 4:19-20; Romans 6:1-2; 13:1-7; Galatians 5:1,13; Philippians 3:20; 1 Timothy 2:1-2; James 4:12; 1 Peter 2:12-17; 3:11-17; 4:12-19.”
I believe in the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, and you’ll find no more zealous defenders of it than Baptists, whose persecution in Massachusetts was in large measure responsible for it.
10-most moral people…
10-people, probably women, we’ve never heard of…The truly Godly – prayer warriers, servants, embodiments of the fruits of the spirit (see Galations 5:22-23) – labor in the shadows and completely eschew public acclaim.
I know many, widows, most of them, and I regard them as role models and saints.
Septuagint/Roman Document…
In a word…no.
Statues/Catholics…
There’s much about Catholic theology with which I don’t hold. I’m not comfortable with the veneration of Mary, for example.
Nevertheless, essential to salvation in Catholic teaching is belief in Christ. I know Catholics who, through their personal testimony, I’m convinced will go to heaven. From their own mouths, Pope John Paul II and Mother Theresa convinced me that they’re in heaven today.
Statues per se is a non issue.
Religious figures…
To whom do they give the glory? Who do they worship? Who is their Lord and Savior?
House of David…
Genealogy of Jesus Christ
Matthew 1:1-17 and Luke 3:23-38 give the genealogy of Jesus. Matthew recorded Joseph’s lineage, while Luke gave the family tree of Mary.
The literal father of Christ is the Holy Spirit, but Christ was raised in the house of Joseph, who was of the House of David.
Matthew 1:20, “20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.'”
Christ’s claim of divinity…
While he wasn’t stoned, he was crucified. Yet, under the law, stoning was the penalty for someone who wasn’t God claiming to be God. Christ was fully God and fully man.
See http://www.sbc.net/bfm/bfm2000.asp#ii
“B. God the Son
Christ is the eternal Son of God. In His incarnation as Jesus Christ He was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. Jesus perfectly revealed and did the will of God, taking upon Himself human nature with its demands and necessities and identifying Himself completely with mankind yet without sin. He honored the divine law by His personal obedience, and in His substitutionary death on the cross He made provision for the redemption of men from sin. He was raised from the dead with a glorified body and appeared to His disciples as the person who was with them before His crucifixion. He ascended into heaven and is now exalted at the right hand of God where He is the One Mediator, fully God, fully man, in whose Person is effected the reconciliation between God and man. He will return in power and glory to judge the world and to consummate His redemptive mission. He now dwells in all believers as the living and ever present Lord.
Genesis 18:1ff.; Psalms 2:7ff.; 110:1ff.; Isaiah 7:14; 53; Matthew 1:18-23; 3:17; 8:29; 11:27; 14:33; 16:16,27; 17:5; 27; 28:1-6,19; Mark 1:1; 3:11; Luke 1:35; 4:41; 22:70; 24:46; John 1:1-18,29; 10:30,38; 11:25-27; 12:44-50; 14:7-11; 16:15-16,28; 17:1-5, 21-22; 20:1-20,28; Acts 1:9; 2:22-24; 7:55-56; 9:4-5,20; Romans 1:3-4; 3:23-26; 5:6-21; 8:1-3,34; 10:4; 1 Corinthians 1:30; 2:2; 8:6; 15:1-8,24-28; 2 Corinthians 5:19-21; 8:9; Galatians 4:4-5; Ephesians 1:20; 3:11; 4:7-10; Philippians 2:5-11; Colossians 1:13-22; 2:9; 1 Thessalonians 4:14-18; 1 Timothy 2:5-6; 3:16; Titus 2:13-14; Hebrews 1:1-3; 4:14-15; 7:14-28; 9:12-15,24-28; 12:2; 13:8; 1 Peter 2:21-25; 3:22; 1 John 1:7-9; 3:2; 4:14-15; 5:9; 2 John 7-9; Revelation 1:13-16; 5:9-14; 12:10-11; 13:8; 19:16.”
Since Christ was God in flesh, stoning wouldn’t apply.
Christ and sex…
A genuinely stupid question.
Can you prove through any hint in scripture that he did?
While Christ was subject to every temptation known to man, he was without sin, and since the Bible holds that sex outside of marriage is sin and Christ never married, the answer is no.
I Corinthians 10:13, “13No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.”
Marriage…
Christ used the original example of Adam and Eve to call for one man and one woman.
Matthew 19: 4-5
4″Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female, 5and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'[b]”
Also, several places in the New Testament where the qualifications fo important chruch offices (Deacon and Elder) are discussed, it’s specifically stated that the person be the husband of but one wife. 1 Tim 3:2, 12; Titus 1:6.
Following Jewish law…
Galatians 5: 1-15
Freedom in Christ
“1It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
2Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. 3Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. 4You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. 5But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. 6For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
7You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth? 8That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. 9″A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.” 10I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion will pay the penalty, whoever he may be. 11Brothers, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished. 12As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!
13You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature[a]; rather, serve one another in love. 14The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.”
Romans 2: 17-29
The Jews and the Law
“17Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and brag about your relationship to God; 18if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law; 19if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, 20an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth— 21you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? 22You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? 23You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? 24As it is written: “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”
25Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised. 26If those who are not circumcised keep the law’s requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised? 27The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker.”
28A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. 29No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man’s praise is not from men, but from God.”
Acts of Charity…
You haven’t spent much time reading the New Testament if you contend he engaged in no acts of charity. After all, didn’t he give his life for the salvation of humanity?
If you mean give his own property, Christ had no property of his own yet he fed the multitudes, healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, caused the lame to walk.
Works for me.
Pork…
I do.
How do you know Christ didn’t?
See also Acts 10: 9-33
Peter’s Vision
9About noon the following day as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. 10He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. 11He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. 12It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles of the earth and birds of the air. 13Then a voice told him, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.”
14″Surely not, Lord!” Peter replied. “I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.”
15The voice spoke to him a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”
16This happened three times, and immediately the sheet was taken back to heaven.
17While Peter was wondering about the meaning of the vision, the men sent by Cornelius found out where Simon’s house was and stopped at the gate. 18They called out, asking if Simon who was known as Peter was staying there.
19While Peter was still thinking about the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Simon, three[a] men are looking for you. 20So get up and go downstairs. Do not hesitate to go with them, for I have sent them.”
21Peter went down and said to the men, “I’m the one you’re looking for. Why have you come?”
22The men replied, “We have come from Cornelius the centurion. He is a righteous and God-fearing man, who is respected by all the Jewish people. A holy angel told him to have you come to his house so that he could hear what you have to say.” 23Then Peter invited the men into the house to be his guests.
Peter at Cornelius’ House
The next day Peter started out with them, and some of the brothers from Joppa went along. 24The following day he arrived in Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. 25As Peter entered the house, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet in reverence. 26But Peter made him get up. “Stand up,” he said, “I am only a man myself.”
27Talking with him, Peter went inside and found a large gathering of people. 28He said to them: “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with a Gentile or visit him. But God has shown me that I should not call any man impure or unclean. 29So when I was sent for, I came without raising any objection. May I ask why you sent for me?”
30Cornelius answered: “Four days ago I was in my house praying at this hour, at three in the afternoon. Suddenly a man in shining clothes stood before me 31and said, ‘Cornelius, God has heard your prayer and remembered your gifts to the poor. 32Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. He is a guest in the home of Simon the tanner, who lives by the sea.’ 33So I sent for you immediately, and it was good of you to come. Now we are all here in the presence of God to listen to everything the Lord has commanded you to tell us.”
Reparations…
The only sin any human being is responsible for is that which he or she commits I’m not responsible for anyone else’s misbehavior.
That men have committed awful crimes in the name of God and Christ goes without saying; you’ll get no argument from me. But whether those in whose custody your so-called loot should return it is up to them and their consciences.
I’m sure thyat if I dug hard enough, I could find an ancestor of yours who committed a heinous crime. Care to atone for him?
My sin is great enough, thank you, without you trying to foist guilt upon me for the sins of others centuries ago.
Early versions of Christianity…
In a few words…beats me…
Thought problem…
Another silly exercise…
But…consider Hebrews 11 and the catelogue of those accorded honorable on account of their faith. That will suffice for me.
Who created God…
Again silly…
God is infinite, eternal and unchangeable. To contend He’s a created being to is to bring Him down to our level, which is a mirror image of original sin, itself considering ourselves equal to God.
Consider also John 1, which attests to the infinity of God:
John 1
The Word Became Flesh
“1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning.
3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
6There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. 7He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. 8He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. 9The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.
10He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
14The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
Little men from Mars…
Since you seem to be in communication with the mother ship, why don’t you ask them. In the meantime, it’s another stupid question.
***
Steve, you tried very hard to play niggly games in order to trip me up and cause me embarrassment. Seriously, I’d always thought you were a bigger man than that. Silly mind games aren’t to your credit. You claim to be an “intellectual,” a seeker after truth, yet you’re condescending and dismissive of those who don’t worship at your altar of test tubes and man-created “logic.”
That you don’t understand, seem confused, or simply fail to get where I come from isn’t my fault, it’s yours. I’ve been around popinjays all my life, and they invariably end up outfoxing themselves.
I’m content in my faith, including that part of it that leads me to believe that life begins at conception and that abortion kills children. Believe as you like since that’s your right. What I will say is that there will come a day when we’ll both be held accountable for what we believe. I’m confident where I’m going at that point…are you?
One of the great attractions of Christianity to me is its simplicity. The essence of the faith can by summed up in the old children’s hymn lyric, “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”
Salvation through faith in Christ is simple, easy to understand, requires not works on the part of a believer and is available to everyone from a small child to an elderly person on a deathbed. It’s not complicated, yet its nuance and implications continue to be an infinite well from which we’ll never cease to draw nor will we ever exhaust.
The Piper
Yes Seattle Jew I do believe God allowed his Son to die for our sins. WHat do you think Genesis 3:15 means?
Yes I believe the Bible is inspired word of God. What do you think John 1:1-3 means? Oh that’s right New Testament… my bad.
It took the Doughy Pantload what, seven, eight years to write that piece of crap? Spencer Ackerman has taken it apart in a little more than a weekend.
http://toohotfortnr.blogspot.com/
YLB was right; it’ll end up alongside Malkin’s book in the wingnut laughingstock pantheon.
Piper.
I think the text of mny answer is too is too long for HA so I posted a full answer at SJ. Click on this Answer to Piper. I hope you will take the time to go there.
In brief, other than your unneeded comments about my serious questions being silly, I think you have mnade a sincere effort. Let me reassure you that I have huge respect for people of faith. I recommend Soleveitchick, CS Lewis, Sister Theresa, and Francis Collins to you if you want to read how people who are .. frankly .. more thoughtful than yourself .. have dealt with the problem.
OTOH. the essence of your replies is that you accept the version of the Bible you bought or inherited without question. This includes beliefs NOT in your Bible .. at least beliefs you can not find a citation for such as the prohibition of aborting a zygote. You also seem not t care whether God or Jesus ever said the t5hings YOU accept as “truth.” This hurt6 most when you buy some of the hatred that grows from early Christianity as a Roman religion designed to conquer other cultures.
My trouble with this sort of unquestioning belief, is that it is no different than the unquestioning belief demanded of followers of Jim Jones, Torquemada, Cortez, Stalin, or … ben Ladin!
Are you really that blind in your own faith?? Does it not bother you to cite some rather hateful things, with no question because they are in your “Bible.” I have trouble with this just as I do when I meet a Maoist.
You seem to think I am an obtuse technocrat. Hardly. I have read and enjoyed the Quran, your Bible, the Sutras, the HYmns of Zarathrusta, and Epic of Gilgamesh, etc. I rearegard gtd a Hindu and a Buddhist, a Buddhist, and a Catholiuc as three of the most inspiring people I have met. BUT all of these used their faiths to do good works and all questioned their faiths where there was a discrpancy between good works and blind faith.
FWIW. Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism all DEMAND that there be not blind faith.
@204
Whuih “Biblke” the words of jesus? The rumors in the NT? The volumes authorized by Emperor Constantie???
Err ahh .. where does Jesus authorize Paul to create anew lkaw?
oops,, Poodybud, I am sure Jesu/Yashka will forgive my typos, will you?
WHICH Bible do you mean and authored by whim???
If you limit yurself t direct quotes by Jesu, that is pretty sparce. If you want to buy into the stuff written by other in the NT, well where does Jesus endorse these texts? Would you buy a dollar bill NOT signed by the Sec. of the Treasury? Worse, would you buy one if I signed it??
Even then there have been a number of different versions … Rabbinic Jews and Karaite Jews differ on a huge amount of God given text, the so called oral torah. Neither accepts the books after Deuteronomy as divinely authored. Different Xtian groups have taken the takes of judges and kings and mas=de these scripture ,,, did Jesus say this was OK someplace???
It seems to me that blind faith should entsil some responsibility for deciding what you accept! otherwise I might sel you a used basket ball arena.
So, Lee, when do we get to read the next volume of teh Chronicles? He’s really given you a (pant)load of new material!