Abortion is wrong, plain and simple.

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So I can assume you are just as vehemently against...

- Any war fought ever
- The death penalty
- Those that would bomb abortion clinics
- Hunting
- Eating meat
- The United States
- The drug war
- Christianity
- Money
- Opponents of gay marriage

Because if you're saying that life is precious, and should be protected at all costs, you should be against every single one of the things I listed. If you aren't, you're just picking and choosing, which makes you full of ****.

This is where I call you an arrogant (some four letter word). Do you not see the glaring discrepancy in the words coming out of your mouth and your tone?

"Oh it's cool guys, you'll burn in hell is all."

I'm agnostic, but I'm about as close to positive as I can get that there is no such thing as the Devil, Heaven, or Hell (it's just absurd). But feel free depriving yourself of valuable life experiences in the name of that sweet afterlife.

NOTES FROM AN OBSERVER

I am not, as some claim,
A local resident. Many provinces
Less obscure than this, in this game,
Require my attention.

You have been, to put it mildly,
Less than kind to my last representative.
Your proclivities vary wildly
From being rather clever, as a species,
To behaving with incredible stupidity.
You cannot even properly dispose of your own feces.
Your planet was unusually abundant
In everything to help you do well,
But your slavery to your own fertility
Is rapidly sending it to hell.
In one respect, you have improved.
A larger part of your population
Has realized I am not behooved
You spend your time to kiss my ass.
But, otherwise, you stay benighted.
Your appetite for cruelty is undiminished.
Your greed, taste for blood...I'm undelighted.

You do know that there are a lot of non-christians on this forum right? You can talk about god all you want, it won't apply to our views of abortion. Abortion is a personal choice of the woman, not some invisible man that may not exist.

What I find interesting is the lack of standards for applying religious judgement on the subject.

#1 Most christians find abortion morally wrong.
#2 Many christians find the morning after pregnancy prevention pill morally wrong. It can flush out a recently fertilized egg.
#3 Many christians find in vitro fertilzation perfectly fine and "pro family. But there are hundreds of thousands of these frozen embryos and they often get destroyed or go to research after a successful pregnancy.

Both #2 and #3 involve some fertilized eggs being prevented from implanting correctly (or intentionally discarded) in the mother. Yet you'll often have religious people making different judgements on them.

Politically, it would be very damaging for the anti-abortion movement to go after #3 because they'd be splintering their own "pro-family" coalition.

Unfortunately, christians are People and cherry picking moral values is WHAT people do!

And Shadowgirl: believe what you want but preaching will get you nowhere with those of us here who dont share your beliefs. Gods existence is NON-falsifiable and invoking God in arguments does NOT prove your point. What really bothers the sh*t out of me is the fact that christian fundamentalists are more concerned with well being of unborn children than they are with children who are already born! That combined with the fact that there ARE anti-abortion atheists suggests that these christian opponents of abortion have an agenda that they're using religion to justify.

But that's the agenda of all religions. When you stick your fingers up God's ass and pull the strings that make His jaw move in time to your words, nobody can argue with Him because those are God's words.

ok boots your'e saying women should keep their legs shut. remember you live in GLASGOW!! !! ! have you ever been to the town. go to silver or the catty and all you have to do is tilt your head 2 degrees and you can see the full lot. no offence to women but that is honestly what its like.

Not every war is an offensive war. Are you saying that being against murder means that someone is a pacifist?


They are not remotely the same thing. Those who get the death penalty earn it -- aborted fetuses haven't done anything wrong yet.

You can argue that the death penalty is unevenly applied and that other punishments are more appropriate and less final -- but that is another argument.


You got this one right.

You do realize that the vast majority of pro-lifers agree with you on this point, right?


Killing animals =/= killing humans.


Killing animals =/= killing humans.


Why are you equating the US with murder? And why do you assume that this idea is so non-controversial that there can be no disagreement with it?


That's law enforcement, not murder. In any case, if you think that the "drug war" is being fought improperly, that's another argument. You can't just assume that everyone will automatically agree with you on this, even if you have good arguments for your position.



Given that "thou shalt not murder" is a Christian commandment, how can you pretend that saying this makes any sense whatsoever?



Would you mind trying to make sense?



What does opposing gay marriage have to do with murder in any way whatsoever?

I find #3 quite doubtful. Many Christians hold to an interpretation that fertilized eggs are people, in which case any in vitro procedure in which they were discarded would be as bad as several abortions. Those who don't hold this interpretation might reasonably support it, but it's hard to see why they wouldn't adopt instead. From a Christian perspective, adoption solves the infertility problem much more neatly. Not only do you get a kid, but the kid gets parents.

Abortion is a natural thing... It's been around longer than we have. Animals abort their offspring by murdering them soon after birth. It is still an abortion, the refusal to give support to offspring at that time and looking after themselves.

For those who say we aren't animals, they are wrong. For if this was true, we wouldn't have the instinct to mate, socialise, enjoy sports (an advanced version of hunting) Animals learn, after all, we can teach them stuff. They learn, they know. Although we may not be able to translate how something works, humans and animals are not different. They hunt, we hunt, they eat, we eat. The list goes on.

Ever heard the strong are favoured over the weak?

I'll try and respond, but understand that we're looking at these issues through the "sanctity of life" filter. Not necessarily the greater good, but the sanctity of life, all life.

You and me might agree that abortion serves a greater good, just as we might agree that certain wars are necessary, but the pro-lifers claim that every life is precious, it would not be a far stretch to see war as the greatest waste of life.



Well, I personally take offense to the phrase "earn". Even as an agnostic, I don't feel it is our place to judge others in such a manner. As for the sanctity of life angle, if life is precious, all life is precious, even the life of someone who has performed the most despicable deeds.



This is likely true, but those who are incredibly vocal of their pro-life views, as opposed to merely holding the viewpoint, I can see them being sympathetic to the bombers.



We're not qualifying what life is sacred. If life is sacred, all life is sacred, especially in any semi-conscious form. A cow is one of God's creatures, amirite? Personally, I understand the natural inclination to put humans over other species, because we are humans, and it's a survival of the species sort of thing. However, from a philosophical viewpoint, I think it's rather arrogant to value human life over animal life.



Any objective view of the history of the United States would conclude that we have done some of the greatest evil in this world. Much of the world stays poor because of us. I could go on to simply say "Vietnam" or "Iraq", and feel that I've made my point well enough.



The drug war ruins lives, and yes, it is the cause of thousands (very conservative estimate) of pointless deaths.



Just as I love the principles of America, but recognize the evil that she has done, I have great respect for some of the moral underpinnings of Christianity while at the same time recognizing that the historical result of this religion has been immense human suffering.



I'm making a lot of sense. Money is the root of all evil. It is greed that cause much of the conflict in the world.



Nothing to do with murder, but much to do with valuing life. Even if you think homosexuals are "icky" or have a hard-on for Christian monogamy, I think that if you value life, merely the existence of stable families to lovingly raise children should be enough to get you on board. The massive number of foster children that need homes is horrible, and standing in the way of them being placed in loving families is incredibly evil, imo. I know I'm mixing gay marriage and gay adoption, but I think they go hand in hand.

OK.


I would not agree with that.


You have to do more than just cause someone's death to get the death penalty here in the US, so yes they do earn it. And part of the severity of the death sentence is that all life is precious -- thus you can't earn death without doing something terribly evil.


Having sympathy for someone is totally different from agreeing with them or being like them. You mentioned having sympathy for those, such as serial killers, who get the death penalty. That doesn't make you a serial killer.


You might not consider humans fundamentally different from animals, that doesn't mean that everyone else will agree with you.



There have been more or less about a million abortions per year in the US since roe v wade. The best estimates I can find for Iraq war deaths total around 100K - 1M deaths for the entire war. Vietnam had 2.5M - 5M over about 16 years. The rate of death is not worse for these 2 conflicts, although it is for such massive and terrible wars as WWII. On the other hand, WWII lasted only 6 years and then stopped. Abortion isn't stopping. The implication that war is worse than abortion from a pro-life point of view is wrong -- even if we don't consider the potentiality of a just war.

I don't think you can justify saying that the US keeps the rest of the world in poverty, and I don't think an objective view of what the US has done would rank us at the top of a list of terrible deeds. Have you heard of the Holocaust, or the purges under Stalin?

Your argument ignores anything good the US has done, as well as anything bad that any other country in the world has done.


Drugs also ruin lives and kill people.

In abortion, you are balancing a life and a convenience, generally speaking. With the drug war, you are balancing many lives against many lives.

I don't want to get too much into the drug war, since I don't have much in the way of either knowledge or opinion on it.


Like any sufficiently large group of people, Christians have been the cause of some suffering. But you ignore the vast amount of good she has done, and any attempt to equate her with murder is simply fallacious.


1 Timothy 6:10 "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil." Money isn't bad, it's just a medium of exchange. Greed is bad. I still don't see how opposing abortion translates into supporting greed.


What is your definition of valuing life, then? Supporting views you happen to agree with?

I have to object to your phraseology here: "Even if you think homosexuals are "icky" or have a hard-on for Christian monogamy". Would you like it if I were to ask you about having a "hard-on" for homosexuals or accused you of thinking Christian ideals on monogamy are "icky"?

A harris poll in 2007 found 76% of americans support in vitro. If you have 80% of americans identifying as christian then you certainly have "many" christians who support it. You might even find a majority, I dont know.

It's a disconnect because to many people in vitro is "pro family" and they dont take it much further than that. Of course, nature aborts as many as half of fertilized eggs before they implant and the US government itself defines pregnancy as a successful implantation but christians often see fertilization as the standard. Its a mixed message from christians.

I remember when it was called 'test tube babies' and considered an abomination by some...science playing God. Strange how quickly views can change.

Last edited by claire-333 on 26 Apr 2009, 12:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think it's more likely that few know anything about the details of in vitro fertilization. There's also somewhat of a spectrum of views about abortion, many more see a 9 month old fetus as a person than see a fertilized egg as one.

I doubt highly that anywhere near all of the 80% self-identifying christians take it seriously enough to base their opinion of abortion and/or in vitro on it.

I don't think there is a serious discrepancy here, and what discrepancy there is is probably mostly based on ignorance (although there is the possibility of some theorizing that God imbues souls on implantation as well).