“GOD IS PRO-LIFE”, a billboard shouted at me yesterday. Sure, I thought, but like me, God is also pro-choice.
“Pro-life” is an effectively meaningless term used simply to avoid real political thought, sanctify a particular political position and its proponents, and demonize proponents of alternative public policy. “Pro-life” can’t really distinguish candidates or policymakers, because every living, morally reasoning being values life. Every morally reasoning being also values other things besides life—liberty, justice, dignity, autonomy… all of which may be viewed as elements of “choice”. Values often conflict, and morally reasoning beings thus struggle to prioritize and balance those values, often striking different balances in response to different questions. Democratic and Republican politicians alike demonstrate that we are all pro-life and we are all pro-choice.
So is God.
The Christian God, the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent deity I hear about from fervent billboarders and other people around me, is said to have created all living things, so that God evidently values life. But that God created a natural system in which the life of all creatures is sustained by the death of other creatures. Plants take root and draw nourishment from compost, the remains of past living creatures. Many animals eat plants. Many animals hunt, kill, and eat each other. Microbes ultimately consume us all. God likes life, but not enough to make it permanent and absolutely unalterable or unendable for any creature.
That Christian God also likes choice. That God imbued a subset of living creatures—us, humans, the only ones we know of asking ourselves these moral questions—with free will. God created living beings who could choose to do dumb or dangerous things that would end their lives. God lets those dumb and dangerous choices kill people every day. A God who can be everywhere and do anything can interrupt those choices and stop those deaths. But the Christian God does not. The Christian God evidently values choice… and in many situations values it more than life.
If God’s values were limited to that one sentence on a billboard (infinity in a slogan—probably not going to work), if God really valued life and nothing else or life above all else, absolutely without exception, God would not let cars crash. God would not let Russia invade Ukraine or America drop nuclear bombs on Japan. God would not let coronavirus kill millions of people. God would not let his most highly valued creatures, the ones God created in God’s own image, make dumb and fatal choices.
But God does not breathe life back into the dead. God does not put that hedge of protection around every living being, believer or nonbeliever, to prevent fatal mishaps and misdeeds. God makes life, but God then lets humans make choices, and God lets those choices end life.
The Christian God’s whole story gets meaning from one woman’s choice. Absent Eve’s choice, God’s story would have been pretty boring. We’d all still be running around Eden, blissfully unaware of our nakedness, petting lambs and lions, and not blogging about theologically unsound billboards. A purely pro-life God would never have let Eve choose to set the Biblical plot in motion. But the pro-choice God said, “Here, Eve, make choices,” and when her choice crossed God’s will and the value of perfect life, let her choice stand.
God is pro-life. But God is also pro-choice. And when life and choice conflict, God chooses choice.
Amen.
11. One fifth of all pregnancies end in miscarriage or as some would call God working in mysterious ways but when a person chooses to terminate a pregnancy the creator doesn’t condone that decision? How does that work?
Seems God actually views not being born as a better path than being born into misery. Hmm.
“A man might have a hundred children and live to be very old. But if he finds no satisfaction in life and doesn’t even get a decent burial, it would have been better for him to be born dead.”
Ecclesiastes 6:3 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/ecc.6.3.NLT
Where did the human race get “free-will” from?
Your reasoning is flawed.
God prohibited the taking of innocent life, called it murder.
God also prohibited sacrificing children to Molech. It was a common practice at one time, because it was thought to assure prosperity, the same reason abortion is practiced today; women are told they will be more prosperous if they kill their children.
God offers eternal life in exchange for faith and obedience. That is why God is Pro-Life. He wants us all to qualify for eternal life. “whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have Everlasting Life.”
If God were not pro life, the reward for faith and obedience would be candy or money.
5. “Pro-life” is simply code for white people breeding. The extreme white wing of the Republican Party is driving the abolition of women’s rights because they’re wedded to the Great Replacement Hypothesis. African-Americans terminate pregnancies at about the same per capita rate as white people do but don’t take their jobs. Latinas, however, have fewer abortions per capita so the extreme white wing laments it’s hemorrhaging jobs to Latinos.
Pro-life is only pro-forced-delivery. The pro-lifer’s concern for the life of that child ends upon clearing the birth canal.
btw: god killed my mother with cancer — not a pro-life thing to do.
Cory, your statements can be the source of endless theological argument and discussion, which
I am just to tired to enter at this time. One thing I will say; when I ponder questions
such as these, as I do from time to time, it seems to me that free will has been
pretty much pre-empted by the strong and ruthless.
Hear hear, Anne.
@Anne – Lots of first born babies killed in the Bible per God. And in the biblical Flood per God. Not a lot of pro-life stuff happening there.
Things make more sense after one realizes Nature and the laws of physics, ultimately, are in control of things.
@EDwin – I sense your health isn’t very well. Share the details, please. We liberals may irritate you but we’re open to listen. Love you, man. :0)
P., my health is deteriorating at about the average rate for a man of my age, (80 in a few months),
but this earth will probably be graced with my presence for a few more years, and possibly
a few more years after that. I have stated my thoughts on abortion on this blog
several times and see no point in repeating them.
Perhaps the biblical passover story supports Cory’s thesis and contradicts Anne’s statement: “God also prohibited sacrificing children.”
The story seems to indicate that the chosen people’s desire to choose to end their bodily subservience to Egyptian masters by leaving Egypt outweighed the innocent lives of Egyptian children, thus God ordered the killing (sacrifice) of all 1st born babies and children living in Egyptian homes to convince the Pharoh to comply with the chosen people’s “choice” to end their servitude.
That would seem to provide biblical support for the notion that a woman should be able to choose to end unwanted bodily subservience to a zygote-fetus, and contradict the thesis that the God of the Bible would deny a woman’s choice to end the dangerous or unwanted use of her body by another, regardless whether considered an actual person or only a potential person. After all, the Bible indicates that Egyptian babies that God killed during passover were actual people.
This former Evangelical I found on Youtube is a blessing for so many deconstructing Christians.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=muUWW21Ub3I&pp=ygUZYmVsaWVmIGl0IG9yIG5vdCBhYm9ydGlvbg%3D%3D
He brings up every argument and gently inserts truth to put it all in perspective with just the right kind of humor. Belief it or Not
My favorite quote:
“‘The unborn’ are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus, but actually dislike people who breathe. Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.” – Pastor David Burnhart
BCB, some interpret the biblical account of the plagues in the book of Exodus to
mean that all first born, including adults, and even the first born of animals, were killed.
I simply don’t see the support for abortion in the
bible that you see. It seems to me that you are stretching and twisting
to an incredible degree to come to your conclusion. I don’t think that
we should ever regard life so cheaply that we can discard it at will.
I will say once again, I come from a culture where babies are treasured,
and nurtured, and celebrated.
Protect the Born!
God prohibited taking innocent life? But aren’t we all born sinners, so there is no innocent life.
God is pro-life?
This would be the same God who drowned almost all the humans in the world, even babies, even unborn babies?
This would be the same God who drowned millions, maybe tens of millions, of puppies and kitties?
I’m really getting more of a serial killer vibe.
‘@Edwin- Good to hear that update. I’d miss you. I guess when a friend says they “just tired” a couple times close apart it seems like something has changed.
Hadn’t seen that Eve. Good one.
Unborn babies demand essentials of life from mothers regardless of whether the mothers are forced to provide womb and board for the duration. That is until around 24 weeks where a fetus can possibly survive outside the womb.
The biggest demands on a woman come from over gawding, phony kristian magat theocracy adherrents who interpret the constitution and the worthless bible to support theri demands. The worthless bible has been written and re-written and re-interpreted any which way possible to fit the agenda of thoise re-writing and re-interpreting the overblown piece of trash.
Is this the same pro life kristian gawd that sent crusaders out to slaughter Muslim infidels?
Another alleged kristian televangelist and wife charged with multiple counts of child rape, etc. Is this how these phonys are taught to spread the word of gawd? And why does it seem the majority of child molesters are magats when they claim it is Democrats that do it? Is honesty no longer among the 10 commandments?
https://www.rawstory.com/pastor-arrested-2665710821/?traffic_source=Connatix
e platypus onion- the bible is extremely accurate… up to about 25 yards, then you tend to miss with it.
Anyways, how the heck are we seriously going to legislate based off a book that invented the word we know as propaganda? How are we allowing men to hurl laws at women based on the belief of blood sacrifice to Molech? It is up to the logical people to pretty much (with respect) pat those on the head gently and tell them to run along once they start spouting their belief in demons and blood sacrifices and all that other silly fiction. The rigamarole of religion has no place in law.
Your ‘moral’ stance is based on discrimination- no bs; true blue. Up until the 70’s, the Southern Baptist Church advocated for the dignity of women. They preached pro-women and choice. That is, until public funds would no longer go to segregated schools, so they needed to come up with a way to engage Christians to become active in politics. Racism was not a good catalyst, so they campaigned on the sin of abortion to get their white subjects to the polls so they could elect the Jerry Falwell-supporting scrubs.
Too bad CRT isn’t around to teach the truth about America’s obsession with white supremacy.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/10/abortion-history-right-white-evangelical-1970s-00031480
https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/08/abortion-us-religious-right-racial-segregation
Disgruntled Christians are a power-hungry politician’s strongest TOOL.
Edwin
God knows how conception works. God also prohibits pre-marital sex, for example, among young fertile women. Now, logically, God knows that if a young fertile woman doesn’t have sex, the sperm and egg that could have become a baby will die. No second chances for that sperm and egg!
Now, if a young unmarried woman breaks the commandments, has sex and gets pregnant, that’s a child God already commanded NOT to be born. Seems pretty clear, that’s a child God DOESN’T want. Now, at least to some pro-lifers, God is cool with executions. Seems like God would be pretty cool with abortions.
And Larry Kurtz may actually be low-balling the number of spontaneous misscarriages (among mammals such events may be close to 1/2). Isn’t spontaneous miscarriage just another way to say Godly abortion?
Mr. Arndt, I am glad you are still kicking right along with grudznick. There are healing properties in the sand hills in your neck of the woods…you should avail yourself with a stroll thereabouts some nice morning.
The resident troll can maybe sell iowa’s guv a ujsed hubby since her present one has lung cancer. Not to be overly cynical, but her polls have been going diown and voters aren’t happy with her performance. Maybe looking for sympathy vote? Any opportunity to play religion card.
Mr. onion, I realize you are from Iowa but you must have misread grudznick. I typed “stroll”, not “troll” or “poll.” I know those letters are really close when you do your ABCs each day but they are different.
Goatzilla, being from South Duhkota I realize you have serious trouble comprehending stuff. Must be the gravy taters. Be that as it may, you are nowhere near qualified to be the resident troll. And selling used stuff should have been a huge clew as to the resident troll I spoke of.
If there is a divine creator why would It even care whether one of Its most destructive, malevolent and criminal creations chooses to restrict population growth?
Republicans suffer from a disease that influences their eschatology because they worship a supernatural extraterrestrial as the ‘son of god’ and believes It is coming to Earth to rule under a one-world government.
$20 says no one can prove to this interested party that humanity is anything other than a force for utter destruction.
Our species will be the instrument to extinguish all life on Earth and some divine thing cares whether we off ourselves?
I am reluctant to join in this argument, that we humans can use our rational thinking to interpret what wisdom resides in the mind of God. To me, the eternal message is incomprehensible to us residing in this century, in this place. We’re here to figure out what it all means to us, as individuals, and how we should respond to our fellows. “Above all, Love the Lord, your God: and Love your neighbor as yourself.” will do.
Anne, where, other than in a group of writings by politically interested thugs, does god “offer eternal life in exchange for faith and obedience?” No one has ever offered evidence to the fulfillment of that offer.
It is unproveable as to whether “god” created heaven and earth. However, all available evidence suggests that “god” doesn’t care a whit about what happens to you and me.
The decision to terminate a pregnancy belongs to the person who must risk her life to continue it. Period.
The principle argument against that is that said termination terminates a soul created by god which deserves a right to the great adventure god set out for it. I argue that if the pregnancy is terminated, god can assign that soul to another zygote, and perhaps have better luck.
I mean, god can do anything god wants to do, right?
Anne, there is no “god”. If so, prove it. If there is a “god” whose “god” is it? God, Mohamed, Buddha, a divine entity, is humankinds grasping at mythology to understand humankinds place in the universe. Life is life. Death is death. It’s that simple. Millennium of high priests reveal their interest was nothing more than exercising raw power over their Luddites. Yes, the myths try imparting rationales to ‘do unto others’ – but the zealots condition those edicts to wage war on those not subscribing their narrow ‘beliefs’. The ‘religions’ of Rome and the Vikings are instructive for us westerners. The US founding fathers saw the stupidity of these nonsensical religious wars. They declared the US is in no way a christian nation. George Washington’s Letter to the Hebrew Congregation affirmed the same. Practice your mythology if you wish – but do not impose it on the citizens.
Science is not our religion. Science is not a dogma. Rather it is a trail, error, contest, re-examine, re-new, cycle striving to understand humankinds evolving current situation.
I can see that you never got past kindergarten in Sunday School, and can’t figure out why God has not blessed you with a Mercedes-Benz.
God’s greatest reward for faith is the gift of eternal life, ergo, God is pro-life. If God were pro-luxury automobiles, He would bless the faithful will luxury automobiles. But He doesn’t. He isnt even going to give us all Volkswagens; Hitler promised people VWs, but he didn’t promise everlasting, eternal life.
I wouldn’t refuse a purple McLaren if God sent one to me, (and that would be a miracle, because a purple McLaren is like a unicorn, they don’t make ’em.) I will have to settle for eternal life, because that’s the best God has to offer. Because He is pro-life..
If “God’s greatest reward for faith is the gift of eternal life” then doesn’t an abortion simply give the fetus eternal life, thereby satifying God’s pro-life edict? Why would anyone that believes in God and the gift of eternal life object to a woman having an abortion and thereby allowing God to give that fetus that eternal life reward before the fetus had a chance to commit sins and refuse to repent or believe? Indeed, under that belief system it would seem that the greatest gift a woman can give her fetus would be to abort it.
Or would God condemn the fetus to damnation, hell, or non-existence because it died before it was old enough to develop faith. If so there must be a lot of babies in baby hell that died before developing the intellectual ability to have faith.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/01/michael-fuxs-mclaren-720s-has-a-custom-metallic-purple-paint-job.html#:~:text=When%20Comfort%20Revolution%20CEO%20and,appropriately%20named%20it%20%E2%80%9CFuxia.%E2%80%9D
There is at least one purple Mclaren. Don’t move the goal posts.
The argument no one dares produce: “Abortion gives a soul everlasting life at one hand or another of god, no questions asked.”
Well yeah. Remember what I said about endless theological discussion?
BCB, the easy answer is that only God knows the answer to some of these
questions.
Grudz, my wife and I drove through those hills of which you speak a few years
ago but I didn’t need as much healing as I feel I might now. My knees hurt when I
walk to far so do you think driving through those hills again might work?
Maybe the ambience of being close to nature?
Kristians claim you have to be reborn and accept someone as your savior to attain heaven. Doesn’t happen with aborted fetii, stillbirth,etc. Can a sky pilot push a fetus into heaven by mere words and/or actions?
So, once you are assigned mortal life, you are also expected to accept as your savior someone who already did you great harm. If you don’t you burn. Jeez!
now, now Anne, God also offers some of us eternal damnation.
Eternal life, or eternal damnation, it’s all eternal. And the best thing about being in Hell is that you can do whatever you want – what are they gonna do? Send you to Hell? That’s why Satan prefered to rule in Hell rather than serve in Heaven.
Speaking of Heaven, it really sounds like a dull place. A fundamentalist relative told me in Heaven, you praise God. 24/7 I said? Yep he said. For Eternity? Really, this God sounds like a pretty sketchy character.
And let’s not forget that even if you make it to Heaven, you can still get kicked out later
BCB, you have hit a upon the great question about abortion. What happens to aborted babies?
I have asked this before of fundamentalists and usually got some kind “That’s a sick question!” but I have always been sincerely interested in the answer.
Do they go directly to Heaven? If so, they might be better off than being born to heathens who raise them wrong.
If they go to Hell, well, I can at least understand people determined to stop every abortion. I don’t have to agree with them in order to respect their dedication to saving every baby from Hell and I understand why compromise isn”t possible. Of course if aborted babies go to Hell, that’s really on God.
The best answer I got on this was from a woman who described herself as a Buddhist Catholic. She said that the souls of aborted babies weren’t ready to be born yet and just moved onto another baby (kind of like planes circling an airport waiting to land). So it was like playground basketball – no harm, no foul.
Eternal life, biologically speaking, is the property of organisms which propagate by asexual reproduction only. They never die.
Sexual reproduction, on the other hand, always implies and is the property of, sexual organisms which always die.
Owing to their inevitable physical death, sexual beings are constrained to construct fantasies of an eternal life by various and sundry means to deliver them from the reality of their own death, including but not limited to delivery by promises they propose in various religious books as well as institutions. Clever solution to an inescapable problem, although a solution in fantasy only.
African violets, as an example, enjoy both sexual and asexual propagation.
Not so, we humans. Although human cells may propagate eternally (c.f. HeLa tissue originating from Henrietta Lacs), dedifferentiation of somatic cells which would then lead to an embryo has never been accomplished.
If, as Anne Beal states, eternal life requires faith and obedience, one must then logically question whether an embryo in any way has either.
Anne?
A life does not begin until it’s been born and God has blessed it with a soul. That’s why aborted fetuses aren’t dead babies. Thus, there’s no such thing as an “unborn baby”. It’s not a baby until it’s been born and blessed with a soul by God.
African violets have it best over human beings, the latter of whom are limited to sexual reproduction and thus external death (despite popular fantasies of life-after-death promulgated by those who profit from their fantasies).
1). African violets by sexual reproduction are assured of eternal death. Their creditors will never catch up with them owing to that.
2). African violets by means of asexual reproduction have eternal life: they are forever able to escape their creditors as they are able to continue to move ahead of them.
Human beings at best can hope only for eternal death.
P. Aitch
Your Catholicism is showing.
DaveFN
We have all been alive, in some form or another, since the beginning of life. Any rancher will tell you you can’t fertilize a dead ova with a dead sperm and expect to get a calf. It is only in this final form that we will come to end. Of course, eternal life isn’t really possible for us. Remember that wonderful summer you had when you were 7? That boy is long gone and you will never be him again. If you live another thousand years, that person will no longer be you. I suppose if you could travel at the speed of light without the passage of time, you might achieve some kind of eternity, but you would literally not have time to do anything.
A billion years in the future, the sun will have gotten hot enough that liquid water will disappear on Earth and so will most life. Eventually the Sun will blow up into a red giant, and the Earth will likely be destroyed. Should the Earth, or any of its life survive, well, eventually protons will decay and no life as we know it will be possible. No such thing as eternal life.
Ha! Not a fubuckin thing anyone spews is really true because nobody has ever died, checked everything out + taken notes, then come straight back to explain what it was like over there… If they claim they have-they’re a liar:p
So hows about: put your trust (where women’s bodies are concerned) in WOMEN, not government!! Give women the integrity to figure this out according to… IT’S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!!! Instead of shoving a bunch of speculation and bs onto poor, scared women and girls- Go F yourselves. Don’t start no drama..there won’t be no drama hey. If you feel so strongly about your G-dog’s opinion, yet you have yet to ask him personally, you are projecting and you should not be legally allowed to take any pills that allow you to reproduce once you are rendered limp!
Anne, God did outlaw murder in the commandments. I reject your contention that abortion is murder, because no one here on earth treats it that way. Do you advocate life imprisonment for women who abort their fetuses?
However, you don’t address my actual reasoning about how God apparently values choice at least as much as life. God may say murder is bad, but God does not intervene to stop humans from choosing to murder each other, even though God has the power to do so.
DaveFN ~ I’ve analyzed your problem. Since you only post here later in the evening maybe we’ll communicate during that time frame.
PS – I’m a member of The United Church of Christ. A proud loving and liberal group.
“God is the most uninteresting answer to the most interesting questions.”
― Hernan Diaz, Trust
I am curious why no one has brought up the “age of accountability” aspect to this discussion.
If gawd does exst and he/she/it was as compassionate as advertised, one would think he/she/it would welcome aborts/stillbirths with open arms. This would allow he/she/it a chance to mold them in his/her/its own perfect image without them having known the sins that befall most humans.
But, as I look at the majority of hypocritical magats and their phony piosity, one has to wonder maybe there is no gawd as he/she/.it would surely have smited them with their own jawbones..
Mr. Mike, who is from Iowa, does not realize that on occasion grudznick, too, sells used stuff. Wanna buy some?
P Aitch
At least you resolve the evil twin question. If a soul attaches at conception, then later, when identical twins split into two individuals, only one can have a soul. Thus, the evil (souless) twin. Under your suggestion, both twins can get a soul. (Triplets and other multiple births are in worse off unless the births are of fraternal twins)
In addition to African violets, Immortal Jellyfish can live beyond what we are capable of recording. When my energy takes on a different form, it will be as wolf dookie. One can at least hope for an old school, honorable death/ who can say? After that, some flying insect larvae and a thorny weed. On and on. It cannot be destroyed. Like I said above, nobody has any proof because we don’t send data back after we die.
Immortal jellyfish can do what African violets cannot. They can reverse back into polyp form to bud. I’m not sure if any other animal can turn back into infant form. It has something to do with their telomeres being real long. There aren’t very many animals discovered with enduring telomeres. I’m sure you know this, DaveFN. I like when you share your interesting knowledge about scientific stuff I can understand. Obviously, I have a deficiency with existentialism and philosophical concepts and have trouble wrapping my head around your Sartre stuff. No offense.