Has it ever occurred to you that you might be wrong? Or that you might be making a choice or thinking a thought because of a prior prejudice?
It certainly doesn’t seem to have ever occurred to Barack Obama.
On one of his stops on the way to his inauguration Barack Obama said:
“And yet while our problems may be new, what is required to overcome them is not. What is required is the same perseverance and idealism that those first patriots displayed. What is required is a new declaration of independence, not just in our nation, but in our own lives — from ideology and small thinking, prejudice and bigotry — an appeal not to our easy instincts but to our better angels.”
I wrote about what I thought of Barack Obama’s “new declaration of Independence” versus the one our founding fathers handed down to us. But that’s another issue.
It comes down to this for Obama as he tries to unite us all around his liberal, secular humanist vision: “Agree with me, or be an ideological, small thinking, prejudiced bigot.”
Barack Obama himself has a problem with bigotry. The thing about bigots is that they look at other people who aren’t like them and don’t share their views, and they lack the basic capacity to see that at least some of the “other” is in them. Anyone who isn’t like them is branded and blamed.
This attitude I see in Obama frankly doesn’t surprise me at all, considering the hateful, narrow-minded, intolerant, bigoted church he spent 23 years attending.
This issue doesn’t just raise its ugly head occasionally. It’s a recurring phenomenon.
As an example, take Obama’s ridiculous and frankly asinine position as he struck down the ban on federal funding of abortion:
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama on Friday struck down the Bush administration‘s ban on giving federal money to international groups that perform abortions or provide abortion information — an inflammatory policy that has bounced in and out of law for the past quarter-century.
Obama’s move, the latest in an aggressive first week reversing contentious Bush policies, was warmly welcomed by liberal groups and denounced by abortion rights foes.
The ban has been a political football between Democratic and Republican administrations since GOP President Ronald Reagan first adopted it 1984. Democrat Bill Clinton ended the ban in 1993, but Republican George W. Bush re-instituted it in 2001 as one of his first acts in office.
“For too long, international family planning assistance has been used as a political wedge issue, the subject of a back and forth debate that has served only to divide us,” Obama said in a statement released by the White House. “I have no desire to continue this stale and fruitless debate.”
Oh, I see. Obama is in NO WAY continuing this “stale and fruitless debate” by acting as ALL secular humanist liberals have always acted and forcing abortion down our throats. It’s only when conservatives – who don’t like their taxes to go toward killing babies – oppose it that turns into “a political wedge issue.”
Barack Obama’s view on abortion is so radical that he repeatedly tried to block the Born Alive Infant Protection Act from passing in his own state of Illinois. Apparently, requiring babies who had surivived abortion attempts and actually been born to be abandoned without any medical treatment to die of exposure and neglect is staying above the political fray.
So let’s END the “back and forth debate” and just decide that Barack Hussein Obama – your immaculately conceived messiah which descended from heaven – is right and everyone who doesn’t think like him is wrong. Let’s get to killing them babies in a bi-partisan, non-divisive manner. Case closed.
See how easy it is to have bi-partisanship and end division? I mean, who would have thought it could be so easy? Why didn’t anyone ever think of this before?
At least Obama’s not like that hateful Bush guy, who had the unmitigated gall to actually think he was right.
Having said that, let me point out that President Bush undoubtedly DID think he was right. But what he DIDN’T do was continuously think that EVERYONE but HIM was an ideological, small thinking, prejudiced bigot who created division merely by disagreeing with him. No, that mindset is reserved for “the Obama,” whose name is greater than EVERY name.
A liberal overturning a ban against abortion is hardly an example of being above “this stale and fruitless debate.” In fact, it is an example of precisely the opposite. And it is an example of a man who so completely worships his own opinion that any departure from it amounts to some kind of thought crime.
Think about it for a second. I am passionately pro-life. I am deeply committed to my position. And I believe that I’m right and those on the other side of the issue are wrong. But at the same time, I also realize that I AM taking a side, a partisan side, and that those on the other side who support abortion generally do so because they believe they are right.
Barack Obama doesn’t seem to give his opposition that much credit. They are merely ideological, small-thinking prejudiced bigots who cynically use abortion as a political wedge.
Let me give you one more example of Barack Obama as a truly narrow-minded, fundamentally intolerant man. Hearken back to Pennsylvania during the primaries, when Obama said of voters who were supporting Hillary Clinton:
“And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
Which really is pretty much another way of saying, “ideolgoical, small-thinking, prejudiced bigots.” And you better not disagree with Barack Obama, or you will surely be one of those, too.
I am seriously worried about the thought processes of this guy.
Start Thinking Right 
January 24, 2009 at 12:43 pm
I have come to understand that when one looks up liberal in the dictionary, definition #1 should be “hypocrite”. I say this because. as you point out, every liberal I have ever known demonstrated their perceived “tolerance” by telling me some version of “If you don’t think what I think, your views are intolerant”. They say this every time, and the sheer gall and hypocrisy of their statement eludes them. On the occasions I tried to demonstrate the fallacy of their perspective, I discovered there is no explanation that works. They are so busy thinking they are right that no opposing information can be digested. I think this may be because, in truth, their position is built on a fautly house of cards, and deep down they know it. If they have to acknowledge that even ONE card may have another side to it, their house of cards will start to wobble. Once that sucker is wobbling, they might have no choice but to see that ALL the cards have flip sides, at which point their whole world would come crashing down around them. So, liberals spend a lot of energy keeping their house of cards intact, looking only at one side of every card, which of course is the right side, and insisting either that there is nothing on the flip sides of their cards or that if there is something on the flip side of any card that side is wrong. And, not to put to fine a point on it, belittling someone else’s perspective, acts, behavior and beliefs is just one of their favorite techniques for minimizing the crumbling of their house of cards. It’s a sad way for them to live, and it’s even sadder for those of us who choose not to live that way when we get caught in the fallout of their folly. Won’t four years of that be fun?
January 24, 2009 at 11:30 pm
Wow, that is a really good comment, Taffy.
I tried to express some of your thoughts in an article I wrote yesterday, “On the hatred of the left.”
https://startthinkingright.wordpress.com/2009/01/24/on-the-hatred-of-the-left/
I agree, and have said it often along with you: the central defining characteristic of liberalism is hypocrisy. And they can’t see it because their perverted worldview leaves them incapable of understanding the world either as it is or as it ought to be.
I just finished writing another comment on a different article. I said:
“I think that I have come to realize what is going on. The central organizing principle of Western Civilization for the last 2000 years had been “Christendom.” And it was “Christendom” that made the concepts of human dignity, human freedom, democracy, limited government, capitalism, and individual moral responsibility possible.
Liberals despise Christianity. But that essentially means despising Western Civilization. So they undermine it. And the terrorists are only too glad liberals ARE undermining it so it will make it easier for them to take advantage of our weakness. Liberals – having become stupid because they view the world through a worldview that prevents them from understanding reality – foolishly believe they can eradicate the Judeo-Christian worldview and still have all the greatness and freedoms of Western Civilization. But they have nothing to replace it with. Thus we degenerate into a grotesque mockery, rather than advance.”
January 25, 2009 at 7:30 am
Obama is a “miserable failure”
I must admit that this is sweet revenge. A few years ago tech savvy internet users with Bush derangement syndrome linked President Bushes bio with the Google search term “miserable failure.” Now the label has been transferred to President Barack Obama.
January 25, 2009 at 8:42 am
To be honest with you, Michael, I don’t quite hold the same beliefs you do. I am deeply Spiritual, but perceive Spirituality as “connection with the Source of Universal Energy/Love”. In my belief system, we all are connected to Source through the Universal Energy, and thus we all possess divinity, and all of us on this earth are trying to understand and learn how Universal Energy/Love works, and some of us have made more progress than others. As such, I don’t hold with conventional religious viewpoints, particularly Christianity and Islam, both of which have, in my opinion, been too heavily infiltrated by human dogma, and both of which have been historically capable of extreme cruelty (from a Christianity perspective, think Spanish Inquisition, the conquest/decimation of Native Americans, Salem witch trials, etc.). However, I also understand that Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hindi, etc., are Spiritual in their nature, and understand that those who practice the intent of those religions (absent the human dogma) are indeed on the same path I am, just from a different perspective.
The beauty of the Founding Fathers incorporation of Judeo-Christian beliefs into our political structure is that the Founding Fathers were including the best path they knew by which all people can attain their highest Spiritual purpose, via the freedoms expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the guarantees expressed in the Bill of Rights. Unfortunately those freedoms AS THEY WERE WRITTEN are a scary thing for liberals. True freedom of expression ALLOWS for opposing viewpoints. If you are a liberal trying to keep your faulty house of cards intact, opposing viewpoints are the last thing you want to see; they are, in fact, the scariest thing imaginable.
Based on the above, I disagree with your statement that the liberals have nothing to replace the Judeo-Christian worldview with. They do, indeed, have something. WHAT they have is their faulty house of cards, and THAT is what they are trying to impose on the rest of us. From my perspective, we are not degenerating into a grotesque mockery because liberals have no alternative to offer. From my perspective we are degenerating into a grotesque mockery because that is precisely what the liberals’ house of cards IS; that IS what they have to offer, it’s ALL they have to offer, and it is what they are attempting to inflict on the rest of us because any other alternative means their house of cards would crumble, and that is too scary for them to even contemplate.
It’s a sad way to live, Michael. I would not want to be them, and I just wish my life did not have to be affected by them.
January 25, 2009 at 8:55 am
Michael, this is off topic, but what happened to American Sentinel? If you prefer not to respond here, I believe you have my e-mail address, and I would really appreciate hearing what happened. I miss that site.
January 25, 2009 at 10:52 pm
Taffy,
American Sentinel is coming back – and I think may be back already.
We had a major technical calamity that caused the whole site to go down. And there was an ‘all the king’s horses’ deal.
I’ll try to remember to post you a link to the site (I have it in my email).
I’m not sure whether I’ll come back to AS or not. It WILL be somewhat different. But most of the writers will be back.
January 25, 2009 at 11:17 pm
Your spiritual views give you a foundation atheists and most liberals do not have.
I would recommend a book to you that has been very insightful to me. “What’s So Great About Christianity” by Dinesh D’Souza. Another real good book is “For the Glory of God” by Rodney Stark. Both present from an academic perspective, the latter is a historian who has quite a few historical illusions to correct about the ‘intolerance’ of Christianity.
I would argue that anyone who believes in a personal God – even your ‘Deist’ – has many of the tools necessary to have the foundations I’m describing. But to talk about Western Civilization entails talking about Judeo-Christianity.
So let me get back to the books I described and their message: their thesis is that most of the institutions that we have in this country today are the specific result of the Judeo-Christian worldview. No civilization ever had them before ours, and the “non-Christian” world either still doesn’t have them or has them only as a result of our influence. And “Western Civilization” has been indissolubly welded to “Christendom” for the last 2000 years up to now. Have their been abuses in the name of Christianity? Of course. But I can go to my Bible – and to the teachings of Jesus who is the paradigm of Christianity – and show AS A CHRISTIAN how they were NOT acting as “Christians.”
Be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater (i.e. also take into account the myriad good Christianity has done. Universities and hospitals developed from monasteries, and even most of the learning from antiquity only exists because Christians preserved it when all our ancient learning otherwise would have gone to some barbarian’s fire). And – in terms of comparing Christianity with Islam – take a look at my article here:
https://startthinkingright.wordpress.com/2009/01/20/why-pbs-bill-moyers-et-al-moral-idiots-for-condemning-israel-pt-2/
where I show that Islam lacks something that Judeo-Christianity has, which explains why one is still responsible for so much violence and why the other created hospitals to treat our enemies.
The US Constitution and the preceding Declaration of Independence are both directly founded upon the Judeo-Christian worldview. God is our Creator. He ordained us with certain rights and freedoms that derive from God. And we are individually valuable as His image bearers. And the Constitution and Declaration were themselves also informed by the compacts and charters of our Pilgrim ancestors dating to 1640. We need that worldview to sustain our freedoms.
I take my allies wherever I can find them, Taffy, and work with them to support the good we can agree upon and oppose the evil we can agree upon. I find in you one with whom I can agree on a great many things. And I’m glad that your worldview has enabled you to reject and understand liberalism for the danger it is. We have enough in common that we can be friends and allies.
In a way, the fact that you approach liberalism from a different perspective than my own Christianity gives you access and an audience I don’t have with many liberals. You can reason with them in a different way. Keep plucking along!
March 28, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Hello Michael,
On the abortion issue however, I am for a woman’s right to choose.
Why? You don’t want to be raped or tricked by your husband, and create unwanted babies, who will feel the undesired already from within the mother’s womb. Chances are these kids will grow up and in turn rape or trick their spouse, commit bad actions and perhaps even murders or suicides, etc. When a child is born, both parents must want it. That is necessary if we want to live above animal level. Moreover, women are very fragile, especially when they are pregnant, so they have to be listened to: a No is a No. No Love, no Life. I call that Evolution as far the flesh is concerned. God is giving us all a lot of means to handle our Fallen life in this “information age”: we should not ignore them. Very often we keep praying, while the solution is just in front of us.
Flesh is just flesh. God already knows to whom he can send the souls of his people. The Bible forbids killing, but all of that advice is given in a context of a God-obedient man and his husband-loving wife. But when there is a case of incest like the one that happened in Austria recently and babies are born, it is rather heavy for the soul, isn’t it? Clearly, unbelievers have to deal with their problems in the most sincere way they can find, that is the highest sense of justice they can hang on to.
The problems of unbelievers are not adressed in the New Testament. That’s why we have people like George Bush and Barack Obama to adress them. And God has established both men, so let us not talk as if God keeps making mistakes; it’s a disgrace. Let us not blame our earth leaders too fast but let us pray for them so they can lead non-believers with as limited collateral damage as possible. Had I been the daughter of that monster in Austria, I would have run away and performed an abortion without the slightest hesitation.
Many men, including so-called christians, are brutal, liars, etc. and we cannot ignore the modern means of protecting women and children against poor leadership. You would be surprised to hear assassins tell you: I would have preferred to have died in the womb.
Kind regards,
Nicole
March 28, 2009 at 6:15 pm
We differ profoundly on the issue of life.
Let me point out something you yourself say: “When a child is born, both parents must want it.” Okay. What if the father doesn’t want the child? Should that child then be aborted? Why is it that if a woman doesn’t want a child, then abortion is fine, but if a father doesn’t want a child, he should be compelled to support that child if the mother wants it?
I would argue that fatherhood has been destroyed by abortion, and you have helped create your own monster of “bad men.” The higher the rate of abortion in any community (e.g., the black community), the higher the degree of men abandoning fatherhood. Men look at abortion, and realize that babies are utterly meaningless. If one can abort babies, why should men care about them? And babies who have been born are merely babies who could have been aborted, but weren’t. If a father desperately wants to keep his child, but a woman wants to abort, that father’s child is brutally killed. But if a mother wants a child – even if just to get child support – and a father doesn’t want anything to do with a child, then he is forced by the courts to provide support. There is no possible way that one can reasonably say that mothers should count, but fathers should be utterly ignored. But that is precisely where we are at.
If BOTH parents were required to support their baby – and such support would include that baby’s right to live – so much evil would be averted.
I wonder how you feel about the fact that in China, India, and most of the developing world, parents most often choose to kill their female babies so that they can have a male instead.
The “right” to abortion means that a baby should be compelled to die for the sake of the convenience of his or her mother. The “right” to abortion means that a father should be compelled to relinquish ALL rights to his child and stand idly by while his baby is torn apart and dissolved with acid.
Here is the truth about how God views human life in the womb:
PSALM 139:13-14 For Thou didst form my inward parts; Thou didst weave me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Thy works, And my soul knows it very well.
JOB 10:9-12 ‘Remember now, that Thou hast made me as clay; And wouldst Thou turn me into dust again? ‘Didst Thou not pour me out like milk, And curdle me like cheese; Clothe me with skin and flesh, And knit me together with bones and sinews? ‘Thou hast granted me life and lovingkindness; And Thy care has preserved my spirit.
JEREMIAH 1:4-5 Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
In LUKE 1:44, when Mary (pregnant with Jesus) visits Martha (pregnant with John the Baptist), Martha says, “For behold, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped in my womb for joy.”
Ask yourself, “Would it have been okay had Mary – or Martha – had chosen to go to the clinic and have an abortion?” Jesus, John the Baptist, Job, Jeremiah, and David all started out as embryos, as fetuses. Why did their lives matter as embryos, and as fetuses, but other children don’t? How many human beings who would have done fantastic, wonderful things been killed in abortion mills?
Why does “the right to choose” mean “the right to kill a human being”?
When a child is conceived, it is a human being. And to have an abortion is to kill a human being. It is NOT a “woman’s body”; every cell of a developing baby is different from its mother; it is a unique genetic individual human being.
A human embryo is of the kingdom Animalia, of the phylum Chordata, of the class Mammalia, of the order Primates, of the family Hominidae, of the genus Homo, and of the species sapiens. Same as you or I, or every single other human being who ever lived. From the standpoint of DNA, from the standpoint of scientific classification, a human being is a human being from the moment of conception.
A human baby is human by virtue of its parents and a being by virtue of the fact that it exists; it is a human being.
I would ask you to reconsider and choose life, Nicole. If some men – or for that matter ALL men – are mean or whatever, that does not make it right to kill an innocent human baby. And in fact I would point out that, while you are sensitive to the rights of women because they are “vulnerable,” you utterly disregard the MOST vulnerable human beings of all. If the rights of babies should be discarded, why shouldn’t the rights of women not also be discarded? In fact, isn’t oppression of women even become justified, for their callous disregard for even their very own children?
The “unwanted” argument, and the “abort to prevent a child’s suffering” argument to support abortion has dreadful implications. What about OTHER unwanted people? What about OTHER people who are suffering? Shouldn’t we “mercifully” end their lives as well? That homeless man – it would be better if is spared suffering. That rape victim: better that she not have to suffer such pain. And, OH, WAIT! Many women who’ve had abortions suffer! Perhaps we should alleviate their suffering, also. There are a LOT of unwanted and suffering human beings, and abortion is an incredibly evil answer.
Do you not realize that the vans that drove around Nazi Germany hauling off undesirable children, retarded adults, etc. to their deaths were called “Mercy wagons”? Do you not know that the Nazis supported abortions of non-Aryan or imperfect babies, euthanasia, and the Holocaust with the slogan Lebensunwertes Leben (“Life Unworthy of Life”)?
Choose life. Nothing could be more divine.
March 29, 2009 at 10:05 am
Dear Michael,
Thanks for your answer. I feel very blessed to be able to correspond with you.
Mary and Martha were informed by God and rejoiced at the news of the babies’ arrivals. So you are actually making my point: even God felt the need to inform his followers that he was sending exceptional beings into their wombs. It’s His way of asking. So the least a man can do is to ask his wife, and also to make sure it is his wife, before he starts doing what men like doing. Because if the wife disagrees, the baby is cursed from the start. And if the man is tricked, the baby is also cursed and the woman too. If it is a case of marital infidelity, incest, etc. all are cursed. That’s why you have birth defects in cases of incest: because God doesn’t want these babies, he sends no soul in it. Nobody can play with God Michael: when defects are there, sometimes it’s for his glory (never for the mentally ill I think), but often it’s a curse.
I can’t stay next to a mentally handicapped Michael: I get sick to my stomack because I just can’t see life in all of that (the Bible says: in the beginning there was earth, and the earth was shapeless; and then only, God intervened to give it life). I can give money so they are taken care of, but don’t ask me to stay there and clean them up (one of my very good friends does that job): I want to cry, I can’t get over it and it’s sincere.
Now the question is: if two Christians know that the child will be mentally ill, should they abort? I think that blessed Christians don’t have children who are mentally ill. And if they do, they need to repent more deeply (that means there are heavy sins in the family: you might want to check if your grand-grand father or any other person in your direct kinship wasn’t a nazi, a slave trader, a rapist, etc.) and raise the child until God himself takes that child away. But if the woman is raped, and she or her husband refuses the child, she should have the right to an abortion. Society (church included) has no business in dictating how they ought to live their private life. A child is entrusted with his/her parents if they are alive; that’s it: we can’t check what’s going on in people’s houses no matter how many detailed laws we bombard them with. If society wants to impose these views, they need to build a very strong social network to raise these kids if the parents don’t want them. But that takes a lot of loving interaction and charity at a great scale. And maybe that’s when Americans will suceed to completely ban abortion by law.
And, if one day the law is strictly against any type of abortion, I trust that God will remove unwanted children from the wombs of true believers if these babies might have defects that are too difficult to bear for their parents. You know a child might look o.k. and still become a serial killer because he is under no blessing whatsoever. Indeed, we get blessings and relief from God through prayer, but most of our blessings and curses are from our fellow human beings and are human actions.
Both believers and non-believers must respect the laws concerning abortion. And both believers and non-believers can vote so perhaps these laws can change. But believers have one major advantage: if they sincerely ask God for a solution, and align their actions and hearts with Jesus, all these issues won’t pop up any more.
In conclusion, God’s Love is to me more important than earthly life. I have to feel God’s love and blessing in everything I undertake. Any project that is not from Him will be aborted, and it is indeed painful, very painful and it is not just about babies; curiously enough I call that integrity. Now I must apologize because there is, it seems, just me on my island and I did not quote the Bible as much as I should have (I can look for appropriate quotes to answer specific questions or comments).
At another occasion, maybe we can talk about developing countries. But for me, no state today really is: being developed is an individual matter: you either believe in Jesus and you see the light; or you don’t and you are under the Prince of darkness. The more true believers there are in a country, and the more developed it is. If their God devotion diminishes, the country falls behind and you can kiss your development goodbye. That’s why, when some people become too self-congratulating, I fear for them. I immediately think about Nebucadnezzar (sorry for the spelling, but who cares…) and his punishment. The pharisees of our era like to warn us about Sodom and Gomorrha type of punishment and tend to forget that one.
As Christians, we cannot force non-believers to follow us by law: that’s the old testament; it’s about helping people align their hearts with that of Jesus so that the results of our votes can limit the collateral damages caused by the Prince of darkness who rules over the non-believers, until Jesus’ time on earth finally comes.
Kind regards,
Nicole
March 30, 2009 at 1:48 am
Nicole,
There is no question that you are a gentle soul who would do right if you knew to do it. So I do not criticize your heart; merely your understanding.
Let me say first discuss something you didn’t talk about: the responsibility of fathers for their children. Abortion isn’t merely a “women’s issue” – it is a family issue. If a father pressures a mother into abortion, he is just as guilty of the crime as she. Abortion is NOT something that women alone bear responsibility for, by any means. I merely said that because I can tell you care deeply about women’s issues, and don’t want you to think I’m “dumping on” women in my stance on abortion.
There is a young man named Ben who faithfully attended my Sunday school class with his mother. He paid close attention, and always came up after class and shook my hand and thanked me. He was a joy to be around. I considered him an intellectual, because he cared so much about learning – which is the essence of the true intellectual. And he had Down’s Syndrome.
I can only assure you that he had a soul, just as all human beings do.
Gen 1:20 says, “the moving creatures that hath life.” The word used is “nehphesh” – soul.” Gen 1:21 says, “every living creature (nehphesh, ‘soul’) that moveth.” I can assure you that Ben has a soul – and a very human soul at that. He has a human soul because he’s a human being; and what other kind of soul would you suppose he would have? A monkey soul? A rabbit soul? Clearly, Ben has a human soul.
If you came to visit me, and looked me right in the face, you still would not have seen me. Because I am not my body; I am the kind of thing (a soul) that has a body. It is that intangible, spiritual soul that is how I am in God’s image (Gen 1:27). Once I lost a fingertip in an accident. Part of my body is gone, yet I am every bit as human as ever. In the same way, a teenage girl in the US was documented for having surgery to remove HALF her brain (one of the hemispheres!) due to a tumor. She was able – with training over time, to “teach” the half of her brain that was left to do everything the whole had done. God doesn’t have a brain, and yet we are in His image. You are not your brain; you are something that has a brain.
And something could happen to your brain – whether birth defect or injury, or the lack of a certain chemical that can cause mental illnesses – and you would still be human. Because the REAL you isn’t your brain, but your soul. Your brain is the vehicle by which your spiritual, intangible soul interacts with your body. If something happens to the brain, that interaction is damaged.
Ben is a young man who has joy, simplicity, humility, graciousness, honesty, and many other qualities I only wish I could see in others. To believe that one can claim that certain human beings lack a soul, and can therefore be killed, clearly leads to horrible consequences. The Nazis would have told you with every bit as much confidence as you hold that only Aryans have souls, and everyone else is sub-human and disposable.
How we care about the helpless, the oppressed, the weak, and the disabled is the ultimate statement about ourselves. I suppose I could put it this way: as far as you may think you might be above the mentally ill and the handicapped, God is far more above you (and I, and every other human being). If we do not care about and help and value these, why should God care about and help and value us?
Every abortion takes a human life. A human life with potential. If that baby is just allowed to grow and develop, he or she will be everything that you are or that I am. As human beings, a human nature is intrinsically theirs, and it is because a human embryo is quintessentially human that he or she develops AS a human. He or she can be nothing else, because that is what he or she IS: human.
There is continuity of identity: you were once an embryo; and the embryo in your mother’s womb was you at an earlier point in your development (just as you were once an infant, and a toddler, and a child, and a teenager, etc). Had your mother had an abortion while she was pregnant with you, she would have killed YOU. The actual YOU would have been killed, and Nicole would never have touched any of the lives she has touched.
I would also make sure that you realize that what gives you your transcendent value is that you are a human being; not what you can do or what you can produce. For instance, if being “human” means producing such and so, then can we kill all those who are in jails, unemployed, on welfare, sick, and so on? They aren’t producing anything – and I could name a LOT more groups of people to join the ones I named.
If it is moral to abort a baby, I would argue that it is moral to “abort” anyone. Because you, and I, and every other adult are merely that which could have been aborted at a later stage of life. You are no more “human” now than you were at birth, or in the womb; you’re just “older” and more “developed.”
I believe you are referencing Deuteronomy 5:8-10 (visiting the iniquity of fathers on subsequent generations). Many (MOST!) Christian scholars don’t believe God punishes children for their fathers’ crimes, but rather that God is describing the fact that evil fathers tend to raise evil children and from his line evil generations. It’s not an active “curse” as such, but a descriptive “curse.” In the same way, when God says to Eve, “Your husband will rule over you,” God isn’t saying that He is cursing women to be subservient slaves; but rather that evil men will tend to impose their greater strength upon women. It is a description of simple reality after the fall; not the will of God.
Here’s a pretty good article on the subject of “cursing” generations for the sins of their fathers.
As such, I do not in any way believe that God “curses” babies with defects to punish the sins of their parents. That said, a parent can directly harm her baby – for example a mother who drinks or takes drugs. It’s a causal universe: my actions affect other people’s lives.
Another thing, about laws. EVERY law is an imposition of some one’s or some group’s morality upon society. Every single one. One way or another, we are going to have laws and legislation, which says “Thou shalt do X” or “Thou shalt not do Y.” And I would submit that part of the way that Christians become salt and light in the world is to try to influence laws so that they are good, and not evil. So that they reflect genuine morality, and not amorality or immorality.
I am a conservative precisely because I believe that government neither is or should be our savior. So I don’t look to government to “save me” in any way; but I ALSO realize that evil government is a tyrant, and a major SOURCE of evil, and so I try to do what I can to elect good leaders who will pass good laws and pursue true justice.
I would submit to you that since you DO care about the will of Christ, you should pursue the will of Christ regarding abortion. Do you think Christ to be the sort who gives up on someone, who says this innocent unborn life is worth living, and this innocent unborn life is not? Can you find that Jesus in your Bible? Also, I would point out that I gave you several passages describing the sanctity of unborn human life in the womb; can you provide me biblical proof that mothers have the ultimate right to take their baby’s life for her the sake of her convenience? The fact that women kill their babies doesn’t mean that God wills it or permits it any more than the fact that men rape women sanctions THAT act as “good.”
The Hippocratic Oath, written in the 4th century BC, says:
I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.
I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion.
But I will preserve the purity of my life and my arts.
The rewriting of the oath (clearly, no longer the “Hippocratic oath,” because Hippocrates would have decried it did not result from Christian principles, but from profoundly secular principles.
Finally, I would point out that you are very much on the wrong side of Christ’s church on the matter of abortion. The church has for millennia argued that abortion was murder. And great Christian minds have come to that conclusion out of their understanding of Scripture. On the other hand, the pro-abortion movement is made up primarily of those who utterly DESPISE God, Christ, and Christianity. If you don’t have compelling reasons to offer me that God loves abortion, I would simply ask you, “Who’s side are you on?”
March 30, 2009 at 9:05 am
Hello Michael,
Thanks for your answer and all this systematic effort to document your advice based on the bible, unlike me. I still believe we carry a lot of curses on us, which are inflicted by our family, our ennemies (for those who have ennemies) or by God. And hereditary diseases prove that we are linked to past curses. Even after we decide to follow God through Christ (the only way to God), the effects of these curses continue to be there because we are flesh. If that weren’t true, Christian women would not feel any pain when they deliver a baby because the Adam and Eve curse, we could argue, has been redeemed through our belief in Christ as our savior and God. Hence, I must admit Michael, I don’t know how to understand this promise from God, that you are, rightly so, point at in deuteronomy, where God states that children won’t inherit the sins of their fathers…
I also think that two true Christians should never abort a child, except in case of a rape (incest included), which again, I insist, I believe don’t happen to people under the protection of Jesus, unless they violated that alliance. Now maybe a shunck of today’s black America would’nt exist had quick abortion existed in the time of slavery…but watch MTV and look at all the trashing of moral values at great scale: isn’t that the sweet revenge of the rejected orphans??
How can you know for sure that someone is a true Christian? I don’t think that getting baptised, going to church, being anti-abortion and doing good works is enough…I think that things are horribly complex and that only Jesus knows His sheep.
Now on which side am I? If I know beforehand that my embrio would become a serial killer as an adult, I will kill it without the slightest hesitation even if I have to loose my own life in the process (I do not practice divination, so that won’t happen). If I know that my child has any kind of mental illness, I will keep it (but I won’t call it a blessing; it’s a misery for me and even more for the child) unless my husband prefers the abortion option (I am divorced and unwilling to remarry, so probably that won’t happen either). If my marriage is on the rocks and my husband tricks me and gets me pregnant so that I can stay with him: I will abort if I don’t want the child and definitely get the divorce. To make sense, anti-abortion people should also be anti-divorce but we don’t hear them much on that front because it’s no longer on the political agenda in the U.S.
We live amongst a very corrupt generation Michael and things are just hard, very hard. And God allows all these laws and these leaders to provide some kind of relief until the Final Relief. Those among the conservatives wo genuinely think they are true Christians need to show more mercy and change their focus from abortion (which I see more as a self-inflicted punishment, a curse on oneself) towards repentance, integrity and charitable works. If they want to play the hand of God, that’s how they should proceed and the abortion issue will become irrelevant by itself. To me, people who utter they are pro-life but start raging wars on the planet because they want to “free the people from their misery” are just “smart” brains with an unlimited thirst for power.
Jesus says: if you want me, share what you have and follow me. How many anti-abortion conservatives would do that? Would they give away all they have to build more orphenages, women shelters, etc. You see, it’s a little bit like George Orwell’s animal farm…Personal integrity is the real battle Michael, and NOT that of ruling over the non-christians to force the change, because that position is already taken: they have a prince you know; I mentioned that already…GOD does what he wants with the devil, and the devil does almost what he wants with non-believers. Almost, because where God has left an opening for Jesus, the Devil can’t reach.
In Belgium, prostitution is legal and prostitutes pay their taxes, and yet we call Belgium a developed country. Belgium is better off than India (Sorry India, I should take Congo) because there are more Christians in Belgium than in India, and also because the U.S. has been watching since WWII. But take away the true Christians (and their number is diminishing at an alarming pace just like in the U.S.; Darwin is taught almost in all Belgian schools now), and you will have civil war between the North and the South, rapes, etc. on a scale that, you would be surprised, will be higher than in any developing country, even though you can’t find drinking water everywhere in the latter. Smart brains with no God or a fake one, as you put it yourself earlier, Michael, about 1933-Germany, that’s a ticking bomb.
Kind regards,
Nicole
March 30, 2009 at 10:10 am
Nicole,
I won’t keep arguing what I’ve already argued. There is a clear biblical mandate to be pro-life and anti-abortion; and the Christian church has always recognized that abortion is a sin against God and an innocent human baby.
I’ll just stick to pointing out something about conservatives, given that you kind of dump on them.
Here’s part of an article, plus the link:
Sixteen months ago, Arthur C. Brooks, a professor at Syracuse University, published “Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism.” The surprise is that liberals are markedly less charitable than conservatives.
If many conservatives are liberals who have been mugged by reality, Brooks, a registered independent, is, as a reviewer of his book said, a social scientist who has been mugged by data. They include these findings:
— Although liberal families’ incomes average 6 percent higher than those of conservative families, conservative-headed households give, on average, 30 percent more to charity than the average liberal-headed household ($1,600 per year vs. $1,227).
— Conservatives also donate more time and give more blood.
Think about it: conservatives earn 6% less than liberals, but give 30% more. That’s a massive increase in generosity.
Here’s another article: “Charity’s Political Divide: “Republicans give a bigger share of their incomes to charity, says a prominent economist.”
And another: “Philanthropy Expert: Conservatives Are More Generous.”
And here’s one about President Bush, who gave more to Africa and helped more AIDS victims than any President in history, but got no credit for it whatsoever.
Christians – and in particular conservative Christians who are overwhelmingly anti-abortion (by the way) – have put their money where their mouth has been more than anyone on the face of the earth. They DO give to shelters; they DO adopt the unwanted children of young mothers; they DO give.
The true Christian will always combine faith and right knowledge of Scripture with right action and love.
March 30, 2009 at 11:37 am
Hello Michael,
Don’t worry, I am not a liberal either. And I agree with you on one thing: President Bush was judged on his brains and not on his heart (because Mr. Cheney was pulling all the ropes) and that was unfair. I can see in his eyes that he is not a monster even though he made huge mistakes; and I know he is a friend of Africans (the wrong ones perhaps, I don’t know; I won’t say more: I don’t know more). I’m just a growing Christian, and I don’t like political etiquettes because they are from the world. And I am no longer from the world. Conservatism or liberalism is not very biblical and I won’t get into that debate because I am not qualified and I have no place there. Once again I salute your efforts and your courage on the biblical side because many people despise God and therefore despise themselves. But you want to crown Him again and again it seems. It was a great exchange. Thank You.
Take care,
Nicole
March 31, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Thank you as well.
As long as I am “in the world” (and I believe that very soon the Lord will be rapturing me and all His believers out of it) I will try to continue to stand up for biblical principles, rather than standing by while evil prevails.
George Bush did a lot of things right that he was attacked for; he also did a lot of things wrong. I won’t try to stand up for either him or Cheney apart from specific charges against either of them.
“Conservatism” or “liberalism” is not biblical unless we know what we’re discussing. For example, I am a classical liberal – which is another way of saying that I am a conservative. In general, I would argue that on most issues, conservatism is far more in line with the Bible than modern liberalism.
I DO try to ask myself, “What does the Bible say about…?” before I take a position on some contemporary issue. And if someone can show me that my views are unbiblical, I will change my views: I stand UNDER the Scriptures; THEY are my source of authority for faith and practice.
We, of course, cannot crown Jesus (other than as the Lord of our own life and heart). But I want to recognize over and over again that HE IS LORD, and I perceive you do as well.
Take care as well,
Michael